Infinite Marketing Loop – ACS Reduc 2022

Infinite Marketing Loop: Outbound Marketing

September 4, 2018

For those of you following along, we have been diving into our Infinite Marketing Loop strategy here on the ACS Creative blog. So far, Website Optimization and Inbound Marketing have been covered. Today, we’re wrapping-up this series with a discussion about Outbound Marketing—the third and final phase of the loop.

Outbound Marketing vs Inbound Fundamentals

In essence, Outbound Marketing is the opposite of Inbound Marketing, which is a more passive, patient, and evergreen approach to advertising. Television commercials, radio spots, magazine ads, cold calling, email (spam), trade shows, newspapers, and brochures are all considered outbound efforts. You are actively initiating a conversation about your business. This is where brand repetition really comes into play.

Is it Chilly in Here?

Some tactics used in Outbound Marketing can be considered “cold” or impersonal. For instance unsolicited emails and phone calls, which tend to carry a higher cost per acquisition and lower chances of effectiveness. It’s fair to assume someone who hasn’t opted to hear from you isn’t going to be thrilled about a sales pitch out of the blue. This approach assumes you are casting a very wide net in hopes of catching a few fish. It’s a numbers game and, although you might get lucky from time to time, we recommend starting out any business relationship on a more welcome note.

Social Media Advertising

There are two types of social media promotion: paid and earned. If a potential customer is not actively following you and anxiously awaiting your updates and posts, you have to pay for their attention. Platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn all allow you to define as broad or narrow of a target audience as you wish when building a paid campaign. This is your opportunity to minimize the chances of wasting ad spend on uninterested eyes. From pay-per-click to influencer marketing, it’s critical to have an in-depth knowledge of ideal demographics and interests before launching. Social media affords advertisers the ability to reach users based on hobbies, job titles, geographic location, age, and life events. Failure to target the right consumers will drive up your cost per acquisition and potentially prevent your ads from being run altogether. Do your homework, plan meticulously, and future customers will be happy to learn about your business!

Traditional Advertising

Advertisements don’t inherently offer much value to people. Whether it’s a mandatory commercial before a YouTube video or a pop-up banner on a website, they disrupt the flow of a person’s desired activity. The wrong ad, at the wrong time, to the wrong person is money down the drain and potentially increased negative sentiment toward your brand. Advertising in publications, over the airwaves, or online can be extremely effective in building awareness—but only if your message matches the audience. Remember that wide net we talked about earlier? Let’s reel it in. Narrow your geographics, limit your interests, rent booths at conventions and trade shows that make sense for your target industry, hand-pick the sites you display ads on, and run commercials alongside only the most relevant audio and video content.

The core benefit of Outbound Marketing is control. By getting to potential customers before they discover your business on their own, you can better narrate the journey, messaging, and experience. Truth be told, Outbound Marketing often gets a bad rap—mostly due to its interruptive nature. Studies have shown significantly higher conversion rates using Inbound Marketing, but there is no reason to not supplement those efforts with both Outbound Marketing and Website Optimization. The Infinite Marketing Loop is most effective when each of the phases work in harmony with the others.

To see more of what we offer in terms of marketing head over to our services page!

Infinite Marketing Loop: Inbound Search Marketing

June 12, 2018

We recently opened our vault to let the world in on our Infinite Marketing Loop strategy and how it applies to virtually every business in any industry. A few weeks back, we touched on Website Optimization—the critical first phase of this proven process. All caught up? Let’s continue with Inbound Search Marketing!

Inbound Marketing Fundamentals

Fact is, consumers (and business owners) are making their buying decisions online. Whether it be finding a restaurant for date night or choosing a local landscaper, instant access to a plethora of business information has turned the average American into a master research expert. Search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo! have not only become invaluable tools for people, but have leveled the playing field for businesses as well. Through a well-managed Inbound Search Marketing (SEM) plan, utilizing both paid (PPC) and organic (SEO) strategies, any business can compete for those precious, targeted clicks!

Pay-Per-Click Ads

Depending on the search engine, paid ads appear either above, beside, or beneath the organic results for a given search term. Buying PPC listings increases your chances of being seen (and clicked) before your competitors—for a price, of course. Advertising platforms such as AdWords and Bing Ads operate on an auction-style format, where ads compete with each other instantly, in real-time, based on the amount each business is willing to pay per click or impression and their overall campaign budget. The more popular a particular keyword (search term), the more expensive it tends to be. For example, “Pomeranian dog portraits” will likely cost you less per click than “auto insurance.” Although, to me, a professional pom painting is priceless.

Sure, anyone can bid $500 per click to beat Geico in search results for one day, but it’s by no means a sustainable strategy. Doing your homework to discover and employ more specific (long-tail) keywords with less competition can increase your conversion rate without breaking the bank. A PPC campaign is not a set it and forget it task—but instead and ongoing effort that needs to intelligently adapt as you learn.

One critical point to keep in mind is Google’s commitment to delivering relevant results to its users—and that includes paid ads. Through an incredibly complex algorithm, search platforms can determine if your ad is meeting the needs of those who see it, and penalize your placement if it falls short.

Search Engine Optimization

If you follow our blog regularly, you might pick up on a recurring theme here. When it comes to internet marketing, nothing is more important than SEO. It delivers all the benefits of paid advertising—but for free. Regardless of what the astounding number of emails in your spam folder claim, Search Engine Optimization is not an exact science and there are no guarantees. In fact, employing shady (“Black Hat”) tactics to better your site’s ranking can actually get your URL demoted (“sandboxed”) by the various search platforms. For this reason, among others, it’s best to keep things above board when it comes to your organic performance.

Each search engine operates on a proprietary algorithm that is constantly fine-tuned to learn, react, and deliver. Google, for instance, is notoriously vague about the finer points of their ranking equations, which leads to a lot of “expert” speculation across the web. Staying up with the latest tricks is a full-time job and ultimately an unnecessary use of energy. If you look back at the very first iteration of Google and its evolution to present time, one driving factor remains at the forefront: relevancy. I’m sure you’re tired of hearing this by now but content really is king! Publish relevant articles, build your audience, share your links, demonstrate authority, and your site’s ranking will rise accordingly. However, as with PPC, you need to establish a strategy and follow through.

Of course, not all SEO tips & tricks are complete nonsense. It is still imperative that your site conform to basic practices to ensure readability by the crawling bots (and visitors). Simple efforts like image ALT tags, clearly-defined navigation, nested site structure, interlinking, backlinking, keyword density, and proper headings establish a healthy foundation for ongoing Search Engine Optimization.

People are going to use search engines to discover products and services, whether your site appears in the results or not. Inbound Search Marketing is about being there when potential customers are looking for what you offer. It requires some strategy, some money, and some hard work, but has the potential to pay off in dividends.

Find out great inbound marketing and more marketing services we offer over in our services section!

Infinite Marketing Loop: Website Optimization

April 24, 2018

Every digital agency has their own set of guiding principles and philosophies. This is what makes each unique, and one more compatible with your business than the next. For that reason, most design firms tend to keep their special formula pretty close to the vest. In this new 3-part blog series, we are lifting the veil of secrecy, stepping out of the cone of silence, and opening our vault at ACS Creative to share with the world what we call The Infinite Marketing Loop. Although there may be no definitive “start” to the loop, we’ll begin by diving into Website Optimization.

Fundamentals

The key to advertising is repetition and recognition. We just saved you four years tuition on a Marketing degree (you’re welcome)! In order to stay top-of-mind among both existing and potential customers, your brand needs to follow people where they go and be where they’re looking. One of the most critical pivots you can do for your business is to abandon the notion that marketing is an occasional event when, in reality, it should be a constant, ongoing effort.

Website Optimization

Social, organic, and paid marketing are all effective methods for driving traffic—but you need somewhere to send them. The Infinite Marketing Loop begins with a symbiotic combination of website, landing pages, retargeting pixels, traffic analytics, and conversion measurement. When we talk about Website Optimization in this context, we are not referring to SEO (that comes later).

Although each piece of the loop works in conjunction with the others to convert visitors into customers, Website Optimization is at the core. Your website provides the platform for prospects to take action, pick up the phone, submit a form, or purchase a product. Adjusting and updating your site on a regular basis will yield the best results for your bottom line.

Having a beautiful website if great. Having an effective website is better. This means understanding your audience and accommodating different types of visitors, their needs, language, and learning styles. No matter who lands on your website, a clean, well-organized layout and navigation will always do wonders to improve the overall user experience.

A few things to consider when optimizing your website for digital marketing:

Some visitors quickly scan web pages and others read every word. Make sure your content is structured in a way that appeals to both.
You may have seen instances of “innovative” navigation in your internet travels. When it comes to your site, keep it simple and familiar. Don’t make your visitors work harder for the sake of being different.
Define a clear call-to-action and place it prominently throughout your site. You have no control over what page people land on, but you can certainly nudge them in the right direction from there.
Your visitors could fall within any number of browsing scenarios from slow internet to outdated browser to physical disability. Poise your website to accommodate any and all potential customers with minimal load times, responsive design, and basic Accessibility standards.

Landing Pages

Let’s assume you have a beautiful website that contains all the content and media anyone could ever ask for. Unfortunately, there is still one tragic flaw—it’s too much. Landing Pages give us the opportunity to provide targeted segments of visitors a more personalized and concise sampling of your business. Of course users have the freedom to click around until they arrive at your site’s homepage if they wish, but a well-conceived landing page should include everything needed to complete a conversion. Although landing pages are most often utilized in PPC campaigns, they can draw some organic value if linked to from your main site.

Retargeting

It’s no coincidence that you saw a banner ad for Moen on CNN’s homepage after spending the previous day researching kitchen faucets. In this instance, Moen has no direct advertising agreement with CNN whatsoever. Your computer simply picked up a harmless, invisible pixel (cookie) from their site and will now occasionally see their display ads on platforms that utilize the Google AdSense program.

Consider the endless scenarios in which an individual might visit your website and not buy or inquire. Sure, they may be genuinely disinterested or unimpressed—but what if they just didn’t act in that moment but would in the near future? Fast forward a week and this same potential customer is ready to commit but can’t quite remember the name of your company. Devastating right? This is why repetition is vital to effective advertising and why Retargeting should be a part of your Infinite Marketing Loop.

After a visitor visits a site containing a retargeting pixel, they will begin to see ads for that business on the sites, apps, and social media platforms they frequent. This persistent brand reminder will continue for about 30 days or when the person completes a conversion—whichever comes first.

Conversion Pixels

Surely, that was a fascinating primer in Retargeting, but what’s this about tracking conversion completions? Glad you asked! Google Analytics, in addition to most PPC platforms, allow website owners to place a unique Conversion Pixel on their confirmation or receipt pages. Suffice (it) to say, every time that pixel is fired (activated), a conversion has occurred. This method provides a tangible means of measuring the effectiveness of your landing pages, emails marketing, organic efforts, paid campaigns, and website as a whole. Whether it’s an e-commerce transaction, mailing list subscription, or form submission, conversions are everything and the numbers don’t lie!

As we continue this 3-phase reveal of ACS Creative’s Infinite Marketing Loop, one constant theme will remain: connections. Alone, these tactics are one-off “spray and pray” efforts with little potential for long-term growth and success. However, together, they connect with each other, compliment each other, and lift the effectiveness of each other over time.