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.
Giving Tuesday
Last week, the nation got together to give thanks. Today, we get together to give back! With another Black Friday and Cyber Monday behind us, there is no better time to take a short breather from the holiday haze of commercialization and consumerism. Don’t get me wrong—a $79 Dyson pet vacuum is certainly something to be excited about, but we hope you’ll look beyond your shopping lists, if only for today. Instead, let’s channel our giving spirit to a bigger cause.
A Global Day of Giving
Giving Tuesday (#givingtuesday) is relatively new to the realm of hashtag activism, but it’s already making a big impact around the world. Conceived in 2012 by the 92nd Street Y and the U.N. Foundation, this growing movement is credited with moving over $270 million to worthy charities last year alone. During a season known best for early bird bargains, reindeer decorations, and (far too much) pie, it’s refreshing to see a philanthropic initiative like this thrive.
Close to Home Causes
Over the past few years, ACS Creative has been fortunate and honored to work with some truly incredible non-profits. Through the course of these projects, their causes became our own. The passion they exude and belief in their mission is exciting and contagious. We hope after learning more about the organizations below, you will find it in your heart to join us in supporting that passion on this very special Tuesday!
Britepaths
Branding / Collateral
For more than 30 years, Britepaths has been developing innovative, sustainable solutions that stabilize low-income working families.
Donate Now →
Capital Caring
Website / Collateral
Since 1977, Capital Caring has worked tirelessly to improve care for those facing life-limiting illness through direct patient care, family support, public education, and advocacy.
Donate Now →
Fairfax CASA
Website / Collateral
An advocate for abused and neglected children, Fairfax CASA ensures each child’s needs are identified and addressed as they seek a safe and permanent home.
Donate Now →
Your monetary contributions will help these causes continue doing good for our families, our communities, and the world around us. Be sure to spread the word of #GivingTuesday and let’s make TODAY the biggest and best one yet! Tomorrow, we see what that Dyson can do…
Looks Aren’t Everything
ACS Creative is (you guessed it) a creative agency. All of our team members are, for lack of a better term, artists in their own right. We have a trained eye for what looks good and constantly strive to stay at the forefront of the latest web and graphic design trends. From color theory to typography and everything in between, the work we put out there is creatively engineered to be beautiful down to the last pixel—but that’s only half the story.
A Website Needs to Work
Whether it be informational, transactional, or measured by leads and inquiries, every website has an objective. You might have the most stunning layout and site design in the world; the pride of your brand and envy of your competitors—but if it doesn’t accomplish its basic purpose, none of that matters. A website needs to work. See beyond the pretty colors, animated icons, video backdrops and ask yourself, “Is this serving my audience in the most functional, efficient, and effective way possible?”
Take it from Craig
There’s no denying the power of elegant design. A gorgeous, flashy website can make even the most trivial products seem like the next big thing. However, design without function is merely a pretty billboard. Nothing should come before making sure your site behaves, performs, and operates the way it should to drive conversions. This sentiment has never held more true than it does on Craigslist.org. A wildly popular classifieds platform that has clearly rejected any tendencies toward fancy aesthetics—all while placing in the top 15 highest traffic sites in the U.S. year after year.
Of course, Craigslist is an extreme case. I don’t recommend launching a website with all black text, white background, blue links, and zero visual stimuli whatsoever. Although, you can’t deny its ease of use! There is no shame in having a beautiful site full of bells and whistles, as long as the design elements don’t hinder your visitors’ ability to do what you want them to do (buy a product, submit a form, subscribe to a newsletter, etc.)
Every Business is Different
We hear “make my site look like apple.com” quite often from new clients, and for good reason. It’s a handsome, million-dollar website—that is for sure. However, if you look closely at Apple’s homepage, you’ll notice there really isn’t much web design involved at all. They rely on a collage of exquisite photos of their ingenious devices to draw customers in. Unless Tim Cook is reading this blog post (Hey, Tim), you are not Apple. No, you are a law firm, a landscaping company, a jewelry store, a catering business, a fitness instructor… the point is, you need to find YOUR own balance between fashion and function when it comes to your website. Every industry is different; every business is different; and every visitor is different. There is no one-size-fits-all formula. It often takes some trial and error before you get it right. Be patient, listen to your customers, and try to remember; looks aren’t everything.
Infinite Marketing Loop: Outbound Marketing
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
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!
Do Brand Guidelines Matter?
Yes. Wow, that was easy and you didn’t even have to read anything! Just for fun, let’s expand upon that answer. In order to truly understand how important brand guidelines are, you must first understand why they are important. This week’s blog post is dedicated to the almighty brand and we assure you it applies to your business, no matter how big or small. But, do brand guidelines matter?
What are Brand Guidelines?
Some use the term style guides, brand bibles, look books, standards manuals, or marketing cheat sheets. No matter how your company refers to them around the office, brand guidelines are an essential component to long-term growth. These documents can range from 3 to 300 pages and manifest in any number of digital or printed formats. The core purpose of such a guide is to establish rules for how a brand is presented to the world in visuals and messaging.
Major corporations protect their brand by setting standards and practices for virtually every possible marketing scenario on the planet Earth. Are such lengths necessary for a pet supply store on Main Street? Probably not―but all businesses of any size should aim to control the various pieces of their public-facing image. A typical brand guideline for a small to medium sized company would include:
How the company came to be, its values, philosophies, mission statement, and personality (voice).
Different versions and lockups of your logo, spacing requirements (breathing room), minimum sizes, relative scale, and, most importantly, how not to use it.
A palette of primary and secondary brand colors alongside a couple complimentary options. Can’t decide on a perfect Pantone hue? Invent your own! Coca-Cola did.
Fonts and their various usages, web-friendly alternatives (if necessary), and, again, how not to use them.
Acceptable photographic styles, iconography, social media graphics, ideal aspect ratios, and any filters or effects to be applied and when.
Mockups or templates for commonly-used collateral such as business cards, letterhead, and envelopes.
Some brand guides dig really deep―like mind blowing deep. They include treatments for everything under the sun from trade show signage to promotional merchandise. If it’s a marketing scenario that presents itself on even a semi-frequent basis, it goes in the book to ensure consistency every time.
Consistency Counts
Repetition is one of the key fundamentals of advertising. Staying in front of your customers is one thing, but doing so with consistent, recognizable messaging and visuals is another. Following a well thought out brand guideline will help elevate the relevancy of your company each time someone encounters it. This practice is also critical from a cross-platform perspective. What you say and how it looks on a local highway billboard should match what those motorists see on your Facebook page and, ultimately, your website later that day. Inconsistency creates confusion and confusion costs you customers.
A brand’s memorability is often subconscious but still very much recognizable. Let’s revisit our friends at Coca-Cola again (because it’s easy). If you walked into a grocery store and saw a 12-pack of Coke using a different red from their trademark color on the box, you would almost certainly take notice. That ubiquitous crimson tone has been burned into our minds since its introduction in 1948 and it can be seen in everything they do, both online and offline.
The ancillary benefit of paying attention to your brand and following a strict set of rules is, quite simply, legitimacy. If you are just starting up or operating a small enterprise, not too many of your competitors have the branding wherewithal to focus on consistency. To the general public, you will appear professional, confident, well-established, and a leader in your sector. None of your neighbors are rushing to call the landscaping service with pixelated clipart, Word art logo, and mismatched fonts on their door hanger, are they?
Remember, this isn’t just for you. Marketing teams grow, turnover happens, mergers are inked, creative partners change, and sponsorship opportunities arise. You won’t always necessarily have control over how your company is represented unless you put the rules in place. Protect your brand, grow your business.
Branding Exceptions
Before you begin to panic that your Twitter icon needs to be etched in stone for all eternity, remember―brand guideline is just that; a guideline. No matter how much thought goes into your book, there will always be exceptions to the rules. For this reason, branding standards should be perceived as a living, breathing entity. Business evolves, times change, tastes mature, and trends dither out. Adaptation is necessary to survive and thrive.
Establishing brand guidelines can be a huge undertaking (trust us), but it is a worthwhile investment of time and capital with immeasurable long-term dividends.
Check out all about our branding services and past work to see if your business could use some new brand guidelines!
Infinite Marketing Loop: Website Optimization
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:
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.
The Value of Outside Perspective
Sometimes to achieve the best end result, we have to step outside of our bubble. Whether you’re just starting up or your project is stuck, amazing things can happen when you open up to some outside perspective. Limited budgets, ambitious timelines, and inherit fear of “too many cooks in the kitchen” can cause business owners to inhibit their marketing potential – looking only to their employees or existing agency for direction.
Look from the Inside Out
A recent survey of 300+ small businesses conducted by Clutch.co demonstrated that 43% trust and invest in their own in-house employees to meet their digital marketing goals. Don’t get us wrong – human capital is essential to business growth. These are the people on the front lines helping your business do what it does all day, every day. If you’ve built a team of smart, dedicated, creative people, your company is going places. However, the solution to your online marketing challenges isn’t always necessarily under your roof.
A truly successful website launch or advertising campaign is the product of collaboration between your staff and some outside talent. It’s not about stretching the capabilities and expectations of your existing workforce, but creating symbiotic connections to see the project through. Not to mention, people within your organization spend a majority of their waking hours thinking about your business. Oftentimes, it takes a fresh new perspective from someone who isn’t quite as close to the nucleus to conceive something really brilliant.
This is also true of entrepreneurs with a staff of one. As a bootstrapped startup, the sole proprietor ends up wearing a lot of hats – especially in the beginning. To be so deeply enveloped in your own business doesn’t necessarily make you the best person to be marketing it. An outside agency or individual can help articulate your offering to the world and execute an effective strategy for online success.
Escape the Project Vacuum
So you’ve assembled a team to bring your digital marketing project to fruition. Perhaps you’re utilizing some in-house talent as well as an outside agency. The original timeline is completely out the window and you’re starting to feel the momentum from earlier stages has since halted. If progress has slowed because new ideas are missing the mark or the conceptual trajectory has gone off course, this is an ideal time to seek out some outside perspective.
Metaphorically-speaking, your team is crammed into a tiny room for months on end, breathing the same recycled air, growing more fatigued of the objective (and each other) by the day. Originality and innovation have dimmed to convenience and utility. Allowing someone else to offer a view from beyond those walls might be just what you need to bring your project back to life.
No matter what phase your web, print, or advertising project is in, inviting outside perspective can offer truly valuable insight and direction. To believe that your most-effective campaign approach exists within one person, one room, one department, or one agency, is severely limiting to your company’s potential. Before you go any further, think outside…
How Digital Marketing Helps Businesses
Last week, we wrote about what you should do after you launch a new website. This week, we explain how digital marketing can help your business thrive!
Find New Customers
Whether you’re a new company or you have been in business for decades, you always need to bring in new customers. That’s where digital marketing comes in.
Search Engine Marketing (SEM) is one of the most effective ways to find interested clients. This form of advertising puts your brand in front of potential customers just as they are researching companies like yours.
With pay-per-click ads, your company appears at the top of Google results for targeted keywords. Consumers rely on search engines to help them make purchase decisions, and that is part of what makes SEM so effective.
If you’re an eCommerce company, digital marketing encourages direct purchases on your website. Those ads that follow you around the internet after you shop for tools, ties, or tires? All of them happen because companies invest in digital marketing.
Build Relationships
While you’re reaching new customers with pay-per-click ads, you also should connect with existing contacts through email marketing.
Emails may seem outdated by digital marketing standards, with bots and blockchain on the horizon. But emails are still one of the best tools to help you build one-on-one relationships with consumers.
For instance, maybe you sell cupcakes online. You could send out an email with photos and links to videos about your baking. You could find out your customer’s birthday and send a personalized coupon for free delivery on that date. As your customers get to know you, they will look forward to your messages. With careful segmentation and strategy, your emails will set your brand apart from competing cupcake shops.
Sticking to a regular email schedule gives customers the opportunity to get to know you, like you, and trust you. Ultimately, once they trust you, they will buy from you again and again.
Get to Know Your Audience
As customers get to know you through emails, you can also get to know them through your digital marketing programs.
Pixels, cookies, and analytics tools help you learn more about your customers. You can find out answers to questions you didn’t know you could ask. Who opened your emails? Who clicked on your Facebook ads? Who filled out your contact form? You can learn — down to the person — who is interested in your business.
Then, your sales team can contact the most engaged prospects. That person who opened your email 25 times? It’s probably worth it to give them a call. That former client who liked your Instagram page? It may be time to send them an email.
Your digital marketing channels should all work together to help your company grow. It’s all about reminding interested customers why your brand benefits them. If you invest in different digital strategies at the same time, your integrated campaigns will make an impact. You’ll see more leads, clients, customers and revenue.
So Your New Website is Live. Now What?
You’ve had a whirlwind few months – going back and forth with designers, developers, writers, and project managers to ensure your new website is beautiful and functional. Every last icon, image, letter, and pixel has been double-checked for absolute perfection. You devoted extra attention to user experience, workflow efficiency, and information architecture to ensure your online goals are not only met, but exceeded. Today, your brand new website launched, the floodgates are wide open, and new business has poured in like never before – right? Probably not.
How could this be? You did everything right. You hired talented people. You did the research. You invested your time, money, and resources into building a well-oiled digital machine engineered to sell. Don’t panic – these efforts aren’t in vain. It’s important to keep in mind, your pursuit of online success doesn’t end with a new website; it begins with one. Now is the time to get to work! Here are a few actionable items that should help inspire your next steps…
Content Marketing
Of course your new website is search engine-friendly, but that doesn’t mean it has the content to appear in search results. To put your business in front of potential customers online, you have to offer valuable content (blogs, videos, podcasts, infographics, white papers, etc.) that they might be looking for. The more you publish on a particular topic, the more authority you build within your industry and in Google’s very complex algorithm. Posting “evergreen” content that stays forever relevant will continue to work for you over time and cumulatively increase organic traffic to your site. Be sure to supplement your content marketing efforts outside of your own domain with social media, guest posting, and public relations as well. Everything ties into (and funnels back to) your website’s primary call-to-action.
Paid Advertising
Surely, you’re financially exhausted from building this aforementioned beautiful and functional new website. Now is not the time to close the purse strings, though. Trust that your improved design works as it’s intended to and begin sending large volumes of target traffic its way. Spend some money on Google AdWords and Facebook. Create specific landing pages to further increase visitor confidence and goal efficiency. Finding the perfect balance between ad spend and ROI is by far the most effective means of online growth.
Email Marketing
Does your reimagined website entice visitors to join your email list, complete a form, or contact you? Without a doubt, email marketing is still one of the best ways to reach a captive audience of past, present, and future customers. Remember, these individuals have opted to hear from you! Collecting new subscribers every day should be a top priority. Delivering relevant content to those subscribers’ inboxes is a close second. There is a lot that can be done with an email address these days, from responsive promotional templates to automated drip campaigns and even behavioral segmentation. An effective email marketing strategy keeps people engaged with your brand and coming back to your site!
Mind you, the items above are just a handful of directions to go after a website launch. Although independent efforts, they work in symphonic harmony together, when executed properly. Remember, a shiny new site may be an essential first step to growing your business online, but it’s just that – a first step. There is no such thing as “set it and forget it” in the highly-competitive digital marketing world. Passionate persistence and strategic action will surely garner measurable, positive, ongoing results for your business.
3 Reasons Why Quality Trumps Quantity in Digital Content
“Quality over quantity” is a cliche. But it’s a cliche for a reason. When it comes to your website and digital marketing, it’s important to craft thoughtful content (quality), and not churn out a lot of content at a faster pace (quantity).
A quality over quantity approach to digital content makes sense, and it’s an easy enough idea to buy into on paper: Spend more time on writing great articles, and you will get better results.
In practice though, that type of dedication isn’t easy. You need a strong team by your side to motivate you and follow through with ideas.
Still, quality content is worthwhile in the long run. Whether you’re building a website from scratch or growing your current site, your business benefits from well-researched and well-written copy. In this blog post, we’ll go over a few reasons why longform web posts matter for your website and your bottom line.
1. Stand out from Competitors
Longform content is rare because it takes more time and effort to publish. Quantity usually wins in a digital environment, as brands race to publish as much information and capture as much attention as possible.
Take a look at your competitors, for example. How long are their blog posts? How detailed are their FAQ pages? As marketing entrepreneur Neil Patel explains in his research, most blog posts are short, so longer posts give you a competitive edge.
Detailed articles also show who you are as a company. They give you the opportunity to present your brand as thoughtful, knowledgeable and helpful.
2. Make Search Engines Want You
Search engine optimization (SEO) is a tricky concept that’s even trickier to execute well. Every company wants their website to appear at the top of search engine results pages. One way to earn your spot is to write longform content on your website.
Google especially favors longer articles. In this way, quality posts lead to better SEO, which then brings more traffic to your website. If your website is well-designed (and please contact us if it’s not), more traffic will then lead to more conversions, and more revenue for your business. It’s a beautiful circle that all starts with prioritizing quality over quantity in your digital content.
3. Satisfy Your Customers’ Cravings
As helpful as SEO can be, not everything is about Google. It’s about your customers.
People want good information from reliable sources. With the constant firehose of messages on social media, it’s useful to provide in-depth content that makes life easier for your readers.
CEO of Rep Cap Media Mary Ellen Slayter spoke with the Content Marketing Institute about the benefits of longer content for growing your business. “For B2B customers, it’s not just, ‘I came to your site, I clicked, and now I’m going to buy real quick,” she said. “The decisions they make require thought and money, and the customers need to know who they’re dealing with.”
In other words, quality content helps build trust with your website visitors. By making your website a consistent source of valuable information, you encourage potential customers to come back time and time again.
“Quality over quantity” is an important lesson in web design and marketing. We relearn this lesson every day as we work with our clients. If you have questions about improving your digital content, please get in touch with us any time!