14 Summertime Digital Marketing Ideas

Posted on by Chris Jenkin

Written by Catherine Marsden

With days getting longer, kids home from school, and the backyard grill calling your name, it’s easy to give digital marketing a pass during the summer months. However, this approach can backfire come Labor Day when inbound sales leads have slowed to a trickle and your largest customer let’s you know she is leaving for a competitor.

Rather than completely taking your digital marketing off the boil this summer, here are 14 free marketing strategies to give your brand a refresh, and keep your summer sales sizzling.

14 simple digital marketing tactics to do this summer:

Update your branding
De-clutter your website. Fixing broken links, revising outdated contact information or changing an old profile picture can improve your website’s performance and improve your visitors’ first impression.

Dust off your blog
When it comes to digital marketing, content and consistency are king. Summer is not the time to let your blog go cold. Stay in touch with your readers and provide useful content that answers their questions, even in summer.

Create a new sales handout
On a simple 8.5 x 11 explain who you are and what services your company provides. Keep the branding consistent with your website and have a few of these printed up for the next time you meet with a new prospect or head to a networking event.

Revisit your January business goals
Remember when you were super-charged and set those amazing 10X goals back in January? As the mid-point of the year, summer is a great time to circle back with those goals and see how your business is doing. Remember this isn’t supposed to be a blame game. Just spend some time with these goals, set new priorities and make adjustments, if necessary. The point is to re-charge, renew and reinvigorate your business.

LinkedIn
Review your LinkedIn profile. Check whether your LinkedIn profile is up to date with your most recent positions, job titles, awards and skills.

Reach out to your network
It’s a misperception that you need to be executing a large sales campaign on LinkedIn in order to use it effectively. I find the simple things done consistently can have big payoffs. Send a message to a colleague or friend and tell them what you are up to. Better yet, send them an article of interest, and expect nothing in return. Manage your recommendations. Secure one new recommendation for your profile and delete one that is from a long time ago.

Facebook Business Page
Add new services to your business page: Facebook allows you to add in new products and services to tell visitors what your company is all about. For directions on how to add products and services, click here.

Verify your business page
This only takes a few minutes, but doing so will help improve your organic reach. Head into the Settings tab on your business page and click “Verify page”. Facebook will either call a number you give them or send you a code via text message. Once entered, your business page will receive a check mark on it indicating it has been verified, and reward you with increased organic reach.

Update your FB background/cover photo
Just like a store window that needs to be changed to fit the season, you can refresh a stale Facebook business page with a summer-theme.

Build your skills
Take a class. Summer is a perfect time to up your digital marketing game by taking a class or watching a webinar.

Email Marketing
Clean up your email contact list. Gather up those business cards and enter any new contacts that you want to stay in touch with and eliminate duplicates.

Launch an end-of-summer contest or event
Use email marketing during the summer months to spread the news about a free give-away or special promotion.

Twitter
Retweet or share a customer’s tweet. Staying active on Twitter is as easy as using your cell phone during your free time. Rather than reading your email while at the doctor’s office or when waiting in line, tweet, share or comment on a Twitter post.

Newsjack a summer event. Newsjacking happens when a company adds a clever twist to a current event in the news. Keep an eye on the headlines and see if something doesn’t pop out at you this summer. Create a clever meme or snag a headline by adding your own perspective on a current event.

Distribute Summer Gift Cards

It doesn’t matter whether you own a store or a small business. A summer gift card is an easy way to get more customers flowing in through the front door! Offer decent discounts on your services to ensure people get interested.

5 Summertime Marketing Ideas

Posted on by Chris Jenkin

Summer is the perfect time of year to launch a campaign that drives new customers and increases brand loyalty. Get inspired by the following 5 summertime marketing ideas, and give your customers a well deserved break from ho-hum sales.

Giveaways- What’s better than free? Your customers LOVE to be appreciated and provided the opportunity to score some cool swag for a change. Clear the remaining winter and spring inventory off your shelves and send it off into the universe. Host a social media giveaway, and ask for subscribers while you do it. You’ll get rid of the old, and make room for new loyal followers who are excited to learn more about your company.

Creative Summer Sales- From a small purchase discount to a birthday or summer soireee sale, gift your customers the opportunity to indulge in something, and make it easy on the pocketbook as well. Because summer usually involves vacation, activities, and extra household spending, your customers will appreciate a promotion while the dog days of summer leave their wallets strapped for cash.

I you want to incorporate a feel-good cause for support, why not offer customers something free or discounted in exchange for donated goods or services.

Stock Up on Promotional Items- Build brand awareness and loyalty with creative promotional products that represent your company, as well as the season. From sunglasses to water bottles, now is the time to pass out logo gear in a variety of materials and bright colors. Invite your customers in through email or social media announcements, and be sure to attract new curbside traffic by drawing attention to your storefront.

Host a Party- Nowhere to go? Get dressed up anyway. Throw a summer party right at your local business and make it themed for summertime as well as your products. Whether it’s a tropical getaway or a sightseeing escapade, dress the part and send out invites to your loyal customers via email, mail, and of course on social media, to promote your company summer bash. Consider extending store hours to accommodate sales and new customers.

Be Fun- People love to support a business that’s bustling with life and energy. When the sun starts shining, fill your vases with flowers, place bright balloons around your door, and use sidewalk chalk in bright colors to promote sales and new inventory. Invite people to sit aspell and take a break from the heat. Be sure to provide complimentary fresh water to keep customers comfortable as they shop.

While many shoppers retreat to the indoors and vacation while your business remain open, summertime is still an ideal season to reach out and attract new clients as well as greet the old. These 5 summertime marketing ideas will keep your sales sizzling while the temperatures soar.

4 Psychology Tips for Better Marketing

Posted on by Chris Jenkin

Why are we only just starting with human marketing?

A freelance marketing and PR consultant spends considerable time analyzing marketing decisions made by businesses and observing how their audience is reacting to them, to come up with a strategy to improve sales. What has been startling over the past two years is how little most companies seem to think about the personality of their target audience. In that sense, how little we seem to have forgotten about the actual person behind the screen, the human who makes the decision to buy their product.

1) Use human psychology as a guide

Us marketers usually attempt to solve a problem by first identifying who the target customer is. Not all products are made for all audiences. You won’t sell wings to birds. To answer the Who, we ask ourselves what these people do, where they live, how they live, what they like and what motivates them to buy one product over another. But is it all we should ask? This seems obvious, but thinking about the psychology of your audience should not only come first but also guide all your future marketing endeavours.

One of the most crucial marketing trends ruling 2016 is human relationships, on which you can certainly base other elements of your marketing strategy. A good example is social media storytelling, which creates a personal interest and bond between brand and audience. Remembering your audience is made of humans is especially true when it comes to online marketing, an industry that sometimes forgets users have brains, feelings and needs.

2) Focus on basic emotions and feelings

But why are we so late jumping on the human marketing wagon? Thinking about others, in the most basic and human way possible, when focusing on a particular audience should be an innate principle, and a inherent action even for marketers. This doesn’t mean marketers should have a psychology degree, but infusing marketing with more psychology shall build a brighter future for businesses.

Study the mechanics of the mind to build a reaction. As a start, use the 8 basic human emotions (joy, trust, fear, surprise, sadness, disgust, anger, anticipation) and 8 basic human feelings (optimism, love, submission, awe, disappointment, remorse, contempt, and aggression) in your audience analysis. These should guide a marketing strategy, as much as natural instincts and reflexes should. What exactly do you want to achieve? Forget sales for a minute. What psychological impact do you want your campaign to have? Put simply, provoke emotions of trust and joy through your marketing and advertising (in the aesthetics and the message conveyed) to build a feeling of optimism towards your brand.

A simple way to have an insight into your audience psychology is to put yourself in their shoes. Who is your typical customer? What are they looking for? What makes sense to them, and what matters most? What emotion drives their search, and what feeling does your product procure them? Are they easily influenceable, and is their emotion contagious in their group? There are hundreds of questions to answer, but this effort leads to a prize: to become your customer’s best friend, before anything else.

3) Make primitive marketing for primal understanding

In our attempt to conduct a more ‘primitive’ marketing, planted on basic human instincts,emotions and feelings, let’s focus on the area of intent. What are the series of movements and reasons behind the physical purchase? What was the customer’s initial intention? Intent plays a powerful role when it comes to online searches and SEO strategy. It is vital for online businesses to consider the human brain behind the typed keywords, and the user’s real intention rather than trying to change their habits.

Bringing humanity back in marketing is a successful formula that can be proven by the viral nature of visual content like infographics and native videos. These play with our basic reactions to bold, bright coloured information, in a primal and innate way, making information easier to remember. The visual nature of human memory is key in the quest of spreading a message, wanting a slogan, a logo or key product information remembered.

4) Become a friend brand

Trust and optimism are a winning pair for advertising and marketing, with ´friend´ brands becoming house guests and household names through regular, ‘homey’ campaigns for products that will immediately respond to their audience’s needs. Mac Donald’s and Apple are now our family friends, using our human nature as the common denominator between brand and consumer, quite rightfully, and our personal experience and stories to develop their mission: anticipating what we will need next before we know it. Facebook is mastering this, with an impressive 63% penetration still in 2015 (Comscore) but its example must be taken with a pinch of salt.

A huge mistake made by not only companies but also agencies throughout the world is neglecting the human in us (social animals) through hyper connectivity. There is now such thing as social media overdose, and social media growth has been plateauing since 2013 (only the over 65s age group is still growing, according to Smart Insights). The last two years have shown us a new, clear movement of social media bashing (users’ desire to ‘leave’ and regain freedom, or in some cases, to ‘quit’, like a bad habit). The reason? Internet connections were supposed to create a valuable and meaningful connection, but they are now often irrelevant and invading. Brands must find the subtle way to be at home with their customer, discreetly snoozing on the sofa – and never becoming a nuisance.

Opting for human marketing can only lead in a deeper, truer bond between brand and customers. Newer business models using cooperation and inclusion as principles show a greater, longer and more ‘constructive’ success. The create/participate model (used by Google, YouTube, Wikipedia, Trip Advisor, Yelp…) shows us that success lies in the intersection between the ‘citizen’ customer and the ‘user’. An audience personally contributing to your success will take greater pleasure and care for the longevity of this success.

Originally posted on the Jennifer Hakim Communications blog.

5 Facts Small Businesses Should Know About Local SEO

Posted on by Chris Jenkin

Without a doubt, businesses throughout the world all have one thing in common, and that is to bring in more customers to their establishments. No matter how big or small the business is, it is really important for the owner to be able to draw in more people to do business with. Otherwise, they’ll end up having to close the business since there is no way for them to sustain it. One suitable way a company can gain new business is to make sure it targets the right people in his specific geographic location; especially if the business is new. Thankfully, the internet has now given these business owners various ways they can let their prospect customers find them.

But when it comes to utilizing these tools to attract customers, it is important to use them properly. Otherwise, the tool won’t be used to its full potential and it would not lead to good results for the business owner. If you are a business owner, it is important that you know how you can properly target customers to your location. The good news is that you can optimize your online visibility to your local search engine optimization (SEO).

And with the success of this tool, there’s no surprise why search engines seem to be updating itself with new trends every now and then. Because of these changes, companies have been able to place a better local footprint on the results page of search engines. This gives them a tremendous amount of opportunity to be more visible locally and get better exposure of their business and brand to the audience they truly target. In a way, this gives them an edge as it helps make their strategy work for their benefit. Of course, the success of their local SEO search efforts is translated into sales.

The problem is, optimizing local SEO can be very tricky. It doesn’t only end with learning about customary SEO terms and practices, you will also need to continuously do your research on what works in SEO. In this time and age, your visibility online can make or break your brand. Considering the fact that SEO practices continually change, it’s important that you know how things work every time. So how are you to make sure that local SEO works to your advantage? Here are 5 things you need to know about local SEO as a small business owner:

Accurate and Consistent Online Listing

As a business, you want customers to be able to find you and your vital information: your NAP. This stands for the Name, Address and Phone Number. In some cases, it could even be NAP+W (W= Website). Every local optimizer knows how important all these information is. The problem however, is that the accuracy and consistency of these data can be a problem.

A number of users have become discouraged to discover that the business they are looking for online does not update these information whenever they change something. And in truth, there is a large number of businesses who know their NAP+W is no longer updated yet they know that many of their customers rely on the internet for such information. Despite this, many businesses believe they do not have the time to update the information anymore.

As a business owner, you have to remember that these inaccuracies can kill your local SEO. No matter how serious you are with your business, it will be questioned by those who are unable to find updated information of your NAP. This is why you really have to be vigilant and be careful of updating your NAP.

Maximize Directory Listings

Nowadays, there are so many websites that offer directory listings of various companies in their vicinity. So in reality, it’s very easy for your brand to be listed on such websites. The only question is how you will be able to make use of the local directory website to its full potential. It might be very tedious and time-consuming work for you to create a local listing, but in the end, it can be beneficial for your business if you want it to rank on local SEO search. As much as possible, you should fill up the required information on the directory so you can let it work for your advantage.

Researchers have discovered that when a customer looks for a listing, he will want to see the following:
• Address
• Phone number
• General proximity to location
• Hours of operation
• Company name
• Website
• Prices
• General product or service info
• Ratings or reviews
• Compare features, services, other info.
• Forms of payment accepted

As much as you can, try to complete each of these items as every added citation adds to your local SEO uptick. The more complete your online listing is, the better it will be for potential customers to trust your business and patronize it.

Optimize Social Media

Social media has played an important role in everyone’s lives. To this extent, businesses can thrive on local SEO even if they don’t have their own website. As long as they are active on social media, customers can still find them easily. Once a business does not have its own website, its traffic gets redirected to another local listing or a page. This is why it is recommended that you make your business active on websites such as Facebook, TripAdvisor, Yelp, or Urbanspoon. On websites such as these, they can see a star rating or a review left behind by other customers of the business.

With the new Google My Business platform rollout, experts in the field of local SEO insist that it’s very important for business owners to fill out all their needed information as accurately and completely as possible. Thanks to this tool, your customers will be able to find you easily.

Don’t Beg for Reviews

Online, the best way you can get people to trust your business is through the reviews you received from other people who have already used your services. Unfortunately, this is something you cannot force or beg other people to do. As a business owner, you can’t force people to leave a five-star review of you on social media. Instead, you can encourage users to leave a review about your business by giving them a freebie or a discount.

The main reason why you need reviews is because it can help with your local SEO. The more reviews you have, the more Google will deliver your establishment in local searches.

Never Stop Learning

As Google continues to expand its horizon and target more hyperlocal businesses, your brand should also do the same. It is best that you work with a professional company that knows the latest trends and tools Google uses to make sure that your information stays relevant and on the top results of a page. Only then will you be sure of how you can drive users to your business.

Creating a Content Marketing Strategy

Posted on by Chris Jenkin

Most businesses already know how important social media is. They are already aware of how crucial having good practice of social media can help lead their business to be better. But there’s a problem: not all of them know how to implement things so they can practice what they believe in. For some businesses, the problem actually lies when they try to create good content that will strike their audience on social media positively. If you’re wondering how you’ll be able to make the most out of your content strategy, it’s important that you know just how crucial it is for your business.

So What Exactly is a Content Marketing Strategy?

Think of it this way– it’s your guiding light that you should follow in terms of your planning, production, promotion and measurement of content for your business. If you want to be successful with your content marketing efforts, you also have to take the time to create a solid strategy that you believe will work for your brand. While it could be pretty heavy work in the beginning, it could reduce your workload in the future, thus making your content more effective. And how do you do that? Follow these tips to help you create a content marketing strategy:

Obtain Support from Stakeholders

First of all, keep in mind that content marketing is not just a short-term thing. It’s a long-term commitment that will require you to continuously collaborate and engage with your team members so that your efforts will succeed. If you have an executive team deciding for the business, it’s important that you sell the idea to them before anything else. Once they agree to the voice of the content marketing strategy, you’ll know that you are doing something right with your campaign.

The main reason why you need to get support from the executives of the business is so you can get the funds needed to implement your content strategy. At the same time, this will help you know that there is a commitment from them to fully implement the strategy to see just how well it would benefit the business.

Know Your Audience

Another thing you have to remember about content marketing is that you should know who your audience is. Content marketing is not about selling your products or services. It’s all about entertaining, educating, and informing your readers. This way, you’ll be able to earn their trust over time. By knowing who your audience is and what they are interested in, you’ll be able to determine how viable your current content is and what you’ll need to do to gain their attention.

Take a Customer-Centered Approach

It’s extremely important that you focus on and address what your audience wants. This is why you need to do your research and look for information that’s currently available so you can supply what’s missing. One way you can do this is to investigate social media such as blog and forums. Try to see how your audience is interacting through the use of tools so you’ll be able to collect data needed to help you create useful content. You can also conduct a survey on your customers so you know just what type of information they need from a company such as yours.

Have a Good Content Formula

You’ve already established that content marketing is about building trust between you and your customers. By doing so, they’ll be able to solve issues that are important to them. You can customize your content in a way where you engage with influencers, decision-makers and stakeholders to know what else is missing in your content. And at the same time, they’ll help promote your business since they were tapped to be a guest.

Plan Your Editorial Calendar

A good content marketing program starts with an editorial calendar that has been carefully planned. After all that you’ve researched and created, it’s time for you to execute and implement your content. Through the editorial calendar, you’ll be able to carefully create the content in a way that it doesn’t go against one another.

Make Use of Tools to Analyze Your Strategy

When you were still gathering information for your content marketing strategy, you made use of tools to help you out. In the same way, you should also make use of tools to gauge just how successful your strategy is doing. This will be a big help for you to know if you’re doing something right and to pinpoint what that is. Don’t be afraid to use tools for your content marketing. You’ll realize that this is actually one of the best ways you can get the help you need.

As a business owner, you need to know how to make the most out of your content marketing strategy so you can fully implement your business. Follow these tips to help you achieve this. If you need more help, contact gotcha! to learn more about our expert content marketing services.

Social Media Marketing : Secrets and Lies

Posted on by Chris Jenkin

While many businesses already understand the importance of having a social media strategy, others might argue that social media marketing is a trend without any real return on investment. There’s a little bit of truth to both. Take a look at the following social media marketing truths and secrets before you embark on building your social presence.

The Road Is Long

The social media road is long and cumbersome. There is no such thing as an overnight success, and it can take a significant amount of time before you see (if ever) any financial return from investing in it. While it might not cost much to build your social profiles, there are other things to consider that will cost both money and time in the long-run. If you’re expecting something that brings sales overnight and makes you a viral success, social media is not the answer.

You Only Get a Peek

The most difficult aspect of building a successful social media presence is actually in understanding your page guests and their behaviors. The problem is, social media only gives you a peek inside of who they are and what their interests are. There’s really no way to really track if they visited similar businesses as your own, or made a purchase outside of your website. The initial demographic reports will help you understand your audience, but it won’t tell you why they chose not to buy from you.

You Have to Maintain It

Posting on social media is a regular, if not daily, effort. In order to keep your brand afloat you will need to devote several hours per week on social media. In the beginning of launching a start-up that might seem feasible. Over time you might get burned on in writing fresh content that matters.

Managing the Workload

When it comes to managing your social media workload you might end up hiring a social media manager or a content writer who will create an editorial calendar and post blogs on a weekly basis. These blogs will help Google find your page and in turn you might rank higher in search results. Because your blog is constantly updated, your business page appears active and authoritative in the industry.

When you can no longer devote the time to writing for you web page, you’ll need to factor in the costs of hiring experts for the job. The problem is, social media marketing will never make you rich. You may never see much return from investing in hiring a social and content writing team. You will, however, have a business webpage and social presence that shows the world more about your brand, and that slowly builds a reputation. If you’re patient, social media marketing can be one of the most rewarding aspects of your brand strategy.

You Need Knowledge

Identifying your social audience takes emotional intelligence. If you hire a manager, they’ll likely begin to analyze your site visitors and try to figure out which sorts of posts and updates receive the best response. The problem is this will take time, and you’ll likely have more fails than success in the beginning.

Beyond understanding the demographics of your guest, you need to identify what makes them buy, or walk away from a purchase. You’ll also need to figure out what makes them “click” to read more. This is exactly why it takes time to build a presence on social media, especially one that carries any sort of return.

What Channels Should You Choose?

It’s always best to keep things simple, especially when you might be juggling your social media management with all the other aspects of your business. When you begin building portfolios for your brand, you’ll need to determine which ones will be the most worthy of your time.

Rather than hopping all over the place, you’ll need to evaluate where most of your customers are active, and then use those platforms to connect with your audience. This might mean adapting to other social platforms such as Instagram or Twitter.

It Costs Money

The last dirty little secret about social media marketing is that it costs money. Sure, everything is free in the beginning, but overtime you will be limited in your organic reach, and it will cost your company money if you want to be shown in reader’s search results. You also might decide to pass the buck and hire a creative team to handle the social side of your business. Either way, social media marketing costs money.

But it’s worth every penny.

Because when someone visits your page and clicks on your blog they should be able to read something relevant and recent. Just like this.

Now you know why social media marketing is important, so we won’t bother you with the lies. For what it’s worth social media is just something your brand has to do. Before you hire a social manager, make sure they aren’t making too many promises.

Do you need assistance navigating the world of social media marketing? We’re butterflies. Contact gotcha! Mobile Solutions today and send us a tweet.