I recently had a prospect tell me, “Oh, we tried blogging and it didn’t work.” What he should have told me is “We threw up a bunch of stuff on our website that our customer’s weren’t interested in and it didn’t move the needle any.”
Web-logs (or “blogs) are unique communication vehicles for your business, particularly for branding, relationship marketing and traffic building. You’re an expert at what you do and there is no better way than a blog to show it.
We tell our customers that networking, a business card, and internet marketing should be their top priorities to grow their businesses and that all other forms of marketing are luxuries. Luxuries that can produce results, but luxuries none the less. After you meet a prospect at a networking event, the first thing they are going to do is check you out on LinkedIn and then check out your company’s website.
Social media, search engines, and popular review sites allow consumer opinions to travel faster and reach further than ever before. Reviews are modern day word of mouth (eWOM) marketing posted on sites like Yelp, Google+, Angie’s List, and more. Reviews are easily seen and shareable and are probably the most important aspect of marketing for small and local businesses who don’t have large brand advertising budgets. Good reviews will affect people’s decision to buy from your business and will increase your search engine rankings.
You need to develop online offers – Something of value. Not a free consultation. We are trying to get as many people in the sales funnel as possible. We want a soft yes. A free consultation (A.K.A. sales call) is a hard yes. What can you offer that will educate your target market as to why they should be buying from you instead of your competition.
If your company is like most companies, the answer is a resounding NO! or the truth is that you could do a better job. Explaining what it is that you do is the essence of what marketing is and should be. The best marketing is about great teaching and communication.
Videos cut through the digital noise of the internet by requiring a viewer’s full attention. In a minute, sometimes less, a video can convey a message that will take paragraphs and paragraphs to explain. Content marketing began with text blog posts but will now morph into text blog posts with video and maybe even an infographic. The content simply has to be better since there is more competition on the internet. Those who know how to use text, video, and images together and separately are going to be those who
As social media because more noisy, frustrating, and expensive, businesses will start concentrating on their owned digital assets more. Businesses don’t own their space on social media channels and some have found this out the hard way as organic access to the feeds slowing disappears. The website and the blog become the library for a company’s owned content and distribution of that content will more and more be driven by email and niche social media channels and groups/communities inside the larger social media channels.
Customers come to bars and restaurants and in an hour or two they are gone again for a month or two. Owners recognize their customers faces sometimes but to don’t really have a way to communicate with them when they aren’t in the bar or restaurant. Guest WiFi allows owners to collect customer contact information […]