Websites—The Face Of Your Business

Websites—The face of your business.

Websites. They’re the face of your business, your first impression on consumers, and a way to communicate with customers. Check out what you can do to update your website and what customers are looking for!

Personalization

In our previous blog, which you can find here, we talked about what it means to brand yourself – this includes your website! If your logo has certain colors in it, make sure you’re using that across your entire website. Keeping fonts, pictures, and color consist not only shows people that you have a clear brand, but they get to know you on a more personal level.

Ease of Navigation

Have you ever clicked on a restaurant’s website to try and order food and can’t find their phone number? How about frustrations with trying to schedule an appointment online? You may not realize it, but all of these small difficulties add up to a person’s impression of not only your website, but your entire business. If people can’t find it, how are they supposed to buy it? Use tabs to clearly label where things can be found. If you know of something that takes more than a couple of clicks to access, try adding a search bar to your website. You can also study the patterns of the use of your website and see where certain things can be fixed.

Call-to-Action

This one may seem obvious, but is often overlooked. You can have all the testimonials, photos, videos, and customer reviews that you want to validate the quality of your business, but if there’s nowhere to lead your customer to buy a product or an email to reach out to, how do they move forward with your services? Make sure there’s a, “contact us today,” or, “click here for more information,” etc. to point your customers in the right direction.

Updated Content

If you haven’t uploaded recent customer reviews, photos, or blog posts in a while, how do prospective customers know how you’re growing and developing? Having reviews from 8 years ago is great to show that your business has been about quality since day one, but how are consumers going to know how your business is doing now? Also, constant stream of uploading shows loyalty to your business and customers.

Social Media

People want to stay in touch and see what’s going on! Maybe you’re a heating and AC service company; chances are, customers don’t need your services on the daily or weekly. If you provide links to your Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc., your customers can stay in the know with your business and get to know you on a more personal level! That way, when it does come time for an HVAC tune up, they’ll know exactly who to call.

Personalized About Page

When it comes to making a business transaction with a new company, people want to know not only what your business offers, but how you got started, what your business’ morals are, and how you like to work. Including these things lets your customers get to know you on a more personal level. Would you rather do work with a company that provides their title and a bare minimum description of their services, or do you want to work with someone who is transparent and honest?

Validation and Testimonials

We touched on this one earlier, but this can really make or break providing services to a prospective customer. Showing before and after pictures of your services, video testimonials, or even written reviews from current and past customers lets consumers know how you run as a business, and of course, other people’s experience working with you. If your business takes pride in quality service for low prices, or treating your customers like family, make sure your customers are there to back you up! It only takes a couple of minutes to reach out to your customers and ask them to leave a review for you.

You have a lot of competitors. Make sure your competition has nothing on you! Be honest with prospective customers, stand out with your own personalized touch, and be open and consistent with communication.

The Importance Of Branding Your Business

Branding your business.

No matter how big or small your business is, creating a brand for yourself is crucial to the image, reputation, and success of your business. Branding yourself is beneficial to both traditional marketing and digital marketing, especially.

What does it mean to brand your business? It’s as simple as it sounds; a way for others to identify your business. From logo to language to advertisements. So, how do you get started? Branding can be somewhat complex, so we’ve broken down the different steps to make it easier for you.

Voice and Language

Is your company more laid-back and casual or professional? Do your morals fall around the importance of family, growth, community, or all of the above? Do you have a catchphrase you often find your employees and even consumers using? Once you identify the key parts that make your business your business, it’ll be easier to move forward.

Logo and Website

Visuals are everything! People will base their opinion of your business based off of not only the design of your logo, but how accessible and easy your website is to navigate through. Like your voice, your visuals should represent you and what you stand for. For example, we all know the iconic Nike swoosh. It symbolizes movement and speed. It depicts the art of movement, which is exactly what Nike is about. Once a logo is figured out, match the rest of your visuals on your website, advertisements, and video to that of your logo. This will bring familiarity and comfort to your customers.

Means of Marketing

While businesses can have great benefit from all forms of marketing, does yours have a signature way of marketing? Maybe it’s podcasts, digital art, or live streaming. The possibilities are endless and through trial-and-error, you can determine what your consumers love and look forward to and what may not be pushing a lot of traffic and engagement.

Be Authentic

Above all, most important is being authentic and real with your consumers. Across all platforms, customers not only love being able to interact with you, but showing off personality helps build trust. This goes for more than just communication with consumers. Make sure every aspect of your business is on the same page! From business cards to employees, promote yourself.

Seek Professional Advice

Branding can be a lot of work. There are a lot of moving parts that need to work to come together to make a beautiful, meaningful brand for your business. There’s nothing wrong with reaching out and asking for help. Whether it’s solely for digital advertisements, communicating, or all of the above, Paragon Marketing Group has got your back!

How Are You Using Video In Your Marketing?

Video marketing trends.

We all know digital marketing is king in today’s age of technology, but what tops these strategies? Video marketing, which has been on the rise for the last few years, is now one of the best ways to market your business. According to Social Media Today, videos are shared 1200% more on social media than image and text combined. They also found that 64% of consumers are more likely to buy a product or service after watching a video about it. With numbers like these, who wouldn’t want to research the latest trends in video marketing? Don’t worry, we’ve already done the work for you.

Make it Personal

Before we dive into the different forms of videos to create, let’s talk content. 72% of consumers say they will only engage with marketing posts that are personalized (SmarterHQ). Making your videos more personal could mean having members from your business on screen selling a service rather than just text and graphics. Let’s say your company sells women’s clothing and that the majority of your audience are young women between the ages of 18-25, try to create content that they would find fun and relatable.

Live Streaming

While it’s recently become a popular platform, video streaming counts for over two-thirds of all internet traffic, and there’s so much your business can do with it! You can hop on a live stream and not only show customers new products, host Q&As, and make announcements, but you can interact with them in real time. Live streaming gives the option to have viewers submit their questions and comments in a chatroom while the video is happening, making communication personal and easy. Another benefit of streaming is that there’s no editing involved. Just open your laptop, start your livestream, and you’re set.

Long-form Videos

This one might surprise you, but research suggests that long-form videos are the way to go. We’ve all been told that the shorter the video, the better, especially with the short attention span of humans. However, this has recently changed. According to 23, videos under five minutes in length only receive less than one third of overall engage, whereas videos over 15 minutes can result in 50% overall engagement. This would require more pre production work and editing, but if you’re really looking to communicate with or send a message to your consumers, try it out!

Video Podcasts

Being another recent success in marketing, video podcasts are on the rise, and it’s exactly what it sounds like. Instead of just having your microphone set up, you also have a camera to record with. What’s the point? It’s always nice for consumers to put a face to the voices they’re used to hearing, and they can see exactly what’s happening in the studio. It’s another way to invite your audience on a personal level, and you have two times the amount of footage to use for marketing!

Regardless if you choose to try out one of these or all of these new video marketing techniques, remember what it’s about; your consumers. Video is one of the best tools to include new and long-term consumers in your business. It’s a way to show your appreciation for them, get out new and important information, and show the faces of your company!

Reviews and Testimonials

Business reviews and testimonials help your business.

Reviews and testimonials. What are they? Why do they matter? A testimonial is a statement that supports the credibility of one’s business; aka a positive reputation builder! A lot of a business’ success relies on word-of-mouth and communication. Having written or recorded reviews and testimonials posted for your business will help bring in prospective customers and keep strong relationships with current customers.

Why Do You Need Testimonials and Reviews?

As stated before, credibility is everything for a small or growing business. Of course, you know your services and products work, but how are consumers supposed to know that? Reviews left on Google, Yelp, or your site verifying that your services provide 100% satisfaction for past customers helps support your claim. Chances are, you’re more willing to purchase or invest in something that has high reviews than something with zero reviews. While being conversational and quick with interaction with customers is helpful, they still may not feel ready to purchase or use your services without words of affirmation from past and current customers.

How Can My Business Gain Reviews?

You may think the only way to get reviews is sitting around and hoping a customer will decide to post about your business themselves, but that’s not the case! There’s nothing wrong with reaching out to customers and asking them to leave a review. You can ask them face-to-face, through a personalized email, or even making a post on social media. If your customers feel strongly about your good work and you have a positive relationship with them, don’t be afraid to reach out to them.

What are the Best Ways to Publicize Testimonials?

  1. Google, Yelp, online forums
    Chances are a prospective customer’s first interaction with you is through a search engine, use Google reviews and your website to your advantage.
  2. Images
    Using an image of your customer with their testimonial is a step up. Including a picture of the person leaving the review brings a more personal and direct message to consumers.
  3. Video
    Video is huge nowadays in building a business! Consumers love to be able to visualize what’s going on, and it’s easy to do with testimonials. It doesn’t have to be a fancy production with animations and crazy video effects. It can be a simple video recording of your customer speaking about their experience with you and verbalizing their testimonial. Video makes it engaging and intimate! Having prospective customers being able to watch a real person leave an authentic message is the best way to provide credibility.

Look Into The Future—Plan Your 2020 Marketing

Budget for 2020 marketing.

The air is getting crisper, the holidays are in full bloom, and before you know it, the 2019 calendar year will be over. A new year rings in the opportunity for new marketing ideas! But you shouldn’t wait until January 1st to think of a game plan for your business for 2020. Why should you make a marketing plan? Not only will you be ready to hit the ground running, but brainstorming ideas and creating a plan ahead of time will keep you and your business organized. So, let’s look at the trends and strategies we expect to see in 2020 and how your business can incorporate them into your marketing plan.

Video Production and Live Streaming

Video production is one of the best tools to use for marketing in today’s digital world, just take a look at Youtube celebrities! Creators and Influencers have become worldwide sensations just from starting with sitting in front of a camera. With the power of video you can communicate with your audience, authenticate and personalize each video, and promote your business with sit-down videos, tutorials, Q&As, etc. Live streaming has been on the rise for the last couple of years in visual marketing, but it’s bigger than ever now. It’s estimated to be a $70.5 billion industry by 2021. Live videos are unedited, raw footage. This is a great way to have your audience really get to know you, it’s quick, and it’s easy.

Insight

There’s a lot of data your company has probably compiled in the week to last year; use it as a tool! Let’s say one of your posts, blogs, or emails got double or triple the amount of clicks than what’s average; why was it so popular? Take the data from your most popular and unpopular posts and determine what kind of content was it that you were putting out and why it was so successful. Turn that around for 2020, and try incorporating more of what worked into your marketing techniques. For example, if you’re a video marketing company and your blogs and posts on drone footage and use, are always successful and your posts about video editing aren’t so successful, try making video editing topics more exciting, and recycle and find new drone content to use.

Consumer Behavior

If your company still uses a lot of traditional marketing techniques, try switching your content up with something that your customers will find easy to use, useful, and fun. For example, most people are making google searches from their smartphones – make sure your content and website layout is compatible and easy to navigate from a phone screen. Furthermore, the way people make searches are different. Image and voice search are becoming more and more popular, so make sure your SEO is up to date! (Check out our blog on SEO here.)

With all of these things in mind, remember that it’s okay to step outside of the box! If there’s a new video editing technique you want to try out in one of your marketing videos, don’t be afraid to test it out. A new year means new opportunity, and your business should take full advantage of new trends, techniques, and strategies!

Text Marketing Gets Results

text marketing.

Business owners are always looking for ways to grow their contact lists. Whether it is going to networking events, social gatherings, or email campaigns; increasing the amount of prospects to keep the sales funnel full is crucial.  What is the one thing that most everybody has and they use everyday? You guessed it, cellphones! So why not use them to your advantage? Our firm recently used a texting campaign in order to grow a clients list. 

The Oconomowoc Chamber of Commerce was discussing ways at their monthly marketing meeting to drive traffic to a section of their website.  This section is where chamber members can post specials, coupons, or other items for the public to take advantage. Currently, the section was not being utilized to its full potential by the members so the chamber wanted to find a way to increase its use by its members. There were many attempts using other methods to increase its use but those methods had fair success.  We made a suggestion to try a text marketing campaign during a recent locally sponsored movie event in the downtown area.

The approach for this was actually very simple.  The creation of the texting account took no more than 10 minutes to set up and ready to go.  The staff of the chamber created a flyer that business owners could post in their stores for the public to see during this event as many people enter a variety of stores during the event.  An email was drafted and sent to all members announcing the new “texting program” and urging them to participate. All the businesses needed to do was print the flyer, post in their store and place their special on the chambers website through their portal.  That was it..quick and painless.  

The chamber saw a dramatic increase in usage of this section of their website by its members totaling an increase of 17 additional users.  But what was even better than this was the increase in contacts and visits the chamber received through the texts. On the night of the event, there were 108 direct responses to the texting campaign from people entering in the chambers texting number.  Which means that the chamber collected 108 new contacts to promote future events and members specials to. In addition to collecting new contacts, the members specials section of the website saw 292 user visits the night of the event. 

So as you can see through the results of this actual event, you can use technology to your advantage to raise awareness for your business and grow your audience.  It just takes a little time and effort to set up the system and you’re off and running.

What is SEO and How Can Your Business Use It?

Online marketing is an important factor to the growth of any business nowadays, especially through search engines. You have PPC, which are Pay-Per-Click ads and SEO, which is Search Engine Optimization, or in other words, real and organic clicks. Sure, PPC is a great option for your company, but did you know that organic results are 8.5x more likely to be clicked on than paid search results?

SEO can be intimidating and difficult to understand, but we’ve broken it down into simple terms. SEO is a process of optimization for your website to accumulate and receive real, organic, and unpaid clicks from search engine results. When a user searches for certain keywords or topics, search engines scan through websites to figure out which ones are easiest to navigate through, read, and understand.

So, how can your business most efficiently take advantage of and use SEO?

The first thing you can do is make changes and improvements to your website where needed. Search engines file through many different things on your website like your title page, subheadings, internal links, and body content. By making improvements to these things, search engines can better understand what your business is about, dive deeper into understanding your business with internal links, and better find keywords and phrases to match the user’s search.

As mentioned before, keywords and phrases are also important to content marketing. The more content you create around certain keywords, the higher your page will rank on search engine result pages. This can also be carried over to voice searching. Voice search is the new way people are using their search engines, and you should take advantage of it! It’s said by ComScore that by 2020, 50% of all searches will be voice searches. When speaking, people are typically more conversational, so your website’s content should match that to better enforce keywords and phrases.

Content marketing isn’t only useful to your customers, but can help out search engines, too. It’s important to have plenty of content, like blog posts, videos, and social media posts to rank your page higher in search results. How is this helpful? Well, let’s say you posted a few blogs and a video on how to use camera drones. Users googling “how to use camera drone” will want to spend more time on your site because there are a lot of tools you have provided for them to navigate through.

Stay relevant! It’s important to consistently add to your site because search engines and users love good content. If you’re in a rut for ideas for a blog post or visual content, take an old post and rewrite it to make it more up-to-date and fresh. Don’t post something just because your site’s due for an update. Take time to search for quality content that people want to read about; quality content makes for a trusted relationship between you and your users.
SEO can be a long process, but by taking the time to really up your content with keywords and videos, and staying active on your site and socials, you’re sure to bring in new and organic traffic.

Tips When Using Social Media

Social media tips.

So, you started up a social media page for your business! Maybe on Facebook, or Twitter, or Instagram. You read articles and watched videos on the importance of having a social media presence, but how can you effectively use it? Below is a master list of the top 7 tips to keep in mind when using social media to help your business succeed.

  1. Have an objective

    How do you want to use social media to help your business? What are you trying to accomplish? Determine; do you want to improve sales or improve your relationship with your customers? What kind of image do you want for your business online? Once you identify how you want to use your social pages, it will be a lot easier to create content for them.

  2. Be visual

    Photos and videos are very useful when communicating with prospects and clients. It’s a great way to show off a product or to give a face to your company. People don’t always have time to sit and read every post they see on their Facebook feed, so using a photo or video that compliments your post can catch their eye and make them want to find out more.

  3. Be authentic and transparent

    Social media is a great tool to create a relationship and open communication with your clients. Whether it’s posting a photo, video, or a blog post about your business, your audience will get to know who you are, what your business is all about, and what you can do for them. Honesty is a key component to developing trust and accreditation.

  4. Identify your target audience

    Let’s say your business makes products for hair growth for men – your primary audience probably isn’t a teenage girl. Research what main platforms your target audience uses, their means of consumption (video, articles, etc.), and what kind of language you should be using to best communicate with them.

  5. Create a calendar

    Not only does creating a calendar help to keep you organized, but it can help grow your online presence. It’s estimated that internet users spend an average of 2 hours and 22 minutes a day on social media. If prospects become familiar with your presence online, they feel more connected to your business. With consistent posting, you can also determine what content is getting more views and feedback, and you will eventually get into the groove of what kind of posts work for your company and what doesn’t.

  6. Step outside of your comfort zone

    Things are constantly changing, especially in today’s digital-dominated world. If you see a trend blossoming on social media, like video marketing for example, don’t hesitate to branch out. Research the topic to figure out where to start and how to most effectively integrate it into your business. Don’t be afraid to experiment with new strategies to improve your online presence.

  7. Be interactive

    Social media was created to be social! It’s important to consistently answer prospective customers’ questions, but it’s also important to spark up a conversation. Social platforms are a great way for you to connect with your clients, partnering businesses, or people inside your company! Let them know that they are heard and that you acknowledge them by taking time to connect with them. Social media is a great tool to promote your business, but it’s an even better tool to show your business’ appreciation!

Drone Registration Scams—Be Aware!

Drone Registration Scams, be aware.

When you own a drone, it is mandatory that you register it with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) as part of the rules and regulations created in 2016. With the creation of these laws, it opens the doors for others to try and make a quick buck! The FAA has warned people who own drones to beware.

There are lots of organizations that offer their help to commercial and hobby drone owners to file an application for a registration number. Many of these so called companies try to match the look of the FAA’s website with graphics and some have gone as far as including the FAA logo. Some have seen these agencies state that they are an approved agency of the FAA. Believe us when we tell you that they aren’t and you’ll be wasting money by using them.

Some of these companies have extorted fees of almost $150 for their “service”. This is way too high, especially when the actual fee to register your drones is only $5.00 through the FAA website. For hobbyists, you will receive one number for all the drones you own and for others the fee is for each drone. The FAA does not have any regulation or will legitimize any of these outside services.

There is really only one way to be certain that your drone is registered properly and legally with the FAA. We recommend you avoid registering your unmanned aircraft anywhere but at the FAA Drone Zone. Save yourself the high fees or possible drone registration scams by only using this method. If you have any questions, you can always reach out to us at [email protected]. We’d be glad to steer you in the right direction.

Benefits of Email Marketing For Small Businesses

email marketing for small businesses.

Email is a tool most people use everyday. Email marketing is a cost effective solution to directly communicate with your customers, especially for small businesses. Whether it be a monthly newsletter, “Happy Birthday” message or seasonal specials, sending emails to your clients can be a great way to increase brand awareness and help drive sales. Here are five benefits of email marketing for small businesses:

  1. Increased Awareness

    Email marketing is an easy way to stay in front of your target audience. Send them messages to stay on top of their mind. Be consistent for the best results. If your email marketing schedule is inconsistent, people might not remember your business and will be less likely to open the message. Keep your messages fun and relevant for best results.

  2. Consistent Communication

    Like mentioned in the above point, it’s important to send out your messages consistently. Whether it’s once or twice a month or quarterly, make sure you have a plan. You don’t want to bombard people with emails all the time but you also want to stay in front of them. Sending out an email once a year is not going to be an effective solution for your marketing plan.

  3. Increased Website Traffic

    It’s important to have strong call to actions in your emails. Often times, an important call to action would be sending recipients to your website. This needs to be done strategically. You can’t always send them to your home page. Which page is going to have the most relevant information? It could be a service page, a product page, or the contact page. Send them to a page where they would be expecting to go based off the information in the email and a page that will give them necessary information to increase conversions.

  4. Build Credibility

    People are more likely to open a message from a sender they know. Make sure subject lines are relevant so the recipients can see who you are and how you can help them. You don’t want your messages to look like spam. Know your readers and make sure your content is relevant to the people receiving the message. All of these things build credibility for your business and can help increase sales through your email marketing. Get people to trust your business.

  5. Cost Effective Option

    Email marketing offers more cost-effective benefits than direct mail, making this a great strategy for small businesses. With email marketing being a digital platform, you don’t need to worry about printing costs or postage. For an even more cost effective solution, collect emails from your customers and potential customers to build an email list so you don’t need to purchase a list. This will lead to best results and ROI as you’ve already established credibility and a relationship with these recipients.