Why is video needed in your Marketing mix?

This is a business team gathering around a laptop.

According to Wordstream, viewers retain 95% of information from watching a video compared to retaining 10% from reading the same information. This trend is astonishing to me but also understandable. When I look back at things I buy online or things I learn, it is the same for me. As a matter of fact, I think it may be worse because I can’t read a long article with my attention span but I can definitely watch a video or listen to a podcast. At this point, I am wondering how much more to write and how to line it up. According to that statistic, I should end it here! However, please continue and choose to be the 10%, then please go and watch the video or listen to the podcast to remember the rest.

 

Every good content marketing strategy encompasses a mixture of different things: blog, video, social, web, ads, and podcasts. Obviously, it is called content marketing for a reason! Think about those things, how many of those strategies can you incorporate into a video? The big question that we always get is, why?

 

  1. According to the same article on Wordstream, a video on your home screen can increase conversions by up to 80%. Who can’t use more leads?
  2. Video creates a personal touch that you can’t get anywhere else. The old saying, “People do business with people they like” is still important today. It may actually be more important because of the internet.
  3. According to an article written by Vidyard, 65% of viewers watch more than ¾ of a video. This is not even close to what people read!
  4. Search Engine Optimization asks you to link and backlink as much as possible as long as it is relevant content. What can be more relevant than you talking about your product on a video?
  5. Content Marketing Institute says that audiences are 10 times more likely to engage, share, and comment on a video than they are a blog or social post.
  6. Last but certainly not least, email is more seen and more returned with a video in the message.

 

About a year ago, a friend of mine told me that he was going to start doing a weekly video newsletter along with his regular newsletter. I got his newsletter and I fully admit that I only read about half of it on a regular basis. Since he started doing a video newsletter every Monday, I have learned so much about what is happening and what he is doing. I never knew most of that information before, even though I received his regular newsletter. This is an example of the power of video at its finest and a perfect reason to incorporate video into your marketing campaign.

 

The big obstacle that you will face with this is yourself. Most people do not like to be on video and admittedly, I am one of them. I believe I have a face for radio but I do videos on a regular basis because that is what is being asked of me by our clients. In the next article, I will talk about what you will do with a video once you have it.

6 steps to retail marketing

This is a view of a mall from the top floor.

Marketing in the retail world can be a lot of fun. It also can be very time consuming and monotonous. However, without marketing in the retail world, you will not maintain or grow. Retail has an attrition rate and it doesn’t matter how long you have been in business or how great of a reputation you have, there still has to be marketing. You have to replace the people you lose yearly or you might as well shut your doors right now. How do you do this, is the question and how do you do it well?

1. It all starts with building a brand. You have to have a brand recognition or you will not grow. When people think of the typical products you sell, you want your name to come to mind first. In marketing, there is a rule called the rule of seven. Now, some marketers will say it is the rule of 10 or a rule of 5, regardless, it is still important that you follow it. A person must see your brand 7 times before they start thinking about you for a certain product. How those 7 times is achieved can be hard, however, the rest of this blog explains a few tricks.

2. How you are found is important and that is where listings come into the equation. There are literally hundreds of sites that your business should be listed on depending on exactly what your product is. Personally, I believe that if you are listed properly on the top sites then the rest will follow over time. What people do not realize is that everything HAS to be exactly the same across all of your online listings, right down to the dot in the same place.

3. Social media marketing is going to give you the most bang for your buck. Depending on your demographic you will utilize Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or LinkedIn. Anyone of these 4 are going to be important, however, the two most important are going to be Facebook and Twitter. The most important thing with these platforms is to not post just 1 time per week about your store and expect people to flock in. You have to post regularly and you have to not only educate the consumer about you but also about your products.

4. You have to create a personalized experience. Just as we talked about social being important well, so is mobile marketing. It is said that 58% of people will look on cell phones before they look for your store on a desktop or laptop. With the world of artificial intelligence growing it is very important to learn new ways to use personalized mobile marketing in order to attract new clients.

5. Reward programs are becoming very popular. Create an awards program through email marketing and offer a free product for being a member of your newsletter program. Once you start getting emails from consumers, do not miss a single month of sending newsletters out. I would suggest that you send out an email at a minimum of bi-weekly. One can be a newsletter talking about anything new that you have done and the other can be an offer of the month for members of the group.

6. People will come in and spend more if they know you are supporting the community. Your local chamber of commerce or business group will have a list of events that are community-based in order to help you find a great charity or event to support. Once you find one, offer your support or sponsorship then market about your contribution. Millennials today want to know that you support a charity or local event. They will remember that and come back to you because of it.

Having a retail establishment is a very exciting and fun thing. In today’s world, you have a great opportunity to provide a great location for people to get what you need. The more people that know who you are, the better. With the digital world, you have a great opportunity to tell the world about you! Have fun with it but remember to be respectful and responsible. You will be successful with these suggestions.

How is your budget doing? How about your leads?

This is an image of measuring your budget.

It is very important that you keep up with your budget on a regular basis and track what your Cost per lead or cost per sale is. Ultimately you should be keeping this up on a regular basis however at minimum you should do this quarterly.

The first step is to determine how much you have spent on marketing so far. Hopefully you have been tracking this independently if not I am sure your accounting department has. Hopefully either you or they are keeping track of where the money is going. Not only that it is going to marketing but where in marketing it is going.

The next thing to determine is how many total sales you have for the the quarter. Again you should be getting this information on a regular basis from your sales team so this should be something you know but if you do not then find out from your sales manager. This should be broken down by new sales and existing sales. This should also be broken down by the amount of sales and the amount of leads. In short, how many appointments the sales reps ran and how many appointments the sales reps closed.

Now here comes the math:
Marketing spend/amount of leads = Cost per lead
Marketing spend/amount of sales = Cost per sale

I suggest you go further as well. Hopefully you have been asking where leads are coming from, television ads, radio ads, web, and social are just some of the categories. You should be able to get this same information from your sales if in fact you did get it.

Here comes the math again:
Marketing spend for category/leads from category = Cost per lead for category
Marketing spend for category/sales from category = Cast per sale for category

When you set up your budget I showed you how to do this same thing for your budget. How are your actuals working towards these numbers? What category is trending higher than budgeted? What category is trending lower than budgeted? What should you be focusing on for the next quarter to fix the differences? This is how you know that you are on track with what you budgeted and expected and this is how you stay on top of your budget make it adaptable.

Event Marketing. How to do it right?

This is the text Events, with a red liquid v.

This is the time of year that event marketing becomes a very important thing for most people. The question is, how do you do it and how do you do it right? For a perfect event marketing effort you need to take full advantage of all the free things you can. If your budget allows, then take advantage of some paid advertising also. Here is a timeline of when things should be done and some resources to do so:

16 weeks prior to the event you should send out an email to your database. In this email there should be a story of why you are doing the event. If possible or if you have them, you should have a sponsor also write a story about why they are involved. Guest blogging gives a lot of validity on the event. Social media announcement is key to this step and an event on social media should be created. Last but not least, find at least three local social media influencers to help you promote this event. Invite them to the event personally and thank them for considering coming.

14 weeks prior you should send another email and write another blog about new things that have been solidified for the event. Maybe you have a new sponsor or a new member, or maybe you have another portion of the event that you didn’t publicize before. This is also the time that you should be issuing your first press release. Utilize sites like PRLOG.com to get it out to the media. Find local editor emails online for the local papers and make sure you send them a personal copy of the press release. If your budget allows, this is the time to create an event and start publicizing on Search Engine Marketing and Paid Social. Everybody thinks that they should spread the budget evenly for the next 14 weeks, I challenge that. If you have $280 for 14 weeks of advertising do not advertise at $20 per week. Your final couple of weeks are going to be the most important to get the public to the event so save at least 50% of the $280 for the final 3 weeks. Ultimately, you want to spend 25% of the amount in the final week of registration or the final week prior to the event. Obviously continuing to post on social media regularly is very important to the success.

Here is where the timing gets skewed. Our biggest success is when we take the remaining time and spread things out therefore maximizing the amount of times people see the event. Emails and blogs should be posted every 3 weeks. Social Media posts should go out 1–2 times per week. Regular press releases should be sent at week 10 and then every 3 weeks with the last one going out 1 week prior to the event.

The final week prior to the event, you should send out your last email, your last press release, and turn up your social media to at least three times that week. You should check in with your influencers to verify that they are coming, then make your final checklist to assure everything is ready. Make sure you turn up your paid advertising and maximize who it goes to. This is also the time to do retargeting and make sure everyone that has been to your website sees the event again. Also, reach out to your local papers and see if they are going to be able to come to the event.

Now, here is were most people fail. The event is done, everything is cleaned up, and you want to take a break because it has been a whirlwind these last couple of months. I am sorry to say it but, NO it is not time to relax yet. You have three days to get a follow up email out thanking people for coming. Send out surveys via your multiple advertising directions to see how everybody enjoyed the event. Follow up with media to see what they thought and if and when the media will be running an article or video about the event. Once you get all of this, you share it and write a press release about the success of the event. Include quotes from executives about how they felt the event went and quotes from the people that came. It is time to start promoting for next year! Isn’t it grand how the job of a an event marketer never ends?

Marketing and Community volunteering. Do they go together?

This is a compilation of Community advocate words.

Let me give you the short answer, YES definitely volunteer!! This would not be a blog if I just left it at that though, as I need to make sure this article is SEO friendly. Many of us do things for others and being a good corporate citizen, we will take on community needs quite often. As a company, we take on about 10 of them in total. Even though we are a small business, we have a belief that the more we give the more we get. Our belief in this philosophy is so strong that our president requires us to be a part of something. We have youth coaches, board members, and volunteers all as part of our organization. Admittedly though, we have never really taken any credit for anything we do. We do it because we love it; we believe in the organization and their cause. That is where we are right and wrong at the same time.

We are right because morally it is the right thing to do. One of the organizations that we help take care of is our veterans, which we all should have a responsibility to. Some other organizations we are involved with are taking care of our children and of families that do not have the money for health insurance. Last but not least, we help churches with marketing for new members of a congregation and also internally with current congregates. We believe that God has put us in a position to help and that is why we HAVE to do it.

However, we are wrong as well. We are wrong to not take the credit for helping. We are wrong in not trying to advertise that we are helping a great organization. Ultimately, if you think about it, we are helping the organization and ourselves at the same time. By us saying that we are helping the organization we are telling more people about the organization and the mission they believe in.

This can be a double edged sword however. You want to check into the organization before you start supporting them. A few things we take a look at are location, financials, leadership and their overall goal. Remember that your name is going to be attached with this organization so you want to make sure that they are a reputable company that supports the mission they created. We have all heard of large organizations that have a reputation for extravagance. The amount of money you donate does not go directly to the mission. I personally have heard of admin fees reaching 80% or more. So, make sure you do your homework first and make sure that you not only want the mission, but the organization is one that you can offer your full support to as well.

So, YES you should take credit for your generosity. You are helping them as much, if not more, than you are helping yourself. Whatever you decide is right for you and your organization, your heart is in the right place. Charitable organizations depend on people like you to improve and enhance the mission they set into motion.

On page and Off Page SEO what is the difference?

This is decorative text of SEO, Search engine optimization.

The latest and most important thing about websites is SEO also known as Search Engine Optimization. However there are 2 different kinds, so what is the difference and why are both important?

First, lets cover On page SEO. Searchmetrics defines On-Page SEO as, “Onpage optimization (a.k.a on-page SEO) refers to all measures that can be taken directly within the website in order to improve its position in the search rankings.” This involves a few things:

Meta Description – This is the page description of a webpage that is keyworded to match. They should be no longer than 16 characters and must be relevant to the page they are describing.

Title Tags or Meta Tags – This refers to the description in the URL. These are not seen on the page but they are both seen and ranked on the search. These are also referred to as page titles. These should be no longer than 70 keywords and they must not repeat keywords.

Headings – We refer to these a lot as H tags. H1, H2, H3…. These are tags that are used for the creation of headings. They will most likely be the heading for the post you are creating.

Site map – As the name implies, it is a map of what is on your site and where exactly the content is. Google uses this to crawl your site and create the roadmap of your site.

Now, let’s cover Off-page SEO. This is a technique that is used to improve the position of a website in the search engine results page (SERPs). This includes many items but most importantly are:

Social Media – Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Youtube, Linkedin and Pinterest are just to name a few. Social media allows you to create stories while linking and creating a web of links that go back to your site.

Listing Services – Sites like Yelp, Yahoo, Google and Facebook all have to be tied and linked back to your site. More importantly are the smaller spaces like Hotfrog and Citynet. The key to this is that everything must be EXACTLY the sames right down to the dot in certain places, otherwise it hurts you.

Blogging – Writing a weekly, monthly or even quarterly blog with links back to that section of your website will increase your backlinks.

Podcasting – Again, this helps create backlinks to section of your website. It also shows you as an authority of the market you are in.

This list could go on for many pages but you get the point. The more backlinks and associations that you can get to your website, the more it helps get you ranked. Ultimately you can think of On page SEO as your website and how it is created and maintained and Off site SEO as everything else you should be doing across the web. Both are very important for your website and where you show up. Off site SEO also creates a relationship with your company prior to them getting to your website and On page SEO carries that through to the ultimate step which is conversion.

Who cares about Voice search? You should!

This is a Google Home device.

We keep hearing about voice search and how important it is going to be, therefore, we want to take the time to explain what it is. Voice search is asking an intelligent device a question and getting an answer.

The four most popular devices that use voice search are:
Alexa – Made by Amazon, some say that it was the first “Voice Assistant” available. It also utilizes the Bing network for answers.
Siri – Mostly used on Apple devices such as the iPhone and iPad. It was utilized by Bing originally, however it switched to Google services towards the end of 2017.
Cortana – Microsoft made this available on many laptops and tablets. It answers via the Bing network.
Google Home – Created by Google to compete against other “Voice Assistant” platforms. It uses the Google search engine.

You are probably thinking, “Who cares? I don’t have one!” However, this couldn’t be more wrong if you are a business owner. “40% of adults now use voice search once per day,” according to Location World. Furthermore, “50% of all searches will be voice searches by 2020,” according to comscore. The no screen revolution is coming and you need to be ready!

How do you get ready? Well, it all comes down to SEO!

First of all, the way you think about keywords must change. Most voice searches involve more than five words that are spoken. People do not talk in Keywords. When was the last time you said “Restaurant near me” to anybody? You may have even typed it into a web browser this way. When we speak to voice search we say something like “Hey Alexa, Who has the best fish fry in Milwaukee?”. Your site needs to reflect these words to be ranked. So having keywords is great but you also need to keyword how you speak. Put yourself in the shoes of the potential client, the way that you would ask questions would most likely be the way they do. Of course, this means that your keyword research is going to require a lot more work.

One great way we recently read about is creating a frequently ask questions page with the answers. Brainstorm with your team the top 20 questions the team gets asked and create a page for the questions. Say the top one you get asked is, “What is the best process for creating a great website?” then use it and keyword it. This way, when someone asks Alexa “Hey Alexa, what is the best process for creating a website?” your information will come up and say, “According to www._____.com the best process is…..”

Many experts have different ways of dealing with voice search as it is still so new. We are all figuring it out, however, rest assured it is here now and it is here to stay. There is no fighting it, you must embrace it, and not only embrace it but get ahead of it.

To Be Found Or Not To Be Found, That Is The Question

This is a woman searching something on Google on her laptop.

When you go into your phone and you type in air conditioning repair you get a list of people nearby that do that, right? Imagine if you are the business owner and somebody is 20 feet from your location and they type in air conditioning repair but your name doesn’t come up? That would probably upset you, correct? Well that is because you are not listed correctly with the major search engines. The last I checked there are over 700 online directories that you can be listed on. Do all of them make sense to you? NO.

There are many directories that are specific to industries that do not make sense for everybody. If you are a doctors office then it makes sense to be listed on WebMD however if you do AC repair then it does not. How do you know which ones you should be listed on? How much time does it take to go into each one individually and make sure everything is exact. That is where a Marketing company comes in with listing expertise.

Listings are very important to SEO for a website. There are a lot of decisions that have to be made with listing and no matter how little you think they are it is very important that you make decisions prior to starting the project. Decisions like Spelling Avenue or using Ave with or without a period? What phone number do you want to use? What email? What are your hours? If you are a restaurant do you want the menu? What pictures do you want to use? What keywords do you want to use? These all seem like basic things but they are very important because ALL of your listings need to be EXACT across all platforms!

Furthermore if you take this project on yourself you have to go in and fix these on a very regular basis. There are crawlers that will go in and change the information within 6 days of fixing it. At first it is one or maybe 2 sites. After 30 days over half of the sites you fixed are changed. That is why it is much more cost effective to work with a Listing Power user service like we are. We constantly fix listings and once they are fixed the crawlers can not change them. There is a fee of course, however how much would it cost you to have to go in and fix them all the time?

What I hear all the time is that I will hire an employee to do this and make sure I stay up to date. Let’s figure this out mathematically. You pay an employee $10 per hour to go in and fix your listings and keep them up to date. Each listing service will take about 30 minutes to fix. That means you are paying that employee $360 every time they have to go through all 72 sites. Now only about half of them get changes monthly. So you will have to pay an employee $180 every month to keep them fixed. These numbers do not include taxes, insurance and all the extra payments you need to make for every employee you have. For a listing professional to come in and have them constantly fixed it will cost you between $100 – $150 per month. So the math is easy right?

You are found online, now what?

When creating a website there’s many things to think about. You want it to represent you and your company. You want it to represent your core beliefs and how you want the public to perceive those beliefs.

 

We come across one issue all the time. We offer free web reports and listing reports as part of our service. The web report is graded on many levels with 100 be the highest score that your website can get. 90 if you do not have a SSL certificate. We constantly run across sites that are 85-90 without SSL certificate. Pretty good right? Wrong! See the issue is that they are not getting conversions off of the site. The site is Mobile, It is Keyworded, it is maintained, updated, easy to navigate and linked to analytics. It ticks all of the boxes for a good site except one.

 

Can you guess what it is?

This one thing it is missing is more important than anything else.

This one thing they are missing is the largest representation of the company that can be.

This one thing is what makes people want to click to learn more.

Do you give up on what it is yet?

 

ATTRACTION! Yes I said attraction! You can have the best site in the world. It can get people to come to your site by the hundreds or even thousands. However if it does not look good than people will not want to know more about your company, product or service? Why do people want to click the contact form if they do not like what they see online? 81% of consumers research you online before they make a decision so in this case you are found but you do not look good as a company.

 

Imagine a website likes this scenario. You are looking to buy a car. You run across 2 ads for the exact same car and the exact same price and mileage. One is an ad that is just words and the other has pictures and a video. Which ad will you request information from? The same goes for your website. You can have the best wording in the world and you could have a literary genius write it but if people can’t see it then they can’t relate to it. I read this statistic recently “90% of information transmitted to the brain is visual which the brain will process 60,000 times faster than text information. That is an amazing number. I also read another statistic that having a video on your homepage will increase your conversions by 80%. We are in a visual world so your website needs to be as well!

How do I choose the right Marketing company?

An image of a group of people working together.

Choosing the right Marketing company is a very difficult decision and I would say that you have to do your homework and due diligence. You would think that you need to find a company that has worked with your product before. A company that has had success in your product line before or a company that knows your product. This thought is both right and wrong in my opinion. I know some great Marketing companies that do a very good job that do have verticals. They do the same thing with the same type of company and they have had great success with that model. I also have know some great marketing companies that concentrate on only one client in any specific industry or vertical. I have worked with both types of companies and they both have given me success in one form or another.

What I suggest is go with a company you trust. Interview all options and go with the person that you feel is truly going to give you the best bang for your buck. There are 5 simple questions that you should ask a marketing company.

What Key performance indicators do you measure?
Key performance indicators are one of the most important measurements to know that your Marketing Company is working hard for you. Depending on which Marketing avenue they are doing it could be calls, clicks to a site, conversions, impressions, views, or many other things depending on if it is Traditional or Non-Traditional based advertising.

How do you evaluate your success with my business?
A Marketing company must be able to track what is happening with your account. It is
very difficult sometimes to track everything however ultimately a Cost Per lead should be
established and evaluated on a regular basis.

Who will be working on my account?
Most times it is not the Account Executive that will actually be handling the day to day of your account. So find out who the manager is and what their experience is.

What marketing medium do you favor?
There are many different kinds of Marketing companies. Some specialize on Digital Marketing, some on website design and other on traditional avenues. A great company can work with all of them so you can get one Fantastic overall plan.

What do you know about my company?
Ultimately this all comes down to trust. Do I trust you with my money to spend in the advertising world? Therefor any good Marketing company is going to do some research on your company before they get there. They may even give you reports or a synopsis of what they found or how they found you. If they don’t then how do they even know they can help you?

After all this you will have a feeling of trust with the company that you choose. Ultimately that is what you need. A Marketing company that you choose should be a will be a major part of your team.