Benefits of Doing Business Online

Taking your business online offers a variety of different benefits. Here are a few of the most important.

• Increase brand authority
• Broaden reach
• Cultivate stronger relationships with existing customers
• Optimize customer support
• Decrease operational costs
• Help potential customers reach you more easily

Building an online presence for your business is an important step to increase sales and gain leverage over your competitors. One of the most important tools you should use during this process is Google My Business.

What Does Google My Business Do?

Google My Business provides you with the opportunity to create an online business listing through Google. Doing this helps potential customers find the information they need to visit your store, shop online, or contact you for more information. Since Google is the most popular search engine, creating a business listing that appears here is a great way to promote your business and provide your target market with as much information about your products or services as possible.

Where Can You Find a Google My Business Listing?

When you search for a business on Google, there’s typically a small profile with photos, hours of operation, the business address, customer reviews, and other information listed on the right side of the page the search results appear on. This is the Google My Business profile.

Is Google My Business Free?

Google My Business is completely free and allows you to connect with customers using Google’s platform. If used effectively, Google My Business can help increase sales and provide you with valuable data regarding your target audience.

Why Should You Create a Google My Business Listing?

If you utilize Google My Business, you can easily manage how your company appears in Google search results and ensure people who are looking to learn more about your business can do so easily. Your business listing helps you earn customer trust, establish authority, and reach your target market more effectively.

What Else Can You Do With a Google My Business Account?

Through Google My Business, you can:

• Update your company profile when information, such as your address, hours of operation, etc.
• Use photos to showcase your business and the products or services it provides.
• Create an open dialogue with customers. You can respond to reviews and provide customers with ways to contact you more easily.
• Gather data and track insights to see how many people are taking action through your Google profile.

How Can You Establish Brand Authority Through Google My Business?

Google has created a set of guidelines for creating a Google My Business account. Only businesses with a physical location are allowed to create an account. It’s important to ensure you avoid prohibited content, maintain consistent branding across the platform, describe the services and products provided by your business as accurately as possible, and list your address and service area accurately.

Google My Business allows you to list a variety of information about your business. While all of the information you’re allowed to include might not apply, every business should list their name, address, phone number, website address, short description, service or product category, and business attributes to ensure that Google can utilize this data on other platforms to improve local SEO for your business. Make sure that information included on your Google My Business listing is consistent with what’s on your website to improve your Google search ranking as well.

Google My Business is perhaps the most important tool to utilize when seeking to boost your business’s online presence and it’s free. It allows your customers to browse your inventory, visit your physical location, and contact you more easily, which leads to an increase in sales and a reputation as a reputable business. Is your GMB optimized properly? If you’re not sure or think you could use some help, call Brown Creative Group, and we’ll audit it for free.

The post Google My Business – Everything You Need to Know appeared first on Brown Creative Group.

The good thing with Facebook is that you can even advertise on Instagram and Messenger, which generates better ROI. However, if you want to create better marketing campaigns, you should track the activities of your site’s visitors. This is where a Facebook pixel comes in. Read on to gain more insights.

What Is a Facebook Pixel?

A Facebook pixel is a javascript code that you add to your web pages to collect data concerning your customers. It helps you track the effectiveness of your Facebook Ads. You will thus know what better works for your target audience to increase ad relevance.

The pixel works by triggering cookies to track users’ interaction with your website and Facebook Ads. The Pixel interprets customers’ actions as events. They could be anything from scroll depth, time spent on your pages, page views, or even purchases.

How to Use a Facebook Pixel on Your Website

To add a pixel to your site, go to Facebook Business Manager. On the menu, select pixels. Name your pixel, add your website URL, then click create. From here, you have a chance to either manually install the pixel or connect to a partner platform. Facebook will give you the code, which you should copy and paste to your website’s header.

Next, enable automatic advanced matching to allow Facebook to provide more accurate tracking. It achieves this by using customers’ information already present on your site, like their email addresses and phone numbers. Now select the type of events you want to track for your business.

Evaluate whether your newly added pixel communicates with your website by sending test traffic. If you successfully set it up, you should get a notification that the pixel is now active on your site. You might need to include pixel notices to inform your site visitors that you are collecting data through cookies.

How Do I Know I’m Getting the Most Out of My Facebook Pixel?

After installing the Facebook Pixel, it sets you apart from your competitors, and you should begin to see better returns from your Facebook marketing. However, if you fail to install the pixel correctly, you might not be able to gather the data you need to grow your business. The success of your marketing campaign will depend on what you choose to do with the data collected from the Facebook pixel. You will get the most out of the pixel if you use the data in the following ways.

Build a Custom Audience

When a customer views your ad, proceeds to your landing page, and buys your products or services, the Facebook Pixel records a report of this action and sends the details to your Ads Manager. You will thus know the exact type of people interested in your brand.

You can create a custom audience with such information and reach out to them again with relevant ads. Thus, the Facebook Pixel ensures that you focus Facebook marketing efforts on the right target audience, who are more likely to take the desired action.

Conversion Tracking

When you install a pixel to your site, be sure to also add Event Tracking to understand better how customers interact with your site and Facebook ads. You will therefore know the rate of conversions on your website as a result of your Facebook Ads. The Facebook Pixel will even let you know which specific campaign brings in higher conversions.

In case there is a specific event that you are interested in tracking, you can set up custom conversions to refine your ads strategy. Also, you will know the various pages people visit using different devices. For instance, you might notice that your website visitors click your ads through a mobile device and later makes purchases using a desktop. From this information, it’s clear that you need to optimize your website’s mobile friendliness to improve experiences.

Retargeting

The Facebook Pixel will also show you other customers who have shown interest in your products although they didn’t purchase. It gives you information about people who viewed your ad, visited your page but later canceled purchases. You can therefore show target ads to such people.

For instance, you can send a Retargeting Ad to site visitors who abandoned a shopping cart promoting the exact item they showed interest in. It increases the chances of closing a deal and keeps your brand fresh in potential clients’ minds. When a customer sees a retargeting ad, there is a 70% possibility of purchasing your products over your competitors.

Create Look Alike Audience

A Facebook Pixel also allows you to group people with similar interests, likes, or demographics. After experimenting with a few custom audiences, you can now reach out to a new audience, those who exhibit identical behaviors or interest to your custom audience. This means sending your ads to people who have similar buying habits like your customers, presenting your brand in front of valuable new eyes. It increases the chances of expanding your potential customer base.

Optimize Your Ads Campaigns Better

Since the Facebook Pixel tracks your site visitors’ behaviors, you can use it to create more engaging ads. You can align the ads more closely with your marketing campaign goals. Also, you will know how much time people spend on your website. This way, you can focus more on high-value customers. You will also see the cost per lead to plan your resources for better ROI.

Bottom Line

Facebook Pixels are a handy tool that helps marketers create, manage and optimize campaigns. After installing the Facebook Pixel, you should constantly monitor it to ensure that you use it to its full capacity. If the Pixel doesn’t give you a complete view of your site visitors’ interactions with your website, you might need professional assistance. Contact us today, and we will help ensure that you get the most out of your Facebook Pixel.

The post What is a Facebook Pixel and Why is it Important? appeared first on Brown Creative Group.

Why Do Customers Leave Negative Reviews?

There are many reasons why someone might provide negative feedback about his or her experience with your business. For example, an individual may have had a difficult time communicating with your sales, marketing, or customer service teams.

Customers may also provide negative feedback if they can’t find the items that they need in a reasonable amount of time. Those who order products from your online store may also be upset if they weren’t able to check out in a timely manner, didn’t receive their order by its estimated arrival date, or were sent the wrong items.

If your firm offers a service, clients expect that a job will be done right the first time. Therefore, they won’t hesitate to let you know if they had to call someone else to do the job that you were hired to take care of.

How Should You Respond to Negative Customer Reviews?

It’s generally in your best interest to respond quickly to customer complaints. Ideally, you’ll thank them for their feedback, apologize for the inconvenience that the issue caused and offer a proper response with a solution. When responding to customer feedback, it’s important to do so in a sincere manner. Otherwise, your customers may feel as if you only care about their money.

In many cases, responding to customer concerns in a timely, genuine and constructive way provides you with a chance to make a wrong a right. It’s important to understand that customers are willing to give your brand a second chance if they believe that your company has learned from its mistakes.

Receiving negative feedback can be an opportunity to learn about problems that you were previously unaware of. For example, if customers are complaining that your site keeps crashing, it should prompt you to discuss this with your IT team. Doing so may help you create a permanent fix that will make it possible to provide site users with the experience that they deserve.

Why It’s a Good Idea to Keep Negative Reviews on Your Site

Allowing negative reviews to stay on your site allows prospective customers to get a real look into the business and how it operates. Generally speaking, consumers tend to be wary of any company that doesn’t have any negative feedback on its website. This is because they know that no company is perfect and that reputable businesses strive to be as transparent as possible.

Furthermore, keeping negative feedback on your site allows you to showcase the fact that you always respond to it professionally. Ultimately, a potential client will feel good about the fact that he or she will be treated properly if a problem arises. This can provide more trust in the brand, which can make it easier to attract more business.

You Can Make an Exception for Trolls

While you want to allow people to feel comfortable providing feedback, it is important to have ground rules. For instance, if a comment is posted more than once, the duplicate posts should be deleted. This prevents a single person from drowning out the voices of others who may have questions, comments, or concerns that deserve your attention.

It may also be in your company’s best interest to remove comments that have nothing to do with your products or services. This is because spam links might contain viruses, malware, or other harmful programs that are designed to annoy, harass or defraud those who click on them.

It rarely feels good to know that you weren’t able to meet a customer’s expectations. However, as a business owner, it’s important to understand that it’s impossible to make everyone happy at all times. Instead, you simply have to learn how to deal with any problems that arise professionally and pragmatically.

The post Can Negative Reviews Be Good For My Business? appeared first on Brown Creative Group.

Email marketing is a hot topic, and the issue isn’t going away. Marketing experts often cite the influence of new mediums for communications as a way to deflate the perception of email marketing as an effective method to reach customers. In reality, new outlets for communicating with potential customers ebb and flow; however, email marketing seems to have a certain staying quality that warrants some additional attention. 

The personalized experience is now a modern industry standard. Businesses need to understand that the ability to personalize the shopping experience has more weight than the actual product or service being sold. Email marketing campaigns can speak to the audience in terms of their past buying behavior without being overly sales-y. Many business owners contend that email marketing is the most reliable marketing tool for growing a business, and this article will elaborate on how that happens. 

Brown Creative Group’s breakdown of the basics of email marketing:

1. In the age of social media, why do people still use email marketing?

Some industry professionals speak about email marketing as if it’s a legacy format of a bygone era. This fact begs the question: Why do business owners still find value in email marketing campaigns? Social media is a great way to expose new audiences to your business’s products or services, but the level of engagement is limited. Email marketing grows your business by developing meaningful relationships with repeat customers. 

The ability to build relationships with returning customers through an email campaign is certainly a key feature of this marketing strategy. Email still represents a unique point of contact for customers. Many people will react to an email campaign if it reflects their interests and avoids resembling spam. In addition, 34 percent of the global population still uses email, and it’s estimated that around 196 billion emails get sent every single day; ignoring this fact is just bad for business.  

2. How can your business leverage the advantages of email marketing in your next campaign? 

Converting customers is really about connecting with people by addressing their actual needs, and email is a powerful way to communicate that message. Business email campaigns should speak directly to the interests of the customer. The best way to leverage this point of contact with the customer is to understand their pain point and address it immediately. This process is called personalization. 

People will respond when their actual needs are being addressed. You can even send out well-timed surveys to find out what your customers’ interests are before crafting a personalized email campaign. Invest in accurate feedback to get the high ROI your business needs to grow.

3. How can small and medium-sized business owners best evaluate the cost-effectiveness of a given email marketing campaign? 

The costs of launching the email campaign are relatively easy to track, but how can the business evaluate the campaign in terms of the return on the investment? One great idea is to use promotional codes, which can be tracked. This will show the business owner how many people responded to the particular email campaign while also improving ROI. Another idea is to track the purchasing behavior of regular customers over time to see if an email campaign produces a spike in sales. 

Three key reasons email marketing can grow your business: 

Personalization: Business owners can personalize the customer’s experience through email marketing. This process allows the business to enjoy an unprecedented level of growth, which is driven by high-quality relationships with customers. 

Customization: The custom experience of an email marketing campaign reflects the actual interests of customers based on previous purchasing decisions. People who forgot why they purchased from the business can be reminded when a holiday sale comes up when you offer them a discount, for example. This changes a potentially missed opportunity into a reason to contact them with a legitimate offer.

Tracking: The ability to track engagement with customers is effective at tracking the growth rate of the business based on these campaigns. The connection between the campaign and the growth of the business provides insights that can be leveraged in a variety of ways. This is an efficient method to identify return customers and create customized campaigns that speak to their interests. At the same time, one-time customers might return if they are given a special offer during a holiday sale through an email campaign. 

Efficacy of Email Marketing

Email marketing is a popular tool, and the numbers help to explain this phenomenon. Compared to an organic online search using a standard search engine, email marketing is 19 percent more effective at acquiring customers and 44 percent more likely to retain these customers. Email marketing also outperforms social media by similar amounts. It is also significantly more effective than affiliate, referral, and mobile marketing methods. A 2016 business survey by emarketer showed that around 80 percent of respondents agreed that email marketing was more useful than the other surveyed techniques listed above. According to the Direct Marketing Association, email marketing returns around $40 for every $1 that was spent in the campaign; this high ROI rate is worthy of notice.  

In conclusion

Brown Creative Group offers a range of digital marketing services, which include web design and customized articles that address major issues of concern for our customers. This article offers some key tips on how to use email marketing in tandem with social media and other communication methods. This is just one method of reaching customers in real-time. 

Find out how to stay engaged with new and returning customers through email campaigns and other marketing strategies. There are many benefits to be gained from an effective email marketing strategy. These can be enjoyed by small and medium-sized business owners at the local level. More information is regularly sent out in our newsletter. Contact us today to find out how we can help you get started with a cost-effective email marketing campaign.

The post Three Ways Email Marketing Will Grow My Business appeared first on Brown Creative Group.

Google Ads play an essential role in enabling you to reach a relevant market. This article seeks to explain why Google Ads are crucial, especially for helping you target people in a specific geographic region. It is an ideal way for spending your advertising money on people who are searching for your specific service and products.

Here are nine reasons why a business should consider investing in Google Ads:

Increase In Leads

Google Ads play a significant role in lead generation for small businesses. They are built to target people interested in your products, meaning a targeted audience is sent your way with every click. Google Ads also enable you to refine your target audience, helping you focus on those interested in your services or products. By narrowing down who and what you want, you increase the number of quality leads received.

Refine Quality of Leads

Google Ads enable you to focus on a specific target audience and deal with particular individuals in a specific region. The ads are set up to describe the kind of customer you want to view your ad. This enables you to choose the lead quality and focus on excellent lead generation. By being specific on the type of leads you want to generate, you end up focusing on individuals who can help you build your business, especially for small and upcoming companies.

Flexibility

Using Google Ads provides you with the flexibility you need to meet your lead and business needs adequately. You can filter based on location, device used to search, and age. Meaning you can easily control your audience to help you meet your lead goals. By regulating your traffic, you can continually deliver quality service and leads, this helps in building brand credibility.

Return On Investment

The use of Google Adwords promises a high return on investment, unlike most other advertising strategies. This is because you can target specific leads and only pay per click. Your paid clicks have the ability to bring in reliable business, which in turn, help you receive excellent ROI. Utilizing optimized Google Ads enables you to generate more conversions translating to high returns that ultimately make the investment worth it.

Transparent and Rapid Results

Google Ads provide a transparent and easy-to-understand dashboard that makes it easy for business owners to monitor and keep track of the different campaigns their business is running. The dashboard provides detailed, accurate information on the cost per click, number of clicks received, and keywords from search results. Thus, it makes analysis of digital campaigns fairly easy to understand. 

Information on Your Target Market

Google Adwords provide you with valuable information about your potential customers, making it easy for you to close a deal and translate them into clients. By finding out their location, what they are looking for, and what device they use, for example, you can package your product or service in a way to help you land the sale. The platform provides you with inside information giving you an upper hand in converting the lead to a customer without having to wait on the traditional methods of collecting consumer information.

Work Within Your Budget

Google Ads enable you with an opportunity to work within a specific set budget, making it ideal for business owners to keep track of results and expenditure. It allows you to set daily, weekly, and monthly spending budgets and provides you with the cost of every click. This makes it easy to analyze your campaign strategies and ensure they are bearing fruits, while staying within your budget. By having a digital marketing budget and sticking to it, this platform enables businesses to stay true to their goals and mission.

Target a Variety of Audiences

Unlike other marketing platforms, Google Ads let you target a wide variety of audiences using your product or looking for your service. For example, if you sell goods used in both manufacturing and construction industries, you do not have to choose one specific industry, you have a chance to use a wide range of related keywords that will help you get consumers on both sides, increasing your conversion rates.

Send Your Audience to Designated Landing Pages

Google Ads enables you to choose the landing page, or destination, you send the lead to. This allows you to set up a landing page ideal for conversions. Instead of sending your traffic to your home page, where they might not find the exact information they’re looking for, and risking potentially losing the lead, sending them to a customized landing page can help them make up their mind about a product or service. 

Conclusion

If you are a business owner and your business has not yet started taking advantage of Google Adwords, you are missing an opportunity to take your business to the next level. Remember, it is never too late to change or even begin! Contact us today and we’ll help you get started.

The post Are Google Ads Worth The Investment For Business Owners? appeared first on Brown Creative Group.

Marketing is integral in creating awareness of products, brands, and services. Effective marketing is essential for any organization looking into keeping up with the competition. Most companies struggle with limited resources and slim budgets when it comes to marketing. Maintaining an entire marketing team is strenuous for many organizations, forcing them to break the bank.

On the other hand, outsourcing does not guarantee quality control. With such limitations, how can organizations get by and remain relevant in their niches? Organizations realize they need to keep up with the latest technologies and trends to remain competitive. The ultimate way to achieve your marketing objectives is by using an expert full-service marketing agency. If you are impartial about using an agency for your marketing, here are some key reasons why you need a professional marketing agency:

Cost-effective

As a business owner, you work smart to reduce costs and increase your sales and revenues. Fixed costs in any company are not easy to manage. Having permanent employees in your marketing department can eat into your profits. For small businesses, outsourcing a marketing agency is the best solution to cutting costs.

Dealing with a marketing agency enables you to save substantially. Your small business does not have to worry about full-time salaries and other benefits. It is because you do not have to struggle with training and upgrading your systems since a full-service marketing agency can handle that. You also get to pay for only the services rendered.

Scalability on demand

Many organizations work towards scaling up. For them to achieve this, they need to hire and train their internal team. It is an extra expense to the company. Dealing with a marketing agency saves you such worries. They come fully equipped with what is needed to surpass your scalability expectations.

Work with experts

Outsourcing marketing solutions give you the chance to deal with top professionals in the marketing field. Marketing agencies have the right and appropriate expertise in marketing to elevate your business to the next level. Outsourcing your marketing solutions gives you the chance to enjoy well-thought strategies.

Marketing agencies spend most of their time handling marketing issues and developing solutions. On the other hand, in-house marketers lack the skill to impact your sales and revenues in a similar way. Marketing agencies are the game changers when it comes to effective marketing solutions.

Quantifiable results

Business is about numbers and figures. You want to see the numbers going up regarding sales and revenues, and for costs and expenses, you want them going down. Opting for a marketing agency enables you to measure all metrics.

A full-service marketing organization may have all solutions to your marketing problems, but they only charge you for the specific services you need. It works perfectly for small businesses since they can transform their companies one step at a time.

Broader skill-set

Marketing agencies have been in marketing for a while. Their daily activities revolve around marketing. The best solution for your small business marketing issues is to hire a professional agency with the appropriate skill-set to convert leads into sales.

Since marketing agencies deal with various businesses and organizations, they are best suited to provide accurate strategies for your marketing problems. Dealing with a marketing agency gives you a broader skill-set that can elevate your business among competitors.

Maintain latest trends, software, and systems

With fast-changing consumer demands and preferences, small businesses have to be on their feet to keep up with the big dogs. One of the ways you can keep up with consumers is by maintaining the latest trends and systems.

Marketing organizations are always up to date with industry trends and technology. In-house marketing departments, on the other hand, are usually technology-deprived due to their limited resources. A marketing agency ensures they provide you with valuable support to keep up with what is trending to remain relevant to your consumers.

A new perspective and fresh ideas

When dealing with in-house marketers, you find that they have a specific way of thinking regarding your company. It makes it easier for them to lose sight of what’s ahead. Being too close and attached to the business can block your vision. A new pair of eyes of the marketing agency can steer you into making the right decisions.

As much as you may have a profound understanding of your business, having a new and different perspective can help you make the right decisions. Marketing agencies come with fresh ideas essential for capturing new markets.

Full-service marketing solutions

For small businesses, having a perfect in-house marketing team is not an easy task. It is because most of the in-house employees have to handle other tasks other than their marketing duties. In some instances, it results in work overflow leaving employees under pressure and with low morale.

The solution to such a scenario is to take advantage of a full-service marketing company. They have what is required to handle overflow situations to ensure there is continuity of brand awareness.

Bottom line

Marketing is a process and not a one-time event. For any small business to have a piece of the pie, it is essential to be strategic. Hiring a marketing agency is one of the ways small businesses remain relevant in their industries. You get an entire team of experts seasoned in marketing with the right tools to get your customers’ attention.

Time is money, and without proper marketing plans, your business can lose significantly. Hiring a marketing agency helps you save time and money. You do not have to handle everything in your business by yourself. Take time and research to ensure you select a suitable marketing agency that you can afford.

Find out how an agency markets itself before allowing them to market you. The ideal marketing agency should have a fabulous online presence. Take time to glance at their customers’ reviews and testimonials to know whether they can deliver to your expectations. The pointers above clearly indicate why your business needs a marketing agency. Contact us today to see how we can help you!

The post Why You Should Use an Agency for Your Marketing appeared first on Brown Creative Group.

Here are 10 reasons you should invest time and energy into a blog for your business.

Internal Links Within A Blog Can Boost Website Traffic

Adding internal links to other posts and pages within your website is a great way to improve SEO and increase engagement. Including links in your blog to other pages on your website can be an easy way to help customers find additional information about your product or service. You can also link to other relevant blog posts you’ve posted to encourage customers to read more

Blogs Can Boost SEO For Your Website

Search engine optimization is perhaps the most important strategy to use if you want to drive traffic to your website. One of the simplest ways to improve in this area is by creating thoughtful, well-written website content using relevant keywords. This will help potential customers locate your website easily when searching for a particular service or product on a search engine.

Sharing Blog Posts on Other Platforms Can Boost Website Traffic

Sharing your blog posts on your social media sites is a good way to increase blog views and convert traffic into leads. Not to mention, sharing the engaging new content you’re posting on your blog can be a break from traditional social media posts and may even help boost your social media following.

Blogs Offer a Unique Way to Showcase Your Products and Services

Blog posts give you an opportunity to promote your products and services by utilizing a soft-sell approach. Sharing useful, relevant, and interesting information that relates to your product or service using a less “salesy” approach can leave many customers wanting to learn more. By using this tactic, you’ll slowly start to turn interested readers into paying customers.

A Well-Written Blog Can Set You Apart from Competitors

A lot of businesses won’t spend time or effort on a blog for their website. If you take the time to craft a well-written blog filled with industry specific keywords, you can easily set yourself apart from your biggest competitors.

Blogs Highlight Your Expertise in Your Industry

Whether you’re selling a product or service, potential customers want to know what makes you more reliable and trustworthy than your competitor. Blogs are a great way to highlight how much experience and knowledge you have, which can lead to trust in your product or service. Don’t forget to write your posts with your target audience in mind and avoid using technical language that they may not understand. When brainstorming topics for blog posts, think of questions you typically receive from customers and take the opportunity to answer them in the form of a blog post.

Blogs Can Generate Long Term Results

After you publish a blog post, as long as the topic doesn’t become irrelevant, you can keep it up on your website for years to come. It will continue to generate traffic and engage new customers for far longer than it could ever take you to sit down and write it.

Blog Posts Are Budget Friendly

Because they require minimal effort and can be a permanent fixture on your website, blog posts are one of the most low cost marketing strategies out there. Blogs are also extremely versatile and can be cross promoted on a number of different platforms to grow your audience, increase website traffic, and boost sales.

Blogs Showcase Your Brand’s Personality

Customers often gravitate to brands that they feel they can relate to or develop a personal connection with. Through longer blog posts, you can give customers a deeper look into your business by sharing your company’s story and mission.

A Blog Can Help Connect You With Your Community

Similar to social media platforms, blogs can also be quite interactive. Allowing customers to comment on posts, share their experiences, and communicate what’s important to them can be extremely valuable information as you seek to develop an overall marketing strategy for your business. You can even connect with customers who may have a valuable story about your product or service to share. Sharing content on your blog that has been developed through the eyes of a consumer, whether it’s an interview or testimonial piece, can be an extremely valuable marketing tool.

Adding a blog to your website is a simple, but impactful way to promote your business. If you’re not sure where to start, contact Brown Creative Group, and we’ll help you start creating an effective blog to add to your website.

The post 10 Reasons Why Your Website Needs A Blog appeared first on Brown Creative Group.

One important yet overlooked way of staying competitive is by regularly updating your website. If you’re not already doing this, then you’re most likely missing out on a huge chunk of regular visitors that could otherwise be coming to your site.

An update every 2-3 years just simply won’t cut it. You should be updating more regularly than your competitors if you expect your website to perform better than theirs. With that said, here are the top five reasons why keeping your site updated is so important.

Improved SEO Rankings

The first and most important reason for updating your site is so that it can maintain high SEO rankings. Search Engines, such as Google, want to deliver new and relevant content in the results to those who use their search engines.

If your site goes dormant and you stop posting for a while, search engines may treat your site as an outdated one. This means that your competitors might start outranking you in the SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages). While the existing content on your site, in some cases, may not need to be updated, the site itself should have new content posted on a regular basis.

The SEO benefits that come from updating your site include:

• Gain more regular visitors organically from search engines when they find your site more easily.
• Outrank competitors’ sites by providing fresher content, which helps your site zoom past others in the search results.
• Gain recognition as an authoritative source within your industry when others find your site on the first page of search results for many topics.

First Impressions

When users visit your site for the first time, they will often notice if your site is one that updates regularly. If a visitor doesn’t find any fresh content on your site, this can create a bad first impression, and it can affect your bounce rate.

The bounce rate is a measurement of how many users leave your site after viewing just one page instead of continuing on to look at other pages. If a user is immediately met with a directory of old content, they’re less likely to explore other pages and more likely to exit immediately.

Not only does this lead to less visitor traffic throughout your site, but search engines can see your bounce rate as well, so it may affect your site’s rankings as well.

Maintaining Relevance

Updating your site regularly also means keeping up with the newest trends relating to both your website’s functionality and its content. Every now and then, you should update technology features on your site to compete with other sites and to keep your site user friendly.

For example, some forms of HTML, Javascript, WordPress plug-ins, PHP, or other web technologies get discontinued every few years. This means that the coding behind the scenes of your website should be updated so that your site’s content can be read more easily by search engine algorithms.

Regarding your site’s content itself, this should also be updated if you have information based on outdated trends or technologies. Having evergreen content, which is content that doesn’t become outdated, is ideal. But there’s a good chance you have content that isn’t quite evergreen and might need a spruce up.

This is often the case when there’s a call to action on a page about a particular product or service that has changed over time. The call to action would then need to be updated to reflect this change.

Increase Returning Visitors

As a website owner, your overall goal should be focused on growing your site. While having a great SEO ranking is important for receiving new visitors to your site, it’s your returning visitors that will give your site the most stability.

Even if you’re gaining more and more new visitors, it’s better if you can retain them and keep the old ones coming back. That’s why you need to make regular website updates so that your visitors have a reason to return. By doing so, you’re giving your site more exponential growth over time and the stability it needs to continue growing quickly.

Gain More Backlinks

One major benefit of updating your site that’s often overlooked by website owners is the opportunity to gain more backlinks. Ever since Google began using backlinks as one metric for gauging a site’s importance, website owners have understood how crucial these links are to the success of their sites.

Combine that with the rise of social media over the past decade, and it’s easy to see how fresh content translates into more backlinks. People using social media are more likely to share links with others when they come across content that is fresh and still relevant.

The benefits of gaining more backlinks to your site include:

• More visitors can find your site through backlinks posted on referral sites.
• Receive an increase in SEO ranking based on high-quality backlinks.
• Greater resale value if you should ever decide to sell your site to another party.

Free Consultation

While updating your site is only one of many SEO techniques you can benefit from, it’s arguably one of the most important ones. If you’re ready to jumpstart your website’s SEO into high gear, we can help. Contact us today for a free consultation and we’ll be happy to discuss all our options with you.

The post Should I Update My Website? 5 Reasons Why It’s Critical. appeared first on Brown Creative Group.

As you know, last week the President provided guidelines on opening up the economy in three phases, and governors across the country are making plans now for their states. While we don’t know exactly when that will happen for us yet, we do know it is coming soon, and you want to be ready for it.

We know some businesses have had it much worse than others. And we know that most of your plans headed into 2020 are now out the window, but as businesses start to fire up, and people start to go back to work, your products and services are going to be in demand.

How you take advantage of that pent-up demand is going to be important, and marketing will play a major role in getting you ready.

Now is the time to start

Any effective digital marketing plan starts with a solid foundation, your company’s website. It’s critical that your website is well designed, has the right message, looks great on mobile devices, and is built to convert visitors to leads. If not, your website will be like a leaky bucket trying to hold water.

A website redesign project can take a few weeks from start to finish, so if your website isn’t up to par, we highly recommend starting there.

And with the “new normal” that will take place as a result of COVID-19, you may have to rethink some ways that you used to approach business, including:

• Adding way for people to purchase online, such as a shopping cart or ordering system
• Including more video to help tell your story in a compelling way
• Incorporating a chat feature to provide a convenient way for visitors to message you
• Building an online sales funnel to help capture more leads and nurture them to become customers

We also know that during this time, people are spending an unprecedented amount of time online, so it’s more important than ever to:

• Communicate how you are doing business during (and after) COVID-19
• Claim and optimize your Google My Business listing, update your hours, and work on getting new reviews
• Ensure your website is optimized for your most important keywords
• Publish new content, especially blog posts, on a regular basis
• Post frequently on social media and engage with your audience on a personal level
• Provide helpful content via Facebook Live or through webinars
• Build your email list/database by offering new lead magnets
• Create paid ad campaigns to target your ideal customers online with appropriate offers and messaging

All of these are parts of an effective overall digital marketing plan that, if you put in place now, will yield results for you as the economy opens back up and a sense of normalcy returns.

So instead of waiting until the government gives the all-clear sign, prepare now so that you will be in a stronger position when it does.

How we can help

We would like to help talk through your specific situation and provide recommendations that can help your business prepare. Contact us to set up a time today or call Lisa Micheels at (336) 310-9690 or email lisa@browncreativegroup.com.

The post It’s Coming: The Lockdown Is Going To End. Will You Be Prepared? appeared first on Brown Creative Group.

It’s a global pandemic. Life has changed. Some businesses are being hit hard. Others, not as hard and others somewhere in between.

When life and business get turned upside down, it’s natural to go into “hunker down” mode. It’s understandable to want to cut all expenses and anticipate the worst. None of us should feel bad about these very valid (and sometimes practical) reactions.

We don’t know what the future holds and there are so many things out of our control right now. However, we’d like to offer an argument that marketing is not one of the things that should be suspended right now. In fact, there are many reasons why marketing should continue or even get more resources.

People are on social media a lot more right now

A recent study pointed to a sharp rise in social media usage right now. It makes sense because just about everyone is now working from home and spending a lot more time following current events.

If you run campaigns on social media, now may be a great time to double down. Attention is in high supply and the competition may be pushing pause, give you a unique opportunity to gain more attention.

In particular, the leading platforms like Facebook and Instagram are likely to be incredibly high-value as people follow breaking stories and argue about politics (Facebook) and share inspiration and life stories (Instagram).

Building a list may be easier than ever right now

People everywhere are looking for hope and inspiration. They are looking forward to the day when they can socialize again and see life get back to normal. Now is the time to create content that inspires and helps.

Whether you’re in B2B or B2C or both, the classic tenets of Inbound Marketing have not changed: provide value.

Now may be the time to launch that amazing offer, course, podcast, download, video series, webinar, or pillar page that helps your audience navigate their challenges. Now may be a great time to use content to build your email list, your social media custom audiences, your podcast subscribers, your video followers, and any channel that you are building a community around.

People in both B2B and B2C are looking for hope and guidance. Be part of the solution and provide help to them and when everyone is bursting out of this crisis and moving full-steam ahead in business, you have been part of the solution all along which gives you the social and business currency to turn that loyalty into revenue.

Marketing is not a switch; it’s an engine

In times of turbulence, it’s tempting to think of marketing as a switch that can be turned on and off. But that’s not how it works.

Marketing is an engine that starts slowly and then builds momentum as you spin it up (flywheel anyone?). The more you add fuel and the more momentum you gain, the faster and more effective it is.

If you suddenly grind it to a halt, you have to start over by building momentum again. You may have to re-earn loyalty from your audience if they haven’t heard from you in a while. You may have to re-gain SEO rankings because the competition kept going.

Rather than halt marketing, you are likely better off maintaining or even increasing your efforts so you are running strong when the storm passes.

Businesses are reinventing themselves

While some businesses are unfortunately truly struggling, others are reinventing themselves. From restaurants to breweries to retail, many B2C businesses are pivoting in response to the coronavirus in creative ways. B2B companies are less affected and in some ways, they are thriving (take Zoom for example). Many industries, especially technology, are experiencing unprecedented demand.

How can your business serve the community in the current environment? What can you do to pivot and adapt your message? Yes, there is some negative news out there. But there are also some amazing opportunities.

A recession is the time to increase market share

No one likes saying the word out loud but it’s pretty much accepted that we are going to see a recession. We don’t know how long (or short) it will be but it’s likely.

When this occurs, your competition is likely to cut back. This is your chance to gain ground.

It’s been well-documented that increased spending in marketing and advertising during a recession can pay off. From Forbes:

“…there have been a number of studies going back nearly one century that point out the advantages of maintaining or even increasing ad budgets during a weaker economy. Those advertisers that maintained or grew their ad spending increased sales and market share during the recession and afterwards.”

The article continues:

There are several reasons to advertise during a slowdown.

• The “noise level” in a brand’s product category can drop when competitors cut back on their ad spend. It also allows for advertisers to re-position a brand or introduce a new product.
• Brands can project to consumers the image of corporate stability during challenging times.
• The cost of advertising drops during recessions. The lower rates create a “buyer’s market” for brands. Studies have shown that direct mail advertising, which can provide greater short-term sales growth, increases during a recession.
• When marketers cut back on their ad spending, the brand loses its “share of mind” with consumers, with the potential of losing current – and possibly future – sales. An increase in “share of voice” typically leads to in an increase in “share of market.” An increase in market share results, with an increase in profits.

Many well-known companies like Kellog’s and Amazon became the uncontested leaders in their space by increasing marketing during recessions. And they’re basically unstoppable now.

A decision to make about your marketing

So what should you do? That’s something only you can answer for your business. There are many very real considerations to work through including cash flow and financial situation. But if it’s feasible and realistic to continue your marketing or even increase it right now, it could pay off exponentially in the months and years to come.

Remember: Marketing is not a switch; it’s an engine.

Contact us at Brown Creative Group to schedule a free strategy session, where we will answer any of those questions or concerns you have about online presence and digital marketing. We would love to hear from you.

Additional Resources:

“When a Recession Comes, Don’t Stop Advertising”

“Which Marketing Strategy to Adapt in Times of Crisis”

“Agile Marketing Your Way Through the Next Recession”

“Roaring Out of Recession”

The post Why It’s Not a Good Idea to Abandon Your Marketing Efforts During a Global Pandemic appeared first on Brown Creative Group.