Without an effective blog strategy in place, maximizing your online reach and exposure becomes increasingly challenging, especially in saturated markets. Understanding how blogs can help your business grow and expand is the first step to developing a working blog strategy that is right for you and your target audience. 

Here are some of the top ways that a good blog strategy can help your business: 

1. Blogs Boost SEO Success

Search engine optimization (SEO) is one of the most popular practices used in digital marketing today. Boosting your website’s search engine rankings through consistent, high quality blogging is one of the best ways to get your website climbing to the first page search engine results for relevant searches.

The more frequently you release blog that incorporate popular, trending keywords (discovered through keyword research), the more likely it is that your website will appear within the search results of engines such as Google, DuckDuckGo, Yahoo! and Bing. 

Use available online SEO testing tools such as SEMrush or Keyword Tools to measure the keywords your site has the potential to rank for and the different keywords your competitors are using. Capitalize on this information by framing your blog topics around these keywords. This will will work to improve rankings for searches that contain these keywords.

2. Blogs Engage Both New and Existing Customers

Launching a blog is a great way to connect with both new and existing customers. With a blog, you can share tutorials, guides, tips and updates about your business in one central location that is both engaging and educational. 

Provide loyal customers and readers of your website with insightful information that is difficult to find elsewhere online in a way that’s easy to understand. Keep both your existing and potential customers coming back for more by providing them with value in your blog features and updates.

You can even take this a step further by using your blog posts to offer discounts and exclusive offers that are unavailable offline or on other websites.

3. Blogging Creates Link Sharing Opportunities 

Another reason to consider launching a business blog is that by offering unique, engaging information to your readers, they are encouraged to share it with their friends, family and coworkers through social media. Creating link sharing opportunities will not only work to drive traffic to your website, but it will also spread the word about your brand or website.

4. Blogging Establishes Your Company as an Industry Expert

Use your blog to develop your digital strategy and to establish yourself as an industry expert, even if this is the first time you are running a business on your own.

An informative, high-traffic blog is extremely powerful when it comes to building credibility and establishing authority as a trusted business and brand. Use your blog to create a good rapport with your online visitors along with your current and prospective customers. 

Establishing yourself as an industry expert is a way for you to motivate and incentivize visitors to interact with your updates, engage with contests and participate in sales or new product releases.

5. Blogs Increase Website Traffic

Are you struggling to retain visitors after they review the products or services you offer? Do you want to pique the interest of potential customers in your industry and keep increasing your website traffic?

Launching a blog is one of the most effective methods to increase website traffic, even if your business is hyper-focused on a small niche. By offering a blog, your business not only becomes more valuable, but it also becomes a source of information for people in your industry.

6. A Business Blog Develops Your Online Community

When you have a blog that users consider valuable and informative, they are much more likely to spread the word of your business to family members, friends and those they know in the industry. Developing your online community through your blog is possible by allowing open comments while engaging and responding with your followers, fans and loyal customers.

Respond openly and honestly with comments you receive from visitors to showcase the transparency of your business and brand. Showcasing transparency is a great way to gain the trust of your users, especially when you receive negative feedback or responses.

Building an online community is one way for a new business and brand to truly establish themselves in highly competitive industries and markets online. When you have a growing group of supporters, it is much easier to remain profitable and motivated to keep your business afloat at all times.

7. Blogs Can Differentiate Your Business From the Competition

A good blog content strategy is important to help differentiate your business from competitors in your industry. Using a blog can set you apart from the competition by getting creative, using your own voice, and providing content that is informative and digestible. 

Before you begin planning your blog, brainstorming topic ideas, and publishing updates live, it is highly advisable to research your current competition and the types of content they release. Getting to know more about your current competitors is a way for you to determine the best approach possible to outshine their current online presence and blog. 

Spend time visiting the websites, blogs and social media platforms of your top competitors. Research and compare the topics that are being discussed while considering their relevance and whether or not similar topics are suitable for your own blog. Competitor research is key to successful content marketing.

Use tools such as Google Trends to research and track keywords and phrases that are most searched and trending in your line of business. Using these research tools, monitor the interest of various topics and subjects relevant to your blog. Brainstorm topics and subjects that have yet to be covered, even with the use of your top competitor’s blogs to truly stand out.

While running a blog requires commitment and an understanding of the audience you want to reach with your business, there are too many benefits of blogging that you won’t want to miss out on.

With an informative, useful and consistently updated blog, maximize your online reach as you gain traction on your blog, increase the amount of traffic your website receives, and establish your business as an authoritative source in any market or industry you choose.

The post How Blogs Can Help Your Business appeared first on Digital Marketing Blog by Elite Digital.

An active and optimized social media presence offers numerous benefits. You’ll engage new audiences, gain new customers, stay up-to-date with current trends and get new, fresh traffic to your website. 

That being said, crafting an effective and consistent social media presence can be difficult for small businesses that are simply trying to get their feet off the ground. Since it can be tough to prioritize social media as a new company, we’ve compiled some of the best ways small businesses can improve their social media presence.

1. Choose the Right Social Media Platforms 

With thousands of social media platforms to choose from, you can’t just sign up for every single one. Choose three or four of the most popular networks for your target audience and put all of your social media marketing efforts into those. 

Some of the more popular social media platforms include Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Snapchat and Instagram. The best platform for one business, however, may not be the best for another. Do your research to find out where your target market spends most of their time online, keeping in mind the objective of your social media presence:

Are you hoping to sell products? Advertise upcoming events? Improve brand awareness? Think about the goals of your business and what each platform can do for you.

2. Set S.M.A.R.T. Goals 

Speaking of objectives, it’s important to understand your company goals and plan your marketing efforts accordingly. When deciding on goals are for creating your social media profiles, make sure each goal you are making is S.M.A.R.T:

– Specific, significant, sensible

– Measurable, motivating, meaningful

– Achievable, attainable

– Relevant, realistic, reasonable, results-driven

– Time bound, time-sensitive

By having a realistic, goal-oriented plan before getting started, you are much more likely to attract followers.

3. Create a Social Media Strategy Before You Begin 

Setting goals is a great starting point, but where do you go from there? As well as figuring out your main business objectives, you will need to formulate a plan for how you want to achieve these goals and implement them. Assign a team to the job of creating your social media strategy and divide the tasks with realistic timelines.

Although social media can be fun, it takes a lot of planning to establish an effective, realistic strategy, since there are so many components. You’ll need to plan out post content, optimal times to post, effective visuals, enticing captions and so much more. All while actually running your business! Make sure to create a prime social media strategy before you jump in head first.

4. Identify Your Target Audience 

If you want to successfully engage your target market, you need to be familiar with its members. Understanding their unique interests, habits and behaviors will have great influence as to whether your social media strategy pays off or falls flat. Some important things to know about your target audience can include age range, location, likes, dislikes, interests, behaviors and more. 

Becoming familiar with your audience will help you to determine the best way to grab their attention and help you to foresee any challenges you may face when trying to make a connection with them. 

5. Determine the Best Times to Post 

Social media isn’t static; with so many users actively engaged on the many platforms, social media is ever changing and you simply won’t thrive if you set up an account and leave it unattended. It’s important to stay relevant to your users by posting on a regular basis with unique, informative or aesthetically pleasing content that appeals to your target base. 

Once you’ve created content that you’re pleased with, the next step is to create a social media posting schedule. Figuring out the best posting times can sometimes be intuitive. For example, posting at midnight won’t gauge as much interaction as posting in the middle of the afternoon. 

Still, it’s necessary to do your research when it comes to using different platforms and posting on different days of the week. Luckily, there are many resources online that can help you figure out the best times to post depending on your audience, location and industry.

6. Work to Engage your Audience 

Staying consistent with your posts and creating unique, appealing content is only the start of the work you need to do to maintain engagement with your profile. You need to actively engage with your audience by commenting on posts, creating discussions, posting questions, responding to questions and comments, and addressing criticism and complaints from your customers. 

Consider appointing a person or a team to implement this social listening and remain consistently available, responsive and engaged with your audience. 

7. Don’t Over Promote on Social Media 

Social media isn’t designed as an advertising platform; it’s better designed to promote active engagement and interaction with others. Limit the amount of promotional content you post on your profile to less than 20 percent. This keeps your followers interested in your page, and avoid making them feel as though they are being spammed with promotional content. Users get tired of seeing the same repetitive content and feel less connected to your brand when it’s overly promotional. 

8. Stay On Top of Social Media Trends 

Keep your content relevant by knowing what’s going on in the social media world and within your field of business. Being aware of what people are talking about online is crucial for capturing the attention of your customers. 

Focus on using popular hashtags and reference any industry news, events or trends that will gauge customer interest. Draw inspiration from other businesses to fine-tune your strategy and stay updated on relevant social media trends that can be applied.  

9. Monitor Your Progress 

Once you have a social media presence in place that you’re proud of, you’ll need to monitor your progress. Keep tabs on relevant metrics to determine whether your strategy is effective or not. Social media is constantly changing with new users signing up each month and new platform updates being announced each day. 

Examine your metrics using tools like Twitter Analytics, Google Analytics and Facebook Analytics to pinpoint what’s working and what isn’t. Adjust your social media strategy as needed and compare the results of your different strategies and those of your competition. You’ll need to tweak things frequently to figure out what works. 

It’s never too late to dive into the social media landscape, whether you’re a big business or a small startup.

Implement these nine top tips to see your marketing efforts pay off in both the short term and the long term. 

The post Improving Your Social Media Presence as a Small Business appeared first on Digital Marketing Blog by Elite Digital.

Many business owners choose to calculate the value of their marketing initiatives by looking at their short-term wins. While focusing on initial sales can be helpful, the relationship you have with your customers goes far beyond their first purchase. 

Business owners should be directing their sales and marketing strategies toward securing repeat customers. People who have purchased from you before typically spend up to 300% more on your products or services than new customers. They can even generate up to 40 percent of your total revenue. 

Calculating Customer Lifetime Value (CLV)

If you’re still skeptical, you don’t have to take our word for it; by calculating the CLV of your business, you can determine exactly how much profit a single customer can bring to your business over a long period of time.

Most businesses try to determine how they can maximize the number of customers they bring in while minimizing cost. People who understand the significance of calculating CLV will instead look at the maximum value that they can bring in.

All customers aren’t created equal; some bring in more revenue to your business than others. Therefore, understanding who is more likely to stick with your services helps you to properly tailor your marketing methods. You’ll also be able to budget more effectively when designing your customer loyalty and retention strategies.

How to Calculate Customer Lifetime Value (CLV)

When you neglect to factor CLV into your calculations for ROI, you might think that your ad spend dollars are going nowhere. For example, if you’re offering $15 haircuts, spending $6 on an advertisement can seem hefty when you take your other expenses into account. 

However, the value of that ad spend changes when you consider that 65 percent of your customers return every four weeks for another haircut and stick with you for at least one year. So, instead of spending $6 for a conversion that generates $15 worth of revenue, you’re spending $6 to gain a customer lifetime revenue of $180. 

In other words, you want more than a one-night stand from your customers, and to achieve this, you have to look beyond the first conversion when calculating the results of your ad spend. To do this, you’ll need to know the following variables:

Converted Clicks: How many people who clicked on your ad made a purchase?

Average Revenue Per Purchase: Add together the total purchase price of each ticket/total customers

Percentage of Repeat Customers: (Repeat customers x 100)/total customers

Average Purchases Per Year: Add together the total number of purchases per customer per year/total number of customers who made purchases that year

Average Number of Loyal Customer Years

Profit Margin: (Revenue – cost of goods sold)/revenue

Using a customer lifetime value formula involves multiplying all of the above calculations and then subtracting your Adwords spend amount (or the total dollar amount spent on the marketing campaign that included the converted clicks).

Put more simply, this is what your CLV formula should look like: 

Converted Clicks X Average Revenue Per Purchase X Percentage of Customers Who Purchase Again X Average Purchases Per Year X Average Number of Years They Will be a Customer X Profit Margin — Adwords Spend = Customer Lifetime Profit

5 Ways to Increase CLV

Many small business owners make the mistake of trying to minimize their advertising budget despite the fact that this neither attracts new clients nor maintains the ones they already have. Instead, they should be focusing on increasing their CLV. Here are five of the best strategies for increasing your customer lifetime value:

1. Enhance Your Onboarding Procedure

First thing’s first: If your onboarding process isn’t simple, personalized and strategic, your customers likely won’t come back for more. 

Your customers want to know what’s in it for them; they probably made a purchase from you because they were initially swayed by your customer value proposition. Once you’ve converted them, continue to identify and assist them with their goals immediately.

Be sure to communicate the value of your service or offerings and keep your customers engaged with videos, tutorials and guides. Keep your content manageable, and touch base with your new clients frequently so that they feel nurtured and involved.

2. Segment Your Lists

You can broadcast as much content as you want, but your messages will go over your customers’ heads if they’re not relevant or appealing to them. Segment your lists so that you’re able to personalize the customer experience based on demographics, interests or previous purchases. Doing this will also give you access to more effective analytics. When you understand which customer profiles are more likely to stay loyal, you’ll boost your CLV.

3. Improve Your Customer Service

A stellar product doesn’t stand on its own without exceptional customer service, and one simple slip-up can send your customers over to your competitors. When customers experience poor customer service and don’t feel as though they are being properly attended to, they’re more likely to give negative reviews than positive ones, and take their business elsewhere. 

However, if you go above and beyond with your customer service efforts, your clients are sure to tell their friends about you and keep returning simply because they’re being treated so well.

The customer always comes first, but you’ll need to get some feedback in order to learn how you’re performing. Reach out periodically to your customers to hear about their customer experience; if something isn’t working for the majority of your audience, change it. Let them know that you’re willing to listen to them and tailor their experience to meet their personal requests.

4. Reward Customer Loyalty

Positively rewarding desired actions is a proven way to get people to repeat their behaviors and improve your customer retention rates. Therefore, if you want your customers to remain loyal to you, offering incentives that interest them will help. Rewards programs can work well, but they’re not the only option for achieving this goal.

Celebrate your customers by adding value and personalizing their experience. Some ideas include:

Sending out customized birthday emails with exclusive promo codes

Offering discounts for VIPs who sign up for a segmented list

Giving out bonuses for referrals

Surprising valued customers with discounts, freebies and other desirable offers

Make your customers feel special and they’ll keep coming back!

5. Generate Recurring Revenue

It’s no wonder why subscription services are becoming so trendy; as a long-term service that is bringing in loyal customers and a regular revenue stream, they’re a great way to improve CLV. With every product or service you promote, consider how the customer will benefit from purchasing it regularly. Then, create a service that makes life more convenient for them by automating the offering.

They’ll get what they want without having to ask for, and you’ll keep charging their credit card. If you set up your subscription model properly, you’ll have something for everyone. 

Offer various packages at different price points; allow people to sign up for a free trial of the premium service; give discounts to people who pay for a year up front — these are all great ways to get you thinking about your long-term goals and revenue.

While it’s exciting to make a sale, the magic isn’t in the conversion. Retaining customers is the key to maximizing your digital marketing budget and increasing profits. Create relationships with your customers, use data effectively and focus on improving the client experience. 

You’re already analyzing your ad spend; why not keep track of your CLV metrics and watch your profits soar.

The post Customer Lifetime Value: What it is and How to Measure it appeared first on Digital Marketing Blog by Elite Digital.

“Millennials are eschewing the old way of doing things: they don’t click on banner ads, buy print magazines, read snail mail or watch traditional network television. It begs the question: Is going viral on Snapchat the only way to reach millennials?” asks Antoniya Koleva Zorluer from Business2Community.

Although this is one way to garner engagement from millennials, it’s not the only way to effectively connect with them. Although most of these 20-something year-olds are captivated by social media, it isn’t their only digital focus. In fact, millennials spend just as much time, if not more, diving into their email inbox each day.

If you’re interested in email marketing and looking to market to millennials, don’t assume that simply sending messages is going to have any impact. Engagement with the Gen Y group requires much more tact and depth if you truly want to resonate with them.

So what do you need to do to make your relevant recipients open, read and react to your emails? Check out this quick list of the best ways to appeal to the younger demographic.

Practice Exclusive Marketing

If you want millennials to get excited about what you’re offering, you need to demonstrate the exclusivity of your emails. The benefits, prizes or information you’re extending to them should seem exclusive to only them and only through receiving that email. Millennials already know how to take care of themselves in the digital realm, so why should they listen to you?

“To win with millennial email marketing, be sure you’re providing value that they can’t get anywhere else. Make them feel special by sharing exclusive tips, tricks, tools, discounts or information only via email,” Zorluer recommends. “Give them an opportunity to ask a question to your CEO directly via email. Give them an edge others won’t have.”

Inspire Calls to Action

Millennials are known for being influential, creative and are seriously creative as a generation. They like to be engaged and act in a way that makes them feel like they’re contributing to the creation of something bigger than themselves.

“The most successful millennial marketing campaigns are similar in that they engage Millennials and make them the hero of the campaign. In your emails to millennials, always think about engagement,” Zorluer says. “If an email has no call to action, question or follow-up, it won’t be efficient with this generation. Send every email with an idea in mind for what the next step is for the Millennial who reads it.”

Stay Authentic

The most important rule of engagement when it comes to millennials is to stay authentic with your email content. 

Don’t try to grease them up with fancy jargon or complicated sales pitches — they’ll see right through it. Instead, be upfront and tell them what you’re offering, why you’re offering it and how it benefits you both. Chances are, they’ll appreciate your honesty and this can build strong loyalty ties.

Optimize For Mobile Devices

These days, there aren’t too many millennials out there without a cellphone. Because of this, it’s crucial for customer retention and optimal engagement to make sure your emails work on all devices.

“Make sure your emails look as good on an iPhone as on desktop. Create emails that can be consumed quickly, on any device, and make it easy for them to take action wherever they are (yes, this means big call to action buttons in email),” Zorluer says.

The post So You Want To Email Market To Millennials? appeared first on Digital Marketing Blog by Elite Digital.

With a proper understanding of what causes hard and soft bounces, as well as a smart game plan in place for counteracting these problems, there’s no reason to fear for your sender reputation and campaign success. To help you eradicate the threat of bounced emails from your upcoming inbox campaigns, let’s take some time to talk about the top five reasons behind these bounces, and what you can do to put an end to these problems for good.

You Don’t Have the Right Email Contact Information

According to The Houston Chronicle, one of the main issues causing email bounces is failing to have correct contact information. As unexciting as this explanation may seem, the truth of the matter is that simple typos in an email address and other minute administrative errors can wreak havoc on your ability to avoid bounced messages.

Fortunately, the fix for this issue is simple and straightforward. Firstly, regularly pruning bounced message recipients from your list is crucial. As well, giving contacts the ability to update their email information can negate the risks of incorrect membership data.

The Person on the Other Side of the Screen Is Dormant

Having the person on the side of the screen maintain a dormant state can also lead to plenty of bounced messages and undelivered emails. From auto-replies to vacation settings, there are plenty of scenarios in which the service provider will return a message not because of any wrongdoing on your end of the equation, but rather because of the preferences of the contact list member in question.

While you can’t force through a message under these circumstances, you can keep an eye out for repeat offenders. Once you have a spotlight on these problematic contact list members, you can choose to either stop sending emails for a period of time to this segment or purge them entirely.

Your Target Contact List Member Has a Full Inbox

Sometimes the answer to a bounced email is as simple as a full inbox. It might sound silly, but you’d be surprised at how often this issue occurs and causes problems with message deliverability.

Regrettably, your options are limited in much the same way as when you’re dealing with a dormant contact list member. You can choose to give this individual some time to clear out space in his or her inbox. Or, remove them from your list entirely and see if they rejoin at a later date.

Your Content Triggers a Spam Email Filter

Even if you’re not doing anything underhanded in the email inbox, getting bounced by a spam filter can happen from time to time. Usually, sales-oriented language and nonsensical wording — common attributes of spam emails — are the major culprits on this front.

However, if you’re not overtly spamming your contact list, analyzing your message content and minimizing the impact of this issue can be tricky. Different email service providers can pinpoint certain words and phrases as “spam-worthy”. With this in mind, be sure to note the attributes of your bounced content and test new iterations within these various service provider segments of your inbox audience.

The Email Server in Question Is Down (and Other Technical Difficulties)

The final inclusion on the list tackles this problem from a decidedly technical standpoint. From server downtime to issues with service providers, technical difficulties can hinder deliverability and bounce back your emails.

The best way to combat this kind of issue is by adopting a little bit of patience into your approach. If you suspect a technical error is cutting you off from a portion of your audience, give the framework behind this connection a few hours — or even days — to come back up. Doing so could mean the difference between experiencing avoidable bounces and maintaining a stable pathway of communication with your contacts.

It’s easy to see that the reason behind an email bounce come from a variety of sources and issues. Thankfully, with this new insight, you can get to the bottom of these problematic events. Keep your bounce rate low as you continue to leverage the power of the most effective channel for consumer outreach.

The post 5 Reasons Why Emails Bounce (and How to Fix These Problems) appeared first on Digital Marketing Blog by Elite Digital.

In fact, there are several common mistakes people make while sending emails that seem minor but can have disastrous effects. 

It’s important to realize that while there’s no perfect email, there are mistakes that should be avoided at all costs. We’ve compiled five of the most common mistakes business owners make when crafting and implementing an email marketing strategy.

Too Many Words

A classic mistake in email marketing is using too many words and having too much text per email. People are overloaded with emails everyday, so trying to pull them in with long form copy simply isn’t effective. When your email recipients see an overwhelming amount of text on an email, they’re more likely to ignore or even delete it than to check out the information.

“Instead, your only goal should be to elicit a response — and you can do that with just four-to-five sentences,” recommends Marc Wayshak, contributor to Entrepreneur. “Keep your emails short and to the point. Don’t write too much.”

The Car Salesperson Pitch

People recognize when they’re being marketed to and it can leave a bad taste in their mouth to know an email sender’s true intentions. Consequently, when a potential buyer receives an email packed with sales terms and pitches, they’re likely to lose interest — and respect — rather quickly. 

Email recipients want to feel as though you’re sending them information that benefits them. As a result, if all they recognize is your desire to gain their support or money, they’ll be much less willing to engage.

“You may think you’re sounding intelligent and impressive, but you only come off as stiff and formal. Instead, write as if you’re simply talking to a friend,” says Wayshak. “Take out any buzzwords, fancy language or ‘sirs’ and ‘ma’ams.’ Simply be yourself, and you’ll be much more likely to get a response.”

Failing To Add Value

Readers sign up to receive emails because they expect to receive something that is important to them. If they don’t see anything useful with the potential to improve or enhance their lives, why should they read on? A bored reader is the most likely to unsubscribe. 

As well, a common email marketing mistake is to forget to add a call to action (CTA). Without a clear, attention-grabbing CTA, readers are less likely to understand the value of the email. As well, they won’t know the next steps they could be taking to learn more or invest in the information.

“Stand out from the never-ending stream of emails in your prospects’ inboxes by offering something of real value. What’s actually useful in their world? Maybe it’s a free ebook, online assessment or relevant article,” says Wayshak. “These are all great items to include in your prospecting emails to help boost your value.”

No Email Personalization

Personalization isn’t just a buzzword; it’s a marketing strategy that can make a big difference when it comes to engaging an audience and trying to elicit a response. If your emails have no personalization, readers will assume they have received a standard, generic template and will quickly disregard your message.

“Instead, write very personalized emails, with details like the recipient’s first name and company to show that you’ve done your homework and care about them — individually — as potential customers,” says Wayshak.

No Hooks

If your email has nothing to grab a recipient’s attention, it will be almost impossible to get them to act. Both the beginning and the end of your email should include something that pulls your reader forward. Remember that the quality of your writing is crucial to grabbing your readers’ attention and enticing them to read on. Make sure all email content is extremely well written, taking into account grammar, spelling, punctuation and attention-grabbing leads. 

“Instead, end every email with a question that prompts a reply. A short question like, “Does this make sense in your world?” or “Where should I send this book?” will make it easy for your prospect to hit reply and type out a response,” says Wayshak. “That’s exactly what you’re looking for.”

If you’re failing to connect with your prospects and aren’t seeing any return on your email marketing efforts, it might be time to shake up your strategy. This could mean reviewing your techniques, evaluating your data and adapting your campaigns to increase their effectiveness. Strengthen your strategy and reap the benefits of improved ROI and customer acquisition rates by eliminating these five common email marketing mistakes.

The post 5 Common Mistakes of Email Marketing appeared first on Digital Marketing Blog by Elite Digital.

It’s important to consider both sides of email marketing to determine whether it’s right for your business. 

“Like any marketing campaign, understanding the pros and cons of email marketing can mean the difference between successful and failed campaigns,” says Maya Devassy, contributor to Business2Community.

We’ve compiled the main pros and cons of email marketing to help you determine if it will benefit your company. Use these tips to determine whether it’s worth investing in this method or if you need another game plan.

The Advantages of Email Marketing

It Builds Brand Awareness

Staying consistent with the tone and colour scheme of your emails can greatly improve your brand recognition. Showcase your business’ personality with a unique, eye-catching design that is pleasing to the eye and recognizable. This will build up your brand awareness and allow you to reach your target market. 

When buyers recognize your business by a logo or colour scheme, they’re more likely to feel a connection to your brand. This makes them more likely to think of your brand when they arrive at the consideration stage of their buyer journey.

“This can result in consumers sharing your material if they think it’s good, which further promotes your brand, and it helps them recall your brand when they are ready to make a buying decision,” recommends Devassy.

It Establishes Industry Expertise

Email marketing is one of the easiest ways your business can share key information with many people at a time. This is a great way to become a thought leader in your industry and promote your company with confidence. 

When a business is able to establish themselves as an industry expert, they build up their brand credibility. This exposure can lead to the brand being recognized by buyers as a reputable, reliable source to find solutions.

“Email marketing allows you to share content that demonstrates your […] expertise in your specific industry […], it also gives you the opportunity to promote or announce a new product, service or limited-time special offer,” says Devassy.

It is Quick and Cost-Effective 

While many marketing techniques can be extremely costly, email marketing can be done for a relatively low price. What’s more, it really doesn’t take up much of your time. Especially if you’re savvy to the industry, you can achieve great email marketing with quite little effort. Even hiring an outside company to perform email marketing services can provide the highest ROIs of any marketing strategy.

The Disadvantages of Email Marketing

It Can Be Tough To Stand Out

One of the biggest challenges of email marketing is standing out amongst the competition. These days, you can more or less expect that your audience members are receiving dozens of emails each day. Unfortunately, because of this, most of these emails are likely to be considered spam, junk or irrelevant to their interests. 

It’s important to make sure you are creating quality content. Your posts should present simple, digestible content that is interesting to read, aesthetically pleasing and unique. Conduct market research by taking a look at your competitors’ efforts to see how they stand out amongst the noise.

“It’s very much possible that your marketing email may never be opened by consumers. [M]arketing emails can be seen as unimportant and deleted or caught in the spam folder and never seen by consumers,” advises Davassy.

It Can Frustrate Potential Clients

Inboxes are often plagued with waves of spam emails that have given email marketing a bad name amongst buyers. Many buyers complain about receiving emails they didn’t sign up for, getting too many emails or failing to easily unsubscribe.

Make sure to honor your subscriber lists and don’t go overboard on the length or consistency of your emails. Similarly, don’t make it a pain for recipients to unsubscribe from your content. Buyers will appreciate that you care about them enough to offer a non-intrusive way to learn about your business. 

“Unsolicited emails can leave a bad taste in a consumer’s mouth and make [them] consider your company less than reputable. [I]f an unsubscribe request isn’t taken care of immediately, your company’s image can be tarnished,” says Devassy.

It Takes Effort and Practice

The reality is that not all email marketing works. Just because you send an email, it doesn’t mean people will read it or that it will impact your audience. Try to remain patient when starting to incorporate emailing into your marketing strategy and understand that it’s a learning process.

“From the body content and CTA to the subject line […], creating quality email content consumers are interested in can be time consuming,” says Devassy.

The post The Advantages and Disadvantages of Email Marketing appeared first on Digital Marketing Blog by Elite Digital.

Since its launch in 2010, it has grown to be so much more than a simple photo and video-sharing social network. Today, Instagram is considered to be one of the best ways for people to discover new places and products and begin their customer journey. Instagram provides the perfect opportunity for businesses to develop their brand identity in a creative and engaging way and introduce themselves to potential customers.

Studies show that refining your Instagram profile can significantly improve your business success; with around 83% of Instagrammers attributing the platform to their discovery of new products and services. That being said, simply creating a business profile on Instagram won’t guarantee your success. On the contrary, it takes a well-thought-out marketing strategy and a properly defined brand identity to attract quality customers.

Check out how you can build your Instagram presence and create lasting relationships with your users that will result in long-term organic growth.

1. Take Time Creating Your Instagram Bio 

For many customers, the best way to find out more about a business is to check out their online presence, specifically their Instagram profile. And what’s the first thing they see when they land on your profile page? You guessed it; your Instagram bio!

Whether it’s a couple of keywords that encapsulate your business mantra, a description of how you got started or a strand of cute emojis, your potential followers will determine how they feel about your brand within the first few seconds of looking at your social media account and reading those introductory lines. 

Make sure your bio conveys what your business does, showcases your overarching brand personality and shares links to any other platforms you have where users can learn more. An Instagram bio only allows for 150 characters so use the space wisely and think about what would quickly and effectively grab the attention of your customers. 

2. Convert to a Business Profile

Many individuals still attempt to run their business and attract new customers from a personal social media account. However, converting to a business profile format allows for faster, easier communication with your followers on all levels. If you’re serious about growing your follower count and improving your brand awareness, switching to a business profile is crucial. 

Operating on an Instagram Business profile comes with several major benefits. These include access to Instagram Insights and the ability to run ads, schedule content, add links to stories and add CTAs to your bio. These new features don’t just allow your customers to more easily access your product or service, but they also allow you to improve your online presence, promote your business and analyze your progress.

Business profiles experience more traffic, create a platform for customer reviews and allow for a deeper level of branding development. If you haven’t already, consider converting to a business profile to reap the many benefits of the unique platform account.

3. Decide On a Brand Theme/Aesthetic 

Figuring out how you want to present your business to customers is a crucial step to achieving business success and brand recognition. When users come across your business on any social media platform, you want them to immediately recognize the style of your particular product or service, without them even having to see your logo. 

Deciding on a brand theme and consistently catering to that aesthetic on your profile can dramatically influence the way your audience sees — and remembers — your company. Brand aesthetic can include color theme, tone of voice, filter choice, photography styles and the overall vibe you present. 

Consumers tend to trust and feel a greater emotional connection to brands that they can recognize simply by their style. Allowing for total consistency in color, content and design on your profile is not only pleasing to the eye, it also works to build brand recognition, making it easily recognizable to any potential customer.

4. Get Your Timing Right

With over 500 million people checking in on Instagram each day at different times and with different interests, it’s near impossible to reach them all with a single post. However, there are a number of things you can do to cater the timing of your posts to the majority of your target audience and reach the most amount of people possible each time. 

Studies show that social media postings attain the most viewings between 10am to 3pm Monday through Saturday. Since that’s a large time frame, carefully consider the specific audience group you’re trying to reach and the typical schedules they may follow, and post strategically. 

Gather information on the best times to post by taking advantage of your Instagram Insights feature and viewing web traffic throughout various times of the day or week. Attention to details such as time of year, market trends and spending habits can also be extremely beneficial in figuring out the best times to post. 

5. Diversify Your Content 

Although it’s important to remain consistent in terms of your brand identity and profile aesthetic, your followers likely don’t want to see the same kind of post day after day. Mix up your content consistently to keep them interested, engaged and wanting more. Without sacrificing your color scheme or photography styles, make sure you’re changing up the type of media you’re posting and avoiding repetition. 

Consider posting employee spotlights, product promotions, user-generated content, business milestones, seasonal posts, cross-promotions with other brands, carousel posts, fun video tutorials and more.

6. Use Branded Hashtags

Hashtags may not seem like much of a priority in terms of your Instagram profile, but having a strategic hashtagging method and using hashtags effectively can actually be an important step to increasing your brand awareness.

Utilizing hashtags spread the word about your brand without breaking the bank; when followers and existing customers use your unique branded hashtag, they inadvertently promote your product or service and drive other potential customers to your page. By hashtagging your brand, users can easily spread the word about your amazing business with other like-minded individuals.

As well, using hashtags for specific, targeted campaigns or products organizes all relevant content onto one succinct page where customers can view more.

7. Consider Working with Influencers

While we all want to believe we can do it all, the reality is that sometimes, we need a little help. Depending on your type of business and the industry you’re in, promoting your brand or product through Instagram influencer marketing can be extremely beneficial to your business success.

Influencers are the social media gurus that run platforms like Instagram and have built up enough credibility to establish a truly loyal following. Instagram influencers have the power to persuade their followers to try certain foods, visit certain places and buy certain products, all because they trust their judgement. 

By working with influencers, your Instagram Business profile has the potential to attract new followers that wouldn’t otherwise be reached. As well, involving influencers in your social media marketing presence allows followers to gain better insight into how your product or service is used and how it can benefit them. 

8. Interact With Your Followers

As important as it is to get new users to follow your page, it’s equally important to make an effort to keep these followers interested in your business. The key to retaining followers is making them know how much you value them and that you see them as more than just another username. Many accounts focus solely on the content they’re posting and forget to respond to the comments these posts are receiving. Be sure to send out messages, reply to comments and questions and acknowledge your followers on your live stories. 

As well, do your best to appropriately address both negative feedback and complaints as well as positive comments. This makes your brand seem much more authentic, and will make your customers feel heard and valued. Avoid responding with repetitive, impersonal posts that could come across as bot responses — these spam-like replies will make followers question the sincerity of your comments. 

While social media is a useful tool for business growth, it is one that must be monitored and updated frequently. Be aware of formatting changes, privacy implements and any new features that are introduced on the platform. This will allow you to use social media characteristics to improve your business marketing strategy. Take advantage of all that Instagram marketing has to offer by following these major tips and tricks and figuring out what strategy works best for your business!

The post Tips and Tricks for Building Your Instagram Presence appeared first on Digital Marketing Blog by Elite Digital.

As search engines continue to evolve and constantly change their ranking criteria, it can make you wonder whether you should be bothering with search engine optimization (SEO) at all. After all, Google looks at more than 200 factors to decide where each page will appear in the search results. The rules keep changing, so how do you keep up? 

From the Panda update to the recent core algorithm update, Google has demonstrated its ability to decide which sites get website traffic and which sites do not. New ways to search also complicate a business’ effort to leverage search for growth; even if a firm has mastered paid advertising, it still may be missing out on traffic coming from organic desktop, mobile and voice searches. 

Since 85% of all clicks on Google are on organic search results, and only 15% are on PPC results, SEO proves to be extremely important for companies. Elite has compiled the top reasons why your business needs SEO: 

1. SEO Generates More Traffic Than PPC

A trend that hasn’t changed throughout the years is users favouring organic results over paid ads.

According to 2019 reports, over 71% of clicks derive from page one of Google; over 5% on pages two and three; and over 3% of clicks from pages four to 10. This leaves paid ads with only 15% of clicks. Based on the trends over the years, organic search results will remain the users’ top choice for some time to come, making it incredibly important for your business to have a high ranking on search engines.

Sure, rules and platforms have changed, but SEO for businesses remains as important as ever. Yes, more changes will occur in the future; so, it’s your job to learn how to keep up with those changes, staying up-to-date on current trends and publishing high-quality content that adds value to your industry.

2. Search Engine Visibility Builds Brand Credibility and Consumer Trust

Whether you’re a small business owner or a large corporation, when people see a brand near the top of a search engine results page, they recognize this as a positive indication. In other words, people trust Google to put the best websites first. Having your website show up on the first page of results ensures you’ll be trusted by your target audience. 

3. Optimizations Can Improve User Experience

Search engines can tell if users respond well to your website. Websites that provide relevant, optimized, mobile-friendly content can expect to succeed. Knowing popular search phrases by performing keyword research can help you optimize your title tags, meta descriptions and content so that you can improve your search engine rankings. Other SEO strategies like link building and content marketing also improve user experience by building your online reputation. 

Similarly, businesses that provide a simplified user experience (UX), navigation tools (such as internal links within content) and a speedy checkout process makes it easier for users to navigate their site and helps to improve their website ranking.

4. Local SEO Increases Traffic & Conversions

Approximately 46% of all Google searches are seeking local information. Stores, restaurants and other local businesses that offer public access can optimize their website for users locally to leverage these searches. With a good local SEO strategy, your business can appear in search results for mobile and desktop searches for nearby products and services.

Business owners wanting to attract in-store traffic really benefit from local search rankings. If you’re one of the business listings in Google maps local pack for a search, you will statistically receive 48% of all clicks. 

5. SEO is a Cost-Effective Marketing Method

Paid digital marketing campaigns like PPC and paid social media ads can drain budgets quickly. Many times, these ads will cost too much to produce your desired results. On the other hand, search engine optimization is free. Other than spending time learning about SEO, optimizing your website for clicks doesn’t cost a thing and can lead to a greater amount of clicks and conversions than Google ads. 

Practically every search engine user chooses a link from the first page of their organic search results. So, businesses that only optimize for paid search campaigns can’t reap the many benefits of good organic rankings. In other words, every business should insist on appearing on page one for relevant search terms.

6. You Can Gain Insight Into Your Customers’ Online Habits

Companies can use tools such as Google Analytics to study their customers’ online activities and use these learnings to align their business with the needs, desires, and challenges of their customers. For example, you can use organic search tools to gain insight into the searches, clicks, and engagement of your target audience on competitor websites. These insights can help you update features of your products, services, and other content to meet the needs of your target market.

7. SEO Helps Searchers Discover You

Shoppers often begin their buying journey by searching online. They usually are asking for a solution, and SEO gives you an opportunity to be the one that provides the answers. Brands become more recognizable by optimizing their website for the keywords and phrases their target audience is searching. Engage in hearty keyword research to implement into your strategy and you’re off to a good start.  

8. SEO Works For Every Search Engine (not just Google)

Right now, “search engine” and “Google” mean pretty much the same thing. However, alternative search engines exist such as Bing, Yahoo, and DuckDuckGo and account for approximately 8% of the search engine market share. Since they are competing with the search engine giant, these engines provide amazing search experiences to attract users. Since most search engines use a similar algorithm, search engine optimization efforts will have a similar effect on each of them. 

9. You CAN Generate Measurable Results

Business owners and managers want to know their return on investment (ROI) for their marketing campaigns, which can sometimes make them back away from SEO. Although profitability of SEO can seem impossible to measure, there are actually many data points that businesses can use to measure their ROI. Using search tools like SEMrush can help you track the progress of common key performance indicators like user engagement, lead generation, and sales conversions – based solely on organic search. 

In summary, even though search engine algorithms change along with the strategies for optimizing for them, SEO is a proven and affordable way to stay relevant to your audience and should be a marketing initiative that every business adopts.

The post 9 Reasons Why Your Business Needs SEO appeared first on Digital Marketing Blog by Elite Digital.

As a small business, you may be struggling to dedicate the time and money necessary for your marketing efforts to successfully grow your business. Partnership marketing is a great alternative to taking on this endeavour alone, as it means working alongside another business and combining your resources to create a mutually beneficial strategy.

While this type of marketing can create success for your small business, there are many things to keep in mind when partnering up with another company. Elite Digital has compiled the top dos and don’ts of partnership marketing to help bring success to your small business.

The Dos of Partnership Marketing

DO Determine Your Target Clients

The first step to collaborating with a partner is determining who that partner is; what business or company are you trying to connect with in order to collaboratively generate a successful marketing strategy? Think about who you’re trying to attract in terms of the type of organization, industry, size and customer base. What company would be most beneficial to helping increase your brand awareness and customer acquisition? 

Once you’ve defined your target clients, determine the kind of offer you plan to present that’s most likely to interest them. A partnership marketing strategy needs to be mutually beneficial for all parties involved; think about the potential struggles your target clients currently face or could improve and identify how affiliating with your brand could help to fill the gaps in their business strategy. How would partnering with your brand bring success to their company? 

DO Leverage Industry Relationships

One of the greatest benefits of partnership marketing is being better able to reach your desired customer base. While you’re searching for appropriate clients to partner with, conduct thorough research to find the businesses that not only share your company mission but also have pre-existing relationships with the customers you’re trying to reach. 

Think about the products and services that are often purchased in conjunction with your own and would be an appropriate pairing for a similar target market. For example, if your company sells home furniture, it may be beneficial to pair up with an interior design service since you will be targeting the same customer base. In order to leverage these industry relationships and build your customer reach, ensure you’ve properly defined your audience and share this target group with your partner(s).  

DO Share the Workload

Once you’ve found an appropriate brand to partner with and have determined your shared objectives, it’s important to thoroughly outline the terms of the coming workload. A partnership is bound to be unsuccessful if there’s an imbalanced relationship and one company is doing more than another. 

Of course, flexibility is a necessity when it comes to co-branding, since every company will have a different way of doing things. That being said, things are bound to flow a lot more smoothly if everyone involved has the same workload expectations from the get-go. Keep in mind your joint objectives, budget, target market and timeline to create a fair and realistic workload division before you get to work.

DO Be Patient

Partnership marketing is an excellent and innovative strategy to growing your company and building your client base; but don’t assume that it’s going to be immediately transformative or the answer to all your problems. Successful partnership marketing takes time and it’s worth constructing a quality co-branded campaign rather than rushing to broadcast your name beside that of your partner. 

What’s more, it’s equally crucial to be patient when finding clients to partner with and pitching your campaign ideas. It may take time to find a company that shares your brand values and goals but it’s a necessary step to creating a successful campaign.

The Don’ts of Partnership Marketing

DON’T Force a Partnership

While successful partnership marketing can be extremely beneficial for some businesses, co-branding for the sake of co-branding can be dangerous. Any forced relationship in business is likely to be destructive and end badly for both parties, and the same rule applies for partnership marketing. 

Make sure the company you’ve chosen to pair up with is relevant to your brand and that consumers will recognize the affiliation — did you choose to partner with the company because they have a recognizable brand name or because they have a product or service that correlates with your own?

DON’T Rely On Solely On Your Partner 

The key thing to remember about partnership marketing is that co-branding is a team effort and requires the collaboration of everyone involved. 

That being said, it can be dangerous to assume that your partners will adhere to your expectations of an equally divided workload. Don’t rely on your partner brands to complete the work and instead, focus on the success of your company and the tasks at hand that will help you get there. As previously mentioned, try to avoid this situation by determining shared objectives and marketing expectations prior to your partnership. However, don’t assume this pre-partnership meeting will ensure a fair workload division.

DON’T Team Up With Similar Brands

While it’s important that you and your partners have similar business objectives, strive to team up with brands that aren’t exactly the same as your own. 

One of the benefits of partnership marketing is being able to fill in each other’s business gaps and pairing with a brand that’s too similar to your own can seriously hinder this ability. Instead of filling in these gaps, you’re more likely to share the same weaknesses and have little insight on how to improve them. 

As well, partnering with a brand that offers the same value to customers as your own can result in creating more competition for your company. While partnership marketing has the ability to increase your customer acquisition, pairing up with too similar a brand may instead force you to share and therefore decrease your customer base.

The post The Dos and Don’ts of Partnership Marketing appeared first on Digital Marketing Blog by Elite Digital.