I recently read an article on 'bad' clients and the 'bad' attitudes of agencies. In reading it, I was reminded of a poignant fact that clients who are willing to pay for the expertise to solve important business challenges are often in a struggle to get a foothold in their market and increase ROI.
They can be difficult to deal with on any number of factors, but our job is to approach such clients with compassion and understanding, and in the end, to help them.
No matter the industry, brand or product, all businesses have one common goal: to get their product or service to their target audience. With how widespread social media is now, it's safe to say that people who are shopping online are also using social media to some degree. So how does the knowledge that online shoppers use social media become important to a business? How does social media affect sales?
A study called "Engaged Social Followers Are Your Best Customers” sheds some light on how social media can affect business. The first thing is to look at the four-step life cycle of the social media follower and how the social touchpoints play out. Here are the four stages of the journey.
1. Discover a company and products.
2. Explore whether what the company offers is right for them.
3. Buy your products and services.
4. Engage with the company, and with their friends and peers, after their purchase.
Business owners use several marketing strategies to entice customers and increase profits. Some strategies succeed and reinforce sales, whereas other methods exhibit insignificant results. Market and data research is vital in determining the best marketing or advertising strategy. Data-driven market research is perhaps the most important tool for business owners when evaluating the market they are interested in engaging with.
Customer success sounds significant but what is it, why is it important, and why should we be focused on it now?
A common misconception to the marketing layman, is that SEO is a one-time or "set-and-leave" task. The idea that you can optimize and clean up a website once, and then focus your efforts elsewhere, is a hopeful mindset that can create poor results for your digital marketing.
SEO is a full-time job that has endless opportunities and venues to engage with. So what does the daily work of an SEO professional look like?
When looking at the many ways that a business can be found on the web, there are a number of different avenues that consumers take. Someone looking for your services may turn to a yellow pages type directory or search for your company profile on a social network such as Facebook or Twitter. Odds are however, that the first place a customer seeking a company (such as yours) turns to is a search engine...in other words Google. You may be asking yourself how can your business be found on Google?
There are a number of ways to be found in Google search, however there are two ways in particular that are explored more in-depth below:
One thing you can count on in life is change. The same goes for digital marketing. Google has already made a drastic change to their algorithm this year to favor mobile friendly websites (read more about that HERE), so what is coming next?
Well, I don't know, but I have made some very educated guesses based on trends and data analysis to know what things to focus on.
It has always been Google’s goal to provide the best results when using their search engine. The Google algorithm has been finely tuned to look for the most up-to-date, high quality, and relevant sources on the web to fit the needs of enthusiastic searchers.
However, Google’s efforts to provide high-quality results were often thwarted by sites that used 'canned content', or content that has been published before. Content farms can produce search-engine-optimized websites at a fraction of the cost due to the reuse of general content. With cost-efficiency and built-in rankings, the popularity of these sites, at the time, was extremely popular. But, all that has changed with the power of content marketing.
Twitter can improve your business. Twitter is an interactive information distribution method that can be very effective when used as an advertising medium. The number of businesses that regularly use Twitter to communicate to their target audience is growing daily at an exponential rate, which is why many businesses are getting a grasp on social media management. In the next three posts, I will explain how Twitter can improve your business and how to use it effectively as a marketing and sales tool.
Every knowledgable business has a Facebook page. It’s a free platform to introduce your brand to a new audience and reach your target customers. The entire idea behind having a business page on Facebook is to be seen by potential clients and build your brand awarensess with new audiences.
The first step in making sure your business page is public. If your page is not public then someone can only view what your business has to offer when they are logged in. Running promotions or campaigns can become a challenge if your page is not public. It may seem like everyone has a Facebook account, but that is not an accurate assumption. If your client cannot view your page then there is an opportunity for potential loss for you and your business is created.
Tribute Media has had a Business Facebook page for a long time now. We take this platform seriously by making sure to be active on it every day. It’s a way for us to have a relationship with our clients that is both playful and professional. We are also able to spread the word about upcoming events on our page and share our work with our fans.