Inbound Marketing Blog

Managing a non-profit is not just tackling that all-important mission—it’s about running an entire business operation and still managing to tackle that mission. So let’s talk about one thing that can hold back many budding nonprofits: poor web strategy. Web strategy is basically a plan to get visibility of and traffic to your website. This is absolutely critical to a non-profit since they mainly operate on donations. The more eyes on your site, the more funding you can potentially receive. Because of this, having a solid web strategy in place can make all the difference.

I don't know who needs to hear this, but it's time to stop having your interns, admins, and legal assistants also be responsible for your online marketing strategy. While your support staff is surely there to help with important aspects of the business (including marketing), the time they're spending creating social media posts and managing your Google PPC ads is taking away time that could be better served assisting with intake, research, and other important aspects of client work to assist your attorneys.

It's time to outsource your online lead generation and hire a digital marketing company that can strategically build your pipeline with ideal cases.

I know, I know. That title makes it seem like I'm telling you that the only marketing agency you should hire are those where your budget will explode. But, that's not the case at all.

When shopping for web services (web design, web development, digital marketing, search engine optimization -- you get the idea), you might find it nearly impossible to compare providers. You'll have one provider that will build a website at $700, another at $7,000, and yet another at $17,000. You'll have an SEO provider suggest that they can get you all the business in the world for $100 per month but someone else might say that $1,000 is the minimum.

Over the years, I have thought a lot about the right way to offer web services to our clients. How should we make sure that we charge the right amount for the services that we offer?

Just having a website on the internet is no longer enough to be found online. All industries are experiencing that reality and are recognizing the need to have more of an active approach to their online presence. Healthcare companies are no exception!

Sure your website may have a lot of traffic coming from patients attempting to access their online portal or to find their provider's contact information, but that's not the kind of traffic that brings in new business. Providing a good user experience and online presence that works for current patients is a basic necessity. But good user experience and online presence that also captures the interest and business of potential patients can be revolutionary!

Web marketing services are more essential than ever for businesses right now. With the markets crashing and businesses closing their physical doors left and right, having an online presence is the only thing that will keep businesses generating revenue. Before the Coronavirus pandemic made its entrance, roughly 80% of business focus was on brick-and-mortar efforts and (if a company was mindful of this digital age) roughly 20% of their business efforts were spent on digital advertising and web marketing. So, what happens now that brick-and-mortar businesses have to close their doors? How do they keep employees employed and continue to see cash flow?

Let’s be honest, there are a myriad of tools floating around that can help you create some pretty amazing videos and graphics for your social media accounts. The caveat is that most are not free, and for a company or individual who is looking to create compelling videos and graphics without having to spend a lot of money doing so, this journey can be frustrating.

Making the decision to outsource your business’s marketing efforts can be very difficult. Handing off the reins to an outside company can be scary, especially for small businesses that don’t have the resources to put a ton of money into their marketing efforts. We can’t all afford to run campaigns like Coca-Cola, Sony or Starbucks. However, there are many things to be learned from these big brands.

I don’t know about you, but I like to check out several companies (online and in person) when searching for a particular product or service. If time permits, I could be searching for several hours. Researching is always my go-to when I'm on the hunt for something specific. You wouldn't believe the time my husband and I recently put into finding a new mattress. In our search, there were a few factors that really swayed us in our decision. Quality of the product and how it solved our needs were obviously the top two. But the third factor had to do with the companies themselves. Our online experience with each company played a huge part in  determining which stores we actually wanted to take time to go to in order to try the mattresses. Let me tell you, there were a lot of brands we dismissed right away. Maybe their product WAS as great as they tried to market it to be, but the experience we had on their websites and the reviews they had floating around swayed our minds away from doing business with them.  Why was that?

It doesn’t take a genius to realize that the more times you connect with your customers, the more likely they are to remember you and choose your company's product and/or services over a competitor.

In marketing, the official term is called ‘touches’ – an instance where your customers see or interact with your company. 

When it comes to customer delight [see the Four Actions of Inbound], 'touches' can go a long way. According to Stacy Willis on iMPACT, "When expectations are met, you have customer satisfaction. When expectations are exceeded, you achieve customer delight. How do you get there? By being human. Listen to your customer and their needs." 

Studies have shown that it takes at least 7 or more touches to generate a person’s interest. 

So, how do you make sure you interact with customers in an engaging way and often enough so that your company becomes memorable without you spending a fortune trying to do so? 

When I look at the successes and failures in business, I think I have found consistency between them.

The successful businesses remember their primary objective and the businesses that fail have forgotten what they are working for. Their efforts are misplaced because they forgot the reasoning and goals behind their efforts.

Let's put a practical example with this concept.