Why Small Businesses Need to Embrace Digital Marketing
Almost half of all businesses don't have a digital marketing plan in place. Is your company among them?
If so, you need to make some moves. Small business digital marketing is essential for scaling your business in 2018. Advertising is on its way out, and digital marketing is taking the world by storm.
Want to learn more about digital marketing for small businesses, and how to create an effective online marketing plan? Read on to learn more about the importance of digital marketing strategies for small businesses.
It's the Way of the Future
83% of businesses report that their digital marketing tactics are working to grow their business. There's no denying that we live in a digital economy today. Smartphones are so pervasive that people spend 24 hours per week staring at their phone.
In the twenty-first century, you'll find people on digital outlets more than anywhere else. In the past, car passengers would certainly read bus stop benches as they zoomed past on the highway. Now, they stay occupied by the phones in their pockets.
Same goes for other popular forms of advertising, like newspapers, for instance. Every major news outlet has an app now, so people turn to their phones to get the latest news. It's easy, digestible, and usually free.
Even magazines are turning more and more toward digital publication. You'll find fewer places to place print ads in 2018. Those ads won't get beneath nearly as many people's eyes as digital strategies, either.
Connect with Your Ideal Client
One of the most potent uses of digital marketing strategies is to connect you to your ideal client. Digital marketing offers ways to market directly toward the exact demographic you're trying to target. Traditional advertising methods don't allow this direct targeting method.
Here's a social media marketing example. On Instagram, you can find hashtags that your ideal clients are searching on the app. Once you see these hashtags, you can begin to use them on your posts to reach that demographic.
Here's another example relevant to content marketing. By writing a blog and hosting it on your website, you can attract organic leads that are interested in what you have to say.
With some light research, you'll be able to find the questions your client base is asking online. From there, you can even tailor your blog topics to answer those questions directly. With some search engine optimization, this can land your potential clients right onto your website.
Your Small Business Digital Marketing Plan
Digital marketing is the only way to scale your business in 2018. As old traditional advertising methods die out, small business digital marketing has become a much stronger alternative. It's also the best way to reach your target demographic directly.
Want to learn more about how to dive into online marketing for small businesses? We can help there.
We specialize in inbound and video marketing, two of the most significant branch of digital marketing today. Get in touch to find out how we can help you scale your business!
4 Tips for Creating a Strong Video Marketing Series
Many people think of marketing videos as one-off commercials or testimonials. They will hire a video marketing agency to shoot a few specific pieces and then move on. However, this is overlooking a massive potential to build on the success of their video content.
More and more companies are discovering the value of an informative half-promotional video series that shares exciting information on a regular basis with their customers and website visitors. A video series has the potential to become a popular monthly or weekly event for people who are involved in or curious about your industry or the content you've chosen to provide, creating a compelling video marketing strategy.
Here are a few tips to building your series:
1. Choose An Engaging Topic
Pick something, anything, in your industry that your customers are interested in. While you may be tempted toward product highlights or service descriptions, go for something that more directly connects to your target audience. How-to's, day-in-the-life, and customers stories are more likely to be the kind of content you're looking for.
When choosing your topic, also consider how long each video will be and what kind of attention span you're preparing for. We can use two parallel examples to give you a good idea of the concept:
2. Be Casual and Genuine
Connect with your future viewers through the camera as if you were speaking to them in your living room or personal workshop. Being casual and friendly with your customers allows you to invite them to your video content.
Most modern consumers have been tuning out television and radio commercials for their entire lives and have become resistant to the 'radio announcer voice.' Instead, stay as genuine as possible, up to the point of keeping a few 'bloopers' in to show that you're a real person. This will make you inherently more relatable to them, and they will want to learn from you because you're not an actor hired to speak empty lines.
3. Innovate with Every Video
Don't let your content go stale, make sure you are covering the new and interesting ground with every new video. This is what keeps viewers coming back and sharing with their friends. You want your viewers to be excited wondering what you will show next, then fulfill that anticipation with another installment of high-quality content. Strong content themes are great, but you want to avoid posting similar topics that share content too close together.
4. Keep the Formula Consistent
Once you've got a hooked viewership, they are coming back to see you almost as much as the content you create. This means staying yourself and maintaining the video layout and style is essential.
Feel free to improve, of course, but don't stray too far. The formula is, in fact, the glue of your video series. It gives you a way to hold on to viewers even if you run out of good variations for a single topic. This means that if you started as, say, a camping survival guide, you could transfer into segments on wilderness sports like rock climbing by merely introducing your viewers to it from one video to another.
The Right Formula
Strong video marketing skills rely on a combination of content, charisma, and responsiveness to your audience. Make sure to read the comments on your videos and invite viewers to leave feedback. Anytime you have anew idea for your series, just run it by your videographers and let the cameras roll.
For more information about video marketing or to schedule a consultation, contact us today!
Steps to Create a Strong Video Marketing Strategy
Did you know there are more than 2.08 billion users of smartphones? That's right, and you need to be connecting with them via video marketing. If you do not yet have a video content marketing strategy in place, here is a look at five simple steps you can take to get started.
Step 1: Define Your Strategy Purpose
Before you set off to develop a comprehensive video marketing strategy, you first need to define its purpose. Do you want to educate viewers about your products? Are you looking to entertain them? Ultimately, you want to steer clear of anything that pressures them into buying your product or service. When you define your content strategy purpose, you can then create content that centers around this objective.
Step 2: Choose Your Topics Wisely
You want to choose video topics based on the viewers' needs. If there are already a ton of videos being shared about an item you want to focus on, you must come up with an angle that causes your video content to differentiate itself positively.
Step 3: Hire a Professional
This step is straightforward --if you don't know how to create a quality video, don't attempt to. Instead, hire a professional video content marketing specialist to do it for you. This person can help to make sure to include a variety of relevant aspects of your video marketing strategy.
Step 4: Let Viewers Know There is More Coming
At the end of every video, there should be directions for subscribing to the channel to see future videos. This will attract viewers and let them know that you intend to publish more videos soon.
Step 5: Always Include the Option to Share
Even more important than a subscription option is the ability to share your videos. You want viewers to share across a variety of platforms, which increases your brand awareness and attracts even more consumers to your company website.
To learn more about effective video marketing, contact us today.
How to Plan Effective Video Marketing To Engage Customers
Video marketing is the most compelling way to promote your brand in an ever-evolving digital age. Effective Video Marketing helps you get in front of your audience, raise brand awareness, and it leads viewers to take action. The key to an effective video strategy is ensuring that your content aligns with each stage of the buyer’s journey.
You see, your marketing will attract different prospects who are at different phases in your sales funnel. You may have a visitor who is ready to invest in your service yet another who simply wants information. It’s important to create content that suits these needs at each stage that moves them to the next stage in your funnel.
The ultimate goal is to convert prospects into buying customers. Video marketing is a top tool in inbound marketing to help you achieve this objective.
In this guide, we’ll outline the three stages to the buyer’s journey and how to use different types of video marketing in each phase for maximum success in your strategy.
Awareness Stage
In the awareness stage, the prospect is in the discovery process of your brand. They understand they have a problem and begin researching ways to resolve the issue. As a result, they land on your content as the solution. Your prospect is simply looking for educational content that will help them quickly overcome their pains and challenges.
Your goal in creating video content for the Awareness Stage is to do just that build awareness of your brand. Here, you’re positioning your company as a resource, expert, and solution in the industry. It’s where you let your audience know what you offer so buyers recognize what you do and how you can help them.
Therefore, you want to engage your visitor in a way that encourages them to indulge more in your content by focusing on their pain points, not your products or brand.
How to Use Video Marketing for Awareness Stage
Here are the typical content types that work best in the Awareness Stage using video:
1. Social Videos:
Social promotion is an excellent medium for building a following and community around your brand. It’s also a huge asset to getting your video content in front of an engaging audience.
There are three types of videos to consider when posting on social media:
- Sharing videos from your YouTube channel – As the second largest search engine, building your channel is smart towards growing brand awareness. Be sure to optimize your videos for better ranking
- Uploading organic videos directly to social media – you’ll obtain greater reach with your audience using organic videos (Source: Social Media Today)
- Live-streaming video – Facebook Live, Periscope, and Instagram Stories are generating massive engagement on social media. Excellent tactic to build exposure to your brand fast
2. Include Video in Blog Content
Your company blog is the perfect platform to create quality rich-content that educates your audience while increasing visibility to your brand. Add videos to these posts to enrich website-experience and keep people on your page longer (this also improves your SEO).
Consideration Stage
Good news! Your prospect has warmed up to your brand and you’re now viewed as a credible source. They’re also clear on their goals, are committed to addressing it, and now looking at options on how they can handle their issues. At this stage, they’re actively looking for content related to solutions.
Content in this phase needs to be incredibly informative and help the prospect gain clarity on how to solve the problem they are experiencing. In the Consideration Stage, you’re also focusing on capturing qualified leads by leveraging compelling lead magnets to get them in your sales funnel.
How to Use Video Marketing for Consideration Stage
The beauty of using video here is that they’re highly successful in moving viewers to action. This is especially important for growing your email list. Giving a clear call-to-action in your video that directs users to the next step will have a tremendous impact on your conversion rates.
Here’s how to put it to use:
1. Video on Landing Page
Landing pages that include video can increase conversions by a whopping 80% (Source: Hubspot)
2. Webinars
Webinars allow you to showcase your knowledge and expertise. You can dive deeper into topics and give people a chance to ask questions for further understanding. It also bolsters your lead generation as each participant must register before joining your broadcast
3. How-to’s and Instructional Videos
YouTube and live-streaming are ideal platforms for how-to and instructional videos.
4. Promote Your eBook
eBooks are ideal sources for product comparisons, how-to’s, or giving detailed instructions. Shoot a video that promotes your eBook and shares how viewers can opt-in to get their copy
5. Mini-Video Series
Consider repurposing your popular, evergreen, or long-form blog post into a mini video series that you can distribute on social media or use as a lead magnet. Repurposing content fills your content calendar, giving you ample content to share with your audience.
Decision Stage
Your prospect is now closer to making the financial decision to solving their problem. Through your email nurturing tactics, they’ve been cultivated by your content (whether blog posts, videos, infographics, etc.) and perhaps ready to make the purchase. In fact, nurtured leads make 47% larger purchases than non-nurtured leads (Source: Emma). Your video marketing strategy is about to pay off big… but we’re not finished yet!
The content used to help close the deal will be different from the content leveraged in the previous stages. Your focus here is to make the sale, so it’s vital to create a smooth transition to the transaction.
How to Use Video Marketing for Decision Stage
Videos will help get the job done. Hubspot also shares that after watching a video, 64% of users are more likely to buy that product online. You’re using the right tool to convert leads into customers.
The following ways show how:
1. Gather Customer Testimonials
User-generated content and sharing testimonials are extremely effective in boosting sales revenue. It builds trust with your audience and shows that what you have, works! Compile your customer’s social videos into one, compelling marketing video to share with your list
2. Live Demo
Show prospects how your products work live and in living color by hosting a webinar or live-streaming video on social media. Outline the benefits, features, and how people use it as their solution. Allow an opportunity for participants to ask questions for immediate response
3. Share Your Story
Storytelling is a powerful strategy to pulling your audience in and connecting them with the vision of your brand.
4. Product Videos
Create an extensive video for each of your products and services. This can be evergreen content that you can use forever that highlights the details, advantages, and how viewers can purchase.
Final Insights For Effective Video Marketing
Video marketing is a powerful tool in the inbound marketing box! By honing on your video strategy, you can significantly boost brand awareness, get more eyeballs on your content, grow your leads, and increase revenue. The key is ensuring that you’re leveraging the different types of videos appropriately to effectively move your audience.
Use this blueprint as a guide to creating your video marketing strategy. Be consistent and patient with your results. Regularly test your outcomes to discover what’s working best with your audience and what needs to be modified. In due time, you will experience the desired growth in your business with video.
Are you ready to ramp up your video marketing in 2017? We are equipped to help you get in front of your audience and achieve results in your inbound marketing. Reach out to us here and let’s chat!
Gym Marketing Advice: Differentiation In Fitness Business
In a crowded field competing for Americans' disposable income, how can your gym marketing or fitness center stand out from the crowd? With nearly 100,000 gyms and fitness centers of all stripes in the United States, what will draw potential members to your gym and more importantly, keep them there?
With the high turnover rate in gym memberships, differentiating yourself from your competitors is vital to attracting new members. This holiday season, with resolution time just around the corner, is the perfect time to learn how properly made and promoted videos are a key to attracting dedicated members to your gym.
What Makes Your Gym Special?
The first step in determining how you are going to make your gym stand out from the morass is to understand why your gym should stand out. What features about your gym will make is special to potential members? Is it the equipment? The hours? The people? The location?
Actually, according to a 2014 survey, the top reason people gave for joining and sticking with their gym was the convenient location (50 percent). Ranking second at 38 percent was the equipment.
Of course, the reasons people go to and stick with a gym are as varied as the number of members of the gym. The CreditDonkey survey also found 44 percent of respondents said they go to the gym with another person, so having a workout buddy is key to sustaining membership. The survey even found that 30 percent of respondents don't even break a sweat at the gym because they are too busy chatting with their friends to get started with their workout.
All of this is just food for thought as you think about how to market your gym as a different alternative. Do you need to highlight your location? Your friendly staff? Your discount family or buddy plans? Your superior equipment? All of these can be great marketing tools if your potential customers can find out about them.
Who Are You Targeting?
That brings us to the second question you need to address. Who are you targeting as your potential customers? Do you feel like your membership is too young? Too old? Not diverse enough? Are you a women-only facility? A rock-climbing facility? A yoga studio?
If you think building a gym membership means attracting the 24-35 crowd, you might be surprised to learn the average gym member is in their early 40s. Older members tend to be more stable as they are settled into their community, have greater disposable income and stick to a fitness commitment more than their younger counterparts.
Once you've considered your selling points and your target audience, you're ready to get to work in producing what will most likely become a series of marketing videos.
More Than Just a Video on YouTube
The rise in the quality of cell phone cameras has turned everyone into a photographer and videographer. If you have the budget, a professional can contribute great ideas to enhance your marketing, but if you need to save the money, you can produce good content with the help of your staff and members.
Once you've produced the videos you believe will sell your facility to your potential customers, you still face the challenge of getting them seen. Just loading them to your website or YouTube makes no guarantee your target audience will find them.
Getting your video to stand out on the Internet is an even greater challenge than getting your gym to stand out in your community. Search Engine Watch points out that video has exploded on the Internet in recent years, so creating a video that will catch attention on Internet search engines is a constant challenge. And while Search Engine Watch offers you tips to make your video more appealing, keeping up with the ever-changing search engine optimization standards is more than you as a gym owner have time to keep up with.
Taking care of that headache is our responsibility. We have experts in video production, website development and search engine optimization that will ensure your customers will find your videos and more importantly, your gym or fitness center. Contact us to learn how we can make your marketing efforts stand out from a competitive field.
Are you ready to find out how to get your marketing in shape? Check out our Gym Marketing Guidebook.
The Anatomy of a Landing Page
Traffic acquisition is only half of the marketing equation. In addition to bringing visitors to your website, you need to keep them there. Not only that, you need to transform them from interested prospects into customers. Your marketing needs to move that relationship forward at each touch point. Conversion optimization is the process of transforming new website visitors into paying customers — and first-time customers into repeat buyers. A landing page is a single web page that appears after a user clicks on an advertisement. These can be used to capture leads, communicate information, or generate website sign-ups.
Here are 9 aspects of the anatomy of a landing page:
- A consistent message between ad headline and landing page headline. For example, if someone searched for “Marketing Tools,” your landing page has a far better chance of converting if the headline mentions “Marketing Tools.”
- The secondary headline leads to the content. This section needs to compel the user to continue reading. Short, sweet and to-the-point, it should give a clear reason that speaks to the user’s pain point.
- Perfect grammar. This goes without saying.
- Trust signals. Testimonials, security seals and other badges that show that the user will have a secure, satisfactory shopping experience
- Strong call-to-action. Download, Free, Get, Create and other options have been shown to perform better than weaker words like “Try.” Stronger language and active verbs compel people to take action
- Buttons that stand out. The button needs to be able to catch the user’s eye, so make it distinctively different than the rest of the color scheme on your page.
- A lack of links. Keeping users on the landing page and moving them through to the call-to-action should be your primary goal. Linking out to other sites or other pages of your own site that aren’t tied into the landing page can distract the user from taking the action you want them to take.
- Images and video that relate to the content. Adding images and video that give customers a quick understanding of the product/service or explain the basics can all bolster the message.
- Fit the message within the first third of the page. This is known as “above the fold” and greatly increases the chance that visitors will take action since they don’t have to scroll.
Clear, concise information drives users to take action is the take-home message here. A single call-to-action on landing pages allow you to gather information or generate conversions with the highest impact across all of you digital outlets.