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July 15, 2015

Sexy Marketing for an Unsexy Business

While we may not always think about it, our society needs a wide diversity of businesses just to keep the wheels of progress spinning. We need to sanitize dirt, service portable toilets, lay asphalt and manufacture industrial lubricants.

The world doesn’t always revolve around premium tequila, supermodels and exotic sports cars.

We need clean water, healthcare workers and family cars, too.

Your business, product or service might not seem as “sexy” as some other brands, but that doesn’t mean you don’t love it and want to see it succeed.

It also doesn’t mean your customers don’t need you. And it definitely doesn’t mean you can’t market yourself effectively and grow your business.

Follow some simple steps, master your marketing, and your business will look a whole lot more attractive to those that need what you have to offer.

Steps for Better Business Marketing

Be you and build your brand – There might be other companies like yours, but none of them ARE yours. Talk to your marketing agency about brand management and get to the bottom of what makes YOU the only YOU that does what YOU do for the people YOU do it for.

Know more about your customer than they know about themselves – This one is all about market research. Your customers need you. And you need to know how to find them, know what they need, know how to communicate with them, and how to tell them what you can do for them. Often, it’s about telling them what they need before they even know it.

Talk to your customers in the language they speak – What words ring true? What phrases matter? What topics do they follow? What do they read, watch, or listen to? The only way to effectively communicate with your customers is to know what to say, when and how. And don’t just broadcast your message. A good marketing agency can help you create compelling content, blog posts, videos and social media to drive your customers to you.

Be a solution for your customer’s problems – Why do your customers need you? As much as you want to shout from the rooftops how cool you are, you also have to tell them how and why you have the answers to their problems. Ask questions, and listen to what is asked of you. Chances are, you already know all these questions…now answer them in your marketing materials before they are asked.

Use design and copywriting to sell yourself – You might not think you’re in a creative business, but you can still be creative and stand out. Your marketing agency can help you produce materials that look good, sound compelling, be funny or thought provoking. You can still draw attention. Design and copywriting services are more important than you think.

Just because you don’t see what you do as sexy doesn’t mean you can’t be the most beautiful solution your customers have been dreaming about.

When it comes to marketing, remember, even supermodels need makeup and someone to take their picture.

Categories : BRANDING

Tags : business marketing, marketing for business

Posted by DBC Digital on

March 31, 2015

Is Your Marketing Message Getting Lost?

Do you ever feel that your marketing message is somehow disconnected from your marketing activities? You know what your value proposition is, but when it comes to making it work for you across the web and in social media, something is getting lost.

Here are some important action steps to take to ensure your unique message is getting through:

SEO

Effectively bringing your marketing message in to your SEO efforts means expanding your keyword targeting to include more than just your primary keywords. Your goal should be to turn your tagline or Unique Selling Proposition (USP) into context-building factors that will increase your visibility.

For instance you (or your website manager) should be sure to:

Add a “value proposition page” the same way you would add a mission, vision, and “about us” page. Of course, you don’t need to call it a value proposition page, but including a page that is called something like: “What Makes Us Different” will ensure a clear distinction between you and your competitors.
Use unique Meta descriptions in each of your webpages to ensure that they “talk” to your audience in search engines. (Meta descriptions are those short sentences that are displayed when the search engines show your website listing.) Make sure your descriptions describe why you are better.
Use Title tags in each of your major web pages (like your home page), and don’t just list your keywords but instead highlight your USP or tagline, like “Connecting Realtors, Agents, and Homebuyers, Hassle-free.“
Use “Alt” attributes in images, videos, and other webpage elements that search engine bots can’t read, and also ensure that the file names you use for these images are descriptive and relevant.
Use context building keywords as anchors, preferably Latent Semantic Indexing phrases. For real estate, try “home market,” “real estate agents,” and other similar phrases.
Include branding messages in every webpage in a uniform fashion; but don’t force them. You don’t want to sacrifice readability. Add a tagline such as “Connecting Realtors, Agents, and Homebuyers, Hassle-free” in the template of every webpage, always in the same position, just like a shopping cart button.

In addition, consider including press releases and other promotional blog posts in your blogging calendar with the sole purpose of reinforcing your brand and proving your value proposition.

Email Marketing

Email continues to play a central role in marketing as a powerful lead-nurturing tool that focuses on expertise and relevance to your reader. If you own a CPA firm for example, then:

Show off your core competencies by sending emails that offer tips, tricks, or expert advice. Include personalized ROI calculators or in-depth accounting advice that the subscriber will be interested in.
Send only relevant email by ensuring you have as much information about your subscriber as possible. You can include a small part of a lead capture form to ask what your reader is interested in or in what areas of accounting they need help with. Take their answers into consideration when planning your email campaigns. Also, triggered emails (drip campaigns) are an excellent way of staying in touch with your clients and prospects and we highly recommended them.
Highlight both your expertise and relevance when sending emails when focused on calling your readers to take action, such as downloading material, visiting a blog post, or setting up a consultation schedule.

Social Media

If the key to email in internet marketing is expertise and relevance, the focus when it comes to social media is brand “persona” and engagement. Let’s say you own a law firm and you want to increase your presence in social media. You should:

Effectively communicate your brand persona to your social crowd. Most law firms are seen as more formal institutions, so for the most part you should portray this approach in your brand persona: an advisor who is always available to give meaningful advice. Your brand persona ties in to your value proposition, so be clear about your brand and how you want to portray it.
When possible, be open and ready to give advice in your area of expertise. Use your social platforms as open discussion areas and turn the conversations into calls-to-action for further counsel as a service. It’s an excellent way to drive social engagement since your fans and followers will appreciate your expertise.
Use social engagement as a means to avoid estranging your audience. Since attorneys deal with legal conflicts and issues, many people will view your law firm as a third party trying to settle their legal issues for them. What you want them to see instead is an adviser and partner they can rely on, and social media can help you with that.

In summary, there are a number of ways you can get your message out to your best prospects. Use the suggestions above to help you get a bigger share of your market.

Categories : BLOGGING, BRANDING, Content Creation, MESSAGING AND DESIGN, SEO, SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING

Tags : marketing message, SEO

Posted by DBC Digital on

January 15, 2015

Marketing Strategies – Six Simple Tips to Leverage Your Old Blog Posts

Brands and business leaders spend a great deal of time and energy developing and promoting new blog posts. Although this is an essential activity and an important use of resources, creating new posts can also take up a substantial part of your limited time and keep you from posting anything at all.

When leveraged properly, re-promoting some of your previous blog posts can bring in new traffic, engage consumers and help your audience grow. As marketing strategies go, this rates as “easy but effective”. Here are some tips and strategies you can use to pull these posts off the shelf and put them back to work for your brand.

1. Choose your best posts.

Promoting posts that flopped the first time will get you nowhere. Although these posts may continue to draw in a small amount of traffic, focus your attention on those blogs that were most popular with readers in the past.

2. Make sure the content is still relevant.

Your post from last Valentine’s Day may have drawn in record numbers of readers at the time, but promoting it at Christmas may not be the best plan. Before you begin promoting any older post, make sure that its content is still relevant and useful for your audience.

3. Use social media.

One of the easiest ways to direct readers’ attention to your previous posts is to share these posts on various social media websites, including Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and any other channels your brand utilizes. Each time you share a post, be sure to entice readers with a teaser or short explanation of why the post is relevant.

4. Include internal links in new posts.

Another excellent way to direct readers to your older blog posts is to link back to them from within your newer entries. When using this strategy, it’s important to link only to older entries that are relevant to your current post. Likewise, don’t include too many backlinks , as this can overwhelm your readers.

5. Don’t re-date old posts.

Linking back to previous posts is fine, but pretending they are new posts isn’t a good idea. Even if you change the date on the posts, at least some of your readers are sure to recognize that they have seen the content before. This makes your brand appear dishonest, which can drive your readers away.

6. Don’t go overboard.

Although referring readers to old posts can be a useful strategy for your brand, it can be overdone. If you share or link back to older posts too frequently, your readers may think that your brand is out of new ideas or has become lazy. Instead, spread your links to older posts throughout your newer content.

As you put these ideas into practice, pay careful attention to the results. Evaluate the number of views your older entries are receiving before and after you promote them in order to measure the success of your efforts. This will help you determine which promotion methods are most effective, as well as which old posts are most likely to draw new readers.

For more about blogging and other Marketing Strategies – subscribe to our blog today!

Categories : BLOGGING, BRANDING, Content Creation, SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING, STRATEGY

Posted by DBC Digital on

January 13, 2015

CONTENT MARKETING TIPS FOR EMERGING BRANDS

When your brand or company is new or growing, the idea of developing and implementing a marketing strategy can be overwhelming. But marketing is an essential part of growing your business. So below are some tips on helping you make the most of your time and getting the best results from your marketing efforts.

As you build your strategy, you may hear a number of terms you’re not familiar with and it may seem like you will never be able to make sense of so much complex information. But fear not. One of the most important terms you will hear as you go about promoting your brand is “content marketing.” Because this type of marketing is so effective, it is one of the first strategies you should master.

What exactly is Content Marketing?

Content marketing is a strategy that involves the creation and distribution of useful content to your customers and prospects on a regular basis. This type of marketing is not intended to promote your company’s products and services directly, but rather to build a strong relationship between your brand and each individual customer. As customers come to rely on your for information and/or advice, they are more likely to come back and make purchases from your brand as well.

Content Marketing Tips

Below are some tips designed to help you get started with content marketing.

1. Define your audience.

The first step in creating a viable content marketing strategy is to determine the audience your content should target. For example, if your brand sells software products for accounting professionals, your target audience may be independent accountants and CPA’s between the ages of 25 and 55 who either lead an accounting team or run their own business. After defining your audience, you should write each article, blog post or social media update as though you are directly talking to the members of this group.

2. Be consistent across all channels.

If you are utilizing multiple channels to distribute your content to your customers and prospects, make sure that the content posted on all channels is consistent. Content should not necessarily be repeated word for word, but you should draft posts that complement one another.

3. Don’t overdo it.

When it comes to content marketing, more is not always better. Although it is important to post content on a regular basis, you don’t want to bombard your readers with too many posts at one time. Make sure you post new content at least several times each week, but avoid releasing new posts more than once in the same day.

4. Create valuable content.

Make sure that all of the content you post provides your audience with something of value, whether it be information, advice or tips. If your content is not valuable, users will not return to read more of it in the future and they may even unsubscribe from your email list or social media profiles.

5. Regularly evaluate and revise your strategy.

Don’t expect your content marketing campaigns to be perfect on the first try. Some trial and error is required before you find what resonates with your readers. To identify areas in need of improvement, evaluate the results of your content marketing efforts on a regular basis using quantifiable data, such as website traffic to your posts or open rates on your emails, etc. Determine the success of each of your efforts and make changes to your future campaigns accordingly.

The bottom line is that providing fresh content for your clients and prospects on a regulator basis is an important part of your overall marketing success and will pay significant dividends. Use these tips to help you get it right.

Categories : BLOGGING, BRANDING, Content Creation, INTERNET MARKETING, SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING, STRATEGY

Posted by DBC Digital on

January 8, 2015

Marketing with blogs – Blogging Doesn’t Work (or Does it?)

In the beginning, there was the simple “web log.” The web log eventually evolved into one of the earliest and most effective tools of the modern internet: the blog.

Blogging soon became a “thing” for web-savvy users who wanted to share a piece of their lives, their knowledge, or their interests with the rest of the world. Before long, advertisers saw the potential in blogging as well. Eventually, brands followed suit.

Now, while blogging is still considered by expert marketers and marketing strategists to be one of the best marketing approaches available, its proper implementation is awash in misconception, the deadliest of which is in fact just two sides of the same coin: people either say it absolutely works, or it definitely doesn’t.

The False Dichotomy of Blogging

Why can there be no middle ground? Isn’t it possible that blogging will work for your business, but, for instance, only on weekends?

This false argument leads business owners to make rash, expensive decisions (when assured that blogging will most definitely work) or an irrational fear of throwing their money down a hole (when told that it won’t).

“It Works Like Magic”

When someone tells you blogs work like magic, you should run. This person either doesn’t know what they’re talking about, are prone to hyperbole, or worse, they don’t understand how blogs work in marketing.

Almost nothing in online marketing “works like magic.” That’s the beauty of it: everything is measured, tracked, and monitored, so you can actually adapt, adjust or continue forward with concrete ROI information.

The same can be said for blogging. You can’t expect to start a blog and suddenly increase your bottom-line. Blogs, however, do affect your bottom-line in these fundamental ways:

Blogs increase your visibility through fresh, optimized, and high-quality content
Blogs improve user engagement which improves the chances of purchase or retention
Blogs target specific users who are more likely to convert into leads
Blogs help increase your brand’s authority in your niche

Notice that while fundamental, these points are nuanced: blogs do increase visibility, but you need fresh, optimized, and high-quality content. Blogs do target specific users and increase engagement, but you need to know how.

It’s the same with the flip side of the argument:

“It Doesn’t Work”

Every business and brand is scurrying to become its own publisher these days because providing quality content works. The web runs on content, and blogs are just one of many channels to create the much-needed content that readers crave.

This “blogging doesn’t work” line is easily proven false by replacing the word “blog” with just about anything else that has been proven to work:

Online marketing doesn’t work
Medicine doesn’t work
Advertising doesn’t work

See the pattern here?

Whoever said medicine doesn’t work either took the wrong medicine or didn’t take enough of it. The same goes for blogs.

The essential ingredient is Strategy.

If you want to deploy a business blog for your brand, you need a strategy. It’s like when you need prescribed medicine, you need an expert diagnosis and a prescription before you start your routine.

Content marketing — the larger category that blogging falls into — requires a strategy in order to work to its fullest potential. The simplest steps towards a working content strategy can be simplified into the following steps:

Figure out the business goals your want to attain through content creation (blogs being one channel of content)
Align your objectives to your sales funnel
Align your sales funnel to the buyer profiles (“personas”) of your target customers
Develop a content road map to dictate quality, consistency, and a posting schedule
Implement, measure performance, tweak and re-measure

There is, admittedly, one justifiable reason to say “blogging doesn’t work” – and that is if you aren’t able to do any of the above. This is where expert support from content strategists and marketers becomes important. Each of the steps above needs to be developed and can encompass everything from business development to copy writing.

It all boils down to one important truth: blogs aren’t guaranteed cash cows — but cows aren’t guaranteed cash cows either. You need to feed them, support them, and otherwise take care of them. You need to know what you’re doing to get something out of them. And that’s just common sense.

Don’t fall in to the trap of misconceptions about blogging, or you might just miss out on one of the most effective methods of your entire marketing and branding effort.

Categories : BLOGGING, BRANDING, INTERNET MARKETING, STRATEGY

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