The Starting Point for Small Business Marketing

When you decide to start a business, one thing is immediately obvious: you are your own boss. This is usually symbolic of the unshackling from the demands of workplace discourse, but every new business owner quickly falls off of their high horse into a pit of demands to which they are solely accountable for.  All of a sudden you are in charge of the product, promotions, advertising, payroll, and most importantly, marketing. Fortunately, marketing has transformed how business is done thanks to social media. In fact, even the most successful businesses are becoming increasingly reliable on the marketing power of resources such as Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter to name a few.  Small business owners and first-time entrepreneurs must become familiar with this newly popular outlet if they want to get in the game, stay in the game, and be competitive. So what’s the big deal with this seemingly impersonal marketing tool? Here’s our big three!

Traffic! Traffic! Traffic!

Traffic is to business what location is to real estate. It is imperative that your business drives traffic. If you are not interacting with your potential customers, clients, and consumers regularly you are doing a disservice to your business. Social media provides the perfect platform to engage. Whether you are posting once a day or multiple times a day, posting is what will spark interest. The more interesting content you post, the more likely you are to drive people to your website and find out more about your business and what services you have to offer. 

Hashtags are particularly important to expanding your reach beyond the set number of people who are following you. Don’t know what a hashtag is? Hashtags are keywords relevant to the corresponding image, text, or information that you post on a social media outlet. It is always preceded by the “pound” or “number” sign. For example, if you are starting a real estate business and you posted a home for sale on Instagram, you can hashtag words like #realestate #buying #selling to allow your image to populate on those pages. The idea is, if someone is looking for home, they can search the hashtag and browse your social media page. This method is quick, easy, free, and effective. Hashtags aren’t the only way to drive traffic to your page and subsequently your website. You can team up with other business owners and agree to promote each other. These tactics are likely to increase traffic to your business pages and website and are quite interactive.

Engagement

Equally important to any business is feedback. If you want to know if your business model is working, you ask. Social media puts you in direct contact with the people you intend to serve. Post questionnaires and ask for product feedback to find out how your product is doing or why the service your offering is helpful to some people and not others. Having an interactive platform is beneficial to molding your business for success. It is one thing to have input from shareholders and investors, but when consumers are telling you what they like or don’t like, there is a lot more weight in their words.

Engagement does not only help you to evaluate and shape your business, it also helps to gain it. This can be accomplished by interacting with your followers. People want to know they are being heard. If someone comments, make an effort to respond. If you are consistent you will gain customers and clients. The key to mastering engagement on social media is creativity and consistency, so be sure to run trials. Be observant to what posts garner the most “likes” and what posts are less popular. Use these statistics to guide your posts.

Branding

One of the primary goals of marketing is to be recognizable and  stand out among your competitors. Social media facilitates branding goals such as recognition and loyalty. Any opportunity you have to post your logo or assert your brand, you should use it. In doing so, you will increase your visibility and enforce familiarity with your audience. Using social media to promote your brand will also keep existing customers engaged. As previously mentioned, the more you engage with your audience, the more likely they are to remain customers and fans.

Social media marketing may not be the hot topic forever, but it is the hot topic now. Don’t let your business fall through the cracks. It may take some time to get acquainted with social media discourse, but once you master it your business will flourish. 

The Video Marketing Advantage

Content marketers are claiming 2016 to be the year of the video. As marketing strategies continue to embrace the hot new trends in the online community, video marketing has risen above the fray in terms of reach and impact on target markets.  Videos can be used in a multitude of ways – from comedy to educational, to reach customers at critical points along the buying life cycle and build ongoing relationships with users. In addition to this, there are many other reasons why video marketing can be beneficial to your business.

The Age of Information Overload

These days, most people who frequent the internet are bombarded with information from social media, and mixed in with it is advertisers trying to cut through the noise to get their products and

services noticed. With the rise of 140 character tweets and 10 second Snap Chats, it’s hard to get users to pay attention to anything for any length of time. Videos are way to get your information out there in short bursts so that users get relevant information without too much effort on their part. It’s easier for brains to consume and process visual content rather than taking in a wall of text, so making a video visually appealing with audio enhancements will take your message to the next level. Your videos can range from customer testimonials and product demonstrations, to funny and creative ads that showcase your business.

Social Media Reach

Most internet users have at least one social media account that they check regularly, so social media is the best place to be for advertisers online.  While YouTube is the most well-known website for video watchers, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram have enhanced the way videos are watched on their apps and websites to keep up with the video trend by enabling videos to be played directly in news feeds so users can easily watch without being directed away from the platform.

Posting videos on social media pages can reach thousands, and potentially millions, of people and it costs nothing to do so. If you’re a small business with only a small social media following, paid social media campaigns can broaden your reach very inexpensively. You’ll get more people watching your videos, which can translate into more followers and, potentially, more business.

The Viral Potential

We’ve all seen the work of viral videos – they appear seemingly out of the blue on your Facebook timeline and subsequently get continuously shared across all social media platforms. There’s no magic potion in making a video go viral, most times it’s just a mix of creativity, engaging content, and luck. But the potential is there for anyone to make a video that catches on and becomes a trending topic and, even if it only lasts for a day, a viral video can do wonders for your business. Users are more likely to share a video over any other content on social media, so it’s a great tool to get your business noticed.

While you may have to invest some time and money into video production, the result are videos that highlight your business and can be shared across social media, and have a permanent place on YouTube and your website as a way for users to get quick insight into what makes your business special. 

Website Translation Advice

There’s a lot of truth the to statement that we live in a global village. Technologies like the internet, social media, large-scale shipping, and commercial airliners have dramatically reduced the effective distance between countries and continents—facilitating communication, trade, and travel to an unprecedented degree. For businesses, this offers a world of opportunity to engage with prospective clients and customers all around the globe.

Nonetheless, entrepreneurs and businesses who hope to outfox their rivals need to ensure they’ve got the right tools in place. And one of the most crucial must-haves for enterprises looking to expand overseas is a website that offers comparable content and functionality in various languages.

Hire a professional translator and/or reputable translation firm.

If you’ve ever attempted to translate lengthy passages with Google Translate, you may have noticed that flaws tend to crop up in the English version. There are many reasons for this: certain idioms don’t work well in English, cultural concepts expressed in other languages are difficult to convey in English, the software fails to correctly distinguish one homonym from another or misinterprets the context of the sentence, etc.

Assuming you want the content of your business website to convey a comparable level of meaning and impact in multiple languages—including some that you don’t happen to speak at an advanced level—you should strongly consider hiring reputable, professional translators to assist you.

Before choosing a translation firm, do some research and try to find testimonials from past clients. Seek firms that either specialize in or have native proficiency in your target language. Ideally, the translators you hire will also possess specific cultural expertise, and have the ability to operate on a 24-hour cycle for time-sensitive assignments.

An anecdote: I have a friend who works at an organization that opted to switch from the translation company it had traditionally worked with, to an outfit that offered a lower price for (ostensibly) the same work. As a native speaker of the target language, my friend noticed that the lower-priced enterprise’s content was replete with mistranslations and other errors. Unfortunately, by that time it was too late; my friend’s organization had already ordered thousands of copies of their newly translated brochures. Although the errors were eventually corrected (with my friend’s help), her organization ended up wasting significant amounts of money, time, and paper.

The moral of the story is, be vigilant, and make sure you’re not sacrificing quality at the altar of a seemingly attractive price.

Cultural appropriateness.

There’s more to effective translation than simply altering the words on your web page. Depending on the scale and importance of the target market, you’ll also want to consider ways to make your website’s content culturally relevant and appropriate for your new customers.

If certain imagery doesn’t work, messages in your original content are culturally specific and don’t transfer well to other countries, or for any reason your English-language material doesn’t address the needs and priorities of your target market, then the translation firm should be able to alert you to the problem and offer a viable solution.

As your dealings with international markets become more sophisticated, you may also want to select stock photos and symbols that are likelier to resonate with customers overseas. Furthermore, customers may feel more comfortable with your brand if they see a resemblance to themselves in some of the people whose likenesses appear on your website.

Watch out for possible issues with site architecture and navigation.

As you translate from one language to several others, you will inevitably find that the same content in different languages will occupy different amounts of physical space on the website. This can introduce problems with the layout of the pages, and the ability of visitors to navigate smoothly and efficiently.

This is one of several reasons why it’s important to run reasonably thorough quality assurance tests before you launch new content on a foreign-language version of your website.

Technical glitches are a fact of modern life, and problems will almost certainly arise with any major online translation project. But if you succeed at making inroads into lucrative foreign markets, you’ll be rewarded for your patience and perseverance.

What to Look For In a Social Media Manager

Social media has become an integral component of the marketing strategy of many businesses. There is good reason for this: social media platforms bring millions of prospective clients, customers, and business professionals together, offering a dynamic, interactive commercial opportunity with few precedents in human history.

That said, to make effective and profitable use of social media, one needs both a specialized skill set and a knack for conveying the desired message.

If you plan on hiring a social media specialist to preside over your business’s online interactions, keep the following criteria in mind.

The right kind of experience and knowledge

Applicants for the position of social media manager won’t have decades of in-kind experience to fall back on, for the obvious reason that social media is a relatively novel tool. So don’t concern yourself principally with the total duration of a candidate’s experience. Instead, seek individuals whose skills, accomplishments, and outlook are compatible with your organizational culture and goals.

Ask candidates to provide descriptions and links to their past social media work, their social media accounts, and (if possible) testimonials from previous employers. You can also elicit their responses to skill-testing problems, such as “We’re hoping to design a multi-platform social media marketing campaign to promote (X), with the following messaging requirements. Show me how you would approach this assignment.”

Millennials tend to be digital natives.

We’ve all heard the standard received wisdom about millennials: they feel entitled, they have lofty ambitions but aren’t willing to work hard to achieve them, etc. However, empirical research indicates that such stereotypes are not new; rather, elders have been griping about “the younger generation” for centuries. By the same token, every generation invariably features both underachievers and high achievers.

 

Social media is one area in which millennials, on average, tend to be more comfortable than their elders. Many young professionals entering the labour force today may have got their start on social media before they learned to ride a bicycle. When it comes to hiring a social media strategist, you’ll need to dispel any lingering, overgeneralized misgivings you feel toward millennials. The most qualified candidates for the job are likely to be members of this youthful cohort.

Search for potential candidates on social media.

Candidates for a social media manager position will often have searchable profiles on various platforms, and an established online presence. As soon as you field a job application from someone, run a search for that person on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and any other social media platform your business currently uses. If you can’t easily locate the individual you’re looking for, that may be cause for concern.

Proficiency in spelling, grammar, syntax, and a conversational writing style

Your business’s social media accounts are the face of your online presence, and errors that appear in these spaces reflect poorly on your organization.

Often, a social media manager’s job description includes the curation of content for a newsletter or Storify article. Depending on the specifics of the position, a social media manager may also be required to create original content for a blog or website. A high degree of language proficiency, a strong grasp of basics like spelling and grammar, and an engaging and conversational writing style, all are valuable assets.

A background in sales, marketing, or customer service

While a long history of experience in social media management shouldn’t necessarily be a top priority, social media strategy is largely a question of communicating and disseminating your company’s message effectively. Look for candidates who have a history of solid performance in this area, bo

Tips On Making a Video Go Viral

In the realm of online marketing, few objectives are more desirable or downright elusive than the viral video. Like the vicissitudes of the stock market, the popularity of any online video depends on the personal tastes and sentiments of millions of unique individuals, and is thus difficult to predict. However, there are a few tactics you can employ to improve your chances of achieving virality.

Insights from past viral video trends

According to research by marketing technology company Unruly, some of the most important factors that drive video sharing are

1)  social motivations, including the desire to start a conversation, seek friends’ opinions,  offer useful information, or support a good cause;

2)  a positive emotional response to the video;

3)  the participation of “super sharers”—a minority of internet users who are responsible for around 80 percent of total shares; and

4)  timing.

On average, the greater the total volume of shares a video receives in the first two days of its existence, the higher its viral peak, which typically arrives 48 to 72 hours post-launch. Unruly’s data suggest that most sharing activity occurs in the latter half of the work week, and that Wednesday is the optimal sharing day. Marketers hoping to ride this weekly wave should post their video by Wednesday or sooner. Avoid posting on weekends or holidays.

Combine entertainment with a message.

Mekanism, an advertising agency with offices in New York and San Francisco, has produced and marketed several viral videos. Among the most famous was the 2012 offering Hovercat, designed to encourage adoption of cats on behalf of the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA).

Mekanism sums up its philosophy on viral videos with the phrase “candy with the medicine”—in other words, entice viewers with the promise of entertainment, and complement that with a substantive message. In the case of Hovercat, Mekanism’s creative team began by identifying a theme they figured would make people smile (a zany cat often does the trick), and then developed their own creative take on a classic viral video genre. (Your feline companion may humorously knock items off tables or fend off alligators, but can it hover in the air like Superman?)

Hovercat concludes by noting that the cat in the video was adopted from the ASPCA, and links to the organization’s website.

Market and distribute the video actively

To achieve virality, you must fulfill two conditions: 1) content that viewers find engaging and worth sharing; and 2) widespread exposure.

Before you go through the technical process of recording a video, you should develop a clear marketing strategy, and consider how the video will help you reach your goal. Immediately after you post the video, intensify your marketing efforts.

Writing in Medium about her first big hit Girl Learns to Dance in a Year (TIME LAPSE), viral video specialist Karen X. Cheng explains: “I did a ton of marketing, and it started before the video was released. Going viral was not an accident—it was work.”

Cheng started by posting the video on Facebook and Twitter, then submitted it to Reddit and Hacker News. She asked friends and acquaintances to share it, and reached out to dancers and dance bloggers. Shortly thereafter, writers at Kottke, Mashable, Jezebel, and Huffington Post penned articles about the video. By day three, Girl Learns to Dance in a Year (TIME LAPSE) appeared on the front page of Youtube, and had achieved nearly 2 million views.

Cheng emphasizes the importance of a brief, catchy title, and—modern attention spans being what they are—recommends keeping the video short and sweet, preferably under two minutes.

The Ingredients of a Compelling Newsletter

If you’re on one or more online mailing lists, you probably receive periodic e-mail newsletters. You

may also find some of them more inviting than others—because the good ones feature engaging content, are relevant to your life, offer useful advice and information, or a combination of the foregoing. The others likely make their way posthaste to your deleted box.

Read on for practical advice on getting the most out of newsletters, and avoiding the epidemics of non-reading and auto-deletion.

Stay in touch with people on your mailing list. What do current and potential customers want to read about?

If you know any of your customers or clients personally, raise the subject of your business’s newsletter and solicit their opinion. Chances are that if one of more newsletter recipients is keen to hear more about a particular subject, product, or aspect of your business, other people on the mailing list will be interested in the same thing.

Once in a while, it may also be a good idea to include a brief survey in the newsletter, seeking feedback on particular items and articles. The results won’t necessarily illustrate what all of your readers are looking for (since those readers inclined to fill out surveys aren’t necessarily representative of your entire readership), but they should give you a good idea of what’s working and what isn’t.

 

Punchy subject line and title lines.

Seek out the most compelling piece of information from the newsletter to form your e-mail’s subject line. The titles that link to articles in the newsletter also need to be eye-catching in order to entice would-be readers to click on them. Aim for brevity and impact.

Quality content from elsewhere.

No one has a monopoly on good ideas, and in the blogosphere, there is no such thing as a monopoly on quality content. Keep an eye on blogs and news related to your industry, and share posts and information you feel will resonate with your readership and enhance your business’s reputation. If your company enjoys positive press coverage, link to that too. (However, keep descriptions short and avoid penning wordy, self-congratulatory articles. Most people won’t read past the first couple of sentences.)

Mobile compatibility.

The internet is evolving rapidly from a stationary medium to a roving one, and your newsletter must be versatile enough to accommodate the shift. Concentrate on economizing words, and developing content that delivers the core message without undue delay. Break lengthy paragraphs down into brief, digestible segments. Use a large font for titles and sub-headings, and aim to make each less than ten words long, if possible.

Finally, preview your newsletter on a computer and on a mobile device before you disseminate it. Make sure it reads well, and that there is no need to scroll horizontally in order to read all or most of the content in each article. The internet is full of well designed websites and online publications, and horizontal scrolling irritates some people enough that they may be tempted to move on after just a few seconds.

Consistent scheduling.

Choose a time of the month, week, or every two weeks to distribute the newsletter, and stick to it. If the content you offer is worth reading, then the people on the mailing list will look forward to the next issue, and some may even set aside a few minutes to peruse it when it comes out. You can show respect for their time by releasing new editions right on schedule.

What is Growth Hacking, and Could it Work For You?

Growth hacking is a term that originated in the tech industry—coined by entrepreneurs Sean Ellis, Hiten Shah, and Patrick Vlaskovits in 2010—and remains popular in Silicon Valley. In effect, it describes a non-traditional approach to marketing, wherein expansion of the business is the primary focus. Many growth hackers (some of whom have even adopted that title) would describe themselves as more-or-less analogous to the VP of Marketing at a conventional firm. Historically, growth hackers have tended to work with small- and medium-sized enterprises rather than major established companies—although there are indications that growth hacking is now making inroads into the corporate mainstream.

You needn’t be an IT wizard—or even a self-identified growth hacker—to take advantage of growth-hacking techniques.

A common perception of growth hackers is that they are mostly associated with the dot com sector, and as such, possess extraordinary technical knowledge and skill, including the ability to code at an advanced level. While this is undeniably true of many in the field, technical expertise is not necessarily a precondition for growth hacking. Marketing and expansion techniques familiar to growth hackers can be adopted by traditional marketers, entrepreneurs, managers—in fact, just about anyone in the business world. And now that website design templates are widely available, non-techies have ample opportunity to establish a profitable online gateway.

Growth hackers’ approach to marketing resembles more conventional marketing strategies in some respects, but principally revolves around the online medium. Like traditional companies, firms that adopt growth-hacking principles aim to attract customers, facilitate sign-ups, and retain clients over the long term, in part, by offering innovative products and services. But under a growth-hacking framework, the effectiveness of the website (and online pathways thereto) take precedence.

A simple, elegant website, with an easy sign-up process

Modern society is characterized by short attention spans, and a rule of thumb for business website design is that there is roughly a ten-second window in which to attract a prospective customer’s attention and pique h/er interest. In your initial user interface, aim for short but clear descriptions, understandable options, and visible (but not gaudy) links and portals. Allow visitors to navigate to some areas of your site without registering, and give them the option of signing up for additional services.

Another vital consideration is the process of registration itself: You’ll want to collect relevant data from your prospective clients, but it’s also important to ensure that they know exactly what they’re signing up for, and don’t feel daunted by the duration and/or arduousness of the endeavour. Many would-be customers will simply give up and move on rather than endure even a few seconds of unnecessary inconvenience.

 

Tools of the trade

Among the devices in the growth hacker’s tool kit are search engine optimization (SEO), data analytics, viral video, guest blogging, mailing lists, and a wide range of specialized survey and marketing software. A fairly extensive list of utilities for marketing and metrics is available here.

Some common objectives growth hackers emphasize in the development of a new product or business are virality, effective distribution, and ease of access and use of the business’s website (from the customer’s perspective). The purpose of metrics, surveys, and other data is to provide feedback as to the success of those efforts.

Start with your networks to drive traffic. Use “calls to action” to generate sign-ups.

Online advertising can get expensive, and virality can be a difficult and time-consuming ambition. For start-ups with low cash flow, the cost and challenge of driving traffic to a website can be especially prohibitive. One of the ways around this problem is to start with your social network. Let your friends on Facebook know about your business, send e-mails to your contacts, call up friends to gauge their level of interest.

Create a landing page separate from the website’s home page, and direct visitors toward it. Once they arrive, the next goal is to promote registration. An approach that many businesses find effective is the Call to Action—usually in the form of a prominent icon that visitors can click on in order to “learn more”, “get started”, etc. This is where registration kicks in, which you can then measure, analyze, and, in turn, identify ways to improve.

Of course, there is no shortcut to a robust level of growth. But a growth hacker’s mindset can help to propel your business toward that goal.

A wealth of additional information is available online. Check out QUICKSPROUT’s Definitive Guide to Growth Hacking, GrowthHackers, growth-hacker.com, and the personal blogs of growth-hacking specialists Aaron Ginn and Andrew Chen.     

What is Ad Retargeting?

Big Brother is watching you. At least that is what you might be thinking when you're suddenly presented with online popup ads related to a recent web search. Is it safe to say that you were being tracked from one website to another?

Actually yes, but there is nothing sinister about this.

It is a very common practice known as ad retargeting and it's helping many online businesses pull in new customers. Are you currently running an ad retargeting campaign? If not, you should be, because the conversion rates on retargeted banner ads are much higher, in many cases up to 20%. Retargeted ad campaigns target the 98% of the audience that don’t buy after leaving a website.

Regaining the lost lead.

Traditional display advertising has mostly been used as an awareness and branding tool. Whereas, retargeted ad campaigns have been great for driving conversions on your site, be they sales, sign ups, leads or subscribers.

If the goal of your advertising campaign is direct sales or signups and you have a decent amount of traffic then retargeting is ‘right’ for you.

It’s all in the cookie.

Every time you log onto the Internet and start surfing you leave a trail of breadcrumbs wherever you go. Those "breadcrumbs" grow into cookies. This is the tracking technology that allows visitors to any e-commerce site to pick up a cookie with every visit. Now they are tagged for potential retargeting.

You'll be paying a company to set up a retargeting platform that will collate all those cookies and present a bid to run your ads across many other web portals. These ads are banner ads which can bring that customer right back to your website – especially if they are dynamic.

Understand the threshold.

There is a minimum recommended traffic size that you should have coming to your website before starting a retargeting campaign. You should be aware that retargeting only targets your site visitors.

If your site only receives a small amount of traffic per month, then you will only have a small pool of users to target resulting a low sales volume

.

It has been found that if your site must receive at least 5,000 unique visitors per month. Even if you have less than 5,000 uniques, you can still add a retargeting tracking pixel to your site but your goals should be towards branding instead of sales.  Run a contest, or a lead generation campaign. 

Does ad retargeting work?

According to a comScore study, companies who use ad retargeting can see a 726% increase in return visits to their websites within four-week period. As for online shoppers, 72% don't finish shopping when they put items in their cart. Of that group, 8% return to make the purchase. Factor in ad retargeting and those returns bounce up to 26%.

These numbers definitely provide a convincing argument that ad retargeting should be a strong force for the smart marketer.  

Google and High Quality Content

Love it or hate it, Google is the dominant force when it comes to ranking your company's website. That ranking is registered when a prospect types in a keyword to find something they're looking for like "dentist in East Lansing" or "T-shirts in Fort Lauderdale." Google wants to reward it's users by presenting the most relevant websites at the top of their ranking page.

There aren't any "Google elves" sitting there answering keyword searches. Instead, an algorithm is activated for every search. Throughout the years, Google has tweaked the algorithm to make it better at finding great websites for the respective search results. They keep the algorithm a secret as many companies try to game it in order to be ranked higher. However, there are general rules that Google has outlined what a relevant website should follow in order to be ranked high.

According to Matt Cutts, Head of Google’s WebSpam team, fresh, relevant content is the foundation for high rankings. So, how does Google tell if a web page has high quality content? Consider these factors:

Duplicate Content

Google performs an instantaneous scan and recognizes just as fast whether or not a web site has overlapping and/or redundant content on your site. They look to see if you’ve copied content from other sites by checking the age of the content and percentage of similar content when comparing sites. Here is where your inclusion of keywords could actually come back to haunt you, especially if they are being overused. Does this mean you should abandon those keywords? Absolutely not. However, you might also want to freshen up your existing content if your keyword phrases all appear to be using the same phrasing.  

Quality Content

Google is looking for quality. When it can deliver that to its users then those users will come back for more. Is your content well written? Are there grammar or spelling errors? Does it read like a robot wrote the piece? There are many quality content writers out there who can deliver engaging content. If you don't have the skills, hire someone who does. One way Google measures quality content is through tracking how long an user stays on the page. If they arrive on the page and leave immediately, Google knows that the page wasn’t relevant to the search query, or that the website content wasn’t good.

Relevant Content

Here is where you need to search out the competition. Pretend you're a customer and Google the same keywords you hope someone would use to look for your site. What businesses come up on the first ranking page? More importantly, why did those sites come up first? Take the time to study those pages to see what they are doing right in terms of content, titles and headers. This is what you should be striving for.

Viral Content

The best type of content is something that will be shared. Whether that is an infographic, top ten list or really cool photo, if you can get viewers to bookmark or share that piece then you're spreading your message further across the web. Information and humor are two solid items that can make a piece of content go viral. If you can add a short, funny video all the better!

When you get right down to it, it's not rocket science. It's all about quality. 

Tips on Creating a Good Infographic

Infographics are a fun and quick way to learn about any topic without any heavy reading. There are many reasons why infographics are often better than just writing a blog post. They range from:

- Providing a data-rich visualization of a story or   thesis

- A great visual tool to educate and inform that is easily shared

- And a great way to build brand awareness that can be at a lower cost due to the viral sharing opportunities.

When done right, the infographic is a bold and fun way to present information about a subject. It's something you can quickly scan, presenting data-rich information visually.

The best type of infographic is one that can be shared across many websites. If you're the company that has created that popular infographic then you should be able to benefit from increased traffic, as users will want to learn more.

Adding an infographic to your website isn't as complicated as you think. Start with Googling "infographic templates." From there you'll want to follow the following tips on creating a good infographic:

Tip #1: Get the Right Data Source

The most important component in an infographic is the actual "info." This means you need to find a legitimate source for all your data points. Thanks to all the published studies, surveys and research it shouldn't be hard to collect the data points you need to support the purpose of your infographic. You could even borrow data from another infographic. Just make sure that you source your data within the content of your infographic.

Tip #2: Get the Right Designer

Although you might find a free template for your infographic that doesn't mean you'll have the skills to get the job done. Instead of driving yourself crazy, look for a terrific graphic artist who has experience creating these kinds of pieces. Yes, this is an investment but it's no different than paying for original content. As you shop around for a graphic artist you might find some who will do the job for a flat fee while others work on an hourly rate. Don't hesitate to check out their portfolios before committing to hiring them.

Tip #3: Get the Right Wireframe

Your infographic wireframe is essentially the outline of the story your want to tell. You have your data points. Now you want to lay them out in an order that provides the information in a compelling way for the viewer. Remember an infographic is vertical so build your story with a engaging beginning, middle and conclusion. In terms of the number of data points, six seems to be what generates the most follow-up Tweets. Make sure your logo and website information is included at the bottom of the graphic.

Tip #4: Get the Right Headline

All your hard work won't amount to anything unless it gets read. That's where a strong headline comes into play. This is your hook. Research has shown that most viewers are attracted to number headlines like "Top Ten" or "Five Best" etc. If you can work in numbers to your headline you'll be ahead of the game.

Tip #5: Get the Right Promotion Tools

Before you're ready to send your infographic out into cyberspace make sure you've got embed code that will make sharing this piece as simple as a click. You should then search for the blogs that would appreciate the information that you're sharing. Set up a targeted email campaign for the high PR blogs. Those blogs will be happy to use your content to fill up their pages.

Don't believe that? Google "Marvel vs. DC" infographic to see how many sites are sharing this single piece about which comic book company has better box office results. Hopefully, your infographic will have the same potential to go viral. 

Crowdfunding In Canada - Tips For Raising Money

Looking for some crowdfunding investments to get your business started or expanded? This type of investing has become a viable way to collect capital that can be put to good use. As with everything in life, there is no such thing as a free ride. Here are some tips to consider when raising money through crowdfunding:

Tip #1: Show What You're Creating

Since your crowdfunding campaign will no doubt be launched online, there is no excuse not to include photos and/or videos of exactly what you plan to sell, make or provide. Even if you've created the next great "widget", make sure that you have a prototype that you can show off. Make sure your ideas are protected before you share them with your potential investors. When those money folks can see something tangible, they'll be more likely to part with their money.

Tip #2: Research Your Platform

Among crowdfunding sites, Kickstarter and Indiegogo are the most popular. These are the ones that most folks will go to first because they seem to be getting all the good press. Here in Canada, Kickstarter is getting ready to lower restrictions for more participation. Also check out Crowdfunder, RocketHub and Quirky. Spend time getting to know these sites and the community they attract. This research should help you find the right fit for your campaign.

Tip #3: Copy From Success

There are many crowdfunding success stories out there. Guess what? You can borrow from them when it comes to building your page. See what those campaigns used to attract investors. You can learn a lot from those investor comments. Was it the video that made the difference? Was it the pitch? Whatever worked, try to adapt it for your cause.

Tip #4: Build Up Some Sweet Perks

The benefit of crowdfunding is that there is no obligation for a return on that investment beyond the perks. To attract investors, you'll want to offer some goodies. The recent wildly successful "Veronica Mars Movie" Kickstarter campaign offered walk on parts in the movie, autographed scripts and interactions with the stars. All of these perks came at certain levels of investment. In other words, save the good stuff for the big bucks. Special note: Start the perks at the $25 level. This is the most common donation and a good way to get things fired up.

Tip #5: Work Outside the Crowdfunding

Just because you set up a page on Kickstarter doesn't mean your work is done. You need to get the word out about what you're trying to accomplish. There are many folks who stop by crowdfunding sites to see what’s new, however, that's not going to be enough for your needs. Think of your social media outreach. You should be using Twitter, Facebook and any other media outlet you can tap into to spread the news about your campaign.

Make it fun and watch the money roll in! 

Social Media May Drive More Traffic Than Search Engines

The owner of a typical brick and mortar storefront depends a lot on foot traffic to insure that their business is a success. That's why location is so vital when picking out a place of business. For an e-commerce company, getting high visibility on search engines or access to a large source of traffic is just as equally important. Getting that traffic directly to a company's website is the goal of any online marketing campaign.

The prevailing wisdom has been that search engines will do the trick provided you can increase your ranking on those pages. However, it appears that social media networks are giving the search engines a run for their money in terms of providing them with organic traffic. You only have to look at the numbers to appreciate where most internet users are spending their time.

Where Are The Users?

A recently published report put out by Forrester Research has found that 50% of 18 to 23 year olds and 43% of 24 to 32 year olds list social networks as their go-to internet-discovery resource. In that arena, Facebook and Twitter are holding sway as the number one and two forms of discovery for nearly a third of all American users alone. That represents an 18% increase for "discovery-use" on those sites since 2010.

The good news for search engine sites is that 54% of American users regularly depend on those search results to find what they are looking for. The bad news is that number is dropping. It was 61% in 2010.

More Fun Social Media Facts

The vast majority of Fortune 500 Companies have a Facebook page and/or Twitter account, but that doesn't necessarily mean they are using those resources effectively. For a business start-up looking to get a foothold in customer traffic, social media could be a productive resource to invest in. 

Here are some more of the findings from the research report:

·         26% of internet users discovered company websites through branded emails. That's an 11-point increase from 2012.

·         18% of internet users proclaimed that paid search results got them to where they wanted to go. These would be all those click through ads on Facebook.

·         28% of all internet users find new websites by clicking through to links on sites they are visiting. 

How can you make that work for your company? A simple quid pro quo will do. If you link to a business ask them to link to you. Obviously, you're not going to find much traffic with a competitor, but landing an affiliate site would be ideal. Write a lot of guest posts and have the articles placed on industry websites.  

Does all of this mean you should give up on search engine optimization all together? Absolutely not. 

However, it is clear you should be dividing your online marketing strategy equally between SEO and social media.

You'll probably find that they work hand in hand.

How to Improve a Call to Action on Your Website

Are you getting the traffic to your website you deserve? You might have terrific visuals and engaging content but there is a key element that could be affecting your conversions. That would be the call-to-action.

This is where you encourage your potential customer to do what you want them to do – either to buy something, signup for an email newsletter or ask for more information.  It doesn't matter if you're selling goods or services a potential buyer always needs that extra little push.

You can improve your call to action by following these helpful tips:

Have an action button: Instead of burying your call to action within an article, why not have a separate free-floating button? Click here for more information. Buy now. Add to cart. Order today. Those are all wonderful examples of action buttons. Even something as simple as "Get a Free Quote" can provoke your customer into action. Besides, we all like pushing buttons!

Have the right color: You don't have time to test several shades of a color for an action button so you'll just have to rely on what has worked in the past. Orange, red and green have been shown to boost conversion rates. Don't ask for an explanation; just use them!

Have your CTA appear at the right time: Nobody wants to be hit over the head with a hard sale right out of the box. That's why your call to action needs to be properly placed within the customer’s buying cycle. Let your customer get some information before asking them to act.

Have a clear design: This is obviously more important with selling a product then a service. When you've got a tangible good to sell make sure the graphics lets everyone see exactly what they are getting. For instance, suppose you're selling a program that includes a DVD and a booklet. Show a picture of the box, the DVD and the booklet. The more visuals you can show, the stronger position you'll be into close the sale.

Give a freebie: Provide something for the new prospect free of charge so that they get a taste of what you offer. Remember, reduce the risk for your prospect to purchase.  

Have some whitespace: You don't need to clutter up your website with copy and graphics to get your point across. Perhaps placing your call to action in some open whitespace will actually draw more attention to it.

All of these tips are meant to be experimented with. Mix it up and track your analytics. The more you test, the better off you'll be to find the right call to action that converts well for your business. 

Email Subject Lines That Get the Most Open Rates

How many emails do you get in a day? More importantly, how many of those emails do you delete or read?

That is the same issue facing your customers when you send out an email blast. You want to entice them to open up that email and get at the contents. It all comes down to your subject lines. Are you doing what you can to get the most open rates? 

Try these steps to improve your subject line:

Step One: Use Your Company Name

This should appear in the "From" portion of the email. This approach can work both ways. If your company is new then the recipient might click on to see what this is all about. If you've already built up a relationship then you want your customer to know what you're sending has value. Remember you're in fierce competition when it comes to breaking through the average email inbox.

Step Two: Use Capitals

By now anyone who is familiar with online etiquette knows that when you type in capitols you are essentially using "exclamation." This doesn't mean you have to "scream" your entire subject line but break it up with capitals. For instance:

YOUR COMPANY NAME: Special offer for an amazing product

Step Three: Use a Follow Up

Often it will be helpful to follow-up an email with another email within the same week. The body can be the same but the subject line can change to reflect something current. Make it fresh and applicable to your customer's needs. Tell them upfront what you're offering in as few words as possible.

Step Four: Use an Invite

"Time is running out." Nobody likes to read that especially if it means we'll be missing out on a good deal. Your subject line can incorporate an invitation that makes it seem like a special arrangement just for that viewer. In many ways this can be an indirect call to action as you are setting a time limit on a response. That's a very clever and proactive way to increase sales.

Step Five: Use Spell Check

The worst thing you can do is send out a sloppy subject line. Make sure you've checked and double-checked for proper spelling and grammar. Let someone else check it before you sent it out. Once you hit that send button it's gone and can't be taken back.

You might find that a particular subject line works wonders for your conversion rates. That's great and you can certainly use a variation on that theme but always try to keep your messages fresh. If there is a way you can capitalize on what is trending on Google or Twitter all the better because you know that's what everyone is talking about for that day. 

Why Isn't Your SEO Campaign Working?

How is your SEO working for you? If your response is, "What is SEO?" Then we're off to a bumpy start. Search Engine Optimization or SEO refers to how well your website content copy attracts a search engine. 

The goal is to get as close to number one status on that first search page as possible. To accomplish that you need to make some specific choices with regard to your SEO campaign.

 Top on the list of important SEO concerns should be:

• Finding the right keywords specifically geared for your business.
• Writing alternate title tags and Meta descriptions for all of your web site pages. Yes, all!
• Fold the perfect keywords into all your titles, subheads and links. Yes, all!
• Develop a plan to attract back-links to drive traffic to your site. Here's a hint: link out to other sites that have similar content.
• Develop a social media plan to share your content and increase link-building.
• Stay on top of your analytics to make current adjustments.

A strong SEO campaign isn't about programming technology. Instead, it should be about focusing on the following areas:

Informative Content

The foundation of all your website copy should be to inform your customers. That's what search engines will be on the prowl for because they want to inform their customers. There shouldn't be a scatter shot approach to your content. Instead, plot out an editorial calendar for each month. This can help you focus on informative themes and allow you to set consistent deadlines for updating that content.

Tracking Traffic

If it looks like that your online marketing strategy isn't attracting traffic, change it. That's why you're following your analytics! A simple test is to play the role of customer. Type in your target keywords and see what comes up. Why is one website above another? What are they offering their customers? Can you do the same?

Don't Stuff Your Content

There are plenty of so-called SEO experts trolling around who promise to optimize your content. Merely stuffing keywords into a couple of paragraphs is an attempt to fool the search engines. It's not going to work. SEO isn't about technology as much as it is about quality. Along with content, give you customers the chance to post positive reviews. Often those reviews are what pops up first.

Your website is your storefront. If you had an actual brick and mortar business you'd greet your customers as they come in the door, ask them what they are looking for and volunteer to help them find that. Now transfer that attitude to your web business. That's what will make for a successful SEO campaign. 

DreamWorks Buys YouTube Channel for $33 Million

The popular kid's YouTube channel  AwesomenessTV was recently bought by DreamWorks for a hefty $33 million.

Never heard of AwesomenessTV?

Chances are if you have a youngster in the house with access to YouTube they know all about Awesomeness.

This is a distinct YouTube channel with 500,000 subscribers. It's kind of like an online version of Nickelodeon that with great video content. Now all the DreamWorks characters from such features as Shrek, Kung Fu Panda and How To Train Your Dragon will have a steady outlet. It's the perfect cross promotion for future releases and merchandise. This is the first purchase of a single YouTube channel to a major media company.

"AwesomenessTV is one of the fastest growing content channels on the internet today and our acquisition of this groundbreaking venture will bring incredible momentum to our digital strategy," said DreamWorks Animation CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg.

This deal is all the more awesome considering that this channel has only been up and running for two years. All of this points out the growing important of online video content. Consider these factoids:

• A Cisco Systems survey finds that 40% of all consumer internet traffic is for online videos. They predict that number will reach 62% by 2015.

• YouTube receives close to 3 billion views per day. That equals to about half the world's entire population watching a video at least once a day.

• Comscore.com has found that within the past year there was a 66% increase of video viewing on mobile platforms such as Smartphones and pads.

How can you put this power to work for your company? Obviously you have to consider adding video content to your company website. Those videos can simultaneously be uploaded to your own YouTube channel for cross promotion. Here are some thoughts about making a valuable video.

Give it a purpose. Before you think of putting anything on tape, think about why you're doing this. Do you need to introduce a new product? Are you providing helpful "how to?" Are you hoping to drive traffic to your company's online store? All of the above? Work out your strategy because that will inform every decision you make.

Tell a story. Your online video might not become a blockbuster like "Iron Man 3" but you still want to have a strong beginning, middle and end even if you're merely demonstrating how to plant a tomato garden. Try not to present information in a static way. Think of all that you're competing against that is already online. Make your video entertaining.

Get the right pace. Most experts will tell you that a three-minute video is the optimum time. There are some circumstances where you need more time to tell your "story" but be aware of the limited attention span of all your potential viewers. There is just too much else to do on line.

Strive for quality. You know when something looks cheap. That's what you want to avoid. Thankfully, technology has allowed us to shoot and edit high-end videos right on our phone. The key is not to rush. If something looks or sounds cheesy, how do you think that will reflect on your company?

The hope is to go viral with your company video. That way you get tons of marketing for free. Start paying attention to other company videos and what is deemed viral.

How can you utilize those ideas for your video? Who knows? You might just be creating the next YouTube sensation! 

Changing the Online Advertising Business Model

The recent flameout of Facebook's introduction to the stock market should be a cautionary tale to any online

business. One the main reasons that the Facebook stock tanked was that days before they went public, GM pulled its advertising because they weren't getting a return on their investment.

This sent a shock wave throughout all corners of e-commerce cyberspace. How can you not benefit from having access to over a billion Facebook users?

The answer is simple: The online advertising business model doesn't always work... and it shouldn't be the main business model for your startup.

The Big Fail

On many levels, the fail of online advertising is paralleling the fail of traditional television advertising. Thanks to DVRs, viewers are able to zap through commercials with ease. There are even devices being specifically marketed that will "hop" over commercials.

Naturally, this has the broadcast networks in an uproar. How can they justify ad rates if no one is watching the ads?

The same thing is happening online.

When a user logs on they're on a mission. They have a specific activity they are engaging in whether that's sending an email, playing a game or checking their friend’s newsfeed. More than anything, the internet is becoming a social networking site that is equal parts global and local community based.

Anyone who is spending their free time on the internet doesn't want to be advertised to.

A New Way to Brand

Foisting a message onto an internet user who hasn't asked for that message is destined to fail.

Why?

Because we don't need a message we can find for ourselves. A company brand can no longer be built by specific messaging alone.

It will be built by the number of "likes" on a Facebook page or amount of Twitter followers. Now that everyone gets to share their opinions on places like Yelp, a good review is often more important than a traditional ad.

We share what we like and that's how the popularity of a product, a movie, a book or a restaurant grows.

Finding Information in the Cyber Age

The greatest tool on the internet is also the great undoing of the advertising model. That would be the search engine. Whether you are a fan of Google, Bing, Chrome or any other search engine, we know how to get information.

If you want to shop for a new car, a pair of shoes, an appliance or just about anything else, the first stop will always be a search engine. The next stop could be one of the many review sites such as Yelp or Consumer Reports.

Nowhere in that search is advertising needed or wanted. We're becoming a society of information gatherers. That's good for the consumer but not so good for the business, unless they find a way to improve their search engine rankings.

We're also becoming very sophisticated when it comes to blocking or ignoring ads. Don't want a re-targeting pop-up ad? No problem... just delete your cookie history.

The more advertisers try to insert their messages the more the Internet user will find a way to block the ads.

Build Out the Social Network

So, what is a hapless company supposed to do to find new customers? Don't fight the internet but put it to work for your brand. If this is a social medium then find a way to engage your customer base by starting a conversation.

Suppose you're selling a cleaning product. Perhaps you can start a conversation by asking folks "What's the worst mess you've ever had to clean up?" That's not selling your product directly but allowing folks to join in on a conversation.

Once they are engaged they can be invited to try the product. In other words, think less about reaching the masses with a single message and instead redirecting that message as part of a two-way conversation. That's the power of social media networking.