New Year’s Resolutions for Better Digital MarketingThe New Year is a great time for business owners to reflect on the things they have accomplished in the previous year. This is also a great time to list down your business goals and what you plan to achieve this year.

Most people resolve to lose weight, eat healthier and to quit smoking. Why not make some for your business as well? Resolve 2018 to be the best year for your business and make it happen.

Here are 3 resolutions for better digital marketing. Get your head start this year with this list of resolutions.

Improve mobile optimization

With one-quarter of global web searches conducted on a mobile device, you are ultimately losing sales if you aren’t optimized for mobile.

In order for your business to achieve its highest potential and profit, make the user experience clear and pleasant. Remember that your visitors are viewing your page on a device with a smaller screen, so be sure to keep your site simple, consistent and easy to navigate. Page speed is also important for mobile users. They are on the go and aren’t willing to wait. In fact, studies suggest that 57% of mobile users will abandon your site if it takes more than 3 seconds to load.

Start a blog and update blog constantly

Whether you’re running a multinational company or a small business, blogging is important for your business.

Updating your blog on a regular basis and providing your audience with fresh, well written articles will help position your brand as an industry leader. In addition, you can use this marketing tactic to drive traffic to your site and increase your SEO ranking. If you still don’t have a business blog or aren’t posting new content, now would be a great time to start.

Understand your site’s analytics

Understanding your site’s analytics allows you to track the effectiveness of your online marketing campaigns. You want to know how your customers have reached your site, how long they stay on your site, as well as how they are navigating your site. You need to be able to track these behaviors to help you determine which features of your website are actually driving revenue and which aren’t.

4-keys-to-growing-your-small-businessEvery business is different, yet all have common goals – to grow and expand their business. The problem is, a lot of business owners them give up even before they reach goal. As an entrepreneur, you need to understand that growth is a long-term, ongoing and always evolving process.

You can be highly successful in your business if you live by these simple ideologies.

Look for new ways to wow your customers

As we welcome the New Year, you should take this opportunity to think of what you can do to impress your customers. Think about the different ways you can really delight, thrill and surprise your customers. Take the time to think of new ways to wow your customers.

Delegate some daily responsibilities

According to studies, 70% of small business owners prefer to do everything on their own. You need to understand, though, that running a small business is no small task. If you try to do everything on your own, you may find yourself swamped with work, stressed and exhausted. Worse, you may be missing out on a lot of business opportunities and time with your family.

As your business grows, you need to start letting go of day-to-day responsibilities and delegate some of these tasks to your team. This way, you can focus on tasks that have the biggest impact on the growth of your business.

Create high quality products

In today’s highly competitive business environment, the only way to thrive and survive is to attain and retain customer satisfaction. To do that, you should consistently deliver high quality products and services to your customers.

In the business world, quality is everything. Customers will continue to buy from you if you deliver quality products. If you do not, they will quickly look for alternatives.

Professional development

We live in a world that is quickly changing. None of us can afford to be stagnant in our knowledge. Regardless of the industry you’re in, make a commitment to continue learning and growing. Knowing the latest trends will help your business stay relevant and stay on top of these changes. Remember, learning is essential to stay on top of things.

The key to your future can be found in ongoing commitment to learning. After all, where you are today is a reflection of the skills and education that got you there.

4-ways-to-inject-holiday-spirit-into-your-social-media-campaignThe holiday season is an exciting time for online marketers. With more and more people realizing the comfort of online shopping, online retail sales increase during the holiday season. All those online shoppers are ready to splurge.  Your business could be missing out on a lot of business opportunities if your company isn’t getting into the spirit yet.

Create a social media campaign that reflects the holiday season and it will definitely lead to marketing success that will make your holiday merry. Here are 4 ways to inject holiday spirit into your social media campaign.

Show the magic of giving

Christmas is a time when everyone’s thoughts turn to giving. This holiday season, let people know that you’ll be donating a portion of your sales to charity. Clients love to see this good will passed on and will definitely be supporting your program. Helping those in need will not only help you build a positive image; you’ll also feel good about yourself.

Create a very merry Christmas offer

The holidays are a time for gift giving. Most people go on a shopping spree during this time of the year to buy great gifts for their family and friends. Instead of visiting their favorite shopping destinations, more and more people are turning to their mobile phones to look for the best deals.

Get your audience in the holiday spirit and trigger Christmas shopping by offering Christmas vouchers, special festive discounts, buy one get one free or one-day sales. Christmas countdown sales are also a great idea because they create a sense of urgency, encouraging customers to buy on impulse.

Give freebies

People love free stuff. Since people are likely to buy more this holiday season, you might want to offer some freebies as a way of saying thank you. You don’t have to give a gift to every customer, though. Let customers know that they’ll be receiving a free gift for a minimum purchase. This will encourage them to buy more than what they have originally planned.

Sparkle up your cover photo

While it’s good to add some Christmas sparkle into your cover photo, it doesn’t necessarily have to be about Christmas gifts, red and green decorations or Christmas trees. Rather, it should showcase some special holiday products or some special holiday deals your followers and fans would be interested to know about. Try to think of your cover photo as your billboard.

boost-your-holiday-sales-with-these-quick-tipsHoliday season is the busiest time of the year for online retailers. According to studies, there is a 20% increase in online sales between Black Friday and Christmas. This is a wonderful time to attract more customers to buy your products and grow your business. But with so many businesses vying for the attention of consumers online, it’s time to think about how to capitalize on this potential influx of buy-happy customers.

Here are our top tips for holiday sales conversions.

Post regularly

During the holidays, social media usage is at an all-time high. Most people are at family events and are scrolling through their news feeds to pass time and keep themselves entertained. Some are looking for special offers and gift ideas. More users on social media mean more potential clients for you.

With more people turning into their smart phones during this time of the year, you want to make sure that you’re posting more often. Remember, more engagement means more exposure, which may lead to an increase in sales.

Get your visitors into the spirit of Christmas

Just like you decorate your home to get in a festive mood, you should also consider sprucing up your social media page or e-commerce site. Spread holiday cheer with seasonally themed cover images. Or better yet, give your online store a quick holiday make-over. Use the holiday season to change things up.

One study revealed that theming a shop for the holiday season excites visitors and gets them into holiday shopping spirit. This is a clever way to turn visitors into buying customers.

Don’t be a stranger

A lot of people fail to realize this, but it is far easier to sell to existing customers than it is to approach new prospects. Don’t be afraid to market to those you know. The best way to do this is by sending them an email. Let customers know that you have this certain product on hand. If they’re interested, they can drop by your store or visit your online store to buy the product. It’s as simple as that.

Twitter Tips for businessTwitter has over 300 million active users, making it one of the biggest social media platforms around! For marketers, the potential Twitter has to offer is huge! Additionally, the latest brand pages that have been introduced make it an even stronger platform for promoting content to customers. Countless companies have successfully used Twitter to build-up their brand’s identity. However, while several marketers have climbed aboard the Twitter bandwagon, many have yet to efficiently use the tool as a strategic channel.

What could possibly be preventing marketers from maximizing Twitter’s marketing potential? The main issue involves the unconventionality of Twitter. Twitter technology looks, feels and acts very different from traditional marketing tools therefore it requires a unique approach. Businesses have to look at the wide variety of skill sets required to see the full advantage of the site, from Customer Intelligence, to PR to interactive marketing, separate departments must come together to fully utilize the site properly. Furthermore, the openness of Twitter means marketers must keep in mind the classic mistake of saying the wrong thing.

However, with the right plan, marketers can tackle current obstacles and find success through Twitter.

Here are some Twitter Tips to help you succeed with your business:

1: Train your team to use it well.

While employees may be familiar with Twitter’s growing social media presence, they still need to understand how the site works in all its complexities and understand how it is that YOU want them to use it. Lots of companies are training employees to use social media, but when it comes to Twitter, training and experience is especially important. Twitter has a unique language, behavior and uses that are very different from Google, Facebook and the other social media sites.

2: Figure out Twitter’s role in your marketing mix.

When using Twitter, first decide why and how it fits in with your other platforms. It doesn’t matter if you’re making just one Twitter account, or several accounts. You need to understand how your customers are using the platform-are they just listening on Twitter, or are they actively speaking out? Brands can have more than one account, which may be useful for handling separate segments that have specific objectives, such as customer support, PR and direct marketing. With this in mind, each account MUST deliver a clear message of the brand to the audience.

3: Defining Your Brand

The first major step to using Twitter and hashtags effectively is defining your brand or business in a few specific words. Twitter is one of the most widely used social media sources, so you want to make sure your posts are being seen by the right people. Your central business tag should be a word that is unique to your business. You can make it your company name or a tagline that people will know about your business. For example, Red Bull uses #givesyouwings which is their company slogan. Doing this will help your business become recognized.

4: Gain a strong base of followers and engage them.

For a Twitter account to be successful, it takes more than just setting up the account. Brand need to build an active base of followers for their content to have any impact. You may have different tactics that can be performed to activate that community of followers to meet your brand’s objectives. For example, it’s important to keep the community engaged so conversation around your brand keeps building. A good way to do this is to use a calendar tool like Hootsuite to schedule content to continually go out to keep the audience active and engaged with your brand.

After developing your Twitter accounts and building a strong fan base, marketers can take a combination of relevant content, along with Twitter ads, to drive conversation and sharing. Twitter can be used to stimulate real-world brand interactions. Tweets can spark interest and energize your audience if you develop strong, relevant content, which in return will expand your brand’s presence in both the Internet and real world.

Always remember, your job does not end after you’ve completed this four-step plan. In the long run, it is absolutely necessary to be active in coordinating the proper use of the technology, and sharing best practices. This will successfully help your brand stay consistent with Twitter marketing!

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5: Use Trending Hashtags

As Social Media sites are growing, so is the use of the hashtag. If you didn’t already know, a hashtag is a word or a group of words after the # sign. Whether it be Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest etc., hashtags are popping every everywhere. On Twitter especially, the hashtag has proven to be an extremely powerful tool for marketing businesses. But, how do we use this strategy properly? Hashtagging can either help you reach your target market and expand your business, or it could be a waste of your time. It is crucial to learn the power of this social media marketing tool and how to use it properly.

6: Use Content Tags Properly

Lastly, using the right content hashtags is another crucial step for your business success on Twitter. These tags are not branded, and aren’t necessarily popular or trending, they are just simply unique to your business. Using these enable you to get seen by your consumers who are searching for those specific hashtags. One of the biggest mistakes people make when using hashtags is not being specific enough to your business. For example, using #food if you run a catering business will end up working against your favor. Millions of people a day use #food and that is never an acknowledgeable hashtag for a business. Instead, using something more specific like #foodcatering will get your post noticed by your consumer. Finding common hashtags by checking out what tags are being used by your followers and your competition is a great way to make sure you’re using them effectively.

tips-to-create-an-effective-facebook-ad-campaignFacebook is one of the best places to find qualified leads. With over 1.5 billion monthly active users, there is no doubt that Facebook ads can help you achieve your goals.

How do you ensure that your Facebook Ads make the biggest impact? Here are some tips.

Set goals

Take a moment to determine what your goal is before creating a Facebook Ad campaign. What do you want to get out of it? Are you looking to reach people near your business? Do you want to increase traffic to your website? Or do you wish to increase conversion rate? Once you have set your goal, it will be easier for you to determine your budget.

Take advantage of advanced targeting options

For your ads to be effective, you need to make sure that it targets a specific group of people. Facebook’s demographic and segmentation tools allow you to reach the people who matter most to your business. By selecting well targeted audience, you’ll have a good chance of reaching your goals without having to spend a lot of money.

Add images to your ad

Pictures are vital for capturing the attention of your target audience. If you want to get your ads clicked, choose an image that stands out.

Businesses, big and small, spend their time, money and effort just to reach their target audience. With so many people posting on Facebook every minute, there’s a good chance that your ads won’t get noticed. You need to grab user’s attention so that they read your ad. An eye-catching image can help you do that. The more interesting and eye-catching the image is, the more likely will people notice it.

Use call to actions

A call to action may not help in making your ad more engaging or increasing your click-through rate. So, why is it important?

When you add a call to action to your ad, people will know immediately what you want them to do. As such, they are likely to proceed with the desired action after clicking on your ad. This improves your conversion rate and decreases your cost per conversion.

As a start-up business, you are probably working on a limited capital. You’re trying to do everything yourself because you still can’t afford to hire people for your marketing campaign. It’s no wonder you chose to introduce your brand and reach out to your target audience through social media.

Social media is a powerful tool for business owners, especially for start-up entrepreneurs. In fact, it has grown in popularity over the past decade and has contributed to the success of several businesses all over the world. However, there are a number of myths floating around. These myths can ruin your chance of selling to your target audience.

Let’s put these social media myths to rest.

You need to be on every social networking site

Maintaining a social media account takes time and effort. There’s no point in opening an account on Instagram if your target audience isn’t there. What you want to do is to determine where your audience, and focus your efforts on those platforms.

Blogging is a waste of time

With so much information on the internet right now, some of you may think that creating a blog won’t help you reach your bottom line. But the truth is, a business blog is a great way to capture the attention of your target audience.

Make sure that you supply them with interesting and informative blogs, and they’ll surely be coming back for more. Give them tips and share your knowledge with your audience. Eventually, people will see you as an industry expert.

You need to be online 24/7 to be successful

While regular posting and fast response is important, you don’t need to monitor your social media accounts 24/7 just to build a strong social media presence. We understand that you’re busy, but please make sure that you have at least one social media post per day. Post less than that and your fans and followers will eventually forget about you.

Your social media accounts can replace your website

Although it’s easier to reach out and engage with your potential and current customers on social media, that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t update your website from time to time.

Write blogs, provide updates about your recent projects, and then share them on social media. Use it to attract your audience. Encourage people to share your post or voice out their opinions. Because these social media posts are linked to your website, it can help drive traffic to your website. Remember, the more professional your website is, the more advantages you can gain.

reasons-why-your-facebook-ads-arent-convertingFacebook ads are one of the most popular options among small business owners who are new to online marketing. After all, Facebook is one of the biggest social networking channels available, with about 1.6 billion active users.

Believing that Facebook would help them reach their target audience, business owners would spend hours optimizing their Facebook ads and spend a sizeable budget for their ads. However, many of them end up getting frustrated because they’re not getting the results they hoped for.

Are your Facebook ads producing mediocre results? Take a closer look at your Facebook ad campaign to make sure you’re not falling prey to these mistakes.

Poor ad copy

When creating an ad, your goal is to convince people to perform the action you want them to do or to buy your product. Don’t expect your ad to perform if it is confusing, badly written or if it includes wrong spelling and bad grammar. Make it a habit to review you content before publishing it.

Your target audience is not properly defined

In order to get results, you need to target a specific group of people who’ll be interested to see your ad. Next time you run a Facebook ad, make sure you set the location and demographic like age and gender. This way, you can be sure that you’re putting ads in front of prospective customers who will be clicking your ads, and not wasting your money on people who might care.

No call-to-action

There are a few reasons why people may not be converting. One of them is due to the lack of call-to-action in your ad copy. Make sure you include a clear call-to-action so that people are directed to click on your link.

Your offer lacks value

With countless companies pushing ads across multiple channels, the digital marketing landscape has been saturated. As a result, users learn to scroll through ads that do not offer enough value to them. Most users will only click through the ad is worth their time to do so.

To get more clicks on your ad, you need to get to know your target audience and determine what they value. You have to offer something that would make them think it’s worth their time. A free e-book, a superior product, knowledge, a great sale or entertainment will make them want to click your ad.

Creating a Powerful LinkedIn Profile

LinkedIn is the biggest social network for professionals. Statistics show that 2 people join LinkedIn every second. Many of them are looking to supercharge their career or business. Now, do you realize how many people you are up against?

Whether you’re networking, generating leads or job hunting, having an eye-catching professional profile on LinkedIn will increase the odds of potential clients, partners or employers getting in touch with you.

In this blog post, we have put together some tips that will help you amp up your profile. Use these tips to create a powerful LinkedIn profile that will get you noticed.

Have the right profile picture

Your profile photo is one of the most important parts of your profile. Why? It’s because people base their first impression on the photo they see on your profile.

Studies show that you’ll get 14 times more views than the competition if you have a great profile picture. Remember that LinkedIn caters to professionals, so choose a simple, professional shot. Reserve those selfies for Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.

Make your headline standout

At the top of your profile, you are given 120 characters to tell the world what exactly it is that you do. Rather than just putting your job title, you want to use that space to showcase your specialty and value proposition. This is especially beneficial if you’re looking for jobs.

Create a killer summary

Your LinkedIn summary should be impressive, engaging and interesting to your reader. This is where you sell yourself and showcase your accomplishments. This is your chance to show the world how good you are and that you deserve their attention.

Include keywords

Optimize your profile by incorporating keywords that people are using to find someone like you. Place them in various sections of your profile such as the job title, headline, summary and specialties. This will ensure that you’ll get found by your target audience and your profile will perform well in search engines.

EmailMarketingTipsYou’ve spent a significant amount of time writing an email that people will hopefully open and read. You’ve racked your brains for the best subject line. You’ve polished each sentence. Now, you’re finally ready to hit “send”. For some reason, you aren’t effectively grabbing the attention of your audience. You’re not getting a response from them either.

This blog post looks at strategies to help you craft an effective email marketing copy that converts. Follow these tips to ensure that your email is effective, clear and successful.

Write a meaningful subject line

Most professionals receive 50 to 200 emails a day. With that volume of email, it can be easy to overlook some important messages. If you want your email to be opened and read, then write an informative subject line that will give recipients an idea about the content of the email.

A clear subject line will capture the attention of the receiver and give busy professionals a concrete reason to read the message. Take a moment to write a subject line that accurately describes the content before you hit “send”.

Keep it simple

People are more likely to read short and concise emails. Keep messages clear and brief. Use as few words as possible, but make sure that it contains all the important information. Also, focus on one particular subject per email. If you need to talk about a separate topic, then write another email.

Be personal

Email is usually the way professionals communicate, but that doesn’t mean that you should sound like a legal document or a spammer. The content should feel as if it came from actual human being, not a machine. While it’s good to keep the message short and brief, including a personal note can help warm up the conversation.

Proofread

Your emails are a reflection of your attention to detail, values and professionalism. The last thing you want is to send an email that contains embarrassing spelling mistakes, horrible grammar mistakes, lack of proper greetings or one that is written in bright colors. Make sure you edit and proofread your email for grammar, spelling and punctuation mistakes before sending it.