, ,

Landing Page Mistakes That Are Killing Your Conversions

BIMS_4.21.15

If you are to ask any website owner to choose a section of their site that is hardest to create, you’ll probably get the same answer over and over again – the landing page.

Have you been putting it off because you’re worried it will suck? Creating a landing page doesn’t have to be a difficult process. We’ll make it easier for you by citing some of the most common landing page mistakes. Be sure to avoid these mistakes as these could be killing your conversions.

Not explaining clearly what to do

A landing page is simple, straightforward and designed for a single focused objective. It should guide your visitors toward your intended conversion goal. If your goal is to direct visitors to a particular page and urge them to sign up for a free trial, then that page should be about trying to get them to leave their email address.

But most of the time, landing page asks users to do a lot of things. Confused about what to do, visitors leave without doing anything. A landing page that does not communicate its purpose is a poor landing page.

Ignoring basic aesthetics

It turns out that some of the most common mistakes are design related. Trying to capture the attention of people, some seem to lose their minds on the appearance of their page. Garish colors, cheesy stock photos and crazy fonts do not directly influence conversion rates. Rather, they could hurt your brand’s reputation and credibility.

Blowing the headline

The headline on your landing page is what tells your visitors what your landing page is about. This is your chance to overcome the attention filter most of us have developed due to information overload and ads that offer nothing but empty promises.

If you want your visitors to keep reading, you need to add a benefit to the headline. Show them how you can help and how you can address their needs.

 

/by
, ,

How to Use Pinterest to Attract Customers

BIMS_4.14

With over 70 million users, Pinterest is considered as one of the fastest growing social networking sites. Armed with that information, it is safe to say that Pinterest is just as important as Twitter and Facebook when using social media to reach your target market.

Since Pinterest is all about graphic images, your goal is to create visual images that your customers would enjoy. The more appealing an image is, the more likely it is to generate attention.

So, how can you use Pinterest to attract and engage customers? Here are some tips to get you started.

Build boards around your products

If you own a restaurant, there’s no better way to attract new customers by showing off your dishes. Be sure to create a collection of boards for each of your specialties. After all, food is the main attraction of your restaurant. So, focus on your menu.

Become an information curator

As an online curator, your job is to gather and organize all the best images related to your topic and present them to your virtual audience. When done the right way, people will see you as an industry expert and will eventually consider you as a go-to source for cool images and content.

Add compelling descriptions

If your goal is to capture the attention of customers, you shouldn’t stop at creating visually compelling content. Adding a description is just as important.

Since you’re using SEO to promote your site, why not use it as well to promote your Pinterest page. Use keywords in your titles, tags and pin boards. This is important as it makes it easier for people to find your content.

Engage with other users

The whole point of social networking is socializing. So, engage with customers, strategic partners and industry vendors by tagging them in your descriptions. Another way to interact with other users is to like their pins. This can be a way of telling them that you appreciate their content. Plus, it can help you build a following and convert fans into buyers.

/by
, , ,

Pinterest Tips to Help Strengthen Your Business

pinterestSocial media platforms have been the go-to business strategy for sharing content over the past couple of years. Recently, the main focus has shifted more towards visual content, which is why Pinterest has been on the rise for businesses. Pinterest has grown immensely over the past few years, with the latest statistics revealing that 70 million people use it daily, while 9% of all Fortune 500 brands are active on the platform as well.

Now is the time to get your business on board with Pinterest! Here is a variety of ways to help maximize your efforts:

1. Using Rich Pins

Rich pins are a new edition to Pinterest that add extra details to Pins from your website. There are six types are rich pins which include app, movie, recipe, article, product, and place. There are many advantages to using Rich Pins including real-time pricing and stock availability. They also help improve CTR and discoverability of pins by making them eligible for Pinterest’s own curated feeds.

 2. Focus on Pinning

Pin every new product, engage frequently, and keep it fresh. Knowing what types of images work best on Pinterest is extremely important. There are many tips and tricks to making your images high-quality and pinnable. Using colors wisely, keeping your mages anonymous, paying attention to size, timing, and your analytics through various Pinterest tools will ensure that you’re grasping your consumer’s attention and using Pinterest to the best of your ability.

3. Inspire

Rather than just creating boards that promote your product, create them around a particular lifestyle that appeals to your audience. Understanding your customer, knowing what they seek for, and exerting that through a Pinterest lifestyle board will help keep them interested and inspired by your brand. Many major brands use this strategy to promote what they stand for and to reach out to their consumer.

4. Running Contests

Increasing engagement is important on every social media platform, but not too many people use it to their advantage on Pinterest(and they should!). If done properly through following the Pinterest contest guidelines, contests can drive sales and help reach a wider audience. Be creative, make it worth it for your consumer, and look to other brands for contest ideas. Also, there are a variety of apps that can help organize your contest and host it on your site including Gleam.io, Wishpond, and Woobox.

/by
, ,

How to Promote Your Blog Content on Social Media

BIMS_3.24.15

Most people think that sharing content on social media is easy. They expect that their blog posts will be seen by as many people as possible with just a few clicks of a button. While social media can help drive traffic to your blog, a lot of blog owners fail to realize that advertising goes beyond just sharing all your blog posts on social media.

In this article, we’ll give you 3 effective ways to use social media to promote your content. Follow these tips and draw in new readers for your blog.

Identify your target readers

You first need to understand what your target readers are interested in before throwing up a blog post. You can do this by browsing around and visiting top performing blogs in your niche. See what kind of topics get the most engagement, which social platform they use to share their content and also, take note of the comments they get.

Doing this kind of digging will give you an idea about what your audience are interested in and which social media platform they use.

Embrace the visual

It’s no secret that images receive much more engagement on Facebook and Twitter. Even images on LinkedIn get more engagement.

Since the image you use will be the first thing people are going to see, choose a photo that sends a compelling message, sparks emotions and inspires curiosity.

Use the right social media channel

It seems that new social media platforms come out once in a while. While it’s tempting to use them all in the hopes of reaching as much audience as possible, you might not get the results you want if you do so. A better approach would be to determine the best social network for promoting your blog and focus there.

If your target audience is more visual, you might have more potential traffic on Pinterest, Facebook and Instagram. If your blog posts are more geared around business and professional readers, Google+ and LinkedIn are your best bet.

 

/by
, , ,

How Often Should You Post on Social Media

BIMS Social_3.12.15

If you are using social media to build an engaged community of fans and customers, generate leads and raise awareness of your products and services, it is imperative that you post on social media on a daily basis. However, you also want to connect with your audience without driving them away. The key is to strike the perfect balance between informative and annoying.

Your social media efforts can take you places. This is especially true if you know when to share and when to listen. We’ve got some great tips for you to inspire you in your efforts.

Twitter

Twitter is a fast-moving social network. Due to its fast-paced nature, you’ll need to update it more often.

We generally advise business owners to maintain a consistent presence in Twitter. While being active on Twitter is advisable, you don’t want to overwhelm your audience. So, keep your posts spaced throughout the day.

With Twitter, it seems the more the merrier. You can tweet as much as 14 to 20 times a day. Just make sure that they’re full of great info.

Facebook

With over 1 billion users throughout the world, Facebook is the place to be. As a general rule of thumb, you’ll want to post twice a day, 7 days a week.

You don’t want to post too frequently as people easily get frustrated with too many posts. Make each post count by sharing fun pictures and posts that your followers will be interested in. Remember, the more your followers comment, share or like on your posts, the more likely are they to see them.

Pinterest

Like Facebook, Pinterest has a feed that almost everyone can see. With the high volume of content being shared on Pinterest, you’ll want to create new boards on a regular basis if you want your pins to get found. Feel free to post 5-10 times a day.

Pinterest is all about visuals. So we suggest that you use beautiful, quality images.

/by
, ,

Customer Service on Social Media

Marketing your business through social media is way more than just attracting new consumers. Having your business out there on social media also means building strong relationships with your consumers. Social media platforms such as Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, make it easy to connect with your customers and make sure they are satisfied with your business.

A lack in customer service is an issue that many people have encountered with businesses. Social media platforms give us the opportunity to reach out to our customers’ needs, but it isn’t always that easy. Here are some tips to make sure that you are making sure your consumer’s needs are met:

1. Make Sure Communication Is Immediate

With today’s technology, people no longer have to wait days for a response. Social media enables us to be in contact with our customers at all times. Customers expect immediate responses when posting on social media, so if your response team isn’t prepared, it could cost you. If you can respond within minutes of the post, you’ll be able to make your customer very happy.

2.  Give People a More Personal Brand Experience

Social media helps your business reach out to customers on a more personal level. People hate to be waiting on the phone with an operator and feeling like a robot is answering their questions. Social media platforms help us to be available whenever you may receive a question or complaint from a customer. This is something that people immediately recognize. Being available through platforms such as Twitter and Instagram help build strong personal bonds with your consumer ad making them feel like their problems actually matter to you.

3.  Have Social Users Spread the Word

If your customers are satisfied with your business, they are most likely to share their experience with others. Usually, if your customer is using social media to ask questions about your business, this means that they are avid users of social media. This also means that they are likely to spread the word about their positive experience with your business. This is a huge advantage to getting a good rep in the social media world, leading to more customers.

Making sure your customer’s needs are met should always be your priority in making sure your business succeeds. Social media enables us to easily reach out to our customers, strengthen bonds, and make sure they have a positive experience with your business. Following these crucial tips will ensure that your customers are happy.

/by
, ,

Tips to Speed Up Your Content Creation

BIMS_2.24.15

Creating content is a fundamental component of an online marketing strategy. Unfortunately, a lot of business owners fail to generate a steady stream of high quality content.

While we understand that most of you are occupied with running and managing your business, keep in mind that your content plays an important part in your marketing campaign.

If you find yourself feeling discouraged about how long it takes to write a couple of blogs, please know that there are steps you can take to become more efficient  and effective in your daily tasks and speed up  the content creation process. Here are some of them.

Write about something you love

This is one of the most important tips you should keep in mind. When your write about something you absolutely love, words are going to flow quickly. But if you write about something that is not your area of expertise, it’s going to take you a lot longer.

Outline a month’s worth of ideas in advance

Coming up with new ideas to write about is probably the most challenging part of content marketing. To make things a bit easier, we suggest that you come up with a month’s worth of content ideas in advance.

Just because you have a list of topics, it doesn’t mean that you have to stick to it. You can always write about new topics, especially if breaking news or hot topics come up in your industry.

Do not multi-task

Contrary to popular belief, multi-tasking does not help you get things done faster. In fact, studies show that doing a number of things at the same time may cause you to commit mistakes and even double the amount of time you need to accomplish the task. So do yourself a favor and focus on one task at a time.

Do not self-censor

In an attempt to come up with a masterpiece that would wow your audience, your inner critical voice would hound you to constantly check and revise your content until you are satisfied with the result. However, this can slow you down.

If you wish to spend less time creating content, you have to turn off your inner critic temporarily. Let the ideas flow and give yourself a time to write. Once you are done, you can then review your work and start editing.

/by
, ,

5 Ways to Improve Your Twitter Marketing Results

1: Turn a Pinned Tweet Into a Feature Box

The Feature Box is an email form you place at the top of your homepage, which offers your website visitors a freebie in exchange for signing up for your email list.You can add a similar feature to your Twitter profile page by combining two of Twitter’s native features: a lead generation card and a pinned tweet. Simply create a Lead Generation Card that includes an incentive for people to opt in. Offer regular email updates, a special freebie or a subscribers-only discount. Pin the tweet to the top of your Twitter profile and you’re all set.

2: Communicate Less and Tweet More Links

A recent study by Dan Zarrella looked at the “reply rates” of about 130,000 random Twitter users and discovered that highly followed accounts tend to converse less. Keep in mind, the study results don’t suggest that Twitter conversations have a negative effect on your following, just that conversations aren’t what motivate people to follow you on Twitter. According to another study by Dan Zarrella, the way to get more followers is to invest more time tweeting relevant links to your followers, rather than communicating directly with them.

3: Ask Twitter Influencers for Help

According to BuzzSumo who recently studied the share counts of more than 100 million articles, when influencers share your content, the reach increases substantially. If one influencer shares a piece of content, it will get 38.8% more social shares. Three influencers double the social shares and five influencers quadruple them. It’s crucial to network with influencers and develop relationships with them. Then, when you have an important piece of content you’d like to get seen, you can ask the influencers you know to share it.

4: Use Twitter’s Recommend Feature

Recommend is a new feature of Twitter’s tweet button that many people don’t pay attention to. After a visitor tweets an article from your blog, the window recommends they follow you on Twitter, if they don’t follow you already. This is an excellent way to grow your Twitter account, since people who just tweeted your article are likely to want to follow you. Look at the code of your tweet button and make sure the recommend field contains your Twitter username. To double-check you’ve set up the feature correctly, ask a friend to unfollow you on Twitter and then tweet an article from your blog. If the recommend field contains your Twitter username, you’re all set.

5: Repeat Article Tweets

According to a study by Wisemetrics, the second tweet of an article gets as much as 86% of the performance as the first tweet. Clearly the performance will fade with each new tweet, but considering your followers are probably in different time zones, you still need to tweet your most valuable content more than once. Your new followers will appreciate it, since the content will be new for them.

 

/by
, ,

How Can I Market My Business Online?

BIms Marketing 1.27.15

As a startup business, it is understandable that you don’t have a wad of cash to market your business. But that does not necessarily mean that you can’t get your brand out there.

The internet is teeming with marketing platforms that would not require you to spend a ridiculous amount of money. If you want to maximize your success, you need to take advantage of the power of the internet and learn how to promote your business online.

This week, we’ll give you some pointers on how to get the word out about your business and start driving sales.

Optimize your company’s website

In the world of constant Googling, search engine optimization cannot be underestimated. The idea here is to write your website’s content in such a way that it would appear in major search engines such as Bing and Google.

Embrace social media

Today, virtually every business, whether big or small, has accounts on different social media platforms.

Without social media, your inbound traffic is limited to people who are familiar with your business. Use social media to create more awareness for your company and to present a more personal side of your business. You can also post updates from time to time to keep your fans posted on your business happenings.

Start a blog

Blogging is a great way to boost your site’s ranking in search engines and drive traffic to your website. This is particularly important if you are running an online business.

For this to be effective, you have to write blog posts frequently and provide your audience with relevant information. As you continue to provide valuable information and solutions to your target market’s problems, you’ll soon become a trusted source of information. Once they see you as an industry expert, they are more likely to buy from you.

When you grow, hire a pro

When you’re starting out, it is natural that you want to oversee every single aspect of your business, including online marketing. But as your business grows, you might want to hire a professional to take over the marketing side of your business. After all, these people have the skills, knowledge and experience to help you reach and connect with your target audience and generate new leads.

/by