Blogging Can Be a Fantastic Promotion Tool Across Platforms

Building a successful blog is an excellent way to integrate your marketing campaigns across several platforms. Here are a few ways to use your blog to promote your business regardless of medium.

<strong>With direct mail</strong>

When you send direct mail, mention your blog to let people know it’s there for them to read and comment on. Highlight some of the recent topics you’ve covered to entice them even further.

Direct mail is a wonderful way to advertise deals and upcoming sales. Market your blog as another way to stay updated about specials and events. Promote it as a way to learn more about your industry, so customers can get the most from your products and services.

<strong>On social media</strong>

Social media is an excellent tool for promoting a blog and connecting with page visitors. Use your social media accounts to promote your blog posts among your followers. Invite conversations on social media about subjects you’ve covered in your blog as a way of keeping your social channels active and engaged.

Promoting your posts on social media makes it much easier for people to share your content. People can read and post your content to their own social media pages without much effort. The more people share your content, the greater your reach, which can help spread your brand name and reputation.

<strong>With community events</strong>

Becoming active in your local community is a fantastic way to promote your brand. Customers enjoy working with local businesses they see as interested and supportive of the local community. Sponsor various charity events or host a table at community picnics and other neighborhood gatherings. This will allow you to get your organization in front of others in the community, so your company becomes a familiar entity. Use these opportunities to begin conversations about your industry and products with interested parties to further boost your reputation as an industry leader.

Use your blog to promote the events you participate in and to speak about your involvement with the organizations holding them. Encourage people to participate and get involved. After the event, post some pictures and write a post with highlights from the day. These types of posts can help advertise the event and encourage people to participate, while also demonstrating your involvement in the community even for those who are unable to attend.

A successful marketing campaign means reaching out to prospective buyers on a variety of platforms so they get to know your brand and how you can serve them. Your blog can be a fantastic tool for accomplishing this goal. If you’re still debating the merits of starting a company blog, consider the benefits it will bring to your integrated campaigns. If you’d like assistance getting a campaign off the ground, let us know. We’d be happy to help you with your marketing.New Blog Content From The BuzzNew Blog Content From The Buzz

How to Build a Company Culture that Helps Marketing

As managers, we all strive to develop an atmosphere of success and teamwork. When you can develop a culture that respects those in your office and encourages success, you’ll notice many immediate benefits.
<ul>
<li>Workers will become more motivated.</li>
<li>Employees will feel valued and know the role they play in the success of the greater organization.</li>
<li>They’ll also feel more confident handling day-to-day situations and solving problems.</li>
<li>You’ll be able to spend your time more productively, too, by not having to handle issues your employees now feel confident dealing with on their own.</li>
</ul>

When your employees feel valued and content, the impact can stretch far beyond the office walls. Happy employees present a more enthusiastic and helpful face for your brand to potential customers. Your company’s reputation for caring for its employees and its customers will spread. Referrals will grow, and your marketing efforts will have a greater impact. In short, this type of fantastic company culture can help the bottom line.

So how do you achieve this type of business-friendly dynamic in your office?

<strong>During hiring</strong>

Building a fantastic company culture begins during the hiring process. Make hires based on two main factors: skills and how well the candidate will fit with the culture you’ve created or are trying to create. Many companies focus solely on finding the person with the best qualifications, without taking into account how well that person will fit in with the rest of the team.

Ask questions during the interview that speak to the values you seek. When you’ve found a candidate that appears to work well, consider having them do a trial project with your team to see how well they get along.

<strong>Among current employees</strong>

Educate and empower your employees so they feel confident taking control of their interactions with customers. Teach them how to delight customers not by just telling them or giving presentations, but through examples and demonstrations. Build a culture that focuses on under-promising and then exceeding customers expectations at every turn. Teach employees to focus on solving problems for their customers. Develop concrete buyer personas that employees understand completely, so they can quickly gauge what customers seek when they speak with them.

At the same time, empower your employees. Let them know they’re trusted and responsible for solving problems and finding new ways to help their customers. Have clear guidelines about when employees should ask for help and when they need to come up with their own solutions. This will help employees better assist customers and solve their problems. Customers will be happier knowing they’re speaking with someone who can actually do something, rather than just relay messages.

Creating a positive culture and work environment does more than make your organization a great place to work. It can also help boost marketing efforts and improve the bottom line. By helping your employees, you’re improving the face of the brand your customers see. You might be amazed at the impact it can have on your efforts.

Are You Neglecting This Valuable Source of Income?

When most people think of marketing, their minds automatically turn toward finding ways to attract new customers. In the process, they’re overlooking one key customer segment, and that could be costing them enormously.

Who is this precious group? Their existing customers.

Why existing customers are so critical

It costs an estimated 6 to 7 times more to attract new customers than to retain existing ones. Neglecting your existing customers doesn’t just waste time and money; it cuts into the bottom line, as you continually search for enough new customers to replace those who leave.

Existing customers can be excellent resources for expanding your consumer base. Customers in general are much more trusting of referrals they receive from friends and family than they are of advertising produced by a company itself. This is also true of reviews on websites and review sites. Taking the time to cultivate a fantastic customer experience will not only help encourage customers to come back, but will also lead to more referrals and positive reviews, which can increase your customer base and improve your reputation.

Encouraging customers to come back

To encourage your customers to return to you time and again, you must create a superior customer experience from the moment they first interact with your brand. Part of creating an ideal customer experience means investing in your employees. Treat your employees well and cultivate a culture that works well with the brand. Happy employees tend to present the best possible image to potential customers.

Train your employees to exceed customer expectations at every turn. This often means under-promising what they can do for the customer, then over-delivering. It means personalizing communications from the company to the person, even in a mass email. Make sure the content is relevant by segmenting email lists.

Make sure the content you develop for your website and blog is relevant and valuable to those who have already purchased from you. While much of your content will be more oriented toward potential customers you’re looking to land, you should also have some content geared toward existing customers. This content might suggest ways for them to get the most out of the products or services they’re using, offer continued education, or provide other useful information existing customers might find interesting.

In the same way, you should also be paying attention to your existing customers when it comes to promotions and deals. Too many companies focus on special sales and discounts for first time customers. This can leave existing customers feeling annoyed, overlooked, and put off. Make sure you run deals regularly for loyal customers, too, such as milestone discounts and points promotions. Such deals will help to m ake your customers feel valued.

Your existing customers can be a fantastic resource for building your business. These are the people who have already trusted you enough to do business with you, so show them how much they matter. Demonstrate you care about your customers through outstanding service, valuable content, and relevant promotions. You’ll keep more customers around, build loyalty, and see a rapid impact on your bottom line.

How to Use Keywords to Get Attention

When it comes to developing content, few buzzwords are thrown around quite as much as “keywords.” While quality content remains by far the gold standard for SEO, keywords can be very helpful for guiding search engines and those making queries on them to relevant content on your website. Of course, figuring out what keywords to focus on can be a challenge. Keywords should match the vocabulary and information sought by potential customers, while also flowing naturally within the piece. Here’s what every professional should know about finding quality keywords for their website.

Determine the keywords people use

You don’t want to use keywords you think potential customers might use. Instead, you want keywords you know are commonly used. Use resources such as Google Trends and Adwords to monitor how frequently certain keywords are used. Look at trends within your market or industry, too. If a keyword has been decreasing in usage, focus somewhere else. If usage is low but has been growing steadily over the past few months, it may be worth looking at ways to incorporate that word or phrase more prominently on your site.

Look for words that match the vocabulary of your customers

In many industries, there’s a difference between the language used by the professionals and that used by their customers. Make sure the keywords you include on your website reflect the language your customers use. If you use your industry jargon, you’re more likely to attract your competitors or others in the industry rather than potential customers.

Make sure your content answers the query

It’s always good practice to run your own searches using keywords before developing your content. This will give you a good idea about the type of content that already exists for a particular keyword or phrase. It will also help you gain insight into the type of content people expect when they type those words or phrases into the search engine.

How well does your content line up with customer expectations? Even if you are able to use a keyword naturally in your content, if you aren’t answering the questions people have, your content will rank poorly. Google and the other search engines want to present helpful, relevant content for users. If your content isn’t addressing customer needs, it will quickly find itself falling behind.

See what your customers respond to

As you develop content, keep a careful eye on the type of content most likely to attract customers to your website. Note the keywords and topics that bring the most traffic and the most conversions. This can help you hone in on what your customers are responding to the most, helping to refine your efforts and increase traffic to your website. It will also help you better understand your customers, which will help you serve them better.

Keywords can be enormous assets when it comes to catching the attention of search engines and potential customers. When you take the time to determine the right types of keywords that will best serve your business, you’ll see much greater return on your efforts. If you’re looking to develop a strong marketing campaign, contact us today to see how we can help.