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Do you want to give back to your community but not sure how to do it? Here are a few ways to do it… Community Collaboration Business owners are a vital part of the communities in which they live and their work thrive. Thus, their decisions impact others in the community. A local business owner can be involved in the community. For instance, they may sponsor local little league teams, donate to cities homeless shelters, take part in community charity events or contribute to a local non-profit organization, so on and so forth. Innovation and Competition Businesses need to stand out from the crowd in order to survive and serving the community is one of the ways to do it. They must serve the needs in the community and do it better than their rivals. Having multiple small businesses all striving to be unique and better can result in a healthy maker place and well-served customer. Create Local Jobs Businesses play a very important role in creating local jobs. The benefit of local jobs is that the employees can work closer to where they live and won’t need to travel to another city or place. Businesses can also partner with and help small local businesses that can be beneficial for fellow community members who work at them. When a community has an operational commercial center, it also creates great opportunities for local people to shop at other local small businesses. They buy lunch or dinner from local restaurants, run errands on their break, and grab drinks from local bars. This keeps money rolling local and further creates a tight-knit community vibe. There are numerous ways in which brands can contribute for the wellbeing of the community. In a nutshell, our community can help our company to grow as much as a business helps the community to become stronger. All in all, we should always remember, no matter how you do it, giving back can ignite change and positive impact, and will make your company as well as your community better, smarter and stronger.
Writing content is a task in it self, and keeping it fresh and up to the mark is something that the content writers struggle from time to time. In this situation, you need to sit down and review some key points about your content and analyze where you can improve to get going again. Here, we will give you some tips on how to do that. Your content normally revolves around sales enablement, eBooks, white papers, and blog posts. With so many things to cover it sure does meant to get overwhelming at times. With the deadlines fast approaching, it gets even difficult to be more creative with your work since you have to get the job done quick. Bland content is not only hard for your readers to digest but also not really inspiring for you either. Research is the key. Stay updated. Keep checking out new trends and embed them in your content. That way your content stays fresh and contemporary. It’s important to keep evaluating, optimizing, and adjusting. One other problem content curators face is the monotony. Your readers get bored since you’re either repeating your content or following a certain unattractive pattern. Worry not. Alter your strategy. Look closely at your content. You might realize that it’s actually not the content but the way you structure it. Try restructuring it. Try changing the format. If you think that your content is flat, try to add some flare to it by adding infographics. That will spice it up. If your podcast is not doing as well as it should, try transcribing it into a blog or even better try adding some visual element to it to spice it up. That will surely catch the attention of your customers. Add some fun images to your blog. Make it livelier. Make it stand out and be more attractive. Add some interaction to your content. Give your audience creative content forms. That way you will keep your audience engaged. You need to keep shifting and adjusting your content strategy in order to keep it fresh and engaging for your audience. Sticking to this formula and your readers will never get bored.
You put in hours in putting up your website online. Your sole purpose to put it up in the digital realm is to attract visitors to it and eventually make it a hot source for lead generation. But what good is your website if the search engine doesn’t even know what it’s about and it fails to appear in the results that you would want to see it? Content optimization is the answer to this debacle. Optimize is the keyword. You’ve got to ensure that your web presence is fully optimize to leverage the best internet has on offer. But wait. Optimization just in the name of beefing up the pages in order to be more visible to that bot? Is that the real motive behind optimizing your website? If that’s the case then you must read on, this is for you. Optimization is not merely about getting it right with meta data and the web crawlers. Today, search engine bots are smarter than we think. You can’t just go about cramming X number of keywords umpteen times in a single paragraph. You content’s meta should be legible i.e. it should make sense when your website’s visitor hovers their pointer on it. The text that reads when your website’s visitor hovers their mouse over it matters, matters a lot. It matters because search engine’s web crawler is comparing it with what your competitor is putting in in their website. It orders it according to the relevancy of the content when it displays the search results. Hence, it’s imperative that you ensure your website is being handled by a professional outfit that knows the intricacies and pros and cons of the digital world. When going through the meta tags and page content for the various pages, ask yourself over and over: Does that make sense? Does the keyword belong there, or am I going out of my way to put it in there? Does this accurately describe, in an artful way, what my page or site is about? For the content modules on each page: Do they give the reader the information they need? Also, is the information clear and concise? Finally, is the content correct? So, here you go, we’ve laid down the essential basics for you to get it right when it comes to creating meaningful content on your website. Content that not only gives you more visibility on line but also ensures that authentic traffic is diverted to you digital abode.
Having a huge lot of subscribers on your email marketing list is good but it won’t be great if 75% of your email list is inactive. This is a worrying statistic, as it means that three quarters of your subscriber base may not currently be engaging with your marketing content. It’s about time that you indulged in email marketing reactivation and re-engagement. Reactivation is aimed at attempting to reintroduce lapsed subscribers to your content and re-engaging their interest in your brand, most commonly by creating a specific strategy and utilising specific content that aims to bring people back into your pool of active customers. You need to win your subscribers back on to your email list as active subscribers who actually pay heed to what is sent to them through emails in the shape of the communication from your side. Fair enough, the content has to be engaging itself to win them back but you’ve got to ensure that the frequency of the emails is not compromised. You’ve not only got to stay in touch with your subscribers through a constant dose of related communication but you’ve also got to make sure that your content is engaging enough and is related to your subscribers interests. Email reactivation strategy is normally skipped when the email marketing strategy is being devised as a part of overall digital strategy of a business. There are many elements and variables involved in the process of creating an email marketing reactivation strategy. Email reactivation’s potential to create impact for brands in any sector should not be underestimated. There could be three or four major reasons why your email marketing strategy is not panning out as well as it should. It might be the case that your content is failing to connect with your subscribers. Hence they either unsubscribe or become dormant until you revisit your email marketing strategy and come up with content that really strikes a chord with those subscribers. Generic subject lines is another reason why your email marketing suffers. Try to be as innovative as you can when coming up with subject lines for your emails. Try and be imaginative and innovative so that the receiver opens your email. One reason that’s really somewhat beyond your control but can be treated and fixed is when your emails start getting filtered or routed to spam. Again it’s really the content and subject line that can save your email from going to waste. So all in all, email reactivation and reengagement strategy should really be a part of your email marketing strategy right from the start when you’re devising your company’s digital strategy and should not be ignored. Once this is achieve then you might not even have to think about readjusting your content for reactivation.
Writing content is a tough task. Not only do you need to be knowledgeable about the subject, but then you have to have the skill to transform that information into an interesting and readable piece (which requires both literary skills and a command of the language). However, the toughest thing to do is to create an attractive hook at the beginning in order for your reader to stick with the article and finish it through. Oh, and what if we told you that you only have 15 seconds to do all that? That’s the average attention span of your reader- 15 seconds. It is during these precious moments that your reader decides whether your content is meaningful for them or if they should move on to something else. If a rodeo cowboy gets eight seconds to become a champion, what can a content marketer do with nearly twice that amount of time? Well, there is a series of subconscious questions everyone contemplates as they are reading an article. And as a writer, your articles must quickly answer these following questions as they pop up in a reader’s mind: “Are you talking to me?” If your reader cannot straight away tell if they are your intended audience, they are going to leave your page. Nobody wants to waste their time reading an entire article just to find out that the information was irrelevant to them. So it is essential for the writer to make it absolutely clear who their content is meant for, right from the beginning. “What’s in it for me?” Look at the way people use search engines. On the results page, users often simply skim through the first few hits and assess their relevance by reading the short description that is usually found under each link. Similarly, you have to construct your introduction in such a way that just by glancing at it, a reader can quickly and explicitly see if the article is for them. “Says who?” Readers like knowing who wrote the article and where the source of information came from. If someone won’t even take credit for the content, how trustworthy can it be? Based on the information your reader gets within those first 15 seconds, they will decide whether or not to trust you. Make sure your content has an author’s name, photo, and a link to their bio right up top. “How hard will this be to read?” Make sure your content is optimized for web readability. Short paragraphs and headers along with appropriate and well-placed images can create visual interest. A content with messy formatting and laced with typos and grammatical errors is sure to scare off your readers and look bad on you. So, before you post your next piece of content, take off your marketing hat for a moment and put yourself in your reader's’ shoes. If you can satisfactorily answers these four questions, then you’re on the right track.
Did you know that the human brain processes visuals 60,000 times faster than text? Did you also know that the attention span of an average human being is eight seconds? Well, now you do. Video is THE word. And VIDEO MARKETING is the term your business should be coming to grips with. It’s time you should invest in video marketing to grow your business. The marketing landscape shifts forward every passing day and businesses have to gain grounds to capture their share of the online territory. There are always innovations and improvements being introduced, and businesses have to raise their game accordingly. You are constantly required to come up with improved ways to promote yourselves and attract valuable leads. Today, your customers and clients expect more out of you. You have to develop new strategies to not only meet this expectation, but to exceed it. This is when video marketing comes in to steady your marketing strategy boat. There is no doubt that video-driven platforms are well-received by today’s generation of consumers. In fact, Snapchat has overtaken Twitter with a daily user base of more than 150 million people (Twitter has 136 million daily users). As a business, it is not wise to ignore this fact and think you can still survive. Simply put, if a business owner thinks they can make a good living by only clinging on to the more conventional and traditional ways of marketing, then we think they’re living in their own paradise. As a savvy business owner, you must acknowledge the increased popularity of videos. You must rethink your digital strategy to include videos in order to attract more customers and clients. This post is the first in our series on the effectiveness of video marketing and why it should be a part of your overall marketing strategy. In this article, we have outlined its importance and in our next post, we will take a closer look as to how video marketing benefits your company. So until next time, stay true to the spirit of digital marketing.
The statistics are surprising - nearly half of small businesses do not currently have a website.
Like they’re great at developing and sales, they didn’t just wake up one morning and thought they could do it. They must’ve worked hard and gained enough experience before becoming brilliant and great at it. And so is the case with digital marketing. You don’t just one day decide that you’re good at digital marketing and since it’s still a relatively new field only in comparison to its older counterparts, you’d still need to understand it fully well, if not thoroughly experienced in it, to consider yourself a digital marketer. And, that, many entrepreneurs fail to grasp, hence they fail to put their business effectively through the digital space. In order to understand digital marketing better, one must first understand how search engines work. We’re sure you know how to use the search engine but to understand its inner workings is a different thing altogether. You must first understand how to position your company's website to rank better by using relevant search engine optimization terms. Nowadays search engines collect huge lots of data about consumer trends and how they use the internet on different devices. One must mine these sources of information for their own sake and learn to market themselves better with the help of these insights. They’ve got to tweak marketing messaging to make it more relevant and engaging. For example, company owners can use tools for understanding which websites are linking to a corporate site. Google and other search engines value high quality links, and linking to a corporate website provides that to the search engine. By knowing that, an entrepreneur can accordingly adjust the digital marketing or optimization for better yields. Ignore search engines and the data they possess at your peril. They are fantastic sources of intelligence, which can help inform and propel your marketing strategy as you seek to grow your business.
There are various reasons for which email marketing is perfectly suitable for small businesses. The email campaigns are quick, economical, convenient to share information and important data, and can work with the limited marketing budget of almost every small business. While email marketing proves to be an amazing marketing tool for small businesses, it requires your patience. It shows the results but the payback cycle is long term – it’s worth the effort though! We strongly believe in the power of email marketing and here we state some fundamental yet influential steps you need to follow to start your email marketing campaign. First thing first – Research! We can’t emphasize enough on the importance of research. List building is not a piece of cake, do not jump and try every possible way you come across. Don’t fall into a trap and begin your journey on a track that’s made for someone else. Make your own way and then move on. It requires effort and persistence. Your first step should be ‘research’. Do it to find out the online territory of your target customers. Slowly and steadily reach them with a clear message to lead your target audience to sign up. You’ll be having a genuine list with genuine intentions of doing business with you. Pick the best service There are many email marketing services that can help you run an email marketing campaign easily. Always choose the service that can give you the access to maximum things such as managing contacts, creating template, sending emails, reviewing results and complete control over dashboard. There are plenty of them out there; you can choose the best fit according to your requirement and affordability. Do it the right way Doing it wrong or right is completely in your hands. There are some rules that you should follow strictly. Understand them before you think of sending out your very first campaign. It’s nothing complicated but basic email etiquettes that include things like cross browser compatibility, proper language, appropriate content and workable links. Apart from these basic rules always remember one more thing and that is DO-NOT-SPAM! Do not send unsolicited emails, this thing can backfire and all of your effort would go in vain. Be consistent Once you’re done with your list of initial potential clients, keep on upgrading it. There’s never a limit, the more you add the more benefit you would get from it. It’s said, slow and steady wins the race, and it is true for email marketing. Do it effectively and identify the enduring way to bond with your target audience.
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