Our goals are the same as they’ve always been: attract customers’ attention, stick in their memories, and provide a great service (or product) they keep coming back to.
That’s never going to change. So what’s the difference? Consumer choice. Gone are the days when we could spray-and-pray radio ads and advertorials in high-circulation outlets. Consumers are absolutely glutted with options. There’s more out there than anyone person could ever experience and it’s just as difficult – if not more so – to stand out in the all-too-familiar “crowded marketplace” as it ever was, fancy tools or not.
1. Turn off your phone and call a meeting
Meetings aren’t anybody’s favourite pastime. But you’re going be glad you arranged this one because you’re going to get your entire team together to figure out the most important step in implementing any marketing plan for a startup: “what do we want to achieve?”
Your business' success depends…
Marketing your restaurant is a mobile game.
The emergence of the smartphone has created a culture of connectivity. With 77% of U.S. adults population carrying around smartphones to stay connected, it makes sense that your restaurant follows suit with the big names to capitalize on this growing need to know.
If you look around at what many restaurants are trying, you will see many innovative and forward-thinking strategies that are yielding some great success. Today there are a number of ready-made app solutions that provide access to many of these features being used by the big names.
The rise of app builders now allows you to implement the same strategies used by large chains without all the necessary developer fees.
You can easily borrow some of the thinking behind the success of these big brands and develop your own mobile strategy based on what's working.
As a small business or even a string of…
At the tender age of 20 I started my digital agency Optix Solutions. 18 years on we are still going and employ almost 20 staff. Here are 5 useful tips if you're thinking of starting your own business.
At 38 and as a relative old timer of the industry, I thought it would be useful to tell my story. Hopefully I can inspire the next generation because although the internet might have changed dramatically in the time I've been going, good old common sense business fundamentals haven't.
When I started my agency back in 1999 Google and Ebay were both in a garage somewhere. Many companies didn't have websites so my job was to persuade them this Internet thing was worth investing in! 18 years on and its a little different! In that time we went through the dot com bubble bursting, the birth of ecommerce,…
Explaining how you can use a range of SEO tactics to get your site ranking highly
When most people think about SEO (if they think about it at all), they think of a very specific kind of optimization: the kind that involves putting keywords on pages. And while that's an important part of SEO, there's a lot more to it, as well. In fact, that's just one part of a single type of SEO.
And if you want to get as much traffic to your site as you can, you're going to need more than just one kind of optimization.
Here are six SEO tactics that can help your site rank for the keywords you're targeting. You probably won't use all of them, but having a better understanding of how to improve your rank is always a good thing.
1. On-page SEO
This is the…
SMEs needn't be left behind by new Marketing Automation technology
A dismal 37 percent of shoppers say that the average retailer “gets” them. It’s perhaps for this reason that consumers spend a lot of time researching online before making a purchasing decision offline. And for the first time ever, - as data shows - there are more online sales than in brick and mortar stores in some sectors.
The difference is that the new kids on the block - the ecommerce guys - are making use of technology to improve the customer journey, which is one of the most critical factors to keeping customers and attracting more business.
In fact, C-suite executives reckon four particular technologies will be key for marketing success in the future:
Cloud computing and services
Mobile solutions
The Internet of Things
Cognitive tools
This article examines the top marketing trends for 2017 that are specifically related to these four technologies,…
Ensure the names you create for your podcasts, ebooks, products…and just about anything else don’t impede your marketing success
Savvy Digital Marketers know that names (business names, blog names, podcast names, online group names) have concrete marketing consequences. The marginal effect of a bad name across key marketing goals like attracting eyeballs, encouraging buzz, facilitating word-of-mouth, and increasing top of mind awareness (TOMA) is real. If you don’t think that an awesome name that’s easy to say, spell, and remember can increase your referral rate by 3-5%, then you don’t really understand the human mind.
Check out these five insights on picking the right name for your website, online brand, mobile app, e-book or anything else shared by the team at naming platform Squadhelp.com:
1. Evocative names are most highly regarded
Online naming resources recommend catchy, unique, short and appealing names. Great advice - yet after helping nearly 8000 individuals find winning names, experts…
Small businesses can use video to boost awareness, leads and sales using these 6 tips
Cisco recently predicted that video content will account for 69% of all consumer internet traffic this year.
This is the last call for all marketers who until now have avoided video content, convinced that it's just a fad or that creating professional videos takes way too much time, effort and money. Well, here's a piece of good news: video marketing today is within reach of all kinds of companies, including small businesses looking for novel ways to spice up their online marketing activities. How to develop a video marketing strategy that works? Here are 6 key tips to help your small business develop a video marketing strategy.
[si_guide_block id="23343" title="Download Expert member resource – Video Marketing Strategy Guide" description="This guide explains how develop a video marketing strategy structured around the Smart Insights Reach-Act-Convert-Engage framework."/]
1. Know your sector…
How to avoid the costly mistakes that plague small businesses
So... you’ve started your new business or start up and 2017 is going to be your year! But not wishing to dampen your enthusiasm there are several small business marketing mistakes that can lead to your untimely downfall. To help you prevent this We’ve put together a special guide for small business andstart-upss highlighting the common mistakes not to make this year.
Digital marketing excellence isn't just for big business. In our guide to small business digital marketing mistakes we've noted the top 11 digital marketing mistakes that are commonly made by small business.
The guide contains not only highlights the mistakes, but also gives actionable recommendations to help you fix the issues. Our top 10 covers all stages of the RACE digital marketing planning framework so you can easily add them to your digital marketing plans in 2017. Here's an exclusive…
Chart of the day: Small businesses are missing out on some of the most effective marketing techniques.
Salesforce, a content partner of SmartInsights, surveyed 300 small business owners (defined as businesses with less than 100 employees. They found that whilst some marketing techniques such as social media and email marketing were very popular, the vast majority of small businesses were failing to use more advanced techniques which could deliver more value. 93% did not use marketing automation, and 91% did not use a cloud-based CRM system. 4 out of 5 businesses said they did not use any SEO techniques, and only 21% used digital advertising.
To say they are missing a trick is an under-statement. Social Media Marketing, the most popular activity, often fails to deliver ROI, and should be used as more as an engagement tool rather than one to gain customers. SEO and Marketing Automation have huge potential, yet…
Agencies can use data to plan for the coming year, and to improve digital marketing services
You don’t have to search far to find information about the marketing budgets of the mammoth corporations, like Proctor and Gamble and Verizon. However, the typical US marketing agency has small business clients with small budgets—details about the marketing budgets of these smaller businesses is hard to come by.
For the past two years, HubShout has surveyed small to mid-size marketing agencies and the data from the surveys shows where their small business clients are investing their dollars, and how much they’re investing in each service. The survey of 200 professionals who deliver online marketing services to small businesses provides plenty of data that is useful for small to mid-size digital marketing agencies. In addition, this article provides helpful tips on selling and improving digital marketing services.
First, Get a Piece of the 28 Million
The…
