Small and mid-size business owners often think that only large corporations can effectively use video marketing. After all, this particular marketing technique sounds rather expensive. However, it’s important to keep in mind that video marketing is incredibly effective. In fact, about 76% of marketers state that it produces more conversions than other channels. Plus, it can be more cost-effective than you might think.
Have you ever tried to communicate subtle humor to someone via a text message or Facebook comment? It doesn’t work very well, as the message isn’t accompanied by those all-important non-verbal communication cues, like facial expressions and body language. Marketers often encounter the same problem with printed ads and digital display ads. Video marketing is great for communicating nuanced marketing messages to consumers. After all, viewers can see a live person, cartoon character, or other illustration adding depth and context to the marketing message.
Since virtually every consumer uses Google, it’s a smart idea to craft your marketing campaign around the search engine’s preferences. Google tends to reward websites that have embedded videos, whether they are primarily for educational, entertainment, or video marketing purposes. Furthermore, Google now owns YouTube. This is why you’ll often see YouTube videos embedded directly in search engine results pages (SERPs). In short, the use of video marketing for businesses of any size is smart for SEO purposes.
Another reason why marketing experts highly recommend using video marketing is because it appeals to mobile users. More than ever before, consumers are viewing videos on their smartphones and other connected devices. Your business needs to produce videos in order to cash in on this trend.
At Smargasy, Inc., you’ll find a full spectrum of digital marketing services designed to position your brand for success. From reputation management and remarketing to SEO and PPC, we do it all! Call us in Fort Myers, FL, at (239) 214-8592 for your free consultation with our Internet marketing team.
Every time a user types a search query into Google, they see paid advertisements on the search engine results pages (SERPs). These Google Ads are targeted to the user’s keywords. For example, if a user searches for a plumber in Fort Myers, they’ll see ads for plumbers in that area. As you can see, the Google Ads tool is a smart option for marketing a brand’s products or services.
Your brand needs a comprehensive digital marketing strategy that includes both organic strategies (search engine optimization or SEO) and paid advertisements, such as Google Ads. One reason why every good marketing strategy needs both approaches is because SEO is a marathon-like strategy—it can take a while to see results. In contrast, paid advertisements through Google Ads are like a sprint, and can quickly get customers knocking on your door.
No business owner wants to spend more than they really have to on advertising. The good news is that running Google Ads is a highly cost-effective option. In fact, you won’t have to pay a cent for users to view your advertisements. You’ll only pay when someone actually clicks on your ad and goes to your website or landing page. In other words, you’ll create brand awareness free of charge, and only pay for hot leads.
There’s no point in marketing to people who would never purchase your products or services. For example, if you own a hair salon, you wouldn’t want to pay to advertise to bald individuals. Google Ads allows you to only target consumers who are actively searching for what you’re selling. You can target broad keyword search terms, such as “hair salon,” or more specific long-tail keywords, such as “hair salon selling Bumble and bumble hair care products.” As a result of this hyper-specificity, you can enjoy seeing your conversion rates skyrocket.
At Smargasy, Inc., our digital marketing experts understand how to seamlessly weave together marketing strategies to create interest among consumers. We use a variety of techniques designed to bring both rapid and long-term results. Call our office in Fort Myers, FL, at (239) 214-8592 to schedule a free consultation with one of our friendly marketing experts.
Email marketing is a great way to connect with your customers and keep them up to date on sales, products, and services that may interest them. Email marketing has been around longer than some newer digital marketing strategies that get a lot of attention. However, it is a tried-and-true way of maintaining an ongoing conversation with people who have demonstrated an interest in your brand. Even better, it may turn one-time purchasers into loyal customers. Keep these tips in mind as you create marketing emails.
Customers are much more likely to open emails that look like they’re from a real person. So, you should create an email address that uses a real person’s name to send your marketing emails. You should also personalize emails with merge tags to address audience members by name in your messages. Finally, you may choose to email specific segments of your audience with offers they’d be the most interested in rather than taking a one-size-fits-all approach with your emails.
Emails that have multiple typefaces, colors, and text blocks look cluttered and overwhelming to recipients. Keep your design clean, so that your email is easy to read. Customers are not only more likely to open and read well-designed emails, but they’re also more likely to click and make a purchase.
The best marketing emails are between 500 and 650 pixels wide. Anything wider than that will require the reader to scroll horizontally to read the message on a computer or mobile device. This is a bad user experience and will cause people to click away from your message.
Smargasy, Inc. knows the ins and outs of email marketing and is here to ensure that your campaign nets the results you want. You can reach us at (239) 214-8592 or by emailing [email protected].
Social media marketing is a great way to build continued engagement with your customers while tapping into new markets. In the early days of social media, using it for marketing was straightforward. But now, with so many platforms and so much competition, it requires a much more careful strategy. Here are some of the things you should do to build a successful social media marketing strategy.
Before you post anything on social media, spend some time thinking about your marketing goals. What do you hope to achieve with your social media marketing efforts? Your goal may be to increase sales of a certain product or service, build awareness of your brand, or create more engagement on your posts. There is no right answer about what your goals should be, as long as you select an outcome that best serves the needs of your business. Stick with goals that are clear, definable, and trackable, so you can monitor the outcomes of your efforts and adjust as needed.
With so many different social media platforms available, people tend to flock to one or two of their favorites. To create a successful social media marketing campaign, this means knowing which social media platforms your customers are using. A good way to start is by researching the demographics of popular social media channels to get a feel for where your customers are likely to be. You can also track how people interact with your brand on social media and which channels generate the most engagement. With that knowledge in mind, you can target your marketing efforts more efficiently.
If you use your social media channels to constantly sell, you’ll turn off people from following your brand. Instead, mix a good number of personal posts in with your promotional ones. Your personal posts can be behind the scenes stories, links to articles you’ve enjoyed reading, or anything else that will make your customers feel a more personal connection with your brand.
You don’t have to go it alone on social media marketing. Work with Smargasy to build and execute a personalized strategy for your brand. Start the process today by emailing [email protected] or calling (239) 214-8592.
The only constant thing about search engine optimization (SEO) is that it will continually evolve over time. Every year, it’s necessary to take stock of your company’s SEO techniques and strategies, and adjust them as needed to take advantage of the latest trends and algorithms. Staying on top of this never-ending evaluation and adjustment process can position your company for success in 2021 and beyond.
Artificial intelligence (AI) is no longer the stuff of science fiction. It’s affecting your everyday life, even if you don’t know it’s there. For example, Google recently implemented RankBrain—an AI algorithm that affects how Google ranks pages in their search engine results pages (SERPs).
Although Google has long been tightlipped about its algorithms, experts believe that RankBrain prioritizes user experience signals (such as time spent on pages and click-through rates). This means that your SEO strategy for 2021 should prioritize them as well. For instance, you can improve web traffic retention by keeping your readers’ attention with interesting, useful content.
User experience, or UX, is a specialized field that has been steadily growing in importance. If your digital marketing strategy doesn’t provide for UX testing, it’s time to overhaul it. UX testing is crucial for understanding your customers’ pain points and eliminating them to create a streamlined, convenient user experience.
It’s expected that local SEO will continue to grow in importance in 2021. If your business caters to a local audience, you absolutely need to harness the power of local SEO by doing the following:
It’s tough to stay on top of all the latest SEO trends—by partnering with Smargasy, Inc., you don’t have to. Turn over your SEO tasks to our team of digital marketing experts and get ready to watch your traffic and conversions soar. Contact our office in Fort Myers, FL, at (239) 214-8592 to find out what our digital marketing team can do for your brand.
Periodically, it’s a good idea to audit your company’s digital marketing strategy. And since the New Year is a prime time for new beginnings, it makes sense to conduct your audit at the start of 2021. Your audit should examine all of your digital marketing campaigns—social media, email, paid ads, etc.—and consider what’s working and what’s not working. This will allow you to make needed adjustments and breathe new life into your digital marketing campaigns.
Many business owners might begin their digital marketing audit for 2021 with a look at their paid advertisements, since that’s where their money is being spent. However, those clicks have to take the user somewhere, and that place is typically the brand’s website. With that in mind, it’s best to begin your audit with the heart of your digital marketing strategy—your website.
Consider whether you need to rewrite content to optimize for new keywords and phrases. Take a look at the structure of your site. Does it make sense? Is it easy to navigate? Be sure to also consider any technical SEO issues. Does your website load quickly? Is it mobile friendly?
Once your website is optimized for 2021, consider how your offsite presence affects your reputation. Is your company included in local business directories? Is your Google My Business listing up to date? Does your brand have more positive reviews than negative ones? Do you promptly respond to reviews?
After you’ve audited your brand’s website and its offsite reputation, it’s time to take a closer look at other sources of organic traffic, as well as paid traffic. These include:
Are you ready to audit your digital marketing strategy for 2021, but not sure where to start? Just get in touch with the team of expert digital marketers at Smargasy, Inc. We’ll be happy to handle your digital marketing audit for you. You can reach our office in Fort Myers, FL, at (239) 214-8592 or fill out our online contact form to request your free consultation.
Email marketing has a remarkably high return on investment. In fact, more than half of marketers state that their best ROI comes from this medium. As you might expect, email marketing has grown during the COVID-19 pandemic, with professionals reporting that they’ve been sending about 27% more emails. Since the pandemic is expected to last well into next year, this trend in email marketing can also be relied upon to stick around. You can use the following strategies to spice up your campaigns in 2021.
Savvy email marketers have long known that personalization matters. A marketing email that has a personalized subject line and is addressed to the recipient’s name is more likely to be opened, read, and clicked through to the company’s website. In 2021, this might not be enough.
Consumers want email content that seems like it was created especially for them. If your mailing list contains thousands (or even just hundreds) of addresses, this is quite clearly impossible. However, you can mimic this level of hyper-personalization by using segmentation based on criteria such as interests, purchase history, behavior, and location.
Aside from the intent of the email, what is the one major difference between a marketing email and every other email? Marketing emails tend to lean heavily on images, GIFs, and other graphics. They typically include just a few snippets of text plugged into a snazzy-looking template, complete with brand colors.
There is nothing inherently wrong with a flashy marketing email. However, it can sometimes feel too impersonal—especially during these turbulent times. As a result, the best way to spice up your email campaigns may be to tone them down. Set your brand apart from the crowd by sending an occasional text-only email. To your customers, it will feel almost as if they’re receiving a personal letter from a friend.
AtSmargasy, Inc., we understand the value of a well-planned email marketing campaign. Our team of expert digital marketers will create responsive templates designed for your brand, along with email copy that keeps your customers engaged. Call us in Fort Myers, FL, at (239) 214-8592 to discuss your email marketing needs for 2021.
The importance of social media marketing strategies isn’t exactly breaking news. Marketers have long known that businesses that are prominent on social media tend to get more traffic and more conversions. Yet, what is catching their attention in recent months is the unprecedented surge in traffic. The COVID-19 pandemic has been fueling a significant upsurge in social media traffic. In fact, about half of all U.S. adults report having increased engagement with social media platforms due to the pandemic. Since this upward trend will likely continue into the New Year, it’s worth taking a closer look at your social media strategy.
There has been an uptick in wellness-related content this past year, and experts predict that this trend will continue well into 2021. With all of the challenges of 2020, people are searching for balance in their lives. Look for a way to refocus your brand on wellness—either physical, mental, or spiritual—and post relevant wellness-related content on your social media platforms.
Audiences have been responding well to brands that publish cause-driven content with a social conscience. Whether it’s social justice, humanitarianism, or environmentalism, developing a social conscience for your brand will help it resonate better with your audience.
Social awareness of systemic inequalities has been growing by leaps and bounds. Make sure your social media strategy for 2021 is mindfully developed to reflect the values of your demographic. For example, if you’re planning photo shoots to generate social media content, use a diverse selection of subjects. And you shouldn’t stop there. Today’s savvy consumers look beyond the veneer. They respond well to brands that are genuinely committed to positive change. Look for ways to improve diversity and inclusion throughout your company—and of course, post about these changes on social media.
Smargasy, Inc. is your source for complete digital marketing services, including thoughtfully formulated social media marketing strategies. Contact us in Fort Myers, Florida, at (239) 214-8592 to request a consultation.
With over 227 million consumers using the web to make purchases, there’s a clear audience out there for your online marketing. It’s almost a guarantee that your customers are making decisions about what to buy based on the results of their internet searches. SEO puts your business front and center when a potential customer is looking for the products or services you provide. Managing your online reputation ensures that consumers are getting the right impression when they do find you through search. Because online reputation is tied to SEO in this way, it’s important to think of them in tandem.
What do you want customers to find when they search for your company’s name? Ideally, you want your own website to be the top result so that you’re controlling the narrative of your brand. Achieving this requires careful and consistent SEO strategies across all your onsite pages. A good SEO strategy won’t only optimize your whole site, but it will optimize the specific pages on your site that you want to rank the highest for specific search terms. This means that customers will find your company’s site and start exploring it through the entry points that highlight your top-selling products and services.
The last thing your business wants is for customers to search for you and find negative reviews. Unfortunately, search engine algorithms place value on the domain authority of sites like Yelp where negative reviews may be found. To combat the impact of negative reviews, you need to carefully manage your online reputation, so that your SEO results aren’t undermined by negative reviews that also pop up in search.
Smargasy knows how important the marriage of online reputation management and SEO is to your brand’s success. Find out how we can help by calling (239) 214-8592
Many small businesses sit out on digital marketing, believing it is either too time consuming or expensive. Alternatively, some assume that the nature of having a small business means that there is no need to tap into the virtual marketplace that digital marketing can open up. In reality, digital marketing is critical for businesses of all sizes. Even if your business specializes in hyper-local products or services, having an online presence is still necessary to keep your loyal customers engaged. Here are a few reasons that small businesses should make digital marketing a priority.
One of the key reasons that small businesses should use digital marketing is that their customers expect them to. The vast majority of customers look online before making purchase decisions, whether they’re looking for a new television or trying to decide where to make dinner reservations. If you’re not present in that digital conversation, potential customers have no way to find you. Furthermore, your competitors are likely using digital marketing. Even if you have a loyal base of customers, a well-placed online ad or marketing email from a competitor could be just enough to entice your customers to give another company a try.
Small businesses sometimes mistakenly believe that digital marketing is out of their budgets, but it can actually level the playing field between small companies and large brands with deep pockets. Digital marketing is more about strategic SEO, careful content marketing, and a strong social media presence than big budgets. You can compete in the same spaces as large brands in ways you can’t with other marketing mediums.
One of the best things about digital marketing is the way that it can make all of your marketing more effective. By tracking who is responding to your digital campaigns and what kinds of marketing are most effective in the digital realm, you get a clear view of exactly who your target market is. This knowledge will make all your offline marketing efforts more successful.
Digital marketing is a must for small businesses. Let Smargasy show you how a digital strategy can support your brand. Call us at (239) 214-8592 or email us at [email protected].