Five Marketing Tactics That Are Proven to be The Most Effective

Every business is interested in increasing their marketing effectiveness. This is the reason why they are constantly looking for a marketing approach that will enable them to tap into wider range of consumers. These strategies must also meet the different consumers’ individual needs. There are five marketing tactics that have proven to be very effective.

Focus on Benefits

It is often very hard for business owners to see their products and business from the outside in. However, this is exactly that they must do in order to be successful in their marketing endeavors. This is because they frequently become enamored with their own services and products. They also take for granted that their audiences will understand their services and products the way they do.

Marketers must consider and learn about audience concerns and needs. They must also identify potential objections that can hinder them on their marketing efforts. By doing so, it helps them identify important benefits to focus on. These benefits will be very attractive to their target audience.

Specific Targeting

According to Orange Soda Enterprise Partners, another effective marketing tactic is specific targeting. Effective marketing is always focused on a specific audience. By focusing on a particular group of consumers and looking to understand that group’s interests, desires and needs, marketers can be very effective in meeting their objectives.

Good Timing

Effective marketing must also look to reach an audience that is attentive and open to the message. This is the reason why Orange Soda Enterprise Partners helps businesses think carefully and thoroughly about their delivery mechanisms. This includes radio, newspapers, social media, TV and others. They must also consider whether their messages are being delivered at the right time and in the right place.

List the Company on Local and Google Maps

A company that has a presence on local and Google maps has an advantage over their competitors. When it comes to business marketing, a local and Google map presence helps direct customers to their establishment. This is true especially if they are near the area. At the same time, it helps businesses get ranked much higher in Google’s search rankings. The ability to leave comments and review a company is also a great tool to help evaluate the efforts a company has made. It also helps them understand their customers much better.

Posting Videos Online

The main marketing dilemma for any business today is getting found. This is the reason why online video is a great solution. A video can move a company’s website to the primary page of a Google search within 30 minutes of adding it. It also offers customers a fresh perspective on the company.

~Guest Article by Rianne Hunter

Insights – Getting the Most from the Post

Facebook Insights, located in your left side bar, is the statistical data you need to get the most out of your page.  This is a guide to using that data to improve your Edgerank and your online business.

Insights Tab

The Insights Tab features a graph and statistical data on each individual post. 

The graph tells you:

• How many posts were made on each day (which can serve as a quick reference when diagnosing “unlikes”),
• Talking About This score – calculated on a weekly rolling basis and displayed by day.  This is how many people have created a “story” about your page – that is, had some interaction with it.
• Weekly total reach – The total number of people who have seen any content about your page – again, calculated over a week but displayed daily. 

The Post Stats Tell You:

Reach – The number of unique viewers the post had.  This can play a part in determining what time of day you should post.  If this score is much lower than your “liker count” then you need to work on your Edgerank score. 

Engaged Users – The number of people who clicked the post when it showed up in their news feed.  If you click on the number, it will tell you how many of those “clickers” became engaged (that is, took further action of some sort eg liking, commenting, answering a question etc) and also “other clicks” which are clicks that are not included in other metrics (clicking on the time stamp for example, takes the user to the permalink for the post which allows people to tag individual posts on your page – this is very deep engagement)

Talking About This – Clicking on the number tells you what kind of interaction the user had.

Virality – This is the percentage of people who saw the post that actually took some kind of action.  Click Virality to put the posts in order of popularity and check which posts had the best scores.  Look for patterns in time and day posted, topic, benefit to the reader – when you find a pattern, you’ll know better when and what to post on your page for maximum success.

Likes Tab

Here you’ll find all the stats on your likers.  Use this info to keep your posts relevant – for example, a page with 92% female likers may not share your passion for monster trucks (unless it’s the Women of Monster Truck Appreciation Society). 

The Like Source section can help you trace actions that brought new likers to your page (were you tagged by another page on a particular day?  Did you post something that received a lot of shares?) and also days when you lost a lot of likers.  Review days with spikes in your unlike score – did you post too often?  Was something in your content offensive? 

Like Sources – This apparently indicates where the new liker found you however, there is inadequate information available for this to be really useful.  For example, if a user clicked through to your page from an external website or found your page through Google, it is not listed here.  This should be used as a rough guide only.  The “Old Insights” link on the right side bar offers better information on this.

Reach Tab

This tab is all about how far your page’s messages are travelling.  In addition to the statistical data about those reached there are some interesting stats:

Reach:  This shows how people saw content from your page (and how many people saw it).  A high viral score means that users engaged with your site are sharing with their friends.  A high organic score (calculated per week, not per day) means that lots of users saw your page in their own time lines. In an ideal world, your organic score will reflect your number of likers, but it’s unlikely that it does.  Paid refers to your Facebook ads.  Generally your viral score will fluctuate a lot depending on who is tagging you but your organic score should stay fairly level.  If you see a big drop off in organic reach, it means that you need to lift your user engagement as Facebook is devaluing your Edgerank score. 

Unique Users by Frequency:   This tells you how many people saw your content and how many times they saw content from you in a week.  This data can help you to understand how frequently you’re showing up in your liker’s news feeds.  People seeing information about you just once probably are not likers of your page. They may be seeing you on other pages, in shout out tags or on friend’s walls.  Those seeing you 21 times however are your good old, trusted likers!  If they’re seeing almost all your posts, you can determine that they are always on Facebook.  If you’re reaching people just a few times a week even though you post more frequently, chances are some of your posts are being devalued by Edgerank and casual Facebook users are missing them.

Page Views:  As the name suggests, this is the number of times your page is viewed daily.  A very high blue score compared to your yellow score means that you have some very loyal fans who visit a lot, a high yellow score means you have a variety of people visiting your page.  If your yellow score is close to your blue score, you should be finding ways to keep people interested and coming back.

Total Tab Views: If you’ve added other applications to the page, this section may help you to see which pages are working hardest.  If you have a very visual product, your photos tab should be getting plenty of views.  Use this data to see where your likers are going. For example, if they’re visiting your page looking for information, you can build more informative tabs to keep them happy.

External Referrers: This should be a long, diverse and star studded list. If this is blank, it’s time to start marketing yourself.  Link to your Facebook page from your own website, include it in your contact details in directories, forums, your email signature and on any online marketing that you do. Did you know you can optimise you page for Google too?  Google doesn’t see Facebook very well but being the number two site on earth, Facebook pages do have some weight behind it.  Your page name will play a big part in how well you’re found so if it’s not too late – name it with keywords!

Talking About This Tab

In addition to the statistical data about users, the Talking About This tab offers a more in depth view of how people are sharing your information.

Talking About This: Click the Page Likes button to drop down a menu of all the different kinds of interactions over a rolling week long period.  Some interactions are more valuable than others – tagging themselves in a photo for example, show’s that interaction to all of their friends.  Use this section to understand how your likers enjoy interacting and to see where you can “nudge” them to interact more.

Viral Reach:  This indicates how many people saw you “recommended” by others – if you were tagged by a fan or friend, then your site will see a spike in your score here that indicates the number of people who saw their post.  This is why the humble “shout out” is still a very important tool in Facebook marketing!

Insights is the most overlooked element in Facebook marketing.  While it’s not as useful as Google Analytics, it still serves as a handy guide for achieving what can seem completely random to some users!

Dana Flannery is a Website Marketing specialising in Facebook Marketing. Check out her most recent project at Pet Sitting Brisbane.

Erwin Schrödinger on Engadget

The discussion on the Engadget forms was enthralling and rather hilarious to read.

Erwin Schrödinger, the Nobel prize-winning physicist who bent our minds with his quantum mechanics theories, is being celebrated today with a Google Doodle. He's perhaps best known for his "Schrödinger's Cat" thought experiment involving a feline that's both alive and dead until its box is opened. Though it had nothing to do with his famous wave equations describing the energy levels of atoms, he used the metaphor to criticize an interpretation of quantum mechanics that was becoming popular at the time. It helped prove that a quantum system could exist in two states at once until measured, and he took pains to point out it was reductio ad absurdum and unrelated to cat murder. The creatures have enough to worry about, after all.

If you get a chance, check out some of the comments. I was laughing most morning.

http://www.engadget.com/2013/08/12/google-doodle-schrodinger/#comments

WordPress Themes are Used for So Many Things

Last week we asked our readers to participate in a survey to help us better understand exactly what theme-buyers are looking for in a Premium WordPress Theme. Thanks to the ~1,500 people that completed the questionnaire! We took all of the data and created an infographic to display the results. Some of our findings were quite interesting. Do any of the results surprise you?

Analyzing The Results

1. What Compels Purchases - “Good Design” and “Flexibility” are clearly what people find most important in a theme. Only 2.8% of people regarded “Security” as the most important factor in a theme, and only 3.6% of people chose “Support” as the most important part of a theme. I found these results surprising, as Security & Support are things that we hold as a top priority.

2. Who Uses Premium Themes – The survey revealed that 57% of our customers are not end-users, but are actually developers that are using our themes to build websites for their clients. This is a larger percentage than I had anticipated, and it shows us that the majority of websites running a Premium Theme and WordPress are actually being created by freelance developers and design firms. Perhaps WordPress is still too difficult for the majority of people to use. This also makes me wonder what else we can do to assist developers in using our themes for their clients.

3. Customizability & Options – The survey shows a resounding need for flexibility and options in themes. After purchasing a theme, 85% of people will customize it before using it. 80% of users are frustrated with the lack of features in themes, as opposed to being frustrated with the complexity of themes with too many options, and 71% of users prefer themes with extensive flexibility via Shortcodes, Theme Options and Page Builders.

~ Clipped from Elegant Themes - http://www.elegantthemes.com/blog/general-news/results-of-our-wordpress-themes-survey

Responsive Web Design takes a foothold in SEO

In response to the shift in device usage and user demand, Google announced recently that they will begin penalizing sites performing poorly on mobile devices. This is good news for businesses who have already invested in their mobile marketing and their mobile presence because they will soon begin to see a greater visibility in search engine results as others are penalized.

Google went on to explain, “To improve the search experience for smartphone users and address their pain points, we plan to roll out several ranking changes in the near future that address sites that are misconfigured for smartphone users.”

In addition, Google published a list of common negative issues for mobile users that they will begin looking at, including:

1.     Site speed

2.     Faulty redirects

3.     Serving up 404s

4.     Slow or unresponsive pages

5.     Incorrectly handling Googlebot-Mobile

6.     Unplayable videos on smartphone devices

7.     Smartphone-friendly pages returning errors

Don’t leave customers behind with a non-mobile-friendly site. We recommend making your existing website responsive so users from all devices—and Googlebots—receive a fluid user experience and keep coming back.

~ Clipped From One Up Web

Two Great Instagram Campaigns and What You Can Learn From Them

Instagram isn't just for people who love to take pictures of their shoes or their food. Big brands have been using the platform to create highly engaging campaigns. As a marketer, there are lessons to be gleaned from each of these advertising efforts. Here are two great Instagram campaigns and what you can learn from them.

Ben & Jerry's #CaptureEuphoria

Earlier this year, ice cream makers Ben & Jerry asked their followers to snap pictures of euphoric moments, as euphoria is the emotion they want their customers to associate with their product. Images did not have to be related to their product. Winners of the contest had their photos pictured on outdoor advertising campaigns in their local areas.

Pictures depicted a wide range of euphoric moments, from jumping up into the air, to toes in the sand, to a dog with its face stuck in a Ben & Jerry's container. They received more than 17,000 entries and, even though the contest is over, the hashtag is still in use today.

What You Can Learn

Even if a contest isn't related to your brand directly, it can still increase awareness of your brand. Those 17,000 photos were seen by thousands more people, spreading the word about the contest and, thus, the brand. When you create unique and engaging hashtags, their staying power can long outlive your contest, ensuring that your message is spread even further.

Giorgio Armani #FramesofLife

Giorgio Armani has harnessed the power of Instagram to promote their eyewear. Although they've ran a Frames of Life campaign before, last year was the first time that the brand incorporated Instagram. The fans responded well to the campaign even though there was no product to win. Their pictures are simply featured on the luxury brand's website along with the corresponding eyewear from their line that can be used to achieve the same look.

What You Can Learn

You don't always have to offer a prize in order to get good engagement with your followers. If your corrosion prevention coating for metal is good enough, people will be more than happy to promote it in a creative way. Campaigns like this can also offer insight about what your customers are into.

This can provide you with a valuable opportunity to create products for your company according to their tastes, or learn which features of your product to highlight based on the customers' preferences.

Instagram, like other social sharing platforms, offers a wealth of opportunities for marketing campaigns. If you’re not sure where to start, taking a look at successful campaigns from other brands is a great way to get inspiration.

Adrienne Erin is a social media and internet marketer who loves to share the tips she’s picked up over years spent growing with the industry. She writes regularly for SiteProNews and Search Engine People.

Search Engine Optimization – SEO

SEO Site Audit and Analysis

Per­form­ing an au­dit and analy­sis for your web­site is part of the re-work­ing of your mar­ket­ing plan and dig­i­tal strat­egy. It re­quires an ex­pert that is con­stantly stay­ing up on the lat­est tech­nol­ogy and changes from the search en­gines in or­der to ac­cu­rately re­vamp your strat­egy and get the largest re­turn on your in­vest­ment.

Things that we take into consideration:

• On-page or On-site Optimization
• Keyword Selection
• Website Optimization
• Social Media Implementation/Integration
• Blog Integration
• Online Reputation Management
• Listings in Google Places, Bing Local and other local search engines and directories
• Link Building and Anchor Text Optimization

Contact us for more information!

SEO Algorithm Updates

There are count­less web­sites that lost rank­ing in the last year and a half. Once Google Panda and Pen­guin hit, peo­ple that hat pur­chased links or paid for back­links, were hit dra­mat­i­cally.

Google Pen­guin was de­signed to re­duce the spam on the web where peo­ple tried to ma­nip­u­late search en­gines and de­ceive them into higher rank­ings. It shouldn’t have been as big of a shock as it was though. The sites that got hit by this were spam­ming for a long time. Even thought it only af­fected 3.1% in the US, it hit ma­jor play­ers in the in­dus­try which is why it was so shock­ing and got so much no­to­ri­ety. They had gained high rank­ing through black hat if not black hat, gray hat at best. Along with the spam, Google pen­guin also takes into ac­count key­word stuff­ing (spam).

The Google Web­mas­ter Tools and Bing Web­mas­ter Cen­ter have been in­dis­pens­able. The first thing you need to do when set­ting up a site is to get email alerts from the web­mas­ter cen­ters to alert you when things go wrong with your site : bro­ken links, spam, hack­ing, etc.

Uti­liz­ing the ag­ile de­vel­op­ment method­ol­ogy of con­cept, plan, build, and launch we can ef­fec­tively con­tinue to achieve suc­cess by fol­low­ing the process that al­lows us to track pro­ject man­age­ment and keep ef­fi­ciency high.

Setup Google Alerts

Google Alerts are emails sent to you when Google finds new re­sults such as web pages or news­pa­per ar­ti­cles that match your search term. You can use Google Alerts to mon­i­tor any­thing on the Web. For ex­am­ple, peo­ple use Google Alerts to:

• Find out what is being said about their company or product.
• Monitor a developing news story.
• Keep up to date on a competitor or industry.
• Get the latest news on a celebrity or sports team.
• Find out what’s being said about their company.

Ideas for sug­gested search terms:

1. Your website name
2. Your domain name
3. Type into Google “site:yourDomainName.com Viagra” or any spam terms like “body building”, “Nigerian princess”, etc.
4. Keywords you want to target – lets you analyze competition and gauge yourself

Setup Google Analytics

Google An­a­lyt­ics not only lets you mea­sure sales and con­ver­sions, but also gives you fresh in­sights into how vis­i­tors use your site, how they ar­rived on your site, and how you can keep them com­ing back.

Mon­i­tor stats like…

1. Bounce Rate
2. Exit Rate
3. Conversions
4. Traffic

With the Google An­a­lyt­ics Con­ver­sion Suite you can go be­yond pageviews and vis­i­tor counts. See how all your dig­i­tal mar­ket­ing chan­nels work to­gether to bring vis­i­tors to your site. Mea­sure sales, down­loads, video plays, and other ac­tions that are of value to you. Un­der­stand why some vis­i­tors buy from you and oth­ers don’t — so you can ad­just your site and your mar­ket­ing pro­grams to meet your busi­ness goals.

Location based Searching

In­creas­ingly, there is grow­ing value in know­ing your user’s lo­ca­tion in or­der to serve up the most rel­e­vant search re­sults. While most mo­bile searches are about news and weather, but a grow­ing per­cent­age of searches on mo­bile de­vices are di­rectly re­lated to re­tail­ers. This means that lo­ca­tion based search­ing is be­com­ing more im­por­tant for the user’s ex­pe­ri­ence and in turn more im­por­tant for de­vel­op­ers and de­sign­ers to pay at­ten­tion to.

Tracking Events and Links

Event Track­ing is a method avail­able in the ga.js track­ing code that you can use to record user in­ter­ac­tion with web­site el­e­ments, such as a Flash-dri­ven menu sys­tem. This is ac­com­plished by at­tach­ing the method call to the par­tic­u­lar UI el­e­ment you want to track. You can use a ser­vice to mon­i­tor in­bound, out­bound, and ex­change links so that in turn you can thank any­one who links to your site.

What Is SEO / Search Engine Optimization?

SEO is an acronym for Search En­gine Op­ti­miza­tion. Search En­gine Op­ti­miza­tion is the process used for gain­ing or­ganic traf­fic, nat­ural search re­sults, on search en­gines through var­i­ous search queries. Un­for­tu­nately the dif­fer­ent search en­gines like Google, Ya­hoo, Bing, and Ask all have dif­fer­ent ideas on how to rank web­sites there­fore mak­ing SEO unique for each search en­gine.

Pay­ing for clicks is NOT SEO. - See PPC for more in­for­ma­tion.

Local Search Optimization in Google, Bing, Yahoo, and Ask

For small and medium sized busi­nesses it’s less im­por­tant to be the #1 gen­eral search re­sult than it is to be the #1 lo­cal search re­sult in your spe­cific ser­vice area.

For busi­nesses that op­er­ate in spe­cific lo­cales or have de­fined ser­vice ar­eas like restau­rants, real es­tate agents, or other ser­vice providers, it makes sense to fo­cus mar­ket­ing money and ef­forts where your cus­tomers are.

Whether you are look­ing for a re­spon­sive web­site or a unique ap­pli­ca­tion there are cer­tain stan­dards that stay the same when per­form­ing SEO:

• On-page or On-site Optimization
• Keyword Research and Selection
• Website Evaluation and Optimization Strategies
• Developing a Digital Marketing Plan
• Social Media Strategy and Implementation/Integration
• Social Media Training
• Blog Implementation/Integration and Training
• Online Reputation Monitoring and Management
• Listings in Google Places, Bing Local and other local search engines and directories
• Link Building and Anchor Text Optimization ( not as important anymore )

Toledo Markets SEO Experience

Healthcare

High Technology

Retail

Consulting

Our SEO pro­ject ex­pe­ri­ence in Toledo, Ohio has been a grow­ing mar­ket for us. Peo­ple have a hard time ad­just­ing to the idea that you don’t get a phys­i­cal good in re­turn. You do how­ever get a vis­i­ble re­turn on in­vest­ment by watch­ing rank­ings and judg­ing the im­pact of spe­cific changes that oc­cur with your user base.

By im­pact­ing your or­ga­ni­za­tion with SEO, we cre­ate a lo­cal and wide area pres­ence in your in­dus­try. It is more af­ford­able to cre­ate a lo­cal pres­ence but the process in cre­at­ing this pres­ence is in essence the same.

If you are in­ter­ested in look­ing at de­vel­op­ing a Search En­gine Op­ti­miza­tion plan for your com­pany please get in touch with us and we will show you what we can do for you – whether you’re in Toledo or not.