Three Effective Marketing Strategies for Your Business

There are many marketing strategies for anyone running a business or promoting a product. New and improved strategies may become global trends, however most will become a thing of the past before you even read about it. These three marketing strategies will help keep your business fresh and credible. 

 

1. Content marketing

Why content marketing? Content is king. Search engines love content. Content helps to spread the word about your business and your products. Customers are searching for what you offer online. Their search engine searches bring them to videos, blogs, and social media posts. 

Videos, blogs, and social media gives you a platform to show your prospective customers how you can help solve their problem or issue. Hang up the idea of having to constantly pitch and start showing the world how you or your product are relevant to their needs. 

 

2. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Gain a better reach to your prospective customers with search engine optimization, known as SEO. Once you have produced your content, your next step is to make sure that it is optimized for search engines. Having a SEO specialist optimize your content – website, blogs, and videos – will help you get an advantage over your competitors. This can be accomplished on a local and national geographical level. 

SEO is a very important process in a customer’s research and purchasing cycle. While it may not be easy to find out exactly how a customer decided to walk into your store, SEO tools can help you gather that data for online shoppers. SEO is a very effective tool for learning how to continually target and retarget the customers that actually buy.

 

3. Customer Relationship Manager (CRM)

A CRM is a Customer Relationship Manager. This database keep a list of your customers and prospective customers (also known as leads) contact information that you ask for such as: name, phone, address, birthdate, and/or email address. People willingly provide this information in order to find out more about your business via a contact form on a landing or capture page. Their information is kept in a CRM for you to maintain and follow up with them. 

CRM’s are the lifeline for your business. The size of your business has no relation to whether or not your need a CRM. You can use a CRM to send out newsletters, informational emails, email marketing of sales/promotions, follow up after a sale, or even generate a winner for a contest. 
These three effective strategies will help you to drive more traffic to your business and website, increase sales, and keep customers coming back. Content, SEO, and a proper CRM are things that must be continually updated and monitored. 

This can be a lot of work for someone who is trying to run a business. Fortunately, there are companies like BIS Designs who can help you manage these things effectively. BIS Designs is a small, but powerful firm with some of the top specialists on the Gulf Coast of Alabama, Mississippi, and the Pensacola panhandle. 

Contact us for a consultation to find out the best marketing strategies that will be the most effective for your business and niche. 
BIS Designs is an internet marketing company serving the Mobile, Alabama area. Our content, development, social media marketing and search engine optimization specialists have years of experience in targeting custom audiences for the B2B community and would welcome the opportunity to help your business grow.

BIS DESIGNS RELEASES MOBILE APP TO STREAMLINE CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE

Robertsdale, AL (April 4, 2017) –BIS Designs, experienced web design and digital marketing firm on the Gulf Coast, releases newly developed mobile app to make the customer experience easier and more convenient. Businesses can now download the BIS Designs app from Google Play or the Apple Store. 

With the app, clients can submit tickets, view upcoming company events and receive alerts and notifications. As a special incentive, BIS Designs will post in-app specials that will only be released to those who have the app. 

The app can be downloaded by visiting askbisdesigns.com/bis-designs-app. 

Phillip Long, CEO of BIS Designs, stated, “It’s exciting to provide this type of technology and service to our clients. Now, they can simply submit tickets through the app and even request appointments with our staff.” 

To learn more about BIS Designs, call 251.410.7601 or visit www.askbisdesigns.com. 

About BIS Designs 

BIS Designs provides web design and digital marketing services to hundreds of small and medium businesses in the local market. With the solid understanding that marketing is vital to the success of your business, BIS Designs is de-bunking the “if you build it, they will come” myth by providing the highest quality web design and digital marketing solutions available. Headquartered in Robertsdale, Alabama, BIS Designs has been serving Gulf Coast businesses for over 6 years. Learn more at www.askbisdesigns.com. 

About BIS Technology Group 

BIS Technology Group is the technology leader on the Gulf Coast and is comprised of four divisions: information technology, web design & digital marketing, office equipment and business consulting. Together these divisions help local businesses exceed expectations and allow them to grow to their full potential while minimizing risks. BIS is located in Robertsdale, AL. To learn more about BIS Technology Group, visit bistechnologygroup.com. 

Has your business been struggling to find new clients? Consider LinkedIn. This powerful professional networking site has proven to be very effective in generating qualified leads and prospective customers. 

Maybe you’ve tried LinkedIn, but you’re not getting the results you want. Well, you’re not alone. Business owners often tell us they know they are not leveraging this platform’s opportunities to yield the fullest result.

But…you can. What if I told you that if you spent a little bit of dedicated time on LinkedIn each week, you could start receiving a continuous flow of qualified leads? Well, that’s just the case with these five basic LinkedIn strategies that you can implement today to start seeing results immediately. 

Sign up here for our next Executive Business Luncheon on May 19th, 2016, at Wintzell’s Oyster House in Fairhope, Alabama, to learn more about how to develop and implement a successful digital marketing plan to increase your company’s revenue.

Strategy #1: Create a professional profile.

 
When we meet with our social media marketing clients, the first step is to understand their business goals, their target audience and their unique market differentiators. Once these are defined, we cater their business profile on LinkedIn to those target audience decision makers. Here are some helpful tips to assist in making your profile stand out:

• Make sure that your profile is professional, search-optimized, and most of all, client-focused and written to get the attention of the prospective decision maker. 

• If you’re the owner of your business, list your title as CEO, President or something in that realm. Other CEOs often want to associate with CEOs, not “Business Development” people.  

• Be specific. You must have it clearly spelled out who you are, who you help, and how you can help them to avoid confusion for those who land on your profile.

• Get to the point fast in your “Summary”. Forget telling stories about how you used to play with computers when you were two. It’s ok to tell an origin story, but do that after you tell me what you can do now.

• Try to throw in a little creativity and personality into your profile where appropriate to make it the least boring as possible. 

Strategy #2: Connect with everyone you know (or have known in the past).  

LinkedIn is all about business and personal connections. You never know where that next connection is going to come from or where someone in your past might lead to your next big deal.  Here are a couple tips to maximize your efforts: 

• Send a personal message along with every request to connect with that person.  Unless you’re close friends, don’t assume that someone will remember who you are. Gently remind them and most people will connect with you. 

• Never miss a chance to connect. Build up your contacts by reaching out to your second and third level connections. When you meet someone online or off, make sure you follow up with a connection request while you are still fresh on their mind.

Strategy #3: Identify prospects.

 
Join as many relevant groups as you can find. Look for your college alumni groups, groups from previous jobs, social groups, industry groups, and anything else you can find. 
Most LinkedIn users rely on groups to stay abreast on industry news, but they can also be an excellent source for new sales leads by:

• Giving insight into a prospective company’s current situation through reading their comments in the group activity.
• Allowing you access to more personal details of the LinkedIn user, whereas unless you already have a first level connection, you usually cannot see their full name.
• Creating an opportunity and reason to connect, as one of the options available when sending a connection request is that you both belong in a group together.

You can also use the LinkedIn Advanced Search tool to find prospects who have job titles within your target audience such as: CEO, Accountant, VP Sales, Marketing Director, HR Specialist, etc. 

This search can be performed with or without selecting specific groups to search in.
Just type in your keywords (the job title) under the Advanced People Search then select 2nd connection under Relationship, then check the group you wish to search in.

LinkedIn allows you to send an InMail to anyone using LinkedIn without having to request a connection first, and ensures that it goes straight to their inbox. However, they are only available on paid accounts but with the Sales Navigator Professional premium plan, you’re able to: 

• Send 15 InMail messages a month
• See who’s viewed your profile
• Have an unlimited profile search ability 
• Hone in on the decision makers and create custom lead lists with advanced search filters 
• Get lead recommendations able to be saved to a list

*As a side note, to avoid the costly InMail messaging options, if you do not already have a premium account and are not able to get one anytime soon, when you join a group, you are able to send 15 free messages per month instead of expensive InMails to people that share the same LinkedIn Groups as you.

Strategy #5: Write LinkedIn recommendations for your fellow colleagues.

LinkedIn’s recommendations are incredibly powerful when it comes to hooking your dream job.  The more you can obtain from different colleagues, the better.  With permission of course, you can take these testimonials outside of LinkedIn to be used on your website or other marketing materials. More often than not, when you write a recommendation for someone, they recommend you back (LinkedIn also sends them a reminder).

Strategy #6: Research and connect with Joint Venture and referral partners. 

• Start by making a list of people that are a natural fit for your company. Depending on your industry, this could be a variety of local companies that interact with the same type of target audience clientele you do.

• As explained above in the Identify Prospects section, once you have your list, start plugging in keywords in the “People or Company Search” on LinkedIn.  

• Whenever you find someone on LinkedIn who appears to be a potential partner, you can ask to connect with them by saying something like this in the connect request: 

“Hey ‘Firstname’, I just happened upon you here in LinkedIn. We happen to both be friends with <insert mutual 1st connection>. I’m the CEO over here at ‘YourCompanyName’ and we often find the need to refer out business to people such as yourself. I’m not sure if you’re taking on any new business at this time, but figured that I’d introduce myself and connect with you here on LinkedIn in case you are. -­‐’YourName’.”

The Boolean search abilities on LinkedIn are staggering. Most people do not realize how targeted they can actually make their search criteria. You can read this Tip Sheet from LinkedIn here on how to use modifiers like quotes, parenthesis, AND, OR, and NOT.

We hope this breaks down some of the mystery behind how LinkedIn works for business prospecting. The strategies outlined here are tactics we employ with our clients when they opt in for the LinkedIn Prospecting services we provide. We also provide several different social media marketing and search engine optimization packages. To learn more about how to develop and implement a successful digital marketing plan to increase your company’s revenue, sign up here for our Executive Business Luncheon on May 19th, 2016, in Fairhope, Alabama at Wintzell’s Oyster House.

 

 

 

If you’re marketing your business digitally, which you should be in this day and age, you probably have a nicely designed website, maybe some SEO integrated into your site and a company Facebook page. It doesn’t take a huge budget or hours of labor to get your business seen online. Actually, some digital marketing tactics are pretty downright inexpensive.

 Compared to traditional advertising via print or TV and radio spots, digital marketing puts less strain on your wallet and can be seen by thousands of people daily. But it really depends on how far you want to go to market your company online. Don’t be surprised if a “barely there” presence is not generating the amount of traffic to your website as you hoped.

But many small business owners ask, “What do I do to help grow my business online?” Well, there are many avenues to go down when it comes to digital marketing, some complex and some simple, but there is one specific tactic we want to highlight: Facebook advertising.

We are firm believers in using social media to help grow a business. Social media creates exposure, two-way communication with your audience and helps expand your business. There are organic ways to do that such as creating valuable content, establishing dialogues with your page fans, posting consistently and sharing interesting, cool articles and knowledge. But there are also paid tactics to grow your business on social media. 

Facebook advertising is one of those tactics.

Facebook offers businesses a way to promote, grow and drive website traffic through “sponsored” posts. These advertisements show up on your target audience’s newsfeed and have a strong call to action that prompts viewers to:

1. Click to your website
2. Like your page
3. Engage with a post
4. Enter a contest or apply for an exclusive offer

 The list extends further than just those four CTA's too. It really depends on what you want your Facebook advertising to do.

The best part about Facebook advertising is that you can place your ad in front of the people who truly matter to your business.

 You can select very specific demographics that you want to target and Facebook does the rest. For example, say you were a local clothing boutique who catered to women aged 16 – 32 that lived in Baldwin County and are interested in shopping and fashion. You can enter that information and Facebook will find users that match those specifications and put your message in their newsfeed.

But how does this directly translate into new sales? 

Well, if you don’t yet see the value, let me simplify:

Facebook ads put your business front and center of the people who matter on a channel they use daily. This exposes your business to people who have not yet heard of your company, but who will be interested in your product, then prompts them to visit your website to take a look at your services/products, and ultimately can lead to those visitors calling about how your business can help them. Ta-da!

Best part of all, as mentioned at the beginning of this post, this is a digital marketing tactic that is very inexpensive. You can create an ad for as little as $10 or as much as $300. It’s all based on your budget. Talk about a deal! Facebook is not the only social media channel offering advertising either.LinkedIn, Twitter, Pinterest and Instagram are other channels that let your business shine.

So, think you want to jump on the Facebook advertising bandwagon, or are you still hesitant? No worries, that is why BIS Designs is here to help. Get in the know all about digital marketing with our free luncheon coming up on January 28 at the Original Oyster House in Gulf Shores, Alabama. RSVP today and enjoy a complimentary lunch and listen to our experts present on “How to Develop & Implement a Successful Digital Marketing Plan to Increase Company Revenue.” We want to help business owners grow their business and market the right way! Walk away with a powerful toolkit to make 2016 the best year yet for your business. Sign up here: http://askbisdesigns.com/seminar 

 

Whitney Jones

Digital Marketing Specialist 

The Mobile Necessity

In today's world of smartphones, internet browser usage is now dominated by mobile devices and not the desktop. With more and more individuals surfing the web on their smartphone, the requirement of having a mobile friendly website has reached the point to where Google is now strongly influencing website rankings based on whether or not a site is mobile friendly. Here are few more key points on why a mobile friendly website is so crucial:

Always Accessible

Consumers carry their smartphones everywhere, and are able to make instant decisions and follow up those decisions with purchases. Thus making it crucial for you to make your business, services and products accessible to consumers anytime and anywhere.

What They Want to Know

Consumers often access your mobile website for quick information access. They want a contact number, email for to fill out a form for further information. Your mobile website gives them quick and easy access to all the information they want to know about your business.

Consumer Friendly Content

If your website is not a mobile version, your customers and visitors will quickly become annoyed with having to zoom in and out and scroll around the page to find the information and products they are looking for. You mobile website is already built for their smartphone browser, and makes navigating your content and your website a breeze.

Keeping Up with Competition

If your competitors have a mobile presence, you can't afford to fall behind. If a potential customer is stuck between a mobile website and non-mobile site, it could quickly become the deciding factor on whether or not you gain a customer or lose one.

Quality Leads Come from a Quality Website

The internet and business are fused together more than ever. And in today's age of online marketing, a business won't last long without an online presence. And the heart of every business and its digital presence, is a home website. However, with snap judgments from customers and users, if you want to generate quality leads from your website, you must present a quality product. If your website is hard to navigate, is of low quality, or doesn't engage your visitors, you can plan on missing your target audience. To help you ensure you have a website worth its weight in leads, follow these keys:

Who Are You Going to Call?

A contact number may seem like an obvious piece to your website. Or, if you sell a strictly digital product, it may seem pointless. However, you can't overlook the value in customer trust that a contact number provides. You'll quickly find that while customers won't often use this number, it does give them a higher level of trust in your company and your website, as they know that direct line of communication is there, should they need it.

Put Forms Front and Center

If you want lead generation from your website, give your visitors easy access to lead generating forms! Include forms on multiple pages, or even every page. Don't make the form the focus of the page, but keep it above the fold to ensure its visibility to the user. Also, don't be too greedy with information requested from your web visitors. Keep the initial info simple and not too personal, and be sure to try and include an incentive for them, such as a "Free Quote" or "Special Discount."

Promote Your Reputation

You always want to include testimonials with your website whenever possible. Show your potential customers that you have a quality reputation backed by satisfied customers. Try to be specific with your testimonials without getting too lengthy. Don't just have quotes that say "They are great" but try to point out what specific areas of doing business with you the customer enjoyed. Take this one step further by including a photo of the individuals giving the testimonial. This humanizes your company, while also creating a deeper level of trust from potential customers when they can attribute a testimonial with the actual person.

Avoid "Build It Yourself" Websites

If you want quality results, you need a quality website...bottom line. If your website doesn't have a professional look, feel and layout to it, you aren't going to get professional results. While your customers may not be professional web designers, they can still tell the difference between a professional website and a website built in your spare time. Think of it like a business card. If the business card looks like it was printed on a home computer with regular stock paper, you aren't likely to trust the person handing it to you.

Using Pinterest to Pick Up Sales

Pinterest is a great marketing tool for visually engaging your target market and boosting sales. But if you want to take the next step to increase your sales numbers and user engagement, give these social marketing tactics and tips a try:

Sweeten the Deal

Along with creating specific boards and categorizing pins for your products, be sure to include coupons with these items. These coupons won't just encourage your followers to purchase your products, but you are showing them specific products within the board that they can use the coupon for. This greatly increases the point of purchase incentive for your followers.

And the Winner Is...

Along with coupons, give contests a try. This gives your audience incentive to continue to follow and monitor your pins and boards. Be sure to make the contest rules clear and available, make contest entry as quick and simple as possible, and be sure to include prizes that are going to interest your audience and give them clear incentive to enter. Once you get the hang of things, try running contests on a regular basis and switch up the prizes and products you offer.

Spread the Word

Don't limit yourself to just Pinterest. Be sure to cross engage your audience on all social media channels and share the work you're doing on your Pinterest account. Include links and posts to your Pinterest boards on your home website, Facebook, Twitter and even your monthly email newsletter. Let your audience know where they can go to stay up-to-date on all your social media efforts and products!

Show Them What You're Working With

Businesses in the retail sector are quickly tapping into the 150+ million Instagram users, and their bottom lines are reaping the benefits. The new social media giant is giving businesses plenty of marketing muscle with great photo sharing tools, branded hashtags and location based tagging tools. Combine all this and a visually appealing product can quickly start attracting followers and sales for your business.

Visual = Value

With it's custom image filters and easy sharing abilities, Instagram gives any retail business a valuable tool to promote and highlight their products. Research has already shown that producing pictures of products to go with your trendy description is sure to offer better brand recall and sales. The key here is design. These images can be great selling tools for your business, but you have to be sure your image quality and designs are the highest possible quality. So don't simply flood your account with sub-par work. Make sure you take the time and effort to reflect the quality of your product in the quality of your pictures.

Get Personal

You want your business and your products to be unique, and your Instagram account and posts should reflect this. Along with the custom designs of your photo posts, make sure to include some custom hashtags to go along with them. If your in the jewelry business, try tagging things such as #CustomJewelry, #JewelryDesign or just simply #Diamonds. These hashtags all your images to be pulled up in relevant searches and boost your reach in your social media marketing efforts.

Keep Up with Conversation

When you have an eye catching product and post design, users are sure to comment on these images. So be sure you comment back. You want to always make sure you are taking the time to engage your followers and let them know you appreciate them as an individual. Be sure to address them by name and make the comment contains a personal touch for the individual. These comments will foster a genuine relationship with your audience and is sure to lead to both brand loyalty and sales.

Tuning In to Your Audience

Video marketing is a great way to engage your audience while also providing a form of entertainment for them that promotes and generates a genuine relationship between the company and the target market. Videos allow you to share information, products and business news in a direct and engaging way, as compared to traditional written content. YouTube is the perfect social media site to promote your videos, and here are a few simple key factors to help you maximize your channel traffic.

Add Your Personal Touch

YouTube receives millions of unique visitors every month, with over 6 billion hours of video being watched. In order to get your slice of the marketing pie with this type of traffic, the first step is simply setting up your page. You want to make sure to include the essentials, such as a link to your home website, as well as some well designed page art to grab the audiences attention and give that initial impression of what your business is all about. Be sure to alter your page design on a regular basis, it is recommended to do so quarterly. This keeps your page fresh and lets your followers know you are active.

Variety is the Key to Success

Be sure to use a variety of subjects for your posted videos. Alternate between topics such as new products, how-to instructional videos and even question and answer videos. By alternating your topics, you widen the range of the audience you are attracting. Be sure to include links to your home website and other relevant sources to tie in with the videos that your audience and follow for more information or even to purchase the product you featured.

Be Sure to Share

Don't limit your videos to just your YouTube page. You want to be sure to integrate your videos across all your social media channels. This allows you to build your audience across all of your social platforms. This means you want to link up your pages as well. Make it as simple as possible for your audience to find your other pages, such as Facebook, Google+, Twitter and LinkedIn, where they can begin to follow you as well.

Excel in Engagement

Videos are a great marketing tool, and social media networks are making it easier than ever to incorporate them into your marketing strategy. Facebook, Google+ and of course YouTube are allowing for new forms of integration across platforms to allow you to engage and attract your audience like never before.

Do a Demo

Demonstrating a new product or giving your audience a how-to process to solve a common issue are a great way to not just grab their attention, but also grab their loyalty. These videos provide a great platform to demonstrate the options, and uses of not just your products, but ways they can find solutions to common problems in your industry or field. This is a sure way to build a genuine relationship with your target market.

Let Your Audience Get to Know You

Another great way to foster a genuine relationship with your audience is to bring them into your business. Post videos that give a tour of your store, office or restaurant and feature the employees that make the business run. This associates a human side to your business and puts a face with your product. This allows your audience to relate to you more and builds that friendship with your fans. You can take this even further by posting videos that show involvement between you and your community. If you are helping to sponsor a community event or have employees that are participating in that event, use videos to show and share this! Also, ask questions and provide video answers to your audience that addresses both the question, answer and the individual that asked it! This gives that personal touch that people love to see.

Webinars are the Way

Everyone loves education and webinars are a great way to encourage that. Host a webinar where you teach individuals about solving issues, addressing concerns and sharing general knowledge about your field of expertise. This also allows you to take their questions and interact with them individually which lets your fans and audience know you care about them as individuals.

Give THEM a Turn

Host contests or encourage interactions with the audience where they post videos to your page. This not only is a great tool for building your brand awareness and brand loyalty, but it gives you a great opportunity to know your audience and your market even better. It also lets them know you hear them and their ideas, concerns or even their positive feedback about how much they enjoy your business, products or services!