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To create a winning content marketing strategy, you must take a look at what you have done in the past and assess why you didn’t reach your goal. When we meet with business owners along the Gulf Coast, we provide them with a free digital marketing consultation. We look at what they are currently doing that is working, not working, where they are, and where they can improve. Our team of digital marketing specialist will analyze current market trends and determine where they can best dominate their industry.
There is more to just posting on social media and paying for boosted ads on Facebook. It isn’t so much about the amount you post on Facebook anymore. By delivering the right content at the right audience, your opportunities are endless. Stop beating yourself up over not getting much engagement, or what little engagement is from a friend, family member, or co-worker. We’ve all heard the saying. “Content is king,” but the truth is not all content is created equal.
In this blog post, we will discuss five simple steps for you to create a winning content marketing strategy.
People have very short attention spans. We live in an age of instant gratification. We have been taught that we can get any information we need at our finger tips in seconds thanks to smartphones. We are in an age of digital advancement that changes in a blink of an eye. How are your everyday business owners to keep up with these changes and appeal to the right audience?
It is said that marketing to everyone is marketing to no one. You must decide which specific market you are going to target to and stick with it. A retailer of women’s clothing may decide to target women of a certain age, income bracket, and geographical area of residence. It’s not enough to just run an ad targeted at these ladies. You must appeal to them with your message.
How do you captivate this audience to draw them into your business? Think like they do. Find out what they like to do and what they have in common other than just clothes. Maybe many of these women are soccer moms. What kind of car do they drive? Where do they like to eat out? Where do they hangout? By finding these commonalities, you can figure out how to speak to them and get their attention. Every clothing retailer is targeting them, but not everyone can target them the way you can. Dare to be different in order to be successful.
Let your social media post or email targeting campaign be a message directed at them as if you are talking directly to one person. Allow them to feel like you truly understand and get them in a way that makes them feel important, appreciated, and understood.
The way that you target the example audience in this step isn’t much different than you would approach anyone else. Just realize that some target audiences need more social proof, more or less words in order to create a winning content marketing strategy. Remember, to captivate an audience, you have to genuinely know them.
Images matter in all aspects to create a winning marketing strategy. Your images must be high-quality, high-resolution, captivating, and visually appealing. You want your images to portray the image and lifestyle that your brand offers. You want less of advertising, product images, sales pitches, and other gimmicks. Be more strategic with the authenticity and frequency of your advertising, but don’t limit yourself to the possibilities of lifestyle posts.
When it comes to the resolution of images, any photographs you take should be with a camera that has a minimum of 12 megapixels. The higher the megapixels the better quality of images you will have. Stock images can be a great source of imagery, but be selective in your choices. Many images are overused. Dig a little deeper when choosing images that are available for stock because anyone can access them.
When in doubt, hire a professional photographer. Choose a photographer that is experienced in the type of images you need. One who photographs people well may not be able to photograph product images for your e-commerce, and vice-versa. There are diamonds in the rough that can photograph anything.
Giving a clear and concise call-to-action is where many businesses miss the boat. They don’t want to come across as rude or bossy by limiting themselves on effective digital marketing. You want to tell you visitor what to do in the next step of the process so they don’t get lost along the way. You prompt them with buttons that say, “Buy Now”, “Request A Quote”, “Call Now”.
If you are familiar with a conversion funnel, you know that taking a customer from the wide part of the funnel to the small part can sometimes be tricky. If you have delivered a compelling and captivating message and successful brought the visitor to your website, then you have done half the work. The rest is easy, you just have to point them in the right direction.
CTA’s that give specific and short directions will get more traction than one that is vague or makes the user have to do more work. Try to avoid CTA’s like “learn more” or “read more” as they aren’t usually relevant to what your business does. These CTA’s work for bloggers and journalists, but not necessarily for a retailer or other services. You want your visitor to have the best user-friendly experience that entices them to return again and again. Feel at ease consulting with specialist to determine what you can do best to create a winning content marketing strategy for your business.
When speaking with most business owners, we find that not many are familiar with the digital marketing term ‘landing page’, the purpose of landing pages, and how they can drive more business. What is a landing page? Essentially, a landing page is a one page website that gives the visitor a specific message and strong call-to-action. This page is different from your traditional webpage or blog post. We are delivering one particular message in order to capture the users email address in exchange for information or other special items.
Even if the landing page does not generate a sale, you capture email addresses of those who expressed an interest in what you do. You can use an email marketing campaign to convert them later. For now, we will just focus on the landing page and how you can get it in front of your potential customers.
Use a paid ads strategy to direct traffic to your landing page such as: Facebook Ads, Instagram Ads, and Google AdWords. Go where your audience is and find out what they are searching for that is relevant to what you do. The best thing about paid digital ads is that you get to select who seems them. This is why it is imperative to really know who your audience is so that you can better serve them.
It’s going to take some time to adjust and create a winning content marketing strategy. You are going to need to continually test and adjust your strategies until you find one that works the best. Algorithms, rules, regulations, and requirements, are constantly changing. It can feel disappointing to not generate as much or any sales from your paid advertising.
We find that business owners get burned on paid social media ads because they don’t really understand them. They usually use to broad of an audience because the reach appears more enticing. In all honesty, you will get better results with a narrow audience reach of 1,000 people than 1,000,000. Otherwise, you end up wasting a lot of money on paid advertising to the wrong people. This is another reason why it is best to really get to know your customer base.
The end goal is to convert people from visitors to paying customers. You can have the best products and services in the world, but without a proper content marketing strategy, you miss out on full profit potential. Whether you want to appeal to your local geographic or worldwide, the sentiment of the content is the same, it’s just delivered on a different level.
Use these five steps when you being to analyze your digital marketing plan. Rinse and repeat. The digital world has an excess of potential that’s waiting for you to capitalize. If you are utterly confused on how to do this and would like a free digital marketing consultation, please call us today to book your appointment with our specialist.
Phillip Long, CEO of BIS Technology Group, along with his team of marketing and information technology experts, will walk you through an overview of what your business should be doing to protect your data and plan your digital marketing strategies.
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 group to their full potential while minimizing risks. To learn more about BIS Technology Group, visit bistechnologygroup.com. You may reach out to us at: Phone: 251-405-2555 Email: info@askbisdesigns.com
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.
The Advanced Search Tool can also be used to search for companies within a specific area. Once the results list returns results, you can choose to follow those organizations and/or research their company pages to find out who their decision makers are.
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.
“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’.”