Results for: content marketing

Ways To Increase Your Brand’s Trust Online

Steven on July 17, 2020

To thrive within the immense competition of the market, a business needs to find a way to be a recognizable brand. Today’s consumers can easily do research online and compare one brand over another before they make a purchase decision. Consumers tend to make a comparison on the prices offered by different brands and see online reviews before they choose to buy a product. As there are a lot of options available for consumers today, building trust becomes important for businesses. Trust is a strong foundation for a brand to maintain positive customer relationships and will help a brand to get repeat customers and boost the profitability. Customers’ trust has a big impact on your business and it is essential to make it one of the main objectives of your online marketing strategy. So the question is: how do we build and increase brand trust online and win a consumer’s heart?

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

Here are some ways to build brand trust online as recommended by Algo Sea Biz (a digital agency).

Improve your website design

A website’s design is one of the important aspects that can influence customers in making a decision. A poorly organized website will cause consumers to have a bad impression on your business. A website with a slow loading speed is an inconvenience for consumers and it has a huge impact on a customer’s purchasing decision. As people can easily judge whether your business is trustworthy or not by your website, it is important to ensure that you have a professional and well-organized site. Make sure it has easy navigation so your online customers can easily discover and buy the products they need. Stay transparent and provide accurate, up to date information on your site. It is essential to check your website regularly and organize it well so your website has a good site speed, a good design, and also mobile-friendly. These endeavors will give consumers a great experience which builds trust.

Always give valuable content

When it comes to digital marketing, content is an important aspect in leading a business toward a successful campaign. Quality content has a huge impact for your business, and it is important to ensure that you provide quality and valuable content on the customer’s touching points whether it’s on your blog, website, or social media channels. Providing reliable and insightful content to your audience helps to nurture your brand trust.

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

Everyday consumers are bombarded by advertisements of various products online. Providing informative content such as articles, infographics, and informational videos on your website and social media can help them to break through the noises. While you provide informative content, you can still deliver your brand messages and do promotion about your products. When you post your content, ensure it to be original, up to date, and most importantly, relevant to your audience. It will show that you bring value to the table and you actually care for them. Valuable content boosts the credibility of your brand in front of customers and eventually builds trust.

The importance of a two-way communication

Today’s consumers love to engage with brands, and this is one of the important factors in building trust and strong relationships with them. The way your brand communicates has a huge impact on this matter. Social media is a place where you can create good communication and connect with consumers today.

Social media channels allow businesses to communicate personally with consumers and keep them engaged. Having a good conversation with your customers helps you to understand how they perceive your brand; you can then offer solutions to help them. As a result, customer s tend to be more satisfied, which can affect the progress of generating more leads. Two-way communication also helps businesses to identify customer expectations. You can find out their concerns while interacting with your brand so you can find a way to cater to those concerns and then improve their experience.

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

Conversation also helps your business to measure what the next step is to take place in your strategy helping retain the customer as you understand what they need. Two-way communication helps you to ‘listen’ and shows your customers that your business cares about their concerns on a human level. And then, when consumers are satisfied, it will create a positive reputation for your brand and ultimately establish a loyal community.

As we have found out, building brand trust online is very beneficial for your business, it is also good to make it a priority. On the top of it all, the key to earn a customer’s trust is showing that you keep them in mind and respect them. Once brand trust is built, it will maintain a long-lasting relationship between a brand and the customers.

Digital Branding

10 Tips To Help You Create An Awesome Email Signature (With Examples)

Steven on July 17, 2020

For email marketers, every element present in an email is bankable!

From the subject line to the body text through the email signature, one can optimize every single aspect of an email to trigger actions. While email subject lines are designed to grab attention, the CTA buttons are to set off desired actions, and similarly, a simple looking sig line can be used to accomplish small as well as large marketing goals.

If you’re signing off your marketing email with mere ‘best regards’, you’re missing out on some great marketing exposure. Today we’re going to talk about email signature tips that are thoughtful and actionable. Let’s get started…

1. Brand affiliation and contact information

Irrespective of how old or new your email contact is, putting in information about your organization, job title, or the brand you are associated with is imperative. Your name should definitely be the first signature element that goes there but closing it with the brand name or even a logo can portray a more sophisticated POV to the readers who see it.

Apart from that, secondary contact information is something you should have a practice of mentioning. If you don’t want to give out your personal contact number, a company website or an extension number can also do the trick.

Examples

2. Play with colors but maintain consistency

Playing with colors in your fonts, background, or imagery is a good practice to leave a lasting impression, but never go overboard with random palettes. Choose the ones which represent your brand persona and stick with it.

Example

(Source: WiseStamp)

3. The design ladder

Whether you go for a vertical email signature design or a horizontal one, the hierarchy of the elements present should not hinder the view of a reader. The design should go like the name – larger font, designation – medium font, brand – logo or website link, and so on. It differs from industry to industry or even sender to sender, but making sure the credible information is placed correctly is vital.

Example

4. Utilize signatures to trigger actions

CTAs in emails are essential, but if you want to utilize the signature space to notify something new or relevant to the reader, you can use links and CTAs in email signatures as well. Again, when you are using this space which is not a sales deck, don’t try to be pushy about the call to action. Remember, email signatures are not your primary source of conversions.

Example

5. Linking Social Profiles

While this is the fifth point in our post, you can find social media icons in almost every example that we have shared! Social media pages are important and having a credible social profile says a lot about you. 71% of consumers who have had good social media service experience from a brand, recommend it to others. Thus, having an active social media profile can work wonders for you. While you’re signing off in an email, you can put up quick links to your social profiles for the readers to easily click on them.

Example

6. The use of dividers

When designing an email signature, you want to add as many relevant elements as possible such as the secondary contact, website, social profiles, images, and more. Now when this is the scenario, the wise implementation of dividers helps you create a clutter-free design. All in all, the elements should not overlay any other information present while giving each of the significant attention.

Example

(Source: WiseStamp)

7. Make it engaging

When we say keep it engaging, it doesn’t stop with an appealing design, but also comes with a few cues that make it click-worthy! Simply putting in icons and links is expected from every marketer, what you can do differently is providing appointment booking links and calls-to-action. Share a personalized meeting link that automatically lets the user to book a slot.

Example

8. Follow the trends

You should revamp your email signatures from time to time with the latest information or a new format. Just like email template design trends, email signature trends also evolve. One such noteworthy trend is to add moving objects or GIFs in your email signature. There are numerous aspects you should keep in mind while adding something like this due to visibility criteria, screen size variations, email client support, and more, but there’s nothing wrong in employing them with precautions.

Example

(Source: WiseStamp)

9. Mobile optimization

Just like HTML emails, the signatures in them also require special compliance for different email clients. For instance, a signature that’s a GIF might have support for Gmail, but won’t render in Outlook. Similarly, with screen size and resolution support mechanisms, different email signatures work differently depending upon the device. The future is mobile, and if you are not designing responsive email templates (including signatures) you are toying with user experience. Emails with display disruptions get deleted within 3 seconds and if you do not wish to fall under the deleted emails category, it’s time you go mobile while designing an email.

Example

(Source: WiseStamp)

10. Test, and test some more

We are aware of the traceable email CTAs and other aspects that we generally analyze in an email. You can take help from the heatmaps to determine where people are focusing or clicking in your signature. Try sending test emails with distinct signatures and measure the performance. You can instill any or all of the above-mentioned tips while you test and choose once the results are out.

Extra Byte

Where your email recipients are situated, is a very crucial piece of information. If you’re catering to a global audience, you can set up an email signature that is general and can be helpful to anyone reading it. But, if you’re sending location-based emails, keep the business laws in mind. For instance, as per the Netherlands law, one has to include details like company name, registration number, registry location, registered office, and more. It is advisable to consult a legal representative to double-check your crafted email.

Conclusion

Email marketing is here to stay, and the innovations in email designs, HTML templates, and email marketplace as a whole are noteworthy. If you want your campaigns to perform, don’t leave any element of the email unattended. We hope the above-mentioned 10 email signature tips will help you create better sign-offs the next time you send an email.

Author bio:
Kevin George is Head of Marketing at Email Uplers, one of the fastest-growing custom email design and coding companies, and specializes in crafting professional email templates, PSD to HTML email conversion and free HTML email templates in addition to providing email automation, campaign management, and data integration & migration services. He loves gadgets, bikes, jazz and eats and breathes email marketing. He enjoys sharing his insights and thoughts on email marketing best practices on his blog.

Legal Branding Local Branding Personal Branding

Crowdfunding PR Tips for Kickstarter & Indiegogo

Steven on July 15, 2020

One thing that you need to do before all else when trying to gain media coverage is to create a media list. It is one of the most important public relations jobs and it is always guaranteed that when done right, it is an effective way to establish media relations with target specific journalists and influencers.

This guide will go in detail about:

What is a media list?
Making the perfect media list
How to use media lists to get press
How to start a conversation with media outlets
Examples of media lists

What is a media list?

The whole point of a media list is to have a detailed document of media outlets including journalists, bloggers, writers, editors and influencers that are perfectly matched to your niche and topics that you are writing about. It normally includes the name of the individuals and their contact information.

The opinion of a media list is very hit or miss because it can be construed as a waste of time and a way to spam every media outlet to get responses from anyone. There are two halves of developing contacts, which include building an effective media list and being able to start conversations and build relationships with media contacts.

Making the Perfect Media List

Step 1: Find your audience

It is important to figure out every aspect of your audience; what they read, what they listen to, what they watch, the type of things they follow on social media, etc. With this information, you will get a better understanding of the type of media outlets to target. From there, you can ensure coverage by sending your press release email to the appropriate audience

This research information of your media list is very important because from there you are creating a list that is more thorough and you can think about:

Your customers – the people that are going to buy your product or service
The stakeholders in your company – The people that require evidence that your PR is working
Industry experts – the people in your sector that you want to notice your company
Regulators – the people that have a direct influence on your sector and are beneficial to impress.

From there and to keep everything concise and put together, create a spreadsheet of all ideas and titles that relate to your industry. Once you have compiled everything, you can search keywords of your ideas on search engines for the relevant newspapers, magazines, etc. that cover the same or similar topics that you have put in your spreadsheet.

Step 2: Creating the list

A good media list needs to be clear, concise, and organized. Here are some things that you should add to your list:

1) Name of the publication/blog/website

You should identify the exact name of media outlets and add it to your media list because there is a possibility that reporters will move around and change their jobs, so you want to focus on the publication and readership rather than just the contact.

2) Publication website address

This could be a handy shortcut on your media list so that you can easily refer to the media outlet’s online presence whenever you need to.

3) Reporter/Blogger/Journalist/Broadcaster full name

Do not send press releases or stories to email addresses that seem generalized, it would honestly be a waste of time because so many emails go through these email addresses, they aren’t going to think twice about skipping over them.

You need to see if you can find the email addresses of the specific bloggers and people that you want to write about your product/service and keep it precise and personal.

4) Job title

You should also keep note of the position that the contact holds in the company that they work for because it might become relevant for your media pitch. This is helpful when you have breaking news about your industry and when you contact them because it is relevant and it helps both of you.

5) Email

This is one of the most important things because you are going to need an email address of your contacts when you decide to distribute your press release.

6) Phone number

You might also want their phone number so that you can call them to talk about a story or follow-up on a pitch that you had previously sent to see if it is relevant.

7) Social media details

If they are on social media, you should add them so you can also start building a personal relationship with them. It is common that journalists are found on Twitter, so find their handle and start talking to them.

8) Frequency

Make a note of how regularly the publication you want to send your pitch to goes out. This can have an impact on the stories that you send because they could only post monthly, weekly, etc. You need to know when to send your pitch out and whether it is relevant at the time.

9) Story ideas

This is a perfect moment to align the stories you intend to send out with the right people. If you have a collection of different angles and stories that you want to send out, you can add them to this column so that you can link them to the appropriate reporters and broadcasters. When you do this properly, you won’t end up sending your press releases to the wrong people.

10) Notes

Keep track of important information that could be useful in the future. When it comes to the media outlets, you can add the stories that they have written recently, specific area they do features on, notes about conversations on social media you have had with them.

Step 3: Research relevant journalists

The next step is to click on the articles that are on the first few pages of your search because those will be the most relevant to your topic. When you are going through the articles, make sure to double check if there is an actual person that you can contact because sometimes, blogs do not give out author’s names for articles written.

Don’t get discouraged if you can’t find the author’s name right away, just keep doing some research on the platform and you might be able to find another contributor that you can contact. It is important that you not only try to get coverage by top-tier publication but try and establish credibility with smaller media outlets to build up your portfolio.

Step 4: Make your list of target journalists

While you are reading each article from your search results, you should go through some questions before you add them to your media list. You should try and keep your PR lists more simplified because the thing to remember is that it is more effective to have a handful of relevant journalists that you have a good relationship with than a long list of journalists that are a part of your field, but you rarely speak to.

The questions that you should ask yourself before adding them to your list are:

Are they a generalist or specialist in the field?
What is their editorial style?
Are they easily contacted or mind being contacted by different mediums?
What kinds of publications do they or have they written for?

From there, you can tailor your messages in a way that you know will catch their attention. They are constantly bombarded by messages and information that may not concern them, so keep your messages as relevant to the topic at hand as possible. You can also think of media relations as a number of games, the more you pitch to, the higher chances of landing something. Just make sure you understand the relevance.

Quality over Quantity.

If they answer all these questions, add them to your media list and go from there.

Step 5: Keep your list updated

Creating a media list can take time and effort because it is important to keep the list current and updated. New media opportunities can present themselves whenever possible and journalists can move around, so you need to stay alert and update any information that can possibly change. It will make sure that you still have the relevant media outlets and also makes sure that your hard work is wasted.

Step 6: Watch your market and competitors

It is more than likely that whatever industry you are in, some media outlet somewhere has written something about it. That means that they definitely have the experience to write about your company and your industry. However, when you pitch to those media outlets, make sure that you stand out from your competitors because if they have talked about a similar product/service, they most likely would not have to talk and write about the same thing again.

How to use media list to get press?

Enterprise Resource Planning collected of scrabble game elements

You may have a large list of relevant names and contact details, but you still need to make sure that when you pitch, you still keep it personal. You need to remember that just because you are using your efforts to connect with them and chat with them, it does not mean that they know you.

You need to connect on a personal level and have communicated prior before sending them a press release or story pitch. Make sure that they are aware of you and your business, already interested in your story and relatively excited about posting and sharing your story with their readers.

It order to build a relationship with any type of media outlet, it is simple enough to start a conversation. It is important to start a conversation with the relevant people that already exist on your media list weeks before your actual launch date of your product or service. Continue having the conversation until you have built a solid relationship so that when you need media coverage, you can approach them with a preexisting relationship and not as a complete stranger and there is no need to send a cold email pitch. It can take so time to build a good relationship, but once it is done, the payoff is definitely better than last-minute attempts.

How do you start a conversation?

Sometimes it might hard to figure out how to start a professional conversation. So, in order to get some pointers, closely read the articles that are a part of your research. It may seem a bit harsh, but try and find mistakes, weak points or anything missing from an article or blog posts that could be used to start a conversation.

Some things to look for:

Grammar errors
Outdated facts
Information that can be added
Possible articles that need follow up stories

It is also important to understand that when it comes to influencers, you should try many different types. Don’t limit yourself to journalists or bloggers. You can even try to get coverage from investors, social media influencers, and even founders of other companies. To find the appropriate ones, you need to define the goal of your product or service and then define your target audience. Once you figure out all those things, you are all set.

Creating a media list is easy; it is the follow-through that can be complicated. You need to make a solid first impression so that you can get continuous coverage. The more effort you put into creating a media list and sparking a solid conversation will have a great payoff.

Conclusion

Media lists are a way to keep everything organized and up-to-date so that you know what you are sending, who you are sending it to, and when. It is a way of documenting the key media contact that might be interested in stories about your business or area of expertise. Do not limit yourself to the traditional media outlets, keep an open mind and don’t give up too quickly if you don’t catch the big fish. Keep at it and it will all be worth it in the long-run.

Personal Branding

5 Branding Tips for Architectural Firms

Steven on June 28, 2020

Branding is how you portray your business. Every organization should keep branding in mind, including architectural firms. Your brand should let people know the tone of your company, and it will help establish a clear identity. However, you may not know how to brand your architectural firm properly. Here are five branding tips for architectural firms.

1. Show Your Work

The best way to explain your brand is to show people what you do. Do you focus on one particular niche, or do you tackle all sorts of projects? Showcase plenty of cool pictures of both finished projects and projects under construction. You may even consider getting a professional photographer to make your work look as striking as possible. Put the pictures on your website, on social media, and on your different promotional communications. This will also show people exactly what your firm can do for clients.

2. Highlight the Talent

An architectural firm is all about the architects doing the work. You need to inform people about the architects. Let people know if they earned their architectural degree from a prestigious university. You should also talk about their experience and even aspects of their personal lives. People like to know something about the people who will be doing the work. Plus, these are the people who are the face of the company. Make sure all bios follow the tone of your brand.

3. Visit Appropriate Trade Shows

Trade shows are places for people to come together to talk business. It’s a place to make connections, and it’s a way to spread your brand. Use exceptional visuals with your logo, company colors, and examples of your work. You also want to wear merchandise with your logo on it as well. When you talk to someone who might need your services, give them our business card. You may even ask for their card.

4. Write a Blog

The different architects in the firm should take turns writing blogs on different topics related to architecture. The blogs should cover new topics or attack common topics with a new perspective. The articles should also be easy to skim. You can do this by using headers, bullet points, and short paragraphs. Be consistent and put the blog out once a week. These blogs will help establish your firm as experts in architecture. People who read your blogs will remember the firm when they need your services, especially if the blogs were well-written and informative.

5. Consider Your Audience

While branding your customer, you need to consider your audience. First, think about who your customer is. What demographics are you targeting? What would appeal to your customer? What will get their attention? What will make them want to buy? Base your branding strategy with these things in mind, and you will set yourself up for success.

Your company has a personality. You need to breathe life into this personality. Make sure it shows in every aspect of your marketing from your logo, your signage in your store, and your digital presence. When you establish your brand, people will know you and know what to expect from you.

Digital Branding Personal Branding

How to Know the Ideal Word Count for Ranking High in a Search Result?

Steven on June 23, 2020

Content is at the center of SEO and is all powerful in driving the campaign towards success. Content connects the brand with the audience and must be of good quality. It generates interest among the targeted audience by being relevant and useful while helping the audiences gain some value from it. Another vital factor to consider when creating content is its length. What should be the ideal length of content or copy that helps to rank in the first place? Is there any optimum word count to achieve the goal? These are questions that every SEO consultant faces when advising clients about the need to enhance the pages with better content. Often, the content length acquires more importance over other considerations like the detail it needs to contain and the audience for whom it is meant.

The notion that longer content ranks better prevails in the SEO circles because there is a feeling that more words demonstrate authoritativeness to search engines and dramatically improves ranking. However, there is yet no firm data available to support the point, and it is more of a myth. But then why is there a general feeling that longer copy can push up the ranking of pages?

Misinterpreted studies

Numerous studies have been conducted to understand the relation between the copy length or word count and ranking. One such study by Baclinko in April 2020 showed that 1447 word was the average copy length for the results that appear on the first page of Google search result. Most people conclude that it is the ideal content length, whereas the result shows the correlation between content length and ranking. The study establishes the correlation only and not the cause.

What is the best copy length (word count) for SEO?

Many factors influence the ideal length of copy or word count, and all these cannot get linked to ranking. The length of the copy must please humans and not search bots. It must be long as needed to help the user achieve their goals on the page – whether providing an in-depth explanation of a topic or subject, quickly identifying an answer to a question, or simply demonstrating the product specifications. The need for users and how to satisfy it should be the top priority when creating content instead of focusing on the word count, and Barrie SEO Services can help you improve your strategy.

Is there any ideal word count?

You would still like to know what would be the best word count to excel with SEO. There is no fixed answer to this because it depends on what you want to achieve with the content for satisfying the needs of the target audience. The goal should be to fulfill the searcher’s query because search engines rank pages according to the content’s ability to resonate with the audience by meeting their expectations. Never does Google consider the content length for ranking but instead emphasize its ability to satisfy the user query. The quality of content and how well it answers the user query is critical for search engines in determining the ranking. Never is the content length of any consideration to determine the content quality. Moreover, there is no reason to draw a comparison with the top-ranking pages and consider it to the ideal for earning the top rank.

The issue of correlation and causation

When trying to understand word count, most people cannot differentiate between correlation and causation that drives them in the wrong direction. When you look at the top 5 results on the SERP for any specific search term, you might surmise that replicating the copy length of that content could help you to earn similar ranks. But this is not the case because besides word count that Google considers many other factors for ranking pages. Word count might only be an indirect factor for ranking. The chances are that longer content is more link-worthy because it is more shareable, as revealed in a Hub Spot study in 2015. Longer pages might contain more comprehensive answers that pushed up the ranking. The correlation is more important than causation. Trying to conclude that content length alone influences ranking is a mistake.

What should be the copy length?

It will be wrong to believe that longer content performs well always and, therefore, the best. The focus must be on creating content that is factually correct, comprehensive, and written, as mentioned in Google’s starter guides. Do not make the mistake of equating comprehensive with long content. Aim for including everything in the content to make it complete without restricting its length, but avoiding making it too long can dilute it or make users lose their patience. Provide exhaustive information that the user wants to know, and the type of query determines how long the answer should be. Searches for historical or scientific knowledge would lead to longer content than searches for the best sports shoes near me.

Factors that influence the content length

Do not have any preconceived notion about content length and try to understand the ideal word count for content. Consider what will help to rank well, focus on the purpose of the page, user intent, and conversion, which will automatically calibrate the content length or word count.

The purpose of a page – How well a page ranks depends on how well you know the purpose for which you are creating the page. Do you want to create an informational page or want the page to act like a signpost that leads visitors to another page? Is it a transactional page? The purpose will determine how much copy would suffice.

User intent – Knowing what the user wants is the best way to figure out what content length would be appropriate. Once you know what the user wants from the landing page, you can make it comprehensive enough to meet those needs instead of making it long just for its sake.

Conversion – Since the content should help users complete an action or facilitate the conversion, the content length must suit the user’s needs.

A longer copy is welcome in many cases, but not the only reason the page ranks well. Aiming to meet user needs is the best way to arrive at the correct word count.

Digital Branding Legal Branding Personal Branding

Everything You Need to Know about Online Brands’ Path to Profitability

Steven on June 22, 2020

There is a common mistake the vast majority of brands make today — they acquire the funds but have no plan for profitability.

When you start a small business website, you should know that following the practices that most other entrepreneurs follow actually leaves you with a narrow window of success. Operating deep in the red and using that as a sacrifice for quick growth is one of the bigger reasons why many new businesses fail.

If you’d like to know what you need to do to become a profitable business in a reasonable amount of time, keep reading.

Place your focus on margins

Getting to figure out the way to profitability fast begins with knowing the cost variables on an income statement and how you can have them tweaked.

These variables include manufacturing, transportation, employee salaries, office rent, shipping, and marketing. Do know that the most expensive variable for digital brands is usually marketing.

When looking at each unit sold, as a brand, you should find out the total cost of operations and production and compare that figure to what is left. For example, if a brand spends $100 to produce a watch and sells it for $300, its gross profit per product would be $200 and the product margin would amount to 66%.

In order to build a sustainable business, the unit economics on day one should be positive. This is the revenue and cost per item sold. As companies scale, margins usually increase and can vary widely depending on the product type.

For example, apparel brands see margins between 40 and 60 percent. Hence, they need to structure themselves differently than companies selling accessories or prestige beauty where margins can top 80 percent.

Consider hiring a business coach

At this stage, it would be great if you could hire a professional business coach. Sometimes you really need a business mentor you can trust and turn to for advice. It is important to have support coming from a great coach.

This will give you some space to work out challenges that are slowing your confidence down. It is really important in situations where you have to deal with crises or conflicts.

On top of that, a good coach will help you see the forest, not the trees. In other words, a good business coach will always have an objective point of view and the ability to quickly identify problem areas that you couldn’t see.

A good coach will also be able to offer solutions or strategies you might have not considered or push you out of your comfort zone so that you can take your business to the next level.

Finally, experienced coaches are good at helping you triage risks and decide which challenges are worth fighting today and which ones are not worth worrying about until later.

If you are new to the world of business, you should definitely consider having this kind of support along your side.

Do not overspend on marketing

It is easy to get lost when spending on customer acquisition. To be precise, many spend too much on Facebook ads, paid search results, and promoted posts. Unfortunately, that kind of behavior tends to eat up a huge part of the product margin.

As a business owner, you shouldn’t scale unless you are quite confident that you will continue to attract customers without spending irrational amounts on advertising.

Some companies ended in hot waters when it comes to their finances. Various subscription-based services faced this problem when old customers started dropping out, finding new customers became harder to acquire.

So, if you are yet to hit the main growth phase, be very disciplined. Projections for future profitability can be distorted by an unexpected competitor entering the market or by a tweak to an Instagram or Facebook algorithm that raises advertising costs.

Try your best to find a customer acquisition model where you are positive on the first order. That may be difficult, but it is a safe way to play things out.

Your plan should begin with digital ads on Facebook, Instagram, and Google. It is easy to experiment with different messages and formats to figure out what works. Once you build a strong community, the ad game becomes easy.

Reduce the number of failed payments

Unfortunate things happen. A customer can have their credit card stolen, their bank can decline a payment due to a network error or exceeded limit.

However, that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t try to reduce the churn. You should focus not only on the voluntary churn but on involuntary churn as well. This happens when a customer doesn’t intend to stop using your services and wiring money to your business.

Start tracking involuntary churn and get a sense of your overall monthly churn. This will allow you to determine what portion of it is involuntary and how you should start the failed payment recovery process.

See how many of your customers canceled their subscriptions and see how many stopped paying due to credit card declines.

To find out, even more, take a look at their decline codes. This way you can isolate whether the primary issue is:

Expired card
Outdated billing info
Spendy customers who exceeded the card limits
Something else

The more data you gather, the better your results will be when it comes to reducing this type of churn.

Infographic created by Fiserv

Take good care of your supply chain

Do not get surprised by unexpected surges in purchases. If you have your own production line, be careful not to underestimate the need for your products.

When there is a spike in demand, it is time to profit. However, if you fail to handle all purchase orders, you might get the whole positive trend to backfire.

So, try to be as flexible as possible. Stock up on your products and keep an eye on the statistics. Be prepared in case a spike in demand occurs.

Try to have the best possible control over the supply chain. This will also contribute to the speed of scaling, which enables your company to meet demand and ensure that all customers are happy.

Do your best to react to demand in real-time and control costs. If you manage to do that, you will only contribute to profitability.

Final thoughts

The journey to profitability is unique for every entrepreneur. As the person in charge, you have to balance your investments in growth with efforts to generate cash flow.

However, it all boils down to one basic thing — the quality of your product or service. A product that makes sense and proves to be useful is generally a guarantee for a bright future.

Digital Branding

5 Things To Consider While Choosing The Lead Generation Company

Steven on June 20, 2020

Choosing the right lead generation company can be a daunting task, especially if this is the first time that you are looking for one. On the other hand, it’s an undeniable fact that generating qualified business leads is imperative for every business out there. Whether you run a small scale business or a large scale business, at some point, you’d have to work on lead generation, and the wiser thing to do is to hire experts for it.

We’ll be honest with you on this one: leads generation is a difficult task. If you are thinking about doing it yourself, you need to be ready to invest proper time in it as you’ll have to do a lot of research. But if you hire some agency for it, things will get easier for you and you’ll get quicker results.

One of the most common challenges that businesses face is hiring a lead generation company while keeping the cost as minimum as possible. Well, it’s true that the cost does play an important role, but there are other factors too that you should consider when hiring a team of experts to boost your business.

Lead generation graphic

1- Look for an experienced lead generation company

As said earlier, lead generation isn’t something you can do within a day or two. This process requires time, and above that, it requires a lot of experience. Before you choose a company to work on your project, you need to ensure that they do have the right amount of experience in this field. This is the very first question that you should ask at the first meetup. At least hire someone with an experience of 3 to 4 years in this field.

2- Ask about the delivery of results and the quality of the lead source

There are several different types of leads, and there are different strategies that companies use to generate quality leads. This is why you should first ask some basic questions to know how the company works. To understand their workings, you should ask about the delivery of results. If they present all the processes to you in a crystal clear way, then yes, you should proceed with them. However, if you see any red flags in their strategies, you should move on and find another agency.

Lead technology

3- What technology do they use to reach out to the potential clients

We are lucky that nowadays, there are a variety of different tools and technologies available for lead generation. But only an expert can tell which tool or technology is going to be effective. One of the most common things companies do is that they opt for internet marketing to generate leads for a business. If some agency tells you the same that they will be using the internet to boost your business, then ask them the strategy they’ll be using. Internet marketing is quite vast, so you should know the platform that’ll be used for lead generation.

4- Cost

Of course, the cost matters whether you are running a huge business or a small startup. You want the expenses to be as minimum as possible so when you are hiring a company, ask about their pricing policy and what they’ll be charging you. If it’s in accordance with their services, then yes, you should hire them. If not, and if you think there is some margin that you can get cheaper rates, then look for other such companies.

5- Online reviews

Online reviews can tell you a lot about a company’s performance and reputation. Use the internet for maximum benefit and read what people have to say about a particular agency and its result delivery. These reviews can tell you a lot about an agency and whether they are worth your time or not.

selecting a lead generation company

Conclusion

With the help of these five considerations, you can end up with the right lead generation company that will take your business to new heights of success.

Legal Branding

Legal Branding Issues: Social Media Mistakes That Could Land You in Hot Water

Steven on June 19, 2020

From Facebook to Twitter, businesses brand themselves by using social media sites and digital marketing. While social media may seem like all fun and games and can be on a personal level, it can land you in hot water when you’re branding a business. Hot water that could land you in court with legal issues. If you’re having legal issues with branding, then turning to a firm like Cory Briggs small business attorney can help, and it’s best to have a lawyer on retainer before you run into trouble. In this blog, however, you’ll find a few of the top social media mistakes that can land you with a ton of legal issues you don’t want to deal with.

Not Understanding Copyright Laws

From photographs to articles, there are many copyright laws that are easily violated when branding a business. For example, who owns that photograph you’re using? Even more, who is the person in the photograph and will they sue you for using it without permission? You always need to have the proper licenses to a photograph you post on social media. The best way to do this is by only using photographs you take yourself. However, since that’s not always possible, a good attorney will help you determine what can and can’t be done in this department.

Improper Formatting of Sponsored Posts

You would think that sponsored posts would be easy to share, brand, and post. However, the FTC has buckled down on the improper formatting of sponsored posts, and doing it the wrong way could land you in court these days. If the posts contain numerous hashtags, links, or tags, then you must make sure to separate each legal disclosure. It can be quite confusing, so if you’re in doubt, contact your small business lawyer to ask for legal advice before you format any sponsored posts for your brand.

Putting Up Fake Testimonials

Customer testimonials can do wonders for your product, service, and branding, as long as those testimonials are true. There are regulators that watch out for fake testimonials on social media sites and you can land in a world of trouble if yours are proven to be fake. This is known as astroturfing and State Attorney Generals are cracking down and enforcing these laws, so you want everything you do to be above board. Just remember, influencer marketing can have serious legal ramifications, and cost you a ton if it’s done improperly. Make sure you do your research and consult with your attorney if in doubt as to whether a testimonial you put on social media could be seen as fake or not.

Not Reading a Social Media Site’s Terms of Service Carefully

Don’t fall into the trap of thinking that all social media sites have the same rules. What’s okay for Facebook might not be okay for Instagram, and can get you in legal trouble for violating their terms of service. For example, some terms of service (TOS) state that you can only post images that you have the right to, while others are completely different. Read every site’s TOS before you start posting, just to be on the safe side and in accordance with their specific rules.

While this post isn’t meant to scare you away from using social media when branding your business, it’s important to note that it’s not all carefree posting and having fun. There are very real legal ramifications if you make the above mistakes when branding your business on social media. Just be aware of them and avoid them at all costs.

Digital Branding

How to Get Media Coverage and Good PR for Your Startup

Steven on June 12, 2020

When you are first starting out, one of the biggest issues that you may have is getting media attention. It is difficult to build credibility, awareness, and exposure if you aren’t able to gain media coverage.

It is important to find the right methods of getting media exposure because some may not work when you are first starting out. So, you may need to be a bit creative when thinking about how to get press. This guide can provide you with the tools that you would need to win the media coverage that you need. We will look at:

What is media coverage?
Earned media vs. Owned Media vs. Paid media
Steps to get media coverage for your startup

What is media coverage?

Before you can start applying media coverage tips to your business, you need to know what it is. However many ways you look at it, media coverage basically means publicity and in the world of PR, it can also be called “earned media”.

Your goal is to win earned media, which is a way of building your company’s reputation by using press coverage through third-party media publications. You will also be applying owned media, which would be any content that you are publishing on your own channels.

Earned media vs. Owned Media vs. Paid Media

There are many media and marketing tactics that can grow your company and they may all seem confusing together, but let me break it down for you.

Earned media can include Social media shares, viral content, customer success stories, recommendations, guest articles, product review pages, and media mentions. This is media that you have basically “earned” it comes from the things that you are posting and feedback from your target audience.

What are the benefits of earned media?

Builds awareness: it allows you to reach more of your targeted audience. It opens you up to new customers across different media outlets. It gets more eyes on your product/service.
Heightens your credibility: Producing great articles for publication can demonstrate your industry knowledge and build credibility in your field. It shows that you are informed about the market that you are trying to break through.
Boosts your SEO, Increases your leads and sales, and ultimately increases trust.

Owned media can include Blogs, websites, mobile apps, whitepapers, case studies, social media accounts, and media kits. This type of media is what you create on your own, things that you have put up that are trying to reach an audience.

Paid media can include PPC ads, sponsored content, display/banner ads, and retargeting. It is basically advertising that is directly paid for. This would include using social media influencers to promote your product/service. It can be very effective in driving traffic to your business, but you would need to gain and receive sufficient trust within your target market, which is where the influencers come in.

STEPS TO GET MEDIA COVERAGE FOR YOUR STARTUP

STEP 1: Build your narrative using owned media

You need to make sure that your internal message, branding, and in-house content is in great condition so that when you pitch to media outlets, it seems like you know exactly what you’re doing. If the things that you are writing and posting are lacking in detail and looks like it has been done by an amateur, you are less likely to even care about giving you media coverage.

Make sure that you convey who you are, what you do, and what your values are.

STEP 2: Identify the most relevant journalists

The media coverage that you are trying to get should and need to be relevant to your business. Which is why it is important that you research where and how you want to win your earned media.

Make a list of all the publications that you read and that you are aware is related to your industry.
Use tools to find publications that your competition has put up and have gained media coverage in
Select a few keywords that are related to your business or industry

STEP 3: Setup media monitoring

This is relatively related to the last step, it is important once you have posted or been posted that you listen to what your target audience is saying about your brand, your competitors and anything that is related to your business.

STEP 4: PR Tactics for winning press coverage:

Guest articles
Press releases
Podcast appearances
Product Reviews Page
Newsjacking
Interviews

STEP 5: Goal setting

It is important that you set reasonable goals for yourself. Basically state things that you know you can achieve, because if you aim too high and you are not able to achieve them, it would seem that you are unreliable to your audience.

STEP 6: Start building relationships with the press

Make friends with the press, you need them on your team if you want to emerge into the market. You can start building relationships through social media, connecting with them locally, and using programs like HARO to find the relevant journalists and media outlets for you.

STEP 7: Pitching to media outlets

Once you have developed a relationship with them, you can start pitching to them. However, do not do it in a way that seems pushy. Find a way to connect with them on their level first and then go from there. At the end of the day, they are getting so many messages daily about people that want media coverage, so find a way to stand out and they are more likely to read through your pitch.

Provide a good hook for them to be attracted to by

Providing a fresh perspective
Offering new insight
Challenging the norm
Breaking new ground

Media coverage is a very important part of PR, so figure out a way to be personal and different from the competition. Make sure that what you are doing is relevant to them, don’t waste your time pitching to an outlet that doesn’t accept guest posts, don’t pitch to more than one person at the same publication at the same time, and when you are trying to follow-up, don’t seem too needy or pushy.

You want them to like you. You want them to be interested in what you are trying to get media coverage for. You want to be different.

To get professional help from our PR professional to create your customized email pitches, press releases, press kits, etc. Check out our website and our packages for more information.

Digital Branding

How To Promote Brand Using An Online Community

Steven on June 7, 2020

Building an online brand nowadays goes beyond creating marketing messages. A business requires to form genuine connections with its customers to excel online. Your business acquires more attention and develops as a brand when people can link to it and believe it is dependable.

That’s the reason a brand community can fortify and extend the reach of your brand online.

It’s probable that your business already possesses an active community on forums, social media, or your website. You can build community engagement to promote your brand’s growth. You can even leverage community-designed content to develop your brand.

#Present A Brand Value For Your Community

Customers will spend in your brand as your community signifies the values your brand is all about, permitting you to break your dependence on advertising and promotions.

# Explore Emotions To Grow Customer Retention

View brand communities for a few of the most luxurious brands in the world, such as Porsche cars, Rolex watches, or Montblanc pens. All of us know someone (perhaps yourself) who is an ardent fan and would never think about buying from a rival – whether you possess the money to buy one or not.

When your community members are joined to your brand and the community surrounding it, it builds a switching barrier. Due to their loyalty and investment in the community, they won’t be so price sensitive and will be less probable to shop about.

You don’t require to be a luxury brand such as Rolex for this to function for your brand also. Moroccanoil is a premium body and hair care brand that has built a community, Beauty Circle, around the worth and advantages of utilizing their products.

By exploring the emotions connected to looking and feeling your best, they’ve created a big online brand community, without needing to think about reducing their prices to be the cheapest beauty oils on the market.

Make emotional attachments the bedrock of your community. Irrespective of what you sell, your one-time shoppers will become committed repeat purchasers as loyal members of your brand community.

# Build Valuable Brand Advocates

Your community can’t prosper if nobody is familiar with it. Fortunately, when you motivate your community members, you can alter them from being customers into brand advocates. Advocates like your brand and constitute a precious marketing channel, serving as a community megaphone to aid bring others into your brand experience. Besides, while they’re evangelizing for your business, they even spend double as much as an average shopper.

Energy gum makers Run Gum took complete advantage of community and brand advocates through their referral program. Numerous people don’t know what energy gum is, so their advocates were entrusted to educate outsiders and garner them into the Run Gum community. Run Gum’s investment worked, leading to a 200% growth in repeat purchase rate all due to their brand advocates.

The growth of your community only implies positive things for your business. By motivating brand advocates, they can distribute the value of your brand to help rope in new excited customers, and build a more engaging community experience.

# Understand What Prods Your Customers

The sole way to improve your customer experience is by knowing what your customers are experiencing.

Building an online brand community permits you to know what eggs on your customers, along with what they do and don’t appreciate the customer experience. Laced with all the product reviews, social engagements, and feedback forms, there are plenty of ways to discover everything you can do to make all interactions with your brand delightful.

When Altenew refurbished their website, they wished to discover how much they had improved the online experience. Believing their community would present honest evaluations, they emailed their members to receive some warm feedback. This aided the website project at hand, besides giving insight into what members value. Bolstered with that information, Altenew could better the entire customer experience for their shoppers.

Community members have invested effort, time, or money in your brand. That renders them perfect to offer feedback, aiding your understanding of what your customers truly value concerning your brand.

# Raise Brand Awareness

Word-of-mouth is still the most successful way to increase awareness and develop a business. In reality, people are 84% more probable to trust a recommendation or referral if it emanates from a friend, implying the value of community at an all-time high.

One of the leading ways to increase awareness is through brand ambassadors. The founders of theSkimm, a reputed daily newsletter, ascribe nearly 20% of general company growth to the ambassador program. “Skimm’bassadors” distribute the newsletter with friends and get swat and perks for striking specific referral milestones.

Bumble, the networking and dating app, designed the Queen Bee ambassador program. Queen Bees aid market the app within their networks and localities. They don Bumble-branded swag and hold in-person mingling events with thought leaders and influencers in their cities. These grassroots community efforts have aided 26 million users to form connections in only 3 years.

# Let Customers Discover

Communities not just promote growth, but they can be the most precious and truthful source of feedback for businesses. Conventional product marketing research, like focus groups and surveys, aren’t as trustworthy as once believed.

A series of experiments discovered that, when associating in conventional research, people get the Hawthorne Effect. People know that they’re being examined, so they alter their behavior as a consequence. This same effect doesn’t happen, however, when people exchange on social media and other online spaces.

Online communities, not just aid offer brands a profound understanding of customer requirements and desires, but user-produced content, like comments and reviews, are regarded as more genuine. Regarding 97% of online buyers read reviews prior to making a purchase, it is vital that communities are actively engaging and generating content around a company’s product.

Glossier, a skincare and beauty products brand, has mastered the art of making customers do this. They have built a huge, dedicated community that communicates through Slack, Instagram, and in-person events. Before Glossier inaugurates a new product, its editorial arm – Into the Gloss – will post an “open thread” soliciting advice on what its readers desire.

# Encourage Customer Success

The concept of the lone genius who achieves success single-handed is a fallacy. The most successful people form part of inventive and supportive communities.

Effective communities insert value when they back members, offer a sense of camaraderie, form strategic connections, and constitute a source of advice that members can implement upon their own lives. Community members frequently exchange a passion for individual improvement and continuous learning.

The most successful learning strategies involve communities and promote discussion, instead of having individuals read a book or view an educational video alone.

In reality, Flatiron School, the outcomes-targeted coding school, discovered that the most successful learning method for students is to join them with different learners and industry leaders through online communities and in-person events.

# Push Brand Loyalty To Acquire Followers

Maintaining current customers involved is just as vital (if not more) than acquiring new first-time users. Accenture discovered that two-thirds of customers will “invest more on brands to which they are loyal.” Glossier, for example, holds that 90% of its revenue is by way of returning customers.

The greater time or effort that a person invests in a service or product, the more they’ll finish valuing it. Researchers from Harvard Business School term this the IKEA Effect. IKEA’s business model makes the consumer spend time assembling the products, so they incline to overvalue the brand and products.

Whether it’s by way of in-person events or online forums, communities are core to awareness, brand loyalty, and general success. A powerful and engaged community will produce improved products, learning, and innovation, together with company growth. Nevertheless, to be effective, brands require to create communities that go beyond selling a product and offer value and support for members.

Enhance SEO To Boost Your Product Promotion

As SEO trends are continuously changing, online brand communities are a certain way to ensure genuine and quality User Generated Content (UGC).

Creating a community of people who like your brand permits you to conveniently activate consumers to generate fresh and specific UGC, yielding an ongoing portal of content – this is useful for both getting new eyes on your products.

48% of consumers tell UGC is an excellent way to locate new products, and 25% of search results for the world’s 20 biggest brands are links to user-created content. This is awesome news for marketers.

# Creating Online Community Through BuddyPress

BuddyPress is the social networking plugin for WordPress that allows you to compose your own Facebook. Whether you want to build a social space for your family and friends, build a collaborative environment for your co-workers and partners, or somewhere in-between, the free and versatile BuddyPress plugin is for you.

By selecting a BuddyPress theme with a nice assortment of BuddyPress page templates, your visitors will be offered a consistent user experience as they navigate through your website. This includes the login and registration pages, member profiles, activity feeds, private messaging tools, besides more.

BuddyPress and its add-ons present a plethora of social networking features that when combined with WordPress and the proper theme, present unlimited possibilities.

Conclusion

Creating an online brand community is an investment worth performing. Current top brands know that it is hard, if not, impossible to compete on selection, price, or advertising muscle like it was previously. They know that another brand will always exist ready to lose more on the sale or spend more on that impression. That’s why they highlight on developing an online brand community that cannot be imitated by the competition.

Developing a brand community will not occur overnight, but those who are ready to make the investment will reap the rewards above.

Author Bio

Rohini Oberoi is a passionate blogger at brndle.com . She is an experienced blogger and has written many articles and blog posts on topics related to WordPress, web design, web development, and online marketing.