Basic Digital Marketing

 Challenge stale social media strategies with something new, exciting, and effective. If you’re a small business looking for more real customer interaction and looking to inspire conversation online, these social media marketing engagement strategies will help. Through higher social media engagement, an account can win bigger on platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, LinkedIn, Google+, Pinterest, and more.

#1 – Highlight the human side of employees

You don’t want your small business to be seen as just another company. Highlight the human beings who make it what it is.

Using eCommerce to reach online shoppers has allowed multi-national corporations to increase their revenues in big ways, small businesses to find their way into a crowded marketplace, and has provided consumers with lower pricing, better products, and more favorable terms.

For newcomers to the eCommerce game, there is certainly money to be made. Since 2012, eCommerce companies have generated hundreds of billions of dollars in annual sales.

 Digital marketing is a long-term process. Any short-term rewards are bonus and should not be expected. Though that’s a difficult sell to some companies, it’s the closest thing to the cold, hard truth we have.

Digital marketing companies are usually hired to produce as soon as possible. It is highly unfortunate that most marketing strategies are more marathons than anything. Through dedication, intelligence, and perseverance, that’s how we win the race.

 Say goodbye to the rule of text-based content marketing. Video marketing is growing at a feverish pace and the effectiveness of it as a digital marketing strategy is undisputable. Digital marketing companies are spending thousands upon thousands of dollars on video marketing because there’s strong evidence suggesting it could be the ‘next big thing’ in the online space.

The ultimate battle between Facebook and YouTube

 Who buys, what they buy, when they buy, and why they buy is research every eCommerce company should invest in. The shopping habits, behaviour, and preferences of online shoppers can be used to build ultimate eCommerce solutions that strengthen profits, increases revenues, and builds a bigger audience. As eCommerce continues to grow in 2018, we’re looking ahead to some of the biggest trends we see defining the year for companies in this space.

#1 – Localization, Personalization & CX

The eCommerce company that succeeds in 2018 is the one that invests in local promotions and local-friendly content, personalized messaging and communications, and the customer experience. Though there is a lot to unpack in this trend, by pursuing localized and personalized marketing communications, instantly, you can enhance the customer experience. This goes beyond the minimum of fast shipping, low prices, and simple navigation. Those these points are arguably just as important as anything else, most eCommerce sites are already doing this. Thereby, go the extra mile in localizing, personalizing, and focusing on enhancing the customer’s perspective.

There are varying opinions as to the effectiveness of guest blogging in 2018. There are some who will argue it to be a spam-esque strategy, while others will continue to emphasize the importance of collaboration online.

For years, guest blogging was an effective way to build relationships, build links, and gain some key SEO points, helping numerous sites we know and love rank and find audience. Today, guest blogging is not the phenomenon it once was however it is still used by many companies for the aforementioned reasons.

To dismiss guest blogging as being out of fashion or somehow ineffective in 2018 is not accurate.

 Competition between eCommerce companies has elevated consumer expectations significantly, pushing them to an all-time high as sites continue trying to outdo one another. More than 70 percent of Canadians will do at least some form of online shipping this year. For an eCommerce site to thrive in the market, they need to be able to measure up. Fortunately, through some small adjustments, any site should be able to successfully position itself for long-term success in the upcoming summer sales season. Here are some eCommerce strategies to try.

 SEO is nothing new yet it’s still something a lot of us can carry some dated notions or misconceptions about. As search engine optimization undergoes updates and with the array of philosophies out there about approaching SEO, it can be difficult knowing what to believe and what applies in the present time frame. Evidently, that results in a lot of people getting their SEO strategies wrong. Here are the top 7 misconceptions we have found some customers have about search engine optimization.

 Digital marketing is expanding faster than ever and data, tech, and measurement tools are growing at similar rates. Traditional, classic advertising spending is falling by the wayside as brands are learning to spend smarter across leaner strategies and emerging technologies. Today’s landscape of ‘fake news’ accusations, Facebook privacy concerns, Google algorithm changes, and new tech introductions is innovating the way that we do marketing. As the world shifts, so do we.

Automation is slowly growing

Automation in marketing is still a new concept, in terms of being an effective strategy. Consumer behaviours are changing and for brands seeking to spend less on marketing, automation is going to have to become part of the approach. Machine learning and automation already provides brands with insights they may have never had before on details in their sales channels and performance. The more insight automation can be used to deliver, the more effective a sales strategy can be built.

Data accumulation is endless

Marketers have more data today than ever before, helping them build and modify advertising strategies. The arenas in which consumers are engaging with brands deliver innovative insights into how content is being consumed, where in the sales funnel customers are leaving your site, and more. Knowing how to sift through the increasing mounds of data will be key in 2018 and beyond. Thankfully, with the invention of AI-driven tools, data can be more effectively processed. The future of data accumulation will be challenging however for those experienced in knowing what to look for, it will be a very lucrative point in time for marketing.

 Shaping up to be another record-setting year in business and marketing, 2018 is proving to deliver some unique trends in marketing. According to many experts, there is as much as eight unique trends each competing to overtake marketing in 2018.

As we look ahead towards the rest of the year, we hope to be on the cutting edge of what works – as would most companies in our shoes. For the clients we are currently working with and to the partnerships we will form in the future, these are just some of the big marketing trends we are paying attention to in 2018.

Account-based marketing (ABM) is a unique approach used in business marketing wherein an organization will communicate with prospects and/or customer accounts as markets of one. Account-based marketing has shown promising results in the business-to-business marketing community and is a trend that we are keeping our eyes on.

Virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) are a digitization that is happening of the real world. Transcending the division that exists between the digital and the non-digital, more apps and sites are using predominantly AR to create more immersive user experiences. In return, audiences appear to be flocking in droves to take part in these experiences. Now, whether VR or AR converts to sales is another story however this is an area we are keeping tabs on.

 Successful local area marketing begins with choosing geographic-friendly keywords however that is truly just the start. Every day it seems consumers continue to get smarter and search engines more intuitive. There’s also always competition coming up behind, ready to take your place. To stay ahead and continue building on your growth, a local area marketing strategy is required.

The first step to local area marketing is selecting geographic friendly keywords. For any successful SEO local area marketing, keywords are going to play a tremendous role. These keywords should extend beyond industry and location. Consider keywords that differentiate you from your competitors.

The next step is in finding the online directories that matter and getting your name in them. For example, there is Google My Business, Yelp, Facebook, and potentially some local business listings that you will want to get your brand on. Monitoring these listings and ensuring that your business name has been included can help establish credibility for your brand in the eyes of consumers. Next, it’s important to scan these directories routinely to ensure that the pages are functioning as they should.

 Pay per click marketing channels such as Google AdWords are an amazing way to advertise. PPC can help a website spread the word fast across search engine rankings and more. While a site is waiting the months required in order to build organic web traffic, in the meantime, PPC provides instantaneous results.

There is a dark side to PPC however that not so many marketers enjoy talking about. According to some estimates, as much as 25 percent of a site’s PPC budget ends up wasted. How this happens can largely be attributed to where the money is purposed. Due to errors in strategy, it is easy to put money towards an AdWords campaign that is doomed from the get-go. In large part, this is from small businesses who are going at it alone without the guidance of a marketing expert at their side.

Even on basic PPC best practices, many small businesses end up investing in the wrong places. Improving ad relevancy and managing accounts should be a priority however to too many investors, they see a program like AdWords as an opportunity to invest and reap the rewards without having to follow any rulebook. By taking on PPC without the hands of an online marketing company to guide the wheel, this can result in lost leads and increased costs.

The changing landscape of SEO – aka search engine optimization – keeps web designers and marketing manages on their toes. Routine updates keeps things interesting. If sites do not adapt, they can end up having big ranking disasters with Google on their hands. This is why so many engineers, web designers, product managers, marketing managers, CEOs, and more should be kept in the loop with search engine optimization trends.

As an example, there are a myriad of minor SEO mistakes that can happen – which include pages getting no-indexed, canonicals being removed, de-optimizing pages with title update or removal, navigation or critical links removed, issues with the robots.txt, and broken redirects. At times, there may be even more bizarre problems at play. For an inexperienced web designer, it may take days or even weeks to figure out the error and, at that time, it may be too late to mitigate the damage. Pay attention to the analytics. If your site’s traffic has seen a significant drop and an immediate explanation is not clear, it may be due to ranking problems with Google.

There are many components to SEO that are outside of one’s control. Firstly, we cannot control Google’s algorithm. Secondly, there is no control over what competitors are doing and the success or failure of their online marketing strategies. Thirdly, there is no control over what your superior tells you to do, meaning that sometimes a CEO may pursue a wrong strategy.

Trends in web design change rapidly. Websites are always evolving, as are the programming languages and tech who form them. Across multiple decades, one of the few commonalities maintained in websites of every category is content. To advance a site’s brand development and achieve their marketing goals, content marketing has a role to play. ‘Content is king’ is not just some pretty catchphrase. It still rings true today and with that, we set our sights on sharing why.

Content is used across every marketing channel to motivate customer acquisition and sales. Websites, blogs, emails, and social media all use content to build brands. Podcasts, info-graphics, webinars, and email marketing campaigns also use content in unique ways to build an audience. An integrated content marketing strategy will mean leveraging each of these platforms to properly showcase content and get eyes on your site. Thereby, this may include modifications in how content is presented in order to maximize the investment.

 Comparing organic search engine optimization (SEO) against pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, there are some marketing experts who might prefer one over the other. At a time when the competition is fierce, it’s important to know where to invest one’s marketing budget.

The development of organic SEO strategies have been shown to be very successful at landing high search engine placement, however growing competition means keywords being increasingly difficult to achieve and maintain. Then, there’s pay-per-click advertising which is expensive in the long-term however has been responsible for building some big brands online.

To us, we do not favor one over the other. There is merit in both. That said, SEO marketing techniques do reach a completely different audience than PPC campaigns. What’s best for a company’s website depends on the target audience. For some, PPC may produce higher conversion rates than organic SEO can. For others, search engine optimization techniques can help build trust and legitimacy through search engine exposure.  To be successful, both may potentially have to be used in conjunction.

 The future of digital marketing campaigns will depend on being able to connect on a human level with consumers. The immense value in human connection cannot be understated. In the same way we consume music, film, and media, the advertisements that resonate with us emotionally are those that we remember. The human connection in marketing is what gets people clicking. Consumers trust human connection more than they trust advertising so over the years, brands have shifted from ‘straight selling’ to building a human connection with its consumer.

Word-of-mouth recommendations and similar human connection-friendly marketing strategies continue to win the day for so many sites. Even as marketing tools advance and the ways to connect with one’s audience has changed, human connection continues to be the most effective way to build conversation. Every day, we are bombarded with hundreds of marketing messages. The last thing a consumer wants is to be sold to. So instead, successful brands have learnt to tell stories and build connection from the humanity of a brand. Traditional advertising is not trustworthy enough, according to numerous studies analyzing consumer behaviour. Thereby, to gain sales in marketing, sites must get creative. That is not necessarily a problem either.

 Multi-language sites presents a number of challenges when it comes to search engine optimization. Thankfully though, with an experienced SEO expert as a guide, one can navigate through with no issue. Instead of attempting to combine multi-lingual SEO and international strategies on your own, consider hiring a search engine optimization marketing company who knows their stuff. By successfully targeting SEO on a global, multi-lingual scale, the rewards can be huge!

There are many content questions one must ask themselves when operating a website with multiple languages at play. For example, countries where multiple languages are spoken, languages spoken around the world, and individual languages per country each presents their own issues. The decision on how to approach multiple languages should be made as the site is being built. A brand needs to decide whether they want to target multiple languages within the same country, multiple languages globally with no country of origin attached, or multiple languages in multiple countries.

 Search engine optimization (SEO) strategies have dominated the internet for over a decade. Be it those who are new to marketing or those with a more developed knowledge, SEO continues to be a prominent marketing practice that all must learn. As SEO standards and strategies have changed over the years, there continues to be some sizeable SEO myths that should be busted. Here are our top 5 SEO myths everyone should know about.

Myth #1 – Videos and Images are not SEO

Videos and images have a huge role to play in search engine optimization. By using the correct metadata on videos and images, this provides yet another gateway to your site. In the same way one would build text content, employ the same strategies to developing videos and images – that is, valuable, share-friendly, and relevant content.

Myth #2 – SEO is a one-time implementation

High quality SEO techniques are designed to last for months and build up in effectiveness over time. This is not the kind of strategy that will deliver amazing results overnight. It takes time to build authority in the eyes of search engines. Also, over time, search engines will implement changes and updates, and the approach to SEO will change accordingly. So a commitment to SEO is long-term in the sense that it will require continual knowledge building.

Myth #3 – Hacking SEO is Easy

Google is usually smarter than anyone thinks it is. Attempting to trick Google will mean severe consequences for where your site ranks in their search engine. Even if you hack SEO in the most creative of ways, inevitably, search engines will find out. When they see that you’re not following the rules, your site will be penalized. We’ve seen it happen far too many times. Don’t try.

 Across Canada and the US, local and federal regulations are challenging the developing marijuana industry. The challenges of digital marketing among cannabis and marijuana companies provides much to learn from for other small businesses.

In the accepted national marketplace, marijuana companies are a new category. As one of the fastest growing in Canada, building a marijuana start-up might seem like a very lucrative idea. No doubt, for some, it will be. That said, for companies seeking to use search engine optimization (SEO), general digital marketing strategies, or pay-per-click marketing are in for a rude awakening.

None of the larger advertising platforms sell marketing space to marijuana companies leaving sites like Facebook and methods like AdWords off the docket. This may change after marijuana is legalized federally however for the time being, there’s no movement in these marketing hubs. Thus, that means for any dispensary or cannabis brands to advertise and find consumers, they need to get creative.

eCommerce is a land with huge opportunities and high competition. Small businesses entering into eCommerce often do so with the promise of new sales and being able to expand into new markets.

In a land of thousands of sites though, it can take a lot of investment and resources to get an eCommerce presence up and running. Should your small business have an eCommerce site – we absolutely think so.

To its simplest definition, an eCommerce website is a platform on which products and services can be sold direct to consumer. The subsequent online transaction mimics the sales transaction that would happen in-store, providing businesses with revenue and consumers with their favourite products without having to get up out of their chair. For some small businesses, their eCommerce page begins with only selling one or two products. For others, eCommerce is a far more complex system, sometimes cataloguing thousands of items.

There are five main reasons that we believe every small business should have an eCommerce site. Firstly, see increased sales while reducing costs. By selling direct to consumer, it does not require the involvement of any middle man which saves both parties time and money. Secondly, yes, you have the opportunity to expand nationally and globally into new territories. Reach customers you may not have ever had the chance to reach before, due to physical limitations.

 Digital marketing trends in local and regional marketplaces are just as important today as those affecting the global landscape of small businesses and corporations. Today, setting up a website can get a brand seen by visitors from across the world.

This way, buying, selling, and marketing product and services in a global setting suddenly becomes a lot harder than advertising in the local papers. The more that businesses are aware of the global online world and its influence on buying and selling, the more advantaged that business will be. If you’re selling online, here’s what you need to know.

Those customers who buy locally may come to your business having seen its physical location while walking or driving by, maybe from a friend’s recommendation, and/or from having seen one of your products in action. From an international standpoint, customers are more accustomed to come to your site through search engine rankings, social media posts, online ratings or reviews, and/or influencer-based recommendations. Appealing to such a wide range of people involves knowing what keywords to target with SEO strategies and getting more involved in designing a high-conversion, high-ROI website design.

 Time and time again, we’ve seen performance plateaus happen across digital marketing strategies. No matter how successful they once were, eventually, most strategies will stagnant and require an extra kick to get going again. Instead of hanging your hat on digital marketing that is slowing down, the goal should be to find new ways to improve sales performance. Use real-time data and analytics to pinpoint where things are slowing down, and learn performance improvement strategies to address these areas.

Consider undergoing UX optimization

As conversion rates move even the smallest amounts, this can establish huge rewards for a strategy. Evaluate the user experience (UX). Test the UX by getting a fresh set of eyes on it. For most companies, this involves hiring a digital marketing agency to take a look. If you do not already have the resources in place to accurately manage user experience strategies, consider it. Remember that the UX begins before a visitor has even clicked on your site. They may be coming to you according to ads they’ve seen, social media advertising, or chasing a search engine query. Evaluate all of these entry points. If these points of entry are not in perfect collaboration with what’s on your site, it may create a sort of disconnected environment.

 We are living in the age of video marketing and video SEO, both critical components to consumer-driven marketing strategies. As more brands across the world are jumping into video marketing, the ones who are already deeply embedded into video SEO are seeing major benefits.

By producing high quality videos released regularly throughout a campaign, video content has been shown to be far more effective than text-based search engine optimization at qualifying and converting the consumer. If your business has not already launched some form of video promotional content, now’s the time.

When it comes to video production, quality, quantity, and release schedule are all equally important. To receive the best ROI, video SEO techniques need to be employed. When applied correctly, video SEO marketing can help get more eyes from social media, YouTube, and other platforms.

Even though the video content is what we are talking about here, text-based descriptions are still key. Search engines cannot appropriately interpret video content to classify it in a searchable format. Therefore, search engines depend on text to describe the video for them. By using text to describe and transcribe what is happening in the video, it allows consumers using search engines to find the video. This is a key aspect to the search engine optimization process.

 What so many small business entrepreneurs experience every time Facebook implements an update to its timeline are slow reductions in the organic reach a page has. Compared to years ago when a small business page could reach well above 50 percent of their followers, today that number has sunk to under 7 percent. That makes it nearly impossible to get the word out!

More than ever before, it’s extremely difficult for a brand to keep up with their fans and to find new followers in a market that is increasingly dominated by paid advertising. For small businesses, the only thing to do in response to these changes in Facebook Timeline is to get better at branding and promotions, and be smarter with where they put their advertising dollar.

First things first, most small business pages on Facebook are not fully filled out or optimized. This means a lack of contact information, confusing or non-existent CTAs, and unclear marketing all contributes to a lack of users wanting to click on and subscribe to the page.

So in order to compete, one must first evaluate their Facebook small business page. Identify its weak points and fix them. Be sure to fill in all the information you can, supplying your page with the appropriate apps to ensure that any information a potential follower may come to your page seeking is easily found.

To this point, optimizing your page with regular updates will show that you are plugged in to what’s going on, active, and still in business. Be sure to set up regular postings at least once a week to reach the customers you can reach organically and to keep followers updated on what’s on the mind of your business.

 eCommerce has re-developed the markets in countries as far and wide as Canada, the United States, the UK, Japan, China, Australia, and more. Corporate business models, such as Wal-Mart, have had to adapt in order to keep up with the growing small businesses online.

With so much competition, it’s not easy attracting eyes and maximizing sales in eCommerce circles. As sales volumes increase by double-digit percentages every year, every eCommerce company has the potential to make millions. If you’ve been stuck and are looking to sell more in eCommerce, here are five quick tips on how to leverage the local and international marketplace in your favor.

Multiple sources

 eCommerce companies who use every relevant avenue to market to consumers will find the most success. Just because you have an eCommerce site does not mean it is going to get qualified leads. Tap into regional and global markets, growing brand reputation across a growing number of consumers locally and worldwide.

Capitalizing on holiday boom periods

 If you want to sell more, you need to know when to take advantage and launch appropriate campaigns. Throughout the year, there are numerous holiday boom periods including Christmas, New Year’s, Valentine’s Day, St. Patrick’s Day, Easter, summer vacation, back to school, Thanksgiving, and Halloween. Many eCommerce businesses work wonders are creating appealing content around these days and others. As another example, Black Friday is a huge boom period of the year for many eCommerce companies. It’s all about knowing when to pull the trigger on holiday-appropriate eCommerce marketing campaigns.