
Expert advice
for you
What is the best advice for
marketing My Business?
WEBSITE DESIGN
When planning out your website there are several factors that you need to consider that will help you build the right site.
1- Understand your target audience: Always remember that when you are building your website it needs to be something that your target audience would want to visit. Give them good advice and value that will encourage them to see your business worth working with.
2- Define how your website will support your business goals: Make sure you know what the role your website will play in accopmlishing your business goals. Is it a brochure? Do you need leads from your site? etc.
3- Know how you will track your sites effectiveness: If you are not measuring and tracking your website performance then you will not know if it is actually helping your business success. Know how you will measure its effectiveness so it will keep supporting your business success.
Yes. In today's mobile connected world you want to make sure any website or landing page you create will look good and function properly on a mobile screen size.
Most Web CMS sites (Website Design sites) have an option to check what your site will look like and function on different screen sizes. Taking the time to double check this thrugh their web designer and on your own mobile device is worth it. Sometimes your website might perform incorrectly on certain screen sizes or devices due to many variables. Making updates regularly can prevent this yet not all issues can be solved.
There are several ways to encourage people to visit your website and learn more about your business. One way is to have good content and keywords on your website that will encourage search engines to rank your website value high on their search. This is commonly called SEO (Search Engine Optimization). Using Google ads to pay Google to show your website inside search results and in other places is a paid strategy many like to employ as well. Advertising on Social Media with Paid ads and page content can be used to promote your website to your audience. One of the best ways to promote your website is to have actual value on the site. If your website is something your customers can use in their life then they will come back and share it with their friends.
SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is a process of helping Search Engines, like Google, to see your website as important to the search query a person has done. There are two ways that you can use SEO for your website. One is called on-site SEO. This is a process of using keywords and phrases in different parts of your website where the search engine computers can find them for their algorithm and result in your website being interpreted as being valuable to the search. This is where your web developer will take time to add content to the header of your website, the image alt-text and other locations of your site. Having an active blog can also aid your on-site SEO efforts.
The other type of SEO is ongoing-SEO which usually involves paying for advertising space on the search itself. This often shows up as Sponsored listings on the search results page.
Using both types of SEO can be beneficial to your business if you are using a competent professional to manage them.
To generate leads from your website there are several things you will need. One thing you will need is a lead capture page that is designed to encourage your customers to sign up and give you their contact information in exchange for a purchase or information. These leads can then be followed up with by your sales team. The next thing you will need is an understanding of what are things that might interest your customers which you can use as an offer to encourage them to give you their information. With these two things in place in conjunction with links from various locations around your website to encourage people to sign up as well as paid advertising on Google as well as Social Media sites that will encourage traffic to the lead page, you can generate leads from your website to help your business to grow.
A website pixel is a piece of computer code that can be placed on your website which gives you the ability to track people's behavior on yor website. Thee pieces of code are usually generated by a marketing platform which will want to access this kind of data from your website.
Pixels are commonly placed within the header of your website main page,which means the computers can see it but your website visitors will not see it. The data generated by this pixel can allow your business to identify uers on other platforms for advertising. For instance, the Meta Pixel code will allow you to target ads to people who have been to your website within a given period of time. This can mean finding people who are familiar with your business that might be interested in buying.
The two most common ways to build your own website is:
1- Learn to code through classes and build your own website from scratch like a crazy tech person.
2- Sign up for a CMS (Content Management System) service like Wix, Squarespace, Webflow, etc and use their website building system do the bulk of the work for you and save you hundreds of hours you can spend working on your business or going on vacation.
I guess you could say there is a third option of hiring an agency to do the work for you while you keep cranking away at your own business.
AEO stands for AI Engine Optimization. This type of search is the latest trend in online marketing since many platforms now offer AI searching services. Rather than asking Google to search for relevant websites that can help you find the answer you are looking for, an AI does the search for you and brings the answer to you. When using services like ChatGPT, Siri or Alexa you are doing this type of search. The goal is to bring you the best answer to your question rather than a list of websites that can answer the question. The largest issue with this new opportunity is that the search is no longer sending people to your website where they can learn more about your business. To compensate for this the AI summary often lists where they found the information they give you and allow you a link to the site of you want. Most people do not click on these links however.
AI ranking is a new way to think about content opimization. Since it is not about being a relevant site in a list (like SEO), you want the AI platforms to recoggnize your website as a valuable resource for relevant information it can draw on to answer your customers. If the AI gathers the information from your website then you can be cited in the AI summary and have a possible link to your website shown.
So the goal is not about gaming the algorithm but beign the source of valuable information the AI can pull from. To do this your website needs to be very content heavy with lots of great information that the AI can search through. Think about being the best resource for information in your industry.
Using good content pages, FAQ sections, and active ongoing blog entries can help you be a trusted resource for an AI to use. This will help you show up in the AI summary at the top of the search instead of down lower for SEO results.
TRADITIONAL MARKETING
No they are not. Sales is about talking with your customer to buy or resolve concerns. Marketing is about to with your customer using other mediums outside an actual conversation. Marketing can be about generating leads while sales is about closing those leads.
Marketing works by utilizing various forms of comunication to promote a message that will attract the audience you want to work with.
There are many ways in which you can market your business. In todays modern world we have digiatl mediums like having a website, a presence on social media, blogging, podcasts, digital ads ,etc. There are offline or traditional ways to market your business like radio spots, tv commercials, billboards, magazine ads, mailers, flyers, door hangers, vehicle graphics, branded clothing, airplane banners, public speaking, handbills, and so many more.
Marketing helps yor business by bringing more people to an awareness that your business exists and people can use you. It can also generate leads by driving traffic to a website or in store location where people can buy.
The best way to know if your marketing is working is to establish clear goals and metrics that can demonstrate if the marketing method you are using has achieved those goals. No matter what kind of marketing you are doing, always know how you will measure the effectiveness of it.
Marketing works by utilizing a medium of communication that your target audience uses and make sure your business has a presence and advertising there. An example is: If your audience uses a certain road all the time you may want a billboard there. By making sure your business can be seen by your target audience more people will know that you can help them.
The easiest way to market your business is to talk wth your target audience directly then encourage them to refer their network to you. Direct contact can be quick and effective with your audience.
The best way to market your audience is to first understand your ideal customer. What are the ways that you could reach them? Then make sure you can use those same ways to get in front of them. If they use social media regularly, which sites do they prefer to use? The key to success is understanding your customer and how will be best to reach them. Make sure to pattern your marketing strategy around your customer so you can be seen by them.
SALES TIPS
Yes you do. Sales is primarily about how you can talk in effective ways with your customers. The better you are at talking with customers, the more customers you will have.
Training to improve your communication skills is always a good idea for business owners and managers. Sales training not only helps you communicate with your future customers but also with current and past customers. Not to mention the same skills will help you work with employees and investors. The more you learn communication the more you can work with people better.
Most likely your customer will have concens from time to time about buying. It is very important that you listen intently to their concern and understand where your customer is coming from. Then do your best to think about how you can help them resolve this concern and encourage them to be a customer. It is always a good practice to update your sales presentation to answer concerns before your customer brings them up. Any concern you answer before they ask is good information and they wont bring it up as a concern.
There are two very effective ways in which you can make a difference in your sales today. One is to make sure you are listening intently to your customer. Understand them and what their needs are so you can make sure to meet their needs. Customers love to have their needs met properly. The second thing you can do is get good at following up with people. Taking the time to call people back or reach out to them later will help you generate extra sales. People appreciate that you are interested in helping them and will follow up. Most sales people do not follow up later so this can help you stand out among other sales people.
The way to get people to buy from you is to take the time to listen to your customer and understand their needs and problems. Then you provide them with a great solution that will help them with those needs and problems. If you focus on the problems rather than the solution you will have more sales.
When customers are ready to buy they usually give non-verbal as well as verbal signals that indicate they are ready to purchase. Some of the non-verbal signals you might notice is them holding the product as if they own it, reaching for their credit card or wallet, moving towards the checkout area or getting ready to fill out the sales paperwork. When it comes to verbal signals they often will ask about delivery or support of the product, their words may assume they own it or have possession of the product, when it comes to service they may talk past tense about it to assume it is already done. It is common for people to ask price or payment options too.
When it comes to online sales these indicators are not available so you need to create an easy way to encourage people to buy then monitor online behavior like shopping cart abandonment for signs of interest.
Lead generation is one of the important aspects of marketing. Using your marketing you want to create a compelling reason for people to give you their contact info so you can talk to them. Have something free or highly discounted for them to get from you which will enourage them to fil out your form. When doing offline lead generation think of where your target audience might shop or spend time then have a way to capture leads in that area like a contest or give away.
Sales is a vital aspect of a successful business. Most of the time sales is focused on the front end of the business of closing deals with new clients. Using sales within your customer service plan is another great way to improve your business. Do follow up with customers, resolve their concerns, and encourage referrals. Sales is about having good communication with your customers so use slaes anywhere you have contact with your customers.
SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING
Your business should be on the social media platforms that your target audience is using. Do a survey of your customers to understand which ones they use often then create an account on those sites. If your customer is not using a particular site then you do not need to be there.
The content you post on your social media sites should follow a few general guidelines:
- What is the kind of content your customer is interacting with? What are they looking for and liking or commenting on? What questions are they trying to answer? That is kind of content you should be focusing on sharing. This means that most of your content should not be about your business. Think like a magazing publisher- What kinds of things would my ideal subscribers want to see?
- Another point is what kind of things would your customer like to know about your business. Share behind the scenes content, answer top questions your customer has, introduce your staff, and help your customer get to know your business.
After you have created these kinds of content, then you can think about marketing your business. It is generally best to not have more than 1/3 of your content be about your business. Focus on your customer more.
Getting your customers to follow you on social media can be tricky since most social algorithms focus on pushing your content to new audiences all the time. If you are sharing content they see as valuable for them by answering their qestions, teaching them new things, dispelling myths about your industry, etc) you will encourage them to want to see more content from you by clicking the follow button. Every once in a while it is good practice to ask people to follow you as well. the more you ask the more likely it is they do it.
Getting interaction on your content is a vital aspect of a successful social media marketing strategy. People will inteact with the content that interests them. Think about what are the things that interest your customers and make sure you are adding that kind of content to your sites. Asking your followers specific and thought provoking questions also helps. Encourage them to share their opinion about something that is important to them. Avoid using general open ended questions since they are often skipped over. Interact with your audience and train them to interact with you.
Advertising platforms are comon additions to social media sites. These platforms allow you to buy advertising space on their sites. Once you have an account set up on a particular platform make sure to also set up your ad account with them. With your ad account set up, including payment info, you can begin building and targeting your ads to achieve the desired results you want. Follow the guidelines wtihin the ad platform on how to target and ceate your ad. Each site has its own ad setup process you will go through to do this.
Business Suite is a back end system Meta wants you to use to manage all of your Meta Digital Assets. You can control your Facebook pages, Instagram accounts, WhatsApp accounts and more from there. It is a great way to maintain control over your assets and control remote access for employees and agencies that you have help you. It is always recommended to set up your Business Suite when using Facebook and other Meta sites for your business.
When selling products on social media sites there are two ways you can use. The most common way is to just create posts about your products and have links to your website where people can purchase. If you are using Shopify to host your website store then you can use some of their features to connect your content and site together. Another way to enhance the shopping experience of your customers is to create a store on the social media platform. Facebook and Instagram have this option. When you set up your store on their platform there are extra content experiences you can tap in to for your content as well as streamlined ads that can encourage more sales.
Social Media is one of the best places to get in front of your target audience quickly. Since customers often want to have numerous intractions with your business before buying online you can have these numerous interactions quickly with your content and other social strategies. Quickly generating a lot of awareness about your business so people can purchase when they are ready is a common way to use social media. WIth ads you can also drive actual leads and sales too. If you think of the common sales funnel (Awareness, Interest, Desire, Action), there is no part of this process that social media c=does not help with.