Business blogging tips

Blogging on your business website is a great way to show that you are a leader in your industry by providing free advice and tips pertaining to your customers’ interests. It also keeps your website fresh with new content which will help to boost rankings on search engines.

So how do you get started? How often should you blog? How long should blog posts be?

Here are some tips from the experts:

• First find a blogging platform. There are countless to choose from, including WordPress, Medium, Blogger and Wix. Check out the article “How to Choose theBest Blogging Platform in 2016 (Compared)” by webbeginner.com to help chose a platform. Your current website service may already have a blogging interface built in also.

• Update it at least a couple times a month, once a week if you can. Google “bots” constantly skim the Internet for fresh content to update search engine results. If your website content is stale, the bots have no reason to check it out and your site will fall in search rankings.

• Stay on topic. Remember what your audience is interested in and focus on that. Don’t lose their interest.

Wondering how long your posts and titles should be? Check out the article “The MostShared Brand Blog Posts: Length, Language, and Title Trends” by MarketingProfs for additional tips.

Make sure digital is in your holiday marketing plan

Newsletter

November 9, 2016

We’re barely recovering from the Halloween chocolate hangover and we haven’t even carved the Thanksgiving turkey, but if you’re a small business owner or marketer you’ve already started thinking about holiday shopping.

For years Black Friday has been the most well known shopping day of the year, but with the ever increasing popularity of mobile shopping we now also have Cyber Monday, the biggest online shopping day of the year.

Data collected from Signal.com, holiday retail sales on smartphones jumped 96% in 2015, and are forecast to grow 50% in 2016. Here are some additional statistics generated by signal.com:

• 43% of people say that digital ads on a website or mobile app influence their holiday gift buying.
• 47% of consumers started thinking about gift ideas before November.
• One-third of consumers say ads help them get discounts or deals.
• 52% of holiday shoppers are likely to take advantage of tailored product recommendations received through email, and 42% through a mobile ad.

Not surprisingly Amazon.com is king when it comes to online shopping and buying. No small business is going to compete with them, however, you can take notes on and implement some of the things people love about Amazon into your own marketing.

Why do people love Amazon? Consumers report that ease of use, product reviews and easy returns as some perks.

Site retargeting is another thing in which Amazon excels. When a consumer views a product on Amazon.com and then leaves the site to continue surfing the Internet, an ad for that product shows up on the sites the consumer is currently viewing. It seems like magic, or maybe legalized stalking, but either way you look at it this tactic has been proven to increase conversions.

But more people shopping online does not necessarily equate to more purchases online. Most online shoppers are looking for deals and doing product research before they go to the physical brick and mortar store to make the purchase. Added conveniences such as buy online and pick up in store increases a consumer’s likelihood to buy. Stores are crowded, being able to order online, go in, pick up the goods and get out is a huge selling-point.

Some takeaways from this research:

• Start planning for the holiday shopping now if you have not already.
• Consider adding digital into your marketing strategy. You can bet your competitors are, don’t miss out!
• Make sure now more than ever that your website is easy to navigate and is mobile optimized.
• Your physical business location is just as important as it’s ever been. People will most likely come to your store to make the purchase, but first they have to have a good reason for picking you over competition. Special deals advertised online will bring them in.

Do you want to implement some of these tools but you aren’t sure where to start?  Call or email us here at ISJ Media and we can help put together a customized digital marketing plan based on your business needs and goals.

At ISJ Media we offer:

Site retargeting

Contextual retargeting

Audience retargeting

Hyperlocal targeting

Mobile and app advertising

Website advertising

Web design

Email marketing

Text marketing

And much more . . . .

Wedding planning starts now — so should wedding marketing

By ISJ Media

Couples who are getting hitched should start planning their wedding six to nine months before the date, according to realsimple.com

Since most weddings take place June through September, couples — and wedding planners, photographers, etc. should start planning, well, now.

This is great news for business involved in the wedding industry. Businesses like photographers, florists, bakeries; vacation and travel services and wedding venues should take advantage of this early opportunity to get the attention of both the bride and groom.

So how can you make your service or business stand out during the early stages of wedding planning? Here are some tips:

1. You must have a digital presence.  There is no bend here. If your wedding planning related business or service is not online, and more importantly available on mobile devices, you’re not going to be successful in this market, period.

Think about your target audience.  According to mentalfloss.com the average age people in Idaho get married is 26.5 for men and 25 for women.  Do you think these people are scanning billboards for photographers and wedding dresses? Nope, they are on their mobile devices — a lot.

Is your website mobile-friendly? Does it need an overhaul? Now is the time to check.

Considering advertising on mobile apps and for mobile devices. Ad campaigns can be designed just for the purpose of reaching mobile customers, and mobile campaigns have proven to be highly effective in east Idaho.

2. Sell the solution, not the product. This applies to any business or service, not just the wedding industry. Identify your target customer.  You need to go beyond the simple “I’m targeting brides.”  Create a customer profile, for example, Julie is a 25 year-old getting married in June. She wants a modest dress with a removable train that won’t break the bank. Does your shop sell modest dresses? Don’t just advertise that you sell dresses, offer a solution by offering modest dresses, free adjustments etc. Solve a problem.

3.  Provide information too. Consider providing a blog with weekly wedding planning advice or a wedding planning checklist on your website. By showing that you are an expert in your industry you’ll build brand loyalty and increase your Google search ranking.

Do you need help planning a mobile campaign? Contact www.isjmedia.com at 239-3532 for a free consultation.

Content marketing tips for small businesses

By Jenny Hopkins

jhopkins@journalnet.com

Content Marketing is a way of communicating with your customers and potential customers without selling. Instead of selling your products and services you are providing valuable information and content in order to build brand loyalty and awareness.

It's a tactic that is used by many large brands, including BarkBox.com. BarkBox is a service in which the subscriber receives a box monthly filled with dog toys and treats for his or her canine companion. A percentage of the proceeds are donated to canine rescue groups and animal shelters. BarkBox also produces a newsletter that features news stories about dogs and the animal rescue groups. The newsletter is not selling their product, but provides a service by giving subscribers feel-good stories about something that interests them – canines.

Content marketing also helps your website get picked up by search engines like Google. Search engines use “bots” to “crawl” the web and catalog elements such as keywords in order to create their search rankings. If a website does not get updated the “bots” have no reason to come back to the site and it will drop in the search rankings. Sites that are updated more frequently appear higher in search rankings, so creating fresh content for your site plays a crucial part in getting your site recognized by search engines.

Of course we don't all have time to create a weekly or monthly newsletter, and hiring a content marketer is not in the budget. But there some things you can do right now to create fresh content, some of which you may already have.

1. Shoot a quick video: Content marketing does not have to be text-based. It can be photo and video too. Try taking a quick video that features a new employee or a behind-the-scenes of your business. How-to videos are huge right now, so try creating a quick how-to video that relates to your business or service without directly selling it. You don't have to be a professional videographer to do this, every cell phone has a camera built in nowadays, and there are countless free video editing apps available on Google Play or the App Store. Just remember to not make the video too long, a minute or two is good, any longer than that and your viewers are likely to lose interest.
2. Add some history about your business: You already know how, when and why your business got started, and of course you're proud of it, so why not tell the world! Write a mission statement, a little information about the inspiration behind your business's beginnings, or a time-line of events and milestones.
3. Add photos: Take some quick behind the scenes photos of your staff or a step in the process of creating whatever product or service you offer. Did your business recently have an employee retreat or volunteer in the community? Take some photos to post on your website and social media. Show your human side.
4. Use curated content: Create a round-up of links to articles that relate to your industry. Save your audience time by bringing the best articles and information regarding your service or product to them in one place. If your business is home décor, for example, create a list of articles about the latest home design and Do-It-Yourself trends. Make sure you link back to the original source.
5. Encourage user-generated content: Wouldn't it be great if you could get people to interact with your business or service for free? Well, you can, but only if you ask for it. Try prompting your audience to share a photo of themselves enjoying your product or service or asking them to tweet about how your product or service has benefited them. Don't be vague, pick a specific theme. Going back to the home décor, for example, you could ask people to share a photo of their best fall decorating projects. Use a hashtag that corresponds with the theme to encourage others to participate. You'll get more response with some than others, but don't get discouraged, try different prompts until you find the ones that click. Try offering a prize for participants to increase participation. Pick a random participant to win or offer a discount to all.

Get more marketing tips and find out how ISJ Media can expand your digital reach at www.isjmedia.net

Search Engine Optimization tips

By Jenny Hopkins

Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, is taking steps to making sure your website ranks highly in search engine results.

When you perform a search on Google, Google uses its own algorithm to match websites with the words in the search and ranks them starting with the best match.

As technologies update and evolve so do the search engine algorithms. For example, now that more people are using their mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets to surf the web and search for information, Google has changed its search algorithm to recognize that the user is on a mobile device and will only provide results for web pages that are mobile optimized. Google knows not to waste your time by showing you a website that will not display well on your phone because you typed in the search from your phone.

That is just one of many factors Google takes into account when compiling search results. Here are some other major factors that help your page get picked up:

• A complete landing page. This may seem like a no-brainer, but sometimes we get so caught up in design, updating social media, etc. that we forget that the devil is in the details. Make sure the home page of your website includes all the basics: Phone number, address, services provided, map and or directions and social sharing buttons. The more “complete” and informative your home page is, the more it will get Google’s attention.

• Add or claim your business listing on Google. Go to https://www.google.com/maps and type in your business name. Does the map zoom in to your business location? If it does, there will be a “claim your business” option in the column that appears to the left of the map. Follow those steps to create your Google business listing. This helps your business in several ways. First, you can control what the Google map search result says about your listing. Your phone number, website, hours and more show up right there on the map. You can add photos to your listing and customer reviews will appear as well. And of course, this helps the Google search engine find your page. If your search of the map does not reveal your business, you can create a Google business page first and then plug in the address. Click here to get started building your Google My Business page. Just an FYI, you’ll need to verify your business page. After all, you don’t want just anyone to register as your business. You need to prove that you are really you. It’s easy to verify your business, once you create your page Google will send you an automated phone call and give you a special code. Then you just need to type that code into the designated place on your listing. Easy peasy.

• Update frequently. Just because you built it does not mean they will come. Update your website on a regular basis. If your page has not been updated since the invention of the smartphone your page ranking will drop. Include keywords in your blog posts and pages. Most websites have built-in search engine optimization tools. On the back end of your website there should be an area where you can type in keywords. This does not show up on your site, but putting in words that describe your services will help it get picked up. Think about what words you would use to search for your business.If you have a blog for your business make sure to add “tags” or “labels” with key words. All blogging platforms have a built-in area for this purpose.

• Measure your results. Check your website’s analytics. Is there a page or article that is performing very well in terms of attracting web traffic? One that’s not? Compare and take notes on what your page viewers are responding positively and negatively so that you can plan accordingly for future content.

• TIP: Make sure that your basic information is the same across the Internet. If the business phone number, address, etc. on your website differs from your Google business listing you’ll lose credibility and your search ranking will drop.

There are literally thousands of things that contribute to a website’s search engine ranking, but these are the biggies.

Do you have a search engine optimization success story? Let me know at jhopkins@journalnet.com

How to get your email opened and read

I get them, you get them, everyone gets them: junk mail. What used to fill the mailboxes of suburbia now fills the inboxes of every email address on the planet.

But your business has a message to share, and because nearly everyone uses email, it is a great way to reach a large audience quickly without paying for snail mail postage.

So how to you get people to open and read your email?

Here are some tips:

• Make it personal. Use a personal subject line whenever possible. GetResponse reports that emails with personalized subject lines have a 26% higher open rate than those with generic subject lines. Use direct language in the message wording, words like “you” and details such as last purchases. For example, “Your last purchase of Hello Kitty sheets would look great with our new Hello Kitty curtains! Check them out here (link to product site).

• Time is of the essence. Try using a trigger word in your subject line such as “announcing, limited or final.”

• Keep it simple. As tempting as it is to cram a ton of information into an email subject line and body it's not a good idea. With email less really is more. Keep your subject line 6 to 10 words and don't be dishonest or click-bait. Side note, click bait is just awful stuff in general! “Click here to see what these 90s era celebs look like now!” No thanks.

The email should have one purpose, so decide that before you create your marketing plan. Do you want to push online sales? Is your business hosting a food drive? Focus on one thing in five or less sentences. And remember to write like you talk, don't try to make it fancy with big words that no one uses in natural every day speech. Don't say “ebullient” when you could just say “eager.”

• Include a call to action. Face it, when you open an email the first thing you think is “how can this benefit me, what does this have to offer me?” Your message must have value. Include a call to action that offers something. Instead of “click here to learn more,” say “click here to start your free trial.”

• Timing. Believe it or not there are good and bad days and times to send email if you want it to get opened. The worst days are, not surprisingly, Saturday and Sunday. Who wants to read email on the weekends unless your sister emailed you photos of your new niece or nephew.

The best days? Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.

• On the go. Perhaps the most important thing you can do to increase the open rates of your marketing emails is to make sure they work on mobile devices. About half of all emails are opened on a mobile device, so if your message looks terrible or won't display correctly you're immediately losing half your audience. Try testing your message before you send it. Check it on tablets and mobile devices. Be sure to check it on Apple and Android devices.

Get more digital marketing advice at www.isjmedia.net

What’s new in social media?

If you feel like you can’t keep up with all the snaps, stages, tweets, boosts, videos, stickers and streams in social media, you’re not alone.  The modifications, features and types of social media literally changes on a daily basis.

So what changed this week? Here is just a snippet:

• Twitter no longer counting certain features against 140-character limit. This is not expected to take effect until September 19, but it has been talked about since May.  Twitter reports that photos, gifs, videos, polls and @names will no longer count toward the character limit. This benefits marketers and businesses by providing enough space to post photos of a product but also say enough about it to make sense. Read more about this change here.

• Instagram gets more business friendly. Instagram already allows promoted content, but now businesses with an Instagram profile can add a “contact” button. The new insights feature will enable businesses to see who is interacting with their content. If a certain post is performing much better than others Instagram will now allow you to turn that post into an ad that you can schedule. Read more about Instagram’s changes here.

• Facebook let’s you create your own canvas. I’m still reading up on this one, but I recently discovered Facebook’s new “Canvas” feature while I was scheduling promotions for the Idaho State Journal’s upcoming Business and Achievement Awards event.  The description I found of this new feature was pretty vague, so I decided to go in and make one.

                    Facebook says that the canvas feature is “a better way to tell your brand story and promote your products on mobile.”

                    Basically, you start with a theme color, which can be white, black or custom, then you pick components to add such as video, photo, photo carousel, button, text block or header. Each component is highly customizable. The font, color, size and background can all be changed in the text component, and the photos can be set to “fit to width,” “tap to expand” or “fit to height,” for example.

                    Each component adds a sort of “slide” to create a slideshow-type design. When a users views a Facebook canvas on his or her mobile device, they open it just as they would a Facebook photo and then swipe up and down to view the canvas.  Here is a photo of one I built just with some random photos I had on my desktop.

                    But the canvases are only viewable on mobile! So you can build it on your desktop but in order to preview and view your canvas you must send it to your mobile device. Go here to learn more about Facebook Canvas.

• Winner, winner, Pinterest bidder! Pinterest now boasts that advertisers will get more bang for their buck now that it offers CPM-based advertising. CPM stands for “Cost Per Thousand.” The “M” is the Roman numeral for 1,000. Why it is not CPT I’ll never know.

            With CPM you only pay for each set of eyeballs that actually see your ad. You set your budget and you’re guaranteed not to go over it. Every time a webpage is opened, ads compete, or bid for the ad space on that page. If your ad has the highest bid it gets the real estate. If your ad is outbid you don’t get charged. Pretty cool, huh?  For more on this new feature click here.

Do you have any social media success stories or features you can’t live without? Let me know at jhopkins@journalnet.com

And find out how ISJ Media can help your business at http://isjmedia.net/