Finding Focus with Your Marketing – Who are you REALLY selling to?

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Getting laser focused to figure out your exact target market is a process. You need a marketing plan and there are certain things that you should focus on.

Typically people focus on demographics like age, income, location, employees, revenue, etc. However, a we have a better way to figure out your target market with help from services provided by SEO agency experts. Ask yourself, what do my potential clients actually want. From there, it’s much easier to find a campaign and a call to action that will convert for your business.

The purpose of marketing is to help businesses grow efficiently and reach their highest potential for ROI by promoting brands, products and services. Marketing promotions usually focus on boosting content engagement, increasing sales of products and services and growing brand awareness. Marketing and promotions can be traditional, digital or both. Traditional marketing refers to print media, and digital marketing refers to digital media. Two Comma Club award application recognizes businesses that have successfully leveraged digital marketing strategies to achieve significant revenue milestones, highlighting the importance of effective online promotion in today’s business landscape. Businesses awarded with the Two Comma Club recognition often serve as inspirational examples for others striving to excel in the digital marketplace.

Marketing may also use market research and analysis to determine where to target content and analytics—this can help with accurately tracking performance or engagement. For example, completing and analyzing market research may help a company determine where to place promotional ads, and later, marketing and sales analytics can provide information about the effectiveness of those ads. You can also look into software, depending on your company or niche. When a brand uses 3D animations for advertising its products, it exudes a sophisticated and professional image in the market.

When you start having discussions about what your potential client wants, your marketing ideas show themselves. Identify what your client actually WANTS and the rest falls into place. Use promotional products that your customers can use for a long time. Such quality products help keep customers engaged with your brand. For expert guidance on effective lawyer marketing services, click here to explore comprehensive strategies that align with your client’s needs and enhance your brand visibility.

What problem does your organization solve? Answer that question and work backwards from there!

Nurture Marketing Strategies for Marketing Success

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This month, we are going to kick off our Nurture Marketing Series.

We’re going to answer specific questions about how and why you should institute nurture marketing within your organization.

In our marketing process – generate, capture, store, and nurture, we’re going to focus on just the “Nurture” portion of our process.

So, follow us on this 4-part series where Andrew Houglum – the CTO, Dustin Fickbohm – the COO, and me, Granison Shines – the CMO, talk about how Nurture Marketing can help grow your business.

Nurture Marketing involves reaching out to your prospects and clients on a regular basis, touching them via marketing mediums, feeding them the information they need about your business, educating them on various topics regarding your products or services, making them feel good about your business, and building a stronger relationship with them.

You can use any medium you’d like to share this information including, but not limited to: email, video, newsletters, postcards, etc.

In this first video, the boys and I discuss the following:

  1. What Nurture Marketing is…
  2. Steps to organizing your nurture marketing campaign…
  3. How often you should send information…
  4. Which mediums you could use…
  5. Which email format will give you the best results and why…
  6. Plus, more…

The good thing about what we’re talking about is, these are the same ideals we use in our own business.

We don’t believe in not practicing what we preach.  Even when we’re extending our consulting advice to our clients, we’re still singing the same song.

So, tune in on what we’re talking about in this video and let me know if you have any questions.

I can be reached directly at 602 369-8119 or feel free to email me at [email protected].

Here’s how you can tell if a nurture marketing strategy would benefit you and your organization.

Go to – https://directbusinessmarketing.com/vmc/.  There you will find Direct Business Marketing’s Virtual Marketing Consultation.

Inbound Marketing Series – How to Use Social Media As Part of Your Inbound Marketing Strategy

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Inbound Marketing is described as – promoting a company through its blogs, video, eBooks, eNewsletters, Podcasts, case studies, whitepapers, SEO, physical products, social media, and other forms of content marketing which serve to attract interested customers through the different stages of the sales cycle.

Ok – so in this video, the boys and I talk about using social media to further your inbound marketing plan. You can also check Fanexplosion.de website.  In all efforts of being straight to the point and not beating around the bush, I’m going to give you one of the best marketing ideas to get free social media traffic to your website so you can educate them and grow your list at the same time.

Now I do want to add one caveat! Please, please, make sure that your content is entertaining to some degree. Meaning, if it remotely has an entertainment value to it, people will pay attention longer. Hey, we all want to be entertained, right? Anywho, here’s the scoop!

First, create a video or an image post. I personally like video. Remember, if it’s remotely entertaining, it can really get some attention.

Second, when writing the content, only tease the information on which you are speaking. On the social media medium, you only want to whet the appetite so you can send them to the landing page that has more content, or the full range of content.

Third, add a “jump URL” to the actual landing page. This is what I was alluding to in the second point. Here you want them to view the full extent of the content, as well as, get nosy and start snooping around looking at other stuff you have to offer on your website. Believe it or not, if you content is good, they’re going to check out other posts you’ve put up about the subject matter.

Forth, make sure you have a call-to-action (CTA) on “that” landing page somewhere. Take the opportunity to get them to opt-in for some soft or hard offer they can get right away. This way, it’s a win-win for both of your; they get something they want, you offer, and you get something you want, their name and email at the very least.

“Fif” (I know it’s “fifth), and this should go without saying but I’m going to say it anyway, make sure you have a CRM to manage the contacts in the list you’re building. There – I said it!!!

Well, here’s how you can tell if an inbound marketing strategy would benefit you and your organization. Go to – https://directbusinessmarketing.com/vmc/. There you will find Direct Business Marketing’s Virtual Marketing Consultation.

Enjoy the rest of your day!!!

Inbound Marketing Series – 3 Most Effective Mediums You Can Start Using Today

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Inbound Marketing is described as – promoting a company through its blogs, video, eBooks, eNewsletters, Podcasts, case studies, whitepapers, SEO, physical products, social media, and other forms of content marketing which serve to attract interested customers through the different stages of the sales cycle.

In this video, the boys and I talk about which mediums we feel are the most effective.  Obviously, testing in your market is going to be the best judge of character in the long run, but in the short and immediate to spark some movement to get you off the fence, grab something to sip on, and click the play button to watch the video.

I’m sure you’ve heard of the following mediums –

  • eBooks – small, or big, electronic books that are available for immediate download from clients.
  • Online courses – whether they are email, audio, and even video (which I like the best)
  • Analytics

These are some good ones to name a few.  The only issue is, they take quite some time to generate, as well as, for Analytics at least, you have to have the proper systems in place in order for them to be effective.  But what if you’re time limited and want to kick start this Inbound Marketing in high gear.  Well,  here are 3 things that can you do RIGHT NOW in order to get the ball rollin’.

  1. SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

SEO is a good way to immediately start to target local, metro, and national clients.  For SEO Local, you’ll hear Dustin talk about setting you up with all of the appropriate online profiles.  If you have a brick and mortar business, you really should have this going for you – like now!!!  This involves getting you set up on Google+, Yelp, Merchant Circle, and several others.

  1. Value- based blogging

Blogging is one that I like that is under-rated if you ask me.  More organizations should do it on a regular basis.  This could include:

  1. Text blog
  2. Video Blog
  3. Audio Blog
  4. And the best one – A mix of all 3.

Obviously, text blogging includes words on your website / blog.  This should be done with your focused keywords in mind and use sporadically and strategically throughout your content.

Video blogging entails you, or someone, sitting in front of a video camera and shootin’ the breeze over a video.  You can also use narrative style videos also where it may just be a voice, or one of my favorites, using animation videos to deliver your message.  Either way, video is a powerful medium and should be included in your inbound marketing strategy.

Audio blogs can include your podcast or any other audio content.  Allowing your website visitors to download your mp3 right quick is a good way to get leads converted to paying clients.

Finally, eMail Marketing

eMail marketing is still a good way to go.  Especially, when you factor in the aspect that most of your target market can get to their emails from their smart phones and tables now is on point.  Every time we meet with a client, we tell them that the big target device that you have to get to now are tablets (or phablets) and smart phones.  Truth is, these little devices are married to the hands of most of the people whom they are targeting.

So there you have it, 3 mediums we feel you should start using right now to beef up your inbound marketing campaign.  Anything less, and you’d be shooting yourself in the foot and limping along to a successful marketing campaign.

Here’s how you can tell if an inbound marketing strategy would benefit you and your organization.  Go to – https://directbusinessmarketing.com/vmc/.  There you will find Direct Business Marketing’s Virtual Marketing Consultation.

Enjoy!

Inbound Marketing Series – Why This Is A Good Marketing Strategy For Small Businesses

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Inbound Marketing is described as – promoting a company through its blogs, video, eBooks, eNewsletters, Podcasts, case studies, whitepapers, SEO, physical products, social media, and other forms of content marketing which serve to attract interested customers through the different stages of the sales cycle.

Typically, the top brass at Direct Business Marketing enjoys making videos and sharing those videos on their company’s blog, as well as, social media. It’s been proven to get the best results for them as part of their content marketing strategy. However, this may not be entirely true for you depending on how your audience likes to receive their information.

Other content marketing pieces for a complete inbound marketing strategy include the use of longer video formats such as webinars. About once a quarter, the team will schedule a webinar that is typically 45 to 60 minutes. This allows the team to expound on a subject for a longer duration, therefore, delivering even more juicy content.

There’re a lot of buzz going on right now in the area of inbound marketing. And if you’ve had your ear to the ground, you’d find that inbound marketing, or even content-driven marketing, can do wonders for any small business. The big hang-up most small businesses are having is what to write about on a continual basis.

In this video, Andrew, Dustin, and Granison discuss some of the top-level particulars of inbound marketing. Information like:

  1. The definition of inbound marketing
  2. What’s the first things businesses should do after determining this is the marketing strategy they’d like to deploy
  3. How to discover if Inbound Marketing is for you
  4. And other facts…

Here’s how you can tell if an inbound marketing strategy would benefit you and your organization. Go to – https://directbusinessmarketing.com/vmc/. There you will find Direct Business Marketing’s Virtual Marketing Consultation.

Am I Indexed? How to See Your Pages

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Hello, my name is Andrew Houglum with Direct Business Marketing and today we are going to do a screen capture video on how to check to see if your site is indexed by Google. Google has a number of keyword codes that you can use in the search bar and it will return specific results. For example, to see how many pages are indexed, you can you click the word site and then a colon and then your domain without any www’s in front of it. So this is a domain that we have owned for a while but we haven’t really done anything with as of yet. It is Business Marketing TV.com. So as you can see there are no pages indexed for that domain. Here is another search for a domain for a client that we created. It is a free mlssearch.com. As you can see there are about 36,000 pages indexed by Google and they are all listed here. Another thing you can do with this is You can put a key word after this for example Scottsdale and see all the pages that are indexed under the Scottsdale keyword for my website. So it’s kind of a handy trick you can use in Google to check out how many pages you have indexed. So that’s it for today. Here is my contact information: 602-571-5803, and my email is [email protected]. I wanted to direct you to our marketing assessment. Go directly to https://directbusinessmarketing.com/MA for marketing assessment. Download it today.

Research Your Keywords To Find Your Customer Base Online

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Today I wanted to share some basic information on getting started with choosing the right search keywords for your service or product. Utilizing search engines can be a huge help to driving leads and traffic to your website if done correctly.

In order to make this successful it is important to do some research on what keywords will work best for you. This can easily be attained by using the Google keyword tool to find out how often keywords that pertain to your product or service are searched. Simply go to Google and search Google Keyword Tool. This tool can give you search results for the entire globe or just the United States and is a great research tool. When starting your research I would suggest using very common or general terms that match your product or service to get started. Once you have researched a handful of these general terms you can add locations or the names of people to your keyword to focus your research to key terms. The Google Keyword Tool will allow you to sort through all of these results and find the information you are looking for. Just by browsing around on this tool will give you a good idea of what people, whether in your town or across the globe, or most commonly searching for. It is also important to remember that Google localizes your search to where it thinks you are. So it is not always important to have your location included in the keyword in order to be successful.

Make sure you are utilizing this keyword research any time you blog or create content for your websites. For more information on building your brand and attracting customers, we suggest visiting https://www.qualtrics.com/experience-management/brand/brand-tracking-guide/.

QR Codes – When to Use Them

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Hello, my name is Andrew Houglum, with Direct Business Marketing and today we are going to talk about a topic that annoys me. It is QR codes. QR codes are the little squares with the little boxes and you can use your cell phone and point it at the boxes and it will jump you right to a website. QR actually stands for Quick Response Code. Today we are going to talk about when to use them.

I might end up going off on my soap box here because I see them used wrong so many times. When should you use them? You should use them on print materials only. Don’t put it in the signature of your email. Why is that? A click on the link in the signature of the email is so much easier. I already have my mouse, I am already in your email, and you might as well give me a link instead of a QR code. If you’re thinking I’m going to get out my cell phone and point it at the screen to go to a website when at one instant I can click on my mouse. Don’t put it on your website. QR codes are intended for mobile use with your smart phone so that you can point at the QR code and jump to that specific website for more information. Another helpful tip for QR codes is, don’t link it to your home page. You know where the QR code is being used and what specific instance it’s being used. Most of our home pages are appealing to many different types of people for many different products and services that we are selling. For example on our website we talk about real estate marketing, we talk about SEO, we talk about print marketing, and we talk about all different topics. If I was using a print ad, I would know where they want to go and send them to a landing page. I want to send them to a landing page so I can capture their information. Again, use the QR codes properly. Don’t use them digitally on a signature of your email, it doesn’t make any sense. I can just click on a link rather than get out my cell phone to use it. Again, my name is Andrew Houglum with Direct Business Marketing and my phone number is 602-571-5803. My email address is [email protected]. I want to draw your attention to our marketing assessment. Go to DirectBusinessMarketing.com/ma for marketing assessment. You can download it today. Thanks and have a great day.

Use Auto Transcription For Your Video Marketing

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Why it’s important to take advantage of video marketing auto transcription; hello again and welcome to our Get Direct live marketing webinar, I am Andrew Houglum with Direct Business Marketing. Today I would like to talk to you about something that not many people know about, the concept that YouTube auto transcribes all of your videos. There is actually a button underneath your video on YouTube where you can look at the transcription that takes place.YouTube uses this auto transcription, so you not need a spanish transcriber to help them figure out what your video is about and potentially can help your video show up for a number of different search phrases.

What we found in our testing is that it really helps to utilize this and enunciate, especially in the first couple seconds of the video. It is important to plainly say what the video is about and enunciate it well. For example, this video is about using auto transcription for your video marketing; so if you noticed, I said these phrases and keywords right at the beginning of this video. Again, this is just a quick tip to help you utilize the auto transcription feature that is on YouTube and to make your video marketing campaign do more for you and your business.

I’d really like to encourage you to go to https://directbusinessmarketing.com/ma to download our free Marketing Assessment today. We’ve developed this Marketing Assessment to help business owners, such as yourself, determine which types of marketing mediums are best for their business and customer type. We provide all of the services that are listed on our Marketing Assessment, so if you have further questions, please feel free to contact me at 602.571.5803 or [email protected]. Hopefully we’ll see you again next Wednesday at 10am PST for the next video segment in our Get Direct marketing webinars. Thanks again for joining me and have a great day.

Target Keywords using the Google Keyword Tool and Marketing Assessment

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Hello, my name is Andrew Houglum with Direct Business Marketing and today I would like to talk about something which is pretty important in your business which is keywords on your website and specifically the Google keyword tool. If you actually go to Google and type in “Google keyword tool”, the first entry you will get is called the Google Keyword Tool. This is a tool that will help you figure out what people are typing into Google. So this is a way that you can really find keywords that you need to focus on for your content for your metatags, for your title tags and all those kinds of things.

This is a simple way to find the keywords people are typing into Google using the Google keyword tool and making sure those keywords are on your website. It is an important step and it is something worth mentioning. It is also something that sometimes falls by the wayside because it is such a basic thing so we just wanted to bring it forth today. Here is my contact information, you can reach me at 602-571-5803 or you can email me at [email protected]. I also wanted to draw your attention to our marketing assessment. You can download that at DirectBusinessMarketing.com/ma for marketing assessment. It is a great tool to get started with your business and figure out where you should be marketing and where you should start. It will ask you some specific questions that need to be answered for your business. Thanks a lot and I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Off-Page SEO Can Be A Great Tool If Utilized Correctly

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Hello everyone Andrew Houglum here with Direct Business Marketing talking with you today about the importance of using off-page search engine optimization tools. Today we are going to talk about a couple of off-page SEO pages that can be a great form of advertising for your business. When I use the term off-page I am referring to something that is not on your actual website but other directory or specialized websites.

There are numerous places to find your business throughout the internet using off-page SEO but today I wanted to focus on a couple that I find work the best for a business. The first one is Google Places and it can be found easily by searching for your business on Google Maps. Once you have located your business on Google Maps you can claim that location on their map in order to control the data and information that is associated with it. The next option is a website called Yelp. Stop by Yelp.com to claim your business or create a profile for your business if one does not already exist. Yelp is a website used by consumers to post pictures and reviews of your business so keeping your information accurate is very important. When using both Google Places and Yelp it is important to encourage your happy customers to post comments and reviews to boost your business profile.

These are just two of the many off-page SEO options you can find online that can be a great asset if your information is up to date and accurate. Once again my name is Andrew Houglum with Direct Business Marketing please contact me with any questions about developing your marketing strategy. Also, make sure to download my Marketing Assesment tool from my website to get a good understanding of how to development your marketing strategy. Thank you for your time and I look forward to speaking with you soon.

On-Page SEO: Titles and Descriptions

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Hello my name is Andrew Houglum, the chief technical officer of Direct Business Marketing. Today we are going to talk about two on-page or on your actual website SEO things that you need to be aware of. The first one is called title tag and this is in actual code of your site. your title can be seen at the top of your browser and you need to make sure that it has some key words in it. for example some people in their title tags they just have their business name. Well your business name a lot of times doesn’t actually have key words like for example, say my business is McDonald’s. If I just have McDonald’s in my title tag that doesn’t tell me that McDonald;s is a restaurant or that they serve hamburgers and those types of things.

Also in the code there is a meta tag called description and I’m not going to go into too much detail you can google it. The description tag is important so you need to make sure that there is a nice solid couple of sentences in the description meta tag for each of the pages of your website. Finally just to dispose of any myths there is also a meta tag called keywords. You can completely ignore that. Google has published many, many times and for many years totally ignores the keyword tag so you can ignore that as well. That’s basically what I wanted to cover today. Take a look at your title tags and your description tags for your website. Here’s my contact information. My name is Andrew Houglum and my phone number is 602-571-5803. I also want to bring your attention to our marketing assessment. Go to DirectBusinessMarketing.com/MA and you can download it there. It’s a great tool to double check your business and make sure you are marketing where you need to be. Thanks and I’ll talk to you soon.