Social Media: Have a Plan and Marketing Assessment

/0 Comments/in , , , /by

Hello this is Granison Shines with Direct Business Marketing, Chief marketing officer here. Today we wanted to talk about social media and you having a plan. These are two major points I want to make here is to one, not dive into social media without having a plan. You must have a plan, don’t just randomly post content. Let there be a rhyme to the reason. Make sure that every piece of information you put out there is trickling them down the rabbit hole to the end goal which is eventually purchasing your product or service. However you want to do this, you have to make sure you have completely outlying plan to make sure your social media campaign is effective and making sure you get the results that you desire. Point number two that I want to make is focus on the goal. The goal is to get a like or a comment and continuously put information in front of your audience so that you can give them the right information that will again, lead them down the rabbit hole so they can engage in your product or service. That’s the end goal, so let’s stay focused on what we are talking about with social media and making sure we have a plan and then focus on the goal. Run as fast as you can towards the goal that makes sense for your audience. Again, this is Granison Shines and 602-369-8119 is my number. You can also email me at [email protected] and I would be happy to answer any questions you may have. Don’t forget to download our free marketing assessment at DirectBusinessMarketing.com/ma for marketing assessment. We’ll be talking to you soon, thanks and have a great day.

Using Social Media Marketing? Let Your Personality Show!

/0 Comments/in , , , /by

Hello this is Granison Shines, Chief Marketing Officer here at Direct Business Marketing and today we’re going to talk about social media marketing. I would like to make a few different points about this with a major one being to be social. When we talk about social media, you want to make sure you are personal; it’s called social media for a reason. Make sure you’re social with the community that you are targeting and wanting to generate leads and sales from; you want to engage with this community on a personal level, not always on a business level. Point number two is to use your personality; let your personality flourish and come out when you’re writing and posting content. Make sure that you’re having your personality come across the internet in the social media sites that you’re using for your social media marketing campaigns.

Again, my name is Granison Shines with Direct Business Marketing. If you’d like to contact me you can call me at 602.369.8119 or email me at [email protected]. I’d also like to call your attention to our free marketing assessment located on our website at https://directbusinessmarketing.com/ma. If you download this great tool it can help you determine which types of marketing strategies are best for your business type and customer base. We offer services such as website creation, mobile optimization, eCommerce, PPC campaigns and offline marketing materials. On our marketing assessment you can also find out more about our nine marketing truths that we apply to every marketing campaign that we undertake. We have proven success when using these marketing truths and we’d like to share them with you. Again, thanks for joining me today. I look forward to seeing you next Wednesday, and every Wednesday, for another segment of our Get Direct live webinar series.

Understanding The Importance Of Bridging The Search/Offer Gap

/0 Comments/in , , , /by

Hello there this is Granison Shines, chief marketing officer with Direct Business Marketing, thank you for your time today. Today I wanted to talk with you about an important part of properly utilizing your websites found through search engines. Whether through an organic online search or a suggested result it is important to bridge the search or offer gap to best capture your audience.

When you have clients who have prospects found through a search engine we want to make sure we bridge this gap between the search engine and the product. The two major parts of this is finding out what your customer base wants and second making sure we provide that in the best possible format. Whatever is being entered in to the search engine is the main focus of your customer and therefore needs to be readily available. Whether your product is found through an organic search or a paid advertisement it is important that we follow through when they land on your webpage. Simply put, the information that was originally searched for needs to be easily viewed in the best possible format. Nothing will throw off potential customers faster than a confusing website that is not directly related to their original product search. In order for SEO to be an important part of your marketing strategy these two simple steps must be followed in order to drive quality traffic to your site.

If you have any questions on the value of SEO marketing to your business please e-mail or give me a call today. Whether you are developing a new business or just revamping your marketing strategy Direct Business Marketing wants to help your customer base find you fast. Once again this is Granison Shines, thank you for your time and I hope you have a great day.

Target Keywords using the Google Keyword Tool and Marketing Assessment

/0 Comments/in , , /by

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

/0 Comments/in , , , /by

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

/0 Comments/in , , /by

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.

Your Call To Action: What’s In It For Your Customer?

/0 Comments/in , , , /by

Hello again, my name is Granison Shines at Direct Business Marketing. Thanks for coming to our Get Direct live webinar series where today we are going to continue our conversation about your call to action. One of the main questions you want to address that the client is asking themself is, “What’s in it for me?”

Let’s go through three points that I really want to emphasize about your call to action. One, your client is asking, “What is in it for me?” They’re not going to give you the exchange of their name and email address so you can convert them from a prospect to a lead until they answer that question for themself. When you take that into consideration, you also want to consider that a call to action should give or should have some value to the client or prospect; all they care about is what they’re going to get out of it. If you really want to make it valuable to the client give them some really good information, something tangible. Third, can they use this today or right away? It has more value or more weight if they can answer this question right away and know if it’s valuable to them.

Again, I am Granison Shines with Direct Business Marketing. Please feel free to contact me at 602.369.8119 or [email protected]. I would like to remind you to join us every Wednesday for our Get Direct live webinar series where we provide you with information relevant to running a successful marketing campaign for your business. Please also feel free to download our marketing assessment from htto://DirectBusinessMarketing.com/ma. Our marketing assessment will ask you a simple series of questions to help you determine which types of marketing you should use in regards to your business and customer base.

Make Your Call To Action Obvious On Your Marketing Website

/0 Comments/in , , /by

Hello this is Granison Shines, Chief Marketing Officer here at Direct Business Marketing. Today we’re going to make our marketing video short and sweet. When it comes to a lot of our client’s websites, or any other website for that matter, we’re often left wondering where their call to action is. The main point I want to talk about today is your call to action.

There are a couple of points I want to make about your call to action. First of all, every website should have one and every marketing team should have a call to action, but what you don’t want to do is bury the call to action. You want to make your call to action so obvious that it’s very apparent what you want your prospect to do. Remember, you want to convert your prospect to a lead and the quickest way to do that is let them know what the call to action is and how they can participate in it; basically, where to call or click on your website or whatever else your call to action states. Make it very obvious and apparent, but do not bury your call to action.

Again, my name is Granison Shines with Direct Business Marketing. I’d like to invite you to join us every Wednesday at 10am PST for our Get Direct live marketing webinars. Each week we cover an important topic in regards to successfully marketing your business. You can also check out our Marketing Assessment Questionnaire at DirectBusinessMarketing.com/ma to help you determine what type of marketing plan is best for your business and which avenues will work for you. Thanks again for joining me today and I look forward to seeing you next week on our Get Direct live webinar.

Utilizing Google Keyword Tool To Target New Customers

/0 Comments/in , , , /by

Hello and welcome to Direct Business Marketing’s Get Direct live webinar series. Thanks for joining me again today for another helpful video on how to better the marketing plan of your business. Today we’re going to talk about a simple trick to ensure all of your blog posts are as targeted as possible.

I was actually talking to a client the other day that asked about Google analytics and looking at the stats of their website to see what they should blog about. This is actually the opposite of what you want to do. Google analytics are great to see who’s coming to your site, where they’re coming from and how you can improve user experience on your website. What you want to do with new content is grab new people, people who are searching for things that aren’t already driving them to your site.

A great tool to do that is called the Google Keyword Tool. You can use this tool to search around and find what people are searching on. I would encourage you to use it, find what people are searching on in your business and use those search phrases to target them in the titles and body content of your blog posts. Of course, if you’re not blogging, you should be to give a great user experience, to showcase your expertise and drive more business to your site.

Again, I’m Andrew Houglum and here’s my contact information; you can reach me via telephone at 602.571.5803 or send me an email at [email protected]. I’d encourage you to go to our website, DirectBusinessMarketing.com/ma, and download our marketing assessment to start advancing your business marketing today. Thank you again for joining me and I look forward to seeing you next week for our continuing Get Direct live webinar marketing series.

Don’t Forget The Link!

/0 Comments/in , /by

Hello my name is Andrew Houglum with Direct Business Marketing and today we’re going to talk about a quick little tip that I don’t see some people doing when they upload marketing videos to YouTube, so I just want this to be a reminder. When you’re uploading your marketing videos to YouTube, this is something you should be doing on a regular basis, make sure in the description of your video you’re putting a link to your call to action. When you copy and paste your link to your call to action, make sure it has the http:// at the beginning; so, for example, instead of just putting DirectBusinessMarketing.com you should put https://directbusinessmarketing.com that way you can have a full URL. We’ve done many other video webinars talking about the power of YouTube, the power of video and search convergence.

Again, don’t forget to put a link to your call to action and when you put your links in don’t forget to put the http:// at the beginning of the link. Here’s my contact information, again my name is Andrew Houglum with Direct Business Marketing. You can reach me via email at [email protected] or give me a call at 602.571.5803. I would also like to remind you to join us every Wednesday at 10am PST for our Get Direct Webinars where we talk about different aspects of marketing and tips on how to make your marketing plan work better for your business. One last thing, to get your free marketing assessment document and questionnaire check out https://directbusinessmarketing.com/ma. This is a quick and easy questionnaire that will help you determine what the best types of marketing are for your specific business. Again, thank you for joining me today and I look forward to seeing you next week at our Get Direct marketing webinar.

Successful Facebook Marketing: Have Your Business Profile Page Completed

/0 Comments/in , , /by

Good morning; today we’re going to continue our conversation on Facebook marketing screwups. It’s going to be very important that you watch all of these videos because we’re doing this complete series and we’ll be adding supplementary videos in addition to our Wednesday webinars so we can hone in on some other topics, such as strategy.

Today we’re going to talk about having an incomplete business profile. You need to ensure that you have this complete. Why? Because I promise that if you like our page, we’ll like your page. Through this, however, we’ve noticed that a lot of these business profiles are incomplete. I want to address this issue and tell you to be committed to your business profile page.

To recap last week, it’s all about getting your friend’s friends to see what your content is by getting your friends to like or comment on your content. Why are we talking about your business profile? Because you have to have it completed because they’re going to get nosy and look at other things about your business. You want to have a few different things apparent: your cover photo with information about your business. For ours it’s sometimes information about our marketing webinars or a photo of myself or someone else. This photo should change when you have specific events coming up. The profile photo should be your business logo. It’s all about branding on Facebook so you want to make sure that you have your page sufficiently branded with your business information and logo. Remember people are going to potentially be going to your page from their smart phone, so you need to ensure it’s going to look nice even on a smaller device. Also complete your basic information such as when your business started, your URL, what your product and services are; you want to ensure you have all of this information complete otherwise you may be seen as a fly-by-night business.

If you have further questions you can contact us directly via telephone or email. Also don’t forget to download our marketing assessment questionnaire at DirectBusinessMarketing.com/ma to determine what your business’s marketing needs are.

Marketing Truths: Using Video In Your Marketing Plan Can Mean Victory For Your Business

/0 Comments/in , , , , /by

Welcome to another marketing truth video where today we’re going to talk about video and why it’s so important in your online marketing plan. To see all of our marketing truths, go to our website, www.DirectBusinessMarketing.com/webinars, and check out the archive of our marketing truths.

There are a few reasons why you should implement using video into your business’ marketing plan. The first reason is simply because people love to watch video. How do we know this? Movies are viewed by billions of people every year and YouTube is one of the most viewed websites on the planet. People like to watch video about all kinds of things and typically people would prefer to watch a video of something rather than read a book. This isn’t the case for everyone as some people do enjoy reading books over watching a video but there’s so much more communication that happens through video as opposed to just reading text on a page. In this webinar, for example, you can see my body language, how I look and there’s much more communication that happens through my tonal and facial expressions.

Second of all, people buy from other people that they know, like and trust, specifically in service based industries. People buy from people because it’s a relationship world out there; video marketing helps to facilitate that relationship.

Third, video allows you to showcase your expertise, especially if in your industry there might be some complicated concepts that may need explanation or just talking about your industry in general. Video allows you to showcase that expertise, to talk about what you do and allows the potential client on the other end to see your passion about what you do.

A fourth reason for leveraging video in your marketing has more to do with a SEO reason, the video show in the search results. As part of the results in Yahoo or Google you see some video options for you to look at. This is known as search convergence, it’s all the search items coming together. Using video is an SEO technique and a way to move your content up in the search engines without actually moving your webpage up.

Again, if you’re not using video in your marketing, especially if you’re a service based business, you should definitely be implementing video into your business’ marketing plan. We also have a few things on our website that I would like to bring your attention. First we have our marketing assessment; it’s basically a document you can fill out to help you determine where you should be marketing and help you build a marketing shell for your business. You can find this at https://directbusinessmarketing.com/ma. I’d also like to remind you that every Wednesday at 10am PST we do these marketing minutes where we talk about marketing items and get some good information out to you.