Branding, Marketing, Social Media
In today’s digital marketing world, staying on brand with your marketing can seem overwhelming, but it doesn’t have to be. All it takes is a little planning ahead. Let’s look at a few tips that will help.
- Determine your brand and message. This should be done when setting up your business so this step should be easy!
- Refer to your style guide often to keep your color and logo the same throughout.
- It’s important to have one person creating your social media. Be sure to have your brand voice, tone, and imagery examples available.
- Schedule your posts in advance. This will help you keep on brand because you aren’t rushing trying to decide what to post at the last minute.
- Document your social media process for new hires. Include how and where to find content and images.
- If you have a team, assign one person to approve the content.
- Set your tone and voice and be sure it remains consist on all marketing outlets.
- Have a checklist to keep posts brand focused. Successful digital marketing cannot happen without guidelines.
Each platform handles information differently but if you follow the guidelines you have put in place, your marketing will convey your brand message in a way that will get you noticed!
Contact us should you wish to set up a time to discuss your marketing.
Marketing
This is the long awaited fifth post in the series that I promised several months back. I was so busy working in my business that I didn’t have time to work on my business. But that’s okay because helping clients with their marketing strategy is something I really enjoy!
While this blog series is titled 5 Easy Digital Marketing Steps to Get Your New Business Noticed, there are other marketing techniques to consider that will get you noticed. Let’s look at some of those other ways to market your business.
- In-person networking – When you are networking with other business owners, not only do you get to talk about what you do, you get to listen to what they do also. Listening is extremely important when networking.
- Promotional products – Find a unique promotional product, have your logo and URL printed on it, and share it at networking events and conventions.
- Word of mouth – This is probably the oldest form of marketing and it still works in our technology driven world today. Clients and customers are excited to tell others about the great service or product they have.
- Free samples – Give away samples of your product to influence customers to make a purchase. Be sure order information is included!
- Promotional marketing – This technique uses incentives for customers to buy such as contests, coupons, or free samples.
- Print – While print ads are going the way of newspapers, and you won’t see it listed on many sites as a marketing technique, there are still times when it makes sense. For instance, if you are sponsoring an event and they have a program, it makes sense to buy ad space. If you are a local business, purchase a block of space on the local high school sports calendar. It helps to remind members of the community you are there, and they can shop local.
Think outside the box and combine a few of these methods with your digital marketing. This concludes our series on marketing to get you noticed. Unless you have the budget like Coco-Cola, growing your business could be a slow process. But if you stick to it, set a goal and work towards it, you will make it.
Be sure to follow us on Facebook for other digital marketing tips!
Marketing
Digital marketing includes social media marketing and all the individual networks that go along with it. As a business in today’s world, social media is a “must have”. Let’s look at the number of users you can reach with social media. Expandedramblings.com keeps updated stats on the number of social media users, here are a few of the networks:
- Facebook – 2.01 billion monthly active users
- Instagram – 800 million users
- LinkedIn – 500 million users
- Twitter – 328 million monthly active users
A complete list of networks is available at https://expandedramblings.com/index.php/how-many-people-use-social-media/#.WedhC2hSw2w
Even though social media is a “must have” if you are in business, that doesn’t mean you need to have a profile on every network. The best social network for you is the one where your target audience hangs out and that can vary from business to business. So, do some research to find your people.
Here are a few of the reasons your business needs to be on social media:
- Real-time communication – Customers can communicate freely with you in real-time. Often people will use social media to ask questions or thank you for a great product/service. It could work against you though if you have a disgruntled customer. Just be sure to reply quickly and address each situation individually.
- Brand awareness – By using social media consistently, you can keep your name in the forefront of your customer’s mind. Connecting with them basically on a personal level will keep your customers engaged.
- Promotions – What’s the point of social media if you can’t share new products/services? Share them with your following to help create buzz around your new item, but be careful not to do it in a salesy way, but in a more conversational mode. And be careful not to post constantly about new products or services, just sprinkle those posts in among the posts you are using to build your engagement and following.
- Increased SEO – Each new blog post that is shared on your social media networks helps to attract new customers, build your authority, and helps to increase SEO.
- Web site traffic – Successful social media will improve the traffic to your website. The more traffic you get the better your SEO ranking will be.
If social media seems a little overwhelming, there are many individuals and businesses that can help you get set up and teach you how to use it to your advantage. It will be well worth your time! Schedule your consultation with us if you would like to talk about letting us help you.
Next week we will focus on marketing automation platforms.
CMC&M News
I finally did it! Ever since I started my own business, over 10 years ago, I have regretted not using my own name for my branding. I eventually purchased my name as a domain years ago simply to keep another Carol Mikel from getting it so why not use it? I highly recommend you do it too.
Over the years my business has changed from general admin work to social media management and then to include web design. Now with the addition of digital marketing consulting, I thought it was time to make the change. I have found that one of the things I enjoy the most is helping small businesses get started. I really do find it fun to set up their websites, social media networks, and marketing. Then watching the business grow with a strategy I helped to put in place… well that’s just plain fun.
Now that I am committing more of my time to meet with prospective clients and doing the consulting work, I decided it was officially time to build a team. I needed some help on the actual implementation of the marketing strategies I suggest to clients who want us to handle the marketing for them. I have two wonderful subcontractors in place whom I have worked with off and on over past few years. Both individuals I fully trust to handle anything I ask of them. Having been in this industry for as long as I have, I have come to know many highly-qualified individuals whom I can reach out to for help if needed. It really is a small world after all!
One of the benefits of working with us is that you get a team that can handle just about anything you need. We can cover anything from general admin work to shopping carts and web design. If we don’t know how to do it, we know someone who does.
Another thing that sets us apart from many digital marketing companies is that we do not have set pricing packages. We listen to what it is you need and customize a service package just for you. We are not a “cookie cutter” business and neither are you.
