But firstly, here are some key stats to quickly point out regarding video marketing. The numbers don’t lie. According to Social Media Today:

 72% of consumers prefer to watch a video to learn about a product or service.

 78% of consumers watch a video online at least once a week, and 55% do so once a day.

 Viewers retain 95% of a video’s message after watching it.

 93% of business retain a new customer when they post a video on social media.

 Companies that use video in their marketing experience 49% faster growth than companies that don’t use video.

I’m hoping you find the above-mentioned statistics impressive indeed.

Video is actually easier and more affordable to produce now than ever before. And here are five video marketing types that you can easily apply to effectively grow your business and brand awareness – and as a result achieve very healthy sales:

(1) Testimonial Videos

Customer reviews are important in all industries, but a testimonial from a real customer can carry far more weight than an ordinary review.

Testimonials tend to consist of more detailed information than reviews. They give you an opportunity to highlight the specific things you did for a customer and the specific ways they benefited from your product or service. You can also encourage customers who provide testimonials to talk about their experience with your company, including customer service and tech support.

In other words, testimonial videos provide potential leads with a detailed look at the customer experience at your company – and they can help to overcome many of the most common objections from people who may be considering spending money with your business, so you can make more sales.

(2) Product and Service Demo Videos

People need to understand how a product or service works – and how they will benefit from it – before spending their money on it. I don’t think I need to explain why because I’m sure you feel that way too. If you don’t grasp the significance of a product/service or how it can be helpful to you, then you are not going to be spending your money on it.

Hence, demo videos are a cornerstone of any effective video marketing strategy. Product demo videos are straightforward, but here are some things to keep in mind:

 If the product requires assembly, include a demonstration in the video

 Show the most common uses for the product

 If there are alternate uses, include those too

 Consider adding some instructions about caring for or cleaning the product

If you sell a service, the rules are slightly different. Your video should include:

 An overview of the service

 A step-by-step review of what the service includes

 A service walk-through to let your target market know exactly what they will be getting if they spend money on your service.

Demo videos should be posted on your website as close to the point of sales as possible. You may also want to put them on a dedicated landing page, your blog and your social media pages.

(3) Brand Story Videos

What is the story of your brand? Today’s consumers want to identify with the brands they support. You can help them identify with you by sharing a customer-centric brand story that lets them visualise how you can be helpful to them with what you offer as a business.

In other words, you are not telling your origin story so much as you are telling the customer’s journey in such a way that is entertaining and compelling. This has really become an increasingly popular kind of marketing tactic these days.

When creating a brand story video, your job is to make your customer – that is the person watching the video into the hero. To do that, you will need to:

 Identify the most common problems you solve

 Create a story arc to show how your product or service solves the problem

 Encourage the viewer to see themselves in whatever success story you are presenting

Another way of looking at this kind of video is as a pre-testimonial that is sort of a fictionalised version of what a customer’s life could look like if they purchase your product or use your service.

(4) Personalised Sales Videos

This idea won’t work for all types of businesses, but it provides a way to hook potential new leads rather than to just send a lead a generic one-size-fits-all video, you can send them something personalised that would make them feel like it is something especially just for them.

Personalised sales videos should:

 Address the prospect by their name.

 Point out the specific ways your product or service can be helpful to them.

 Include information that will help the prospect overcome any objections they might have in terms of buying your product or using your service.

Bear in mind that this type of video does not need to have massive production value. It should feel like you or your sales person is directly speaking to the prospect, giving them valuable information that will help them understand the benefits of doing business with you.

The message that a personalised sales video sends is that you care deeply about your customers. If you are willing to produce a personalised video before a prospect is even a customer, it gives them the feeling and impression that you will be providing a high standard of customer service after they spend money with your business.

(5) Frequently Asked Questions Videos

It is fair to say that we all know about FAQ, right? It’s the section on every website where customers’ most common questions are asked and answered. Nowadays, they are also a great way to improve your SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) to gain visibility in the internet search results, as questions and voice search go hand in hand like milk and cookies go together.

Every question does not need to be answered at once when it comes to FAQ videos. Instead, you should consider doing a series of short videos that answer one question or several related ones in an entertaining way.

You can be creative with this type of video. For instance you could do a whiteboard video or even an animated video illustrating the answer to your FAQs. There is no reason that an informational video cannot also be entertaining.

Conclusion

It is safe to say that video marketing is not going anywhere. You can definitely put videos together these days without spending a lot of money and once you have created a video you can post it anywhere you post content online including your website, blog and social media business pages as a way to effectively be growing your business and brand awareness – which therefore will of course help bring you great sales.

Surely, if you try the above five methods, you can mix them up with cool video technology like virtual reality or live video. Your focus should always be on producing the type of video marketing or web video content that is most likely to convert new leads into paying customers.

To find out about our Online Marketing Services that we are providing to help local businesses move forward, simply visit our services website via the link below.

The post Five Video Marketing Types to Grow Your Business And Brand appeared first on Market Business Online.

In fact, the numbers back up the importance of content marketing. Research shows that 91% of all B2B companies use content marketing, and the same is true of 86% of B2C businesses. However, only 63% of companies have a dedicated content strategy.

You can see the issue at hand. Content marketing online is a must and yet doing it improperly – without a clear focus and without effective strategies – can result in a huge waste of time, money and effort.

Here are 8 types of great content marketing that you can implement as strategies to effectively grow your business:

#1: Blog Posts

Blog posts are hardly revolutionary in the world of content marketing, yet a lot of local businesses don’t do or have never done any blogging. Those who do reap rewards:

 Companies that blog get 97% more links to their websites than companies that don’t
 Companies with blogs have a 434% higher chance of receiving a high Google rank compared to companies without blogs
 10% of blog posts are compounding, which means that they attract more organic traffic over time

For best results, keep your blog posts tightly focused. Keyword-optimise them for localised online searches in order to be found in the internet search engine result pages and make sure to use a clear, easy-to-follow structure in each post you publish.

#2: Customer Testimonials

You probably already know that within the local business space, customer reviews and testimonials are essential forms of social proof to use in your online marketing. However, if you handle them properly, they can also be part of your content marketing strategies.

Using customer testimonials as part of your content marketing is truly results driven.

Why not consider shooting video testimonials that tell a compelling story and give people a reason to spend money on your product or use your service. Video testimonials can for instance be posted on your website, emailed to your list or shared on social media.

#3: Infographics

Many local businesses don’t bother with infographics and that’s a shame. They are increasingly popular these days and perfect should you need to present a lot of data in a way that is easy to understand.

In case you might be thinking you need to hire a professional graphic designer to make infographics for you, that is not true. Online tools like Canva and Venngage make it simple to produce beautiful, shareable infographics.

Infographics can help you build authority and gravitas. They are ideal for sharing on social media platforms such as Pinterest, Instagram, and Facebook. If you have posted a data-heavy blog recently, consider transforming it into an infographic to share on social media.

#4: Case Studies

The term “case study” can be an intimidating one but think of them as in-depth customer testimonials. A testimonial will usually focus on how the customer feels about your business. A case study on the other hand shows how you or your product helped a customer.

Should you decide using case studies in your content marketing, make sure to:

 Tell a compelling story in an engaging way. Incorporating some suspense and emotion into the story will keep people interested and ensure they stick around until the end.
 Be as specific as possible. Don’t just say for example that you helped a customer get what they wanted – provide metrics, proof and numbers wherever this is possible.
 Show your customer’s journey from start to finish. Make sure to explain where they started, why they came searching for you, and what happened after they found you.

Case studies can be featured on your website. They can also be shared on social media.

#5: Online Videos

Online video marketing is still very popular. You can produce videos cheaply using your cell phone and a host of free online tools.

Videos are proven to highly boost conversions.

However, you don’t need to stop with traditional marketing videos. Here are some ideas:

 Create short videos (3 to 60 seconds) to share on Instagram
 Use the Boomerang app to string together a series of images into a short video
 Create GIFs using free tools such as Giphy or EZGif
 Try an animated or white board video

As there are many types of video formats, feel free to experiment and find out what resonates best with your target market.

#6: Memes

Memes are perennially popular and can be useful as a form of content marketing – but there are a few drawbacks you should be aware of.

It is not a great idea to share random memes that have absolutely nothing to do with your own business. Instead, it is your job to discover a way to take a meme that is popular and make it relevant to what you are selling as a business.

If you are unsure how to use memes, view the social media pages of Hulu. They use memes as part of their published contents, and very effectively. You can also do a search on the internet to find some sample memes and check out what your competitors are doing.

#7: Checklists or Cheat Sheets

Actionable solutions to common problems is something associated with some of the best content marketing. People don’t follow their favourite brands on social media for fun. They do it because they are expecting to get something in return.

Creating checklists for followers is another powerful form of content marketing.

One easy way of providing it is by creating checklists or cheat sheets for your followers to use. For instance, if you own a coffee shop, you could create a checklist for your followers to brew the perfect French Press coffee.

You can keep the checklists you create simple or design them to be downloaded and printed. Either way, you will be giving your followers something valuable.

#8: eBooks

It can seem like a daunting task writing an eBook and for that reason, a lot of local businesses stay away from them. However, a well-written short eBook can help you attract new subscribers to your customer list (such as your email customer list) and at the same time build authority.

Bear in mind that many of the eBooks sold on Amazon consist of 10,000 words or less. That amounts to about 40 pages of content at 250 words per page. You have the option to write the book yourself or hire a professional writer to do it for you.

Keep in mind that your eBook must be relevant to your business and very valuable to the target audience you want to attract. eBooks are best used as lead magnets. You can for instance advertise them on social media to get people to download them for free and in the process subscribe to your customer list (e.g. your email customer list). You will then be able to ethically be emailing your list periodically in the future with valuable new contents and exclusive special offers that drive in more sales revenue.

Conclusion…

The bottom line is content marketing is here to stay – and the 8 kinds of content marketing described here can really help you build followers and increase your sales and profits at the same time.

To find out about our Online Marketing Services that we are providing to help local businesses grow, visit our services website through the link here.

The post 8 Excellent Kinds of Content Marketing for Local Businesses appeared first on Market Business Online.

Those businesses even tend to overlook email marketing altogether, which is a big mistake, considering it is really effective.

One part of the problem is that the businesses who do email marketing – don’t do it well. They don’t know how to write or create emails in the right way to achieve great success. Think about the recent emails in your inbox from businesses, and think about how many you were excited to open.

The reality is that most businesses just don’t do well when it comes to producing effective emails. Rather than using this medium to connect and engage with the customer, they instead focus on milking them for money. This tends to lead to those emails ending up in the Spam folder, or with recipients choosing to unsubscribe.

Assuming you constantly send out “mediocre at best” emails, then the reality is that your subscription list is essentially worthless. It will only get worse if you don’t change your email tactics.

According to research, emails are potentially 40 times more likely to convert than social media campaigns, but only if the emails are focused and engaging.

To be told that your email marketing stinks may not be an easy pill to swallow, but the good news is we are going to reveal 5 major tips on how to write or create emails and achieve amazing success through email marketing.

To write or create emails successfully, let’s now go through 5 major tips:

Tip #1: Deliver a Killer Subject Line

Making the email body to be as engaging as possible is great – but it’s all for nothing if you don’t give any thought to the subject line.

It’s the subject line that serves as the first impression to the email recipient, so it’s critical to come up with something that is exciting and compels people into opening your email. The email subject line should speak directly to the recipient and give them an idea on what’s inside and should appear as if it’s in their best interest to open the email.

Here are some recommendations to use:

• Short Subject Lines are Best: Ideally, a good subject line is around 6-10 words long. You can deliver a big punch without getting too wordy.
• Address a Current Problem: Email recipients are more likely to click and open subject lines that address an issue they are currently facing. For example, assuming you are trying to sell marketing services, you might use a subject line such as: “5 Ways to Improve Your Marketing Skills Starting Today.”

Wordstream is a highly effective tool to have in your marketing arsenal, and they offer 9 different subject line options that will help you achieve the results you desire:

1. The Simple, Straight to the Point Email Subject Line – Something like, “Your Order is Being Processed Now.”
2. The Humorous Email Subject Line – For example, “Deals That Make Us Proud (Unlike Our Nephew, Steve)”
3. The Controversial Email Subject Line – For example, “Why Your Teenager Knows More About Social Media Than Your CMO.”
4. The Single Word Subject Line – For example, “Hi”
5. The Numbered List Subject Line – For example, “3 Reasons You Should Schedule Your Consultation Today”
6. The Personalised Subject Line – For example, “David, Great Dining Deals Available Close to Home!”
7. The Question or Punctuation-Heavy Subject Line – For example, “Last Chance! Do You Want to Save 50% Today?”
8. The Scarcity Subject Line – For example, “Ends Today! Get in now Before all our Deeply Discounted Jeans are Gone.”
9. The Mysterious Subject Line – For example, “It’s all ends in 3 short days…”

Tip #2: Be Smart with Your Header

If you are using email templates via email marketing and management platforms like Aweber, Mail Chimp or Constant Contact they most likely have a pre-filled header section. But you are free to customise and you should, in order to make use of that prime real estate – which is your header area.

Think of the header area as “bonus space” in between your subject line, and your greeting. It allows you to expand on your original subject line, or a place to explain a little about the content of the email. Creating a 7-10-word subheading that makes the recipient want to read the email in its entirety is the primary goal with this tip.

Tip #3: Let Your Personality Shine

Allow your personality to come alive.

There is an assumption that business emails need to be dry and impersonal – but that is not the case. Write the email as though you were talking face to face with the recipient, which means adding your unique personality.

Spacing is also crucial, as being faced with a text-filled page can be daunting to some. Make your point, but do it in a way that is straightforward, and holds the reader’s interest at the same time.

An email template is an excellent starting point for your newsletter or offer message, but it is your personal touches that make it unique and interesting. Adding a simple PS at the end of your text not only adds a little extra value and urgency, it also makes the reader feel as though you are confiding in them.

Tip #4: Try to Include Images

With spacing being important to make the text seem less daunting, images can also perform the same task, while also adding some flair to your emails. Try to steer clear of the usual, tired stock images, and use the following sites to find unique photos that are the right fit for your content. Note: be aware of the rules for commercial use before using any image.

Here are some great websites that offer excellent free images:

• Pexels
• Compfight
• Photo Pin
• Pixabay
• Freeimages
• Stockvault
• Unsplash
• MorgueFile

Although images are great, but you can draw even more attention using gifs and videos. These types of images are becoming increasingly popular in email marketing, and there are a few places online where you can create your own gifs:

• GIFMaker.me
• MakeAGIF.com
• GifDeck

Tip #5: Design Smartphone-Friendly Emails:

Smartphones are what many people use to connect to the internet nowadays, with as many as 67% using mobile devices to access their emails. Make sure that your email provider offers responsive design, which will ensure your emails fit the screen on which they are opened.

Summary And Conclusion…

When it comes to achieving great conversions as a local business, there’s really no better ROI than a well-executed email marketing campaign and it should still be considered an important part of your total marketing strategy. Here is a recap of the tips to use to write or create engaging and successful emails:

1. Deliver a Killer Subject Line.
2. Be Smart with Your Header.
3. Let Your Personality Shine.
4. Try to Include Images.
5. Design Smartphone-Friendly Emails.

You can see that the 5 tips listed above on how to write or create emails are not rocket science, and are pretty easy to implement. Apply them to your next email marketing campaign and judge for yourself. It is going to take some time and effort to dial in. But I’m sure that you will see positive results if you take a little extra time to deliver something of real value to the leads and existing customers who subscribe to your email list.

To discover our Online Marketing Services that we provide in helping local businesses grow, simply access our services website via the link here.

The post How to Write Emails Successfully as a Marketing Strategy to Boost Business appeared first on Market Business Online.

Influencer marketing is basically about leveraging the authority or status of a well-known person online who has a lot of followers (e.g. via social media). This is done by connecting with such a well-known person and offering them a great incentive or compensation in exchange for using their powerful influence to promote your product or service to their followers – which as a result would boost your business brand and bring you more sales.

Imagine watching an advert that features a well-known celebrity and wishing you have access to the same influential figure that big companies have for their business? Well, as a local business you can now achieve this with influencer marketing.

Here are some tips on how to use influencer marketing to boost your business and get more sales:

Identify Your Marketing Objectives

Until you know exactly what you hope to achieve through your association with an influencer, it’s not a good idea to reach out to them. So, make sure you already have a strategy in place before connecting with an influencer.

Locate Prospective Influencers

Providing your objectives are in place, how do you discover influencers to connect and work with? The key is using tools to locate influencers who are most likely to have an impact on prospective customers in your localised area and that are ideal for your offer.

You can search for influencers who have lots of followers – using industry type. For example, if you own a Gym it would make sense to look out for localised gym bloggers via Google search and localised gym influencers via social media (like Facebook, Twitter).

Besides, an alternative option is to search for influencers relating to your local business industry in your area with tools that can speed up the search process. One powerful tool that is highly recommended to do this specific task is known as Klear. You can actually track influencers anywhere in the world based on their location (and other metrics) – by using Klear.

For illustration purpose only – image from “Klear” website

Filter Your List of Influencers

Accumulate a list of multiple influencers via your searches and then filter the list. You see, every influencer you find isn’t going to be a good match for your specific business and needs. Most of them perhaps won’t be.

That’s why before you reach out, it’s vital to dig in and do some research to narrow down your list and choose the most ideal influencers. You can watch out for things like number of followers, whether they have the right target audience for your offer and whether they are the right fit for your brand values.

Develop a Relationship

Once you’ve narrowed down your list, you might be tempted to go straight for the kill by asking your chosen influencers to promote your offer to their followers.

Not so fast. You should first take a little bit of time to develop some rapport with them. Sign up to their blog, follow them on social media. Get involved such as making comments on their blog and liking their posts on Facebook…

By doing this, you are strategically paving the way for your “request” to them to promote you to their followers. Besides, using this method provides the angle to be able to soften them up a bit in a non-salesy way and make them more receptive to your approach if you keep them aware ahead of time that you are a real fan.

Make a Request

As long as you have already established a connection with an influencer, then get in touch with them to make a request – by asking if they would be interested in working with you. For instance, if you are asking someone to help you out on Facebook, your best way to reach out might be messaging them on Facebook – and so on. Make sure you are polite and professional, and as people like receiving compliments it wouldn’t hurt  if (as part of your approach) you praise an influencer for doing an excellent job.

You should of course know in advance what you are willing to offer the influencer as compensation in exchange for promoting your product or service to their followers. Be prepared to negotiate – and if you can’t mutually agree on a deal, be prepared to walk away.

Regarding an incentive or compensation to offer an influencer, some may work to help you out only for cash, while some others may work with you in exchange for getting a valuable service or product for free.

Conclusion:

If influencer marketing is something of interest to you and you can make use of the above information to implement it, you would really be able to successfully strengthen your business brand and generate more sales as a result. If you want to learn about our Online Marketing Services that we provide for helping local businesses grow, simply visit our services website through the link here.

The post How to Use Influencer Marketing to Boost Business And Get More Sales! appeared first on Market Business Online.

The fact is people turn to Google for everything these days. It’s been the number one search engine since the early 2000s. Today, over 15 years later, it still remains the top place people go when they are searching for a product, service, company or just information in general. So, any local businesses that are not highly ranked in the Maps local listings are really missing out on a great deal of opportunity.

Let’s now go through the five main beneficial reasons why (as a local business) you should be in the 3-Pack listings of Google Maps:

Gain more business exposure

Customers see businesses in the 3-Pack first and are more likely to click on the link for those businesses. Studies have shown the click-through rate is higher for businesses in the 3-Pack. Businesses in this boxed-off area will increase their bottom line more as a result.

Customers Come to You

The Google 3-Pack is all about local businesses and local results. As such, local business owners have the most to gain. The 3-Pack is designed to return local search results from specific keyword search phrases to local users. That means that you’ll get more local traffic online and more local foot traffic. And more phone calls!

Boosts customer engagement

Any time that you can communicate with your customers, it’s a good thing. The Google 3-Pack provides many ways they can communicate with you. They can leave a review, call your business or go to your website. All of this opens the line of communication, which is good for business.

Makes it easy for customers

It even offers a complete overview of your business in one click. Customers can see at a glance that you can help them, which easily connects them to your business, making a purchase to happen more quickly. Customers like it too and so, often choose the results shown in the Pack.

Provides Increased revenue

Most importantly, all of these benefits of course boil down to one main benefit: being in the Google 3-Pack brings in more revenue into your business. With increased exposure, increased local traffic, more communication and information at a glance, your company will make more money if it’s in the 3-Pack.

Conclusion

As you can now see, getting into the 3-Pack listings of Google Maps is highly valuable. And the more relevant keyword search phrases your local business ranks for in those top three positions of the Pack, the more you gain all the above-mentioned benefits. To find out about the online services that we are providing to help local businesses grow, visit our Online Marketing Services website via the link here.

The post Five Reasons Why Every Local Business Should be in The 3-Pack of Google Maps appeared first on Market Business Online.

Online reputation marketing is mainly about building a 5 star reputation online by getting positive reviews (such as Google reviews) and then marketing your 5 star reputation to get more conversions and customers.

The big question is do you actually need reputation marketing strategy for your local business?

As you can clearly see from the above definition, the answer is of course a resounding ‘yes’ and let’s now go into more details why every local business out there definitely needs to be applying this strategy.

Reputation marketing focuses on three main activities which include:

(1) Monitoring what customers are saying

(2) Generating more and better reviews

(3) Syndicating the reviews to effectively generate sales

When done in the right way, reputation marketing builds a stellar online reputation and leverages that reputation across the internet to highly promote your local business and bring you new customers.

There are some major websites (such as Google, Trustpilot, Yelp, Trip Advisor etc) where people leave reviews about local businesses. In other words, you can put a solid strategy in place to regularly acquire multiple 5 star reviews from these major websites or directories that display listings of local businesses.

In case you don’t already know, the most important website that lists local businesses and their reviews and even showcases their reviews in the local search engine results is Google.

Why does this really matter?

This matters because new prospective customers discover your local business online by searching on relevant major websites (like the ones mentioned above) or using the internet search engines and when they do, they see your reviews if you have any already.

Google is the KING of internet search engine results, and for this reason it is highly likely that more people find you from Google where your reviews are obviously showcased. Here is an example of local search result listing on Google…

What would you like people to see?

For illustration purpose only.  Google search results for Chiropractor Finchley.

Regarding the above Google listing…

Blue arrow and two red arrows point to the star ratings of the business, showcased right under their company name.

Green arrow shows you how many reviews they have. So Finchley Back Care Centre has 52 reviews as of when this Google screenshot was taken.

Finchley Feet Ltd chiropractic has only 3 reviews.

While Finchley Chiropractic Clinic has none.

Who Would You Call?

With many local business directories (like Google, Trip Advisor, Trustpilot, Yelp etc) and numerous social media sites around that can showcase your reviews, you being in as many of them as possible is crucial. And going back to the Google image above, which local business would you want to be? The one with no reviews or the one getting all the calls due to their solid reputation?

As you can see your reputation as a local business is apparent online and if people do not like what they see, they will end up going to your competitor.

That is why reputation marketing is absolutely critical to move your business forward. Now that you understand the image above and how critical it is to your reputation, let me point out more of what that means, to you…

How really critical is your reputation online?

Regarding the above Google example, let us assume your business is Finchley Chiropractic Clinic with no reviews, no stars and you have a marketing budget. Let’s assume your marketing budget is £1000 per month. So you are spending your marketing budget and it generates 65 brand new people to look at your chiropractic business. Then those people noticed you have no reviews, so they checked out your competition and noticed Finchley Back Care Centre has 52 reviews and 4.5 Stars, which appears much more appealing…

Based on the assumption that your business is Finchley Chiropractic Clinic, will people call you or call Finchley Back Care Centre?

I guess you would agree that majority of them that find you through your marketing will call Finchley Back Care Centre. So what just happened?

You have easily wasted your marketing budget because by having no reviews, you ended up having high cost per click and low conversions on your spending.

Your marketing budget just helped your competition MORE THAN YOU!!!

That is a prime example of insanity of the highest order!

Finchley Chiropractic Clinic may as well give the biggest portion of their marketing budget to Finchley Back Care Centre!

Absolutely insane, right?

That is one of the most crucial reasons why you should be working on your online reputation every day, doing this really matters in the local business space. We highly suggest that you take 1/3 of your marketing budget and put it soley on working for your reputation – 1/3 at the very least. Because you don’t want to have the above scenario play out and you be the one that loses money, every day.

Maybe you are experiencing the above scenario already – whether or not this is the case, you can now start focusing daily on your reputation as a local business.

Yes, Every, Single, Day…

Why Work On Your Reputation Every Day?

Here is why. Finchley Back Care Centre look good at first glance, right? 52 Reviews with 4.5 stars. They must be sitting pretty, and they are listed number 1 on the Google Map (shown above).

Nope, they are not entirely in good nick. Let me show you why…

Finchley Back Care Centre problem…

Having lots of reviews does not tell the whole story!

Did you notice the problem? Their reviews are not current or not coming in very regularly. People who look at the reviews to find out what they can expect, would see the reviews are months apart. It’s like they get a review on a certain day, and then NOTHING for a while.

Even though they have positive reviews. But you can see that the first review on the list was posted 5 months ago, the second on the list was posted 8 months ago and the third was 4 months ago.

That leaves people wondering…..if they are so good why has no one said anything for months? Are they frequently open for service or do they operate part time? Why are they getting reviews a few months apart?

This will make some people to keep digging to find a Chiropractor who appears to be frequently active and has more current and regular reviews that they would find more insightful, and more appealing.

Finchley Back Care Centre at first glance may appear to be better than Finchley Chiropractic Clinic from the above image examples, but upon investigating, even they are doing something WRONG.

Every day, every single day you should be focusing on your reputation. After all, what else do you have and how can you maximise results on your marketing spend /effort without having a solid reputation, which is really vital in the local business space.

But you are busy, right? You don’t have time to manage it all. So hire a professional to do the work for you.

We can help do it for you!

Rather than be paying a huge salary for 1 person to do online reputation marketing, building and management on your behalf, you can simply hire us as professionals to do this task for you. As we have expertise in this field and will effectively take care of everything you need for your reputation for far less the amount it would cost you to pay someone a huge salary to do the task.

We would also be able to work on your reputation for you every day to help strengthen your reputation on an ongoing basis, which as a result will help maximise your conversions and effectively drive in new business.

Visit our Online Marketing Services website for more information on reputation marketing and other online services we are providing – by clicking the link below.

The post What is online reputation marketing and do you need it for your local business? appeared first on Market Business Online.

The big question is how can you be using Mobile SMS text messaging to dramatically increase your sales?

Have SMS ‘VIP’ Customer List: Having a VIP Customer List that you can send valuable promotional offers to over and over again via SMS is a proven way to very much boost your sales. But to get people willingly and easily joining your VIP customer list (database), simply offer an immediate incentive to join, such as a discount offer.

Once people are on your VIP customer list, you have (according to the law) got their ‘permission’ to be sending them future promotional offers – which will give great value to them and drive in more sales revenue into your business.

Use online SMS Messaging Platform: To properly set up your SMS ‘VIP’ customer list, you will require an online ‘SMS Messaging Platform’. This is particularly required in terms of providing people with a valid PHONE NUMBER along with a related KEYWORD they have to text you in order to correctly join your list…

If you use a decent online ‘SMS Messaging Platform’, then all this stuff can seamlessly be set up from within the same platform. Providing a valid PHONE NUMBER plus a related KEYWORD is the right approach for getting people on your customer list, as they have to personally ‘opt-in’ to subscribe, which is known as ‘permission-based’ subscription.

Only Contact Subscribers: You should never run a mobile SMS marketing campaign to contact people who have not subscribed to your SMS ‘VIP’ customer list – which means they have not given you permission to contact them (on their phone) by text message. Doing this is regarded as SPAM and since people easily get irritated by SPAM messages, they can therefore take legal action.

So, using an online ‘SMS Messaging Platform’ for setting up your SMS ‘VIP’ customer list is crucial. As this approach will definitely allow people to willingly join your customer list and give you permission (according to the law) to send them future promotional messages. And by promoting great offers to the people who actually subscribed to your list, you will achieve high sales volume.

Provide Mobile Coupon: You can promote mobile coupon (e.g. 15% discount in value) at your business premises or on your website or anywhere possible as an incentive to easily get people joining your SMS ‘VIP’ customer list and as a way to easily boost your sales. Also, with this approach people would be able to willingly ‘opt-in’ to your customer list (database) while at the same time receive a redeemable 15% discount coupon on their mobile phone.

Just to re-emphasise, you must provide a PHONE NUMBER with a related KEYWORD that people have to text you to join your VIP customer list and instantly get their discount mobile coupon. Remember, all this stuff must be set up and maintained through an online ‘SMS Messaging Platform’.

For example, the message for people to join your VIP customer list and get their coupon could be something like ‘Enter this phone number XXXX and text us the keyword ‘VIP’ to join our VIP customer list and instantly receive your 15% discount coupon’. Once you have people on your VIP customer list (database), you can then be sending them ongoing promotional offers such as in relation to future major events, holiday offers, new product launches, new services or exclusive special offers.

Make Offers To Bring Back Customers: If your service requires people to visit your business premises, you can even be providing promotional SMS offers to those already on your customer list that will make them keep coming back to use your service. You can for instance be messaging valuable offers to your customer list that will bring them back into your business premises during your typical quiet days – which as a result will dramatically boost your sales revenue.

Don’t Overwhelm Your List With Messages: Make sure you don’t overwhelm your business SMS customer list with too many promotional messages in a short space of time, otherwise you will have many people on your list unsubscribing. For instance, sending 1 text message per week or every fortnight is okay in terms of frequency. By not bombarding your audience with too many text messages in a short time will really keep them warm and responsive to your offers.

Vary Your SMS Text Message Offers: Avoid making your offers predictable or repetitive to your SMS customer list, as people find this boring and off-putting. So, by varying your text message offers to your customer list, you will highly retain their interest and consistently achieve excellent sales conversions as a result.

Offer ‘Unsubscribe’ Option: Offering people the option to unsubscribe from your SMS customer list (database) will encourage a lot more people to sign up to your list. When people know they can opt-out as a subscriber, it puts them at ease to subscribe. Mention this clearly via your SMS system to increase the chances of many people easily joining your list. After all, the more people on your customer list, the greater the opportunity of highly making repeat sales.

You Must Be Time Sensitive: This is really crucial to the success of your SMS promotional campaigns. Early morning or late night SMS text messages to your customers can obviously be bad timing and irritating. So, by not sending out messages at the wrong times, your sales volume will be much healthier.

Make Your SMS Messages Relevant: People normally respond negatively when they receive non-relevant messages, which are regarded as SPAM. This then has a negative effect on conversion rates. The point is when sending an SMS text message with an offer to those that subscribed to your SMS customer list, make sure that what you are offering is not just interesting, but also relevant to what they subscribed for in the first place. By doing this, you will accomplish high sales conversions.

Use SMS To Send Appointment Reminders: If your local business service includes booking appointments with people, then use SMS as a communication tool to automatically send people reminders by text message. To do this, you require an APPOINTMENT BOOKING SYSTEM with a related SMS APPOINTMENT REMINDER SYSTEM. Having this in place will drastically decrease no-shows and you will therefore very much increase your sales.

According to Campaign Monitor, the open rates are as high as 98% when people receive SMS text messages. And 90% of text messages received are read within 3 minutes.

As you can see from all the above information, using Mobile SMS for marketing and for communicating to your target market is very powerful indeed. And if you are not doing so already, I hope you will start using SMS somehow as a strategy to effectively increase your sales revenue. If you need assistance or advice to implement SMS system in your business, feel free to get in touch.

To find out about our Online Marketing Services and for further information about SMS system, click the link below.

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In more detail, what are Gmail Ads?

Gmail Ads are interactive adverts also known as (Gmail Sponsored Promotions). In other words, businesses are able to ethically display their adverts inside the ‘promotions tab’ of many active Gmail users’ email inbox.

Setting up Gmail Ads is done via your Google Advertising account. If you don’t already have an account, sign up and login through the link here.

When a prospective customer sees your Gmail Ad displayed in the (promotions tab) of their Gmail inbox, it would first appear collapsed and then expand the same way as any email does after being clicked on. And here is an example…

You will only be charged a single time, for the click that expands your Ad in the first place. Your advert can for instance include website links, embedded forms, images or videos relevant to what you are offering. And here are some major benefits of running Gmail Ads…

They Provide More Customers Fast

Gmail Ads start bringing in customers in 48 hours or less, assuming your Ad campaign is set up and activated properly. The point is a lot of your prospects are using Gmail, which allows you to ethically and prominently put your offers right in front of them and quickly be generating customers.

Gmail Ads Attract Quality Leads

You can use ‘Display Targeting Options’ via your Google Advertising account to match your offers with the right audiences such as audience keywords, automated targeting, demographics and in-market (ready to buy) audiences.

They Are Highly Mobile Friendly

As you are probably aware, a high percentage of online traffic or visitors now come from mobile devices. Gmail Ads not only look great on desktop computers, but they are also well optimised for mobile users. This would therefore help you to maximise conversions on your advertising.

Gmail Ads Can Provide Referrals

A ton of people that expand your Ad from their Gmail inbox can of course get in touch with you themselves. But they can also forward your expanded Ad (as an email message) to other people they know. This gives your advert more exposure for free and brings you referrals as a result.

You Connect With People Personally

Gmail Ads help you to connect with potential customers in a more personal format, unlike many other forms of advertising media out there that produce generic Ads. The bottom line is, the more personal your Ad appears to your prospects, the much more likely they would use your service.

You Generate Very High ROI

When running PPC (Pay Per Click) advertising campaigns through Facebook or via the traditional Google Ads search engine result pages, they are much more expensive nowadays than before. Besides, most PPC Ads can be costly, particularly because of too much competition. But Gmail Ads are currently far cheaper to run, and due to their very low cost, your ROI (Return On Investment) would be so much better.

My Last Words…

As mentioned earlier, you can set up Gmail Ads campaign from your existing Google Advertising account or sign up for an account if you don’t already have one.

If you prefer not to run Gmail Ads yourself for your own local business, we can do this on your behalf. Please feel free to contact us if you have any queries or need our help. If you would also like to further grow your business and maximise your revenue with Retargeting Ads Strategy, you can find out more about it from the link here. All the best!

The post What are Gmail Ads and Major Benefits of Using Them as a Business Strategy? appeared first on Market Business Online.

Retargeting (also known as remarketing) is a way of repeatedly connecting with your website visitors who exit your site without making a purchase or enquiry. For example, people that have already seen your advert and then visited your website without taking a purchasing action will afterwards be automatically reminded of your offer…

The more your prospective customers are automatically followed up online with your offer (which they have seen already), the better your conversions.

Furthermore, Why Use Retargeting Ads Strategy?

Here are very good reasons why you should apply retargeting in your ad campaigns:

Achieve More Sales

This is probably the main reason why as a local business owner you should choose to try retargeting ads. Think about it. When you advertise, there are people that have shown interest in your offer but maybe do not know much about your business and therefore they are not converted into sales. So, when you use retargeting ads to entice these people, not only are you trying to increase revenue, but the chances of increasing that revenue are even better. These are after all, prospective customers that have already taken the time to visit your website, so they are even more likely to take the plunge and actually buy into your offer.

Generate More Leads

When it comes to marketing a business, most of us know what it’s like to cold call someone. It can feel hopeless and as though it’s not going to get the desired results. But retargeting is different. Using retargeting ads isn’t cold-calling. It’s like contacting someone that actually contacted you first. And when that is the situation, you are much more likely to make the sale because they have already expressed interest in what you are offering. That’s a vital reason to start using retargeting ads strategy to maximise results.

Increase Brand Awareness

This benefit is one that’s usually listed as a benefit of advertising, no matter what the form. But it’s even more true in terms of retargeting ads. Studies have shown that it takes seven impressions, or seven times a customer has heard about you or seen your name before they convert into an actual customer. But retargeting ads can drastically reduce that time frame. With these ads, the odds are better that when a customer needs a product or service, they will at first think of you. Not only have they already visited your website, but they have also seen an ad for your product or service after visiting. That increases brand awareness, and that means more profit for your business.

Acquire Some Insights

One of the lesser-known benefits of retargeting ads is that it enables you to understand where customers go after they leave your site. Imagine acquiring the most hits from retargeting in connection with Facebook ads. Your customers are likely going there after leaving your site. Imagine capturing leads from retargeting ads on the Google network after they have left your site. That’s also where your customers are. Retargeting lets you achieve this in a way that regular advertising just cannot do.

Advertise Affordably

Advertising online is not all that expensive. But you can make it even cheaper by using retargeting strategy over other types of online marketing. When you broadcast an ad out there, you are hoping that someone is going to grab hold of it and listen to its message and you could be spending advertising money advertising to people that are not just going to listen to the message. But when you use retargeting ads strategy, you have a much better chance that the money invested in advertising is going to be put to work for you to the maximum because this is repeatedly targeting people that have already seen and shown an interest in what you are providing.

Conclusion – Setting Up Retargeting Ad

You now see why applying retargeting strategy in relation to online advertising campaigns is absolutely crucial. When it comes down to maximising return on investment, this really provides a great opportunity to do so.

You can set this up yourself if you do online advertising through ad campaign platforms (like Google, Facebook, Bing etc), as they provide the facility to perform this task. You simply log into your Ad Management platform and generate a tracking code for your advert. Then paste the tracking code on your website to activate a retargeting ad campaign.

Once a retargeting campaign is activated, prospects seeing your advert and landing on your website will automatically be tracked. Your offer will then automatically be re-displayed to the people who have previously viewed it or visited your website expressing their interest. Feel free to contact us with any questions about this. In addition, if you would really like to quickly get customers with powerful results-driven Online Press Releases, then link to our blog post here. Best wishes!

The post Why Using Retargeting Strategy in Your Ad Campaigns is Very Important appeared first on Market Business Online.

So, there are key stats that I would like to share in this post and what they mean for your business.

Searches done by consumers on the internet that are location-specific in search for products, information or services is now very much mainstream. Couple this with the fact that mobile usage has grown massively in recent years, you can now imagine how this has impacted the level of local searches performed by consumers.

There have been major effects on the marketing world in relation to both local and mobile consumer buying habits. With that said, here are some major stats that you may not realise and what they mean for your business in terms of local search marketing:

1. Local Consumers in General are Using Local Information in Adverts

Google literally carried out a survey into local search behaviour and the results showed over 60% of consumers would prefer adverts to be customised based upon their location. About 61% prefer Ads are customised to their precise location, while 67% want them to be customised to include at least their zipcode or postcode and related location.

So what does this mean for your business? It means you need to make sure that the adverts you place are extremely targeted by making use of location extensions, which will help boost your advertising conversions.

2. Virtually 70% Of Consumers use “Call” Or “Get Directions” Feature

In case you are wondering just how important it is to list your phone number and address, this statistic clears it up. With this number of smartphone users claiming to use the “call” and “get directions” feature on Google, your business is seriously missing out if your details are not included in your Google My Business profile page listing. Double check to make sure your address and phone number are correct. Also claim and optimise your listing, because consequently this helps you to get even better results or effectively be found by your prospective customers.

3. Local Searches Done on Mobile Devices are Producing Fast Action

One other interesting fact is that 70% of searches on mobile devices are followed up with an action within one hour (source: Mobile Marketer – www.mobilemarketer.com). More importantly, a significant 50% of consumers who perform a local business search on their smartphone or tablet, visit a company’s business location within a day.

The point is not only are potential customers carrying out more local searches, they are also following up on their search. You know what this mean… If your company wants to connect with SERIOUS prospective customers, your local listing has to be highly up to scratch and in a position to provide these consumers the information they require. In other words, this will make it easy for them to buy into what you are offering.

My Final Words…

You can now see from the above information that local search has become very popular in recent years. It’s driving in much more local consumers than ever before, not only to company websites, but to physical company locations as well.

Therefore if you are seeking to bring in new customers, increase website traffic and boost profits, local search is really your first order of business. To be successful with local search marketing strategy, one thing you must definitely do is to claim and optimise your Google My Business page listing, if you have not done so already. You can click the link here for relevant information. And don’t hesitate to get in touch should you have any questions.

The post 3 Local Marketing Stats and What Value They Bring to Your Business appeared first on Market Business Online.