7 Ways Your Visual Marketing Assets Can Boost SEO

In 2017, most marketers know that their visual marketing assets should serve a purpose beyond making a blog post or tweet look pretty.

In fact, it's been proven time and time again that imagery is key if engagement is your goal. But, what a lot of marketers don't know is how to maximize their visuals content to boost their website's performance in Google's organic search results.

When you're spending time and money creating impressive visuals, you want them to go the extra mile in supporting your wider marketing goals, right?

With a few tweaks, your images could actually be bringing more organic traffic to your website.

Here are some visual marketing strategies to boost your SEO:

Optimize your alt tags.

Don't publish infographics without accompanying text.

Check your file image sizes.

Submit image and video site maps.

Use Reverse Image Search to identify backlink opportunities.

Use images to support PR pitches to get more coverage (and links).

Offer to provide influencers and publications with imagery.

Let's get into it.

1. Optimize Your Alt Tags

This simple step is easy to miss when you're uploading a blog post and time is of the essence (which, let's face it, is pretty much always the case). But if you want to bring in additional traffic from Google's image results, then implementing and optimizing alt text is crucial.

"Alt tag" is a common abbreviation for the ALT attribute within the IMG tag, and alt text is the text you add to that tag to describe the image. As search engines can't read images on web pages to determine what they are, adding alt text to your images can help a search engine to understand how the image contributes to the content on a page.

Alt text is also used by screen readers for the blind or visually impaired. In fact, you might have come across alt text if you've ever been reading a page that hasn't loaded properly, and the images are replaced by text to add context for the user.

Search engines can only rank your images in relevant search results if they're able to make sense of them. In the context of SEO, your alt tag essentially exists to describe your image so search engines like Google know where to rank it.

If you don't customize your alt text, you'll often find that it defaults to the file name in lots of content management systems (CMS).

So, for example, if your infographic about financing a business has the default filename of '2453467.jpg' as its alt tag, Google isn't going to think it's a relevant image to deliver when somebody searches 'how to finance a business'.

See how you could be losing out on valuable traffic there? Don't worry, it's easy to fix.

If you're less technically inclined, most content management systems make it very easy to edit your alt tags. Usually, it simply involves clicking on the image and editing the alt text in the module editor.

Here's what that looks like in the HubSpot landing page builder (but if you're a WordPress user, it will be a similar process):

It's worth noting that the alt text of your images isn't an opportunity to cram another one of your keywords onto the page.

The alt text should be brief and describe what the image portrays. If it makes sense for your keyword to be in the alt text, then include it, but this won't always be the case.

2. Don't Publish Infographics Without Accompanying Text

Publishing an infographic on your website without any accompanying text is a huge no-no from an SEO perspective, even if you've optimized the alt text. Yet, it's something that I see a lot when browsing content myself.

Whilst your infographic itself might rank in the image search results, it's unlikely the URL the infographic has been posted on (e.g. venngage.com/blog/how-to-finance-a-business) will rank well in regular search results if there's no accompanying written content.

This is because there's not enough valuable written content on the page for Google to determine where to place it amongst competing pages from other websites.

For example, say someone else has written an in-depth article about how to finance a business, and you've just uploaded an infographic to the page. Although the two might be equally valuable to a reader, Google can't read the text on your infographic. So the value you're delivering won't be credited with a top ranking spot for the relevant keywords in its search results.

To combat this issue, you should always accompany an infographic with comprehensive written text.

The accompanying text shouldn't repeat what's included in the infographic word-for-word, as that doesn't add any additional value to your audience (which is always your primary goal). Instead, you might want to expand on some of the points featured in the infographic.

Want to take your infographic design to the next level? Download our interactive guide on The Dos and Don'ts of Infographic design!

There's some good examples of how to do this successfully on the Vengage blog here and here.

3. Check Your Image File Sizes

You should always be aware of the file sizes of the images and videos you're using on your website.

There's nothing more frustrating than a website or blog that takes forever to load. It creates a bad user experience, and people are more likely to leave your website before the page has even finished loading.

Google acknowledges that site speed is an important factor for creating a positive user experience, and websites that load content quickly are consequently more likely to rank highly in search results and therefore receive more traffic.

What you might not have considered is that your images could be contributing to a poor site speed.

Amongst other factors, you need to make some changes to your images to ensure you're not losing out on traffic and conversions as a result of having a poor site speed. This is increasingly important considering around half of your traffic is likely to be coming from mobile users, who are browsing on-the-go with slower download speeds.

You can test your site speed using Google's Page Speed Insights tool. It highlights whether your images could be the culprit for your site's slow page load speed and offers tips to help you rectify it.

Here are some solutions you could be implementing when it comes to images:

Ensure your images are no larger than they need to be

Compress them for web use wherever possible

Choose the correct format–PNGs are usually better for graphics with fewer than 16 colours, and JPEGs are generally better for photographs

4. Submit Image and Video Sitemaps

If your website is particularly image- or video-heavy, you might want to consider creating and submitting image and video sitemaps to Google via the Search Console (formerly known as Webmaster Tools).

In Google's own words:

Image sitemap information helps Google discover images that we might not otherwise find (such as images your site reaches with JavaScript code), and allows you to indicate images on your site that you want Google to crawl and index.

They also give similar advice for video:

Many of the elements in a video sitemap are optional, but they provide useful metadata that can enhance your video results and improve Google's ability to include your video in search results.

Of course, there are no guarantees that you'll see ranking improvements for your videos or images, but if you have some extra time on your hands, you might want to tick this off as technically speaking, it's best practice to do so.

You can learn how to implement this by following Google's guides for image sitemaps and video sitemaps, but it's probably a job for your developer or technical SEO specialist.

5. Use Reverse Image Search to Identify Backlink Opportunities

One of the biggest benefits of visual content is its shareability.

If you're creating lots of graphics to accompany your digital content, the chances are that other people are sharing them on their own websites, sometimes without crediting you as the original source.

Other people republishing your images and infographics is a great opportunity to generate backlinks for your website, which is incredibly important for SEO. If you're not familiar with links as a ranking factor, read more about why backlinks are important for SEO in this comprehensive post by the SEO experts at Moz.

If someone re-publishes one of your infographics without crediting you, it's a good idea to get in touch and request they acknowledge the original source with a link back to your website.

But how do you keep track of who's re-publishing your images online?

Google Images offers a handy little search feature called Reverse Image Search that allows you to search using an image instead of words. When you search using an image, Google will return a combination of similar images, sites that include the exact image, and other sizes of the images you searched for.

In Google's own words, here's how to search using an image:

Option 1: Upload an Image

1. On images.google.com or any Images results page, click Search by image .

2. Click Upload an image.

3. Click Choose file.

4. Select the image from your computer.

Option 2: Drag & Drop an Image Into the Search Box

1. If you're on Chrome or Firefox 4+, you can drag an image from your computer into the search box.

2. Visit images.google.com.

3. On your computer, click the image you want to search for.

4. While holding down the mouse, drag the image into the search box.

Option 3: Search Using an Image URL

1. On any website, right-click an image and select Copy image URL.

2. On images.google.com or any Images results page, click Search by image.

3. Click Paste image URL.

4. Paste the URL you copied into the box.

5. Click Search by image.

When searching for backlink opportunities, you're specifically looking for sites that include the exact image and other sizes of the images you searched for.

When you find an instance where someone else is using your image without crediting you, simply drop them a friendly email requesting that they acknowledge the original source by either including a link to your homepage, or the specific page the image was first published on.

6. Use Images to Support PR Pitches to Get More Coverage (and Links)

Something PR professionals will often recommend is sending visuals to accompany press releases or bylines to increase your chances of securing coverage.

Of course, with media coverage often comes links, which is where the SEO benefit kicks in. Links from the press are especially valuable as newspapers and magazines often have very authoritative domains, making links from them very valuable for boosting your website's own authority in the eyes of search engines.

For journalists and their readers, a picture can (quite literally) be worth a thousand words, so sending anything from infographics, hi-res photos and other smaller visuals to support your press release helps them tell the story in a more engaging way.

If you're not sure where to start with the press release itself, you can use these free press release templates to get started.

Yes, pitching to media is already time-consuming, and creating supporting visuals might sound like an unnecessary extra task, but it's one that worth investing time in (especially if you're pitching new data).

In fact, we created templates for infographics you can use with PowerPoint and Illustrator to help save you precious time when creating visuals to support your press releases, which you can view here. If you're lucky enough to have a designer at your company, then that's an even better option!

For an example of this strategy in practice, you can see how HubSpot supports our own media coverage with visuals in this piece by industry trade title, Business2Community. By providing journalists with visualizations of the findings in our annual State of Inbound report, it helps them tell the story around the data in a more engaging, impactful way.

Below is a simple graphic that we provided to illustrate the top challenges for businesses over the past four years, which was a key data point from our State of Inbound 2016 report.

If your business is producing particularly compelling visual material (e.g. wildlife, travel or landscape photography) the photos themselves might even be the story.

Brazilian bikini brand Kaloea is a great example of how imagery itself can be the focal point of a brand's media coverage in this article by the Daily Mail about the images and video they created as part of a marketing campaign.

Now that's a great example of how to get extra yield out of the imagery you're already creating!

7. Offer to Provide Influencers and Publications With Imagery

If building links to boost SEO is something you're particularly focused on as a business, then you've probably tried guest posting. Whilst it works for some companies, it's difficult to get a spot as a guest author on the top sites in your industry.

The sites you're targeting no doubt receive hundreds of requests a week from people wanting to guest post, so it's difficult to stand out from the crowd. Where you can differentiate yourself is by offering even more value in the form of imagery.

Maybe they have an in-depth post on a topic that's incredibly useful and getting a lot of traffic but lacks visuals to support it, or maybe they don't often feature infographics to support their written content.

If imagery is something you excel at, then that's your point of differentiation, so reach out an offer to create something for them in exchange for a mention.

Technically speaking, you shouldn't make a link back to your website an official part of the agreement as this is a grey area in Google's guidelines for backlinks, so if you want to play strictly by the rules, you'll have to hope that they naturally link back to you as the creator (which they often will).

Make sure you're strategic with your outreach though–some partnerships won't be worth your time. Evaluate each website on the metrics that are important to you before you reach out, whether that's a website's domain authority, its relevancy, or its reach (ideally, you'll be using a combination of all three!)

Go Get More Value from Your Images

Hopefully you're now bursting at the seams with ideas for making your imagery work harder for your business.

If you're already spending time, money and energy creating remarkable infographics, photography and other visuals, then you should absolutely be maximizing your ROI by implementing some of these strategies for using imagery to boost your SEO.

Source: 7 Ways Your Visual Marketing Assets Can Boost SEO

3 Things You Need to Do Before You Start Advertising on Facebook

In our 5 in 15 Webinar: 5 Steps to Get Started with Facebook Ads, two of our Facebook marketing experts covered the basics you need to know before beginning Facebook advertising.

Here are three things you need to do before you can start advertising on Facebook:

1. Set Up or Update Your Facebook Business Page

Before you start advertising on Facebook, you need to have a Facebook business page. Follow these easy steps for creating your Facebook business page.

If you already have a Facebook business page set up, make sure all your information is up to date and that you have compelling information and images that will represent your business in a positive way. You don't want to start advertising and driving people to interact with your page if it has incorrect information or doesn't look its best.

2. Determine Your Facebook Advertising Goal

Once your page is set up and ready to go, you'll need to consider your campaign goal. What do you want to accomplish with Facebook advertising? Are you trying to drive visitors to your website? Do you want to grow brand awareness? Are you looking for form fills? Facebook advertising can help you reach many different marketing goals, but you need to be clear on what you want from your efforts before starting your campaign.

3. Think About How Much You Can Spend to Make an Impact

Now that you know what your goal is for your campaign, you'll need to set your ad budget. How much can you spend while still making an impact? If your Facebook advertising goal is to drive 100 new visitors to your website each month, but you know your budget will only help you get 25% of the way there, you may need to adjust either your budget or your goal. It's important to be realistic about what you can spend and the types of results that budget can get you.

Download our full webinar, 5 Steps to Get Started with Facebook Ads, to find out what you need to do to set up and measure a successful Facebook advertising campaign, and visit our website to learn more.

Download Our Free 15-Minute Webinar 5 Steps to Get Started with Facebook Ads

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Stephanie Heitman

Stephanie is the Communications & Content Manager at ReachLocal. She has experience in digital marketing, social media management, and content creation for SMBs. Stephanie specializes in helping businesses improve their online reputation and appreciate the impact social media and digital marketing can have on their brand. When she isn't researching the latest online marketing tips and trends, she enjoys eating pizza and watching too much TV with her husband and her dogs.

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Source: 3 Things You Need to Do Before You Start Advertising on Facebook

Internet Marketing Company New Delhi Part - I

Ideas For Website Content Writing

1. Business Lessons. Talk about lessons that you have learned in your industry.

2. Useful Tools. Review tools that you use in your life and business, and explain how those tools are used, create a video or promote an in-house tool and explain its benefits. You can also talk about how a tool you use every day has saved you time and money.

3. Insightful Lists. Nearly everyone loves a useful list, with subjects like, "Top 5 Reasons to..." etc. Hey, watch out, you're reading one now!

4. Common Problems. Ponder common industry roadblocks people come against, or questions that customers or others ask. Providing helpful answers to typical questions can be a gold mine of opportunity to write content that you target audience will love.

5. Industry News. Provide opinion pieces about the industry that you know will interest others. For instance, if you are in the property management business, then you could comment about mortgage rates as they occur.

6. How-To Tutorials. Another area people love is "how-to" content. You could write about a 5-step process that shows people how to do a useful task, or interview an expert and write about their insights.

7. Company Culture And Values. What it is like to be part of your team and how have your values helped build relationships?

8. Industry Events. Are there events or conferences coming up? Or can you write about what happened at the events after they occur?

9. Industry Research. Talk about the research that is going on in your industry. Make a prediction about how a new policy or technology will impact the future.

10. Promotional Content. Host a contest and give away a new product, tickets to an event, or a free consultation. Give updates on how the promotion is going and celebrate the subsequent winners.

11. Seasonal Variations. At special times of the year such as Christmas or Valentine's Day, talk about how that affects you and yo ur business or what you do to celebrate.

12. Re-purpose Existing Content. Once topics are posted or published, you can turn blog posts into videos, or you can take an old popular post and give a modern update or review after a period of time has elapsed.

13. Incoming Search Terms. Check your website's incoming search terms in Google Webmaster Tools and write further about the queries searchers on your site are entering. This is generally a sure bet because you know your target audience is interested in these topic areas.

14. Provocative Material. From time to time you might contemplate an idea that polarises people. Do you have any strong beliefs or opinions on things going on in your industry? As we all know, the media loves a bit of controversy, so this can also be a great way to broaden the coverage of your content.

For more details on our products and services, please feel free to visit us at Best Online Marketing Company, Best Online Marketing Company In dia & Internet Marketing Company New Delhi

Source: Internet Marketing Company New Delhi Part - I

Hootsuite acquires New York-based LifeMetrix to help customers measure social marketing ROI

Vancouver-based Hootsuite has announced that it has acquired New York-based LiftMetrix, which offers a tool to measure the return on investments on social media platforms. This marks Hootsuite's second acquisition this month.

The addition of LiftMetrix will allow Hootsuite's users to create more effective marketing campaigns as they will gain insights into the return on investment (ROI) of their paid, earned, and owned social media marketing campaigns. With access to LiftMetrix's tools, social media marketers will be able to monitor and drive the impact of their campaigns through social-to-web conversion tracking, content recommendations and insights, and social data-warehousing and integration with business intelligent tools.

"It's critical for marketers today to prove the impact of social advertising on the company's bottom line," said Ryan Holmes, CEO of Hootsuite. "LiftMetrix offers easy-to-use analytics solutions that helps our customers make sense of data to maximize social marketing results. LiftMetrix will be a fantastic complement to the Hootsuite platform."

This deal comes two weeks after Hootsuite announced the acquisition of AdEspresso, which allows small and medium-sized businesses to split test every aspect of their Facebook and Instagram campaigns.

"By joining Hootsuite, we will be able to offer increased value to our existing enterprise customers around their paid, earned, and owned social initiatives," said Nik Pai, co-founder and CEO of LiftMetrix. "It's exciting to be a part of a company with Hootsuite's velocity and trajectory."

LiftMetrix and Hootsuite have previously worked together through Hootsuite's ecosystem of partners and applications. The terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Source: Hootsuite acquires New York-based LifeMetrix to help customers measure social marketing ROI

10 marketing books to read in 2017

Interview after interview with top performers tends to reveal similar daily habits: an early wake time; a regular exercise regimen; and a designated time for reading. 

Reading a lot won't necessarily make you a great leader, but it seems great leaders tend to read a lot with rare exceptions. Great leaders read because it's the most efficient way to gain the condensed information, guidance, and insights they need to excel at their jobs. Who wants to reinvent the wheel when others have provided the blueprint? This is especially valuable in the marketing world, where the challenges facing chief marketing officers and other marketers are changing daily.

If you're ready to take your marketing game to the next level, here's a rundown of 10 of the best new marketing books to dive into this year:

1. "They Ask You Answer" by Marcus Sheridan

Marcus Sheridan is a legend in the digital marketing world after he used content marketing to lift his failing pool company from the brink of bankruptcy to become one of the largest in the country. Sheridan's strategy is based on two fundamental assumptions: your customers are smart readers who want you to educate them and your best resource for doing so (the internet) is free. 

"They Ask You Answer" shows you how to become the authority they're looking for and gain their trust, you need to think hard about who your customers are and what they want. What are they confused about? Afraid of? Longing for? What are their pain points and their dream scenarios? 

Answer those questions with your content, and you'll have a whole new cadre of brand ambassadors to do your advertising for you. 

2. "Non-Obvious 2017" by Rohit Bhargava

Georgetown Professor and founder of the Influential Marketing Group, Rohit Bhargava is a self-professed "non-obvious trend curator." His series has been tracking trends since 2011 in the areas of culture and consumer behavior, marketing and social media, media and education, technology and design, and economics and entrepreneurship—all of which digital marketers should be following. 

"Non-Obvious 2017" identifies five brand new trends—including fierce femininity, passive loyalty, and moonshot entrepreneurship, and reviews over 60 trends from earlier editions, providing longevity predictions for each. Bhargava also teaches his readers the skills necessary to do what he does—cut through the noise and identify the emerging trends and patterns others miss. 

If you want your marketing to resonate (and who doesn't?), this is the book for you.

3. "SEO for Growth" by John Jantsch and Phil Singleton

Since Google is a crucial source of web traffic and lead generation, companies can't help but question how strong their search engine visibility really is. If you don't have a handle on the basics by now, or haven't kept up with the many Google algorithm changes affecting your website, it's time to get caught up. 

John Jantsch and Phil Singleton put their years of experience and research to work for you, showing you how to leverage the new rules of search engine optimization to maximize your website's organic ranking potential. 

From high-level strategy to tactics you can immediately implement, "SEO for Growth" is a must-read for marketers and entrepreneurs. 

4. "Hug Your Haters" by Jay Baer

For Jay Baer, a complaining customer is not a company's problem, it's one of their best assets. 

Most unsatisfied customers won't ever tell you where you went wrong, leaving you guessing how to do better. But a complaining customer actually gives you a major opportunity for growth and corrective action. "Far too many business care too little about retention, placing much emphasis on outbound marketing and the attraction of new customers, with comparatively little attention paid to the customers they've already paid to get," writes Baer. 

"Hug Your Haters" outlines the two types of haters any business is likely to come across, identifies what they want and tells you how to give it to them. And it's full of concrete—and hilarious—case studies so you can see their responses in action.

Follow their lead and you'll be turning haters into brand advocates before your very eyes. 

5. "Pre-Suasion" by Robert Cialdini Ph.D. 

To truly persuade someone, according to Robert Cialdini, you need to do more than change their mind; you need to change their state of mind. In "Pre-Suasion", the long-awaited sequel to his New York Time's bestseller, "Influence," Cialdini directs our attention to the time immediately preceding the message, or what he calls the "privileged moment for change." It is at this crucial juncture when you can prime your target to be more receptive to your words. Get them in the right mindset, he argues, and they will be much more likely to agree with you. The book outlines tips and technique that you can use in a variety of contexts to convince people of your message, even before you say a word.  

6. "Get Scrappy" by Nick Westergaard

Afraid you can't compete because you're a mom and pop shop in a big block store environment? Then you'll take solace from—and find a useful roadmap in—Nick Westergaard's "Get Scrappy". Host of the popular On Brand podcast, Westergaard's simple message is exactly what you want to hear: you can punch above your weight. More than just a collection of tips, he provides an entire system for scrappy marketing, starting with the steps you can't miss, how to do more with less, and concluding with simplifying your methods for the long haul. It's a practical guide to helping you achieve big results on a small budget.  

7. "What Customers Crave" by Nicholas Webb

Nicholas Webb wants you to rethink customer service and your targeting mechanisms. Forget age, geographic location, or race, Webb argues. It's much more important to know what your customers love and what they hate. What customers truly crave are amazing experiences and you can only give them that if you know their likes and dislikes. For Webb, customer service is not a technical process; it's a design process, and it demands innovation. He walks you through how to identify different customer types, so you can figure out how to create superior experiences across all of the different customer touch points. "What Customers Crave" will change the way you think about customer service and how to boost those conversion rates.

8. "Invisible Influence" by Jonah Berger

People assume they have much greater control over their decision making than they actually do. But as Wharton School Marketing Professor Jonah Berger demonstrates in "Invisible Influence", the reality is that we are all subject to the power of social influence. Berger uncovers the forces that subtly shape our behavior and shows how, contrary to common belief, this is often a positive thing. As an example, Berger sites the "social facilitation" phenomenon, in which doing an activity with someone else (say running) helps us do it better (faster). And for those cases in which social influence is a hindrance to good decision making, such as in the case of group think, Berger provides practical tips for overcoming it. We may all be subject to invisible influences on our behavior, but just knowing what those are can put some of the power back in our hands. 

9. "Hacking Marketing" by Scott Brinker

According to Scott Brinker, marketing systems are lagging behind the rapidly changing environment in which they're operating. He identifies five digital dynamics (speed, adaptability, adjacency, scale, and precision) that have transformed the work of marketing, and proposes a relatively simple way of bringing order to the chaos. As marketing becomes more digital and marketers are increasingly reliant on software to do their jobs, the art of managing marketing increasingly resembles the art of managing software. Therefore, marketing managers should adopt the successful frameworks and processes software managers have already developed. "Hacking Marketing" provides a hands-on (and non-technical) guide to creating your own agile marketing processes and serves as a much-needed reminder that when our environment and tools have changed, our work processes should as well. 

10. "Digital Sense" by Travis Wright and Chris Snook

Travis Wright and Chris Snook recognize that marketing today is all about customer service. And like Jay Baer, they see it as an age of opportunity.  They have devised a whole new marketing system based on two frameworks—The Experience Marketing Framework and the Social Business Strategy Framework—to help you understand and surpass customers' expectations at every stage of the buyer's journey and get all of your employees on board. Their "learn, plan, do" approach allows you to reach customers while also allowing for "discover, design, deploy" innovation to improve everyday operations. "Digital Sense" is full of data, exercises, and specialized knowledge to help you understand their approach and customize it to suit your needs.  

These must-reads are fresh takes on our rapidly evolving field, chock full of guiding frameworks, helpful tactics, and actionable tips. It's a fair amount of homework, but it does promise a major return on the investment. 

Josh Steimle is the author of Chief Marketing Officers at Work and the CEO of MWI, a digital marketing agency with offices in the US and Asia, and despite being over 40 can still do a kickflip on a skateboard. 

Source: 10 marketing books to read in 2017

BH Digital Marketing Services

We are the Greensboro NC experts for all digital marketing including PPC (Adwords), Remarketing, SEO, and our exclusive product FindIt. WE are "Greensboro's Google Adwords Certified Partner!"

Greensboro's Digital Marketing Experts

Google trusts BH Digital Services with its products because we have studied their programs and are certified top to bottom by their high standards! "Google Certified Partners Serving Greensboro NC"

BH Digital Services is your "Full Service Digital Agency" and partner for all your digital marketing businesses needs in Greensboro NC.

BH Digital Services is the Digital Marketing Agency for Berkshire Hathaway Media Group (BH Media) We consult and create Internet Marketing Solutions, which include having the right message, in the right place, when customers are ready to make a purchase. This means we can bring your targeted audience to your website. Our goal is to generate most qualified leads (Ready -to- Buy) with the best possible return on investment (ROI). We just don't stop at just getting clicks to your website, we prefer to measure the success based on conversions. Conversions can be orders, or leads from forms or phone calls. Website design and A/B Testing play a large part in optimizing the cost per conversion. You'll be amazed at how well we can target your audience. Using our Geo Technology, We can target people for a particular behavior. For example, If your an Greensboro Real Estate Company, we can target people that are looking to rent or buy a house in Greensboro, Maybe just looking to move? ba sed on the websites they have been looking at over the last 5-7 days we can target those HOT prospects. In addition, we can place ads for people that are in a ZIP code where homes may need a new roof, or they are looking for home security. As a Full Service Digital Agency, BH Digital Services of Greensboro is here to help! BH Digital Marketing Services include: 

We have helped thousands of businesses in Greensboro with their marketing and digital planning.

From Accountants to Lawyers and Plumbers to Real Estate Agents we have helped them find customers. Give us a call today at 336.373.7000.

You can also learn more about us, here's a link to our website and our services.

Berkshire Hathaway Media Group is the parent company to BH Digital Marketing Services and The Greensboro News & Record. BH Digital Marketing helps small business owners understand all the digital and marketing options available to them. We will consult with you and create internet marketing solutions for your business, including Pay Per Click (PPC), SEO, social media, e-mail marketing, display advertising, website development, video, geo-targeting and retargeting options. BH digital Marketing offers Digital Service throughout the entire state of Nebraska, North Carolina, New Jersey, Virginia, Florida, Oklahoma, and Texas.

Source: BH Digital Marketing Services

Infinity Consulting LLC Launches Online Marketing Business

Thompsons Station-based marketing firm offers help for small businesses that desire growth. The expertise of the company focuses on creating a plan and implementing it.

Thompsons Station TN: Don and Trena Cook of Thompsons Station, TN, are pleased to announce the launch of their business. The goal of the company is to assist other small businesses to grow. Infinity concentrates on marketing plans and methods of scaling their clients' business so that the client is able to focus on their trade, products or services. Infinity uses their expertise to help clients create a viable plan and implement it. The primary business focus is web marketing or lead generation via an online presence.

According to a spokesperson for the firm, "Online marketing is important for all types of businesses, whether they fix leaking pipes or damaged cell phones. Eighty percent of customers today are most likely to search for goods and services online, and over 50% of those searches are from smart phones. The right type of online presence assures that prospective customers will see your web pages rather than those of your competitor."

"Our goal for every business deal," she continues, "is a win-win for everyone. We partner with you to provide the services you need at a price you can afford. We know that services won't help you if you can't afford them. That's why we offer various fee structures, many which are based on your sales that come from our efforts."

The Nashville, TN area firm serves customers locally, but also from Franklin, Cool Springs, Brentwood, Murfreesboro, Smyrna, Columbia, Spring Hill, Thompson's Station, Mount Juliet, Hermitage, LaVergne, and more. In addition, the firm has a significant portion of its customer base from online services, which can be anywhere in the world. The professionals will meet with customers in person, or through video or phone conferences or through other technological means.

Other services include: Online Marketing, SEO Services, Social Media Management, Online Reputation Management, Lead Generation, Search Engine Ranking, business management and personal finance consulting.

Learn more about Infinity Consulting by visiting the web pages at www.infinityconsultingllc.com.

SOURCE: Press Advantage [Link]

Source: Infinity Consulting LLC Launches Online Marketing Business

Tips for Developing a Social Media Marketing Schedule

The key to a successful social media strategy is to develop a consistent posting schedule that works for you. Posting consistently is a great way to increase your social media traffic and exposure. Here are some tips for a great social media marketing schedule.

Share One Post Multiple Times

It is totally acceptable to share a single blog post multiple times on social media. This especially holds true for Twitter, Google Plus, and even Facebook. You can develop a schedule where you share a post after publishing, again a week later, and once again a month later. On sites like Pinterest, Instagram, and LinkedIn, however, a post should only be shared once.

Type of Content to Share

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Don't jam-pack your schedule with promotional posts. Remember that your goal on social media should be to grow relationships and build an audience for your business. It's not to turn every new fan, follower, and connection into a paying customer. Try to limit your promotional content to just 20% of your weekly posts, with the other 80% focused on keeping your audience engaged and informed.

Remember, the best way to figure out what type of content your audience is most interested in is to test. Keep an eye on your key engagement metrics (likes, comments, shares, retweets, clicks, etc). These provide insight into which type of content is working, what's not, and what you could be doing differently to improve your strategy

Use Automation to Schedule Your Posts

Apps like Buffer, HootSuite and our TieiT CRM allow you to schedule your social media postings in advance. If you download the Buffer browser extension, you can use their power scheduler to share a post from the web. From one page, you can schedule something to be shared on multiple accounts at multiple times. If you are going to be sharing one post multiple times, this is a great way to do it.

Know Where to Concentrate Your Efforts

Which social channel you should be spending the most time on will really depend on your niche. If you are dealing with attire, cooking, baking, design or similar niches, Pinterest and Instagram will likely be a large source of traffic. You should analyze where most of your traffic is coming from and then concentrate on building your presence on that channel.

For more tips, please contact us.

Author: Steve Hamm

Steve Hamm is a Digital Marketing Solutions Pro, a published author and Owner of MaaS Pros. He is a digital marketing strategy expert who is passionate about solving online problems for businesses and organizations. So whether you're just starting to build your company's online presence or need to give it a… View full profile ›

Source: Tips for Developing a Social Media Marketing Schedule

Internet Entrepreneurs – Why You Need Analytics

Analytics is important for internet entrepreneurs as it helps them truly understand how successful or unsuccessful a website has been, why it works and why it doesn't, what visitors think of the website, how do they get to it, what they like most about it and what they don't. There are several tools that help an internet entrepreneur determine the success or failure of his internet marketing and SEO strategies, that give him a good idea of where his traffic comes from, what are the people visiting his site looking for. Analytics tools help analyze the behavior of customers on various websites and are absolutely critical to an internet entrepreneur's plan.

Here's why Analytics – if you're internet entrepreneurs – are so important to you….

Analytics reveal how many people visit your site and how they behave on it…In an earlier era, analytics tools used to measure the total number of visitors, the number of unique visitors and the number of page views – that's all they did. Now, analytics tools are way more advanced. They are capable of tracking the online behavior of people on your site – such as how many clicked on a specific ad on your site, how many tweeted about your new blog post on Twitter, how many commented on your blog, how many used the contact form, how many watched your YouTube video on your website and more.

Analytics reveal how you get your traffic…So how do people get to your site? Do they come from search engines? If so, do they come through paid search or organic search? And which search engine do they come from? Google, Bing or Yahoo? This information is very important as it helps you formulate a better internet marketing and SEO strategy. Should you spend more on your Pay-Per-Click advertising campaign because it is working or should you focus on organic search instead? What works for you and what doesn't – Analytics helps you decide on that.

Analytics reveal where your visitors are coming from…With analytics tools you can know as internet entrepreneurs from which corner of the world you get your visitors and formulate a strategy accordingly. For instance, if you find out that your site gets a substantial number of visitors from Brazil, you can run ads in Portuguese targeted at your Brazilian audience. Or, if you find that you are getting too many visitors from a particular country and have no way of selling anything in that country, you can turn off your ads from appearing in that country, which saves you so much of your marketing expenditure.

With Analytics you can conduct more effective online marketing campaignsAs said earlier, analytics help you understand why visitors to your site behave in a certain way, what excites them about your site, and what puts them off. You will find the information about customer behavior very useful and it will help you improve your online order processing. Analytics help you to decide which ads work and which don't, and help to optimize your conversion rate.

With Analytics you can have a more effective social media strategySocial media is today critical to SEO and internet marketing. If your business does not have a presence on Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram and Facebook, you're missing out on quite a lot. Social media analytics tools are very important and critical to your understanding of what works on the various social media networks, to closely monitor what is being said about you on them, spot the latest social media trends, and get a better understanding of what the market really wants.

As an internet entrepreneur, it is critical to find a business partner or find a business angel. You will desperately need business angel investment, business funding and will want to find your ideal company partner. Learn how to improve sales or how to increase sales in our newbies marketing guide.

Source: Internet Entrepreneurs – Why You Need Analytics

63 Valuable Skills to Look for in a Digital Marketing CV

Digital marketing plays a vital role in modern business. Without employees who can generate leads and convert sales online; many companies simply wouldn't survive. If you're looking to secure quality candidates to place in digital marketing roles, then it's crucial that they possess the necessary skills, knowledge and experience to make an impact.

CV writing service StandOut CV have provided this useful infographic detailing 63 of the most crucial skills that should be appearing in the CVs of digital marketing professionals.

SEO & content marketing

With more than half of all online purchases starting with a search query, it's more important than ever for businesses to maintain high levels of visibility in the major search engines. A professional marketer with a proven track record in building and increasing organic traffic to websites, is certainly a valuable candidate.

A good SEO professional should firstly have solid keyword-research knowledge to enable them to pinpoint the exact search terms that their audience are using. They should also be adept in the creation of high-quality engaging content that addresses customer needs, and is recognised as valuable by the search engines. Off-page SEO talents such as email outreach, link building and guest-posting should also be in an SEO's arsenal, in order to build further trust with search engines and generate referral traffic from other sites.

PPC

PPC (or Pay Per Click) advertising is an effective method of driving instant targeted traffic to a company website – but it can be costly if implemented by unskilled staff. Marketers with a sound understanding of PPC platforms and their functions can be a huge asset to an organisation.

An effective PPC marketer must know how to use all of the major search and social PPC advertising tools such as Google Adwords, Bing, Twitter and Facebook Ads. Campaign setup, optimisation and bid management are all crucial to running successful PPC campaigns, along with analytics and reporting.

Email marketing

With an average of 38 dollars generated for every dollar spent, email marketing provides the best return on investment of all the digital marketing channels. A competent email marketer will ensure that subscribers re-engage with a company's website repeatedly and encourage continued spending.

A candidate who is serious about pursuing an email marketing role should have experience in using one or more of the major email marketing platforms such as Mailchimp, Aweber or Dotmailer. They should also be a skilled strategist and planner with a flair for copywriting to create eye-catching subject lines and persuasive email copy. Ideally they should also be familiar with graphic design basics, A/B testing and campaign reporting and analysis.

Social media

With 95% of adults following at least one brand or more on social media, it has become necessary for companies to have a strong social presence. Social media management is an in-demand ability and can help employers to reach large audiences and increase sales.

A strong social media marketing candidate should have in-depth knowledge of the commercial uses of social platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, as well as social post scheduling tools like Buffer and Hootsuite. The ability to create engaging posts is crucial along with community growth, customer service and viral marketing skills.

User experience

User experience (UX) is used to describe any interactions that a customer has with a brand online. It stands to reason that UX is extremely important to the success of an organisation's online efforts, so skilled UX professionals are highly sought after.

Web design is an essential skill for a good UX candidate, including languages such as HTML/CSS, PHP Java etc. Any UX professional with a track record of landing page builds, lead capture, list building and conversion optimisation will be hugely beneficial to any employer's marketing strategy.

About the author: Andrew Fennell is an experienced recruiter and founder of CV writing service StandOut CV.

Source: 63 Valuable Skills to Look for in a Digital Marketing CV

3 Examples Of Great Virtual Reality Marketing

Could virtual reality revolutionize marketing and advertising?

It may already be.

Sure, VR has been proclaimed the wave of the future before, only to fade into the background. But that's not likely to happen this time. With major players like Facebook, Sony, Samsung and others investing huge money in VR, the medium appears here to stay. More than just "stay" – it's here to shake things up, providing an immersive sensory-filled experience through which marketers can tell a brand's story and much more.

Already, VR is making inroads in the promotional products industry. Suppliers are offering products like brandable virtual reality glasses and headsets. Distributors have scored success selling them. For example, Lacey, WA-based Budd Bay Promotions & Apparel (asi/149520) recently sold 2,500 virtual reality viewers to a fire department, which used them in a community outreach program.

Beyond the promo industry, an array of brands in diverse industries have leveraged VR in creative ways to do everything from build their brands to directly drive sales. Here are a few examples of VR in action that caught our attention:

Merrell TrailScape

Merrell desired a uniquely memorable experience with which it could introduce the Capra – what was then the brand's most technically advanced hiking shoe yet. The high-performance footwear maker got that and more when it partnered with Framestore Studio to create TrailScape – a 4-D, motion-tracked, multi-sensory virtual hike experience. Debuted at the Sundance Film Festival, TrailScape had participants wearing an Oculus Rift VR headset that transported them to rough mountain terrain in Italy's Dolomites – all while they walked across a prop rope bridge that was set up in the physical experience space.

TrailScape, Framestore says, marked the first ever commercial use of an in-motion Oculus Rift experience. "Motion capture technology allowed our adventurers to explore the mountainside, with tactile elements such as rope walkways and shaking wooden planks underfoot driving the immersive nature of the piece to the absolute max," Framestore says on its website. "They were faced with mini-crises en route – the rockfall of a landslide, a precarious summit – which saw them dabble in scenarios beyond the confines of their typical hikes."

Indeed, the experience immersed participants in the terrains where the Capra shoe would be an especially valuable asset, making for a memorable product introduction if ever there was one.

Happy Goggles

Last year, McDonald's celebrated the 30th anniversary of the Happy Meal being in Sweden by spiffing up, via virtual reality, what might be the world's most iconic box. In effect, customers could easily transform Happy Meal boxes into VR goggles – called Happy Goggles – by tearing along perforated lines, folding, and inserting provided VR lenses and a smartphone (not provided). Once enabled, kids and curious parents could play Slope Stars – a ski-themed VR game delivering a 360-degree ski experience that, in addition to being fun, provided education on how to stay safe when whisking down the mountain. The Swedish National Ski Team even endorsed the game. In all, about 3,500 VR Happy Meal boxes were available at 14 McDonald's in Sweden. "The Happy Meal is one of our most loved menus and therefore an appropriate platform for reaching out to our family customers through experiences that focus on play and learning," Jeff Jackett, marketing director at McDonald's Swede n, said when Happy Goggles were released last year. "We believe that many people will enjoy the fun skiing game with the new Happy Goggles."

The Holoroom & HoloGram Experience:

Lowe's, the home improvement chain store, has orchestrated two unique VR initiatives. Introduced at two stores in Toronto, the Holoroom is a virtual reality design tool that helps Lowe's customers visualize home improvements. Intuitive and immersive, the Holoroom is an actual physical space where customers enter to wear a VR headset that transports them to a room they've just virtually designed with home upgrades they're considering. Launched in 2014, Lowe's followed that initial iteration up with a second generation Holoroom that was available in 19 stores across the U.S.

Additionally, Lowe's teamed up with Microsoft to create a mixed reality offering – the HoloGram Experience – for customers in two pilot stores. In this innovative venture, customers could view physical objects and digital holograms through a Microsoft HoloLens headset while standing in a showroom kitchen at Lowe's. "Using simple gestures to interact with their environment, customers could easily select from an array of design options and Lowe's products, including cabinetry, hardware, counter tops and appliances," the retailer said.

Lowe's plans to launch the HoloGram Experience at three more stores by the end of 2017. The experience will feature enhanced capabilities, powered by Microsoft Cortana, such as the capacity to capture a customer's Pinterest board to predict their tastes for home renovation. "It will also compile data from feedback given by customers during the experience, including their level of sentiment, the time they spend looking at various elements of the kitchen, and key phrases that customers mention during the experience," Lowe's says.

Source: 3 Examples Of Great Virtual Reality Marketing

Top 3 Email Marketing Software for Turning Subscribers Into Customers

Have you been looking for a way to connect with your subscribers, but don't have a lot of time to spend? Most marketers know that staying connected with potential customers is necessary for growing their business, but getting started may seem challenging, expensive, or both.

Email marketing is a diverse marketing tool that businesses can use to reach an audience, reinforce relationships, and help keep a product or service at the front of the readers' minds. Even with the rise of social media and advanced technology, email marketing is still a popular and effective choice, and among millennials, the preferred marketing channel.

We live and market in a fast-paced, connected world, and in our attempts to reach and convert customers, traditional advertising costs can quickly spiral out of control. Print ads, radio spots, and Internet advertising is not cheap, but the good news is that bloggers and marketers can use email channels to move subscribers through their sales funnel efficiently and without an exorbitant price tag. One way to use email marketing to its maximum potential is through the use of email marketing software.

Why Use Email Marketing Software?

Marketers put forth a lot of effort to do what they do best, which is get their product and brand in front of their audience. Marketing efforts may include social media, video marketing, mobile apps, and email marketing. So why use email marketing software?

Automated emails can be personalized

Email marketing is cost-effective and measurable

Email marketing is backed by professionals in the industry

91% of Americans want to receive promo emails (Marketing Sherpa)

Implementing email marketing software into an overall strategy saves time and effort and provides measurable results so that marketers can focus on what really matters, which is providing the most relevant content to a target audience at just the right time. These efforts convert subscribers and onlookers to customers and loyal fans, and with the right tools, powerful email marketing can be made simple.

Ready to Connect with More Customers? Top 3 Email Marketing Software Options

If you are ready to use powerful tools to connect with your audience, you've come to the right place. There are lots of options when it comes to converting subscribers to customers via email marketing software, and we've chosen the top 3 to help with your reach efforts.

Campaign Monitor

Campaign Monitor equips marketers with the tools they need to run a professional email marketing campaign. The drag-and-drop email builder allows users to choose from hundreds of professionally-designed templates and personalize them for a branded email campaign. Users have their choice of font, colors, and even exact spacing between selections so that the emails are designed to fit the specific need without any design or coding background required.

Related: 5 Ways to Develop a Better Email List

Emails are optimized for both mobile and desktop, which means less work for you. Marketers can also take advantage of social sharing features so that recipients can easily share content on platforms like Facebook and Twitter.

One of the most effective ways you can turn subscribers into customers is by personalizing your email marketing campaigns for each subscriber based on the information you already know about them. Campaign Monitor allows you to connect your CRM system, or manually segment data, and dynamically send different emails depending on where that person lives or whether they're male or female. For example, a clothing business can send an offer to their entire subscriber list that shows products specific to gender dynamically. This type of dynamic personalization is shown to deliver 6x higher conversion rates.

MyEmma

While customers and potential customers browse websites, attend events, and make purchases, MyEmma converts that data into an automated email that is designed to be timely and relevant. When a purchase is made, or is close to being made, a follow-up email is sent thanking the customer for the purchase or offering to assist them in completing a purchase. When visitors engage with your website or return as a guest, MyEmma delivers relevant content that works to convert potential customers to loyal customers, and loyal customers to brand ambassadors. MyEmma is a good email marketing platform for Ecommerce sites looking to automate email campaigns based on website user behavior. The platform falls short of Campaign Monitor when personalizing emails based on more than eCommerce transactional data.

MyEmma has developed reporting dashboards that give users insightful information about every email sent. Reports like mail scoring and click maps allow users to compare against past mailings across all device types.

MailChimp

When users connect their business to MailChimp's eCommerce integrations, they can create targeted campaigns and automated product follow-ups for customers. The drag-and-drop email builder lets you create a campaign that matches your style, and marketing automation sends emails to the right audience at the right time. Marketers can set up automation to target customers based on previous sales, buying behavior, and shopping preferences.

While MailChimp is a widely used email marketing platform, it does come in at the back of the pack when it comes to the personalization department. MailChimp does a good job of automating email autoresponder sequences based on triggers like an abandoned shopping cart or an email newsletter sign-up. When trying to combine subscriber interaction data with more personalized data sets to dynamically send emails the platform doesn't match up to MyEmma and Campaign Monitor.

Marketers Need Quality Customer Service and Success

While email marketing software is convenient, time-saving, and practical, one important component to consider is customer service and success. As a marketer, you want to know that you as a customer are receiving the very best in personalized service while maximizing your return on investment from your efforts. Behind the advanced technology and automation software should be a team focused on delivering real results and committed to solving complex problems for their customers.

When marketers have the support they need, it increases the likelihood that their business will succeed. From tech giants to non-profits, email marketing serves as a powerful tool for potential customers and brand loyalists.

Here's how each platform stacks up:

Campaign Monitor: Campaign Monitor shows off their customer support chops with award-winning 24/7 support. In addition, they provide customer success reps to ensure each customer maximizes ROI using best practices at no additional cost.

MyEmma: MyEmma offers a toll-free phone number which makes it easy to get account and technical related questions answered. If you want more support for implementing best practices around strategy, design or integrations you will have to purchase additional support packages.

MailChimp: MailChimp doesn't offer any phone support for technical or implementation related questions, but they do offer a comprehensive knowledge base to search for answers.

Whether you're running a blog or marketing products online, having an email marketing platform that delivers what your audience is interested in, when they're interested in receiving it, is key to keeping happy customers. Find the platform that's right for your needs and start engaging with your audience today.

This post was written by Megan Totka, Chief Editor for ChamberofCommerce.com. Chamber specializes in helping small businesses grow their business on the web while facilitating the connectivity between local businesses and more than 7,000 Chambers of Commerce worldwide.

As a small business expert, Megan specializes in reporting the latest business news, helpful tips and reliable resources, as well as providing small business advice. She has significant experience with the topic of small business marketing, and has spent several years exploring topics like copywriting, content marketing and social media.

Find here on Twitter and LinkedIn.

Source: Top 3 Email Marketing Software for Turning Subscribers Into Customers

Marketing Services Provider Flex Selects the Super Web WEBJet 200D from Memjet

Alan and Lisa Thompon, owners of Flex, stand next to the Super Web WEBJet 200D.

SAN DIEGO, Calif. — February 15, 2017 — Memjet has announced that Flex, a leading provider of marketing and advertising services in the southeast, has adopted the Memjet-powered Super Web WEBJet 200D commercial press. This next generation digital inkjet solution includes a range of inline finishing equipment that provides Flex with the resources necessary to produce full-color direct mail and marketing communications materials at an affordable cost.

Based in Birmingham, Ala., Flex marketing has been in business for over 35 years. During that time, the company has evolved from offering mail house capabilities to providing a full range of marketing and communications services, including the design and production of direct mail, corporate identity programs, and a wide variety of marketing collateral.

Lisa Thompson, president of Flex, says, "Our roots are in mailing, but our focus today is all about providing clients with services that effectively communicate their message and support a positive return on their marketing investment. We needed a solution that could help us keep pace with this effort. The Super Web WEBJet 200D commercial press is that solution. This machine gives us a way to print high-quality, full-color marketing materials at exceptional speeds and an affordable cost."

The Super Web 200D press is a next-generation Memjet-powered commercial press. It is designed to provide organizations like Flex with a full range of capabilities to handle the challenges and opportunities associated with being a successful marketing service provider.

Using the features of the WEBJet 200D means that, even for short runs, Flex never has to choose between quality and cost efficiency. The WEBJet 200D produces the high level of color quality that Flex needs to translate its vibrant designs into print. Moreover, the company can leverage the variable data capabilities of the press to add more personalization to its customers' communications.

The WEBJet 200D also includes functionality that saves time and resources in the Flex operation. While printing 2-up, the machine has an in-line perforating unit that enables the finishing of jobs to be done directly on the press. At speeds of up to 520 fpm (158 m per min) the WEBJet 200D can print 2-up, duplex, perforate, hole punch, slit and merge and stack the jobs at rated speed.

"Using the WEBJet 200D, it now takes us a quarter of the time to print jobs that offer incredible, vibrant color at 1,600×1,375 dpi. The speed and quality of this machine enabled us to transition from pre-printed shells to white paper in full color, all while enjoying an incredible cost saving," continues Ms. Thompson.

Bill Brunone, the general manager, production press at Memjet, says, "When we developed our high-speed, digital color printing technology we wanted to transform how print gets produced. Working with partners like Super Web, we have delivered on that goal. Today, companies like Flex have access to the speed, ease of use and low cost of ownership they need to pursue new business opportunities and expand their business."

Source: Memjet.

Source: Marketing Services Provider Flex Selects the Super Web WEBJet 200D from Memjet

How Much Should Small Businesses Spend on Digital Marketing in 2017?

A few decades ago, marketing and advertising meant putting up bill boards and buying radio or TV placement ads. A company's marketing budget was dedicated to producing these awesome posters, pamphlets and jingles. Fast-forward a couple of years and a lot – if not all – has changed. Now, this marketing budget, regardless of size, should be focused on social, search, email and mobile.

The statistics are proof of this shift in marketing budget: for nearly half a decade, investments in traditional advertising have consistently dropped by single digit percentages each year. Digital marketing spending, by comparison, has consistently grown by double digit increments year after year. So, how much should small businesses spend on digital marketing in 2017? This article provides information that can guide you through setting up your marketing budget and where to invest those marketing dollars.

Statistics of Digital Marketing Budget Email, Social, Display Ads, Mobile and Search are all growing in 2017. Digital is now at $75,000 a year, or 35% of all marketing spend on average for companies. Companies are shifting more and more money to digital because of it's perceive R.O.I., and the ability to spend less for more return.

"Digital marketing is vital for SMBs and our survey numbers bear that out," said Simon Grabowski, GetResponse CEO and Founder. "Marketers are investing accordingly, given the substantial return on investment delivered through web-based campaigns." According to GetResponse, 70% of small to medium sized businesses said they will increase their digital/web-based marketing budgets this year. Furthermore, SMB marketing statistics available from 2016 indicate that 62% of small businesses are investing 4% or more of their revenue in marketing.

BrightLocal conducted an insightful piece of research into the attitudes toward and usage of Digital Marketing by SMBs. Key findings include:

The average SMB spends $400/month on marketing.

SMBs spend on average 46% of their marketing budget on digital marketing.

78% of SMBs think that mobile marketing is an important channel for their business.

Budget Allocation for Digital Marketing Channels According to GetResponse, social, mobile and email are at the forefront of digital marketing spending this year. More specifically, 59% of SMBs said marketing on social networks, such as Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter will be the primary spending focus. The next channel projected to drive digital marketing spend in 2017 is mobile marketing (50%) — either app or web-based — followed by email marketing (42%). The other important digital channels include, video production, search marketing, content creation, data analysis and website maintenance. A report from Forrester Research, on the other hand, estimates that search engine marketing will capture the largest share of online spend.

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Overall, the chart below from 2016 shows strong increases in digital channel investment. Of the five digital marketing strategies represented, each expected to see at least a 42% increase in investment.

Conclusion

How much should you spend on digital marketing this year? What is the right allocation for digital marketing spend of total marketing budgets and on what channels should it be spent? These are important questions to tackle in 2017. When making decisions for your business, consider these takeaways:

Marketing budgets are increasing overall

Marketing spend is shifting from traditional advertising channels to digital channels

Social, mobile, email and search marketing represent the lion's share of the digital marketing budget

Total marketing budgets are between 4% and 12% of total revenue

Smaller companies spend more on marketing as a percentage of their total revenue

B2Cs and online companies spend more on marketing compared to B2Bs

Source: How Much Should Small Businesses Spend on Digital Marketing in 2017?

Realtor Marketing in 2017: The Biggest Digital Trends to Watch

The real estate technology landscape is constantly changing. The latest and greatest apps that promise to simplify our lives are rolled out in a steady stream, and the newest versions of our phones, even how we search for products on the internet, are always being tweaked and improved on.

With plenty of new real estate software rolled out seemingly monthly and a number of new and interesting trends emerging practically every week, you need to stay informed so you can make the most of your Realtor marketing strategy. Thankfully, you can do just that by checking out the most popular trends, news, and updates below, so continue on to discover the "next big thing" that can enhance your IDX website, social channels, email campaigns, and other digital activities.

Live video is becoming even more essential, particularly on the biggest social networks.

There's not a more surefire way to attract leads to your site than through video. It's gone from being a reliable way to up your content marketing to a necessity for agents to leverage their brand.

More than half of marketers found video effective in increasing brand awareness, lead generation, and online engagement, which is great news both to new agents just getting their real estate marketing strategy up and running, and seasoned professionals who are interested in revamping their online presence.

Below are some of the ways video is expected to augment Realtors' marketing efforts in the year ahead — and what industry pros such as yourself should do to ensure they keep up with the growing tactic:

1. Make use of social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter — both of which offer live-streaming platforms now. Live video will be all the rage for the foreseeable future, so use these tools to your advantage to showcase your listings and housing market.

2. Virtual reality home tours continue to grow in popularity among both home buyers and agents. They provide a more efficient way for agents to display listing properties.

3. Optimize your videos for search by including relevant descriptions, tags, and titles that are in line with your video subject matter so they can get found atop search results.

4. Authenticity is still the key to sharing videos with your leads. Video is the preferred method of content consumption for a large number of people, and since mobile video consumption increases 100% every year, your brief explainer videos or on-camera interviews with clients and locals need to be both entertaining and informational.

Targeted content remains a cornerstone to online real estate marketing success.

It's no secret that providing your leads with relevant, engaging content is a must, but it's becoming more important for real estate professionals to focus on a niche audience and create targeted content specifically for those people to consume, rather than churning out generic information that isn't likely to really resonate with your particular prospects.

When creating content — whether in the form of videos, blog posts, or infographics — always keep your target audience in mind. For example, let's say you work exclusively with first-time buyers in rural areas. This is a niche audience that will require specific information to prepare for and, ultimately, make their purchasing decisions.

Here are some examples of how best to focus content for this audience:

Share enticing information about the community with your leads. This could be a list of the top 10 outdoor attractions, profiles on local businesses, or the benefits of living in the country versus the city. Whatever the focus of the post is, include what makes the area unique.

Providing visuals of the community and its homes to your leads is the perfect way for people to engage with your content without spending a lot of their time trying to understand it. Since visuals inspire emotional reactions in people the same way stories do, a well-crafted video is even more likely to pique someone's interest.

Market listings/mortgage guides

Once you've gathered more information on your leads from your buyer personas and conversations you've had with prospects centered around their must-haves in a home, you need to provide them with tangible information to consult. Any listing reports you've curated that will showcase similar homes for sale in the neighborhood or homes you've sold recently are ideal here, as well as guides on mortgages and refinancing to help your leads make a more informed decision.

No matter what kinds of content you share with your leads, it should answer the questions you know from past experience that your clients are curious about.

Hop onboard the marketing automaton train — many Realtors have already done so.

Take a step back and think of all the ways your leads interact with your content and your brand and you might be surprised: various social media platforms, emails newsletters, blog entries. Having so many channels of communication to manage makes it even trickier to decide which tasks to set and forget and which to still actively monitor to nurture your leads effectively.

But there is a lot to be said for automation, and it's slated to become a big trend in realtor marketing. It's been predicted that a few years down the line, machine intelligence will account for a larger part of overall marketing efforts.

Until that wave of the future hits, though, the benefits of automating the more mindless tasks of lead nurturing, like email campaigns and social media shares, in favor of honing in on your target audience and providing them with the content that will eventually lead to conversion is, of course, ideal. 

Arranging for automated drip email marketing campaigns to be sent out to the database of leads in your CRM is a wonderful example of when this tech is a useful tool for Realtors. It allows you to still remain in consistent contact with your leads, while also freeing up your time for more personable tasks such as client meetings and showings and conduct your countless other real estate marketing tactics.

Responsive websites remain a top priority to enhance marketing for Realtors today.

People are rarely without their phones, and they use them to track just about every aspect of their lives imaginable. Mobile has even surpassed desktop as the preferred method to browse online. That means as a real estate agent, you'll need to ensure all of your content and communication is easily viewable on, and optimized for, mobile devices.

Research shows that 88% of consumers who search for a local business, call or visit in the first 24 hours. To better prepare yourself for this trend and, in turn, continue to grow your online Realtor marketing presence, be sure to do the following:

1. Test page copy lengths and layouts.

Consider all of the content that already exists on your site, and ensure it translates well to a mobile device. Layouts should be simple, with your contact information on every page, visuals need to be engaging and clear. Test out any videos on your phone to confirm they play well.

2. Keep local SEO top of mind — always.

Any business with a physical location–like your office–needs to rank for local SEO. By adding your city and state to the title, URL, content, and meta description of your site, your name and office will show up in organic and map searches, which increases the chances that leads looking for a particular real estate agent in your area will find you.

3. Design your ads to be mobile-friendly.

As with going local with SEO, you'll also want to take advantage of Google AdWords or Facebook Ads to drive traffic to your site and increase the conversion rate of your leads. It's essential that your mobile site offer localized ads with specific CTAs for buyer and seller leads browsing listings on their phones.

What other digital marketing trends do you think will be big in 2017 for agents? Share your thoughts with us in the comments section below! Download our "Modernize Your Real Estate Marketing Strategy" ebook today to learn how to take advantage of the aforementioned tactics.

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Published on February 13, 2017

Source: Realtor Marketing in 2017: The Biggest Digital Trends to Watch

How to Build the Best Marketing Strategy You Can Using Only Free Tools

As an entrepreneur, it is more important than ever for you to create an efficient marketing strategy. Because startups often have low budgets, finding the right marketing stack that covers the variety of different sectors within a marketing strategy is crucial. Today, it is possible for you to access these tools without spending a dime.

Below, I've put together a list of the top free digital marketing resources that will help you maximize your marketing efforts to achieve success.

SEO: Ubersuggest, SEMrush, Adwords, and Yoast

Wincher allows you to track how your website is performing. From there, you can run these through SEMrush or Google Adwords Keyword Planner for a more thorough analysis of your chosen keywords. Both offer free digital marketing resources such as keyword search volumes, relating keywords, competitor analysis for chosen keywords, and projected costs for any future Pay-Per-Click (PPC) campaigns. However, unlike SEMrush, the Keyword Planner allows you to search for a group of keywords at a time, and gives accurate suggestions for alternative keywords that may perform better for startups.

Google's Analytical Tools

Tracking traffic and analyzing visitor behaviour on your site is crucial to understanding what attracts your target audience and what needs improving. Google Analytics gives you a monstrous amount of information on users that visit your website. With these tools you can track where your traffic is coming from, how long visitors are staying on your page, and even see who is on your page in real-time.

Internet entrepreneur and digital strategist, Abhilash Patel, says that, "Google Analytics is more than just a free tool, it is an essential part of your marketing strategy. If you aren't using it to track your web traffic, you are missing out on some of the most important insights into your campaign."

Other free analytics tools include Google Search Console and Google Trends, who offer slightly different features. All of these are based on analyzing different aspects of the traffic that reaches your website, where it's coming from, and how deep it's going into your page.

Content Marketing: Grammarly, Hemingway, and Co Schedule Headline Analyser

Human editors and spell checkers are still required, but are not enough from a marketing point of view. Grammarly automatically spell checks anything you write or publish in an internet browser. The application can be downloaded as an extension on your web browser and be used everywhere apart from Google Docs. 

Social Media Marketing: Buffer, Hootsuite, and TweetDeck

Staying "live" on social media to keep your audience engaged is key. But, as this is a full time job in itself, Buffer allows you to batch the social media marketing process by allowing you to do all your composing in one go, and schedule it for a later date. Users can also create campaigns and analyze their success.

Hootsuite and TweetDeck also offer free social media management plans, with slightly different options to Buffer.

Email Marketing: GetResponce

Email marketing offers a more personalized interaction with your audience. This form of marketing gives you more control over moving your customers through the sales funnel naturally. The free GetResponce plan is one of the most prominent email marketing tools allowing you to try for one month free, scheduling them according to your past performance. You can then build tailored campaigns to help turn prospects to leads, and eventually, leads to sales.

CRM:  Zoho

CRM tools make it easy to grow and track your sales funnel. The software automatically manages your sales pipeline, documents all points of contact with your prospects and current clients, logs sales, and allows you to see everything about each lead in one place. This tells your sales team at what point of the buyer's journey your leads are at, which in turn enables them to focus their efforts appropriately.

From developing a website or blog, to managing your leads, and connecting your entire team, there are a number of free digital marketing resources that make every aspect of creating an efficient strategy easier. By making the most of these free tools, you will be able to catapult your startup to success.

Murray Newlands is an entrepreneur, investor, business advisor and speaker. Newlands is the author of "Online Marketing: A User's Manual" published by John Wiley & Sons. You can find him online at his blog MurrayN...

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Source: How to Build the Best Marketing Strategy You Can Using Only Free Tools

NexToronto to Host Toronto-Area Affiliate Marketing Workshops

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Upcoming workshops will give participants the unique opportunity to walk through the strategy and development of a live, successful affiliate marketing site, NexToronto reports

TORONTO – February 11, 2017 /MarketersMedia/ —

NexToronto Web Development & Internet Marketing announced a new series of Affiliate marketing workshops. The upcoming workshops will teach bloggers and website owners how to make money with existing or new web properties. Workshop attendees will be shown through the strategizing and development process that recently spawned websites such as Bed and Breakfast Niagara-on-the-Lake, an active, already-profitable affiliate marketing website.

As one of Canada's most successful and highly regarded WordPress development and Internet marketing agencies, NexToronto is well positioned to guide others to affiliate marketing success. With the upcoming affiliate marketing workshops having just been announced, those interested can join a special Meetup.com group and stay tuned to the NexToronto website for details to come in the near future.

„Many people dream of having the kind of passive, reliable income that can make life so much easier and more enjoyable," said NexToronto founder and CEO Danny D'Ambrosio, „Unfortunately, how to get started is often unclear, with too many people running into dead ends or giving in to confusion. In our new series of workshops, we're going to be showing just how simple affiliate marketing can be. By guiding attendees through the process that led to the creation of our own affiliate marketing sites, we're going to make it easy for anyone to succeed."

With so many businesses seeking the attention of Internet users, competition is fierce. Where some companies stick to paid advertisements or the organic traffic that flows from search engine results, many find affiliate marketing to be an even more powerful tool. Internet retail giant Amazon, for example, maintains an affiliate marketing system known as Amazon Associates that some estimates credit with delivering as much as 40 percent of its traffic.

As with most other affiliate programs, Amazon Associates sites that refer their own visitors to Amazon receive a commission for every sale that follows. With only a very small upfront investment generally being required and successful affiliate sites often needing little maintenance, affiliate marketing can be both easy and rewarding to become involved with.

With over a decade of experience in the field, affiliate marketing expert Danny D'Ambrosio will host the company's upcoming workshops in an effort to make things clear for attendees. With details still to be finalized, the Toronto-area workshops will center around topics such as affiliate marketing, SEO and WordPress. Such concrete, informed, highly specific information about affiliate marketing tends to be difficult to come by, so interest in the upcoming workshops is expected to be high.

About NexToronto WordPress Development & Internet Marketing: Connecting the dots for clients, NexToronto offers a full range of top-quality, results-oriented web development and Internet marketing services.

Contact Info: Name: Danny D'Ambrosio Organization: NexToronto Web Development & Internet Marketing Address: 2 Lippincott Court Richmond Hill, ON L4C 7M5 Telephone: 416-893-3231

Source URL: http://marketersmedia.com/nextoronto-to-host-toronto-area-affiliate-marketing-workshops/169071

For more information, please visit https://www.meetup.com/Toronto-North-Affiliate-Marketing-Meetup/

Source: MarketersMedia

Release ID: 169071

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Source: NexToronto to Host Toronto-Area Affiliate Marketing Workshops