Why Creating Fresh Content is Worth the Effort

Creating content is a big job. After all, it takes a lot of time and know-how to create good content and then make sure it is distributed through the right channels and reaches its intended audience.

Many business owners want to know that content creation is truly worth the time and effort needed to do it right. The answer is an emphatic, “Yes!” So why is that?

  1. Content is the most effective SEO tool when it comes to getting your website a good ranking.
  2. Content will provide your sales leads with the kind of information they want. And when you help a prospect solve a problem, you also stand a good chance of converting them into customers.
  3. Good content builds trust. When your prospects know and trust you, they will be more likely to buy from you in the future. They also will be more likely to spread the word about your products or services.

Now more than ever, businesses can’t rely on just one marketing technique to drive sales. Some prospects are best reached on social media, others by direct mail campaigns, and still others respond best by talking to someone on the phone.

Thankfully, it isn’t necessary to reinvent the wheel every time you set out to market to a different set of customers or prospects. In fact, many marketing strategies don’t just work well together, they work better together! One example of this is when you mix contenting marketing with inbound marketing.

Creating quality content for your website means making sure that it contains the necessary keywords while also connecting, educating, and inspiring customers. This builds on what you are already doing with your inbound marketing – seeking to build trust and getting your company noticed. You might even want to go to your sales team for content ideas. After all, they know better than anyone what your customers are looking for from your products or services.

In the end, it is important to remember that no matter how well content marketing works with other types of marketing tools, it remains its own unique and effective technique. To put it another way, according to the Content Marketing Institute, “Content marketing is the practice of creating relevant and compelling content in a consistent fashion to a targeted buyer, focusing on all stages of the buying process, from brand awareness through to brand evangelism.”

Responding to Feedback on Social Media

Many businesses fret over how they will respond to negative reviews or customer comments on their social media sites. The truth is, even responding to positive feedback or simple questions can be challenging. After all, you are basically engaging in a public conversation and that can be difficult.

You don’t have to be a social media guru to know that the absolute worst thing you can do on social media is to ignore someone who is reaching out to you. Remember, these are customers and sales leads. When someone makes a concentrated effort to contact you, you must respond. This includes questions, compliments, or complaints. So how do you best respond in these three instances? Here are some tips:

Questions

We all know how to answer a question. It gets a little dicey, however, when there is no clear cut answer available. Maybe someone is waiting for an item that is backordered and they are wondering why it is taking so long. Since this may take some time to research you can’t be expected to provide an answer immediately. What you are expected to do is to acknowledge the question immediately. Let the customer know that you are looking into it and then provide regular updates. Even if you don’t have an answer, people want to know that you received their message and if it takes some time to find an answer, they want updates to know that you haven’t forgotten about them.

Compliments

Responding to compliments about your service or product or anything else having to do with your brand is imperative. If someone took the time to compliment you and you fail to acknowledge it, what does that say about your business? Be sure to thank that person for the compliment and let them know that you value their business. Such interactions will keep these customers engaged with your brand.

Complaints

Even if you believe a complaint or negative comment is unwarranted you still need to take the high road and acknowledge the problem. You then need to apologize that this person had a poor experience. It also is important that if a person complains publicly, you respond publicly so people who saw the initial complaint know that you handled it. By keeping it all out in the open, you are getting the message across that you take complaints seriously and always do your best to make things right.

Social media interactions can be difficult but they are essential to building brand equity and keeping customers engaged. And it is important that you don’t drag your feet when responding. Studies show that people who engage a business on social media expect at least an initial response in less than an hour.

Get the Most Out of Email Marketing

Maximize your email campaigns!

Email marketing is a great way to connect with your customers and prospects. And just like meeting people face-to-face, you want to use email in a way that helps you strengthen your relationship with your recipients. In other words, I’m assuming you don’t always try to sell something to the person you’re talking to every time you see them. If you do you probably don’t have a lot of friends.

Email marketing is the same way. Our philosophy is simple. When it comes to email, we want to make sure your campaigns do the following: Connect, Educate and Inspire. When you have that philosophy in mind, your email campaigns will do the following:

  1. Significantly improving your customer acquisition rate
  2. Helps you become a Thought Leader in your industry
  3. Increasing your brand awareness and over time will build equity into your brand
  4. Will help maximize all of your content on your site and drive traffic to your website.

Email marketing is incredibly powerful when implemented correctly. GoLeads (www.goleads.com) can help you achieve these objectives with your email campaigns. Give us a call to discuss this.

Plus, don’t let lack of resources stop you from implementing an email campaign. GoLeads will do it all for you – from the design to writing the content. We can handle it all from start to finish and every step in between. Call us today and let’s maximize Email to grow your business.

402-334-1824

How to Increase Your Focus at Work

Improve Your Focus at Work

If you find it difficult at times to sit down at your desk and really focus on something, you’re not alone. A 2015 Microsoft study states that the average human attention span has shrunk to eight seconds and it is expected to continue to shrink.

So how can you improve your focus at work and do what needs to get done? Whether you are calling sales leads or grading papers, you have to be able to focus.

Stephanie Vozza writes in 8 Ways to Improve Your Focus that one of the first things people need to realize is that focus is an acquired skill. To say that some people are able to focus and others are not is false. Vozza compares focus to a muscle that needs to be trained.

Too many people labor under the idea that they’re just not focused, and this becomes a self- fulfilling prophesy. Once you drop this mistaken belief, you can take a much more realistic approach to building focus.

Vozza has eight tips for building your focus, ranging from taking short breaks to grabbing some coffee. While the tips are simple, it can be difficult to implement the changes. One thing Vozza advocates is unplugging for 30 minutes. Unfortunately, people who are constantly checking their email or text messages may find this excruciating but it is definitely worth the effort.

While it may seem obvious, in order to stay focused people must identify what they should be focusing on. In other words, if you know what you need to be doing you will be less likely to be distracted by things that aren’t important.

No matter how quickly things are moving or how much information you have at your fingertips, you won’t accomplish much if you are unable to put your head down and get work done. Now that’s something you really need to focus on!

How to Make Your Next Email Marketing Campaign Your Best

When it comes to marketing methods, email remains one of the most popular ways to communicate with current and prospective customers.

One reason that email marketing is so popular with marketers is because it works. According to the Direct Marketing Association, email marketing yields an average 4,300% return on investment for U.S. businesses.

There is simply no better way to provide current customers or prospects relevant content than email. No matter what your objective – promotional, educational, or simply to introduce yourself – nothing works better.

So now that we know email isn’t going anywhere, here are some ways to make sure your next email marketing campaign is your best:

  1. Make sure you have the right audience by obtaining a premier business email database for sales leads. A high accuracy rate for email mailing lists is essential or your efforts are wasted.
  2. Optimize it for mobile. More than 60 percent of decision makers read emails via their mobile device and studies show that emails that are not easy to use on mobile devices will be deleted. And there are no second chances. Once a reader determines your brand’s emails don’t offer a pleasant experience they are extremely unlikely to open subsequent ones.
  3. Content should specifically mention the person who is reading the email. By using their name and other specifics, such as their location or company, an email will seem more personal.
  4. If you are sending promotional materials, don’t use the same promotions you use on social media. If you offer 20 percent off an item through your Facebook site, try free shipping through email or vice versa.
  5. Keep in mind that usability studies show that most people won’t look beyond the first screen of an email so try to keep content short enough to be contained on the first screen. When you do need to send a longer email, use a hyperlinked table of contents at the beginning of the email so people can quickly and easily access the information that interests them.
  6. Measure the results of every email campaign. This will allow you to find out what worked, what didn’t work, and how your next campaign can be even more successful.

The key to successful email marketing is to make sure every one of your email campaigns is better than the last. By using the steps above you can make sure that this is always the case!