Kevin Hill – Page 3

Give Your Business a Fall Marketing Tune-up

“The key to setting achievable marketing goals is to spend time evaluating your current position.”

Marketing remains essential for businesses in order to successfully compete, sell products/services and become profitable and grow. Following are effective marketing best practices.

Set Attainable Goals

Determine your position in the market and decide what you want to achieve.
Keep your goals realistic, making them something you will be able to accomplish.

Establish Brand Identity and Target Market

Brand Identity: Communicate what your business does with the right name, logo, colors, imagery.
Target Market: Consider the age, gender, interests, location, etc. of your target customer.

Maintain a Website

Nearly two-thirds of small businesses rely on websites to connect with customers.
In this digital era, websites are the window to virtually any type of business.

Combine Online and Offline Strategies

Combine online channels such as blogs, social media, etc., with offline marketing practices.
Be mindful of SEO (Search Engine Optimization¹): incorporate relevant keywords into websites/online portals to rank higher on search engines.

Use Google Tools

List your product/service on Google My Business² to gain search visibility, customer insights and display useful information to help customers find you.
Prepare for a Google Ad Words³ campaign by setting a budget, finding the right keywords and creating landing pages that bear significance.

Don’t Discount Email Marketing

Every new subscriber to your email list is a potential paying customer.
Sixty-six percent of emails are opened on mobile devices; use mobile responsive templates that automatically adapt emails to mobile formats.

Prioritize Content Marketing

Eighteen percent of marketers said content marketing had the greatest impact on their business.
Create and share quality, unique content through webinars, blogs, social media posts, etc.

Join Local Business Groups / Solicit Customer Reviews

Network and showcase your business and meet like-minded people to share stories/goals by joining local groups.
Ask your customers for a review: feedback is a powerful tool for small business owners;

“The key to setting achievable marketing goals is to spend time evaluating your current position.” — Shanelle Mullin, Director of Marketing-Onboardly

¹SEO: methods used to increase traffic to a website by increasing its search engine page rank (techopedia.com).
²Google My Business: a tool to manage your online presence across Google.
³Google Ads: an online advertising program (support.google.com).
Source: smallbiztrends.com, reported by Gabrielle Pickard-Whitehead

Digital-Out-of-Home Trends Dominate Top Stories

Digital-out-of-home (DOOH) has been dominating advertising news with key trends and innovative technology. Following are the top five stories:

1. What’s driving the digital-out-of-home market?

Advertisers realize the value of trading static images for digital, delivering content that responds to the audience directly.
Two factors driving the expanding DOOH market are improved targeting and dynamic content — content that is continually updated¹.

2. Eye tracking tech delivers DOOH ads:

Dynamic content has the potential to engage audiences in a deep way because it addresses customers’ needs.
Displays can track users’ eyes to deliver content.

3. Three ways to bring DOOH content to life:

Out-of-home continues to outpace other traditional advertising, fueled by the fast growth in DOOH.
Three basic tips for DOOH: adding motion, delivering contextual content and carefully handling the timing.

4. Businesses are using big data to deliver the best DOOH experience for customers:

Big data is information that is analyzed to reveal patterns, trends, and associations relating to human behavior and interactions.²
The key to using big data is to offer good deals and a good product. It’s about the customer’s journey, not just the aggregated data.

5. Three tips for successful indoor digital signage:

When you deploy digital signage indoors, consider factors such as space, branding and messaging.
To be successful, have key strategies in place for all three factors.

When delivering digital signage experiences, experts recommend focusing on broader audiences, which will lead to increased sales and brand awareness.

Source: Digitalsignagetoday.com, reported by Bradley Cooper; ¹Braze.com; ²Google dictionary

4 Ways Alexa Will Change How Businesses Reach Customers

AI (artificial intelligence) assistants*, like Alexa, could better connect businesses with customers, and new features expand Alexa’s reach. Here are four Amazon updates for voice application developers that could change how businesses operate:

1) Skills Recommendations

“Skills” are applications (apps) that let Alexa speak to devices, even websites, allowing users to perform more actions with voice-activated control and third-party offerings:

Amazon’s “CanFullfillIntentRequest” interface checks location, so Alexa can answer questions like “Help me find a nearby carpenter”.
Alexa can tap into its universe of voice apps with this interface, offering a new and growing way for local businesses to reach customers.

2) Payments

Amazon accepts Amazon Pay for one-time payments or ongoing subscriptions:

Curation services that recommend local activities and offer to buy tickets could also help facilitate commerce and provide convenience for users.
With user location access extended to third-party voice app developers, businesses can complete the transaction loop by offering delivery.

3) Notifications

Voice apps are bypassing some voice commands to interact with users through notifications:

Notifications can be sent via an auditory noise or by animating the ring of light atop an Echo speaker.
They’re available for a select group of skills, including Domino’s Pizza delivery updates, Washington Post news, and AccuWeather alerts.

4) Voice Identification for Skills

If paying by voice alone, Alexa needs to understand whose credit card to use:

“Your Voice” by Amazon is a voice identification service that provides personalization: playing news flash briefings, adding events to calendars, choosing the right number to call, and logging a user’s previous interactions with a game or skill.
Alexa can also remember whatever you tell her, including what you recently said.

Don’t Fret/Forget! If you are a GSM client with business listings management, you are already listed on Alexa! Since Alexa uses Google, Yelp and Bing listing data for local service/product voice searches, your business will be found if someone is searching for a service/product you provide.

*AI (artificial intelligence): Conversational computers that people can interact with simply by having a conversation.

Source: Venturebeat.com, reported by Khari Johnson.

Promised #1 on Google? It Doesn’t Mean What You Think It Does

Many internet marketing companies state that their services can get you to “number one” on Google, but do you know what is actually being done to get you there? Search engines have changed and “number one” cannot be guaranteed. Here is what you should know:

1. Getting to “number one” on Google isn’t necessarily the best goal for local businesses.
The first position on Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) are paid ads. This is what is being offered to you when you hear the line “we can get you to number one on Google” (see example at right)

People who search for local businesses tend to ignore ads, and scroll to listings and search results.
Searchers know that ads may be from national companies with no local presence in the community.
Nearly all clicks on ads are accidental during searches for a local business.

2. No one can guarantee that you will be “number one” on Google.
Google doesn’t allow any website to be the “king of a keyword”; it’s about showing searchers what THEY want to see, based on their prior internet activity and location at the time of search:

Google changes its ranking algorithms¹ frequently, so what worked previously, might not work today.
If your business/website was previously visited, you are more likely to be number one, or high up on the page, if that person does a search relating to your business.
You might be number one for those who live around the block from you, and number five for those who live one town over. Your position is NOT static even if it looks that way when you search for
your own business.

3. Google AdWords² is not Search Engine Optimization, so what is?
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is about the content/structure of your website being tuned to peoples’ searches, not about placing ads leading to clicks to your website:

The hit on your website through AdWords is not making it more “in demand” in the eyes of the search engines because the click did not originate from your website’s link on the SERP.
Focus on actual SEO, so that the rankings you generate are real, with quality over quantity content that is relevant to who you want to drive to your website.
Come up with a specific goal, such as pushing a product, service or sale and keep track of results.

Local businesses should have a unique approach when it comes to SEO, based on industry, location, and other factors. Be wary of companies making promises before getting to know your goals. Being number one on Google is not necessarily the ticket to success anymore in today’s digital landscape.

¹Algorithms: how social media platforms filter, rank and organize the content we see based on a specific set of criteria (prosperforpurpose.com).

²Google AdWords: An advertising service by Google for businesses wanting to display ads on Google and its advertising network. Businesses only pay when people click on ads; the service is largely focused on keywords. (webopedia.com).