6 Key Online Marketing Strategies Cheat Sheet
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6 Key Online Marketing Strategies Cheat Sheet Blogging, Social Media, Copywriting, SEO and Landing Pages should all be part of your marketing strategy. This guide is the ultimate cheat sheet to make sure you’re covering all your bases!
Allie Bloyd, Marketing Specialist AllieBloydMedia.com
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Contents Letter from the author Landing Pages Blogging SEO Copy Writing Email Social Media Conclusion
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We live in a word that is hooked on digital technologies. We are constantly connected on our smart phones, tablets, computers and various other devices that keep us in a constant state of engagement. While there are plenty of negatives for this, we’re going to focus on the positives, and what you can do to use these habits to grow your business, build your tribe, and engage your audience. Most business owners understand their business, but not the way that online marketing works. That’s why we’ve put together this guide to help you begin using some key strategies to gain market share and grow your business. We’ll be covering blogging, email, copywriting, SEO (search engine optimization) social media and landing pages. While there is so much more information than what I’ve been able to fit in this e-book, this should be the information you need to get started or expand your current strategy. If you need additional help with marketing consulting or full marketing and administrative support for your business, feel free to reach out!
Allie Bloyd Allie Bloyd Media, alliebloydmedia.com
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Landing Pages What is a landing page and why do I need it? In the purest sense, a landing page is any web page that a visitor can arrive at or “land” on. However, when discussing landing pages within the realm of marketing and advertising, it’s more common to refer to a landing page as being a standalone web page distinct from your main website that has been designed for a single focused objective.
This means that your landing page should have no global navigation to tie it to your primary website. The main reason for this is to limit the options available to your visitors, helping to guide them toward your intended conversion goal.
Types of Landing Pages There are 2 basic types of landing page, Click Through and Lead Generation (also referred to as Lead Gen or Lead Capture pages).
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Click Through Landing Pages
The sole purpose of the page is to collect information that will allow you to market to
Click through landing pages (as the name implies)
and connect with the prospect at a
have the goal of persuading the visitor to click
subsequent time. As such, a lead capture
through to another page. Typically used in
page will contain a form along with a
ecommerce funnels, they can be used to describe a
description of what you’ll get in return for
product or offer in sufficient detail so as to “warm
submitting your personal data.
up” a visitor to the point where they are closer to making a purchasing decision. All too often,
There are many tools to creating landing
inbound advertising traffic is directed at shopping
pages, such as Thrive Architect, Lead
cart or registration pages. This leads to poor
Pages, Clickfunnels and more.
conversions as the ad doesn’t provide sufficient information for someone to make an informed decision.
This is where the click through page comes in. As a result, the destination page from a click through page is typically the shopping cart or registration page – now with a much higher chance of conversion having passed through the details of the landing page.
Lead Generation Landing Pages Lead generation landing pages are used to capture user data, such as a name and email address.
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A 50 Point Checklist for Creating Landing Pages Use this list to get ultimate impact on your landing pages
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Does your landing page headline match the message on your ads?
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Is your landing page messaging focused on a single purpose?
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Could a stranger understand the purpose in 5-10 seconds? (test this)
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Is it clear who your company is and what you do? (a logo and tagline)?
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Do you have a simple secondary description to enhance the headline?
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Do you use bullet points to describe the benefits of your product/service?
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Are you using a relevant and original main image or video that shows it being used (context of use)?
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Does your page message have the clarity of a 30-second elevator pitch? (Read out your page copy to someone and see if they understand it.)
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Is your primary headline phrased to answer the question “What is this page about?”
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Have you removed extraneous links (like the global nav) – to remove page leaks?
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Does your landing page explain how your product/service is unique (USP)?
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Does the writing focus primarily on benefits rather than features?
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A 50 Point Checklist for Creating Landing Pages Use this list to get ultimate impact on your landing pages ●
Did you resist asking for any unnecessary information in a form (be completely honest cos it’s bad)? (check the box if you aren’t using a form).
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Do you explain the value or size of your lead gen giveaway (discount amount, number of ebook pages, $ value)?
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Do you provide examples of previous customers using or complimenting your product/service? (Testimonials and other trust factors)
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Do you offer multiple contact methods (phone, email, live chat)
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Do you make it clear what the visitor will receive by clicking your CTA?
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Does your landing page appear to be professionally designed?
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Does the design of your landing page match the visual style of your ad creative? (Banners)
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Does the design match the style of your main website or brand? (Only relevant if you will end up there after clicking the CTA)
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Do you use lightboxes to show extra information without leaving the page?
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Do you provide a privacy and or terms & conditions statement/link?
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Are you providing a sample (preview of first chapter etc.) of your giveaway, if applicable?
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Do you show certifications or logos of partners/affiliates/security 6 Key Online Marketing Strategies Cheat Sheet
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A 50 Point Checklist for Creating Landing Pages Use this list to get ultimate impact on your landing pages
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Are your claims and facts verifiable?
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Do you repeat your offer in the form area to reinforce what the purpose of your form is?
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Do you use visual cues (eye direction or graphical arrows) to direct attention to CTA?
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Is the CTA large enough to stand out from 6ft away?
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Does the CTA use contrast to stand out from the rest of the page?
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Is your CTA in a prominent position near the top of the page?
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Are you including a link to your privacy policy next to the email field of your form?
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Are you using your confirmation page to provide the new lead with further instructions? (share this page, follow us, download this extra free ebook, register for this webinar).
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If your offer is time limited, do you make this clear for the sake of urgency?
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Are you creating a separate landing page for each inbound source (email, social, PPC) and see which gets you the most conversions.
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If you use video, have you set it up for user directed playback (vs. an autoplay)?
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Do you end your video with a call to action?
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Have you limited the number of CTS’a on your page to 1? (Unless it’s a long page in which case it’s okay to repeat it). 6 Key Online Marketing Strategies Cheat Sheet
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A 50 Point Checklist for Creating Landing Pages Use this list to get ultimate impact on your landing pages
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If you are getting people to sign up for a webinar, are you showing the number of registrants as a form of social proof?
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If you use exit popup windows, only check this box if it offers something of value that’s relevant to the page, and doesn’t use manipulation to encourage the click (for example, making someone click on a link that says “That’s okay, I like crappy conversion rates.”). It’s not delightful and you can do better.
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Are you doing A/B testing on your pages?
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Are you seeking feedback from your customer to help develop a hypothesis for your next test?
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If you have a multi-step process (sign-up etc.), do you make it clear to visitors? (30 seconds, 3 steps etc.)
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Have you optimized your landing page to get a paid search quality score above 7?
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Do you use a separate landing page for every promotion/campaign?
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Have you tested using a short page vs. a long page to understand how much information your visitors need to convert?
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Does your landing page follow the principle of unity, where every element of the page is focused on explaining a single concept?
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Have you Krug’d your landing page? (Remove 50% of the copy, then delete half of what’s left. (To ensure maximum simplicity and clarity).
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A 50 Point Checklist for Creating Landing Pages Use this list to get ultimate impact on your landing pages
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Leave this box unchecked if your form button says “Click Here” or “Submit”.
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If you use a form, is it encapsulated in a colored background box to make it clearly stand out as the most important part of the page.
As you can see, there are many key factors to creating a great landing page that actually converts. You can either set out to learn how to build landing pages yourself, as well as integrate them with your email, social and CRM platforms, or you can hire someone to manage this for you. Landing pages and more advanced funnels are a very powerful marketing strategy that I would highly recommend using. I offer these services in my digital marketing packages, found at alliebloydmedia.com
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Blogging Guide Blogging is a great way to position yourself as an industry expert, educate your customers pre-purchase and increase your organic SEO.
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What is a blog and why do I need it? A blog is very simply an article. It started as a type of online journal or diary, but it has expanded over the last 10+ years to be a very powerful sales tool. Your blog should typically be housed on your website, but it can also be a separate site that it's connected to your primary business site. A blog for business has several purposes. First, you want to position yourself as an expert in your field. This builds trust with present and potential clients. Second, it helps you address common questions or objections that your customers would have surrounding your product or service without them having to reach out to a salesperson to discuss them. This is a much more effective way to persuade your customer as it’s a very soft sell. Third, when set up correctly, blogs can build your organic search engine rankings. This means that when your potential customer searches for something related to your industry or product, they could find you first. You could be the person who educates them, answers their questions and then they can discover your products or services. On a more advanced scale, blogging is a way to get segment your customers and website visitors in order to retarget them with online advertising and email content based on their specific interest. This is a cost effective way to increase sales and get a higher engagement rate with your content.
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How to write an effective blog:
1) Know Your Audience If you don’t understand your readers, they won’t want to stick around, come back or tell anyone else about your blog Empathy is the most powerful tool you have as a blogger because it connects you to your audience emotionally. You create that empathy with your readers and it’s the emotional connection that gets them to think that you understand their need. Put yourself in your reader's shoes. Ask questions like: ● ● ●
What are their problems, frustrations and challenges? What does a typical day look like in their world? What do they hope to gain by reading your blog?
You can find out these answers by: ● ● ●
Sending out a short survey to your list Reading other blogs comments Reading forum posts in your niche
Then the key is to take one of the problems or desires that your readers have and incorporate it into your blog post.
2) Attention-grabbing Headline/Title You need to grab your audience’s attention by writing a catchy headline. Jeff Goins has a headline formula that works pretty well: Number or Trigger word + Adjective + Keyword + Promise For example, 5 Key Steps to Blogging that You Need to Know Follow the formula and then analyze your headline with CoSchedule great new tool. It will show you the overall quality of your headline and even tells you how it will rate in social shares and SEO value. 6 Key Online Marketing Strategies Cheat Sheet
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How to write an effective blog:
3) Make an Impact with Intro Second to your headline/title, your intro is key. People make up their mind very qucily about if they want to stay or go. Want to know some of the best ways to start a blog post that grabs your reader’s attention? ● ● ● ●
Arouse curiosity by asking a question Surprise your audience with an unusual fact Share a story Start with a quote
Make it personal, be yourself, and keep remembering to speak the language of your target audience.
4) Make it Easy to Read People don’t like to read a long article of nothing but words. You need to break it down for them so that they can scan and see if they’ll be able to get the information they need ● ● ● ● ●
Use headings any time you introduce a new idea Use subheadings to further break it down Use bulleted numbers and lists as much as possible Keep it between 300-1000 words. Anything more could be broken down to a series of articles. Attention spans are low these days Use captivating images. Make sure they’re relevant.
5) Use a Call To Action A call to action at the end is very important. If you want them to take an action, such as schedule a call or free estimate, you need to include that. Your audience needs to be told what to do. “Click here to schedule your free call discuss your blogging strategy!” There are several other key factors in blogging which include SEO best practices. We’ll cover those in the SEO portion. 6 Key Online Marketing Strategies Cheat Sheet
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SEO Basics SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, is a process of following certain steps and best practices to ensure that your website is indexed correctly, and allows your customer to find you first in search listings.
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What is a SEO and why do I need it? Search engine optimization (SEO) is the practice of increasing the quantity and quality of traffic to your website through organic search engine results.
What goes into SEO? To understand what SEO really means, let's break that sentence down and look at the parts: ● Quality of traffic. You can attract all the visitors in the world, but if they're coming to your site because Google tells them you're a resource for Apple computers when really you're a farmer selling apples, that is not quality traffic. Instead you want to attract visitors who are genuinely interested in products that you offer. ● Quantity of traffic. Once you have the right people clicking through from those search engine results pages (SERPs), more traffic is better. ● Organic results. Ads make up a significant portion of many SERPs. Organic traffic is any traffic that you don't have to pay for. We’ll cover organic. Organic SEO, also called On Page SEO, all stems from creating a good user experience. Google wants to make sure they’re serving up links that are EXACTLY what the user is looking for. Despite all the Google updates over the years, On Page SEO hasn’t really changed that much, which is great. If you follow these key steps on every page of your website, you’re going to drastically increase your organic SEO. However, this increase takes time. This is not a quick solution, as Organic SEO never is. This is part of a long term strategy. Blogging ties into this, because most business websites only need a few key pages. Blogs are your opportunity to have more content to be indexed by Google, as well as to better educate your consumer. There is SO much information that goes into organic SEO and paid search, but this is a starting guide for you to work with. 6 Key Online Marketing Strategies Cheat Sheet
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How to Increase my Organic SEO 1.
Increase Your Site Speed
Research found that 47% of your target audience expects your website to load in under two seconds. What’s more, slightly more than half of all U.S. online shoppers won’t buy from a site if it loads slowly. Inadvertent duplicate content,, images not being optimized for web, a poor hosting provider, etc. can slow indexing down, so examine your site to remove it. It makes sense. After all, don’t we all hate to wait? And, the instant-gratification of the web has only made us more impatient. So, it makes sense that Google cares about page load time.
2. Essential Tag Fundamentals Do you take meta tags seriously? Or do you even know what they are? Although the effect of the title tag or meta description has changed significantly over the past several years, it’s still a good practice to pay attention to them. Essentially, all the tags are just ways that you can add additional data to your images and pages to let the search engines know exactly what your page is about. In on-page SEO, the major types of meta tags that you should pay attention to are: 1). Title tags: Title tags define the title of your web page or document. They’re mostly used to display preview snippets of your web pages. When you’re writing your title tag, it should be short, clear and descriptive but don’t duplicate content from the page content. The ideal length is 50 – 60 characters. If your title tag exceed 60 characters, Google will only show the first 60. It looks like this:
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How to Increase my Organic SEO 2). Meta description: According to Survey Monkey, 43.2% of people click on a given result, based on the meta description alone. This is how a meta description usually appears in the organic search listings:
The meta description is what search engines use to gauge what topic you’re writing about and the exact audience that they should send to that page. So, make it descriptive and short – no more than 160 characters. There is no need to stuff keywords in your meta description (which would work against you anyway). 160 characters is just not enough space for stuffing. If you have a wordpress site, there are SEO plugins that will help you make sure to input each one.
3. Content That Drives Search Traffic According to a HubSpot content marketing report from 2014, nearly three-fourths of consumers prefer to research companies and businesses through articles, instead of annoying advertisements.
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How to Increase my Organic SEO Content is the backbone of a thriving business and on page SEO is the backbone of content marketing. You’ve probably heard the saying, “content is king.” But, there is way more to successful content marketing than just “content.” You have to publish the kind of content that will drive traffic and grow your business. This involves using specific keyword phrase components that include long tail anchor words. A long tail keyword could be something like “How to use social media marketing for my business” instead of “social media marketing”. One is for a business owner, one could be for a marketer. You’ll also notice that when you start creating in-depth content, you’ll see a corresponding increase in traffic from long-tail searches, a very specific keyword phrase indicating buyer positioning and urgency. These help search engines give you juice because you are helping people solve problems with your content. Content that drives traffic Is practical, useful and valuable. Also: ● ● ● ● ● ●
Is interesting to read Is in-depth and well-written Is written with the user in mind Solves a problem Is easy to share Is optimized for a high-volume keyword
There is so much more to SEO, but we’ll stop here. Feel free to reach out to me regarding keyword strategy, paid SEO and organic SEO.
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Copywriting Do’s and Dont’s Copywriting is the key to your social media, email, SEO, blogging and landing page strategy. All of these platforms rely on copy, so make it compelling!
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What is copywriting and why does it matter? Copywriting is very simply the backbone of all of your marketing efforts. Think about it, if you’re going to do social media marketing, blogging & SEO, create videos, or do email marketing, you’re going to have to WRITE. And just throwing something out there is not a very good strategy. Copywriting is a skill, and while not everyone is a talented writer, there are some formulas and do’s and don’ts that you can follow to make sure that you copy is the kind that will drive your potential customers to the buying process. We’ll cover 10 ways that you can make effective copy that will increase your sales.
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Facts to Know First ●
When college students read texts that were less technical and had a more conversational tone, their reading retention rates were 20%-46% higher. (The Journal of Educational Psychology)
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63% of consumers indicate they are more likely to purchase from a site if it has product ratings and reviews. (CompUSA and iPerceptions study)
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90% of the people in the U.S. read at a grade seven (age 12) level or lower. Research also shows that reading from a computer screen is around 25% slower than reading from paper. (Gary Halbert, copywriting expert)
1. Define Your Outcome The first step toward getting what you want in any situation—in business or in life—requires that you get clear on your core outcome. For each piece of copy you write, what is the specific result you want to achieve? Is it a certain number of sales? Are you looking to get a high number of people to convert (volume) or are you targeting a more refined customer for a higher end offer (quality)? Depending on the stage of your business, where you are in the customer acquisition funnel and your specific revenue goals, your goal will likely differ. Take a moment to go upstream in your business and get clear about what it is specifically you want you want your copy to deliver before you get started.
2. Know Your Audience Once you know what you want, clarify who your customer is and what they want. The more clearly you understand who your ideal customer is—whom you’re writing for—and what will get them to respond, the better results you’ll get from your copy. Look at your competitors’ products and what
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their customers are talking about, look for keywords and ads that are effective in your market, join groups or forums so you can get in on the conversation and/or consider surveying your customers. In short, do anything and everything you can to narrow down who your ideal customer is and to understand what they want, what their big problem is, and how you can specifically help them solve it forever. The more clearly you understand this and the more precisely you can mirror back their own frustrations, fears and goals back to them in their own words, the more effective your copy will be.
3. Clarify Your Offer What are you selling? In the simplest terms, what do they get, how much is it, which option is better (if you have more than one) and how do they buy? You’re also going to clarify pricing and bonuses in this step. For the pricing, be sure to benchmark, which means look at other similar products in your niche so that your pricing is consistent and competitive. In addition, bonuses are a great way to increase the value—and therefore the price point—of your product or service. If you can add two or three bonuses that genuinely equal or exceed the value of the main part of the product, it will increase your conversions. The key is your bonuses can’t overwhelm or feel like more work; they need to compliment your main product (i.e. an app or piece of technology that helps them implement effectively) and they need to be highly desirable.
4. Create Your Headline and Hook Your headline is what you use to get your audience’s attention—a single statement that summarizes the big problem and your solution in a way that compels the reader to want to know more. Copywriting expert John Carlton suggests starting with a “how-to” hook if you’re struggling to create one. For example, “How to Fix a Flat Tire in Traffic in Five Minutes or Less So You Don’t Have to Use Your AAA Card.” Your hook is used to reel in your audience and pull them into your copy or presentation. In a sales letter, your hook may be used under the main headline as a transition into the main body of your copy. Your goal here is to further explain your headline so you can present what it is you have to offer.
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5. Build Your Benefits There’s a saying in marketing, “Sell the hole, not the drill,” or “Sell the shade, not the tree.” Sell the benefit, not the feature. Bullets are mini-headlines that make specific promises about your product or service and what it will give your customer. Bullets are particularly effective as your reader can scan them quickly, yet each one tells a different story about what’s in it for them as it relates to your product or service. Vary your benefits so that you are highlighting a different value proposition in each one. Include some that are very simple and practical and include benefits that hit your customer at a deeper emotional level
6. Write the Story Building around your headline and your hook, tell the story of your product and service. Keep asking yourself, “Why should your audience care?” Look at how you’re positioning yourself in the market and the compelling ‘why’ that will motivate your audience to act. A great way to approach your core story (or the main body of your sales copy) is to tell a ‘before/after’ story. As you do this, you can mind-read where your audience is and the pain they are feeling (the ‘before’), and you can paint the picture of what life is like after implementing your product or service (the ‘after’). Weave in your benefits, advantages, social proof and selling points as you go. Also, include research and facts to back up your claims. Most important, keep your story simple, brief and clear.
7. Use Social Proof What your customers say about you and your product or service is much more powerful than anything you can say yourself. Testimonials and customer success stories are a great way to counter possible objections and build trust. Match your customer testimonials to specific benefits you’ve claimed in your copy. Be sure to include the ‘before’ and ‘after’ in your customer stories and ask your customers to reveal the specific results they achieved as a result of implementing your product or service.
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8. Make your Offer Present your offer with total clarity. This is where you want to tell them what they get, how they get it, how much it is and how to buy. Structure and clarity is king when you present your offer! Your offer doesn’t need to be super long—in fact, the more succinct and clear you can be, often the better your offer will convert. Your price presentation needs to be compelling—build the value before you reveal the price. Then, as soon as you present the price, justify it. Use scarcity and urgency!
9. Reduce the Risk When possible, provide a money-back guarantee. For example, “If you’re not totally blown away by the value of this product, simply return it to us within 30 days, you’ll receive 100% of your money back and we can still be friends.” The only exception to this is if you are offering something like an intensive coaching program or a trip to an exotic location where you are investing substantial time or money to deliver the product. In these cases, you might consider forgoing the e guarantee so you don’t put you or your business at excessive risk.
10. Ask for the Action Remember to ask for the sale! Remind your audience of the core benefits and build in scarcity and urgency as you ask for the action. Finally, include a P.S. Often, your P.S. will be read more than the entire sales copy. Use your P.S. to reinforce an important point, highlight your best benefit, overcome an objection or make your final point about why your audience has nothing to lose and everything to gain. Ideally, your P.S. will build off of your headline to put a nice wrapper around your copy.
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Email Marketing Email marketing is a way to nurture your leads and drive them one step closer to purchase. This allows you to communicate and stay top of mind.
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Why should I be marketing with email? ●
Email can deliver the highest ROI than any other platform.
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$44 Return on Investment for every $ spent on email marketing.
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92% of online adults use email.
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It’s 40x more effective at acquiring new customers than social media.
1. Strategize Don’t even bother with email marketing without a solid strategy. You need to know what you’re trying to achieve. You should spend more time on your strategy than any other part of email marketing.
2. Build your list Without an audience, you can’t really email market. No matter where your list is now, you can get started with list building. You need to have email sign ups on your website, popups (when done right) can also be a great way to get email addresses. If you have a physical location, get a sign-up sheet in store! One of the best ways to get email addresses is to provide great content in exchange for their information. You can use infographics, free classes, guides, webinars, checklists and more to get your audience to give up their email. Contests can be another great way to build your list.
3. Personalize your content The higher the personalization, the higher the results. Personalization includes segmenting (putting people into different lists based on their interests, and only serving them content related to that interest) and using their name or information in your emails. This increases open rates by 26%, Conversions by 10% and click throughs by 14%! That’s HUGE! So when your list building, ask questions that will allow you to segment your leads.
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Email Marketing Tips Continued 4. Trigger Your Emails Set up triggered emails to save time and increase open rates. Transactional emails are opened 4-8x more than traditional emails. They have a 624% higher conversion rate than “bulk” emails. Some examples of triggered emails include: Welcome emails when someone joins your list, thank you (after sale), abandoned cart, upsell, educational and milestone emails.
5. Re-Engage or Remove When you haven’t heard from a friend in a while, what do you do? Re-engage “lapsed” customers by sending an effective “win back” campaign. Make them an offer, remind them of a discount, or ask them if they still want to be contacted. It may seem counterproductive, but most email providers charge by the number of emails on your list, so if you have emails that will never engage, get rid of them!
6. Make it Mobile Ready More than 50% of searches are done on mobile, 56% of mail is opened on mobile and 69% of emails not optimized for mobile are deleted! Make it a priority to give your customers their emails in the format in which they are most likely to engage!
6. test, Test, TEST! I can’t stress this enough. You need to test. If you’re just getting started, you can test time of day or day of week, but there is a lot of good info online about this for different industries. The top item to test is subject line. Most providers allow you to A/B test this. Your subject line is the 1 thing that can make or break someone opening the email. The message, layout, CTA and “from” line can also be tested to improve open and click through rates. Testing should never stop, you can always improve!
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Social Media Guide Social media is an important way to connect with your customers and potential customers. Don’t waste time doing it incorrectly.
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Social Media Marketing ●
In 2015 Facebook influenced 52 per cent of consumers’ online and offline purchases, up from 36 per cent in 2014.
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There are now more than 50 million small businesses using Facebook Pages to connect with their customers
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Social media marketing is one of the best ways to connect with your fans and customers on a real level, understand their needs, and drive sales.
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With 1.09 billion people logging in daily (a 16% increase year-over-year), Facebook is still the most popular social network around. Not to mention, Facebook owns 77% of all social logins.
I could write a book about all the ways that you can market your business on social media, but today, we’re just going to cover some actionable steps that you can take to make sure you’re getting the most out of a basic strategy. Many businesses have tried advertising on facebook or instagram, with no luck, but that is typically due to a lack of strategy and knowledge. This is a HUGE way to drive sales, but it has to be done right. I’ll go over more advanced strategies in my next ebook, but let’s take this one step at a time.
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Actionable Steps 1.
Define your Target Audience
Before you can really speak to your audience, you have to know your audience. Identify your target customer’s demographic, including age, gender, occupation, income level, educational level, type of industry, number of employees, type of business, revenue, etc. You can use these to target your customer in your advertising as well. Then, find out which social platforms they’re on. You don’t want to spread yourself too thin. Choose about 3 top platforms and focus all your energy on them.
2. Create Shareable Content Aka, a blog, infographic, checklist, inside your website. Keep these tips in mind: ● Keep posts 300-500 words ● Include a featured image and relevant meta description in your blog post ● Optimize posts to include target keyword ● Make sure you have a call to action ● Make sure you have a social sharing button Another easy way to make your content shareable is to make it visual! People love to share stunning images. The best news is, they only take a few minutes to create -- and you can even brand them with your own messaging! You can use sites like canva.com to create some nice images without needing photoshop. Another great way to share content is by making videos. It’s not always easy to make a video that will go viral, but it is a great way to give personality and a face to your brand, as well as go more in depth about things that would take longer to explain in a post.
3. Making a Plan Facebook Use these tips to get your facebook strategy started. ● ●
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Figure out how many times you want to post a day Use paid ads (slowly at first) to promote content, increase awareness and offer discounts. Before paying for facebook ads, make sure you have your pixel installed to be able to collect relevant data. This is very important! Respond to fans Tag relevant pages if you're discussing them. They’re followers will see your post, increasing reach.
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Twitter
Google+ Make sure you use these tips
●
● ● ● ●
How many tweets to send on daily. Tweets should include ○ Blog posts circulation ○ Content offers ○ Call to action ○ Attach image Retweet influencers Follow new people everyday Monitor keywords and mentions Respond to tweets
Linkedin Linkedin is a different breed, here's what you need to know: ● ● ● ●
Update your status a few times a week Scan industry groups a few times a week Learn to update your company profile Use linkedin to research prospects
● ● ● ● ●
Share your content a few times a week Promote posts from influencers in your industry Circle new people everyday Offer hangout sessions Make sure your posts are public
Pinterest Pinterest will be useful when you use these tricks ● ● ● ● ●
Add keywords in your pins Create boards based on client interest Follow new boards each week Make sure pins and linked back to your website! Create pin worthy images! See what has been pinned in your industry and mimic the style!
Slideshare Slideshare is a great platform. Here's what you need to know Youtube You can use slideshare for: ● ● ● ●
Presentations Infographics eBooks Case studies
Just make sure to update your account consistently, find great posts and convert them to slides and DON’T FORGET to credit source!
When marketing on youtube, keep this in mind ● ● ● ● ● ●
Create a video that showcases your expertise Ask questions from fans and create videos to address them Add fun in your videos Use a videographer for events Run webinars to youtube for more great content Do product reviews and demos
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Actionable Steps Continued 4. Engage for Engagement This is probably one of the best social media tips. I’m sure that you’ve heard the saying “To have friends, you need to be a friend.” This concepts hold true in the world of social media. It is rare to get without giving in some way. Social media can be seen as a “Cocktail Party”. When you think of it this way, it helps you understand the concept more clearly. When you’re at a cocktail party, you don’t simply go up to everyone you see and tell them why they need to buy from your company. That would be very inappropriate and in-your-face. The key is to network. You meet someone, have a great conversation with them, and let them know what you do. You become interested in what they do and how you can help them. When that person is in the market for your services, they may reach out to you, as they remember the positive interaction that you shared. They’ll even probably tell their friends!
5. Remember the Reason Relationships are the name of the game in social media, so no matter how badly you want to master this new craft for your business, don’t forget to approach it with a spirit of helpfulness and friendliness. The point of social media is to put a human voice and face to your brand. Don’t let the stuffiness of day to day buying and selling overwhelm your presence.
6. Collect Data This is one of the most valuable functions of social media. The data you can gather on your demographic and target audience is priceless. In addition to the standard age and gender questions, you can find out what makes your customers tick. You can find out what their pain points are, what their questions are, what they relate and react to. Don’t let this data go by the wayside. Record it and return to it often.
7. Act on your data When you find a new nugget of wisdom about your audience, don’t just write it in your notebook. Act on it. Adjust your efforts to fill this need, answer this question, or offer the type of information that their craving. This will help you produce quality over quantity in terms of content.
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Actionable Steps Continued 8. Focus on campaigns that can run across all social media channels Create a campaign that can be translated onto all your targeted platforms. But beware, you can’t typically take the same photo and content and successfully post it on all channels. Different word limits, ideal photo sizes and key hashtags will differ on these channels, so adjust accordingly. Keeping the message the same on all channels will promote easy recognition of your brand and it’s values.
9. Research Repeatedly Research should be a regular part of your social media journey. Continue to research your competitors and see what is and what is not working for them. You can use pixels to do this. Research the best hashtags to use. You can find this on sites like iconosquare.com or hashtagify.me. Using appropriate hashtags can spread your content much farther than your immediate followers.
10. Testing Test different image shapes, sizes, fonts, colors and even emojis to maximize your reach or gain quick recognition with your followers. Sometimes the small things make you stand out and can break through the clutter in a newsfeed or timeline. In our “Before and After” and “This or That” posts, we found that if we made our image twice the height of a standard Facebook image, our reach would triple or even quadruple! This happens because more than half of all Facebook users are on mobile. When you view this post on mobile, it entices you to click to see the “after” or the “that” image that you can’t see due to the size. The key is to put the “AFTER” or “THAT” text in the middle of the photo, so that people will understand that there is something to see below. When people are constantly clicking on your image, they’re telling Facebook that they value your content, and Facebook recognizes it as more important, making the reach skyrocket. In addition, those who click your post are served more of your content in the future because Facebook knows that they feel it is relevant. Without testing, trial and error, and closely monitoring the way that our fans are interacting with our content, we would have missed this awesome realization! SEE IMAGE ON FOLLOWING PAGE
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11. Use Calls to Action! As in any advertising medium, use calls to action and a sense of urgency to drive your potential customers into the buying funnel. While social media is not all about buying and selling, but when your posts directly relate to your products or services, there is no harm in adding a simple call to action. It can be as easy as “Click to shop more of these _____” or “Sign up today for more ways to save!”. Getting them to convert to your website or email list is the name of the game. Guide them in the right direction with a little encouragement!
12. Use Contests to grow reach, engagement and fun factor! Simple giveaways can be extremely powerful. Many contests will tell fans to like, comment and share to have a chance to win. These posts can get hundreds of thousands of interactions, with most of the giveaway prizes worth only a few hundred dollars. That kind of engagement is worth every penny.
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Actionable Steps Continued 13. Make it trackable Make sure that if you’re promoting contests, giveaways, discounts or specials on your social media accounts, that you have promo codes associated with them for your sales staff. This will allow you to see how many people are claiming this discount in store. This allows you to see which channels are working well for your target audience, or what categories are especially of interest.
10. Cross promote social media channels with on and offline marketing! I can’t stress this one enough. If you are going to take the time to use social media, make sure you get the biggest reach possible. This can be done by sending email blasts about your social activity, putting social share and follow buttons on all of your blogs, images, products, and pages on your website, putting social icons in your email signature (all staff should have this with an invitation for the recipient to follow for “Daily Design Inspiration” or whatever your company provides via social media.) You can also tie this to your other advertising channels, such as TV commercials, radio ads, or in store signage. This makes it easier for customers to follow you no matter where they are when they see your message or interact with your business.
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I hope this ebook has been able to help clarify what you need to be doing in regards to digital marketing for your business. I have laid out all of the basics of these 6 strategies, but if you’re interested in advanced digital marketing to maximize your results, please reach out to me. My digital agency, Allie Bloyd Media, provides complete support packages to allow business owners to focus on working ON their business, not IN their business. My packages include marketing, creative and administrative support and I also have advanced digital marketing packages that can be added on or used separately. In the last 6 years as a marketing director for multimillion dollar business, I’ve been able to drive revenue, streamline processes, and allow the business owners to focus on high level tasks in their business. If you would like to discuss how I could work with you or your business, please reach out to me via email or phone and we’ll begin your FREE business analysis!
Allie Bloyd Allie Bloyd Media, alliebloydmedia.com [email protected] 502-615-6200
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Allie Bloyd, Marketing Specialist AllieBloydMedia.com
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Contents Letter from the author Landing Pages Blogging SEO Copy Writing Email Social Media Conclusion
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We live in a word that is hooked on digital technologies. We are constantly connected on our smart phones, tablets, computers and various other devices that keep us in a constant state of engagement. While there are plenty of negatives for this, we’re going to focus on the positives, and what you can do to use these habits to grow your business, build your tribe, and engage your audience. Most business owners understand their business, but not the way that online marketing works. That’s why we’ve put together this guide to help you begin using some key strategies to gain market share and grow your business. We’ll be covering blogging, email, copywriting, SEO (search engine optimization) social media and landing pages. While there is so much more information than what I’ve been able to fit in this e-book, this should be the information you need to get started or expand your current strategy. If you need additional help with marketing consulting or full marketing and administrative support for your business, feel free to reach out!
Allie Bloyd Allie Bloyd Media, alliebloydmedia.com
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Landing Pages What is a landing page and why do I need it? In the purest sense, a landing page is any web page that a visitor can arrive at or “land” on. However, when discussing landing pages within the realm of marketing and advertising, it’s more common to refer to a landing page as being a standalone web page distinct from your main website that has been designed for a single focused objective.
This means that your landing page should have no global navigation to tie it to your primary website. The main reason for this is to limit the options available to your visitors, helping to guide them toward your intended conversion goal.
Types of Landing Pages There are 2 basic types of landing page, Click Through and Lead Generation (also referred to as Lead Gen or Lead Capture pages).
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Click Through Landing Pages
The sole purpose of the page is to collect information that will allow you to market to
Click through landing pages (as the name implies)
and connect with the prospect at a
have the goal of persuading the visitor to click
subsequent time. As such, a lead capture
through to another page. Typically used in
page will contain a form along with a
ecommerce funnels, they can be used to describe a
description of what you’ll get in return for
product or offer in sufficient detail so as to “warm
submitting your personal data.
up” a visitor to the point where they are closer to making a purchasing decision. All too often,
There are many tools to creating landing
inbound advertising traffic is directed at shopping
pages, such as Thrive Architect, Lead
cart or registration pages. This leads to poor
Pages, Clickfunnels and more.
conversions as the ad doesn’t provide sufficient information for someone to make an informed decision.
This is where the click through page comes in. As a result, the destination page from a click through page is typically the shopping cart or registration page – now with a much higher chance of conversion having passed through the details of the landing page.
Lead Generation Landing Pages Lead generation landing pages are used to capture user data, such as a name and email address.
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A 50 Point Checklist for Creating Landing Pages Use this list to get ultimate impact on your landing pages
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Does your landing page headline match the message on your ads?
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Is your landing page messaging focused on a single purpose?
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Could a stranger understand the purpose in 5-10 seconds? (test this)
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Is it clear who your company is and what you do? (a logo and tagline)?
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Do you have a simple secondary description to enhance the headline?
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Do you use bullet points to describe the benefits of your product/service?
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Are you using a relevant and original main image or video that shows it being used (context of use)?
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Does your page message have the clarity of a 30-second elevator pitch? (Read out your page copy to someone and see if they understand it.)
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Is your primary headline phrased to answer the question “What is this page about?”
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Have you removed extraneous links (like the global nav) – to remove page leaks?
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Does your landing page explain how your product/service is unique (USP)?
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Does the writing focus primarily on benefits rather than features?
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A 50 Point Checklist for Creating Landing Pages Use this list to get ultimate impact on your landing pages ●
Did you resist asking for any unnecessary information in a form (be completely honest cos it’s bad)? (check the box if you aren’t using a form).
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Do you explain the value or size of your lead gen giveaway (discount amount, number of ebook pages, $ value)?
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Do you provide examples of previous customers using or complimenting your product/service? (Testimonials and other trust factors)
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Do you offer multiple contact methods (phone, email, live chat)
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Do you make it clear what the visitor will receive by clicking your CTA?
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Does your landing page appear to be professionally designed?
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Does the design of your landing page match the visual style of your ad creative? (Banners)
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Does the design match the style of your main website or brand? (Only relevant if you will end up there after clicking the CTA)
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Do you use lightboxes to show extra information without leaving the page?
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Do you provide a privacy and or terms & conditions statement/link?
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Are you providing a sample (preview of first chapter etc.) of your giveaway, if applicable?
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Do you show certifications or logos of partners/affiliates/security 6 Key Online Marketing Strategies Cheat Sheet
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A 50 Point Checklist for Creating Landing Pages Use this list to get ultimate impact on your landing pages
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Are your claims and facts verifiable?
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Do you repeat your offer in the form area to reinforce what the purpose of your form is?
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Do you use visual cues (eye direction or graphical arrows) to direct attention to CTA?
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Is the CTA large enough to stand out from 6ft away?
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Does the CTA use contrast to stand out from the rest of the page?
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Is your CTA in a prominent position near the top of the page?
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Are you including a link to your privacy policy next to the email field of your form?
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Are you using your confirmation page to provide the new lead with further instructions? (share this page, follow us, download this extra free ebook, register for this webinar).
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If your offer is time limited, do you make this clear for the sake of urgency?
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Are you creating a separate landing page for each inbound source (email, social, PPC) and see which gets you the most conversions.
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If you use video, have you set it up for user directed playback (vs. an autoplay)?
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Do you end your video with a call to action?
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Have you limited the number of CTS’a on your page to 1? (Unless it’s a long page in which case it’s okay to repeat it). 6 Key Online Marketing Strategies Cheat Sheet
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A 50 Point Checklist for Creating Landing Pages Use this list to get ultimate impact on your landing pages
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If you are getting people to sign up for a webinar, are you showing the number of registrants as a form of social proof?
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If you use exit popup windows, only check this box if it offers something of value that’s relevant to the page, and doesn’t use manipulation to encourage the click (for example, making someone click on a link that says “That’s okay, I like crappy conversion rates.”). It’s not delightful and you can do better.
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Are you doing A/B testing on your pages?
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Are you seeking feedback from your customer to help develop a hypothesis for your next test?
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If you have a multi-step process (sign-up etc.), do you make it clear to visitors? (30 seconds, 3 steps etc.)
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Have you optimized your landing page to get a paid search quality score above 7?
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Do you use a separate landing page for every promotion/campaign?
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Have you tested using a short page vs. a long page to understand how much information your visitors need to convert?
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Does your landing page follow the principle of unity, where every element of the page is focused on explaining a single concept?
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Have you Krug’d your landing page? (Remove 50% of the copy, then delete half of what’s left. (To ensure maximum simplicity and clarity).
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A 50 Point Checklist for Creating Landing Pages Use this list to get ultimate impact on your landing pages
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Leave this box unchecked if your form button says “Click Here” or “Submit”.
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If you use a form, is it encapsulated in a colored background box to make it clearly stand out as the most important part of the page.
As you can see, there are many key factors to creating a great landing page that actually converts. You can either set out to learn how to build landing pages yourself, as well as integrate them with your email, social and CRM platforms, or you can hire someone to manage this for you. Landing pages and more advanced funnels are a very powerful marketing strategy that I would highly recommend using. I offer these services in my digital marketing packages, found at alliebloydmedia.com
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Blogging Guide Blogging is a great way to position yourself as an industry expert, educate your customers pre-purchase and increase your organic SEO.
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What is a blog and why do I need it? A blog is very simply an article. It started as a type of online journal or diary, but it has expanded over the last 10+ years to be a very powerful sales tool. Your blog should typically be housed on your website, but it can also be a separate site that it's connected to your primary business site. A blog for business has several purposes. First, you want to position yourself as an expert in your field. This builds trust with present and potential clients. Second, it helps you address common questions or objections that your customers would have surrounding your product or service without them having to reach out to a salesperson to discuss them. This is a much more effective way to persuade your customer as it’s a very soft sell. Third, when set up correctly, blogs can build your organic search engine rankings. This means that when your potential customer searches for something related to your industry or product, they could find you first. You could be the person who educates them, answers their questions and then they can discover your products or services. On a more advanced scale, blogging is a way to get segment your customers and website visitors in order to retarget them with online advertising and email content based on their specific interest. This is a cost effective way to increase sales and get a higher engagement rate with your content.
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How to write an effective blog:
1) Know Your Audience If you don’t understand your readers, they won’t want to stick around, come back or tell anyone else about your blog Empathy is the most powerful tool you have as a blogger because it connects you to your audience emotionally. You create that empathy with your readers and it’s the emotional connection that gets them to think that you understand their need. Put yourself in your reader's shoes. Ask questions like: ● ● ●
What are their problems, frustrations and challenges? What does a typical day look like in their world? What do they hope to gain by reading your blog?
You can find out these answers by: ● ● ●
Sending out a short survey to your list Reading other blogs comments Reading forum posts in your niche
Then the key is to take one of the problems or desires that your readers have and incorporate it into your blog post.
2) Attention-grabbing Headline/Title You need to grab your audience’s attention by writing a catchy headline. Jeff Goins has a headline formula that works pretty well: Number or Trigger word + Adjective + Keyword + Promise For example, 5 Key Steps to Blogging that You Need to Know Follow the formula and then analyze your headline with CoSchedule great new tool. It will show you the overall quality of your headline and even tells you how it will rate in social shares and SEO value. 6 Key Online Marketing Strategies Cheat Sheet
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How to write an effective blog:
3) Make an Impact with Intro Second to your headline/title, your intro is key. People make up their mind very qucily about if they want to stay or go. Want to know some of the best ways to start a blog post that grabs your reader’s attention? ● ● ● ●
Arouse curiosity by asking a question Surprise your audience with an unusual fact Share a story Start with a quote
Make it personal, be yourself, and keep remembering to speak the language of your target audience.
4) Make it Easy to Read People don’t like to read a long article of nothing but words. You need to break it down for them so that they can scan and see if they’ll be able to get the information they need ● ● ● ● ●
Use headings any time you introduce a new idea Use subheadings to further break it down Use bulleted numbers and lists as much as possible Keep it between 300-1000 words. Anything more could be broken down to a series of articles. Attention spans are low these days Use captivating images. Make sure they’re relevant.
5) Use a Call To Action A call to action at the end is very important. If you want them to take an action, such as schedule a call or free estimate, you need to include that. Your audience needs to be told what to do. “Click here to schedule your free call discuss your blogging strategy!” There are several other key factors in blogging which include SEO best practices. We’ll cover those in the SEO portion. 6 Key Online Marketing Strategies Cheat Sheet
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SEO Basics SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, is a process of following certain steps and best practices to ensure that your website is indexed correctly, and allows your customer to find you first in search listings.
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What is a SEO and why do I need it? Search engine optimization (SEO) is the practice of increasing the quantity and quality of traffic to your website through organic search engine results.
What goes into SEO? To understand what SEO really means, let's break that sentence down and look at the parts: ● Quality of traffic. You can attract all the visitors in the world, but if they're coming to your site because Google tells them you're a resource for Apple computers when really you're a farmer selling apples, that is not quality traffic. Instead you want to attract visitors who are genuinely interested in products that you offer. ● Quantity of traffic. Once you have the right people clicking through from those search engine results pages (SERPs), more traffic is better. ● Organic results. Ads make up a significant portion of many SERPs. Organic traffic is any traffic that you don't have to pay for. We’ll cover organic. Organic SEO, also called On Page SEO, all stems from creating a good user experience. Google wants to make sure they’re serving up links that are EXACTLY what the user is looking for. Despite all the Google updates over the years, On Page SEO hasn’t really changed that much, which is great. If you follow these key steps on every page of your website, you’re going to drastically increase your organic SEO. However, this increase takes time. This is not a quick solution, as Organic SEO never is. This is part of a long term strategy. Blogging ties into this, because most business websites only need a few key pages. Blogs are your opportunity to have more content to be indexed by Google, as well as to better educate your consumer. There is SO much information that goes into organic SEO and paid search, but this is a starting guide for you to work with. 6 Key Online Marketing Strategies Cheat Sheet
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How to Increase my Organic SEO 1.
Increase Your Site Speed
Research found that 47% of your target audience expects your website to load in under two seconds. What’s more, slightly more than half of all U.S. online shoppers won’t buy from a site if it loads slowly. Inadvertent duplicate content,, images not being optimized for web, a poor hosting provider, etc. can slow indexing down, so examine your site to remove it. It makes sense. After all, don’t we all hate to wait? And, the instant-gratification of the web has only made us more impatient. So, it makes sense that Google cares about page load time.
2. Essential Tag Fundamentals Do you take meta tags seriously? Or do you even know what they are? Although the effect of the title tag or meta description has changed significantly over the past several years, it’s still a good practice to pay attention to them. Essentially, all the tags are just ways that you can add additional data to your images and pages to let the search engines know exactly what your page is about. In on-page SEO, the major types of meta tags that you should pay attention to are: 1). Title tags: Title tags define the title of your web page or document. They’re mostly used to display preview snippets of your web pages. When you’re writing your title tag, it should be short, clear and descriptive but don’t duplicate content from the page content. The ideal length is 50 – 60 characters. If your title tag exceed 60 characters, Google will only show the first 60. It looks like this:
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How to Increase my Organic SEO 2). Meta description: According to Survey Monkey, 43.2% of people click on a given result, based on the meta description alone. This is how a meta description usually appears in the organic search listings:
The meta description is what search engines use to gauge what topic you’re writing about and the exact audience that they should send to that page. So, make it descriptive and short – no more than 160 characters. There is no need to stuff keywords in your meta description (which would work against you anyway). 160 characters is just not enough space for stuffing. If you have a wordpress site, there are SEO plugins that will help you make sure to input each one.
3. Content That Drives Search Traffic According to a HubSpot content marketing report from 2014, nearly three-fourths of consumers prefer to research companies and businesses through articles, instead of annoying advertisements.
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How to Increase my Organic SEO Content is the backbone of a thriving business and on page SEO is the backbone of content marketing. You’ve probably heard the saying, “content is king.” But, there is way more to successful content marketing than just “content.” You have to publish the kind of content that will drive traffic and grow your business. This involves using specific keyword phrase components that include long tail anchor words. A long tail keyword could be something like “How to use social media marketing for my business” instead of “social media marketing”. One is for a business owner, one could be for a marketer. You’ll also notice that when you start creating in-depth content, you’ll see a corresponding increase in traffic from long-tail searches, a very specific keyword phrase indicating buyer positioning and urgency. These help search engines give you juice because you are helping people solve problems with your content. Content that drives traffic Is practical, useful and valuable. Also: ● ● ● ● ● ●
Is interesting to read Is in-depth and well-written Is written with the user in mind Solves a problem Is easy to share Is optimized for a high-volume keyword
There is so much more to SEO, but we’ll stop here. Feel free to reach out to me regarding keyword strategy, paid SEO and organic SEO.
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Copywriting Do’s and Dont’s Copywriting is the key to your social media, email, SEO, blogging and landing page strategy. All of these platforms rely on copy, so make it compelling!
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What is copywriting and why does it matter? Copywriting is very simply the backbone of all of your marketing efforts. Think about it, if you’re going to do social media marketing, blogging & SEO, create videos, or do email marketing, you’re going to have to WRITE. And just throwing something out there is not a very good strategy. Copywriting is a skill, and while not everyone is a talented writer, there are some formulas and do’s and don’ts that you can follow to make sure that you copy is the kind that will drive your potential customers to the buying process. We’ll cover 10 ways that you can make effective copy that will increase your sales.
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Facts to Know First ●
When college students read texts that were less technical and had a more conversational tone, their reading retention rates were 20%-46% higher. (The Journal of Educational Psychology)
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63% of consumers indicate they are more likely to purchase from a site if it has product ratings and reviews. (CompUSA and iPerceptions study)
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90% of the people in the U.S. read at a grade seven (age 12) level or lower. Research also shows that reading from a computer screen is around 25% slower than reading from paper. (Gary Halbert, copywriting expert)
1. Define Your Outcome The first step toward getting what you want in any situation—in business or in life—requires that you get clear on your core outcome. For each piece of copy you write, what is the specific result you want to achieve? Is it a certain number of sales? Are you looking to get a high number of people to convert (volume) or are you targeting a more refined customer for a higher end offer (quality)? Depending on the stage of your business, where you are in the customer acquisition funnel and your specific revenue goals, your goal will likely differ. Take a moment to go upstream in your business and get clear about what it is specifically you want you want your copy to deliver before you get started.
2. Know Your Audience Once you know what you want, clarify who your customer is and what they want. The more clearly you understand who your ideal customer is—whom you’re writing for—and what will get them to respond, the better results you’ll get from your copy. Look at your competitors’ products and what
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their customers are talking about, look for keywords and ads that are effective in your market, join groups or forums so you can get in on the conversation and/or consider surveying your customers. In short, do anything and everything you can to narrow down who your ideal customer is and to understand what they want, what their big problem is, and how you can specifically help them solve it forever. The more clearly you understand this and the more precisely you can mirror back their own frustrations, fears and goals back to them in their own words, the more effective your copy will be.
3. Clarify Your Offer What are you selling? In the simplest terms, what do they get, how much is it, which option is better (if you have more than one) and how do they buy? You’re also going to clarify pricing and bonuses in this step. For the pricing, be sure to benchmark, which means look at other similar products in your niche so that your pricing is consistent and competitive. In addition, bonuses are a great way to increase the value—and therefore the price point—of your product or service. If you can add two or three bonuses that genuinely equal or exceed the value of the main part of the product, it will increase your conversions. The key is your bonuses can’t overwhelm or feel like more work; they need to compliment your main product (i.e. an app or piece of technology that helps them implement effectively) and they need to be highly desirable.
4. Create Your Headline and Hook Your headline is what you use to get your audience’s attention—a single statement that summarizes the big problem and your solution in a way that compels the reader to want to know more. Copywriting expert John Carlton suggests starting with a “how-to” hook if you’re struggling to create one. For example, “How to Fix a Flat Tire in Traffic in Five Minutes or Less So You Don’t Have to Use Your AAA Card.” Your hook is used to reel in your audience and pull them into your copy or presentation. In a sales letter, your hook may be used under the main headline as a transition into the main body of your copy. Your goal here is to further explain your headline so you can present what it is you have to offer.
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5. Build Your Benefits There’s a saying in marketing, “Sell the hole, not the drill,” or “Sell the shade, not the tree.” Sell the benefit, not the feature. Bullets are mini-headlines that make specific promises about your product or service and what it will give your customer. Bullets are particularly effective as your reader can scan them quickly, yet each one tells a different story about what’s in it for them as it relates to your product or service. Vary your benefits so that you are highlighting a different value proposition in each one. Include some that are very simple and practical and include benefits that hit your customer at a deeper emotional level
6. Write the Story Building around your headline and your hook, tell the story of your product and service. Keep asking yourself, “Why should your audience care?” Look at how you’re positioning yourself in the market and the compelling ‘why’ that will motivate your audience to act. A great way to approach your core story (or the main body of your sales copy) is to tell a ‘before/after’ story. As you do this, you can mind-read where your audience is and the pain they are feeling (the ‘before’), and you can paint the picture of what life is like after implementing your product or service (the ‘after’). Weave in your benefits, advantages, social proof and selling points as you go. Also, include research and facts to back up your claims. Most important, keep your story simple, brief and clear.
7. Use Social Proof What your customers say about you and your product or service is much more powerful than anything you can say yourself. Testimonials and customer success stories are a great way to counter possible objections and build trust. Match your customer testimonials to specific benefits you’ve claimed in your copy. Be sure to include the ‘before’ and ‘after’ in your customer stories and ask your customers to reveal the specific results they achieved as a result of implementing your product or service.
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8. Make your Offer Present your offer with total clarity. This is where you want to tell them what they get, how they get it, how much it is and how to buy. Structure and clarity is king when you present your offer! Your offer doesn’t need to be super long—in fact, the more succinct and clear you can be, often the better your offer will convert. Your price presentation needs to be compelling—build the value before you reveal the price. Then, as soon as you present the price, justify it. Use scarcity and urgency!
9. Reduce the Risk When possible, provide a money-back guarantee. For example, “If you’re not totally blown away by the value of this product, simply return it to us within 30 days, you’ll receive 100% of your money back and we can still be friends.” The only exception to this is if you are offering something like an intensive coaching program or a trip to an exotic location where you are investing substantial time or money to deliver the product. In these cases, you might consider forgoing the e guarantee so you don’t put you or your business at excessive risk.
10. Ask for the Action Remember to ask for the sale! Remind your audience of the core benefits and build in scarcity and urgency as you ask for the action. Finally, include a P.S. Often, your P.S. will be read more than the entire sales copy. Use your P.S. to reinforce an important point, highlight your best benefit, overcome an objection or make your final point about why your audience has nothing to lose and everything to gain. Ideally, your P.S. will build off of your headline to put a nice wrapper around your copy.
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Email Marketing Email marketing is a way to nurture your leads and drive them one step closer to purchase. This allows you to communicate and stay top of mind.
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Why should I be marketing with email? ●
Email can deliver the highest ROI than any other platform.
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$44 Return on Investment for every $ spent on email marketing.
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92% of online adults use email.
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It’s 40x more effective at acquiring new customers than social media.
1. Strategize Don’t even bother with email marketing without a solid strategy. You need to know what you’re trying to achieve. You should spend more time on your strategy than any other part of email marketing.
2. Build your list Without an audience, you can’t really email market. No matter where your list is now, you can get started with list building. You need to have email sign ups on your website, popups (when done right) can also be a great way to get email addresses. If you have a physical location, get a sign-up sheet in store! One of the best ways to get email addresses is to provide great content in exchange for their information. You can use infographics, free classes, guides, webinars, checklists and more to get your audience to give up their email. Contests can be another great way to build your list.
3. Personalize your content The higher the personalization, the higher the results. Personalization includes segmenting (putting people into different lists based on their interests, and only serving them content related to that interest) and using their name or information in your emails. This increases open rates by 26%, Conversions by 10% and click throughs by 14%! That’s HUGE! So when your list building, ask questions that will allow you to segment your leads.
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Email Marketing Tips Continued 4. Trigger Your Emails Set up triggered emails to save time and increase open rates. Transactional emails are opened 4-8x more than traditional emails. They have a 624% higher conversion rate than “bulk” emails. Some examples of triggered emails include: Welcome emails when someone joins your list, thank you (after sale), abandoned cart, upsell, educational and milestone emails.
5. Re-Engage or Remove When you haven’t heard from a friend in a while, what do you do? Re-engage “lapsed” customers by sending an effective “win back” campaign. Make them an offer, remind them of a discount, or ask them if they still want to be contacted. It may seem counterproductive, but most email providers charge by the number of emails on your list, so if you have emails that will never engage, get rid of them!
6. Make it Mobile Ready More than 50% of searches are done on mobile, 56% of mail is opened on mobile and 69% of emails not optimized for mobile are deleted! Make it a priority to give your customers their emails in the format in which they are most likely to engage!
6. test, Test, TEST! I can’t stress this enough. You need to test. If you’re just getting started, you can test time of day or day of week, but there is a lot of good info online about this for different industries. The top item to test is subject line. Most providers allow you to A/B test this. Your subject line is the 1 thing that can make or break someone opening the email. The message, layout, CTA and “from” line can also be tested to improve open and click through rates. Testing should never stop, you can always improve!
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Social Media Guide Social media is an important way to connect with your customers and potential customers. Don’t waste time doing it incorrectly.
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Social Media Marketing ●
In 2015 Facebook influenced 52 per cent of consumers’ online and offline purchases, up from 36 per cent in 2014.
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There are now more than 50 million small businesses using Facebook Pages to connect with their customers
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Social media marketing is one of the best ways to connect with your fans and customers on a real level, understand their needs, and drive sales.
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With 1.09 billion people logging in daily (a 16% increase year-over-year), Facebook is still the most popular social network around. Not to mention, Facebook owns 77% of all social logins.
I could write a book about all the ways that you can market your business on social media, but today, we’re just going to cover some actionable steps that you can take to make sure you’re getting the most out of a basic strategy. Many businesses have tried advertising on facebook or instagram, with no luck, but that is typically due to a lack of strategy and knowledge. This is a HUGE way to drive sales, but it has to be done right. I’ll go over more advanced strategies in my next ebook, but let’s take this one step at a time.
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Actionable Steps 1.
Define your Target Audience
Before you can really speak to your audience, you have to know your audience. Identify your target customer’s demographic, including age, gender, occupation, income level, educational level, type of industry, number of employees, type of business, revenue, etc. You can use these to target your customer in your advertising as well. Then, find out which social platforms they’re on. You don’t want to spread yourself too thin. Choose about 3 top platforms and focus all your energy on them.
2. Create Shareable Content Aka, a blog, infographic, checklist, inside your website. Keep these tips in mind: ● Keep posts 300-500 words ● Include a featured image and relevant meta description in your blog post ● Optimize posts to include target keyword ● Make sure you have a call to action ● Make sure you have a social sharing button Another easy way to make your content shareable is to make it visual! People love to share stunning images. The best news is, they only take a few minutes to create -- and you can even brand them with your own messaging! You can use sites like canva.com to create some nice images without needing photoshop. Another great way to share content is by making videos. It’s not always easy to make a video that will go viral, but it is a great way to give personality and a face to your brand, as well as go more in depth about things that would take longer to explain in a post.
3. Making a Plan Facebook Use these tips to get your facebook strategy started. ● ●
● ●
Figure out how many times you want to post a day Use paid ads (slowly at first) to promote content, increase awareness and offer discounts. Before paying for facebook ads, make sure you have your pixel installed to be able to collect relevant data. This is very important! Respond to fans Tag relevant pages if you're discussing them. They’re followers will see your post, increasing reach.
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Google+ Make sure you use these tips
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● ● ● ●
How many tweets to send on daily. Tweets should include ○ Blog posts circulation ○ Content offers ○ Call to action ○ Attach image Retweet influencers Follow new people everyday Monitor keywords and mentions Respond to tweets
Linkedin Linkedin is a different breed, here's what you need to know: ● ● ● ●
Update your status a few times a week Scan industry groups a few times a week Learn to update your company profile Use linkedin to research prospects
● ● ● ● ●
Share your content a few times a week Promote posts from influencers in your industry Circle new people everyday Offer hangout sessions Make sure your posts are public
Pinterest Pinterest will be useful when you use these tricks ● ● ● ● ●
Add keywords in your pins Create boards based on client interest Follow new boards each week Make sure pins and linked back to your website! Create pin worthy images! See what has been pinned in your industry and mimic the style!
Slideshare Slideshare is a great platform. Here's what you need to know Youtube You can use slideshare for: ● ● ● ●
Presentations Infographics eBooks Case studies
Just make sure to update your account consistently, find great posts and convert them to slides and DON’T FORGET to credit source!
When marketing on youtube, keep this in mind ● ● ● ● ● ●
Create a video that showcases your expertise Ask questions from fans and create videos to address them Add fun in your videos Use a videographer for events Run webinars to youtube for more great content Do product reviews and demos
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Actionable Steps Continued 4. Engage for Engagement This is probably one of the best social media tips. I’m sure that you’ve heard the saying “To have friends, you need to be a friend.” This concepts hold true in the world of social media. It is rare to get without giving in some way. Social media can be seen as a “Cocktail Party”. When you think of it this way, it helps you understand the concept more clearly. When you’re at a cocktail party, you don’t simply go up to everyone you see and tell them why they need to buy from your company. That would be very inappropriate and in-your-face. The key is to network. You meet someone, have a great conversation with them, and let them know what you do. You become interested in what they do and how you can help them. When that person is in the market for your services, they may reach out to you, as they remember the positive interaction that you shared. They’ll even probably tell their friends!
5. Remember the Reason Relationships are the name of the game in social media, so no matter how badly you want to master this new craft for your business, don’t forget to approach it with a spirit of helpfulness and friendliness. The point of social media is to put a human voice and face to your brand. Don’t let the stuffiness of day to day buying and selling overwhelm your presence.
6. Collect Data This is one of the most valuable functions of social media. The data you can gather on your demographic and target audience is priceless. In addition to the standard age and gender questions, you can find out what makes your customers tick. You can find out what their pain points are, what their questions are, what they relate and react to. Don’t let this data go by the wayside. Record it and return to it often.
7. Act on your data When you find a new nugget of wisdom about your audience, don’t just write it in your notebook. Act on it. Adjust your efforts to fill this need, answer this question, or offer the type of information that their craving. This will help you produce quality over quantity in terms of content.
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Actionable Steps Continued 8. Focus on campaigns that can run across all social media channels Create a campaign that can be translated onto all your targeted platforms. But beware, you can’t typically take the same photo and content and successfully post it on all channels. Different word limits, ideal photo sizes and key hashtags will differ on these channels, so adjust accordingly. Keeping the message the same on all channels will promote easy recognition of your brand and it’s values.
9. Research Repeatedly Research should be a regular part of your social media journey. Continue to research your competitors and see what is and what is not working for them. You can use pixels to do this. Research the best hashtags to use. You can find this on sites like iconosquare.com or hashtagify.me. Using appropriate hashtags can spread your content much farther than your immediate followers.
10. Testing Test different image shapes, sizes, fonts, colors and even emojis to maximize your reach or gain quick recognition with your followers. Sometimes the small things make you stand out and can break through the clutter in a newsfeed or timeline. In our “Before and After” and “This or That” posts, we found that if we made our image twice the height of a standard Facebook image, our reach would triple or even quadruple! This happens because more than half of all Facebook users are on mobile. When you view this post on mobile, it entices you to click to see the “after” or the “that” image that you can’t see due to the size. The key is to put the “AFTER” or “THAT” text in the middle of the photo, so that people will understand that there is something to see below. When people are constantly clicking on your image, they’re telling Facebook that they value your content, and Facebook recognizes it as more important, making the reach skyrocket. In addition, those who click your post are served more of your content in the future because Facebook knows that they feel it is relevant. Without testing, trial and error, and closely monitoring the way that our fans are interacting with our content, we would have missed this awesome realization! SEE IMAGE ON FOLLOWING PAGE
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11. Use Calls to Action! As in any advertising medium, use calls to action and a sense of urgency to drive your potential customers into the buying funnel. While social media is not all about buying and selling, but when your posts directly relate to your products or services, there is no harm in adding a simple call to action. It can be as easy as “Click to shop more of these _____” or “Sign up today for more ways to save!”. Getting them to convert to your website or email list is the name of the game. Guide them in the right direction with a little encouragement!
12. Use Contests to grow reach, engagement and fun factor! Simple giveaways can be extremely powerful. Many contests will tell fans to like, comment and share to have a chance to win. These posts can get hundreds of thousands of interactions, with most of the giveaway prizes worth only a few hundred dollars. That kind of engagement is worth every penny.
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Actionable Steps Continued 13. Make it trackable Make sure that if you’re promoting contests, giveaways, discounts or specials on your social media accounts, that you have promo codes associated with them for your sales staff. This will allow you to see how many people are claiming this discount in store. This allows you to see which channels are working well for your target audience, or what categories are especially of interest.
10. Cross promote social media channels with on and offline marketing! I can’t stress this one enough. If you are going to take the time to use social media, make sure you get the biggest reach possible. This can be done by sending email blasts about your social activity, putting social share and follow buttons on all of your blogs, images, products, and pages on your website, putting social icons in your email signature (all staff should have this with an invitation for the recipient to follow for “Daily Design Inspiration” or whatever your company provides via social media.) You can also tie this to your other advertising channels, such as TV commercials, radio ads, or in store signage. This makes it easier for customers to follow you no matter where they are when they see your message or interact with your business.
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I hope this ebook has been able to help clarify what you need to be doing in regards to digital marketing for your business. I have laid out all of the basics of these 6 strategies, but if you’re interested in advanced digital marketing to maximize your results, please reach out to me. My digital agency, Allie Bloyd Media, provides complete support packages to allow business owners to focus on working ON their business, not IN their business. My packages include marketing, creative and administrative support and I also have advanced digital marketing packages that can be added on or used separately. In the last 6 years as a marketing director for multimillion dollar business, I’ve been able to drive revenue, streamline processes, and allow the business owners to focus on high level tasks in their business. If you would like to discuss how I could work with you or your business, please reach out to me via email or phone and we’ll begin your FREE business analysis!
Allie Bloyd Allie Bloyd Media, alliebloydmedia.com [email protected] 502-615-6200
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