Business.com |
- Why You Should Partner With Influencers (and How to Get Started)
- How to Create a Content Marketing Strategy From Scratch
- Demystifying Digital Media for Small Businesses
- How to Get the Best Responses in Online Forums
| Why You Should Partner With Influencers (and How to Get Started) Posted: 06 Sep 2019 01:00 PM PDT  Marketers spend money on advertising through various platforms to generate more leads and website traffic. Despite the amount of money spent on marketing material, 63% of businesses say that generating leads is their biggest struggle. Influencer marketing bridges the gap between businesses and their audience. Essentially, influencers are social media personalities with a large number of followers. Businesses are connecting with influencers to reach their target audience, which translates to more traffic and potential customers. In this article, I address:
Advantages of influencersThere are several advantages to incorporating influencers within your marketing strategy. One of the first and most important benefits is a greater ability to reach a broader audience than if you use email marketing or social media ads alone. Influencers advocate for businesses by telling their followers about your products or services. If someone has never heard of your brand, they may find out about you solely because their favorite YouTuber mentions your company in one of their videos. It's possible to gain valuable feedback through influencers. Listen to what the influencer (and his or her followers) tells you about your product or service. Next, check the comments section of the video where you're mentioned to gauge how others feel about your product or service. If you notice trends regarding your user experience, the buying process, content, your products, etc., it might be time to step back and reevaluate how you can improve your website or products. Influencers also build trust between prospects and your company. If someone has been undecided about buying something from your website, the opinion of an influencer they follow could sway their decision and cause them to become a new customer. When to use microinfluencersMicroinfluencers are a specific type of influencer that has a low to medium number of subscribers or followers. There are no absolute numbers, but, generally, personalities with 10,000 to 500,000 followers are considered microinfluencers. The most notable difference when working with microinfluencers compared to influencers is that microinfluencers' promotion tactics have a longer tail than those of high-subscriber influencers. Instead of creating several videos about a wide range of topics, microinfluencers make videos that are niche. Because the topic is so specific, their audience tends to have a closer connection with the microinfluencer, and they are more likely to trust their recommendations. It's also important to keep in mind that since the audience is so niche, consumers are more likely to go to your website if it relates to the topics the microinfluencer covers. Pet supply companies, for instance, want to partner with microinfluencers who talk about animals or their pets. The logic is simple: Most people who view pet videos have pets of their own. Consumers who own animals need food and supplies to keep their pets happy and healthy. It makes perfect sense to look for people who cover animal-related topics when you want to find someone to represent your brand. However, if you want to promote something time-sensitive, like an online contest or limited time deal, you're going to want to work with an influencer with a large following so you can get a short burst of new traffic and leads. Now, let's examine how you find influencers for your business. Research your audienceBefore you start looking for an influencer, you must understand your target audience. Internet personalities have specific audience profiles, and you need to ensure that your target audience and the audience the influencer has align. Before you think about contacting influencers, dive deep into your website analytics and social media stats for audience insights. You'll want to create customer personas that cover the interests, goals, age and income of consumers who come to your website. You can research your audience further by conducting customer feedback surveys either on your website or through email. For example, health and wellness websites might ask their audience if they are interested in more content covering working out or maintaining a healthy diet. The first step to marketing your brand is understanding your customers. Once you've developed several customer personas, it's time to work out your influencer marketing strategy. Plan your strategySome businesses offer influencers the chance to write a guest post on their website as a way to build traction on their channel, which may benefit your business. Other arrangements involve the business owner paying the influencer cash for promoting their content or products. If you find influencers who are receptive to working with you, you could strike a deal by giving them free products or perhaps a free trial with your service, for example, in exchange for their feedback. The key to building relationships and striking deals with influencers is finding online personalities who already cover your industry. Let's say you have a website that sells beauty supplies. You want a beauty influencer who will promote your website in exchange for free products. Before you reach out to an influencer, carefully consider what you're willing to offer an influencer. Consider, too, from the influencer's point of view, what is alluring about your company that would persuade the influencer to work with you versus your competitors. Research and contact influencersNow that you understand your audience and you have an offer in mind, it's time to research potential influencers. One of the easiest ways to find people talking about your industry is by searching keywords specific to your industry on YouTube and hashtags on sites like Twitter. You'll see a list of people talking about your industry, with the most popular influencers appearing toward the top of the page. Browse through your options and look for someone who has a decent amount of followers. Contact them through direct message or email. Be sure to send your message through your official business page or email address. Your message shouldn't focus exclusively on how that influencer can help you. Build a rapport by telling the influencer that you've looked at their content and enjoy their work. When you present your offer to the influencer, don't just talk about how this deal will benefit you, focus on benefits for the influencer and their audience. ConclusionIt doesn't matter if you're marketing your blog or an e-commerce website, everyone can benefit from influencer marketing. The internet allows people with similar interests to connect on social media and forums. Keep your eye on influencers who are rising within your field or industry, monitor your audience for persona changes, and you'll have no problem finding an influencer to promote your brand. |
| How to Create a Content Marketing Strategy From Scratch Posted: 06 Sep 2019 01:00 PM PDT  Smart business owners recognize the value of good content. Not only does it attract website traffic and boost a company's rankings in search engine results pages, compelling content engages, informs, and persuades their target audiences. A robust content strategy ensures that your content will produce measurable, meaningful results, helping your business grow. To create an organized and intentional content strategy that aligns with your company's main goals and objectives, start with these four steps:
Develop content based on target keywords.Keywords should be at the heart of your business's content strategy. Keywords, or search queries, are words and phrases that users enter into a search engine to find what they're looking for online. By understanding the exact words and phrases your target audience is using, you can create content that will appear in relevant search results and that will drive consumers to your business. For example, a real estate business that sells properties in the Bay area would want to create content around the terms its audience is most likely to search; for example, phrases like "best properties in San Francisco" or "average rent in Berkeley." Keywords are often intuitive: Think about how you would search for property in the Bay Area when you conduct keyword research. What terms and phrases would you use? Still, an effective content strategy requires research and creativity. Moz warns against skipping keyword research. To continue with the above real estate example, the target audience might also search for information that extends beyond their need to find a new home. A realtor then may want to create content about related topics such as "moving companies in the Bay area" or "painters in the Bay area." By targeting both the core keyword topic – property in the Bay Area – and its related terms – moving companies or painters – you create a holistic content strategy that helps people complete their desired action, ideally a purchase. This concept was first proposed in a 2004 WIRED article called "The Long Tail." In it, author and entrepreneur Chris Anderson made the famous observation that the cumulative impact of specific or niche audiences is as great or greater than the impact of an audience that masses behind a viral or monocultural phenomenon. In a content strategy, long-tail keywords represent searches that are related to core topics but have lower traffic and competition. Capturing a wide variety of long tail keywords can have the cumulative impact of landing in the first search result for a popular topic. Keyword research ensures that your website advances in search rankings and connects with your target audience. Invest in the types of content that best engage your audience.In the internet world today, businesses contend with the challenge of determining not only what types of content to produce, but where to publish it, in order to engage their audiences. Nowadays, people consume content well beyond the written word. While your content marketing strategy may rely on written assets – people still search for things online through writing it out – audiences increasingly crave a mix of different content formats, including visual and video content. Your content strategy should strike a balance between meeting your audience's preferences, and it should convey information as clearly and easily as possible. There are numerous ways you can determine what types of content will be the most engaging to your audience. First, spend some time developing or revisiting your buyer personas. Is your audience busy and constantly on the go? They might appreciate quick videos. Does your audience favor luxury products and value time to unplug? A branded print magazine could do wonders for your business like it has for brands like Airbnb and Away. Next, you can confirm your educated guesses by directly asking your audience for feedback. Online surveys are a quick and easy way to gauge interest before investing in content, while focus groups provide deeper insights. In addition to creating the types of content your audience is interested in, your content strategy should attempt to meet users where they already like to spend their time online, including:
Although some businesses might be wary of sacrificing web traffic to their company's website by diverting it to other sites, this strategy can pay dividends. Last year, Business Insider reported that YouTube nearly attracted as many users as Facebook, averaging 1.8 billion viewers per month. Social platforms consume nearly 2.5 hours of the average consumer's day, reinforcing the power of word-of-mouth marketing. Similarly, placing articles or infographics in popular publications can build a brand's credibility. By investing time and effort into determining what platforms and types of content are most likely to engage your audience, you can increase the return on your content investment efforts. Determine who will produce your content.Once you've identified essential keywords and determined what type of content you intend to create, you'll need to decide who will create your content. Content production is a time-consuming and labor intensive process that requires dedicated staff if it is done in-house. Joe Pulizzi, founder of the Content Marketing Institute, recommends that most businesses outsource content production to external experts. If you choose to outsource content production, there are plenty of resources available to help you. Agencies provide high-touch content production, from Superbowl-worthy commercials to fascinating blogs, and they charge a premium price. At the other end of the cost spectrum, freelance writers can provide assistance on a project-by-project basis. In general, businesses that assign content creation responsibilities to staff members who are already burdened with other responsibilities put their content strategy at risk for failure. A successful content strategy should include a plan for budgeting ample labor and resources. Create a plan to share your content.Once you've invested time and resources into creating outstanding content, there's one final step you shouldn't overlook: sharing and promoting content as widely as possible. In addition to sharing your content on social media, email newsletters remain a powerful marketing tool, earning a $38 return for every $1 of investment. Content sharing platforms like Quora can also help people discover your content without much effort. With these suggestions in mind, you can create a content strategy from scratch and start catching your audience's attention. |
| Demystifying Digital Media for Small Businesses Posted: 06 Sep 2019 06:00 AM PDT  Digital media is officially king. Emarketer reported earlier this year that digital media spend is expected to increase to 54.2% of total U.S. media spending in 2019. This leaves traditional media at 45.8% of total U.S. ad spending, thus making digital media the dominant form of advertising for the first time ever in the United States. Considering the state of the internet, tech-related innovations and digital consumer trends, digital media spend is projected to continue scaling upward. Market share in the digital media world is becoming more diversified. According to Emarketer, Amazon will experience a 50% increase in its own ad business, shooting the tech giant upward to third place below Google and Facebook. As a business owner, allocating a portion of your advertising budget toward digital media is a prudent decision. There isn't any remaining advantage in utilizing traditional media. It astonishes me that companies still spend money on traditional advertising methods rather than experimenting with digital advertising. There are a number of reasons why digital advertising benefits small businesses. Should you spend your entire advertising budget on print, radio and/or TV in 2019? No, definitely not. You wouldn't spend any of your budget on traditional media if I had my way. Below I provide some helpful tips and recommendations on digital advertising platforms and ad formats to demystify some hurdles you and your business may be facing so that you can move forward confidently in planning and executing your marketing strategy. 1. Integrate digital media into your budgetDecision-makers are increasingly faced with the choice whether to allocate their entire advertising budget to traditional channels, digital channels or both. This decision should not be taken lightly. Let's look at two different scenarios, what my recommendation would be for each and why. Scenario No. 1: You must use your advertising budget for either traditional advertising or digital advertising.
Scenario No. 2: You have the option to allocate a small amount of your budget to test digital advertising or allocate 100% of your budget to traditional advertising.
Digital advertising has opened up a slew of possibilities for business owners to explore. There are more methods to advertise, more strategies to experiment with and more ways to engage your target demographic. Sadly, this also means there are more ways to waste your company's advertising budget if you are not careful. It may take some time, money and effort before you find the right digital advertising strategy for your business. Editor's note: Looking for the right marketing service for your business? Fill out the below questionnaire to have our vendor partners contact you about your needs. 2. Find the right digital advertising platform for your SMBBefore you can spend your budget on digital media, you need to determine which advertising platform is best for your business. Many of these platforms benefit companies with any targeting objective. However, some only support certain objectives or criteria. There are more platforms out there. For the purposes of this article, I will cover five of the major digital advertising platforms based on my experience. Platform: Google Ads
Platform: Bing Ads
Platform: Amazon Ads
Platform: Facebook Ads
Platform: AdRoll
3. Determine which ad formats are right for your small businessNow that we have an idea of where we will advertise (fingers crossed), we can examine potential ad formats for each platform. Let's take a brief look at the available ad formats. Within the Google Ads platform, you have a pretty sizeable assortment of ad formats to choose from. This can be overwhelming ‒ even for a seasoned advertiser. As a small business owner, the ad formats these platforms offer tend to complicate advertising-budget decisions rather than simplify them. Hopefully, I can fix that. Just to note, I am focusing on ad formats here, not campaign structure. Ad format: Text
Ad format: Image
Ad format: Video
Ad format: Call Only (Text)
Ad format: Shopping (Datafeed)
Next stepsWe have looked at changing media trends, popular digital advertising platforms and ad format recommendations. Hopefully, this has provided you with a deeper understanding of why digital media is important to utilize for your small business and how digital media can contribute to your bottom line. Now it is up to you to use this information to find the right direction for your business and reach your goals more quickly! |
| How to Get the Best Responses in Online Forums Posted: 06 Sep 2019 05:00 AM PDT 
If you've spent any time on internet forums, you've probably noticed that some posters get tons of responses to questions and queries, while other people are ignored completely. Luckily, the way people respond to you online is easy to change. This simple set of guidelines will help you garner more high-quality responses to your posts online and maybe even make some valuable networking connections. Get to know the forum culture, then match itThe first thing you should know about online forums is that they're like social clubs, and just like real-life socializing, there are different standards of behavior depending on where you go and whom you're with. If you're new to a forum, it's a good idea to read forum posts a while before you create threads. Take note of the content and subject matter as well as how people express themselves. How long are most of the forum posts that get lots of responses? Are people formal in their language or casual? Do they swear and speak flippantly, or is everyone polite and clean in their writing? Some forums are Wild West-style – pretty much anything goes – so you can use whatever language or tone you like to express yourself without alienating other members. However, most mainstream forums are more civilized, and have rules, terms of use and generally accepted standards for behavior. If people are largely polite and deferential you should be, too. Some forums have unique rules; this is certainly common in various subs on Reddit, so if there is a stickied thread outlining forum rules, make sure you read it. If there are no posted rules or guidelines, use your good judgment and treat the forum like a public meetup; if you wouldn't say it in person, don't say it online. Search online before you ask the online forumPeople don't like answering the same question multiple times. If you have a general question, search the forum for that question before you create a thread. Your question may have already been answered thoroughly in a previous conversation. Many questions on forums get ignored simply because they are repetitive. In online culture, you get what you put in; if you don't take the time to read through previous topics, posters won't take the time to answer your questions. Searching before you post a question also applies to acronyms, internet slang and references to things. If you don't know what YMMV or IME mean that's fine, but if everyone asked a forum member whenever they came across an unfamiliar term, then every online forum would be filled with basic questions and answers and not lively discussions. If you don't know what something means, Google it! If you can't find the answer through an internet search engine, then it is OK to ask for clarification. Answer questions and respond to threadsIf you want people to respond to your threads, you need to become an active participant in forum discussions. Don't just post queries; give answers to questions, too, and do so as frequently as you have something valuable to add. You don't have to be an all-knowing expert to answer a question; you can always describe your experience with the topic at hand rather than giving hard-and-fast advice. People like to know how other people handle things, they like anecdotes and encouragement as well as researched advice. The more you become known on a forum as someone who gives thoughtful feedback and advice and adds to discussions, the more you will get valuable responses to your questions. Make your questions easy to readIf you're posting a question, make sure that what you are asking is clear and includes enough detail for people to help you. For example, if you want advice from the business.com community on buying a new point-of-sale system don't just ask, "What point of sale system should I buy for my business?" because that's too vague. Make sure you include what type of business you run, how much you want to spend, and what your needs are. If you've had bad experiences with a previous POS system, explain what you didn't like and what you want out of a new system. Giving other posters insight into your situation will help them give you good advice. Respond to users who answer your questions, and give updatesOn the topic of receiving advice and online etiquette, respond when people answer your questions. If someone gives you advice, respond to them, even if the advice won't entirely solve your problems. It is frustrating to take the time to respond to someone's question and type out advice only to hear no reply. A simple "thanks!" goes a long way. If you can, it's also always welcome to post an update. If you take someone's advice from the forum, or if you come to a solution on your own, go back to your thread and post an update! It's fun for people to follow your story and feel like they had an impact on your life. Start threads that create opportunities for sharingIn addition to starting threads to ask questions or get support, try your hand at beginning conversations that provide other users with an opportunity to share. Postings don't all have to be queries; they can also be fun places to get to know other users. If you're on a small business forum, for example, you could start a thread asking everyone how long they've been in business, what their business is and how many people they employ. Just make sure you start by sharing about yourself! Post often, and do it during the most active hoursMost mainstream forums are active during regular business hours, because a lot of people enjoy a diversion from work. On active forums that are global, there will be consistent responses at all hours, but if you're on a forum that's primarily for North American users, stick to posting Monday through Friday around business hours. If you want to get consistent engagement with your posts, and especially if you want to use the forum to network, you should also post frequently. In this way, forum posting is like social media posting: Consistent, high-value posts work. Common mistakes new online forum users makeThere are lots of small errors that new forum users make. Most of these won't cause major offense, and if you've done any of them, there's no need to stress about it, but they are easily avoidable faux pas that you may want to be aware of.
Sign up and start postingOnline forums offer invaluable connections to people who care about exactly what you care about. Many forums end up resulting in IRL connections, including professional connections, and there's no reason not to take advantage of them. Additionally, you can learn a lot from other users and possibly save yourself some money and time by getting their advice and reading about their experiences. The business.com community is comprised of innovative entrepreneurs and small business owners from around the country, and as with most forums, it's 100% free to join and start posting. Join the tribe of innovative business owners at business.com now and start posting! |
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