Digital Marketing and the Small Business: A Perfect Match

Most small businesses don’t have the big budgets that big brands have. Yet they need to make an impact through their marketing and communication efforts. That, obviously, can be a challenge.

Digital marketing, though, represents significant opportunity for small businesses.

Continue reading “Digital Marketing and the Small Business: A Perfect Match”

Generating Responses, Followers, and Referrals—An “A-ha!” Moment

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A while ago I experienced an interesting phenomenon related to the release of my monthly e-letter. I’d gotten into the practice of posting notices to various LinkedIn groups when a new e-letter was available, inviting new subscribers. I had been doing this for about 14 months and Continue reading “Generating Responses, Followers, and Referrals—An “A-ha!” Moment”

When It Comes to Hyper-personalization Use Your Spidey Senses

Digital technology available today makes it possible to hyper-personalize communications with customers and prospects. But, just because you can, doesn’t mean you should. I think the biggest mistake that marketers can make in pursuing hyper-personalization Continue reading “When It Comes to Hyper-personalization Use Your Spidey Senses”

You’re Using LinkedIn the Wrong Way—Here’s What We Recommend Instead

social media marketing, how to use linkedin, twitter, facebook and other channels to achieve marketing results

I’ve had a LinkedIn profile since 2009. It has become the top source of referrals for my content marketing and marketing consulting services. Not because of the “brilliant” posts I share. Not because I get tons of likes and shares. Not because I write clever copy.

So how have I successfully leveraged LinkedIn to generate leads—and new clients—consistently? Continue reading “You’re Using LinkedIn the Wrong Way—Here’s What We Recommend Instead”

5 Simple Website Mistakes That Many Businesses Make

market research, marketing researchWe work frequently with clients to evaluate/audit and make recommendations for improvements to their websites and write website content. In addition, Linda serves as a digital marketing specialist with the State of Wisconsin’s Business Intelligence Team and Purdue University. In this role she reviews and makes recommendations to websites of small but growing companies.
Through this work, we tend to see some very common (and, fortunately, easy to fix) mistakes being made. Here we take a look at “5 Simple Website Mistakes That Many Businesses Make.”

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Use Digital Platforms to Drive In-Store Traffic, and Vice Versa

In the modern retail landscape, digital is no longer a threat to the in-store shopping experience. In fact, smart retailers have come to see e-commerce as a tool to boost in-store foot traffic. This represents a new phenomenon called ROPO (research online, purchase offline), where consumers start their shopping journeys online but complete them in-store.

This is a strategy used by 82 percent of consumers, according to Retail Customer Experience. Because of this, experts stress how important it is for retailers to have a strong presence in both physical and digital environments.

In the modern retail landscape, digital is no longer a threat to the in-store shopping experience. In fact, smart retailers have come to see e-commerce as a tool to boost in-store foot traffic. This represents a new phenomenon called ROPO (research online, purchase offline), where consumers start their shopping journeys online but complete them in-store.

This is a strategy used by 82 percent of consumers, according to Retail Customer Experience. Because of this, experts stress how important it is for retailers to have a strong presence in both physical and digital environments. Continue reading “Use Digital Platforms to Drive In-Store Traffic, and Vice Versa”

Best Practices in Repurposing Content

It can be extremely expensive to feed the constant demand for content from a wide range of audiences. Content marketing has become a major industry in the 21st century, with companies of all types and sizes working hard to produce content to help them distinguish themselves from competitors as they attract and engage audiences that can represent potential customers.

The costs of content creation can be positively affected, though, if companies work strategically to repurpose content in various ways. The mantra of any efficiency-oriented content creator or team should be “Create once, use many times.” Why let valuable content become buried as new content is created? Here we take a look at some practical advice from content creators who have learned to make the most of what they create. Continue reading “Best Practices in Repurposing Content”

Communication Lessons From COVID That Will Last Long Past the Pandemic

It’s fair to say that few, if any, companies—or their communication staff—were prepared to respond quickly and appropriately to the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. As millions of employees suddenly found themselves working remotely from their homes and millions of customers found themselves suddenly shut off from the companies and brands they typically engaged with, communication professionals began grappling with important questions, including the following: Continue reading “Communication Lessons From COVID That Will Last Long Past the Pandemic”

Following the Trends in Influencer Marketing

While it may seem like it’s a 21st-century thing, influencer marketing has been around since the early 20th century. One of the earliest influencers was Santa Claus, a character modernized and reinvented by Coca-Cola. Today’s influencers tend to be real people—PewDiePie, Logan Paul, Zoella, and others—many who leapt to fame thanks to the wide reach of social media channels, such as YouTube and Instagram. But influencers today come in a lot of forms depending on the target audience. Business-es, products, and services of all types leverage the audience, reach, and endorsement power of influencers to grow awareness and preference for what they have to offer. Continue reading “Following the Trends in Influencer Marketing”

Email Subject Lines: It’s Not Rocket Science, But It Is Important

Like many things we see all of the time, email subject lines are easy to overlook, especially when drafting them. Too often, though, copywriters, content marketers, and others fail to give enough thought to their email subject lines. They’re an afterthought. Something quickly thrown together and easily overlooked, not only by those writing them but those seeing them in their email inboxes! And that’s the problem.

Fail to pay enough attention to your email subject lines and your audience will too. Continue reading “Email Subject Lines: It’s Not Rocket Science, But It Is Important”