Did you know it takes people as little as 10 seconds to form an impression about your brand? As soon as they walk into a store or land on your website, they’ll draw conclusions and decide if they’ll buy from you.

This is why you need to create a strong and solid branding foundation and leave nothing to chance. Keep reading to discover 10 essential branding tips that’ll help your business attract the right customers.

1. Define Your Brand Purpose

Before you create branding elements, you need to define your brand purpose. What do you want to accomplish with your brand? How will your brand fit into your customers’ lives?

Why should people buy your product and not your competitors’? And most importantly, why should they come back and buy again? These questions will help you position your brand properly to your customers.

2. Know Your Target Market

Your brand should exist to meet the needs of your target market. This is why you need to know your customers well so you can serve them properly. You should know what your ideal customers are willing to spend, what their favorite brands and stores are, and if they buy from your direct competitors.

Next, think about how your brand can enrich their lives further and offer value. No matter what product you’re selling, people will only buy if it will improve their lives in some way.

3. Define Your Brand Image

Your brand image is the way your customers see your product and company. The brand also includes their opinion and experience with it, which is something you can’t control but can try to attract.

Use your branding in your customers’ online shopping and shipping experience, customer service, quality, and in-store experience. If customers form an opinion about your brand that doesn’t align with your brand vision, it may be hard to change their minds.

With branding elements such as your logo, slogans, color palettes, packaging, and marketing materials, you can define your brand image from the very start.

4. Implement Your Brand Everywhere

When creating a brand, consider how the elements will look on your website, printed marketing materials, product packaging, billboards, and the product itself.

Your brand message should be immediately visible, and customers should be able to tell what your brand is about. This includes mission statement, tone of voice, expectations, price points, and employee behavior.

5. Define a Brand Mission Statement

Your brand needs a powerful mission statement that will speak to your customers. Before you start brainstorming ideas, get to know your target market better. Learn about their lifestyle, habits, everyday problems, and things that make them happy.

Think of ways your brand can become an essential part of their lives. This will help you define a mission statement that will make customers feel like your brand was made for them.

For example, Nike’s mission statement is “To bring inspiration and innovation to every athlete in the world“. They do everything around this mission statement in terms of quality, marketing campaigns, people they work with, and target customers.

6. Build Brand Awareness

Branding your business is one part of the job, building brand recognition and putting it out there is another. People need to learn about your brand before they decide to buy. You can build brand awareness through paid ads, social media, SEO, TV commercials, free samples, brand ambassadors, or influencers.

7. Build a Brand Platform

Having a platform where your brand shines is crucial for building brand awareness. This is the best way to connect with your customers and post updates, product launches, discounts, and everything else that would interest them. A brand platform can be a social media channel, a blog, a networking hub, a workshop, or even email marketing newsletters.

As long as you engage with your fans, reply to their comments and messages, and offer great customer service, you will have a loyal fan base that will buy from you.

8. Infuse Your Brand Into Customer Service

Every single communication with your customers must represent your brand voice and mission. The way you address customers, respond to messages and complaints, and resolve issues are all-powerful brand messages. Always remember that word-of-mouth marketing is the fastest way to spread the word about your brand, but bad news travels even faster.

9. Analyze Your Competitors

Whether you already have some kind of branding or are thinking about building a brand, your competitors can help you get inspired. You should never copy their branding or even use similar elements, but you should analyze them, figure out what works for them, and see how you can do better.

10. Don’t Stamp Your Logo on Everything

Branding is way more than just your logo, so stamping it on everything and hoping people will buy it won’t suffice for modern customers. They need to feel connected to your brand and the message it conveys before they decide to buy.

This feeling of brand connection is why big-name fashion designers can put their logo on a simple white t-shirt and still charge exorbitant amounts. Their customers are happy to wear the logo because it signifies status and wealth.

The best way to build brand awareness and help customers recognize your brand is to be consistent. Talk to them often, offer discounts or free samples, have stellar customer service, sell quality products, and stay consistent with your brand message.

These Branding Tips Will Help Your Brand Get Noticed

Whether you’re trying to build a new brand or give your existing one a makeover, these branding tips will help you define and build a strong, recognizable brand.

Ready to make your brand stand out from the crowd? Let us help you build strong branding that will get your products noticed. Contact us today to learn more about our packages and how branding can give your company strategic marketing positioning.

How do you create a winning email marketing campaign when you’re competing with billions of other emails on a daily basis?

Without a doubt, email marketing is still the most effective marketing channel. It is also extremely cost-effective. Plus, it comes with tracking features and data to help you constantly improve your campaigns.

Are you struggling to create the perfect email marketing plan for 2022? Here’s our guide to make the most out of email marketing.

Why Create an Email Marketing Plan?

Although there is a lot of competition in email marketing, it is still your best investment for your business’ communication plan, mainly because the ROI is higher than any other marketing channel.

The ROI rate for online marketing strategies such as SEO, PPC, and content marketing does not reach that of email marketing. There’s no question that starting your own email marketing plan is key to your business’ success.

In fact, from every $1 spent on email marketing, you will earn $38 on average.

Ready to take our email marketing plan to the next level? Here are some important factors and strategies to consider.

Target Specific Audiences

An effective facet of email marketing is the ability to target a very specific audience with content that pertains specifically to their interests and needs. In today’s marketing world, your potential customers expect personalized content.

It is important to ensure you are sending targeted messaging that not only includes information such as their name, but also promotes products or services that relate to their demographic.

You can send a generic email to your customers that promotes the product or services in the same way, but people will unsubscribe if they don’t see something they like.

Once you lose an email subscriber you legally can’t send them emails unless they opt back into the email campaign, which means that each email counts. Ensure that you first understand your audience and what they want to see. Otherwise, you’ll quickly lose them to other businesses that are able to provide a more personalized experience.

Big Picture Planning

Before you even start to sit down and write the content of your email campaign, you should take a step back and look at the big picture of your campaign.

How many emails will you send? How far apart will each one be staggered? Are there any holidays or dates that you should take into consideration?

Who within your segmented audience will receive which messaging? It is a good idea to automate your emails ahead of time so they deploy on a regular basis. Also, create a drip campaign that includes people who indicate their interest in a specific email campaign.

When creating your initial campaign, it’s okay to start simply and slowly increase your emails from there. It’s also important not to overlap emails or send multiples to the same person in a day.

If you’re worried about sending too many emails or too few, consider what the purpose of each email is. If it has high value to your customer, it’s okay to send additional emails. It all depends on your demographic and whether or not the email holds value to them.

Subject Lines

Your subject line is one of the most important parts of your campaign. This is the first thing your audience sees. You typically have less than 60 characters to capture your customers interest and less than 30 characters on mobile phones, which is often the main device for viewing emails.

There’s no question that your subject line needs to stand out. When writing your subject line, try personalizing it with the person’s name. For example, grab your potential customer’s attention with an exciting line such as: “First Name, You’re In Luck!”

Don’t use spam words or symbols such as “free”, “clearance”, or “$$$.” These will only trigger someone’s email platform to instantly mark your email as spam and can discredit your business.

There’s no single method for creating successful subject lines. A great part about email marketing is that you can test different subject lines on your email list to see which ones work best. This helps you get to know your customers better and provide them with better information.

You should always split test your subject lines. A/B testing is often a part of email marketing services and can increase your email open rates significantly.

Mobile-Friendly is a Must

It’s important to make sure your marketing email is mobile-friendly. Be sure to test your emails on mobile devices and use different email platforms.

Even if your subject line is excellent enough to get the email opened, your potential customer could be instantly turned away by an email that is not mobile-friendly and difficult to read on a small device.

Another thing to keep in mind are the websites within the email. If your email is linked to a landing page or site that is not mobile-friendly, it could cause a potential customer to turn away.

Step-Up Your Email Marketing Campaigns

There is much planning and consideration devoted to each email marketing plan. If you want to take your business to the next level, email marketing is an effective way.

Want to learn more ways to create stellar email marketing campaigns for your business? We have more secrets to share about online marketing including SEO, social media, and branding.

Check out our site for more expert online marketing tips.

Building a strong online presence for your business is a necessity in 2022.

If you’re able to get noticed online, it trickles into every facet of your business. Conversion rates and sales rise and your brand becomes more noticeable, but it’s not as simple as it might seem to achieve.

In this post, we’re going to offer up eight tips for getting your business noticed online. Online presence management is crucial, so if you put as many of your resources as you can into developing, you’ll see a payoff almost immediately.

In the digital age, branding is everything. There are so many businesses out there vying for the attention of consumers, so follow these tips and become the business that sticks out from the crowd.

1. SEO

Search engine optimization is what drives online visibility for businesses and personal brands alike. If you want to get noticed online, you have to either master SEO yourself or hire a firm to do it for you. A deep understanding of current and cutting edge SEO practices can keep you relevant.

SEO is much more complex than just keywords and page speed. It touches almost every aspect of what we’ll discuss in this post. For instance, if you’re a small business that is geographically bound to a specific area, strong local SEO is essential to stay ahead of your competition. This means filling out all of your listings and having good reviews to appear in location-based searches.

2. Mobile Optimization

It wasn’t until a few years ago that mobile search finally surpassed desktop as the public’s main search method. For this reason, mobile website and search optimization have become incredibly important for online visibility. If you don’t have a high-functioning mobile website, searchers will find some other business that does.

Similarly, if you don’t consider how people perform searches from their phones in your SEO strategy, you’re going to lose customers. Right now, voice search is becoming more and more popular, which goes against a lot of the older keyword strategies.

Instead of highly-focused keywords, people tend to voice search in full sentences, so you need to use long-tail keywords in your content to appeal to their search terms.

3. Social Activity

These days, your online presence and brand depend a lot on social media. Having a great social media presence is important because consumers are most likely to discover something, since they spend so much time using it.

Building this presence organically comes from regular posting and lots of engagement with your followers. Basically, you want to make them feel like they’re a part of what you’re doing. You’ll increase your conversion numbers when your followers like you and feel that you’re a trustworthy source for the goods or services they need.

4. Your Listings

We discussed why filling out your listings is crucial for local SEO a little bit earlier, but we didn’t delve into exactly how to make them work in your favor. People tend to trust ratings and reviews from Google and Yelp more than they trust the advice of their own friends and family, so you’ve got to be present and popular.

To fill out your listings properly, make sure everything is always accurate and consistent across all platforms. You can’t be listed as “Jones & Stevenson Automotive” on Google My Business and “Jones and Stevenson Inc.” on Yelp; your SEO will take a huge hit.

Keep everything listed the same way and always encourage your happy customers to leave you a rating and review on their favorite listings site. This is invaluable for staying relevant online.

5. Email and Messenger

Email and Messenger marketing are an important tool for customer retention and advertising as a whole. Your online presence is always going to be tied to your brand, your reputation, and your ability to let people know about you without annoying them.

Email marketing in particular is a difficult concept to master. It is essential to advertise the right deals and promotions to the right people, but with too much repetition, your message will end up in the spam folder. Putting the work into figuring out what your customers want to see will help you navigate this problem.

6. Provide Content

Content is everything these days. If you don’t give your audience a consistent stream of informative and entertaining content, you can bet your biggest competitor will. The source can come from blogs, videos, social media, and pretty much anything else you can think of.

Again, this all ties into your SEO strategy. If you can develop a strong voice and brand through multiple channels, it’ll create a domino effect and your online presence will go through the roof.

7. Working On Your Brand

Brand building is a phrase you’ll see a lot when you research how to increase your internet presence. Your brand is the voice, appearance, and overall “vibe” that your customers associate with your company.

All the best and biggest businesses in the world have extremely strong brands, so it’s vital to invest time and effort into building and evolving your brand. Get your whole company to buy into what you’re selling and your brand will permeate every facet of your online presence.

8. Never Stop Researching

To have great online presence management, constantly work at it and use the tools available to you. The internet progresses rapidly; even last year’s marketing trends are a thing of the past now!

Make sure you’ve got a strong, creative marketing team that can build your brand, understand SEO concepts, and produce amazing content regularly. It is a key component for small businesses to stay afloat.

Online Presence Management Is Key

“Online presence management” isn’t merely something you check in on from time to time, ensuring that everything’s still running smoothly. Your company’s online presence is something every employee should have an eye on, because it affects every aspect of the business.

Online presence is the pulse of any successful company, so follow these tips and keep it strong. Working with a great marketing company is always the best way to do that. Contact us at MAD Group to find out how our group of talented and experienced marketing professionals can increase your online presence today.

The marketing landscape is changing in 2022 and brands must keep up with the trends, test new advertising methods, and meet the needs of their target market. There are numerous ways to market your business, but the best results come from the most effective marketing strategies for your audience type.

This means you should know your buyer persona well, so you can sell to them effortlessly. Even if the business is new and you don’t have any customers yet, not all marketing tactics will work.

Curious to learn what marketing experts recommend for small businesses? Keep reading to get the best tips.

Create a Marketing Plan

To effectively promote your business online, you need a solid marketing plan. The plan will include everything such as the marketing channels you use, advertising budgets, deadlines, content types, metrics and KPIs, target audience, and market positioning.

If you follow the plan, you’ll quickly learn what works and what doesn’t, and begin to understand your audience’s needs better. You can also tweak the plan as you go, adding or removing aspects you deem necessary.

Leverage Social Media

Social media marketing is the number one way to build a strong fan base and reach potential customers. It’s one of the best ways to post useful content, publish news and updates about your company, and sell your products.

The most important role of social media is building a strong relationship with your customers. With the right strategy, this trust will ultimately translate into sales.

To start, choose only a few social media channels and focus all your effort there. Dive into your analytics next and determine what works for your audience, adjusting the content throughout.

Use Email Marketing

Email marketing still remains one of the most powerful marketing strategies for small businesses. It’s a proven way to generate leads and boost sales directly from people’s inboxes.

Email marketing works because it’s permission-based, which means users have agreed to receive emails from you. However, spamming users with content and pushing them to buy will have the opposite effect and can even result in your website and email address blacklisted.

Before you sell people anything, provide value first. Send them useful articles, tools, videos, podcasts, and any other content they might find helpful. Once you gain their trust, you can send a sales email.

Run Paid Ads

Paid ads are one of the best ways to get brand visibility and reach a wide customer base. Whether you use paid ads on social media or search engines, you can easily choose the target audience you want to reach based on location, age, gender, lifestyle, interests, behaviors, relationship status, and even income.

For example, two of the most popular advertising platforms right now are Facebook and Instagram. Paying as little as a few dollars can reach an audience and send traffic to your website. Use re-targeting to market to the users who have visited your website, as these are the people most likely to buy from you.

Create Useful Videos

Video marketing is the best performing type of digital content at the moment and will remain strong in 2022. YouTube is the industry leader for videos, but Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, and even Pinterest is effective for small business marketing.

There are different video formats to use, such as:

• Long-form videos
• Webinars
• Live streams
• Step-by-step tutorials
• Vlogs
• Product reviews
• Instagram stories
• Animated videos
• Interviews
• Events and presentations

The possibilities are endless, and no expensive equipment is needed to start filming. As long as value is presented to your audience, a decent quality camera is enough to get you started.

Start Blogging

Blogs still remain one of the most powerful marketing methods, which is why you need to start blogging right away. Post on the company website or create a personal blog, making sure to do so consistently.

Blogging is also great for SEO, building brand awareness, and reaching a wider audience. When people find value in your blog posts, they’ll know your products and services are equally valuable.

Creating guest posts for publications and blogs in your industry will help your growth; and using blogging platforms such as “Medium” will help you gain momentum. If you post quality content with extraordinary value and stick to a weekly schedule, people will flock to your website.

Run Free Webinars

Webinars are one of the best small business marketing strategies because they cost nothing to make, and the ROI will be great.

With a free webinar, you should pick a topic of discussion and provide real value to the attendees. End the webinar with a call to action — invite people to sign up for a newsletter, buy a product or service from you, download something from your website, or any other specific action that’ll get you leads or sales.

You can also offer free 15-minute consultations with potential customers. This is a great lead generation method and a way to see what your target audience needs and expects from your services. The key here is to impress everyone with the value you provide so they’ll trust that you are the right choice for them.

Work With Influencers

No matter what industry, there are influencers, field experts and creators that can help you promote your products. Typically, they have a large audience that trust their recommendations, and this is the way you can reach this audience.

Influencers can be Instagrammers, bloggers, vloggers, thought leaders, marketers, and even celebrities. Pick influencers who already use your products or services or have used similar products in the past. It’s important to reach the right audience, not just a large audience, as these are the people most likely to buy from you.

These Are the Most Effective Marketing Strategies for 2022

These are just some of the most effective marketing strategies of 2022 that’ll help you build brand awareness and attract new customers. From good old effective email marketing to working with influencers and thought leaders in your industry, you can grow your business and boost sales with a great ROI.

Ready to put your business on the map? Contact us today to learn about our marketing and advertising packages and let us make your brand stand out from the crowd.

Google processes over 40,000 search queries every second. That translates to over 3.5 billion searches every day. Worldwide, that’s 1.2 trillion searches a year.

Each time someone searches for your product or service, it’s a chance for you to attract a potential customer to your website.

Without search engine optimization (SEO), however, your website won’t even appear in the search engine results.

Google’s algorithm changes every year, requiring companies to come up with new ways to boost their search ranking. With this SEO trend list, you can rise above the competition and attract more customers!

Without it, you’ll fall behind and miss out on potential sales.

Boost your brand, sales, and ROI with these SEO trends for 2022 from your San Diego SEO expert!

The 2021 SEO Trend List

A top priority for 66% of marketers is to improve their company’s SEO and grow an organic presence for inbound marketing.

Why? Well for starters, a search for content is the number one driver of traffic to websites. In fact, it beats social media by over 300%.

With a strong SEO plan for 2022, you can get ahead of the competition and attract more people to your website. Therefore, those visitors can turn into paying customers who come back for more! However, falling behind on the top SEO trends can cause you to fall behind your competitors.

Don’t worry! With this SEO trend list from your San Diego SEO expert, you can give your business the boost it needs. Here are the top search engine trends of 2022.

1. Snippets, Structured Data, & SERP Marketing

Over the years, Google has evolved to give its users a better search experience from the search page. This led to the popularity of search engine results page (SERP) marketing.

After typing a search query into Google, you might see knowledge graphs, quick answers, or interactive results. These can include lists, the “People also ask” boxes, recipes, and more. By providing users with these quick answers, “zero-click” searches are becoming more popular.

In other words, users don’t have to click on your website to find the answers they need.

Instead of losing potential customers, this provides you with an opportunity. Now, you can show readers the value you have to offer straight from the SERP.

In order to display your content on SERPs, you need to determine the user’s search intent. What are your customers searching for? What answers are they looking for?

The job is now to create content that matches their intent.

Identify which keywords will help you gain clicks. You can use your Google Search Console to see what your website visitors are searching for. Then, optimize your website for rich and featured snippets.

You can structure your content for rich and featured snippets by:

• Structuring content using H2-H3 subheadings that address specific queries
• Providing quick, short answers that Google can easily grab
• Researching current featured snippets your competitors are ranking for

For example, you can try to optimize for a “question and answer” box by writing an article that answers a popular customer question. Optimizing for snippets will help you stand out on search pages.

2. Optimize for Voice Search

Between Siri, Alexa, and Google, voice assistants are making their mark. This year, it’s expected that 50% of all searches will start through a voice assistant.

The number of people relying on voice assistants grows every year. As of 2022, 35.6 million Americans used a voice-activated device at least once a month. Meanwhile, one in six Americans own a smart speaker.

With voice search available, people are now searching for content the way they normally speak aloud. For example, a consumer can ask, “Google, where’s the nearest shoe store?” to discover options based on their location.

As we mentioned above, audience research is key.

Determine what your customers are searching for and how they word their searches. Then, use those queries to create new content. Make sure to organize your content with the direct answer to the query at the beginning of the post.

Optimizing your SEO for voice search will help you attract more organic traffic.

At the same time, you’re creating a conversation with your readers!

3. The Mobile Experience

As more people use voice search from their mobile devices, you need to consider a mobile SEO strategy as well. Many of the items on our SEO trend list rely on a mobile-optimized website.

Google uses mobile-first indexing to determine your website’s SERP ranking. In order to optimize your website, you need to make sure it’s easy to use and navigate on smaller screens.

Try using a minimalistic website design.

A cleaner website is easier to use, which will encourage visitors to click around and explore.

4. Wow-Worthy Videos

By 2022, video content will attract over 80% of global web traffic. Videos are an effective, easy way to communicate and engage customers. Many people prefer video content because it’s easy to consume.

Mix up your content strategy by adding entertaining video content.

However, you need to match your video content with these SEO trends. To start, make sure you’re optimizing your content using your target keyword in the video headline and description. Then, consider creating a transcript.

Creating engaging video content can help you utilize the rest of these SEO practices while keeping visitors entertained.

5. CTR & Dwell Time

Click-through rate (CTR) and dwell time are important ranking factors. Both tell Google that users are satisfied and using your website.

You can increase your CTR by adding lead generators such as buttons and forms to your site. Adding video content can give your CTR a boost, too.

Then, determine how you can get people to stay on your site. For example, lengthy blog posts encourage people to linger. Videos can improve your dwell time as well.

However, it’s important to continue providing users with high-quality, relevant content.

Make sure the content you provide benefits your customers. Answer their questions and show you’re there to help. Then, people will want to stay on your website longer and click around for more information.

6. High-Quality Content

With so many digital ads flooding the internet, it’s important you provide your readers with value. Otherwise, they’ll take their attention elsewhere.

One popular SEO trend for 2022 is prioritizing high-quality content.

Google looks for websites that offer Expertise, Authority, and Trustworthiness, or “EAT.” It looks for content that provides users with helpful, timely, and relevant information. In order to provide this content, you first need to know what your customers are searching for.

Make sure the information you provide is well researched. Back up any claims with data and link to the original source. This can help your link-building strategy as well.

Make sure your content follows any easy-to-read structure.

Avoid making your content appear heavily sales-related. Instead, try to educate your readers. Mix up your content by transforming blog posts into videos, podcasts, infographics, and more!

7. Speed & Security

Google wants to provide its users with a safe online experience. As a result, Google’s SEO algorithm looks for websites that are safe and secure.

Make sure your website has an SSL certificate. You should see “HTTPS” in front of your URL. In addition to telling Google (and users) that your website is safe, this can also benefit the overall user experience.

Speed is important to user experience, too. No one wants to wait for a page to load. If it takes more than a few seconds, a user will leave your site and visit a competitor’s.

This can cause your bounce rate to increase, which impacts your SEO ranking.

By prioritizing speed and security, you’re telling Google and your customers that you care about the user’s browsing experience.

8. Artificial Intelligence

Artificial intelligence (AI) is more than an SEO trend; it’s also becoming a norm for the user’s digital experience.

AI allows companies to create personalized experiences for their customers. With AI, you can learn about your customers and what content they value most.

Google’s AI can now organize page rankings based on individual users.

To prepare for AI, create buyer personas. Separate your users by demographics, buying behavior, and interests. Then, make sure to create content that appeals to each persona.

Why You Need Help From a San Diego SEO Expert

Using this SEO trend list, you can boost your ranking and attract more website visitors. Working with a San Diego SEO expert can benefit your business in other ways as well. Here are a few ways teaming up with an expert can help you make the most of these SEO trends.

1. Boost Your Brand

When you rank higher on SERPs, more people will see your company’s name. This allows you to increase brand awareness and recognition.

Ranking above your competitors can also increase your credibility.

After all, most people don’t look beyond Google’s first page. By increasing your SEO ranking, your building your brand and standing out from your competitors.

2. Gain Leads & Sales

In order to use many of these SEO trends, you need to update your website. A fast, secure website that’s mobile-optimized benefits the overall user experience. Then, it’s easier for people to fill out a form or make a purchase on your site.

A better user experience can help you gain leads, which you can then turn into sales. Improving the user experience will also ensure you leave a good impression on customers.

As a result, using these SEO ideas can improve your ROI.

3. It’s a Long-Term Marketing Strategy

Keeping up with the latest SEO trends can get tedious. The algorithm changes throughout the year.

A San Diego SEO expert will keep up with the latest search engine trends for you. Then, they can work with you to improve your site for long-term SEO success. When your site is SEO-optimized, you will continue to bring in leads.

4. Unite Your Marketing Plans into One

SEO gives you the chance to unite all of your marketing plans together. That way, they work in cohesion. Creating a well-thought-out marketing plan will benefit the user by providing a more seamless experience.

SEO and Social

For example, the top social media channels draw over 2 billion monthly active users. In order to properly market your business, you need to spend time where your customers are. To respond to this trend, nearly two-thirds of all U.S. small businesses increased their social media marketing budgets in 2019.

Today, almost 75% of small businesses use social media to promote their brands.

Posting your blog posts and other pieces of website content on social media will increase traffic to your website. As more people read your content, Google will take notice. While social sharing isn’t a direct ranking factor, it does have an impact.

As more people share your posts on social media, you can attract a following and gain more monthly visitors. This, in turn, will show Google’s algorithm that you provide valuable content to an audience.

In order to gain that following in the first place, you need unique, high-quality SEO-optimized content.

As a result, social media marketing and SEO benefit one another.

SEO & PPC

Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising and social media also go hand-in-hand.

PPC ads appear above organic SEO lists on search pages.

By ranking at the top of a search page for specific keywords, you can draw more traffic to your website. Remember, ranking higher on search engines also boosts your brand credibility and authority. Using PPC ads, you can attract more people to your site, which can help you gain more leads.

At the same time, you’re again showing Google’s algorithm you’re a wanted resource.

As a busy business owner, you don’t have time to manage your PPC ads or post on social media every day. That’s where your San Diego SEO expert comes in. They can help determine new opportunities to bring your SEO and other marketing plans together.

That way, you’re creating a seamless experience for your users without stressing out over everything you need to do in one day.

The 2021 SEO Trend List: 8 Trends From Your San Diego SEO Expert

With this 2021 SEO trend list from your San Diego SEO expert, you can avoid falling behind the competition. Instead, reach the top of the SERP page and stay there with these eight SEO tips!

Ready to get started? Contact your San Diego SEO expert today for a master plan!

Are you using pay-per-click (PPC) advertising to attract new customers? With a strong Google AdWords strategy, you can expand your reach and build your business. Otherwise, you may risk losing sales and falling behind the competition.

PPC visitors are 50% more likely to make a purchase than organic visitors.

Similar to search engine optimization, PPC strategies and trends pay every year. By keeping up with the trends, you can get ahead of the curve and surpass the competition.

Kick up your PPC advertising and get those clicks with these PPC optimization tips!

1. Ramp Up Re-Marketing

What happens when people visit your website without completing an action? Chances are, you just missed an opportunity to gain a lead or make a sale.

Remarketing is one of the most important PPC strategies you can use to attract business.

With remarketing, you can display fresh ads to people after they visit your website. You can also personalize your remarketing ads so they better apply to each website visitor.

Remarketing gives you a second chance. Instead of missing out on a potential sale, you can capture leads. As a result, you’re improving your conversion rate and your ROI.

Remarketing ads will give you a chance to boost your brand awareness as well. Each time someone sees your display ads, they’ll become more familiar with your product. The more people see your ads, the more likely you will improve your click-through rate and conversions.

It’s important to use creative messaging to appeal to customers with your remarketing ads. Otherwise, the same messages could cause you to lose potential customers a second time.

2. Make Sure It’s Mobile

Many people are using their smartphones to search online. If you’re looking for important Google AdWords tips, you need to consider your mobile users. Otherwise, you’re missing out on potential customers.

Many PPC strategies focus on mobile-optimized ads. In order to improve your PPC advertising, you need to customize your mobile ad experience for these customers. Ignoring your mobile audience could cause you to waste your advertising budget.

First, consider the mobile traffic for your list of target keywords.

Google Ads allows you to study the performance of keywords on specific devices. You can focus more of your budget on keywords that perform well for mobile users.

Next, make sure you’re creating display ads for mobile devices. Otherwise, your ads won’t display well on smartphones.

Making these changes will ensure you appear in front of your entire audience of prospective clients.

3. Prepare for Voice Search

Do you ever use Alexa, Google, or Siri to make a search? More people are relying on voice assistants to search for answers online. If you want to use these PPC strategies, you need to prepare your ads for voice search.

Consider how your customers are using voice-based speakers to search for content.

You can use tools such as Semrush, Google Keyword Planner, or Google Trends to determine how people are searching online. Then, craft your ads or change your keyword strategy to reflect these trends.

By updating your PPC strategies for voice search, you can make sure you appear as a search result.

If your companies haven’t updated their PPC advertising to reflect the latest trends, now’s your chance! Speak with a local PPC expert today to determine how to improve your PPC campaigns. Once you do, you’ll attract more visitors to your website—and get more leads.

4. Get Personal

45% of small businesses use PPC advertising, according to a survey. If you haven’t begun using PPC advertising yet, it’s time to get started!

As you start using these PPC strategies, make sure to get personal with your ads.

Most people focus on keyword-based campaigns. However, it’s important to consider the needs of your customers as well.

Many companies are using audience-based targeting to display their ads instead. Using this form of targeting will allow you to personalize your ads for potential customers and avoid wasted clicks to improve your conversion rate.

You can target your audience based on their age, gender, marital status, and other demographics as well.

The better you know your customers, the more likely you’ll attract them to your website.

5. Add Video Ads

Video ads are one of the latest PPC advertising trends.

Adding videos to your PPC campaigns will help you stand out from other digital ads. These ads can improve your engagement rate. As you improve your brand awareness and click-through rate, you expand your reach to more prospects.

If you don’t want to dedicate a portion of your advertising budget to video marketing, consider using YouTube to target your audience. The niche is competitive but will allow you to improve your click-through rate.

6. Watch Out for New Ad Types

Remember, PPC trends are constantly changing. If you want to keep ahead of the competition, you need to remain up-to-date with the latest PPC trends. This includes any new features Google AdWords offers such as tools, targeting, and ad types.

For example, more companies are using location-based advertising. Brands are also beginning to use localization services to increase their conversation rates.

These new trends and ad types will help you discover new opportunities.

To make the most of your PPC advertising, keep track of the trends and apply the latest PPC strategies!

7. Keep Using Negatives

Even PPC advertising experts need to use negative keyword lists. These lists will ensure you don’t appear for the wrong searches. Otherwise, you’ll end up wasting money and attracting unwanted website traffic.

Punch Up Your PPC: 7 PPC Strategies for San Diego Based Companies

A well-developed PPC advertising campaign will help you attract more website visitors and build your business. Without good PPC strategies, you’re losing potential sales to your competitors.

Ready to get started? Contact our marketing and advertising agency today to improve your PPC campaigns!

Influencer marketing strategy is a sales tactic using influencers to promote a product or service. An influencer is an internet personality that impacts the decisions and lifestyles of their followers.

Modern-day consumers dislike being “sold”, and therefore do their best to avoid advertisements. However, powerful influencers easily sell a brand to their followers. This is why businesses are eager to partner with influencers and will pay six figures for a single social media post.

The right influencer who is passionate about your brand is essential to help with your marketing objectives. Read on for seven tips to help your company pick the perfect influencers for your brand.

1. Match Influencers With Your Buyer Personas

It’s best to choose an influencer whose audience is similar to your buyer personas. All influencers have a niche. The best method is to find influencers that are already attracting a similar audience to yours.

You should also select influencers whose values match your brand values. You may have a disaster if your influencer’s actions don’t align with your company values. For example, an influencer that is a very vocal democrat or republican may rub your clients the wrong way.

2. Choose Influencers With A Following On Social Media

One way to choose an influencer to market your brand is to check the number of their followers, page views, or YouTube views. Influencers can have anywhere from a thousand followers to millions of followers. The more followers and views an influencer has, the more expensive he or she may be.

You should check the level of engagement that popular influencers have during the onboarding process. Celebrities have many followers and high engagement which often means a higher price. The greater the engagement with followers, the more effective an influencer will likely be.

Sometimes influencers with the most followers have the least engagement with their followers. It may make sense to engage micro-influencers because they can connect more with followers. Micro-influencers may also stay loyal to your brand because you are collaborating at the beginning of their business.

Influencers with large followings are best for brands that want to increase their awareness. However, always make sure the audience applies relevantly to your brand. For example, a golf club company using a fashion influencer may not be the best choice.

3. Your Influencers Should Be Credible

Some influencers gain their followers because they’re entertaining. This doesn’t always mean they are credible. It won’t be profitable to use an influencer with a following that doesn’t accept their advice.

The chosen influencer must post authentic content about using your product or service. Avoid partnering with people that have poor reputations of lying or overselling. If consumers feel deceived, it’s unlikely they will buy with the influencer.

Some social media influencers have fake followers, hence their reach may not be as wide as they claim. Performance reviews will help to establish how effective an influencer is before committing to a long campaign. Be sure to check the validity of their engagement stats before signing any partnership contracts.

4. Pick Influencers Passionate About Your Brand

An influencer that uses and loves your product or service will be more convincing than one who only wants to get paid to promote a product. Their followers will probably notice when they aren’t being genuine, as well. Seek partnerships with influencers that are passionate about your brand.

Your influencer marketing strategy team should be active social media users. Passionate influencers will most likely have followers that relate to them, which will help them sell products without being overbearing.

5. Find Skilled Influencers

Choose influencers that have the technical ability to help market your brand. Amateurs in videography and writing can make your brand look amateur. The best influencers are professionals that prioritize quality.

Influencers should be knowledgeable about their niche and the best way to market to and engage with their followers. Some influencers are knowledgeable about digital marketing. Seek personalities that take their job seriously and have the marketing skills and talent to attract and keep their followers.

6. Check The Frequency Of Your Influencer’s Posts

Influencers that post content regularly will usually have more engagement and loyalty from their followers. This personality type will represent your brand the most effectively.

Consumers today buy from people they have a relationship with. The best way to develop this is to produce valuable content often. It takes multiples visits to a blog or YouTube site to convince someone to buy something. Influencers should post regularly to keep their followers engaged and loyal.

7. Test Strategy Results

It’s important to test if you are getting the desired result from your partnership with an influencer. Decide on your expectations from the beginning of the campaign so the influencer knows what to deliver.

Administer check-ins throughout the campaign to make sure everything is going accordingly. Keep open communication with the influencer so they feel comfortable asking questions and voicing concerns, which will keep operations running smoothly and decrease the chance of an undesirable outcome.

Create an Influencer Marketing Strategy to Grow Your Brand

Creating an influencer marketing strategy can help advance your brand online. It’s important to set boundaries to get the desired results from your influencer partnership.

If you’re looking for more tips and help to build an online strategy that will work for your business, contact us today.

A well-designed, functional website is essential to business success these days. Without it, you’ll fail to improve your ranking on search engines and build your business.

In fact, 38% of users will stop using a site if it’s unattractive. Meanwhile, 39% of visitors will stop engaging if the site takes too long to load.

Today, websites are a digital version of your store. When it works well and is creatively designed, people will soon become paying customers. Otherwise, they’ll take their business elsewhere.

If you’re looking to update your website this year, you need to find the best web design agency for the job.

Here are seven tips to help you choose between different web design companies. With these questions to ask a web designer, you can narrow down the list and find a match. Then, you can create the website of your dreams.

Get started with these helpful tips!

1. Ask About Their Expertise

When searching for the best web design agency, you need to understand the designer’s knowledge of their craft. For example, what’s their strategy when creating new websites? Do they have more experience updating existing websites instead?

Make sure the designer has the resources and techniques necessary to design your website.

If they can’t explain their process, you might want to continue searching among design companies.

You must find a web designer who is extremely competent. Make sure they’re using white label design trends, as well. Otherwise, the designer could negatively impact your search engine optimization (SEO) and pay-per-click (PPC) advertising.

A web designer with proper expertise will greatly improve your website. This will ultimately support your other marketing efforts.

Your website will fall behind the latest design trends if not continually improved.

Finding the best web design agency for your company will help you achieve complete online success.

2. Determine Their Industry-Specific Experience

As you begin to narrow down your list, try to look for web design companies that have experience with your industry. A designer with industry-specific experience will give you an advantage.

People learn with hands-on experience. The best web design agency for your company is one that’s had experience with a company like yours. Therefore, they’ll already have researched your target customers.

You need a website that’s designed with your customers in mind. How do they intend to use your website? What content are they looking for?

A web design agency with industry-specific experience will know how to design a site for your customers. That way, you have a site that’s optimized for potential sales.

3. Check Their Portfolio

As you explore web design companies, make sure to check out their portfolio. After all, you want proof of the company’s abilities.

Take a look at the web designer’s previous work. Even if they’re talented, you still want to make sure their skill set aligns with your company’s needs.

Make note of your favorite websites within each portfolio. Take this time to flag any design elements you want for your own site. Make a note of the elements you don’t want to use, as well.

A company’s web design portfolio can tell you a lot about their experience.

As you explore portfolios, ask the web design agencies if you can speak with some of their clients. Firsthand testimonials can tell you what it’s like to work with the agency. Gather referrals from resources besides the agency’s website to make sure it’s an unbiased account.

4. Explore Their Services

Mobile devices now make up 52.2% of all internet traffic. When searching for the best web design agency, you need to find a company that offers multiple services. For example, are they able to update your website for mobile optimization?

A good web designer will know how to update a site with user experience in mind. Improving user experience is essential when encouraging people to explore a website. A quality designer will offer a range of services that improve the user’s online experience.

You can also ask if they offer services that complement your web design needs.

These can include:

• Website content writing
• Pay-per-click advertising
• Search engine optimization
• Social media marketing

A single, freelance web designer can’t always provide this range of services. Exploring different web design agencies can help you find a team of professionals who can help. With their skills, you can improve the customer’s user experience and build your brand.

Prioritizing your online users will help you prioritize your customers.

5. Ask About Ongoing Maintenance

When exploring different web design companies, ask if they provide ongoing maintenance.

Websites need regular tune-ups. You’ll need to update your plugins, refresh the content, and make sure you’re up-to-date on design trends. Otherwise, you’ll fall behind with website design and development.

Check for web design companies that are available for regular maintenance. Then, you’ll have someone who can offer help when you need it. If your website breaks down and you can’t fix it alone, you can quickly get things back up and running again.

Moving from one designer to the next can get exhausting. Instead, choose a website design agency that understands your website. This way, you’ll have someone who can quickly make changes instead of wasting time explaining your site to multiple designers.

6. Check the Contract

Make sure to always read the fine print before signing a contract.

Read the sections that mention payments, refunds, and deliverables twice. What happens if a problem pops up? If your company has a lawyer, have them read over the contract as well.

7. Is the Price Right?

Finally, when choosing the best web design agency to partner with, you’ll want to check the price. Make sure to break down the price based on each service you’re paying for and review their portfolio to make sure they’re worth the cost.

The Best in the Business: 7 Tips for Choosing the Best Web Design Agency

Looking for the best in the business? With these tips, you can find the best web design agency that can help boost your business.

Ready to get started? Contact us today to achieve your business goals!

As of this year, Generation Z makes up 40% of American consumers.

Gen Z has $44 billion in buying power on its own. When you factor in the influence that they have on what their parents purchase, that number is closer to $200 billion.

The oldest members of Generation Z are now joining the workforce. It’s time to start shifting our marketing strategies in ways that appeal to this unique generation.

How should you go about marketing to Generation Z? Are they basically the same as Millennials? Follow us and you will learn everything you need to know about marketing to Gen Z.

Who Is Generation Z?

There is no precisely agreed upon definition of where each generation starts and ends. Those born in the mid to late 1990s through the early 2010s are generally considered members of Gen Z. The children of Generation X or Millennials are Generation Z, and are considered to be digital natives.

Gen Z makes up today’s population of teenagers and early 20-somethings and are also called Post-Millennials, the Homeland Generation, and the iGeneration. Familiar with using several devices at once, 45% of Generation Z say they’re on their phone “almost constantly.” A whopping 98% of Gen Z members own a smartphone.

As the most diverse generation in American history, 48% of Gen Z are ethnic minorities. They are considered to be more progressive than previous generations and are known for having more fluid personal identities.

Marketing to Generation Z: What You Need to Know

An extremely important part to understand about marketing to Gen Z is this: authenticity is of utmost importance.

Gen Z is reluctant to be sold by traditional advertising techniques compared to older generations. The drive for authenticity in certain brands can be seen in all of these other Gen Z marketing tips.

1. Different Social Media Platforms Have Different Purposes

Gen Z has a different relationship with social media platforms, compared to the social media most used by the older generations. The different types of social media sites influence Gen Z’s social and consumer life.

Even though 34% of teens think Facebook is for old people, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be using Facebook in your marketing strategy. Gen Z tends to use Facebook as a source to glean information from, and Twitter is used to read the news.

Instagram, on the other hand, is where teens and young adults display their aspirational self. Snapchat is a place for sharing real life moments. It’s worth noting that 71% of Gen Z use Snapchat daily, and of those daily users, half use it at least 11 times a day.

Gen Z grew up with YouTube for most (if not all) of their conscious life, unlike older generations. When Gen Z is looking for shopping recommendations, YouTube is their platform of choice.

2. Keep It Short and Sweet

You probably already know that a crucial part of marketing in today’s world and boosting your SEO is creating video content. When targeting video content for Gen Z, however, it’s best to keep it short and sweet.

Those who predicted that the growth of the internet would shorten our attention span have proven themselves to be right. While Millennials have an attention span of a mere 12 seconds, the average attention span of Generation Z is shockingly only eight seconds long.

Therefore, if you manage to catch the attention of Gen Z, you better get your message across quickly. Even though 71% of the 13 to 17-year-olds watch videos online for more than three hours every day, they are less inclined to watch or read long form content.

3. Partner With Micro-Influencers

As a part of their tendency to appreciate authenticity, Gen Z is more likely to admire a YouTube or Instagram celebrity rather than a traditional celebrity. These internet personalities are seen as just regular people that Gen Z can relate to more easily than movie stars or famous musicians.

This is actually great news for marketing your business since internet influencers are more accessible than celebrities.

Micro-influencers are people who are considered experts in a specific niche and have online followings of between one thousand and one million people. Finding micro-influencers in your company’s niche to mention or promote your product can be an incredibly effective way to market to Gen Z. Typically, Gen Z influencers make around $300 per sponsored post, but lesser-known influencers might be willing to promote your product in exchange for a free sample.

4. What Does Your Brand Stand For? Can You Prove It?

It’s more important to Gen Z than other generations for brands to be socially and environmentally responsible. They want the brands that they identify with to take a stand on the issues that matter to them.

Being highly skeptical generation, Gen Z also wants you to be able to prove your dedication to the cause. What percentage of profits go to a specific charity? What environmentally sustainable production methods are you using to create your products? How conscious are you of your company’s effects on the environment, and what are you willing to do to mitigate those effects?

Gen Z wants to identify with brands that they see as making the world a better place. Not only that, but 93% of Gen Z say that an organization’s impact on society would influence their decision of whether or not to work for that organization. In fact, 30% even say they would be willing to take a 10 to 20% pay reduction to work for a company that shares the same social and environmental causes as them.

Generational Marketing: Use It to Your Advantage

The world is a quickly changing place, and it can feel frustrating to constantly be changing your marketing strategies. However, understanding generation marketing can make a huge difference in how your brand is seen by people of all ages. If you have a product you’re marketing to Generation Z, you’re not doing yourself any favors by trying to use the same tactics you would for Baby Boomers.

Did you love this article about marketing to Generation Z? Make sure to check out the rest of our advertising tips for more great information about all things marketing!

It’s no secret that having a strong presence on social media is vital if you want to maximize your reach as a business.

While it’s important to be active on as many relevant platforms as you can, it’s not always easy to get the most engagement every time you put out content.

Instagram stories, for example, is where many entrepreneurs struggle to create the most engagement. Luckily, it’s not as hard as it seems.

Not sure where to start? Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered.

Let’s look at everything you need to know about Instagram story hacks that can boost your engagement.

1. Keep a Consistent Aesthetic

Every brand should have a color scheme that it adheres to. While this is more focused on in the clothing industry, having a group of colors that “make” your brand is a great way to look professional.

So, when you post on your business Instagram story, you need to make sure that the colors you use align with your company’s chosen colors.

For example, if your aesthetic is made up of earth tones, you can use a beige or light gray background when posting a story that incorporates only text. When posting photographs, keep these colors consistent, too.

The result is your story looking clean, organized, and beautiful as your followers scroll through.

2. Collab With Other Brands

One of the best ways to build your own audience is to tap into someone else’s.

Working with similar brands in your industry can go a long way when it comes to overall reach, especially if your collaborator has more of an online presence than you do.

Ways to collab include reposting their content, giving them a shoutout, or creating something original together. All while tagging them in your post.

Building strong partnerships with other brands has the potential for you to exponentially increase your own audience overnight, so take advantage of it!

3. Schedule Your Posts

If you’re looking to post a series of Instagram stories at once, the last thing you want to do is post them in real-time. This will lead to people viewing the first few stories without knowing more are coming (or wanting to wait around to see them).

Instead, you can create them all beforehand and schedule them for a later time. This is especially useful when posting large collections of photos (such as a lookbook for a clothing brand).

If you have a hectic schedule, scheduling in advance will also keep you from missing the opportunity to make a post if you create them in your downtime.

4. Run Polls

Polls are a great way to not only get your audience engaged with your content but to offer them an opportunity to provide feedback.

Polls are particularly useful when:

• You want your audience’s opinion on a product or service you just introduced
• You want to know how they found out about your brand
• You’d like to learn more about their favorite product/service you offer
• You want to learn about the products or services they’d like you to offer in the future

As you can tell, you’re able to gather a significant amount of information about your audience through polls. And, since this info came straight from them, you know that it’s accurate!

5. Reply to Your Story Responses

Responsiveness goes a long way in building a relationship with your audience.

Too many brands leave messages unopened for days, weeks, or even months (or never read them at all)! This only serves to build a growing disconnect between the brand and its followers.

Responding promptly to messages, though, reminds them that there’s a human who cares on the other side of the screen.

Even if the DM is only a short compliment (such as ‘you guys are great!’) and not a business inquiry, take the time to reply. It will never hurt your future engagement, but not responding could.

6. Repost Your Regular Content on Your Story

Nobody’s quite 100% figured out Instagram’s algorithm yet, so there will always be members of your audience who missed your latest post (even if you posted at a time when they were active on the platform).

But, posting this same content on your story is a great way to throw them a friendly reminder that you have a new post out.

If your feed content was centered around getting your audience to follow a link, you can post content on your story that pursues the same result.

7. Post Content Your Audience Wants to See

As previously mentioned, it’s important to reach out to your audience and see how they feel about your brand. But, you can’t expect them to answer every brand-related question you have.

Instead, you’ll need to pay careful attention to your post analytics and determine what type of content gets the most average engagement from your audience. The term average here is important since there will always be posts that do better or worse than expected.

Once you determine what kind of content your audience likes best, you’ll be able to phase out content that doesn’t resonate with them and introduce content that they care about.

Wrapping Up Instagram Story Hacks

With the above information about Instagram story hacks in mind, you’ll be well on your way to connecting with your audience in the most effective way possible.

Having trouble maximizing your social media content? This page has everything you need to know about how we can help.

Content is, and will always be, king. Only if you understand the right way to use it, though.

You could have the best content in the world, but if you’re not releasing it strategically, you’re going to miss the mark. If you don’t want to end up wasting all of that valuable content by throwing it aimlessly into the ether, you need to develop a content planner.

Today, we’re going to tell you the 10 steps to creating a great content plan so you can boost that online presence and become the content machine you were always destined to be. At the end of the day, if you really believe in the content that you’re producing, you’ve got to give it the promo that it deserves.

1. Have Goals

Before you start producing content or re-configuring your current content strategy, lay out the goals that you want your content to achieve. Here are a few common goals that most companies want out of their content:

• Driving traffic to your website
• Building brand awareness
• Lead generation and conversion

This is a good starting point for your content planner because it gives the entire process direction.

2. Understand How to Measure Performance

When you put out a new piece of content, do you just release it and move on to the next piece of content?

You need to be able to measure the effectiveness of each post/video/etc. if you’re going to improve your content strategy. Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s) allow you to measure your content against the goals you’ve set out.

With KPI’s, you’re able to set specific numbers that you want to hit within a given time period. It might be hitting a specific revenue number, getting more subscriptions on your site, or improving your search ranking. Having specific measurables will help tell you if your content is performing or not.

3. Finding and Getting to Your Target Audience

Consider who you’ve been aiming your content at so far and whether or not it’s actually paying off. You have to get to know your audience so that you can produce content that’s specifically tailored to their interests.

To do this, collect demographic data about the people that buy your products and visit your website. Various analytics tools will be able to get you their age, gender, education, and income information, which will be valuable for understanding how to target the right people instead of just people.

4. Performing a Content Audit

Chances are, you’ve had a blog up for a while and you’re reading this because you aren’t satisfied with your current content strategy. There’s still going to be some value in what you’ve put out so far, even if it’s unsatisfactory.

Perform a content audit on yourself. In doing this, you’ll review all of your content marketing for the last year or more and what resulted. You can use this information to guide you on what worked, what didn’t, and what you need to change in order to perform better moving forward.

5. Understanding Content Formats

There are dozens of different ways to create content. Most people associate the word “content” with blog posts and social media, but there’s so much more you can and should do to make your website a well-oiled content creation machine.

For instance, the rise of video content has been one of the notable things to come to the forefront of digital advertising in the last few years. Because it’s so easy to watch videos on any number of devices, that’s how people prefer to receive their information. Now, companies are pouring loads of money into video creation.

It’s important to be versatile with your content, but understand what you’re good at and what your readers want. And, it’s not the end of the world if you try something new and it doesn’t work out because you’ll learn and adjust.

6. Idea Generation

A lot of businesses struggle with the creative aspect of content creation. Not everyone is idea-oriented, so it becomes difficult to conceptualize videos and posts.

Take what you know about the different content formats, get your most creative people in a room, and start throwing ideas at the wall. Sometimes you’ll go through dozens of bad ideas before you find a good one, but the time spent doing this is worth it in the end.

7. Allocating Resources

If you believe in your content, you’ve got to give it it’s due. Allocate some of your marketing resources to figuring out who’s going to be in charge of this content, what tools you can use (physical or digital) to create and manage the content, and what your content schedule will be.

For instance, you might need to hire a content manager to handle all of this. Once you get going, you’ll realize that content creation and management is a full-time endeavor. There are also content management programs that help you measure the effectiveness of social media and blog posts.

8. Create a Calendar of Content

Making a content calendar will help you organize everything so your strategy can be implemented for optimal effect. There are lots of ways to manage your content calendar.

Set up a Google Calendar with all of your content publication dates in it, so your content team knows when certain things are going up. This is a simple approach that will give you a chance to set due dates and promote your content when it’s published.

9. Release & Promote

As you’ve probably learned, a content creation team works kind of like a machine. The idea is that content is constantly being created and strategically released to your followers, then promoted in a cycle that repeats every day.

When you release a video, blog post, social media post, promote it with every tool that you’ve got so all of your followers know that it exists. Link to it frequently and wait for the public to consume it.

10. Measure Your Results

After it does, you’ll be able to measure the results. After a certain period of time, go back to those KPI’s from the beginning and assess the performance of your content.

If you’re hitting your goals, then set harder ones. If you haven’t quite met the mark, then start digging into the numbers to find out what your audience liked and disliked, adjust your approach, and come back with better content next time.

A Content Planner Is a Must

With a solid content planner at the helm, you can create content with a purpose. When you’re producing highly successful content, the effects will trickle into every other part of your business.

To get help with your content strategy, contact us at MAD Group. We’re one of Southern California’s top digital advertising companies, specializing in social media, video production, brand building, and several other types of content creation.

Check out our portfolio to view our past successes and come back and visit our blog to read more about how to create, manage, and promote your content.

Are you part of the 77.6% of small businesses using social media for promotional purposes?

Free platforms give you a cost-effective marketing strategy for your business, but posting without purpose makes your social media presence inconsistent.

A social media marketing calendar gives you a framework for your content. It creates consistency and gives every post a purpose. It also makes better use of your time.

If you’re not sure how to get started, follow these nine steps for creating a social media content calendar.

1. Identify Monthly Social Media Goals

Every social media post needs a purpose to make it useful. Start your content calendar by identifying your goals for the month. Are you trying to increase your follower count, educate followers, increase sales, or improve engagement?

Having an overall goal for the month helps you drill down to specific goals for each platform and post. If you know you’re trying to increase sales, you can focus your posts on promoting products. If you’re trying to improve engagement, you can focus on developing interactive posts and responding to followers.

2. Choose Your Platforms

You likely already have established social media platforms, but if you’re just starting your social media presence, identify which platforms you want to use. The type of content you produce and the preferences of your followers influence those choices.

If you want a strong visual focus, Instagram and Pinterest are solid options. Twitter is all about quick content, such as news and announcements. Facebook lets you go into more detail and works well for building relationships and promoting content.

Look at your current platforms to break up content. Decide which platforms you plan to focus on for the upcoming month.

3. Decide on Posting Frequency

Posting frequency is often a topic of debate. Some studies suggest daily posts once for Facebook, 15 times for Twitter, 11 pins for Pinterest, and one or two Instagram posts.

But there’s no perfect ratio for posting content on each platform. You need to find a schedule that works best for you. Consistency is important to keep your audience engaged and to keep your brand fresh in their minds.

Choose a posting frequency for each platform that works for you. Make sure you have time to create enough quality content to fulfill that posting frequency.

Use your posting frequency to fill in your calendar dates. Spread out the posts for each platform.

4. Identify Special Dates or Events

At the start of each month, look at your general calendar to identify any special events that might affect posting. General holidays might affect your posting schedule. You can also use those holidays as a special posting opportunity or a way to promote your content.

Look at things specific to your business that can influence posting. Maybe it’s your company anniversary or you’re launching a new product line.

You can use those special dates as promotional tools. You’ll also want to use them as part of your content calendar strategy.

If you’re launching a new product at the end of the month, your social media content leading up to the launch date will likely center around the product. You might preview the product or build anticipation by counting down to the launch date.

5. Evaluate Current Content

Review your existing social media content to help you plan your strategy going forward. Looking back helps you determine what works well for your brand. You can also understand which posts didn’t work well and which ones did.

Building off of the existing content helps create continuity. You also want to look back to ensure you are posting new or different content. Posting the same thing all the time makes followers lose interest.

Use the evaluation to see what type of content you’re missing. Maybe you haven’t posted many videos lately, or you’re slipping on your consistency in posting images on Instagram.

6. Outline Topics and Content Type

Break down your posts to cover specific topics. You might focus on one specific topic for the month or cover multiple related topics. This helps you create specific content that fits into those topics.

Consider the type of content you want to create. Businesses often post a mix of their own created content and curated content they share from other people.

Sharing content from other people keeps your accounts active without requiring you to create a large amount of content. But you also want original content to build your brand and keep people interested.

Identify specific content formats. That might include video, Instagram stories, polls, informational posts, how-tos, and promotions for sales.

7. Break It Down by Platform

Detail your plans for each platform based on the topics and type of content you plan to share. You can share similar content across platforms, but you want to customize it to best fit that platform. Plan both the frequency and type of content for each platform for the month.

Creating templates for each platform helps streamline your content creation. You can plug in different images and text in those templates to customize the content while making your production process faster.

8. Create Your Content

Creating your content at the beginning of the month makes your social media strategy more efficient. You’re prepared ahead of time instead of always scrambling to create content for that day. You can get into the groove of creating content, which may help you produce the content faster.

9. Schedule Social Media Content

Social media scheduling software helps automate part of your posting. These programs let you pick a date and time to post the content.

This method ensures consistent posting. You won’t forget to make a certain post, and you can schedule it to show up at the same time so viewers get used to your posting.

It also helps you stay productive. If you post manually, you’ll have to stop what you’re doing each time you post. Scheduling software doesn’t require any additional input from you after initially scheduling it.

That doesn’t mean you should forget about your social media accounts completely. You still need to interact with users and respond to inquiries and comments.

You also want to remain flexible in what you post. You may come across an unexpected opportunity to post on social media that really resonates with your followers.

Create Your Social Media Marketing Calendar

A social media marketing calendar gives you direction for everything you post. It makes better use of your time and marketing efforts, and it helps create a cohesive social media presence.

Are you ready for help with your social media content or marketing in general? Contact us for more information.

Wondering if video blogging is right for your business? Every day, YouTube users rack up more than 1 billion hours of video watch time. And every month, YouTube receives visits from over 2 billion logged-in users.

Vlogging won’t instantly gain you millions of views, but it gives you a new avenue to reach potential customers in powerful ways. Producing videos helps you connect with customers in a more personal way.

Keep reading to find out why you should consider video blogging to promote your business.

1. People Prefer Videos

Consumers like watching videos over reading written content, and 54% of people want more video content from businesses they like. People are more likely to watch videos thoroughly while they tend to just skim written content.

Video is easier for people to consume than reading. They can watch or listen to a video while doing other things without fully concentrating on what they’re doing.

2. Connects You to Customers

Video puts your face to the company for consumers. Instead of just reading about your products or reading an informational piece you write, they see you and hear your voice. It creates a more personal consumer with your consumers.

If you incorporate live video into your strategy, you increase the connection you have with customers. They can ask questions and add comments as you create the video. This lets you communicate back with people in real time.

When you vlog regularly, you create a following. People want to come back and check out your next video. You build a mini community around your videos, which helps solidify your company and grow loyalty.

3. Presents You as an Expert

Sure, you can add a list of credentials to your website showing your expertise. But your potential customers respond better to tangible evidence that you’re an expert.

Video is an easy way to share your expertise in your field. You can create a variety of video types, such as how-to, FAQs, insider tips, or general information videos.

Seeing you on video gives your customers more confidence in your expertise. It creates a sense of trustworthiness.

Consumers become familiar with your face and voice, which builds recognition. They see that you’re an active player in your business.

4. It’s Easy to Start

YouTube is a free video platform that lets you get started with vlogging immediately. You don’t need expensive camera equipment to get started with vlogging. A high-quality phone works just fine, especially when you’re starting.

Basic video editing software helps you put together a professional-looking video. You don’t need a movie-quality production to gain recognition and connect with your followers.

That doesn’t mean you should post low-quality videos or slap together whatever you feel like doing. You still need to create valuable content that looks nice. But you can get started with video relatively easily, even if you don’t have a background in videography.

5. It’s Compatible with Social Media

Social media platforms and videos work well together. Social media users tend to gravitate toward videos on those platforms.

Videos stand out in social media feeds. Users may scroll past post after post, but a video catches their attention and makes them stop because it’s different.

Social media also makes sharing your videos much easier. When your followers share your videos on social media, you reach a wider audience that you didn’t have before.

6. Ranks High in Searches

Worried you’ll miss out on organic traffic when you prioritize videos over written content? Do almost any Google search, and you’ll see video results at the top, even if you’re not specifically searching for video.

Google tends to prioritize videos in the search results. You may have an easier time getting your video content to rank on the first page of the results than you would a written piece on the same topic.

When you use YouTube as your vlogging platform, you give yourself another way for customers to find you. Don’t think of YouTube as just a video platform. Think of it as a search engine.

Users constantly head to YouTube for information. They search for different topics. If you have strong video content on the platform, you’re helping new potential customers find your business.

7. Increases Exposure to Products or Services

Vlogs are naturally more information-focused rather than being overly commercialized. Instead of blatantly advertising your products, you can integrate them naturally into your videos.

You might produce a cooking video and use some of the kitchen products you sell to make the food. Or you can record your team challenging each other to a game that you also happen to sell on your website.

Viewers see those products in action. It helps pique their interest, and you don’t have to shove those products in their faces or make it feel too promotional.

8. Builds Your Brand

Video helps build your company’s branding. You can add graphics to the video that support your visual branding. The tone of the videos, the language you use, and the way you present yourself also helps support your branding.

Developing your brand makes your company more recognizable. Your target audience is better able to connect with your brand when they see that your company’s personality matches what they want.

9. Demonstrates Processes Better

Have you tried to explain a detailed process in writing? It’s not easy to explain yourself clearly in written words.

Video offers a clear, precise way to share information or demonstrate a process. You can physically show every step instead of trying to explain it without visuals. Videos are ideal if you’re producing tutorials for your business.

10. Shows You’re on Trend

Integrating video keeps your business at the forefront of marketing trends. It shows that you’re aware of what works and you’re willing to use those methods.

Using video helps you keep up with your competitors who are already using video. If our closest competitors aren’t using video yet, it gives you an advantage.

Boost Your Business with Video Blogging

Video blogging is an interactive marketing tool that helps establish you as an expert and connects you to customers in new ways. It can help expand your marketing reach.

Are you ready to jump into video blogging? We can help you with your business video production needs.

SEO isn’t dead, despite the fact that hundreds of people look up the opposite every single month. In fact, SEO is thriving! If you look at the Google Trends graph, you can see that SEO searches have been trending upwards since 2004. While search engine searches about SEO aren’t as high as they were in 2016 and 2017, search engine optimization is even more important for website owners than it’s ever been.

Consider the fact that 57% of B2B marketers state that SEO is their single most important lead generation tool. Or that 81% of consumers research a product before making a purchase. 

It’s obvious that anyone using the Internet should be at least considering SEO as part of their digital marketing strategy. Considering that 64% of small businesses have websites at this point, it’s obvious that very nearly everybody is using the Internet for business at this point. 

That isn’t restricted to eCommerce websites, either. News blogs and websites need to consider SEO, for instance. If you’re creating digital content, you want it to be found, naturally. Blogs and special interest websites can be businesses, too. 

Whatever your reason for creating digital content, you need to factor SEO into your content strategy. Once you know a thing or two about SEO, it can even give you new ideas for fresh content. 

With the Internet being so prevalent and omnipresent in our lives, the rules around SEO are changing faster than ever. Even Internet specialists sometimes have a hard time keeping up with the Google updates and ever-changing algorithms. That’s where SEO experts come in. 

SEO can be a bit of a secret science, even for those who use the Internet extensively for business. That’s why we’re going to show you some of the benefits when you hire SEO Experts. 

6 Reasons You Need To Hire SEO Experts For Your Online Business To Thrive 

Before we begin, let’s delve into the question, “What is an SEO specialist?”

What Does An SEO Expert Do?

SEO is a vast and intricate discipline. So the short answer to “what is an SEO specialist?” is – a lot of things. 

The more involved answer is that SEO experts keep track of the latest search engine trends and algorithm updates. They can use these insights to create new content for your website. They also use this specialized knowledge to make sure your existing content is in compliance with the latest SEO trends. 

An SEO expert will work with you to understand your unique business goals and marketing objectives. Then they’ll work with you to help you attain those goals using the latest SEO insights. 

Say your goal is to grow your online audience and raise brand awareness. An SEO expert knows that viral media is a quick and easy way to achieve this. They might proceed to write some long-form content or click-worthy listicles, in a bid to get your audience to share your links on social media and to their personal networks. 

They might even create some multimedia content around that content, such as Pinterest pins or YouTube videos. 

While some SEO trends are constantly changing, others have remained tried-and-true for as long as Google’s been around. An SEO expert will also go through your existing content, making sure that your on-page SEO is up to speed. They’ll make sure your internal links are valid and you’re not missing any opportunities. 

An SEO expert will also make sure your site complies with the latest tech trends, like page speed or mobile compliance. If your page is taking too long to load, they’ll use a variety of techniques to speed it up so you’re not getting penalized by Google. 

We could go on and on. But this brief glimpse into what an SEO expert does should help give you some ideas of how they’ll help you succeed online. 

What It’s Necessary To Hire SEO Experts To Succeed Online 

There are currently nearly 2 billion websites online, at the time of this writing. That means that nearly 25% of the entire Earth’s population has some form of digital presence. 

That’s a lot of competition. A lot of people vying for the same eyes, ears, hearts, and wallets. 

Here are some things you can look forward to when you hire SEO services. 

SEO Experts Focus EXCLUSIVELY On Your Digital Content 

We’re all busy. 72% of small business owners report feeling overwhelmed. For many business owners, SEO is just one more thing to do in an already overwhelming workload. 

An SEO expert’s entire job is to make sure your digital content is its absolute best. That it’s in compliance with the latest Google updates. That you’re not missing out on any backlinks or hosting any broken links on your website. 

An SEO expert can create new content for you, as well. Creating blog posts, landing pages, copywriting, or even social media content all takes time. Yet they’re all essential if you’re hoping for your digital business to thrive in today’s digital economy. 

SEO Yields Organic Traffic

Sure, social media can yield an intense amount of traffic. While it’s tremendously exciting to watch the pageviews and site hits climb after you publish a piece of content, what are you supposed to do when the buzz dies down?

Organic SEO is essential for on-going traffic. It’s how your site shows up on the search engine result pages (SERPs). That’s one of the reasons SEO’s such a great investment. It never goes away! 

The same can be said about pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, which is pretty much your only other alternative for getting steady, on-going traffic. You can run a PPC ad campaign, but it disappears the moment you stop pumping money into it. SEO never disappears.

SEO Is The Cornerstone Of Search Engine Marketing (SEM)

SEO forms the nucleus of search engine marketing, or SEM. That is reason alone to put a sizable amount of resources towards hiring an SEO expert, especially if you happen to be in the B2B sector.

SEM means your customers are looking for you. Think about that for a moment. 

How do you think a business owner in the 80s or 90s would’ve responded if you told them you had a list of certified leads that were ready to make a purchase? Provided they didn’t think you were some snake oil-selling marketing guru, they probably would’ve given you the keys to their house for a simple peek at that list. 

SEM is a way to target your ideal customers, no matter what niche or industry you happen to be in. Search engine marketing can be particularly effective in achieving actual conversions, which is another reason it’s a good idea to hire SEO experts. 

You can even use search engine marketing as part of a local SEO campaign. This can be a highly lucrative approach if you happen to have a brick-and-mortar location or are selling physical products or services. 

SEO Experts Help You Compete Against Big Businesses

One of the most revolutionary aspects of doing business on the Internet is the way it allows smaller and independent businesses to compete against larger corporations, including Fortune 500 companies. It can even be to your benefit, at times, as smaller organizations are able to implement new ideas faster and evolve more quickly than megalithic businesses. 

Larger organizations have exponentially more money to sink into marketing. They can run PPC campaigns and target ads on social media pretty much around the clock. There aren’t many businesses that can keep up with that. 

When you hire SEO experts, you’re able to target the precise audience you’re shooting for. Maybe you’re running an independent market in Venice, Ca. for instance. Or a shop for sustainable fashion in Manhattan. 

With SEO and SEM, you can even turn the smaller size of your business to your advantage. Customers that appreciate independent businesses and sustainability are often mistrustful of larger corporations. You can leverage that insight to your advantage 

SEO Experts Help Build Brand Awareness

People can’t do business with you if they don’t know you exist. Unless you’re Nike or McDonald’s or Amazon, you’re going to have to let people know you exist, somehow. You’ve got to do it in just the right way, as well, or you could leave your prospective customers with a negative impression of your brand. 

Getting found is only one way that hiring an SEO expert can improve your brand. Consider the fact that Google advises hiring an SEO consultant as early as possible if you’re looking to optimize your online business. Now, why would they recommend that?

Granted, Google has a vested interest in SEO, as it’s how they’re able to function. Above and beyond that, however, Google measures for user experience. SEO factors are ultimately about usability. 

That also speaks to why you should factor SEO into your online business as early as possible. You want people to have a favorable opinion of your brand, which begins with your website. 

For your website to be ultimately useful, it should be: 

• Usable
• Useful
• Appealing
• Findable
• Accessible
• Trustworthy

If you get any of those aspects wrong, you could leave your audience with a negative impression of your business. Your online content would be doing the opposite of what it’s intended result. 

SEO Experts Guide Your Customers Through The Buyer’s Journey 

The Internet has leveled the playing field for independent businesses to compete against the majors. It also means you’re competing against everybody else. The customers are aware of this, as well, and get slightly savvier with each passing year. 

While this means you’ve got endless possibilities of reaching a global audience, it also means that there’s a lot more involved in getting a customer to actually spend money with your business. 

The ‘buyer’s journey’ or ‘buyer’s cycle’ has multiple stages, with new ones being added all the time. 

Presently, you could break the buyer’s cycle down into 4 stages: 

• Awareness
• Consideration
• Conversion 
• Retention

There are certain signals for each one of these stages. SEO experts know how to read those signals. Even better, then know how to interpret them and turn them into actionable insights. 

Consider the awareness stage. At that point in the buyer’s cycle, a customer isn’t ready to make a purchase. It’d be a mistake to try and sell to them, at that point – potentially a costly one. 

Examples of some phrases that indicate a customer’s still in the awareness stage might be: 

• How to do ___?
• Benefits of X
• Reviews
• FAQ

At this stage in the buyer’s journey, someone’s first just become aware of a problem, issue, idea, or product. They’re trying to learn more. An SEO expert can create content around those keywords and phrases and help deliver what that customer’s looking for. 

This creates brand awareness, loyalty, and steers them through the buyer’s cycle, all at once. 

Once someone’s entered the Consideration Stage, it’s possible to start gearing your customers towards making a purchase. The Consideration Stage is when a customer is starting to weigh their options. There are keywords and phrases for this, as well. 

Keywords For The Consideration Stage Include:

• Best
• Reviews 
• Cheap
• Affordable
• Deals
• Provider
• Troubleshooting

When people are looking up these phrases, they’re getting closer to being ready to spend money. A SEO company can create buyer personas to match your intended audience. They can then create content to help answer those customer’s particular pain points. 

Examples of content suitable for the conversion stage include: 

• Whitepapers
• Tutorials
• Video content 
• Infographics 
• Data and statistics

This content can also be leveraged towards other business and marketing goals, at the same time, such as signing up for your email list. It also helps increase brand loyalty and trust at the same time. Authoritative content like whitepapers, infographics, and tutorials shows you know what you’re doing, establishing you as a thought leader in your niche or industry. 

These are just some of the benefits when you hire SEO experts, which should tell you how much there is to know about this nearly endless topic. SEO is the DNA of the Internet. When you understand how it works, you can essentially achieve anything. 

Looking For SEO Services Near San Diego?

We’re so glad you’re here! We’re not just a SEO company – we’re also an advertising agency, a marketing firm, and your personal brand advocates, all rolled into one. 

We started MAD Group because we didn’t like how our industry was treating its customers. We work with brands we believe in. Which means we believe in our work, and stand behind it. 

Whether you’re looking to hire SEO experts or branding experts, we have everything you need to thrive in today’s digital economy, under one roof. 

With over 1.5 billion websites on the web today, getting your website out there for others to see can seem next to impossible, especially if you’re just starting out. More specifically, ranking at the top of various search results on sites like Google can seem like a pipe dream, especially if your website is based around a competitive niche.

Well, that’s where SEO comes into play.

SEO, or search engine optimization, is the process of turning your website into a more search engine-friendly one. Mastering the art of SEO can seem complex at first, at least until you figure out what SEO is at its core.

If you look a little deeper and figure out what it is exactly the search engines want, you’ll realize that SEO is a lot about user experience. Sure, there are little things like putting your keywords in the right places that are extremely important but making your website’s user experience a positive one is the overall goal of SEO.

The good news? Doing all of that for your homepage isn’t all that difficult and can even be done today!

So if you’re looking for SEO tips for your website, specifically your homepage, you’ve come to the right place! In this article, we’ll tell you about a few different homepage SEO boxes that you can check to ensure that your website can more easily rank for certain keywords.

Also, we’ll show you a few example websites, so you can have an idea of what these tips actually look like when properly utilized. Now then, let’s get started!

The Homepage Title

A lot of websites just use their name, or their domain name, as their homepage title. This makes a ton of sense on paper, as that homepage is what you see when you type in that domain name, but it’s actually not smart SEO.

In order to practice strong SEO, you’re going to want to get a bit more creative than that with your homepage title.

Put a few extra words that can help Google figure out what exactly it is your website is about. Keep it simple, but try to add a few keywords to that page title that you’re looking to rank for.

The Meta Description

A meta description is that little brief synopsis about a website that you see below a link on a Google search result. If you don’t have something filled out for your homepage’s meta description, Google will just grab something random off of your site, which can look bad and hurt your rankings.

This is yet another great opportunity for you to tell Google exactly what it is your website is about. Write a sentence containing two or three keywords that describe your site, so Google can help users searching those keywords more easily find you online.

A Homepage Image

When it comes to SEO, images do a lot for your website. Specifically related to the homepage, they tell search engines once again what it is your website is all about.

Now you may be asking how it is an image can tell Google what your website is about, and that’s a good question.

The short answer? It doesn’t, you do. Adding ALT text to all of your images, and naming them properly, can help you rank higher on Google. Simply name your image the name of your site, and put the name of your site in the ALT text of that image as well.

That way when people search your site name, Google sees that image on your site and puts you at the top of the results.

Check Your Website Speed

Website speed is extremely important, for obvious reasons. But how fast is fast enough? Well, most users aren’t willing to wait more than three seconds before closing out a window and finding a different site, which is obviously not what you want.

Because of this, search engines like Google put a priority on websites that are faster because it offers users a good user experience. Again, SEO is simply trying to make your website appealing to search engines. And search engines simply want to recommend sites that work well to their users.

A lot goes into making your website faster. Better servers, optimized images, and a few other things, just to name a few. If your website tests poorly on a website speed checker, consider contacting a professional to get your site up to par.

Confirm Your Site is Mobile-Friendly

Did you know that over 50% of all web traffic in 2018 came from mobile devices? Because of this, search engines have put a priority on websites that are mobile-friendly. Often times, non-mobile websites can’t rank highly at all, regardless of how many other SEO boxes they check.

Not sure if your site is mobile-friendly or not? Google offers a neat mobile-friendly checker that is easy to use and will give you an answer in seconds.

Not getting help from an SEO expert when you need it is one of the biggest SEO mistakes you can make. So if you need help making your site mobile-friendly, feel free to reach out to us today, so we can help you get on the front page of those search results!

Simplify Your Navigation

If users click on your site in a search result and then close out quickly, Google takes notice of that. And if it happens too many times, Google thinks there’s an issue with your site, and actually bumps you down the list in the search results because of it

One of the most common reasons why users close out of a website quickly, besides loading speed, is bad navigation. If they can’t quickly find what it is they’re looking for, they’re going to simply close out and pick the next site in the search results.

That’s why it’s important that you simplify your navigation, making it easy to find anything on your site in three clicks or less. Again, this is a user-experience kind of thing that will make your site better to use, and helps it rank higher on search engines, too.

Install an SSL Certificate

Have you ever noticed how some websites have “not secure” next to the domain name on your browser? Or how certain websites have an “HTTPS” domain name while others have an “HTTP” domain name?

Well, sites that have an SSL certificate are secure and have an “https” domain as a result. Search engines want to keep their users safe, so they don’t like to recommend sites that don’t have an SSL certificate.

So if you’re site says not secure, or your domain name doesn’t start with an “https,” you need to install an SSL certificate. The good news is, it’s super easy to do. In fact, your hosting provider’s tech support team should be able to do it for you.

Formatting Your Content

Search engines like all content on a website to be formatted in certain ways. That particular formatting is found to be easier to read by users, which of course is why search engines want it formatted that way.

So it’s important to make sure that all of the content on your site is written with this in mind. Learning to write SEO friendly content is simple, and can be explained in a few brief sentences.

First, break up space with paragraphs, pictures, and other forms of media. Include a few of your keywords in your content in a natural way. Again, keep this natural and don’t overdo it. Search engines hate keyword stuffing, so it’s not a good idea. Search engines will pick up on what you’re doing and flag your site as a result.

Close with a Call-to-Action

Regardless of what your website is about, you should have an end goal in mind when users land on your homepage. Whether it’s selling a product or trying to refer them to articles, you want to close out your homepage with a call-to-action to get users to act right then and there.

Something as simple as a feed of articles, or a clickable graphic that shows off what it is you’re selling is all you really need. Just be sure to keep it, and everything else on your homepage, simple. You don’t want to slow down your site and overwhelm users, as well as make navigation more difficult.

Now, with that said, here are a few solid examples of websites with SEO-friendly homepages that we’ve created for various companies and brands.

Example Number 1: Better Off Med Spa

Better Off Med Spa’s website checks meet all of the SEO requirements that we’ve covered in this article. Firstly, you’ll notice that the website title has Better Off, the company name, as well as what it is (med spa in San Diego), making it easier to find on search engines. See a case study on their website SEO performance here.

Also, the content on the site itself is formatted properly with spacing, paragraphs, and graphics to break up the words and make things easier to read.

After the first scroll of the mouse, you’ll see a “book an appointment” button, which is their call to action. The site is also secure (it has an SSL certificate), loads fast, and is extremely easy to navigate.

Example Number 2: Abbey Party Rentals

The second website, Abbey Party Rentals, is just as strong as the first. The homepage title has the name, as well as the city and a few different keywords, making it easy for people who are looking for party supplies to find them online.

And once again, the content is formatted properly, making it easier for users to read. The use of white space on this particular website makes this especially appealing to the eye, which is worth noting.

They have an SSL certificate, a solid navigation layout, and a site that loads quickly. Finally, they close things out with a “shop for your occasion button,” which sends users directly to their online party supplies store.

Example Number 3: ICT

ICT, or Intercontinental Coffee Trading, has an aesthetically-pleasing website design that also functions well and meets all basic SEO standards.

Firstly, the homepage title has their name and the words “coffee beans,” which is obviously their primary product. That helps them more easily rank for not only their company name but the words “coffee beans,” too.

Their navigation is think-less and smooth to operate, the content is easy to read and formatted correctly, and they’ve included tons of media to break up the text.

The site is secured and has a “this month’s inventory” button that takes users directly to their shop right after the first paragraph. That makes it much easier for the user to find their shop, and in return, much easier for them to make a sale.

Homepage SEO Tips and Examples

Well, there you have it! Those are a few homepage SEO tips, as well as some example websites that have successfully implemented these SEO practices.

Remember, above all else, search engines are simply trying to send users to credible websites that meet their search query. By thinking more about the user and less about the search engines, you can more easily make your website SEO-friendly.

Sure, you still have to know where to put the keywords, but for the most part, the rest is all about making your site function properly and appeal to users.

Still not getting the results you’re looking for? Interested in getting some help from an SEO professional? Contact us today, we’ll be glad to assist you!

4 in 5 consumers want to see paid ads that are specific to their city or local surroundings.

If you didn’t know this, then you might be failing at your SEO efforts. If that’s the case, then it’s okay!

SEO can be a tricky thing to tackle as a business owner. That’s why it makes sense to contract the services of an SEO expert who can help you make sense of it all.

From using the wrong kinds of keywords to writing low-quality and even publishing the wrong kinds of ads, here are the top SEO mistakes you need to avoid.

What is SEO?

Before getting into the most common SEO mistakes that businesses make, it’s best to answer the question of what SEO is and how it works.

So, what does SEO stand for? It’s the acronym for Search Engine Optimization.

This refers to the optimization of your website so that Google and other search engines rank it higher and pull it up to the first page when someone searches for a specific keyword.

Now, you can rank higher for organic and non-organic searches. Non-organic searches are the paid ads that you see at the top and bottom of a Google search page.

These are great, and there’s a lot of potential ROI if you can work Google Ads correctly. However, it’s great to aim to be at the top of the page for an organic search.

This means that if someone is searching for the “best ice cream in San Diego,” then your ice cream shop shows up as the number one result.

How do you get there? You optimize your content! You can do this in a few ways:

• Enhancing your website’s user experience. Google loves to rank websites that give users a great experience when they visit their page.
• Fix broken links. Google doesn’t like to rank sites that have broken links.
• Constantly publish high-quality and informative blog content. Include lots of hot keywords and ensure that you’re always providing value.

These are just a few of the ways that you can go about optimizing your website to enhance your SEO.

However, knowing what to do isn’t the same as actually being able to effectively implement all of these aspects of SEO.

Often, companies make small mistakes that cost them a lot in the long run. Here’s what to avoid.

Only Using Short Tail Keywords

If you’re just getting started with SEO, it’s pretty rare that you’re going to rank for a short tail keyword.

Why? These are keywords that have three words or less. Usually, they have just one word. They not only tend to have a lot of competition but are also pretty general.

Using the example above, imagine trying to rank for the keyword “ice cream.”

Not only is that going to be difficult as there’s a lot of content online for ice cream. But, you’re not going to be attracting the right kinds of customers because they’re not going to be looking for ice cream specifically in San Diego.

When you’re doing your own keyword research, it’s best to focus more on longtail keywords.

The competition for these tend to be much lower, but it’s because the search volume is also lower.

Imagine searching for “SEO expert” and then searching for “need to hire a San Diego SEO expert.”

The latter probably only has a few searches, but the people who are searching for that are ready to purchase, sign, or commit to whatever they’re looking for.

Neglecting Your Google My Business Page

As a local business, you need to be targeting and attracting local customers. One way of doing this is by optimizing your keywords for local searches.

However, if you don’t have a My Google Business page set up, then you’re not ready to fully convert that search into a full conversion.

Google continues to place importance on “near me” searches, which makes your My Google Business listing crucial.

54% of smartphone users use Google search to look up a company’s business hours. 53% use it to find directions to a local store.

This means that if someone in your area is searching for “fitness supplement store near me,” then you’ll want to have your My Google Business page updated with hours, directions, a phone number, and more.

This is your opportunity to establish your brand’s presence and ensure customers can easily contact you.

Only Focusing on On-Page SEO

On-page SEO refers to optimizing your website with keywords and quality content.

While this is a crucial aspect of any digital marketing strategy, it’s also important to think about off-page SEO.

This is where most business owners fail. They focus way too much on writing SEO-optimized blogs and social media hashtags that they forget about building their online presence elsewhere.

To avoid making this mistake, set aside time each month during your normal content creation hours to cultivate content for other websites.

This can look like:

• Writing high-quality and informative blogs for other websites in your industry. If you’re a vet’s office, for example, write a blog each month or week for a local pet food store in your town.
• Creating infographics with industry-leading statistics. Publish these as soon as the stats come out. Other companies will likely publish them on their blogs and link back to you.
• Answering questions on forums such as Quora. Use keywords in your answers and actually provide value. You’re trying to establish yourself as an authority in your industry.

These are just a few ways to engage in off-page SEO. What’s really important is that the content that you publish on other sites is keyword-rich and links back to your website.

If you really want to increase your off-page SEO game, then focus more on social media marketing.

Your social media accounts obviously have little to do with your actual website. However, establishing a strong social media brand presence can greatly increase traffic to your website.

Consider investing in things such as influencer marketing and creative YouTube marketing strategies.

This is a whole separate aspect of digital marketing, and if you’re going to do it, it’s best to get the help of a qualified social media marketing expert.

Not Performing Regular Website Audits

Most small business owners are so busy with other aspects of running a business that they often forget to audit their own website once it’s up and running.

But, broken links can negatively impact your SEO ranking.

404 errors affect the user experience of your website, which is part of what Google looks at when it ranks your pages.

When you’re putting so much time and effort into small business marketing, it’s silly to let a small mistake such as a broken link affect your rating.

An SEO expert will automatically do this for you, but if you want to do this yourself, you’ll need to get Google Analytics.

It’s best to optimize and 404 error pages with links to other areas of your site.

This means that if there’s ever a broken link, then at least when a user arrives at the error page, they’ll be redirected to other potential pages so they can continue to browse your site.

Along with fixing broken links, performing regular website audits ensures that you’re up-to-date on all of your content and keywords.

Take a look at your blogs and see if you can update them with recent information. You’ll likely see this at the beginning of each year when companies begin to update old 2018 blogs, for example, with new 2022 data.

Take advantage of this time to also optimize your keywords. Do more research and make sure you’re not still working off of keywords that aren’t popular or are too competitive.

Not Publishing High-Value Content

You’ve probably heard of the phrase “content is king.” It’s so true.

A few years ago, businesses could make SEO work for them simply by writing low-quality blogs that writers stuffed with keywords. Google hadn’t yet created an algorithm that could see past this kind of trickery.

Now, Google has caught on to the tricks. You have to write high-quality, valuable content to rank.

Not only that, but your readers are going to know the difference, too. SEO is about getting people to your website. When they get there, you want them to actually build a sense of trust towards your business.

This means that you’re providing them with valuable content that answers their questions without trying to sell them anything.

Engage in good copywriting practices that ensure that you’re balancing direct response copy with pure informative content.

You can do this by:

• Publishing “How-To” articles each week. Give customers insight into how to use your product or how to improve their lives in some way.
• Answering questions in the blog comments. Interact with your audience and respond to any questions they have in a timely manner.
• Creating blog content surrounding questions, ideas, and lifestyles that your target audience has an interest in.

The last one is a big area with a lot of potential that most people often don’t tap into.

The idea of publishing informative content is to have readers stay on your page for a longer period of time.

If you own a small surf shop San Diego, for example, then it’s likely that your target audience enjoys things such as the conservation of wildlife, clean water efforts, and general environmentalism.

Even though this has nothing to do with your business in a direct manner, publishing content about these subjects will guarantee more organic traffic.

Thinking Like a Business Owner, Not a Customer

As a business owner, it’s easy to get lost in the details and only look at the bigger picture.

This is a huge mistake when it comes to SEO. You have to think like a customer to win at SEO.

This starts from the very beginning when you’re creating the most basic keyword list. As a business owner of a digital marketing agency, you might think that people would simply search for the keyword “digital marketing agency.”

Instead, try putting yourself in their shoes. If you need digital marketing services, what would you search for in Google?

It’s likely that you’d search for something more specific such as “digital marketing services near me” or even “how to optimize my blog for more traffic.”

If it helps, try searching on Google yourself. Start with a basic keyword or question and see what the autocomplete function spits back out at you.

This will give you a good idea as to what people in your area are actually searching for and want to know.

Here, it’s important to touch on the act of keyword stuffing. Now that you’ve found your ideal keywords and they’re highly-targeted, you need to balance how you include them in your website copy.

Avoid overstuffing your blog and web content with keywords, as Google can recognize this and will automatically penalize your page.

Not Getting Help From an SEO Expert

We’ve saved the biggest mistake for last.

When it comes to optimizing your content, increasing your Google ranking, and establishing a strong brand presence, the biggest mistake you can make is not getting help from an SEO expert.

It’s probably clear after reading this entire article that there are a lot of factors that go into doing SEO right.

With so many different factors, strategies, and techniques, it’s hard to really formulate a solid SEO strategy if you’re not an expert in the field.

If you make and sell pastries, you wouldn’t entrust that part of your business to someone who’s never used an oven before, right? The same goes for digital marketing.

Ready to get started with a local San Diego SEO expert? Contact us today to get closer to your goals and begin optimizing your content across the board.

San Diego Ad Agencies are at the top of the list when compared to other national agencies. The advertising agencies in San Diego are impressive and measure up to any ad agency in New York, San Francisco, L.A., Chicago, or Miami. Even the most respected advertising agencies in these cities will tell you that the level of creative advertising, campaigns, and digital savvy is every bit as good as in the big metropolitan areas.

If you are considering an ad agency for your business, compare and measure each agency by more than just design and recognition. Measure them by how effective they have been for others and whether they give good bang for the buck.

Here’s how you should measure ad agencies against each other:

1. How effective are they at achieving their client’s goals?
2. How effective are they at connecting with consumers and prompting them to take an action?
3. Do they produce a return on investment?
4. How hands-on are they with their clients?
5. Do they pass down important responsibilities to lower level professionals or even interns?
6. Is their design determined by prior research and practical thinking, or just artistry?
7. Do they brand companies with a solid messaging foundation?
8. Do they use comprehensive marketing approaches?
9. Do they have the capacity to offer full services from TV to Internet and beyond?
10. Are their digital advertising services on par with their creative savvy?
11. Do they offer a full suite of services?
12. What are their values, vision, and business philosophy?

Some of these questions are hard to answer, but having worked with and competed against some of the best ad agencies in all of these cities, we’re still impressed with San Diego advertising agencies. We think we attract the best of the best here in San Diego, and because we know we’re up against larger ad agencies, we may always have something to prove. We’re passionate about our client’s clients, and we’re driven by building a reputation of excellence. Why go out of town when you can get great ad agencies in San Diego.

These days with business being hyper-competitive in most markets, it’s important to hire an ad agency that can create a compelling brand, then bring it to life with a solid web presence, and finally drive traffic through creative and hands-on advertising methods. Every advertising agency that regards themselves as a full service agency needs to have strategic business consultants, marketing strategists, branding specialists, copywriters, social media experts, SEO experts, website developers, creative designers, and digital marketers.

It’s not always important to hire a full service ad agency. You can hire agencies that are small, but who have the connections to help you get all that you need. This might be more trouble than it’s worth, but it’s certainly an option. These days most agencies are sized between four to fifteen employees. There are much larger agencies but there are fewer around than in years past. Since many people work from home and remotely these days, agencies don’t have to be as large as they used to be.

Since we live in a virtual digital world, you have the option of choosing any ad agency you want as long as they meet your criteria. Learn as much as you can about their capabilities, process, values, and business philosophy. This is more important than where the agency is located.

If you are looking for a full service ad agency, contact us here at MAD Group. We are a San Diego Ad Agency that works with businesses all over the country to help businesses grow.

Please Contact Us To See How Passionate We Are About Your Success.

Video is taking over more and more of our Internet time. According to the Digital Marketing Institute, the average person watches 1.5 hours of video every day.

That’s good news for marketers. In the same survey, 76% of marketers reported that video helped them increase sales for their companies.

Video can do the same for your company. Here are just some of the top video marketing trends you can take advantage of today that will help turn 2022 into your most successful digital marketing year yet.

First, we’ll look at some of the types of videos you can create for your company. Then we’ll look at how these videos are getting made in 2022 and what it is about them that makes them hot.

Types of Videos

There are so many different ways you can use video to build your business online that it’s not hard to see why video itself is one of the hottest digital marketing trends in 2022. Each video you make should try to fill only one of these video types to be the most successful it can be:

• Branding videos: tell a story about why your company is the best
• Promotional videos: show how a product or service will solve a particular need
• Training videos: teach someone how to use your product or service or how to do business with you
• Testimonial videos: build third-party credibility for your products and company
• TV commercials: reuse and repurpose TV spots on the Internet
• Explainer videos: dig deeper into the reasons to use a product or the benefits of doing something a certain way

Of course, even if you try to keep each video separate from the rest, there will be some overlap. That video you created to explain how to install your product may wind up convincing someone to buy it.

It could wind up being both a training and promotional video, but if you set out to create a video that does both, you decrease your chances of doing either really well.

Video Marketing Trends

Production technologies are where we’re seeing the biggest trendsetting changes in video today. The most common denominator does seem to be the capabilities of a smartphone.

Smartphones have replaced whole studios full of equipment for production of some types of videos. It’s the increase in production values and capabilities that are propelling the popularity of other types.

Live Video

Live streaming on Facebook, Instagram, and now LinkedIn continues to grow in popularity. Cisco predicts that live video will account for 13% of all video traffic by 2020. Considering that Facebook Live just launched in 2016, this is unprecedented growth.

Live video promotes your brand as authentic and approachable. Because there is the “anything can happen” quality to your live stream, audiences trust these videos more and stay tuned to them longer than prerecorded videos.

They’re economical for a company to produce two ways. First, there are no real “production” costs associated. Normally these are just a person talking into the camera.

While some sales made during a live stream or live video webinar undoubtedly stem from FOMO (fear of missing out), recordings of the video do still exist on the platform, so there is residual value as well.

Storytelling

No one likes to be “sold,” but we all love a good story. No matter what type of video you are creating, if you use storytelling to get your point across, you should see better results.

This was proven in an anthropological experiment in 2012. Items that had been purchased for an average $1.25 at a garage sale were sold on eBay for up to $8,000 as a result of the story that was told about the item.

How we tell those stories has been adapted to fit new social networks. A good story still needs a beginning, a middle, and an end. Now, however, those pieces can be broken up in a Snap Chat story or flow from a Facebook teaser ad to a YouTube video.

Square and Vertical Shapes

For a while, it seemed we were headed toward a standard online video format. The 16:9 wide horizontal video looked like a winner.

Then came mobile-first web design and development and the rise of square images on Instagram. Most people do hold their phones vertically most of the time, but those horizontal videos do not look good when viewed vertically.

Square videos already work on Instagram and Facebook. YouTube is making adaptations to improve the display of square and vertical videos there, so this is one you can expect to pick up steam as the year progresses.

360-Degree Videos

Panoramic, or 360-degree videos, are also gaining traction. These videos are shot with one or more cameras shooting in every direction simultaneously. Unless they are displayed on several screens set up in a sphere, much of the depth is lost.

Enough depth and dimension remain for these videos to be particularly popular in travel, real estate, and experience videos. Augmented reality videos are also moving into high-end product promotions. As the technology matures, we can expect to see their use increase.

Textural Elements

Increases in the ability to mix text and video together are blurring still more lines. Closed captioning and subtitles are helping Google make more sense of video content, which is, in turn, ensuring more videos show up in search results.

Other uses of text in videos, like annotations or live links, are allowing marketers to use video as a more pivotal piece of the sales funnel.

Explainer Videos

Explainer videos as a type of marketing video began to emerge shortly after infographics proved popular. They are also one of the hottest trends to watch in 2021 because of the way they are produced.

The idea of breaking complex information into bite-sized nuggets with engaging visuals is an ideal use for animation, which has been a staple of video production for nearly 100 years. However, new tools are emerging daily that make it easier for ordinary people to put together stunning graphical stories that explain how or when or why to do something.

Putting It All Together

It’s easy to see why video is has captured the imagination and attention of the Internet and why so many companies are planning on investing more into producing videos for their business.

What’s not so easy to see all the time is just how you should put each of these video marketing trends to work for you. Should you start with a brand story video? What should you talk about on a Live Stream video?

One place to start is to check out these examples of how other companies are using video to help vision meet viral.

As small businesses across San Diego are slated to spend around $75,000 this year on digital marketing, there are smarter ways to spend that money than others.

With the right digital content strategy in play, every dollar gets stretched as far as possible. If your digital content has a lot of depth to it, you’ll ensure that the hits you get translate to real visits and real dollars.

Here are four ways to revitalize the digital content strategy at your business this year.

1. Do Your Research

When putting together your digital content strategy, start by looking at where the market is currently. When you think critically about where other companies are compared to where you are, you get the chance to think about your present and your future. If you attack without a plan, you’re bound to waste a lot of time spinning your wheels with digital content.

Look at what the leaders in your market are doing. Stalk their social media profiles and see what kind of content they’re posting. Look to see what content people are responding to the most and whether or not your competitors are picking up on that.

It’s so common for a business to overlook their own assets and benefits. However, what they overlook can be the path in for you to take the reins and seize control of your shared customer base.

Research what your customers seem to want, outside of what your competitors are offering. You get ahead of the pack by taking risks and pursuing paths that they’re not. You don’t get ahead by following.

2. Assess Where You Are

Now start looking at where your business is today. If you’ve run content in the past, consider what your strategy was then. Make a chart listing the things that succeeded with another column for the things that failed.

The content from recent years let you know how your specific assets performed. Companies tend to overlook the past when they’re considering the future. However, when you have a handle on the future, you make better decisions in the future.

If you notice that some topics generated a lot of leads, make those central for the coming year. If there were themes that got a lot of social shares, put them at the frontline of this year’s social media campaign. While you shouldn’t put your eggs in just those baskets, starting off with strong elements gives the rest of your campaigns the chance to shine.

Look at the real material business results of your asses and investments. The metrics that show your spendings, earnings, and which topics helped or hindered those campaigns are the place for you to start.

3. Make a Few Themes

Your customers are changing all the time. As other companies try to fight for a piece of your customer base, it’s inevitable that their interest is going to change. Customers introduced to new ideas are going to move in unpredictable directions.

While trends shape the day-to-day in any market, there are going to a be a few key themes that prevail from year to year.

See what challenges your customers are seeing most often in your industry. What is it that they complain about or what do you get the most negative feedback on? The answer to these questions should drive the decision making of your company when it comes to themes.

Watch the trade articles and popular news items that shape how people interact with your industry. Those articles give a clue as to what people are thinking about and where their dollars are going to go in the near future. Ideas that generate a lot of buzz offer you a perspective on what to do with your brand and where to take your customers.

4. Write Your Own Script

While the foundational topics that you’ve outlined provide a loose sketch of where you want to go in the near future, you need a fleshed out strategy. Your content needs a lot more legs than just the quick-hit content that’s shared by buzzy news websites and that you pass by on Twitter feeds. You want your content to be that news item that keeps getting shared for a week accompanied by a long text written by the person sharing it.

You need to have a deep understanding of your foundational assets in order to write content like this. While some of this content can be farmed out to SEO and content producing sites, much of it needs to come from within your offices. Only the people who are closest to the product can give the outline for the story before it turns into a strong piece fo content.

Don’t be afraid to hammer against a theme as well. Just because you wrote one article about it doesn’t mean that the topic has been beaten to death. You can create a video or send some of your staff to talk on a podcast to see how much you can get out of the topic.

Reusing content might seem like a bad idea, however, your old and successful content offers an insight into how to succeed in the future. Old content that’s been successful has everything in its DNA that you need to succeed. Don’t rehash old ideas, but take them apart and see how your new content fits your old model.

Digital Content Strategy Is a Moving Target

Your company’s digital content strategy shouldn’t be the same this year as it was last year. Even if you still spend money in the same places, you need to find new ways to engage your audience and meet their needs with better content.

For more tips on engaging with your audience, contact us today.

Are you new to the competitive world of online sales? Is your small business having a bit of trouble finding its audience?

Online sales are worth almost $500 billion each year, and growing. Carving out an online identity is well worth the effort. If you’re new to online marketing, you might be wondering where to begin.

If you’re looking to focus more attention on your brand, this article’s for you. We’ll give you the inside scoop about product branding. We’ll also help you find a local branding agency that will help you crush the competition.

What Is a Brand?

Every company has a brand, but not every company uses it to their advantage. A brand is more than just a company name. It’s your identity, a reminder to your customers of the services you provide.

Imagine that there are two local plumbing businesses. One has been around for decades and primarily works on commercial buildings. Another is newer and provides 24/7 emergency service to their customers.

The established plumbing company may not need to spend as much on advertising: they get a lot of word-of-mouth referrals. The newer company may need to spend more time familiarizing potential customers with their range of services.

Branding is the process of focusing on what’s great about your company and what makes it different from the competition.

How to Define Your Brand

A brand can be defined by its logos, its slogan, or its origin story. What inspired you to start your company? A compelling story can attract customers – and keep them coming back.

If you don’t have a website, it’s a good time to get online. Websites are great for sales because people can take their time and make buying decisions outside of normal business hours.

Your website should have a section that’s about your values, your mission, and your history. It should also have a blog and an FAQ section.

You may not feel comfortable developing your own website, but there are experienced marketing agencies that can help. They’ll talk to you about your business goals and make a website to focus on customer retention.

Product Branding for Beginners

Before you meet with your branding agency, take a little while and think about what makes your brand special. Do you offer services that your competitors don’t offer? Is your return policy more liberal? Does your staff volunteer?

There is more than one right way to reach out to your customers. It’s okay to do some research to see what your competition is doing. Are they using videos or live chat? Do they have a lot of customer testimonials?

Don’t feel like you need to imitate larger brands. Part of small business’ charm is that they’re all different. You can incorporate pictures of your staff, a video of your office, or links to other websites.

The main goal for your branding brainstorming session should be to find the value in your business. What do you have to offer your customers? How did you find the path to success?

Websites are powerful tools to reach out to new customers. Make a list of all your branding and marketing goals.

Inexpensive Branding Ideas

In addition to making a website, you’ll need a logo and a slogan. Your branding agency can help you with that, but there are ways to reach out to your community.

You can run a contest to come up with a memorable slogan. Contests and promotions are inexpensive ways to connect with potential customers. Once you find the right slogan, you’ll know.

You should also work on creating a memorable logo, but wait to roll it out. You’ll probably need to do some testing first to make sure people like your logo. It might be too bright or difficult to read.

Once you have the logo and slogan settled, you can make a video for your website. Videos don’t have to be expensive and they can reach a wide audience. They can play on your website and can be used as advertisements as well.

You can make quick “explainer” videos for your products, demonstrating how to use them at home. You might be surprised at the positive response you get from a short video.

More Insider Brand Building Tips

There are more ways to find your audience than just building a website. One of the most important marketing tools you have is online: social media. Social media outlets like Facebook and Twitter have millions of users and can be extremely effective for new business outreach.

When you make your social media accounts, try to post every other day at first. You don’t want to overwhelm your audience by posting too frequently, but you want to remind them that you’re there.

You can brand yourself on social media by choosing the content that you share. Do you want to make your audience laugh, think, or both? What kinds of articles and videos would be a good reflection on your business?

Again, an experienced marketing firm can help you with your social media strategy. They can also help you build email lists to reach out to your customers more effectively.

How To Get Started with Online Branding

Brand building is a process that starts with the core values of your business. It’s a process of getting recognized by your target audience, and it’s all about driving sales.

The great thing about a marketing agency is that they can track statistics for you, also known as metrics. They can tell you how many customers clicked on an advertisement, and how many went on to buy from you.

They can also help you reach out to people who have visited your website, a marketing strategy known as remarketing. You can show your advertisement to people anywhere in the world, at any time of day.

We have worked with hundreds of companies in industries from health care to party supplies. We’re committed to providing innovative, game-changing services to our clients. Send us an email so we can get started on your website!

Every company likes to be recognized for its achievements and long hours dedicated to their clients. Luckily, that possibility has become a reality for us here at the MAD Group in San Diego.

We are excited to announce that our company has been recognized by Clutch, an independent third party reviewer of B2B companies around the world, as a top San Diego branding agency in their press release.

This achievement makes us especially proud because of the way it was earned. The main way Clutch conducts their research is by calling previous clients and publishing their feedback as a review on each company’s profile.

Our profile boasts six of these client-based interviews, with an overall rating of 4.8 out of 5 stars! We are proud of this achievement because it means that we are delivering quality work and experiences to our customers, which has always been our ultimate goal.

Providing exceptional experience is what Inc. wrote as one of the cornerstones for creating brand loyalty. We want to continue having clients from any part of the world choose us over other branding agencies, which is why these Clutch interviews are so valuable to us!

One of our clients, Yujin Robot Inc, told Clutch that “M.A.D. Group has treated us as more than just a client. They can think from the customer’s perspective, bringing in a lot of passion.”

In addition to this achievement, Clutch’s sister website, The Manifest, has named us one of the top 20 branding companies in San Diego for 2018!

With each new achievement, we continue to stick to our business and marketing values, but also take note of what unique aspects of our company brought us here in the first place. We look forward to learning how to better serve our clients in the future and to continue being recognized for it!

Consider who your audience is and what they would think if they received a printed piece that is more casual versus more professional. If your business is an art gallery or has an upscale clientele, it may be better to use a professional printer. On the other hand, a taco shop that has a temporary, over-the-counter promotion using flyers may not require a professional printer. Also, if you are printing small quantities of a hundred or less or if you need your prints quickly, a professional printer might not be the way to go. Set up time and costs are expensive for professional printers. Lastly, consider what your competitors are doing and try to do it better. As a consumer yourself, what would your expectations be?

Print quality has improved tremendously on the low-end and high-end of printing over the past five years. Expectations are now much higher than they were before. When you have the budget to do it professionally, you should definitely NOT do it yourself.

Why? Because professional printing offers so many options for paper quality, coating finishes, high resolution printing, colors and is more flexibility in cutting, folding, embossing, binding, and so on.

Find out what the strengths and limitations are on the equipment you’re printing on and then design your marketing materials accordingly. Sometimes gradations in certain colors don’t show up well on laser copy machines and you usually can’t print to the edge of the paper. In addition, keep your designs simple and use strong messaging and headlines. Usually when you use powerful headlines and subheads on marketing pieces, readers don’t notice the limitations of printing because they are captivated by the message. If you depend heavily on the visual aspect, more is riding on the print quality. Conclusion: Do-it-yourself print works better with a strong message.

Although you can find a high level of creative website design in San Diego, consumers, business executives and business owners need to be careful when considering how effective a website will be when it is launched.

Effective website design in San Diego and across the globe is built on two primary objectives: First, to connect with the viewer emotionally, and second, to be coherent in thought and functionality so that the viewer is prompted to take an action. Believe it or not, most website designers, programmers and business leaders become so immersed in the making of the website that these two basic objectives are forgotten.

It is imperative that your website design works for you, that you lead the viewer through a journey that you want them to take and ask of them what you want of them.

San Diego’s website design is among the best in the country, so when choosing a web design company to build your site, make sure the focus is on your end goals, the personality and character of your audience and your company and the path you want your viewers to take when they land on your website.

Please Contact Us To Get Tips On What To Avoid When Building A Website.

Small Business is making a comeback in America these days. With the help of affordable technology, a small business can offer some of the same services and products as larger businesses, while still offering it at a high level. With proper small business marketing, a small business can get the attention it deserves and win over clients that would traditionally buy from larger businesses.

The key is to start out by being a big fish in a small pond. Look for the areas you can compete in that are underserved; then serve them well. Simultaneously, start focusing on a small business marketing approach that lets consumers know you can give personal attention and one-on-one service, both online and off.

The centerpiece to your marketing is your website. Start by making it personal and inviting. Then once you’ve got it thoroughly refined from a visual and marketing standpoint, change your focus to optimizing so that it gets noticed by search engines. Once you’ve done this you will be ready for following a small business marketing plan.

The small business marketing plan should include clearly defined goals for a two year stretch, plus a quarter-by-quarter action plan of what needs to be accomplished. To get a good grasp on how to create a small business marketing action plan, you may need some professional help. But to start, you can calculate the average lifetime worth of your clients, and then estimate how many leads you would need to land each new one.

Next, whether it is B2B or B2C, you will need to be creative in your approach. Marketing for small business requires good timing and creative marketing materials. The materials you use should be created with clever headlines, clear call-to-actions, and highly refined designs that resonate with their audience.

We realize there is so much more to this than we can possibly include here, so call us to see how we can make an impact on your business.

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