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Three ways businesses impacted by COVID-19 can prepare for a possible boom

FEBRUARY 9, 2021

Whatever happened to Kelis? You know, the singer whose milkshakes brought all the boys to the yard? Perhaps she had to close up shop during the pandemic. At least she has a loyal customer base that will inevitably come back to the yard.

Your customers will come back to your yard too. Perhaps not because you’re slingin’ shakes, but because they miss your business as you miss theirs. So before the floodgates open back up for businesses, Econsultancy is sharing three ways businesses impacted by COVID-19 can prepare for a possible boom.

Maintain relationships using content. While the entire world faces disruption, strategies need to shift. Many businesses can’t just carry on as usual, so what about their customers and audiences? Here’s where content comes in clutch. Diverting focus to content creation allows us to continue reaching our customers and desired audiences and discover new avenues for business. For example, some restaurants offer kits with instructions or even online classes on how to make beloved recipes. To deliver great content you must meet people where they are. And if you can meet people where they are, you can more easily adapt with them.

Invest in lead gen now to fill the pipeline. Even if your business is temporarily halted, there is likely still demand for your products and services. By focusing on building up your pipeline, you’ll ensure you’re met with plenty of business when planet Earth gets the green light. People are eager to continue patronizing their favorite businesses. If you can add these people to your email list, then you can nurture them and keep them up to date on your reopening plan.
Turn lemons into lemonade, even if it doesn’t make money. At the end of the day, it’s important to put your best foot forward. Just doing what you can for productivity’s sake can be helpful even if it doesn’t mean the usual revenue stream. Think of experiences you can provide for your customers to build excitement for what lies ahead or just to reward them for being loyal to your business. American Airlines started a wine club featuring wines serves onboard its aircraft. The point here wasn’t to recoup losses from the economic downturn. Instead, they focused on remaining top-of-mind with customers and offering a taste of the in-flight experience.

We could teach you the rest, but we’d have to charge. Only kidding. Read on for some examples.

Winning Social Media Style Guide: 5 Steps to Implement

FEBRUARY 8, 2021

Are y’all looking forward to the 2020 summer Olympics in 2021? We sure are. Even if we only reeeally tune in for the opening and closing ceremonies. Gotta love all the matching uniforms to represent each nation. It’s the kind of uniformity brands strive for across different kinds of content. While we’ve got our fingers crossed 🤞for the games panning out this year, today Socialbakers is sharing 5 steps to implement a winning social media style guide so your channels can all truly represent your brand.

Define your brand voice and tone. Choose three or four adjectives to describe your ideal brand voice and tone. This will help influence your voice and tone without being all over the place. The voice is the way your brand talks and tone is the way voice is used to convey different meanings through messages. They’re closely related, but they’re not quite the same.

Align your social media profiles. If your brand isn’t unified across channels, then your audience may have trouble finding you. Keeping your logo as a common element is a simple way to tie your accounts back to your brand. Determine who runs each channel and assess which channels make sense for your brand. There are lots of social media platforms, so it might make more sense for you to only focus on a few of them.

Set your formatting guidelines. Certain best practices will apply to any brand. Make sure you illustrate the most important part of your message in the first sentence and keep the whole message concise. Be mindful of posting long links, and consider shortening links with Bitly. Include branded hashtags and even consistent use of emojis on Instagram to make each post unique to your brand.

Create your media guidelines. Social media sites have lots of crossover in the content types they showcase, but there are formats and size requirements that make them unique from each other. Determine which platforms you will use for different forms of media. Keep consistent elements such as brand colors, logos, and fonts. Best to stay away from stock images too. OG content for the win.

Go for the gold with ~~mambo~~ tip #5.

How to Do a Content Gap Analysis for SEO

FEBRUARY 7, 2021

If you’ve ever seen the Grand Canyon with your own two eyes, then you’ll know how genuinely perplexing it is to comprehend something of its size. We suppose just a few million years ago it might just have been “The Canyon”, but what kind of a sell is that for a tourist attraction? Fun fact: the gap in the grand canyon is almost as big as the gap in your content. Shots fired. (JK, we know your content is 🔥)

That said, content does have its gaps here and there. And while you might look at it as a weakness, it actually presents a great opportunity. To help you mind the gap, Search Engine Journal is walking us through how to do a content gap analysis for SEO.

Mapping Your Content to the Buyer’s Journey

Not every piece of content serves everybody equally. People will fall into four stages: Awareness, Consideration, Decision, and Success. The key to filling in content gaps is determining which stage in the buyer’s journey each piece of content is tailored to.

4 Steps to Conducting a Content Gap Analysis

Map Out Your Buyer’s Journey. Put yourself in the shoes of your buyer and draw or write out the steps you would take to solve the problem they face. Start with questions you would ask and do a few searches to see where those questions lead. Keep up this exercise until you’re at a point where you think the customer would purchase.

Conduct Market Research. Go right to the source. No mental gymnastics needed to try to imagine yourself in objective scenarios. Just ask. Use survey software like Google Forms and start collecting feedback.
Analyze the Content on Your Website. Go through your URLs and determine which stage of the buyer’s journey each one serves. Then, analyze the CTAs in each piece of content and consider how it aligns with the stage the reader is in.

Keep reading for the last step.

What brands need to know before celebrating Black History Month 2021

FEBRUARY 3, 2021

Marketers are no strangers to planning and strategy. It’s a necessary part of the job and its importance won’t dwindle. As you’re probably aware, February is Black History Month, which for brands and individuals is a time to promote and support Black and African American communities. But promotion and support are not and should not be limited to a single month. Instead, let Black History Month influence your year-round commitment to supporting and promoting Black and African American people and businesses.

Sprout Social is here to explain what brands need to know before celebrating Black History Month 2021.

First things first: What’s the purpose of Black History Month?

Black History Month began when historian Carter G. Woodson felt Black peoples’ history and contributions to society were severely underrepresented and overlooked; recognition was due.
Each year’s Black History Month revolves around a theme. This year’s theme is The Black Family: Representation, Identity, and Diversity.

Recognize Black history 365 days a year. The purpose of this month transcends the month itself. It’s up to people and businesses to pave the way toward a more just and equitable society for all. These things take more of a commitment than any single month would ever allow.

Consider who benefits from your Black History Month ideas.
How can these ideas be baked into your business and employed throughout the whole year?

This is the Black community’s time to shine. Show some love and support above all and be intentional and sincere about it. Demonstrating true understanding and support means taking the time to enrich your own cultural intelligence. Keyaira Lock outlines that if you can learn the real struggles, dreams, and fears of the Black community, you can find “mutually beneficial ways to thoughtfully insert your brand.”

Read on for more great takeaways from Sprout Social.

How to Use Beacon Data With Paid Search and Social Campaigns

FEBRUARY 2, 2021

Remember having so much fun playing Pin the Tail on the Donkey? Well, now it’s Pin the Revenue on the Paid Search Ad. And it’s often complete with headaches even without spinning around blindfolded. Online, it’s much simpler. Offline, it might be tempting to hire a PI (please don’t) to see if someone actually converts in-store. Thankfully, there’s a much better way.

Beacon technology allows you to connect your online marketing efforts with offline actions and conversions. It’s the missing piece of the puzzle for marketers with both online and brick and mortar stores. Today, Neil Patel is breaking down how to use beacon data with paid search and social campaigns.

How does it work? If someone clicks your Google Ad then visits your brick and mortar store, beacon technology uses Bluetooth to communicate with the customer’s phone and tie them to the ad they had clicked previously. It’s all about proximity, and proximity marketing has proven to be extremely effective. Here’s how you can get started:

Choose a Device and Platform. You may need multiple beacons depending on your goals and store size, but start with one you like and stay within whichever platform you choose. Furthermore, you’ll need to tell your customers to download your app for the beacon to work. If you don’t have your own app, then 3rd party apps like Nearbee and Physical Web will work just fine.

Define Your Use Beacon Cases. It’s good to be pointed in your approach so you can measure tangible goals. Set up beacons to send coupons to those who have interacted with your ads. Or measure the effectiveness of cross-sell ads for people who just purchased at your store.
Design Your Beacon Actions. You can trigger a beacon to activate when people are outside your store, in your store, and even right next to the beacon. Try incentivizing people to come into your store by sending a coupon when they walk by.

Check out some examples and top beacon brands!

5 pillars of a holistic marketing measurement plan

FEBRUARY 1, 2021

How many people know what you do? And if they have an idea of what you do, do they know how you do it? The world of digital marketing is shrouded in mystery for many outside its sphere. If you’ve seen The Social Dilemma, you probably weren’t surprised by what you saw, but it came as a shock to many.

The issue is privacy. While privacy for users ought to be upheld, how do we marketers adapt to changes that will render some of our existing strategies obsolete? Google helps to answer this question with 5 pillars of a holistic marketing measurement plan.

Leverage the power of first-party data. Data is the new oil, and your business has its own reserve. Tap into that data! It’ll show you insights like which products and services new customers gravitate toward, or even which times of the year repeat customers make additional purchases. Knowing this will allow you to create promotions at the right time for the right products and services.

Bring first-party data together with cross-platform tools. Having various sources of data and no method of connecting it all together is like keeping a bunch of tools without a toolbox: some are bound to be forgotten or lost, so it’s best to keep them all together. A cross-platform analytics tool will bring all your data into one place so you can actually get a clear picture of your business.

Be transparent about data usage with your customers. Collecting user data is a sensitive issue for some. Rather than skirting around the topic with generic pop-ups filled with industry jargon, make an effort to communicate to your customers exactly what you’re collecting. Nobody wants to feel like they’re being spied on. 👀
Fill measurement gaps with modeled data. New and evolving updates and regulations are limiting the ways digital marketers can reach their hands into the cookie jar. Yes, it’s more difficult to see the conversion path without following the trail of cookie crumbs, but there are ways to gain the visibility we desire. Conversion modeling is the answer. With machine learning, existing and historical data can be analyzed to accurately fill in the holes in our data.

Number 5 is merely a click away. Check it out!

How to Assess Market Opportunities for Your Business

JANUARY 31, 2021

Opportunity typically knocks, but today it’s crashing through your wall à la the Kool-Aid Man. It might not present itself when you’re actively looking for it, and it might not come at the most opportune time, so to speak. Nonetheless, opportunity can appear out of nowhere, and it’s in our best interest to address it.

Without further ado, G2 will show you how to assess market opportunities for your business.

Identify a market opportunity for your organization. Before you can properly assess an opportunity, you need to identify an opportunity.

For startups…this means first segmenting your base. Break apart the demographics of your target consumer base and break down the pain points each segment faces and how you can alleviate that pain. Next, you’ll want to evaluate the customers’ buying power by taking the time to understand not just disposable income, but the purchasing patterns of each segment. Lastly, leveraging current events will allow unknown startups to gain recognition by positioning themselves with larger topics and events.
For emerging/growth phase businesses…this can mean diversifying your portfolio. While you’re successful with your current offerings, expanding your products and services offered or even reaching different markets can deliver growth. You might also consider building partnerships. Not every business has the resources needed to address a given market opportunity, but finding a partner and striking a mutual agreement can spell success for both parties.

How do you conduct a market opportunity analysis?

Ask the customer. If it’s your customer, then ask what they like about your products and services and what else they would like to see. Being direct is the way to go (just don’t go bursting through the walls of their homes to collect feedback.)
Technological innovation. All the time we see the disruptors and the disrupted. Utilizing new and promising technologies can pose opportunities by giving you a competitive edge others have not yet adopted. Study technologies in other industries and assess which could work for you.

Keep reading for the rest of G2’s tips. (Oh yeah!)

4 Copywriting Techniques for Engaging Podcasts and Audio Presentations

JANUARY 27, 2021

City skylines are their own works of art. While we can’t even grasp the logistics of erecting a skyscraper in a big city (maybe someday), we know that architects play a vital role.

Podcasts need architects too, lest they devolve into ramblings void of any comprehensive structure. In other words, planning is important. When you sit down to write out the general structure for your next episode, keep in mind these 4 copywriting techniques for engaging podcasts and audio presentations from Copyblogger.

Stories and anecdotes. Stories are fantastic for tying your topics to real events. Plan out some relevant stories so you don’t get stuck on unnecessary tangents. Thinking ahead about the stories you want to tell will allow you to be more intentional in your storytelling. Think about which stories will be most beneficial for your audience and stick to them.

Metaphors, similes, and analogies. You need some way to connect point A to point B. Metaphors, similes, and analogies can serve as bridges to easily bring a listener from where they are currently to where you want them to be. (There’s a metaphor right there for y’all.) Furthermore, metaphors can be persuasive and help break down confusing topics and any objections stemming from said topics.

Mirroring. If you’re trying to inform someone of a topic they don’t know much about, you’ll have to meet them right where they are. Ever look up a word in the dictionary and the definition includes the word you didn’t understand to begin with? Not very helpful. Use the words your audience uses so you can deliver your message in a digestible manner.
Mind’s eye scenarios. The imagination is a powerful tool. Prompt listeners to imagine the desired outcome they currently strive for. If they can visualize where exactly they want to be, you can influence the way they get there. Since you’ve put the listener at center stage, you can craft scenarios around them and reveal how the actions they take now can bring them to the outcome they’ve envisioned.

Keep reading for examples and other helpful tips.

New Year, New You: Building Your Brand With Paid Social

JANUARY 25, 2021

Top 20 songs have a knack for getting in our heads. Even a song you don’t particularly care for can slip into your mind and stay a while after half a dozen listens. Love it or hate it, it’s super effective. It’s also how we got Baby Shark…

Building your brand takes a similar amount of impressions to really capture someone’s attention. While getting organic content in front of your audience is more and more competitive, Visiture offers some tips on building your brand with paid social.

Connect with the Target Audience. If you already have buyer personas built out, then it’s time to create an audience with similar attributes. You’ll have plenty of flexibility in defining the demographics and interests of those you’re targeting. However, make sure you take the time to assess which social media channels contain the audiences you’re looking to reach.

Highlight Brand Differentiation. Set yourself apart so your audience views your brand as the go-to choice for whatever product or service you provide. Provide a simple comparison of your offerings vs other offerings from competitors. No need to name competitors; just be mindful of how people will differentiate you from those competitors.

Address Pain Points. People don’t typically go to the ER when they feel perfectly fine. Present some of the struggles people in your audience face before adopting your products and solutions. Sometimes people just don’t know where to go with the pain they feel. Use paid ads to illustrate how your brand solves the pain points you’ve laid out.
Employ Retargeting. Repetition is key when you’re building recognition for your brand. Most people aren’t going to buy from you the first time they see an advertisement. Keep promoting your content so people gain more and more familiarity with your brand and what it is you offer. Soon enough, the people you’ve retargeted will associate your brand with relevant needs they have.

There’s more where that came from, so check it all out.