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21+ Free and Effective October Marketing Ideas for Small Businesses

SEPTEMBER 22, 2020

Fall is officially here, folks! The start of sweata weatha means it’s acceptable to snap photos in pumpkin patches, and let’s be honest, have pumpkin-flavored everything. More to the point, next month holds plenty of inspiration to craft your marketing ideas around.

From seasonal traditions to days or weeks commemorating important causes, Wordstream has over 21 free and effective October marketing ideas for small businesses.

October has several awareness themes. It’s your chance to support amazing causes like National Bullying Prevention, Breast Cancer Awareness, Adopt a Shelter Dog month, Emotional Wellness month, along with many others.

Raise awareness by donating a percentage of total profits or of a particular product, or a dollar for every Like on a social media post.
Show support for a cause by educating more folks about it. Share stats, facts, and stories to your social media platforms.

Along with awareness themes for the whole month, there are also many observance days like World Vegetarian Day, World Smile Day, National Boss’s Day, and more.

Then you have the general Fall celebrations – Halloween, costumes, candies, and pumpkins! These marketing ideas are pretty flexible and can be an easy way of building awareness for your brand.

Embrace the Halloween spirit with a fun costume contest. Give away a prize for the best costume and have your audience tag your business in their photo submissions.
Candy counting contest. Put out a big jar of candy and let the guessing begin! Create slips where customers can write their guess and their email address. If in-store isn’t quite as doable because of COVID, create a form online so you can collect entries based on a photo of your candy jar.

October is unbe-leaf-ably packed with more causes to rally behind. Give the rest of the list a look, and get into the Fall festivities.

What Shifts In Product Demand Mean For SEO

SEPTEMBER 21, 2020

Current trends and world events play a large part in influencing consumer behaviors. COVID-19 threw buyer behavior a curveball, and marketers must stay up to date with the evolving landscape.

When demand for your product shifts for better or for worse, your messaging will require changes as will your promotional approach. Today, Moz is covering what shifts in product demand mean for SEO.

First thing’s first – is demand for your products surging or declining?

If your products’ demand has increased, congratulations! But you’re not quite out of the weeds.

Manage temporary out-of-stock products. COVID has thrown a wrench in the global supply chain, which may be an issue for you – especially if demand is up. If the product is still something you’ll sell, then don’t 404 the page. Allow site visitors a way they can be alerted when the product is back, or let them know how they might find the product in stores.

Find opportunities to create new indexed pages. Social distancing is a brand new term in 2020 as far as most of us are concerned. You might be selling kites or hand sanitizer – both items you could incorporate a “social distancing” tag into. Stay ahead of trending terms and see what people search on your site, browse forums in your niche, and follow the news.

If demand has slowed:

Craft messaging for the moment. If your message is all about how a basketball jersey you sell will look great at a favorite team’s games, then revisit the copy for a better fit with the times. You can sell the same item with a message about supporting your team through thick and thin from the comfort of the living room.

Read on for more SEO tips on changes in demand such as creating virtual try-ons or addressing common user questions.

What Is Evergreen Content? How To Create Content That Lasts

SEPTEMBER 20, 2020

Some things are gone before you know it. Things like planking or the Harlem Shake.

On the other hand, other things refuse to fade away. In the marketing universe, we refer to this type of relevant material as evergreen content. And SEMrush is sharing all we need to know to create this lush, lasting content.

Evergreen content is based on topics that people are constantly searching. They exist through the ups and downs of more seasonal trends such as holiday-specific content, product releases, and news articles. If the interest never wanes, then it’s evergreen.

It’s great for SEO because ranking takes time and evergreen content is more or less timeless. It can afford the time it takes for higher SERP rankings because the content doesn’t go out of style.

Pick a topic relevant to your business and look into keywords surrounding the topic. How do those keywords or phrases trend? Dig deep from broader topics until you’ve found something more specific you can cover.

Take a look at what ranks #1 and #2 for the keywords you’re targeting. Your content needs to be at least as good as these pieces of content if you want your own content featured there instead. And once you’ve published your content – promote, promote, promote!

Though set up for the long haul, Evergreen Content isn’t a write it and forget it piece. Your content will need updating! Although the main idea behind the content will stay relevant, details in your post can easily become outdated. Think dates, statistics, or even quotes. If your piece of content is about the cost of housing in a particular city neighborhood, the subject may always stay relevant, but the figures you use probably won’t.

Start writing your own evergreen content, and read some more tips on the topic from SEMrush.

Five stats to improve your 2021 marketing strategy

SEPTEMBER 16, 2020

Believe it or not, we’re about to enter Q4 2020. Just enough time for Mother Nature to round off the year with a sharknado or whatever comes next.

We’ve all learned how we can shift our strategies in response to national and global events. Marketing strategies will always need fine-tuning going forward, but these points will get you started off on the right foot.

While we approach the holiday season, it’s not too early for some future planning, and Sprout Social has five stats for improving your 2021 marketing strategy.

People follow brands on social to stay up to date on new products and services. 57% of consumers look for new products and services on brands’ social feeds. Statistically, the majority of your followers want these updates, so make sure you deliver and keep them up to speed.
Poor customer service will chase away your social followers. Y’all know firsthand the importance of great customer service. 49% of consumers said they would unfollow a brand with poor customer service. If your customer service is lacking, then it’s time for an overhaul. Even if you have a great customer service model in place, keep in mind 79% of consumers expect you’ll respond to their questions and concerns within 24 hours.
Images and videos are a must-have for engaging social followers. This point comes up more and more in how-to articles and marketing discussions, so don’t ignore it. 68% of consumers want images in the content they consume and 50% want video. With the many tools and pools of photographs and other templates at our disposal, adding images and video to content has never been easier.

Read on for a couple more points you can incorporate into your 2021 marketing strategy.

How to Build a Brand Through Live Streaming [+ Examples]

SEPTEMBER 15, 2020

Whether it’s marketing tutorials on LinkedIn, crafty how-tos on Pinterest, or trendy challenges on TikTok, you’ve probably watched your fair share of video content across just about all the social media platforms. It’s addicting, we get it.

Video is here to stay and the best part, it’s one of the most freely creative forms of content. If you’re still developing a solid video strategy, then check out these tips from Hubspot on building a brand through live streaming.

There’s a simple relationship between live streaming and authenticity. When you go live, you project who you are and what your brand is without filtering anything out off-camera. Though live content may not look as flawless and cleaned up as an edited video, it has its benefits.
Brand news and messages are great for live video. Think about the market for live news as we know it. People like hearing about things right as they happen. Speak to your audience directly and they’ll tune in.
Live interviews offer in-the-moment, captivating conversations people can connect with. More and more, people are enjoying the details in interviews many outlets would cut out. People can get the full scoop right away.
Webinars are best when they offer some engagement. You’re promising your audience some valuable insights, tools, or knowledge they can use in their professions, so let them engage with you in a live setting.
Include a live Q&A after your webinar or as a standalone event for an open line of communication. This will demonstrate you care about listening to the thoughts, questions, and concerns from your audience. Plus, Q&As help further position you as an expert if the session pertains to your field.

Hubspot covers product promotions and releases and influencer live streams plus examples of brands successfully using live streaming in this post, so give them a read.

Auditing Google Ads Accounts: 4 Tips to Ensure Efficiency

SEPTEMBER 15, 2020

Auditing accounts and processes often uncover flaws and areas of improvement, but it also shines a light on things you’re doing right.

The more rock-solid our methodologies become, the easier we can control and replicate them. Search Engine Journal is giving us the low-down with 4 essential tips for auditing Google Ads accounts.

Location Performance. Default settings can make or break the success of your ads. While there is a rationale behind defaults, they’re not for everybody. When you’re setting up ads in Google (or Facebook), the location by default will deliver to people in the said location and people who “show interest in” this location. In other words, those outside your specified location will see your ads, too.

Make sure you double-check that location setting. Some metropolitan areas where people commute to and from suburbs would make sense if ads are served in the nearby area.

Query Matching. Finding queries matching the wrong ad group is not so easy if you’re just going through the Search Query Report. Google does many things well, but sometimes 3rd party tools show us what we need.

Go ahead and download your terms in a .csv and open in Excel. Here you’ll better visualize how many ad groups your search terms match up with.

Check for Competition Changes. Understanding your competitors’ strategies and how they stack up against you is crucial when forming your own strategies.

Using the Auction Insights tool will let you see breakdowns of impression. Then you can further filter down by device and time. This will reveal shifts in impression share so you know where you should keep a close eye going forward.

For some visual instruction in breaking down these tips, see the full post from Search Engine Journal.

17 Untapped Ways to Find New Content Ideas

SEPTEMBER 13, 2020

Creating content is a never-ending process for marketers. Content carries your meticulously crafted message and captivates audiences. Searching for content ideas is a large part of creating it.

Many of us have our go-to sources for content, but finding a few more is always helpful. Today, Backlinko is reviewing 17 untapped ways to find new content ideas.

Use Google Image Tags. At the top of an image search, there’s a row of words related to the word you searched. Related words often mean related topics. Incorporate these into your topics by combining them with your overarching topic.
Facebook Ad Library. Check out the Facebook Ads your competitors are running with a quick search. Focus in on paid ads for the content they’ve published. It’s quite likely this content is generating great results or else they wouldn’t pay for its promotion. Take note of what sets the content apart and what words and phrases are used in its promotion.
Scan Blog Comments. Sometimes the search volume of a keyword doesn’t meet the level of popularity you’d want when piecing together new content. But don’t discount the keyword just yet. Take another look at what your readers are commenting on your blog. If they’re asking over and over for a piece of content, then don’t ignore them.
Product Hunt. Head over to Product Hunt and find the top products of the day, week, and month. But rather than just writing about those products, write about the problems those products solve. You’ll tap right into some serious pain points.

Did you find these helpful? This is only the beginning, so check out the rest.

3 Ways to Boost Your Visual Marketing Results

SEPTEMBER 9, 2020

Thousands of things vie for our attention every day – especially on social media. With all the different formats and mediums for sharing content, creating unique content is necessary for standing out.

Consider these 3 ways to boost your visual marketing results from Convince & Convert when you’re designing images.

Turn your social media images into artwork. Photoshop or whichever photo editor you use is your best friend here. Your photos set against urban or natural scenes are well composed, but they may not pop the way a digitally manipulated photo will pop. It’s time for some experimentation.
Brand your images well. Images are more memorable than text. You could watermark your images or put your name in the caption, but there are better ways of branding imagery. Since people will be focused on your content, let the content speak for itself. Use a recognizable color palette and ensure each image you post fits the narrative your brand conveys.

Repurpose your images everywhere. Create the illusion of your brand being everywhere by posting a given image on various platforms. When a user hops over to LinkedIn from Instagram, maintain your presence with the same or similar images. This will keep your brand in peoples’ minds as they navigate the digital realm.

Once you have success with these tips in your visual marketing on organic channels, it’s worth trying your hand at paid advertising. The same elements will be incorporated and you’ll expand your reach significantly.

Find your brand’s style and keep iterating as the world and all its content continues changing. P.S. Convince & Convert posted this piece saying there are 5 ways to boost visual marketing results, but we only saw 3. If you see 4 and 5, let us know!

Nine Expert Tactics to Accelerate Your SEO Rankings

SEPTEMBER 8, 2020

When’s the last time you clicked to page 2 of your Search Engine Results? It’s certainly the road less traveled. We all know it’s not where you want your own content ending up.

Fortunately, Visiture has nine expert tactics to accelerate your rankings so you’re always on page 1 – and hopefully right at the top.

Create Superior Content. You won’t have any difficulty finding this tip anywhere because it holds so true. SEO needs content, and great content is a crucial step in ranking well. Write about hot topics and even step up product descriptions if they seem a little lackluster.

Optimize Content for Featured Snippets. Position Zero is pretty tough to beat. Often it gives people exactly what they’re looking for with zero clicks involved. Create pointed answers to relevant questions. These succinct bits will have a greater chance of showing up as snippets.

Include and Optimize Visuals. A wall of text doesn’t entice people the way imagery does. A mix of text and images will keep visitors on your site longer which helps give your site a bump in rank.

Utilize Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI). Typically a content piece is centered around a certain keyword. LSIs are keywords related to your main keyword. If your keyword is “bicycle”, then your LSIs could include “outdoor recreation” or “exercise”. Weave these into your posts so Google can better understand the post’s purpose.

Snatch Up Broken Links. People get a lot of information on Wikipedia. Use this to your advantage by better establishing your authority with citations needed and dead links. Look for stats without sources and link to your own content if it’s relevant. Do the same for broken links on Wikipedia if your content applies.

Accelerate away with the rest of these 9 tactics.