How to Write a Blog Post – What to Include (and What to Leave Out)

Few people know this but, a really short blog post will likely be ignored by the search engines: Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc. The same is true of the copy on your website’s pages. The rule of thumb here is to ensure you write at least 300 words if you hope to get noticed (about 275 is OK). Basically, the SEs think, “If you can't write a blog post with at least 300 your subject must not be very important. (And you know what? They’re probably right about that!)

They won't punish you by refusing to rank your website due to lack of content, they’ll just ignore it. So, your first goal when creating blog posts or page copy is… 300 words minimum!

Use Section Headings in Content (Like This One)

Next, split your copy and posts into sections and introduce the subject that follows with a “Heading”. (That H1, H2, H3, H4 stuff you’ve heard about.)

You see, the search engines are designed by human beings who tend to be kind of lazy. As a result, the easiest way to figure out what your content is about is for the SEs to scan the title, headings, Metadata, and the code for images. Only if they can't figure out what your subject is will they actually “crawl” the content for more clues. So, simply make it easier for them by optimizing your content as we described.

As a reminder, visitors to websites can also be lazy, or busy, and they want to know what your subject is and what you have to say about it as quickly as possible. You literally have about half a minute to catch and keep their attention!

They also scan instead of reading; trying to decide if your content has value to them. If their scanning tells them “NO”, they’ll leave (and may never return!). One way to slow them down and (hopefully) get a better idea of what you have to offer is to break up the content even more with bullet points.

• Bullet points naturally attract the eye.

• Once you catch their eyes,

• You have a better chance of actually getting their attention.

• Once they stop scanning and start reading though,

• You’d better deliver some good content or, they’ll again be gone!

The idea is to “play to your audience” not just with what you have to say but in the way you say it – a way that they can absorb. In other words, give them what they need in smaller doses using tricks that slow them down so they take the time to absorb your content.

The Best Length for a Blog Post is…

We’ve already shared the tip about minimum word count for posts and page content. Now we have a whole new dilemma – recommended maximum word count, or – how long should a blog post be?

That’s a tough one to answer here because it depends on what you do, the makeup of your audience, and how technical your posts might be. Generally, we recommend posts be about 500-750 words max. This should be enough to get your main points across without turning it into an online novel. It’s also short enough that you won't scare readers away when they realize you're asking them to spend an hour digesting your content.

Within the text itself, you can also toss in bold text, italics, and underlining to catch the eye of your visitors. Professional copywriters worldwide use these techniques to stop the reader from scanning content and actually read it.

We’ve Hit the Limit!

Well, we’re at about 650 words right now so we’re going to follow our own advice and stop to let you ruminate on this. But please, consider turning your ideas into a content plan and create some fresh content using these tips for how to write a blog post. We think you’ll find it much easier than expected.

Ted remains available with practical, industry-focused strategic marketing tips. With more than 25 years of experience, he could be an invaluable resource on whom you might rely to grow your business.

To learn more about the lines we represent or for business consulting to the trade… Contact TD Fall today.

Strategic Marketing Tips – Some proven things you can do for yourself

In a recent article from the online marketing gurus at HubSpot, they shared their 20 Best Marketing Tips. When it comes to strategic marketing tips, we tend to offer our thoughts based on industry-specific needs. The data and expert opinions shared in their blog however are focused on a broader, longer-term view of online marketing success.

Both approaches are valid, so long as one applies the tips to their specific marketing strategy and industry.

Now, because we are us, we’ve decided not to share all 20 tips but have chosen our favorites instead. FYI… We may also pick a few of our least favorite tips to share. Why? Well, again, we’re us! (Opinionated, much?)

What is an Inbound Marketing Strategy?

Outbound marketing is all about promoting your products and services to a targeted, or broad-based, audience. Your website, blog, email subscription list, and social media platforms are all examples of an outbound marketing strategy.

“Inbound marketing, on the other hand, “centers around meeting consumers on the channels they’re already on. Employing the strategy follows the ‘attract, delight, engage’ model, helping you create content tailored to your different audience segments at their respective place in the buyer's journey. 80% of marketers plan to keep the same or increase their inbound marketing budget, and 11% of marketers say it will be their biggest investment in the next year.”

This approach requires that you do a little more research to find out where your targeted audience hangs out, whether online or at your local Starbucks, and tailor your marketing message specifically to them. In other words, if you love Twitter but they’re all hangin’ on Facebook, well… Time to de-Tweet yourself.

Brief Videos Generate More Interest

There is no denying the power of video marketing. The question though is, what form should your videos take?

“Short-form video is the second most effective media format … Marketers also say that it’s a worthwhile investment for lead generation (86%). This trend shift aligns with the attention spans of audiences that are much more fast-paced, so shorter forms of content get right to the point and allow audiences to consume and then move on. Hence, TikTok’s popularity, as it relies heavily on short-form video.”

Stated simply, consumers tend to have the attention span of a hamster, so… Give ‘em what they want: brief answers to frequently asked questions and explanations of who you are and what you can do for them.

Audio Can Be as Powerful as Video

We believe the increase in audio consumption such as podcasts by consumers may have less to do with a short attention span than it does with the trend toward multi-tasking. Again, this is a way to meet your audience where they are. That is, many folks are reading, typing, scrolling, or even chatting while also listening to something online. It’s tough to watch a video AND multi-task so they use their ears instead of their eyes.

“Whether it be a podcast featuring your business founders, or different Twitter Spaces discussions about business-related topics, consumers in 2022 will hear audio from businesses more than they ever have before. HubSpot found that 80% of marketers plan to invest the same amount or increase their budget in audio content and podcasts in 2022.”

This is a perfect strategy for the shy online marketer, the person who hates seeing themselves in videos, and so, refuses to use them despite their power as a marketing tool. (See, we gotcha’ here.)

Respect Your Audience

The “information age” in which we find ourselves has informed not only business owners and marketers; it’s done the same for consumers. (Well, a good portion of them anyway.

“David Ogilvy is famously quoted as saying: ‘The consumer isn’t a moron; she is your wife’ … Ogilvy built his advertising empire upon deeply understanding his target audiences. Although his comment may be dated, the core principle holds -- your customers are smarter than you think. It will only serve you to do extensive market research under the assumption that your customers are doing their research, too.”

To presume your clients and prospects are completely ignorant of the interior design process or the value of luxury furnishings is to disrespect them – and lose them as a client. And yet, with the pace of change we’re seeing in various technologies, along with innovations in materials and manufacturing processes, you must also realize that consumers often “don’t know what they don’t know.”

Our Least Favorite Marketing Tip

While we absolutely agree with the HubSpot experts that, “Now, more than ever, consumers lean on trust as a leading factor when deciding whether to do business with a company.”

Where we disagree with them is their suggested approach to building trust. The appeal of  “brands that champion social responsibility and take a stand on important issues” is, in our opinion, limited. It can also be downright dangerous.

What do we mean by this? The phrase “social responsibility” has become greatly politicized over the past decade, to the point that it has lost all semblance of ethical value to some half of the country’s population. Because of this, business owners should take care not to be seen as pandering and/or “virtue signaling” to an audience who may resent it.

Just our two cents. (Or, did we overpay?)

Where to Learn What Works

Remember, there’s plenty more where these ideas came from at HubSpot.com.

But, if you’d like to know what actually works in the interior design and luxury furnishings industry, Ted remains available with practical, industry-focused strategic marketing tips. With more than 25 years of experience, he could be an invaluable resource on whom you might rely to grow your business.

To learn more about the lines we represent or for business consulting to the trade… Contact TD Fall today.

Being an Expert Can Be Dangerous to Your Messaging

While it’s not particularly flattering to admit, we all tend to seek approval from others. Being an expert in a particular niche, that sort of confirmation will most commonly come from others in your field. OK, so?

It should come as no surprise then that those with similar interests find comfort and support by associating with each other. Educators tend to associate with educators; online coaches tend to hang together; website designers and marketers are often most comfortable with others of a like mind. Whole industries can become exclusive and the subjects of discussion among experts climb to higher and higher levels.

In fact, this is the very reason industry-related associations exist.

The danger with such insular relationships is two-fold: first, that our view of the world can become dangerously narrow, and second, that we may forget who butters our bread – those with less knowledge.

Why Messaging is So Critical to Online Marketing Success

Receiving support from other experts is rewarding but, what happens when you're thrown together with a group of laypeople – or just one, a potential client?

Both clients and prospects will commonly voice a desire but, because they lack the base of knowledge to make it happen, they search for an expert. In the “information age,” they’ll jump online to search for solutions but will surely need more.

That is where you come in. And, that is where your experience, your respect for them, and their efforts to learn, will enable you to deliver a message that will resonate with them – and help you close more clients.

While you obviously can’t “know too much” about your area of expertise, you must always be mindful that most of your clients and prospects will know far less. It’s your job to help them learn what they need to make an informed buying decision.

When you're able to use being an expert to help them, the fact that you're the one who did so should take care of the rest. (That is, closing the sale.)

Need Help with Your Messaging?

If you need help transitioning from being an expert designer to being someone who can clearly articulate your marketing message, Ted may be able to help as an expert in business consulting to the trade. To find out more… Contact TD Fall today.

Online Marketing is the Art of Knowing What’s Possible And Doing It

There are so many “tips” available from online marketing experts these days that it’s easy to get overwhelmed. When that happens, when there are simply too many choices, most people simply give up and choose to do nothing. For us, the real key to successfully marketing a business online is – knowing what’s possible, doing that, and doing only that.

In other words, as an entrepreneur, you need to know what you're capable of and limit yourself to those things alone. Granted, it’s tempting to try to be all things to all people but that rarely works. It also leads to stress, exhaustion, and sleepless nights!

The Art of the Possible

This brings to mind the classic quotation that is normally attributed to Abraham Lincoln about whether you can “please all of the people all of the time.” In fact, the Lincoln quote was quite different (and quite a bit more cynical):

“You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time.” – Abraham Lincoln (emphasis added)

For cynical marketers (and far too many politicians), this is a truism that often has them crying themselves to sleep at night. For the rest of us, the gentler interpretation of poet John Lydgate has more appeal:

“You can please some of the people all of the time, you can please all of the people some of the time, but you can’t please all of the people all of the time.” – John Lydgate (emphasis added)

Perhaps we can simplify that even further with this famous (or infamous) movie line:

“A man’s got to know his limitations.” – Clint Eastwood as Dirty Harry

Knowing Your Limitations Has Value

What’s the point of all this quoting and deep thinking? Simply this… That when you consider an online marketing strategy, you have to start from this basic premise… YOU know what's possible – your prospects don't.

This is especially true today, when people’s values, needs, and priorities may have changed dramatically.

Consider for a moment these shifting attitudes from the business and personal worlds, in response to the health crisis which all of us desperately hope has peaked.

According to Fortune.com, the top concerns of business leaders will be:

• 48% say their top concerns over returning to business as usual are health and safety

• 38% cited financial management and cash flow

• 27% cited concerns about new laws and regulations

• 25% of business leaders say the biggest challenge to working remotely is productivity and motivation

• 24% said connectivity with coworkers

• 19% home-office setup needs

• 48% of business leaders think technology spending at their company will increase [in our new reality]

Whether your business is focused on professionals or consumers, these changing behaviors and priorities could have a direct effect on your target audience, which will affect you and your design or furnishings business.

Where Can You Be Supportive?

For many, it’s a new world out there. For some, the changes are practical while, for others, they are driven by fear. Understanding which of these you are dealing with will go a long way to determining how you can offer the support and services prospective clients may need. And, since they often do not know what they do not know, it’s your responsibility to educate and illuminate what’s possible for them.

That is what online marketing has always been, and always will be about, the art of knowing and sharing what’s possible!

If you're still unsure of how to share your expert knowledge of the possible through online marketing, Ted offers business consulting to the trade that can help you figure it out. Simply… Contact TD Fall today.

Yoast SEO Plugin for Your WordPress Business Website

First, let’s all calm down. Just because we put the acronym “SEO” in the title of this blog post about the Yoast SEO Plugin for WordPress, screaming and crying will help no one! (Not even us!) No, today we’re going to keep it short and simple, as well as clear and concise. (Hey, isn’t that the same thing as “short”?)

So, SEO is something that many fear for a number of reasons, none of them grounded in reality. For these folks, they also love to hear that “SEO is dead” from a bunch of so-called “experts.” Nothing could be further from the truth.

After all, SEO simply stands for “Search Engine Optimization” which is simply about making your business website more attractive to those very same search engines. And YES, there are more than one SE that people use besides Google. (Huh, who knew?)

To simplify things even further for you, there is a fantastic FREE WordPress plugin available that tells you how to best optimize your content, from your pages to your posts! The tagline for this wonderful product is, “Yoast, SEO for everyone.” And that means YOU!

Yoast and WordPress are Made for Each Other

Now, this only works if you’re using WordPress as your content management system (and who isn’t, right?) plus, there are two versions of the plugin available. “Yoast SEO Free contains everything that you need to manage your SEO, and the Yoast SEO Premium plugin and its extensions unlock even more tools and functionality.”

The premium version is just $99 a year but the free version is usually more than adequate for most website owners. It’s also pretty easy to install and start using it. As Yoast explains the installation and activation process for the free plugin:

Yoast SEO Plugin Installation

Starting with Yoast SEO consists of just two steps: installing and setting up the plugin. Yoast SEO is designed to work with your site’s specific needs, so don’t forget to go through the Yoast SEO configuration workout as explained in the ‘after activation’ step!

INSTALL YOAST SEO FROM WITHIN WORDPRESS

1. Visit the plugins page within your dashboard and select ‘Add New.’

2. Search for ‘Yoast SEO.’

3. Activate Yoast SEO from your Plugins page.

4. Go to ‘after activation’ below.

INSTALL YOAST SEO MANUALLY

1. Upload the ‘wordpress-seo’ folder to the /wp-content/plugins/ directory.

2. Activate the Yoast SEO plugin through the ‘Plugins’ menu in WordPress.

3. Go to ‘after activation’ below.

AFTER ACTIVATION

1. You should see (a notice to start) the Yoast SEO configuration workout.

2. Go through the configuration workout and set up the plugin for your site.

3. You’re done!

And that’s it! You’re now ready to optimize every piece of content on your website, which only takes about 10-15 minutes once you get rolling.

Using Yoast SEO is Easy

How easy is it to use the plugin? Really easy, because Yoast places a small window in your editing dashboard with simple instructions on how to improve the optimization of your content.it will look something like this:

As you can see, Yoast is giving you clues to improve the SEO of your blog post.

1. Yoast recommends a minimum of three hundred words for any copy, to better catch the attention of the search engines. The thinking seems to be, that if you can’t say three hundred words about something, it will have less value to Google.

2. The meta description is that bit you see just below the URL in the search results. It’s best to craft a description that contains your focus keyword, as well as a fully expressed concept but fits within a 156-character limit.

3. The focus keyword should also be in the title, preferably the opening of the title, e.g., “Customer Service – 5 Tips to Do It Better”.

4. It should also be in the first fifty words of the post, as well as the last one hundred words. (You can use a variation of the focus keyword throughout, to prevent Google from thinking you are “keyword stuffing” your post.)

5. Try to use a heading or two in the copy, as section separators, and designate them H2 and H3. (WordPress will use the title as an H1 automatically.)

These five steps should get you the green light from Yoast, no problem. (Instead of the bright red sad face!) The Yoast tutorials will tell you where all of the Metadata can be entered. If you drag your cursor over the items at the top of the Yoast SEO box in the dashboard, you’ll see the little pencil to the right, which indicates you can edit the text in each of those areas.

We hope this helps reduce the fear of SEO and that, installing and using the free Yoast SEO Plugin, will enable you to improve your website for the search engines. (Without hiring some expensive “expert”!)

As always, of course, Ted is available for business consulting to the industry and as a guide for improving your online marketing efforts. For more… Contact TD Fall today.

Generating and Screening Leads on Social Media – Is it worth it?

Is social media a valuable tool for generating and screening leads? Well, if you’ve read anything about online marketing over the past year (or 10, 15, 20 years), you may wonder how we could ask such a question. The idea that we could even express doubt about such a fundamental marketing principle must have you shaking your heads.

In reality, we’re not suggesting social media is a poor choice for marketing your business, generating leads, or screening them. On the contrary. What we are trying to suggest is that not every social platform is right for every business – and that likely includes yours.

But wait. Doesn’t every business coach in the world say you have to be on Facebook? Isn’t it true that if you don’t have a YouTube channel loaded with videos your business will die, die, die? And hey, what about Twitter? My sister’s husband’s cousin is in sales and he told me it’s the best way to reach my largely female target audience. (Yeah well, turns out… 70% of Twitter users are male, while only 30% are female.)

Which Platform Should You Target?

Let’s take a quick look at some of the social networks that are most popular with online marketers, shall we? (And please, excuse the hints of skepticism we display here. Again, there is no single answer to the question of which one is best for your business.)

• Facebook – Do you have what it takes to compete for the attention of your target audience with some one-third of the world’s population? (That’s 2.6 billion of the 7.9 billion or so on the planet who are on FB.)

• Twitter – If you want to work with clients who have the attention span of a hamster, the 240-character messages allowed in tweets is the perfect venue for finding prospects. Largely male prospects! (see above)

• Instagram – This media-sharing platform would seem an ideal place to market a design-related business. And it is, that is if you're looking for a platform that’s dominated by Gen Z and Millennial females under age 34 (about 34% of all users).

• YouTube – While many do not recognize the video-sharing site to be a social media platform – it is. With some 2.3 billion subscribers, it is second only to Facebook and ranks as the second most popular search engine behind its parent company, Google.

• LinkedIn – For those who work with businesses of any size, this B2B platform offers quite a bit of potential. With 310 million active monthly users, with 196 million in the US, about 43% are female and 57% are male worldwide. More than 50% of US College Graduates use LinkedIn and there are 61 million senior-level influencers and 65 million decision-makers on LinkedIn. (Omnicore)

Now what? Where do you go from here?

Targeting Your Ideal Client Profile

We hate to say it, but must, it’s time to do some homework.

The good news is there’s a super simple way to get started on this task. To begin, remember that although your ideal client profile will be a fictional persona, it should be firmly based on reality. Take a look at your current clients and identify the ones you enjoyed working with most and the types of projects that brought you the best business.

Better yet, rank them. Who did you love working with and why? Who was OK to work with, and who caused more problems than they were worth? (Sometimes, it’s easier to profile the “Never again” persona than the “I loved working with them” client. But, both have value and can be used to build opposing profiles.)

Then, build your ideal client profile on those relationships and projects for a realistic target you’re more likely to hit moving forward. And, while it may sound counterintuitive, the more specific you make your ideal client profile, the stronger it will be. A detailed profile allows you to focus your search and screening processes to find the exact areas and client types that will grow your business.

And here’s the real gold nugget to be found by doing this… With this kind of profile in hand, it will be much easier to find and target the social media platform they use. Easy peasy, right?

Of course, there’s plenty more to say about generating and screening leads for your business, whether on social media or elsewhere. Don’t worry though, we have ways to help with that!

Of course, there are other ways to use for generating and screening leads. If you are curious about what some of these might be, Ted is available for business consulting to help. Simply Get in touch with TD Fall today.

Business Building – Tips to Increase Profit Margins

It’s a shame so many consumers get confused by the difference between markups and profit margins – as do not a few business owners. The difference between a 100% markup versus a 50% margin is vast. Yet, it is often impossible to explain it in ways that the average person understands that your profit margin is not really two times what you paid but merely half the selling price. Further, that bit of profit above the cost of merchandise must then be used to cover the overhead incurred by running your business: salaries and benefits, rent, utilities, insurance, training, investing in new products, the list at times seems endless!

Too often, if a potential client learns of such a markup they will scream, “That’s a 100% profit” and run as fast as they can from you, leaving you in their dust like the Road Runner does to Wile E Coyote!

On the other hand, finding ways to protect and increase profit margins whenever possible is critical to the success of your business, whether you're an interior designer or luxury furnishings dealer.

These thoughts came to us thanks to a recent article at the Business of Home website titled, “Stocking dealers get better pricing on product. Here’s how you become one.”

Becoming a Stocking Dealer will Increase Profit Margins

“The discounted pricing trade brands offer designers allows them a better margin on the products they place in their projects. But many companies also offer an even deeper discount – one that comes with more strings, but that can radically transform [your] firm’s bottom line.”

Or, more simply, the more you buy the better your price. This means, by stocking the furnishings you most often place in your client’s homes in your showroom, making them available for immediate delivery, will get you deeper discounts.

While this is a fairly standard practice for furniture dealers, interior designers may find it difficult to alter their order-as-you-go business model. However, there are many perks to becoming a stocking dealer beyond potentially realizing an exponential return on investment.

Benefits of Becoming a Factory Direct Product Dealer

The benefits of building these more direct relationships with your vendors will often include much more than deeper discounts on their products. These may include improved access to “ [fabric] swatches, samples, and detailed product questions, [and] access to a vendor’s internal online product catalog so [you] can instantly check price lists, see if items are in stock, and monitor shipments.” And, as the article explains … Wait, there’s more!

• Setting up Your Space – Before pursuing any sort of partnership with a brand, most designers must overcome one major hurdle: the retail space. Stocking dealer relationships are typically contingent upon a designer owning a physical shop or showroom where products can be displayed and sold. It makes sense: Brands are investing in their retail partners by offering better margins in exchange for sales floor exposure and a resulting increase in orders.

• Getting A Foot in the Door – After you’ve pinned down your brick-and-mortar strategy, the next step to landing that coveted stocking dealer partnership is meeting with the vendor’s regional sales representative, who acts as a gatekeeper. Home furnishings trade shows like High Point Market are a good place to begin putting a face to the names behind promising brands.

• Making a Deal – While setting yourself up for success and courting the right brand are key to the process of netting a brand partnership, there’s another crucial step to take before inking a deal: Doing your due diligence to make sure that the brand is a fit for you. Then, it’s time to hammer out the terms of the financial arrangement, including a minimum opening order and requirements for annual spending.

• The Payoff for Dealers – Though each brand’s approach to signing a stocking dealer varies widely, there’s a benefit to that as well – designers have space to negotiate a partnership that best fits their business. With a basic knowledge of how the process works and a willingness to go out and hustle, you’re already on your way.

Needless to say, there are other ways for designers to increase profit margins on product sales. If you are curious about what some of these might be, Ted is available for business consulting to help. Simply Get in touch with TD Fall today.

When Social Media Marketing is a Waste of Time… And when it’s NOT!

It should go without saying that the marketing experts who tell you that you MUST spend time and money on social media marketing are often those who sell their marketing support as a service. Then again, who else would be able to share such expertise?

(Interesting how that opening phrase is so often followed by the very thing that should go without saying, isn’t it?)

What’s the point of this? Well, as with pretty much everything, there are certain truths about human behavior that must be recognized – and there are others that are thought to be true but are not (for whatever reason).

Here are a few truths about social media marketing that you need to accept:

• Social media marketing is NOT for everyone or every business

• Facebook is a great B2C platform and just OK for business to business

• LinkedIn is a great B2B platform and not so good for business to consumer

• YouTube should be thought of as a social media platform

• Instagram is a great video marketing tool (by design)

• Pinterest is just “Meh” for marketing

• Twitter is a pit and using it will shrink your IQ!!!

It must also be said that any platform with a billion or more subscribers means you have a ton of competition and, as a result, you should not expect overnight success with your marketing strategy.

So, now that we’ve shot down the generally accepted idea that you will never be successful without a heavy focus on social media, let’s take a look at when you should use it.

When Social Media IS Good for Marketing

As the saying goes in sports these days, the biggest ability is availability – and social media makes you available to your audience while making them accessible to you.

In other words, using social media has value because you can promote your products and/or services, inform and educate potential clients, stay in touch with current customers, and reach out to your target audience from anywhere.

According to multiple sources, the average time spent on social media is 142 minutes per day in 2018 (up from 135 in 2017), and young people from 16-24 spend 3 hours a day on various social networks.

There simply is NO other marketing strategy that allows that kind of accessibility combined with such availability, enabling you to:

• Build brand awareness

• Increase engagement

• Target your audience

• Generate leads

• Enhance your reputation as an expert

Even your business website does not offer this kind of access to such a vast audience though, of course, one of the goals of your social media campaign should be to get folks to visit your site “To Learn More!” or “Get Your FREE Gift!”.

Choosing Your Social Media Platform

Another fantastic feature of using social media for marketing is that you have a somewhat captive audience. On average, 2.4 billion Facebook users spend nearly 40 minutes on the site every day. With 133 million users in the US, LinkedIn is 277% more effective at generating leads than Facebook and Twitter.

With 1.5 billion monthly active users, 5 billion YouTube videos are viewed every day. Marketing to an audience that big can have huge advantages (while always remembering that is a ton of competition). Still, videos are powerful tools for building your rep and brand, while also boosting audience engagement.

While Twitter does have some appeal for marketing due to a large audience (330 million monthly active users), audience demographics can make a massive difference in how your message is received. For example, nearly two-thirds of Twitter users are aged 35-65, with a whopping 66% male and just 34% female. Further, by its nature (and character limit), the platform appeals to those with a short attention span. Do these data fit your ideal client profile?

Finally, Instagram and Pinterest appeal to a younger demographic. Instagram users spend nearly an hour on site every day, checking out up to 25 million business profiles. And, 50% of US millennials use Pinterest every month, while 80% prefer using the mobile app over the desktop version.

So yes, marketing on social media is a waste of time for some but, for others, it can be an invaluable tool. But… it obviously goes without saying (see what we did there? That’s known as a call-back. LOL), that the makeup of your target audience will determine how you develop, and where you use, a social media marketing strategy.

Social media marketing should be just one tool you employ in your overall marketing strategy. If you'd like to learn more about it and other marketing tools, Ted is available for business consulting to the trade. So feel free to… Get in touch with TD Fall today.

How to Use Bad Ideas to Build Your Online Reputation

As participation in internet marketing continues to grow, and as more people declare themselves “experts” to their audience, bad ideas, misconceptions, and just plain stinkin’ thinkin’ proliferate. While such ill-conceived thinking can be problematic for consumers, these poorly conceived and misunderstood areas can be a great opportunity for you to build your online reputation – as long as the bad ideas are not yours!

In other words, by debunking popular misconceptions, errors in judgment, and poorly explained answers to common questions, you will build your reputation as an expert in your field. And, as your reputation grows, so will your audience, your subscriber list, your list of leads, and your conversions!

In many ways, your online reputation is your greatest asset. In fact, it literally represents the unified cerebral construct everyone who “meets” you online shares about you; a mental image of who you are and what you have to offer.

Of course, the clearer that image is, the stronger their perception of you and the more valuable you become to them.

This makes building and protecting your online reputation of paramount importance for both the short- and long-term success of your business.

Build and Protect Your Reputation Online

According to an article at Entrepreneur.com, there are three areas of focus for creating a positive online presence – and keeping it intact:

• Create great content – The paradoxical nature of content creation as it relates to online marketing is that, while you’re creating content with the hope that it will eventually help convert, the best content is rarely created with that in mind. Consumers today are pretty savvy and expect a certain level of effort to be put into any content they consume, especially if it’s designed to turn them into paying customers.

• Social media presence – It’s hard, if not impossible, for your audience to care about your social media accounts if you’re not using them. So, if you want to turn your business into an online authority, you’ll need to be ahead of your competition when it comes to social. That means having a consistent posting schedule, using a variety of different social media platforms, and, most importantly, actually engaging with your audience (i.e., responding to their comments and questions).

• Testimonials, reviews, and perceptions – Known as “social proof”, what others think of you will make a huge impression on your audience and potential clients. Digital word of mouth is one of the most persuasive forms of marketing to the modern consumer, and it tends to be a massive aspect of the decision-making process for the average person because people trust other people. If an unbiased third party tells someone your business is not to be trusted, then you’d better believe people are going to have some reservations. Then again, a few positive reviews can lead to increased engagement (at worst) and inspire more conversions (at best).

Ultimately, the key is understanding how to be successful in leveraging the tools and techniques of reputation management to effectively build your online reputation, enabling you to meet your goals.

If you're ready to work with a professional consultant who can help you build your online reputation, feel free to… Get in touch with TD Fall today.

The Online Marketing Process – Don’t Be Intimidated by Market Research

Marketing is and always has been something of a process. Online marketing though is about nothing but process. In other words, marketing has always involved engaging with prospects in the hope that you can nurture them toward buying. That is far easier to do in a traditional face-to-face encounter however, than in a virtual environment.

The phrase you should focus on in the above sentence is “traditional face-to-face encounter”. Why? Because even today, despite a quarter-century of internet marketing, there remains very little that can be thought of as traditional in an online encounter – and even less that’s done face-to-face. (Despite the rise in Zooming!)

Where the Marketing Process Begins

From product development surveys to establishing your ideal client profile and getting to know your competition, the online marketing process begins with research: market research. After all, if you don’t know who your target audience is and what their pain points are, you’ll have no idea what kind of product or service they need, or how to present your targeted solutions to them.

Having said that (repeatedly), here are five critical steps in the online marketing process:

• Messaging – Telling people who you are and what you have to offer are the keys to effective messaging. Now, while that may seem obvious, too many marketers struggle to explain the second half of that step – they forget that what they have to offer is benefits. If you can’t communicate how your prospects will benefit from doing business with you, your marketing strategy will fail. That is, ALL of your messaging must be benefits-based.

• Bribery – Not to put too fine a point on it (and with tongue firmly planted in cheek), using optin gifts to build your email list and begin the engagement process is nothing less than bribery. However, it’s an accepted form of the practice, and asking for an email address in exchange for a high-value digital “Freebie” is a standard practice among all online marketing experts. In short, if you're not offering at least one optin at your website, you’re not actually marketing your business. Plus, it’s better to have more than one optin because first, there is no one-size-fits-all solution for your audience and second, you're going to need them as a way to nurture your list.

• Nurturing – Despite what you may have heard, email marketing is not dead. In fact, it’s easily the best way to cultivate potential customers using a progressive series of freebies. And, according to the subscriber list-building experts at OptinMonster, “With a potential return on investment of up to 4400%, email marketing remains the best way to attract and retain customers.” Why? Well, as a quick example, the engagement rate for social media is less than 1% but for email, which reaches 85% of the people you send it to, it’s closer to 25%.

• Engagement – The follow-up to nurturing your list is building relationships. This is particularly difficult in a virtual environment but, it can certainly be done. How can you do this when you're not in a face-to-face situation? Through your messaging, optins, and nurturing. Show empathy. Be compassionate. Display your expertise. Provide understanding. Offer solutions. Build trust. Take our word for it, once they start to trust you, you're more than halfway along the path to conversion.

• Conversion – Want to know the Big Secret about why successful salespeople excel above the average? They ask for the sale! Yes, it’s really that simple. Once they’ve done all of the qualifying and presentation, they ask their client if they’re ready to buy. In the world of internet marketing, the equivalent step in the process is known as a Call-to-Action or CTA. With every blog post, with every email, with every product or service page on your website, you must ask your audience to act on something.

It’s important to always remember though that your CTAs do not always have to be about buying. Why? Because conversion is also a process! They can subscribe to your list; they can leave a comment; they can click “Reply”; they can “Click to Contact”; they can “Click to Register” for a webinar; they can “Click here to Buy”. You see, once they start acting as you ask them to, you begin to move them along the path toward buying from you!

We know this is a lot to absorb in a single blog post, and it can be intimidating, which is why Ted is available to help you with more information and consulting about the online marketing process. To learn more… Get in touch with TD Fall today.