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5 Reasons to Use HubSpot

March 9, 2020/in Articles, Brand Development, Directors /by Nicole Wagner

There are a lot of marketing platforms out there that can be incredibly helpful when it comes to creating, managing, and tracking your marketing and sales efforts. Out of these platforms, HubSpot is one of the very best. The following are five reasons to consider using HubSpot as one of your main inbound marketing tools:

1. HubSpot Functions As An All-In-One Marketing Platform

One of the biggest advantages of HubSpot is that it’s much easier to build a holistic marketing strategy because it allows you to do so many things. With it, you can monitor your contacts, nurture your leads, or track your performance. Not to mention that you can do all of this for the majority of your marketing strategies. This includes SEO, email marketing, CRM, content marketing, marketing automation, database management, and more.

Few marketing platforms are this comprehensive. Typically, businesses have to use multiple marketing tools to oversee their campaigns. Using HubSpot makes things easier, more efficient, and often less costly.

2. Use HubSpot To Create And Manage Your Contact List

One of the big challenges facing many businesses is managing an unorganized database that’s not directly connected to their sales or marketing strategy. You can segment your contact list with HubSpot, ensuring that your contacts receive information that they want to engage with.

Because you’ll be able to manage all of your marketing efforts from the HubSpot platform, you’ll be able to segment your contacts based on where they are in the sales funnel. This makes it easier to nurture leads and identify which leads your sales team can engage with.

3. Provides Excellent Reporting Features

The more control you have over being able to track the ins and outs of your campaign, the more accurately you’ll be able to judge your marketing strategies. This in turn will allow you to make more effective adjustments on the fly. HubSpot allows you to track and measure every aspect of your inbound marketing campaign by providing clear breakdowns of your social media strategies, blogging efforts, landing page success, email engagement, and much more.

In fact, their Reports Dashboard makes it easy to view these metrics at a glance. The dashboard offers the ability to see your overall performance data. You can even build custom reports that meet your company’s unique needs.

Similar Article: Choosing Hubspot CRM As Your CRM Solution

4. An Effective Long-Term Solution

HubSpot understands that most inbound marketing campaigns are long-term campaigns. As such, the marketing platform is built to oversee your campaigns over the long term. It’s scalable as well, so no matter how big your company’s marketing needs grow, HubSpot can handle them.

5. HubSpot Allows You To Obtain A Clear ROI

It used to be a real challenge to determine what your ROI (return on investment) was for your inbound marketing campaign, especially if it was spread over multiple marketing platforms. HubSpot makes it easy to obtain a clear ROI for your entire inbound strategy due to it’s ability to track and measure every aspect of your campaign. This will allow you to make more financially motivated adjustments based on your marketing budget as well.

As you can see, HubSpot addresses a number of different aspects of creating and managing an inbound marketing campaign in an efficient manner. With all its features and general ease-of-use, there are few marketing tools that can offer what HubSpot offers.

Senior Living Advertising Ideas That Avoid Stereotyping

March 4, 2020/in Advertising Agency, Articles, Blog, Directors, Senior Living Marketing /by Nicole Wagner

One of the main reasons why marketing a senior living community is so challenging is because it’s easy to fall into the trap of advertising to seniors in a stereotypical way. In fact, a recent survey of 400 seniors aged 70 or over revealed that 60 percent of respondents felt that most advertisements used stereotypes to represent seniors. Keeping that in mind, the following are a few advertising ideas to help you avoid senior living stereotypes:

Don’t Be Pushy Or Preachy

A lot of ads that target seniors tend to be on the condescending side. You’ll want to try and position yourself as an authority on the subject, but you won’t want to do so in a way that you’re telling your audience you know better than they do. This will come off as pushy or preachy, which is a tone you should avoid. Be factual and informative in an honest and respectful manner.

Focus On The Individual, Not The Demographic

One of the biggest offenses in senior stereotyping is to use actors that fit the general demographic of your audience and have them do something mundane, like smiling while they drink a glass of wine and stare out into the distance. How is your audience supposed to relate to an image like this? On the other hand, you also don’t want to deceive a senior struggling to live on their own; such as someone being helped into bed because they are too feeble to function by themselves.

Instead of trying to represent an entire demographic by the extreme ends of the spectrum, focus on the individual. What does your target audience actually want and need out of a senior living community? Highlight purposeful activities, such as actively participating in the world and continuing to pursue their passions.

Check out this article for tips on how to market senior living communities

Show Don’t Tell

Having someone speaking to the audience about the benefits of moving into your living community is a tired trope. It’s something that most seniors expect from a pamphlet. Showing is much more effective than telling. A great example of a senior living community that did this focused on showing the day-to-day lives of its residents as they dined, exercised, played pool, painted, and more — all without any dialogue whatsoever. Like they always say, an image is worth a thousand words.

Entertain Your Audience

It seems like many advertisers forget that seniors still like to be entertained and that they have a great sense of humor. You don’t need to be deadly serious when marketing towards seniors. Try to entertain them and appeal to their sense of humor — you’ll find that they’ll be much more engaged as a result.

Many senior living communities fail to market to a senior audience effectively. This is because they fall into the trap of using advertising ideas that rely on senior stereotypes. Seniors recognize these stereotypes and do not appreciate them. As a result, you will have difficulty generating interest in your community. Use these advertising ideas to help avoid stereotyping seniors in your marketing efforts.

Whats Trending in Marketing For February 2020

March 2, 2020/in Articles, Directors, Marketing Strategy, Trending /by Nicole Wagner

Being informed about current and recent marketing trends, is an excellent tool for advertisers to have. That way, you can evaluate past strategies and find new ways to stay ahead of the competition. We’re aware that keeping up with these trends can often be difficult. As a result, the following articles come from popular marketing blogs and highlight current marketing trends that we think are worth paying attention to:

Noteworthy Marketing News

Top 10 Marketing Trends to Watch for in 2020

Right now, voice searches are used for simple queries like an address, calendar reminders, or song title. But as user needs expand and grow more complex, so must voice search features, and so must optimization. Exceptional customer experience is leading the way in marketing, shifting focus onto inbound strategies for serving and retaining existing customers. When customers share their enjoyable experience or outstanding service, their reviews are more likely than ads to impact new buyer behavior and marketing trends.

Google Ads enable bids simulator for target ROAS, budget simulator for Maximize clicks, conversions

Google is extending the availability of bid and budget simulators to more smart bidding strategies. The bid simulator has only been available for manual and Target CPA bidding. It’s now available for Target ROAS campaign. The simulators can be helpful directional indicators of the potential performance impact from making bid or budget adjustments. As always, keep in mind the projections are based on historical data and actual future performance can (and often does) vary from these projections.

Facebook Introduces 3 New Ad Reporting Tools

Facebook is making it easier for advertisers to measure ad performance across accounts, channels, and publishers. With this data, advertisers can better understand how ads are performing, which demographics they’re reaching, and where the most conversions are coming from. Cross-Account Reporting, Custom Metrics, and Conversion Path Reporting are all viable options that are explored in depth as Facebook continues to evolve its measurement solutions to address the priorities of potential marketers.

Similar Article: What’s Trending in Marketing For April 2019

Improving Your Marketing Program

6 Social Media Trends To Follow in 2020

At this point in time, every business with an inbound marketing strategy should have a social media presence of some sort. Social media is one of the most effective ways to build relationships with your target audience. You can engage directly with them and learn more about what their wants and needs are. However, social media is constantly evolving. Which means that you need to keep up with all the latest social media trends, so that you don’t fall behind the competition.

6 Reasons Why Your Business Needs B2B Inbound Marketing

The Advantages of Using Public Relations in Your Marketing Strategy

As most know, when it comes to marketing strategy, public relations plays a key role in getting the word out.PR helps maintain your reputation through winning audience approval. It can educate all possible consumers and sway them to your point of view. It even helps to provide the target market with more detailed information than they would normally receive from other forms of marketing. Simply put, these public relations advantages should be on the forefront of every marketer’s agenda

Recent Marketing Reports, Updates, and Trends

Vast majority of Amazon advertisers plan to spend more on ads again this year

According to a Marketing Land survey of digital advertisers, 81% of current advertisers plan to increase their ad spend on the platform in the coming year. Of those planning to increase their Amazon ad budgets 41% said they plan to spend as much as 25% more than the previous six to 12 months. 22% plan increases of 25 to 50%, and 10% expect Amazon budgets to increase by 50% or more.

B2B buyers consume an average of 13 content pieces before deciding on a vendor

We know that content is incredibly important for ranking in search. It’s also critical for sales support. But this report makes clear there are broad ranges of first and third party content types that are highly influential to B2B buyers. It also shows how critical the vendor website is in the buying process. Indeed, the report basically outlines a content strategy for the entire B2B buyer’s journey.

Marketers struggle to stay ahead of technology advancements

When asked how difficult it will be over the coming year to stay ahead of new technological advancements, remain competent across multiple programs and avoid long-term experience debt, 88% of CMO consultants surveyed by executive service firm Chief Outsiders said it would be difficult — with 10% claiming it will be “very” difficult.

The survey included a relatively small pool of CMO consultants. However it underscores a primary challenge faced by marketing leaders; CMOs are taking on more responsibilities while playing catch-up with the technology available to propel growth.

Facebook Housing Ads: What’s Changed and What You Need to Know

February 28, 2020/in Articles, Directors, Social Media /by Nicole Wagner

Social media has left a great impact on the way we as a community engage with one another and live our lives. Perhaps, one of the greatest contributors to this new age of social media influence would be Facebook. For years, Facebook has kept friends and family connected, helped businesses grow, and entertained the population. All of which, is thanks to the consistent updates to the platforms on their webpage. As a result, Facebook housing ads have also changed their policies. These new rules affect marketers and advertisers, while impacting their clients such as home builders as well.

How it Happened

Unlike with most updates on Facebook, this one came as the direct result of a lawsuit. In March of 2019, The Department of Housing and Urban development sued Facebook for engaging in housing discrimination. On the grounds that Facebook was allowing advertisers to restrict who is able to see ads on the platform. Primarily based on characteristics such as race, religion, and national origin. Additionally, the housing department, known as HUD, claims that the company uses its data-mining practices to determine which of its users are able to view housing-related ads. This would put Facebook in violation of the federal Fair Housing Act.

As a result of the lawsuit, Facebook has partnered with several national organizations, to help counter these allegations against them. The National Fair Housing Alliance (NFHA), American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), and the Communication Workers of America (CWA) have all helped establish changes that would better prevent housing discrimination from taking place on their website.

Special Ad Category

One of the first noticeable changes is the Special Ad Category. If you are in or want to reach people in the United States with ads that offer housing, employment, or credit opportunities, you must select the corresponding Special Ad Category. These ads will not go by by age, gender, ZIP code, multicultural affinity. It excludes any detailed options describing or appearing to relate to protected characteristics.

Advertisers using Special Ad Categories will no longer be able to access Lookalike Audiences; which help advertisers reach new users who closely resemble their existing set of users. Instead, advertisers will have to be able to create a Special Ad audience. Special Ad audiences are based on similarities in online behavior, without considering things like age, gender, and ZIP Code.

Similar Article: Real Estate Marketing Resources For Home Builders

Requirements & Restrictions

If any advertiser wishes to use Facebook housing ads, then there are rules that must be followed . As stated above, advertisements will not target by age. Instead, they have to operate in the standard 18-65+age range.

Zip Codes, are no longer in use in this form of advertisement. However, this is only a sample of the geographic target changes that await home builders. Before, home builders could target regions up to the nearest one-mile radius. Now they have to work with a maximum radius of 15 miles.

Similarly, The Special Ad Category comes with detailed limitations users must follow. These limitations include:

Developers and advertisers located in the U.S. or targeting users in the U.S and running ads with housing, employment and credit opportunities must specify their respective category.
Developers and advertisers located in the U.S. or targeting users in the U.S and whose ads do not fall under one of the categories must specify NONE. Otherwise the campaign creation requests will fail.
Developers and advertisers that are located outside the U.S. whose ads target users outside of the U.S. regardless of the category, should specify NONE as well.

Also, starting in 2020, advertisers and developers must modify any ongoing campaigns that began prior to December 4th 2019; in order to comply with these new requirements.

How to Navigate It

Going forward, it’s important to remember that there are still ways to be successful with Facebook ad campaigns. The use of visuals, words and messaging can be a great asset. You’ll want to be as clear and precise as you can. Make sure your readers understand that the home you are selling is something they would be interested in. That way you can get closer to the goal you are trying to reach. Make sure ad messages add up with the type of audience you are trying to attract.

Leveraging your re-marketing audience is another way to navigate the shift in Facebook housing ads. Your re-marketing audience will consist of a group of users you want to re-engage because of their likelihood to convert. We know that the process of buying a new home will be a lengthy one, so add in as many funnels as you can to the buyer’s journey. It’s a cost-effective way to mitigate the loss of relevance caused by these targeting changes.

Facebook employs the uses of many different campaigns in order to make the advertising successful. One such campaign that can be a great benefit is the use of conversion campaigns. This campaign type utilizes specific website events as the key performance indicator. They often rely on user signals to help Facebook prioritize who is going to see what ads. This tactic can be effective, if open communication is maintained. Always ensure that you are still engaging these leads and moving them along the funnel and buyer’s journey.

The changes made to Facebook housing ads have left an impact on the way advertisers are able to market. With that said, the most important thing for advertisers to remember is to be mindful of their client, and their boundaries.

5 Easy & Efficient Real Estate Marketing Strategies

February 25, 2020/in Articles, Directors, Homebuilder Marketing, Marketing Strategy /by Mark Beebe

People are constantly looking to build their own homes, which justifies the constant need for home builders. However, as a home builder, you can’t afford to just wait for potential clients to come to you. There are many home builders out there all competing with each other in an attempt to attract new clients. Attracting new clients is especially important in the home construction industry. After all, for the most part, you cannot depend on repeat customers. With that in mind, the following are five real estate marketing strategies that will help you increase awareness of your home construction company and help attract more buyers to work with.

1. Create A Website

It can’t be overstated just how important a website is. By setting up a website, you create a presence online that allows people to find you. Without a website, potential clients will be more likely to stumble upon the websites of your competitors. By setting up a website, you’ll have the opportunity to educate clients about their needs. Additionally, you can help offer the solutions to their needs. You’ll also be able to provide information about the area you serve and the home building industry in general. Not to mention that a website gives you a place to provide your contact information. Which makes it easier for potential clients to find your phone number and email address.

2. Begin A Blog

Once you’ve set up a website, you’ll want to create a blog. A blog allows you to publish content to your website on a regular basis that’s relevant to the needs of your target audience and that’s informative or helpful in some way. There are several reasons why it’s well worth the time and effort to begin and maintain a blog. First of all, if properly optimized, your blog can help to boost organic traffic from Google. Secondly, your blog will help keep visitors to your website engaged. Finally, a blog can help build your brand authority, which helps improve your reputation and increase trust amongst your audience.

Setting up a page on various social channels, such as Facebook, will help to expand your presence on the web. Social media also happens to be a great way to engage directly with your audience, which means that you can answer questions, address concerns, and much more. You can use social media to post content, which followers can then share with their social circles (which means they’re basically advertising on your behalf). Being on social media also makes it easier for past customers to recommend you to friends and family who may be looking for home builders in the area.

Similar Article: Creative Real Estate Marketing Ideas for Homebuilders

4. Optimize For Local SEO

Because many people will be looking for a home builder to build a new house in a specific area, you will want to optimize your content for local SEO. This helps increase the chances that you’re found when potential clients perform local searches in your area. In order to improve your local SEO, you should do the following:

Submit NAP – Besides posting your NAP (name, address, and phone number) on every webpage and social media page you have, you should also submit it to local directories, such as Yelp or Angie’s List.
Use local keywords – Whenever it’s appropriate, optimize your content using local keywords (such as the names of towns or neighborhoods).
Create local content – Posting content to your blog that focuses on specific neighborhoods or events happening in your city can help bolster your local presence.
Create a Google My Business account – Claim or create your My Business account on Google to improve the odds of being listed on Google’s SERP for relevant queries.
Optimize for mobile use – People use their mobile devices, such as smartphones or tablets, to perform local searches on a regular basis. Make sure that your website is optimized for mobile use to ensure that it will be displayed properly on all screen sizes.

5. Use PPC Ads

PPC (pay-per-click) ads are incredibly effective real estate marketing strategies. They increase exposure and attract prospects who are ready to engage with a home builder. What makes them particularly effective is that you can choose local keywords to ensure that they are displayed for local searches that are relevant to your business. Additionally, not only will your advertisements be more targeted, but you’ll only pay for the actual click-throughs that your ad gets, not for the impressions it gets.

These are five real estate marketing strategies that have been proven to be effective if properly implemented. Marketing your home construction business is critical to your ability to attract new clients and to your ability to compete with other home builders in your area.

public relations inbound marketing efforts

The Advantages of Using Public Relations in Your Marketing Strategy

February 20, 2020/in Articles, Directors, Public Relations /by Nicole Wagner

As most know, when it comes to marketing strategy, public relations plays a key role in getting the word out. For example, PR helps maintain your reputation through winning audience approval. It can educate all possible consumers and sway them to your point of view. It even helps to provide the target market with more detailed information than they would normally receive from other forms of marketing. Simply put, these advantages of public relations should be on the forefront of every marketer’s agenda. With that in mind, here are a few valued benefits that come from using public relations in your marketing strategy.

Reputation & Credibility

Reputation and credibility are advantages of public relations, which help to shape the image of your company. PR offers an excellent toolset for generating attention, whenever there is something newsworthy. They’re able to help maintain relationships with reporters and writers who routinely cover news about the company, product category, and industry. Your PR agency will have the right connections already in place, that way when your company has something newsworthy to share with the public.

PR also boosts an organization’s credibility, since they operate through numerous trusted intermediaries. If a third party news outlet or blog covers your product, it looks more credible to the reader. Consumers might have a tendency to overlook ads, but if your new product receives coverage on one of their favorite blogs or magazines, and is recommended to them, their perception of your business is going to be considerably different. A boost in credibility often translates into more sales. So PR helps get you in front of more people, and gain the trust of the consumers in the process.

Public relations are responsible for identifying and building relationships with influencers. This irreplaceable asset helps to shape the opinions in the marketplace, about a company and its products. Similarly, when an organization finds itself facing a crisis with their image, PR professionals play important roles in strategizing. This helps the organization respond in effective appropriate ways and minimizes the damage done to its public image.

Target Market

Target Marketing is another one of the advantages of public relations. With PR, you can market onto that target audience you are hoping to reach. A well-crafted and orchestrated public relations campaign targets the media and events that your target audience utilizes. The type of media your company is trying to consume will depend on the type of person you are going after.

A social media influencer campaign can be a great benefit of having a public relations team. Consumers use product review sites, community forums, and the views of friends and colleagues as part of their product research. As a result a PR campaign could utilize social media influencers to help build dialogue with your customers and create ambassadors for your brand.

Media sources can place the information where the consumers have a greater chance of seeing it. Which often results in consumers getting the required information they need. If you are an accountant hoping to generate some new clientele, placing an ad in a teen magazine likely won’t help. But an appealing article found in the middle of the finance publication will probably lead you right where you want to be. With a professional PR team can target the right people and outlets, you can grow your company.

Similar Article: Three Ways to Use Targeted Marketing To Reach Qualified Prospects

Opportunity

This leads to my next point, opportunity. A properly executed PR campaign, could lead to stories of your business in newspapers and magazines. TV, radio, podcasts, public appearances, and other opportunities are available through a public relations strategy. At the same time, these outlets will carry weight with your customers, and help your company grow in unimagined ways. It may not be immediate, because readers may discover articles months or even years after they’ve published. However, the long tail effect of PR can be quite invaluable for any business looking to expand.

Another, more obvious benefit of PR, is getting your products and services in front of more consumers, and thus gaining more customers. PR is a valuable marketing channel for supplementing your direct marketing or advertising efforts. If you receive ongoing coverage, your company will gain brand awareness. As a result, you will project brand authority all the while keeping it on the mind of potential consumers.

Although other marketing channels can certainly help you gain exposure and grow your business, if you aren’t looking at PR as a viable opportunity just yet, it may be time to start. Establishing your brand doesn’t have to take forever. By utilizing PR, you can improve your reputation, build your credibility, and gain more opportunity from the resources around you.

Integrating Social Media & SEO Efforts For Enhanced Search Engine Results

7 Tactics to Implement in Your Senior Living Marketing Strategy in 2020

February 17, 2020/in Articles, Directors, Marketing Strategy, Senior Living Marketing /by Nicole Wagner

Although there is a great need for high-quality senior living facilities that can cater to a growing senior population, there are many different facilities who are competing against one another for the attention of potential residents. As such, an effective senior living marketing strategy is an absolute must. A good senior living marketing strategy will allow you to generate more awareness of your facility and more interest in it. If you don’t employ a number of marketing tactics, you’ll find it challenging to compete for residents, which, in turn, will make it difficult to succeed. With that in mind, the following are a few marketing ideas that can help you improve your senior living marketing strategy in 2020:

1. Improve your web design

Your website is the main hub of your online presence. All of your inbound marketing efforts will direct prospects to your website. However, if your website design is poor, you will likely lose a lot of the prospects that you worked so hard to attract. Make sure that your website uses a simple and easy-to-read layout that’s not cluttered. Every webpage should be easy to scan so that visitors can find what they’re looking for. Your website should also be easy to navigate. Implement a menu bar that’s not overcrowded with links and that includes links to the main pages. A search function can also be very helpful. Finally, it’s vital that your website loads quickly. Visitors will abandon any page that takes longer than two to three seconds to load. They may even leave your website as a result of the wait.

2. Publish helpful content

Create content that is relevant, helpful, and informative to publish throughout your website. Every page should have good content on it. You should also have a blog on which you can routinely publish new content to keep the interest of your prospects. While written content can be effective, make sure that you create a variety of different types of content to keep visitors engaged. For example, images, infographics, video content, and podcasts can all increase engagement.

3. Make it easy for leads to engage

If your leads have questions or simply want to get into contact with you, you need to make it easy for them to do so. Have your contact information available on every webpage and social media page that you have so that prospects can contact you through phone or email. Having a social media presence will also give them the option of messaging through your social channel as well. If you want to go the extra mile, implementing a live chat or a chatbot feature can also be quite effective.

Similar Article: 4 Senior Living Video Marketing Ideas That Will Improve Engagement

4. Encourage leads to take action

It’s not enough to just nurture and educate your leads. The last thing you want is for someone to be interested in your facility as a result of exploring your website, only to decide that they will contact you later. Because you run the risk of them forgetting to do so. Use CTAs (calls-to-action) to encourage leads to take action right away. Whether it’s contacting you or filling out a form to sign up to an email list or to redeem an offer (such as a downloadable ebook).

5. Use PPC ads to attract better prospects

PPC (pay-per-click) ads are effective because they allow you to target specific prospects using keywords. When someone does a search for that keyword, your ad has a chance of showing up. Not only can this help you spread awareness of your facility through Google, but it’s a cost-effective tactic as well. Because you’re only paying for the actual clicks that your ads get.

6. Use local SEO to find residents in your area

Many decision-makers who are looking for senior living facilities for their loved ones will want to keep them close to home. As a result, you should implement a local SEO strategy that makes it easier for people to find your facility while performing local searches. There are several tactics that you can employ to boost your local SEO. You can submit your NAP (name, address, and phone number) to online directories, such as Yelp, you can use local keywords throughout your content whenever appropriate, and you can add or claim your Google My Business to strengthen your local presence on Google.

7. Establish a presence on social media

A social media presence not only makes it easier to interact directly with your audience to answer questions and address concerns, but it’s also a great way to spread awareness of your facility. When you engage with people, their followers may see the interaction, which is an excellent way to boost your reputation. You can also post content to social media, which if it’s shared, liked, or commented on, can help increase exposure.

The success of your senior living facility is going to depend on your ability to generate awareness of your facility. As well as, being able to engage and entice decision-makers to reach out to you. These are seven tactics that you should implement in your senior living marketing strategy in 2020 that will do just that.

6 Social Media Trends To Follow In 2020

February 12, 2020/in Articles, Directors, Social Media, Trending /by Nicole Wagner

1. Find More Impactful Influencers

Influencer marketing continues to thrive. Building relationships with influencers can help expose your brand to a huge audience. However, more and more so-called “influencers” have popped up over the last few years. And as a result, make it difficult to identify actual influencers. Don’t make the mistake of trying to build a relationship with an influencer based on their number of followers. Many of these “fake” influencers won’t be able to help you at all. Focus more on finding influencers who actually have sway over their followers, no matter how many they have. Many brands are focusing on nano-influencers, which are influencers who may only have a few thousand followers but who actually have significant influence over their audience.

2. Focus On Video Content

Brands are continuing to focus on the creation of video content as it continues to be incredibly effective. Not only are short videos easier to consume on mobile devices than other types of content, but people are more visual creatures that retain information better when it’s presented in a video format. On top of that, YouTube currently boasts the second most active users behind only Facebook. While channels like Instagram are continuously looking to improve their video features. As such, you should focus on creating professional-quality video content for your target audience.

3. Curate Customer Created Content

Encouraging customers to create content that’s relevant to your business not only helps to strengthen your content strategy in general (and provides you with fresh content that helps increase brand awareness on your behalf), but it’s also a great way to boost customer participation and engagement. Many brands encourage their followers to post pictures on Instagram showcasing the use of their product with a specific hashtag. For example, the eyeglasses brand Zenni encouraged its customers to post photos wearing their new glasses under the hashtag #justgotmyzennis.

Enjoy Article: The Power of Social Media Influencers: Why it works

4. Take Advantage Of FOMO

People on social media (and life in general) tend to have a “fear of missing out” or FOMO. This means that posting content that can only be accessed for a specific amount of time can help to attract more views. For example, webinars that people have to register for or ephemeral content in the form of Snapchat Stories or Instagram Stories that will disappear forever. Many followers will check in regularly to make sure that they don’t miss out on content that’s only going to be around for a day, allowing you to drive more engagement and keep your brand at the top of mind as a result.

Most companies stick to major social channels, such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram, to name a few. However, there are hundreds of other social channels out there that might be worth incorporating into your social media strategy. Specifically, social channels that cater to a certain niche that’s relevant to your brand. By establishing a presence on such a channel, you’ll be able to target a much more specific audience to greater success than on channels like Facebook that essentially cater to everyone. For example, TikTok tends to be more youth-oriented but has exploded in popularity amongst the younger demographic (it’s a social platform similar to the now-defunct Vine), while Twitch is a streaming platform catering to videogamers.

Social media is thought of as a strategy that helps improve customer engagement and that can drive leads to your website; however, it’s potential to be used as a platform to generate sales is increasing year by year. Channels like Facebook and Pinterest have been used for years now to sell products; however, social commerce has increased to the point where it may soon become just as effective a source of sales as website ecommerce pages and offline stores. As such, you may want to consider incorporating social commerce into your sales strategy going forward.

These are six social media trends that you should keep a close eye on in 2020 and that you may want to consider adopting for your own inbound marketing and sales strategies.

6 Reasons Why Your Business Needs B2B Inbound Marketing

February 6, 2020/in Articles, B2B Marketing, Directors /by Nicole Wagner

There are many B2B companies that continue to advertise using more traditional methods, such as TV commercials, magazine ads, cold calls, and more. While traditional marketing can be effective, it’s a good idea to implement a variety of different marketing strategies. This includes inbound marketing. The main difference between inbound marketing and traditional marketing (often referred to as outbound marketing) is that with inbound marketing you’re putting yourself in the position to be found by prospects, whereas with outbound marketing, the goal is to find prospects and to advertise to them directly. If you haven’t implemented an inbound marketing B2B strategy yet, the following are six reasons to do so:

1. Increase Brand Awareness

As any company knows, increasing brand awareness is critical to growing your business. Inbound marketing provides numerous opportunities to generate awareness for your brand. Having a website that you post content to that’s optimized for SEO (search engine optimization) will help to increase your company’s page rankings on Google, thereby increasing exposure to Google’s users. Establishing a social media presence will help you engage with followers, who will then share, like, or comment on the content you post to social media, which helps drive exposure even further. Inbound marketing also tends to have a snowball effect when it comes to brand awareness. The more you continue to create content and post, the more awareness of your brand will increase.

2. Build Brand Authority

While generating brand awareness is certainly important, you will also want to build the reputation of your brand as a company that clients can trust and depend on. Inbound marketing can achieve is in many ways. First of all, by creating relevant content that addresses the needs of your target audience, you help to build authority within your industry. The more authority you have, the more trusted you will be. You can also generate authority by engaging with followers on social media, such as by addressing questions and participating in relevant discussions.

3. Generate More Leads

Without leads you cannot generate sales. Inbound marketing encompasses a variety of different tactics that can help you generate more leads. These tactics include SEO, content marketing, social media marketing, and email marketing. Effective inbound marketing strategies are capable of generating high-quality traffic to your website and ensuring that the content that’s available on your website will help to nurture visitors through the buyer’s journey, enabling you to convert your leads and eventually turn them into customers.

4. Educate Your Prospects

The more a prospect knows about their own needs and challenges as well as the solutions that will best address those needs and challenges, the more likely they will consider the product or service that you have to offer. Inbound marketing gives you the opportunity to create content that will educate prospects at every stage of the buyer’s journey. The idea is to let your prospects find the information that you offer and educate themselves at their own pace. This way, they do not feel the pressure to purchase until they are ready to choose a solution. The ability to educate your prospects will not only help get you closer to a sale, but it will also build your brand authority.

Similar Article: Top 3 Ways to Maximize Your Inbound Marketing Strategy

5. Improve Understanding Of Your Audience

You can learn a lot about your audience via inbound marketing. For example, you can gather information on prospects and customers through your opt-in forms, through questionnaires and surveys, through social media engagement, and by tracking their online behavior. You can use this information to better understand who your customers are and what their needs, goals, and challenges are. As a result, you’ll be able to develop buyer personas that you can then use to more effectively target your inbound marketing efforts.

6. Increase Long-Term ROI

Even if you run very successful outbound marketing strategies, there will always be one major drawback: more traditional marketing efforts tend to be short-term strategies. This means that once a campaign has finished, you’ll have a good idea of what the ROI was for that campaign. The thing about inbound marketing B2B strategies is that they are long-term. Even if the ROI seems low at first, it will grow over time as you adjust and improve your tactics. For example, the content you post to your website will live there forever. Which means it can have an impact years after it’s been published.

Inbound marketing has often been touted as essential for B2C companies, but it can be just as beneficial for B2B companies if properly implemented. These are six reasons why you should implement an inbound marketing B2B strategy. And once you do, you’ll realize that there are many other benefits over the long run as well.

5 Key Healthcare Marketing Strategies to Implement in 2020

February 4, 2020/in Articles, Directors, Marketing Strategy /by Mark Beebe

As a healthcare organization, you may know that you have a product or service that fulfills a pressing need; however, that doesn’t mean that patients will simply find you. You will still need to market your healthcare business effectively; in order to spread awareness of your organization and what it is that you have to offer. Because there are so many healthcare options out there for patients to choose from, your marketing strategy is even more important to your success. With that in mind, the following are five key healthcare marketing strategies that you should implement this year:

1. Focus On Local SEO

A lot of people will search for the closest healthcare practice to them if they have a pressing medical need. Even if they have some time to find several different healthcare practices and to compare them, they will often choose the one that is closest to them. You’ll want to make sure that your healthcare business can be found by such patients, which is why you should focus on local SEO. Optimizing for local SEO means that it will be easier for potential customers in your area to find you via search. To strengthen your local SEO, you should do the following:

Submit your NAP – Make sure that you submit your NAP (name, address, and phone number) to numerous local directories. Yelp or Zocdoc, would be good examples of where to start.
Set up Google My Business account – A My Business account on Google will allow you to submit your NAP along with other business information, such as a description of your services, a link to your website, photographs and more.
Encourage reviews – Encourage your patients to leave positive online reviews. When researching nearby healthcare practices or facilities, people will often check online reviews before making a decision.
Optimize for mobile use – Because most local searches are performed on mobile devices while users are out and about, it’s important that your website is properly optimized for mobile use.
Create local-based content – Create content for your blog that’s relevant to your area and use local keywords wherever appropriate (such as the name of the town or neighborhood you’re located in).

Building your reputation is key to attracting more long-term customers. Establishing and maintaining a presence on social media is a great way to do that. Social media allows you to engage directly with your target audience, whether it’s by posting links to helpful healthcare-related content (including your own), answering questions that followers have about your services or products, asking followers for feedback, and more. As you continue to engage with people through social media, you will build trust and awareness. If done effectively, people will begin automatically looking for your healthcare practice or business when they’re in need of healthcare products or services instead of doing basic Google searches.

3. Keep Patients Engaged With Email Updates

Staying on the top of mind, is important. If your existing patients forget about you, you could lose them to a competing practice. Not to mention that some patients may not stay up to date when it comes to scheduling routine appointments. Email is one of the best ways to keep your current patients up-to-date and to remind them about scheduling appointments if it’s time to do so. You can also use email marketing to inform customers about new healthcare services or products that you’re offering.

4. Attract More Patients Using PPC Advertising

PPC ads are a great way to attract new customers. The way they work is simple. You bid on a keyword. When somebody performs a search using that keyword, there’s a good chance your ad will show up on their SERP (search engine results page). You will then only pay for the ad if that person clicks on the ad. Using relevant keywords (such as keywords that are location-based and describe specific services or products), you can make sure that your ads are attracting potential customers in your area. You can use your PPC ads to promote new products and services. Making PPC advertising one of the most flexible healthcare marketing strategies available.

5. Create And Publish Relevant Content

Create content centered around healthcare-related topics that are relevant to your business. Afterward, publish that content on a website blog regularly. Not only is this a great way to attract organic traffic via Google, but it will engage readers and help to build your brand authority. The greater your authority becomes, the more your reputation within your industry will grow, thereby helping to increase brand trust.

Knowing how to market your healthcare organization is critical to attracting more patients and growing your business. These are some of the healthcare marketing strategies that will help you to attract more patients and that will help put you in the best position to compete with other healthcare businesses in your area.