How To Find the Right Digital Marketing Agency for Your Business

How To Find the Right Digital Marketing Agency for Your Business

If you own a business, then you know that digital marketing is integral to your success. After all, without digital marketing, it can be hard to reach new customers and build brand recognition. But with so many digital marketing agencies out there, how do you choose the right one? Don’t worry—we’ve got some tips to help make sure you find the best digital marketing agency for your business.

The global digital advertising and marketing market was estimated at $350 billion in 2020 and is projected to reach $786.2 billion by 2026.

Understand Your Needs

Before you even begin looking at different agencies, it’s important to understand what your exact needs are. What kind of services are you looking for? Do you need help managing social media accounts? Are you looking for assistance with SEO strategy or content development? Knowing exactly what services will best benefit your business will make finding an agency much easier.

Scope & Specialty

The next step is to consider what type of digital marketing your business requires and which agency specializes in that particular area. Different agencies may specialize in SEO, PPC campaigns, content creation or social media management. You should also consider whether a full-service digital marketing agency would be better suited for your needs than one which specializes in a single service or tactic. Make sure that whatever agency you choose has experience working with businesses similar to yours so that they can bring their expertise and knowledge to your project.

72% of overall marketing budgets get put towards digital marketing channels.

Evaluate Performance Metrics

When considering which digital marketing agency to use, it is essential to evaluate their performance metrics. Look at their past successes and review how they achieved them so that you can get an idea of how they approach projects similar to yours. It is also useful to ask potential agencies how they measure success and if they are able to provide data that demonstrates their results over time. This helps ensure that you get a clear understanding of their capabilities before committing to them as a partner for your business’s digital marketing efforts.

Budget & Value

Finally, it’s essential that you come up with a budget before selecting an agency and make sure that they are willing to work within it. Don’t forget to factor in any additional costs such as software licenses, hosting fees etc., as this could add significantly to the cost of an agency’s services over time. It’s important to remember that while cost should be taken into account when searching for an agency, value should always be prioritized over price—you want quality results from your chosen partner and those don’t come cheap!

The average local business puts 5-10% of its revenue towards its digital marketing budget, but for larger businesses, that number can climb to about 14%.

Choosing the right digital marketing agency can be overwhelming—but if done right, it can be incredibly beneficial for your business! Making sure that the agency understands your needs and has experience working with similar businesses is key when picking the perfect one for your company. With these steps in mind, we hope this guide helps make navigating the sea of available digital marketing agencies a bit simpler! Good luck!

How to Diversify the Marketing Tactics for Your E-Commerce Business?

How to Diversify the Marketing Tactics for Your E-Commerce Business?

The e-commerce industry is a highly competitive one. It’s not just about providing the best product or service. You need to stand out from the crowd by promoting your brand and engaging with customers in the most effective way possible.

To achieve this, you need to diversify your e-commerce marketing tactics. There are several ways that you can do this:

Redefine Your Target Audience

The first step to diversifying your marketing tactics is to redefine your target audience. A target audience is a group of individuals with similar characteristics and interests and, therefore, would be interested in the same product or service.

For example, if you are selling men’s shoes online, a good strategy would be to segment your audience into different categories:

    • Men aged 25-35 who work as software engineers
    • Men aged 35-45 who work as doctors or lawyers

Develop a Social Media Presence

Social media is a great way to reach your target audience. You can use social media to engage with your customers and fans, as well as build your brand. Social media can help you find new customers, grow your business, and boost SEO.

The trick is finding one or two social media platforms that fit the branding and style of your online business. This e-commerce marketing strategy takes consistency and solving your clients’ problems through visual media.

Use Email Marketing

Email marketing is a great way to get in touch with your customers and stay in touch with them over time. It’s a great way to promote products, but it can also be used as a way to build relationships by sending customers information that they’ll find useful or interesting.

Many online sellers overlook the high value of this e-commerce marketing option, which has stood the test of time compared to other methods. A vibrant email list will sustain your business.

Content Marketing

Content marketing is a great way to reach existing and potential customers. It can be used to generate leads, increase brand awareness, and increase sales. Content marketing can also be used to build trust with your audience. This is especially important because people are more likely to buy from companies that they trust.

Build Brand Partnerships

Another way to diversify your e-commerce marketing tactics is by partnering with other brands in the same niche as you. This can be anything from offering complementary discounts on similar products that enhance your features to building an affiliate program that strengthens your e-commerce marketing efforts.

Lean into Influencer & User Generated Content

User-generated content (UGC) is any form of content your buyers create that can be used to promote your brand. It includes photos, videos, and reviews.

Influencer marketing is a strategy where you work with an influencer to promote your brand or product on social media by sharing their story with the audience.

In both cases, you are using highly relevant e-commerce marketing by leveraging people who naturally promote trust in your brand without having to be the actual spokesperson.

How can we help?

These are just a few ways to diversify your marketing tactics for your e-commerce business. As you can see, there are many different options to choose from out there, and they all have their own benefits and drawbacks.

It’s up to you as an entrepreneur to decide which one is right for your brand based on what kind of message or product you want to convey.

That is where we can help. Our experienced team at Griffon Webstudios has spent years cultivating powerful e-commerce marketing strategies to boost your potential market penetration and sales. Give us a call today to schedule a consultation.

Why Content Marketing is a Reliable Strategy for Your Business

Why Content Marketing is a Reliable Strategy for Your Business

Content marketing is a reliable strategy for any business, big or small. It has the potential to drastically increase your brand visibility and reputation online, as well as drive more leads into your sales funnel.

The best part? With content marketing, you don’t have to spend lots of money on expensive ads or other forms of advertising. Instead, you can create engaging content that speaks directly to your target audience — all while building trust with them over time, so they want to do business with you. Other benefits include:

1. Lowers Bounce Rate

Your bounce rate is one of the first metrics you’ll want to look at when determining what type of content your audience is consuming. The bounce rate is the percentage of visitors that leave your site without visiting any other pages.

This means that if visitors come to your site and leave without clicking on anything, they are counted as a bounce. A high bounce rate can mean there’s something wrong with the content you’re providing, or it could indicate that someone else has already covered the topic better than you have.

2. Increases Social Media Engagement

Social media is a great way to connect with customers. It can be used to share your content, brand, and products with potential customers. Content marketing helps you build relationships with your audience by providing them with interesting and engaging content they want to read.

This increases social media engagement because if people enjoy what they’re reading, then they may want to share it on their own page or, in some other way, promote it for you.

3. Builds Trust to Generate More Leads

Content marketing builds trust, credibility, authority, and a relationship with customers. Little by little, you are showing your target customers that they can trust you to offer sound advice and content marketing strategies that increase the value they get from engaging with your brand.

This will encourage them to come back more often and convince those leads on the fence to reach out.

4. Original Content Creates Brand Communities

An original and consistent stream of content marketing builds a sense of community around your brand. These communities allow you to connect with consumers on a deeper level, which helps build trust and loyalty for you and your business.

5. Boosts Your SEO Strategies

Content marketing is a great way to boost your SEO strategies. This can help you rank better in search engines, especially when it is combined with other SEO efforts.

Think of it this way: if you’re writing highly relevant content to your target audience, chances are they’ll want to share it on social media. If enough people do that, then Google will notice and start ranking your site as an authoritative source for anything related to what you were talking about.

6. Builds Brand Awareness & Establishes Authority

Brand awareness is the first step toward building a relationship with a customer. With content marketing, you can create content that is directly relevant to your business to build brand awareness.

For example, if you are an accountant and want to build brand awareness for your accounting firm, then publishing articles that help people understand how taxes work would be an excellent way of doing so.

Where to Start

Content marketing is an effective way to promote your business and build relationships with customers. It’s also a powerful way to nurture leads, generate leads, increase sales, improve customer loyalty, and build trust.

Our expert team at Griffon Webstudios has spent years cultivating highly rewarding content marketing strategies for our clients. So contact us today, and let’s discuss how we can offer your brand the same value ROI package.

Essential Ecommerce Website Optimization Tips to Boost Holiday Sales

Essential Ecommerce Website Optimization Tips to Boost Holiday Sales

The holidays are a crucial time for e-commerce sites to enhance conversion rates and spice up their revenue. To make sure your site is optimized to attract holiday shoppers, here are seven essential e-commerce website optimization tips that you need to have in place to boost holiday sales.

Why Holiday Sales Matter

When it comes to e-commerce, the holiday season is a big deal. Sales during this period account for as much as 30% of annual revenue for some companies—and thanks to the shopping habits of our customers, it’s also one of the most predictable times of the year.

But if you’re not seeing those big numbers this year, don’t worry there are plenty of ways you can boost holiday sales without making significant changes or investing in additional inventory. The holiday season is an excellent opportunity to build your brand and attract new customers, so long as you optimize your website for maximum conversion potential first.

1. Offer Free Shipping

If you want to boost sales this holiday season, it’s essential that you offer free shipping. Not only is it a great benefit for customers, but it will also make them more likely to shop with you.

Free shipping can be achieved in multiple ways. Try offering free shipping on all orders or raising the minimum order amount required for free shipping.

If neither of these options works for your business, consider offering discounted rates on shipping instead—this will help offset the cost of providing this service without significantly impacting your bottom line.

2. Use Nostalgic Holiday Marketing

The holidays are a time for celebration, and nostalgia is a wonderful way to make your site stand out. Shoppers want to capture that feeling of when they were kids and unwrapped a much-desired gift next to the tree. Tap into that nostalgic mindset, and you will see your holiday sales skyrocket.

3. Holiday Themed Promotions

Promotions are a terrific way to add value for your customers and increase sales. But, like the rest of your website, you want them to be relevant and personalized.

Make sure it’s seasonal! Promotions should be relevant to the time of year. For example, if it’s December and you’re selling snow shovels and ice melt, then a winter promotion would make sense (like 30% off). Or maybe you sell summer swimsuits—a Memorial Day sale might get more interest. Never lose sight of the seasons when creating promotions, or they won’t work.

Personalize each promotion based on customer behavior. Leverage your ecommerce website analytics to study the behavior of visitors concerning your online promotions.

4. Inform Affiliates of Promotions

If you have an affiliate program, now is the time to get it onto your website. This will allow you to reach out to affiliates who are promoting related products and offer them the opportunity to earn some extra cash by referring customers to your store.

5. Start Early

Starting early gives you more time to evaluate and refine various aspects of your site before they go live. Starting early also allows for unexpected delays that might come up along the way (like traffic spikes in November).

Finally, starting early will help prevent last-minute rush work that could potentially cause mistakes or errors on your website during its busiest time of year: holiday shopping.

6. Leverage Social Media & Email

If you’re not already using social media to promote your holiday sales, now is the time to start. Facebook ads are a wonderful way to reach new customers and increase your reach on the platform, and other platforms like Instagram and TikTok help build a great audience.

Implement email marketing campaigns that include a link to your website so users can purchase products from there directly rather than having them leave your site to place an order. Make sure you personalize these emails based on how customers have engaged with your brand. They’ll be more likely to open messages when they feel like they’re being treated as individuals.

7. Frame Products/Services as Gifts

It’s time to start thinking of your products and services in a different light. Start by using words like “gift” and “gift card.”

Consider adding the option for customers to select gift wrapping and/or a box for their purchase, especially if you sell more expensive items. If you don’t offer these options, you can always suggest it at checkout or include a small card that says “Happy Holidays from us! We hope you enjoy this gift from us to you!” with your package.

We’ve seen that there are a lot of ways you can use e-commerce website optimization to boost your holiday sales. One of the most effective ways is to build a personalized experience with products and services suited to each customer, which will make them feel confident in spending money on your site.

There are so many other methods, and our expert marketing team at Griffon Webstudios is here to help. We know how critical the holiday seasons are to your bottom line. We can help you unify your promotional material across your web presence so that when people land on any of your brand identifiers, they will be sure to make a purchase.

Let’s schedule a time to discuss your upcoming holiday promotion and marketing strategies!

Google Rolled Out a Spam Update Is Your Website Affected?

Google Rolled Out a Spam Update: Is Your Website Affected?

It’s been a tumultuous few months for the world of search engine optimization (SEO). Google made significant changes to its algorithm, and many websites were negatively impacted. Most notably, sites that had previously ranked well for specific keywords were now falling in rankings due to these changes.

But there are also other ways this update has affected sites and how you can get your website back on track if it was affected by the latest Google update. In this post, we’ll cover what happened with the October 2022 updates and what it means for your business.

October 2022 Updates

You may have heard a lot about Google’s October updates, which rolled out recently. These updates are relatively common and usually occur every few months or so. They are made to ensure that Google provides the best search results for their users and constantly refine how they rank websites.

This update was more of a spam-reduction update than anything else, though, so if you’re running into issues with your website rankings after this update, then we’d recommend doing a few fixes.

The search engine giant will seek to lower the rank of websites that “trick” users into providing personal information or installing malware. These are phishing scams and support bad actors on the web. When these sites get ranked high on Google, users get made and move to other search engines instead.

To put it simply – spam is bad for Google’s business.

How Will This Affect Your Website?

If your website is affected by this recent Google update, it may be time to take action. The good news is that your site will not be deleted entirely from the search results (unless you are spamming).

Instead, it will likely have a lower rank or may even appear lower in the search results pages than before. Google has said it will continue to work on improving its algorithms in order to detect and penalize websites that violate its rules and guidelines.

You should be fine if you provide quality content directly related to your purpose that doesn’t seek to trick users.

Why Google Wants to Reduce Spam

Google has been working hard to improve the quality of search results and reduce spam over the last few years. It wants to give users the best results, so it’s constantly testing new ways to achieve this.

The company has taken several steps in this direction:

-Improving its algorithm

-Removing low-quality websites from their index

-Removing bad ads from its platform

Google didn’t release specific information as to link baiting or what it defines as spam. However, most SEO pros agree upon two critical areas: thin sites and keyword stuffers.

Thin sites don’t have the unique content users want. They only slightly adhere to SEO practices and generally do not offer insights.

Keyword stuffing is filling a website with tags and meta information that repeats the same keywords or phrases to rank high. This is a flawed strategy, as most search engines will dock your rank if you do this.

What You Should Do

If you have yet to notice the update, that doesn’t mean your website is not affected by it. This update’s roll-out is gradual; not everyone will see it immediately.

You can use a tool like MozBar to check if your website is affected by the Google spam update or not.

If you want to keep your traffic steady and consistent, make sure to run SEO audits regularly (we recommend every 3 months) and fix any issues that may cause problems on search engines, such as:

-Duplicate content

-Broken links (404 error pages)

-Broken image links

The Google update is a big deal, but only some of your website’s traffic will be affected. It’s important to know if your site is being hit by this spam update so you can take steps to correct any issues before they get worse.

Our team at Griffon Webstudios can help you avoid getting hit by the recent Google Spam Update. We have SEO experts on staff who understand the nuance of rebuilding or fixing your site, so it is more compliant with Google. Let’s schedule a time to talk about how our professional team can elevate your web presence.

How to Maximize Your Marketing Strategy for the Holidays

How to Maximize Your Marketing Strategy for the Holidays

If you want to increase your revenue and sales during the holiday season, you need to have a well-planned marketing strategy for the holidays. It’s true that people are more likely to spend money on themselves during the holidays. But it’s also true that you need the right tools and techniques in place if you want to capitalize on this higher spending trend.

This guide will walk you through some tips for maximizing your marketing strategy for Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Thanksgiving, Halloween, New Year, or whatever else is happening in December.

In 2022, US holiday retail sales are expected to reach $1.3 trillion, a 3.3% increase over 2021. Holiday ecommerce is expected to grow 15.5% to $236 billion!

 

Using Your Products/Services as Holiday Gifts

As a small business owner, it’s essential to think about ways you can use your products and services as holiday gifts. This is an excellent way to give back to loyal customers while also increasing brand awareness and loyalty among potential customers.

You should frame your ads and marketing strategy for the holidays by showing your customers what value your products and services bring to a holiday event. Whether that is something for a friend at a corporate party or a family member during Christmas, you want to make it seem like your offer is the best choice.

Offering Holiday Discounts

Another common tactic is to offer your customers a limited-time discount. This is easy to do because you can use tools like Google Shopping and Amazon to list your products at discounted prices while still charging full prices on your own website.

The downside of this strategy is that there is no guarantee people will buy during the sale period because they may have already made other plans for their purchases. However, it’s worth giving it a shot if you’ve got the inventory and staffing capacity to support the increased demand.

Design Ads with Holiday Nostalgia

The holidays are a time of nostalgia and tradition, so it’s important to use the familiar elements from past years in your marketing strategy. You can do this with images, colors, and music that remind people of their childhood holiday experiences.

Holiday ads will have an emotional impact on your customers by triggering memories of good times and cherished moments that they enjoyed during their childhood. The use of nostalgic symbols like Santa Claus or reindeer will also help create brand loyalty during the holiday season.

 

Stay on Top of Holiday Trends

It’s crucial to stay on top of seasonal trends for your marketing strategy for the holidays so that your brand stays relevant. You can do this by keeping an eye on the news, following social media, and even looking at what your competitors are doing.

As you probably noticed, Google Trends has become an excellent tool for marketers. It will show you what people are searching for around the world and in specific countries or cities, which is helpful if you want to see what kind of products consumers want this holiday season.

Don’t Forget the Email Campaign

Email marketing is still one of the most effective ways to reach customers, and it’s a great resource for marketing strategy for the holidays.

To ensure your emails get noticed and read by customers, start with a good subject line. This is what will entice your customer to open up the email in their inbox. Next, make sure you have an interesting offer that encourages them to click through on links within your email for more information about specific products or services. Finally—this may seem obvious but—don’t forget to customize each email according to each customer’s preferences!

Use Free Shipping

Free shipping is a great way to attract customers, and it’s also a good way to increase sales. It’s an effective marketing strategy for the holidays that will show your confidence in your products or services, which in turn will help you gain trust with potential buyers. This also helps you compete with major retail companies like Walmart, Best Buy, and Amazon.

holiday sales

Get an Early Start

You’re a smart business owner, and you know that the best way to succeed at marketing your business is to plan ahead. The holidays are no exception. You don’t want to wait until the last minute because then all your options are gone, and you may not have time for changes or additions. Start planning early so that you can get everything in place before the holiday rush hits.

We hope that you can use these tips to help grow your business this holiday season. It’s important to remember that the holidays are a great time for marketing, but there’s no reason why you can’t use them throughout the year as well. Our team at Griffon Webstudios is here to help you get a foothold with your ad campaign. Set up a consultation, and let’s get to work!

Our Pick of Creative Ad Campaigns

Our Pick of Creative Ad Campaigns

Advertising is a powerful medium. It can make you laugh, cry and make you run to the store. It can grab your attention with just a few words or inspire you to change the world. There are many great creative ad campaigns that have done just that over the years and here are some of our favorites!

1. Dove’s “Real Beauty”

Dove is a personal care brand that produces body washes, hair products, and other skincare items. In 2004, the brand launched its “Real Beauty” campaign to encourage women to feel good about themselves. The campaign has been very successful and has won numerous awards for its positive message. It featured women of all shapes and sizes showing skin in ways that were directly contradictory to the accepted beauty styles of the time.

It may seem odd now with so much more acceptance in today’s world, but in 2004, this was both controversial and empowering.

The Dove Campaign for Real Beauty is a worldwide marketing campaign launched by Unilever in 2004 aiming to build self-confidence in women and young children. Dove’s partners in the campaign included Ogilvy, Edelman Public Relations, and Harbinger Communications along with other consultants. Wikipedia

2. Skittles “Taste the Rainbow”

Skittles is a brand of fruit-flavored, colored sugar-coated candy manufactured by the Wrigley Company. Skittles’ advertising is often colorful and whimsical. The unique part of this campaign is that the slogan is what sticks in people’s minds. No matter the content of each individual commercial, everyone thinks of tasting a rainbow when they share or eat the candy treat.

In 1994, the slogan “Taste the Rainbow” was introduced and became one of the longest running advertising campaigns in history. The entire theme of the Skittles company was created by D’Arcy Masius Benton & Bowles, a New York advertising agency. Today, Skittles are loved in over 65 countries.

 

Budweiser “Wassup”

Super Bowl XXXIV in 2000 featured a new commercial from the beer giant where friends were calling one another with a simple question – Wassup? This ridiculous way of talking to one another has been repeated in movies, TV shows, and podcasts ever since, becoming a cultural phenomenon attached to the brand, and growing its market recognition.

Whassup? (also known as Wazzup) was a commercial campaign for Anheuser-Busch Budweiser beer from 1999 to 2002. The first spot aired during Monday Night Football on December 20, 1999. The ad campaign ran in much of the world and became a pop culture catchphrase, comically slurring “what’s up?”.

Always “Like a Girl”

This was an ad campaign meant to change how girls are perceived. It’s a movement that encourages girls to be strong, brave, and confident.

In this particular ad, the narrator asks you to describe what you think of when someone uses the phrase “like a girl.” Most people say something mean like “weak” or “stupid,” but then she shows that it’s actually insulting when you’re in your own mind and body, as well as other women who don’t fit into society’s idea of what an attractive woman should look like. This is another campaign that bucked social norms and forced us to rethink how we talk about each other.

the hashtag #likeagirl became a trending topic and women all over the world wrote about their habits and the things they do like girls! So it does look like “Always” succeeded in making a small change and raising awareness on how wrongly society sometimes treats women.

 

Six Flags “Dancing Man”

From 2004 to 2010, Six Flags theme parks used Mr. Six, an elderly man wearing a tuxedo with thick-framed glasses, as their brand mascot. That may seem an odd choice for a park mostly populated with a younger audience, but you have to remember the advertisements.

When a multicolored bus pulls up in front of a suburban neighborhood, and a bald old man in a tux starts a high-energy dance routine to “We Like to Party” playing in the background – you take notice.

Volvo “The Epic Split”

Van Damme’s commercial is a creative masterpiece. Not only does he use his famous martial arts moves, but also he manages to add humor and some great choreography. The piece was so popular that it went viral on YouTube and was talked about for months later. When you consider this was a B2B ad and not for the general public to promote Volvo trucks, it is pretty impressive.

Creative Ad Campaigns Create Memories

Creative ad campaigns can be fun and memorable. They can also be a great way to build brand equity, help a company stand out from the competition, promote a new product or service, or promote a cause.

No matter what you’re trying to accomplish—and whether or not you have the budget for an expensive campaign—creative thinking will take your advertising efforts to new heights. That is exactly what we promote at Griffon Webstudios. We love to introduce a bit of fun into our ad campaigns and designs to ensure your brands get better recognition and remembrance with your target audience. Set up a consultation today, and let’s start brainstorming!

How to Bring That Creative Spark into Your Branding

How to Bring That Creative Spark into Your Branding

How many times have you revised your last branding campaign? You may never know if you actually got it right. You can measure outcomes and improve features on your next campaign, but we all know branding is not an easy aspect of any business. There are so many factors to keep in mind from marketing mediums to audience preferences to what your message should really be.

With so much to consider you run the risk of doing something, you should preferably avoid: overthinking.

While it’s important to plan, overthinking can rob your campaign of all creativity. Your marketing may end up looking just like your competitors because you’re doing what the research tells you to. And you’re not standing out from the crowd anymore.

We’ll help you add some creativity back into your branding so you have the X-factor counting in your favor again.

Why is Creativity Important?

Never before has branding been this competitive. With modern technology, any business can reach a global audience. Consumers also face a daily barrage of information coming at them online, via TV screens, and on billboards. If they feel overwhelmed by all the stimulation, they can easily ignore what they deem irrelevant.

A creative approach is how you will make an impact in this highly competitive environment.

Adding the X-Factor to Your Branding

You can partner with expert marketers and hopefully, they will compile a customized branding solution to keep your message original. But there’s also a lot you can do yourself.

Get the Visuals Right from the Start

Get the Visuals Right from the Start

You can ensure an original, creative look by putting effort into compiling the visual elements of your brand:

  • The logo that will become the image you’re recognized by: Make sure it’s different from all your competitors’ images.
  • Colors you use in your branding: Because neuroscience proves that colors carry messages you need to make sure your branding incorporates the right hues.
  • Be personal and use faces: Despite being a tech-driven society people still desire to feel connected with others. Using your or your staff members’ faces in your branding campaigns will make your business seem less clinical than others.

Use Your Story

It’s not only your people that you can be creative about. What is your business’ story?

People enjoy being part of something bigger than themselves. In their daily lives, this adds to job satisfaction if they like the company they’re part of.

Your story

But don’t let it stop there. Use your company’s history to draw people when they’re shopping or in search of services:

  • Share how you dreamt about starting a company or providing a solution to the masses
  • Tell the story of starting small and growing into a large company
  • Talk about why you do what you do

This is not simply a ‘nice’ source of ideas for your next campaign. These elements work because people will want to be part of a success story and what you find important, many others may relate to as well.

Telling your story in this way ensures your brand will matter to others as much as it matters to you.

Show You Care

Remember that branding is not only about creating your logo for your business and plastering it on print materials. Branding involves communicating your values. These characteristics—such as professionalism or excellence—will garner respect from your audience who are similar of mind.

For many customers and companies, community involvement is a number one value. This should spark many creative ideas for sharing your brand with locals. Why not support local sports teams, organic markets, or community projects?

Or perhaps your value is being environmentally friendly or ensuring mental health for your employees. For example, when your brand relates to wellness (of people, nature, or a city) and you mention this in your marketing, those who have the same concerns will rather support you than your competitors.

Stories about your involvement can be shared online, so what you do locally can lead to global respect.

What Language are You Using?

Before you send out your next advertisement, pause a moment and look at the language you’re using. Different audiences have unique preferences and manners of speaking:

  • They use different words to refer to the same item
  • Some people talk more formal while others use casual terms
  • Age groups relate to different ‘slang’ words and references

Make sure you’re using the language your target audience uses. A few small tweaks to the type of words you use are creative ways of optimizing your branding impact.

So, for a moment stop overthinking and look. The features that can spark some creativity for your branding campaign can be found all around you. Marketing is a serious role player in your business success—but don’t forget to also have fun with it.

How to Keep Your Email Marketing Strategy Effective

How to Keep Your Email Marketing Strategy Effective

Email marketing is a great way to reach consumers, but it’s not always an easy strategy to maintain. Fortunately, there are several steps you can take to ensure that your email marketing stays effective and continues to bring in new customers.

The goal is to have a continuous lifeline of communication between you and your clients so they stay engaged with your brand at all times. A few essential tips to ensure your email marketing strategy is on point include:

 

1. Personalization

Personalizing your emails is the most effective way to build relationships with your customers. If you want your message to get opened and clicked, then it needs to be relevant to those who receive it. By tracking user behavior and collecting data about the recipient, you can create personalized campaigns that are more likely than generic messages to get opened.

 

Emails with personalized subject lines get a 26% boost in open rates.

 

2. Short Targeted Subject Lines

When writing your subject line, keep it short and sweet. The longer your subject line gets, the less likely someone will click on it. A good rule of thumb is to keep your email subject lines between 12 and 15 words.

 

3. Send at the Best Times

You want to make sure you’re sending emails at the right time. This is especially important if you’re sending a lot of marketing emails, as it impacts how your customers perceive your brand.

This seems obvious enough, but it’s actually one of the most common mistakes brands make when they’re trying to increase their open rates and click-through rates. If your client is a working professional with a 9-5, then sending an email at 10:30 am in the morning may not be helpful.

 

99% of email users check their email every day, some as much as 20 times a day!

 

4. Use Freebies

Give away something valuable, something your customers are interested in, and something that will help them. Your freebie should be something you can use to promote your business and build trust. This could be a discount code, training opportunity, or digital download.

 

5. Make Everything Mobile Friendly

You can reduce your bounce rate by ensuring your emails are readable on mobile devices. Be sure to use a responsive email template so your email marketing strategy will automatically adjust to fit the screen size of the device they’re being viewed on.

42.3% of people will delete an email if it’s not optimized for mobile. So, if your email marketing campaigns aren’t mobile-friendly, all of your hard work will go to waste.

6. Differentiate Your Subscribers

Segmentation divides your subscribers into groups that are more likely to respond to a particular message. For example, if you’re targeting people in different countries, it would be helpful to know what language they speak and where they live. This allows you to target those with their own interests and preferences for receiving emails from businesses like yours.

 

7. Don’t Forget Inactive Leads

You should also use email to re-engage with inactive customers. This can be a great way of reminding them about your brand or offering them a discount or freebie. For example, you can send an email that offers 10% off as a promotional offer.

 

8. Use Metrics and Analytics

Analytics are essential to succeeding in today’s marketplace. For example, Apple recently released a new Mail Privacy Protection system that allows users to hide their IP addresses. This can negatively affect your email marketing strategy because it makes it harder to see the demographics of your readers.

However, if you use up-to-date analytics and email metrics, you can still get enough segmentation to work around these new tools.

Shoppers spend 138% more when marketed through email, as compared to those who do not receive email offers.

 

Wrapping it Up

The best way to keep your email marketing strategy effective is to always look for ways to improve it. This means staying up to date on what your customers want and need, testing different approaches, and then figuring out what works best for your business.

Don’t forget that even though the internet has changed so much in recent years, people still respond well when they feel like they are being spoken directly to by someone who cares about them as an individual.

That is precisely what our team at Griffon Webstudios does to help. We design email marketing strategies that speak directly to your high-value target markets so you can get the highest ROI from your messaging. Schedule a consultation with our team today, and let’s help improve your email marketing.

Google has announced helpful content update. What's new?

Google has announced “helpful content update”. What’s new?

On August 25, 2022, Google released a new update to its massive search engine algorithm. In this new edition, the focus of content marketing has changed from information explicitly written for search engines to a “people first” kind of slant. If you want to grow in search engine results, you need to cater your content to better serve the average consumer.

This update rollout aims to boost the rankings of engaging and well-written content designed for human consumption instead of helping those with blog posts that seem stuffed with keywords and intended for web crawlers.

The “helpful content update” will help the average search find highly relevant, high-quality content that speaks directly to their needs. So how do you change your content to adapt to this new update from Google?

1. Stick to the Main Topic

You want to ensure you don’t stray too far from your main topic. If a reader comes to your blog or website looking for information on one thing and sees something completely unrelated, they may not return. Try to keep a universal brand identity on your site that involves your content marketing strategy.

2. Showcase Your First-Hand Knowledge

To overcome the challenge of not having enough content, you need to provide examples of your experience in the form of stories that demonstrate how you have solved a problem for a customer or solved an issue in your industry. These stories should include real-life examples and capture attention by showing readers how they can benefit from your expertise.

If a hunter gives advice on underwater basket weaving, you may sound inauthentic to Google’s new update.

3. Avoid Multiple Topics in a Single Site

If you’re creating a site that has multiple purposes and topics, then this is fine. For example, if you have a site where the main focus is selling products but also offers information about how to care for those products, then combining both topics into one site isn’t an issue.

However, if your entire purpose is to provide information on one topic or niche—which most people do—then combining multiple topics into one site won’t help with SEO and can hurt it in some cases.

4. Give Quality Answers to Questions

You’re going to want to provide the answer. But don’t just give a partial solution. You want to make sure that everything you write is relevant to the searcher’s question and that it can be verified by someone other than yourself (like an expert). Again, you are trying to build authority and trust.

5. Create an Engaging Experience

The most important piece of content you can publish is everything that supports your reader’s experience. From the title to the tags, images, and links, you want to provide an engaging experience where readers want to spend time on your site.

6. Avoid Unanswerable Questions

Giving a single response to how best to lose weight will not help. We all know there are multiple different methods that people of different beliefs, backgrounds, and body types can utilize to lose weight. Google doesn’t want definitive answers to open-ended questions. Instead, they want helpful content marketing designed to help users find the different information relative to who they are as a user.

7. Stay Updated with Other Updates

Google is constantly updating its search engine algorithms. In fact, it releases a new major update every year or two. You can find out more about these updates at Google’s official blog. You want to know if there is a future update that will affect your business.

Getting Proactive About Your Content Marketing

If your site is starting to downgrade in rankings, it could be because you are caught up in the new Google algorithm update. In that case, your best option is to find a team of professional SEO experts who understands how to reformat your content to better fit this new change.

That is where our team at Griffon Webstudios can help. We keep a close watch on any changes from Google and immediately integrate those changes into our own content as well as our clients. Schedule a consultation with our team today, and let’s help boost your search engine rank.