How To Find the Right Digital Marketing Agency for Your Business

How To Find the Right Digital Marketing Agency for Your Business

by with No Comment Digital Marketing

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!

Local-SEO-Strategy-How-to-dominate-your-local-search

Local SEO Strategy- How to dominate your local search?

by Digital Marketing

If you have ever searched anything on Google, you should be knowing that you don’t always get the same results for the same keywords you search for. It changes according to your location, IP, browsing history, etc.

Google frequently change their ranking algorithms to bring out the best result for every query. This means that you need to have the right local SEO strategies and website ranking methods.


If you want to learn how to dominate your local search and get better rankings using improved local SEO strategies. Here are the ways:

Knowing how to understand local SEO ranking

You can’t work on dominating your local search if you don’t understand how local search works. When you try to find products or services in a particular local area, Google recommends the businesses that are nearby.

For instance, if you’re hungry and you want to grab a quick lunch near your place, it won’t show the restaurants that are more than 20 miles away. So, if you are targeting the local market then you need to focus on optimizing your website for local search results.

Google determines local rank with three key factors:

  • Distance
  • Relevance and
  • Prominence.

Prominence is determined based on the data Google collects on you such as your review scores by previous customers, and other info. So if you don’t have many customer reviews then you may not get as high of a ranking as a place with lots of reviews.

Distance is vital too, If Google doesn’t know your exact location, it can’t show potential customers how far your business is from your potential clients. And relevance means you must show all the details about your business in your profile so Google can use it to understand your company more and add your business to the local ranked businesses in your niche.

You must improve the information for your business to get a higher rank

So, now that we understand how local SEO ranking works, you need to check your company out and first see where you fall in the local listings. If you can’t find it all, or it’s way below those first three places in the search listing, you are in big trouble and need local SEO experts to help you fix the problem.

A good step is to create a Google My Business account, and a Bing Places for Business account which should get you listed better under Google Maps and Search feature, and better listed on Bing.

Be sure all the data in your account listing is up to date and that it includes phone, actual address, category of business, email, your operating hours, and a photo of your brick and mortar store.

All this has to match and be exactly the same in every place your business is listed because even if there is a tiny flaw as small as one listing saying First Street and one saying First St. it will cause Google to throw it out and your business will be lowered in rank.

Local SEO for Google only works with AdWords

If you want your business to show up on Google’s first page in a search query for your niche, you need to be using AdWords. With their recent algorithm changes, Google looks for strongly chosen AdWords ads and if your business is not using AdWords, you could be losing clients on a daily basis or worse.

Your business needs to be placed in a place online where people will find it right away, and having a higher ranking on Google solves that problem. If you are still having issues, contact SEO service experts to help you develop a marketing plan that also includes the use of AdWords.

Be sure to check your titles and meta descriptions

Title tags and meta descriptions are HTML elements of your website that describe the content that appears in the search results. It’s like a preview of what your business has to offer its customers.

Recently, Google made a change in the width of its search result pages that was favorable to writing these titles and meta descriptions. It lengthened the page to 600px, so now you have room to write a bit more for these design elements.

If you want to make sure the ones you write for your content aren’t too long, you can download a special emulator that will show you how it will look to people searching online. For instance, if you own a WordPress site, one such emulator is the SEOPresser for WordPress.

Just like anything else you post, make sure your titles and meta descriptions are relevant and up to date for your niche, and that they are unique and as descriptive as possible for best local SEO results.

Make sure to have your mobile app optimized for local search

Google looks fondly on places that have a mobile app and a local business website, so therefore having these will help your local SEO ranking. Don’t lose customers or get ranked lower than your competitors! Optimize your mobile app today or if you don’t have one, get one right now.

The conclusion is that Google and the other search engines rank businesses every day. If you want your business to stay in the top three listings, be sure that your local SEO is as optimized as it can get and call your SEO expert for help.

7-cost-effective-ways-to-market-your-business-online

7 Cost-Effective Ways To Market Your Business Online

by Digital Marketing

When you run a business, every dollar counts! It’s not easy being a business owner, given the amount of responsibility needed to make it successful – not to mention all the money needed to get it off the ground, too.

So saving any money you can save is always appreciated, which is why you’ll definitely need these cost-effective ways to market your business online:

1. Learn the ins and outs of social media

Social media is a great way to gain tons of exposure for your business, but the best part is that it’s free! You can set up your business profiles for nothing and then create ads for however much you can afford to spend. Plus, social media is practically a necessity for all business.

But if you’re going to market your business on social media, learn the ins and outs of the platform to take advantage of all it has to offer.

94% of B2B marketers use LinkedIn as part of their content strategy. Other popular platforms include Twitter (87%), Facebook (84%), YouTube (74%) and Google+ (62%).

2. Create a blog

Another cost-effective way to market your business online is to create a blog. You’ll be able to incorporate keywords, which will get you organic traffic if done properly. This costs nothing, just a bit of time and hard work to create quality content people will want to read.

3. Use SEO for your website

Besides a blog, you’ll want to incorporate SEO into your entire website so that it ranks higher on search engines. By making sure your website is primed for what search engines want, you’ll be able to better market your business.

4. Put out press releases

When your business does something that’s newsworthy, put out a press release. You never know who might be interested and pick up the new! There are also tons of websites out there that you can use to distribute your press release for cheap.

5. Join an online community

Whatever your niche is, find an online community and get involved. By posting on forums, you’ll be able to spread the word about your business.

6. Email marketing

Email marketing is a low-cost way to spread the word about what you’re doing, any promotions and anything else you feel your customers will want to know. By creating a weekly schedule, your customers will anticipate seeing your email in their inbox!

7. Referral Marketing

If your customers find value in what you offer, then they’ll have no problem in referring you to their family and friends. It’s a cheap and effective way to take your online business offline!

How-to-get-more-traffic-to-your-ecommerce-website

How To Get More Organic Traffic To Your E-Commerce Website?

by Website Development

There are many ways to get traffic to your e-commerce website, without having to pay for ads. Your business may not have a budget to spend on Facebook, Google or Instagram ads because you’re still starting out, or focusing your budget on other aspects of the business.

You don’t have to spend any money on growing your e-commerce website traffic – you just need to know how to do it organically! Organic traffic may sound like a challenge, but here are a few tips on how to accomplish this goal.

Here are the 3 most crucial factors to get more organic traffic to your e-commerce website.

1. Create Quality Content

The first thing you’d want to focus on is creating unique content on each of your product pages, homepage, and blog. By creating relevant content, people find value in your website and when it is mixed with vital keywords, search engines like Google will find more relevancy in your content and rank your page higher, allowing people looking for key terms to find you on the first few pages which leads to increase in organic traffic.

One easy way to do so is with product reviews and blog posts. By allowing your customers to submit reviews, you can leverage their words into sales to convince new website visitors to convert. You’ll also want to highlight the reviews on your site’s home page so it’s the first thing new visitors see.

Fresh content and regular blog posts will keep your potential customers more engaged with your brand, website and thus value the information you provide them.

2. Have Dynamic Meta Descriptions To Increase Organic Traffic

Your site’s meta descriptions are very important as they appear directly below the page title. Even though Google often doesn’t read what’s in a meta description, customers do and it’s the only other information besides the title and URL that appears on the search results providing them enough reasons to visit your website.

Writing engaging meta description is important for readers to visit your e-commerce store.

The 70-80% of search engine users are ignoring the paid ads and are only focusing on the organic results

3. Make Your Site’s Speed A Priority

Speed is actually a decisive factor for ranking on Google so you need to make sure that your e-commerce site loads in under four seconds (as well as all of its pages). The faster your site is, the better chance it has to rank on the search results.

You may also have to constantly monitor the load time, bounce rate and time spent on the site to really get a clear understanding of the health of your website.

10-inexpensive-ways-to-get-your-business-noticed-online

10 Inexpensive Ways to Get Your Business Noticed Online

by Digital Marketing

When it comes to marketing our businesses online, it doesn’t matter whether you are a small local craft shop or a global business standing the test of time, we want to get noticed and we don’t want to spend a lot of money doing so.

The way we advertise and the way consumers look at our products or services is forever changing. So we need to be constantly aware of what is going on in the digital marketing scene so that we can continue to do what we do and to continue to be seen.

Here are 10 inexpensive ways to get your business noticed online.

1. Search Engine Optimization

If you haven’t heard of Search Engine Marketing (SEM) or Search Engine Optimization (SEO) before, then now is the time for you to get clued up and involved. This is one of the best things you can do to ensure your business is found when potential customers search for what they are after, and best of all, it’s free!

SEO is organic. This means that it happens naturally and fortunately, it is through not too much effort from you. It is not a Pay per Click advertisement scheme or generated through you purchasing a bot to boost your presence.

When somebody asks Google, Yahoo or Bing (search engines) for information on a product or service, if you have input keywords relating to your business in the meta-tag and description of your website, then the search engines will relate those keywords to the person’s request and present your webpage. The higher up a webpage is relating to the relevance as well as activity and popularity of the website.

2. Love Social Media

You have probably heard it all before, but social media is key these days in giving you the opportunity to spread your word, share your name and attract leads, interest, and hopefully, sales! Linkedin, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram are all social media platforms you should be familiar with and using regularity.

Remember not to preach too much about yourself all the time and mix it up with some other interesting posts in order to keep it fresh and exciting for your followers.

3. Choose a simple domain name

Now here is one where the boat might have already sailed, but if you are new to the world of online business or even willing to give another website a shot, bear in mind that your customers need to be able to remember your website, so keep it as short, simple and to the point as possible.

4. Try a high end (or low cost) domain

You might have heard that Google penalizes new domain names such as. flowers and .market so you might be willing to spend that extra cash by sticking with a .com or .org in order to move your search engine ranking up the scale. It appears this isn’t actually true.

Google has informed us here that they treat these new domains just like any other domain, so if you are squeezing every penny, don’t feel obliged to take a .com

5. Create a shareable blog

Blogging is great for connecting with your audience on a more personal level. You can offer insights into the industry, you are able to answer questions and by creating shareable posts, then your customers are essentially doing the marketing for you.

Not only that, but Google loves it when you create new and interesting posts and will reward you by boosting your ranking to allow you to receive more organic traffic to your website. The best type of blog posts you can make offer information about your company without preaching about it. You also need to make it easy to share on sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Reddit as when it is easy to share, people are more likely to do so.

6. Video Marketing

This is a great and inexpensive way to get your business online. It is dubbed to be the most influential medium in which to advertise this coming year, with 99% of businesses who use videos say they will use them again, and 85% of businesses regarding video marketing as an important part of their marketing strategy.

The survey from Wyzowl also informs us that “the average person is watching more than an hour and a half of online video content per day, with around 15%watching more than three hours”. That is a lot of video time.

7. Reward referrals

Let the people supporting your business such as friends, family and employees earn a little from their support. By including a referral system that offers a discount or up to 10% off when they refer a friend can provide a huge boost to your customer pool.

People are 4 times more likely to buy when referred by a friend. (Nielsen)

8. Be authentic

According to a review by Stackla, 86% of customers said that authenticity greatly influences their decision on what brands they like and support. This is a huge percentage of people who want to feel like they are dealing with real people, not just another big business or brand. This is a great inexpensive way to garner interest in your business.

9. Join up with another company

Think airlines and car rentals. They go hand in hand, don’t they? So when there is a deal that allows you to purchase your flight as well as sort out your car rental, many people enjoy the simplicity. This can apply to your business. You are also benefiting from the traffic flow of the other company, which boosts your exposure significantly.

If you haven’t been online long enough to have a substantial customer base, pairing with a company of similar age can be extremely useful.

10. Experiment with Instagram

Instagram, as a photo sharing platform may lead you to believe that it’s only really serving businesses such as bakeries, florists and cake decorators when it comes to getting your business noticed online.

But you can use Instagram to connect with your customers, no matter your business, by allowing to let people into a bit of your company’s culture and energy.

shopping-cart-abandonment

How to Reduce Shopping Cart Abandonment with a Seamless Checkout

by Website Development

It has happened to all of us. We pick products on a website, add them to the shopping cart, and for one reason or another, finally, we do not buy and the order remains in the limbo of unpaid orders.

Facing the abandonment of a shopping cart by customers is something that creates a lot of insecurity in online stores. It is also a problem for many online business owners.

Fortunately, more and more studies reveal the different reasons why abandoned carts appear, which allows companies to improve the sales process and adapt it to improve the conversion rates in their stores.

Reasons for having abandoned carts

There are many reasons why consumers abandon full shopping carts in an online store. Although, difficult navigation or a complicated interface to use are some of the main reasons for the abandonment of the shopping cart.

The following are also some of the major reasons shopping carts are abandoned:

1. The inability to save in order to validate later
2. The number of shipping costs is not visible
3. The impossibility of contacting customer support
4. The impossibility of using a third payer
5. The volume of information requested is too high
6. The complexity of the payment process

Seamless checkout tips that can solve the problem of abandoned carts

We will discuss the issue of how to reduce shopping cart abandonment in your online store. Fortunately, more and more studies reveal different reasons why this happens, which allows companies to improve the sales process and adapt to improve the conversion rates in their stores. We have tried to collect the potential solutions that can be helpful in creating a better experience for your shoppers.

1. Quality customer service

We must pay special attention to communication with the client. E-commerce creates a new way of relating to the consumer, a relationship that is essential for the purchase process to be formalized successfully. Customer service is key. It has to be accessible and impeccable, we must realize that it is the only “contact” the client has with the company, so, even if it is virtual, it must provide adequate trust and demand from the client.

It is proven that when customer support is available at a single click, the abandonment of the shopping cart is reduced by 30%.

In the United States, 21% of online shoppers prefer a chat conversation with the company’s own support.

The ability to respond and the need for more information from the users have made companies rethink their sales process and bring a change in their strategy. The importance of knowing each client individually and building a lasting relationship will ensure better sales numbers.

2. Free shipping or discounts

Many online buyers abandon their shopping cart either due to a high shipping cost or the seller has not mentioned it during the entire purchase process, which may be an unpleasant surprise when they find it on the checkout page.

Also, keep in mind that customers are more likely to buy more products when you offer Free shipping.

3. Show the break-up of the cost

In the shopping cart, there must be a clear break-up of tax, shipping cost, and the final price, as it can mean a considerable difference that causes the customer to abandon their purchase.

Not indicating the final price on the products until the end of the transaction, can shoot the number of abandoned carts on your website

 

 

 

 

 

4.

The shopping cart must always be visible

Keeping it this way reminds customers to buy. Sometimes the product itself could distract the buying activity so a visible shopping cart will bring the customers to engage with the website.

5. Give them fewer steps

The customers are there to purchase, not just to fill out some irrelevant data. This may seem obvious, but there are still thousands of stores that put obstacles to their customers by adding an increasingly longer purchase process. You should minimize the number of clicks and make the customers buy the product at ease.

Analyze the heatmaps and study the behavior of your website visitors to know where you are failing.

6. Offer several payment options

You need to provide the clients with all possible payment options. The ideal thing would be to be able to pay by credit card, by conventional methods such as bank transfer or counter-reimbursement, by Paypal, or even other alternative methods.

There are many payment alternatives, the more the better. This will eliminate one of the most important barriers that a consumer would encounter.

5-B2B-MARKETING-TACTICS-TO-INCREASE-YOUR-SALES

5 B2B Marketing Tactics to increase your Sales.

by with No Comment Digital Marketing

The business world has seen an enormous transformation in the steps involved in business-to-business marketing and sales. Business to Business (B2B) marketing has evolved so much that outbound marketing has started becoming to be the tactic of the past.  Automation, Digital Business Network & Social Media have rewritten the way business used to operate.

Screen Shot 2018-04-14 at 4.52.41 PM

The B2B business is characterized by fewer customers, complicated business transactions, derivative demand and a few numbers of employees. The internet has played a major role in turning the B2B marketing into a round-the-clock activity making it very competitive since every business is scrambling for the clients found on the internet.

For every business to grow and make profits there have to be strategies put in place to govern and enhance the marketing and sales activities. Setting an online presence is not just enough to put you ahead of the game in a B2B business set up. The following strategies can be used to increase the market share and generate more revenue.

1. Establish a specific goal

Before setting any specific goals for marketing you need to establish the kind of customers you want to reach out to. With this, you will be able to determine the tactics, strategies, promotional avenues and the messaging you can use in the marketing campaigns. You can start by creating buyer information channels to gain knowledge about your customers’ goals, motivations, pain processes.

b2b

By this, you can understand where the buyers get their information from, what kind of products attracts them and how they carry their research. You can then synchronize the buyer’s needs and challenges with your products/services and how you can add value to them. This will help in creating relevant content which will keep you ahead of your competitors. Since the B2B marketing has many stakeholders, you have to go through this process to make sure you deliver the right message to the right person and at the right time.

2. Use video in your marketing

By 2019, global consumer Internet video traffic will account for 80% of all consumer Internet traffic.

They say a picture is worth a thousand words and the easiest and fastest way to spread your product in the market is through video advertisement.

YouTube has been a very powerful tool in the social media for advertising, promotion, and marketing. This is a media platform that can no longer be ignored because videos are becoming more prominent as a content formatting tool. You can work on the strength of your video to deliver a special and unique experience that will assist in sharing accurate insights, create emotional and personal connections and help solve market problems.

3. Prioritize Digital Advertising

With digital marketing becoming more mature, it’s no surprise that companies are continually getting better at SEO. Marketers see SEO as becoming more effective, with 82% reporting effectiveness is on the rise and 42% of this group stating effectiveness is increasing significantly.

Google receives 63,000 searches per second on any given day.

In terms of efficiency the digital paid advertising was ranked at 52 percent while posts promoted by social media came second with 39 percent. The preference of using paid advertising whether it’s the social media ads, social media posts that are promoted or the pay-per-click ads found in search engines will continue being in an upward direction.

b2b market linkedin

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is more suitable for B2B sales and marketing because it enables you to reach out to your intended market organically.

4. Use  Content marketing to assist customer’s journey

94 percent of people that buy through the B2B marketing platforms are said to have done some online research before buying any product, while the majority of decision makers of a business prefer to know the company they are engaging with from a number of articles rather than hearing of them through adverts.

Content-marketing-priorities

Content marketing can take the perspective of the buyer about your products right from the awareness stage to the buying or purchasing stage. Apart from that, it can also help to increase the awareness of the brand to people, direct new customers to your website and helps to boost your search engine optimization.

A content marketing strategy that is well designed allows you as the seller to get the best leads, build trust with the buyers, nurture relationships, help prospects, lead decision makers of companies to their platform which finally leads to getting high sales

5. Build a good e-commerce website platform

If your potential clients are bypassing the website without spending time or engaging in the available resources on the page, then you need to know that your content marketing and advertising techniques are all in vain. It is very important that your business is supported by a strong e-commerce website that is fully featured.

This can help you to process the number of website visits to sales and then to recurring orders which obviously is the goal for any business.

This entire customer journey can flawlessly happen only when your website offers an outstanding user experience.

The digital era has brought with it significant changes posing some challenges while at the same time opening up numerous market opportunities in the B2B world. The big question is, Are you making the best use of all the available resources and technology to meet the demands of your customers? If not then you now know the strategies to run a successful B2B marketing campaign.

b2b-tactical-strategy

B2B Requires a Tactical SEO Strategy. Learn How

by Digital Marketing

Businesses that serve other businesses often have longer sales cycles and niche market. They don’t bother trying to earn traffic from search engines. However, the majority of B2B researchers start their research with an online search. You can gain an edge over competitors if you use a tactical SEO strategy.

B2B businesses should not only focus on driving traffic but also qualified leads. You should use the right SEO strategy that will influence the metrics that do matter for the bottom line of the business.

emotion_drives_b2b_business_decisions2
Create an SEO-Friendly Website

A tactical SEO strategy has two important elements, which are website and content. Before you can create content, you first need to optimize the website for search engines. You should optimize the pages with the keywords in the Meta descriptions, and headings.

You should also make sure that the website is mobile-friendly. When choosing your web designer, find one that knows how to do SEO-friendly design. The design must complement your marketing strategy, which includes search engine optimization.

B2B businesses require a platform where they can show they know what they are talking about and engage potential customers. Product descriptions are not enough to direct more targeted audiences to the website. By starting a blog, you get the opportunity to create content that will attract traffic to the website.

Write Interesting Content

In the past, SEO strategies called for content written for machines. However, times have changed and ranking high on search engine results pages requires building authority, high-quality backlinks, and social media shares.

Getting more clicks from search engine results will earn the website higher ranking. Search engines think that clicks from users indicate that the page provided the answer they were looking for. In order to get more clicks, the page must stand out from the crowd. It must grab the attention of the readers with interesting headlines and Meta descriptions.

When writing the content, you should put yourself in the shoes of the customers. You should consider what motivates them, their job title, and the information they are looking for. Create the content to target specific readers, and provide answers to their questions.

B2B SEO
Build Quality Links

Quality backlinks will improve your search engine rankings. When another website links to you, it is an indicator to search engines that the site is authoritative. The higher the quality of the backlink, the more boosts your website gets.

There are several ways to get quality backlinks. You can try guest posting on websites that are relevant to your industry. However, you should do this when you have already established your blog. That way you will not be neglecting your own readers.

You can also try to earn links by creating content that gives value to readers. Not only will the content make you seem like an authority in the industry, it will make readers want to share it with their colleagues and followers on social media.

As you can see, you need to have a tactical SEO strategy to drive traffic to your website and get positive results. By observing good B2B SEO practices, your website can help generate leads and improve the sales of your business.

 

5-reasons-why-small-businesses-need-a-mobile-app

5 Reasons why small businesses need a mobile app

by Mobile Apps
Small business needs a mobile app- Not Kidding!

Small businesses were once very easy to run. You just have to set up a shop, place an ad in the local newspaper, wait for the businesses to come through. Though it took a few days, it wasn’t a complex process. But as days went by, the Internet became an essential element in running any business.

Small business owners now have to keep up with technological advancements in order to run their businesses successfully.

The difficult part starts with setting up a website as small businesses seriously need one. Earlier, only large corporations had a website on their own, but it was time for the small business owners to become familiar with web designing, hosting, etc. Once the website is ready, it doesn’t end with that. You should also get familiar with SEO, Ads, tackling issues related to social media, offline and online marketing, etc.

As all these became essential for a small business, it looks like you now need to function like an MNC.

shopping-with-mobile-phonesDoes it all end here. Absolutely not. Now it’s all about mobile phones. Gone are those days where we used mobile phones only to talk to each other. Smartphones have revolutionized the way we do business. Even large corporations from all over the world, have shifted from their routine work of printing ads, billboards, and giving out leaflets, to the world of mobile marketing and ads. And of course, there are enough reasons why small businesses should embrace the change but almost all small businesses have one common perception in their minds.

A mobile App? We don’t see a need for that at the moment.

Yes, You might not see a need but there are plenty of stats and research findings that reveal what the consumers expect. Here are a few surprising mobile app stats.

  • Of the 1.8 hours average users spend online on their smartphones each day, mobile apps account for 89 percent of this media time (Social Media Today).
  • Almost 60 percent of marketers say mobile apps are crucial to creating a cohesive customer journey (Salesforce).
  • Around 88 percent of customers who search for local businesses online will actually visit or call these businesses within a day (Social Media Today).
  • 269 billion apps will be downloaded in 2017 (Statista)

Number of mobile app downloads worldwide in 2016, 2017 and 2021 (in billions)

Mobile app stats

You need an “extra” to become extraordinary. The survival rate of small businesses depends upon the extraordinary effort and innovative ideas they bring to the table. Here are few ideas that show how small businesses can benefit from mobile apps.

1. More Value to Your Customers

Business is all about giving. When you open up and offer your product, it should create value for your customers. If they find your product/service to be great, the market/customers will be ready with their wallets. Mobile App is a great way to increase your customers’ interaction with your brand. And not only that, you can add a lot of offers and loyalty programs inside your app in such a way that when the user opens the app, they have great deals either while ordering online or be it in the shop. One great example is The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf, They offer free brewed coffee/hot tea to customers who install their mobile app.

2. Better Brand Engagement

Customer service is not always about communicating through emails or having a conversation over the telephone. Nowadays, it has become much more than that. A recent survey brings an interesting fact that 63.5% of the entire U.S population is expected to use a smartphone.

The real challenge for businesses is to create a rapport with their target audience and the best way to deal with this would be with the help of a mobile app. Design the mobile app in such a way that it interacts with your customers seamlessly. It should give a feel as if they are interacting with you in person. If you can win this challenge, you can resolve all your sales and customer service issues.

mobile app for small business

Another huge advantage of building a mobile app is when a customer wants to know something about your business at his convenience, say middle of the night, all he has to do is unlock his mobile and download the app. Very simple. Even buying a product is very simple. The customer doesn’t have to wait for the opening hours. He can just order it through the mobile app even when the working hours are over. For example, big boys like Amazon, eBay, etc allow you to order anything you need, from anywhere and at any time.

3. More Revenue, More Profit

A mobile app has enough features to generate additional income. By 2020, there will be 6.1 billion smartphone users globally.

When you create a user-friendly mobile app, the customers tend to spend more time browsing your product/services. When there’s more personalized content, there is a higher chance of an increase in sales. Recent data from Yahoo’s Flurry analytics shows that 90% of consumer’s mobile time is spent on apps.

It’s an App world, the web just lives in it.

percent-time-spent-on-mobile-apps-2017

CMO by Adobe recorded every e-commerce transaction during the 2016 holiday shopping. It reveals that a staggering $46 billion worth of sales came through mobile devices.

Here’s a very interesting statistic from Domino’s Pizza. When they introduced the mobile app for ordering pizzas, they saw a quick rise of 28% in sales in just half-year. As of today, 51% of their online orders come through mobile apps.

4. Customer Experience

A well-designed mobile app can perform faster than a mobile website as it does not require a web server. Mobile App stores all its data on the local device thus making it perform faster.

Minimal UI design combined with personalized content is more likely to engage your audience.

 Sleek Design

5. Extended Marketing Tool

More than just a mobile app, it can act as a tool adding a lot more value to your marketing efforts. If your app helps the users save time or keeps them engaged, they would definitely recommend it to their friends and share glowing reviews.

mobile-marketing-Griffon WebstudiosAs a business, Instead of reaching out to the customers through the traditional medium of phone/email, you could try conveying your message in the form of a mobile app.

Your downloads will increase when you promote the app with special deals and coupons. The users would enjoy the experience rather than avoiding the brand.

You must remember that today’s customers are constantly moving and addicted to their mobile devices.

72% of adult internet users use Facebook.

Your app can be easily integrated with Facebook, Twitter and other social media sites. That allows the users to share your app with their network and review your business if they enjoy the experience. This gives you free publicity.

Forbes states that “building and delivering great mobile experiences will be the beating heart of your customer engagement strategy for the next 10 years.”

Push Notifications

One of the most important features the small businesses can make use of is push notifications. Push notifications are alerts that pop up on a user’s screen and informs them of the latest news, deals, offers and so on, which are available through your app.

Frequency, Timing, Content, and Deep linking are the important strategies to master when it comes to push notifications.

5 reasons for small business to have a mobile_push_notifications

Frequency: Push notifications can keep your customers well informed and interested but too many notifications would frustrate the customer and they end up trashing the app. There are no universally correct solutions for frequency but don’t overdo it. It all depends on your audience and their expectation.

Timing: Right place at the right time always works. Timing is very crucial in sending push notifications. The best way to determine the optimal timing for your business is by A/B testing. The same message at different hours will give you the user pattern and their engagement rate.

Content: Make sure that you offer real value, every single time. Content that drives urgency and relevancy would drive them to your app.

78% of users tend to immediately delete the app or disable notifications if they are unhappy with the content.

Deep Linking: Push notifications with links can redirect your audience to a specific screen or pages in the app. As a result, It provides a seamless experience and increases the engagement level of the viewers due to less distraction.

Mobile App stats

As you know, Mobile apps play such a huge role in the world of small business but there are two major things that make or break your app strategy. The quality of your app and the way it is marketed to the audience determines your success.

local-seo-image

5 important things to remember in Local SEO

by Digital Marketing

One of the highly effective forms of online marketing is Local Search Engine Optimization commonly known as Local SEO. This online marketing technique is found to be tricky because it does not just stop with performing the on-page and off-page work, but even the more complex activities such as citations and listings.

Though it sounds simple, Local SEO can get confusing when differentiated into various forms and deeper analysis. A good example of this is, the common misunderstanding that having listed in a lot of directories is the exact way to achieve a successful local SEO. The reason why it’s not completely true is that there are several other factors that need to be in order other than the number of listings in directories.

Local business store

The business should ensure that the directories listed are unique and relevant to the industry of business and are being optimized based on the location of your business which includes street name, city and state.

To better understand the technique to achieve a successful local SEO, you should remember the five major things below:
  1. Accurate location in online listings
  2. Useful information on directories.
  3. Building social profiles
  4. Getting more reviews
  5. Optimizing for Hyperlocal.

 

1. Accuracy and Consistency in online listings:

The first important thing to keep in mind is the information such as Name, Address, Phone number and Website. The information should be accurate and consistent across all the listings. A recent study revealed some interesting patterns found among the local business owners. 

Around 85% wanted their business to be found on local listings and directories but only a very few have actually taken the effort to update their business information on the web.

70% of business owners say that there is not enough time for them to update.

The two most annoying things for the local customers are:

  1. Finding a false location of the business he/she’s searching for will have an adverse effect on the business.
  2. Mismatch in business information- Untrustworthy.

A lot of times we don’t find even some of the most important details such as the store information, operational hours, location with a map. Such inaccuracies lead to the dead-end of your local SEO efforts.

This can further be divided into two

(i) Accuracy of the Information

(ii) The consistency of the information.

  • crossfit nycThe accuracy of the Information: Information required to optimize your local business are Name, Phone Number and Address. It is used as an important tool to determine the accuracy of the business. The information fed on the listing should have the correct information. An easy example to remember is Kasey’s Donuts misspelled as Kassey’s Donuts– A simple spelling mistake would lead to inaccurate information on the listing.
  • The consistency of the information:  After accuracy, Consistency is the second most important word to remember in Local SEO. The business information on listings, local mentions, citations and directories must be consistent across all the places. Businesses should stay cautious and not let the consistency of their brand slip away by entering information that mismatch.

Local SEO can be optimized in a simple way by keeping the information consistent and accurate.

2. Useful information on directories:

It is a well-known fact that getting listed on the directories is a very simple process. The difficult part of this process is to provide detailed information about your local business and making them rank higher.

The most important step to perform is to create a local listing. A recent survey conducted by the Local Search Association Inc revealed the information consumers wish to see when they search for a local listing. 

  • Address 67%,
  • Phone number 66%,
  • Location 59%,
  • Company name 56%,
  • Website 54%,
  • Prices 52%,
  • Credentials 22%

There is enough reason now to keep the directories updated with as much relevant information as possible. If your listing has more information, there are higher chances of customers reaching out leading to more new business. 

3. Building Social Profiles:

The biggest advantage of local SEO is that your business can benefit even without having a website. This is possible because of the way the Local SEO works. Social profiles like Google plus, Yelp has become an identity for all the local businesses and it dominates the search results and listings providing exact information thus bringing success to the local SEO efforts.

As a business owner, Do you think the website will help in scaling up your business and streamline the operations? The answer is always a resounding “Yes” irrespective of the niche your business belongs to. A lot of times, customers prefer checking the business details on their social profiles instead of visiting the website. But having a website is an authority on the business you are managing as it allows the customers to know more about who you are, what services you offer, and read the client testimonials.

One classic example is the delicious coffee shop in New York- Neil’s Coffee Shop has so much success with social profiles. When you search for this restaurant you’d only see the rating, reviews, timings, and price. Now, this information surely hasn’t come from the web search, because this shop doesn’t have a website. The only way the restaurant earned its place is through social profiles and local listings, which clearly signifies the importance of social profiles for local businesses.

4. Getting more reviews:

The best thing about local SEO is that you can control it very easily by creating local listings in Yelp, Foursquare, Google Business page, and Facebook page which helps the listing go on top for the local search.   

The only thing that you cannot control is the ‘reviews’. You need to earn it with the quality of the service provided to your customers. You can always encourage them to give ratings and reviews online as most of the shoppers decide their visit depending upon the ratings and reviews.

As a token of appreciation and love, you could always incentivize your customers with some free coupons, discounts, etc which would make them share their experience at your store. We can do a few innovative things to make the customers voluntarily perform this act.    

QR-Code-local storePosting a sign at the door, a QR code on the menu allowing the customers to scan and post reviews, and so on. By going a little further, you can also get your service team to ask for reviews from customers at the time of checkout.

Reviews are an essential part of local SEO. Google always keeps delivering results that are local with high reviews for a great customer experience. 

5. Optimizing for Hyperlocal:

Google is in the process of testing an algorithm called the ‘neighborhood algorithm’.

Few steps for a successful local SEO:

  • Your neighborhood name can be added at the end of the business page. (Example: Ray’s Pizza, South City East)
  • If you have a website, don’t forget to add the texted version of your neighborhood name.
  • Your neighborhood name has to be added to the website on the title tags area.
  • Be aware and check thoroughly whether Google Maps has defined and placed your neighborhood correctly. 
  • Don’t forget to add your neighborhood to all the citation profiles that are local.

You need to follow the guidelines above to successfully optimize your business for the local search.