Archives for August 2018

Have you ran a digital marketing campaign for your business before? What tactics and channels did you use?

Here are 7 digital marketing trends you should know:

– Content marketing is still the dominant technique.
– Top 3 B2C content priorities: a) providing engaging content, b) utilizing visual content, c) measuring content results.
– Facebook posts with images still perform better than posts without images.
– Tweets with images still get more engagement than tweets without images.
– Infographics perform better than any other type of content.
– Visual UGC (user-generated content) is more engaging than brand-produced photos.
– The demand for interactive content is increasing.

Do you agree with these points?

Do you think these tactics will impact your business?

Let us know what you think.

Are you getting a return on investment (ROI) on your search engine optimization (SEO) campaigns? You’re not alone if you’re not sure how to answer that question. Indeed, 40% of marketers say proving the ROI of their marketing activities is their biggest marketing challenge according to HubSpot.

But measuring the ROI of your SEO efforts is possible, and we’re here to help you do just that.

Here are 3 things that need to be in place in order to calculate ROI:

1. The right attribution model. Attribution models are the basis for allocating credit to each marketing channel. There is no right or wrong attribution model. Each one is different and comes with its own strengths. We’ll help you find the model that’s the best fit for your business.

2. Google Search Console and Google Analytics. You may already have these tools in place for your website(s), and if so, that’s a great start. GSC is a key SEO tool for capturing and understanding website metrics. And the data from Google Analytics (GA) or a comparable website analytics package is crucial for understanding ROI.

3. Marketing automation and CRM. These tools supplement website analytics data by providing data on individual buyers. This helps you ascertain the lifetime value of individual customers, which in turn help you determine the lifetime value of a particular marketing channel.

At ICU Marketing Associates, we understand that business owners like you don’t have the time to do all of this. We can help you get these important tracking tools in place.

Contact us today at johnny@johnnymurray.com to get started.

Today’s customers are not only sticking with one social media site. Your target audience is active on many different sites every single day. Actually here are some statistics from a recent study that show just that:

– 28% are on 1 site
– 24% are on 2 sites
– 16% are on 3 sites
– 8% are on 4 sites
– 4% are on 5 sites

Now that you know that your potential new customer is constantly using multiple social media channels, what does that mean for you?

It means that you also need to be visible to them on multiple social media websites! But how are you supposed to know which channel is right for you?

Here is a breakdown of who is using each of the top social media channels according to Pew Internet Research:

Facebook:

– 82% of online adults between 18-29
– 72% of all adult internet users
– 62% of the whole adult population
– Especially popular with women

LinkedIn:

– 25% of adult internet users
– 46% of online adults who are college graduates use LinkedIn
– Popular with those with high household incomes

Twitter:

– 23% of all internet users
– 30% of online adults under 50
– Most common in urban areas

These statistics show that you could have access to many new customers by simply expanding your social media presence to other networks. We strongly urge you to add your business to more social media sites so that you can begin reaching more of your target audience today!

If you have any questions or want more information on social media marketing visit http://icumarketplace.com or reach out to us at johnny@johnnymurray.com.

You’ve done your research, you know what customers want. You worked hard to bring about a good product that you know will solve their problems, *it* is ready for the market and you know the market is ready for *it*.

Now the only question is, do you have a customer-centric website where your products can be promoted and showcased?

If the answer is no, then there are some factors you need to consider when designing a site such as…

1. Buyer’s persona – who’s the target audience for this product? Who would realize its value the most?
2. Buyer’s journey – what does your customer have to go through to finally get your product in their hands?
3. Ease-of-use – ultimately, is the website for your product easy to use? Or is it fraught with hard to navigate pages that could put buyers off?
4. Answers questions – Are there plenty of chances to learn more about your product in an easy, accessible way? Don’t be vague, customers want to know what they’re buying.

These factors and more should all be considered when designing a website where your products will be sold. Want to learn more? We’d be glad to help.

Contact us
johnny@johnnymurray.com
ICU Marketing Associates

SEO is a great marketing tool. Social Media is a great marketing tool as well. You have Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, etc. at your disposal.

Many businesses fill their feeds with discussions about how reliable and celebrated their products or services are. Many have the persuasive copy needed to convince people to buy from them.

All of these tactics are good. Nonetheless, self-promotion alone is not enough to make yourself known to your target market. This is where Reputation Marketing comes into play.

Reputation marketing is about building a positive online reputation, which allows you to use that stellar reputation to gain the trust of your target customers.

With reputation marketing, you now have more authentic content. Content that draws people’s attention to how reputable your business is!

As your customer is contemplating their next purchase, they go through a process to decide if they want to buy. Some of these stages include Awareness, Interest, Desire, and Action. For some, this process is instantaneous, and for some, it could take months. Your reputation and reviews can help them jump into action!

Use reputation marketing to validate your potential customer’s decision to buy from you!

Here at ICU Marketing Associates we want to help you ensure that you are delivering the best version of your business to the customer!

Contact us today to get started with reputation marketing!

Johnny Murray
johnny@johnnymurray.com, 908-375-3030, http://icumarketplace.com

LinkedIn has 467 million users. That’s a huge audience. Facebook has an astonishing 2 billion daily users. There are 974 million Twitter accounts. The list goes on, and the audiences continue to grow. It’s obvious that if you want to succeed you should be interested in this huge pool of potential clients.

Ninety-one percent of retail brands use 2 or more social media channels. Having control over your social media is essential if you are to become a successful brand. Controlling the messages you send out to your customers is a key factor. Contact us and we’ll let you know how to get it right.

Here are 10 questions to ask when thinking about a Social Media campaign for your business:

Dacia and Facebook

Dacia is one of Europe’s fastest growing car brands.
The Goal: Their aim was to grow their brand and to generate more leads.
The Result: 60,000 extra cars sold in the last three years. That’s a huge success!

How did they do it?

1. They decided to use social media.
2. They chose Facebook to get their message across.
3. They targeted desktop-using customers and customers who primarily used their smartphones.
4. The tool they used was Facebook’s boosted posts. This allowed them to test the market and find out where their potential customers were and the best time to place an ad in front of them.

The Girl Scouts and Twitter
The Girl Scouts are well-known for making and selling their own cookies to raise funds for the local community.
The Goal: To increase downloads of their mobile app.

The Result: Nearly 20k extra downloads as a direct result of their Twitter campaign!

How did they do it?
1. They decided to use social media.
2. They chose Twitter to do their promotion.
3. They added images to the app to show how delicious and inviting their cookies were.
4. They used the Twitter App Card so customers seeing their Tweet could access the app directly from their Tweet. Simple!

Creating and maintaining a positive reputation for your business is a vital and important aspect in creating a loyal customer base while building your brand.

No major successful or popular brand started out and became successful with a negative reputation. In fact, the reputation of a business has been proven to have a significant influence on customer loyalty, satisfaction, and trust.

Customer retention is something that the majority of big and successful companies thrive on. Customers that are happy are more likely to be return customers who spend more money, and in turn, tell their friends and family about their experience.

Having a reputation marketing strategy in place should be the first thing your company focuses on when building your reputation.

More and more businesses are encouraging their customers to go online and post reviews about their experiences. There are many big review sites out there and the data you get from them can be invaluable to your reputation marketing campaign.

Managing these review sites builds trust and authority for your brand and shows your transparency and accountability. Getting feedback about your business and your brand provides you with valuable insights on where your business is falling short, and how you can improve. Even good feedback can be improved on.

Believe it or not, there are many companies that have failed due to having a bad reputation, and either not knowing, or not doing anything about it until it was too late.

On the other hand, it’s worth mentioning that companies with a good reputation financially outperformed companies with bad reputations in every way.

With a good reputation marketing strategy in hand, your business will benefit from higher brand equity, exponential growth, and a flood of loyal customers with increased customer lifetime value worth 10 times as much as their first purchase.

Don’t wait. Take control of your reputation marketing strategy today, and get started building your businesses trust, brand, and reputation today.

Send me an email johnny@johnnymurray.com now to get started.
Johnny Murray

Have you ever searched for anything on Google? Of course, you have!

Think about how often you click on one of the first few links that are shown, see what you were looking for, and then move onto something else. Now think about how often you keep going all the way to the sixth or seventh page of search results (if you ever did) and then decide to make a purchase there.

You do NOT want your website to be on one of those high numbered pages when your potential customers are searching Google for the services that you offer!

You have spent many hours making sure that your website looks perfect, the conversion process is streamlined, and all of the information that your customers could ever want is right there waiting for them. So how do you get your awesome website onto that first page of results so that searchers will actually see it?

Become Google-Friendly!

Every website that exists is crawled by Google so that they can check out the content, the structure, and the intent. They take that information and index it so that when someone conducts a search they can offer the most relevant site. SEO ensures that your website is ready for Google to do it’s crawl so that your site will be visible when potential customers are searching. Finally letting the world see your great website and your great business.

For more information, or help setting up your SEO, contact Johnny Murray at johnny@johnnymurray.com

Are you looking to grow your business? Are you hoping to bring in new customers? Do you want to see that bottom line grow?

Successful business owners with an eye to the future should be able to answer yes to all those questions.

Here at ICU Marketing Associates, we understand the value of growth to a business, and we want to help you achieve those goals through your marketing strategy.

Fast and Measurable Results

Google AdWords can give you top-notch measurable results, quickly and reliably. With these results, you know you are reaching the right audience. AdWords also provides unique functionality and reporting, so you can learn more about the wants and needs of your audience.

Budget-friendly

One common excuse heard in marketing is “We can’t afford to advertise.” My friend, you can’t afford not to. With Google AdWords, you know that your money is being put in the right place. With a pay-per-click model, you only pay for those internet users who click through to your site.

Build Brand Recognition

Even though you are only paying for the audience who clicks on your ad, you are getting a lot more eyeballs. That means you are working up the number of people who know about your business. Brand recognition carries a lot of weight and is something that must be built up in small increments.

There are many benefits to using Google’s AdWords, let us start helping your company grow today!