Archives for September 2019

An optimized website means that it is structured, coded, designed, and has content published in a way that will allow Google to rank it.

Why is this important? Well, if Google can read your website correctly and interpret your content then it will understand the product or service that you are selling and so present it to your potential customers searching on the Web.

So, how do you ensure your website is optimized? Certain basics need completing such as keyword research, great content, and some technical criteria that a consultant can help you with such as tags, architecture, crawlability, among many other things.

Every worthwhile endeavor takes some amount of effort. Such is the case with optimizing your website to gain more visibility and traffic.

Think about your own experience when searching for information or a particular product. You will most likely click on the top results on the first page never bothering to check the second page when a list of results appears on the screen that “matches” what you’re looking for.

In today’s fast-paced world, customers have access to more information than ever, and they want results quickly. This means that they will choose from the top of the list, which is where you want your site to be.

Optimizing your site can get you there. This ongoing process requires regular maintenance and changes.

SEO rapidly evolves. So keeping up with the changes with your SEO consultant will give you an edge over your competitors.

Contact us at johnny@johnnymurray.com to learn more.

Having social media accounts for your business is critical in this digital age. But are you getting the most out of them? Social media marketing works best when people are engaging with your business. Here are our top 10 no-sweat tips to get more engagement for your business on social media.

1. Use attention-grabbing headlines. Why did you decide to read this article? It probably had something to do with the headline. Headlines that start with an exclamation, or “How to…” or “# Ways to…” or that ask a question that your customers might ask themselves tend to get the clicks you’re looking for.

2. Use images, animated gifs, and memes. Posts with visuals perform better, period. Memes and gifs can also bring humor into the mix and increase the chance that your audience will share your content.

3. Create and share videos. Over 100 million hours of videos are watched on social media every day. Get your piece of the pie!

4. Don’t only post your own content. Curate and share content made by others that you think your followers will enjoy. That way, with less work, you get more content and your audience gets added value.

5. Post more often. Making frequent posts boosts your organic growth.

6. Share an excellent piece of content more than once. That’s right: it’s okay to post the same material multiple times if you vary the accompanying message, and it can get you up to 31.5 times the number of click-throughs as posting once.

7. Use hashtags. They can double your #engagement rate!

8. Tag people and businesses you quote or reference. When you tag someone, like a guest blogger, they usually respond or repost, getting you more exposure.

9. Optimize your posting times. Schedule your social media messages to post at peak times to increase your reach.

10. Recycle your evergreen content. Some content doesn’t have an expiration date. If it’s timeless, share it again later!

We know that as a business owner, you’re busy. If you don’t have time to beef up your social media marketing, we can help! Contact us today for more information.

Any smart online digital marketer will tell you that your website is the most important aspect of any successful online business. And any successful website covers every angle when it comes to the customer’s journey on finding exactly what they need, whether that be a product or service that the business is offering. Do it wrong, and that customer will go to another website where that business is doing it right.

So what are the things that every successful digital marketing hub has? Well for starters, this is the place where the business begins to build its’ brand and reputation. And everything that involves the brand should be here such the core message or mission statement of the company, the source of the business information including the location, the management, the employees, and the expertise of the business team that is building this brand.

Of course, your business might be different, and you may have a small team offering products or services. Or it may be just you offering a product

In this case, you would build up on why your product is better, or where your service is better than ‘company-x.’ Building your brand all starts here on your web property.

But this is just the beginning of having a solid foundation for your ‘digital marketing hub’. A good way to look at this is from a customer or visitor standpoint. Does your website have everything that the customer needs including answering questions about the product or service that you offer?

Do you have complete product or service guides online, and are those guides being regularly updated? And do you have product guides and tutorials setup for buying customers?

Many online businesses have different products or offer different services, and those could include customer education, or supplying how-to guides.

Having lead generation is another important aspect along with being able to find that business on social networks. This is important because many businesses use these social networks like Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook to keep their customer base updated on new products or services that the company offers. And there is so much more.

If after reading all this, you must feel overwhelmed, don’t worry. We can guide you through the process of making sure your website is fully utilized for your business, and it’s optimized to increase conversions.

Send an email now to johnny@johnnymurray.com and let us know how we can help you today.

If you own a website, or even several websites, it’s a good idea you know and understand the design changes that have been happening over the last couple of years.

We’re talking about how a change in technology, and change in how people use your website, are directly affecting shifts in design.

Website design as it was a few years ago, has changed to meet a whole new type of user, mostly the mobile device user. In fact, mobile devices have changed the way many big company websites are designed, such as Apple and Microsoft, who made it far easier for their customers to navigate and find what they are looking for.

Many design changes seem to have been driven by mobile devices. In other words, these changes had to take place for mobile users to be able to navigate websites on small screens. If you want to see what we mean, find an old online website that isn’t designed for mobile use, and try to navigate it. If it has lots of menu items, and even menu dropdowns, you will find it unfriendly as you try to see those tiny buttons and find what you are looking for.

The changes that do make it easier, and give a great experience are things like; better use of negative space, using bold and expressive typography instead of heavy loading images that eat up bandwidth for the user, using cinemagraphs instead of static images or full blown videos.

There are some other cutting-edge design tricks like scroll triggered animation such as the new Mac Pro on Apple’s website.

Another thing you can do is create a website application hybrid. A good example for this would be Pinterest. When going to the Pinterest website, users are asked if they want to download the application because ‘Pinterest is best viewed with our application’. And applications are amazing because they can learn and react to each user’s preferences and styles. And of course, Facebook is also another example of taking the desktop website and converting it to an interactive application.

Other things like Intelligent Conversation Bots who can answer questions like: what your store hours are, or what your prices are. You would simply type in the URL where you want to go, and then have a conversation with a virtual helper on that website. It’s fairly high tech stuff that you will likely see more of soon. You will want to take advantage of these new design changes because they will ultimately drive more conversions, and you will have happier customers.

Want us to take a look at your website to see if it’s optimized for a great user experience no matter what device your visitors are using?

Contact us now at johnny@johnnymurray.com for an evaluation, and get your website fully optimized.

Do you have a system to track your Digital Marketing ROI?

Do you have a way to quantify how your digital marketing efforts contribute to the bottom line?

MarketingProfs reported that 71% of marketing leaders and providers say attributing social and content to revenue is a top challenge to showing ROI.

49% say that aligning KPIs with overall business goals ranks as the next biggest hurdle, followed by 47% fail to track leads to revenue.

The figures above also suggest that 29%, 51%, and 53% respectively don’t have that problem.

So the top 3 problems are:

Attributing social and content to revenue.
Aligning KPIs to revenue.
Tracking leads to revenue

Are you having the same challenges?

Do you find a compelling reason to learn more about this?

Contact us and get advice.
johnny@johnnymurray.com

Get the attention of your audience through unique and authentic storytelling!

“A story can cross the barriers of time – past, present, future – and allows us to experience the similarities between ourselves and through others,” says Andrew Stanton, a filmmaker at Pixar.

Customers are looking for something that is unique and relatable to them and storytelling is an age-old method that allows businesses to relate to potential buyers.

Here are 3 elements of storytelling that can help turn the mundane into something of great appeal:

Emotion. Take your customer back to those times they will never forget with emotional appeals, such as sympathy, envy, or intrigue. Move them through from one emotional state to another as the narrative unfolds. This only intensifies their connection with your product and brand.

Authenticity. Be honest. Speak truth and life about the brand and the audience it is speaking to. This will grab their attention while also creating a reputation for your brand.

Relatability. Make a connection to your audience. Do your research on who you are targeting. Appeal to your audience through situations they have also experienced, and also challenges they have overcome.

Use these strategies to make a connection with your audience:

Make Your Story Centered around their Situation and Needs
Make People Feel a Part of the Story Experience
Listen & Create a Relevant Context
Showcase Your Values

Once you have made an effective connection is when your message was absorbed deep in their hearts and minds.

Email us today to find out more about how to become an effective storyteller for your business!

Are you a Small Local Business?

Size doesn’t matter when you are offering bigger value and personalized services. What you need is to create more visibility online for the people who are looking for what you provide.

What are the advantages of being a small, local business that will enable you to compete with bigger businesses? Here’s a short list:

Technology Tools

In no other time has technology made it easier for us to do business, communicate, promote, and expand our businesses on such a far-reaching scale. The Web, SEO, and Social Media Marketing allow us to market our businesses in the same way that bigger brands do.

Flexibility with Changing Conditions

Small business owners have way more flexibility to make immediate and necessary changes that are essential to dealing with changing local market conditions. For big businesses, recommendations go through many levels bureaucracy before decisions are made at the top. Execution suffers the same delays down to the personnel on the ground.

Personalized Customer Service

You have the opportunity to deliver personalized, unexpected and exceptional customer service.

How does it feel when you are served by the owner of a restaurant that you often dine at, and get asked if the food is good and what can they do to improve their menu?

There is something very warm and fuzzy feeling about local interactions for both owners and customers.

Access to Digital Marketing Expertise

There are no longer barriers to accessing digital marketing expertise when you can hire an expert by the hour to oversee your marketing strategy and activities.

Contact us if you want to seize the opportunities that digital marketing can offer and reclaim your domination in your own territory.

Johnny Murray

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Nearly half of businesses (44%) don’t have a clearly defined marketing strategy. For firms that are active in digital marketing, nearly half do not have a defined digital plan or strategy (47%).

No wonder many small businesses are struggling to understand why their online marketing campaigns aren’t delivering an ROI.

Successful businesses that are running online marketing campaigns that impact their bottom line are NOT doing it merely because their competitors are doing it too, but because they have drawn a clear path to how online marketing can help achieve their business goals.

A Marketing Audit has to be performed for you if you have a digital marketing campaign currently running or had one in the past. The next step is to consult with an expert to identify your goals, budget, benchmarks, implementation plan, and targets — producing an online Marketing Blueprint in the process.

Can a building be constructed without a blueprint? Can a building stand without a foundation? No. These principles hold true for your marketing.

Here are some variables that will shape your Marketing Blueprint:

Marketing Audit
Business Goals
Budget
Benchmarks
Consulting Services
– Strategy Recommendations
Marketing Services
Backup Plan
Targets

Your marketing needs a foundation to stand on — your business goals. You need a plan for your marketing with all of the parts working together to reach new heights in line with your goals.

Your goals could be a mix in any of these categories:

Brand Exposure
Social Media Engagement
Website Traffic
Sales Targets
Target ROI

If you are willing to spend $1,000 to $3,000 a month – or $12,000 to $36,000 a year – then it makes sense to spend at least $500 on a Marketing Blueprint to ensure a spot-on marketing campaign.

Contact us at johnny@johnnymurray.com to learn more about creating a Marketing Blueprint.

Social media is not a place that people go so that they can view advertisements, browse through all of the business pages, or read long technical updates about a company. Social media is a place to be social! This means that people want to be engaging in conversations and making their voice heard.

We at ICU Marketing Associates want to share with you some of our tactics to making sure that your followers stay engaged with your business and ultimately become your customers.

1. Initiate Conversation with your Social Media Followers

If you are at a social event and you want someone to talk to you, how do you do it? You have to talk to them first! Show them that you care about what they have to say by making the first move.

2.Ask For Feedback

Let your followers know that you value their opinion and that you want your products and services to be at their best.

3. Do Surveys and Polls

People love sharing their thoughts and opinions on the internet. The surveys can be things directly related to your business, or just fun questions to get the conversations rolling.

4. Organize Giveaways, Contests, and Promotions

This will get people excited about visiting your page! You can even gain more followers and recognition by having the contest entry include sharing the post or tagging a friend. Even for those who do not win, the excitement for the contest will now be associated with your business.

5. Live Q & A Sessions

Live sessions show your followers that you actually want to hear from them. It also gives you the opportunity to tell your audience the things that they actually want to know about your business instead of just guessing what questions they may be having.

The right digital marketing consultant will be able to incorporate all of these into your marketing plan so that you can see your followers begin to engage with your business.

Pay-per-click (PPC) is an internet marketing advertising model where businesses or individuals who want pay a certain amount of money every time your ad is clicked.

This is a way of buying extra targeted visits for your website. The sponsored ads that typically appear on the top list of the results from a Google search are what we call AdWords PPC.

PPC is highly cost-effective. You only per for the clicks. Your ads that don’t get clicked, get exposure!

Will PPC increase traffic to my website?
Yes. PPC has proven to increase visitors to websites by 300%.

Will it increase the sales I make when potential customers visit my website?
Yes. PPC visitors are 50% more likely to purchase something compared to those customers who stumble upon your website.

What about my brand?
Search ads can increase brand awareness by 80%. That’s Huge!

PPC results are phenomenal. Contact us for more information.