Digital marketing generally means getting the word out online about your brand and getting customers to see why they should buy from your business.

But in today’s hyperconnected world, your customers can also shape the reputation of your business online in (nearly) real time. This is very important as 77% of consumers read online reviews before making a decision.

While talking about how good your products and services are is of course useful and necessary, what your customers say about your company can also be used as a marketing tool. This is called Reputation Marketing. What makes this strategy different from other types is that it puts the “voice of the customer” as the central focus.

What your customers say about your business is not something you can control, buy, or make them do, but you can use the positive reviews they do leave to shape the narrative of your business’ reputation.

It’s amazing how many business owners are keen on running all sorts of online marketing campaigns, yet they don’t take the time to have their customers write a comprehensive review about their products.

Can you imagine how many of your “would-be customers” end up buying from your competitors, all because they couldn’t find any reviews about your product or service?

It’s essential for potential customers to know that others have used your business and had a good experience doing so, giving your business a reputation of trustworthiness.

Reputation marketing today is a must.

How do you get these positive reviews for your business and strengthen your reputation? There are many ways and we’d be glad to help.

Reach out to us at johnny@johnnymurray.com.
Johnny Murray
ICU Marketing Associates

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.

SEO is the process of improving the visibility (ranking) of a website on Google using Google-friendly elements and techniques.

Consider these facts:

1. Ninety-nine percent of customers looking for your services never scroll past the first page of search results. That means your business goal should be to appear on page one of the search results. That’s the aim of SEO.

2. Click-throughs to your business following natural searches (SEO) have a 14.6% buy rate vs. direct mail or print advertising which have a 1.7% close rate. You may wish to consider switching your spending!

3. Ninety-one percent of internet users who are looking for services to buy use natural search results. SEO!

4. Seventy-two percent of customers who did a local search for a business visited a store within 5 miles of their home. Do local customers see your business when they are looking for your service?

5. By the way… Google accounts for over 76% of all worldwide searches. So you have to be seen on Google!

Here’s more:

6. 58% of customers search for local businesses every day.

7. 89% search for local business at least once a week or more. Is your business address appearing in front of your local customers?

8. 86% of local customers look up a local business on Google maps. Are you listed there?

9. 76% of local searches result in a phone call.

10. A massive 72% of customers who did a local search for a business visited a store within 5 miles of their home.

If you are not using SEO and would like to learn more… feel free to contact us: johnny@johnnymurray.com.

Wouldn’t you like to know how what your customers are thinking? How are they going to act? Well, you can! You just need to track how your current customers are interacting with your business.

You or someone on your team needs to be continually answering the following questions in order to get to know your potential customers.

How many customers are you getting every month?

Even in the craziness of running your business, you need to make sure you have a way to keep track of all of your customers that you are serving. You also need to make sure that everyone on your team is on the same page and using the same system for tracking.

How many of them are coming from your website?

You need to be asking how your customers found out about you and keeping track of customers that are coming from your site.

Are they coming from your SEO efforts? Social Media? PPC?

You or someone on your team need to be monitoring how users are finding your website to learn what is working for you and what can be tweaked.

By what percent of your visitors are converting?

Track how many people who are coming to your site are actually becoming customers.

How high is your bounce rate?

Monitor the percentage of people visiting who are just viewing one page of your site and then navigating away.

Which pages are most visited?

Take note of the pages that users are going to the most often and see if they are the pages that will lead them into making conversions.

Which pages do they spend most of their time on?

You should study the pages that users are spending a lot of time looking at and see how you can make other pages interesting to your potential customers.

What’s the winning conversion path?

Find out what path the customers are taking to make conversions and make sure that your site is designed around making that path as easy as possible.

Make sure someone on your team is answering these questions often so you can optimize your website design to get a greater number of conversions.

For more information on tracking your website visitors, visit us at https://www.icumarketplace.com.

How much time a day do you spend with technology? According to CNN, the average American spends 10 hours a day in front of some kind of screen. With eight hours of sleep time, that means that more than 60 percent of your waking hours are spent in front of a TV, phone, or computer.

What does that mean for your customers? The best way to reach them is by embracing digital marketing. Most businesses have some conglomeration of tactics to create an online presence, but without a clear strategy, your presence can turn into random pieces of digital mess that does not contribute to converting customers.

We can help prevent that and help utilize this tool to reach your bigger business goals. A holistic approach means you never have to worry about some tactics going astray.

Still not sure if a digital marketing plan is for you? Well, here’s the best words anyone can hear when talking about business expenditures.

A digital marketing plan for your company can help increase your return on investment. It does this by improving your visibility to potential customers and increasing your sales.

Ready to create your digital marketing strategy? Call us today at 858-255-4282, and we can help you shine!

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How Better Business Bureau Accreditation Builds Consumer Confidence

The Better Business Bureau is a non-profit accrediting organization that gives its stamp of approval when a business meets high standards of quality, responsibility, and trustworthiness.

So why is this BBB logo so important? Recent studies have shown that 8 out of 10 consumers recognize the BBB seal, and when they see it displayed on a website or business, it instills confidence and trust.

And those consumers are likely to purchase based on this. Reviews are important online, but 90% of consumers don’t bother hunting for a lot of reviews and will read less than 10 reviews before forming an opinion.

Most of those consumers are going to go right to the Better Business Bureau first. And sometimes that one review is enough to make their decision. But what if your business is not accredited? This could actually hurt your business as becoming accredited shows that you’re a company that is accountable and can be trusted.

And a company that is trusted, makes more profit.

If you would like to learn more about Better Business Bureau accreditation, then contact us today and we will get you started in the right direction, and show you what you need to become accredited.

johnny@johnnymurray.com
Johnny Murray

What is it? Remarketing is a type of online advertising that allows you to recapture the interest of a customer who has previously visited your website.

After someone visits your website, remarketing allows you to follow them around as they continue to browse and then position your ads right in front of them! That’s a very effective marketing technique!

Five Benefits of Remarketing:

1. It provides a high return on investment. Costs for remarketing have reduced considerably in the last few years.
2. It is a very efficient and cost-effective method for small businesses with a tighter budget.
3. It continually reinforces your service or product to a likely buyer you know is interested.
4. It is a brand awareness tool as it keeps your brand in front of a potential buyer’s mind.
5. You can measure the effectiveness of your remarketing, so there are no surprises. You will receive reports on how your campaigns are performing, where your ads are popping up and what price you are paying.

Contact us at johnny@johnnymurray.com if you want to learn more about Remarketing.
https://support.google.com/adwords/answer/2453998?hl=en

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

It seems that in social media lists, LinkedIn is always thrown at the end as another, lesser, option to the bigger sites.

However, if you are looking to make B2B connections and grow your leads there is no more effective social media platform than LinkedIn!

Unlike the other social media channels out there, LinkedIn was specifically designed for business leaders to share ideas and make connections.

Studies have shown:

1) 92% of B2B Marketers leverage LinkedIn over all other social platforms.
2) 79% of B2B Marketers view LinkedIn as an effective source for generating B2B leads.
3) 80% of B2B leads come from LinkedIn.
4) 43% of marketers say that they have sourced a customer from LinkedIn.

So hopefully those statistics have pointed out to you why using LinkedIn is an effective choice for your business. Now, let’s focus on how you can best utilize the site.

Just showing up to the party isn’t enough, you are going to have to enter the conversation. In order to do that your company needs to begin posting engaging content for your target decision makers to read and share. Here are three points for you to think about regarding LinkedIn content:

1) 94% of B2B marketers use LinkedIn to distribute content

Businesses are sharing tons information with one another and making connections. It is time for you to join in and boost your visibility by posting useful content for your future customers.

2) 10 pieces of content are consumed before a purchasing decision is made.

People are constantly taking in information and researching before buying, especially on LinkedIn. Now through the content you post, your business has a direct way to speak into their decision-making process.

3. LinkedIn SlideShare reaches 70M unique visitors a month.

The site is now among the top 100 most-visited websites in the world. The audience is already right there for you to reach out to!

We are ready and willing to help you create and post content that is going to make valuable connections and grow your business!

Contact us today at johnny@johnnymurray.com

To get your digital marketing performing at its optimum, you would need a Marketing Director to oversee the strategy and implementation. However, a Marketing Director would cost you $11,000 to $11,500 a month. This is a huge cost to deal with for most small business owners like you.

As with any HR activity, there is additional work required of you to hiring a Marketing Director.

Job Description Preparation
Job Posting/Advertising Cost
Interviewing
Background Checks
Qualification/Certification Checks
Evaluation
Employment Agreements
Onboarding
Training

Do you think hiring a marketing consultant to perform a marketing director role for your business at a rate of $125 an hour for a few hours a month would make more sense?

This is a win-win solution. What do you think?

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