Marketing Strategy Tips for Social Media:

Posted on August 1, 2013 by admin

12765864_sSocial media is a necessary part of a good marketing strategy. However, it is always changing and there’s always steps to take your company’s social media presence to the next level.

In case you aren’t convinced, here are a couple of statistics to convince you that social media is a powerful tool:

  • Nearly half of online users prefer to utilize social media before making a purchase.

  • In the U.S., almost 30 percent of Internet time is spent on social media websites.

  • Fifty-two percent of current marketers gained a customer through Facebook, 36 percent gained a customer through Twitter, and 43 percent gained a customer through LinkedIn.

  • Eighty-five percent of followers of the brands on Facebook will recommend that brand to others.

Now that you’re even more convinced of the importance of social media, what are some different steps to take to ensure that you’re getting the best out of your marketing strategy?

  • Create an exciting and interesting cover photo. On Facebook be sure to follow the Cover Photo Guidelines though.

  • Make sure you’re utilizing polls, surveys, and contests to give your followers a chance for feedback.

  • Reply to any comments quickly and efficiently. Facebook and Twitter users have grown to expect a prompt reply, especially to complaints.

  • Any negative comments should be responded to with helpful responses. This will express your willingness to improve upon your brand.

  • Manage your timeline effectively by promoting certain stories by clicking the star icon in the upper right hand corner of the story. You can also hide individual stories from your timeline by clicking the pencil icon.

  • Don’t forget to include an awesome picture (or more than one) with your posts. According to a study done, the posts with pictures often generated double the engagement. That sounds like an excellent marketing strategy.

  • Posting on a regular basis is a necessary part of a good, social media marketing strategy.

These can get your company headed in the right direction and get your social media presence up to the next level. If you’re interested in taking it even further, contact Susan J. Campbell. We would love to help with your marketing strategy; finding new ways to enhance your social media presence and engagement is a top priority.

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Are You Making the Most of Your Social Media Interaction?

Posted on July 31, 2013 by admin

8116113_sSocial media interaction accounts for a majority of brand recommendations. Think about it. If you have a positive conversation about a product or service with a company wouldn’t you be more willing to try it.

The findings of a recent report show nearly 90 percent of all consumers will share positive feedback regarding a brand after social media interaction. And companies like yours can expect a triple ROI when they do.

In one particular case, more than 4,500 surveys were gathered from the social media pages of giants like Heinz, Kettle, and Twinings. During that two-month period, the responses were also mixed with 800 interviews to develop detailed findings. This format was able to show that after exposure to the company’s social media, four out of five people felt more inclined to buy that brand more. In some instances, the 83 percent of the customers were more than happy to sample the product.

The three companies are very aware of just how well social media interaction can drive ROI. These relationships, regardless of how small and apparently insignificant, can drive brand sentiment, increase brand loyalty, and encourage consumer engagement.

Branding sentiments were measured and Heinz came out with 22 percent, Kettle with 17 percent, and Twinings, 19 percent. The European study clearly shows that for every pound spent on social media interaction it equates to three times in profit generation. That’s a great ROI.

The director on the project believes the findings paint a clear picture of how productive it is to connect with your customers. Social media interaction is, therefore, a very essential part of doing business and should be treated as such.

Expand your channels to include brand awareness. The evidence exists that by demonstrating a real-life emotion connection with your brand, you have a better chance at establishing genuine loyalty and relationships. At the end of the day that accounts for bigger ROI.

Social media interaction doesn’t have to be scary. Let the team at Susan J. Campbell Copywriting Solutions develop a plan to connect you with your potential fans.

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Blog Writing Tips For Your Business

Posted on July 30, 2013 by admin

13104961_sWhen it comes to blogging you don’t have to reinvent the wheel. It’s best to just focus on what your company does best and the benefits your blogs can give your customers. Here are a few blog writing tips to help you get started or give you the vision your writing currently needs.

Just like your content marketing strategy, your blogs should fit well into a category. This means any new blogs, writing series or stand-alone article. It’s important to establish yourself within a category and keep your topics focused within that spot.

Selecting a category and staying within that space not only helps you as the writer but your readers as well. For example, sites like HubSpot have nine categories. Each individual post fits within one such area like email marketing, analytics, and blogging.

Be sure to consider all the factors before deciding on a category, however. Does this specific genre really reflect your business and the image you want to portray for yourself?

Once you’ve established what category you fall under, be sure to give your posts an accurate description. Top search engines use only a maximum of 160 characters for a description to put on their results page. Make sure to create a meta description that gives a summary of your content. If you don’t do this these same search engines will simply take the first 160 characters available on the page.

On the other hand, if you have a description that is less than 160 characters, the search engine will display your text in its entirety. Anything longer and it gets cut off.

One of the most beneficial blog writing tips is to stay organized. Editorial calendars are particularly helpful since they can be used to keep topics on hand to ensure no duplication, calculate regular blog postings and other important details.

Expert bloggers suggest using individual tabs to decipher posts by date, author, keywords, titles, call to action, and status. Not only does this help with your blog’s organization but it creates a great tool for digital optimization, search engine optimization, and accountability of conversations.

Remember to keep a journalistic approach which means: write with integrity. Keep your blogs factual and accurate. The content should be filled with good headings and images where applicable. Don’t forget to include content that will be a hit with Google’s search engines. Use text, formatting, accessibility with links and locations for optimal results.

Blog writing doesn’t have to be difficult. We understand that it takes time to develop topics and post regularly. The team at SJC can keep track of your blogs, create content, and even write them. Contact us today to get started.

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Monday Morning Coffee with Zest Yoga and Wellness

Posted on July 29, 2013 by admin

zestThink peace, awareness and flexibility this week with Zest Yoga and Wellness, a new business inside the historic Green Acres Building, St. Joseph, Mo. You might also think physical stamina, strength, calorie-burning and toning – but these are the additional benefits participants receive without really being overly aware of them.

Zest Yoga and Wellness has a bright website presence, with up to date information and schedules that are easy to find and share. The simple photo draws you in immediately, and a growing Facebook presence is also reflecting the business core values – in fact, that’s a key point to address in the brand of Zest Yoga, and to ponder in your own brand strategy.

It’s easy to get acquainted right away what the core philosophies of Zest Yoga and Wellness when you find their resources online:  making the practice of yoga accessible and affordable to various levels of experience; inviting new people to try this ancient art form; celebrating its life benefits and tying these in to an overall lifestyle of wellness.

Here’s another thought to ponder:  Zest Yoga is connecting customers on a deeper level to the areas of personal wellness, such as eating, that impact their lives in overlapping ways. Through the Institute for the Psychology of Eating, they offer experienced personal coaching to address barriers to wellness far beyond the yoga studio, such as mindless eating, binge eating and compulsive eating struggles participants may struggle with. So the benefits a consumer receives go beyond just the class and connect them more strongly to the brand and philosophies of Zest. (These concepts are further developed on a Blog page and social media, allowing patrons to easily share.)

Yoga for Men is also a new angle to reach a new target market, and is promoting the benefits of strength and flexibility – as well as the ability for men to acknowledge and become more aware of ways to successfully manage daily stressors. Also note the $5 community class, which is a suggested donation helps support the program. This allows those who enjoy yoga to spend time together in a “community” atmosphere and to invite others to try the experience in a very non-intimidating way. Smart.

Susan J. Campbell Copywriting Solutions recognizes new businesses in our community who are modeling effective brand strategies and reaching new targets. Contact us today to talk about yours.

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Does Your Customer Engagement Start With Your Employees?

Posted on July 26, 2013 by admin

13008230_sIn a digital world, customer engagement is less likely to occur in person for the business-to-business market place. Those customers are turning to digital sources like social communities, mobile apps, the web, and their peers. Nearly 70 percent of buying processes are done without interacting face-to-face with a vendors sales staff. Here is how today’s social awareness brings a different sort of customer engagement.

In order to reach customers, B2B players are positioning themselves in a way that digitally leverages every touch point during the buying process. Customer engagement depends on digital encounters for distance-selling. It is important to get customers the answers and information they are looking for. Your marketing directors are going to be up against two challenges: accountability and the digital disconnect.

In terms of profitable growth and operational efficiency, little has changed, as both business priorities are over 80 percent, according to Accenture’s report: Turbulence for the CMO: Charting a Path to the Seamless customer Experience. This remains despite the fact most companies have seen operational budgets decrease over time. These studies paint a clear picture of just how difficult accountability is for a majority of Chief Marketing Officers.

The digital disconnect starts with CMOs that struggle to leverage digital opportunities. This is the most effective way to have successful customer engagement. The Accenture study shows just how weak digital orientation is during times it needs to be the most effective. The best way to accomplish customer engagement is by using digital orientation throughout the entire organization.

Every process and function has to be seamless from the inside first. To understand the customers’ needs, CMOs should start relationships within every discipline internally. Regardless of your industry or company’s size, you need to deal with challenges by incorporating new skills to bridge any gaps within your organization.

Customer engagement should be evident through the mobilization of making staff digital ambassadors. Social selling is becoming an intricate part of B2B basis and effectively launching these companies into quality, digital customer engagement. Marketing and sales teams should always be on the same level when customer engagement is concerned.

It is crucial to keep the right talent that builds a culture, competency, and mindset. Contact us to develop the initiatives that drive marketing and sales the most, engaging customers. We know the best options to connect every aspect of your company and create new competencies you will need to overcome even the toughest marketing challenges.

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Four Pitfalls of Online Marketing

Posted on July 25, 2013 by admin

15845986_sAs a small business in today’s cyber world, to ignore available Internet tools and resources would be to limit your company’s full growth potential. Whether you’re advertising online, leveraging social networks to build relationships with your target audience, or gauging virtual feedback of your brand, there are plenty of reasons why it’s important to “nail it” when it comes to online marketing.

In a recent article from Small Business Trends common pitfalls are discussed that small businesses want to avoid when constructing their online marketing presence.

  1. Not utilizing Google Places for businesses. If you aren’t already, take advantage of this important designation, which can help boost organic search rankings. Laying stake to your free Google Place Page will make your brand more visible for customers searching both at home and on the go. It will also give you greater control over information posted to your business’s listing.

  2. Ignoring your online reputation. Not paying attention to what customers are saying about you online could be harmful to your business. Take the time to monitor and address feedback, which will help you spot problems before they snowball out of control. Also, encourage happy customers to share their good experiences with others to help build positive momentum.

  3. Making online marketing efforts too broad. In other words, if you forget about your local bread and butter, you’re in trouble. Remember that an advantage of being a small business is the ability to appeal to the hometown crowd. Targeting locally will ensure a greater ROI and will help you effectively identify those who are already likely to seek your products or services.

  4. Discounting the power of customer service. Did you know that you can do everything right, but one poor customer experience can undermine the reputation you’ve worked so hard for? With the popularity of social networks, word of mouth spreads like wildfire. However, with great customer service, a bad experience doesn’t have to damage the relationship and can often be turned into something positive.

Successful management of online marketing efforts is critical but takes time. Let SJC partner with you to create lasting and meaningful customer relationships that will pave the way for future growth for years to come.

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Eight Rules to Conquering Twitter

Posted on July 24, 2013 by admin

17300381_sWhen developing your social media marketing strategy, Twitter can be an invaluable tool. It can effectively enable you to share information about your company and yourself off the clock. There is no need for third-party content or time-management concerns you are probably getting when using Facebook.
In order to get the most of your Twitter account, you have to be productive. This means becoming an active member of online conversations.  Here are eight tips on how to use Twitter to its fullest potential.

  1. Tweet regularly. If you are going to capture their attention, and hopefully gain loyal followers, you need to establish yourself on Twitter. Regular tweets mean an active business. If your Twitter account looks inactive it may send the message to potential followers that you are not in business. If you don’t always have original content to share, remember to re tweet others on Twitter and look for tweets that would be of interest to your followers.
  2. Being active on Twitter isn’t a one-sided effort. Go beyond re-tweeting and tweeting and look for others within your industry to “follow”. Yes, this will mean seeking out your competition but that will only make you better in the long run. Those other companies could have a solid Twitter following that would translate well into your follower base. There are common interests at hand.
  3. Now that you’re following other industries on Twitter, look for your current customers and follow them, too. This is taking the first step toward establishing those loyal followers. They will most likely become your biggest supporters and do a lot of  re-tweeting for you. It will become first circle as their followers might also re-tweet you, and if you’re lucky, start following on Twitter.
  4. You should use Twitter as a way to building brand awareness and increase your social media profile. Instead of using that boring head shot of yourself from 10 years ago, or the snapshot from the office Christmas party as your Twitter profile picture, upload your logo.
  5. While you’re at it, get creative with your Twitter background and theme. Your company is unique so showcase that. Twitter is easy to customize and can often have options that would reflect your industry and specifically your business.
  6. A big part of your social media marketing strategy is engaging customers at all fronts. But don’t get preoccupied with any particular one. Connect your Twitter account to your company’s homepage by placing a link somewhere on the website. Incorporate your Twitter account into your blog, any other Internet sites, and even your signature at the bottom of all emails. This will increase traffic from every angle.
  7. It is easy to get distracted and social media gives many opportunities to confuse your message. In order to deliver the right message every time, designate an employee to tweet for the business and ensure that all other employee tweets are looked over before being posted.
  8. Remember to complete your Twitter profile section. Don’t leave anything blank, including the “bio” section. This is a great opportunity to tell a little about yourself and link back to your company’s website.

Twitter is an essential way to build relationships with current and potential customers. Contact us for a complete social marketing strategy that incorporates Twitter into your everyday operations without the headache of maintaining every aspect.

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Branding Strategies Every Small Business Owner Should Know

Posted on July 23, 2013 by admin

17957676_sEvery small business starts on a similar playing field. It’s the branding efforts you put forth that bring about the fan base of large corporations. Here are a few examples of how some businesses have established their brands using special engagement offerings. Each one focuses on engaging the consumer and the lessons learned for small business branding efforts.

Have a little fun

Start off by having some fun. People are more likely to do business with a company they enjoy, so be playful. Oreo, for example, loves to play with their food. Every childhood memory that combines cookies, milk and messes is showcased in their advertising and marketing campaigns.

During their recent 100th anniversary celebration, Oreo debuted a cookie a day to commemorate a significant historical event. The Mars Rover landing was incorporated by using red cream filling with tracks pressed into the cookie. Elvis Presley’s head was perfectly carved on another cookie during Elvis week.

Every company has a fun side. Figure out what it is and make it a part of your branding strategy. The most popular brands are experts at relating to people. A great example is Sharpe. The company’s Instagram account has 95,000 followers because they make a point to post colorful pictures of employee drawings and clearly show the markers, too.

Let your users contribute

Get your users to contribute. Companys like Expedia do a great job with this by encouraging travelers to share their experiences in posts on their website. Branding strategy tactics should include conversations between businesses and consumer. If you do this well it can connect you to even more potential customers and get them to grow your brand.

Who doesn’t love a contest

Competition is in our nature, some more than others. RadioShack had a really fun contest when it began selling Verizon phones. The branding strategy used Twitter to reach the masses and create a competition. It worked by encouraging users to send Tweets to the company’s account. Verizon placed several phones on a table and set them to vibrate, every time a Tweet was sent to #itskindofabigdeal, the phone moved. The person responsible for sending the Tweet that sent the phone off the table won the contest.

Don’t worry be happy

There are dozens of successful large corporations who have made a point to make their employees happy. Google did this a few years ago by letting the public see how the business works from within. This particular branding strategy showed employees lounging around working on laptops, wearing comfortable clothes to work and even playing ping pong and other fun games on their breaks.

Treating employees well is a concept Zappos managed to conquer in addition to its dominance in customer service. Employee happiness is a strong indicator of how well a company is actually doing. Remember, happy workers are productive workers. The Zappos logo gives a warm and fuzzy feeling because of the company’s values.

If you’re looking at ways to build your brand, Susan J. Campbell Copywriting Services can help small businesses develop unique ways to create fun and effective branding strategies.

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Monday Morning Coffee with Susan

Posted on July 22, 2013 by admin

SusanIt is a little late in the morning, but I just finished my second cup of coffee. You see, my son finally convinced me to go to CrossFit with him today. For those of you who are not familiar with this phenomenon, it seems to be sweeping the nation. Very athletic individuals teach you how to create much pain and discomfort in the name of getting physically fit. All complaining aside, it was a great experience and I will go back. But the workout got me thinking about marketing and how CrossFit principles may be applied.

Get warmed up – the idea is to get your muscles ready for the coming workout. How are you warming up to market your business?

Pay attention to form – what are you communicating with your brand?

Don’t put the stress of the weight on your back – are you promoting with the most vulnerable method?

Push yourself – are you exploring additional tools and markets?

Stretch and cool down appropriately – how are you managing customer relationships?

While this is just a brief overview of the total marketing experience in how it relates to CrossFit, it’s still a fun exploration. If the things you are doing have a goal, state it. If the things you are doing aren’t contributing to that goal, change them. If you haven’t defined your goal, time to go back to the beginning.

The key to success – and to keep from getting hurt – is doing it the right way from the beginning. Develop your strategy and follow it. Make adjustments where necessary and continue to reinforce the brand. You will eventually start to see the benefits. But, like CrossFit – it takes time.

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