12 Essential Small Business Marketing Strategies Posted on August 4, 2022July 26, 2023 by Jonathan Herrick Let’s face it: there are a million and one small business marketing strategies out there, but if you’re like most business owners, you don’t have the endless budget and time to find the hidden treasures that lead to results. Also, determining which marketing strategy is most effective can take months of testing and evaluation. After growing businesses, testing plenty of marketing campaigns, and helping our small business customers grow, I have come up with the 12 marketing techniques for small businesses that you can use to help your small business flourish. 1. Audience Research Marketing is about sending a relevant message to your target audience to persuade them to buy your product or service. If you don’t know your target audience, you risk focusing your attention too broadly or on the wrong people, which is a catastrophic error in the age of personalization. Successful marketing begins with target audience research — a data-backed process that culminates into elaborate audience persona(s). An audience persona is a profile or visualization of the person you’re trying to reach. It outlines traits such as geographical location, career, gender, motivation, pain points, budget, and more. Audience persona is your “north star” for creating and launching successful marketing strategies, from content marketing to word-of-mouth. It lays the foundation of your marketing strategy and informs the best channels to use for effective marketing. 2. Word of Mouth Advertising Once you’ve laid the foundation, you can get your marketing strategies rolling. One of the most cost-effective small business marketing strategies is to tap into the voice of your customer by getting them to talk about their experience with your business. That means building a great product or service first and then delivering it in an amazing manner to your customers. Encourage customers to talk about your small business on social and professional networks and to share their opinions. This will boost your chances of getting new customers in the door. Typically, people trust their friends and value their opinions. That is why it’s critical to tap into your customers who are willing and able to share your excellent products/services with their tribes. 3. Content Marketing If marketing is the engine that propels your business, content marketing is the gas in the tank. It’s a fantastic way to bring you leads through search engines, but it also works well to educate your customers on best practices. Content marketing is about creating interesting material that your audience is likely to engage with, be it text, video, or audio. It entails the creation of content for publishing on your homepage, blogs, product pages, landing pages, advertising channels, and social media. Content marketing allows you to show that you’re a top expert in your field. This means creating fresh content based on your audience’s biggest challenges and curating content that is relevant to your visitors/readers. Once you have created highly-relevant content, push it out where your audience is engaging, such as Linkedin, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Your content distribution methods are the only way to harness the full potential of your content marketing strategy. 4. Search Engine Optimization Great content without search engine optimization (SEO) has a low chance of ranking on top of search engine results pages (SERPs). When you create highly-relevant content, you have to optimize it for search engines to increase its visibility when people search for keywords and terms relevant to your products or services. As a small business, it’s tough to compete with the rankings of larger companies when it comes to highly competitive keywords. Start by focusing on keywords with low competition but high commercial intent and search volume. . Once your blog or brand builds authority, throw your hat in the ring for the high-competition keywords. That said, SEO is a multidisciplinary strategy that transcends keyword targeting. Other important SEO aspects you should prioritize include: on-page SEO, local SEO, and site speed optimization. 5. Company Website Every component of your marketing plan is going to come back to your website. Don’t cut corners. It’s where your visitors find out who you are, what you believe in, and what makes you unique. Ultimately, your website exists to convert visitors into leads, and the quality of your leads will improve if you have a great website that attracts the most relevant buyers. Once you get visitors to your website, you’ve got to build a conversion strategy. You’ll want to make sure that your company website has plenty of opportunities for site visitors to provide you with their information. Add sign-up forms to high-traffic pages and landing pages to direct traffic. These pieces will enable you to collect site visitors’ email addresses and add them to your lead nurture campaigns. 6. Blogging Just as your website is the guiding light for lead gen for your small business, the same holds true with your blog. And if you’re not already blogging, you should be. Why? Brands with an active blog generate 67% more leads than those without one. To generate leads, add a call-to-action on each of your blog posts asking readers to take a desired action, be it buying a product, subscribing to your newsletter, signing up for an upcoming webinar, or downloading a whitepaper. But your blog is more than just a lead gen tool. It’s a canvas to share your thoughts and perspectives, to truly position yourself as a thought leader while connecting you to your audience. It’s also part of your SEO strategy. Create pillar posts on your blog and set up an internal linking strategy so your readers can easily find and engage with similar content. 7. Email Marketing Email has come from a basic communication channel to a powerful platform to achieve your marketing goals. Its power is undeniable – for every dollar you invest in email marketing, you see an impressive $36 return on investment. Email is also a great way to build your contact list for your small business. A good strategy to build your list is to simply create valuable and relevant content. Offer that content to site visitors in exchange for their contact information. As long as you promise to share high-quality, valuable insights, your site visitors will think the exchange is worthwhile. As a small business owner, you probably wear many hats and have to juggle multiple tasks to keep the business moving smoothly. A marketing automation tool will help you facilitate effective email nurture so you can do more in less time, saving you hours that you can devote to other important tasks. An easy-to-use tool, like BenchmarkONE, lets you automatically capture visitors from your website and send the right message to them at just the right time. Doing so improves the effectiveness of your marketing strategy while helping you make the most of your marketing budget. 8. Social Media If your small business doesn’t have profiles on top social media sites, build them today. This includes Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn. Each one offers a different format, but all allow you to connect and talk to your customers and would-be clients on a channel that they’re already engaged on. Using social media marketing is a must to ensure that your brand and your customer base grow. Most importantly, keep your fingers on the pulse of the tilting social media landscape, which includes joining new platforms. If your brand is yet to lay a mark on TikTok, you need to move swiftly to ride the wave of the highly-creative and playful channel. With over one billion monthly active users globally, TikTok presents an opportunity to build brand awareness, promote your products, and engage potential customers, particularly the younger generation. 9. Event or Trade Shows Trade shows and special promotional events are fantastic strategies for launching a new product or service, driving brand awareness, and getting in front of your target audience. If you are attending a trade show, swap out a sponsorship package for an opportunity to speak on a topic relevant to your audience. It will keep your cost down and elevate your status as a thought leader in your niche. Bonus tip: Don’t forget to capture the full ROI of your event! Be sure to connect with prospects on social media and capture email addresses so you can run pre, during, and post-show campaigns. 10. Online Advertising One of the fastest ways to get in front of potential buyers that are actively searching online is online advertising. With PPC advertising, such as Google Adwords and Bing, you can set your budget for the keywords that your audience is searching for and measure the cost per conversion. Remember to not just set it and forget it. For example, adding negative keywords will eliminate unwanted clicks, keeping your spending down. You should also test new keywords to ensure you are optimizing your spending wisely. Also, if you are looking to increase brand exposure, remarketing is a great way to do it. Remarketing allows you to hyper-target visitors that have been to your site that you would like to bring back, with the goal of converting into a customer or sign-up. 11. Free Promotional Tools Budget constraints could limit the options you can use as far as marketing goes. One way to cut overhead is to use free marketing and promotional tools. Evaluate your strategies and determine which activities require premium tools and which ones you could do with free software. For example, if you’re only just getting started with content marketing, you can use free keyword research tools to guide you through the initial phase. Once you scale and your strategy gather momentum, you can turn to paid keyword research and content optimization tools. Sign up for BenchmarkONE’s free plan today! 12. Networking and Partnership Building Finally, always work on networking to promote your business. This is perhaps one of the most valuable ways to grow your expertise and showcase your skills to would-be partners and customers. Networking is a cost-effective way to drive sales leads and opportunities for strategic partnerships. All of these approaches are effective but don’t forget that In the spirit of cutting overheads, it’s okay to only focus on strategies that you know will bring the best results. Start small with your strategies and experiment with different aspects to determine what works. Channel your resources, effort, and time toward sustainable methods of generating revenue. Good luck incorporating these 12 essential small business marketing strategies into the way you promote and operate your business. Doing so will help you spend less time looking for solutions, so you have more time to devote to what you do best.
What the GIF?! How to Use Visual Content In Your Marketing Campaigns Posted on February 17, 2016June 3, 2016 by Jessica Lunk Today we live in a visual culture – screens are everywhere, ranging from smartphones, tablets, laptops, computer monitors, to gigantic home televisions. Wherever we go, there is an image or video close by to snag our attention. This makes visual content one of the most important marketing techniques for small businesses. The Graphics Interchange Format AKA the GIF was developed in 1987 and in the past couple years, the internet has waged a full on love affair with these animated images. Some say it with a soft G, others a hard G but we’ve all noticed them on social media, emails, blog posts, websites… pretty much everywhere! So why should you bring them into your campaigns? GIFs get noticed Sites with GIFs look better than those without; people stay on your page longer and are more likely to browse your site. A site that is noteworthy impresses potential customers and clients so they are more likely to buy In the past companies in business for long periods of time were seen as safe and trustworthy – today they are seen as antiquated and out of touch – sites with eye-popping images are seen as modern and trendy. And today modern and trendy are seen as more trustworthy, giving you more sales. People love GIFs You don’t need to know how to make a GIF to use them. Sites like Giphy or Reddit provide a platform to search and browse through GIFs from all over the internet. Here are some best practices to consider before you start bringing them into your marketing messages: Use your own voice. GIFs help you connect with your audience. When you get on the phone with them after they see a GIF in your marketing campaign, don’t leave them confused if you come across completely different. Be relevant. Make sure your GIFs match the message. If you have to explain it, it’s not funny. I love telling jokes, but when I miss the mark, I’m delivering a joke to the wrong audience. Knowing your audience is key. Keep copy short and sweet. Let the GIF speak for you, so keep your copy down to one or two short sentences for the most impact. Find inspiration in your favorites. Let your audience know what you are into – your favorite TV shows, movies, music, sports, etc. Or better yet, find out what your audience is into to find inspiration! Giphy has it all. Everybody loves pizza. Everybody. Get noticed, make someone laugh, and create a meaningful connection with the simplicity of a GIF. Showing your authentic personality is what will strengthen the approachability of your brand, no matter what industry you are in.
How to Write a Popular Blog Post – Without Writing Posted on February 15, 2016August 25, 2022 by Jessica Lunk How do you become a leading voice in your industry? For that matter, how do you even get your foot in the door? The answer is content —blog posts, eBooks, whitepapers, articles, infographics and more. BUT – what if you don’t like that answer? What if the thought of sitting at your desk and hammering out a blog post on your keyboard sounds about as appealing as gouging out your eyeballs with a dull spoon? Then this post is for you! Finding the motivation to Write relevant blog posts and consistently share great content positions you and your business as an industry leader. But finding the time and mustering up the talent to put together great content can be really tough. That’s where lists – those irresistible listy listicles – come in. You don’t have to be much of a writer to create content that gets eyes on your brand and people to your website. By curating content, you can leverage excellent articles that already exist to keep current and potential customers engaged. You’ll become trusted voice in your industry, a disseminator of trusted and reliable information. And you won’t have to do the dirty work of writing original content. Creating a List Post that Gets Found and Shared Online Just like where you sit at lunch dictates your popularity in high school, the company you keep online can make or break your brand. The power of list posts is that by linking to and mentioning other websites, thought leaders and influencers, you give lift to your own brand and gain exposure to new audiences. Here are 9 types of list posts to create and share with your audience: Ask influencers: Tweet a question to people in your space that have a big presence and compile their answers into a blog post, like we did with our post, The Most Important Online Marketing Lessons of 2015 for Small Businesses. Ask your audience: Your customers and prospects want to hear from people who are just like them. Ask your audience a question to come up with a list of engaging, fun content – similar to when we asked our audience of small business owners about their Thanksgiving Traditions. Tap into employees: Ask your employees one question and put their answers in a blog post. We did this with our blog post, What Our Core Values Mean to Us. Use comment sections and reviews: Is there a topic that’s sparking conversation? Show your readers what others are saying about a hot topic in the comment section of your blog or other blogs, linking back, of course. For instance, we compiled what our customers were saying about us on several review sites in this blog post. Make a list of resources: Are there business tools you use that you would recommend to your customers? For instance, a bank might have a list of the 20 most affordable colleges within 100 miles, or a used car dealer may have the 10 best subcompact cars with links to each company that builds them. We put together a list of the 8 Marketing Podcasts Every Entrepreneur Should Hear for our audience of small business owners. Help your audience find more content: Where do you go to find content about your industry or niche? Create a list of blogs or resources for your audience, like our list of 21 Great Small Business Blogs. Be an inspiration: What keeps you motivated and moving every day? Put together a list of quotes or a fun list of internet memes. We shared small business inspiration in our Monday Motivational Quotes post. Find examples: You know a good thing when you see it in your niche. Curate and share those instances of excellence using images and links to tell a story. For instance, at Hatchbuck, we know good content marketing when we see it, so we put together this post on 12 Awesome Examples of Content Marketing Done Right. Link to old posts: If your business and blog have been around for a while, you probably have a good amount of blog content. Find a theme and make a list – kind of like we’re doing in this post right now! When it comes to content marketing and blogging, creating a list of curated content might sound a little bit like cheating. But, the reality is, these types of post aren’t just easy to create, they’re easy for your audience to digest and share. Mentioning other brands, leaders, and even your own employees can get new people to share your content, broaden your network and help your list posts gain instant popularity. When you don’t want to write a blog post, make a list. You’ll save time while growing your audience and showing potential customers your value.
20½ Small Business Tips For Blogging Posted on February 12, 2016June 20, 2018 by Jessica Lunk Content is the driving force behind your marketing strategies. You want something to send your potential customers in an email. You want to connect and reach more people on social media. You want a way to communicate the value you provide as a business owner in a conversational way. Blogging is a great way to expand your reach, build a relationship with your audience, and start converting more website visitors. Starting a blog is the easy part. Creating a place where potential customers return for valuable content is where there hard work comes in. Here are 20.5 tips for blogging we put together to keep in mind as you start building up your blog content: Know your audience. Create personas. Write to that one person. Your blog posts will resonate more when you know who you want to reach, their motivations, and how to speak to them. Set a goal for your blog and create your strategy. Start with picking the right platform for your blog. There are so many platforms out there for you to use depending on the personas you create. Just make sure it’s mobile-responsive! Make a big list of topics you want to blog about. Then start writing potential headlines for each topic. These lists are great to have when you hit a block and are not sure what to write about next. Decide if you or someone on your team will write for the blog. We encourage having more than one person on your team write for the blog to cover all aspects of your business. If you are looking to increase your content strategy, think about hiring a freelancer to cover a couple posts a month. Your headline is just as important as the content within. Make sure it is enticing enough for your reader to click through. Shoot for 500-750 words. Throwing long-form content (1000+ words) into the mix is great for SEO. Experiment by patching together multiple blog posts or writing on a topic that you have a lot to say about. Collect emails. Adding a form with a clear call to action to subscribe on your blog will help you start building an engaged list. Write seasonal and timely content. These are good on social media so you can expand your reach using trending hashtags. Write evergreen content. You will build SEO points so your blog post will strengthen in rank as time goes on. These blog posts have a longer lifespan and enhance your email marketing campaigns. Include guest authors. Current customers, influencers, or partners help you get another perspective on your blog and builds your audience up. Tell a story and get personal. You audience will feel connected to you with a funny, touching, or passionate story. Bring in research and stats but make sure to always link to the source. Lists are still hot on social. Create a list with images, gifs, etc… The more creative and relevant you can get with your lists, the more it will stick out. Include great photos as a featured image or in the post. If you can, take your own photos. If not, find free photos using the Creative Commons or The Stocks. Call out influencer and companies with similar audiences. They will be more willing to share your blog post and start building a working relationship. Just start! Once you start blogging more and more, you will begin to develop your voice and your style. It will change as you learn how you want to write for your blog. Be consistent. When you start your blog, write a few blog posts and determine how often you will be able to publish a post. Then set your goal! Be your authentic self. You can try to be someone else, you can try to be something else, but nothing will resonate more than just being yourself. Create a distribution strategy and process for all your new content. It will vary by how often you post but it will ensure your content is getting in the right places! Great, valuable blogging is not an overnight strategy. When you ramp up your blogging and content strategy, it will take a few weeks and even months to start seeing progress. Don’t get discouraged! Some days you will feel like you are the first person at the party, but then your audience will slowly start to trickle in. Have any questions about blogging or content strategy? Send the Hatchbuck Marketing team your question on Twitter. We are always happy to help!
Hysterical Ideas That Are Actually Marketing Techniques for Small Businesses Posted on January 21, 2016June 3, 2016 by Jessica Lunk Risk-taking is best embraced in the ever-changing digital marketing landscape. Daring marketing initiatives often pay off, as they capture the attention of otherwise uninterested individuals — and make them see small businesses in a new light. If your marketing strategy could use a boost, consider drawing inspiration from these small business marketing techniques that push the envelope: Made-Up Holidays Companies requiring an extra push during the slow season can benefit greatly from made-up holidays, which if given the appropriate hype, can greatly increase consumer interest. At Hatchbuck, we talked like a pirate for a day in September. Another excellent international example involves the made-up Japanese holiday of Kurisumasu ni wa Kentakkii, in which residents skip out on Christmas altogether and instead eat at Kentucky Fried Chicken. When this influential marketing effort first launched in 1974, it seemed crazy, but it was just out-there enough to attract attention — and now it’s one of Japan’s most notable holiday traditions. Cat Craze It’s no secret that the internet loves cats, but some clever businesses have harnessed this feline adoration and used it to drive up business. The best example of this is Uber, which celebrated National Cat Day 2013 by delivering kittens and cupcakes to people living in San Francisco, New York City, and Seattle. Although the recipients were only allowed to keep the cupcakes, they had the opportunity to spend 15 minutes cuddling with kittens. Cat delivery is not an option for most companies, but any marketing efforts involving cats can foster excitement among new and existing customers. A simple way for small businesses low on funding to accomplish this is to post a picture of a cat with a branded product on Instagram and ask followers for caption ideas. Flash Mobs Although no longer as big of a craze as they were in the early days of YouTube, flash mobs still attract attention while putting smiles on the faces of both participants and observers. Often organized for marriage proposals or just for fun, flash mobs can also be used to garner greater brand awareness. T-Mobile has certainly discovered this, as its flash mob “Life’s for Sharing” advertisement won Ad of the Year at the 2010 British Television Advertising Awards. Viral Marketing Pranks Consumers love being pranked, but only if pranks come across as fun, as opposed to malicious. Although there is a lot of gray area between acceptable and unacceptable marketing pranks, those done correctly can quickly go viral, thereby creating a new and exciting social media presence for previously unknown businesses. Marketing gurus proved the efficacy of pranks while drumming up excitement for the 2013 Carrie reboot. A group of unsuspecting coffee shop visitors were freaked out by remote-controlled tables and a stunt man seemingly thrown up against a wall by a young woman with telekinesis power gone wild. If your current marketing approach is beginning to grow stale, now is the time to mix it up with a little guerrilla marketing. Take inspiration from the aforementioned marketing efforts and don’t be afraid to get silly!
What is Inbound Marketing? More Importantly, Is It Better? Posted on January 12, 2016October 21, 2022 by Katie Culp What if instead of a marketing campaign that you hope finds new prospects and customers or clients, your online marketing campaign is designed to have them find you? Inbound marketing is just that, marketing focused on being discovered by customers! Marketing used by most startups and small or medium-sized business is the more traditional, outbound marketing. However, expert internet marketers understand the limitations of outbound marketing, as reflected by these stats from Voltier Digital: 86% of people skip through television commercials 44% of direct mail is never opened 200 million Americans have registered their phone numbers on the FTC’s “Do Not Call List” The outbound marketing methods used to work when marketers controlled the conversation, market, message, and channels. Now, there are infinite channels through which we get our information. Though outbound marketing still is in use and still has its place, it is more expensive than an inbound marketing program and less effective. Why Inbound Marketing Works Most people hate sales calls, do not open emails from people or businesses they do not know, block phone calls from anonymous callers or blacklisted marketers, do not read printed newspapers, and record TV shows to avoid commercials. In other words, consumers really don’t appreciate aggressive advertising – and now have the technology to avoid it. It’s the consumer who’s in the driver’s seat when it comes to conversation. Inbound marketing works well as it is non-intrusive. Potential new customers and existing customers crave quality content and they choose the channels where they find what speaks to them. If you can attract your prospective customers to your website by having a strong content, SEO, and social media strategy, you have a successful inbound marketing campaign. Content Effective inbound marketing campaigns are centered around content creation that offers valuable information. The goal of content should be enticing your prospect to give their information so you can then nurture them into a customer. Either written by you or on your behalf by a professional writer, well-crafted content is the driving force behind your inbound marketing strategy. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) SEO techniques make it easier for would-be customers to find your content on the web. SEO is key to your site’s success by building inbound links from other sites and social media. You want to build a spiderweb of links around the internet that all go back to your website. A side benefit is that as your inbound campaign takes root and you develop inbound links, your Google ranking will go up! Social Media Having a strong presence on social media sites such as Facebook, Google+, Yelp and other social media sites helps you in getting your content distributed to new potential clients. Social media also encourages shares, feels more ‘real’ and fosters discussions about your content – a great way to draw more qualified customers to your website. DIY or Professional Help? Powerful inbound marketing does require investing time and resources into content creation and distribution. But the pay-off is huge. Instead of sinking money into futile advertising or an army of sales people, with the right inbound marketing strategy, the customers come to you! So yes, inbound marketing is better!
Building a Small Biz Audience Using Facebook Ads Posted on November 23, 2015June 3, 2016 by Jessica Lunk There are 900 million people signing into Facebook every single day. And those people are discussing trending topics, sharing content with each other, and even looking to build their own business. You won’t have the time or the money to boil the ocean and reach every single persona on Facebook but you can carve out your own slice of the pie and reach the people that will be most likely to share and engage with your content. To help create a map that points you in the right direction of how to use Facebook for marketing success, consider some of the most popular ads on the site, how they work, and most importantly, why they work. So what is going to make them click your ad? Get Eyes on Your Ads The Facebook flow might be familiar to you… the blur of scrolling past political arguments, baby pictures, complainers, positive thinkers, on and on. And you want your brand to stand out amongst all that noise. Visual ads grab the attention of the individual and stop them from scrolling right past it. Even with the most intriguing content, if your ad isn’t attractive, no one will respond. So what can you do to get your ads seen? Use high-quality images Use the recommended dimensions: 1200 x 628 pixels Use images of people, especially your real customers. Avoid stock photography that’s too generic or cheesy. Your logo alone isn’t going to cut it unless your company is well known – plus, often your logo is in your profile picture already. Use bright, warm colors to help ads to stand out. Buyer personas come in handy here because you need to have a good idea of what will capture the attention of the audience you are trying to create. The more you know your ideal customers, the more relevant and targeting your ads will become. Test Different Audiences So there are 900 million people on Facebook and you want to create an audience for them. You’ve created a buyer persona and you have your creative ads ready to go. Always run ‘Page Like’ Ads to promote your page. With these ads, you can test your buyer persona and start to determine what makes your ideal customer tick. Show a little creativity; what are your ideal customers doing outside of the buying process? What interests can you use to tap into their emotions and get them to click to learn more? I like running these tests because they don’t have to take up a lot of your budget and you can play around with all the different targeting options Facebook provides. Mix and match your audience, creating many layers for a hyper-targeted segment. Track and compare all these tests next to each other so you can drill down to what’s working and what didn’t. Video: The Darling of Facebook Ads You’re likely hearing a great deal about new formats for advertising and the value of interactive advertising. There’s good reason for this. It’s engaging and less promotional. It helps to draw in customers and get the click. Facebook video ads are becoming an increasingly valuable investment for businesses as a result. These appear in the news feed. About 50% of all people who visit Facebook will watch at least one video during that visit. Brands are finding videos incredibly helpful in getting people to sites and to build their brand. To get more engagement, create a video that can be understood with or without sound. Show Off Your Products Often times, we hear about Facebook ads being all about brand building. However, you can and should use your ads to showcase products. Multi-product ads are very effective, for example. You can use the Power Editor feature from Facebook to create these. They allow you to promote more than one product (or service, or blog post, etc) in a single ad. You’ll get more bang for your buck this way. In addition to these types of Facebook ads, you’ll also find some outstanding success with local ads, promotional offers, and event ads. The key here is to be versatile and flexible. You’ll get the most attention from your ads if you invest in a variety of formats and put the time into creating a campaign that maps out a clear path to conversion for that treasure trove of leads. Drive Engagement Once you have built a good audience, you can start driving more engagement. In the beginning, I felt like I was talking to an empty room on social media. But once I found my audience, engagement soared and the chatter was ignited. Targeting your Facebook audience with your Facebook Ads make your ads more relevant so they are favored by the algorithms, sparking better conversations on social. You’ll notice with this approach that your relevancy scores will be through the roof because this is your audience that your are targeting. If you’ve been ramping up your content strategy, this is a great tool to start building some traction around it. Using Facebook advertising effectively can increase your audience and engagement without putting a gaping hole in your marketing budget. Want to see more ways I’m managing social media at Hatchbuck? Like our Facebook page!
Online Photo Editing Tools (For the Design Pro to the Design Illiterate) Posted on November 12, 2015November 30, 2021 by Jessica Lunk As much as copywriters would like to believe otherwise, images are the key to engaging browsers. Social posts are significantly more effective when a photo or video is included, and blogs, articles, and copy all rely heavily on images to capture attention in time – you typically have only a few seconds to grab it before they leave your page without reading anything more than the heading. But what if you have no digital photo editing skills!? Fortunately, there are helpful tools that can make photo editing easier. You don’t have to be a pro to create great-looking photos for your company. Just get to know some of the tools that you can find online or download to your computer. PicMonkey PicMonkey has a free version that anyone can use to create photo collages or enhance existing photos by adding text and graphic elements. Beginners can learn the PicMonkey program pretty quickly. For advanced elements, you can used the paid version. You can use PicMonkey’s templates or upload your own for editing. The site is used to create images for Pinterest, Facebook and Instagram. The biggest drawback is that it can be slow at times. Canva Canva is similar to PicMonkey, although it is easier to navigate. It doesn’t have as many free graphic elements, but it starts you off with the perfect size image for each type of social media. Also easy to learn, Canva has more free options when it comes to grids and layouts, but does charge for most of its images. The fee is only $1 per element, so it’s worth the money if you want to use one. It is easier to navigate Canva and it doesn’t get bogged down as much as PicMonkey. Pixlr Pixlr is a mobile app photo editor that is completely free. You can use its various tools to edit your photos right on your phone or tablet. It has many elements similar to Photoshop, but is more complicated than either Canva or PicMonkey. It is a good choice for intermediate users that want to edit on their mobile devices. It is available for iOS and Android. Adobe Photoshop Elements 14 A smaller version of Photoshop, Elements is not as costly and offers quite a range of tools for a more serious photo editor. There is no free version of this program, but you can get a free trial. Beginners can learn by using the guided tutorials for the program. You do have to buy this program outright for your Mac or PC. Google Picasa 3 This is a free program for both PC and Mac that is a good choice for photo editing quickly and efficiently. Not for serious editors, this program is good for people who want to edit photos without much fuss. It is a good program to use for Google +. GIMP Available for Linux, Windows and Mac, GIMP is free to use on your computer and is compatible with all photo files. It is an open-source photo editor with a full array of tools. It also has a file manager, and offers advanced tools for serious photo editors. Creating images for your marketing can be a lot of fun. I would recommend playing around with a formula that you use to create consistency and to make it easier to produce images on the fly. Think about the emotion you want to convey. Is there tension? My secret weapon for finding great images that are free to use is The Stocks. It’s an aggregate of different photo sites so it’s easy to sift through and find the right image for a blog post, a motivational image, an email header, etc. When you are planning your marketing strategies for small business success, you don’t need big, complex software to reach your goals.
Struggling with Content Marketing Strategy? Nail it with these 5 Tips. Posted on November 5, 2015November 11, 2022 by Jessica Lunk You want to be seen. So, do something. Something big. If you want to catch people’s eye in your content marketing endeavors, you have to do three things: Be bold, be relevant, and be impressive. If you want to make an impact and get your business noticed you have to go the extra mile. To reach and engage your audience use these 5 tips to nail your content strategy: 1. Know Who You Are Knowing who you are takes a deep understanding of the product or services you offer, why you offer them, and a bit of the roadmap that lies ahead of you. Once you understand your business, you have to create a brand around it – and this is the tough part. You know who you are, but does your audience? Branding is how you communicate; it’s your face to the world and while it may change over the years, it should remain a version of itself. Think of Q-Tips, Kleenex, Xerox. These companies are so inextricably linked to their product that most time people don’t know whether you are talking about the company of the item. That’s what you want for your business. 2. Know Your Audience Knowing who you are also means knowing your audience. Successful businesses don’t try to be everything to everyone. Instead, they are super intentional about putting their stake in the ground and defining their audience. Herb Kelleher, co-founder and former CEO of Southwest Airlines, took this exact approach. He decided that his audience wasn’t everyone. It wasn’t even the business-class flyer. Instead, he set his sights on the family flyer. He appealed to them by offer low fares, painting his planes like whales, and implementing a hiring strategy that focused on hiring attitude before skills. And this targeted approach paid off. Today, Southwest Airlines is the nation’s largest carrier in terms of originating domestic passengers boarded. When your demographic is defined, you can get to know your audience intimately. What are they interested in? How are they finding information? What are their pain points? Knowing your audience allows you to tailor your message, taking a personal approach to your marketing to stay super relevant to your audience, and create raving fans of your business. 3. Be Where They Are After you’ve defined your niche, go find them. Does your ideal buyer hang out in specific geo locations? Do they participate in certain communities online? Are they urban or suburbanites? Are they looking for a specific resource that you can provide for free? Take a multi-level approach to meeting your ideal buyers where they are by: Driving top-of-mind awareness with ads. Delivering value through helpful resources. Nurturing with personal email marketing. Especially for smaller businesses that have to do more with less, being targeted with your audience means that you can allocate resources efficiently and effectively. 4. Use Technology Marketing technology used to be reserved for big businesses with big budgets and lots of technical know-how. But today, there are a ton of free or budget-friendly resources that are easy for small businesses to implement and use. Try these examples on for size: Create a blog on your company site. Share your expertise, show off your company culture and feature guest posts from others in your niche. Blogging displays your authority, builds up a reserve of content you can share, and helps your ideal buyer find your business online through search. Leverage Youtube to connect with your audience. Produce your own video, or better yet, leverage your customers’ video testimonials to share with your audience. In fact, Offerpop revealed in a recent report that brand engagement rises by 28% when consumers are exposed to professional content along with user-generated product videos. Create buzz on social media sites. With social media, you can take word-of-mouth marketing one step further and get your audience talking about your brand. Focus your efforts on the channels that your ideal buyer engages with the most. 5. Make Sure They Can Find You with SEO Creating useful, relevant content for your audience is the first step to getting found online. Then, reach out to your partners, influencers in your space, and your customers to share and exchange content, helping boost your reach. As you build content on your site, you may also want to hire a SEO consultant to help make sure your website is structured properly for ultimate optimization. For a few more ideas on how to get found online, check out our Small Business Guide to Online Marketing. You want to make a big splash, right? Try these ideas and watch as you reach grows exponentially.