Sales Enablement: What it is, How to Practice it, and How to Measure Success Posted on September 14, 2022September 14, 2022 by Tricia O'Donnell An empowered sales team will go on to engage with prospects positively, close deals, and help you achieve business goals. What’s the best way to empower your sales team? Provide them with tools for success, be it software, content, or other resources. There’s a lot of ground that sales enablement covers, but since sales are essential to keeping your business running smoothly, it’s so important that you have it mastered. In this piece, we’re diving into everything related to sales enablement so your small business can improve its sales process and see more returns. Ready? What is Sales Enablement? When you provide your sales team with tools, resources, information, content, and training to engage effectively with your target audience, it’s considered sales enablement. In fact, every bit of help you render to support your sales team to facilitate more closings and sales comes under the sales enablement umbrella. Why is Sales Enablement Important? Sales enablement benefits your organization in the following ways. Provides your business with a skilled, knowledgeable, and productive sales team. Helps you develop effective sales systems and processes. Offers a consistent and valuable content resource that helps the sales team with its tasks and goals. Promotes long-term success for your business through consistent training for sales teams. Improves business revenue by helping the sales team improve closing rates. Reinforces sales leaders and managers, putting them in a position to better support team members whilst also supporting the business’s sales strategy. As you can see, there’s a lot that goes into sales enablement, which is why some teams find it beneficial to have a designated person to manage these efforts. What is a Sales Enablement Manager? The sales enablement manager is in charge of everything that supports arming your sales team with the resources and tools they need to be better at their jobs. Since sales teams are constantly busy attempting to close deals and meet with important contacts, they don’t always have time to check in with the marketing department on content collaboration. It’s in these instances that having a sales enablement manager is extremely beneficial. This individual has a lot of tasks, including: Developing regular training for the sales team. Spearheading the creation of sales content needed to educate and engage potential customers. Managing tools and technology used by the sales teams, such as the CRM or CMS. Implementing new processes, strategies, tools, and changes that ultimately affect the sales team and their efforts. Developing and improving sales strategies, learning styles, and implementation. Providing feedback to the marketing team on materials the sales team needs. What is the Sales Enablement Process? The framework your business adopts in implementing sales enablement in your organization will ultimately determine whether or not those efforts are successful. Your sales enablement process covers everything your organization does to search, gather, organize, and share needed information with the sales team. The goal is to get input from different departments and develop a strategic plan to achieve set objectives. What Are the Elements of a Sales Enablement Process? To build an effective sales enablement process, put the following in place. Appoint the right sales enablement manager to drive the project. Align key departments that need to work closely together (like the marketing and sales teams). Have a documented marketing plan and content marketing strategy. Assign the roles and responsibilities of each department and member. Align all departments with core business incentives to keep everyone on the same page. Develop processes for regular sales enablement activities and check-ins. Establish key performance metrics to measure. Sales Enablement Tools Sales enablement tools bridge the gap between content, marketing, and the sales cycle for ultimate success. With sales enablement tools, you can view content usage and performance, see the sales process at a glance, and track analytics to identify what’s working and what isn’t. The sales enablement tools you choose should be easy to use, integrate with your CRM, have reporting abilities and help organize and manage sales content. Some sales enablement tools to consider include: BenchmarkONE – Our CRM can help you track lead and customer conversion rates and identify which of your content prospects engage with the most Salesloft – Use for training your sales team for improved performance Datapine – Will show you multiple sales KPIs at a glance Monday – Sales cycle tracking so you can see where any holes or issues may be Saleshandy – Tracks sales reps’ quota so you can see how/if goals are being met Sales Enablement Content Sales enablement content is most definitely a tool your sales team needs. This is content your sales team uses to engage and win sales from buyers at different stages of the sales cycle. The content should be relevant, helpful, and offer value to prospects. To ensure effective sales enablement content, consider the following: Audit available content to make sure that existing materials are of the right standard. Get key insights from internal documentation when developing new content. Continuously improve available content, especially as new products or services are developed. Align content creation with every step of the customer journey. Determine the best content format for your target audience. Track content adoption and usage within the sales team and measure performance. Create room for sales team members to request needed content. With any of these programs and strategies, you need the ability to measure your results to prove what is working best for your operations — clear through the entire marketing and sales funnel combined. Below are a few ways to track just how successful the implementation of sales enablement tactics is. How to Measure Sales Enablement You can measure sales enablement success using the following metrics: Lead-to-Customer Conversion Rate The lead-to-customer conversion rate is one of the most important success measurements to track. This metric helps measure the impact of your sales enablement activities in its simplest form. Certain sales enablement tools should help the sales team identify hot leads and should have the ability to let salespeople respond faster or communicate more targeted messages to the prospects to move them further down that sales funnel. All of these things drive better conversion rates. A little extra tidbit of advice: the funnel doesn’t end with this lead acquisition. Continue to nurture the relationship and turn the lead into a loyal customer (think content creation and nurture email campaigns using your marketing automation platform). Time Spent on Selling/Length of Sales Cycle When a salesperson is focusing their time on non-core selling-related activities, such as looking for leads, creating case studies, or building their presentations or expense reports, they will not reach their peak performance and likely won’t meet their sales goals. It’s the marketing team’s job to equip the salespeople with all the tools they need to sell successfully, having these materials at their fingertips will leave them more time to sell. Those extra hours spent searching and building non-templated materials can add up quickly. Reducing the need for that will most likely increase revenue, but measuring the success of this effort is a little trickier unless you use a time-tracking tool or model. Quota Attainment It’s key in sales enablement to help bring new salespeople, or underperforming team members, up to their peak performance. Any time your program can move these colleagues from underperforming to meeting their quota will have a massive impact on your top line. To optimize sales enablement efforts, you need to measure the effectiveness of every salesperson and how it relates to their onboarding of customers. To do this, you measure how long it takes for a new seller to achieve established sales quotas. Long ramp times indicate that training may need to be revisited. And vice versa, decreasing ramp times suggests your efforts are improving. Content Usage Quality content goes a long way, and should include testimonials, case studies, and product overviews. Compelling content is one of the most useful tools for salespeople and one of the most valuable products for a marketer to create. However, there is A LOT of content out there for prospects to absorb. For this reason, it’s important to measure and understand how well (or not) content is working. The best way to gauge how content is working is to use it in your drip campaigns and post it online. With drip campaigns, you can use your CRM and marketing automation to see if the email was opened and if the content was clicked on. By posting the content online, you’re able to track who is viewing or engaging with it and if it’s contributing to site traffic (this is for content placed offsite). Use attribution reporting to see how much influence your content had in converting leads to customers. Some other sales enablement metrics to check include: Average selling price Win rate Customer churn rate Without sales enablement, your sales team may fall behind on winning deals and lose sight of best practices. An effective sales enablement process keeps your sales team grounded, skilled, and up-to-date on the best strategies for closing sales. We hope this blog post helps your team improve their sales enablement tactics, leading to more sales for your business.
How to Make Your Next Campaign Successful Posted on September 8, 2022September 1, 2022 by Natalie Slyman Email is still one of the primary ways people communicate. There are more than 4 billion email users worldwide, which is why many businesses use it as a direct channel to communicate with their customers. Email marketing involves communicating with current customers and prospects to nurture leads, increase engagement, and move contacts down the sales funnel. Email campaigns have proven to be effective and profitable for marketers. In 2020, Statista reported that the average ROI of email marketing was $36 for every dollar spent, with the consumer goods, retail, and eCommerce industry getting the highest ROI with a $45 return on every $1 spent. Here are steps you can take to ensure that your email campaigns land successfully: 1. Understand the Goal of Your Email Campaign Your email campaign should have a clear goal that fits with your current business objectives. Before starting your email campaign, you need to know what you want to achieve and what actions you expect your contacts to take after receiving your emails. There are a variety of goals that you could set for your email campaigns that will prove immensely valuable for your business. Some of these are: Increasing website traffic Increasing brand awareness Nurturing leads Promoting a product Once you have a goal, no matter how small, you can take strategic actions that will impact your email campaign’s success. 2. Specify Your Target Audience Your business likely has various types of customers that make up your target audience. They can be categorized into smaller groups based on factors such as the following: Location Age Engagement levels Segmenting your subscribers will lead to better conversions. By segmenting your email list, you can craft emails that appeal to what the people within a specific group perceive as valuable. And when people receive content that is of value to them, they will begin to build trust with your brand and be more inclined to take the desired action you want them to take. 3. Personalize Personalization involves using subscriber data to tailor email content to appeal to prospects. Email marketing personalization can increase open rates and revenue by up to 760%. Each of your subscribers likely receives numerous emails daily. When you offer individualized content, your email immediately stands out and will elicit more desirable responses. Personalization is a natural follow-up to audience grouping. By segmenting your subscribers into lists based on unique qualities shared by individuals within each list, you can easily personalize email content so that it promises to meet their specific needs. This will foster a healthy and long-term relationship between your brand and your audience. Personalizing your email content will also make your emails relatable and relevant. When your customers know that your brand is attentive to their needs, they feel valued and are more likely to interact with your email content. 4. Use a CRM Customer relationship management refers to the set of technologies, strategies, and practices that businesses use to manage their interactions with current and potential customers. A CRM tool is essential for successful email marketing. With BenchmarkONE’s all-in-one CRM, you can: See which of your site content and emails your prospects, leads, and site visitors interact with Score leads based on how informed they are and how ready they are to make a purchase Track outcomes of your email campaigns A significant part of CRM is sales automation. Using the automation feature in BenchmarkONE, you can automate manual tasks and streamline the sales and marketing processes, including emails. It helps to drive sales, increases your sales productivity, and moves you towards your sales goals. Sales automation saves you the trouble of performing all your email marketing tasks manually. You will no longer need to: Click the send button on each individual email you send to your prospects and customers Keep track of which leads need to be followed up with, as our tasks feature will remind you Spend valuable time individually qualifying your leads. Our tagging feature can score them automatically and create easier segmentation options. Your email campaign aims to get your audience to perform an action. It is important to remember that your target audience is made up of real individuals who have real needs to be met. If you can communicate with your audience in a way that makes them feel valued while delivering helpful information, you will be more likely to have a successful email campaign and a successful sales funnel. Contact us today to learn more about how BenchmarkONE can help you automate your marketing and track campaign success!
7 Kinds of Software Every Small Business Needs Posted on September 7, 2022July 3, 2024 by Jonathan Herrick As a small business owner, you have your hand in every department. Being the head of sales, customer service, accounting, marketing, etc., can become overwhelming and pull you in a lot of different directions. That’s why having a collection of software tools can be a lifesaver for small business owners and make running your business smooth, convenient, and less time-consuming. Instead of doing a ton of research on the array of platforms out there, we’ve collected a list of the essential business tools you’ll need to run your small business smoothly while freeing up time to focus on other things. 1. Accounting Software Record keeping is an integral part of your small business. Not keeping accurate financial records could not only affect your business spending, but it could run your small business into the ground. The best accounting software can make the numbers less messy to assemble. It can help you keep track of your income, expenses, assets, liabilities, and cash flow. You’ll get an accurate picture of your business’s financial performance, which helps you make informed business administration and operations decisions. No need to go back to school for a degree in accounting. The following are examples of easy-to-use accounting software for your small business: Quickbook: Choose from four plans depending on your needs. Packages start at $15/month. Xero: Plans are based on what stage your small business is at. Whether you’re just starting out or are more established, there are packages that will fit your needs. Pricing starts at $12/month. Wave: Perfect if you’re looking for a simple, straightforward tool. The price is simple, too, starting at $0/month for their basic plans. 2. Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Software With just a few customers, keeping to manual processes for managing your relationships with clients as a small business owner is easy. Once your customer base grows, it becomes hard to stick to manual processes for managing interactions with customers and prospects. CRM tools help you manage your customer relationships across different touch points. This, in turn, helps build loyalty and increased customer retention. Opt for tools that are easy to use and scalable. Below are the CRM tools we recommend: BenchmarkONE: Our CRM software is simple to use and helps small business owners track their customers’ behavior, so they can capitalize on sales and marketing opportunities. Pair our CRM with our marketing automation, and you can nurture your leads towards a sale, all while getting other things accomplished. Your small business can choose from our Lite or Pro plans, both starting at $0/month. Or, you can sign up for free and upgrade when you’re ready. 3. Project Management As a business owner, it’s not uncommon for your day to get away from you. Some important tasks can get buried in the flurry of other business activities and distractions, leading to ineffectiveness, increased stress levels, and a decline in productivity. Opting for project management software helps you to identify essential tasks that need to be completed, how long they should take, and how much budget to allocate to them. This helps you maintain productivity and a practical task management system. Project management tools to try for your small business are: ClickUp: Depending on the size of your team, ClickUp offers a few plans to fit your needs. They even have a free forever plan. Trello: Trello offers a similar pricing plan as ClickUp, and each plan is based on your small business’s particular needs. They also offer a free plan. Monday: Monday offers plans based on how intricate your team projects are. If you’re a business of one, there’s a free plan; otherwise, their pricing starts at $8/month. 4. Website Builder A website amplifies the visibility of your small business, making it easy for people to find you in the digital space and in person too! Once you have a small business, getting your website up and running is vital. Depending on your skills, you can choose to build your website yourself or hire a skilled website designer to get it done. Even if you choose the latter, you need to familiarize yourself with the platform the website is built on for regular site updates and maintenance. The following are versatile website builders to try: WordPress: One of the most widely used content management and website building platforms, WordPress offers personal and professional plans starting at $4/month. Wix: Wix website plans offer tons of templates so you can find a design that fits. Packages start at $16/month. Carrd: Carrd uses a different approach and lets you start building your site asap. It offers tons of modern designs, and you can build up to three sites absolutely free. 5. Sales and Marketing Sales and marketing are the lifeblood of your business. After the excitement of getting your business started, the next thing is to get the word out and put your business in front of your target audience. That’s where marketing comes in. Then, after cultivating prospects, you’ll need a plan to move them down the sales funnel. Marketing software helps you to get the message about your products and services out to your prospects. Below are some examples of helpful sales and marketing tools for a small business owner: Benchmark Email: If you’re exclusively looking for lead generation and email marketing software, Benchmark Email is a simple tool that helps you create website forms to grow your email list and has tons of email templates for newsletters and email outreach. Benchmark Email has a free plan available to businesses just getting started. BenchmarkONE: Our marketing automation software has sales and marketing dashboards so each department can keep track of deals and the success of their email outreach. They can track prospects and set up drip campaigns for continuous email nurture. Sign up for free and upgrade when you’re ready. 6. Team Communication and Collaboration Fostering good communication between team members will improve the growth and success of your small business. When you establish an effective communication system, you build a solid foundation that helps staff stay focused on business goals. Stay in touch with team members, practice effective communication, and share information easily with the following communication tools: Slack: One of the most popular online communication tools, Slack packages start at $0/month. Zoom: Great for video calls and meetings, Zoom keeps teams in contact no matter where they’re based. Pricing depends on the amount of users and what tools you need but starts at $0/month. Google Meet: If you have a Google account, this tool is perfect, easy to use, and totally free. 7. Document and File Management Track down important data and files, improve team productivity, and effectively disseminate information amongst team members with a document and file management system. Without one, your team could rack up hours looking for important files for different tasks, causing issues for collaboration and task management. Use the recommended software below to store, track and share critical business files and documents: Google Workspace: Every plan includes Google’s suite of tools to help your team stay aligned with easy file sharing and managing. Plans start at $6/month. Dropbox: Dropbox offers easy sharing and document tracking, as well as electronic signature. Pricing starts at $9.99/month. SharePoint: SharePoint is a Microsoft product that aims to make your work life easier through seamless sharing and collaboration. They have a small business plan for $5/month. These solutions can help you to streamline your business operations and administration, build effective workflows, and improve productivity. With the right platforms, you can free up precious time that can be used doing the things that matter to you. Good luck finding the right tools for your small business!
6 Marketing Tactics You Need to Stop Doing (and What to do Instead) Posted on September 1, 2022September 22, 2022 by Jess Lunk Marketing is a must for any business that cares about increasing revenue and scaling up. However, it’s a complex industry. Marketing practices and tactics are ever-changing, and it can seem like new industry-shattering trends emerge every month. It can be challenging for busy business owners to keep abreast of the latest tactics and to keep their knowledge sharp. Play that game for too long, and you’re bound to make lots of marketing mistakes that you’ll be paying for. For example, what worked some years back may be outdated by today’s standards. In this article, we will point out some marketing tactics you should let go of and what you can do instead. 1. Promotion-Centered Social Media Posts Yes, social media marketing is important for businesses, thanks to the overwhelming number of users on various social platforms. However, you can kiss the benefits of social media marketing goodbye if all your posts are focused on sales and promoting your brand or services. Social media allows businesses to connect intimately with their audiences for increased engagement, leads, traffic, and sales. Instead of salesy posts that will push your audience away, focus on strengthening your brand visibility and engagement using helpful content that your audience can relate to and engage with. That’s not to say you shouldn’t use paid ads or incorporate some promotional posts into your social media. Just make sure that you still focus on posts that share helpful resources or showcase your team so your audience can truly get to know the brand behind the business. A great way to maintain some balance with your posts is to create a social media calendar that has all these posts planned out in advance. 2. Focusing on One Audience Base You’ve probably heard about the dangers of selling to everyone. Irrespective of the products or services your business offers, your business cannot be for everyone. One common marketing mistake is to target everyone when promoting your product while hoping that those interested will be attracted to you and buy from you. Selling to everyone burns through your marketing budget with little to no results. With that said, it’s okay to sell to more than one segment of your audience base. In fact, we highly recommend it. It’s rare that a brand has only one audience base, so as long as you conduct appropriate research to establish your target audiences and do everything to get to know them and what influences their purchase decisions, there’s nothing that should hold you back from targeting more than one group with your marketing. Where you get into trouble is assuming your product or service is for everyone. And as nice as that sounds, that is never the case. 3. Focusing on Print Marketing Brochures and printed newsletters used to be excellent marketing practices. Often these pieces were sent directly to someone’s mailbox, which was a great way to reach prospective customers directly. However, with the development of digital marketing and more buying being done online, businesses have expanded their marketing approaches, meaning print marketing is quickly losing its appeal. Using print marketing occasionally for specific purposes in your environment may not be a bad idea, but do not rely heavily on this medium for ticking off your marketing goals. It may be a method you’re more familiar with, but that doesn’t mean your consumers are. If needed, take some online courses or webinars that show you the ins and outs of digital marketing. Or build an internal digital marketing team that can focus on these efforts. 4. Not Utilizing Inbound Marketing Tactics With digital marketing comes the practice of inbound marketing. Your inbound marketing strategy is comprised of digital marketing tactics, which include: Online paid advertisements SEO practices Social media marketing Content marketing – blog posts, guest-contributed content, press mentions, gated content, etc. Email marketing The beauty of inbound marketing is that when it’s implemented effectively, it brings your audience to you. It leads them back to your website, where you can convert those visitors to leads and engage and nurture them via your email marketing until they’re ready to purchase. This approach is effective because modern consumers aren’t huge fans of being pressured into their purchase decisions. They like to search online for solutions, perform their own research before buying, and feel like, ultimately, the decision is in their hands. Inbound marketing caters to that mentality, all while allowing businesses to stay top of mind with their consumers through consistent, permission-based outreach. In order to implement inbound marketing, you need the right tools to help you get the job done. Investing in a marketing automation tool like BenchmarkONE will help you convert website visitors to leads, keep track of their actions, and send them drip campaigns that will eventually convert them into customers. 5. Blogging Without Distributing Educating your customers with valuable content that answers their burning questions is excellent for building thought leadership, credibility, and engagement with your client base. But it is not enough to create blog posts and leave them sitting pretty on the blog section of your website. It is crucial to get the word out and let people see the content you are putting out. You can do this by sharing content on your social media pages, spreading the word via email newsletters, and optimizing your posts so they can be discovered in search engines. Below are some other non-traditional distribution tactics to try for your blog posts: Send them to dormant prospects in an attempt to re-engage Share them with a previous brand partner and ask them to share with their networks Create a social post promoting the content and encourage your internal team to copy and paste it to their social networks Add a link to the content in your email signature Add them to your drip campaigns 6. Creating Generic Content While we all agree that content is king, generic content won’t do your business any good and may even hurt your brand’s credibility. Ensure that the content you create is suitable for your audience – is it helpful to them in any way? Does it solve a problem? Does it provide any new information? For best results, create a content library, segment your audience and target them with content that aligns with their position on the buyer’s journey. That way, whenever they come across your content, it strikes the right chord and helps build trust for your brand. Also, don’t just stick to one kind of content type. Sure, blog posts and guest articles are crucial for your content strategy, but make sure you mix it up with infographics, whitepapers, eBooks, and video tutorials. People like to engage with content in various ways, so by keeping your strategy robust, you’ll create a more enjoyable experience. You have to market your business to be successful, and not every strategy is going to work for your business. Conversely, mistakes in your marketing strategy can cost you potential customers. Prevent this by staying away from marketing strategies that are no longer effective, and update your marketing plan to what works today.
How to Audit Your Website for Local SEO Posted on August 31, 2022December 1, 2022 by Natalie Slyman For small businesses, ranking in search results is a great way to get in front of an online audience and expand your reach. But that doesn’t mean you should no longer seek out local business for your storefront. Small business owners and local businesses can benefit greatly from appearing in local searches. Optimizing your small business for local search allows your company to get more store visits, phone orders, bookings, and appointments. It can also help establish your business as a local hotspot and put you on the radars of visitors and vacationers. Let’s dive into what local SEO is and how you can take advantage of it for your business. What is Local SEO? Local SEO refers to business and website optimization for local products or service-based businesses that have physical stores, with the goal of appearing in local searches within specific regions and locations (usually the areas these businesses serve). Why is a Local SEO Strategy Important for Small Businesses Many consumers are turning to Google to evaluate local businesses. In turn, small businesses need to make sure their business is easily found by these consumers in the process. Let’s get a bit deeper and break down the benefits local SEO offers: Improved Online Visibility With local SEO, you not only improve the chances of being found via local search but improve your overall small business visibility. Optimizing for Local SEO involves submitting your business name, address, and phone numbers to different directories. Doing this means there’s an increased probability of being found when people actively search for the specific products and services you offer in their local area. Increased In-Store Traffic Part of the reason for local search is to connect people with local businesses that are closer to them. Review Tracker’s November 2021 report found that 42% of millennials who used local search paid visits to discover businesses most of the time. If you optimize your business for local search, there is bound to be an increase in store visits as your company is being discovered by people looking for what you offer. Contributing to the Local Economy Small businesses are pillars of their community and local economy. When consumers choose to source products they need locally and are prioritizing shopping from neighborhood stores and small business owners, they’re putting their money back into their local economy, which is good for building their community. Optimizing your small business for local SEO ensures consumers close to you in your geographic location can actively find you when they need to source products and services like yours locally. This, overall, encourages consumers to support more small businesses instead of big brands and companies. How to Audit your Business and Website for Local SEO Now that you understand what local SEO is and how it benefits your business, the next step is to audit your business for local SEO to put it on the map and ensure visibility. While it may look like a complex process, your business could be on its way to getting local SEO-ready in just a few steps. 1. Conduct Keyword Research Conduct keyword research to discover keywords that customers use to search for your products or services. Ideally, local search keywords usually include “near me” or the city’s name. For example: “Lawyers near me” “Dentists in Florida” “Home decor services in Glendale” Make sure to note all your service offerings, as customers could be searching for any of them specifically. 2. Do a Website Audit Once you have a list of keywords, it is time to audit your website for links and authority. This step is more than just doing website maintenance. When auditing your business’s website, you need to: Optimize the web pages for relevant keywords Work on internal links and ensure there are no dead links Delete duplicate pages or tag them as canonical pages, so Google does not downrank you for that Take care of your web content by optimizing the copy for your keywords Work on creating and updating the content on your blog Your website audit will take the longest to implement, and it’s an ongoing process. To make it a bit easier, start by seeing what content you already have ranking and for what keywords. Then, reverse engineer by updating the content that’s ranking for high-priority keywords. 3. Update Your Google Business Profile A Google business profile allows you to put your business details on Google, which comes up during local searches. The details include information about your business like name, address, phone number, website, opening hours, business category, and other vital information. Keep up-to-date information on your Google business profile to increase credibility and increase your rank in SERP. 4. NAP Citation Analysis Name, address, and phone number (NAP) citation is any online mention of your business and its details. You should have as many citations as possible to boost your local search rankings. Submit your NAP to multiple local and online directories, yellow pages, or your local chamber of commerce website. Take care to keep this information updated regularly. 93% of consumers say they are tired of getting incorrect information from business directories, while 80% lose trust in such businesses. 5. Review Analysis Reviews are essential for your business’s local SEO and sales. Consumers are more likely to patronize a business with positive reviews. Stats show that 97% of consumers will read online reviews to discover local businesses, while 12% do so daily. Ask past customers to leave reviews on your Google business profile page, and consider adding an incentive to encourage your customers to take action. Take a look at past reviews and observe the pattern. The presence of many negative reviews may mean you need to do a review of your business and what you can improve on. Take time to respond to some reviews, as this cements trust and portrays your business as responsive. 6. Social Media Audit Social media is a marketing channel, and your small business should be utilizing it. Your presence on social media also impacts your local SEO and search rankings. You do not have to be on every social media platform, but you should choose the ones that your audience is active on and complement your business and stay active on those. Look for brand consistency across your social media pages, and consider your activities – are you consistent with your posts and engagements? Do you respond to questions and inquiries from customers? Consider building out a social media calendar to help you stay consistent with your posting and presence. 7. Analytics Review and Competitor Analysis Use Google Analytics to audit your website. Look at the numbers and identify the successful keywords your business is already ranking for and the ones you need to work on. Use analytics to discover where your traffic is coming from, how visitors typically get to your website and your website performance. Use SEMRush’s keyword gap analysis tool to search your keywords and see how your rank against your competitors. Look at the content that’s ranking for those terms (both yours and your competitors) and analyze the strengths and weaknesses. Also, take time to check in on your competitors on their social media pages and Google business profiles. Identify what they are doing that you are not doing, what they’re doing differently, and how you can improve to stay competitive in your local marketplace. As a small business owner with a brick-and-mortar store looking to improve sales and grow business, it is important that you optimize and audit your business for local search with local SEO. Use this seven-step guide, and your business can reap the benefits of local SEO in just a few months.
The 6 Most Common Things That Kill an Agency Posted on August 25, 2022August 19, 2022 by Jonathan Herrick When it comes to running your own company, mistakes are inevitable. However, one mistake too many at the wrong time could threaten to put your agency out of business. You can better prepare your agency for challenges and set up ways to overcome them if you are aware of common pitfalls that agencies like yours face. Read on to learn about six things you should avoid at all costs. 1. Absence of Retainers/Productized Packages Revenue is important to your agency’s success, but not all revenue is created equal: some dollars are a lot harder to bring in than others. One-off projects will have you constantly pitching for new work and new clients to keep generating revenue, which can lead to burnout. If this becomes a norm, it leaves you vulnerable to financial problems that could eventually kill your business. Retainers and productized packages, on the other hand, will provide your agency with more predictable earnings. It also makes it much easier to allocate time to different tasks when you already know the jobs ahead of you. 2. Absence of Structured Business Operations and Tools Running a business involves annual and quarterly planning, assigning roles and responsibilities, maintaining good internal communication, and many more aspects. Whether you are a veteran agency or just starting, you need to manage operations efficiently with appropriate tools for business success. Failing to do so could mean that important things slip through the net. A CRM tool can help with managing clients and client relationships and automating repetitive marketing tasks, whilst an email marketing tool helps you with connecting with clients and provide updates. You should also consider a project management tool for managing clients’ projects as well as internal projects. 3. Little to No Marketing Marketing is the lifeblood of any business, and your agency is no exception. Marketing your agency helps you remain visible and relevant, builds your reputation, creates demand for your services, and helps you overcome objections from prospects. However, some agencies slow down on marketing activities because their clients’ needs take precedence. The reality is that putting a halt on marketing your agency is a big failure that can result in less business and exposure. So, make marketing your agency a priority. It is important to always have a pipeline of leads and potential clients to which you can always pitch your services when needed. Also, more business means more revenue, which can aid your agency’s growth and help you scale up more quickly. 4. Focusing On One Big Client Anchor clients are great, but depending on just a few major clients for the bulk of your agency’s revenue is a disaster waiting to happen. What if something happens and a major client has to suspend business with you? Not having that monthly recurring revenue could put your agency in the ground. Make sure you have a solid book of business, ranging from clients with large budgets to more conservative ones. And make sure you have enough clients to keep your revenue strong but not too many so that your work suffers due to lack of resources. If your agency has less than ten clients, it could be a huge financial knock if one or two decide to take their business elsewhere. More than 25, and you’ll have multiple people demanding your attention, stretching you thin. So it’s important to strike the right balance here. And remember, continuous marketing will help you get more leads to pitch your services to, and you can always sign on new clients when the need arises. 5. Lack of Preparation for Business Crunch Agencies will sometimes have multiple projects that all come to fruition at the same time, leaving the business with more revenue than average. When this happens, most agencies regard it as their lucky period and fail to prepare for the cash crunch periods that may lie ahead. Business won’t be fast-paced all of the time – clients can go on vacations, take leave, or have emergencies that may stop them from doing business during certain periods. However, your business operations won’t stop – team members, contractors, and vendors need to be paid. Use the cash flow from the good times to prepare a reserve for unavoidable cash crunches to avoid being forced out of business. 6. Misalignment of the Sales and Marketing Team Most agencies use the silo system, which is a good way to lose potential customers for your agency. In the silo system, the marketing team does the hard work of bringing in leads and hands them off to the sales team for closing. The separate system may present misalignment in lead acquisition and management. When your marketing and sales teams work together, both teams have input to develop effective strategies, and business goals and objectives are unified, transparent, and shared by both teams. It’s not always easy to align these teams, so make sure you hold regular meetings and use tools, like a CRM and marketing automation, that will give them access to the same information and processes. Running an agency is stressful and time-consuming, but it’s also fulfilling and exciting. Make sure you follow the six tips above to ensure your agency sticks around for the long haul so you can continue to offer your amazing services to your clients (and future clients).
Customer Churn: What is it and How Can You Avoid It? Posted on August 18, 2022August 18, 2022 by Jonathan Herrick There’s an easy way to explain customer churn: it’s when your customers stop buying from you. Depending on the nature of your company, when a customer stops doing business with you, this can mean canceling their account or subscription, failing to renew a contract, or choosing a competitor for their new needs. With a recession looming, customer churn can be an even bigger nightmare than normal. Customer churn is not good for your company. No matter how you look at it, if you want to grow your business, the number of new customers you bring on each month needs to exceed your churn rate. So, if you bring on new customers every month that grow your client list at a rate of 20%, but your churn rate is higher than 20%, then you’re likely burning money on expensive marketing acquisition channels that aren’t growing your business. Right now, as our economy seems very uncertain, beating customer churn is an absolue must. We’ll dive into everything you need to know about customer churn and how you can prevent it. What is Customer Churn Rate? Customer churn rate is the percentage of customers lost during a certain period. The lower your customer churn rate, the better. A low churn rate means customers are sticking with your brand. This means that you won’t need to spend as much time and energy trying to acquire and maintain new customers. Your churn rate can also give you valuable business insights. It can help indicate if your customers are happy with your product or service, if you’re charging too much, or if there’s another reason customers are leaving your brand. Why is Customer Churn Bad? Customer churn is bad because it means you’re losing customers instead of keeping them. Granted, some customer churn is expected and even unavoidable. Some customers might no longer need your services, and others might not be able to afford the product anymore. And some might simply have changed their minds. But too much customer churn – or churn for the wrong reasons – can be detrimental and costly to your business. Here are a few reasons customer churn can be harmful: Fewer customers mean less revenue. Acquiring new customers is costly. It’s more cost-effective to keep your current customers. Unsatisfied customers won’t refer others to your business. Your product, service, or brand might not be meeting market demand. How to Calculate Customer Churn Rate You can calculate customer churn rate by taking the number of customers who left your business in a given period, dividing it by your total number of customers, then multiplying it by 100. Customer Churn Rate Formula Number of churned customers / total number of customers x 100 Example 1 If you were to lose 10 of your 100 customers in a given month, your customer churn rate would be 10%. Example 2 Your company had 12,300 customers at the beginning of March. 1,100 customers left your business by the end of March. 1,100 divided by 12,300 multiplied by 100 equals an 8.94% churn rate. Churn Rate and Attrition Rate Before moving on, let’s address the elephant in the room. As we all know, there can be a lot of business and marketing terms out there that essentially describe the same thing. You may have heard churn rate and attribution rate thrown around interchangeably. Like churn rate, attribution rate is also the number of customers lost over a period of time. Your attrition rate can be calculated in a few different ways: Total number of customers lost during a specific timeframe Percentage of customers lost during a specific timeframe Recurring business value lost Percentage of recurring value lost Essentially, the terms mean the same thing. Average Churn Rate By Industry It can be hard to know what a good or bad rate of attrition is. If you want to remain competitive, it doesn’t hurt to know the average churn rate for your industry. You can always check your churn rate against the industry average to determine if you’re below or above the curve. WordStream and Statista have gathered some online data on churn rates that will help give you a better idea of what you can expect in certain industries: Online retail – 22% Telecom companies – 21% General retail – 24% Financial – 25% Travel – 18% SaaS – 5-7% Customer Churn Compared to Customer Retention Customer churn is the percentage of customers who leave your brand, while customer retention is the percentage of customers who stay. Low churn and high retention rates tend to mean your customers are happy with your service. If you’re lucky enough to be in that position, congrats! It’s no easy feat. By looking at your churn and retention rates over time, you can notice customer trends and make key adjustments. Why are people leaving your brand? At what point in the customer lifecycle are they leaving? Knowing these answers can lead to a stronger, more long-lasting period of business growth. Maintaining stable churn and retention rates can also help you: Predict revenue Plan staffing levels Focus your strategic planning efforts Give your time and budget towards innovating How to Prevent Customer Churn Since it’s important to keep your churn rate down, it’s also important to understand how to prevent churn. Thankfully churn can be prevented through some really easy strategies that your business can implement with little to no cost. Here are our favorite four ways to prevent customer churn: 1. Talk to Your Customers About Why They Left The best way to understand why your customers are churning is to talk to them. You can try sending a survey that might not get opened or responded to, or you can go straight to the source by calling your customers and having an honest, open conversation about why they left. The feedback might be harsh and hard to take, but at least you’ll get to the root of the problem. 2. Make A Great First Impression Much like meeting someone in person for the first time, first impressions are everything. Follow your customer journey from the moment they find you online until the close of the sale and/or delivery of the product or service to ensure that there is a seamless, awesome experience throughout. If you follow the customer journey yourself and test it all the time, you’ll find the little bumps and iron them out before they affect too many customers. 3. Educate Your Customers Through Content Create a ton of great educational content your customers can easily access that will help them with onboarding, training, and troubleshooting. If you continually ensure your customers are content and informed, they will be less likely to leave when they’re confused or when things go wrong. You can easily offer educational content in the form of free training webinars, product demos, FAQs, screencasts, and video tutorials. 4. Build an Omnichannel Customer Experience Omnichannel customer experience is part of an excellent customer service strategy. You need to ensure that your business doesn’t just have a bunch of channels established that don’t have a cohesive brand story, message, or experience across all of them. Since mobile phones are at our fingertips, customers regularly switch between using the phone, email, text, and social media. An omnichannel customer experience makes sure that your customers have a seamless, consistent experience across all channels and that a rep understands every conversation that happens across each. Repeating a problem to multiple reps is often a frustrating aspect of dealing with customer service departments, so it’s key to ensure all channels are represented with your customer service software and agents, keeping your whole service team on the same page. 5. Don’t Stop Nurturing After the Sale It’s hard work to bring in new leads month after month. So, once those new leads become customers, it can feel like the work is done – but that’s not true. Staying top-of-mind with customers is just as valuable as staying top-of-mind with prospects. Marketing automation software can help you to continue relevant conversations with customers well after their initial purchase. Onboarding campaigns, cross-sell and upsell emails, and monthly check-ins can be easily automated and keep your customers coming back, whether to renew, solve a looming issue, upgrade, or make a new purchase. By understanding your customer churn rate and how to lower it, you’ll be poised for business success. Utilize these tips to keep your customers around and prevent churn, and your customers will be more loyal to your business. Plus, you’ll be happy not to be spending unnecessary dollars acquiring new customers to urgently replace those who leave.
How to Do Social Testing For a Results-Oriented Social Media Strategy Posted on August 17, 2022August 17, 2022 by Guest Author Picture this. You’re running through your social media strategy with the leadership team and ready to launch. But one big question still needs to be answered: how do you know if your social media strategy will actually work? You could, of course, go for the tried-and-true method of throwing your social media report against the wall and seeing if it sticks. But in this day and age, there’s a better way to test your social media strategy before you launch it. This process is called social testing. Not sure what social testing is or how to do it? Don’t worry. We’ve got you covered. We’re giving you the 411 on social testing and how to do it for a results-oriented social media strategy. So grab a nice cup of coffee (or tea, we don’t judge) for yourself, and let’s get started. What Is Social Testing? In short, social testing is the process of trying out your social media content and strategies before you publicly launch them. It is done by creating test groups of target audiences and exposing them to your content in a controlled environment. After observing how they react, you can then make changes to your content or strategy before launching it to your entire audience. Let’s say you work for a cloud computing company. You’re ready to launch a social media campaign about the benefits of cloud computing for retail and hospitality businesses. But before you do, you want to make sure that your content will resonate with your target audience. You could put out your campaign and hope you get enough engagement to justify the time and effort you put into it, or you could create a test group and see how they react to your content before you launch it. Social testing can you help discover: How your target audience engages with your content What kind of messaging resonates most with your target audience What type of content format works best with your target audience How to distribute your content effectively When is the best time to post for your target audience Advantages of Social Testing So, now you know what social testing is and how it can help you fine-tune your social media strategy before launch. But what are the other advantages of social testing? We’re glad you asked. There are a number of marketing challenges social testing can help to overcome. This includes: You Can Avoid Potential PR Disasters We all know that social media moves quickly. And when you’re trying to appeal to a broad audience, there’s always the risk of saying something that will rub people the wrong way. For example, Pepsi’s political protest ad was met with widespread criticism and caused the company to pull the ad and issue an apology. Social testing can help you avoid these kinds of PR disasters by allowing you to test your content with a small group of people before you launch it to your entire audience. This way, if there are any potential red flags, you can catch them before they cause a major issue. For example, let’s say you’re a marketing team based in the United States, but you’re putting out a campaign on the signature definition law in Canada. Your team may not be familiar with Canadian culture and customs, so there’s a risk that your content could come across as tone-deaf or offensive. But if you social test your content with a Canadian test group first, you can get feedback on how your content is being received and make changes before it goes live. You Can Save Time and Money Social testing can also help you save time and money in the long run. How? By helping you avoid costly mistakes that could set your social media strategy back. For example, let’s say you want to launch a social media campaign targeting app owners. You want to show them the benefits of your software that can help them monitor the applause digital users have for their app. So you create a campaign and start promoting it on social media. But after a few weeks, you realize you’re not getting the engagement or conversions you were hoping for. You learn the content wasn’t simplistic enough for your target audience or that the timing of your posts was off. If you had social tested your content before, you would have saved yourself time and money by launching a more effective campaign from the start. You Can Test Different Content Formats Social testing is also a great way to test different content formats to see which ones work best with your target audience. For example, if you’re not sure whether a blog post or an infographic would be more effective in reaching your target audience, you could create both and social test them to see which one gets more engagement. You can also test different content formats within the same social test. For example, if you’re testing through Facebook ads, you could create two versions of the ad – one with a blog post link and one with an infographic – and see which one performs better. This way, you can learn which content formats are most effective with your target audience and use that information to inform your future social media strategy. Types of Social Tests A/B Testing A/B testing, also known as split testing, is a type of social test where you compare two different versions of content to see which one performs better. For example, let’s say you’re performing app store a/b testing to see which version of your app’s explainer video performs better – version A with a male voiceover or version B with a female voiceover. To do this, you would create two versions of the video and post them on social media. You would then track the engagement (likes, comments, shares, etc.) of each video to see which one performed better. Once you have your results, you will then use that information to inform your future video content strategy. Here are some more examples of some A/B tests you could run on social: Posting time: Are you getting more engagement when you post in the morning or evening? Image vs. video: Do images or videos perform better on your social channels? Hashtags: Which hashtags should you be using to reach your target audience? Length of content: Does longer or shorter content perform better on longer? Multivariate Testing Image Source Multivariate testing is a type of social test where you test multiple versions of content at the same time. For example, let’s say you’re testing three different versions of content on Instagram – version A will be an Instagram story to generate brand awareness, version B will be an image post, and version C will be a video post. To do this, you would create all three versions of the content and post them on Instagram at the same time. You would then track the engagement of each piece of content to see which one performed the best. Once you have your results, you can use that information to inform your future social media strategy. Here are some more examples of multivariate tests you could run on social: Images: Which type of image performs better- a product image, an infographic, or a meme? Videos: Which type of video performs better- a live stream, a recorded video, or a GIF? Copy: Which type of copy performs better- long-form copy, short-form copy, or emojis? CTA: Which type of call-to-action (CTA) performs better- “Buy Now,” “Learn More,” or “Sign Up?” How to Run a Test on Your Social Media Strategy Let’s take a look at how you can run a test on your social media strategy. This can be done in five simple steps: Choose Your Social Test We’ve just run you through two of the most popular social tests – A/B testing and multivariate testing. So, which one should you choose? It all depends on your goals and what you’re trying to test. If you’re looking to test one variable at a time, then A/B testing is the way to go. However, if you’re looking to test multiple variables at the same time, then multivariate testing is the way to go. Remember, you can also test more than one variable at a time with A/B testing; you would just need to run multiple tests. For example, you could test posting times in one A/B test and content types in another. Determine Your Tests’ Goals The next step is to determine your test goals. What are you trying to achieve with this social test? Do you want to increase engagement? Drive traffic to your website? Boost sales? Once you know your goals, you can develop your hypothesis. Develop Your Hypothesis Your hypothesis is what you think will happen due to your social test. For example, suppose you’re testing whether posting in the morning or evening gets more engagement. In that case, your hypothesis might be, “I think posting in the morning will get more engagement because people are more likely to be online at that time.” Execute Your Test Once you’ve developed your hypothesis, it’s time to execute your test. This is where you will actually run your A/B test or multivariate test. Remember to track the results of your test so you can analyze them later. Analyze Your Results and Develop New Ideas Once your test is complete, it’s time to analyze the results. What did you learn from your test? Did your hypothesis hold true? If not, what new ideas or next steps did you develop as a result of your test? Testing is an important part of any social media strategy. You can learn what works best for your business and your audience by testing different aspects of your social media content. So don’t be afraid to experiment – social testing can help you take your social media strategy to the next level! Where Can I Run a Social Test? There are a number of different platforms you can use to track your social media tests. Here are a few of our favorites: Facebook Ad Manager Facebook’s Ad Manager is a great tool for running social tests. With Ad Manager, you can create and track different versions of your ads to see which ones perform the best. Hootsuite Insights Hootsuite’s Insights platform allows you to track your social media performance and run social tests. With Insights, you can track your tests’ results and develop new ideas for your social media strategy. Sprout Social Sprout’s social media platform includes a number of features for running social tests. With Sprout, you can track your test results and develop new ideas for your social media strategy. Performance marketing software can also be used to track social media tests. With our software, you can understand what your customers want, when they want it, and deliver what they need with personalized automation. The Takeaway So there you have it—our complete guide to social testing. By following these steps, you can develop a results-oriented social media strategy that is based on data and experimentation and create more personalized marketing strategies. So what are you waiting for? Start social testing today! Author Bio Emily Rollwitz is a Content Marketing Executive at Global App Testing, a remote and on-demand app testing company helping QA testing companies deliver high-quality software, anywhere in the world. She has five years of experience as a marketer, spearheading lead generation campaigns and events that propel top-notch brand performance. Handling marketing of various brands, Emily has also developed a great pulse in creating fresh and engaging content. She’s written for great websites like Airdroid and Shift4Shop. You can find her on LinkedIn.
How SEO Plays a Part in Each of Your Marketing Channels Posted on August 12, 2022November 18, 2022 by Allie Wolff There’s a running joke among content marketers, and it goes like this: Where’s the best place to hide a dead body? The answer: The second page of Google! And, as with all jokes, there’s an element of truth to this statement. Research shows that 75% of people never venture onto the second page of search engine results. Why is this important? You want to be on that first page. It is, after all, rule number one of marketing: always make yourself seen, known, and trusted. So, you’re probably wondering, “How can I get onto the first page of Google?” Well, we’re glad you asked. Before you hire an SEO company, check out the different marketing channels that can help you rank and the role SEO plays in each of these mediums. Content Marketing Content marketing is when a company creates and distributes content that is both valuable and relevant to its audience on a consistent schedule. According to SemRush, 84% of enterprises have a content marketing strategy plan in place. A sound content marketing strategy will aid in boosting brand awareness and generating higher quality traffic. It’s a profitable marketing tool. If you’re keen to get started, you could consider interviews, ebooks, webinars, and roundups. Content is a key player in your digital marketing strategy. Therefore, SEO is a huge component of whether or not your content gets seen by the right people. In order for your content to get exposure and interest, it needs to be created with your keywords in mind. Your keywords are essentially the terms and phrases your audience uses when searching for solutions online. By creating content around these key terms, you’re laying the foundation of a strong SEO strategy and showing your audience you’re knowledgeable regarding the topics most relevant to their needs. Now, let’s dive into a few specific components of content marketing and how SEO plays a role in each. Blog Posts Blog posts are the backbone of your content marketing, and SEO blog posts are like a belt and buckle. The two fit together. Of all SEO strategies, blogging is undoubtedly the easiest to start with. Blog posts offer a host of benefits: Companies that blog generate more leads on average each month than those that do not. Businesses that use blogging as a marketing tool enjoy an ROI that’s higher than businesses without active blogs. Updating your old blog posts will increase your organic traffic. Prioritizing SEO is step one when creating blog content. You’ll want to first pinpoint your most important keywords and start by creating pillar posts for each. These are essentially lengthy, in-depth blog posts that dive into specific topics. Once these pillar posts are created, you’ll want to routinely link back to them using their designated key terms as the anchor text, which will help boost their SEO over time. Guest Articles/Backlink Strategy While blog posts are the owned media component of your content marketing, guest articles are the earned media component. Placement isn’t a guarantee; it’s earned through credibility, and rightfully so. Guest articles can bring you qualified traffic, motivated leads, authority, relevant links, and potential sales. There’s a reason they are perceived as one of the leading inbound marketing strategies around. Becoming a guest contributor means you can craft articles that provide readers with new opinions and expertise while positioning yourself as an industry leader. And since the goal is to place this content on high-quality sites your audience reads, they also provide you with an opportunity to build up your backlink strategy by linking to your pillar posts when possible. One of the core metrics that search engine algorithms consider when trying to rank your website is backlinks. Backlinks can be seen as virtual votes of confidence from other sites; however, the idea isn’t to get links placed anywhere you can. You want to focus on getting good-quality backlinks from authoritative websites. Aside from adding backlinks to your guest articles, here are a couple of backlinking strategies you can adopt for your own SEO campaigns: Exchange links with other sites Reach out to influencers who might share your content Write excellent content and conduct data reports that grab the attention of others and inspire them to share it LinkedIn and Slideshare If you’re a B2B marketer, you’ll definitely want to incorporate LinkedIn and Slideshare into your SEO strategy. Take those keywords you’ve identified as part of your keyword research and plug them into the description on your company’s LinkedIn profile page. Be mindful not to simply stuff your page with keywords, though! Search engines have evolved enough to be able to spot this and will likely not assign you points. Apply the same idea to your LinkedIn posts on your newsfeed and in industry-related LinkedIn groups. Similarly, incorporate keywords into your Slideshare presentations. Slideshare offers an excellent platform for establishing your company as an expert on a particular topic, so be sure to use your target keywords in the presentation and description and share your slideshow far and wide. PPC The first few results on a search engine results page are paid ads. If you can snag the top spots for your keywords, it increases your company’s name recognition and importance (especially if this is combined with organic search results). Be sure to use the keyword list that you generate through your keyword research in your PPC advertising. One way to figure out which keywords your target audience is using is to enable a site search functionality on your website. By doing this, you can understand exactly what language people use to search for specific products and services. Be sure to apply this same strategy to your PPC advertising on social media sites like Facebook as well. Instagram Instagram probably doesn’t come to mind when you think of places where SEO keyword research is applicable, but don’t be fooled. Just because Instagram is a visual site doesn’t mean people don’t find what they’re looking for with words. For example, someone looking for workout inspiration may browse through the hashtag #fitspo (over 74 million posts tagged), while someone planning a trip to Vegas may look through the hashtag #whathappensinvegas (over 3 million posts tagged). If you figure out the combination of hashtags that give your posts the most exposure, you’re looking at a way of bolstering your usage of Instagram as a marketing channel. YouTube Videos are a vital part of your content marketing strategy. If they’re well executed, they can help boost your company’s visibility in search engine results. So how can a website like YouTube factor into your SEO strategy? For starters, improve the quality of your videos so that people stick around for longer than the first three seconds. YouTube can tell how long people spend on videos and ranks them accordingly. One quick way to increase the duration of your views is to get rid of long-winded introductions. Include links to other videos your brand has produced to add value for the viewer and increase the views of your other videos. Encourage your audience to like your videos, share them, or subscribe to your channel. Finally, make videos based on the topics you’ve already identified as high-interest topics through your keyword research. Voice search 40.2% of Americans use voice search, with 71% of consumers preferring to conduct their inquiries by voice instead of manually typing. In fact, people are more receptive to voice ads, with one-third of shoppers saying they are less intrusive compared to regular online, TV, social media, and print ads. To take advantage of voice search, you’ll want to incorporate an SEO strategy that keeps that way of searching in mind. This involves making sure you rank for local searches online but that your website is optimized as well. [BONUS] Infographics We’re cheating a bit since infographics aren’t really a marketing channel, but they are such a useful tool for any SEO strategy that we have to include them. Infographics present data and processes in an easily digestible way. Because they’re informative and pretty to look at, it’s no wonder people readily share them. It’s for these reasons that you should include infographics in your SEO strategy. Create them based on your keyword research and share them through social media, your blog, guest blogs, and more. Be sure to throw them up on sites like Pinterest as well. The role played by SEO across marketing channels is invaluable. And yes, while the results are never instantaneous, it is worth persevering and keeping your keyword research top of mind every time that you seek to create new marketing content. Armed with a well-thought-out SEO strategy incorporating a handful (if not all) of the marketing channels above, it will only be a matter of time before the algorithms reward your diligent efforts.