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Website Marketing Firms: Services, Pricing, and How to Choose

Wed, 05 Nov 2025 15:30:58 GMT

Trying to find the right digital marketing partner can feel overwhelming. A quick search for "website marketing firms" pulls up an endless list of companies all promising to get you more traffic and leads. But what do they actually do? How much should you expect to pay? And how do you pick the one that will actually help your business grow?

Choosing the right firm is a big decision. The right partner becomes an extension of your team, driving real results. The wrong one can waste your time and money.

This guide cuts through the noise. We'll break down the common services marketing firms offer, explain their pricing models, and give you a practical checklist for choosing the best partner: whether you're searching for one of the top marketing firms in NJ or a partner across the country.

What Do Website Marketing Firms Actually Do? (Services)

A "website marketing firm" is a team of specialists hired to get more of the right people to your website and turn them into customers. While services vary, most professional firms cover these five key areas.

SEO & Technical SEO

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the art and science of getting your website to show up on Google when people search for what you offer. This isn't about tricks; it's about building a solid foundation. This includes technical health (like site speed and mobile-friendliness), on-page optimization (using the right keywords), and local SEO (making sure you show up in local map packs).

PPC/Paid Advertising

Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising is the fastest way to get your message in front of a targeted audience. This involves managing ad campaigns on platforms like Google and Meta (Facebook/Instagram). A good firm doesn't just run ads; they track everything to make sure you're getting a positive Return on Ad Spend (ROAS).

Content Marketing & AEO

Content is how you build trust and answer your customers' questions. This includes writing blog posts, creating guides, and developing website copy that speaks to your audience. Today, this also means optimizing for AI Overviews (AEO) by creating clear, helpful content that directly answers questions, a cornerstone of demonstrating your expertise and authority.

CRO & Analytics

Getting traffic is only half the battle. Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) is about turning more of your website visitors into leads and customers. This involves running A/B tests on your pages, analyzing user behavior, and finding ways to make your site more effective. It's all backed by clear data from analytics dashboards.

Web Design & Development

Your website is your digital storefront and your #1 salesperson. Many marketing firms offer web design and development services focused on performance, accessibility, and user experience. They build sites that not only look good but are also built to convert traffic into business.

Pricing Models Explained (with Realistic Ranges)

This is the big question everyone asks. Pricing can seem all over the place, but it usually falls into one of three models.

Monthly Retainer

This is the most common model for ongoing services like SEO, PPC, and content marketing. You pay a flat fee each month for an agreed-upon scope of work.

Small Businesses / Basic Scope: $1,500 – $4,000/month
Mid-Sized Businesses / Multi-Channel: $4,000 – $10,000+/month

Fixed Project

This is used for one-time projects with a clear start and end. Think a new website build, a comprehensive SEO audit, or a specific campaign launch. You pay a fixed price for the defined deliverable.

SEO Audit: $2,000 – $7,500
Small Business Website: $8,000 – $25,000+

Hourly Consulting

Some firms offer hourly rates for strategic advice, training, or small, specific tasks. This makes sense when you don't need a full-time partner but need expert guidance.

Hourly Rates: $125 – $300+/hour

What Drives the Cost?

If you see a huge range in prices, it's usually because of these factors: scope (how much work they're doing), speed (how fast you need it), seniority (the experience of the team), and the amount of data and media spend they have to manage.

Top Marketing Firms in NJ — How to Evaluate & Shortlist

Finding a great local partner means looking beyond a fancy website. Here’s what to look for when you're comparing your options.

Your Evaluation Criteria

Local Case Studies: Do they have a track record of success with businesses like yours in New Jersey?
Measurable Outcomes: Do they talk about vanity metrics (like "impressions") or real business results (like leads, sales, and ROI)?
Senior Team Involvement: Will you be working with experienced strategists or handed off to a junior account manager?
Industry Expertise: Do they understand the challenges and opportunities in your specific vertical (e.g., healthcare, e-commerce, home services)?

Red Flags to Watch Out For

Unrealistic Promises: "Guaranteed #1 ranking on Google!" is a huge red flag. No one can guarantee rankings.
Lack of Transparency: If they won't clearly explain their process or how they measure success, walk away.
No Hard Metrics: If their case studies are all fluff and no numbers, they may not be tracking what matters.

Questions to Ask on the First Call

Who will be my day-to-day point of contact?
What does your reporting look like, and how often will we see it?
Can you show me a case study from a client in my industry?
How do you measure the success of a campaign?
What's your process for strategy, execution, and communication?
How long is your typical client contract?
What do you need from my team to be successful?
How quickly can we expect to see some leading indicators of progress?

Where to Find & Compare Firms

Start with local searches on Google and check out their Google Business Profile reviews. Directories like Clutch and UpCity are helpful, and don't forget to ask for referrals from trusted contacts on LinkedIn.

NJ-Specific Considerations

Marketing in New Jersey has its own unique flavor. The competition can be fierce, especially in crowded markets around Newark, Jersey City, and Princeton. Whether you’re in healthcare, e-commerce, or construction, you need a firm that gets the local landscape.

The single most important factor for many NJ businesses is Local SEO. This means optimizing your Google Business Profile, gathering local reviews, and building citations in local directories. A top marketing firm in NJ will have a clear strategy for this, helping you dominate the "map pack" for searches in your service area.

FAQs

What services do website marketing firms provide?

Most firms provide SEO, PPC advertising, content marketing, CRO, analytics, and web design. The best ones can handle everything from the initial diagnosis to full execution and reporting.

How much do marketing services typically cost?

Costs vary a lot based on your needs. You can expect to see monthly retainers ($1.5k-$10k+), fixed project fees for things like websites, or hourly consulting rates ($125-$300+).

How do I compare firms and avoid bad fits?

Focus on their case studies, ask for measurable results, understand their process, and make sure you're comfortable with the team you'll be working with. Transparency is key.

What makes top marketing firms in NJ different?

They have deep expertise in the local market. They understand the competition here and have a proven track record of getting local SEO results for New Jersey businesses.

How fast will I see results?

You should see leading indicators (like more traffic or better rankings) in 4-8 weeks. But meaningful results, like a consistent flow of leads or sales, typically take 3-4 months to build.

Do firms handle both strategy and execution?

The best ones absolutely do. They'll work with you to set the strategy and then do the hands-on work to make it happen, all while reporting back on clear key performance indicators (KPIs).

Can I start with an audit or pilot project?

Yes, this is a great way to start. Many firms offer a one-time audit or a 90-day pilot to show what they can do and build a roadmap before you commit to a long-term contract.

Ready to Choose? Here’s a Quick Checklist

Use these points to grade any firm you’re considering.

They have case studies relevant to my industry and goals.
They focus on metrics that matter (leads, revenue, ROI).
Their pricing is transparent and fits my budget.
I know who I'll be working with on their team.
They have a clear process for communication and reporting.
They have strong expertise in NJ Local SEO (if applicable).
They answered my questions directly and honestly.
I feel like they could be a true partner, not just a vendor.

Choosing a marketing firm is about finding a partner you trust to help you grow. If you’re a New Jersey business ready to get serious about your digital marketing, let’s talk.

Small Business Branding Services

Wed, 05 Nov 2025 15:22:33 GMT

In a crowded market, a great brand is how you get noticed and remembered. It's more than just a nice logo; it’s the entire feeling customers get when they interact with your business. Splurge creates clear, consistent, and compelling brands that help small businesses connect with their audience and grow.

What’s Included in Our Small Business Branding Services?

We take a 360-degree approach to branding, making sure every piece works together to tell your unique story. When we partner with you, we don't just hand you a logo. We deliver a complete system for growth.

A Clear Brand StrategyWe start with the "why." Together, we'll define your target audience, pinpoint your unique position in the market, and craft messaging that truly connects with your ideal customers.
A Memorable Visual IdentityThis is the look and feel of your brand. We design a professional logo system, choose a compelling color palette, and select typography that reflects your personality.
A Complete Brand ToolkitConsistency is everything. You'll get comprehensive brand guidelines (your brand's rulebook), ready-to-use templates for social media, and all the files you need to look sharp everywhere.
Essential Marketing CollateralWe help you launch with confidence. Depending on your needs, we can design social media graphics, pitch decks, business cards, and other materials to get you started.
Website Brand ImplementationYour website is your digital storefront. We can work with you to apply your new branding to your website, ensuring a seamless and professional user experience from the first click.

Packages & Pricing

Splurge offer clear, upfront packages designed for the needs and budgets of small businesses. No hidden fees, no confusing jargon.

Need something extra? We also offer add-ons like business naming, tagline creation, and brand photography.

Our Branding Process

We follow a clear, collaborative process to take your brand from an idea to a finished product. You'll know exactly what's happening at every stage.

Discover & ListenFirst, we get to know you, your business, your goals, and your audience. This initial workshop is all about understanding your vision so we can build a messaging house that gets to the heart of your brand and will power an effective strategy.
Plan the StrategyUsing what we learned, we further develop your brand's core foundation: its positioning, personality, and key messaging. This strategy becomes our guide for all the creative work.
Concept & IterateThis is where your brand starts to come to life. We present initial visual identity concepts and work with you through 2-3 rounds of feedback to refine the direction you love most.
Finalize the IdentityOnce the direction is approved, we build out the entire system: the full logo suite, color palette, typography, and any other visual elements.
Build Your Brand GuidelinesWe package everything into a practical, easy-to-use guide. This PDF is your go-to resource for applying your brand correctly and consistently across every channel.
Launch & SupportWe hand over all your final files and templates. For our "Brand & Launch" clients, we then help apply the new brand to your website and social profiles, ensuring a smooth and successful rollout.

Most of our small business branding projects take between 2 to 6 weeks, depending on the package you choose.

Our Work Speaks for Itself

Splurge has helped businesses just like yours build brands that drive real results.

We’ve helped businesses just like yours build brands that drive real results. By focusing on clear strategy and memorable design, we create identities that connect with customers and fuel growth.

Who We’re a Fit For (And When We’re Not)

We believe in honest partnerships. We do our best work with certain types of clients.

We're a great match if:

You're a business ready to invest in a professional brand.
You need a clear strategy to stand out from the competition.
You want a cohesive look and repeatable templates to make your marketing easier.

We might not be the best fit if:

You're looking for just a logo on its own with no strategy behind it. We believe a brand is so much more than that!

Frequently Asked Questions

What’s the timeline for a small business brand?

Most of our small business brand projects take between 2 and 6 weeks to complete. The exact timing depends on the scope of the project and how quickly feedback is provided.

What do I get at the end?

You’ll get a comprehensive brand strategy document, a full logo suite (SVG, PNG files), your defined color and typography systems, and a complete brand guidelines PDF that shows you how to use everything.

Do you offer logo-only packages?

We can, but we almost always recommend getting at least a mini brand kit (logo, colors, fonts). A logo alone is just a picture; a brand system is what ensures you look consistent and professional everywhere.

How many revisions are included?

Our packages typically include 2-3 rounds of revisions on the chosen concept. If more are needed, we can always add them on.

Can you refresh an existing brand?

Absolutely. We love helping established businesses modernize their look and messaging without losing the recognition and trust they’ve already built.

Do you handle naming and taglines?

Yes, we offer business naming and tagline creation as separate add-on services. This includes research and preliminary trademark checks to ensure the name is available.

How do you hand off files, and who owns them?

We deliver all final files through a shared cloud folder. And yes, you get full commercial rights and ownership of the final assets once the project is complete.

Do you apply the new branding to my website and social media?

We sure can! We can get your new brand rolled out on your website and provide you with ready-to-use social media templates.

Get Your Free Brand Strategy Call

Ready to build a brand you’re proud of? Let’s talk. Fill out the form below, and we’ll schedule a free, no-pressure call to discuss your goals and see if we're a good fit.

Gemini AI Mode: How to Use It in Everyday Search (Prompt Guide + Use Cases)

Tue, 28 Oct 2025 15:15:56 GMT

Have you noticed Google acting… different lately? You type in a question, and instead of just a list of blue links, you get a full-blown summary at the top. Sometimes it's a paragraph, sometimes it's a step-by-step guide. That’s not just a facelift; it’s Google’s new Gemini AI Mode at work.

For those of us in the marketing world or running a small business, this is a big deal. It’s changing how we find information and, honestly, how we get work done. But what is it, really? And how can you make it work for you instead of just being another weird thing Google decided to change?

Let's get into it. We'll show you how to turn it on, what to ask it, and how you can use it to make your workday a little bit easier.

What is Gemini AI Mode?

Think of classic Google Search as a massive library card catalog. It tells you where all the books (websites) are, but you still have to go find them, pull them off the shelf, and read them yourself.

Gemini AI Mode is like asking the librarian to read three of the best books on your topic and give you a quick summary.

It’s an AI layer built right into your search results. Instead of just pointing you to websites, it synthesizes information from across the web to give you a direct answer, an "AI Overview." This means you can ask more complex, conversational questions and get a tailored response right on the results page. It's designed to speed up research, spark ideas, and give you the gist of a topic without you having to click through ten different links. It's a pretty big shift from the Google we've known for decades.

How to Turn On Gemini AI Mode (Desktop & Mobile)

Ready to give it a try? Getting started is pretty simple, but the feature lives in Google's "Search Labs," which is where they let people test out new ideas.

Here’s how to enable it:

Go to Google Search Labs: You can find it by going to labs.google.com/search or by clicking the Labs icon (it looks like a beaker ��) in the top-right corner of the Google homepage. You’ll need to be signed into your Google account.
Find AI Mode: Look for the card that mentions "AI in Search" or "Gemini in Search."
Toggle it On: Just flip the switch to enable it. That's pretty much it.

Once it’s on, you’ll start seeing AI Overviews appear for many of your searches. You can also look for a toggle within your search results to switch between the AI-powered view and the classic web results. If you ever want just the old-school links back, just click the "Web" filter at the top of the results page. Easy.

Keep in mind, it might not be available in all regions or for all accounts just yet, as Google is still rolling it out.

Prompt Guide: A Simple Framework & Examples

Talking to an AI can feel weird. The trick is to be clear and direct. You don't need fancy words; you just need to tell it exactly what you want. We use a simple framework that works almost every time:

Goal: What do you want to achieve? (e.g., "Write an email," "Compare two products")
Context: Who is this for? What's the background? (e.g., "for my team," "I'm a beginner baker")
Constraints: Any rules it needs to follow? (e.g., "under 100 words," "in a friendly tone," "focus on price")
Output: How do you want the answer formatted? (e.g., "as a bulleted list," "in a table")

You don't need to use all four every time, but keeping them in mind will get you way better answers.

10 Practical Prompts You Can Use Today

Here are some copy-and-paste examples to get you started.

Try this prompt (Explain like I’m new):

“Explain SEO in simple terms and give a 3-step action plan for a small local coffee shop.”

Try this prompt (Decision compare):

“Compare Mailchimp vs. Constant Contact for a small business with 1,000 subscribers. Include pros/cons in a table and a final recommendation.”

Try this prompt (Research starter):

“Give me a concise overview of the latest trends in social media marketing for 2025 with 5 reputable sources to read next.”

Try this prompt (Summarize a page):

“Summarize this page in bullet points and call out any potential marketing bias: [paste a URL here].”

Try this prompt (Task planning):

“Create a 7-day plan to launch a new product on Instagram. Include daily tasks and estimated time for each.”

Try this prompt (Study aid):

“Generate 10 quiz questions (with answers) about Google Analytics 4 for an intermediate-level marketer.”

Try this prompt (Content outline):

“Draft an outline with H2 and H3 headings for a blog post on 'The Benefits of Email Marketing' targeting small business owners.”

Try this prompt (Email draft):

“Write a polite follow-up email asking a potential client if they've reviewed my proposal. Keep it under 120 words with a clear call to action to book a call.”

Try this prompt (Shopping helper):

“Find the top-rated office chairs for back support under $400; list key specs and a buying checklist.”

Try this prompt (Follow-up refinement):

(After getting a response) “Based on your last answer, expand on the section about email automation with specific examples for an e-commerce store.”

A quick note: Always, always double-check the facts, figures, and links Gemini gives you. AI is helpful, but it can still make mistakes.

Everyday Use Cases for Your Business

Okay, so how do you actually use this stuff day-to-day? Here are a few ideas:

Productivity: Drowning in emails? Ask Gemini to draft a reply to a common customer question. Need to plan your week? Ask it to create a to-do list based on your top three priorities.
Research: Instead of reading five long articles, ask Gemini to give you an overview of a competitor's marketing strategy or summarize a new industry report. It's a great way to get up to speed quickly.
Learning: Want to finally understand what an API is? Ask Gemini to explain it with an analogy. It's like having a patient teacher on call 24/7.
Shopping: Need to buy a new laptop for work? Ask it to compare two models and tell you which is better for graphic design or running lots of spreadsheets.
Quick Decisions: Planning a team lunch? Ask, "Find three lunch spots near my office that have vegan options and good reviews." Done.

Gemini vs. Other AI Tools

So, is this just Google's version of ChatGPT? Yes and no.

The biggest difference is that Gemini in Google Search is hooked up to the live, current internet. It’s designed to answer questions about what’s happening right now. This makes it great for things like news summaries, finding recent reviews, or checking product availability.

Tools like ChatGPT (the free version, at least) have a knowledge cut-off date, so they might not have the most current information. They can be awesome for creative tasks like writing a story or brainstorming ideas that don't depend on real-time data.

Think of it this way:

Use Gemini in Search for: "What were the key takeaways from this week's marketing conference?"
Use ChatGPT for: "Write a fictional story about a marketer who travels back in time."

Best Practices to Get Better Results

Want to become a Gemini power user? It's easy.

Be Specific. Don't just say "Tell me about cars." Say "Compare the fuel efficiency of a 2025 Honda Civic vs. a Toyota Corolla." The more detail you give, the better the answer you'll get.
Ask for the Format You Want. If you want a list, ask for a list! If you want a table, ask for a table. This helps the AI structure the information in a way that’s most useful for you.
Ask for Sources. If you're doing serious research, add "...and list your sources" to your prompt. This pushes the AI to show you where it got its information so you can check it yourself.
Iterate with Follow-ups. Your first prompt is just the start. Use follow-up questions to refine the answer. "That's great, now can you make the tone more casual?" or "Can you expand on point number three?"

FAQs

What is Gemini AI Mode?

It's an AI-powered feature in Google Search that provides direct answers and summaries (called AI Overviews) at the top of your results page, synthesizing information from across the web.

How do I turn on Gemini AI Mode in Google Search?

You can enable it in Google Search Labs (labs.google.com/search). Just find the experiment for AI in Search and toggle it on.

Is Gemini AI Mode free and available in my region?

Yes, it's currently free to use. However, it's still in an experimental phase and might not be available in all countries or languages yet.

What prompts work best for everyday tasks?

Simple, direct prompts are best. Try asking it to "summarize," "compare," "explain," "create a plan for," or "draft an email about" a specific topic.

Can I use Gemini AI Mode on mobile?

Yep! The steps to enable it through Search Labs are the same in the Google app on your phone.

How is Gemini different from ChatGPT inside search?

Gemini's main advantage in search is its direct access to real-time information from the web, making it ideal for current topics.

How do I reduce AI Overviews if I prefer classic results?

If you want the old list of links, just click the "Web" filter at the top of the search results page. This will hide the AI Overview for that search.

Final Thoughts

Look, AI in search is here to stay, and it's probably going to get even more integrated into our daily lives. It's not perfect, and you should definitely keep a healthy dose of skepticism (especially about facts and data).

But it's also a seriously powerful tool. For busy professionals and small business owners, it's a chance to get back some time, speed up tedious tasks, and maybe even come up with a few new ideas along the way.

So, turn it on. Play around with it. Ask it silly questions. Ask it hard questions. See what it can do for you. The worst that can happen is you switch back to the "Web" filter. The best that can happen is you find a new assistant you didn't know you needed.

5 Common Web Marketing Services Mistakes That Drive Away Local Customers

Wed, 01 Oct 2025 15:08:43 GMT

Are calls slipping? Is foot traffic slow? If your local business isn't showing up prominently in Google Maps or the "local pack" of search results, the problem isn't usually a lack of customers, it's likely a series of common, yet costly, local web marketing services mistakes. These errors actively dilute your online presence, erode customer trust, and drive nearby customers straight to your competitors.

The fastest way to stop losing nearby customers is to fix five issues: an incomplete Google Business Profile (GBP), guideline violations (like keyword-stuffed names), stale or unanswered reviews, slow mobile pages that fail Core Web Vitals (CWV), and weak on-page local signals/NAP. Addressing these restores visibility, clicks, and trust in local search and Maps.

5 Common Local Marketing Mistakes

Incomplete or inaccurate Google Business Profile
Guideline violations (keyword-stuffed names, etc.)
Stale reviews or no owner replies
Poor Core Web Vitals (slow/unstable pages)
Weak on-page local signals and inconsistent NAP

Mistake #1: An Incomplete or Inaccurate Google Business Profile (GBP)

Your Google Business Profile (GBP) is your primary local storefront. When it’s incomplete, customers can't find critical information, and Google struggles to rank you. Google explicitly says complete, accurate Business Profiles are more likely to appear for relevant local searches. Missing categories, hours, services, or updates severely limit your visibility.

Why It Hurts Your Business

Google uses the completeness of your GBP as a major ranking signal. If you skip filling in secondary categories, for instance, you miss out on showing up for relevant niche searches. If your holiday hours are missing, customers might assume you’re closed and go elsewhere. A profile that lacks recent photos, posts, or responses to Q&A looks neglected, signaling low engagement to both search engines and potential clients. This prevents you from ranking in the critical "local pack" that appears at the top of location-based searches.

The Strategic Fix

Fill Every Field: Maximize your visibility by including primary and secondary categories, a comprehensive list of services, specific attributes (like "wheelchair accessible" or "online appointments"), and all hours, including holiday hours.
Post Consistently: Use the GBP posting feature weekly to share updates, offers, or community events. This shows Google your business is active and relevant.
NAP Consistency: Crucially, ensure your NAP (Name, Address, Phone) on your GBP is an exact match for what appears on your website and other directories.
Website Link: Tie your GBP's website link to a dedicated location page that clearly reinforces your services and geography.

Mistake #2: Violating GBP Guidelines (e.g., Keyword-Stuffed Business Names)

This is one of the most damaging mistakes we see local businesses make. Attempting to manipulate the system by adding extra keywords or city names (like "Best Plumber Clark NJ") to your Business Name is a direct violation of Google's guidelines.

Why It Hurts Your Business

Violating GBP guidelines is a massive trust signal failure. Google's rules prohibit unnecessary information in the business name. When detected, this action can trigger severe penalties, including forcing an edit that removes the keywords, or worse, complete suspension of your profile. This instantly kills your Maps visibility, erodes consumer trust, and can take weeks to rectify, leading to a catastrophic loss of local leads.

The Strategic Fix

Be Authentic: Only use your legal, real-world business name that appears on your storefront, signage, and legal documents. Remove any keyword or city stuffing immediately.
Review Compliance: Ensure your address and service-area formats strictly follow Google’s rules (e.g., not listing a home address if you are a service-area business only).
Documentation: Create a simple Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) for all staff or contractors who manage your GBP. This prevents accidental violations and ensures long-term compliance.

Mistake #3: Letting Reviews Go Stale or Ignoring Replies

Consumer trust has become highly selective, recency and owner responses are now critical factors. Consumers scrutinize review recency, often prioritizing those written in the last few months. If your last review was a year ago, customers might question the vitality or quality of your service today.

Why It Hurts Your Business

Consumers still rely on reviews, but trust has become more selective, recency and owner responses are now critical factors. BrightLocal data shows that consumers have a strong preference for businesses that reply to feedback. Review recency is also increasingly influential in local search rankings.

The Strategic Fix

Automate Requests: Build a simple process to automate review requests via email or SMS after every positive interaction or completed service. This aims for a steady cadence of new reviews monthly.
Reply to Everything: Reply to all reviews (positive and negative) within 24–72 hours. For positive reviews, thank the customer and reference a specific detail about their experience. For negative reviews, address the issue professionally, offering to take the conversation offline, which demonstrates accountability to future customers.
Showcase Reviews: Display recent reviews prominently on your website and GBP. This constant flow of fresh, positive feedback builds immediate trust and strengthens your ranking signals.

Mistake #4: Slow, Jittery Pages (Ignoring Core Web Vitals)

Your website's performance is not just a technical issue, it’s a customer service issue. Google’s page experience guidance emphasizes Core Web Vitals (CWV), which measure loading speed (LCP), interactivity (INP), and visual stability (CLS).

Why It Hurts Your Business

In a local search scenario, users are often on mobile devices, possibly while walking or driving, and they are looking for immediate information (e.g., your phone number or directions). Sluggish, unstable pages (high LCP or CLS scores) create a frustrating user experience, leading to high bounce rates and immediate lost conversion opportunities. Google penalizes these pages by limiting their ranking potential, especially when competing local businesses have better CWV scores.

The Strategic Fix

Set Targets: Aim for LCP (Largest Contentful Paint) ≤2.5s, INP (Interaction to Next Paint) ≤200ms, and CLS (Cumulative Layout Shift) ≤0.1.
Technical Optimization: Compress and serve images in next-gen formats (like WebP). Implement lazy-loading for media below the fold. Reduce layout shifts by defining image and container dimensions, and defer non-critical JavaScript (JS) loading.
Web Design and Development: Ship a lightweight, mobile-first theme. If your site is suffering from poor CWV, you need a partner with the technical expertise to diagnose and fix these issues at the code level.

Mistake #5: Weak Local Signals On-Page (Thin Location Pages, Messy NAP)

Local rankings depend on three main factors: on-page relevance, GBP optimization, and third-party citations. Thin, cookie-cutter location pages and inconsistent NAP dilute your relevance, confusing both Google and potential customers.

Why It Hurts Your Business

If your website's location page is just a generic paragraph with an embedded map, it’s considered "thin" content. It fails to reinforce your service area, neighborhood relevance, or specific local offerings. Furthermore, inconsistent NAP, even minor variations like "St." versus "Street", across your website, GBP, and citations (directories like Yelp, Yellow Pages, etc.) confuses search engines. This uncertainty prevents Google from confidently placing you in the local map pack.

The Strategic Fix

Build Rich Location Pages: Create unique city or service pages with specific services, local neighborhood mentions, nearby landmarks, detailed local FAQs, and LocalBusiness schema where appropriate.
Reinforce NAP: Keep your NAP absolutely consistent across your website, your GBP, and all third-party citations. Embed a Google Map on location pages to add a strong geographic signal.
Local FAQ: Add local FAQs that mirror specific customer queries ("Do you serve Clark and Rahway?", "Weekend availability?") to boost on-page relevance and provide excellent customer service.

When to Bring in an Agency (and Why)

You’ve got the playbook, but fixing these high-impact errors requires technical skill, consistency, and time, resources most SMB owners don't have. An agency like Splurge Media moves faster. We don't just diagnose; we operationalize the fix end-to-end.

We bring enterprise-level strategy to your local business. We have the technical expertise to fix Core Web Vitals, implement LocalBusiness schema, create compelling local content, and manage your review and social channels consistently. Our integrated approach ensures your Local SEO, web performance, and customer engagement work in perfect alignment to drive local foot traffic and sales.

Ready to Fix Your Local Marketing Mistakes?

If you suspect you're making these common local web marketing services mistakes, don’t wait. The faster you fix them, the sooner you start converting nearby customers.

Schedule a Free Consultation with our Clark, NJ team to diagnose your local search presence and implement a plan that drives traffic and trust to your business today.

What truly differentiates Splurge Media is our strategic partnership approach. We don't just hand you a list of tactics; we become your dedicated digital marketing department. We take the time to understand your unique market position and growth objectives to create a tailored plan that ensures every low-cost tactic works in harmony to get customers fast and keep them coming back. We provide the expertise and speed to scale your growth reliably.

If you're ready to move from DIY tactics to a comprehensive growth strategy with cutting-edge digital marketing services , we are here to help. Explore our case studies to see our work in action, learn more about us , or simply contact us today for a free consultation.

Frequently Asked Questions

What’s the #1 local marketing fix to do first?

Complete and correct your Google Business Profile (GBP), including primary/secondary categories, hours (with holiday hours), services, attributes, and a current website link to a strong location page.

Can I add keywords or city names to my GBP business name?

No. Google’s guidelines prohibit unnecessary information in the business name. Adding keywords or city names can trigger edits or suspension, significantly harming local visibility.

Do reviews still matter in 2025?

Yes, consumers scrutinize recency and authenticity. Maintain a steady cadence of new reviews and reply to all feedback. Fresh, detailed reviews and owner responses influence visibility and conversions.

How do Core Web Vitals affect local leads?

Fast, stable pages improve user experience and conversions. Google’s page experience guidance recommends achieving good Core Web Vitals (LCP, INP, CLS) to avoid losing out to competitors.

What is NAP consistency and why is it important for local SEO?

NAP stands for Name, Address, Phone. Consistency is vital because search engines cross-reference this data across your GBP and third-party citations. Inconsistent NAP dilutes your ranking signals and confuses both customers and Google.

How quickly can Splurge Media fix my local marketing errors?

Fixing technical errors like Core Web Vitals and GBP compliance can yield results in 2–4 weeks. We focus on diagnosing high-impact errors first to accelerate your local visibility.

10 Budget-Friendly Marketing Ideas for Small Businesses

Mon, 22 Sep 2025 15:02:24 GMT

As a small business owner, you know that attracting customers is essential for growth. But with a tight budget, it can feel like you’re at a disadvantage against bigger competitors. The good news is that effective marketing doesn't have to break the bank. You can start seeing real results and get customers fast by focusing on high-impact, low-cost tactics that leverage your unique strengths as a local or niche business.

The fastest, budget-friendly small business marketing way to attract customers is to stack low-cost channels: complete your Google Business Profile and collect reviews, ship a 3-email “money stack,” send opt-in SMS for offers, publish short-form video weekly, collaborate with micro-influencers, run limited-time promos, and boost only proven posts to nearby audiences.

The Fast-Win Playbook: 10 Budget-Friendly Tactics

Optimize Google Business Profile (GBP)
Ask for reviews & referrals
Launch three core email automations
Add opt-in SMS for time-sensitive offers
Publish weekly short-form videos
Partner with micro/nano-influencers
Run local co-marketing with neighbors
Fix SEO basics + add local FAQs
Use limited-time offers (10–20%)
Boost top posts; retarget engagers

The Fast-Win Playbook: 10 Budget-Friendly Tactics

At Splurge Media, we believe you can start getting traction right away with a smart, targeted plan. This playbook is designed to generate visible signals, like new inquiries, website traffic, and a boost in engagement, this week.

1. Claim & Optimize Your Google Business Profile (GBP)

Your Google Business Profile (GBP) is your single most important digital asset for attracting local customers. It's completely free to claim and optimize. Ensure your Name, Address, and Phone number (NAP) are complete and accurate. Add your services, hours, and high-quality photos. Google states that complete, up-to-date profiles rank and convert better in local results. Post weekly offers or events and add a Q&A section to capture common customer questions.

2. Systematic Reviews & Referrals

Reviews are the new word-of-mouth. According to a 2025 BrightLocal survey, trust in reviews remains meaningful, even if consumers are more discerning. We advise building a simple process to ask for reviews after a positive interaction. This can be as easy as a text message or a QR code on a receipt. Showcase these reviews on your GBP, website, and social media . You can also build a lightweight refer-a-friend perk to encourage your best customers to spread the word.

3. Email “Money Stack” (Welcome + Pr
omo + Reactivation)

Email marketing remains one of the highest ROI channels for small businesses. According to a Litmus report, email has a strong return on investment. You don't need a complex strategy. Start with three simple automations: a Welcome series for new sign-ups, a Promo series for a specific offer, and a Reactivation series for customers who haven’t engaged recently. This "money stack" handles the heavy lifting, allowing you to measure open rates, clicks, and revenue.

4. SMS for Drops & Appointments

SMS marketing has a high adoption rate and can deliver incredibly fast results. The key is to keep it opt-in only, low frequency, and high value. Use SMS to send time-sensitive alerts, such as a flash sale, new appointment slots, or a product restock. The immediacy of SMS makes it an ideal channel to drive quick action from your most engaged customers.

5. Short-Form Video (30–45s) + Captions

Short-form video is among the most effective formats for marketers in 20254. You don't need a professional studio. Start by batching 6–8 short clips per month that answer your customers’ top questions. Use an engaging hook in the first 2-3 seconds, add captions for accessibility (since many people watch without sound), and include a clear "save or share" CTA to boost engagement and reach.

6. Micro/Nano-Influencer Collabs

Partnering with local creators who have small but authentic and highly engaged followings can be incredibly cost-effective. Industry reports favor these micro-influencers for their ability to deliver strong, authentic engagement and a highly targeted local reach. Start by reaching out to 3–5 local creators in your niche and offer a small fee or a free product in exchange for an honest review. Always track UTM links and discount codes to measure success.

7. Local Co-Marketing

Collaborating with a nearby, non-competing business is a powerful way to tap into a new customer base. You can run a joint event, create a bundle of products from both businesses, or cross-promote on social media. Combine this tactic with other plays in this book, like Instagram carousels, GBP posts, and email swaps for a compounding effect on your reach.

8. SEO Basics You Can Do This Week

You can improve your website's visibility with a few simple SEO tweaks this week. Start by fixing your titles and H1s to include your primary keywords. Compress your images to improve page speed. Write intent-driven FAQs on your site to answer common customer questions, and add local terms on key pages. The more helpful content you have, the more likely you are to rank higher.

9. Limited-Time Offers (LTOs) Done Right

Limited-Time Offers create a sense of urgency and can drive quick conversions. Run promotions with clear deadlines, such as a "24-hour flash sale." Studies show LTOs increase conversions. Use your email and SMS channels to amplify these offers. A moderate discount of 10-20% is often enough to balance a lift in sales with maintaining your profit margins.

10. $5–$20 Boosts & Retargeting

For a small investment, you can amplify your best-performing organic posts to reach a wider, local audience. We recommend allocating a small budget to boost top-performing posts (those with the most engagement) to nearby audiences. You can also retarget people who have engaged with your content for 7-30 days, serving them a new offer or a link to your booking page. This is a highly efficient way to get your content in front of the right people, fast.

GEO: Turning “Local” into a Multiplier

For small businesses, your physical location is one of your biggest advantages. We leverage this by baking geo-modifiers into your copy, captions, and hashtags. Whether you’re in Clark, NJ, Newark, or serving the entire Tri-State area, we make sure potential customers in your community know you're there. We also recap local events and partner with nearby businesses to cement your brand as a pillar of the community. This strengthens your local SEO and builds valuable, in-person connections.

When to Bring in an Agency (and Why)

While these tactics are budget-friendly, they require time, skill, and consistency. After you’ve launched a few of these plays and seen some initial signals, you'll realize that doing all of this while running your business is a full-time job.

This is when you bring in an agency like Splurge Media. Our team operationalizes this entire playbook for you, providing the strategy, creative, and channel orchestration to compound your results. We offer a full suite of services, from SEO and Social Media Management to Social Media Advertising and Email Marketing, ensuring every channel works in harmony. We bring enterprise-level strategies to your small business, providing the expertise and speed to scale your growth efficiently and reliably.

Ready to Turn Fast Wins into Lasting Growth?

You've got the playbook for budget-friendly small business marketing. Now, imagine what your brand could achieve with a team of experts managing every piece of it. Beyond the quick wins you can launch this week, we provide the strategy, creative, and channel orchestration needed to turn your initial efforts into a sustainable, growth-driving machine.

If you're ready to move from DIY tactics to a comprehensive growth strategy with cutting-edge digital marketing services , we are here to help. Explore our case studies to see our work in action, learn more about us, or simply contact us today for a free consultation.

Frequently Asked Questions

What are some low-cost marketing ideas for a small business?

Some of the most effective low-cost marketing ideas include optimizing your Google Business Profile, using a simple email marketing "stack," creating short-form video content, and collaborating with local micro-influencers. These tactics can be executed with minimal budget for strong returns.

How can a small business attract customers quickly?

A small business can attract customers quickly by leveraging time-sensitive tactics. This includes running limited-time offers, sending opt-in SMS alerts for new products or services, and using small paid boosts on social media to promote your best posts to a targeted local audience.

How do you measure the ROI of these budget-friendly tactics?

We measure ROI by tracking key metrics like website traffic from your Google Business Profile, new email sign-ups from your website, link clicks from your SMS messages, and conversion rates from your limited-time offers. This data helps us prove that your efforts are directly contributing to your bottom line.

Why is a Google Business Profile so important for a local business?

A complete and optimized Google Business Profile is crucial because it’s often the first thing local customers see when searching for your services. It helps you appear in local search results and on Google Maps, driving high-intent customers directly to your business.

What makes short-form video an effective marketing solution?

Short-form video is highly effective because it’s engaging and easily shareable, helping you to quickly expand your brand’s reach. It allows you to deliver valuable information or entertaining content in a concise format, building trust and authority with your audience fast.

The Ultimate Guide to Small-Business Branding (2025 Edition)

Tue, 02 Sep 2025 14:58:19 GMT

Branding can feel overwhelming when you’re launching or reshaping a company. Think of it as the consistent, end-to-end representation of your business—visually and verbally—across every touchpoint your customers see.

Why us? Splurge Media was named a Top 3 Branding Company in New Jersey by DesignRush. We build brand systems that scale.

Why branding matters

A clear brand system helps people recognize you faster, trust you sooner, and navigate your experiences with less friction. Without cohesion, businesses lose consistency, leads, visibility, and credibility—especially in today’s mobile-first world.

Typical deliverables include a visual identity, a style guide, a messaging framework, a website, and a logo. But the true value isn’t the artifacts; it’s the clarity and consistency they create for customers, partners, and your team.

Who benefits from a brand system?

Short answer: nearly every small company.

Even brick-and-mortar businesses gain from consistent signage, uniforms, vehicle wraps, and printed materials. And we recommend at least a basic website for all organizations—your look, voice, and user experience online should mirror what people feel in person. Starter packages often bundle identity, guidelines, and a site build.

Brand design: bringing your business to life

“Brand design” covers the visual and verbal language that expresses your personality and values. It starts with discovery: goals, audience, category norms, and how you want people to feel when they interact with you. Then we define how that comes to life across channels.

Core components

Logo system: primary, secondary, responsive, and monochrome variations.
Style guide: color, type, spacing, imagery, iconography, UI tokens.
Voice & tone: how you speak across website, sales decks, emails, and support.
UX standards: layout patterns and accessibility rules that scale.

Arrive with your origin story, mission, values, and vision—that clarity accelerates great creative work.

Understanding your identity

Your identity connects what you believe to how you show up. Before building assets, align on:

Company values and working culture
Voice traits (e.g., confident, friendly, direct, or playful)
Current buyers and ideal segments
The concrete outcomes you deliver
The feelings your experience should create
Your “only-ness” (what sets you apart)

Agencies will pressure-test these inputs before proposing design directions.

Your brand playbook (guidelines)

Guidelines are the rules that keep everything consistent. They cover:

Logo usage: sizing, clear space, do’s/don’ts, digital vs. print variants
Color & type: exact values, pairings, and contrast requirements
Imagery & iconography: style, subject matter, and composition
Voice & tone: examples by channel and scenario
Templates: decks, proposals, emails, social, and packaging

Treat the guide as an evergreen asset—share it with anyone producing materials for your company.

Logos that work

A logo isn’t your brand; it’s the shorthand for it. The best marks are:

Simple. Immediate and legible at any size. Memorable. Distinct in your space—avoid look-alikes. Appropriate. Aligned with your attributes and category. Flexible. Designed to extend into patterns, backgrounds, and motion.

Modern systems often derive layout motifs or patterns from the mark, creating a cohesive language across media.

Practical tips to get started

Write down goals, your “why,” and the values you want to signal.
Build a moodboard—colors, textures, typography, reference brands—to align faster.
Define primary audiences and the segment you want next.
Plan for growth: your system should adapt to new channels and products.
Consider a starter package that includes identity, a basic site, and core templates.

You can DIY, but seasoned designers and builders move faster, avoid rework, and deliver accessible, conversion-ready systems.

Ready to move?

If you want a brand that’s consistent, scalable, and genuinely you, Splurge can lead the process—from discovery to guidelines, site design, and launch. Our designers and writers craft a unified visual and verbal experience that attracts the right customers and grows with you.

Let’s build a brand that lasts.

Google Is Now Indexing Instagram! But, What Does This Mean?

Fri, 22 Aug 2025 21:30:06 GMT

One of the most exciting developments in 2025 is that Google is now indexing Instagram content. This change opens a huge opportunity for brands, especially those leveraging professional social media management and advertising, to reach potential customers far beyond Instagram’s app. And for small businesses, this could be the competitive edge you’ve been waiting for.

At Splurge Media, we’re here to break down what this update means, how it impacts marketing for small businesses, and, most importantly, how you can use it to grow faster with the help of our expert internet marketing services.

Why Google Indexing Instagram Is a Big Deal

Historically, Instagram posts were difficult for Google to find and display in search results. Unless someone searched for your username directly, your content lived mostly inside Instagram’s walled garden.

Now, with Google indexing Instagram posts, Stories, and even Reels in some cases, your content can appear directly in Google Search results, right alongside your website, blog posts, and other marketing assets.

Here’s why that matters for small businesses:

More organic reach: Your content can reach people who don’t follow you yet or even use Instagram.
Increased discoverability: Keywords, hashtags, and captions can now play a role in ranking for search queries.
Brand authority boost: Appearing in both search results and social feeds builds credibility.

In short, if you play your cards right, your Instagram could become a search-traffic machine.

The SEO + Social Media Connection

As a digital marketing agency, we’ve always told our clients: SEO doesn’t stop at your website. Search engine optimization is about your entire digital footprint.

Now that Google is pulling Instagram into the mix, your social content strategy and SEO strategy should work hand-in-hand. For example:

The keywords in your captions could help you appear in Google search.
Your Instagram bio could now act as an SEO-friendly business card.
High-engagement posts could signal quality to Google, improving visibility.

This means small business owners who invest in professional social media management will gain more than just likes and followers; they’ll gain search visibility that can drive real sales.

How Small Businesses Can Take Advantage of Google Indexing Instagram

To make the most of this shift, you need a strategy that blends content creation, keyword targeting, and smart promotion. Here’s how we at Splurge Media recommend approaching it:

1. Optimize Your Instagram Profile for Search

Think of your Instagram bio like your homepage headline; it needs to be clear, keyword-rich, and customer-focused. We help clients:

Add targeted keywords in their name and bio fields.
Use a branded, clickable link to their website or landing page.Maintain consistent NAP (Name, Address, Phone) for local SEO benefits.

2. Create Search-Friendly Content

Every post is now a potential search result. That means:

Crafting captions with relevant keywords.
Using hashtags strategically (not just trending ones).
Including location tags to capture local search traffic.

Our social media advertising team also ensures paid campaigns align with your organic keyword strategy, doubling your visibility.

3. Leverage Instagram Highlights and Reels

Google can index certain Highlights and Reels, especially those with descriptive titles and captions. We curate these to feature your products, services, and FAQs, turning your Instagram into a searchable knowledge hub.

4. Monitor and Measure Results

We track which posts are driving traffic from Google, not just Instagram. This data lets us refine your content calendar to maximize both search and social engagement.

Why This Is a Win for Marketing for Small Businesses

Big brands already dominate Google search results. However, this update levels the playing field by giving small businesses with Instagram content a chance to appear right beside them.

With the right approach, your posts can:

Rank for niche, long-tail keywords your audience searches for.
Capture local searches (e.g., “best coffee shop in Dallas Instagram”).
Drive direct leads from Google without extra ad spend.

In other words, Instagram is no longer just a social app; it’s now a search engine booster. And small businesses that embrace this early will reap the biggest rewards.

How Splurge Media Maximizes This New Opportunity

At Splurge Media, we’ve been preparing for exactly this kind of update. Our combined expertise in social media management , social media advertising, and SEO-driven content puts us in the perfect position to help small businesses dominate both Instagram and Google search.

Here’s what we do differently:

Expert Social Media Management

Our team creates, schedules, and optimizes every post with search visibility in mind. From keyword-rich captions to perfectly crafted hashtags, we make sure your Instagram works for you on and off the platform.

Strategic Social Media Advertising

We design paid campaigns that amplify your best-performing, search-friendly content, ensuring it reaches the right audience at the right time. Our precise targeting based on demographics, location, and behavior maximizes your ROI.

Data-Driven Decision Making

We provide transparent analytics showing how your Instagram content is performing in both Google search and the social feed. This allows us to continually refine and improve your results.

Integration with Broader Digital Marketing

Because we’re more than a social media agency, we’re a full internet marketing service, and we can connect your Instagram strategy with your website SEO, email marketing, and paid search campaigns. That synergy means more leads, more customers, and faster growth.

Action Plan: What You Should Do Right Now

If you want to be ahead of the curve, here’s your immediate to-do list:

Audit Your Instagram Profile – Is it keyword-rich, branded, and customer-friendly?
Plan Search-Optimized Content – Start incorporating keywords into captions and alt text.
Boost Your Top Content – Use targeted ads to drive traffic to posts with high engagement.
Track Search Performance – Monitor which posts show up in Google search results.

Not sure where to start? That’s where we come in. Our team handles the heavy lifting so you can focus on running your business while we grow your audience, and your revenue.

Ready to Turn Instagram into a Google Search Powerhouse? Take the Next Step Today

At Splurge Media, we know this update isn’t just another social media tweak, it’s a massive opportunity for small businesses to get found, followed, and chosen. Our expert team blends SEO mastery with cutting-edge social media strategies to make sure your Instagram content ranks in Google search, drives organic traffic, and brings in real customers.

We don’t just create pretty posts. We develop search-optimized content strategies that position your brand as an industry authority, engage your audience, and keep your message consistent across every channel. Our social media advertising specialists amplify your best content to reach the right people at the right time, ensuring every dollar of your marketing budget works harder for you.

Beyond Instagram optimization, we provide a full suite of growth-driving services: web design and development, social media management, email marketing automation, and in-depth analytics reporting. Every service is delivered by passionate specialists committed to making your business more visible, more engaging, and more profitable.

What truly differentiates Splurge Media is our strategic partnership approach. We don't just implement tactics; we develop customized strategies that are aligned with your specific business goals. Our team takes the time to understand your unique market position, audience needs, and growth objectives before crafting a tailored marketing plan designed to deliver measurable results.

Ready to elevate your digital presence? Contact Splurge Media today for a complimentary consultation. Discover how our strategic marketing services can transform your online presence and drive sustainable business growth.

Frequently Asked Questions

1. How will Google indexing Instagram affect my marketing for small business?

It means your Instagram posts can now appear in Google search results, opening the door to more organic reach and visibility. If your content is optimized with the right keywords, you can attract customers who have never interacted with your brand on social media before.

2. Do I need to change my Instagram strategy for this?

Yes. You’ll want to incorporate SEO best practices into your captions, hashtags, and even your profile bio. At Splurge Media, we ensure every post you publish is discoverable both on Instagram and in Google search.

3. Can Splurge Media help with both content creation and advertising?

Absolutely. We provide full internet marketing services, including expert social media management to create and optimize content, and social media advertising to expand your reach and drive measurable results.

4. How soon will I see results from Google indexing my Instagram?

Many clients notice increased search impressions and profile visits within weeks. However, sustained growth and higher rankings come from consistent posting, optimization, and strategic promotion.

5. Will this help my local business get more foot traffic?

Yes. By adding location tags, using local hashtags, and optimizing for local keywords, your Instagram posts can appear in local Google searches, helping you attract nearby customers ready to visit your store.

6. Do hashtags still matter if Google is indexing Instagram?

Yes, but their role is evolving. Hashtags help within Instagram’s search and discovery, while keyword-rich captions help with Google. We blend both approaches to maximize visibility in both places.

7. Is this relevant even if I already run Google Ads?

Definitely. Google indexing Instagram gives you free organic exposure to complement your paid campaigns. It’s like adding a second entry point for potential customers without increasing ad spend.

8. Can my old Instagram posts rank in Google now?

Some older posts may get indexed, but fresh, optimized content tends to perform better. We can audit your existing content and re-optimize or repurpose it for better search performance.

9. What if I don’t post on Instagram often?

Infrequent posting limits your chances to rank. Consistency is key. Our social media management service ensures you maintain a regular, strategic posting schedule without the stress.

10. How do I measure whether this is working for my business?

We use advanced analytics to track which Instagram posts are driving traffic from Google, how long visitors stay, and whether they convert into customers. This helps you see the ROI clearly.

Google AI Max Series Part 3: Best Practices for Implementing AI Max

Thu, 29 May 2025 21:23:16 GMT

You've learned what Google AI Max is and explored its powerful features – from smarter query matching to dynamic ad generation. Now comes the critical next step: strategic implementation. While AI Max offers incredible automation and the promise of increased conversions, simply flipping a switch isn't enough to guarantee success.

True mastery means leveraging its capabilities while maintaining control over your brand's unique strategy. As your dedicated partners in digital marketing, Splurge Media is here to guide you. In this post, we'll dive into the proven best practices that ensure you're not just using AI Max but dominating with it, turning its power into a clear competitive advantage for your business.

Important Considerations & Best Practices for Implementing AI Max

While Google AI Max is an undeniably powerful tool, successful implementation requires a strategic, informed approach. As your dedicated partners at Splurge Media, committed to your long-term success, we highly recommend the following best practices to maximize your results and maintain control:

Start with a Measured Test: Resist the urge to go all-in immediately. We strongly advise testing AI Max in a separate, controlled campaign or applying it to a specific, manageable segment of your existing campaigns. This allows you to closely observe and understand its unique impact on your specific business goals and audience before wider deployment.
Monitor Closely and Continuously: Even with the most advanced AI, human vigilance remains crucial. Regularly review the actual search terms that triggered your ads, meticulously examine auto-generated assets for brand consistency and messaging accuracy, and verify that the final URL selections are indeed optimal for conversion.
Maintain and Enhance Quality Content: This cannot be overstated. AI Max draws heavily from the information available on your website. Therefore, ensuring your landing pages are high-quality, exceptionally relevant, well-optimized for user experience, and provide clear calls to action is absolutely fundamental for the AI to perform effectively and accurately. Think of your website as the AI's primary learning resource.
Review Auto-Generated Assets Periodically: While the AI is incredibly intelligent and capable of generating highly relevant ad copy, a human touch is always invaluable. Periodically review the headlines and descriptions generated by AI Max to ensure they align perfectly with your brand voice, messaging guidelines, and overall marketing strategy. This helps maintain brand consistency and prevents any potential miscommunications.
Focus on Conversion Quality, Not Just Volume: While an increase in conversion volume is exciting, it's equally important to track the quality of those conversions. Are these new customers truly valuable to your business? Are they converting into long-term clients? Implement robust CRM tracking to gain deeper insights into the lifetime value of customers acquired through AI Max.
AI Max Complements, Does Not Replace: It's vital to understand that AI Max works in conjunction with your existing keyword strategy and other campaign settings, not instead of them. It's a powerful enhancement to your existing efforts, designed to fill gaps and find new opportunities, not to fully automate every aspect of your campaign management. Your strategic input remains paramount.
Ensure Impeccable Conversion Tracking: Accurate and robust conversion tracking is the cornerstone of measuring success with AI Max. Without precise data on what actions users are taking after clicking your ads, it's impossible to truly evaluate the effectiveness of the AI and make informed optimization decisions. If you're unsure about your tracking setup or need a more sophisticated system, that's precisely where Splurge Media's expertise comes into play.

Google AI Max is a versatile and powerful tool, but certain types of advertisers and business scenarios stand to gain the most significant advantages:

Businesses Looking to Expand Reach: If your current campaigns feel limited by keyword lists or you suspect you're missing out on relevant searches, AI Max can unlock significant new audience segments.
Advertisers Seeking Enhanced Automation & Efficiency: For those with lean marketing teams, or businesses managing large and complex accounts, AI Max provides unparalleled automation, freeing up valuable human resources for more strategic tasks.
Companies with Rich & Diverse Website Content: If your website is a treasure trove of information about your products, services, or industry, AI Max can leverage this content to create highly relevant ads and guide users to the perfect page.
Businesses Struggling to Discover New Keywords: If you've exhausted traditional keyword research methods and are looking for innovative ways to find new, high-converting search terms, AI Max is a game-changer.
Anyone Eager to Capitalize on the Latest AI Advancements: For forward-thinking businesses committed to leveraging cutting-edge technology for competitive advantage and superior results, AI Max offers an immediate pathway to the future of digital advertising.
SMBs Aspiring for Enterprise-Level Results: Our mission at Splurge Media is to bring enterprise expertise to SMBs. AI Max is a prime example of a tool that levels the playing field, allowing smaller businesses to achieve results typically seen by larger corporations.

At Splurge Media, we don't just follow trends; we anticipate market shifts and adapt strategies accordingly. Our data-driven approach and world-class expertise mean we're uniquely positioned to help you not just understand Google AI Max, but to implement it strategically and extract its maximum potential for your unique business needs. We combine big agency expertise with boutique-level attention, providing seamless communication and a dedicated partner in your growth.

Ready to supercharge your Search campaigns and see what world-class expertise powered by the latest AI can do for your business? We invite you to log into your Google Ads account and explore the AI Max upgrade today.

Ready to understand the future of search advertising and how to master it?

Ready to elevate your digital marketing?

Splurge isn't just another digital marketing agency. In a sea of promises and potential, we stand out by genuinely aligning with your brand's core values and identity, crafting digital marketing strategies that drive sustainable growth. Our dedication is not merely to fulfill a service but to become a partner in your long-term business success.

Whether you're new to the digital marketing world or looking to enhance your existing efforts, our team is ready to guide you through every step, ensuring close collaboration and clear communication until we achieve the desired outcomes.

Contact Splurge Media today to discover how we can help your business thrive in the digital age and don’t forget to follow us on Instagram , Linkedin and Facebook .

Google AI Max Series Part 2: Key Features of Google AI Max

Thu, 29 May 2025 21:18:24 GMT

In Part 1 of our Google AI Max Series, we introduced you to this groundbreaking upgrade and its potential to revolutionize your Search campaigns. But what exactly makes AI Max such a formidable tool for driving conversions and efficiency? It's not just one "cool feature" you can switch on; it's a meticulously engineered suite of integrated functionalities working together to make your campaigns smarter, more dynamic, and ultimately, far more successful.

At Splurge Media, we're all about understanding the nuts and bolts of cutting-edge technology so we can bring world-class strategies to your small or mid-sized business. In this deep dive, we'll unpack each core component of Google AI Max, revealing how its advanced AI capabilities translate into tangible benefits and a powerful competitive edge for your business. Let's explore the key features that truly set AI Max apart.

Key Features of Google AI Max & A Deep Dive into Its Capabilities

Google AI Max isn't just one more cool feature; it's a powerful suite of integrated functionalities meticulously engineered to make your Search campaigns smarter, more dynamic, and ultimately, far more successful. Let's break down each core component.

The days of relying solely on exact and phrase match keywords are evolving. Google AI Max ushers in a new era of intelligent matching.

Explanation: This advanced feature leverages the power of broad match combined with sophisticated AI algorithms to identify and target relevant search queries that you might not have explicitly included in your keyword list. It doesn't just look for words; it understands user intent, context, and the nuances of language to find highly relevant, adjacent searches. This includes long-tail queries, conversational searches, and new ways users might phrase their needs.
How it works: By continuously analyzing vast amounts of data – including user behavior, emerging search patterns, and the performance of your existing campaign data – the AI intelligently predicts and matches your ads to a wider spectrum of relevant search terms. It learns from every interaction, continually refining its understanding of what constitutes a valuable match for your business.
Benefit(s) for Advertisers: The impact of this is profound. It translates directly to significantly increased reach into previously untapped, highly qualified audiences. You'll uncover new customer segments you might never have discovered through manual research, reducing the laborious burden of extensive keyword management. It ensures your ads are consistently seen by those actively searching for what you offer, even if their query isn't a precise, pre-defined match. This means less guesswork and more qualified traffic.

Crafting compelling ad copy that resonates with every potential customer can be a time-consuming challenge. AI Max offers a powerful solution.

Explanation: The generative AI within AI Max has the remarkable ability to dynamically create highly relevant headlines, descriptions, and calls to action (CTAs) tailored to individual search queries and user intent.
How it works: This is where the magic happens. The AI intelligently pulls and synthesizes information from your landing pages, existing ad assets (such as responsive search ad headlines and descriptions), and other structured business data you provide. It then crafts compelling, contextually relevant ad variations in real-time, ensuring the message delivered is always the most persuasive for that specific search.
Benefit(s) for Advertisers: This capability addresses a critical need, effectively filling creative gaps and allowing for massive-scale ad testing without the need for constant manual intervention. It ensures your messages are not only more tailored and appealing to specific user searches but also dynamically optimized for performance, leading to higher click-through rates, better engagement, and ultimately, more valuable conversions. Imagine the time saved and the reach gained!

A great ad is only half the battle; ensuring users land on the most relevant page is crucial for conversion success.

Explanation: Google AI Max can intelligently select the most appropriate and relevant landing page on your website for a given search query, even if it's not the primary URL you initially specified for an ad group or campaign.
How it works: The AI conducts a thorough analysis of your entire website content, comparing it against the user's search query and intent. It then guides users directly to the page most likely to satisfy their query, provide the information they need, and lead to a desired action.
Benefits for Advertisers: This seemingly subtle feature delivers a significantly better user experience by eliminating friction and ensuring immediate relevance. This directly translates to a substantially higher conversion potential by ensuring users are directed to the most appropriate content on your site, maximizing the chances of a sale, a lead, or any other desired outcome.

While automation is powerful, control and transparency remain paramount. Google AI Max doesn't sacrifice these essentials.

Location of Interest Targeting: This advanced targeting option allows for more precise ad delivery based on a user's inferred intent or interest in a specific location, rather than just their current physical location. This is invaluable for businesses with geographical relevance.
Brand Restrictions: You gain greater control over where your ads appear, allowing you to implement brand safety measures and restrict placements as needed, ensuring your brand integrity is maintained.
Enhanced Reporting: AI Max provides more granular and insightful data than ever before. You'll gain a deeper understanding of the specific matched terms that triggered your ads, the performance of auto-generated assets (including attributed spend and conversions), and dedicated insights into AI Max-specific match types and sources.
Benefits for Advertisers: These refined controls offer greater oversight and customization, allowing you to steer your campaigns with precision. Simultaneously, the enhanced reporting provides unparalleled insights for optimization, empowering you to understand exactly how AI Max is performing, identify new opportunities, and make truly data-driven decisions that propel your business forward.

Google AI Max isn't just another feature rollout; it's a strategic advantage that can redefine your approach to search advertising. Here's why every ambitious business should be paying close attention:

Remarkable Increase in Conversions and Conversion Value: This is the bottom line for any business. Google has publicly reported average increases of 14% in conversions for campaigns utilizing AI Max, with some advertisers experiencing an astonishing increase of up to 27%. Crucially, this significant boost often comes at a similar cost, meaning more leads, more sales, and a better return on your ad spend without necessarily inflating your budget. This is about working smarter, not just harder.
Unprecedented Efficiency & Automation: Say goodbye to the tedious, time-consuming hours traditionally spent on manual keyword research, ad copy writing, and continuous A/B testing. AI Max significantly automates these processes, freeing up your valuable time and resources. This makes it an absolute game-changer for small and mid-sized businesses with limited marketing teams, or for those managing large, complex accounts where manual oversight becomes unwieldy.
Seamless Adaptability to Evolving Search Landscapes: We are in the midst of a profound shift in how users search. With the rise of AI Overviews, conversational search, and increasingly complex queries, traditional keyword strategies alone may not suffice. AI Max ensures your campaigns remain hyper-relevant and intensely competitive by intelligently adapting to how users are searching today and in the future. It allows you to naturally integrate with these new search paradigms.
Unlocking a Powerful Competitive Advantage: By being an early adopter and effectively leveraging the latest Google technology, you gain a significant edge over your competitors. You'll be able to reach customers they might be missing, capitalize on emerging search trends, and optimize your budget more effectively. This is about being proactive, not reactive – positioning your business at the forefront of digital innovation.

Ready to understand the future of search advertising and how to master it?

Ready to elevate your digital marketing?

Contact Splurge Media today to discover how we can help your business thrive in the digital age and don’t forget to follow us on Instagram , Linkedin and Facebook .

Google AI Max Series Part 1: Reach the Next Level in Search Campaigns

Thu, 29 May 2025 21:07:07 GMT

In the relentlessly dynamic world of digital marketing, staying ahead isn't just about keeping pace; it's about anticipating the next wave. For ambitious businesses striving to truly scale their reach, optimize every marketing dollar, and achieve a remarkable return on investment, the challenge is often multifaceted.

How do you consistently connect with evolving search behaviors? How do you maximize your reach without overspending? And how do you maintain peak efficiency in a landscape that's constantly shifting?

In this Google AI Max Series, we'll explain everything you need! In this first installment, we'll lay the foundation, explaining what AI Max is and why it's set to become your new power-up for search campaign success. We'll dive deep into its core concept and why it's a game-changer for businesses like yours.

Google AI Max is Your New Power-Up for Search Campaign Success

The truth is, many digital marketing agencies are quick to promise the moon, eager to cash your check without truly aligning with your unique business goals. At Splurge Media, our foundation is built on a different principle: putting your long-term business growth first by truly aligning with your company's core values and brand identity. We believe in bringing the world-class expertise of experienced enterprise marketers to small and mid-sized businesses (SMBs), ensuring you receive first-rate, integrated marketing strategies that drive real, sustainable results.

That's precisely why we're not just excited, but genuinely enthusiastic about a groundbreaking development from Google that's poised to redefine digital advertising: Google AI Max. This isn't merely an incremental update; it’s a strategic, opt-in upgrade for your existing Google Search campaigns that leverages the profound capabilities of generative AI. Its purpose? To deliver smarter query matching, generate more dynamic and relevant ads, and expand your reach to potential customers you might never have found through traditional methods. This is the future of search, and it’s a future we’re prepared to help you master.

In this comprehensive post, we'll dive deep into the intricacies of Google AI Max, unpack its core functionalities, and, most importantly, show you how this innovative tool can help you unlock a new era of conversions, enhance your campaign efficiency, and drive the sustainable growth your business deserves.

The Launch of Google AI Max: A New Era Begins

The moment many in the digital advertising world have anticipated has arrived. Google AI Max for Search campaigns officially began its open beta rollout in the Google Ads UI on May 27, 2025. This release marks a pivotal point, making these advanced generative AI capabilities accessible to advertisers eager to supercharge their campaigns and unlock new levels of performance and efficiency in the dynamic world of online search.

What Exactly IS Google AI Max? The Core Concept Unleashed

Let's demystify it. At its heart, Google AI Max is an opt-in upgrade designed to seamlessly integrate with your existing Google Search campaigns. It's crucial to understand that this isn't a completely new campaign type that replaces your current setup. Instead, imagine it as an incredibly intelligent, high-powered overlay that injects advanced generative AI capabilities directly into your ongoing campaigns.

Its fundamental objective is clear: to drive more relevant conversions and dramatically improve campaign efficiency by intelligently expanding your campaign's reach and meticulously optimizing ad delivery. This means the AI is working tirelessly behind the scenes to find the perfect match between user intent and your offerings, ensuring your ads are seen by those most likely to become valuable customers.

This innovative tool represents Google's unwavering commitment to pushing the boundaries of what's possible in search advertising. For businesses like yours, it signifies an unprecedented opportunity to tap into new levels of automation, precision, and market insight, allowing you to compete more effectively and achieve truly transformative results.

Your Next Step is Partnering for AI-Powered Growth

Google AI Max represents not just an evolution, but a truly significant leap forward in search advertising. It's a powerful, intelligent tool that can fundamentally transform your campaign performance, allowing you to reach more of the right customers with more relevant messages, all while boosting efficiency and delivering a remarkable return on your investment. This is precisely the kind of innovation that empowers small and mid-sized businesses to truly WIN in the increasingly competitive digital landscape, breaking through previous limitations and achieving unprecedented growth.

But for a truly personalized strategy session on how to implement AI Max effectively, ensure your campaigns are optimized to perfection, and truly align with your long-term business goals for sustainable, remarkable growth, contact us at Splurge Media. We have the passion, the cutting-edge knowledge, and the proven expertise to help scale your small to mid-sized business by implementing thoughtful, strategic, and AI-powered marketing campaigns.

Are you ready to WIN? Let's work together to make AI Max your next big success story!

Ready to understand the future of search advertising and how to master it?

Ready to understand the future of search advertising and how to master it

Ready to elevate your digital marketing?

Contact Splurge Media today to discover how we can help your business thrive in the digital age and don’t forget to follow us on Instagram , Linkedin and Facebook .

10 Signs You're Ready to Work with a Digital Marketing Agency

Wed, 14 May 2025 21:02:22 GMT

Growing a business often means reaching a point where in-house marketing efforts are no longer sufficient to achieve your goals. Many business owners find themselves stretched thin, trying to manage multiple aspects of their marketing while running day-to-day operations. This juggling act can lead to inconsistent results and missed growth opportunities.

A digital marketing agency brings structure, strategy, and scalable results to your marketing efforts. With specialized expertise across various marketing services, agencies offer the experience and tools needed to elevate your brand's online presence. If you're wondering whether it's time to partner with professionals, here are ten clear signs that indicate you're ready for that next step.

When your marketing efforts consistently fail to deliver meaningful ROI, it's a strong indicator that professional help is needed. You might be investing time and money into campaigns that aren't generating sufficient traffic or qualified leads.

A digital marketing agency can implement data-driven solutions that target your specific audience more effectively. They bring strategic approaches based on analytics and industry best practices, helping to transform underperforming campaigns into revenue-generating assets.

Business owners often find themselves juggling too many responsibilities, with marketing frequently taking a back seat to other pressing operational needs. If you're constantly postponing marketing tasks or rushing through them without proper planning, your results will suffer.

Agencies free up your valuable time by taking ownership of campaign execution, allowing you to focus on running your business and making high-level decisions without getting bogged down in the day-to-day implementation of marketing strategies.

A website that fails to convert visitors into leads is essentially a digital business card rather than a lead-generating asset. This often indicates issues with SEO , content quality, user experience, or call-to-action effectiveness.

An internet marketing agency can transform your website into a powerful lead generation tool by optimizing content for search engines, improving user experience, and strategically placing conversion points throughout your site. They can identify and fix the specific elements preventing your website from performing to its full potential.

Without proper analytics tracking and reporting, marketing becomes a guessing game. If you can't clearly identify which marketing efforts are delivering results and which are wasting resources, you're operating in the dark.

Marketing agencies excel at implementing comprehensive tracking systems that measure the impact of each marketing initiative. They provide detailed reporting that highlights what's working and what isn't, allowing for data-driven decisions rather than hunches or assumptions.

Growth ambitions require sophisticated marketing strategies that can scale with your business. If you're looking to expand into new markets or significantly increase your customer base, but don't have a clear roadmap to achieve these goals, it's time to consider professional help.

Digital marketing agencies bring cross-channel expertise and scalable solutions that can grow with your business. They understand how different marketing channels work together and can develop comprehensive strategies that support your expansion goals.

When your competitors consistently appear above you in search results and seem to have a stronger online presence, it's a sign that you need expert support to level the playing field.

A digital marketing agency can conduct thorough competitive analyses to identify exactly what your competitors are doing right. They can then develop targeted strategies to help you not just match but potentially surpass your competition's online visibility and market share.

Inconsistent blog posting, unfocused social media presence, and ineffective paid advertising campaigns are clear indicators of a missing strategic framework. Without a coherent plan guiding your content creation and distribution, you're missing opportunities to engage potential customers.

Agencies excel at developing comprehensive content and advertising strategies that align with your business goals. They create content calendars, ad schedules, and campaign frameworks that ensure consistent messaging across all platforms while maximizing engagement and conversion potential.

Professional marketing requires specialized tools for SEO, analytics, automation, and more. These tools often come with significant subscription costs that may be difficult to justify for a single business.

Marketing agencies already have access to premium marketing tools and platforms, with the cost distributed across their client base. By partnering with an agency, you gain the benefits of these powerful resources without the full financial burden of purchasing them yourself.

Even if you have talented marketing staff, they may not possess expertise across all digital marketing disciplines, or they may be stretched too thin to execute effectively on all fronts.

A marketing agency brings diverse specialists under one roof, from SEO experts and content creators to paid advertising specialists and analytics professionals. This breadth of expertise complements your internal team's capabilities and provides specialized knowledge where you need it most.

Perhaps the most important sign is your own recognition that DIY marketing no longer serves your business goals. When you're ready to view marketing as a strategic investment rather than an occasional activity, it's time to consider professional partnership.

Working with an agency means committing to a structured approach to marketing that drives measurable results. It signals that you're ready to invest in sustainable growth rather than quick fixes or sporadic campaigns.

If you recognize any of these signs, it might be time to partner with a digital marketing agency. Splurge Media stands out as a full-service partner committed to delivering exceptional results across every aspect of digital marketing.

What sets Splurge Media apart is our comprehensive approach to digital success. Our expert team excels in search engine optimization, crafting strategies that boost your visibility and drive organic traffic to your website. We develop compelling content strategies that engage your audience and establish your brand as an industry authority. Our paid advertising specialists create high-performing campaigns across Google, social media, and other platforms to maximize your ROI.

Beyond these core services, we offer cutting-edge web design and development, social media management, email marketing automation, and comprehensive analytics reporting. Each service is delivered by specialists passionate about their craft and committed to your success.

What truly differentiates Splurge Media is our strategic partnership approach. We don't just implement tactics—we develop customized strategies aligned with your specific business goals. Our team takes the time to understand your unique market position, audience needs, and growth objectives before crafting a tailored marketing plan designed to deliver measurable results.

A digital marketing agency offers a comprehensive suite of services covering all aspects of your online presence. This typically includes SEO, content strategy, social media management, web design, email marketing, and paid advertising. Agencies like Splurge Media integrate these services to create cohesive strategies aligned with your business goals and long-term vision.

Consider hiring a digital marketing agency when you're aiming to broaden your online presence, need expertise in diverse marketing channels, or require a unified strategy to streamline your digital activities. It's particularly beneficial when internal resources are stretched thin or lacking specific expertise areas, as an agency can fill those gaps and propel your brand forward.

Marketing agency costs typically range from $500 to $10,000+ per month, depending on the services included, your business goals, and industry. According to the U.S. Small Business Administration , businesses with revenues under $5 million should allocate around 9-10% of their annual earnings to marketing. The investment varies based on your specific needs, with most businesses (59%) spending between $50 to $3,500 per month on agency services.

The terms "digital marketing agency" and "internet marketing agency" are often used interchangeably in the industry. Both focus on online marketing strategies, but some subtle differences may exist depending on the agency. Digital marketing might encompass broader digital platforms including mobile apps and software, while internet marketing specifically focuses on web-based channels. However, most agencies providing these services offer similar core competencies regardless of terminology.

Yes, most digital marketing agencies specialize in both SEO and social media services, offering comprehensive solutions for improving search rankings and building brand presence on social platforms. They typically have dedicated specialists for each area, ensuring expert implementation of both strategies. Agencies can create integrated campaigns where SEO and social media efforts complement each other, maximizing your online visibility and engagement across multiple channels.

Expectations from Full-Service Digital Marketing Services

Wed, 14 May 2025 20:58:53 GMT

When you decide to hire a full-service digital marketing agency, you're stepping into a world of immense possibilities and a partnership designed to elevate your brand in ways you might not have imagined. It's about more than just outsourcing tasks; it's about collaborating with a team of experienced professionals who are as invested in your success as you are.

From crafting bespoke marketing strategies to offering insightful analyses and creative solutions, here's a glimpse into what you can expect when you make the choice to work with a complete agency like Splurge Media . Let's dive into this journey together, with a promise of transparency, creativity, and purpose-driven results that truly make a difference.

What Is a Full-Service Digital Marketing Agency?

At its core, a full-service digital marketing agency offers a comprehensive suite of services to cover all aspects of a company's online presence. This holistic approach contrasts sharply with niche agencies that focus on specific areas, such as SEO or social media.

Comprehensive Solutions

Full-service means exactly that—full service. From the initial stages of website design and SEO to the complexities of paid advertising and brand management, these agencies handle it all. They ensure that each piece of your online marketing puzzle fits perfectly, creating a cohesive and effective strategy.

At Splurge Media, we take the idea of digital marketing services to a whole new level. It's not just about providing a bouquet of services; it's about weaving those services intricately into the very fabric of your business's core values and long-term goals. This deep integration ensures that every marketing initiative we undertake is far more than just a random attempt; it's a carefully calculated step towards achieving sustainable growth for your business.

We believe in the power of alignment, ensuring that our efforts align with your immediate marketing needs and are strategically poised to propel your brand toward its vision. This approach is what sets Splurge Media apart.

A full-service digital marketing agency like Splurge Media covers various marketing disciplines. Let’s dive deeper into what these services entail:

SEO is the foundation of strong digital visibility. Our team uses advanced, data-driven strategies tailored to your industry to ensure your website ranks higher and attracts high-quality traffic. Content Strategy is about more than just words. We craft compelling, purposeful content that connects with your audience, builds authority, and drives real engagement.

With competition at an all-time high, paid advertising is a fast and effective way to get noticed. We specialize in strategic ad campaigns across Google Ads, Meta Ads, and other platforms, designed to reach the right people at the right time.

Your Social media are powerful storytelling tools. We help you maintain a consistent, engaging presence across platforms — strengthening your brand voice and fostering real relationships with your audience.

Your website often creates the first impression, and with our web design & development services services, we make sure it’s a lasting one. Our team designs and develops responsive, user-friendly websites that reflect your brand and drive conversions.

Email marketing is still one of the most effective ways to build loyalty and keep your audience engaged. We create thoughtful, personalized campaigns that speak directly to your customers and guide them toward action.

A strong brand identity sets you apart. Our creative services go beyond visuals — we help you tell your story with clarity, creativity, and consistency, using compelling visuals and video content that leave a lasting impact.

Marketing success starts with solid systems. With our marketing operations services, we bring structure and clarity to your efforts by building operational frameworks that ensure sustainability and measurable results.

A clear plan leads to clear outcomes. Together, we’ll map out a customized marketing roadmap aligned with your business goals — making every move intentional and impactful.

And We Have More!

Beyond what we've highlighted, we offer a range of additional services designed to elevate your business and help you reach new levels of success.

Check out our complete services !

Here we deliver digital marketing solutions built to grow and scale small and mid-sized businesses, without unnecessary complexity or inflated costs. Our full-service approach is designed to solve your unique business challenges with strategies that feel personalized, purposeful, and easy to understand.

Opting for a full-service agency like Splurge Media brings numerous advantages:

Unified Strategy: A cohesive marketing strategy ensures that all elements of your online presence work together harmoniously, amplifying their effectiveness.
Diverse Expertise: With a team of specialists in various fields under one roof, full-service agencies offer a depth of knowledge and skill that is hard to match independently.
Scalability: As your business grows, so too can your marketing efforts. A full-service agency can adapt and expand its services to meet your evolving needs.
Consistency: Maintaining a consistent brand voice and message across all platforms is crucial. A full-service agency ensures that your brand is represented accurately and compellingly, no matter where it appears.

Selecting the ideal digital marketing agency is more than an operational decision—it's about forging a partnership that will elevate your brand and drive sustainable growth.

The right agency acts as an extension of your team, deeply invested in your success.

When on the lookout for a digital marketing agency, it's crucial to weigh several factors that go beyond the surface level of services provided. Here are the essentials to guide your decision:

Track Record of Success: Investigate the agency's history with clients, especially those in your industry or with similar marketing needs. Success stories and case studies can provide insight into their capabilities and the results they've achieved.
Diversity of Expertise: A robust digital marketing strategy requires proficiency in multiple disciplines, from SEO and content marketing to social media and analytics. Ensure the agency's team has a broad and deep skill set to fully support your marketing objectives.
Alignment with Your Business Goals: Your chosen agency should be eager to understand your company's mission, values, and objectives. A true partner is one that aligns their strategies and tactics with your business goals, ensuring that every marketing effort propels you closer to your vision.
Transparency and Communication: Look for an agency that values open communication and transparency in their strategies, pricing, and reporting. Regular updates and clear, jargon-free discussions about strategies and results are vital for a trusting, productive relationship.

Splurge Media excels in creating a synergistic relationship with clients, characterized by mutual trust and a shared commitment to achieving outstanding results. What sets Splurge Media apart?

Collaborative Partnership: We view our clients as partners, working closely with you to ensure our marketing efforts reflect your brand's voice and vision. Our approach is highly collaborative, involving you in key decisions and strategy development.
Rapid Execution and Adaptability: In the fast-paced digital world, agility is key. Splurge Media is known for rapid execution of strategies and the ability to adapt to market changes, ensuring your business stays ahead of the curve.
Performance-Driven Strategies: Our focus is on delivering measurable results that drive growth. By leveraging data-driven insights and innovative tactics, we tailor our efforts to maximize impact and ROI for your unique business needs.

Ready to elevate your digital marketing?

Contact Splurge Media today to discover how we can help your business thrive in the digital age and don’t forget to follow us on Instagram , Linkedin and Facebook .

Full-service digital marketing from Splurge Media is an all-encompassing suite that addresses every facet of your digital footprint. This includes Search Engine Optimization (SEO) to enhance your visibility online, content strategy to engage and convert your audience, social media management to build community and brand loyalty, web design and development to ensure a seamless user experience, and email marketing to nurture and expand your customer base. Our goal is to provide a holistic approach, ensuring every aspect of your online presence is optimized for success.

If you're aiming to broaden your online presence, seeking expertise in diverse marketing channels, or in need of a unified strategy to streamline your digital activities, partnering with a full-service digital marketing agency like Splurge Media could be the strategic move your business needs. Especially if internal resources are stretched thin or lacking in specific areas of expertise, an agency can fill those gaps and propel your brand forward.

Opting for an agency like Splurge Media brings several key benefits:

Access to a comprehensive team of specialists in various areas of digital marketing, from SEO wizards to content creatives.
Reduced overhead costs compared to expanding an in-house team, including savings on salaries, training, and software subscriptions.
Scalable solutions that adapt to your business's growth and fluctuating market demands, ensuring your marketing efforts are both agile and cost-effective.

The investment in digital marketing services with Splurge Media is tailored to align with your specific needs, the breadth of services required, and the level of expertise provided. We craft customized plans that fit your business's budget and aspirations, ensuring you get maximum value and measurable results from your marketing spend.

Splurge Media utilizes a robust array of analytical tools and software to monitor and measure the success of your marketing initiatives. This includes tracking website traffic, analyzing conversion rates, assessing engagement metrics across social platforms. We prioritize transparency and accountability, offering detailed reports and actionable insights to ensure you're informed and empowered to make data-driven decisions about your marketing strategies.

Best Practices for Videos on Social Media

Mon, 26 Jun 2023 20:52:24 GMT

If you’re looking for a way to improve your small business presence on social media, video content is key. It’s not news that videos have been the best way to reach and engage your audience for the past several years. A recent survey from Wyzowl confirmed that 91% of businesses continue to use video content as a marketing tool in 2023.

That might be because of how videos on social media share relevant information in such a personal and easy-to-understand way. Videos became so popular that almost every social media platform is using them, and there are now platforms dedicated just to videos, like TikTok, which has been growing nonstop. Even Twitter , which is a platform that lasted years without being video-driven, revealed that “tweets with video attracted 10X more engagements than tweets without video”.

So what’s the secret to good video content on social media? I’m Splurge Media’s social media lead, and I’m here to teach you everything you need to know!

What are social media marketing videos?

Social media marketing videos are short videos produced specifically for social media channels to display a product or service in order to engage the audience and increase brand awareness.

Whether it’s showing your product's features, answering questions, giving tips, or sharing behind the scenes content, videos are a flexible and attractive tool to help you grow your business on social media.

In order to achieve the expected results, it’s important to understand that not every video will work on social media. To guarantee that your videos will perform well, they should be tailored and designed specifically for each social platform.

Social media video strategy

Before you start creating videos for social media, it’s important to include the video outlines in your social media strategy. These will help you create relevant and assertive content when the time comes.

A social media strategy is a document where you will add your content ideas and map out your plans and goals for your social channels.

The social media video strategy should include:

Your goals: What you want to accomplish with your video content
Your audience: Who is your target audience for the videos and a research to see where they are more active on...
Your channels: The platforms you want to create videos for
Types of video content: Ideas of videos you want to produce for each channel.

Each platform has a specific type of video content that works best. For example, reaction videos are really popular on TikTok, but don’t work as well on Instagram. Always do some research to understand the platform you’ll be producing content for.

Understanding your customer's needs and wants will also help you determine the type of content you want to create. Consider your audience strongly when mapping out your yearly social media plan.

Creating videos for social media

Once you have everything planned, it’s time to start creating videos!

It’s important to understand that the equipment you use for video content doesn’t have to be professional. Most cellphones have great video quality and are more than enough to create a great video. If you want to invest in some equipment, we recommend some good lighting tools and a microphone.

Keep in mind that videos for social media need to be short. According to Hubspot the ideal video length for each platform is:

Instagram: 30 seconds
Twitter: 45 seconds
Facebook: 1 minute
Youtube: 2 minutes

According to Flixier , the ideal length for a TikTok video is between 15 and 60 seconds.

You should also explore all the features that your phone and some apps offer in order to create unique and creative content. Check out the infographic below to see some other tips and best practices when shooting your social media videos:

Social media video production

These tips should help you start creating video content that will scale your business on social media. Need help with your social media videos? We have an in-house social media team that can help you create quality video content to promote your small business online.

When you’re ready to get started, get in touch with us for a free discovery call. We’re ready to launch your social media strategy and take your social media video content to the next level!

How to Leverage Local SEO for Small Businesses

Mon, 17 Apr 2023 20:44:27 GMT

As a small business owner, your primary goal is to get more sales and revenue. You want your business to be found on the search engine results page, compete with your local and larger competitors, and build trust and credibility with potential customers. However, you probably need help figuring out where to start. That's where local SEO for small businesses comes in.

What is Local SEO?

Local SEO is a step-by-step process of optimizing a website and its online presence to attract more local customers and increase visibility in local search results. It involves a set of techniques and strategies to improve a website's ranking in local search results, such as Google Maps, Google My Business, Yelp, Bing Places, and other local directories.

Local SEO for small businesses typically involves optimizing a website's content, meta tags, URLs, and backlinks with relevant local keywords and location-based information. It also involves managing and optimizing a business's online reputation, encouraging customer reviews, and ensuring consistent and accurate information across all online platforms.

Why is Local SEO Important?

According to a recent survey , 58% of users search for products online daily, and 89% hunt for one or more items weekly. Among them, 72% of the people choose a store within a periphery of five miles. In addition, a local SEO for small businesses incorporates a regional collaboration. People with the same interests participate, discuss, and mingle on your social media page, service page, blog page, or the forum page of your business.

According to BrightLocal's most recent local consumer survey , 76% of users read online reviews when browsing for local businesses. Local SEO is non-negotiable for small businesses because, in the long run, it helps attract more local customers who are likely to visit your physical location or purchase online.

Here is why local SEO is necessary for small businesses:

Increases visibility on SERPs: Local SEO for small businesses helps your business appear in local search results, which means more people will see your business online.

Build Trust and Boosts Credibility: When your business appears in local search results, it adds credibility, making people more likely to trust and engage with it.

Attracts more customers: Local SEO helps attract more local customers who are more likely to purchase your products or services.

Increases online and offline sales: Local SEO for small businesses helps drive more customers to your website and physical location, which can result in more sales.

Lowering marketing costs: Local SEO is more cost-effective than other forms of advertising, such as print or TV ads, and delivers better results.

Now that you understand why local SEO is essential for small businesses let's consider how to implement it.

How To Setup and Optimize Your Website with Better Local SEO?

Step 1: Claim and Optimize Your Business on Google Business Profile

Google Business Profile provides a free tool to create and manage your local business listing online. By claiming and optimizing your Google Business profile, you can help your business appear in local search results and Google Maps. Then, you turn people who find your business online into loyal customers.

To claim your Google Business Profile, follow these steps:

Go to Google Business Profile and sign in with your Google account.
Click "Get started" and enter your business name and address.
Choose the appropriate category for your business and add your phone number and website.
Verify your business by mail, phone, or email.

Once you've verified your business, you can add more information to your Google My Business listing, such as photos, hours of operation, booking URLs and reviews.

Optimizing your Google My Business listing will help your web pages rank higher in local search results, so be sure to provide as much information as possible and keep it up to date.

Step 2: Optimize Your Website for Local SEO

Your website is a crucial part of your local SEO strategy. Optimizing your web pages for local SEO can help your business appear on the search results page and attract more local customers.

Here is how you can optimize your website for local SEO:

Include your business name, address, and phone number (NAP) on every page of your website.
Use local keywords in your website, such as city or neighborhood name.
Create location-specific pages on your website for each of your physical locations.
Include customer reviews and testimonials on your website, as they can help boost your credibility and attract more customers.
Ensure your website is mobile-friendly, as many people search for products and services on their smartphones.
Use proper structured data or schema markup to help search engines understand your website content and improve your visibility in search results.

Step 3: Build Local Citations and Backlinks

Local citations and backlinks are essential for local SEO. A citation is any mention of your business's name, address, and phone number on other websites, while a backlink is a link from another website to your website. Both can help improve your business's visibility in local search results.

To build local citations and backlinks, you can do the following:

Submit your business to online directories like Yelp, Yellow Pages, and Angie's List. Make sure your NAP is consistent across all directories.
Get listed in local business associations, chambers of commerce, and other local organizations.
Contact local bloggers and journalists and ask them to feature your business in their content.
Guest post on other local business websites and include a link back to your website.
Sponsor local events or charities and get listed on their websites.
Ask customers to leave reviews on Google My Business and other review sites.

Building local citations and backlinks takes time but can significantly improve your business's visibility in local search results. However, some time-saving platforms can help you submit your business thoughts to all the available business listing directories based on your product or service categories. You can edit your business information in one place and get consistent and correct business data in all directories simultaneously.

Here are our top 5 Essential Local SEO & Listing Management Platforms

Semrush Semrush provides full-featured Local SEO solutions. You can submit your business automatically to the most authoritative directories(70+ for the US, 40+ for other countries). The local listing starts from $20/month.
Yext Yext offers various local SEO solutions for your business by integrating with hundreds of local directories. You can manage your web page and customer review from a single dashboard. Pricing starts from $16/month.
BrightLocal BrightLocal is a comprehensive local listing and rank-tracking tool that allows you to check your local listing health and optimize for better ranking. For a single business, pricing starts from $29/month.
Moz Local Moz Local SEO tool is one of the most popular platforms that allow you to check missing listing opportunities and ensure your online listings are current and consistent. You can also monitor and manage reviews from a single dashboard. Moz Local Plans start from $14/month.
Whitspark Whitspark is another popular Local SEO tool well known for being local rank tracking and reputation builder. It offers three free searches/per day. Small business local citation plan starts from $33/month.

Step 4: Use Social Media for Local SEO

Social media can also help improve your business's local SEO. Creating and optimizing social media profiles for your business can attract more local customers and improve your online presence.

Here are some valuable tips for using social media for local SEO:

Create and optimize social media profiles for your business on platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.
Post regularly on social media and include local keywords in your posts.
Use local hashtags to make your posts more discoverable to local customers.
Interact with other local businesses and organizations on social media to increase your visibility.
Use social media to promote local events or promotions and attract more customers.

Social media can help your business reach a broader audience and attract more local customers, so make sure to include it in your local SEO strategy.

Step 5: Monitor and Analyze Your Local SEO Efforts

Finally, monitoring and analyzing your local SEO efforts is essential to see what's working and what's not. You can make informed decisions about your local SEO strategy by tracking your website traffic, search rankings, and online reviews.

Here are some tools and metrics to track your local SEO efforts:

Google Analytics: Track website traffic, user behavior, and conversions on your website.

Google Search Console: Monitor your website's search performance and identify issues that may be affecting your visibility in search results.

Google My Business Insights: Track how customers are finding and interacting with your Google My Business listing.

Online review sites: Monitor and respond to customer reviews on Google My Business, Yelp, and other review sites.

If you regularly monitor and analyze local SEO efforts, you can adjust and improve your strategy and continue attracting more local customers.

The last word on local SEO for small business

Local SEO is essential for small business success, particularly if you have a physical location. By claiming and optimizing your Google Business profile, optimizing your website for local SEO, building local citations and backlinks, using social media for local SEO, and monitoring and analyzing your efforts, you can attract more local customers and improve your online presence. It may take time and effort, but the benefits of local SEO are well worth it for small business owners.

If you are overwhelmed in completing the process mentioned above, feel free to contact us today to get started with Local SEO for your business. Our SEO experts are here to help.

SEO vs. PPC: Understand, Compare, and Decide Which is Best for Your Brand

Wed, 22 Mar 2023 20:14:13 GMT

Online search is part of our daily life. Right? Can you imagine Google processes 3.5B+ searches every day? That’s 40,000 per second. As a business owner, how do you want to get your brand noticed in this ever-changing online world? If you want to dive deep, compare, and choose which is best for your brand, SEO vs. PPC, then you will enjoy this blog post. Similarly, you will explore organic and paid traffic insights where they fit within your overall marketing plan.

SEO vs. PPC: Where to begin

Entrepreneurs and business owners often ask, "SEO vs. PPC, Which is better for my Brand?” This question is not easy, and you can not generalize this answer because it depends on a particular business case, including the current situation, objectives, and marketplace.

So, before deciding whether to do SEO, PPC, or both, you must develop a detailed, in-depth understanding of these two search marketing approaches.

Let's jump into the definition, features, advantages, and drawbacks of SEO and pay-per-click (PPC) to develop the perfect marketing strategy and include tips for selecting the right digital marketing channel for your business. Moreover, look at where organic and paid search results are suitable. And how to enable an integrated marketing approach with SEO and PPC for improved results from your search marketing efforts.

What is SEO?

Many SEO (Search Engine Optimization) experts have defined SEO as creating any website as a search engine friendly platform that ensures its visibility, ranking, and ability to earn organic traffic. Similarly, we say SEO is a set of activities that improves the user experience and ranking of the desired web pages in the organic search result.

For example, you often search on Google or Bing for any information, service, or product, such as where to get the best pizza, and your customers do the same in their daily life. So, if you invest your resources in SEO, the chances increase that your target audience finds your brand while they search with a relevant search term related to your product or service. In reality, 61% of marketers treat SEO as a top inbound marketing method for their business.

Tips to Get Started with SEO:

If you simply follow a few steps, it will help you improve your website's SEO score. So, to get started with your SEO practice following tips will guide you:

Ensure your website content is clear, concise, and helpful for the audience.
Make your topic simple, easy to understand, and reader-friendly.
Understand the user intent and use keywords relevant to your offerings in your web content.
Although it's a best practice to include keywords in your web copy, overuse of keywords is known as keyword stuffing . It may lead to Google treating your content as deceptive and downgrading your site.
Focus on users, what will be the easiest for them to navigate, and deliver the highest value.

Keep in mind that SEO boosts organic search ranking, and organic traffic is free. Similarly, optimizing your website for a search engine can significantly improve your S ERP position over time. So, keep learning how a search engine works for organic results and increase your site's online visibility.

Here's an example of SEO in Practice.

In the screenshot below, Splurge Media appears at the top of Google's organic search results for the search term "marketing agency for small business in New Jersey." As a result of our SEO strategy, we have earned first place in the local search results.

However, the SERP outcome is not arbitrary. Each search engine considers various ranking factors to determine the sequential position of the desired actors that influence a web page's placement. So, your SEO strategy should create web pages and content aligning with the search engine ranking algorithms to get a higher position in the SERP.

Four Pillars of SEO:

1. Keyword Research

Understanding search intent is crucial in the keyword research process. So, understanding the words and phrases (keywords) your target audiences use when they are searching, and targeting those keywords on a specific page, is known as keyword research. SEO professionals often use keyword research tools like SEMRush’s Keywords Magic Tool to see monthly search volume, keywords difficulty, search intent, SERP features, and so on for particular keywords.

2. On-page SEO

When activities occur within the webpage to create high-quality, authentic, and helpful content that searchers are actively looking for on the web. Here you need to understand why users are typing the query. It is called search intent and works as the foundation of SEO activities.

For instance, when people search for "how to make a pizza," they intend to find a step-by-step tutorial on making a pizza in the search results as they want to learn it. Alternatively, someone searching for "best pizza delivery near me" wants to find a pizza delivery service for ordering the pizza. So, your content and user experience should match the searcher's intent.

On-page SEO Involves the Following Basic Steps:

Strategically placing targeted keywords in the content
Writing compelling Meta Titles, Meta Description , and Heading Tags
Creating short but meaningful URLs.
Optimizing image Alt Tags .

3. Off-page SEO

Off-page SEO is all about building your website's authority, and these activities happen outside your website. If you can build authority in your specific industry or niche, then Google will place your webpage higher on the search results.

You should build high-quality backlinks from authoritative websites to improve your website's authority. It plays a crucial role as backlinks act as votes from another website, and still, it is one of the top ranking factors of Google.

4. Technical SEO

You’ve completed keyword research, on-page and off-page SEO, but if a search engine can't find, crawl and index your website, you will have no results. This is critical for your SEO success because your website needs to be search engine friendly and technical error-free to earn ranking. Suppose we block the search bot from crawling this article in the robot.txt file; it will never crawl, index, or appear on the search results.

Besides Google, you will find many other search engines like Bing, Yahoo, DuckDuckGo, Yandex, Baidu, etc., but most SEO practices focus on Google. Google captured 92.47% of the search engine market share. So, Google's 200 ranking factors, content creation, backlink building, technical SEO, and relevant tactics are also worth learning to get a higher position on the SERP and earn free organic traffic.

Pros of SEO

Before investing in SEO, you should be clear about its benefits to your brand. So, let's discuss and understand some mentionable advantages of SEO vs. PPC that can increase organic traffic to your website.

1. SEO is Cost Effective in the Long Run.

Although we say SEO is free, it is not. Marketers don't need to pay directly to anyone for organic traffic. It does not mean it is free of cost. SEO requires time and money, such as payment to freelancers or digital marketing agencies, web services, SEO tools, reporting tools, and much more. Even if you must invest significant time and money in SEO, it is still cheaper than paid advertising (PPC) in the long term.

So, getting a top ranking on the SERP increases the chances of driving huge organic traffic to your website, and you don't need to keep spending money for a single organic click. In contrast, you must pay for every click in the PPC campaign. Overall, organic traffic is scalable and cost-effective for a brand.

2. SEO Allows You to Target Different Levels of the Sales Funnel.

You can examine that your audiences do not belong to the same stage of the sales funnel. Some are just becoming aware of your brand at the top of the sales funnel. On the other hand, some are already at the bottom of the funnel, ready to place their order.

With a suitable SEO strategy, you can produce different types of content, such as blog posts, buying guides, case studies, and more which will meet the expectation of your audience at a different level of the sales funnel. Ultimately this enhances the users' experiences and boosts your website for getting visitors to the next stage of the sales funnel.

3. SEO or Organic Traffic is More Stable.

When your website ranks on Google, you should consistently optimize to receive free organic traffic. Remember, there is no instant on or off button for SEO traffic, which is the most exciting benefit of SEO. In a PPC campaign, if you pause or the budget crosses the limit, your search visibility will stop immediately. So, metaphorically, we can say SEO is similar to owning search traffic, whereas PPC is similar to renting traffic.

4. Organic Search Ranking Builds Brand Authority.

Your target audience will trust your brand, and your website will build authority if your product and services consistently appear in the search results for related keywords.

Similarly, if you comply with Google's latest update to search quality rating guidelines: E-E-A-T (which stands for Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness), Google will signify your content and treat you as an expert on that domain. As a result, you will earn more backlinks from other high-authority websites, which is still one of the most valued ranking factors.

Cons of SEO

There are also some drawbacks to SEO. Let's understand and discuss some of the mentionable disadvantages of SEO that you need to consider before jumping in.

1. Search Engine Algorithms Rollout.

Search engines like Google continuously update their algorithms . Some updates roll out monthly, some take several months, and even some updates take place over a year. These algorithm updates have minor or major effects on your search engine appearance. So, you need to observe these changes closely and tailor your marketing strategy accordingly to get desired organic traffic.

2. Search Engine Optimization Never Ends.

SEO is not a one-time shot; when your website ranks for your targeted keywords for a certain period, that is not the end of the SEO game. If you want to keep that ranking position on the SERP over time, you'll have to continue optimization work for the content and the web pages. For example, you might write new fresh articles, update the old ones, add new links, or remove old or expired ones.

3. SEO Results Take Time.

SEO campaigns take at least 3 to 6 months to get the desired outcome, as you need to work on many important ranking factors. For example, a new website or domain will not enjoy instant organic traffic from your SEO activities. Moreover, SEO competitive Audit can be a handy tool for estimating time and effort to get the expected results. So, SEO pays off in the long run. Don’t expect your desired SEO results overnight.

4. SEO Requires High-level Skills and Expertise.

When not hiring an SEO professional, you should better understand your target audience's search intent, needs, and goals. Similarly, you need to meet your target audience's expectations with high-quality content and optimize your website to deliver an excellent user experience for search engine results.

As an entrepreneur or business owner, SEO activities are time-consuming and stressful to operate a business while performing technical SEO, content writing, web designing, link building, etc. However, if your budget permits, you can hire a freelancer or a digital marketing agency, like Splurge Media, to take your SEO campaign to the next level.

How SEO Supports Your Business

SEO supports almost any business to get organic search traffic to their website. Similarly, there is no surprise that organic search is your website's most prominent source of traffic. How SEO supports a business depends on many factors, such as the business goals, nature, scope, business model, market competition, and much more.

For instance, if you run a local business like lawn care services, then local SEO strategy will be very helpful in driving qualified traffic, and potential leads for your business. Similarly, if you run an affiliate site, buying guides and product review-type content will drive affiliate sales and commission income more effectively.

When Is It Best To Use SEO?

Let's go through some circumstances when SEO would be the most effective tactic for any online business.

1. For Consistent Results.

SEO campaigns take a relatively long period to pay off. Because getting to the first page or top 10 results on the SERP does not usually happen overnight, or even within a week, you should consider that appearing on the top of the search results will take a significant amount of time. However, when your website ranks for certain keywords by doing SEO, you will enjoy continuous traffic as long as you keep doing your optimization activities. So, you will stay on top for a long time and enjoy the benefits of long-term organic traffic by running your SEO campaign with maintenance, improvement, and adjustment.

2. To Build Website Authority.

It is not easy to build an authoritative website. You must develop an established resource center within a particular niche or industry to grow an authority website.

When a target audience of a specific niche needs relevant information, the website works as the "go-to" information hub. Once the website becomes popular, it will drive a lot of organic traffic based on the URL recall only.

If you can sustainably grow organic traffic to your pages, it will help your website build user trust and high authority backlinks (votes) from other reputed websites. Thus this is the best practice to establish a niche-specific authority website that becomes popular over time for its high-quality content and dominates the market share.

3. To Increase the Website Value.

Websites are treated as virtual property, similar to real estate property. When your main goal is to sell your website for a premium price on the website flipping market, you must increase the value of your web property. Moreover, you need to consider various factors that directly and indirectly contribute to improving the value of a website.

These factors include generated organic traffic, page rank, backlinks, referring domains, spam score, traffic consistency, change of search engine ranking in a specific time range, etc. All of these factors are crucial to building and maintaining an authoritative website.

Remember, SEO is not free; producing and promoting high-quality content requires lots of time and tremendous hard work. So, you must assess the value properly to determine a realistic premium price for the market.

What is PPC?

PPC (Pay-Per-Click) is one of the most popular forms of Search Engine Advertising (SEA), where an advertiser pays the advertising platform (such as Google or Bing, or Facebook) for every click when someone makes a click on an online advertisement. So, this SEA model allows advertisers to pay only when users actively click on the ads. Similarly, Social Media ads also fall into this category of online paid advertising.

PPC ads will help you attract people actively searching for your products or services and interested in your offers. Moreover, you can target the audience at the bottom of the sales funnel and are often ready to convert. For example, when you search with keywords, you will see relevant ads first on the SERP marked as "sponsored" rather than organic search results. You should choose the ad settings, bid strategy, budgets, ad copy, and so on based on your PPC campaign goals and objectives. Moreover, you should align your PPC campaign goals and objectives with the overall marketing strategy.

Remember that the cost of PPC ads varies from industry to industry, your targeted keyword's search volume, and market competition.

Tips to Get Started with PPC:

Let's go through what Google PPC advertising typically involves:

1. Keyword Research

Google PPC ads start with keyword research, and you should choose a group of similar keywords to the target audience of a particular ad group. Similar to SEO, the search intent of keywords plays a crucial role in a PPC campaign. So, you need to identify commercial, transactional, and navigational search intent to maximize the conversion rate by targeting the bottom of sales funnel traffic.

2. Budget and Bid Strategy

You should select your bid for the ads auction at the bid setting level. This is a critical decision for an advertiser because you must decide on the bid, which means how much money you are willing to pay Google ads platform for an ad click. Remember, if your competitors outperform your bid, your ads will not appear on the Google SERP. So, your ads will get fewer clicks or no clicks at all.

3. Ad Creation

Ad creation involves writing compelling ad copy, adding CTAs (call to action), displaying URLs, destination URLs, ad extensions, and so on. For example, when users' search intent aligns with the ad copy, they will likely click on it and arrive at the landing page to take the desired action.

For example, if you search on Google with the query "digital marketing agency," you will see ads at the top of the Google search results page marked as "sponsored," When you click any ads, it will take you to the landing page.

After gathering enough data, Google will assign your published ads a Quality Score (QS). This QS indicates how relevant and useful your ads are to the audience and what user experience your ad copy and landing page serves. Usually, with higher Quality Scores, your ads will appear more often on the search results, and you need to pay less than other competitors for each click.

4. Audience Targeting

Audience targeting is very important to set up a PPC ads campaign that should decide who will use your ads on the SERP. It gives a power of control to the advertiser where you can target the audience based on who they are, where they are, what they are interested in, and so on. For example, you can target an audience based on their current location, such as New Jersey, and your ads will only be shown to those currently in that area.

Pros of PPC

PPC is one of the most popular modes of paid advertising, also known as search engine advertising. You can ask, why is PPC so popular with the advertiser? To answer the question, let's discuss and understand some remarkable advantages of PPC below.

1. PPC Offers Instant Results.

When you spend your money on a PPC campaign, you will see immediate results from your ads just after a few hours of starting the Campaign. On the other hand, your SEO campaign can take months to see the expected results from its investment. So, PPC has become popular among advertisers for its instant outcomes.

2. PPC Ads Appear Above Organic Results.

PPC ads are always displayed on the top of the search results page for your targeted keywords, allowing you to show your website links above the organic search results. Interestingly, many average web users don't know about it and can't distinguish between paid and organic search results. So, your audience notices your website link first and clicks it before scrolling down the search results page.

3. PPC Allows Better Audience Targeting.

Audience targeting is one of the greatest advantages of any PPC campaign. While you set up a PPC campaign, you can select different audience segments for targeting. So, you can target people based on their demographic and psychographic data, such as a specific geographic area, age group, income group, marital status, interest, behavior, and many more.

4. A/B Testing on PPC Ads is Easy and Fast.

Running an A/B test is crucial for online advertising. You can create two ads versions and run them simultaneously to measure performance and identify better converting ads. You have to make variations between two ads by changing some ad elements, such as the ad copy (headline and description), and enabling them to run to their relative performance for a while. After observing their performance, you can pause one ad or continue the optimization process for better results.

Cons of PPC

If you don't have proper knowledge, skills, and experience, don't go for PPC; otherwise, it will be like gambling. Consequently, you will lose your ad budget for nothing. Let's understand and discuss the worth mentionable drawbacks of PPC before spending your money on it:

1. PPC Ads are Costly.

Without spending money for a PPC campaign, your ads will not run for a second. There is no exception that you must pay for each ad when visitors click on it, and when your ad budget is finished, your traffic will stop immediately.

When you run ads in a highly competitive industry such as legal or insurance, you will face the Cost Per Click (CPC) of a PPC ad can be very high, like $40.

2. Paid Ads Lowers Profit Margins.

Although there is no significant price hike for your products and services, your Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) can keep going higher. As a result, a PPC campaign might be profitable in the short term, ultimately resulting in lower profit margins in the long run.

3. PPC Ads Become Stale Over Time.

Remember that you have limited control over your PPC ads Campaign because ad platforms like Google set all the rules, regulations, and terms of service. For instance, only the highest bid for your ad does not ensure that your ad will appear on the search results page. Similarly, you must follow certain guidelines to get your ad approved by the platform.

How PPC Works for Your Businesses

Pay Per Click ads allows the advertiser to show their advertising on the search results page of search engines like Google or Bing to drive targeted search traffic to their website's landing page by paying money.

For example, Google search results for "pet sitting and dog walking services"

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In the above screenshot of the search engine results page, you will have a chance to get even top organic search results if you can optimize your PPC ads properly, which can lead to highly targeted traffic, qualified leads, and a better conversion rate. So, using PPC search advertising, you can have a better ROI for your business.

When Is It Appropriate To Use PPC?

Do you need to understand when to use PPC advertising to grow your business? Let's go through some circumstances below when PPC would benefit your online business more.

1. For Immediate Results.

PPC is the best choice to drive fast results. When Google approves your PPC campaign, and your bids are high enough to overcome the competition to ensure priority placement, you will instantly appear for many targeted audiences. So, your PPC campaign allows you to get instant traffic.

When you want to run campaigns for a new product launch, squeeze pages, CPA marketing or affiliate marketing, seasonal promotion, event-focused marketing, online shop and more, PPC campaigns work amazingly to get instant traffic.

2. For Highly Targeted Traffic.

You will have control over the PPC marketing audience to narrow your potential customers based on their demographic data. Similarly, many PPC platforms, such as social media sites, allow you to filter target audiences based on age group, gender, income level, education level, marital status, and even interest in showing your ad. So, you can run highly targeted ads using PPC advertising platforms.

3. To Promote a Time-sensitive Offer.

In marketing communication like advertising, urgency plays a crucial role in pursuing the desired action by the target audience. For instance, when you see an ad for an event happening soon on a particular date, most likely, you will see a countdown timer asking you to book your place earlier. Similarly, if you plan to run ads with an expiration date for products, services, or events, a PPC campaign would be appropriate for these time-sensitive offers as it can drive immediate results.

4. When SEO is not Feasible.

If you plan SEO, you need regularly updated and optimized content-rich websites to get a higher rank on the search engine result page. However, there are some websites not designed for SEO purposes. For instance, squeeze pages are not created with high-quality content and are optimized for SEO purposes. So, PPC campaigns would be a great option for these websites to drive traffic from paid advertising.

5. To Dominate Search Market for Target Keywords.

PPC ads are displayed above the organic search results on the SERP. Searchers often do not bother to scroll down the search results page, so it’s no surprise that 50% of search traffic clicks on the top 3 sponsored links. If you do not bid for those clicks, you will fall behind your competitors and miss the chance to maximize your click-share for keywords you target for your business. So, you should invest in PPC ads.

SEO or PPC: Which is Better for Your Business?

You should consider two key differences when choosing SEO or PPC. Firstly, paid ads appear at the top of the page, even above the organic search results from SEO. Secondly, the organic traffic as a result of SEO is free, but traffic from PPC is not free, and you need to pay for every click.

So which is a better option for your business, SEO or PPC? A quick answer to this question is that it depends on the situation in which you run your business.

Every business has a unique situation, and based on the conditions, SEO can be better than PPC and the other way around.

Let's go through some situations where SEO works better than PPC.

Go for an SEO campaign if:

Your company has a low marketing budget.
You plan to build your brand authority in a particular niche or industry.
Your goal is to maximize return on investment (ROI) in the long run.
You plan to create content targeting audiences at different sales funnel levels.
Check out the following situations where PPC would bring better results than SEO

Go for a PPC campaign if:

Your business requires quick results for search traffic.
You plan to launch novel products or innovative products launched for the first time in the market.
You offer a time-sensitive product or service, such as Black Friday Sales.
You want to take your audience to a product page or landing page.

SEO and PPC: The Benefits of Running SEO and PPC in an Integrated Approach

Earlier in this article, we reviewed the pros and cons of SEO and PPC. Moreover, we now understand that they yield the best results when they support each other and synergize. If you can manage to run SEO and PPC campaigns together, you will have far better results than choosing either.

Check out The benefits of running SEO and PPC together:

The organic search takes a long time, so you can get keyword and conversion data from PPC as it shows immediate results.
Targeting high-performing keywords in PPC and SEO would increase the total traffic volume.
Moving high-volume or low-converting (important) keywords and high-cost keywords targeting from paid to organic traffic would be a cost-effective approach.
Insights from ad copy and landing pages A/B testing data can be utilized for your organic listing and landing page optimization.
Remarketing in paid advertising is a fantastic tool that allows you to show ads when visitors leave your website after an initial touch point using organic search and show customized ad copy to engage the audience on another site. It helps the audience to recall your ads around the web.
Another cool benefit is that you can experiment with your keyword strategy in PPC ads and take the successful strategy to a long-term SEO campaign.
With an integrated approach, you can target the audience at all stages of the sales funnel or customer buying journey from awareness, interest and evaluation, desire, and finally, to action with different keywords search intent.
You can gain users' trust and build authority by securing strong visibility on paid and organic search results.

In our experience with over a hundred Digital Marketing projects, an integrated search marketing strategy focusing on SEO and PPC would have optimal results from search traffic. A business should develop a holistic search engine marketing strategy rather than focusing on SEO or PPC separately.

SEO vs. PPC: Statistics

SEO Statistics

Here are some useful SEO statistics taken from Hubspot Blog :

Google alone generates over 92.47% of web traffic globally.
Content quality matters because 90.63% of web content receives no traffic from Google search, and only 0.21% receives over 1000 monthly visits.
In 2020, 35.18% of web-based Google organic searches got a link click.
The percentage of 99.2 website pages has less than 100 backlinks.
Over 5.6 billion searches every day, or 2 trillion searches yearly are processed by Google.
SEO gets 64% of active investment by marketers.

PPC Statistics

Let's go through some remarkable PPC statistics below taken from Hubspot Blog :

Globally 90% of internet users can be reached by Google Display Network.
The spending on Search advertising was $58 billion in 2020, but in 2021 it increased to $144.8 billion.
In Google Ads, the maximum average monthly cost-per-click (CPC) is $18.57/Click in the insurance industry.
In the electronics industry, the minimum CPC at 77 cents/click in Google Ads.
Across all industries, the average Facebook Ads Click-Through Rate (CTR) is 1.1%.

Frequently Asked Questions for SEO Vs. PPC:

1. How is Ranking Different When Comparing PPC vs. SEO?

SEO results are organic, and there are 200 ranking factors that determine the SEO ranking, such as high-quality content, metadata optimization, targeting relevant keywords, solving technical issues, backlinks, and many more.

On the other hand, PPC ads appear as "sponsored" at the top of search engines above organic results. Paid ads rank depends on keyword relevancy, enough budget, and an appropriate landing page that provides a better user experience.

2. How Does PPC Affect SEO?

If you use PPC ads, it will help you to discover untapped and important keywords for your particular niche or industry. It also helps you dominate the search results if you organically earn top ranks, increasing the click share.

3. Is PPC Better Than SEO?

PPC and SEO each have their advantages and disadvantages. So, neither PPC nor SEO can be better than the other because they are two different search marketing approaches. However, there are many case studies on these approaches, and we can say they bring the best results when they work together.

4. What is the Key Difference Between SEO and PPC?

The major difference between PPC and SEO is the cost of running these two search marketing approaches. The organic traffic from SEO is free, whereas you have to pay to show your PPC ads in the search results.

5. Why do SEO and Paid Search Matter?

Both Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Paid Search (PPC) are two types of Search Engine Marketing (SEM), and they work in different ways to get search traffic. It’s no surprise that 93% of online user experiences begin with a search. For this reason, marketers want to show their brands either way. However, showing your brand in both ways will gain our trust and build authority in your particular niche or industry.

Final Thoughts

Whether you choose SEO, PPC, or both, ultimately depends on your business goals. So, evaluate the pros and cons of SEO and PPC to see which best fits your digital marketing strategy. For instance, if you want to gain leads quickly, then PPC advertising is an ideal choice. Alternatively, if you want to improve your online presence long-term, perhaps SEO is the better option.

I believe that both SEO and PPC are crucial and complementary parts of an online marketing strategy. However, the choice is yours. If you need an expert opinion, contact Splurge Media , a trusted digital marketing company in New Jersey, to learn more about SEO and PPC advertising.

Recession-Proof Marketing Strategies for 2023

Thu, 16 Feb 2023 20:09:00 GMT

According to Bloomberg’s December 2022 survey of economists, there’s about a 70 p er cent chance that the US will end up in a recession this year. Recessions are notoriously hard on businesses, especially those not prepared or willing to invest in sustainable growth during an economic downturn.

So what does that mean for businesses, and how can they prepare? We’ve compiled a guide for navigating economic uncertainty and formulating a marketing strategy during recessions. Keep reading for everything you need to do to keep your business viable, and potentially even on track for growth this year.

First, what constitutes a recession, and what does it mean for businesses?

Recession is an economic term defined as a continuous decline in GDP (Gross Domestic Product) for 2 or more consecutive quarters. You might recall the great recession of 2007-2009, which totaled more than 15 quarters of economic shrinkage in the US. So what happened to businesses during that time?

Small businesses were hit the hardest, and commercial lending was slashed. Fewer businesses hired employees, and the unemployment rate increased as the GDP decreased. Businesses struggled to stay profitable, and some struggled to even stay afloat for those rocky 15 quarters. An estimated 1.8 m illion small and medium-sized businesses closed in the first two years of that recession.

But some small businesses actually grew. And some remained stable enough to rebound after the recession ended, growing more profitable after the recession ended. Their secret? Preparing for the forecasted recession ahead of time and creating marketing and financial plans to accommodate it.

Marketing during a recession: ten tips to help you maintain and grow

Since another recession is likely approaching, now is the time to start planning your recession proof strategies for managing and growing your business. Here are a few tips to help you outlast, and maybe even grow through, the upcoming recession without increasing marketing spending:

1.If you haven’t begun already, start your data analytics now . Consider your current marketing strategy and find out what’s working for you, and what’s not. It can also be a good idea to analyze what your competitors are doing, and what their shortfalls are. Take advantage of marketing analytics by filling in the marketing gaps that your competitors are missing. It can also be a good tactic to ask your customers directly about their needs with customer surveys .

2. Marketing during a recession doesn’t mean cutting marketing costs completely, especially when it comes to your long term goals and efforts. Don’t diest from long term strategies, especially if the data shows that they’re working for your business. It is possible to grow during a recession, but that depends on your willingness to continue investing where it counts, and your ability to manage capital when cash flow declines.

3. Be accessible to your online audience and prioritize customer service . 72 percent of consumers say they’d refer a friend to a business that offers a great customer experience. Today’s consumer values good customer service highly, and has an abundance of options when it comes to who they want to do business with. Word-of-mouth marketing and customer reviews are very effective for gaining your audience’s trust, especially when money’s tight.

4. Sim plify your mess aging . By simplify, I don’t mean modify or stray from your message and values. But during a recession, every dollar counts for your customer base. Keep your messaging clear and simple, and lead with the value offer. If your business offers several different products or services, make it clear to your audience what’s what, so they can decide what they need from you.

5. Evaluate the three P’s: pr oduct, pricing, and prom otion . Consider whether your products or services are still doing well with your target market. Then, consider whether your price point is in line with your competitors, and whether it needs to be adjusted. Finally, think about the way you promote your products and services. Do you need to adjust your messaging? Is it still relevant to the buyer? If you decide to adjust your pricing, do you need to promote your new pricing? Considering these factors is important for keeping you in touch with the customers that have supported you in the past, and might even help you reach a new audience.

6. Take advantage of social media. If you’re running your social media platforms in-house, this can be a cost-effective way to continue reaching your base and new audiences within your marketing budgets. Telling the world what your business is planning through social media is free and can be very effective. Make sure you have a unified online presence and are taking advantage of the r ight social media platforms for your target audience.

7. Make sure your website is search engine optimized and reaches the audience you intend it to. A simple site audit and some fine tuning can help you reach many more potential customers, for a small fee. Once your site is optimized, it will rank higher on search engine results pages and be more accessible to the audience you’re trying to reach.

8. Similarly, if you’re using Google Ads or another advertising platform, make sure you’re filtering out negative keywords and only targeting data-driven keywords. This way, you’ll generate targeted traffic that is ready to make a purchase.

9. Lean on email marketing. If you’re an established business, chances are you can leverage a database of existing customer contact information. Email marketing can be a cheap and easy way to let your customers know what your business is promoting, and how it can continue to add value to customers’ lives during uncertain economic times. Marketing campaigns are easy to create with free campaign building tools like Mail Chimp and Canva.

Let us show you how to market during a recession

If you’re overwhelmed by the prospect of an impending recession, let us help.

Now is the time to start preparing for a recession in 2023, even if you’re not sure we’ll enter a recession in 2023, 70 percent of Americans believe it’s coming. That means whether or not you’re preparing for difficult economic times ahead, your customers are.

Don’t wait to start preparing for the future. If you need help with analytics, SEO, or building an effective marketing strategy for your business, get in touch with us today . We’ll help you determine what’s already working for you, and which services can position you for long term success, recession or not.

These Small Business Marketing Trends Are Dominating 2023

Wed, 25 Jan 2023 18:39:11 GMT

2022 has been an exciting year for small business marketing trends as businesses continue to adjust to changes in consumer habits and online shopping behavior. While shoppers tighten up their spending habits and we enter unsteady economic territory, the right marketing services can ensure small businesses that they’re still reaching that target audience.

Our team at Splurge Media investigated 2022 small business marketing trends and reflected on what we expect to see in 2023 and beyond. Keep reading for more insights on the role of social media, consumer spending habits, building a brand persona and more.

What were the small business marketing trends in 2022?

You probably won’t be surprised to learn some of the trends in consumer habits and marketing this year. Here are a few examples:

While consumer spending is down, it’s only down slightly while consumers battle inflation challenges.
More online shoppers than ever before are interacting with brands through their mobile devices only. 56% of consumers use a mobile device to search for businesses online. Millennials were the most likely group to use mobile for online searches, coming in at 74%.
Social media gained credibility as a viable online marketplace for many businesses. Consumers tended to give strong consideration to brands they heard about through word of mouth and social media posts.
Consumers showed continued interest in the values, origin story, and community responsibility of the brands and businesses they interact with.
Messaging was most effective at connecting with consumers when it was genuine, transparent and honest. Consumers expected the brands they purchased from to have higher ethical and moral standards than before, including in supply chain management, environmental responsibility, and working conditions for employees.
Brand design was more vibrant and creative than before, as many businesses interacted most often with consumers online.

Some of these trends should come as no surprise, since we predicted them at the end of 2021. Consumers and businesses are doing more and more business online, but that doesn’t mean brick and mortar stores are dead.

Do you know how to use these trends to your advantage when creating next year’s marketing strategy? If not, keep reading for more predictions and how to use them.

What digital marketing for small businesses will look like in 2023

Given this year’s trends, it’s easy to make a few predictions for for small businesses marketing trends online in 2023. Others are not so obvious.

One thing all businesses need to focus on this year is optimizing their website and all digital touchpoints for mobile use. Millenials and Gen Z were the biggest mobile users when it came to online shopping, so you can expect this trend to continue as these consumers age and gain more spending leverage.

Most web building platforms default to building the desktop version first, so don’t forget to revisit the mobile version to better optimize spacing, font size, color contrast, button function and general accessibility and user experience. If you’re not giving the mobile version of your website and online presence a strong review after adding content, you’re definitely losing customers.

This year, Google rolled out some new specifications to their search algorithms that affected nearly every business in the world. Web crawlers are looking for more than just standard presentation of information these days, so SEO optimization will continue to be especially important.

Be sure that you’re using the most relevant keywords to target your specific audience in 2023. Businesses will need to continue adding content to their webpages, but will now be favored for adding to and deepening conversations on their chosen topics.

While we’re discussing content, it’s important to note that Google has also changed the way it determines your credibility. In 2023, you’ll need to stay within your area of expertise, cite your credentials and allow Google crawlers to recognize why you’re qualified to speak on these topics, and do more than just regurgitate information that already exists online.

Google also now considers the general user experience of your webpage, so 2023 will demand that businesses assess their pages for speed, accessibility, and minimal ads or distractions on the page.

Our lead SEO expert, Ahosan Kabir, told us:

“New ranking factors will focus on EAT (expertise, authority, and trust) signals, niche, and valuable conversational content (Deep contextual content that shares value), content ready for voice Search and video inclusion within the content, and more localized content for local and small businesses.” - Ahosan Kabir, SEO lead at Splurge Media

For these reasons, we expect digital marketing efforts to be more sophisticated, relatable, transparent, unique, and authentic in 2023 than they have been in previous years.

What’s changed in offline marketing

When it comes to offline marketing (all non-digital marketing efforts), we expect consumer trends to have some of the same effects.

Offline marketing materials will still need to lead with brand values in 2023, as consumers continue to become more internet-savvy, better informed, and more invested in the values of the companies they do business with. Even offline marketing materials should give the consumer some idea of personalization, or why they were targeted with this piece of information.

Changes in graphic design will be just as important for physical marketing materials as they are for digital efforts. While he recognizes that “almost 90% of the touchpoints for a brand are now digital,” our in-house graphic design lead, Leandro Ramos , expects to see more vibrant colors in graphic design elements this year, as well as more unique typography that conveys brand personality well.

For businesses that prefer to serve local customers, have a long-standing reputation in their communities, or just aren’t big fans of the online marketplace, it’s still important to at least be reachable to visiting customers. Even businesses that are doing well with their offline audience now need to have an established, optimized Google My Business profile in order to reach passers-by who are searching for “businesses near me” while traveling. Keeping your business hours, services, and contact information up-to-date is especially important as we continue to become more digital.

Content is still king, but it’s evolving

Content audits will become increasingly important in 2023 as businesses fight for relevance while content continues to gain traction as an effective marketing channel. Revisiting previously posted content this year can help you refresh your website and increase your likelihood of ranking on Google.

As we mentioned above, adding to the conversation is very important to Google’s updated algorithm criteria. Make sure to make content your own, relate it to your brand values and specific areas of expertise (especially if you can link or display credentials in this area), and keep it interesting by showing your brand’s personality.

This applies not only to blog content and social media posts, but across most consumer touchpoints. Our Digital Marketing Strategist, Paul Johsnon, gives this suggestion for business heading into the new year:

“Personalization is the ultimate goal for digital marketing, and efforts to personalize will only become more relevant in 2023. Ads, posts, and content need to be impressive in the way that they relate value to a specific end user, pointing to a need for advanced segmentation and creative use of channels to build out touchpoints for each group.” - Paul Johnson, Director of Marketing Operations at Splurge Media

Speaking of creative use of channels, short form video content is increasingly more relevant for businesses who want to get notice. For most online shoppers and web browsers, your business has a few precious seconds to make a strong impression. In fact, only 4 % of digital ads are viewed for more than 2 seconds . Rapidly consumable media, especially if it adds value through education or humor, is one of the most effective ways to hold you audience’s attention.

There’s no better example of this than what social media platform TikTok has become. Like Vine (may it rest in peace), this platform allows instantly consumable, short form content access that allows the user to decide very quickly whether they want to interact with a business or personal brand.

In addition to social media channels, short form video content is also very useful for general advertising. According to project manager and PPC veteran Alexandra Manriquez, in terms of video ads for Google ads and social media, “It’s proven that people tend to make a decision faster after watching a video ad. However, it is crucial to have a high-quality video because it is a very competitive field.” So while content remains king in 2023, you might need to hire a professional or invest in creating great content for your online audience.

The role of social media marketing in 2023

While some businesses still aren’t leveraging the use of social media channels, Paul’s advice about “creative use of channels to build out touchpoints” is especially important here. More importantly, consumer spending activity is trending toward social media whether you’re on board or not.

Social media platforms are the perfect place to give your target audience “behind the scenes” look at the business they want to interact with. That’s why it’s a great place to show your brand personality and connect with your clients on the platforms they enjoy the most. “Segmenting your audience” as Paul mentions is crucial here, and you should consider carefully the voice and content you display on each channel. Social media channels vary widely in structure, presentation and even tone, and using more than one channel is a great way to reach different groups of potential customers.

Social media users are also increasingly interested in making purchases and handling customer service requests through social media channels alone. Social media has allowed shoppers to access products and services tailored to their tastes and interests, in the same way they tailor their channel feeds. Missing out on the opportunity to sell products and services on social channels is, quite literally, selling yourself short.

Influencer marketing, once a mostly overlooked form of advertising, is predicted to become more and more relevant this year and next. This is partly because word of mouth is important to today’s online shopper, especially for Millenial, Gen Z, and Gen X audiences (in that order). The other reason this is likely to continue growing as a viable marketing tool is because businesses who have worked with influencers in recent years have enjoyed great success in doing so, and 89% say they will continue working with influencers.

Not every business needs influencers to market on social media. The most important takeaways are that more and more online shoppers see social media as a credible online marketplace, and social media is the perfect place to connect with your audience on a personal level.

Will email marketing for small businesses still exist this year?

Email marketing, the “OG” of online marketing, will continue to be effective next year, despite it being somewhat unpopular with consumers.

Using more genuine language and leading with your brand values will make your email marketing more effective, reinforcing the general consumer trend in desire for transparency and social responsibility from the brands they buy from.

Email marketing can also become a community building tool, which is also increasingly important to today’s online shopper. Internet users want to feel like they belong to a community of folks who believe in the brands and ideals that they do, so email marketing can still be a great way to keep people connected and help build out online communities, thus building the strength of your brand or business.

We’re all inundated with email marketing everyday, so for more tips about how to create a successful email campaign that gets the open rates you’re looking for, check out this recent article from us .

Ring in 2023 with a with an exploration meeting, or stay tuned to our blog

We gained many more insights about what small businesses can expect in online shopping and marketing trends next year. The new year is approaching quickly. The good news is, there’s lots of opportunity to fine-tune and improve your marketing efforts next year. The bad news is, those efforts can be time consuming when you have business to conduct.

This year, stay up-to-date with our blog to ensure you have the best industry insights and tips to improve marketing success, drive web traffic, and acquire new clients this year. Or, get in touch today to schedule a call with our team of marketing experts to find out what we can do to help.

How to write a marketing email that gets a 50% open rate

Fri, 14 Oct 2022 15:12:34 GMT

You might hear some business owners claim that email marketing is dead. But, we’d like to prove them wrong by approaching the subject of how to write a marketing email that actually gets read.

What’s dead are old-school email marketing methods from the early days of the internet, that overwhelm your audience with lots of content that aren’t relevant to your customers’ needs or interests.

If you’re having trouble finding success with email marketing, don’t worry. We’ll set you up with some tips and rules for email marketing that can get your back on track, and increase your open rate to 50% or more.

First, the basics: why email marketing?

Email marketing can be an incredibly effective way to nurture leads through your email marketing funnel. Email marketing costs are very low, especially if you learn how to create effective email campaigns yourself.

The Radicati Group, a marketing research firm, reported that over half of the world’s population uses email, and the number of email users is expected to rise from 4 billion (2020) to 4.4 billion by the end o f 2024 . In 2021, Hubspot reported that 99% of email users chec ked their email daily , with some checking up to 20 times per day. This means there’s a huge pool of consumers, who have already given you their contact information, that are open to correspondence from your business.

Email marketing KPIs (key performance indicators) are easy to track and compare and can be very useful when applied to AB testing your email campaigns. Platforms like Mailchimp and often the email marketing tools in your web builder will help you easily and accurately measure your emails’ performance and open rates.

B2B email marketing is one of the top th ree chan nels that B2B marketers used in 2021, with 64% re porting effective result s from email marketing campaigns. B2B emails that announce a new product or service were reported to have the highest click-through rates.

How to write a marketing email in 5 easy steps

Email marketing doesn’t have to be intimidating. There are 5 simple steps to creating an effective marketing email:

Know your audience, and choose who to include. Not everyone on your email list should be included in every promotion, announcement, or product reveal. Organize your email list according to customer type or demographic, and think about which clients or prospective clients this email will be most appealing to.
Get the timing right. Be mindful of upcoming holidays and opportunities to reach your audience with information that will appeal to them. Be sure to choose a window for your campaign that gives the reader enough time to consider the offer, browse the site, or take advantage of the promotion you’re running.
Choose a catchy subject and preview line. Many people scroll through emails and decide based on what they read in the subject and preview lines whether they’ll read or delete an email. You have about 10 seconds and 40 characters to catch the attention of your audience, so be clear, concise and catchy in your subject line (think about the emails that you open, and why). Create subject lines that are friendly, with natural language, that entice curiosity and include numbers when possible. Finally, make sure your email preview supplements the subject line. It should not be redundant and should add to the appeal of the subject line.
Deliver a strong email body. Remember that the attention span of the average online browser is fickle and fleeting, so delivering your point in concise, compelling text is important.If you’re not confident in your writing skills, you can supplement your email text with strong images or video content. You can also use tools like Grammarly to help refine your voice and tone for more effective emails.
Include a call to action. Let your audience clearly know what your expectation is. Whether the request is to “visit our website” or “check out our new product line today,” be sure to prompt your audience to act on the information you’re delivering. Then, close the email with a cordial sign off and your name or business name.

Once you’ve written your email, be sure to review and test it before sending it to your audience. Send a test email to yourself and view it both on mobile and desktop. Optimizing for mobile is important, because more than half of email viewers are doing so from their phones. Don’t make the embarrassing mistake of sending an email campaign that doesn’t work with mobile devices.

Targeted email marketing: find your audience

Personalized email marketing is much more effective than blanket marketing emails. Use an automated service to incorporate your clients’ names into the email greeting.

But don’t stop there. Remember that not every email is appropriate for every member on your email list. Get to know your audience based on their interactions with the brand, using tools like Google analytics. Then, target your audience based on whether they are in the marketing funnel, what products or services they’re most interested in, and promotions and events that appeal to their respective groups.

Email marketing metrics & email marketing benchmarks

Email marketing analytics can help you determine trends in email marketing attempts and whether or not you need to adjust your efforts. Email marketing reports can help you understand whether your emails are being opened and how your audience interacts with them.

Email marketing reporting like your open and click through rates are great ways to collect feedback and refine future marketing efforts. Your email marketing benchmarks can reveal what’s working and what isn’t, especially when combined with AB testing.

A/B testing in email marketing

Your email marketing analysis is incomplete without data to compare it to. A/B testing your email campaigns are a great way to compare and contrast what’s working, and what isn’t.

Think about A/B testing like having a control group in an experiment. A/B testing involves creating two versions of an email that delivers similar information. Comparing email marketing trends between the two, like open rate and levels of interaction, can help you better understand your audience.

If you have an email structure that seems to have worked well for you in the past, it’s a good idea to use this format as part of the “control group” for your A/B testing. Send half of your audience this version, and create a second version that employs new tactics to compare results. This might mean changing your call to action, the creative design elements of the email, or the format of the content you’re delivering (like adding video content, which offers a much larger ROI).

When is the best time to send marketing emails?

Did you know there are some days and times that are better for delivering email campaigns than others? Sending your emails out when clients are most likely to interact with them is important.

58% of people who use email check their emails at the beginning of the day. Most emails get opened between 8 and 10am , but emails opened at 10am had low interaction rates in 2021. Emails opened at 4pm had the highest interaction rate, with increased likelihood of making a sale.

The best days for email marketing vary depending on what exactly you mean by “best”. Tuesdays have the highest open and click through rates, but Saturdays statistically have the best rates of conversion.

That’s why the best day to send marketing emails really depends on your audience and intent. If your email is meant to promote brand awareness and help your audience get familiar with your brand voice, Tuesdays might be the way to go. For new promotions that you hope to convert to quick sales, Saturdays may be better. Overall, most consumers who engage with email marketing prefer to see branded emails about once per week.

Another thing to consider is holiday email marketing, which may change the way your audience interacts with your campaign. It’s always a good idea to build a content calendar once per year to help you foresee upcoming holidays and potentially leverage those holidays to create catchy subject lines and customized offers for your audience.

Email marketing ideas that work

Successful email marketing comes down to three things:

Knowing your audience
Being consistent and on-brand
Offering material that appeals to your audience

Marketing emails don’t have to be boring, either. There are a lot of great ways to appeal to your audience’s needs, including by offering free tools, education and content that makes them feel good.

Lead magnets aren’t just for collecting leads; they can also drive traffic to your site and help you gain interaction from your audience. Resources like ebooks, business templates, or industry-related tools that only an expert (you) can offer are especially valuable for b2b marketing emails and for helping your audience build trust and value in your brand. Check out our recent article on lead magnets to explore more options.

Directing your audience toward your educational or entertaining content on your social media channels is also a great way to build brand loyalty and help your audience know you better. Don’t spend your time sending only direct sales emails to your clients; you’ll lose subscriptions and interest fast.

Small business email marketing services and more

Email marketing doesn’t have to be difficult, and there are several great services that offer free promotional periods for email marketing templates. Some of these include Mail Chimp , C onstant Cont act , and Sendinblue . Like any business tool, you might want to try a few before you settle on the one you’re most comfortable with.

If you’d rather outsource your marketing efforts, consider Splurge Media as your marketing partner. Our email marketing experts can get your email campaigns off the ground quickly, and help you achieve higher opening and response rates. Get in touch with us today for questions about email marketing and other digital marketing efforts that can help your business succeed.

Why content marketing is important for small businesses

Mon, 10 Oct 2022 17:36:20 GMT

If you’re a small business owner or a digital marketer, you’ve probably heard a lot about content marketing. Content marketing can be one of the best marketing tools for small businesses because it’s a great way to help drive traffic and meet your target audience with solutions to their needs.

But where does content marketing fit into your overall s mall business marketi ng solutions , and how do you build an effective content marketing strategy? Let’s talk about why content marketing is important for your small business, what content marketing for small businesses looks like, and how to create an effective strategy that delivers.

What does content marketing for small business look like?

Traditional marketing methods and sales pitches can be annoying for the savvy online consumer. Content marketing offers an alternative: useful, reliable, relatable material that can help your audience understand new concepts or find solutions to their real world problems.

Content marketing isn’t new, but it has recently transformed the marketing landscape with new forms like white papers, video content, and tools that your reader can take away without making a purchase. This means there’s a new, wide world of opportunity when it comes to creating valuable content for your online audience.

Small business content marketing is great for making connections with the users that are seeking businesses like yours. Whether through long-form content (like this post) or lead magnets and other tools that serve an immediate purpose for your audience, there’s an abundance of opportunity in content marketing.

Here are some forms of content marketing for small businesses you might not have considered:

Newsletters
Social Media posts
Blog posts with helpful information
Video posts
A free ebook
An online quiz that helps make a decision
Tools like online calculators and organization tools

Each of these is of value to your targeted market and provides them with the tools, information or entertainment they’re looking for online.

Why is content marketing important for small businesses?

So, why content marketing?

Let’s face it, today’s consumer is a little more sophisticated than they were in the early days of the internet, when e-commerce was brand new. Now, they’re got millions of options and the world at their fingertips with an easy tool for searching and categorizing every one of them. That’s why paid advertisement is becoming less desirable and less effective for regular online shoppers. In fact, research shows that 80 percent of consumers would prefer to interact with high-quality content that interests them rather than interact with paid ads.

Content marketing is also important because it helps you reach the right audience at the right time. 57 percent of online users read content marketing material at least monthly. Great content helps you build familiarity and trust with your audience, while adding to their online experience. When you combine this content strategy with a great user experience and useful tools and tips that come from your experience and expertise, browsers are more likely to become future buyers.

Content is also a great way to showcase your brand attributes and personality, and to connect with your audience on a deeper level. Today’s consumer wants to know and relate to the brands they interact with, and great content is the perfect avenue to do that. That’s why

Building a small business content marketing strategy

Ok, so you’re sold on content marketing, but where do you begin in creating a strategy?

36 percent of marketers rely on efficient project workflows to map out their next move, and content marketing is effective for businesses of all sizes . First, consider the type of content marketing materials you’re able to produce. Every small business is capable of adding a blog to their website, and with industry-expertise it can be a great value add.

If you’re savvy or have a strong digital marketing team, you might even consider adding a vlog or a series of ebooks. You could offer free lectures on a specific topic that provide some of the information your potential customers are seeking. Ultimately, you’ll want to choose a path (or several) that you know you have the capacity for and that will be useful to your audience.

Here are some things you’ll want to consider in developing your content strategy:

Is this content something your audience would be searching for?
Does this content associate your brand as a voice of authority in this industry?
Does the content you’re considering help build your relationship with the audience?
Does the content type leave your audience feeling better informed?

Next, you’ll want to take the following steps in building out an annual strategy that meets your small business goals:

Determine those goals. Make sure your content marketing goals are specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and time-bound ( SMART goals ). Depending on your business size and industry, your goals might be something like “gather 100 email contacts per month,” or “increase our conversion rate by 10%”.
Choose your performance indicators and find out what your current performance looks like. If your goals are based on web traffic, conversions, or lead generation, Google Analytics is a great place to find those metrics. Determine your benchmarks before you implement your strategy, and compare statistics quarterly.
Determine your target audience and the content channels you want to use. Creating a blog is a great way to get found in organic searches, especially if your content is optimized according to search intent (Search Engine Optimization). Determine the demographics of your customer base and online audience before you start to decide whether your efforts are best spent on long-form content, video content, social media posts, or on other types of content.
Set up a content calendar. Flooding the market with your great ideas can be too much, too soon. Building out a calendar of topics that are timely and relevant can help keep your audience engaged for the long-term, without annoying them. Plus, it’ll help you stay consistent.
Deliver well-researched pieces of content according to your schedule. Stick to your plan and invest the same amount of energy in building your piece of content as you do in researching your audience, channels and performance metrics. Or, hire a content writer to do it for you.
Monitor the results as they come in and decide whether they meet your performance goals or not. Then, refine your long-term strategy for the next calendar year and make changes if necessary. If your strategy meets your goals, start considering the next goal!

When to hire a small business marketing agency

If you got lost somewhere between “define your audience” and “choose your channels,” or, if you’re already struggling to keep up with business in the digital world, it could be a smart idea to hire a small business marketing company.

Digital marketers like Splurge media already understand the tools and platforms you’ll need to develop your online presence with content marketing. Marketing agencies also handle the content development and can help you decide your brand voice and how best to connect with your online audience.

If you’re not sure who your target audience should be or how to reach them, get in touch with your digital marketing team today and eliminate the guesswork.

10 Tips for How to Make A Website User Friendly

Tue, 02 Aug 2022 15:03:58 GMT

Small business owners: are you wondering how to make a website user friendly for your business, or what a user friendly website even looks like to potential customers?

Whether you’re trying small business website design for the first time, or trying to optimize an outdated or underperforming website, we’ll tell you how to make a user-friendly website that attracts more leads and helps close more sales.

1. Optimize for mobile

It’s no secret that American consumers have a smartphone problem. It shouldn’t surprise you that if your site isn’t optimized for mobile web browsing, you’re alienating more than half of your potential audience. While many web development tools can help guide you through the website building process, they usually default to the page structure and formatting of a desktop browser. It’s up to you to toggle over to the mobile site and optimize the page for different visual relief and content structuring. Otherwise, your mobile audience might be missing crucial information like your contact information, services offered, or action buttons. Even worse, an online audience will lose interest in about 3 seconds if the mobile version of your site loads too slowly or doesn’t engage them. Learn more on how to make a mobile friendly website by reading points 2, 4, 7, 8, 9, and 10 below.

2. Pay attention to loading speeds

Did you know that slow-loading web pages drastically affect the site visitor’s likelihood to buy and the likelihood of interacting with your content? 4 out of the 5 major reasons that consumers believe a site loads slowly are the business owner’s fault ac cording to this study . None of this reflects well on your brand if you hope to reach people who browse the internet on their cell phones.

Don’t let a slow webpage slow your revenue down. Here are some tips and tricks for faster loading speeds:

Small business website design can be complex. Start with a site performance test using tools like t his one , or through Goo gle’s analytics a pplication . These will spell out what’s slowing down your page, albeit maybe not in layman's terms. Both will give you, at the very least, a great starting point and sense of direction for your efforts.
Use dynamic images. Images and videos often bog down small business websites’ load time. Make sure your images are formatted properly for the page and you minimize unnecessarily complex or excessive digital images. You can compress your photos for web optimization using sites like Compressor.io .
Optimize your page “ a bove the f old ”.
Reduce the number of on-page components (thereby re ducing HTTP reques ts ).

There are many other ways to address webpage loading speed. But many, like s ome of these , are more complex than the average user is comfortable with when not formally trained in web design. A small business web design company or a trusted digital media marketing team can help you meet some of these challenges to loading speed, as well as some others.

3. Double-check data regularly.

It’s ill-advised to create your small business website and not make a single change to it for months or years. Make sure you keep your website up to date, editing contact information, product or service pricing, health and safety policies, contact forms, and operating hours as needed. Most of today’s online browsers use their smartphones to view your site through a quick search engine inquiry. Google your small business today and determine whether your hours, contact details, web address, and other data are correct, especially above the fold . If they’re not, your webpage is outdated and your audience might struggle to reach you.

4. Keep it clean.

Use simple design and layouts without clutter, and maximize white space and relief from visual stimuli throughout the page. Don’t forget to check the mobile version of your site!

Minimal websites are not only easier to navigate - they're easier to translate across devices including phone, tablet, and desktop! This is a big deal especially for audiences that frequent mobile devices
As the saying goes: it's easy to make something complicated. It's much more difficult to make something simple. Making your website simple doesn't mean just deleting elements - it means creating a carefully crafted experience that entices your visitor in and informs them intelligently
Lastly, having a clean website means having a clean brand. When it comes to looking professional, less is more.

5. Be yourself.

Describe your business and your brand goals and be unique in your online presence! Today’s consumers are deeply invested in the brands they interact with, and want to know where their dollars are going. We recommend creating an “about us” page or dedicated section of the site, where potential clients can learn about your business, its values, and your “x-factor,” which usually begins with your “why.” Consumers like to know why business owners are motivated to lead in the industries they represent. This is also a great opportunity to connect with your ideal online audience through shared values and goals.

A cautious reminder: original doesn't always mean good. The golden rule is to give people an experience that you would want - and that's what authenticity is all about. But don't pump up the personality just for the sake of it.
One of the benefits of small business is being able to have a connection factor - people trust you because you're small and presumably still true and pure to your cause. Embrace that connection, and follow it until you find paydirt.

6. Enforce brand continuity.

Be sure that you use the branding elements that best represent your small business in different formats throughout the site. These visual and story-telling elements help unify the user experience throughout, letting your audience get to know and understand the complete scope of your business. They also help build familiarity, trust, and community with your business and your brand. Brand continuity is also helpful for online advertising: if and when you decide to run an ad campaign, you’ll stand out from the crowd, especially for those that have interacted with your web page in the past.

7. Have a clear call to action.

Calls to action are very important for the user experience, because they give the user a direction and next steps in the sales funnel. While different marketing experts disagree about whether CTAs should be a priority above the fold, all agree that they should be clear, direct, and consistent. Employ the use of redirect buttons with clear, concise action labels like “buy now” or “book a demo”.

Get creative! Yes, "learn more" will work for you. But it likely won't work nearly as well as a specific call to action like "discover the magic of TRUFORCE clean" (sorry if this is a real brand - even more sorry if it's your brand)
Don't be afraid to sprinkle them in. Yes some visitors just want a specific information. But ultimately, if you want to turn your website into a conversion machine, it needs to pitch sales. When in doubt, add in an extra CTA.

8. Be reachable.

Make sure your contact information is easy to find , up to date and responsive. If your business hours are changing due to a holiday weekend, you need to update that information online. If you have a Google Business profile, Google will automatically remind you that a holiday is approaching and ask whether you need to update your hours on your business listing. Nobody’s going to do that for your website though, so if long term schedule changes are coming, be sure to update your website. Social media platforms are also the main means of communication for some online shoppers, so include that information and appropriate links, too.

9. Incorporate SEO.

Lots of websites now include long-form content marketing sections (blogs) to build their small business SEO potential (search engine optimization) leverage online. But did you know SEO is just as important on your business’ main webpages? Using a well rounded SEO strategy will help make the user experience more cohesive, and will help your audience find you faster.

SEO isn't just for Google! SEO is essentially the common language of the internet - it's how people ask and want things. By incorporating SEO-friendly language on your website, you can connect with your reader using their language, which makes your brand and your website stand out amongst the many sites pushing a sale.

10. Showcase products, services and value in the simplest, most accessible ways possible.

Listing out all of your products and services in text format on your homepage might not be the best approach. Sometimes, there are more effective ways to tell the story and deliver the information your audience is looking for that are also more engaging and pleasant to interact with. Using simple, on-brand imagery or dynamic graphic design elements can help deliver the message for those who don’t (or can’t) pour through paragraphs of text and maintain focus/interest. Remember, you only have a few seconds to get your message across and get the client engaging with your brand.

While there are many more tips we could offer, these are the ten most accessible tips for small business owners building and optimizing their own websites. Our website design services for small business owners include researching and reporting other opportunities for optimized page speed and how to make a website mobile friendly. Get in touch with our team today to learn more about how we can help prospective customers with proven, technical knowledge.

Sam Hoch is our in-house content marketing expert, with research and practical application backgrounds in small business marketing and related topics. She has been a Splurge Media author since 2020.

Branding Tips for Small Businesses

Sun, 19 Dec 2021 14:57:28 GMT

It Starts with Your Brand Strategy

In the digital age, many small businesses are beginning to see the value of creating visual assets and identity through a brand, not just a business. Strong brand identity is an effective strategy to convey information about your small business to potential customers, even before your first client interaction. So what does branding strategy mean? What do successful brands include, and where does a small business begin in exploring its brand potential?

Do you want to know why branding is so important for small businesses today and where to get started? Here are our branding basics for small businesses and tips for creating and maintaining a successful, cohesive brand.

Why is Branding Important in Small Business?

Because branding is the glue that unifies different elements of your business (the customer experience, the value to your audience, the consistency, and the reliability your existing clients need), it's especially important in the digital age.

While much of our economic lives have migrated toward digital eCommerce, businesses that want to continue to grow in the digital age are doing the same. But in a sea of competitors accessible through a single mouse click, it's easy to get lost among local, national, and global competitors.

Branding helps by not only making a more identifiable and visible business in the virtual world but by unifying that brand association throughout the sea of webpages, digital advertising, and social media platforms. In short, branding makes your business easily recognizable, more trustworthy, more professional and provides a positive experience in a world that can be stressful and chaotic for the online consumer.

Branding can also help you convey important aspects of your business without the lengthy dialogue you may never have with an online customer. Branding lets your audience know who you are, what you're about, and what you intend to deliver for them.

What is Branding in Business?

Beginning with the basics, what do marketers even mean when they talk about branding?

When many small business owners think about branding, they might visualize a logo, other design elements, or even product packaging. While the logo , brand lang uage, and ot her visual elem ents are an important part of branding, they're more of a cohesive, appealing package for what's inside.

Branding begins with establishing clear brand val ues, goal s, and purpose . Secondarily, it identifies the value that it offers to its target demographic or audience and creates an experience that helps its audience solve a problem and feel positive about the business they've chosen to interact with. In short, branding isn't just the design. It combines design elements, usability, voice, and presence across all customer touchpoints.

Branding is the glue that ties together what your business hopes to achieve and delivers it to your intended client in a way that reinforces business values and identity.

How to Build a Brand Online: Building the Brand 101

Okay, so you're sold on the idea of branding your small business. But where to begin?

There are a lot of elements that contribute to building a brand, and brand cohesion is important. If you can't clearly define your brand values, attributes, and what sets you apart from your competitors, the user experience will likely not be cohesive across all digital and physical spaces. That brings us to our first tip for branding your small business:

Tip #1: Know your business and what you're about.

The first important step in branding is building a brand identity that clearly defines you. Brand identity includes the brand values, the value proposition (what you're offering) and brand voice.

Brand voice simply implies that you want your messaging to be unified, no matter where the message exists. This voice will be based on your brand's characteristics and which foot you want to put forward. Whether your strengths are nuanced, specialized expertise, or approachability and friendliness above all else, you can define that in your brand voice before you begin the branding process.

Take time to brainstorm ideas about your business characteristics, strengths, and how you want to be perceived by your intended audience. These characteristics can also help you define design language like logo, fonts, branding color schemes and layouts for your digital touchpoints.

How to Create a Brand That Your Audience Values

Once you've figured out who you are and how best to portray your capabilities and offerings to your target audience, it's important to know who that target audience is.

That brings us to our next trip.

Tip #2 Know your audience and what appeals to them about your product or service.

Understanding your audience begins with building out your common client profiles. Who has responded most often to your business offerings in the past? What can we detail about that demographics' story, needs, and the way they use your product or service? What made you stand out to them, and how can your language reflect more of that value?

Knowing your audience means offering the best solution, to the best user, at the best time. It means that if your primary client base is using your product and service for a specific purpose, you should appeal to that purpose as a solution through your language and branding choices. For example, if your yoga studio's goal is to promote mindfulness and breath practice, but you know most clients are there for flexibility benefits, consider the payoff for marketing your business toward both goals.

It might also mean understanding that your product or service appeals most often to a specific gender, socioeconomic class, marital status, or combination of several types of identifiers. If you know this to be true, you can adapt your branding, messaging, and voice to a ppeal most to that dem ographic . You can also leverage these insights to target other demographics in different ways.

Strong Branding for Small Businesses, Specifically

While creating a brand for your small business may seem like a daunting task, the initial investment will be worth the uniform user experience and help build your business online for years to come. Unifying messaging makes your brand appear more professional, reliable, and accessible.

Creating a strong brand for your small business requires a bit of research and a strong understanding of your capabilities for today and tomorrow. That's why tip number three is so significant.

Tip #3: Know your competitors and your industry

This tip is important because you'll need to identify a reasonable and attainable trajectory for your business and understand what branding might mean for sales and revenue. A proper brand creation can generate huge amounts of traffic as compared to what a small business might receive without it. That's why it's important to know what you can offer, what your capacity is for today, and what your goals are tomorrow.

Researching your industry, especially locally and regionally for small businesses, can help you better understand your target audience's needs. It can also help you identify industry trends and prepare for the future. Most importantly, knowing your competitors and your industry today can help you identify what makes your business stand out from the crowd. Great branding can be built to highlight that important advantage and elevate you above your peers.

Building the Brand For You: Business Branding Ideas

After you've identified your business goals, values, industry and competitor trends, and your target audience, building your small business brand becomes a very personal experience. This is the step where you get to decide what you'll look and sound like to an online audience and what creative elements can help you convey the message you want to convey.

Building the brand that best suits the needs and goals of your small business will require a degree of creativity and abstract thought. This is why small businesses often hire design experts or a full-service digital marketing team to develop these concepts into a design language and voice. If you want help in that department, visit our small business branding solutions page:

If you're feeling creative, well-read, and organized, there are a few ways to build out your branding ideas before you commit.

Tip #4 Take your time to brainstorm, create, and envision the brand application.

Many design teams begin by imagining different "stylescape" solutions for a brand based on the business' values, capabilities, and attributes. These stylescapes might identify different combinations of colors, fonts, images, icons, and language that can encompass the essence of a brand when combined.

"Mood boards" are great ways to build out concept ideas using colors, patterns, digital or physical textures, imagery, and font choice to see which suits your small business branding vision. Once you've identified a few stylescapes, ask yourself whether they will appeal to your target audience and current customer base, and why. Consider the type of experience, including emotional reaction and visual sensation/stimulation each of these design groups might provoke.

If this sounds like too much creative exploration for you or your schedule, branding experts can package these design elements for you and make branding decisions for your small business easy.

Good Branding Examples for Small Business

Whether you've designed it on your own or hired professionals to help develop your branding elements, check-in with the concepts before you commit. It's important to ask yourself first whether the branding suits your business and whether it has visual appeal to your audience. That brings us to our next tip:

Tip #5 Test branding concepts before you apply them.

Sometimes you don't know what will work best for your business until you try it, and if you've been an entrepreneur for very long, you know that. So to be safe, run any branding design concepts through a system of checks and balances. This begins with a series of questions:

Does this design language accurately convey my brand strengths, attributes, and the experience I want to provide to the online user?
Is this brand concept visually appealing to my audience? Is it cohesive, and does it promote uniformity in messaging and voice?
What types of imagery, characteristics, and instinctual reactions do I have to this group of design elements? Is my audience going to have the same response?

Understanding how your branding (including logo, design language, visual elements and user experience) will be perceived by your audience is an inexact science.

So when you've created a design language you like, brainstorm with your team, colleagues, or even friends and family whose opinions you can trust. Ask yourself, what characteristics or messaging does this design language and logo invoke (or, what does it make you think of/feel?)

Do the answers match your business attributes and align with your goals? If yes, then great work! If you need more help, your marketing experts are here for that.

How to Build Brand Identity and Branding the Product

Once you've put the creative process behind you, settled on a logo, voice, and other design languages, you'll need to take a few more steps in the branding process to ensure brand visibility growth and appropriate branding applications.

Tip #6: Take the time to unify the customer experience across all digital platforms and physical touchpoints.

While it might sound tedious, unifying the language and design across all social media and webpages, email marketing applications, and document templates will help create an easily recognizable brand and a positive brand experience. As a small business, your precious few seconds of interaction time with your intended audience need to count! Make sure your brand is easily recognizable no matter where potential clients interact with your business.

Once your design concepts are applied, be mindful of the voice, language, and attributes you want to depict and adapt those to different digital spaces as needed. Building out a content calendar that refers back to these concepts during content creation helps keep a unified approach. You might also apply your logo to previous images and designs used across social media and web pages and continue to standardize both the brand application and language in the future.

A highly visible brand will help grow your brand awareness quickly in an online ocean of small businesses. Make your brand recognizable and give your audience the same positive experience you'd provide them in person with a consistent visual appeal and reliable, recognizable online presence.

Branding Trends of 2021 Likely to Succeed in 2022

Wed, 22 Sep 2021 14:49:35 GMT

The last two years have ushered in a whirlwind of change in small and large businesses alike. A massive shift toward a completely remote work-world and economy has transformed the business and employment landscapes in 2021. Yet some design habits die hard, and there were interesting patterns in the way brands tried to meet changing customer needs.

2022 will mean a continuation of the virtual landscape that was further developed in 2021, and will call brands to the task of providing security and calmness amid a chaotic news and government policy cycle. The trending brands that we think will be successful into 2022 are the ones that convey brand values, character, and level of professionalism through effective and relevant content and design.

Here are some of the trends we noticed that we think are likely to continue:

Trend #1: Connecting Brand with Face and Personality

Businesses did a great job of examining their own brand interactions in 2021 to provide greater transparency of their leadership team and to optimize the user experience. Many brands realized the value of investing in social media platforms as part of their media marketing efforts, because of the value in building relationships with potential customers. Social media marketing and organic content created by leadership and marketing teams made it possible for people to build trust with the brands they were interacting with, often by including faces connected to the brand.

Social media platforms became a great way to allow the personal connections between potential customers and the people that help create the brands they love. Entrepreneurs recognized the value of facial recognition in building brand awareness and establishing trust with the market when consumers needed it most.

Tesla CEO and Founder Elon Musk's social media presence has had a significant impact on the company's brand value.

Establishing trust and community with brands is more important to the modern consumer than ever before. Online shoppers and content consumers want to know that they choose credible, reliable, trustworthy, and responsible brands. While social platforms gave business owners a great way to do that, many brands also used images of brand representatives' (aka influencers) faces in their packaging and digital marketing materials.

Influencers like Alexis Baker (@alexisbakerrr) provide a much needed face to brands looking to grow quickly.

Influencer Christian Caro (@christiancaro_) models clothes for clothing brands. Influencers often work on a pay-by-post basis.

General Motors Mary Barra frequently makes television appearance to promote and build presence for GM.

Brands in 2022 will follow the trend of giants like BMW, who removed color from their logo for a more simple look.

One of the key influencing factors is the crowded marketplace! With so many logos and company names proliferating in the past decade, being able to trademark as simple a shape as possible is like capturing an atom of the marketing world.

Of course, It will always be the priority of smart brands to make brand adjustments for 5-10 years from now, not just for today. So as time goes by and more companies enter the industry as competitors, the “go simple” brand angle will be covered and difficult to compete with. New competitors will have to meet on an even playing field or attempt to go maximal - an angle that has severely lost popularity since the 90’s.

Trend #3: Muted Colors and Soothing Brands

Businesses appealed to something fundamentally human in the consumer pool in 2021 by responding to their emotional needs through color and design. Websites like Headspace personified their brand values and goals through creative choices for their webpage and other platforms.

Brands recognized the communicative value of facial recognition in association with a brand or product. Putting your face and name with your brand means you're willing to vouch and potentially be held accountable for the credibility and integrity of your brand, a future trend we expect to continue in business' trust-building journey through the virtual economy.

Trend #2: Simplification and Element Reduction

In 2021, it appears that brands looking to modernize their logos answered the question: what can be taken away from this logo while still maintaining recognizability?

In 2022, that trend will continue, especially among older businesses who want to set themselves up for the younger generations and eco-friendliness, and new businesses looking to meet the modern standard. So why is this happening?

In 2021, Pringles adjusted their whole brand to a more minimal look, including this logo design change.

For years, Headspace has made space for itself in social media and beyond with their soothing, calming content

Leading branding trends in 2022, LinkedIn adjusted their brands to a more muted and comfotable look in 2021.

Clean lines, simple text, and soothing colors give the user a very relaxing online experience with the brand. They take it a step further by offering accessible, relevant content for the online browser through their extensive blog of related topics. They are selling the meditative experience, and they use color schemes and design elements to promote a similar type of experience with their brand.

Trend #4: Brands with Purpose

Now more than ever, consumers want to see the social and environmental responsibility of the brands they choose to interact with, at a minimum. They want to see diversification and inclusion within the entrepreneurial pool, and they want to see brands that care about causes of all kinds. In short, they want brand values that match their own, and they want to see you act on those values.

This trend has actually been ongoing since long before 2021 and continues to gain legs as activism does throughout the United States and the world. For example, the amount of corporate money donated rose 8% from 2016 to 2017.

Building a brand with a purpose or rebranding as a values-driven member of your community helps business leaders connect with the consumers they serve. It also helps contribute to the consumer need for active participation in reshaping today's social, economic, and natural landscapes. This is especially important for businesses that want to appeal to Generation Z customers, who have gained a reputation as a generation that will demand change, justice, and equity.

Give your brand a recognizable purpose by investing time, money, or resources into a cause you care about, which also relates to your business somehow. For example, Sakara is a meal program company that donates to the hungry .

Conversational marketing and social platforms are also helpful for connecting your target audience with brand values and initiatives that speak to them. For Gen Z, short-form video content, specifically on social media platforms, has been most engaging. Video content also allows the potential customer to build brand awareness through the facial recognition mentioned above.

Trend #5: Virtual Communities & Events

2021's consumer base looked to business leaders to help steer the direction of our world when things were less certain. Consumers continue to look toward businesses as community builders, partly because they were some of the most prominent decision-makers during the early days of the pandemic and not all by choice.

Virtual communities and events are one step up from building a connection with the consumer toward helping them build connections with one another. Content creators can facilitate virtual community building by uniting information seekers under the same umbrella of virtual solutions. Creating authentic, relevant content on all of your digital platforms can help engage your audience, solve a problem for them, create a positive brand experience, and connect them with others who have similar interests or challenges.

Companies that have been able to create successful communities on Reddit have found a key to long term brand success.

Discord made waves with their own branding design change, while companies can gain major traction online by participating in and starting their owm

Consumer behavior indicated in 2021 that virtual group events were practical tools for building brand awareness, increasing revenue and product interest, and meeting the consumer's emotional needs. While disconnected from their daily work environments, friend groups, and interactive routine, platforms like Fortnite were using e vents and online com munities as marketing hubs. Through collaboration with other brands and media, Fortnite created live concerts within the game and even premiered movie trailers there.

Community and group identity helps people build trust, and associating those with a brand can build brand credibility.

How will your business become a creative community builder in 2022?

FAQs

What are some other ways businesses can convey brand purpose?

Convey brand purpose by offering transparency in your goals, services, products used, and behavior within the community. If your brand values an eco-conscious mindset, support those values by educating the community about the importance of limiting chemical use and using only FDA-approved products for your business. Use packaging materials that are recyclable and easy to do so, look for biodegradable physical marketing materials, and encourage paper-free transactions by making your website accessible. Ultimately, your brand values should reflect in each of the decisions you make as a business leader.

What types of creative elements and design choices deter traffic from a webpage?

Websites that are too busy, too "loud," or don't meet the need that drew the traffic to them are a deterrent to buying. Think about what makes you most likely to click "buy" during an online transaction. Web design should be simple, well-organized, accessible, and promote a stress-free experience for the user.

What are other ways a brand can build community?

Brands can help to build community through smart insights about key trends in their online consumer base. Recognizing commonalities among your customers and potential customers can help you facilitate connections.

For example, you might offer a premium web experience for homeowners willing to invest in expert advice via seminars, live social media events, or other community-building events. This is especially true if you notice common home renovation queries that bring traffic to your hardwood flooring page. They might want to understand what other new homeowners are thinking and experiencing before making their next significant investment.

You can also build communities through events that support causes that match your brand values. For example, fundraising for the SPCA through a live event might help build a community around a pet sitting and dog walking service.

4 low effort, easy lead magnets that work for small businesses

Mon, 23 Aug 2021 14:21:27 GMT

Most small businesses don't have a content writer, graphic designer, and publisher ready to pump out lead magnet content to your target audience on a daily basis.

As a small business owner, sometimes you just need something that's better than nothing. And when it comes to growing your e-mail list and online presence, one effective lead magnet might just do the trick.

In this article, we're going to take a look at the the content marketing method with lowest production effort and low maintenance content that can be created and effectively used as a lead magnet, driving organic traffic in 2021 and beyond.

What is a lead magnet?

A lead magnet is an incentive for new site visitors (aka potential customers) to opt into your email list, or become email subscribers. This part of your content marketing strategy can be in the form of an e-book, newsletter, or template relevant to their industry or interests. Lead magnets are commonly used as email list generators, so that you can generate more quality leads for your email marketing materials.

Lead magnets include quality content that is useful to your audience, and relevant to your industry. The content should in some way begin building the client relationship with a clear pathway to generating sales from potential buyers.

There are many possibilities for lead magnets. Here are some of the most popular lead magnets:

Templates from an industry expert (you)
An e-book that solves a problem related to the industry
Webinar access
Access to a library of resources about subtopics within the industry
A consultation
A calculator for project and other investment costs
Audio training or an audio book

It's worth noting that although a blog post can be a lead magnet and can also gather email addresses through in-context CTA's or pop-ups, blog posts are not what we are referring to by the term 'lead magnet' in this article.

We're talking about content that is specifically made to function as part of a sales funnel, or in other words, in direct connection with a conversion campaign for a specific product or service. The goal is to turn high-quality leads into customers through targeted content marketing efforts.

What makes a good lead magnet?

Measuring the success of a lead magnet is fairly straightforward. There are three main measurements worth taking:

How much money do you have to spend to gain one lead? Often called CPA (cost per acquisition)
How useful is the lead magnet to your ideal customer?
Is the lead magnet scalable?

At the end of the day, your lead magnet exists to help your ideal customer solve problems . If it's doing that, and your CPA is low, then you've got a successful lead magnet.

It's harder to answer the "how useful is this content" question, but you can usually determine this by analyzing the social proof surrounding the piece: are your current customers and potential leads sharing it? Talking about it? Then the content is likely valuable to your customer journey.

Scalable — you might get a few positive responses when you send the content to your closest customers. But how far out into your world of potential customers can it provide value? That's the question that really determines whether the magnet is attracting what it should.

Why should every small business have at least one lead magnet?

Even though generating qualified leads happens at the top of the marketing funnel, an effective lead magnet can translate directly to increased revenue. Lead magnets are a great way to establish a strong foundation with future clients, and nurture those foundations to generate sales.

Here are some of the benefits of including at least one effective lead magnet in your marketing plan:

Grow your email list, which over time can become a key revenue source for your businessAdd depth to customer experienceExpand your list of potential clients through sharing and word of mouth
Grow your email list, which over time can become a key revenue source for your business
Add depth to customer experience
Expand your list of potential clients through sharing and word of mouth

Marketing experts know what generation strategies work best for small and medium businesses in every industry. Of the top 3 methods for lead generation, two out of three are lead magnets (webinars and eBooks, respectively).

Once your lead magnet is up and running, your marketing team should start tracking data immediately to make sure these methods work best for your business.

Here are some highly effective, low effort lead magnet ideas to kickstart your lead cycle:

Lead magnet idea 1: Checklists

Expected time input: 3-4 hours

Number of pages: 1

Checklists are the one of the easiest lead magnet that you can create, and they can be truly useful for those that could use your expertise. They provide your customer with a list of items that should be completed at each phase of some specific activity.

The activity should be something relevant to your future client, that they and their team/friends/co-workers can use for best practice guidance.

The idea here is that although they might not be buying your product or service, they are entrusting themselves to your brand and thought leadership, there for making themselves a warm lead. Whether they know it or not, you have just become one of their go-to sources in your industry by providing valuable content. This is one way to eventually turn visitors into loyal customers.

Example: An organic lawn care company offering a checklist for fall lawn maintenance that includes tools, steps, and and pro-tips for each step of the process.

Why this example would work: People that follow an organic lawn care company like Green Roots Organic are interested in having a flourishing lawn, but may not be interested in purchasing services to reach that end goal.

Why this makes sense for an organic lawn care business: So, they didn't buy your services this Fall and decided to do it themselves. But, they did decide to trust your brand, ideas, and communication to take care of their lawn. Who do you think will be first of mind when Spring comes around? You guessed it.

Lead magnet idea 2: A program plan

Expected time input: 8-12 hours

Number of pages: 10-12 pages

Program plans can give the potential client an idea of the full product or service offered. The free introduction to your brand is likely to answer their questions about what to expect from your business, and eliminate buying hesitancy by building trust.

Program plans create transparency in your service and help establish trust with your brand. They also give you an opportunity to showcase your expertise, while collecting enough info to generate a client profile and establish communication.

Example: A personal trainer looking to build new client relationships offers a customized 8-week training program after the site visitor fills out a short questionnaire.

Why this example would work: A lot of people want to change their overall health, and don't know where to start. This gives them the materials they need, but won't provide the motivation, discipline, or personal accountability to get there. They'll need to hire a trainer for that.

Why this makes sense for a personal fitness company: It's relatively simple for an experienced fitness brand to generate an 8-week program from basic client information like height/weight, fitness goals, and certain lifestyle data. But the truth is, many personal training clients hire a trainer not only for structured workouts, but for pro-tips and someone to hold them accountable. The introductory program will empower clients with information about what they should be doing in the gym, but only the sessions they book with a trainer will help them follow through. It can also encourage them to interact with your other online educational materials, turning visitors into subscribers.

Lead magnet idea 3: Coupon or discount

Expected time input: 1-2 hours

Number of pages: N/A

Coupons and discounts give site visitors and your target market incentives to test the waters with your brand. Coupons should be relevant to the audience and be used to generate revenue within the timeframe that's bets for your business.

This example translates directly to a sale for your business. It's a good opportunity to move inventory that isn't as popular as you expected it to be, or to introduce a new range of products.

Example: A restaurant offers a 50% off coupon or free dessert for guests on their birthdays, and targets Facebook users whose birthdays are within the next 30 days.

Why this example would work: People love to save money, and coupons are a great way to get first time buyers in the door. In many cases, the buyer will also purchase more than the coupon incentive, or become familiar with products they want to purchase in the future.

Why this makes sense for a restaurant: The restaurant industry has notoriously slow seasons throughout the year, particularly after the holiday season and through January and February. This is a great way to drive sales through the slow seasons, and help maintain the tipped wages that service staff depend on. It's also a great way to move surpluses of product that you'd like to discontinue or replace with other seasonal items.

Lead magnet idea 4: Introductory Consultation or audit

Expected time input: This depends on the industry and depth of audit/consultation

Number of pages: N/A

An consultation or audit helps you build a good client profile and collect contact information in exchange for an introduction to your services. It gives the potential client an idea of the way you conduct business, and the scope of your services.

Your business should cover the scope of services that a client may need after an audit or consultation reveals weaknesses in the client's current methods.

Example: An auto mechanic will give you a completely transparent car audit to tell you about current issues, services that will be due soon, and preventative maintenance options.

Why this example would work: What might be simple and straightforward for an industry expert to assess might take a lot more time and legwork for the average consumer. Consultations give your brand the opportunity to volunteer your expertise and toolkit in exchange for contact information and the foundations of a new client relationship.

Why this makes sense for a mechanic shop: Auto mechanic shops already have all the tools and experts to make an audit a quick and easy project. While the shop has computer diagnostic tools, garage space, experience, and the lifts to easily assess the parts of a car that will affect performance and inspections, the driver probably doesn't. The shop performs a service quickly and more accurately, and the driver gets to "test out" the professionalism of the business before spending any money.

Conclusion

Lead magnets remain one of the most effective ways to not only generate new leads, but begin nurturing new client relationships within your ideal audience. In a consumer-informed business world, online customers expect value for their interest, and like to build familiarity with the brands they choose to interact with.

Remember that the best lead magnet for your business depends on your audience. Different audiences respond and find value in different types of content. Know your audience and have a clear idea how you'll turn new leads into nurtured client-brand relationships.

FAQ's

What are other examples of lead magnets?

Some other examples include recipes, "secret" industry insights, access to an exclusive group, polls, surveys, email courses, white paper access, video courses, feedback forms, quizzes, library access and printable cheat sheets or posters for complex topics of instruction. Anything that might be useful to your audience and pertinent to your industry can be good lead magnet material.

What's the conversion rate for lead magnets?

This varies from business to business, industry to industry. It's hard to put a number on the conversion rate for lead magnets, but safe to say those rates become higher with more relevant and useful content. This also depends on the reliability of your conversion path, which your marketing team can assess for you.

How can I influence the quality of my leads?

Ensuring the lead magnet pertains to the industry and will eventually lead to a nurtured relationship and sale is important. Make sure the lead magnet is relevant to your industry. It doesn't make sense for a hardwood flooring company to offer free cupcake recipes, and wouldn't likely lead to customer acquisition.

How do I know if my lead magnet content will be relevant to my audience?

The answer is simple: know your audience. Know what your target audience and ideal customer looks like, and understand patterns in existing traffic and social media interaction with your audience. Understanding buyer personas and what your customer base values about your industry and product will help with that, so will building client profiles with existing customers.

3 ways lead magnets can drive revenue for your business

Tue, 17 Aug 2021 18:17:27 GMT

Wanting to learn more about how lead magnets build real value for your business? You're in the right place. Lead magnets are an efficient way to create leads that build revenue through the use of the sales funnel. For small and mid-sized businesses, converting email addresses to sales is especially important, and can be difficult. Curating your lead magnet content to better match the buying intent of your target audience can help your online presence become a highly lucrative lead conversion tool. Here's how to increase your conversion rates and customer insights using effective lead magnets as part of your marketing strategy .

How can a lead magnet make your business money?

Lead magnets can be highly effective lead generators with engaging content that focuses on your target audience. While lead generation begins at the awareness stage of the funnel with an opt-in incentive, it's the work that happening mid-marketing funnel that lays the groundwork for revenue increase. While lead magnets make the initial connection between browser and brand, the nurturing that happens afterward establishes familiarity, then trust.

Nurturing leads involves continuously delivering relevant content to your leads as you build their relationship with your brand . This can include accessible, useful information relevant to your audience's interests and needs. It should be targeted at specific buyer personas, using a marketing automation platform. Understanding buyer profiles helps you better understand the type of content that's relevant to individual buyer personas.

Establishing trustworthiness with a potential customer through lead nurturing will reward you with more customer insights and conversion paths. Being familiar and having given them useful, trustworthy information in the past gives a nurtured brand relationship a highly competitive edge.

When the target consumer is ready to buy, they'll remember the way your brand makes them feel. This is part of the reason many of today's brands are more vocal about their brand values, which are often very relatable.

What types of lead magnets work best for small to mid-sized businesses?

Lead magnets come in all shapes and sizes, and the type of content you consider for your business should be based on your audience and scaling goals. Small and mid-sized businesses can benefit especially from three strategies when considering which lead magnets will work best for their brands. Consider your goal, and the paths that can help lead you to it. Some lead magnet examples include:

E-books
Checklists
Coupons & discounts
Video series
Educational courses
White papers

Many small to mid-sized businesses report video and text based content works best for nurturing the brand-client relationship. This is especially true for short form content. A potential customer early in the funneling process might only give your brand content a few seconds of consideration before scrolling.

Point 1: Convert New Email Subscribers

Lead magnets aren't worth much to a brand without conversions. This is why building a relationship with new leads and nurturing that relationship is important. Converting email subscribers and site visitors into high-value leads may take time. The good news is, once you understand patterns in behavior among your clients, you can use these customer insights to curate content that they'll enjoy.

Creating a positive experience is important for generating new leads and reaching your ideal customer base. Early and intermediate interactions with potential clients should be rewarding to your new audience, and should be triggered based on their behaviors.

Different, compelling content should be delivered to potential clients' email addresses depending on whether they've just subscribed to your content, viewed your content via an emailed link, placed an order, or abandoned a shopping cart.

Interacting with leads using relevant and engaging content will help nurture them into conversions.

Point 2: Sell Through Audience Creation and Retargeting Advertising

Sometimes, audience creation and retargeting advertising is your best bet for lead conversion. If you've created a successful lead magnet, you can create custom audiences that will respond most effectively to it.

Create your custom audience by pulling qualified leads from your email address list and lookalikes of your email list. You can also use a strong lead magnet to retarget visitors to your effective landing page . Regardless, make sure the compelling content within your lead magnet is appropriate for the audience you create, based on where the client is in the customer journey.

Custom audience can drastically increase your conversion rate and can translate to a cost more than 40% lower per lead from using custom audiences. When you consider that your audience is already familiar with and beginning to trust your brand, that percentage could quickly increase.

All you need is a content marketing strategy that incorporates your target market and some compelling content, turning traffic into leads.

Point 3: Build a Client Base Directly With Inbound Leads

Creating organic content like social media posts and blog posts gives your new audience members more opportunity to interact with and get to know your brand. Creating quality content that appeals to your target audience can also eventually help you generate inbound organic traffic.

If your target audience is interacting with your business online, they're likely already interested in the consideration stage of buying. All you need to do is convince them to fill out an opt-in form and provide a good email address.

Providing a variety of established content for your audience to interact with creates higher conversion rates much more likely. Without content to engage your audience, you're relying solely on your product/service pages and other web pages.

FAQ's

What is a good cost per conversion from a lead magnet?

Depending on your industry, size of your small business, and availability of custom audiences that convert at a high percentage, this answer can vary greatly. Let's take a look at cost per lead alone. The average cost per lead from a HubSpot report in 2017 showed at $198 . But that number is useless, once you focus on industry.

The industry average for non-profits, for example, was less than $50, while the industry average for IT was over $350. And that's just cost per lead - not cost per conversion.Taking a look at email conversion rates is likely a good place to start.

Barilliance shared data on email conversion rate over time, with a rate of 14.65% for 2021. This signifies that 14.65% of all email subscribers will make a purchase through their lifetime on your email list, given best practices and a large enough audience. Remember, email marketing takes time, and some emails will vastly outperform others in terms of driving conversions.

How can I boost my email conversion rate?

Creating an effective email sequence depends primarily on the level of empathy and user experience design you can bring to the creation process. For instance, if you're a flooring company sharing an e-book on fixing hardwood floors, it would not be very empathetic to then immediately promote your tiling services to those new customers. Instead, write a compelling subject line that leads into a dynamic and mobile friendly email ending in a CTA.

If you do the little things right, and A/B test your emails, over time your email sequence will reward you by turning leads into customers.

Conclusion

Getting to know your target audience can help you build a more effective lead magnet. Once you've created one, you can customize your audience and target potential clients based on trigger behaviors or previous interactions with your small business. Remember, the most effective lead magnet content is short form video or text, and needs to be relevant to your audience. If your current lead magnets aren't doing the job, it may be time for content upgrades and generation strategies .

Still have questions? Reach out to our team of digital marketers today for more info.

Which digital marketing services does your small business really need?

Tue, 13 Jul 2021 17:59:06 GMT

So you've gone through all of the possible digital marketing services : SEO, blogs, website, social media, email marketing tools... and you're wondering, what digital marketing services do I actually need in my marketing toolkit?

Why choosing a digital marketing strategy is difficult

The real question, of course, is which online marketing services you'll need to start making money. The best digital marketing agencies know that the more services you combine, the more they benefit one another, and the higher return you'll see on your investment.

Consider SEO. If you want your website to rank on Google or other search engines , you've got to have a top-level SEO structure. And that's exactly what you'll receive when you pay for an SEO service. However, having a solid online presence with a blog, social media presence, and positive reviews will also contribute significantly to your site rankings.

So, buying an SEO service alone might get you part of the way to ranking on the first page of Google search results. But buying both a blog service AND an SEO service might get you to number one in search rankings for all major directories. This will help your business reach a larger audience and more potential customers.

This is why answering this question is complicated. But we're going to explain what advertising agencies already know and how to optimize your marketing content and delight your customers.

Do you need a — website, PPC advertising campaign, social media campaign? Here's where you should start.

When driving sales and leads online, your digital marketing strategy starts with your brand and your website .

Digital Marketing Priority #1: Creating a brand that resonates

Here's why:

Your logo, color palette, typography, voice, and purpose are the personality of your brand. Without that, your company is going to appear as a commodity, not a business.

Benefits of having a small business brand that resonates include:

Be remembered. When people first learn about your product or service, they record certain pieces of information about you: what you do, the name of your company, and what your logo looks like, for example. Making this information cohesive across all digital assets is one signal of a well-established brand .
Be known as a modern company. A sophisticated marketer knows logos and brand statements tell a lot about your business. Most consumers will be able to tell in seconds whether you've used the same logo and traditional methods since the mid 20th century or have updated to more modern stylings.

Digital Marketing Priority #2 Having a quality website

Here's why:

It may seem obvious that you'll need a website to drum up your target audience's interest online. The real kicker, though, is quality. A professional, easy-to-use website is essential for every small business .

Benefits of having a quality small business website include:

Stand out from your competitors. People see hundreds and sometimes thousands of websites every year. It's a competitive landscape, and business leaders know that there's no fooling them. A quality website will help you stand out and show your visitors that you're trustworthy.
Make learning about your services accessible. Answering questions on your website with relevant content will help prospective customers get a good idea of whether they'll be interested in your services or not. High-quality website content will also help you rank higher in an organic search with any online directory.
Sell more of your product or service. The language you choose for your website tells people entering your customer experience about your brand, knowledge, and confidence.

Every other digital marketing tactic - whether it's online advertising, blog writing , social media, or email marketing is meant to drive back to your website. That's why making sure your website is optimized and well-branded with high-quality content will reward you with every online search.

Digital Marketing Priority #3 (Short-term ROI): PPC and direct advertising

Here's why:

If you've got a brand and website ready to go, the quickest way to see a return on investment is through direct advertising.

All you need to reach your ideal customer is some original online content: a single blog post, a photo, several photos, or video content.

Benefits of PPC and direct advertising for small businesses include:

See results fast. With the right skillset in PPC and direct advertising and in-depth knowledge of your customer base, an advertising professional can start showing you returns as early as month 1.
Know when you need to pivot. You know if it's working right away. If the advertisement is costing less than you're making, you're on the right track.
Save your money. You don't need much to get started. Even a hundred dollars can be enough to determine if an ad will be successful and be cost-effective.

The downside? Direct advertising does not provide much depth in the customer experience. Your potential customers may buy once, but when they start to see the lack of resources, help, and engagement you provide them, they may begin to look elsewhere.

That's where a blog helps boost your digital strategy.

Digital Marketing Priority #4 (Long-term ROI): Blog

Here's why:

Blogs take time to develop. But as your blog grows, so does the rest of your online presence.

Benefits of having a small business blog

Publish once, share everywhere. Your blog posts and topics can easily feed into social media, advertising, email, and any other channel you're working through
Increase your ranks on Google . As mentioned above, blogs will also significantly impact your SEO results, including domain ranking and Google ranking.
If you're going to put effort into the long-term development of your online presence and search engine rankings, a professional blog is a great place to start.

Digital Marketing Priority #5 (Long-term awareness growth): Organic social media and PR

Here's why:

Organic social media presence and PR efforts are generally geared toward brand awareness as opposed to direct sales.

Benefits of organic social media and PR for small business

Make yourself known. Organic social media posts and PR efforts will build brand awareness in your community and beyond.
Deepen relationships naturally. Connect with your customers at an intimate level online - through these services, you will become part of their feed naturally and stand out in the online marketplace.
Make a statement. Show off the key elements of your brand and the values that you stand for.

When it comes to ROI and "necessity," organic social media and PR tend to take the longest amount of time and can be difficult to attribute success to.

An integrative approach is a must in the 2020s

An integrative approach combines digital marketing efforts and traditional marketing to produce minimal waste of time and maximum results.

This means tying together your branding, website, advertising, blogging, social media, PR, and other forms of advertising in a way that mutually benefits each other. When a consumer sees this happening, to them, it looks like a healthy, flourishing company. Because frankly, that's precisely what it is.

As more companies enter the digital space and compete for attention and resources, the companies that can most tightly perform an integrated marketing strategy will be the stars of their industries.

Finding success online for your small business isn't easy.

The right marketing service for your company understands the challenges you are presented with and the specific solutions you'll need to overcome them. And like any blanket recommendation, this list of priorities does not apply to all businesses and should not be considered any kind of template.

Unsure where this leaves you? Or excited about a particular option?

Contact us today, and we can take a look at your digital strategy .

FAQ's

1. Should I invest in advertising even if my website is outdated?

The answer is simply this: if your website cannot convert people into being more interested in what you're selling them , driving more of your target market to your website will not fix the problem.

As digital marketers, our philosophy always revolves around fixing the long-term, core issues first. So, in this case, once you invest in producing a website that garners intrigue and ranks high in a Google search, you'll have to spend significantly fewer advertising dollars to achieve the same results.

2. What about email marketing? Do people still use email?

Yes! Marketing via email is still an effective marketing channel in 2021.

On this list, email marketing is a bit of an X-factor. Some companies can have a fully successful digital marketing campaign without using an email marketing tool. In contrast, some companies invest the majority of their time and resources into email as a content marketing strategy.

It is obvious that businesses should use email marketing after a blog, which would feed into much of the email content creation. A blog is also a great way to add new clients' email addresses to your email marketing resources. It's also a great asset to your digital marketing plan because an email marketing strategy is easy to automate.

3. I've heard about some businesses using SMS marketing. Is that an option, and where does that fit in this list?

SMS marketing is relatively new on the block and follows many of the same characteristics as email marketing, except with much higher open rates. SMS marketing can be a highly effective digital asset when used appropriately and with consent. At the moment, however, it's uncommon to see direct advertising sent via SMS used as a promotional tool. Instead, it is more commonly used as a notification tool for current customers.

3 ways to increase your local business rank on Google

Fri, 09 Jul 2021 17:55:01 GMT

When people search for your service on Google, they're only going to consider about three options. Well, at the very least they will rarely leave the first page . So when it comes to reaching potential customers through Google and other major search engines, your local business ranking is about as important as it gets. In this article, we're going to share three bonafide strategies for increasing your local business ranking, and what can happen if you approach each strategy correctly.

Ranking organically on online searches is important, especially for small businesses . Ranking highly among local business searches is especially important because this is where interested buyers look when they’re ready to make a purchase. Consider examples such as searches for “restaurants near me” or “office rental in Clark, NJ.” These types of searches indicate the searcher is informed about the product or service they need, and may be ready to buy. Not having relevant, updated information and uniform branding can hurt your chances of being seen in Google’s top three search results, even when your product is most relevant.

There are many things you can do to increase your local business rank on Google. We invest a lot of time in optimizing our clients’ online presences and driving more traffic to their businesses and websites. Our top three suggestions for increasing your business’s local Google rank are:

Optimize your Google My Business listing
Act smart to build positive online reviews
Create relevant content for your business webpage that people love

Method 1: Optimize your Google My Business listing

Google My Business is a free and effective way to boost your local ranking, and its results can be immediate. While your business might already have a webpage and social media presence, Google My Business is what recognizes and categorizes it as a local business listing. If you’ve used other Google platforms like Google+ and Google Places for Business, chances are you’re already listed. If so, make sure business information is accurate and up-to-date. This includes your business description, physical address and hours of operation, which are also highly relevant for Google Maps searches. If you don’t, have one it’s easy to create a listing and will boost your business for free.

Optimizing your Google My Business listing is one of the most effective ways to increase your local business rank on Google. There are several techniques you can use to optimize your Google My Business profile, including effective search engine optimization and location-specific details about your business. The more effective your Google My Business listing, the more likely you are to rank high and display accurate information on a Google Maps search as well. Google uses different platforms, and different information about your business across the web to create accurate, accessible search results. These include Google Business, Google Maps, and organic listings with relevant content and rich snippets of long-tail content.

Include relevant keywords that your customers are using . Including keywords is important if you want to reach your ideal customer . Keyword relevance is important both for professional web pages and social media accounts. Recognize the differences in the language you want to use in your formal branding, and the language your social media network uses online. Be flexible in adapting to both, and use keyword relevance optimization software for anything you publish to the internet, if possible.

Display professional photos of your business. When potential customers search for your business or local businesses like it, each listing will also have images to accompany business info. Customers often upload their own images of your business when they write online reviews. Displaying professional business photos on your page helps take control of the images that first appear in a search for your business. Professional photos can help you put your best foot forward in product images, location photos, and branding images.

Respond to reviews. Your online reviews are searchable, appear publicly, and have an immediate and credible impression on people who are searching for local businesses. Consumers tend to be swayed significantly by online reviews, so responding to them is key. When responding to reviews, keep these things in mind:

Your tone should always be calm, professional, and kind
Your language and approach should be representative of your brand values
While not every review is going to be credible or articulate, it’s important that customers with complaints be heard. Even kindly redirecting dissatisfied customers to a more private method of contacting you can be received well by a review-conscious community.
Kindly acknowledging exceptional reviews gives you an opportunity to interact with your customers and build customer loyalty. It also encourages others to leave positive feedback when it’s warranted.

Method 2: Act smart to build positive reviews

Business reviews, both positive and negative, have a heavy impact on your business’s search ranking. If you believe in your brand’s values and are passionate about the business you’ve created, that’ll likely be very clear as you start building online reviews. Positive reviews help to build your credibility and trustworthiness within the community and within Google’s search rankings. Bets of all, they’re free.

So how can you build your online presence and credibility through positive reviews? We have a few suggestions:

Ask for reviews, especially from repeat customers. A genuine person-to-person request for reviews is always the most likely way to succeed in getting one. Finding customers for reviews is easy. Your repeat customers are familiar, comfortable with your business, and enjoying your product. Let them show the world their support for your business in their own words.
Create a Google review shortcut link . It’s easy, it’s free, and it’ll direct your customers to exactly where they need to be to make the review writing process quick and painless. You can also make it accessible on multiple online pages as well as through email marketing campaigns for recent customers. Check out our step-by-step tutorial at the end of this article.
Create in-person signage asking for Google reviews. Many patrons don't understand how critical good reviews are for building credibility. Asking for reviews in every person-to-person interaction may not be practical or possible, but posting review signals and review links are.
Share a review page that has a button for your Google review shortcut link. You can do this directly on your webpage, or on your social media pages, or both! You’re simply taking the guesswork out of the online review process, and reminding guests how important it is to review your products and services.

Method 3: Write remarkable content for your website that people love

Much of your local business ranking has to do with "prominence", which Google can define using several metrics. In essence, the more activity Google recognizes surrounding your brand and website, the higher you rank. Things like likes, mentions, and sharing of your website content help you rank higher locally in a Google search.

So the question becomes, how do I know what long-form content people are likely to “like” and share? And the answers are simpler than you think.

Firstly, Google makes it easy for you to stay relevant by applying an algorithm that you must conform to in order to be seen. Marketing companies use programs that help generate relevant related search topics, topic clusters, and keywords to help meet the algorithm criteria. If you’re not a marketing company, and don’t use these programs, there are a few things you can keep in mind while creating searchable long-form content:

Choose one or two long-tail keywords or a highly relevant primary keyword to populate throughout the user content piece. If your focus is on hardwood flooring, those keywords should be prominent throughout.
Link internally in your long-form content and blog posts to other product pages wherever possible. Building backlinks not only generates interest, but gets interested visitors to visit other relevant internal links to your site. Make sure you're using quality link building to avoid unnatural links or language.
Be sure to format your meta description well. Meta tags and titles, in order to create another hit point for Google. Try to use all characters that Google allows, without keyword stuffing.
Just because you’ve optimized past content doesn’t mean it's still relevant, quality content. Because Google search topics and user content change so rapidly, returning to previous blog posts and other types of long-form content is worth the visit. Simple target keyword and topic cluster updates can help you sell the same products and services, reaching a more targeted and modern audience.
Finally, make sure your blog posts and webpages are optimized for mobile searches! Even though we might be building our desktop content from a computer, customers are likely not. Mobile phone devices are ubiquitous and your piece of content needs to be adaptable, or it won’t be seen by mobile users.

Beyond SEO and Google’s algorithmic requirements, there are other things you can do to create remarkable content. These include responding to common customer questions publicly. These responses act in the same way as long-tail keywords for your blog posts. They keep the detailed content focused on all relevant aspects of the question, giving the searcher exactly what they’re looking for. Whether or not you directly answer consumers’ questions through your relevant content is important to Google, and your Google SEO rankings.

Create remarkable content that’s likely to be shared. It’s very likely that you, like the majority of your clients, spend time browsing the internet. Think about what appeals to you. Catchy titles that create a story arc or imply that they will answer a pressing question can help draw people in. Content that appeals to the viewer’s emotions, including joy, anger, sadness, frustration, and hope, gives social signals that are likely to enhance shareable content.

Giving your audience content that tells your story is a great way to encourage content sharing and brand familiarization. You likely have your company’s values and goals laid out for viewers somewhere in your branding. Adhere to those values and promote content that gives interested clients the opportunity to learn more about you, and potentially interact. This increases the quality of the user experience AND helps you rank higher in organic rankings.

The Takeaway

Creating and promoting relevant content to your potential customer base is an ongoing task. Today’s consumer is interested in getting to know the brands they do business with, their priorities, and their role within the community. These are important facts to remember when creating online content you want people to love and be drawn to.

Ranking high on a local business search requires active participation. Ultimately, committing to keeping updated business information and visibility on Google is important. This might mean revisiting already published content, revamping your brand’s voice and communication style, or maybe even hiring a social media project manager to keep their finger on the pulse of what’s hot in business, and how to approach today’s online audience and prospective customers.

Keep in mind that online browsers will almost never leave the first page of Google’s search results. If you’re ranking on page two, they may never know what they don't know about you and your brand. Ranking high locally is especially important. In an increasingly globalized world, you’ll be invisible to local and online visitors if you’re not ranking in the top three search results relevant to your brand. Think of highly ranked search results as personal recommendations from the local online community.

How do my negative reviews affect my local business rank on Google?

While negative reviews might hurt your pride and your local reputation, the truth is, the more reviews you have the better. Even bad reviews add to your visibility and the overall reviews that you’re receiving. This tells Google you’re here, you’re operating, you’re relevant and people are talking about you. It’s also a great opportunity to redirect customer interaction to a more private sphere, while responding with kindness and approachability.

How can I create a Google review shortcut link?

First, make sure you’ve created and had verified your Google My Business account, so that you show up to Google and Google maps as a business. There are steps for that process here.

Next, create the external link:

Go to the Google Maps Place ID Finder
Search for your business
Copy the place ID that comes up with your result.
Paste your ID into the brackets in this link: https://search.google.com/local/writereview?placeid=[paste your place ID here]

Now, you can include a Google reviews page on your website or link out from your Google My Business listing. You can also use this review link on social media, along with other inbound links.

How and where should I begin approaching my local business rank on Google?

First begin by optimizing your existing webpage, and reoptimizing previous content. If you don’t have a blog post, you should. It will increase your opportunities for ranking with relevant content. You know what customers most commonly ask about your products and brand, so start with posts that pertain to those common inquiries. Or, less common inquiries that still provide interesting insights to the industry or product.

If you’ve got a good understanding of branding and marketing, you might consider creating a plan for optimization and hiring a writer or social media manager to stay engaged with the material and customer base. These people are often well aware of optimization procedure and relevant language and formatting.

If you’re completely overwhelmed in the task or feel like you’re ready to rebrand, fret not. A good marketing company can not only redirect you toward high ranking and higher revenue, but can offer you options to fit your personal branding style. Full service marketing companies can offer a variety of optimization and branding services that don’t have to break your budget.

Splurge Media in Clark, NJ is your local branding expert (just check our Google search results) and we can help you tackle each of your optimization and content questions with confidence. If you have any more questions about local Google rankings, or are ready to watch us transform your online presence into real world revenue, contact us today to get started!

Does your small business need a blog? Absolutely, it does

Fri, 02 Jul 2021 17:50:57 GMT

Let's put first things first.

When you plan your investment in digital marketing, you've got to understand your potential return on that investment.

Although it takes time, a business blog can be one of the best long-term investments you'll make in your business.

So if you're a business owner worried about how a blog can affect your bottom line, keep reading. We'll show you exactly how it works.

1. Sell more of your product or service.

Think of each piece of content in a blog as a salesperson answering one specific question or providing one specific sales point to your potential customer.

For instance, the purpose of this blog post to introduce you to the idea that a) your small business should have a blog and that b) we can write and produce your blog for you with our content services . So, for example, if you were a flooring company writing a blog post called "How to fix creaky hardwood floors (DIY)," you'd presumably be trying to help people fix their creaky hardwood floors.

And you would be.

However, you would also advertise your hardwood flooring service or de-creaking service to your exact target audience.

These salespeople stay live 24/7, ready to answer your potential client's questions and advertise your solution. Over time, as your audience reviews your blog posts and service pages, they learn to trust your brand . Eventually, that leads to "yes."

2. Differentiate yourself as a service authority

Remember, your potential customer doesn't know how to get to their desired result. That's why they need your service.

So when they're searching for an answer to their problem, ask yourself this:

Who are they more likely to trust: the company that says "trust us, we'll get the job done," or the website that shows them precisely how to solve problems that they're looking to solve?

By showing your potential customers how you will get a job done, you're advertising your service or product while building brand authority . So goodbye, "we get the job done well."

Hello, "this is the answer to your problem. So now, would you rather do it yourself or have us do it for you?"

3. Become ranked on Google for your top terms

There's a lot of factors that go into your small business becoming ranked on Google.

But here's the short: a well-written and well-trafficked blog can help you with most of them.

A few highlights:

Interlinking related web pages on your website via in-text links such as this one will teach Google about the search terms and topics you are discussing. Then, when Google knows what you're talking about, they know what questions you can answer.

Driving more traffic to each page on your site will help increase your domain authority, which makes it easier to rank
Updating the format, word choice, and elements of your blog to the latest Google updates can significantly impact your search results

Becoming ranked takes time and careful effort, but a well-maintained, strategic blog can exponentially build your site traffic and ranking.

4. Gain newsletter subscribers and opt-ins

Something crazy tends to happen when people start realizing you have the answers they are looking for.

They sign up without you asking.

But it doesn't hurt to ask either. When people browse your blog content, presenting them a pop-up to opt-in for your newsletter can drastically increase your audience and start looping people into your communications.

It's a great way to start compiling an email list, where potential clients are proactive about providing their email address and other contact information.

5. Drive customers by advertising blog content

This is not one of the most common uses of a business blog, but it can be among the most effective.

Advertising your most popular blog content to the people who need it can keep your costs minimized and start your customers off on the right foot with your brand.

After all, nobody likes a company who pushes for a sale right away.

Starting with an authentic desire to help via blog content is a great way to show potential customers that your head, heart, and work ethic are in the right place.

6. Deepen your relationship with, and upsell existing customers

It's unlikely that all of your customers are using all of your products.

But it is likely that they could be using more of your products.

Offering explanations and connecting with customers via a blog will show your existing customers all that you have to offer without risking a negative impact on your brand.

Let's say your current client is on your blog, reading about how they can get the most out of their new service. Then, they see a related post about a different problem that they have.

This creates a natural progression towards upselling that is not driven by direct sales.

In today's consumer-centric ecosystem, this is exactly the type of relationship that buyers crave.

7. Save customer service time by answering common questions.

Your top priority will always be about serving existing customers, and the good news is that blogs can be positioned to help.

The same principle for new customers applies here: your current clients have questions about how they can best use your service and get the most out of their investment in you.

The more you can answer those questions in blog posts, the less time you will spend solving customer complaints manually, and the happier your customers will be.

It's not just a blog...

It can be tempting for small business owners to determine the success of a blog based on vanity metrics like clicks and shares.

The reality is, a blog has the power to shape both your sales and customer experiences.

Let us blog for you

Don't be shy; contact us today and ask about our content marketing services.

You can also view our digital marketing case studies to see for yourself how we've implemented business blogs to build brand awareness and engagement for our clients.

A Website is Essential to Your Business Success

Thu, 18 Mar 2021 17:35:38 GMT

Your Small Business Needs a Website in 2021, Even if You’ve Been Existing Without One For Years

Whether you’re just starting out, or have been operating a small business without a webpage for years, there are many reasons to consider building a webpage for your business that reflects your brand and offerings. You might have a strong social media presence, or just be a neighborhood bodega operating by word of mouth, which can work for businesses for some time. But whether you’re trying to grow your customer base, interact more with your existing customers, create brand awareness, or just get your location to pin on a google map search, maintaining a website for your small to medium-sized business is absolutely essential to attract potential customers.

While there are dozens of other reasons a website would benefit your small business, we took the time to cover a few of the most important reasons here.

Reach a Bigger Audience and Service Existing Customers, 24/7

The small businesses of our childhood didn’t have websites, and somehow they seemed to do just fine, right? This may be true, but today, our methods of communication have changed. Over the last 15+ years, we have experienced a fundamental shift in how we communicate and engage with other humans and businesses. We are all digitally connected and it's hard to imagine a world without an internet connection. According to an article published by Forbes , we're spending an average of 7 hours per day online! It's an incredible behavioral shift in how we consume content and communicate.

With this growing trend of online consumption, a website and digital marketing strategy is an important marketing tool to engage with your customer base and reach prospective customers. Even though you may have been a long-standing neighborhood business for many years, locals are likely to google business like yours when the need arises. Not having a website that is accessible via a mobile device with a search engine optimization strategy almost completely eliminates the discoverability of your business online. A website provides opportunities for customers to engage with your business.

For those businesses that have an interest in building their clientele, here's another immediate advantage to building an online presence. Building and maintaining your website means having a resource about your business that your customers can reference 24 hours a day, 7 days per week, without you having to field dozens of phone calls, emails, or social media messages. Your webpage not only reduces the time you take answering the same few questions repeatedly (like holiday hours, current promotions or sales questions, or whether or not you’re hiring,) but gives your existing customers the peace of mind of a constant, reputable reference about your operation, your brand, and your character.

Control the Narrative Surrounding Your Business

Today’s consumer is tech-savvy, economically conscious decision-makers, who care about who they are buying from than ever before. They are passionate about supporting a business with purpose and values. Your business’s character, goals, and story are important to potential clients in your community. Small business websites are a great way to showcase your story: where you came from, how you got here, and what drives the culture in your business.

Small businesses today are expected to be contributing members of the community, just like the people who live there. Creating a page dedicated to your story can help the community, and the world, understand who you are.

You might think that your social media channels and social media marketing efforts are enough to cover that. But the truth is, different social media platforms are used in different ways and reach different demographics. The good news is that a professional website design can reach potential consumers of all ages.

Another supporting factor of a professional web design is the growing trend of online searches. The vast majority of first-time client interactions begin with organic traffic from a search engine query of products or services. Without a website, you are likely not to show up on those searches with any credibility or priority. So if you’re only using social media for your online presence, you’re forfeiting upwards of 90 percent of potential clients online.

Give Your Business More Credibility

The vast majority of online consumers recognize a business that lacks a professional website is a deciding factor of trust in the business. Without a professional site design or positive user experience, consumers recognize that you could just be an unregulated, unprofessional entity, selling a product or service from your home office. There’s no way to make formal inquiries, verify your credibility, create the right user experience, or confirm that you’re not just an online scam artist, looking to victimize the unsuspecting web browser.

Let’s assume for a moment that you are a small business, operating from your home office for the first time. If your intent is to create a professional image and build your business through credibility within the community and beyond, a professionally designed website with search engine marketing techniques is a major first step. Even if you’re dreaming of building an entrepreneurial empire out of your studio apartment, your webpage can act as the perfect storefront, giving customers and new visitors the experience you’re hoping to create with your brand. It's your perfect channel for sales. Looking to build an email marketing campaign? That's great! Your website can capture those names and emails too.

A well-designed website by a reputable design agency or marketing services agency can deliver the springboard your business needs to turn a business venture into a professional and consistent lead generator without the costs of buying or renting a costly office space.

Standardize Your First Impression, Regardless of Who’s New to the Team

If there’s one thing small business owners understand, it’s the need for staffing changes and additions as you grow and establish your identity. Whether you’re working to expand your brand, or your single payrolled employee is going off to college this year, staffing needs will change, and so will the “faces” of your business from time to time. Creating a webpage means that no matter who on your team is coming or going, you’ll always make a great first impression.

Deciding to take control of your first impressions begins with a vision for your business, which can only come from the entrepreneurs themselves. Mapping out a clear picture of who you are and what you want to represent as a business in your community is as easy as standardizing your webpage. Not only does it reduce the liability of a newly trained employee having to answer specific questions about the business, but it also gives the employee a reference point that they can refer back to, and point customers to. You can even automate your webpage to send customer inquiries directly to your email so that you never miss an opportunity to give a customer the correct information when they need it.

Generate Passive Income With an Online Presence

A business website is a 24/7 resource for your customers means that you’re still answering questions and providing information about your business, even when you’re off duty. For some small businesses, it even means being able to be off duty for the first time since you decided to build a small business. Entrepreneurs can take well-deserved breaks outside of normal business hours, knowing that their clients and potential clients will have access to the information they need at any time.

Building the right webpage for your business will add consistency and reassurance to your existing and potential clients, it can work hard for you while you sleep. Many webpages can be easily optimized to accept order forms according to your supply/availability, answer frequently asked customer service questions, accept employment applications, generate invoices, and even help manage online marketing automation. Whether you’re looking to reach a bigger audience, nurture your existing customer base, or just build brand awareness, your webpage can accomplish those tasks while you sleep.

Other Important Benefits

While there are hundreds of benefits to creating a webpage for your small to medium sized business, we know you’re busy. We won’t cover them all here, but we would like for you to consider a few other key ideas before you go. These include the following:

Your competitors are already using their websites to reach clients that you could be reaching. This includes visibility on local maps and search engines queries like “such-and-such products near me.”
Not only does your webpage help build credibility among consumers, it helps build your company’s credibility among quality job-seeking candidates. Without a website, you could struggle to find good help beyond word of mouth among your most loyal customers
Consistency is always a huge reassurance for your customer base, and standardizing your online presence (web page, social media content, and online marketing) creates trust in the client-business relationship
You can build credibility through content marketing, customer reviews, project gallery, and much more by making the face of your business publicly available to target customers. If you know you’re doing a great job, let your business success speak for itself and use your website as a marketing tactic.
Transitioning to online marketing and advertising can add efficiencies to your online marketing plan, reach more qualified customers, increase sales, and much more.

If you’re looking for a growth opportunity, start with your online presence and website. A clean, professional image with a great first impression will help you achieve your next level of success. There are many digital marketing companies to choose from and we encourage you to do your research to find the right partner.

If you'd like to explore if we're a good fit, send us a message! Splurge Media has helped many small and mid-sized businesses in your industry build an online destination that accurately reflects the brand and functions as a marketing tool to achieve your company's goal and ambitions. Send us a message and let us know about your project, or check out some of our work .

Back To Basics: 6 Marketing Strategies For Small Businesses To Succeed In 2021

Wed, 16 Dec 2020 17:31:36 GMT

The recent transition to a more remote and more connected business world means it’s time to change your business marketing plan. Staying digitally relevant, marketing under budget, and keeping both long and short-term business goals in mind is key to creating a business marketing plan that can help your small to mid-sized business grow. Keep that growth going in 2021 with a strong brand identity and brand presence across all your customer touch points combined with strong digital marketing strategies to keep your business on track for growth.

First Thing’s First: Business Strategy and Branding

It should be no surprise that the marketing strategies that are going to stimulate business growth in 2021 revolve around digital media and your online presence. That’s why defining a strong brand with an authentic and marketable mission and relatable core principles should be the foundation for your business marketing plan and marketing strategy. Creating a brand identity and brand design language that is uniform and eye-catching across all customer touchpoints is also crucial. Creating the correct brand structure helps define your ideal audience, and determine how they think, feel, and interact with your brand.

To build this balance in branding, you need to consider your intention for your brand’s image, vision, and values, and how to convey that through your overall brand. These concepts should be conveyed through everything from your company’s logo, website, and product packaging, to your staff, signage, and customer experiences. Setting this uniform standard of quality and applying it across all aspects of your business will help to bring to life your company’s online marketing plan and overall marketing strategy.

Email Marketing

Your email marketing strategy should reflect your business with the same uniformity you’ve applied everywhere else. A good email marketing plan can get you in touch with the people who have visited your website but decided not to make a purchase or nurture a lead that may need additional information before converting into a new client. Finding ways to collect the contact information for these prospects can be difficult though, so before you design your email marketing materials, spend some time thinking about how you will capture those leads and subscribers and how you will organize them in your CRM tool (Client Relationship Management.)

Many websites use games of chance, a relevant newsletter sign-up, exclusive content, or another “lead magnet” to capture this information. It’s important to automate and organize the collection of email addresses from your site. Create segmented tags or lists to help you organize their interests and help you communicate with more relevancy.

Once compiled, you can begin designing your email marketing materials. tailored to your audience's or leads specific interests. Relevancy is king when engaging your clients and new leads. The more personalized the email, the better are your chances of making a meaningful connection with that lead or audience.

Navigating the timing of email marketing has become more of an issue while many of us are working fully remote, as too much exposure to marketing materials can quickly become overwhelming to your audience. Some of this can be mitigated by using targeted campaigns that nurture the customer relationship and create trust and brand authority. To do this, you can start by organizing your compiled list of contacts into different categories based on where they are in the buying process, what their interests are, and communicate with them accordingly.

Search Engine Optimization

Once your brand structure has been clearly defined and applied to all customer touch points, SEO is a great next step. Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, is the process of formatting your web content in order to make it more readable for search engines. This increases the likelihood that your content will be viewed when your audience searches for relevant or related topics.

There are several different methods for approaching search engine optimization, including in using keywords and researching language that is relevant to your business. Some optimization comes from examining the structure of the pages themselves. For example, concise, abbreviated, step-by-step answers to commonly searched questions might rank higher as a result of an in-depth, specialized brief.

SEO is extremely important for small, local businesses. A huge number of consumers search for businesses nearby from their phones, and the business websites that are optimized the best will be the first, and maybe only, that the person ever sees.

Optimizing your web content for a specific location means that your business will appear in a Google search as often as its competitors. When your competitors are companies like Walmart, Home Depot, and McDonald’s, it’s likely they’re investing the time to optimize their content, making sure they’re guaranteed to populate first from an online search.

Lucky for the small business owner, consumers are more aware than ever and more likely than ever to lean toward supporting a small business over a large corporation. Making sure that you’re searchable and visible in Google when they’re searching for you will mean reaching a new customer base, potentially even within your own community.

Are you're a local business and not sure where to start? Step one is setting up your Google My Business profile. Make sure to complete all the fields including company bio, service descriptions, hours of operation, etc. You should also generate your customized Google Review link! Share that with your customers and get their honest feedback and review. Build your social proof and validate your business within the community. Google will reward you with improved rankings.

Content Marketing

Content marketing describes the process of creating and publishing online business content that is geared toward a target audience. Your target audience is specific to your business type, your brand, and your long and short-term business goals. Some of what determines your audience is your business’ mission and values, which should be reflected in your brand approach.

Content marketing builds brand loyalty and brand recognition. It is not aimed at selling a product, it aims at becoming a voice of authority in the field. Although some of the content may not be directly related to the product or service you’re providing, it should at least be indirectly related, so as to entice your target audience to read. When that target audience does need what you’re selling, you will have already established a relationship of trust with the potential customer.

Social Media Marketing

Social media marketing can get tedious, depending on the number of platforms you decide to use for your business. But the reality is that social media marketing is a must for small businesses today. Different platforms engage with different audiences in different ways, so research is again crucial here.

Although many social media users use more than one social media platform, each has its own audience, and they can vary widely from platform to platform. You would not apply the same marketing strategy to your content on LinkedIn as you would on Twitter. “Reading the room” and knowing the audience you’re trying to reach can help get you started in understanding what your social media marketing approach should be.

If this seems overwhelming to you, you're not alone. This is why many businesses are now hiring social media account managers as part of their full-time marketing staff. If you can’t afford to do that, agency can help you create a social media marketing calendar, develop a plan, and create content.

Facebook Advertising

Facebook has become a powerful tool for small to medium businesses and can increase both web traffic and profits when used effectively. Believe it or not, Facebook employs very sophisticated audience targeting features that can filter your audience by a variety of factors, including age, gender, location, and previous online purchasing activity. Using these targeting techniques, Facebook ads help increase the likelihood that your ad will be relevant to the people that see it.

After creating a Facebook business page, Facebook will help you determine the focus of your ads based on your goals. Their objective options are “Awareness,” “Consideration,” and “Conversion,” and you can choose which type of focus you’d like for your ads. You can then specify your audience based on a number of filtering factors, set your budget, and create your ads. Once you’ve chosen the ad placement, you’re all set!

Ad placement can depend on a number of factors. There are several different parts of Facebook and Instagram, and users experience those differently. You might choose your ad placement based on the experience you want people to have with it. You might also choose based on the amount and type of traffic to a specific part of the platform.

PPC Advertising

Pay-per-click advertising is an advertising strategy in which either social media or search engine results pages display ads that are relevant to whatever the viewer is currently browsing. The advertiser then pays a fee each time someone clicks on one of their ads. Advertising with PPC advertising can be highly effective for driving consumers who are ready to buy to your site.

Keyword research is important here, as language trends and relevance related to your industry can change overnight, and because advertisers have to bid on keyword usage for their PPC campaigns. SEO is also important for PPC advertising because advertising platforms and search engines prioritize what they post based on relevance and validity. The keywords you’re using might need to be re-evaluated over time as the industry itself or the language used to describe it change.

They also consider splash page quality and the perceived credibility of your website in determining PPC rankings. While PPC advertising can be a highly effective digital marketing tool, it’ll be much less effective if your brand identity isn’t uniform across all customer touchpoints, if your page looks unprofessional or isn’t user friendly, or if you haven’t done your marketing research.

Getting Started

If you’re still confused about creating a strategic marketing plan or don't know where to begin in your online marketing journey, don't worry, we can help. Hiring an online marketing expert to get you started can ensure your reach your business goals and growth milestones. Online marketing requires research and other time investments.

Many small to medium businesses prefer to focus on the mission of their business, and outsourcing social media and email marketing management as well as SEO optimization, branding, and content creation. If you choose to try it for yourself, be sure to stay organized, do lots of research, and remember, your online presence should be at the heart of your 2021 marketing strategy.

How to establish brand authority without trying too hard

Wed, 11 Nov 2020 17:27:52 GMT

Establishing brand authority can promote the types of relationships you want your business to have with its customers. It can also help you grow your business, network with innovative industry professionals, and promote your company’s long-term goals. Building a brand and brand authority online doesn’t have to be difficult or time consuming, either. If you’re invested in your business’ growth and impact on the community, your company culture and reputation with your customer base and neighbors is enough of a foundation in-and-of itself.

Establishing uniformity across all of your online and other platforms is an important first step. If your company has been in the industry for many years and is struggling to establish itself as a brand authority, it may be time to reimagine your brand. Know how to articulate your company mission, and what you want its culture to look like. Once you can put those in writing, it could be helpful to work with a rebranding expert or marketing agency to revisit your image and make sure it’s memorable across all customer touchpoints.

A marketing strategy and good marketing plan are a good second step, and if you’re not sure where to begin with those, this is again a function that a good marketing company can help with. Establishing a strong online presence and matching it with a positive community presence are other key elements in establishing brand authority. Building trust in your network and customer base should be your goal, so keep that in mind as you take the next steps.

Start with Social Media

Your social media presence is a great place to allow your online presence to take roots and showcase who you are as a brand. The advantage to social media is that it gives the customer and your professional network a more intimate understanding of your company’s culture and personality. It also gives both you and them a more personal means of communication, and can help drive traffic to your website.

More importantly, social media helps boost your reputation in the online community, assuming you treat your customers and community respectfully, and have a quality product or service that you can stand behind. Many people use social media to promote through “word of mouth” or leave reviews quickly and efficiently, reaching thousands of potential clients’ screens in seconds. Interacting with these individuals or being open to communication and critique helps establish deeper trust than your professional webpage alone.

Have a Plan for Your Brand

While reimagining your brand might take the help of a professional, there are a few small steps you can handle before you get to that point. First and foremost, know who you are and what values you want your company to represent. Think about why you started your company, and envision where you’d like it to be in the near and distant future. Establish clear goals and brainstorm ways you can best convey your values to your network and customer base.

Having a plan for your brand means having a base to build your marketing strategy on. While working with a marketing company might be something you feel more comfortable with , in the meantime, sit down and hash out your company’s vision.

Build a Rapport in the Community

Establishing brand authority really means establishing trust with your clients and network. Trust in a new company comes from reliability in products and customer service, so start by building a reputation as a clear communicator who follows through with what they say they will. Word of mouth in combination with online reviews can be a powerful combination for building trust, and those that trust your brand will be vocal about that in the community.

Being a responsible member of your physical community is important for establishing trust, too. Even if you don’t sell a product from your company’s physical address doesn’t mean that people in the community aren’t associating your behavior with your brand. Be environmentally and socially responsible, and your neighbors will take notice.

Promote causes that you care about and that match your company’s culture. If your business website claims that your company values environmental stewardship, organize an event to help clean up the community. If it supports literacy and educational causes, work with your community library to promote similar events. Having a presence in the community not only shows that you care and mirrors your brand, it creates a unique opportunity to build trust with an increasingly conscientious customer base.

Be Willing to Invest in High-Quality Candidates

Building trust in your brand also means providing a consistent, high-quality product that requires high-quality employees. Without your willingness to invest in employees with experience and education, and the willingness to continue learning, becoming a brand authority will be difficult. Your employees should match your drive and passion for the work that they do, and employee engagement can help with that.

Beginning with high-quality hires and empowering them to grow and interact with the company and its culture can work wonders for your brand growth. Good communication is crucial in keeping employees engaged and invested in the success of your company. This might include focus groups for product and brand development, periodic assessments of company climate, organized incentives like contests, and structured social events for your company. Remember that not only is the consumer becoming more conscientious and aware, but the talent pool is too, and that means businesses who want to thrive need to promote employee engagement.

Innovate

Having the passion, the drive and the staff to establish brand authority gives you a two-fold advantage. Brand authority means being a leader in the industry, so once you have the tools to succeed, start looking for further opportunity in the market. Identifying and troubleshooting gaps in the market can help you innovate and become a thought leader for the industry, and possibly beyond.

This is where high-quality hires, focus groups, and a memorable brand can raise you head and shoulders above the competition. If you’re not the innovative type, offer incentives to the best product or upgrade idea from your management team (or entire payroll). Being the first to fill gaps in product availability in a market that you already know well will establish your company as a brand authority in very little time.

The Takeaway

Establishing brand authority means establishing trust with your customer base, prospective clients, community, and employees. While this can be a daunting task, it begins with high-quality products, good communication, and reliability. Often, small businesses employ marketing agencies to help take on the rebranding process, brand development and marketing strategy. If you’re not quite ready to invest in your brand, you can start with small steps to point your company in the right direction.

We Are Here To Help

Helping small to mid-sized businesses succeed online is what gets us up in the morning. If you have any questions or would like to explore a marketing solution that is strategically crafted for your business to succeed, send us a quick message and let's explore your project and if we're a good fit.

5 Ways to Tell if Your Website Reflects Your Brand

Wed, 14 Oct 2020 17:17:42 GMT

Branding and brand recognition play huge roles in not only marketing your product or service, but in letting the consumer know who you are, and what you stand for. Website design isn’t intuitive for many of us, and it can be challenging enough to make sure your website is reflecting all of the basics: your company name, your contact information, your location, what you have to offer, and potential price points. The backend of the website can be even more challenging to get it right: important SEO signals, fast page load speeds, user-experience, and much more.

Once you’ve built a webpage that reflects everything you think it needs to, it’s also challenging to look at it with fresh eyes and determine what it says about you. What your webpage says about your business, your core values, history, and goals is important. Each of these things can be explained in different and creative ways, which is important if you want to keep your customer base engaged. So how do you know if your page really reflects your brand?

Does Your Website Tell Your Story?

A portion of your website should be devoted to the story of your brand. This includes where you come from, why you’re passionate about the industry you’ve chosen, and what your company’s values are. More and more, consumers are driven by the desire to not only do good in the world, but to identify with the companies they do business with.

I recently stumbled across a company whose videos were going viral on social media. It was a beekeeping company in Texas called Texas Beeworks , and the videos were popular because they showed the Beekeeper, Erika Thompson, removing unwanted bee colonies from her customer’s homes with care, compassion, and her bare hands.

When you visit Erika’s about section on her webpage, you notice several things. First and foremost, her “about” tab does not describe price ranges, or say much about how her company makes money. What it does describe is her passion for conservationism, her company’s mission, how she got where she is and what inspires her. She also has a resources tab that furthers her mission and simply reiterates her story: that she values conservation and is working hard to protect the declining honey bee population.

Set The Tone

Your professional image should be uniform across all public domains and customer touch-points, including your social media pages and your website. If your business model and company culture are conducive to it, try to make your website as much a reflection of your brand’s personality and brand design as it is of your business.

Your webpage might be the first impression that a potential customer or business associate gets when searching for information about your company, so it’s important that it sets the standard for your online professional image. If you value other peoples’ time as much as you value your own, it’s imperative that your site is up to date with current business hours, promotions and products.

During times of national or even global challenges, it’s also important that your website identifies you as a leader, not only in the industry, but in society. Make a statement regarding current challenges that you know your audience is facing, and make sure it reflects your brand. You’ll want your website to be organized and cohesive, with a brand design language that translates across all of your media pages. You’ll also want to make sure you’re reachable and approachable through your page. Make it obvious that you're willing to engage the customer and how they’re able to contact you.

Use Your Logo and Expand Your Brand

Your website offers a great opportunity to expand brand recognition through the use of your logo and brand design language. Adding your logo to each page makes you more visible, and more memorable, to the client after they browse. Your logo design should exemplify the core values you want to portray of your company, if possible. Create a design language that is flexible to different applications to expand on your identity--both online and offline. Think of patterns, color palettes, a unique style of photography, etc.

A clean, modern, or timeless logo design can add to the brand design language and compliment the tone of your online presence and should do so across your webpage and social media pages. If your branding system is techy, compassionate, or conservative, let your logo, brand design system, and website reflect that. As your brand grows over time, your brand design and guidelines can grow with you.

Reinventing your business logo to fit the image you want to portray, specifically for your website, should not be out of the question. Revisit your brand identity and your online presence if you feel it doesn't accurately represent your missions, vision, and core-values. We touched on this topic in our 2021 Branding Trends .

The Takeaway

Reflecting your brand through your website doesn’t have to be intimidating. Working with a web designer or graphic artist can help you translate your company’s values to your brand design language and your online presence if you’re unsure about how to approach the task. Let your website and your brand system grow as your brand grows, and reflects changes in company culture as your business matures.

Branding Trends of 2020 that will likely continue in 2021

Mon, 03 Aug 2020 17:14:15 GMT

2020 has been a heck of a year for adaptive companies to really put their business savvy, technical expertise, and marketing skills to the test. Despite the psychological and emotional challenges we have all faced this year, companies are simultaneously experiencing the added pressures of promoting brand awareness and walking that fine line between conducting business and offering compassion.

This year, consumers have seen situationally-specific trends in branding that have reflected a need to soften and simplify the world around us. Many companies have capitalized on 2020’s branding design trends, often in aesthetic and tone, in order to convey the compassion and empathy that we have all been in need of throughout the year.

Aesthetic trends like minimalist web designs and free spirited typography have been the keys to keeping consumers as comfortable and calm as possible as we spend more and more time online. But what types of trends will brands want to carry beyond the superficial, and beyond 2020, as the world continues to change and adapt? To answer these questions, we’ll need to look ahead, beyond our challenges and toward adaptability and advancement, as people and businesses have always been able to do.

Communicating Personalized Information to your Target Audience

With the increase of consumer engagement with technology comes a variety of marketing advantages that companies were jumping on in 2020. One of these trending tactics is the use of consumer browsing and purchasing data to curate marketing campaigns and advertising objectives. Now more than ever, companies are able to personalize the content that their audiences are exposed to, often in real time.

Even small businesses can take advantage of these types of software and use the data therein for a wide range of long and short term goals. For the new business, building a brand becomes easier and easier as brand recognition increases. There are plenty of opportunities to present engaging and interactive content to a broad audience, laying the groundwork to make sales in the future.

While laying said groundwork, your business could market specific aspects of your product to a more refined group, which will be more receptive to audience-specific marketing. For example, a newly established boutique clothing company might have both a general awareness marketing campaign, as well as a campaign showcasing the environmental initiatives they’re taking through business. The second campaign could be curated specifically for customers who have previously viewed and purchased environmentally responsible products and services.

The best part is, even the smallest of businesses can employ software to apply both campaigns at the same time, reaching specific audiences with content they’re most likely to respond to. Personalization of this type has been very effective for businesses this year, and is likely to continue in 2021. Knowing your goals and creating a digital marketing plan can help you get a jump start on this type of marketing.

Connecting People to your Brand Story

With infinite amounts of information at our fingertips, consumers are becoming more and more conscious of the types of companies they deal with, and the faces behind those companies. This year we’ve seen an explosion in consumer interest in the story behind the brand, not just the product offered. Businesses need to give the consumer what they want: a connection that goes deeper than the transaction.

In 2020 we saw many brands taking the time to publicly display their start up stories, backgrounds and missions to the world, with the sole objective of further deepening that consumer-brand connection and reaching their ideal customer . Buyers didn’t just want to know, they needed to know the stories behind the brands they wanted to support. Many businesses were able to capitalize on that deeper human connection, an initiative that consumers are likely to respond to well beyond 2020.

If you’re able to make a connection between the brand story and the branding design and/or the branding logo, that’s even more advantageous. As brands compete within a market that seeks individualism, working on a logo that represents your brand’s goals and background can give you that brand recognition that will put your business head and shoulders above the rest.

Making the Offline, Human Connection

What began with social media live and interactive events for branding has upgraded to in-person and (socially distanced) opportunities to further that customer connection. These can include meet and greets, promotional events and even representation at bigger festivals and conventions that represent your brand’s values and personality.

Being constantly connected to our device in a world heavily reliant on technology makes the in-person interaction seem even more meaningful. The opportunity to connect to potential buyers in such a grounding way also helps to establish the face behind the brand. Heading into 2021, you’re likely to see consumers seeking breaks from company-customer interactions that are solely through a screen.

Responsible Branding

Connecting people to your brand story is especially important in laying the groundwork for showing off your responsible side. Like making that human connection and understanding a company’s values, the consumer has placed an immense amount of value on responsible business in 2020.

The world is always changing, but if 2020 has taught us nothing else, it has taught us the importance of sustainability and social justice, among other initiatives. Many people are looking for ways to add to the richness of humanity, and recognized this year that their purchases have power in doing so. Taking the time to promote your brand as a positive force in the world will promote business growth as well heading into 2021, and beyond.

This is another opportunity to incorporate your company’s beliefs and secondary objectives into your branding design. Making your logo and brand aesthetic overlap with your company’s principles will only make you more recognizable as the consumer places more and more emphasis on the importance of social responsibility through economics.

Marketing Changes For Your Small Businesses in 2021

Some of 2020’s branding trends are in their infancy stages, but are worth taking note of for future marketing and branding initiatives. One such example is how important brand values have become. Making these “truly human” connections between businesses and consumers are likely to remain for years to come. Is your brand accurately representing your mission, vision, and core-values? Are you creating the right experiences with your clients across all our customer touch-points? Now is the time to revisit and position your business for this shift in consumer mindset.

How to Keep Your Followers From Scrolling Past You

Tue, 07 Jul 2020 17:09:43 GMT

Social media marketing is important for both business growth and brand recognition, especially today. But with so much engaging content on different social media platforms, it can be difficult to ensure your content and marketing objectives are met with enthusiasm. Think about the number of businesses you follow with your social media accounts. Do you interact with these businesses, or keep scrolling?

Much of the challenges of marketing in social media comes from standing out on the user's newsfeed. A constant bombardment of advertisements is a sure way to keep social media from doing for your business what you want it to do most: sell a product or service. Luckily, we’ve done the research and created some helpful tips to keep your social media marketing strategies effective and to help build your brand by interacting with the clientele that’s most likely to buy.

Be Creative

Many social media users are an internet-first type of consumer, getting most of their product information from the web. If you’re not social media savvy, it could be a good idea to hire a marketing person specifically for social media management. You’ll need to be aware of your aesthetic and brand’s online personality.

Social media posts should not be directly advertising pages, all of the time. It’s great to create online video marketing content for some of your social media advertising, but you should also be using these platforms to convey the culture of your company. The most appealing social media advertisements for users who spend a lot of their day online use funny, witty, and sometimes sexy content, which breaks them away from the monotony of both working from home and constant online advertising.

Don’t underestimate the value of brand awareness via social media accounts.

Remember that not every post should be about closing a sale, and social media users are very likely to recognize when that’s what you’re trying to do. Instead, use social media marketing to share behind the scenes images and videos of your company, as well as to allow users to share their experiences with your brand to huge online audiences. Bring the “human” element of your business to the world.

Tailor to the Platform and Audience Specificity

Do your research, understand the audience, and how they may be using social media platforms differently. Your followers on LinkedIn might be very different from your followers on Snapchat or Instagram, and your marketing strategy should reflect that. Social media platforms like Snapchat and TikTok appeal to a user base that is very computer fluent, and very used to streaming a majority of their information from online sources.

These are also great platforms for short, engaging video advertising content, whereas your Instagram account might be curated to have a specific aesthetic and convey its culture via slower-paced video content and photos. Your LinkedIn advertisements will be engaging highly qualified potential candidates for future employment, as well as other vendors and businesses with which you may want to network. This platform could be best used to establish what your brand is about, how it operates, and how its culture is benefitting both employees and customers.

The point is that different platforms need to be treated as the different, specific audiences that they are. Make sure you’re engaging each group accordingly, and be adaptive with the type of social media marketing you’re willing to employ for each audience. There are a variety of social media benefits for businesses large and small, especially when you’re reaching the right audience with the right content.

Stay On-Brand

This is a big one. Brand consistency is the secret sauce to marketing and helps build repetition and recall in the consumers hearts and minds. Remember that regardless of the platform or marketing goal, you want to thoroughly establish the personality of your business through social media and the content you share. Although each platform might facilitate different marketing goals, you’ll want to stay true to your brand. Make sure your aesthetic on Instagram matches your professional image on LinkedIn, and both of those advertising campaigns match the wit and humor of your video engagements on Snapchat.

Use each platform as its own opportunity to display different aspects of the brand while staying true to the company's mission, vision, and core values. Again, this is where a creative social media marketing specialist might leverage that expertise and promote parts of your image that can sell products and services in both the short and long term, and potentially help you reach your developmental objectives through networking.

Build Relationships and Interact with Customers

Remember that the benefits of social media for businesses go far beyond being able to market your product or services to individual audiences. Social media is designed to connect people, and your company should remember that social media accounts are a great way to engage and interact with your customer base and potential professional network.

Interactive virtual videos are emerging as a great way to display your product or service while allowing the potential buyer to engage at their own pace. This is also a great space to host live events, update your followers first with news and product releases, and create interactive surveys, contests, and games. Each of these strategies encourages your audience to interact, improving brand awareness, and helping the consumer form an attachment to your brand.

Whether you are promoting brand awareness, networking with other professionals and businesses in the industry, or laying the groundwork for future talent acquisition, the benefits to social media for businesses can be many. Above all else, remember to accurately reflect who you are as a brand and as a brand owner, get creative, and invite the connections that social media was designed for!

Looking beyond "In These Difficult Times": How To Strengthen Your Brand Without Giving In To The Pandemic

Mon, 08 Jun 2020 14:29:23 GMT

Public health hurdles have forced many changes over the last several months, particularly for the business owner. Building your brand doesn’t have to be impossible despite lockdown regulations and social distancing, and many businesses have shown us just how resilient they can be, even in the most difficult conditions. The savvy entrepreneur knows that just as quickly as we’ve transitioned into the current state of operations, it’s best to be ready for whatever’s coming next. Beyond the marketing gimmicks and tech glitches that we’ve been inundated with throughout the course of this year, there are some valuable takeaways for building your brand.

First, Be Adaptable

There’s no way anyone could have predicted the chaos that would be 2020, but it seems many companies were very well prepared for anything that 2020 could throw at them. From audience-specific and currently applicable marketing to the ability to quickly move to all-virtual operations, it seemed that many businesses had the resiliency and character to take on the challenge.

The lesson to be learned from those companies that continued to operate continued to support their employees, and continued to remain relevant even as the world was rapidly changing is a lesson of adaptability. It seemed like these businesses were looking into a crystal ball, but the reality is that they were quick thinking and adaptable. Although we can’t predict what the near future or the next decade holds in terms of challenges if you want to continue building a brand regardless of the state of the world, you’ve got to be adaptable.

Virtual Events and Video Marketing Aren’t Going Away

We’ve spent much of 2020 expediting a rapid transition to virtual operations and have been very successful in doing so. Despite the challenges, this is really something that we’ve been working toward on a societal level for the last decade, and people were ready to take that leap for the sake of keeping jobs and maintaining a sense of normalcy in business. Many companies not only made that transition quickly and successfully, but they also strengthened their businesses in the process.

The truth is, things like video marketing and virtual reality were already in the works, and brands were beginning to recognize that. Now, as more and more people are spending their workdays in front of a computer screen, companies have more and more time to interact with consumers. Video marketing remains one of the most effective ways to reach a target audience, and current software allows adaptive video advertising and audience-specific modification and data tracking in real-time.

Companies like auto manufacturers and travel agencies have also implemented virtual reality into their regular marketing tactics, and are able to build greater brand recognition by giving the consumer a taste of their product, even from home.

Incorporating 360-degree views, inside and out, of the next new car on the assembly line, or walkthroughs of 2021 destination resorts helps build confidence in these brands even when the consumer isn’t ready to buy. It also allows the future buyer to do all the homework they need to do to feel comfortable with a product or company, without leaving their living room. Chances are, this tech is going to work for brand building for years to come.

Social Media is Your Friend, Let Me Explain.

We can go back and forth all day about the evils and advantages of social media marketing, but beyond using it to advertise, it is, and will be, key for product growth and brand recognition for many years to come. No matter how you slice it, people are spending a lot of time on social media platforms, and they offer innovative and interactive ways for brands to advertise. They also offer connectivity that people have been coming to rely on more and more and will continue to rely on as we prioritize social distancing and improving our collective health.

Ignoring social media as an opportunity to not only create an online presence but curate it and engage with your target audience is a big mistake, whether right now or ten years in the future. For many brands, your online presence is your ONLY presence these days, and as we continue on the virtual track, that’s likely to be the case for some time.

Even before you’re ready to sell a product, establishing a rapport with your customer base is crucial. In today’s market, consumers want to know what kind of culture and initiatives they’re supporting in buying your product. They want to know about your company culture, ideals, and what kind of responsibility you’re taking on in leaving your mark on the world. Consider the way each social media platform allows your brand the opportunity to not only target the consumer base that you want but to present yourself in the light you want to be seen in.

Social media platforms also allow your brand to network in a professional way. Developing your professional network is as crucial to a brand as engaging your target audience. Maintaining relevancy with related businesses and past accounts, as well as promoting your work culture and setting the stage for future talent acquisition can both be done by establishing and maintaining a social media presence for your brand.

Be Consistent, Professional, and Use This Time To Fine Tune

Now is not the time to take a back seat when it comes to building your brand. In fact, it’s a great opportunity to spend time fine-tuning your brand, brand language, mission/vision statements, website, and social media profiles. It’s important to not only offer a consistent product or service throughout these trying times but to make sure your customer service remains consistently strong as well. Equally important is defining your customer journey, sales pipeline, and making sure all your customer touchpoints are consistent and intent-driven.

In interacting with your network, your clients, and other vendors, be sure to maintain a tone of professionalism and confidence, without divulging too much about your personal or political opinions surrounding the current health crisis. Create an image of strength and commitment to good service and a good product, that you can carry through beyond these difficult times and far into the future.

Splurge Forward: Marketing Your Way Through The Mess

Mon, 04 May 2020 16:25:47 GMT

Let’s face it: COVID-19 has really done a number on us. It is likely that the changes the pandemic have brought about will stick with us for a while. However, there may still be hope for small business owners. You can use these trying times as a chance to reach new heights, to go even further than you’ve gone before.

Here are five concrete steps you can consider to give your small business or mid-sized business a fighting chance fighting chance to stay relevant and remain top of mind with your clients and customers during COVID-19. make it out of this thing smiling on the other side, knowing full well that you did all you possibly could to take make the best out of the difficult circumstances you happened to find yourselves in.

Let's dive in.

1. Use Every Available Marketing Dollar Strategically

The first order of business for your business is to adjust the amount of money you spend on marketing and advertising campaigns. This may seem counterintuitive, especially during a recession. However, in order to emerge victorious in this battle for the business that made the best of the situation, it is crucial to think beyond the obvious. While everybody else is clutching every dollar in despair, anxiously awaiting an end to all of this so they can just pick up where they left off, the more realistic business person will realize that “normal” as we know it probably will not return for a while. This is a time of permanent realignment, in which the very structure of our system of economic engagement is bound to become unrecognizable.

Now, that of course does not mean that you should pour money you don’t have into a marketing endeavor that may or may not work. That being said, if your budget permits, it would behoove you to further invest in marketing. With all of the permanently closed doors cropping up around you, it is vital to avoid being swallowed by the void.

2. Take Your Web Presence Seriously

It is the time, therefore, to employ all the strategies at your disposal, explore all of the digital marketing resources available to you. Enhancing your business’s online presence and relevance among web users is a good starting point. For instance, how do you currently stack up in the search rankings compared to your competitors? Perhaps it may be worth your while to familiarize yourself with the many benefits of search engine optimization . That way, when people do begin to solicit small businesses again, yours is poised to be the prime mover and shaker while everyone else is still just figuring out how to navigate now unrecognizable terrain.

Another great opportunity for scaling your business amidst the present crisis is to bulk up your outbound marketing volume, in order to more effectively engage your target market and ideal customer. We wrote an article on this very topic: " Who Is Your Ideal Customer? " Ideally, you would like your business to occupy a fairly large share of the consumer’s mind. This could be accomplished through improving your organic social media strategy, or by developing a comprehensive pay-per-click advertising campaign across multiple platforms. Be sure to take advantage of all of the various forms of advertisement available to small businesses, including venturing into territory that may have previously been uncharted for you (you won’t know what works if you don’t try!) It can also be super beneficial to have a marketing plan in place that can be hyper focused on optimizing every dollar and time-spent on achieving the results you need during this time. A proper marketing plan can speed up your results, minimize the trial and errors, and provide the blueprint to be hyper-focused.

At the end of the day, when it comes to growing and expanding your business, marketing yourself intelligently in this digital landscape, and exploring all avenues for generating clients, is pretty much a numbers game. It is common knowledge that one must spend money to make money. To outsmart your competitor, get your money moving! But investing your money is just one part of this game; you also need to take the time to engage your audience. Give them a reason to return to you, not just to see what you have to sell but what you have to say.

Show them that you are listening. What’s more, these are no doubt difficult times. Many people find themselves scrolling endlessly through social media, anything to keep the mind busy. Now is your chance to catch an eye and make an impression with a clever ad. Make the most of it!

3. Focus On The Best (Never Mind The Rest)

Before the pandemic, perhaps you felt desperate to attract anyone, just about anyone--to your brand. A lead was a lead, as far as you were concerned. Surprisingly, this is not necessarily the case.

Again, while this might not seem intuitive at first, all it takes is a shift in perspective to see that you can afford to be more selective about who you target in your marketing efforts. After all, you only have a finite amount of resources and labor available to you. You do not have to waste either of these things on leads that just are not likely to yield the results you want to see.

Now is the time to be picky. It’ll pay off in the long run, when you can maintain a stable team of employees and your inventory isn’t run dry. Being more selective about your marketing will also allow you to focus more on the ones that actually value you and your business and that you enjoy serving. It will strengthen your existing bond, and take that relationship to new heights.

4. Maximize Your Potential

The opportunity for introspection presented by the global pandemic is perhaps the shiniest silver lining one could possibly gleam from such gloomy times. Take this time to really reflect on your business strategies, and examine whether maybe you could be doing things more effectively.

It could even be little things, like what accounting method you’re using, or how much you spend on inventory. Do a deep dive; you will emerge on the other side of this sorrowful sea a lean, mean, profit-maximizing machine, equipped with newfound insight, ready to rake in even more customers than you previously even considered possible.

5. Enrich Your Heroes

The first step to showing your customers how much you appreciate them? Build a team of employees you can count on, even in these uncertain times where keeping a full roster of workers at all can feel like a challenge. At the end of the day, however, a strong team invigorates the entire business, which in turn reflects how you serve your clients.

To cultivate your team, consider: what is the ultimate mission of your business? What do you hope to achieve, and what sorts of people are most likely to get you there? This will likely mean that you will have to make tough decisions, especially when it comes to hiring. Oftentimes, however, the toughest of decisions bring with them the greatest of benefits.

In addition to showcasing your commitment to your clients, restructuring your team and placing emphasis on the highest performers will motivate them even more, as they will feel their hard work and dedication is being adequately rewarded. After all, who does not enjoy feeling part of something greater than themselves?

In Conclusion

Our sincerest best of wishes to those of you out there as you attempt to make the best of the situation we all find ourselves in. It definitely won’t be easy; however, with all of the resources at your disposal these days, many of which are free , it could spark new moment and direction for your business. If you're not sure where to begin, pleas e reach out t o us here at Splurge Media . We are open, ready, and willing to help.

Who Is Your Ideal Customer? We'll Help You Find Out

Wed, 22 Jan 2020 16:40:21 GMT

Finding your ideal customer takes a lot of research. You have to know a lot about demographics to do the job correctly. All of that research can get frustrating, and it sometimes leads to dead ends. That’s where digital marketing help comes in. At Splurge Media, we’ll help you find your ideal customer so that you can make the most effective marketing choices. In the meantime, take a look at these tips below. They’ll give you some clues to help you get started.

The “ideal customer” is one of the most valuable tools for your marketing toolbox. The idea is to ask yourself: “If I had an ideal customer, who would that customer be?” This is the hypothetical client who would be most interested in your product or service. Ideally, you’ll develop an entire profile for this person based on your sales data. Who is this person? How old are they? Do they own a home? Have children? Once you’ve learned all about your ideal client, you can target your marketing efforts toward that person. This way, you can take a lot of the guesswork out of your marketing. When we offer digital marketing help at Splurge, one of the first things we do is determine our client’s ideal customer. This process gives us a running start.

When it comes to digital marketing help and finding your ideal customer, one of the first questions you should ask yourself is “What problems do I solve?” Think of your product or service as a solution to a specific problem. Now, what exactly is that problem? Once you figure out that part, ask yourself who is most likely to experience that problem.

You can also take some time to analyze your current demographics. Who is making the most purchases right now? Who is responding to your content on social media? Do you have a wide-reaching range of people, or do specific demographics tend to use your service? If it’s the latter, finding your ideal customer should be simple. If it’s the former, you can find your ideal customer using averages.

If you want a simple, in-depth way of finding your ideal customer, we can help. We offer digital marketing help so that you can find your ideal customer and create the best digital content. Contact us at Splurge Media today.

3 Things Your Website Must Have in 2019

Tue, 19 Nov 2019 14:03:20 GMT

Need small business website help? Lots of business owners do. One of the biggest questions that business owners ask these days is, “What does my website need?” Your website gives people their first glimpse of your business. It lets them know what your business is all about. That’s why your website needs to put its best foot forward. Of course, the rules of web design have changed over the years. So, what are the most important things that your website needs? We’ve listed the top three below.

Mobile Friendliness

More people than ever are using their phones and other mobile devices to browse the internet. As a matter of fact, people use mobile devices for web browsing far more often than they use desktops. Smartphones and tablets give people convenience that desktops don’t offer. That’s why your website must have mobile friendliness. Some sites look great on desktops but look like a mess on mobile devices. Don’t let your website be the same. Test your site on several mobile devices to make sure that your content looks good from several sources. If you’re struggling to make your content mobile friendly, then some small business website help can point you in the right direction.

Intuitiveness

When you look for small business website help, look for a service that can help you with your site’s intuitiveness. Your site should be simple, straightforward, and easy to use. The sites that people use today, including social media sites, have acclimated people to simplicity and ease of use. People won’t spend too much time on complicated websites. If a site is too complicated, most people will just move on to the next one. If people click away from your site immediately, then your SEO suffers.

Purposeful SEO

Speaking of SEO, you need to be very intentional about the SEO efforts you use on your website. Before you set up or revamp your website, take some time to research keywords. While you’re at it, look at other factors that can impact your SEO, too. For example, your page loading time matters. So do your images. If you haven’t learned the basics of SEO, go ahead and do some research. It makes a big difference in your website.

Small Business Website Help

Need some small business website help ? Splurge Media has exactly what you need. We’ll help you create a marketing strategy that will transform your online presence. Ready to see the Splurge Media difference? Contact us now. Let’s start a conversation.

Top Reasons Why You Need Digital Marketing Help

Tue, 08 Oct 2019 14:07:48 GMT

Need digital marketing help? If you’re tired of slogging through your marketing efforts without seeing results, then the answer is yes. Having an expert on your side can help you in all sorts of ways. Here are just a few of the top advantages of getting a digital marketing team on your side.

Understanding Your Audience

The most important part of digital marketing is understanding your audience. You want to know about their values, lifestyles, and goals before you start marketing toward them. When you know your audience, you can appeal to the things that matter most to them. The problem is that audience research can get frustrating and difficult. Where do you even start? Thankfully, with digital marketing help, you can learn everything you need to know. Expert marketers know all about audience research.

Better Task Balance

You’re already running a business. Time management is tricky enough as it is. Add digital marketing into the mix, and you’ve got a recipe for stress and burnout. Digital marketing covers so many factors, too. You’ve got SEO, paid advertisements, social media management, and a lot more. All of these factors blend together and support one another. How do you manage to keep all of those things together when you already have so much on your plate? With digital marketing help , you won’t have to worry about it. Just let the experts handle the marketing. You can balance your tasks without getting overwhelmed.

High ROI

With digital marketing help, you can finally get some results. You’ll notice more visits to your website, more engagement on social media, and much better SEO. Those results turn into loyal clients, a fact that ultimately helps your bottom line. That’s why digital marketing services come with an excellent ROI. Whatever you put into your digital marketing needs, you get back in spades.

Faster Results

Not only do you get results with digital marketing services, you get those results fast. When business owners try to handle their digital marketing by themselves, they often put in a lot of effort just to get slow results. You can’t afford to put that much time and effort into something that won’t give you back what you put into it. With digital marketing help, you can get the results that you want in a fraction of the time. Since digital marketing is their main focus, these services don’t have their hands tied with other projects. They know all the tools of the trade, and they know how to get results from them as soon as possible.

Digital Marketing Help

Ready to see all of these advantages for yourself? SplurgeMedia has the expert help that you need. Contact us today to find out how our experts can get you the results your business deserves.

Do You Have a Digital Marketing Plan Yet?

Tue, 17 Sep 2019 14:10:32 GMT

Do you have a digital marketing plan? When it comes to digital marketing, having a plan can mean the difference between successful marketing and a lot of frustration. When you take the time to sit down and organize your thoughts, you’ll have a much better chance of reaching your marketing goals.

You Need a Digital Marketing Plan

Why do you need a digital marketing plan? Having a plan will make your business life easier. First of all, the trial and error process doesn’t work for digital marketing. The truth is that it’s tough to make a name for your business online. Online marketing is a highly competitive world. You need plans and goals to get yourself started.

A marketing plan can also speed up your results. When you dive into digital marketing without a plan, you’ll probably flail for a while before you find your footing. That’s fine for some endeavors, but your business needs results now. Creating a digital marketing plan takes time upfront. However, it will give you a faster path to marketing success. Any endeavor is easier when you organize your thoughts and ideas first. If you keep pausing to chase down your ideas, you’ll lose your overall focus. Finally, a digital marketing plan gives you a way to measure your overall progress. When you set specific goals and create steps to achieve them, you have a solid way to take stock of your success.

How to Get Started

Now that you know you need a digital marketing plan, what can you do to get started? First, if you don’t know much about internet marketing, now is a great time to start learning. Do some research online to get a basic overview.

Next, write down your goals. Do you want to get more people to see your website? Gain more social media followers? Increase lead-generation? Once you’ve determined your goals, divide them into categories. Now, what can you do to make those goals a reality? Brainstorm ideas until you can turn those ideas into a step-by-step list.

Create a Digital Marketing Plan With Splurge Media

Does all of this seem a little overwhelming? It doesn’t have to be. If you don’t have the time to create a digital marketing plan, why not have the Splurge Media team do it for you? We make digital marketing easy. We can take care of everything from market research to social media and SEO, so you don’t have to worry about it. Want to get started? Get in touch with us today.