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    Tag: content marketing

    How to use content marketing to build brand authority

    Posted on by Alex Wilks

    Establishing brand authority is paramount for businesses seeking to stand out amidst fierce competition. Content marketing emerges as a powerful strategy for not only engaging audiences but also building trust and credibility. Leveraging content effectively can elevate a brand’s authority in its niche, fostering long-term relationships with customers. Here’s how Trek Marketing can help you to harness the potential of content marketing to solidify your position as an industry leader.  

    Define your brand voice and expertise 

    To build brand authority through content marketing, you must first define your brand’s voice and expertise. Understanding your target audience and their pain points is essential for crafting content that resonates with them. By positioning yourself as an authoritative voice in your industry, you can attract and retain loyal followers who trust your insights and recommendations. 

    Create high-quality, valuable content

    The cornerstone of effective content marketing is the creation of high-quality, valuable content that addresses the needs and interests of the target audience. Trek Marketing helps clients by focusing on producing content such as informative articles and visually appealing infographics that showcase their expertise and provide tangible value to the consumer. By consistently delivering valuable content, you can establish yourself as a go-to resource in your field.

    Optimize content for search engines 

    Visibility is key to building brand authority. This is why you need to optimize your content for search engine results pages (SERPs) to ensure that you’re attracting organic traffic and expanding your reach. 

    Leveraging thought leadership

    Thought leadership plays a crucial role in establishing brand authority. Here at Trek Marketing, we assist our customers in positioning themselves as thought leaders by sharing their insights, experiences, and expertise through blog posts, interviews, and speaking engagements. By showcasing thought leadership, businesses can differentiate themselves from their competitors and gain the trust and respect of their audience. 

    Engage with your audience

    Building brand authority requires more than just creating content—it also involves actively engaging with the audience. We engage interactively by responding to comments, answering questions, and soliciting feedback for you. By fostering meaningful connections with your audience, you can cultivate a loyal community of followers who view the brand as a trusted authority in its field.

    What are you currently doing to build brand authority? Drop a comment below to start a conversation.

    4 digital marketing steps to drive growth as a local business

    Posted on by Alex Wilks

    As the way we do business evolves, local establishments face unique challenges in standing out from their competitors. However, with the right digital marketing strategies, even small businesses can make a big impact on their communities. This blog will explore key steps to drive growth as a local business, focusing on effective methods to increase website traffic and expand your online presence. 

    Optimize your website for local search

    To increase website traffic and attract local customers, optimizing your website for local search is essential. Ensure that your website includes relevant keywords related to your business and location. Incorporate location-based meta tags, titles, and descriptions to improve visibility in local search results. Additionally, list your business on Google My Business and other online directories to enhance your online presence and make it easier for potential customers to find you. 

    Utilize content marketing

    In case you didn’t know, leveraging content marketing can significantly boost your website traffic and engagement. By creating informative and relevant content, you can address the needs and interests of your local audience. Whether this includes blog post submissions, how-to guides, or some fun videos showcasing your products or services, providing valuable content establishes your business as a trusted authority in your community. Be sure to also share your content across your social media platforms and local online forums to reach a wider audience and drive traffic back to your website. 

    All of the tasks and more are part of our search engine optimization (SEO) service. 

    Engage with your community on social media

    Social media platforms offer a valuable opportunity to connect with your local community and drive traffic to your website. Some ways to start the conversation are by creating engaging and interactive social media posts that resonate with your audience. You can also share behind-the-scenes glimpses of your business, highlight customer testimonials, and promote special offers or events. We further recommend that you encourage user-generated content by hosting contests or asking customers to share their experiences with your business. All of these assets allow you to better and more actively engage with your community on social media. Regular posting allows you to foster relationships, build brand loyalty, and increase website traffic over time. 

    Social media not your thing? Our social media marketing service means that we handle the posting schedule and spend time with the analytics to see where you can better connect with your audience. 

    Invest in local online advertising

    To reach potential customers in your area, consider investing in local online advertising campaigns. Platforms like Google Ads and Facebook Ads offer targeting options that allow you to reach users based on their location, interests, and demographics. Create targeted ad campaigns that showcase your products or services and drive traffic to specific landing pages on your website. 

    Embrace these digital marketing steps and watch your local business reach new heights in no time.

    Which of the following examples have you been wanting to try? Drop a comment below to get in touch with our team.

    How to allocate your digital marketing budget

    Posted on by Alex Wilks

    While there is no universal strategy for small business budget allocation, successful e-commerce companies will invest in a mix of both paid and organic initiatives. With a wide abundance of marketing channels available in various sectors of online advertising, it’s important to know where your money can be wisely spent to yield a higher return on investment (ROI) and which activities will strategically reach your target audience. In this blog, we will walk you through some steps that you should take when appropriating your marketing budget and offer tips on how to better budget yourself in the future. 

    Making the most of your digital marketing budget

    Whether this is the first digital marketing budget you’ve ever built or you’re looking to give your process a little refresher.

    Here are some steps that can help you to determine where the money should go:

    • Use a budget tracker: All businesses need to track their expenses and analyze where cuts can be made to further the profit. Likewise, your first step to allocating a budget for digital marketing for a small business is to prepare data into a report that shows proposed spend, actual spend, and the results of your spend for future planning.
    • Review goals: Your organization’s top priorities and initiatives are things to consider when budgeting for the next quarter. However, when reviewing these goals, you also need to factor in new product launches, deals, promotions, and event signups.  
    • Select the right sales channels: What works for one business or industry may not work for another, which is why outreach, demographics, behaviours, and intent are elements to consider when choosing the right sales channels. This will not only help you to avoid wasting money but also build up your buyer persona. 
    • Paid search: Online ad campaigns like Google Ads may use up much of your budget because of the cost-per-click but if you secure the right visitors to your website, the investment is well worth it.  
    • Paid social: Popular choices include Facebook ads, Instagram ads, and LinkedIn ads, which show up for potential customers on their social feeds. Depending on the dollar amount you spend, your chances of acquiring new customers can become heightened. 
    • Content marketing: Content is king and since it can typically be put online for little to no charge, the only cost associated with the content is the time that it takes to write. If you can do that yourself, great! But if you’re one of the many who need to rely on freelance writers to produce awesome business content, be sure to budget what you can afford and post as much as you can. 

    If you allocate your budget based on data, you’re setting yourself up to be successful. Since Trek Marketing works with digital marketing for small business, we have all the services and expertise you need for allocating your budget. 

    What other strategies do you consider when depending on your business budget? Drop a comment below to share.

    Increase web traffic with these 4 strategic services

    Posted on by Alex Wilks

    Every online business wants to increase website traffic to drive sales and conversions. After all, an attractive website amplifies brand awareness and revenue. However, it isn’t easy to get noticed in the vast depth of organic search results, which is why we have four digital marketing services to strategically bring quality traffic back to your website. 

    Search engine optimization (SEO) 

    SEO encompasses a wide range of tactics for helping your website rank well in search engine results for relevant keywords and phrases. Since organic searches are most likely to begin via search engines, this digital marketing service has the potential to dramatically increase the quantity and quality of your website traffic by attracting users who’re interested in completing a sale.

    Pay-per-click advertising (PPC)

    PPC advertising drives traffic to your website through the use of paid advertisements. These ads are strategically placed on search engine result pages (SERPs), social media sites, and other websites. While digital marketers are in charge of creating and managing these ads, with PPC advertising, businesses only pay when the ad has been clicked, making this a cost-effective way to increase website traffic. 

    Social media marketing

    Social media sites like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter are an excellent way to grow your brand, expand your audience, and drive more website traffic. By creating a social media following you offer added opportunities for users to link back to your website, which increases traffic and incentivizes viewers to learn more about what your business has to offer. 

    Content marketing

    Blog post submissions, infographics, videos, and podcasts are all elements that fall under the realm of content marketing. Whether you choose to create and publish content that aligns with the interests of your audience or keep things simple by outsourcing content marketing to a digital marketing agency, it’s important that you be strategic to increase page session times and conversions.

    Did you know that the following content marketing is more likely to drive website traffic?

    • Long-form content (more than 2000 words)
    • Informational pages
    • Product and service pages
    • Guides

    Trek marketing offers all of the above strategic digital marketing services, so perhaps it’s time that you found out more?

    If you had to prioritize, which digital marketing service would you try first to increase your website traffic?

    Will you be trying these 3 digital marketing consumer trends?

    Posted on by Alex Wilks

    Every year we experience revolutionary digital marketing trends that help to lay a foundation for the future of online advertising. That said, after two groundbreaking years for online shopping, 2022 is only expected to continue the rise with social shopping adding to the momentum. With these new and exciting developments to the digital world, it has become more important than ever to ensure that your business is communicating with its audience. Listed below are three of the key digital marketing consumer trends to be mindful of in 2022. 

    Work on creating some short, punchy videos

    Whether you’re more familiar with YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, or Snapchat, it’s clear that the landscape of social media has shifted in favour of short and punchy video posts. Since it would be challenging to ensure that your business is relevant across all of the above platforms, we recommend selecting one or two to focus on. Short videos zero in on our fast-paced way of life, which is a direct reflection of the way we consume content. Digital content needs to possess a simple message while also presenting content that’s engaging by asking consumers to participate; examples include the start of a viral dance move, a challenge, or a survey, but at the very least, encourages them to leave a comment. The best thing about these types of social videos is that all business owners have access to creating content like this with the help of their smartphones. Start by filming a few candid videos of your business, some behind-the-scenes, DIY, and other unpolished videos by using the apps to crop, create, and add audio to make it more appealing to your target audience. 

    Ensure that your content is telling a story

    This recurring digital marketing trend is key for a brand looking to market new and existing products. E-commerce selling in the modern landscape requires business owners to dig deep, believe in their products and/or services, and continuously show why what they offer is between than the competition. Part of your delivery should involve some form of storytelling, whether it be debunking myths about your industry, explaining how the product solves consumer problems, or showcasing testimonials through your social stories. While these efforts might not result in direct sales, they’re a great way for brands to put consumer needs at the front and center! 

    Exhibit privacy, transparency, and trust-building 

    Digital marketing trends are at an all-time high, which means that online advertising is also in overload. This means that more consumers than ever are concerned with the interaction that can happen with suspicious content. This is why it’s important to prepare your business for tighter privacy restrictions that may alter the way that they can track users’ behaviour. On that note, Google announced its curtailing of third-party cookies by 2023, which means that many marketers are going to be forced to reevaluate their strategies. While this is not the end of data-driven content, it could be the end of targeted advertising, with a new era springing forth in the trust and transparency between company and consumer. 

    Be sure that as a business you’re communicating with customers about the data that you collect and what it’s used for. This makes it easy for consumers to opt-out if they want which formulates a great foundation for a customer relationship. 

    Which of the above digital marketing trends would suit your business best? Drop a comment below to share.

    How to promote your services online as a home contractor

    Posted on by Alex Wilks

    With the housing market booming these past few years the need for home improvement projects has skyrocketed, as has digital marketing for small businesses. With homeowners undertaking complete or partial renovations in place of having a holiday, home maintenance services such as HVAC, roofing, electrical, plumbing, and/or landscaping, need to be taking a more aggressive marketing approach to their promotion. After all, these projects need a professional home contractor and the best place for homeowners to search for reputable companies is online. 

    Update your website

    When promoting home contracting services, your website should be where you start first. After all, why rely on word-of-mouth representation when you’re living at the peak of a digital era? While there are potential customers that enjoy visiting a physical brick-and-mortar store to get the feel of a company and ask their face-to-face questions, most prefer websites as a hub for their first glance at a service. So, if you’re a home contractor who’s offering up your tradesmen services, consider creating a website or simply updating the one you have. We recommend going beyond an online portfolio to ensure that your site is equipped with the tools that allow you to promote your specialized skills. Added pages containing your mission statement, a bit about your team and how the company started, and an up-to-date blog with topics surrounding your industry are great ways to add content to your website and instill trust with consumers. Don’t forget to have a reviews page as well highlighted prominently on your website!

    In terms of digital marketing for small businesses, there’s a lot an agency can do for your website. A professional content writer and/or search engine optimization (SEO) expert can work together to ensure your website’s copy is engaging, click-worthy, and gaining traction and traffic with a variety of other services like email marketing and pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, which link back to your website. 

    Boost your online presence and traffic

    Although simply having a website is better than nothing, as a home contractor that is competing in a heavily saturated market, you need ways for your potential clients to pick you out of the vast competition. To stand out in your industry, digital marketing services like SEO and PPC campaign must come into play. While an SEO campaign optimizes your website by producing relevant content and important links, a PPC campaign allows you to display ads on search engines. Together these types of campaigns allow you to rank, and with every successful click comes an opportunity to get noticed and gain business. Ultimately, if coordinated professional, both digital marketing strategies will help to increase your online visibility and website traffic.  

    Employ email marketing and social media marketing

    Ask an e-commerce business and they will tell you that both email marketing and social media marketing have proven to be effective and beneficial to their businesses. That said, as a home contractor, you likely already have lists of past and current clients. As such, you can use them to create a list that can then be selected wherever you want to offer promotions, describe new services offered, or simply wish them a healthy and happy New Year! On the other hand, an up-to-date social media platform also has its perks. We recommend managing a Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn account and utilizing them for business all while showcasing the more edgy side of your company. Post ongoing or finished projects, highlight members of your team, and network with potential clients all with your smartphone in hand. 

    The key to promoting your tradesman services is through digital marketing for small businesses. Consider the marketing strategies recommended above or contact a member of our sales team to look at other means for boosting your profits.

    What type of home contracting business do you own and/or operate? Let’s compare in the comments section below. 

    How to create a click-worthy email

    Posted on by Alex Wilks

    While generating sales is an important component of any digital marketing campaign, it’s equally important to connect with your audience and create an engaging atmosphere that formulates a step beyond a simple business relationship. Email marketing is a great way for companies to generate a loyal following, which is why today’s submission will focus on the best ways to create a click-worthy email. 

    Step #1: Define your purpose

    Every email that’s sent from your company should have a specific purpose in mind before it’s created. While that purpose may vary from company to company, its effectiveness will depend on the newsletter’s ability to educate, entertain, convince, or persuade the receiver to take action, whatever that action may be.

    Not only does your purpose help you to create cohesive newsletter content, but it also helps to define which metrics will determine success for your email campaign. This is why the best email marketing service involves a team member taking the time to analyze the data and deciding what other purposes will keep the business moving forward. 

    Step #2: Determine your content

    We’re living in an era where people don’t take too much time out of their days to sift through lengthy content, which is why emails need to be quick at covering their topics before the reader loses interest. In looking for topics, a good place to start is your blog. Hunt for articles that have received lots of traffic and then design an email featuring content around that. Next, look to the comments sections of your website and/or social media channels to see what questions and themes arise. These areas will be filled with topics of interest that will make a great subject for your upcoming email. 

    Step #3: Select a tone

    Now that you know what to write about, it’s time to decide how to write it. It isn’t interesting to read a monotone article, so be sure to determine your voice before you put your fingers to work. For example, if your brand’s tone is energized and lively, the newsletter should not be written in a factual tone with large words or statistics. The best thing you can do is put yourself into the shoes of your audience and try writing in a way that makes a connection. 

    Step #4: Have a custom newsletter template created

    While there are many pre-made email templates out there, none will offer the same level of professionalism as something that’s customized to your branding. Our partner company Numinix designs emails from scratch and once you have the template on your email marketing account of choice, you can reuse it for all your future campaigns, or if it’s within the budget, opt to spend it on the best email marketing service there is! 

    Also, keep in mind that what looks great on your desktop computer may not look the best on a smaller smartphone screen or across multiple browsers, so be sure to check screen size and resolution before clicking send or schedule. 

    Step #5: Choose your subject line

    The first line of communication from your company to your customer is the subject line that pops up in their inbox, and since most people receive multiple emails per day, it’s important that yours stand out above the rest. The best way to compete for someone’s time and get your email opened is to make a solid impression with an eye-catching subject line that entices users to click through. Ensure that it’s catchy, clear, and advertises exactly what the receiver can expect rather than using a click-bait technique that will jeopardize your trust with your potential customer. 

    Step #6: Utilize segmentation

    All of the best email marketing services strategize their emails but segmenting audiences to ensure that the right content reaches the right people. That being said, even the smallest list can reap the rewards of segmentation, increasing your response rate and in turn, increasing your sales and conversion rates. Segmentation not only allows you to create audiences based on their unique tastes but also enables you to slightly alter the email’s appearance by changing small elements such as the content or subject lines. 

    Our email marketing service caters to the niche of each client by strategically developing a monthly plan geared to update our clients’ successes and climb the ladder in their industry. 

    Do you have any other questions about creating a click-worthy email? Drop them in the comments section below for a prompt response. 

    Why SEO, content, and email marketing work well together

    Posted on by Alex Wilks

    While most digital marketing disciplines possess the power to complement each other, none make as dynamic of a connection as the virtuous cycle between search engine optimization, content marketing, and email marketing. Find out how these core web vitals help shoppers to engage with your brand and return to your online store to make purchase after purchase. 

    What is search engine optimization (SEO)?

    SEO is a digital marketing discipline that aims to attract more and higher-quality website traffic from popular search engines like Google or Bing. The practice involves understanding what your prospecting customers would be searching for and providing the appropriate answer to their queries using SEO as the anchoring development behind your content creation. An SEO e-commerce agency will offer solutions for both on-page and off-page optimization to claim opportunities for further engagement. 

    What is content marketing? 

    This form of marketing focuses on creating, publishing, and distributing content to a targeted audience that attracts, engages, and retains long-standing customers. While it seems relatively simplistic, the effectiveness of content marketing is reliant on the creation of compelling content, which gives business real value and customers, a sense of obligation to that business (buy products, support through word of mouth, etc.). 

    What’s email marketing? 

    This practice works to engage past customers and future prospects in a personal way by keeping up the business connection through the delivery of useful, engaging material. While some e-commerce business owners use email marketing to make their customers aware of new product arrivals or best sellers, others take advantage of the digital marketing source to send offers or industry-related content that directly relates to their brand. 

    How do they work together?

    The combined benefits of SEO, content marketing, and email marketing work together to ensure a high-level of e-commerce success. The first element that assists in joining their efforts involves the use of keyword research, which utilizes traffic-driving words to allow your company’s pages to rank higher on search engines. By monitoring popular keywords, and choosing which niche ones to target, you’re able to generate better traffic which could lead to an increase in conversions. How is this done, you ask? By incorporating keywords into your content marketing strategy, you’re able to offer on and off-page SEO optimization, which develops more opportunities for shoppers to purchase from your website. 

    When using keywords to develop content ideas, be sure to expand the wording to include specific details that have the potential to spark further growth down the road. For example, if you own a bakery and are hoping to target vegan shoppers, you need to be more specific with your choice of keyword phrases. While vegan recipes are a good start to crawl your way up Google rankings, your content should include trending words, such as “cauliflower steak recipe vegan”. For savvy marketers looking to go a step further with their core web vitals, you can include an email subscription section on your content pages to encourage passersby to join the list if they enjoy what they’re reading. 

    While it’s easier to see how SEO and content are hand-in-hand, email marketing also plays an important role in your business (as seen in the above example). Once you have selected your targeted words and have incorporated them into your marketing content, you will then want to further your campaign by creating an email that is also targeted to your heavily searched phrases. Subscribers then hold the opportunity to share the content that they receive, which can help in establishing backlinks that directly affect the efforts made through your SEO strategy. So, aside from asserting yourself as an industry leader, you’re able to use all these digital marketing efforts to rapidly grow your email list, which allows your audience to organically advertise, bringing your business around in a full circle back to your original SEO creation. 

    Do you have any further questions about how an SEO e-commerce agency establishes your brand through digital marketing? Drop a comment below to spark a conversation. 

    Digital Marketing vs. Traditional Marketing

    Posted on by Alex Wilks

    If your business still isn’t using digital media for marketing, 2020 is the year to get started. While online marketing efforts have an assortment of benefits that allow your company to grow, don’t give up on the traditional marketing efforts that are already working well for your business. The key to advertising success lies with well thought out strategies and a coordinated budget that can juggle both online and offline opportunities. So, here’s how digital and traditional media differ and what exposure they need to be successful. 

    Digital marketing outline

    A simplistic definition of digital marketing is the promotion of a brand’s products or services through electronic media. An example of this would include developing a digital marketing strategy and using advertising mediums to promote business efforts through the internet by way of social media, mobile phones, and electronic billboards. And while this inventive business proclamation is relatively new, about 70% of consumers prefer it over traditional ad methods! 

    Digital marketing does well in contemporary society because so many people are spending their time online, whether it be on their way to and from work, on their breaks or simply while on the toilet. So, businesses need to connect to their target demographic by utilizing the power of social media, blogging, and emails. These advertising methods increase your online exposure and expand your overall visibility in a world where most business owners are experiencing cut-throat competition. However, while professional digital marketing is relatively easy and inexpensive, paying an agency to handle your affairs can give your business the perfect kind of traction it needs.  

    Traditional marketing outline 

    An effortless way to define traditional marketing is a kind of promotion or advertisement that companies use during the early period of a particular product or service. This would include print advertisements, billboards, flyers, pamphlets, TV advertisements, newsletters articles, and radio commercials. In addition, traditional marketing also covers direct mail postcards, brochures, and flyers that are sent through postal mail. On a positive note, 79% of households admit that they read or scan direct mail advertising! 

    Traditional marketing has become a costly advertising source, providing very little direct communication with your consumer audience. However, it does allow you to broadcast your message in a particular publication to cater to those who have an interest in your industry. Although, the main throwback to traditional is that it’s more of a one-and-done strategy that more times than not, has shoppers reading it and tossing it out afterward. 

    What are the favored tools for each outlet?

    Professional digital marketing relies on social media channels such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube to get the word out. They may also rely on WordPress as a blogging platform and e-commerce foundation. Video and high graphic images work well on all the following digital marketing channels and have a strong ability to influence consumer decisions. 

    When it comes to traditional marketing, newspaper ads, direct mail, postcards, magazine ads, and even exerts in the phone book as the time-honored ways businesses once got customer attention, however, while this type of classic marketing adheres to a high degree of trust in older demographics, it’s missing out on the growing opportunity to progress with modern marketing technologies. 

    When do you think traditional marketing outweigh digital marketing? Drop a comment below to share. 

    Looking for some last-minute holiday marketing campaign tips?

    Posted on by Alex Wilks

    If you’re one of the many entrepreneurs that aren’t quite ready to face this year’s holiday season, why not consider putting an innovative spin on your brand’s marketing? December is a festive time where shoppers are constantly bombarded with an overwhelming influx of holiday-inspired messages, which makes it easy for your campaign(s) to get lost in the noise of the season. So, if you want to generate some added buzz, consider the following tips to ensure that your communication has a quality rather than a chaotic approach. 

    Draw inspiration from your competitors

    Whether your holiday marketing strategy includes some social media promotions, a couple of enticing emails, some extra pay-per-click adverts or all of the above, it’s important to get creative when you’re orchestrating your agenda for the month. Although running a unique campaign is always preferable, when it comes to the holiday season, chances are there’s very little you can do to make your marketing strategy one-of-a-kind, so why not incorporate your brand into a festive year-end campaign that highlights a comparable feel to your competitors, but outshines them in the process? 

    Emphasis seasonal imagery 

    Regardless of what niche industry your business is a part of, brands likely see the holiday season as a time of year to connect to their audience through the use of festive imagery. A prime example of this lies with the graphics you use on your social media channels, emails, and website banners. Since images can visually communicate with your visitors, why not just let them do the talking? After all, setting the tone for the season provides a timely, relevant way for you to get your audience excited about limited-time offers and is a comprehensive way to add a little vibrancy to your holiday marketing strategy.  

    Emotionally charge your communication

    The holiday season is one of the most important and profitable times of the year for many e-commerce businesses, so why not add an element of human touch to your communication? Your choice of wording in your social media posts, emails, and homepage text should invoke emotion and inspire action (purchases) and loyalty (recurring purchases). In other words, your holiday content is most effective when it’s tugging at the heartstrings of potential shoppers. 

    If you’re still struggling to find the time, dialogue, or imagery to pair with your thought-provoking, holiday marketing, we encourage you to speak with a representative from our digital marketing team to get yourself joyously ready!

    Do you have any other tips that are could apply to a last-minute campaign? Drop a comment below to share.