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    Tag: digital marketing services

    Boosting your search visibility with online reviews

    Posted on by Alex Wilks

    Online reviews have become a crucial component of a business’s online presence. Not only do they influence consumer decision-making, but they also play a significant role in boosting search visibility. Let’s explore how online reviews help to enhance your visibility in search engine results and provide practical tips to leverage the power of customer feedback. 

    Enhanced search engine rankings 

    Search engines value fresh, relevant, and user-generated content, which is precisely what online reviews offer. When customers leave reviews about your business, products, or services, research engines recognize these as valuable content. Positive reviews will signal credibility and trustworthiness, which also contributes to higher search engine rankings. This is why you should encourage satisfied customers to leave reviews on platforms like Google My Business, Yelp, etc. to improve your search visibility and attract potential customers who are actively searching for products or services that you offer. 

    Increased click-through rates

    Online reviews impact search rankings and influence click-through rates (CTRs). When potential customers see a high rating and positive reviews next to your business listing in search results, they are more likely to want to click through to your website. Positive reviews act as social proof, assuring users that your business is reliable. It’s a good idea to monitor and respond to your reviews and address the ones that raise concerns before they’re seen by potential customers. This aids you in building a positive online reputation. 

    Local SEO advantage

    For businesses hoping to target local customers, online reviews play a crucial role in search engine optimization (SEO). Positive reviews using relevant keywords can improve your business’s visibility in local search results. To achieve this, encourage your customers to mention location-specific details in their views, such as neighbourhood or city names. This can help search engines to better understand the geographic relevance of your business and allow you to better manage and respond to reviews, further boosting your local SEO efforts. 

    Are you ready to harness the potential of customer feedback? Learn more about our SEO service today!

    Do you have problems getting customer reviews? Drop a comment below to compare with other business owners.

    Digital marketing tips for the holiday season

    Posted on by Alex Wilks

    The holidays are quickly approaching, and the holiday season means big business for e-commerce companies. While big box stores are bound to get an influx in sales, the holiday season is also a great opportunity for small businesses to shine. Shoppers are always on the hunt for the best deals, the quickest and cheapest shipping, and unique products to give away as gifts. Since November is when people begin to explore and evaluate their options, it’s a great time to focus on your marketing plan. Here are some tips for the holiday season.

    Set SMART goals

    After you take the time to brainstorm some ideas, it’s time for you to set some business goals. Since goal setting is an important part of launching a successful marketing campaign, we recommend that you try using the SMART goals formula—an acronym that offers a framework to develop a path to success.

    What does SMART mean?

    • Specific: Focus on one area or task
    • Measurable: Assign a number or percentage to your task to measure progress
    • Attainable: Can you reasonably achieve your goal?
    • Relevant: Can you benefit from achieving this goal?
    • Time-sensitive: Can you create a deadline and ensure that you hold yourself accountable? 

    When creating goals, it’s important that you focus on one area at a time. For example, if you want to increase traffic this holiday season, you will want to invest in digital marketing services that directly correlate to an influx in traffic. Next, once you pick your goal, make sure it’s something that you can measure. You could say, “I want to increase my traffic by 10% over the holidays” which is something that you can track through Google Analytics. Not only do you want to ensure the said goal is measurable, but it also needs to be attainable. The holiday season has already started and for most people, ends by January 1. Is it attainable for you to increase traffic by 10%? Possibly 5% would be a better benchmark. With a specific, measurable, and attainable goal, you need to test its relevance. Will a 5% increase in traffic have a positive impact on your business? It absolutely will! Finally, you need to make sure that your goal is time-sensitive. Set your deadline. You have at least six weeks onwards to get the job done and keep yourself motivated.

    Be sure to define your target audience

    When speaking with a specific person, we naturally adjust what we say and how we say it. Your marketing should be the same. 

    Here are some questions to ask yourself when marketing to your target audience:

    • How well do you know your customers?
    • What makes them buy specifically from your business?
    • What are your customers thinking when they begin the holiday shopping journey?

    Knowing your audience is an essential part of creating marketing materials that will appeal to them. 

    Don’t forget to tell your story

    Customers join a retailer’s business journey at varied stages, so the holiday season is a great time to reintroduce yourself. 

    Your story could include:

    • How you got started
    • Your brand’s history
    • Customer success stories
    • Advice on products or services

    Hi, we’re Trek Marketing! We hope that all of the above holiday season digital marketing tips allow you to better connect with your audience in a successful and impactful way. 

    Which tip(s) have you added to your radar for the holiday season? Drop a comment below. 

    3 ways to get the best return on investment for your company

    Posted on by Alex Wilks

    Before you can work to improve your business return on investment you must first define what “return” means for you. This could include higher sales, increased revenue, bigger profits, reduced overhead or production costs, higher employee retention, better customer satisfaction, increased brand preference, or fewer government regulations. Once you select your “return” goals, you can work towards achieving them. However, for the purpose of this blog, we will discuss three ways to get the best return on investment for companies overall. 

    Increase revenue

    One way to increase your return on investment is by generating more sales. While the easiest way to achieve this could be to just raise your prices, this is not always the most beneficial. We recommend always looking at ways to improve your sales without affecting your current business practices. For example, you could increase your spending budget on advertising or host a sale. While this will cost money, the return could elate your profits, making an improved return on investment!

    Reduce costs

    Another way to improve your return on investment is to reduce your expenses. You won’t need to raise prices or increase your sales if you can reduce costs. Overhead and production costs vary between industries but there are ways for business owners cut these costs and get their best return on investment. For example, focus on reducing non-product costs like rent or having a work phone. If possible, you could focus on an online shop rather than a brick-and-mortar and have a responsive email instead of a work phone. On the other hand, you could focus on reducing production costs as well. Shop around and see if you can lower your cost of materials and labor. It may not be possible but it’s worth it. 

    Reevaluate your expectations

    Every investment doesn’t need to provide an immediate dollar benefit. In fact, many forms of digital marketing, such as search engine optimization or pay-per-click advertising, can take time to increase your sales. However, this shouldn’t stop you from considering these services. These types of marketing campaigns are not only valuable over time but they allow you to track insights like new customers, increased traffic, and increased awareness. Maybe it’s time that you re-evaluated your expectations. 

    Which ways do you plan to adjust to achieve the best return on investment? Drop a comment below to let us know.

    The customer buying journey explained

    Posted on by Alex Wilks

    With the accessibility of the internet and vast amounts of information available, the modern shopper is now more informed than ever. Because of this transition, sales conversations are in the hands of the buyer. With no pushy salesperson to push the features of a particular product like it used to be, instead, online businesses must adapt to continue to target their audience on their path to purchase. This is known as the customer buying journey. 

    What’s the customer buying journey?

    The customer buying journey is everything that happens on their path to purchase. Since people don’t usually just wake up and decide to make purchases on a whim (this can happen!) the process in which they become aware of a product and/or service, consider and evaluate that product and/or service, and decide to purchase that product and/or service is known as the customer buying journey. Understanding the experience of the customer buying journey can help business owners to influence their digital marketing decisions and allocate their budget to a service that best reaches their consumer audience.

    What are the stages of the customer buying journey?

    There are three steps in the customer buying journey:

    1. Awareness: The buyer because aware of a problem or something that they need
    2. Consideration: The buyer defines their problem or their needs and considers options that might solve it/them
    3. Decision: The buyer evaluates and devices on the right provider to administer a solution—this includes elements like price, delivery time, reviews, etc.

    The awareness stage applied:

    The buyer is experiencing a problem with pain in their back and their goal would be to alleviate it. They may then decide to use online resources to understand and frame the problem. For example, “Why is my back hurting?”

    The consideration stage applied:

    The buyer has defined that their back pain is a problem and they are committed to researching and understanding all of the available approaches to solving their problem. For example, “How do you treat back pain when you sit at work?”

    The decision stage applied: 

    The buyer has decided on their solution strategy, method, or approach. Their goal now is to compile a list of available online vendors, and ultimately, make a final purchase decision. For example, “Is better chair support needed? Should I get a sit-stand desk? 

    How to tailor your sales process to better meet the customer buying journey

    With everything mentioned above, it remains important for sellers to know that buyers don’t wish to be pursued and simply want to rely on your knowledge when the time feels right. We recommend utilizing services like social media marketing and search engine optimization as a way to get noticed, display your knowledge, and await sales.

    Did you have any further questions about the customer buying journey? If so, drop them below for a prompt response.

    4 tips for making the most out of your digital ad spending

    Posted on by Alex Wilks

    Since digital marketing spans a variety of channels—websites, streaming content, and more—it’s important to direct digital ad spending towards an assortment of media formats, including text, image, audio, and video. This allows businesses to achieve their goals across the marketing funnel, which include brand awareness, customer engagement, and driving repeat sales. This surge in popularity means that you should be working with a professional and skilled digital marketing agency that will ensure that your ad spending remains focused on the areas where your business will get noticed. Here are four tips for getting the most out of your digital ad spending. 

    Keep the focus on your target audience

    The internet is a competitive space that’s dominated by both marketers and consumers. However, before you can identify your reach to achieve greater engagement, you must first identify and target the right audience. 

    While a service such as email marketing can be a great driver of customer retention and acquisition for businesses, your brand’s audience might keep the focus on social media as well. This means that aside from emailing your list, you should also be targeting them on their respective social sites if you hope to exceed your performance goals.

    Be persistent 

    If you think of advertising as telling a story, then your digital ad spending is the surefire way to increase interest and reach your potential customers. As a big component of successful digital advertising, it’s important to keep your message consistent and be persistent with what you deliver.

    Ensure that your content is easy for readers to understand

    While “simplicity” is often determined by your demographic, on-the-go content is easiest for all to consume, as it puts the responsibility in the hands of the customer. This prime opportunity is only achievable when the content is easy for readers (or listeners) to understand, enabling brands to connect more intimately with their audience, and allowing the audience to choose when and where they connect with said brand.

    Don’t be afraid to ditch what isn’t working

    There’s nothing wrong with trying something new. Equally so, there’s nothing wrong with ditching a strategy after a reasonable amount of time if it proves to be ineffective. We don’t want you wasting your digital ad spending on efforts that don’t offer a return on investment (ROI). 

    On the other hand, please keep in mind that efforts such as search engine optimization (SEO) can take several months to fully develop. So, be sure not to ditch your efforts too early.

    We hope these tips provide you with invaluable success in your advertising!

    What do you do to properly allot your digital ad spending? Drop a comment below to share.

    3 of the best PPC ad networks

    Posted on by Alex Wilks

    In terms of access to pay-per-click ad networks, the choices have boomed in recent years, with an opportunity to choose between traditional search engine results pages, native advertising on popular websites, and a wide variety of social platforms. Since PPC ad networks are expansive, it’s important to consider all avenues before allocating your business’s marketing budget. Listed below is a selection of the best PPC ad networks to use to strengthen your digital marketing strategy.

    Google Ads 

    As one of the biggest players in the game, Google ads possess a huge market reach which includes the following PPC ads:

    • Search engine results pages (SERPS)
    • Display Network (ads and videos on partner websites)
    • YouTube advertising
    • Google Play app store advertising
    • Gmail in-app advertising
    • Google Shops advertising

    If you’re after one of the above ad placements, you will need to bid for it. Listed below are examples of some Google PPC bid options:

    • CPC (automated and manual cost per individual click)
    • Enhanced CPC
    • CPM (cost per mille)
    • Target ROAS (targeted return on ad spend)
    • Target CPA (targeted cost per acquisition) 
    • Maximize conversions
    • Maximize clicks
    • Target Outranking share
    • Target Impression Share

    Since the cost of Google ads can vary massively, you should first need to calculate your budget before considering this investment.

    Microsoft/Bing Ads

    Next to Google is Microsoft Advertising, also known as Bing Ads. Offering business owners a cheaper price tag than Google, Microsoft Ads are also associated with a wide assortment of formats, including:

    • Xbox
    • Windows App store
    • MSN
    • Outlook Email
    • Websites for display and native advertising managed by various sales partners

    Although not quite as comprehensive as competitor Google, Microsoft Ads also require bidding:

    • Enhanced and Manual CPC
    • CPM
    • MaxClicks
    • MaxConversions
    • Target ROAS
    • Target CPA 

    With the lower volume and less competition, your bids are bound to be cheaper, which offers a greater opportunity to stand out on the Bing Ad network.

    Facebook Ads

    With the ability to add some targeting potential, Facebook Ads is one of the best PPC ad networks on the market, especially with Instagram as an extension—offering marketers and business owners alike the potential to reach those with specific interests, demographics, education, age, and location data. 

    Facebook Ads can appear on:

    • Facebook
    • Instagram
    • Facebook Messenger
    • The Facebook Audience Network (apps and websites on the partnership network)

    Even cheaper than Bing, Facebook Ads pricing is based on cost per thousand impressions (CPM) or cost per click with the option to target CPA (cost per action) and Target ROAS. Moreover, since Facebook Ads aren’t activated by searching, businesses have an opportunity to get in front of their audience much easier.

    All of the best PPC ad networks can be managed by the PPC team at Trek Marketing. Comment below to get started!

    What did you find most interesting about this digital marketing service? Drop a comment below to get connected.

    How to craft an effective social media marketing strategy

    Posted on by Alex Wilks

    The social media content that you choose to formulate and post holds great power for your brand. However, aimlessly posting is not the best method for turning followers into fans, which is why it’s important to develop a social media content strategy before you can fully explore the potential of each platform. Since it can be challenging to get noticed on the wide web, the best way to stand out on social media is to identify your specific goals and distribute them across the right platforms. This ensures that each post is valuable, aligned with those goals, and measurable, which allows you to fine-tune your strategy over time. Since there’s no one-size-fits-all approach to crafting an effective social media marketing strategy, you must first access your industry and audience, then build a plan that promotes longevity and growth for your brand. 

    Identify and set your goals 

    The first steps toward having a long-term social media marketing strategy are to set goals for your content. This includes the type of content you will post, how often, what time, and so forth. Having goals in mind helps you to plan, create, and facilitate content that embellishes brand values and reaches your audience. While you can start by making some generic marketing goals, such as increasing your following, it’s best to create a lasting social media marketing strategy that serves all of your goals long-term. Specifics allows you to tailor content to better meet your goals and to convert high sales by moving followers to a landing page as part of your marketing funnel. 

    Plan out your social content

    Once your goals are clear, it’s time to look at the content that you’ve created so far and make note of which posts are performing well and what platforms are getting the most recognition. Appropriately tagging your content will allow you to utilize analytics to achieve a holistic view of your social media content’s performance. Many social platforms also allow businesses to view page analytics directly. 

    During this phase, be sure to look closely at the language and tone you’re using on the underperforming content. It’s important to use your brand’s authentic voice so that followers know what to expect from your content. 

    Build a content calendar

    Part of distributing great content is planning, which is why it’s now time for you to build a social media content calendar. This allows you to have a space to organize and visualize your ideas so that they can be strategically executed.

    When planning, don’t be afraid to repurpose content and schedule it across different platforms at different times. This allows you to learn more about your audience’s engagement so that you know when and where you can get the most reach. 

    Promote and distribute content

    Since your social media marketing strategy goes beyond what you post on each channel, you will want to set up distribution allowing your posts to be shared widely. If you actively blog, be sure to post a snippet of this content on your social channels. If your audience admires what’s written, they may choose to share it among their friends, which offers you free distribution to new followers. Another way to effectively promote and distribute your content is to remember to ask questions. Encouraging people to share their answers on your post increases your engagement rate and keeps the post active.

    While posting content to go live immediately is a great way to show your followers that you’re an active business, you’re missing out on a massive opportunity. Pre-scheduling content and utilizing hashtags create a further reach, which allows you to network with others within your niche. You can also join other pages and link your comment in the comments section if it relates to the conversation. 

    Are there other methods that your brand uses as part of your social media marketing strategy? Drop a comment below to let us know.

    5 advantages to Amazon selling

    Posted on by Alex Wilks

    When it comes to online shopping, it’s no secret that many consumers order off of Amazon. With its convenient delivery methods and free shipping options, it’s a great way to introduce small e-commerce businesses to shoppers worldwide. This very attractive sales channel is an opportunity for vendors everywhere, however, it’s important to see if the advantages of Amazon selling are worth the cost for you. 

    Is Amazon selling right for your business?

    Amazon has brilliantly established itself as the world’s largest online retailer and while this company has a lineup of basic products under its name, most of what it sells is from other retailers. 

    That said, what are the pros of Amazon selling that draw in so many vendors?

    • More sales 
    • Gaining new customers
    • Possibility for international expansion
    • Low marketing costs
    • No stock

    More sales 

    Millions of active customers visit Amazon each month in search of products making it the number one place to shop online.

    By listing your products on Amazon, it’s far easier to gain credibility and trust with the consumer. That’s because of the great policies and customer service set in place. Rather than buying from a company a customer has never heard of, they purchase from that company with Amazon as the middleman. This ensures Amazon’s promise and excellence. 

    Gaining new customers

    As mentioned above, it’s likely that Amazon will help e-commerce businesses increase their sales and with that, build up their customer base. Since most users who utilize Amazon focus on finding the perfect product rather than who sells it, it works as an advantage for businesses who want to gain a wider audience. Plus, once they make their first purchase, they can be retargeted for other products by your company in the future. 

    International expansion

    As a globally trusted selling and buying platform, it makes it easy to branch into different markets. Shipping to over 100 countries worldwide, Amazon selling allows businesses to bridge new markets. 

    Low marketing costs

    Since Amazon already attracts millions of customers to its website daily, you don’t need to spend as much money to access them. Depending on your niche and how crowded the market is you can make significant marketing efforts will little effort or spending. After all, who does want to piggyback on Amazon’s success?

    No stock

    With 175 fulfillment centres around the globe, you can ship your products in bulk to Amazon and they will store your inventory, package it, and ship it when customers order. This allows business owners to not get bogged down with shipping so they can spend more time sorting through other important elements of managing business operations. 

    While Amazon selling is a great way to advertise your products, there are other ways you can utilize the platform to target new customers. Our digital marketing team knows the ins and outs of Amazon selling and would be happy to help you achieve your online sales goals on a budget. 

    Are there any advantages to Amazon selling that we missed? Drop a comment below to share with our readers.

    Performance marketing: What is it and why should you care?

    Posted on by Alex Wilks

    Although many tools facilitate how to plan, track, and optimize digital marketing campaigns, measurable actions are best handled by those who know how to understand the data. Not only does this further the insight on how, when, and where to allocate a business’s spend but it allows businesses to be vigilant on what’s most important. Listed below is our summary of performance marketing and why you should care.

    What is performance marketing? 

    Performance marketing is an umbrella term that’s used to describe any online marketing activity that can be tracked and attributed to a specific action and/or result. 

    There are three main types of performance marketing payment models:

    • Percent of sale: The advertiser pays a commission on each sale generated
    • Leads: The advertiser pays a commission on each sale generated
    • New customers: The advertiser pays a fixed amount for each new customer acquired

    There are also situations where performance marketing models become hybrid and encompass many payment types. 

    Performance-based marketing tactics such as paid—where advertisers only pay when a user clicks on an ad—are not performance marketing. While pay-per-click advertising, also known as PPC, campaigns focus on action—the ad click—they don’t always lead to performance-based outcomes such as sales or sign-ups. 

    Why do businesses care about performance marketing?

    Since performance marketing opens up opportunities beyond traditional marketing, it’s important to focus on web destinations and creators across various digital landscapes. With platforms that help to bridge these relationships by offering means of measuring goals and compensation, businesses can achieve desired results through the assistance of performance marketing. 

    Who uses or works with performance marketing tools?

    Since performance marketing is data-driven, it’s best handled by digital marketing professionals. However, many people can utilize its strategy. 

    • Marketers plan and execute performance-based campaigns
    • Publishers track performance and get paid for results
    • Influencers find opportunities, set goals, and measure performance
    • Advertisers find publishers and influencers to work with

    How reliable is performance marketing? 

    While performance marketing is a critical strategy that offers advertisers the insight they need to run campaigns successfully, digital fraud is something that shoppers, 

    business owners, and advertisers need to be aware of this.

    Why does ad fraud happen?

    • Bots simulate real user traffic on the website to generate ad impressions
    • Invalid traffic is generated by humans who click on ads to deplete a competitor’s budget
    • Fake websites are created to inflate impressions
    • Domain spoofing imitates a premium website to sell fake inventory

    Since performance marketing campaigns look at actions rather than metrics, the best way to ensure validity in the actions you pay for is to hire a professional agency to manage your digital marketing services. This ensures that the leads you pay for are real people who have been contacted and are interested in what you’re selling. 

    What did you find most interesting about the above blog? Please leave a comment below to start a conversation.

    3 digital marketing services that help online businesses boost sales

    Posted on by Alex Wilks

    Regardless of whether you run a small, medium, or large-scale business, you will face competition in an ever-growing market. While your company may be unique in your eyes, there are others that cater to similar wants and needs, which means you’re forced to find ways to stand out. There are many digital marketing services that act as pillars to granting success for online businesses by building brand awareness, leads, sales, and boosts in revenue. Here are three digital marketing tools that you should leverage to boost website conversion within your sector. 

    Email marketing

    While some people might argue that email communication is outdated, rest assured that it’s very alive and well in the world of e-commerce. As the oldest form of electric communication, it remains the most effective way to reach customers, both past and prospective. However, the trick to successful email marketing is to build a list of contacts who are interested in engaging with your brand. 

    Since many entrepreneurs need time to focus on other needs within their businesses, agencies like Trek Marketing offer an email marketing service that is created and managed by a team member. This service includes: 

    • Email strategy and audit
    • Email campaign management
    • Email marketing automation
    • Email template production 
    • Subscriber management and maintenance
    • Creative design and copywriting
    • Deliverability optimization
    • Analysis and reporting of campaign performance

    If you think email marketing is right for you, click here to email a team member and get started. 

    Social media marketing

    With so many channels available to effectively market to your customers, investing in social media marketing is a no-brainer for business owners these days. Also known as SMS, social media marketing utilizes a variety of platforms to interact with customers, including popular options like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn. While communication is key to building your brand, SMS also helps to increase sales and drive website conversions and traffic. 

    While posting on social media is easy to do, it’s the strategic posts that successfully reach your growing audience. If you need help expanding your social reach between platforms or figuring out the preferences of your customers, allow Trek Marketing to extend its social media marketing service to you and your business. This package includes: 

    • Proactive customer engagement
    • Targeted follower/like growth
    • Improved search engine rankings 
    • Custom curated content
    • Regular posts and management

    If you think social media marketing is right for you, click here to email a team member and get started. 

    Content creation

    Not only does content allow you to tell web visitors about what your business does but it also allows you to gain a place among other popular search engine rankings. Content marketing can include posting an industry-related topic on your blog or simply updating product and service information to provide quality copy that helps web traffic roll in. 

    Since writing is a skill that requires a lot of time and effort, it’s often the first task that is outsourced to a digital marketing agency. Get the right content in front of your audience by relying on Trek Marketing to do it for you! This service includes: 

    • Taking professional product or service photos
    • Researching and writing blogs
    • Creating landing pages 
    • Updating product and service descriptions
    • Researching search engine keywords and incorporating them successfully into popular landing pages

    If you think content marketing is right for you, click here to email a team member and get started. 

    Which of the above three services would you prefer to outsource? Drop a comment below to share with other readers.