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  • Leading Digital Marketing Agency
  • 900+ Websites Launched
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    3 reasons content creation is important

    Whether you want to admit it or not, marketing has gone digital, which means that content creation services are more important now than they’ve ever been before. That said, finding ways to stand out in the heavily saturated webspace rests with finding innovative and creative means for consumers to engage with your content. So, if you need some reasons to feel inspired to start creating some captivating online content, continue reading to discover what helps to generate some buzz.

    Content creation helps to build trust with your audience 

    While in the real world, relationships are more of a two-way street, in the business world, it’s paramount that businesses work hard to build a foundation with their customers, even if these consumers aren’t the first to engage. That said, you shouldn’t create content for the sake of filling space, you should create something that provides value to the people who love and want to engage with your brand. This could include using your creating a blog that educates the audience on a certain topic, using one of your social platforms to offer a daily dose of industry entertainment, or simply sending out an email with a special coupon code to shop. The key to content creation is consistency by delivering amazing content ongoing to keep customers knowing about your services and coming back. The more time someone invests in your content, the more familiar they become with your brand. It’s that simple!

    Content creation helps to build brand recognition

    Lots of content means that your business is building a library of resources that will continue to define your brand. Whether these pieces of content are an article, image, or social post, every time someone clicks on it, their engagement instills name recognition, so perhaps in the future when they require your product or service, you’ll be at the forefront of minds. To do this, create and utilize powerful and creative images and messages that best represent your brand’s aesthetic. This is especially important for social media and email marketing. 

    If brand awareness is something on your agenda that you need help with, Trek Marketing offers a variety of content creation services that will help you to succeed by resonating with your target audience. 

    Content creation helps your SEO 

    Anyone that runs an e-commerce business knows that SEO is an essential part of your digital marketing strategy. So, why not formulate your content creation to also increase the chances of potential customers finding you with SEO? This can easily be done in the blog section of your website. Simply ensure that you’re using keywords that are relevant to your brand so that your new article will appear organically in various web results. While SEO can take some time to really kick it, it’s a valuable tool that can boost your website at random times when the right keywords start trending. 

    How developed is your content strategy? If you have any questions about our content creation services and/or process, please drop them in the comments section below.

    Grow your business online with these digital marketing services

    The right digital marketing investment will help your e-commerce business grow and while all of the services that Trek Marketing provides are beneficial to an expanding company, depending on the industry, some offer better value to start. Read through the brief descriptions we’ve provided below and let us know which digital marketing agency services you’re interested in trying out. 

    Search engine optimization (SEO) 

    SEO is a digital marketing practice that’s designed to improve the appearance and positioning of web pages in organic search results like Google and Bing. Because of how we discover content online, it’s important to rank high on search engines to increase traffic to a website and generate more conversions. This is a very common digital marketing agency service and is one of the first investments that growing e-commerce businesses make to gain heightened visibility on the web. That said with thousands of other pages doing the same thing, your content must be authoritative, targeted, and contain lots of searched key terms to ensure that your ranking is high and click-worthy. 

    Pay-per-click advertising (PPC)

    PPC is an online marketing tool that strategizes when digital ads are based on the users (gender, age, location, job title, industry, education, interests, etc.). This internet advertising model encourages purchase-driven traffic to websites and only charges the business owner when the ad is clicked. What makes this digital marketing agency service worthwhile is that allows you to keep control over your campaign costs, specifically target an audience, and create a high engagement among those who would be most likely to use your product or service.  

    Email marketing 

    By sending out emails to a list of contacts who have been permitted to receive communication from you, your business can create and drive sales by tracking personalized or automated e-newsletters. Whether you have the experience to utilize the drag-and-drop editor feature or prefer to dig through real-time reports, email marketing is simple, effective, and a great way to connect with your customers. 

    Social media marketing (SMM)

    SMM allows businesses to use the power of multiple social media platforms to connect with their audience. By building brand awareness, companies can market products and services, increase sales, drive web traffic, or simply create a community that leverages popular channels to establish a brand following. Not only does SMM give businesses a great opportunity to follow consumer activities but it also helps them to give valuable insight into the likes, dislikes, and interests of their buyers so that they can create a better, more attractive marketing strategy. 

    Blogging and content creation

    While these two digital marketing agency services are very inter-connected, there are also some distinct differences between them. While a business blog is a section on a website that consists of informative, diary-style text entries that are typically published on an ongoing schedule, content creation is the process of generating other types of written and published text from topic ideas that appeal to your buying persona. Copy is then placed to bulk up website text and assist with driving traffic through SEO practices.

    Do you need help with any or all of the above digital marketing agency services? If you want immediate assistance, please drop a comment below and someone from our sales team will be in touch with you.

    How to use digital marketing to get leads for your real estate business

    Not so long ago, online real estate marketing was a nice-to-have asset for real estate professionals. However, times have changed and businesses that don’t invest in their digital portfolios risk falling behind their competitors. As technology continues to govern our lives, our reliance on it will only continue to grow. Thus, the best way to ensure that your leads continue to grow alongside your company is to work with a digital marketing agency that understands how important clicks can be. 

    Take advantage of geo-fencing 

    What’s geo-fencing you ask? It’s a virtual perimeter for a real-world geographic area. This location-based technology allows business owners, in this case, real estate agents and/or companies, to hone in on a target audience based on location. Since a huge majority of prospective home sellers and buyers use their mobile phones to search for real estate, “geo-fencing” is an effective way to deliver relevant messages to the right people. How your campaign works are by precisely targeting a radius around a specific location, which makes it easy for smartphone audiences to find you based on that defined region. The region could be a small neighbourhood or an entire city, and you can also specify types of real estate such as apartments, single-family homes, and office spaces. 

    Build out your SEO strategy 

    While this digital marketing service is best used in a wide variety of industries, real estate marketing greatly benefits from an effective search engine optimization (SEO) strategy. That said, because location is such a key factor in selling something like real estate, local SEO is important when formulating your business goals. For example, it’s essential to rank for local search terms like “best real estate agent” and “homes for sale near me” as these are common phrases that clients type in search consoles to find their ideal agent and/or open houses. 

    Here are some other ways to utilize SEO in your real estate marketing:  

    • Create and optimize a Google Business Profile
    • Regularly write and publish content through that profile
    • Build backlinks from professional and general directories
    • Gain reviews on Google, Facebook, and Yelp

    Social media harnesses huge power 

    When it comes to online selling, social media platforms are a goldmine, especially for those looking to generate real estate leads. This is because many active homebuyers are from the generational group who regularly use social media. So, by leveraging the power of popular channels, your real estate marketing can easily reach the audience that currently dominates the market. 

    Below are some ways we suggest;

    • Research relevant hashtags and use them to optimize your social content
    • Use your accounts to educate buyers
    • Chat with your followers and answer their comments
    • Promote amenities and neighbourhoods, not just the house
    • Share your real estate success stories
    • Consider utilizing video as part of your social strategy

    Real estate marketing is rapidly growing, how are you going to remain relevant in a heavily saturated industry? Drop a comment below to let us know.

    PPC vs. SEO: Which provides more value?

    While all digital marketing services have their purpose, there may be a route to take that’s more suited for your business. When it comes to PPC and SEO, more digital marketing services are strategic and possess the power to generate traffic and conversions. That said, before you decide whether one or both is more suited to your needs, you have to understand what they do and their pros and cons. 

    What’s Pay-Per-Click Advertising (PPC)?

    Known most often as PPC, this digital marketing service uses targeted advertising to buy visits to your website. Business owners pay a fee every time someone clicks one of their ads—the cost varies depending on where the ad is placed (Google, Facebook, etc.) and your budgeted monthly ad spend—which is leveraged by search engine traffic or by bidding for keywords related to the products or services you’re selling. 

    What are some advantages of PPC?

    • This digital marketing service is known to produce quick results. Once your campaign is launched, you should see an uptick in traffic, clicks, and conversions. 
    • PPC is easily controlled. Business owners set a budget with a goal of how many leads they hope to get in return. 
    • You don’t need to worry about search engine algorithms when you use PPC because you aren’t trying to obtain an organic position. You bid for your spot!
    • PPC allows you to easily target potential customers based on keyword searches, their geography, and even the time of day. This cannot be done with organic traffic.
    • These types of campaigns allow visuals in addition to text. This can help a user to be more inclined to click on the advertisement, which increases the average click-through rate. 

    What are some disadvantages of PPC? 

    • It usually costs more than SEO to get good results, as some keywords have higher price points than others. 
    • The research required to know which keywords to target is time-consuming, on top of managed ad spend and measuring returns.
    • PPC only remains effective while you’re paying for it. Unlike SEO which continues to draw in traffic as a long-lasting method, the minute you stop your PPC campaigns to divert the budget elsewhere, potential customers won’t be able to find your site the same way. 
    • Click fraud is a problem that occurs when companies use manual clicks or damaging software to simulate human clicks from various IP addresses. This will rapidly increase your cost. 

    The best way to maximize and manage your PPC campaigns is to hire a specialist whose primary responsibility is to research and implement money-generating ads.

    What’s Search Engine Optimization (SEO)?

    As one of the most common digital marketing services, SEO is all about optimizing your web pages to get them to rank higher in search engine results. This enables search spiders to understand your web pages and rank them above your competitors. Keep in mind that search engines like Google are consistently changing their algorithm to provide more helpful content to their visitors, which can affect your rankings if you aren’t on top of these new requirements. While cultivating inbound links from other sites dictates your “link authority” elements like blogging, social media marketing, and videos are other ways to effectively use your quality links. 

    What are some advantages of SEO?

    • This digital marketing service is cost-effective and is incredibly budget-friendly to set up and manage. 
    • Organic SEO is completed with long-lasting intention, meaning that when it’s properly optimized with good link authority, your site can continue to rank even if you step away from it for a few weeks.
    • SEO helps to build credibility and trust.

    What are some disadvantages of SEO?

    • When compared with PPC, SEO is a much slower process, as it can take months to start seeing results.
    • SEO is ongoing. Your site will never be 100% optimized so it will require continued work to reap the rewards of higher rankings.
    • SEO is very time-consuming.

    The best way to maximize and manage your SEO campaigns is to hire a specialist whose primary responsibility is to research trending keywords, write authoritative copy, and gain valuable backlinks.

    There is no one-size-fits-all approach to digital marketing, which is why the answer to the which provides more value depends on you. If you have the budget, a PPC campaign will offer you the fastest results. However, if a longer timeline is something you had in mind, SEO efforts achieve some of the best results and return over time. Either way, Trek Marketing can help get your digital campaigns launched! 

    Which of the two digital marketing services has proven better for your business? Let us know in the comments section below. 

    How to create attractive and engaging content

    Content marketing has quickly become a strategic approach for businesses looking to share valuable and relevant information with customers within their industry. While it may be easy to share content on your blog, social media accounts, and through email, developing great content that stands out on a consistent basis to your audience is the only way to develop your content marketing strategy. Listed below are some steps you can take to help your produce content that will reach and engage with your target consumer. 

    Know your audience

    Identifying your target audience allows you to look beyond the basics. Things like their demographics, psychographics, and behaviours help to understand the type of content that may interest them. Content creators visualize their audience before adapting marketing personas that help to establish a composite of the reader. Whether it’s the topic of a blog, a social media post, or an email, knowing your audience before creating the content will do wonders in attracting them to it. 

    Ensure that your headline is powerful 

    The headline of your blog, social media post, or email is the hook that catches and lures in the customer. While it needs to be consistent with the information that you want to present, it should also exhibit actionable keywords that help with your search engine optimization (SEO) while also utilizing language that’s attractive to the audience. 

    Tell a story

    Part of creating engaging content is using a series of words to tell a story. You shouldn’t just jump into your piece without first setting the stage nor should you simply stop writing because you’ve reached your minimum word count (unless it’s a social post, of course). All content should have a beginning, middle, and end if you’re hoping to attract and engage with your audience.  

    Provide useful information that’s quick to read

    Online shoppers are time-crunched and may have just come across your digital marketing efforts while aimlessly perusing the web. All that matters to them at that moment is what your content is doing to educate, inform, or entertain them. Many customers are consuming content while on the go, in short spurts of time between other activities. Be sure to use simple words, write direct sentences, and use an active voice in your content. 

    Are you in need of a content creator? Trek Marketing offers a wide range of digital marketing services that work to develop your business’s content. 

    What type of content attracts you as an online shopper? Drop a comment below to share with our readers. 

    3 steps to building successful digital marketing campaigns

    A successful digital marketing campaign involves the execution of a marketing strategy across a variety of digital channels where a brand’s consumers engage. Dynamic and conversion-focused, digital marketing campaigns are time-consuming and involve efforts where data is exchanged through social media, email marketing, and the process of search engine optimization (SEO). If you’re unfamiliar with launching and managing a digital marketing campaign, stick to the following steps below to ensure that your approach is efficient!  

    Start by defining your goals 

    Every great venture begins with goals in mind, however, eagerness to see results might lead some businesses to launch digital marketing campaigns without planning. Since success can be measured by sales, traffic, and improved conversion rates, depending on the specifics of your business, you must consider what you’re hoping to achieve at that moment and long term. 

    Here are some examples of goals for digital marketing campaigns: 

    • Brand awareness: While there are several ways that one can measure brand awareness, word-of-mouth, following, and knowledge of said brand are a great start. Engagement and searches are two ways to message brand awareness as both of these actions signify consumers are on the hunt for your products and/or services. 
    • Social media following: A branch of brand awareness, when a business has a strong social media following, it shows that consumers are interested in your business. While it’s worth tracking followers, we recommend measuring the rate of increase, rather than the raw number. This is because many people unfollow pages as they lose interest, which could be related to the content you’re sharing.  
    • SEO: Search engine optimization (SEO) is a complex business process that relies on many factors to influence where your website appears when consumers are entering queries on search engines. One of these is the number of backlinks your website receives from other reputable sites.

    Know your target market

    While anyone and everyone have an opportunity to purchase from your e-commerce business, shoppers that have a use for or interest in your products and/or services are more likely to complete a transaction. This is why you need to use your resources wisely to ensure these types of customers can find your website. No matter your budget, crafting your marketing materials to appeal to the demographics of your business is an efficient way to build your online presence, versus simply throwing everything at the wall to see what sticks. Begin by establishing who’s currently buying your products and how they reach your marketing and eventually branch out via digital marketing campaigns to the customers you hope to reach. 

    Define your persona

    An extension of the step above, a persona is the detailed description of your ideal customer. This includes knowing their age, possible occupations, wealth and class status, family situation, and other variables that will determine how likely they are to spend money. 

    While your target demographic is broad, your persona is more defined and detailed and often includes more information about their hobbies, interests, and/or personal lives. You might be thinking why is this information important for you to know? Well, it helps you to grow your business safely utilizing the current market but to expand your demographic by knowing more in-depth about the people that you want to be shopping with you. 

    Is there any other dynamic or traditional methods that you’ve used or plan to use to build up your digital marketing campaigns? 

    Tight marketing budget? We recommend starting with SEO

    There’s no denying that digital marketing is essential for e-commerce businesses, and in a deep sea of competition, the best way for your companies’ website to get noticed is by investing in your online presence. While there are a variety of ways to find success digitally, search engine optimization (SEO) is the best source of action for small business owners who’re on a tight budget and need to put all their eggs in one basket. 

    What is search engine optimization? It’s the process of sorting your website via search engines, which is the best way for consumers to find your brand. However, there needs to be a consistent effort into improving your SEO to ensure its lasting success. Here’s why SEO is the right choice for those operating with tight marketing budgets. 

    Digital marketing value is maximized

    We’re aren’t suggesting that you pour every penny of your rainy-day fund into SEO, but if you can only spend your marketing budget on one service, SEO is the way to go! 

    What is search engine optimization? SEO is a cost-effective marketing strategy that’s great for tight budgets. While improving the quality and quantity of website traffic through popular search engines, SEO targets consumers with unpaid, direct traffic methods rather than paid traffic methods, meaning that through the use of searched key terms, content is formulated shifting your website up organically to be found when phrases are typed under the search bar. Although it can take time to start ranking, the results generated bring the best possible target audience to your shop front. 

    Another great element that makes SEO valuable is that it doesn’t require you to pay for advertising space or clicks. In fact, it can be free if you have the skills and time to do so. That said, if you’re skeptical about SEO strategy, you can work with an SEO strategist to make appealing changes to the website for a set budget. 

    Want to look further into the benefits of SEO for business? 

    The beauty of SEO is that it’s accessible for all. Instead of paying for traditional advertising, time is taken to formulate content that follows SEO basics, which is a greater value for your business long-term. 

    Here are a few reasons why you should find room for SEO in your marketing budget: 

    • It offers a greater opportunity for customers to find your website organically
    • It helps to create a trustworthy web experience for all
    • It encourages businesses to place a greater focus on user experience
    • It helps to improve brand awareness
    • It’s easier to conduct with a wide range of budgets
    • It’s easy to track
    • It benefits a variety of other marketing initiatives

    Are you convinced yet? Drop a comment below if you have any SEO-related questions.

    How to promote your services online as a home contractor

    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. 

    Have you considered AI as part of your brand’s digital marketing strategy?

    Digital marketing has vastly grown in popularity as e-commerce business owners expand their hunt for the best methods and channels to distribute their products and services to the online masses. That said, with such an expansion, artificial intelligence (AI) has made leaps to help marketing professionals perform their jobs more efficiently than they could just a few years ago. Needless to say, since AI can be used in several ways, it’s important to determine which processes hold more value for your marketing campaigns before you invest in any type of AI-related experience. Continue reading to find new ways that you could be using AI in marketing. 

    AI predictive features add personalization 

    AI is a great resource for data collection—instead of manually sorting through each customer interaction, businesses use AI programs to compile the information into easy-to-read reports. So, why can’t businesses owners and marketing professionals alike use it to make smarter decisions for their campaigns?

    Think about times where you’ve shopped a website that was set up to offer personalization. Elements suggesting that you may also like other products is an AI customization that makes each visit unique to the consumer based on their search history and previous purchases. This not only improves the customer experience but also ensures that what’s displayed is more likely to fit the needs of the shopper, resulting in more sales, engagement, and site traffic.

    AI improves content creation

    Much of digital marketing involves creating consistent, fresh content to post on a website, making category pages and blogs an essential part of any marketing strategy. Depending on the industry, consumers may even rely on content (reviews, testimonials, etc.) to reassure their decision to make a purchase. While there’s no arguing that content is key, brainstorming topics ideas is both challenging and time-consuming. 

    With the power of AI, marketing professionals can analyze consumer behaviour on these pages through a machine learning system that provides feedback to improve future content. For example, elements such as time spent on page providers writers with some insight into how far the reader is delving into the content and where they can place photos and/or videos to increase this engagement. 

    The use of chatbots and natural language processing (NLP)

    Natural language processing (NLP) is a form of machine learning that understands, analyzes, compiles, and creates human speech. Many businesses utilize this type of AI in marketing, whether it be as a chatbot technology or as an aid when writing emails and/or blogs. 

    We’re living in a world where chatbots understand a consumer’s basic request and can respond to them based on the specific keywords or phrases provided. These AI tools make it possible for businesses to provide 24/7 service, answering questions for customers around the clock and providing long-tail sentences for those who may not be savvy with their words. 

    Trek Marketing works in partnership with Numinix Web Development using AI practices to make our client’s businesses thrive. Want to find out more? 

    Do you use AI in any of your marketing strategies? Drop a comment below to tell us more.