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Digital Marketing likely is and definitely should be the largest marketing expenditure for your business. There are literally dozens of companies that you see at tradeshows that also call your office frequently, promising huge gains and no work on your side. How many of those have worked out for your business? There are so many things that you have to consider, and half of those things are usually the equivalent of a foreign language to you. Few companies possess the strength to truly succeed with all your online marketing efforts – it is important to use a company with a proven track record.
With over 20 years of digital marketing experience, including founding one of the largest digital marketing firms in the medical field our CEO and Founder - David Phillips knows the ins and outs of the business. Say What Marketing & Consulting is here to help you make the right choice including getting you the lowest prices possible for the services your practice needs without diluting results. One of the biggest issues dealing with digital marketing companies is following through on what they promise – including producing verifiable results from their marketing efforts, updating of the website in a timely manner and making sure the day to day tasks in order for you to succeed online are being done. It can be a full time job for your staff. However, even if you have the budget for a full time marketing specialist in house, typically they will not have the experience and knowledge needed to ensure your success online. General knowledge does nothing for you – you need an expert in your corner. Because of our experience with the digital marketing industry, our vast knowledge of the SEO companies out there and having run a very successful digital marketing firm for 13 + years gives you a distinct advantage when you decide to hire SayWhat Consulting.
Clients are online finding your competition right now, literally as you read this but they should be finding you. It is vital that you can be found online, and that your online presence including your reviews, website and social media all present you in a positive fashion - and follow your brand. You are an expert at what you do – we are experts at everything related to managing and maintaining your online presence, closing leads, training your staff amongst many other services to increase your profitability and revenue.
The first step you can take in order to figure out how well (or not) you are doing online is signing up for a free, unbiased online marketing audit. We can assist you with all aspects of your online marketing including SEO, PPC, Social Media Marketing, Offline Marketing, Staff Training and even Contract Negotiations.
Digital marketing seems like a maze of unrelated subjects but they are all intertwined to your online marketing efforts. Here are some common FAQ's ranging from website design to SEO, Content Marketing to Social, Pay-per-Click to your Online Reputation and more.
The reason why you need to focus on a wide variety of digital marketing strategies is that each one of them has a different purpose. Search engine optimization is vital for your website to be able to rank highly in the search engines and be found by potential customers. Social media marketing allows you to reach out to potential customers through their social media accounts and get your content in front of them. Paid advertising allows you to show up at the top of search results for relevant keywords so that people will click on your ad and visit your website.
The benefits of using digital marketing strategies are numerous. First, it allows you to reach out to a wider audience than you would be able to reach otherwise. Second, it allows you to specifically target your audience based on their interests and needs. Third, it allows you to be found by potential customers who are actively looking for your services so that they don’t have to search for them and find them on their own. It is important to have a good mix of online marketing across all the platforms so your company is well represented and targets as many potential clients as possible. With that being understood, you must not spread your budget too thin.
For many small businesses, the wisest option (after creating a solid marketing plan and budget) is to roll out your marketing efforts piece by piece. This allows you to understand each marketing effort, succeed with that platform and then maintain it while starting additional marketing on another platform. One of the largest mistakes we see is a company spreading its marketing budget too thin to be effective on any marketing platform. If you have a lower marketing budget it is typically wise to focus on only one or two marketing campaigns and do them effectively. Once your marketing budget increases, you can either invest more into what is working or segment it into a new marketing program.
SEO takes time. It can take a few months to see any results, but it is worth the wait. It is important to remember that SEO is a long-term investment that pays off over time. You must be patient and understand that SEO takes time. Search Engine Optimization is a marathon, not a sprint. How can I evaluate if my SEO is improving? There are many ways to evaluate if your SEO is improving. The easiest way is to look at your Google Analytics. If you have a tracking code on your website, you can go to Google Analytics and see what keywords are driving traffic to your site. You can also look at the number of visitors coming from each keyword and compare them over time. If you see a steady increase in the number of visitors coming from a particular keyword, then that is a good sign that your SEO efforts are paying off.
The most beneficial way to track your website's actual improvements is by evaluating your website in Google's Search Console. Search Console is a tool that provides information on how well your website is being indexed by Google. You can use this tool to see how many pages are indexed, the speed of your website, the number of impressions you are receiving, where your website ranks for specific keywords and you can also see which keywords are driving the most traffic to your site. You can also see which pages are receiving the most traffic from a particular keyword. The results include an overview of all your search engine optimization efforts, as well as an easy-to-understand report on which pages receive the most traffic from each keyword. You can also evaluate your website's security, sitemaps, incoming links and if you have a Google Penalty. There is a wealth of information and as a business owner it is vital your digital marketing firm gives you full access to it to ensure your SEO efforts are in line with Google.
The success of your digital marketing campaign depends on how well you know your audience, their needs and how to reach them. Knowing the keywords that will bring your most likely clients to your website is critical. The work you do in keyword research will be the foundation for all of your digital marketing efforts. Keyword research is the process of finding the most relevant terms that will help your business get the most exposure. It's important to understand the process of keyword research and how to do it correctly. There are many resources online that can help you with keyword research, but the best way to do it is through keyword analysis. An excellent keyword analysis will detail the keywords that your customers most commonly use when looking for your products or services, as well as their motivations for choosing your niche. Keyword research also includes determining which search queries your customers are most interested in seeing answered. Keyword research will play a major role in your total digital marketing effort across all of the platforms. It requires time, patience and the ability to follow the date. There are numerous keyword research tools out there. The most effective by far are the Google Keyword Tool Planner, SEMRUSH and MOZ. They all have their strengths and weaknesses but they all have ample information that can assist you in making an educated decision. Ideally, you want to have more information than less and the time spent figuring out the keywords will pay dividends forever. It is also well worth doing a competitor analysis to figure out anything and everything about your competitor's marketing tactics and use them to improve your marketing efforts.
Social media marketing is a great way to build your brand and have an impact on your target market. Social media is one of the more effective and inexpensive methods of advertising today. It is so effective that some businesses are turning away from traditional advertising because of the low ROI (return on investment) and high costs involved. It has become a great tool for small businesses to use in addition to their current marketing efforts. Social media marketing is a way to expand your reach, as well as create relationships with potential customers/clients or business partners. A social media campaign can help you drive traffic to your website, increase brand awareness, and increase sales. Using social media for business is not difficult but it does require some effort and knowledge upfront. If you are new to the concept of social media marketing, the best thing you can do is learn as much as possible about this new form of communication before jumping in head first. Several platforms can be used such as Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube etc., but they all have their unique challenges and benefits, so it's important to understand what each platform offers before deciding which one should be used for your campaign(s). A good place to start learning about the different options available to you and the common mistakes, proven strategies and much more would be on our social media marketing page.
Simply put, it is vital to follow all of the guidelines Google considers good SEO practices. It is important to avoid using what Google considers black hat SEO techniques. Google provides numerous resources to fully understand what they consider good and bad SEO along with common practices you can follow to succeed with your SEO growth. Most businesses choose to hire an outside digital marketing firm to manage their SEO growth and techniques. It is vital that you choose the right firm to assist you with your digital marketing. Many business owners do not understand that the choices you make now will affect your SEO for years to come. If they make poor choices on your behalf your website, not theirs can be banned or penalized by Google. This is detrimental to businesses BUT the right firm can reverse the course of unethical tactics used by your previous firm. If you are hunting for a new digital marketing firm, we highly recommend reading our 11-page Guide on "Choosing the Right Digital Marketing Firm for Your Business."
You can also contact us about our services, we are experts at finding the right digital marketing firm for your business, negotiating the contract and even managing them on a daily basis for you.
Blogging is one of the most powerful ways to build your authority and get more traffic to your website. It is also one of the easiest ways to build a relationship with your customers and potential customers. It is an excellent way to market your business online, engage with your current customers, and attract new ones. Blogging can be done by anyone, it does not require any special skills or knowledge other than the ability to effectively discuss whatever subject you are posting about. Blogging also is loved by search engines and can positively affect your SEO. The search engines love unique fresh content which is one of the key search engine ranking factors when they are evaluating your website.
Lead generation is the process by which a business generates leads for its business. It can be done through direct mail, email marketing, social media marketing or any other method that generates potential customers. Social media marketing is a powerful tool for lead generation because it can be used to generate traffic to your website from social networks. Leads must be defined and notated so you can track the performance of all your marketing efforts which is essential information when you are choosing where and how much to spend on marketing your business. Lead generation through your website or social networks can come through numerous means, including direct emails, direct messages, contact forms, phone calls and so on. Tracking is vital because it shows you how effective your marketing efforts are. Many companies make the mistake of not tracking their leads and blindly spending money on advertising, not truly understanding what is and what is not working.
Content marketing is a type of marketing that is focused on creating valuable content that your target audience will want to read and share. The goal of content marketing is to build relationships with your existing and potential customers by providing them with valuable content that they want but do not currently have access to. This information can be provided in many forms such as blog posts, videos, articles, whitepapers, etc. Content Marketing also has a strong relationship with SEO because it will help you improve your organic search engine ranking on Google and other search engines which are important factors when determining where people will find you online. The most successful companies are those who can create enough quality content for their website so that people will continuously come back for more information about what they offer or what they have written about in the past.
Content marketing is also important for your social media marketing. Social media marketing is a great way to stay in touch with your customers and potential customers. Social media is a great way to interact with your customers and potential customers, but if you do not have enough quality content for your social media pages, it will be difficult for people to find you.
Local business directories are a great way to expand your company’s reach and increase traffic to your website. By being listed in business directories, your website is shown to potential customers in search results and on social media. Local directories can also improve your SEO rankings because it validates your business with the search engines which add trust. Some also link to your website which is beneficial as well. There are many directories out there and great resources available. If you are doing it yourself, we recommend finding directories that offer "do follow" links which means it helps your website rank higher on the search engines. It is also recommended to focus on directories that have higher page authority, meaning a higher standing with the search engines. There are tons of resources out there, a good one we found and like is The Web Hospitality which offers over 90 websites to start on the path of growing your SEO network of good quality backlinks.
Reputation management services should be considered when you need to improve your businesses public image either from negative reviews or bad publicity. Reputation management services are also helpful for businesses who are trying to build their brand awareness, as well as those who are looking to build a positive reputation online. Reputation management can be an effective way of improving your search engine rankings and will assist your company in gaining more and more positive reviews. Many businesses make the mistake of waiting until they get negative reviews to start focusing on their reputation online, it is a mistake. It is much better to have an arsenal of real, positive reviews so that when (not if) you get a negative review your potential clients can see that a high majority of your customers are thrilled with your services. Also, solid online reviews assist your website with search engine rankings because it shows the search engines you are a real business, that interacts with its clients and those clients are happy with their choice of doing business with you. The search engines and their technology is smart and has hundreds of metrics they use to weigh your search engine rankings. Online reviews are one of them.
Yes, PPC does produce rather instant traffic. Once you create your advertisements Google or the other search engines you are advertising on will put them in review and once approved they will be instantly live on the search engines. The review process is quick, usually less than twenty minutes in most cases but occasionally some will take more time to get approved. This is also true with social media marketing - their review process is a bit longer usually but again, once the advertisement is approved it is live and will be producing traffic to your website. This is contingent of course on numerous factors like the quality of your advertisement, the amount you are bidding, the competitiveness of the keywords you are focusing on and the time and day it is launched. But yes, theoretically once the advertisement is approved by the search engine or social media site then you can instantly start seeing traffic to your website.
Yes, video advertising can be effective in driving traffic to your website, increasing the conversion of your paid advertising and increasing your search engine rankings. Videos are a great way to show people what you do and why they should buy your products or your services. The great thing about video advertising is that it is very effective, not only in the amount of traffic it brings but in the quality of the traffic that comes as well. A large part of the success of your videos will come down to how well they make your point. The best videos are well-planned, well-written, and provide your potential customer with useful information and helpful tips.
For your videos to be effective, you will need to make sure that your writing is great and focused and that you have covered all the important points in your video. There are many ways to engage your target audience through video advertising. One of the most effective ways is through social media. You can share your video on Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, TikTok or Twitter and target certain audiences who are interested in what you have to say.
Companies often make similar mistakes with digital marketing. It is important to do all you can to avoid mistakes that cost your business time, money and lost business. Here are some of the more common digital marketing mistakes.
This is a mistake because over half of all internet traffic is now from mobile users. It is important to have a mobile-friendly website and to make sure your digital marketing messages are optimized for mobile. There are many things you can do to make your website mobile-friendly, like using clear, attractive design elements that are easy to interact with on a phone or tablet. You can also choose a mobile-friendly format for your website, like using a smaller font size or white space around your site to make it more approachable on a phone or tablet. It is well worth reading Google Mobile Friendliness Page to learn more of what they want and expect from your website.
Email marketing should be used to build relationships with customers over time through email newsletters and other types of email messages sent directly from the business. Email Marketing is still one of the most, if not the most profitable marketing tool you have because it is instant access to customers that have shown interest in your business or have purchased from your business before. Having a system to manage and maintain your contacts is important as well. We recommend services like Mail Chimp because they have a proven track record, have a high deliverability rate for the emails that you send and allow you to have multiple mailing lists, so you can have specific emails for potential clients, current clients and so on. Numerous services offer the same options, so we recommend finding one that fits your exact business needs -including pricing, because some are far more expensive than others. That is one of the major drawbacks of Mail Chimp.
We do not mean just creating a profile, we mean being actively engaged. Social media has become an important part of digital marketing for businesses of all sizes. Social media allows you to connect with potential customers in real-time and build relationships with them over time. It also allows you to share your content with people who are interested in what you have to say and who may not know about your business yet. Social media marketing tools are free or very low cost so there isn’t any reason not to use them if they are appropriate for your business. If you decide to do paid advertising, they have tons of solutions that can work for any size business. Most importantly for digital marketing, social media presence is vital to the SEO growth of your website. It is further verification to Google and the other search engines that you are a real business with a similar message (and same contact information) across all web presences.
This is a mistake because website visitors are potential customers and customers want to be sold things. When you have no clear call to action you have to create one. This is what CTAs are for. A CTA is a call to action. It is a clear message that tells your website visitors what you want them to do next. A CTA can be as simple as “Contact Us” or “Get a Quote” or it can be more complex like “Request a Free Consultation”. The important thing is that you have one and that it is clear and easy to understand.
It is important to have a consistent message across all of your web presences. The most important and obvious reason is you want your website visitors to be able to contact your business. If you have a website, make sure that the contact information is accurate and up-to-date. If you are using social media, make sure that the information is consistent with your website and other web presences. This will help you to build trust with potential customers and it will help them to find you when they are looking for your business online.
Equally important, NAP stands for Name, Address, and Phone Number and is an important part of SEO and specifically local search engine optimization. It is the information that is used to verify your business online. This information should be consistent across all of your web presences. If you have a website, make sure that the contact information is accurate and up-to-date across all locations your website is listed, including directories, social media and your website.
A blog is a great way to build trust with your customers and potential customers along with keeping them updated on new services or products from your company. If you have a blog, make sure that it is updated regularly. Blogs are also important for SEO because they create more content for search engines to index. The worst choice you can make is having a blog and never updating it. Most blogs show the dates of the posts (this can be disabled) and when a visitor (or search engine) sees that your blog has not been updated for months or years it portrays negatively on your business. We spoke with one company that lost current clients after Covid because they did not have an updated blog and the customer thought they were out of business.
This is a mistake because search engines will penalize your website for duplicate content. The best way to avoid this is to use a tool like Copyscape to check if there is any duplicate content on your website. Several sites do similar tests but most importantly when you are creating content for your website do not copy and paste it from other sources or websites. Some clients have done this, intending to rewrite the content but Google is smart and your content must be 100% unique if you want to succeed with digital marketing for your business.
This is a mistake because if you are not tracking your results you will never know what is working and what is not. Tracking your results will also help you to better understand how your audience reacts to different digital marketing tactics. This is particularly useful when setting up A/B testing as you can see which combinations work best and which do not. It is also important to track your performance, both as an individual and as part of your overall marketing strategy. It is vital that as the business owner you know what marketing efforts are and are not working. Google analytics allows you to track visitors on your website but there are multiple CRM’s which help you tracking incoming leads including Salesforce, Monday and Zoho. With that said, there are several other great options and it is important to research them all because they all have certain strengths and weaknesses – and more importantly different price points.
If you do not train your staff to properly handle leads from your online marketing efforts, they may not be able to convert the leads into customers. It is important to have a system in place for converting leads into customers. This includes hiring staff who are trained in lead management and creating process flows for customers to go through when they reach out to your company. Keep in mind that lead management is not a one-time event. It is a process that should be ongoing and properly training your staff and having the systems in place will only help your conversions from your digital marketing efforts.
It is important to consider all advertising options and more importantly to have a method to promote your business on as many platforms as possible. This gives your business more and more exposure and increases the likelihood of getting a wider range of new clients. It is important to note that if you are just starting you will have a much more limited budget. It likely is not ideal to do paid advertising across all platforms unless you have a large enough budget to maintain that advertising for an extended period. Instead of stretching your budget thin across multiple platforms, it likely would be much smarter to focus a larger portion of the budget on one or possibly two marketing efforts to expand once your see returns from those campaigns.
A marketing plan is extremely important to help you stay on track and not lose focus on what you are trying to accomplish with your digital marketing efforts. A marketing plan will help you determine the best channels to use and the best times to use them. It will also help you determine what your goals are for the campaign, how many people you want to reach, how much it will cost, when you should expect results and what your next steps should be. A well-written marketing plan can be very helpful in determining how much time and money is needed for a particular campaign. It can also help with determining which channels are most effective for that particular campaign. The business owner needs to be involved in the process so the "big picture" focus of the company including the long-term goals is being met and aimed at. It is common for business owners to review the final portion without really giving insight - at the minimum they should be involved in the initial planning and goals stage along with the final review. The Small Business Administration marketing plan advice is a great starting tool when it comes to marketing plans. We also offer marketing plan services which you can read more about on our marketing plan page.
A reputation management plan is a comprehensive strategy for managing customer expectations and perceptions of the company. Many small businesses don't have one and end up making mistakes that are very costly in the long run. When a customer has a bad experience, they may decide to never return or tell others about it. The cost of this can be enormous - especially if the customer decides to spread negative information on social media or online review websites. A reputation management plan will help you manage expectations and make sure your customers are satisfied with their service and experience. Most importantly it allows you to prepare for bad reviews through the acquisition of numerous positive reviews. There is no perfect company and we all have had that client you cannot please and consumers understand that. However, preemptively combatting those negative reviews is smart because it will reinforce your brand's quality when potential clients are considering your business.
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