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Marketing

Basic Marketing Strategies Small Businesses Can Implement Today

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As a small business owner, diving into your own marketing strategies can seem a bit daunting. Knowing the proper ways to start promoting your business without breaking the bank is crucial in building your sales and encouraging new customers to choose your products or services over a competitor. Here are some of the ways small business owners can start marketing today:

Content Optimization and SEO

Updating your website content to target your key markets is crucial in attracting new clients. Take the time to review your web content to ensure it contains the proper keywords and is properly placed on your website for maximum impact. Research the proper keywords and implement them into your strategies.

Improve Social Media Strategies

Social media is now the easiest way to connect directly with your target audiences. As more and more individuals start social media profiles, it is important that your business is there to grow with them. Following industry standard practices will help ensure your social media strategies are the most effective. It can also be important to perform a social media audit to ensure you are utilizing the best platforms for your business.

Start a Newsletter

It’s likely that you have been collecting email addresses from your customers since the formation of your business and if you haven’t now is the perfect time to start. Creating a newsletter is an easy way to start engaging with your audiences and keeping them informed about your products, services or company news. Email marketing remains one of the best returns on investment for businesses across many different industries.

Still Need Assistance with Marketing?

You can always get in touch with the experts at Skynet Solutions for help with your online business listing, website development, social media marketing or anything else you need to help make your business succeed. With our diverse range of skills and experience, we are sure to have the tools you need to make 2017 your business’ best year yet. You can fill out our contact form to get started today. You can also connect with us on Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and LinkedIn!

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Marketing

Creating a Digital Marketing Plan for Beginners.

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Now, more than ever, your company’s online reputation and ability to reach potential customers is important. Without a digital marketing plan in place, your company could be missing out on the many benefits available through online interaction and exposure. In order to achieve this goal, your company must first create a digital marketing plan.

Review Existing Digital Marketing Plan or Strategies

Chances are, unless you are just beginning to build your online reputation, you have invested in some form of free exposure or paid exposure in the past. Before creating a digital marketing plan, it is important to review past strategies to determine what worked and what didn’t. If is also important to take this time to determine what social media sites you should invest in as well as other online mediums that may be utilized.

Create a Digital Marketing Plan or Campaign

The digital marketing plan you create will likely be the determining factor in how successful your efforts are. Now that you know the platforms you hope to use, it is important to start determining how you will leverage these platforms. For instance, Facebook offers both organic reach opportunities as well as paid advertising options. Set your budget and determine your target markets, then prepare to implement your digital marketing plan.

Launch Your Digital Marketing Plan

Now that your digital marketing plan is finished, it is time to start implementing your strategies. Be prepared to experience some hiccups along the way but ensure you remain flexible and optimize your campaign for any possible adjustments that need to be made. There are plenty of online tools that can help make your campaign roll out more smoothly.

Examine and Optimize

When your digital marketing campaign is implemented, data will likely begin rolling in quickly. It is important to carefully examine this data to determine the effectiveness of your current efforts. If needed, this data can help determine if you should pivot or invest more heavily in strategies that are currently benefitting your company.

Still Need Help with YOUR Digital Marketing Plan?

The internet is a game changer for marketing. It’s never been easier to put your brand in front of people for little to no cost. At Skynet Solutions, we can help determine the best digital marketing strategies for your business, as well as implement them if you are uncomfortable doing it yourself. You can fill out our contact form to get started today. You can also connect with us on Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and LinkedIn!

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Marketing

How Important is a Mobile Friendly Website?

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We now live in a digital age where information is at our fingertips at all times. The arrival of internet connected phones has allowed consumers to find information no matter where they are. Fortunately, business owners can benefit from this phenomenon as well. The addition of mobile friendly features into your updated website design is paramount in the modern age. In fact, mobile and tablet access has actually surpassed desktop internet usage. The affordability of new mobile phones and tablets has allowed unprecedented internet access worldwide and this trend shows no signs of slowing.

Why is Mobile Friendly Important for Business Owners?

When searching for search engine optimization solutions you have likely come across the phrases bounce rate and click back. These two factors play a critical role in how users are interacting with your website and, in turn, how relevant is should be in the search results. Let’s look at what each factor means:

Bounce Rate

A bounce from your website is logged each time a user visits your website but doesn’t visit another page. This can be tracked if the user clicks an outbound link or manually enters a new URL.

Click Back

A click back occurs when a user visits your website and either doesn’t like what they see or can’t properly use it. In this instance, the user will click the back button on their browser and find a more relevant search result. Google also calculates the time the user spends on each page while visiting your site before performing either a click back or bounce. These factors play a critical role in how well your website ranks in the search engine.

But how can a mobile friendly site help improve these numbers?

When you invest the time in creating a mobile friendly website, you ensure that the information presented will be easily seen by visitors. This can immediately help decrease the number of click backs and bounces seen by the website owner because a large portion will likely be using a mobile device. Ultimately, this tiny detail can help your website rank higher in the long term as Google continues to focus on mobile friendly search results as a ranking factor. You can fill out our contact form to get started today. You can also connect with us on Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and LinkedIn!

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Marketing

How to Begin Successfully Email Marketing

E-Mail Marketing Concept

Since the technological breakthrough of email, you would be hard-pressed to find an individual who isn’t currently using email in some facet. In most cases, individuals will own multiple email addresses out of necessity or requirements needed to fulfill app downloads or use certain services or products. For this reason, email marketing remains to this day on of the most effective ways to promote your products and service to prospective buyers or build trust between your business and a consumer.

Gather Emails

It’s hard to market your services or products through email if you haven’t compiled an email or newsletter list. It is important that the email addresses included in your list are accurate and approved by the owner to ensure regulations are met and your message is actually effective. Email addresses can be easily compiled through an online form on your website or manually entered when gathered at trade shows or events.

Give Recipients Value

Chances are if you are blatantly asking for a sale every time you send an email your potential customers will be less than enthused to open your emails, or worse, unsubscribe from your mailing lists. To avoid this, give your customers valuable information that relates to your business then provide a call-to-action to reach your desired outcome. Make your newsletter valuable enough that they will consistently open the following ones.

Try a Service

There are many email marketing services that help small business owners create professional emails with minimal effort. For example, Constant Contact features an easy to use drag-and-drop editor that can help make your emails deliver at certain times with advanced scheduling. For some, this makes the process a little less demanding and helps add crucial automation features that can be utilized to help grow your business.

You can always call the experts at Skynet Solutions for help with your social media management or anything else you need to help make your business succeed. With our diverse range of skills and experience, we are sure to have the tools you need to make 2017 your business’ best year yet. You can fill out our contact form to get started today. You can also connect with us on Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and LinkedIn!

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Marketing

The Importance of Online Reviews for Local Businesses

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In recent years, the importance of online reviews for local business have grown substantially. With nearly 90% of all customers saying their purchasing decisions are influenced by online reviews, it is important for local businesses to focus on nurturing this aspect of their online strategy. In time, the importance of online reviews will become even more pressing. Regardless of the products or services your local business provides, there are many reasons why online reviews are important. Online reviews can affect search engine rankings and greatly influence purchase decisions. Follow these steps to help build your local reviews.

Ask for Reviews

Some studies have shown that 70% percent of customers, whether positively impacted or negatively, are willing to write a review for a business if they ask them too. By establishing a relationship with your customer and striving for their satisfaction, you can easily encourage a positive review. Remember the old adage when dealing with online reviews, you never know unless you ask. For Constant Contact subscribers, encouraging positive online reviews has never been easier. With the in-house software we utilize named Link Tracker, you can auto-segment your customers based on their experience and likelihood to leave a positive review. If moved into the positive experience group, you can kindly ask for a review and 70% of the time achieve another positive review.

Keep It Simple

By making the option to leave a review simple, most customers will be more likely to do it. For example, if the customer has to seek out where to leave a review, they likely won’t put the effort in to do so. If you are asking for a review, send them to the closest possible place to leave that review. It is important to not make your possible reviewers fumble around the web to leave you a review. For every page they have to go through to get to the review page, the less likely they are to keep going. Strive to send them directly to the review page to help boost numbers and limit frustration.

You can always call the experts at Skynet Solutions for help with your business listing, website development, marketing or anything else you need to help make your business succeed. With our diverse range of skills and experience, we are sure to have the tools you need to make 2017 your business’ best year yet. You can fill out our contact form to get started today. You can also connect with us on Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and LinkedIn!

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Marketing

Using a SWOT Analysis for Social Media

SWOT sketch on notebook

If you have ever been involved in a marketing strategy meeting you have no doubt been exposed to the SWOT analysis. This process can help break down the individual needs of the company in question and focus on which direction the marketing strategy goes. We hope to explain what a SWOT analysis is and how it can impact your social media strategy.

Strengths

The strengths section of a SWOT analysis should be well thought out and may include company resources as well as unique engaged fans that can propel your company message. Your current reach and penetration may also be a strength if the numbers are good enough. Keep in mind that strengths can sometimes be considered weaknesses as well!

Weaknesses

Weaknesses can often be hard to complete because you have to look at your own business critically. This is often the hardest part of completing a SWOT analysis because you have to be very introspective. Unless you are honest, you can’t fully fix your problems. This section may include scaling issues or lack of analytic resources.

Opportunities

Opportunities can often be attributed to outlets that the company should or could be taking that currently aren’t being utilized. This could mean targeting new segments of customer or expanding your reach through new social media platforms. Opportunities can often be a response to a previously added weakness to build your marketing plan.

Threats

The final component of a SWOT analysis is a threats section. Threats often include competitor strategies and factors such as product sustainability or economic factors. Determining current and upcoming threats can help companies create a blueprint to react to these threats quickly to minimize risk. The threats section can usually improve a business’ chance at successfully implementing their social media plan. Once a SWOT analysis is completed, companies should then build their marketing plan with the results in mind. This creates a well-rounded and cohesive plan that ensures the most success possible. Remember, your competitors are most likely doing the same thing. Be as thorough as possible and get your social media marketing started!

You can always call the experts at Skynet Solutions for help with your business listing, website development, marketing or anything else you need to help make your business succeed. With our diverse range of skills and experience, we are sure to have the tools you need to make 2017 your business’ best year yet. You can fill out our contact form to get started today. You can also connect with us on Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and LinkedIn!

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