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What is Branding in Marketing?
Branding is the process of creating a strong, positive perception of a company, its products or services in the customer’s mind by combining such elements as logo, design, mission statement, and a consistent theme throughout all marketing communications. Effective branding helps companies differentiate themselves from their competitors and build a loyal customer base. This means that customers expect that your tone of voice is the same over email, your website, customer service, and every other touchpoint in your business. If you rebrand, you need to change your logo, and styling everywhere both online and offline. Make sure you create a consistent brand so that your customers revel in your omni-channel presence. Branding in-store can be very different to online branding as in store you have to worry about positioning of products and props that can effect how a customer experiences your brand. Branding in-store is more experiential as people can walk around and pick things up, whereas customers online are experiencing a two-dimensional scene. Of course, certain elements of branding are consistent both online and in-store. These include consistent imagery and logos. Why is Branding Important? A unique brand can have a huge impact on your bottom line by giving you a competitive advantage over your rivals and helping you acquire and retain customers at a much lower cost. In eCommerce, where new companies (and therefore, new competitors) are springing up every day, an established brand can be an invaluable asset in bringing customers and generating profit. Regardless of whether you’re investing time and effort into crafting a compelling brand or paying no attention to it whatsoever, your business still has a brand. However, it may be completely different to how you intended to be seen. By carefully constructing your brand through stories, relationships, marketing messages and visual assets, you have the opportunity of shaping your customers’ expectations and creating a unique bond that goes beyond the buying-selling relationship. Good branding is strategic, while marketing is tactical. When you establish the higher objectives and clearly define your brand promise, you can start crafting a marketing plan that’s geared towards achieving those goals. The Importance of Branding in eCommerce. Branding is a complex process that requires careful planning and calculated approach. Ideally, you should have your branding strategy worked out before you launch your online store to avoid working backwards to try to aligned your store with customer expectations. A strong brand is easy to relate to and draws on values that resonate well with the target audience. For an eCommerce shop, a strong brand can also be a safety net protecting a business from having to compete on price. So how do you go about building a brand for an online shop? Here are the key steps in eCommerce branding:
Something as simple as saying thank you to your loyal customers can go a long way in strengthening your brand image. It’s a surefire way to build long-term relationships with your customers and your brand.
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Advertising has the power to establish awareness, the power to set the agenda, the power to suggest as well as influence, the power to convey new information in addition to the power to persuade. Advertising has short-term power (sharing new information, building awareness, enhancing credibility, etc.) and long-term power (sharing brand image, attaching emotional values to the brand, building positive reputation, etc.).
Advertising has been said to be the most powerful, persuasive as well as manipulative tool which firms have in order to control consumers all over the world. It is a type of communication which typically attempts to persuade potential customers to buy or to consume more of a specific brand of product or service. Its impact on the society through the years has been amazing, particularly in this technology age. Influencing people’s habits, creating false needs, misrepresenting the values and priorities of our society with sexism as well as feminism, advertising has developed into a poison snake ready to hunt his prey. However, conversely, advertising has had a positive effect to help the economy and society. What is good advertising? A good advertisement gives us all the information we need something even before we think that we do. It gives us the opportunity to look into the ideal life, the ideal body, the ideal mate, all wrapped in an ideal world. Effective advertising reaches possible customers and tells them about your products or services. Ideally, advertising needs to capture the prospective customer’s attentions and entice them to make use of your product. Regardless of the method, all your advertising needs to be clear and consistently reflect the unique positioning statement of your business. Word-of-mouth advertising has been around as long as mankind has communicated and traded goods as well as services. In addition, word-of-mouth advertising is considered the most effective form. It has the desired qualities of strong credibility, high audience attention levels, and friendly audience reception. It features open-ended conversation with questions as well as answers about the product, psychological motivations to purchase, memorability, efficiency in addition to frequency. Word-of-mouth advertising passes product information to a lot of other potential buyers (and might even include promotional trial demonstrations as well as free sampling), at little or no cost to the business. Whenever possible, a small business should build an advertising programme which results in word-of-mouth advertising. Satisfied customers are your best advertisements. How profit is generated? In the business market, the chief and principal key in order to get profit is by the active consumption of a product in the marketplace. Nonetheless, firms have taken advantage of that and have created misleading needs to consumers. The only real need, it would appear, are for nourishment, clothing as week as housing. In other words, people are able to live without television, internet, iPod, and the like. However, the impact of commercials and advertising have made people feel the requirement of something else than food as well as shelter. Advertising works through the human emotions and vanity. It appeals toward the psychological domain turning into a temptation for people whose minds are at rest. For example, if a person is at home watching TV, very comfortable and suddenly, a commercial promoting any type of food and drink comes up, that individual will be hungry and thirsty in a couple of minutes. The advertising influenced his mind, provoking an involuntary reaction to do what the commercial caused him to do. Creating connections with potential customers is essential when it comes to driving interest and boosting sales. Making these connections can sometimes be difficult, though, as it’s one thing to want to create them and another to figure out how to establish them.
However, one of the great ways to establish these connections is through copywriting, where you use words to speak to consumer emotions and try to entice them to take action after reading your words. While it may seem simple to write something that you think will resonate with your audience, there are essential principles to follow to ensure that you can effectively convince them. In this post, learn what SEO copywriting is and discover best practices for the process that will help you draw in customers, convert leads, and drive more sales. SEO copywriting is the process of pairing standard SEO best practices that drive traffic (like keyword research) with compelling words that entice users to take a specific action, like buying a product or subscribing to an email list. You can find this copy in product pages on a website, emails, and different marketing materials. SEO copywriting differs from other SEO content writing you may be familiar with, like blogging, as the end goal is to convert leads rather than generate organic traffic. In addition, SEO copywriting is shorter; where a blog post may have almost a thousand words, copywriting content may have less than half of that. However, the two can go hand in hand. You might create a blog post that includes a CTA created with SEO copywriting principles in mind, and the words entice users to click on what you’re offering to learn more, like downloading a free ebook or another related source. Here are some examples of content types that may be created with SEO copywriting principles in mind:
As with all types of SEO, it’s important to understand best practices. SEO Copywriting Tips and Best Practices Strong copywriting is a combination of a variety of factors, which we’ll discuss below. Know your audience. The first step to successful copywriting is knowing your audience. Without this information, it will be impossible to compel them with your writing as you don’t know who they are or how to appeal to them. Finding your audience for SEO copywriting follows the same processes you would when creating a targeted marketing campaign, or any type of content you would create for your business: buyer persona research. Buyer personas are fictional representations of what your ideal customer looks like based on market research and your existing business data and customer profiles. Swift Digital Marketing Tools Make My Persona tool can help with this, as it will guide you through a step-by-step process of outlining who they are, discovering their main pain points, and the solutions they look for based on their needs. Conduct keyword research. Keyword research is a critical component of any SEO strategy. As a refresher, keyword research is the process of uncovering the words your target audience uses when searching for products and services similar to what you offer, and using the keywords in your content to attract those same users to your site. For copywriting, this research is essential because it helps you uncover user intent behind the keywords your audience searches for so you can write copy that resonates with their needs. Write for your audience. The goal of copywriting is to entice your audience to take action. So, as mentioned above, it’s important to always write with your audience in mind. Your buyers are looking for solutions, so you’re writing to tell them why you’re a solution. For example, say you offer an all-in-one marketing tool. Your persona and keyword research lets you know that your target audience often queries “easy-to-use marketing tools.” You’d want to incorporate that search term into your copy to speak directly to user intent in the hopes that they’ll follow through with the desired action (purchasing your product) because you’ve convinced them that you’re the best fit solution to their needs. Use intent-relevant action words. Just as it’s essential to write for your audience's intent, it’s also important to use intent-relevant action words. You want your copy to let them know why what you have to offer is the best solution, and then lead them to the action you want them to take. This simply means that you want your copy to draw your audience to make a final decision, maybe by saying something like “Buy Now” or “Sign Up Here,” at the end of your product descriptions. Be concise and straightforward. The harder your copy is to read, the less likely it is that you’ll achieve your ultimate goal of converting users. If they have to put in a significant amount of effort to understand what you have to offer, you’ll likely lose them along the way. This means avoiding jargon and wordiness and only including what is most relevant to what you’re creating copy for. This can be a difficult skill to develop, so it can be helpful to consider what you would and wouldn’t like to see when browsing for solutions to your pain points and model your strategy off of that. If I were to take this tip to mind and listen to my own advice while writing this section, I would simply say this: leave no room for confusion or misunderstandings; be straightforward. Continuous testing. Something that you may have thought would perform well may not be as aligned with audience intent as you thought, and continuous testing allows you to iterate on what you create to ensure that you satisfy consumer needs. Testing also ensures that you’re maximizing your effectiveness. Your copy should help your audience seamlessly come to the solutions you’re providing without putting in extra effort because your copy already explains it all. An example of continuous testing can be creating multiple versions of CTA’s, each with different copy, that you place on different website pages to see which drives better results. All-in-all, SEO copywriting comes together like this: the SEO aspect are the keywords you know align with your audience user intent and already have high traffic, and the copywriting element is writing for the user intent behind the keywords that have traffic. When you utilize this strategy, you’re directly showing your audience how you’ll solve their pain points and entice them to become a customer. Topic: SEO At first sight, website design to a viewer appears to be the visuals seen on a web page. But the fact is that a whole gamut of techniques and skills are involved in creating a web page design to give it the desired results.
So, web design is about deciding on a lot of elements such as the layout, graphics, colors, fonts, structure, content, text styles, interactive features, imagery, interface, standardized code, etc. It involves a wide range of skills and disciplines. Professional website design is the one that maintains an appropriate balance in the different elements and ensures consistency and integrity of the design. Website design has become inevitable to do business and highlighting its online presence in the modern competitive markets. It contains all the information like details of a company, its products or services, contacts, blogs, and much more. Professional web design has the ability to create a desired corporate identity of a business and delivers its brand message to the target audience. A creative web page design is a tool also for better conversion rate, by which a company can achieve steady growth in sales and revenue. Moreover, user-friendly online web designs build trust for products or services, which is essential to creating a stable, loyal customer base. Who needs a professionally designed website? Website design is an integral part of doing business in this digital age. But who really needs a professionally designed website? Well, all those enterprises who must ensure a dominating online presence and wish to stay ahead of competitors look for outstanding modern website designs. So, practically every company be its logo design agency, website designing agency, brochure designing company, or any type of company in a hard-fought competitive market looks for a unique website to stand out. Such a professional website design has brand colors and fonts, relevant images, icons, content, etc. elements that reflect the company's business values and message. A well-thought-out web page design is a requirement to engages visitors with user-friendly features and convert them into potential customers. Contact Swift Digital Marketing Agency at (216) 339-6041. Social media marketing is the use of social media platforms to connect with your audience to build your brand, increase sales, and drive website traffic. This involves publishing great content on your social media profiles, listening to and engaging your followers, analyzing your results, and running social media advertisements. The major social media platforms (at the moment) are Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, YouTube, and Snapchat. There are also a range of social media management tools that help businesses to get the most out of the social media platforms listed above. For example, Swift has a platform of social media management tools, which can help you achieve success with your social media marketing. Whether you want to build a brand or grow your business, we want to help you succeed. A Quick Overview of Social Media Marketing Social media marketing first started with publishing. Businesses were sharing their content on social media to generate traffic to their websites and, hopefully, sales. But social media has matured far beyond being just a place to broadcast content. Nowadays, businesses use social media in a myriad of different ways. For example, a business that is concerned about what people are saying about its brand would monitor social media conversations and response to relevant mentions (social media listening and engagement). A business that wants to understand how it’s performing on social media would analyze its reach, engagement, and sales on social media with an analytics tool (social media analytics). A business that wants to reach a specific set of audience at scale would run highly-targeted social media ads (social media advertising). As a whole, these are often also known as social media management. The Five Core Pillars of Social Media Marketing 1. Strategy Before you dive right in and publish something on social media, let’s take a step back and look at the bigger picture. The first step is to think about your social media strategy. What are your goals? How can social media help you achieve your business goals? Some businesses use social media for increasing their brand awareness, others use it for driving website traffic and sales. Social media can also help you generate engagement around your brand, create a community, and serve as a customer support channel for your customers. Which social media platforms do you want to focus on? The major social media platforms, mentioned above, are Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, YouTube, and Snapchat. There are also smaller and up-and-coming platforms, such as Tumblr, Tik Tok, and Anchor, and social messaging platforms, such as Messenger, WhatsApp, and WeChat. When starting out, it’s better to pick a few platforms that you think your target audience is on than to be on all platforms. What type of content do you want to share? What type of content will attract your target audience best? Is it images, videos, or links? Is it educational or entertaining content? A good place to start is to create a marketing persona, which will help you answer these questions. And this doesn’t have to be fixed forever; you can always change your strategy according to how your social media posts perform. To help you create a great social media strategy, here are our long-form, step-by-step guides on creating a social media strategy and social media marketing plan. 2. Planning and Publishing Publishing to social media is as simple as sharing a blog post, an image, or a video on a social media platform. It’s just like how you would share on your personal Facebook profile. But you will want to plan your content ahead of time instead of creating and publishing content spontaneously. Also, to ensure that you are maximizing your reach on social media, you need to publish great content that your audience likes, at the right timing and frequency. There are now a variety of social media scheduling tools that can help you publish your content automatically at your preferred time. This saves you time and allows you to reach your audience when they are most likely to engage with your content. 3. Listening and Engagement. As your business and social media following grow, conversations about your brand will also increase. People will comment on your social media posts, tag you in their social media posts, or message you directly. People might even talk about your brand on social media without letting you know. So you will want to monitor social media conversations about your brand. If it’s a positive comment, you get a chance to surprise and delight them. Otherwise, you can offer support and correct a situation before it gets worse. You can manually check all your notifications across all the social media platforms but this isn’t efficient and you won’t see posts that didn’t tag your business’s social media profile. You can instead use a social media listening and engagement tool that aggregates all your social media mentions and messages, including posts that didn’t tag your business’s social media profile. 4. Analytics and Reporting. Along the way, whether you are publishing content or engaging on social media, you will want to know how your social media marketing is performing. Are you reaching more people on social media than last month? How many positive mentions do you get a month? How many people used your brand’s hashtag on their social media posts? The social media platforms themselves provide a basic level of such information. To get more in-depth analytics information or to easily compare across social media platforms, you can use the wide range of social media analytics tools available. 5. Advertising When you have more funds to grow your social media marketing, an area that you can consider is social media advertising. Social media ads allow you to reach a wider audience than those who are following you. Social media advertising platforms are so powerful nowadays that you can specify exactly who to display your ads to. You can create target audiences based on their demographics, interests, behaviors, and more. When you are running many social media advertising campaigns at once, you can consider using a social media advertising tool to make bulk changes, automate processes, and optimize your ads. Social Media Marketing Resources Social media platforms are always evolving. When Facebook first started, people can only share text updates. Now, there are so many content formats such as images, videos, live videos, and Stories. Hence, social media marketing is always changing, too. We want to help you stay up-to-date with all the latest changes and strategies to succeed on social media. Here are a few resources to get you started:
Social Media Marketing for businesses usually starts with having a consistent presence on social media. By being present on social media platforms, you give your brand an opportunity to be discovered by your future customers. In this post, you’re going to learn exactly how to create and implement an effective digital marketing strategy, step-by-step.
So, if you want to learn how to use digital marketing to grow your traffic, this strategy guide is for you. What is a digital marketing strategy? A digital marketing strategy is a plan of action that describes how to use one or more online marketing channels to reach your target audience. It has a list of steps and specific digital marketing goals. Having a digital strategy is important because it will help you orchestrate the different online marketing strategies so that they all work towards achieving your business goals. Together with his team, they will make sure that every marketing activity is part of your digital marketing plan. How to create a Digital Marketing Strategy These are the steps to follow to create an effective marketing strategy.
1. Specify measurable business goals The first step in creating a digital marketing strategy is to specify your business goals. In other words, to determine what you want to accomplish with digital marketing. Any goals you set have to be measurable and well-defined. Everything in a digital marketing campaign is measurable (from start to finish) and you need to take advantage of this and form a digital marketing plan that has specific milestones and targets. Some typical goals are:
While the above is a good starting point, they are still vague. A better version would be: Raise brand awareness by: Increase organic traffic by:
A good way to come up with measurable goals is to use the top-down approach. Start by specifying your goals in business terms and then translate that to digital marketing goals. Here is an example to understand this better. A typical step could be, “Publish 3 new blog posts per week”, which needs to be broken down further to specify which/topics keywords the blog posts will target and what would be the expected outcome in terms of traffic increase. Experienced digital marketing specialists know that this is not always easy to calculate because digital marketing is a dynamic industry and changes all the time. But, having a detailed plan will help you adjust your strategies so as to get closer to your goals as possible. The bottom line is that you need to have a digital marketing plan to follow and not start running campaigns on different channels without knowing what you want to achieve. It goes without saying that your plan has to be realistic, taking into account the competition and complexities of your industry. Also, to be able to analyze data and make informed decisions, you first need to track it correctly and accurately so, having a good analytics system in place is more than essential. 2. Identify your target audience The second step is to identify your target audience. In other words to specify in detail who you want to target with your campaigns. Some marketers, place this as the first step in the process and this is not wrong. What is certain is that this is an exercise you need to perform in the early stages and before finalizing the next steps of your marketing strategy. What does identifying your audience means? Specifying in detail the characteristics of people that might be potentially interested in your offerings. In your audience identification, you should include things like:
Learn as much as you can about your audience The exact details depend on the industry you’re in and the products/services you are trying to promote. A good way to start crafting your buyer personas is to analyze the data you already have available. Digg into your Google Analytics reports, Facebook audience insights, Google Ads reports, and start creating your customer profiles. 3. Understand users needs and search intent Once you know the profile of your target customer, the next step is to use different techniques and try to understand their needs and how they express this when searching for information using a search engine or a social network. There are two ways to approach this process. The first method is to take the typical digital sales funnel and identify what your customers might need at each stage. Digital Sales Funnel The second method is to take the different customer profiles created above, and come up with a separate sales funnel for each. This is my recommended method because it makes it easier to set up and run dedicated digital marketing campaigns for each customer profile. Let me give you an example to understand this better. So, by analyzing each buyer persona separately, you can come up with a more accurate plan of how your content, products, or services can help them solve their problems and needs. Search Intent In the digital marketing world, the needs of users are expressed through search queries. When a user types a search query in Google, it has a specific intent and if your content/products or services do not satisfy it, your digital marketing strategy will fail. That’s why it is important to perform keyword research from the very beginning and capture all topics, keywords, and phrases throughout the buyer journey, from awareness to conversion. Social media networks don’t reveal the ‘searchers’ intent’, what happens then? It’s true that users browsing Facebook may not have a specific intent in mind but they have a particular profile. To increase your chances of targeting the right type of audience, you can analyze the profile of your search visitors (using Google Analytics) and using custom audiences to find matching audiences (Lookalike Audiences) on Facebook. Always use any available data that you have as your starting point for research. The results will be more accurate than using data that is external to your website. Resources to Learn More About Digital Marketing
The next strategic step you need to make is to create a library of content assets. You know your audience and their needs, now it’s time to create various types of assets to use in your campaigns. A digital asset can be a blog post, infographic, image, video, podcast, cover image, logo, and anything else you can publish on your website or social networks. Content Types In the digital marketing world, this is what content marketing is all about. Content marketing is important because it’s the process used to decide what kind of content to create, when, and where to publish it. I prefer to execute this step in the beginning and before running any campaigns because it’s more efficient to have a pool of content assets ready in advance rather than having to do this every time you’re about to start a campaign. When you follow the steps in the order described in this guide (set goals, create customer personas, identify needs, and search intent), then you have all the information you need to work on your content assets. It’s also easier to assign the content creation part to the different members of your team to work in parallel. Content Marketing Strategy Plan 5. Start with SEO as early as possible A strategic decision to make that can positively impact your digital marketing efforts is to start with SEO as early as possible. SEO is one of the most effective digital marketing strategies but it has a caveat. It takes time to work. Unlike other digital marketing strategies, when you start an SEO campaign, it may take 4 to 6 months to generate any results. This is a long time to wait so most marketers tend to focus on other digital channels first (like Facebook Ads, Google Ads). That’s a good approach but the common mistake is that they forget about SEO and only re-visit SEO after they realize that they cannot build a successful digital marketing campaign based solely on paid advertising. So, a better strategy is to allocate a portion of your marketing budget from the very beginning on SEO related tasks. In parallel, you can start working on your paid campaigns and other channels. This way, you’ll reach a point sooner where most of your traffic and sales will come from SEO and rely less on paid ads. In business terms, this means an increase in revenue and profit and this is exactly the goal of a successful digital marketing strategy. How to get started with SEO SEO is a huge topic. Search engines take hundreds of parameters into account before they decide which webpages to show in the results for a particular query. To make it easier to handle, SEO can be broken down into three main sub-processes: Technical SEO, On-Page SEO, and Off-Page SEO. SEO Overview Each process is responsible to optimize your website for a number of parameters that will eventually lead to higher rankings and traffic. SEO is important because the majority of search traffic is distributed to websites that appear in the first 5 positions of the search results. So, if you want to get traffic from search engines, you need to appear in the top positions for search terms related to your business. The best way to get started with SEO is to follow a step-by-step approach: Step 1: Review your technical SEO and make sure that search engines can access and index your content without any problems. This is important since any issues at this stage will be catastrophic for your efforts. Step 2: Optimize your content for search engines. In Step 4 above, you will create content that satisfies the needs of the user. Before publishing, you need to make sure that it’s SEO optimized. This means, giving the right signals to search engines (through your titles, descriptions, headings, etc) to help them understand your content better. Step 3: Promote your website and content. One of the most important SEO ranking factors is how other websites on the Internet ‘think’ of your website. If other relevant websites trust your website and they express this through a backlink, this is a strong signal to Google that your website deserves to be on the top positions. If SEO is something that you haven’t done before for your website, the best way to approach this is to add it to your digital strategy and assign this task to SEO experts. You can also use the resources below to learn more. 6. Explore paid advertising channels When you start an online business, you know in advance that a large portion of your marketing budget will be allocated on PPC marketing (paid ads). But, not all PPC platforms are the same. Based on your previous analysis (steps 2 and 3 above), you need to choose which platforms are more suited for your audience. You can use the table below to get an idea of how the user profile looks for the most popular social networks. Social Media Platforms Demographics. For example, if you have an eCommerce website selling directly to consumers (B2C) then Facebook is probably a good choice. If on the other hand, you are targeting Business executives, then LinkedIn is more appropriate. Run Pilot Campaigns First The best way to find out which platforms to incorporate in your digital marketing strategy plan is to run pilot campaigns. A pilot campaign will not waste your budget and at the same time, it will give you enough data to make an informed decision. A common mistake made by digital marketers is to blindly allocate all their budget on one channel because it’s the trend without testing or considering all of the available channels they can use. Here is a list of the most popular advertising platforms you can use to reach your target audience: Facebook Ads – ideal for all kinds of businesses. Works better for B2C. The best platform to raise brand awareness. Instagram Ads – suitable if you want to reach a younger audience. Twitter Ads – Business oriented. Great for informing your community of updates. Linked Ads – Strictly for business-related advertising. Use it to reach decision-makers. Google Ads – The most reliable platform to get targeted traffic to your website through paid search ads. Google Display Ads – Use it for retargeting purposes and to reach your audience in the various Google products (YouTube, Gmail) and thousands of websites that participate in Google AdSense. Bing Ads – Not as powerful as Google but a good alternative to get more search traffic to your website. 7. Use email marketing segmentation and automation The end goal of a digital marketing campaign is to generate more revenue for a business. But in order to get to your ultimate goal, you first need to consider micro-conversions. Micro-conversions are actions taken by users that are part of the funnel that leads to sales. For example, while one of my goals is to sell my digital marketing course, an intermediate goal is to get people to subscribe to my email list (micro conversion). I consider this an important step because I know from my statistics that a large percentage of people that subscribe to my list, will eventually convert. The same concept can be applied to any business or product. You need to give incentives to users to sign up for your email list and then send them personalized emails that will help them make the final decision, which is to convert by buying your products or services. An important element to make this work is segmentation and automation. With email segmentation, you segment your list into groups of people that share the same interests and send them customized content. For example, people registering to my list to download the SEO Checklist will get different email content than people who register to receive my posts updates. If email marketing is a new concept for you, then you can realize that it involves a lot of work and that’s where email automation comes into play. Here is a visual example of how email automation works. Email Marketing automation example. With email automation, you can orchestrate the whole process to run without intervention and manual work. Your job is to set up the automation campaigns, monitor their performance, and take corrective actions. In addition to micro-conversions, email marketing is a great way to raise brand awareness and build a community around your brand. This is something that can positively influence the performance of all your digital marketing campaigns. Resources to Learn More About Email Marketing
A complete digital marketing strategy should not only take into account the traditional online marketing channels but should also cater to new digital marketing strategies that rise to the surface. To be more precise, at the time of writing this post, there are a number of new channels that you can explore like:
These channels are new and most probably less competitive than established channels. This means you can get better results at a lower cost. Will these help your strategy? The only way to find out is to test them by running pilot campaigns (as explained above). 9. Use retargeting and personalization So far, all of the above strategies are related to how you can reach more people but it’s equally important to follow up on users that already know your brand, but are not yet customers. This is known as ‘retargeting’ or ‘remarketing’. With retargeting, you can show specific ads to users that visited your website (or social network page) but did not convert. How Remarketing Works It’s a very powerful technique that has higher conversion rates and less CPA (cost per action) than other marketing techniques. The ‘marketing rule of 7’ (established in the 1930s by marketers), states that prospects are more likely to convert if they see or hear an ad, at least 7 times. Unsurprisingly, it is a rule that is applicable today, and remarketing is the way to implement this. The most popular platforms to run remarketing campaigns are Facebook and Google Display Network. The concept is simple. You connect your website with Facebook and Google by adding a piece of code provided by the platforms. You then create custom audience lists that include the people who visited your website but did not convert. You then create campaigns and ads that are shown to these users as they browse Facebook or visit other websites on the Internet. To make remarketing more effective, you can also add the element of personalization. Instead of treating all visitors as one group, you can add rules to show different ads to people based on the actions they took on your website. For example, you can create a retargeting campaign for people that added an item to their shopping cart but did not checkout. To give them an incentive to come back and finish the process, you can offer them a discount via coupon code. As a matter of fact, retargeting should be a strategy to include in your digital marketing plan from the early stages. This way you’ll maximize the return for any money spend on paid ads or SEO. 10. Work on conversion optimization Another area that needs to be part of your overall marketing strategy is conversion optimization. I can tell you from experience, that 90% of digital marketing campaigns focus on how to get traffic and forget about conversion optimization. What is conversion optimization? In simple terms, conversion optimization is the process to follow to optimize your website so that a higher percentage of your visitors will perform the desired actions. This starts with your website design, content, landing page optimization, email signup forms, shopping cart, checkout process, and other elements that contribute (directly or indirectly) to conversions. One of the techniques to use is A/B testing. By applying a/b testing principles you can measure the effect on conversions by carefully changing parts of your website or sales funnel. I’ll not go into the details on how to perform A/B testing or conversion optimization (you can follow the links in the resources below to learn more), but from a strategic point of view, it’s important to add conversion optimization activities in your digital marketing plan. Here is an example of how a conversion optimization plan looks like: Conversion Optimization Plan You can add it as a step to be executed as part of a single campaign or as part of your general strategy review process. What I advise my team to do is to review conversion optimization after a campaign is considered to be optimized in terms of traffic. In other words, it’s better to try and optimize your campaign to get as many visits as possible with the lower cost and then start testing different landing pages, messages to see which one performs better in terms of conversions. As a rule of thumb, when doing A/B testing, you should focus on specific changes so that you can accurately measure their effect on conversions. Resources to Learn More About Conversion Optimization
11. Evaluate and revise your strategy Digital marketing is a highly dynamic industry. ‘Rules’ change all the time and it’s extremely important that you evaluate and revise your digital marketing strategy to stay current and relevant. Digital Marketing The best way to evaluate your campaign is to do it based on KPIs and other metrics. The most important metrics for any kind of digital marketing campaign are:
If you have a good analytics system in place and can track these for every campaign that is part of your strategy, then it will be easier to make informed decisions. Don’t forget that part of your evaluation should be to look for new channels you can add to your strategy. It’s always a good idea to take a look at your competitor’s strategies and identify which of their strategies you can include in your marketing mix. Key Learnings A digital marketing strategy is a plan that describes in detail how to use various digital marketing channels to grow your business. To create an effective digital marketing strategy, you start by defining your goals. Then through research, you identify the characteristics and needs of people to target with your campaigns. Once you have this information, you translate that into content marketing assets, having always in mind the ‘intent’ of the user. Creating the right type of content that can satisfy the user’s needs, it’s a critical success factor. Then you start with SEO. SEO is the most effective digital marketing channel but it’s not the fastest one. While waiting for your SEO to generate results, you can start testing paid advertising channels by running pilot campaigns. Once you figure out which channels are more likely to work for the satisfaction of your business goals, you concentrate on those. Besides generating traffic to your website, you also need to incorporate other strategies for converting traffic to customers such as email marketing, retargeting, and conversion optimization. At regular intervals, you should evaluate and revise your strategy to include new traffic sources and trends. Call Swift Digital Marketing Agency at (216) 339-604. We can create a successful digital marketing strategy for your company. The term “retargeting” has been the buzzword of the digital marketing world in recent years. You might have heard all the praises: ROI, incredible conversion rate, and there are even marketers that swore by retargeting as the most effective advertising method nowadays. However, what is retargeting? In this guide, we will discuss the basics of retargeting, and how to easily set up your retargeting campaign in no time at all.
What is Retargeting? First, we should clarify the common misconception regarding retargeting and remarketing. Although they are related to each other, retargeting is not necessarily remarketing, and vice versa. The term “remarketing” refers to the marketing efforts targeted to the same prospects again and again. When you see the same restaurant ads repeatedly on those billboards beside the road, that is remarketing. Retargeting, on the other hand, is a new form of remarketing for the digital world. With retargeting, we are shown repeated online ads on the same traffic for a dedicated time. While retargeting is fairly new, it has grown to be the biggest aspect of remarketing in recent years. Generally, there are three main applications of retargeting:
Why Retargeting? Since retargeting is technically a form of remarketing, we should first understand the benefits of remarketing. Let’s take the classic iOS vs Android debate, for example. No, we are not going to discuss which one is better, however, there is a high likelihood that the one you prefer is the one you are more exposed to. If most of your friends are using Android phones (and they recommended it to you, consciously or subconsciously), you are more likely to be an Android user. The idea is, we are more likely to enjoy what we are familiar with. So how do we build on this with retargeting? Let’s use another example. Let’s say you just browsed on Amazon for a new TV set. Then, for whatever reasons, you decided to stop looking for a TV set that day. A proper retargeting campaign might target you, and when you later on opened your Facebook later that day, a TV ad shows up, effectively reminding you to buy that TV. If you are familiar with the marketing funnel concept, you might understand that with every step of the buyer’s journey, the possibility of a conversion will be smaller. Retargeting, in essence, is an effort to optimize the chance of conversion in each funnel stage. Retargeting is also a very effective tactic to build brand awareness, while a study by ComScore suggested that retargeting can increase site visitation by a whopping 726%. How Retargeting Works There are two popular ways to run a retargeting campaign: through Google Adwords or Facebook Ads. There are other platforms that offer retargeting services, but considering the size of Google Adwords and Facebook Ads, they should be your first choices. Retargeting works mainly with the help of a code snippet in the form of a cookie in your customer’s browser. The cookie will then collect their information and based on that gathered data, you can then target those visitors with your promotion. How about targeting your competitors’ audience? The best method is using keyword-targeting. Here, you can target a certain keyword related to your industry while excluding your own visitor. This is a pretty reliable method, especially if you are in a competitive industry. The second, and arguably the easiest method, is to use social media: for example, we can target those who have followed or liked our competitors. Setting Up Google Ads Retargeting Google Ads offers a built-in retargeting feature, so you can set up a retargeting campaign easily following these steps:
After you’re done, simply copy and paste the retargeting cookie code into the HTML body tag of your site. There you have it, you’ve set up a Google Ads retargeting campaign! Setting Up Facebook Ads Retargeting Facebook Ads are even easier with less necessary steps and Facebook will walk you through every step. Here are 3 things you will need to know before starting a Facebook Ad Campaign, but you can set up your campaign easily through the following steps: First, click on ‘Tools’ in your ad manager, and select ‘Pixels’ Enter your domain name, and Facebook will walk you through all the necessary steps. You will then get your retargeting cookie code snippet. The biggest benefit of the retargeting campaign is higher conversions in each stage of your funnel. It is specifically targeted for those who have shown interest in your brand, product, or your niche, so you know they are shopping. While the concept of retargeting and code snippets might be confusing at first, it is actually quite easy to learn as Google and Facebook have taken the necessary steps to make this comprehensive system easy to operate. However, it takes years of experience to understand where to invest marketing dollars to get the most return, that’s where B2B marketing consultant can help your business on creating content, generating demand, and enabling sales using budget with maximum efficiency. FACEBOOK GOOGLE ADS PIXE REMARKETING 2022 may have been the year that startup companies finally began to embrace digitization but so far, real changes—the kind that results in growth— have yet to take effect. The problem is simple: the kind of transformation most companies have so far been able to bring about is only the first step. It’s merely paving the way for growth.
The exciting news is now that lots of software and startup companies have made initial efforts to modernize their infrastructures, they’re poised for real growth. If that’s you — if you’ve recently adopted cloud-based CMS and CRM solutions, it’s time to put them to work and start growing your business. Here are six digital marketing strategies and ideas for startups to help you graduate to that next level of digitization in the year ahead. 1. Content Marketing To make growth happen in 2022, startup companies need to build on their initial efforts and begin focusing their digital marketing strategies on broader horizons. And right now, there’s no horizon more promising and full of potential than the customer experience (CX). Companies who embrace the CX credo — buyers are customers who expect to be delighted — will win in 2020. And what better way to ingratiate your company with purchasing managers than to offer helpful resources that make their job easier. Do this through content marketing. More than three-quarters of startup companies already have a blog. However, there’s a big difference between simply having a blog and putting it to work as part of a content marketing strategy for your startup company. What you need is a data-driven blog. Begin by finding out what your buyers need. There are several tools at your disposal for this. First, you can use keyword tools to find what’s trending in your industry. These same tools will let you know which topics actually have search traffic and which are in demand so you’re not wasting time producing and promoting content that nobody wants to read. Secondly, need is driven by pain, so think deeply about your B2B and B2C customers and what they lack, what causes them to ‘suffer’. Then, supply the kind of content that relieves those pain points. Almost half of the buyers consume online content (3-5 pieces) before reaching out to a sales rep. It should be your content they’re consuming. It should also be well-informed since almost all B2B buyers want the content they consume to include input from industry leaders. Some examples of buyer pain points that you can help alleviate with helpful content:
2. Inbound Marketing/SEO A solid base of helpful content can also be the cornerstone of a successful inbound digital marketing for startups. You’ve done the research and produced great content for your buyers for your content marketing campaign. Now make it do double duty by earning some SEO credit. You’ll need to do some deeper research, however: keyword research that goes deeper and shows you where you could focus your efforts and try to rank. Consider long-tail keywords if your industry is competitive, and write data-driven content that helps your SEO efforts. The trick is to balance SEO content techniques with user experience. SEO content, which employs strategic placement of keywords throughout the content, can come off as awkward. You want good, relevant, resourceful and helpful content that reads well, so keep that balance in mind with all your content. The idea, after all, is to try and get people to create backlinks to your startup website. This can happen in any number of ways, including organically, through guest posting, and via social media promotion. You can check the startup SEO services page to download my SEO growth program that outlines the most common link building and SEO strategies. 3. Social Media Marketing Because of its rich targeting potential and wide reach, Facebook marketing funnels remains one of the most effective ways to generate leads in B2B and B2C world and should be a part of your startup digital marketing strategy. It’s also the least expensive among the other social networks like Linkedin and Twitter. Over 60 percent of startup marketers plan to increase their Facebook Advertising efforts, according to a 2021 report. You’ll need to identify your target persona and the companies you are going after and then create that profile on Facebook Ad Manager. You can also set up a remarketing pixel and target your website visitors and lookalike audiences to make the profile targeted and relevant. That way, you’ll maximize ROI and, depending on your marketing objectives, you can create campaigns that:
Other options that are available on Ad Manager dashboard include:
4. Responsive Web Design, HTTPS, AMPFaced with more buyers who expect a better customer experience, B2B players now need to take their cues from B2C and look for ways to delight their buyers wherever they are in the buyer’s journey. The best place to start is with the company website. Even a quick spin through the startup galaxy of websites, and you’ll immediately know there’s a lot of room for improvement in the Customer Experience (CX). Here are three ways you can consider adding to your startup digital marketing strategy planning:
5. Marketing AutomationB2B customers typically use six different channels in their buying journey. Almost two-thirds of them will be frustrated by their experiences. Since you’re now in the business of ‘delighting’ your customers, you’ll want to upgrade your methods wherever you have a point of contact with your customers and leads. Marketing automation should be a part of your digital making strategy for your startup. Wherever someone may be along the buyer’s journey, you’ll want to help, coax, encourage, and respond to any actions they’re taking in relation to your business. In fact, a major pain point for 40 percent of surveyed buyers is a slow response time from sales reps. Other frustrations included a sluggish reordering process, which troubled almost a third of survey respondents. Automation can help solve those problems and more by spurring communications, offering helpful links, and tying in customized past ordering data for individual customers. In essence, what you’re doing is transforming your business into one that’s customer-focused. B2B buyers want the following:
The added benefit of automating your marketing processes is that it helps with consistent messaging across all your platforms: email, digital ads, and other channels where you interact with your leads and customers. 6. Email Marketing Another natural outgrowth of a strong startup digital marketing strategy is email marketing: exciting and useful new content is a great excuse for an email newsletter. Email marketing magnifies the power of your content marketing efforts when you use carefully selected content aimed at segmented buyers at specific points along the buying decision timeline. Plus, to get more out of your content budget, you can reuse content in lots of different ways. For example, you can redirect leads back to your website through your carefully planned email campaigns that include snippets from blog posts on your website that pertain to the moment. Conclusion It’s no secret that startup companies are still playing catch-up to B2B and B2C companies in the process of digital transformation and marketing strategy. Having embraced the notion that digitization can lead to growth, startup players who’ve transformed their back-end processes and IT infrastructures should now work with a startup marketing agency on implementing marketing strategies for startups outlined in this post. That’s how they’ll begin to capture and delight their prospects who expect a stellar customer experience, just like what they get in the B2C world. Good luck in 2022! DIGITAL MARKETING SEO STARTUP STRATEGY We help clients make core transformations in marketing strategy and operations to power growth through digital advantage. Digital marketing is no longer about merely adding online channels to the media mix; it is about integrating digital into all facets of marketing. Our global expertise across digital analytics, market research, technology, business design, and online strategy helps clients bring the full potential of digital marketing to bear on their business. What we doDigital marketing engagements are typically multifaceted, solving for specific digital marketing challenges while building ongoing client capabilities. In addition to defining new roles and responsibilities and helping develop businesses, we address technology infrastructure and identify potential partners. We work with clients primarily in three core areas:
Web design is the process of planning, conceptualizing, and arranging content online. Today, designing a website goes beyond aesthetics to include the website’s overall functionality. Web design also includes web apps, mobile apps, and user interface design. Did you know that web design can have a huge impact on your performance in search engines like Google? This article will give you some helpful insight into how to create a website that not only looks good, but functions properly and ranks highly in search. In this article we will cover:
Are you looking to create a website? Get started with Pagecloud! You can publish a one page website at no cost with access to Pagecloud's powerful design features, and unlimited draft pages. Finding Inspiration Designers look for inspiration everywhere. Here are some of the best sites to help get your creative juices flowing:
Check out our blog post for more tips on finding inspiration Choosing a Web Design Tool There are two main ways to design a website: using a desktop app or using a website builder. The tool you decide to use will vary greatly based on your team size, your budget, and the type of site you wish to build and its technical requirements. 1. Desktop Apps Desktop apps require designers to create their design and send it to a development team who can then convert the design to code. The most popular desktop apps for designing websites are Photoshop and Sketch. Typically, this is the standard for large and/or complex websites because it allows the designer to focus on the overall look and feel, while all the technical challenges are transferred to the development team. Unfortunately, this process can be expensive and time-consuming because multiple resources, skill sets, and team members are required. To avoid involving a developer, it is beneficial to use a website builder to design a website with fewer technical requirements. 2. Website Builders There are many website builders on the market today that offer a wide range of features and services. Wix, Squarespace, Webflow, and Pagecloud, are a few examples of popular website builders that vary in design capabilities, template options, price, and overall editing experience. Be sure to do your research, experiment with free trials, and determine which platform best fits your website needs. Website builders create either adaptive or responsive websites, which offer different building experiences. These concepts will be discussed in more detail below so you can best understand which builders will work for you. If you don’t know how to code, becoming familiar with the freedoms and limitations of various website design tools is essential. For example, although Wordpress is the most used website platform, it’s not popular with visual designers because of its limited customization options. Before you start building a website, determine your website needs: Are you creating a photo gallery? How often will you update your site? Do you need a contact form? Choose a website builder that can help you effectively accomplish those goals. Web Design Elements When designing a website it’s important to consider both the site’s appearance and functionality. Integrating these elements will maximize the site’s overall usability and performance. Your site’s usability includes elements such as an easy-to-navigate interface, appropriate use of graphics and images, well-written and well-placed text, and a color scheme. Your site’s performance refers to its speed, ranking, searchability, and ability to capture your audience. Visual elements Here’s a quick overview of the elements you should consider while designing your website to make sure everything works well together. Each section will provide tips and tricks to help you get started. Fundamentally, your website’s appearance and text go hand-in-hand. It’s important to have your content writers and designers work together in order to create a cohesive design with balanced elements. Focus on creating chunks of text (using text blocks) in order to compliment your graphics and images. Fonts Choose a font that compliments your overall design. Font should pair with your color scheme, graphics, images, and strengthen the overall tone of your website. Tools like Canva’s Font Combinator can help you find a perfect match for your font. Web design tools like PageCloud even include numerous font pairings within their app. Colors Colors are one of the most important elements to consider when designing a website. Keep in mind there are many misconceptions about the psychology of color, and it’s more important to focus on colors that compliment your overall design and tone of your website. Align your color scheme with your brand and the messages you want to convey to your audience. Layout How you decide to arrange your content will have a dramatic impact on both the usability and functionality of your site. There are no specific rules to follow when choosing a layout, however, there are a few main principles to keep in mind. Make sure to consider the needs of your target audience and avoid using an overstimulating layout that might detract from the messages you want to convey. Shapes The use of graphic elements in web design can help seamlessly integrate text and images, and help with the site’s overall appearance. Combining beautiful colors and shapes can help direct the attention of your sites visitors and contribute to your site’s overall flow. Spacing Spacing is a key element to creating visually pleasing and easy to navigate websites. Every element in your design will incorporate spacing in one way or another. Appropriate use of whitespace is crucial in creating a design that perfectly balances text, photos, and graphics. Keeping your spacing consistent can help your users navigate your website with ease. The concept of whitespace is definitely a priority of modern web designers. Images & Icons Amazing designs can communicate a lot of information in just a few seconds. This is made possible with the use of powerful images and icons. Choose images and icons that support and strengthen your message. A quick Google search for stock images and icons will generate thousands of options. To help simplify your search, here are a few favourites: Free images and icons Premium images and icons Videos Integrating videos into web design is becoming increasingly popular amongst designers. When used properly, videos can help your users experience or understand a message that can’t be properly conveyed through text or image. Keep in mind that like having a TV screen on in a restaurant, visitors’ eyes will be drawn to moving images. Make sure your videos don’t compete with or detract from other important elements. Functional elements These functional elements are imperative to consider when designing your website. A website that functions properly is crucial for ranking highly on search engines, and giving your users the best possible experience. Navigation Your website’s navigation is one of the main elements that determines whether your website is functioning properly. Depending on your audience, your navigation can serve multiple purposes: helping first time visitors discover what your site has to offer, giving easy access to your pages for returning visitors, and improving every visitor's overall experience. Check out these best practices for more tips on navigation. User Interactions Your site visitors have multiple ways of interacting with your site depending on their device (scrolling, clicking, typing, etc.). The best website designs simplify these interactions to give the user the sense that they are in control. Here are a few examples:
Animations There are tons of web animation techniques that can help your design grab visitor’s attention, and allow your visitors to interact with your site by giving feedback. For example, adding “like” buttons or forms can keep your site’s visitors engaged. If you’re new to web design, we’d recommend keeping your animations simple to avoid developer intervention. Speed No one likes a slow website. Having to wait more than a few seconds for a page to load can quickly deter a visitor from remaining on or returning to your site. Regardless of how beautiful, if your site doesn’t load quickly, it will not perform well in search (i.e. won’t rank high on Google). Top site builders typically compress your content for faster load times, however, there are no guarantees. Make sure to research which site builders will work best for the content you will have on your site. For example, PageCloud optimizes your images to ensure fast loading times for sites with large and/or multiple photos. Google’s Page Speed Test Site structure A website’s structure plays an important role in both user experience (UX) and search engine optimization (SEO). Your users should be able to easily navigate through your website without encountering any structural issues. If users are getting lost while attempting to navigate through your site, chances are “crawlers” are too. A crawler (or bot) is an automated program that searches through your website and can determine its functionality. Poor navigation can lead to a poor user experience and site ranking. Cross-browser & cross-device compatibility A great design should look polished on all devices and browsers (yes, even Internet Explorer). If you’re building your site from scratch, we’d recommend using a cross-browser testing tool to make this tedious process faster and more efficient. On the other hand, if you’re using a website building platform, the cross-browser testing is typically taken care of by the company’s development team allowing you to focus on design. Types of Website Design: Adaptive vs. Responsive Understanding the pros and cons of adaptive and responsive websites will help you determine which website builder will work best for your website design needs. You might come across articles online that talk about a whole bunch of different website design styles (fixed, static, fluid, etc.). However, in today’s mobile-centric world, there are only two website styles to use to properly design a website: adaptive and responsive. Adaptive websitesAdaptive web design uses two or more versions of a website that are customized for specific screen sizes. Adaptive websites can be split into two main categories based upon how the site detects what size needs to be displayed: 1. Adapts based on device type When your browser connects to a website, the HTTP request will include a field called “user-agent” that will inform the server about the type of device attempting to view the page. The adaptive website will know what version of the site to display based on what device is trying to reach it (i.e. desktop, mobile, tablet). Issues will arise if you shrink the browser window on a desktop because the page will continue to display the “desktop version” rather than shrinking to the new size. 2. Adapts based on browser width Instead of using the “user-agent”, the website uses media queries (a CSS feature that enables a webpage to adapt to different screen sizes) and breakpoints (certain width sizes) to switch between versions. So instead of having a desktop, tablet, and mobile version, you will have 1080px, 768px, and 480px width versions. This offers more flexibility when designing, and a better viewing experience as your website will adapt based on screen width. Pros
Cons
Responsive Websites Responsive websites can use flexible grid layouts that are based on the percentage each element takes up in its container: if one element (e.g. a header) is 25% of its container, that element will stay at 25% no matter the change in screen size. Responsive websites can also use breakpoints to create a custom look at every screen size, but unlike adaptive sites that adapt only when they hit a breakpoint, responsive websites are constantly changing according to the screen size. Pros
Cons
It’s important to note that website builders can include both adaptive and responsive features. For example, Pagecloud recently introduced a series of features that allow your content to act responsive even though the website itself is still adaptive. Adaptive Website Builders Wix and Pagecloud are arguably the two best visual website builders on the market today. Both use an adaptive approach, meaning their drag-and-drop and WYSIWYG capabilities are second to none. You can build just about anything without having to write a single line of code. Wix has been around since 2006 and has since developed a wide range of features and templates to suit just about every business need. Today, it’s considered one of the easiest tools for beginners. Wix has been around since 2006 and has since developed a wide range of features and templates to suit just about every business need. Today, it’s considered one of the easiest tools for beginners. Although it’s hard to choose a winner in this category, here are few things to keep in mind:
As both platforms offer free trials, we’d recommend trying them both before deciding. Responsive Website Builders Tools like Squarespace offer responsive website builders, however, this means your editing experience is more limited. Creating a fluid responsive website is hard, and without knowing how to code, it is nearly impossible to build unique websites using responsive website builders. This is where more complex web design tools, like Webflow and Froont, come into play. Here are some of the pros and cons to consider when looking to adopt one of these tools: Pros
Cons
E-commerce E-commerce websites are an important part of website design. Creating an online store that is easy to navigate, informative, and accurately displays your products is crucial to creating the best online shopping experience for your customers. If you want to learn more about starting an online store, check out our article for 5 easy steps to creating an e-commerce website! Next Steps Hopefully this article helped you to better understand the essentials in web design. To review, let’s take a look at some key elements in designing a website that is both beautiful and functional: 1. The user always comes first: user experience should be at the forefront of your design, as your users will ultimately be the ones to determine whether your website is worth visiting. 2. Choose the best website builder for your needs: ask yourself what your website’s major functions will be, and choose a website builder that will ensure those needs are met. 3. Balancing visual elements: it’s important to maintain a balance between your text, graphics, multimedia, and color scheme to avoid an overstimulating website that detracts from the messages you are trying to convey. Now that you’ve mastered the basics in website design, be sure to check out more posts to learn more about types of website builders, design trends, design elements, and much more. Any marketing that uses electronic devices and can be used by marketing specialists to convey promotional messaging and measure its impact through your customer journey. In practice, digital marketing typically refers to marketing campaigns that appear on a computer, phone, tablet, or other device. It can take many forms, including online video, display ads, search engine marketing, paid social ads and social media posts. Digital marketing is often compared to “traditional marketing” such as magazine ads, billboards, and direct mail. Oddly, television is usually lumped in with traditional marketing. Maximize your digital marketing. Use Swift to promote your brand, reach your target audience, and grow your business. Did you know that more than 3 quarters of Americans go online on a daily basis? Not only that, but 43% go on more than once a day and 26% are online “almost constantly.” These figures are even higher among mobile internet users. 89% of Americans go online at least daily, and 31% are online almost constantly. As a marketer, it’s important to take advantage of the digital world with an online advertising presence, by building a brand, providing a great customer experience that also brings more potential customers and more, with a digital strategy. A digital marketing strategy allows you to leverage different digital channels–such as social media, pay-per-click, search engine optimization, and email marketing–to connect with existing customers and individuals interested in your products or services. As a result, you can build a brand, provide a great customer experience, bring in potential customers, and more. What is digital marketing? Digital marketing, also called online marketing, is the promotion of brands to connect with potential customers using the internet and other forms of digital communication. This includes not only email, social media, and web-based advertising, but also text and multimedia messages as a marketing channel. Essentially, if a marketing campaign involves digital communication, it's digital marketing. Inbound marketing versus digital marketingDigital marketing and inbound marketing are easily confused, and for good reason. Digital marketing uses many of the same tools as inbound marketing—email and online content, to name a few. Both exist to capture the attention of prospects through the buyer’s journey and turn them into customers. But the 2 approaches take different views of the relationship between the tool and the goal. Digital marketing considers how individual tools or digital channels can convert prospects. A brand's digital marketing strategy may use multiple platforms or focus all of its efforts on 1 platform. For example, a company may primarily create content for social media platforms and email marketing campaigns while ignoring other digital marketing avenues. On the other hand, inbound marketing is a holistic concept. It considers the goal first, then looks at the available tools to determine which will effectively reach target customers, and then at which stage of the sales funnel that should happen. As an example, say you want to boost website traffic to generate more prospects and leads. You can focus on search engine optimization when developing your content marketing strategy, resulting in more optimized content, including blogs, landing pages, and more. The most important thing to remember about digital marketing and inbound marketing is that as a marketing professional, you don’t have to choose between the 2. In fact, they work best together. Inbound marketing provides structure and purpose for effective digital marketing to digital marketing efforts, making sure that each digital marketing channel works toward a goal. Why is digital marketing important? Any type of marketing can help your business thrive. However, digital marketing has become increasingly important because of how accessible digital channels are. In fact, there were 5 billion internet users globally in April 2022 alone. From social media to text messages, there are many ways to use digital marketing tactics in order to communicate with your target audience. Additionally, digital marketing has minimal upfront costs, making it a cost-effective marketing technique for small businesses. B2B versus B2C digital marketing Digital marketing strategies work for B2B (business to business) as well as B2C (business to consumer) companies, but best practices differ significantly between the 2. Here's a closer look at how digital marketing is used in B2B and B2C marketing strategies.
Of course, there are exceptions to every rule. A B2C company with a high-ticket product, such as a car or computer, might offer more informative and serious content. As a result, your digital marketing strategy always needs to be geared toward your own customer base, whether you're B2B or B2C. Take a look at your current audience to create well-informed and targeted online marketing campaigns. Doing so ensures your marketing efforts are effective and you can capture the attention of potential customers. Types of digital marketingThere are as many specializations within digital marketing as there are ways of interacting using digital media. Here are a few key examples of types of digital marketing tactics. Search engine optimization Search engine optimization, or SEO, is technically a marketing tool rather than a form of marketing in itself. The Balance defines it as “the art and science of making web pages attractive to search engines.” The "art and science" part of SEO is what’s most important. SEO is a science because it requires you to research and weigh different contributing factors to achieve the highest possible ranking on a serch engine results page (SERP). Today, the most important elements to consider when optimizing a web page for search engines include:
In addition to the elements above, you need to optimize technical SEO, which is all the back-end components of your site. This includes URL structure, loading times, and broken links. Improving your technical SEO can help search engines better navigate and crawl your site. The strategic use of these factors makes search engine optimization a science, but the unpredictability involved makes it an art. Ultimately, the goal is to rank on the first page of a search engine’s result page. This ensures that those searching for a specific query related to your brand can easily find your products or services. While there are many search engines, digital marketers often focus on Google since it's a global leader in the search engine market. In SEO, there's no quantifiable rubric or consistent rule for ranking highly on search engines. Google and other search engines change their algorithm almost constantly, so it's impossible to make exact predictions. What you can do is closely monitor your page's performance and make adjustments to your strategy accordingly. Content marketing As mentioned, the quality of your content is a key component of an optimized page. As a result, SEO is a major factor in content marketing, a strategy based on the distribution of relevant and valuable content to a target audience. As in any marketing strategy, the goal of content marketing is to attract leads that ultimately convert into customers. But it does so differently than traditional advertising. Instead of enticing prospects with potential value from a product or service, it offers value for free in the form of written material, such as:
Content marketing matters, and there are plenty of stats to prove it:
As effective as content marketing is, it can be tricky. Content marketing writers need to be able to rank highly in search engine results while also engaging people who will read the material, share it, and interact further with the brand. When the content is relevant, it can establish strong relationships throughout the pipeline. To create effective content that’s highly relevant and engaging, it’s important to identify your audience. Who are you ultimately trying to reach with your content marketing efforts? Once you have a better grasp of your audience, you can determine the type of content you'll create. You can use many formats of content in your content marketing, including videos, blog posts, printable worksheets, and more. Regardless of which content you create, it’s a good idea to follow content marketing best practices. This means making content that’s grammatically correct, free of errors, easy to understand, relevant, and interesting. Your content should also funnel readers to the next stage in the pipeline, whether that’s a free consultation with a sales representative or a signup page. Social media marketing Social media marketing means driving traffic and brand awareness by engaging people in discussion online. You can use social media marketing to highlight your brand, products, services, culture, and more. With billions of people spending their time engaging on social media platforms, focusing on social media marketing can be worthwhile. The most popular digital platforms for social media marketing are Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, with LinkedIn and YouTube not far behind. Ultimately, which social media platforms you use for your business depends on your goals and audience. For example, if you want to find new leads for your FinTech startup, targeting your audience on LinkedIn is a good idea since industry professionals are active on the platform. On the other hand, running social media ads on Instagram may be better for your brand if you run a B2C focused on younger consumers. Because social media marketing involves active audience participation, it has become a popular way of getting attention. It's the most popular content medium for B2C digital marketers at 96%, and it's gaining ground in the B2B sphere as well. According to the Content Marketing Institute, 61% of B2B content marketers increased their use of social media this year. Social media marketing offers built-in engagement metrics, which are extremely useful in helping you to understand how well you're reaching your audience. You get to decide which types of interactions mean the most to you, whether that means the number of shares, comments, or total clicks to your website. Direct purchase may not even be a goal of your social media marketing strategy. Many brands use social media marketing to start dialogues with audiences rather than encourage them to spend money right away. This is especially common in brands that target older audiences or offer products and services not appropriate for impulse buys. It all depends on your company's social media marketing goals. To create an effective social media marketing strategy, it’s crucial to follow best practices. Here are a few of the most important social media marketing best practices:
To learn more about how Swift can help with your social media strategy, check out the comparison of our social media management tools versus others. Pay-per-click marketing Pay-per-click, or PPC, is a form of digital marketing in which you pay a fee every time someone clicks on your digital ads. So, instead of paying a set amount to constantly run targeted ads on online channels, you only pay for the ads individuals interact with. How and when people see your ad is a bit more complicated. One of the most common types of PPC is search engine advertising, and because Google is the most popular search engine, many businesses use Google Ads for this purpose. When a spot is available on a search engine results page, also known as a SERP, the engine fills the spot with what is essentially an instant auction. An algorithm prioritizes each available ad based on a number of factors, including:
PPC ads are then placed at the top of search engine result pages based on the factors above whenever a person searches for a specific query. Each PPC campaign has 1 or more target actions that viewers are meant to complete after clicking an ad. These actions are known as conversions, and they can be transactional or non-transactional. Making a purchase is a conversion, but so is a newsletter signup or a call made to your home office. Whatever you choose as your target conversions, you can track them via your chosen digital marketing channels to see how your campaign is doing. Affiliate marketing Affiliate marketing is a digital marketing tactic that lets someone make money by promoting another person's business. You could be either the promoter or the business who works with the promoter, but the process is the same in either case. It works using a revenue sharing model. If you're the affiliate, you get a commission every time someone purchases the item that you promote. If you're the merchant, you pay the affiliate for every sale they help you make. Some affiliate marketers choose to review the products of just 1 company, perhaps on a blog or other third-party site. Others have relationships with multiple merchants. Whether you want to be an affiliate or find one, the first step is to make a connection with the other party. You can use digital channels designed to connect affiliates with retailers, or you can start or join a single-retailer program. If you're a retailer and you choose to work directly with affiliates, there are many things you can do to make your program appealing to potential promoters. You'll need to provide those affiliates with the tools that they need to succeed. That includes incentives for great results as well as marketing tools and pre-made materials. Native advertising Native advertising is digital marketing in disguise. Its goal is to blend in with its surrounding content so that it’s less blatantly obvious as advertising. Native advertising was created in reaction to the cynicism of today's consumers toward ads. Knowing that the creator of an ad pays to run it, many consumers will conclude that the ad is biased and consequently ignore it. A native ad gets around this bias by offering information or entertainment before it gets to anything promotional, downplaying the "ad" aspect. It’s important to always label your native ads clearly. Use words like “promoted” or “sponsored.” If those indicators are concealed, readers might end up spending significant time engaging with the content before they realize that it's advertising. When your consumers know exactly what they're getting, they'll feel better about your content and your brand. Native ads are meant to be less obtrusive than traditional ads, but they’re not meant to be deceptive. Influencer marketing Like affiliate marketing, influencer marketing relies on working with an influencer–an individual with a large following, such as a celebrity, industry expert, or content creator–in exchange for exposure. In many cases, these influencers will endorse your products or services to their followers on several social media channels. Influencer marketing works well for B2B and B2C companies who want to reach new audiences. However, it’s important to partner with reputable influencers since they’re essentially representing your brand. The wrong influencer can tarnish the trust consumers have with your business. Mobile marketing Mobile marketing is a digital marketing strategy that allows you to engage with your target audience on their mobile devices, such as smartphones and tablets. This can be via SMS and MMS messages, social media notifications, mobile app alerts, and more. It’s crucial to ensure that all content is optimized for mobile devices. According to the Pew Research Center, 85% of Americans own a smartphone, so your marketing efforts can go a long way when you create content for computer and mobile screens. The benefits of digital marketing. Digital marketing has become prominent largely because it reaches such a wide audience of people. However, it also offers a number of other advantages that can boost your marketing efforts. These are a few of the benefits of digital marketing. A broad geographic reach When you post an ad online, people can see it no matter where they are (provided you haven’t limited your ad geographically). This makes it easy to grow your business's market reach and connect with a larger audience across different digital channels. Cost efficiency Digital marketing not only reaches a broader audience than traditional marketing but also carries a lower cost. Overhead costs for newspaper ads, television spots, and other traditional marketing opportunities can be high. They also give you less control over whether your target audiences will see those messages in the first place. With digital marketing, you can create just 1 content piece that draws visitors to your blog as long as it's active. You can create an email marketing campaign that delivers messages to targeted customer lists on a schedule, and it's easy to change that schedule or the content if you need to do so. When you add it all up, digital marketing gives you much more flexibility and customer contact for your ad spend. Quantifiable results. To know whether your marketing strategy works, you have to find out how many customers it attracts and how much revenue it ultimately drives. But how do you do that with a non-digital marketing strategy? There's always the traditional option of asking each customer, “How did you find us?" Unfortunately, that doesn't work in all industries. Many companies don't get to have one-on-one conversations with their customers, and surveys don't always get complete results. With digital marketing, results monitoring is simple. Digital marketing software and platforms automatically track the number of desired conversions that you get, whether that means email open rates, visits to your home page, or direct purchases. Easier personalizationDigital marketing allows you to gather customer data in a way that offline marketing can't. Data collected digitally tends to be much more precise and specific. Imagine you offer financial services and want to send out special offers to internet users people who have looked at your products. You know you'll get better results if you target the offer to the person's interest, so you decide to prepare 2 campaigns. One is for young families who have looked at your life insurance products, and the other is for millennial entrepreneurs who have considered your retirement plans. How do you gather all of that data without automated tracking? How many phone records would you have to go through? How many customer profiles? And how do you know who has or hasn't read the brochure you sent out? With digital marketing, all of this information is already at your fingertips. More connection with customersDigital marketing lets you communicate with your customers in real-time. More importantly, it lets them communicate with you. Think about your social media strategy. It's great when your target audience sees your latest post, but it's even better when they comment on it or share it. It means more buzz surrounding your product or service, as well as increased visibility every time someone joins the conversation. Interactivity benefits your customers as well. Their level of engagement increases as they become active participants in your brand's story. That sense of ownership can create a strong sense of brand loyalty. Easy and convenient conversionsDigital marketing lets your customers take action immediately after viewing your ad or content. With traditional advertisements, the most immediate result you can hope for is a phone call shortly after someone views your ad. But how often does someone have the time to reach out to a company while they're doing the dishes, driving down the highway, or updating records at work? With digital marketing, they can click a link or save a blog post and move along the sales funnel right away. They might not make a purchase immediately, but they’ll stay connected with you and give you a chance to interact with them further. How to create a digital marketing strategyFor many small businesses and beginner digital marketers, getting started with digital marketing can be difficult. However, you can create an effective digital marketing strategy to increase brand awareness, engagement, and sales by using the following steps as your starting point. Set SMART goals. Setting specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and timely (SMART) goals is crucial for any marketing strategy. While there are many goals you may want to achieve, try to focus on the ones that will propel your strategy forward instead of causing it to remain stagnant. Identify your audience. Before starting any marketing campaign, it’s best to identify your target audience. Your target audience is the group of people you want your campaign to reach based on similar attributes, such as age, gender, demographic, or purchasing behavior. Having a good understanding of your target audience can help you determine which digital marketing channels to use and the information to include in your campaigns. Create a budget. A budget ensures you’re spending your money effectively towards your goals instead of overspending on digital marketing channels that may not provide the desired results. Consider your SMART goals and the digital channel you’re planning to use to create a budget. Select your digital marketing channels From content marketing to PPC campaigns and more, there are many digital marketing channels you can use to your advantage. Which digital marketing channels you use often depends on your goals, audience, and budget. Refine your marketing effortsMake sure to analyze your campaign's data to identify what was done well and areas for improvement once the campaign is over. This allows you to create even better campaigns in the future. With the help of digital technologies and software, you can obtain this data in an easy-to-view dashboard. Swift's digital marketing analytics reports will help you keep track of all your marketing campaigns in one centralized location. Digital marketing creates growth Digital marketing should be one of the primary focuses of almost any business’s overall marketing strategy. Never before has there been a way to stay in such consistent contact with your customers, and nothing else offers the level of personalization that digital data can provide. The more you embrace the possibilities of digital marketing, the more you'll be able to realize your company's growth potential. TAKE YOUR BRAND TO THE NEXT LEVEL In need of a web design company to create a sleek and attractive modern website? We’re experts at designing you a visually striking website across all devices. Our mastery of design principles results in beautiful UIs and well-organized content layouts. From the second your users land on your website, they’ll be in awe of the marvelous design that greets them. We’re not happy and won’t rest until your website is a lead-generation that converts. In need of a web design company to create a sleek and attractive modern website? An Eye for Beauty. We understand that websites need more than stellar UX to be successful. Our design know how empowers us to appreciate what colors, balance and shapes work together in harmony to produce a truly aesthetic web experience. In addition to design savvy, we offer you expertise in vital areas that guarantee website success, like SEO, UX and CRO. Our team offers you comprehensive web design services that run the gamut from ideation and design to successful launch and revenue acceleration. Dedication to Lead Generation. The most important goal of any website is to generate leads. At Rise, we understand that better than anyone, which is why we focus on perfect SEO, UX and CRO to turn your website into a lead-generation machine. Meticulous Planning Building a user-friendly and lead-generating website is complex because it takes meticulous planning and successful execution. Our expert team’s tried, tested and true site-building process ensures a high-quality build that’s within budget and meets deadlines, every time. A Full-Service Agency. When your needs extend beyond your website, we’re still able to help. Our skilled team members also specialize in:
Your success is always the result of a collaborative, team-based effort. Call (216) 339-6041 To Begin Your Design with Swift Digital Marketing Agency A great website shows the world who you are, makes people remember you, and helps potential customers understand if they found what they were looking for. Websites communicate all of that through color, shape and other design elements. Learn how to make your cosmetics website tell your brand’s story.
f you own a business, you need a website. But I’m going to guess as you’re reading an article on how to create one, you probably already know that. by 2ché for sparkingmatt. What you’re realizing is that while using the internet is a pretty straightforward task, designing, building and creating a website is pretty flippin’ complicated. You want it to look nice. You want it to be easy to use. You want people to be able to find it on Google. You want it to actually help you convert visitors into clients… But how do you do all that? And more importantly, how do you do it right? Our Ultimate Guide to Web Design will walk you through the process of getting a website step-by-step:
What you need to know to get started Learn who’s who in the world of web design and development When you design a logo for your brand it’s pretty easy to hire one person to do the job and have it turn out great. That’s not necessarily the case when creating your website. While there are individuals or agencies out there that offer an end-to-end solution, it’s not unlikely that you’ll end up working with more than one person on your adventure to build a website. Here are a few of the characters you may encounter on your journey: Web designers are, well, designers. They take your ideas and turn them into a pretty (or badass) mockup that shows what your future website will look like. This is typically done in Adobe Photoshop or a similar type graphics program. UX (user experience) or UI (user interface) designers focus on how your layout design impacts your users. For example, they’ll help you decide where to put buttons to get more people to click them, or how to structure your navigation to make your site flow as seamlessly as possible. (There is a difference between UX and UI. This article explains it well.) Oftentimes, there is overlap between UX/UI designers and web designers; if you’re looking to save money, it shouldn’t be too difficult to hire a freelancer that has both skill sets. Web developers—also sometimes called engineers or coders—are magical folks who have learned to speak computer. They take the pretty (or badass) mockup your designer made and translate it into a coding language so it can be displayed on the web. To further complicate things, there are many different coding languages out there, and most developers specialize in one or a few. Front end developers specialize in the things we see when we look at a website (e.g. rendering images, text, animations, drop down menus, page layout, etc). Back end developers on the other hand specialize in what’s going on behind the scenes and are necessary if your website needs to communicate with a database. (If you’re going to have a shopping cart, user profiles, or want to be able to upload any content on your own, you’re going to need a database.) SEO specialists, content strategists, and copy or content writers may also be experts you want to consult as you build your website. They can help you figure out what needs to go on your site to help the right people find it (via search engines) and decide to buy once there. Acquire a domain name and hostingJust like if you were opening a brick-and-mortar business, the first thing you need to do when you’re building a website is to rent a location. When you get web hosting you’re renting server space at a data center, much like this large one in Nevada. Web hosting is the physical space where the assets for your website will live. All those images and text and databases actually require a physical server to host them. While you can buy your own and put it in your office/house/garage, the vast majority of people and businesses rent hosting space through a company. Hosting (like rent) is typically paid monthly. For most businesses it will be in the $5-$20/month range, but could be much higher if you have large data needs. Here’s a list of recommended web hosting companies, but you may want to check with your web developer before purchasing (as they may have a preferred vendor). Your domain name is what people type into their browser to get to your site (e.g. 99designs.com). Typically it is your business name. To get a domain name, you register it with a domain registrar. You will have to pay a small fee (generally less than $10/year) to purchase and retain the name. Most hosting services also serve as domain registrars; that’s generally your best bet as it’ll be the easiest to setup. Finally, you will need to point your domain name to your servers which basically tells the internet that when someone types your domain into their browser, it should look on this server warehouse to find the right pictures and text to display. While this process isn’t complicated, it can be confusing. This is a step you can try to DIY (the support team at your web host or domain registrar can help you) but is also something your web developer can easily help you do. Think about structure and gather the content for your websiteYour web designer or developer is not going to write the about page on your website or take photos of your products for your store. You’re going to have to provide all of the content as well as provide the general structure of the site. For structure you’ll want to think about what pages you need, common ones include:
Each of these types of pages will need to be laid out and designed, and each one will need to have content on it. You don’t necessarily need to have content finalized at this stage in the process, but you do need to have an idea of what content you’ll want on your site and a plan for how you’ll get it. Do you need to set aside time to write copy (or hire someone to do it for you)? Should you hire a photographer to take product photos? You will need to provide all custom imagery (like your logo or photos of your team) for the site, but a web designer can probably help you source stock imagery if you want. What is stock imagery? (And how to use it right.) Pro tip: your designer (especially if they have UX/UI experience) may have some great ideas for content and structure you haven’t thought of. It is likely worth having a discussion with them early in the process. Determine what functionality you need When someone visits your website, what do you want to happen? Are they just getting information about your product or service, like a phone number or opening hours? Do they need to be able to purchase goods? Is their main goal to read blog articles or learn a skill? Are they filling out a form for a quote? Should they be able to create user profiles and upload their own information? Your functionality needs are going to determine how you can get your site developed and who you need to work with. They will also have a huge impact on your budget, so you’ll need to have it sorted out in order to get accurate quotes. Understand what a CMS is and decide if you need one A CMS (Content Management System) is a database and web application. Essentially, it allows users (like you and your colleagues/employees) to upload content to go on different parts of your site. If you want to be able to regularly edit text or change photos on your website and you don’t know how to code you will need a CMS! There are a lot of CMS options out there. There are fantastic out-of-the-box options for common use cases (e.g. WordPress for blogging, Shopify for hosting an ecommerce site, Six for building out a profile). But if you need advanced functionality (like you’re hoping to build the next Facebook or Uber or 99designs) you’re going to have to have it custom developed. How to get your website created Template sites and builders Hire freelancers for a custom solution If you want to have more control over the look and functionality of your site, your best bet is to hire one or more freelancers to help you build it. This is great for getting exactly what you need at a fair cost, but will likely require you to be more hands-on. We recommend searching through designer profiles to find someone whose style matches what you had in mind. Alternatively, if you want to get lots of design ideas. We’ll help you write a brief. Designers from around the world will read it and send you their ideas for your site. You give feedback to refine the designs, and ultimately choose your favorite(s) as the winner. Keep in mind you may need to hire both a designer and a developer for your project, though there are some freelancers who do both. Make sure you clarify up front so you can budget (both time and money) accordingly. Pros:
Drawbacks:
Hire freelance designers for a hybrid solutionIf you want a custom look, but don’t want to invest in completely custom development, you’re in luck! It’s possible to start with an out-of-the-box template solution, and customize it with your own unique template. Note, this is also possible with several other template sites (for example, you can create custom templates or modify existing ones for Shopify or Squarespace) so if you would rather use one of those platforms, that’s also an option. Note that in any of these cases, the design still does need to be translated into code, so make sure you ask if your designer can do that, or know that you will have to hire a developer. Hire an agency for a custom end-to-end solution Web design and development agencies are experts at what they do. They will not only be able to guide you to help you make the right decisions, but they’ll be able to take you from wireframe to fully developed site. Of course, all of that comes at a premium cost. This is a great option for companies with complex needs, or those for whom cost is less of an issue. Pros:
Drawbacks:
How to design a custom website in 7 steps 1. Determine what you need and hire a designerHave you got your domain name figured out? Do you know what functionality you need? A list of the pages you want designed? Do you have a plan for gathering all of the custom content you need to fill out your website? Awesome! Time to hire a designer. To find the right one, you’ll want to look through portfolios. Think about your brand’s personality and determine if the designer is a stylistic match. (For example, do you want something edgy and modern or fun and playful?) It’s generally a good idea to look for designers who have experience in your industry, or with the specific type of site you’re looking for. If you’re a photographer, look for designers who have galleries in their portfolio, if you sell goods, look for one who has experience with other ecommerce companies. Time to hire a designer Want more construction contracts and booked projects? It all depends on having a great construction website. Your website is not an online brochure—it’s your 24/7 virtual sales rep, capable of generating a massive amount of leads and sales. Regardless if you’re in commercial or residential construction, your target audience expects a seamless, engaging website experience--75% of consumers have judged a company’s credibility based on its website design. If your website is outdated, doesn’t attract traffic, doesn’t convert visitors into leads, or simply isn’t up to your satisfaction, you need professional construction website design services. Swift Digital Marketing Agency specializes in designing websites for construction companies that not only look great but also rank well in search engine results and convert your visitors into clients. Let us help you redesign your website and turn it into your number one sales and marketing tool! CONSTRUCTION WEBSITES Construction Website Design Services Proven to Increase Leads & Sales Want more construction contracts and booked projects? It all depends on having a great construction website. Your website is not an online brochure—it’s your 24/7 virtual sales rep, capable of generating a massive amount of leads and sales. Regardless if you’re in commercial or residential construction, your target audience expects a seamless, engaging website experience--75% of consumers have judged a company’s credibility based on its website design. If your website is outdated, doesn’t attract traffic, doesn’t convert visitors into leads, or simply isn’t up to your satisfaction, you need professional construction website design services. Blue Corona specializes in designing websites for construction companies that not only look great but also rank well in search engine results and convert your visitors into clients. Let us help you redesign your website and turn it into your number one sales and marketing tool!
Our Custom Construction Website Design Services From small general contractor website designs to large construction company websites, we have the website services for you.
What Does it Take to Have a Sales-Driving Construction Website Design? Wondering why your competitors are outperforming you? It most likely has something to do with their website and what’s on it. The best construction websites are visible in search engines, mobile-friendly, fast, secure, and have an optimal user experience.
Our web design services aren’t one size fits all—there are no cookie-cutter solutions, at least not from the best companies. A good website design agency will help you figure out the best type of website for your business. What’s important is that your website is beautiful, thoughtfully laid out, and lead-focused. SHOULD I USE A TEMPLATE OR HAVE MY CONSTRUCTION SITE CUSTOM-DESIGNED? Choosing between a template and a custom-designed construction site will depend on your needs and your budget. Most small businesses will do just fine with a proven template, but if you have a large company, have specific needs, or want a website that doesn’t look like any of your competitors’ you should go for a custom website. WHAT’S THE AVERAGE LIFESPAN OF A WEBSITE? Your website is not a set-it-and-forget-it marketing asset. You need to continually update it to keep up with the modern customer’s expectations. When you’re building construction websites you always need to keep in mind that the average website has a life expectancy of 2-5 years, so be sure to pick a design and platform that won’t be too difficult to update.
WHAT’S INCLUDED IN YOUR WEBSITE DESIGN PACKAGES:
Let's talk about local SEO without physical premises. Not the Google My Business kind — the kind of local SEO that job boards, house listing sites, and national delivery services have to reckon with.
Should they have landing pages, for example, for "flower delivery in London?" This turns out to be a surprisingly nuanced issue: In some industries, businesses are ranking for local terms without a location-specific page, and in others local pages are absolutely essential. I've worked with clients across several industries on why these sorts of problems exist, and how to tackle them. How should you figure out whether you need these pages, how can you scale them and incorporate them in your site architecture, and how many should you have for what location types? Ever heard of Maslow's hierarchy of needs? It's a theory of psychology that prioritizes the most fundamental human needs (like air, water, and physical safety) over more advanced needs (like esteem and social belonging). The theory is that you can't achieve the needs at the top without ensuring the more fundamental needs. Love doesn't matter if you don't have food. Our founder, made a similar pyramid to explain the way folks should go about SEO, and we've affectionately dubbed it "Mozlow's hierarchy of SEO needs." The foundation of good SEO begins with ensuring crawl accessibility, and moves up from there. Using this beginner's guide, we can follow these seven steps to successful SEO:
Search engines are answer machines. They scour billions of pieces of content and evaluate thousands of factors to determine which content is most likely to answer your query. Search engines do all of this by discovering and cataloguing all available content on the Internet (web pages, PDFs, images, videos, etc.) via a process known as “crawling and indexing,” and then ordering it by how well it matches the query in a process we refer to as “ranking.” We’ll cover crawling, indexing, and ranking in more detail in the next chapter. SEO is also one of the only online marketing channels that, when set up correctly, can continue to pay dividends over time. If you provide a solid piece of content that deserves to rank for the right keywords, your traffic can snowball over time, whereas advertising needs continuous funding to send traffic to your site. Search engines are getting smarter, but they still need our help. Optimizing your site will help deliver better information to search engines so that your content can be properly indexed and displayed within search results. Google Webmaster Guidelines Basic principles:
Basic principles:
Local, national, or international SEO? Local businesses will often want to rank for local-intent keywords such as “[service] + [near me]” or “[service] + [city]” in order to capture potential customers searching for products or services in the specific locale in which they offer them. However, not all businesses operate locally. Many websites do not represent a location-based business, but instead target audiences on a national or even an international level. Know your website/client’s goals Every website is different, so take the time to really understand a specific site’s business goals. This will not only help you determine which areas of SEO you should focus on, where to track conversions, and how to set benchmarks, but it will also help you create talking points for negotiating SEO projects with clients, bosses, etc. What will your KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) be to measure the return on SEO investment? More simply, what is your barometer to measure the success of your organic search efforts? You'll want to have it documented, even if it's this simple: For the website ____________, my primary SEO KPI is ____________.Here are a few common KPIs to get you started:
And if your business has a local component, you’ll want to define KPIs for your Google My Business listings, as well. These might include:
You may have noticed that things like “ranking” and “traffic” weren’t on the KPIs list, and that’s intentional. “But wait a minute!” You say. “I came here to learn about SEO because I heard it could help me rank and get traffic, and you’re telling me those aren’t important goals?” Not at all! You’ve heard correctly. SEO can help your website rank higher in search results and consequently drive more traffic to your website, it’s just that ranking and traffic are a means to an end. There’s little use in ranking if no one is clicking through to your site, and there’s little use in increasing your traffic if that traffic isn’t accomplishing a larger business objective. For example, if you run a lead generation site, would you rather have:
If you’re using SEO to drive traffic to your site for the purpose of conversions, we hope you’d pick the latter! Before embarking on SEO, make sure you’ve laid out your business goals, then use SEO to help you accomplish them — not the other way around. SEO accomplishes so much more than vanity metrics. When done well, it helps real businesses achieve real goals for their success. Flexible, Powerful: Our Custom Full-Service Digital Marketing Company. There’s no one right way to do digital marketing for businesses. In fact, even the right marketing strategy for your business might not be right all the time.
As your business needs to change, whether seasonally or permanently, your marketing strategy should change with it. That’s where our custom full-service digital marketing comes in! This premier service is our most comprehensive, flexible, and data-driven digital marketing solution. We work directly with you to develop a Custom Marketing Plan with monthly campaigns designed to achieve your goals and operate within your budget. No cherry-picking services – instead, we recommend and execute the tactics we believe will deliver the best results. How Does Custom Digital Marketing Work? Custom Full-Service Digital Marketing is a 2-Phase program: Planning and Execution. It works because we take the time to learn about your business, understand your market, review your existing web presence, and then develop a full marketing plan. Phase 1: Discovery and Planning Before we can do our best work, we need to learn as much as we can! Phase 1 includes:
Phase 2: Execution and Consultation With your plan in place, we execute the approved campaigns, facilitating all setups, reviews, and approvals needed on a monthly basis. This ongoing service includes:
Cal Swift Today: (216) 339-6041 Digital marketing is the act of promoting and selling products and services by leveraging online marketing tactics such as social media marketing, search marketing, and email marketing. When you get down to it, digital marketing is simply marketing. It's how today's businesses are getting their message in front of their best prospects and customers. Rule #1 in marketing is to make the right offer at the right time and in the right place. Today, your customers are online: hanging out in social media, staying updated on news sites and blogs, and searching online when they have a need. Digital marketing puts you in those same channels, so your best prospects can see you, learn more about you, and even ask questions to learn more about you and your products or services. If you're new to digital marketing, it may feel overwhelming to think about mastering all the online marketing tactics used in digital marketing. We get that... And yes, there are different tactics you'll need to learn. But they all work together to create a foundation for your business: attracting prospects, nurturing relationships, and making offers your audience will appreciate and respond to. Let's take a closer look at how that happens. How Does Digital Marketing Work?In many ways, digital marketing is no different than traditional marketing. In both, smart organizations seek to develop mutually beneficial relationships with prospects, leads, and customers. But digital marketing has replaced most traditional marketing tactics because it's designed to reach today's consumers. As an example... Think about the last important purchase you made. Perhaps you purchased a home, hired someone to fix your roof, or changed paper suppliers at your office. Regardless of what it was, you probably began by searching the Internet to learn more about available solutions, who provided them, and what your best options were. Your ultimate buying decision was then based on the reviews you read, the friends and family you consulted, and the solutions, features, and pricing you researched. Most purchasing decisions begin online. That being the case, an online presence is absolutely necessary—regardless of what you sell. The key is to develop a digital marketing strategy that puts you in all the places your followers are already hanging out, then using a variety of digital channels to connect with them in a multitude of ways... ...Content to keep them updated with industry news, the problems they're facing, and how you solve those problems... ...Social media to share that content and then engage with them as friends and followers... ...Search engine optimization (SEO) to optimize your content, so it will show up when someone is searching for the information you've written about... ...Advertising to drive paid traffic to your website, where people can see your offers... ...And email marketing to follow up with your audience to be sure they continue to get the solutions they're looking for. When you put all these pieces together, you'll end up with an efficient, easy-to-operate digital marketing machine. And while it looks intimidating to build that machine from scratch, it's as simple as learning and integrating one digital marketing tactic at a time. Which is why we've put together this guide: To help you build or refine your own digital marketing plan without the false starts and missteps that come with doing it alone. What Are the Benefits of Digital Marketing?Having a strong digital presence will help you in multiple ways:
Learn the Strategies That Get Real ResultsBe aware, the digital marketing scene is ever changing. Gurus, podcasts, and bloggers declare a tool or tactic hot one week and dead the next. The truth is, digital marketing is less about "digital" and more about "marketing," largely because digital marketing has come of age. Its fundamentals have already been established. At Swift, our objective is to clear the confusion about the tactics that work and how to use them to grow your business. We stand firmly against the so-called "gurus" who promote the next "shiny object" or "quick fix" that will reportedly kill email marketing, digital advertising, or search engine optimization. Here, we're all about the fundamentals. As you'll see in this guide, these 8 core disciplines of digital marketing will be critical to your business growth today, tomorrow, and for years to come. Each of these disciplines will be covered in depth in a chapter of this Ultimate Guide to Digital Marketing as shown below. About The Ultimate Guide to Digital MarketingDigital marketing isn't magic, and you don't need to be a computer whiz to be good at it. If you offer a product or service that the market desires, you can successfully market them in digital channels using the strategies taught in this guide. The Ultimate Guide to Digital Marketing doesn't present hype about the latest flashy tactics in marketing—digital or otherwise. Instead, this resource covers foundational disciplines such as content marketing, social media marketing, and email marketing, always in the context of the goals that businesses care about. These goals include acquiring new leads and customers, monetizing the leads and customers you already have, and creating communities of brand advocates and promoters. Areas we serve
Contact us today to start! What is the first thing you do when you need new marketing ideas? What about when you decide it’s time to change the way you keep the books finally? Or even notice a flat tire in the car? My guess: you turn to Google. But did you know that 89% of B2B buyers and 81% of online shoppers do the same? Faced with a problem, challenge or even a choice, they google it. Simply. And so, it’s a cold, harsh truth that without at least some presence in Google, your business is unlikely to survive long. In this guide, you’ll discover a strategy to build this presence — Search Engine Optimization (SEO.) You’ll learn what SEO is, how it works, and what you must do to position your site in search engine results. But before we begin, I want to reassure you of something. So many resources make SEO complex. They scare readers with technical jargon, focus on advanced elements, and rarely explain anything beyond theory. I promise you, this guide isn’t like that. In the following pages, I’m going to break SEO into its most basic parts and show you how to use all its elements to construct a successful SEO strategy. (And to stay up-to-date on SEO strategy and trends. Keep on reading to understand SEO, or jump ahead to the section that interests you most.
What is SEO? At its core, SEO focuses on nothing else but expanding a company’s visibility in the organic search results. It helps businesses rank more pages higher in SERPs (Search Engine Result Pages.) And in turn, drive more visitors to the site, increasing chances for more conversions. When asked to explain what SEO is, I often choose to call it a strategy to ensure that when someone googles your product or service category, they find your website. But this simplifies the discipline a bit. It doesn’t take elements like different customer information needs into consideration. However, it does reveal its essence. In short, SEO drives two things — rankings and visibility. Rankings This is a process that search engines use to determine where to place a particular web page in SERPs. Visibility This term describes how prominent a particular domain is in search engine results. With high visibility, your domain is prominent in SERPs. Lower search visibility occurs when a domain isn’t visible for many relevant search queries. Both are responsible for delivering the main SEO objectives – traffic and conversions. There is one more reason why you should be using SEO. The discipline helps you position your brand throughout almost the entire buying journey. In turn, it can ensure that your marketing strategies match the new buying behavior. Because, as Google admitted themselves — customer behavior has changed forever. Today, more people use search engines to find products or services than any other marketing channel. 18% more shoppers choose Google over Amazon. 136% more prefer the search engine to other retail websites. And B2B buyers conduct up to 12 searches, on average, before engaging with a brand. What's more, they prefer going through the majority of the buying process on their own. 77% people research a brand before engaging with it. Forrester revealed that 60% of customers do not want any interaction with salespeople. Further, 68% prefer to research on their own. And 62% have developed their own criteria to select the right vendor. What’s more, this process has never been more complicated. Finally, Demand Gen’s 2017 B2B Buyer’s Survey found that 61% of B2B buyers start the buying process with a broad web search. In comparison, only 56% go directly to a vendor’s website. But how do they use search engines during the process? Early in the process, they use Google to find information about their problem. Some also inquire about potential solutions. Then, they evaluate available alternatives based on reviews or social media hype before inquiring with a company. But this happens after they’ve exhausted all information sources. And so, the only chance for customers to notice and consider you is by showing up in their search results. Featured Resource
How does Google know how to rank a page? Search engines have a single goal only. They aim to provide users with the most relevant answers or information. Every time you use them, their algorithms choose pages that are the most relevant to your query. And then, rank them, displaying the most authoritative or popular ones first. To deliver the right information to users, search engines analyze two factors:
And to analyze all this information they use complex equations calledsearch algorithms. Search engines keep their algorithms secret. But over time, SEOs have identified some of the factors they consider when ranking a page. We refer to them as ranking factors, and they are the focus of an SEO strategy. As you’ll shortly see, adding more content, optimizing image filenames, or improving internal links can affect your rankings and search visibility. And that’s because each of those actions improves a ranking factor. Three Core Components of a Strong SEO Strategy To optimize a site, you need to improve ranking factors in three areas — technical website setup, content, and links. So, let’s go through them in turn. 1. Technical Setup For your website to rank, three things must happen: First, a search engine needs find your pages on the Web. Then, it must scan them to understand their topics and identify their keywords. And finally, it needs to add them to its index — a database of all the content it has found on the web. This way, its algorithm can consider displaying your website for relevant queries. Seem simple, doesn’t it? Certainly, nothing to worry about. After all, since you can visit your site without any problem, so should Google, right? Unfortunately, there is a catch. A web page looks different for you and the search engine. You see it as a collection of graphics, colors, text with its formatting, and links. To a search engine, it’s nothing but text. As a result, any elements it cannot render this way remain invisible to the search engine. And so, in spite of your website looking fine to you, Google might find its content inaccessible. Let me show you an example. Here’s how a typical search engine sees one of our articles. It’s this one, by the way, if you want to compare it with the original. Notice some things about it:
That’s where technical setup, also called on-site optimization, comes in. It ensures that your website and pages allow Google to scan and index them without any problems. The most important factors affecting it include: Website navigation and links Search engines crawl sites just like you would. They follow links. Search engine crawlers land on a page and use links to find other content to analyze. But as you’ve seen above, they cannot see images. So, set the navigation and links as text-only. Simple URL structureSearch engines don’t like reading lengthy strings of words with complex structure. So, if possible, keep your URLs short. Set them up to include as little beyond the main keyword for which you want to optimize the page, as possible. Page speedSearch engines, use the load time — the time it takes for a user to be able to read the page — as an indicator of quality. Many website elements can affect it. Image size, for example. Use Google’s Page Speed Insights Tool for suggestions how to improve your pages. Dead links or broken redirects. A dead link sends a visitor to a nonexistent page. A broken redirect points to a resource that might no longer be there. Both provide poor user experience but also, prevent search engines from indexing your content. Sitemap A sitemap is a simple file that lists all URLs on your site. Search engines use it to identify what pages to crawl and index. A robots.txt file, on the other hand, tells search engines what content not to index (for example, specific policy pages you don’t want to appear in search.) Create both to speed up crawling and indexing of your content. Duplicate contentPages containing identical or quite similar content confuse search engines. They often find it near impossible to determine what content they should display in search results. For that reason, search engines consider duplicate content as a negative factor. And upon finding it, can penalize a website by not displaying any of those pages at all. Featured Resource
2. Content Every time you use a search engine, you’re looking for content— information on a particular issue or problem, for example. True, this content might come in different formats. It could be text, like a blog post or a web page. But it could also be a video, product recommendation, and even a business listing. It’s all content. And for SEO, it’s what helps gain greater search visibility. Here are two reasons why:
While crawling a page, they determine its topic. Analyzing elements like page length or its structure helps them assess its quality. Based on this information, search algorithms can match a person’s query with pages they consider the most relevant to it. The process of optimizing content begins with keyword research. Keyword Research SEO is not about getting any visitors to the site. You want to attract people who need what you sell and can become leads, and later, customers. However, that’s possible only if it ranks for the keywords those people would use when searching. Otherwise, there’s no chance they’d ever find you. And that’s even if your website appeared at the top of the search results. That’s why SEO work starts with discovering what phrases potential buyers enter into search engines. The process typically involves identifying terms and topics relevant to your business. Then, converting them into initial keywords. And finally, conducting extensive research to uncover related terms your audience would use. With a list of keywords at hand, the next step is to optimize your content. SEOs refer to this process as on-page optimization. On-Page Optimization On-page optimization, also called on-page SEO, ensures that search engines a.) understand a page’s topic and keywords, and b.) can match it to relevant searches. Note, I said “page” not content. That’s because, although the bulk of on-page SEO work focuses on the words you use, it extends to optimizing some elements in the code. You may have heard about some of them — meta-tags like title or description are two most popular ones. But there are more. So, here’s a list of the most crucial on-page optimization actions to take. Note: Since blog content prevails on mostwebsites,when speaking of those factors, I’ll focus on blog SEO — optimizing blog posts for relevant keywords. However, all this advice is equally valid for other page types too. Featured Resource
a) Keyword Optimization First, ensure that Google understands what keywords you want this page to rank. To achieve that, make sure you include at least the main keyword in the following:
The alt tag, on the other hand, is text browsers display instead of an image (for visually impaired visitors.) However, since ALT tag resides in the image code, search engines use it as a relevancy signal as well. Also, add semantic keywords — variations or synonyms of your keyword. Google and other search engines use them to determine a page’s relevancy better. Let me illustrate this with a quick example. Let’s pretend that your main keyword is “Apple.” But do you mean the fruit or the tech giant behind the iPhone? Now, imagine what happens when Google finds terms like sugar, orchard, or cider in the copy? The choice what queries to rank it for would immediately become obvious, right? That’s what semantic keywords do. Add them to ensure that your page doesn’t start showing up for irrelevant searches. b) Non-Keyword-Related On-Page Optimization Factors On-page SEO is not just about sprinkling keywords across the page. The factors below help confirm a page’s credibility and authority too:
3. Links From what you’ve read in this guide so far, you know that no page will rank without two factors — relevance and authority. In their quest to provide users with the most accurate answers, Google and other search engines prioritize pages they consider the most relevant to their queries but also, popular. The first two areas — technical setup and content — focused on increasing relevancy (though I admit, some of their elements can also help highlight the authority.) Links, however, are responsible for popularity. But before we talk more about how they work, here’s what SEOs mean when talking about links. What is a backlink? Links, also called backlinks, are references to your content on other websites. Every time another website mentions and points their readers to your content, you gain a backlink to your site. For example, this article in Entrepreneur.com mentions our marketing statistics page. It also links to it allowing their readers to see other stats than the one quoted. Google uses quantity and quality of links like this as a signal of a website’s authority. Its logic behind it is that webmasters would reference a popular and high-quality website more often than a mediocre one. But note that I mentioned links quality as well. That’s because not all links are the same. Some — low-quality ones — can impact your rankings negatively. Links Quality FactorsLow quality or suspicious links — for example, ones that Google would consider as built deliberately to make it consider a site as more authoritative — might reduce your rankings. That’s why, when building links, SEOs focus not on buildingany links. They aim to generate the highest quality references possible. Naturally, just like with the search algorithm, we don’t know what factors determine a link’s quality, specifically. However, over time, SEOs discovered some of them:
Link BuildingIn SEO, we refer to the process of acquiring new backlinks as link building. And as many practitioners admit, it can be a challenging activity. Link building, if you want to do it well, requires creativity, strategic thinking, and patience. To generate quality links, you need to come up with a link building strategy. And that’s no small feat. Remember, your links must pass various quality criteria. Plus, it can’t be obvious to search engines that you’ve built them deliberately. Here are some strategies to do it:
Now, if you’re still here with me, then you’ve just discovered what’s responsible for your site’s success in search. The next step, then, is figuring out whether your efforts are working. How to Monitor & Track SEO ResultsTechnical setup, content, and links are critical to getting a website into the search results. Monitoring your efforts helps improve your strategy further. Measuring SEO success means tracking data about traffic, engagement, and links. And though, most companies develop their own sets of SEO KPIs (key performance indicators), here are the most common ones:
Local SEO Up until now, we focused on getting a site rank in search results in general. If you run a local business, however, Google also lets you position it in front of potential customers in your area, specifically. But for that, you use local SEO. And it’s well worth it. 97% of customers use search engines to find local information. They look for vendor suggestions, and even specific business addresses. In fact, 12% of customers look for local business information every day. What’s more, they act on this information: 75% of searchers visit a local store or company’s premises within 24 hours of the search. But hold on, is local SEO different from what we’ve been talking all along? Yes and no. Search engines follow similar principles for both local and global rankings. But given that they position a site for specific, location-based results, they need to analyze some other ranking factors too. Local search results look different too:
For example, a localpack, the most prominent element of local results, includes almost all information a person would need to choose a business. For example, here are local results Google displays for the phrase “best restaurant in Boston.” Note that these results contain no links to any content. Instead, they include a list of restaurants in the area, a map to show their locations, and additional information about each:
Often, they also include a company’s phone number or website address. All this information combined helps customers choose which business to engage. But it also allows Google to determine how to rank it. Local Search Ranking Factors When analyzing local websites, Google looks at the proximity to a searcher’s location. With the rise of local searches containing the phrase, “near me,” it’s only fair that Google will try to present the closest businesses first. Keywords are essential for local SEO too. However, one additional element of on-page optimization is the presence of a company’s name, address, and phone number of a page. In local SEO, we refer to it as the NAP. Again, it makes sense, as the search engine needs a way to assess the company’s location. Google assesses authority in local search not just by links. Reviews and citations (references of a business’s address or a phone number online) highlight its authority too. Finally, the information a business includes in Google My Business — the search engine’s platform for managing local business listings — plays a huge part in its rankings. The above is just the tip of the iceberg. But they are the ones to get right first if you want your business to rank well. Call Swift Digital Marketing Agency Today at (216)339-6041. Inspirational designs, illustrations, and graphic elements from the world’s best designers.9/27/2021 Professional web design starts with really understanding the client’s business and brand. After all, a website represents a very significant voice for the brand. And, that voice should be front and center in a great website.  The word chocolate can be associated with many words: dark, white, milk, hot, sweet, spicy. As one would expect, chocolate website often use an appetizing brown dominant color. The quality of product photography on chocolate websites is remarkable. Images are often large and dominant and are given a lot of both horizontal and vertical space. In fact, chocolate, especially gourmet chocolate, is often very visually interesting. The ingredients that go into it can also be very aesthetically pleasing. But they all have in common this fascinating sweetness everyone loves. Submit this Form to get a call back from us or call Swift Digital Marketing Agency at (216)339-6041. #SwiftDigital While Google keeps us on our toes with all the algorithm updates they keep rollin' out, one thing has stayed pretty consistent for inbound marketers looking to optimize their websites for search: keyword research. Well, the need to do keyword research has stayed the same. How you actually do it hasn't. What Is Keyword Research? Keyword research is the process of finding and analyzing search terms that people enter into search engines with the goal of using that data for a specific purpose, often for search engine optimization (SEO) or general marketing. Keyword research can uncover queries to target, the popularity of theses queries, their ranking difficulty, and more. Why Is Keyword Research Important? Keyword research provides valuable insight into the queries that your target audience is actually searching on Google. The insight that you can get into these actual search terms can help inform content strategy as well as your larger marketing strategy. However, keywords themselves may not be as important to SEO as you may think. More and more, we hear how much SEO has evolved over just the last 10 years, and how unimportant keywords themselves have become to our ability to rank well for the searches people make every day. And to some extent, this is true; using keywords that exactly match a person's search is no longer the most important ranking factor in the eyes of an SEO professional. Rather, it's the intent behind that keyword, and whether or not a piece of content solves for that intent (we'll talk more about intent in just a minute). But that doesn't mean keyword research is an outdated process. Let me explain: Keyword research tells you what topics people care about and, assuming you use the right SEO tool, how popular those topics actually are among your audience. The operative term here is topics -- by researching keywords that are getting a high volume of searches per month, you can identify and sort your content into topics that you want to create content on. Then, you can use these topics to dictate which keywords you look for and target. For an inside look into how Ahrefs can aid you in your SEO keyword research, check out our case study and exclusive interview here. By researching keywords for their popularity, search volume, and general intent, you can tackle the questions that the most people in your audience want answers to. I'm going to lay out a keyword research process you can follow to help you come up with a list of terms you should be targeting. That way, you'll be able to establish and execute a strong keyword strategy that helps you get found for the search terms you actually care about. Step 1: Make a list of important, relevant topics based on what you know about your business.To kick off this process, think about the topics you want to rank for in terms of generic buckets. You'll come up with about 5-10 topic buckets you think are important to your business, and then you'll use those topic buckets to help come up with some specific keywords later in the process. If you're a regular blogger, these are probably the topics you blog about most frequently. Or perhaps they're the topics that come up the most in sales conversations. Put yourself in the shoes of your buyer personas -- what types of topics would your target audience search that you'd want your business to get found for? If you were a company like for example -- selling marketing software you might have general topic buckets like:
See those numbers in parentheses to the right of each keyword? That's their monthly search volume. This data allows you to gauge how important these topics are to your audience, and how many different sub-topics you might need to create content on to be successful with that keyword. To learn more about these sub-topics, we move onto step 2 ... Step 2: Fill in those topic buckets with keywords.Now that you have a few topic buckets you want to focus on, it's time to identify some keywords that fall into those buckets. These are keyword phrases you think are important to rank for in the SERPs (search engine results pages) because your target customer is probably conducting searches for those specific terms. For instance, if I took that last topic bucket for an inbound marketing software company -- "marketing automation" -- I'd brainstorm some keyword phrases that I think people would type in related to that topic. Those might include:
And so on and so on. The point of this step isn't to come up with your final list of keyword phrases. You just want to end up with a brain dump of phrases you think potential customers might use to search for content related to that particular topic bucket. We'll narrow the lists down later in the process so you don't have something too unwieldy. Although more and more keywords are getting encrypted by Google every day, another smart way to come up with keyword ideas is to figure out which keywords your website is already getting found for. To do this, you'll need website analytics software like Google Analytics. Drill down into your website's traffic sources, and sift through your organic search traffic bucket to identify the keywords people are using to arrive at your site. Repeat this exercise for as many topic buckets as you have. And remember, if you're having trouble coming up with relevant search terms, you can always head on over to your customer-facing colleagues -- those who are in Sales or Service -- and ask them what types of terms their prospects and customers use, or common questions they have. Those are often great starting points for keyword research. Step 3: Understand How Intent Affects Keyword Research and Analyze Accordingly Like I said in the previous section, user intent is now one of the most pivotal factors in your ability to rank well on search engines like Google. Today, it's more important that your web page addresses the problem a searcher intended to solve than simply carries the keyword the searcher used. So, how does this affect the keyword research you do? It's easy to take keywords for face value, and unfortunately, keywords can have many different meanings beneath the surface. Because the intent behind a search is so important to your ranking potential, you need to be extra-careful how you interpret the keywords you target. Let's say, for example, you're researching the keyword "how to start a blog" for an article you want to create. "Blog" can mean a blog post or the blog website itself, and what a searcher's intent is behind that keyword will influence the direction of your article. Does the searcher want to learn how to start an individual blog post? Or do they want to know how to actually launch a website domain for the purposes of blogging? If your content strategy is only targeting people interested in the latter, you'll need to make sure of the keyword's intent before committing to it. To verify what a user's intent is in a keyword, it's a good idea to simply enter this keyword into a search engine yourself, and see what types of results come up. Make sure the type of content Google is closely related to what you'd intend to create for the keyword. Step 4: Research related search terms. This is a creative step you may have already thought of when doing keyword research. If not, it's a great way to fill out those lists. If you're struggling to think of more keywords people might be searching about a specific topic, take a look at the related search terms that appear when you plug in a keyword into Google. When you type in your phrase and scroll to the bottom of Google's results, you'll notice some suggestions for searches related to your original input. These keywords can spark ideas for other keywords you may want to take into consideration. Want a bonus? Type in some of those related search terms and look at their related search terms. Step 5: Use keyword research tools to your advantage. Keyword research and SEO tools such as Ahrefs, SEMrush, and Ubersuggest can help you come up with more keyword ideas based on exact match keywords and phrase match keywords based on the ideas you've generated up to this point. This exercise might give you alternatives that you might not have considered. How to Find and Choose Keywords for Your Website Once you have an idea of the keywords that you want to rank for, now it's time to refine your list based on the best ones for your strategy. Here's how: Step 1. Understand the three main factors for choosing good keywords.Before choosing keywords and expecting your content to rank for them, you must curate keywords for three things: 1. Relevance Google ranks content for relevance. This is where the concept of search intent comes in. Your content will only rank for a keyword if it meets the searchers' needs. In addition, your content must be the best resource out there for the query. After all, why would Google rank your content higher if it provides less value than other content that exists on the web? 2. Authority Google will provide more weight to sources it deems authoritative. That means you must do all you can to become an authoritative source by enriching your site with helpful, information content and promoting that content to earn social signals and backlinks. If you're not seen as authoritative in the space, or if a keyword's SERPs are loaded with heavy sources you can't compete with (like Forbes or The Mayo Clinic), you have a lower chance of ranking unless your content is exceptional. 3. Volume You may end up ranking on the first page for a specific keyword, but if no one ever searches for it, it will not result in traffic to your site. Volume is measured by MSV (monthly search volume), which means the number of times the keyword is searched per month across all audiences. Step 2: Check for a mix of head terms and long-tail keywords in each bucket. If you don't know the difference between head terms and long-tail keywords, let me explain. Head terms are keywords phrases that are generally shorter and more generic -- they're typically just one to three words in length, depending on who you talk to. Long-tail keywords, on the other hand, are longer keyword phrases usually containing three or more words. It's important to check that you have a mix of head terms and long-tail terms because it'll give you a keyword strategy that's well balanced with long-term goals and short-term wins. That's because head terms are generally searched more frequently, making them often (not always, but often) much more competitive and harder to rank for than long-tail terms. Think about it: Without even looking up search volume or difficulty, which of the following terms do you think would be harder to rank for?
If you answered #2, you're absolutely right. But don't get discouraged. While head terms generally boast the most search volume (meaning greater potential to send you traffic), frankly, the traffic you'll get from the term "how to write a great blog post" is usually more desirable. Why? Because someone who is looking for something that specific is probably a much more qualified searcher for your product or service (presuming you're in the blogging space) than someone looking for something really generic. And because long-tail keywords tend to be more specific, it's usually easier to tell what people who search for those keywords are really looking for. Someone searching for the head term "blogging," on the other hand, could be searching it for a whole host of reasons unrelated to your business. So check your keyword lists to make sure you have a healthy mix of head terms and long-tail keywords. You definitely want some quick wins that long-tail keywords will afford you, but you should also try to chip away at more difficult head terms over the long haul. Step 3: See how competitors are ranking for these keywords. Just because your competitor is doing something doesn’t mean you need to. The same goes for keywords. Just because a keyword is important to your competitor, doesn’t mean it's important to you. However, understanding what keywords your competitors are trying to rank for is a great way to help you give your list of keywords another evaluation. If your competitor is ranking for certain keywords that are on your list, too, it definitely makes sense to work on improving your ranking for those. However, don’t ignore the ones your competitors don’t seem to care about. This could be a great opportunity for you to own market share on important terms, too. Understanding the balance of terms that might be a little more difficult due to competition, versus those terms that are a little more realistic, will help you maintain a similar balance that the mix of long-tail and head terms allows. Remember, the goal is to end up with a list of keywords that provide some quick wins but also helps you make progress toward bigger, more challenging SEO goals. How do you figure out what keywords your competitors are ranking for, you ask? Aside from manually searching for keywords in an incognito browser and seeing what positions your competitors are in, Ahrefs allows you to run a number of free reports that show you the top keywords for the domain you enter. This is a quick way to get a sense of the types of terms your competitors are ranking for. Step 4: Use Google's Keyword Planner to cut down your keyword list. Now that you've got the right mix of keywords, it's time to narrow down your lists with some more quantitative data. You have a lot of tools at your disposal to do this, but let me share my favorite methodology. I like to use a mix of the Google's Keyword Planner (you'll need to set up an Ads account for this, but you can turn your example ad off before you pay any money), and Google Trends. In Keyword Planner, you can get search volume and traffic estimates for keywords you're considering. Then, take the information you learn from Keyword Planner and use Google Trends to fill in some blanks. Use the Keyword Planner to flag any terms on your list that have way too little (or way too much) search volume, and don't help you maintain a healthy mix like we talked about above. But before you delete anything, check out their trend history and projections in Google Trends. You can see whether, say, some low-volume terms might actually be something you should invest in now -- and reap the benefits for later. Or perhaps you're just looking at a list of terms that is way too unwieldy, and you have to narrow it down somehow ... Google Trends can help you determine which terms are trending upward, and are thus worth more of your focus. Best Keywords for SEOUnderstand that there's no "best" keywords, just those that are highly searched by your audience. With this in mind, it's up to you to craft a strategy that will help you rank pages and drive traffic. The best keywords for your SEO strategy will take into account relevance, authority, and volume. You want to find highly searched keywords that you can reasonably compete for based on:
And ... You're done! Congratulations! You've now got a list of keywords that'll help you focus on the right topics for your business, and get you some short-term and long-term gains. Be sure to re-evaluate these keywords every few months -- once a quarter is a good benchmark, but some businesses like to do it even more often than that. As you gain even more authority in the SERPs, you'll find that you can add more and more keywords to your lists to tackle as you work on maintaining your current presence, and then growing in new areas on top of that. Keyword Research Don't forget to share this post! Google and Facebook are two of the most widely used platforms on the Internet. Google garners more than 3.5 billion searches a day, while Facebook boasts 1.4 billion active users each day. Not to mention, each offers advertising services.  What is the difference between Facebook ads and Google Ads, though? Keep reading to learn all about Google Ads vs. Facebook ads, plus discover which platform is best for your business and various ad campaigns. Google Ads vs. Facebook ads: What is the difference? In digital advertising, Google Ads and Facebook ads are the top two ad platforms. While Google ads appear in Google search results and across websites in Google’s ad network, Facebook ads display across Facebook, Instagram, and other sites in the social media platform’s network. Both platforms offer demographic and behavior targeting, though Google Ads also includes keyword targeting. What is Google Ads? Google is the world’s largest and most popular PPC advertising platform. Paid ads, known as pay-per-click (PPC) ads, appear at the top of Google search results. Where do Google ads appear? Ads created with Google Ads can get delivered through several networks, including:
When you run a Google advertising campaign, you can target audience or content features like:
Keyword targeting is one of the most popular strategies for Google Ads, especially when using the Google Search Network. If you want your ad to appear in relevant search results, you must choose the right keywords. Your keywords will determine where your ads appear in search results. To find relevant keywords, you’ll conduct keyword research. Keyword research will help you find relevant keywords for your campaign. You’ll want to stick to long-tail keywords, which contain three or more words, because they’ll drive the best leads for your campaign. Advertisers will bid on keywords to get their ad to appear in relevant search results. The bid you set is your maximum bid, which is the amount you’re willing to pay each time someone clicks. It’s also known as your cost-per-click (CPC). Time To Level Up Your Sales Our long list of services helps you make waves in your industry and increase metrics that matter most - like sales. What kinds of ads can you create with Google Ads?With Google Ads, you can make a range of advertisements, including:
The ad format you choose will depend on your audience, goals, and offer. What are Google Ads good for? If you’re looking to reach leads that convert, Google ads are the best option. These leads know exactly what they want and just need to find the right business to get what they need. A Google ad can help them choose your business. They’ll click on your ad and see what you have to offer. If you’re a good fit for their needs, you can earn more conversions for your business. With remarketing on Google Ads, you can even bring back users that previously had an interest in your product or service, but weren’t quite ready to convert. What are Facebook ads? Facebook ads are paid social ads that appear in users’ newsfeeds. They’re tagged with the word “sponsored” to indicate paid content. These ads help companies expose their business to interested leads. Where do Facebook ads appear? Facebook ads can appear on several platforms, including:
On Facebook, your ads can earn placements in the following locations:
How can you target people on Facebook ads?With Facebook ads, you can target people based on:
These ads operate based on people’s interests and behaviors. Your ads appear in front of people that are interested in your business, products, or services. You’ll help your business connect with the right leads. What kinds of ads can you make with Facebook ads?Facebook gives you the option to run numerous ad formats, including:
What are Facebook ads good for?Facebook ads are best if you’re looking to gain brand exposure and new leads. These ads don’t always entice people to convert, but they do get them to follow your page or check out your website. It’s a great way for you to earn more leads for your business because these ads get people comfortable with your business. A few additional ways (or objectives) you can use Facebook ads include:
How much does it cost to advertise with Facebook ads?Generally, Facebook ads are cheaper to run than Google ads. Facebook ads have a CPC that ranges from a few cents to a few dollars. It all depends upon your industry. Some industries are a little more expensive than others. Facebook ads vs. Google Ads: How each platform benefits your businessIn the Facebook ads vs. Google Ads, you have to look at the advantages of each platform. While each comes with different options (and costs), they both offer benefits that can help you build brand awareness, generate sales, and more. Take a look at their perks, and learn more about the difference between Facebook ads and Google Ads: The Advantages of Google Ads Here are a few benefits you’ll experience from using the Google Ads platform.
The advantages of Facebook adsFacebook has billions of active monthly users that engage on their platform. Here are a few benefits you’ll receive by using Facebook ads.
Which is better for your business: Facebook ads or Google Ads? In the Google Ads vs. Facebook ads debate, there isn’t a clear winner. That’s because both platforms offer value. Whether your business operates in the business-to-business (B2B) or business-to-consumer (B2C) sector, you can use Google and Facebook to grow brand awareness, increase online sales, and even generate phone calls, store visits, and more. The best platform for your business will depend on what you want for your advertising campaign. Brand Awareness ✔ Lead Generation ✔ Website Traffic ✔ Online Sales ✔ Online Engagement ✔ App Installs ✔ Keep in mind, the above dat is only a guideline. Your business may find that Facebook ads, for example, work well for generating online sales. Or, that Google Ads performs better when it comes to earning more downloads for your mobile app. Every company and their advertising experience, so you may have to engage in some trial-and-error. Either way, both these advertising options have their perks. In fact, no rule says you have to choose either Google Ads or Facebook ads. These two advertising programs work well together. As long as you have the budget to run both campaigns, they can work together very effectively. Three tips for using Google Ads and Facebook ads 1. Launch your Facebook ad campaigns with Google Ads’ data Whether you have past or zero experience with Facebook ads, you want to use this tip for a combined Google and Facebook strategy. That’s because user data can help your business a better and stronger campaign that drives better results. Via Google Ads, you can access a ton of helpful data points, including:
This data can help your team refine the targeting of your existing Facebook ads. Or, you can use the information to launch a brand-new and targeted campaign. Either way, Google Ads can help you make data-driven decisions about your Facebook ad targeting. 2. Leverage your Facebook Lookalike Audiences for Google Ads While Google Ads offers a feature similar to Lookalike Audiences in Facebook ads, you can still use this Facebook-specific tool in your Google ad campaigns. For reference, Lookalike Audiences help you build an audience similar to an existing one. That means you can find people most likely to have an interest in your products or services. Since Google Ads includes a range of targeting options, you can update or tweak them according to your Lookalike Audiences data. Even better, you can apply this data to Facebook ad campaigns. For your business, that means stronger ads across each of these advertising platforms. 3. Target every stage of the buying funnelRemember how Facebook ads work well for brand awareness, while Google Ads excel when it comes to securing leads? You can leverage these differences with a coordinated Google Ads and Facebook ads approach. While your Facebook ads focus on top-of-the-funnel users, your Google Ads can target middle- and bottom-of-the-funnel users. This kind of approach can prevent blind spots or openings for your competitors to target (and steal) sales from your business. Plus, it can keep your company top-of-mind as users browse the Internet. Our full-service digital marketing company that specializes in paid advertising campaigns. Our team of over 200 experts will bring their knowledge and expertise to your campaign. We’ll help you create a customized campaign that is unique to your business. If you’re looking for a company that drives results, look no further than Swift. You can count on us to create a campaign that helps your business grow. Call us today at (216) 339-6041! Inbound marketing is a methodology that attracts (versus interrupts like outbound marketing) users with experiences personalized to their wants, challenges, and interests. Strategies like email marketing, search engine optimization (SEO), and content marketing all work as inbound marketing strategies. Table of Contents
What is inbound marketing, though? How did it start? Why does it work? How can businesses use it? These are all excellent questions, and this inbound marketing guide answers them all. Keep reading to learn all about inbound marketing and get actionable advice for launching your inbound marketing strategy. If you need professional help with inbound marketing, contact us online or call us at 216-339-6041. You can also browse our inbound marketing services to see how our team can build a successful plan for your business. The definition of inbound marketing Inbound marketing refers to any marketing activities that bring people in, as opposed to marketers having to reach out to them. It can also be summed up as any kind of activity that earns attention, as opposed to an activity that pays for it. Inbound marketing is usually something that was desired by the person consuming it, as opposed to something that was offered or exposed to someone without their permissions or desire for it. This is why you may also sometimes hear inbound marketing called “permission marketing” (a term coined by author Seth Godin). Examples of inbound marketing A few examples of inbound marketing are blog posts, podcasts, emails, social media posts, and videos. In contrast, a few examples of marketing that would not be considered inbound—also known as outbound marketing—are commercials, direct mail, and calls. Do you see the difference? Inbound marketing vs. outbound marketing. Inbound marketing methods are sought out and consumed by those who have a desire for them, or who are looking for them in their time of need. On the other hand, outbound marketing methods tend to be intrusive, unwanted, or even spammy. As time goes on, consumers are learning to tune out outbound marketing methods, or are even finding ways to avoid them. For example, when a television commercial comes on, a consumer may simply change the channel. A spam email may automatically be filtered to the “spam” folder, or deleted without being read. Those who rely solely on these methods are finding that they are not as effective as they once were…nor do they provide the desired return on investment. Inbound marketing, on the other hand, gives marketers benefits, builds more trust than commercial. As mentioned, inbound marketing brings people in, as opposed to requiring marketers to reach out. This is the crucial difference between the two. How did inbound marketing start? Along with asking “What is inbound marketing?” you may be wondering how this new form of marketing came to be. Truthfully, inbound marketing has been around for many years, and many companies have been using it—but the term “inbound marketing” was not coined until 2005. Brian Halligan, CEO and co-founder of HubSpot, a marketing software company, came up with the term to describe this type of marketing. In 2009, Halligan and fellow HubSpot co-founder Dharmesh Shah, released a book on the topic titled Inbound Marketing: Get Found Using Google, Social Media, and Blogs. In addition to creating the term and methodology, HubSpot also developed a flywheel to demonstrate the inbound marketing process. This flywheel grew to encompass not only marketing but also sales and customer service. The flywheel features three components:
Why is inbound marketing important?Inbound marketing matters to businesses for a few reasons, and the Internet is the biggest one. We Form Long Term Partnerships Thanks to the World Wide Web, people across the world can research companies, products, and services in an instant. They can compare your business with competitors in minutes. Not to mention, who they find depends on search algorithms, social media, paid ads, and more. If your company doesn’t use inbound marketing, you won’t have the chance to reach your audience. Inbound marketing helps you attract users, as well as earn visibility on the Internet. That makes inbound marketing an immensely powerful marketing approach. Companies can’t afford to ignore inbound marketing, even if they provide the best product or service because people won’t know that they do because consumers can’t find them online. Use inbound marketing and you can start growing your business. How Does Inbound Marketing Work? Inbound marketing does not consist of one single marketing method that draws potential customers to your website. In fact, it consists of multiple marketing methods, all of which are considered inbound. Each of these methods works a little differently. Some of them may rely on producing content that, like our example above, exists for a consumer’s time of need. Others involve creating a presence on channels like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. And others focus on the optimization of your website to make your content and business easier to find, increasing it in popularity. Let’s explore the methods that make up inbound marketing in a little more detail. How you can use inbound marketingYour business can use inbound marketing to accomplish a range of goals, including:
Essentially, you can use inbound marketing to grow your business. In addition to attracting new customers, you can also take advantage of inbound marketing to retain current ones. Inbound marketing strategies You have choices when it comes to inbound marketing strategies. Companies can personalize their tactics to their audience, which makes inbound marketing highly customizable. Five of the most popular strategies include: 1. Content marketing If you are creating articles, how-to pages, whitepapers, or other content, this is also a form of inbound marketing. Not only do these content pieces make it more likely that someone will find your company when they are searching for you, they also help those who have already located your site feel an affinity toward it. If you regularly product helpful content, you may be seen as a better, more valuable business than one that does not. There are many types of content that you can produce, from whitepapers to videos to long-form guides. Not every type of content will work for every business. Experiment with your offerings to see what works best for your leads—you might be surprised! 2. Social media Social media is also another component of inbound marketing. While it can be used to reach new customers or potential leads, it can also be used to grow relationships with existing ones by offering helpful content or great service at the right times. 3. Blogging Blogging for your business is a fantastic way to increase awareness, produce great content for your site, and attract links that have the potential to help your site rank better in search engines. Blogging is also a crucial part of many inbound marketing strategies, since it focuses on the creation of content that people will want to consume. 4. Email marketing Email marketing may not seem like a form of inbound marketing, but because you must get permission before emailing anyone—you do ask for permission, right?—it appears solidly on the inbound list. Like social media, email is typically used to grow existing relationships by offering something desirable at the right time. You can use email marketing as an inbound marketing method by offering more than sales or deals in your emails. Why not send out how-tos, content, links to your blog posts, or highlights from social media? Or even highlight a fan or customer of the week? 5. Search engine optimization (SEO) Yes, SEO — or search engine optimization — is a crucial part of inbound marketing. After all, where would these other marketing methods get you if they weren’t properly optimized, or your site wasn’t up to today’s SEO standards? If you’re not already familiar with SEO, it’s an important part of online marketing by which your website is optimized to appear more often in search results, or rank higher than your competitors. SEO is the difference between ranking #1 and ranking #10, and what determines which websites take the top spots for any specific search query. You can learn more about SEO on this page. Without SEO, which ensures your content is as search engine-friendly as possible. These are just a few examples of marketing methods that are considered inbound instead of outbound. How to get started with inbound marketing If you’re looking to get started with an inbound marketing strategy, our advice to you is this: start small. You don’t have to do everything at once, or use every single method we listed on this page. In fact, that would probably be counter-productive. To get started, choose one marketing method you’re not already doing, and work with your team to set a strategy for it. Ask the following questions:
Then, launch your method. Monitor the results carefully for a set period of time. It’s also important to realize that inbound marketing does not often have immediate results: many blogs have to work for months or even years before they see regular readers. However, if you do not meet your goals, you may want to re-evaluate your approach and try again, or even phase that method out entirely. If you want to add additional inbound marketing methods, be sure that they are added one-by-one, and that you are asking questions like the ones listed above, and measuring your response carefully, each time. By doing this, you’ll be able to have a better idea of what is working for you and what isn’t—and how happy you’re making the people visiting your website! We hope this page helped answer the question “What is inbound marketing?” for you...and then some! Now that you know more about what inbound marketing is and how it works, we wish you luck in using it on your own website! Inbound Marketing Explained Need help developing an inbound marketing strategy? As a leading inbound marketing agency, Swift Marketing Service can create a comprehensive inbound marketing strategy for your business. While other firms may simply provide a few services and call it a day, Swift Marketing is a full-service agency that works with its clients. When you’re ready to experience our web design, SEO, and inbound marketing, we’d love to hear from you! Simply email us or give us a call to discuss what you’d like to accomplish with an inbound marketing plan, and we would be excited to talk to you. Revenue-driving content marketing services
Content marketing is one of the most powerful digital marketing strategies. With the ability to double website conversion rates, as well as drive brand awareness and website traffic, content marketing is essential to increasing your company’s revenue. With Swift Marketing Servies as your content marketing services partner, you can expect custom content that follows search engine optimization standards. Even better, you can count on transparency — no hidden fees and no secret strategies. What are content marketing services? Content marketing services are digital marketing services that include planning a content marketing strategy and creating, distributing, promoting, and tracking content to achieve specific business goals. Content types include articles, blog posts, videos, infographics, podcasts, ebooks, and more. Content marketing services: Our process It’s what all our clients receive with their Swift content marketing service package. We even offer custom packages to match your company’s unique needs. If you’re unsure about which of our packages are right for your business, you can always contact our knowledgeable strategists online. They can offer advice, as well as suggestions, as to whether a basic, aggressive, or market leader plan is right for your company. Plus, they can answer all your questions about the various content marketing assets, which include:
No matter which content marketing service package you choose, from our basic to our market leader plan, you can expect our team to deliver a competitive strategy and marketing campaign that reaches your company’s goals. We Form Longterm Partnerships Over 90% of Swift clients continue partnering with us into year 2 of their campaign. Speak with Us Today! Learn more about some of the features of our content marketing services: 1. Content strategy and keyword research First, our content marketing team will work with your business to fully understand your company, goals, and industry. Then, we’ll help you develop a custom content marketing strategy, designed to help your site content rank in search engine results and convert customers. A core part of our content strategy is keyword research. By researching the keywords that matter to your audience, our team can develop original and valuable evergreen content that drives high-quality traffic to your website. How do we know which keywords to choose, though? As your content marketing service provider, we look at several factors when conducting keyword research, including:
Once we finish our keyword research, we move onto developing a content plan for you. 2. Content development Next, our services focus on creating a content project management schedule. In this step, we build a content calendar for your strategy. We also establish a deadline for writing and delivering the content to your team for review. The amount of content we develop depends on your content marketing services package:
During this stage, your dedicated account manager also provides you with a walkthrough of our preferred platform for project management. Feel free to ask them questions, and they’ll be happy to answer and help you troubleshoot any issues. 3. Content creation A core part of our content marketing services is content creation. With the expertise of our talented project managers, as well as specialized writers and graphic designers, we create multiple types of content, including long-form content, blog posts, infographics, online guides, voice optimized content, white papers, and more for your company’s strategy. Every strategy is different too, based on your unique needs. While a pharmaceutical company’s digital marketing strategy, for example, may focus on awareness and education, an ecommerce store’s may emphasize immediate action. These focuses can result in different content type, like video for a pharmaceutical brand and blog posts for an ecommerce business. Our team of editors then review each piece of content to ensure it matches your branding standards. Once your dedicated account manager looks over your deliverables, they’ll forward them to your team for feedback. If you have any requested changes, our team takes care of them fast. 4. Content optimizationsIn addition to our writers optimizing your content for search, your dedicated account manager will too. For example, if you’re launching a piece of long-form content on your website, they create a compelling title tag and meta description for it. The result is optimized content for not only users but also search engines. By optimizing your content for both parties, we provide your content the best foundation for success — meaning it will not only resonate with your target audience but also rank well in search results. You'll see content marketing, as well as SEO results with Swift Marketing Team as your content marketing services provider. 5. Content promotion Content promotion enables you to boost brand awareness, and it exposes more people to your message. As more people connect with your content online, you’ll reap the benefits of increased site traffic, conversions, and revenue. We can also use paid strategies, like pay-per-click, to promote your owned media across the web. Social media advertising, for instance, is an excellent content marketing campaign strategy for content promotion. 6. Monthly reporting We don’t stop after creating and promoting your content! Our content marketing solutions include custom reporting that allows you to monitor your return on investment (ROI) and drive the best possible results from your marketing efforts. As a part of our aggressive and market leader content marketing service packages, you receive a monthly content marketing strategy report. Your dedicated account manager compiles this report, which includes tons of helpful information you can share with your company’s decision makers. By partnering with our full-service marketing agency, you don’t have to worry about creating this content. We develop and launch your content marketing strategy for you. Plus, we feature an experienced team of writers with backgrounds in manufacturing, retail, and a slew of other industries. Keep reading to learn more about the pricing and deliverables for our services. Why invest in content marketing services? For businesses that want to reach their target audience with web marketing, content marketing is a must. Even if your company operates offline, the best content marketing services offer value. With a powerful content marketing strategy, you can connect with audiences a few blocks away or halfway around the world. That connection leads to several noteworthy benefits, including: Grow your business Consumers use the Internet for everything, from posting videos of their cats and dogs to finding products for their new home. In addition, 80 percent of consumers use the Internet for researching services or products — and when it comes to local searches, those have increased. Online visibility is critical, which is where content marketing comes into use. With a strategic content marketing plan and our leading content marketing agency, you can connect with consumers in varying stages of your buying funnel. Build your brand awareness Your brand is one of the most valuable things your company owns. It defines your business, as well as contributes to the retention and loyalty of your clients. It also influences their purchase decisions, which is why building brand awareness is imperative. With our content marketing management services, you can increase awareness of your brand among your target audience. However, it takes time to build brand awareness. This is why content marketing is an ongoing strategy — just like search engine optimization (SEO). Like SEO, content marketing delivers long-term revenue and brand awareness for your company. With increased brand awareness, you can expect more shoppers to choose your company when they’re ready to buy. Why? For weeks, months, or maybe even years, you’ve provided them with high-quality, informative content. This quality content has provided value by answering their questions and offering them guidance. Research also confirms that content marketing is a powerhouse when it comes to brand awareness. Increase your revenue Another reason why companies invest in content marketing? Its rising conversion rate. Better yet, think of your competition. With our competitive content marketing services, you gain a competitive edge in your marketplace. That edge helps your company earn more valuable leads and clients — limiting the growth of your competitors. The result is a business that’s expanding its market share and revenues. Reach your target audience Content marketing also appeals to how modern consumers shop. When researching a product or service, shoppers read almost 12 pieces of content before purchasing. While some of that content comes from non-competitor websites, such as an industry news site, users arrive on competing sites as they read more. With content marketing agency's services, you can prevent that. Our award-winning team will create a personalized strategy that includes not only bottom of the funnel content but also middle and top of the funnel content. That kind of strategy helps you connect with users in the early, middle, and later stages of the buying funnel. Then, when your target audience makes their buying decision, it’s your company they choose. Expand your consumer base Before they buy, consumers want to learn about your business — but in a non-promotional way. In fact, prefer getting to know a company through content, like articles or blog posts. By considering every step of your buying funnel in your company’s business and content marketing strategy, you have the potential to expand your consumer base. With a bigger following, you can boost the other benefits of content marketing, like increased conversions and brand awareness. As your partner, you can trust Swift Marketing Team to deliver those perks. Maximize your digital marketing ROI With the ability to create a long-term source of revenue for your business, our digital marketing content services maximize your investment. With a bigger ROI, your company can reinvest in your online marketing strategies, as well as expand your business and its services. While content marketing’s ROI varies, it does deliver better results than traditional marketing. The best part is that our content marketing services focus on developing evergreen content for your business. This content attracts new consumers on a routine basis and stays relevant over time. Become an industry leader When consumers research their next purchase, they search for information from reputable sources. With our content marketing management services, your business will become an industry-trusted source for your niche market. That kind of reputation lends itself to several benefits, including:
Like earning the number one position on the first page of search results for a high-value keyword in SEO, it takes time for your company to evolve into a recommended resource for the industry. That is why content marketing is an ongoing, long-term strategy. What do content marketing services include? Content marketing services involve:
What types of content are used in content marketing? Content marketing solutions can involve a wide range of content types. Some examples include:
Why use content marketing services?Content marketing services can help your business:
Why choose Swift Marketing Services for the best content marketing services? It’s a great question, and there are plenty of reasons to choose our content marketing services. Swift is a top content marketing company. A Partner Businesses Trust Their focus on ROI and their innate ability to communicate this information in a way that I understand has been the missing link with other digital marketing firms that I have used in the past. Get started on your content marketing strategy by requesting a free quote online or calling us at 216-339-6041! 23 Customer Service Email Templates to Welcome, Support, Renew, Refund, & Retain Customers9/14/2021 There's truly nothing worse than an automated, lifeless email from a company. That feeling of sheer disappointment when you read the robotic text is almost heart-wrenching. You expected so much more. You never want your customers to feel that way about you. After cultivating a relationship with them, the last thing you want is for them to be offended by an impersonal email. Though it'd be ideal to hand-craft each and every email you send, it can also be time-consuming and inefficient. Don't fret, we've got you covered. Below, we'll go over a list of best practices for writing customer service emails, a guide for responding to angry messages, and a collection of the best customer service email templates for a variety of scenarios. Best Practices for Writing Customer Service Emails Though using a customer service email template will make your job much easier, you should still follow a few best practices. In fact, the following tips apply especially when you use a pre-written email. They can help you personalize your response so that it doesn't seem canned and strengthens your company's customer retention strategy. 1. Use the customer's name. This is the first step when reaching out or responding to customers. Using their name in the greeting will make your response feel genuine and targeted specifically to them. 2. Have the customer's conversation history handy. When responding to a customer complaint or email, it's key to know when and why they've reached out to your company. Have they had this same issue in the past? Or have they only been a customer with you for a short time? This information can help you choose the appropriate tone for your email — whether profusely apologetic or cheery and helpful. Additionally, if you have the customer's conversation history, you can personalize any template you use by including background information and context. 3. Brush up on key facts about their business or buyer persona. In a similar vein, skim through the information you have on their business and buyer persona to understand why they reached out. Are they users of your product? Or are they top-level stakeholders at their organization? Do you know why they chose to do business with you? We recommend collecting this information using CRM software. 4. Try to understand their problem inside and out. When reading over the email, try to understand the problem they're encountering before crafting a response. If you still need clarity, your response would be the place to ask questions. No matter what, ensure that every email you send is filled with empathy and understanding — even when the customer is angry. Empathy can help you deal with frustrated customers and decrease the chances that they'll leave you for a competitor. We understand that this is hard, so below, we'll take you through a step-by-step guide on how to respond to an angry customer email. How to Respond to an Angry Customer Email
1. Respond as soon as possible. The longer you wait to respond to a customer complaint, the more likely it is that they will take that complaint to a public platform where other consumers can form opinions about your company. It's best to tackle the problem within an hour as this will likely keep the conversation going over email and will reduce the chance of a follow-up call. 2. Apologize for their negative experience. The first line in your response should be a genuine apology. No matter how hurtful or unfair their email may seem, it's important to recognize that they took the time to craft a complaint because they had such a negative experience with your company. As a customer service professional, your goal is for none of your customers to have such a terrible experience, and it's the responsibility of your company to apologize for that. It's also important to acknowledge your mistakes, taking some responsibility for what your company may have done wrong. It's less about proving a point and more about salvaging the relationship with that customer. In this step, try to choose a tone that's both empathetic and apologetic, but make it clear that you're also eager to help. 3. Explain what may have gone wrong. Customers really care about getting clear explanations and complete solutions for their problems — not just for their own well-being but for other customers as well. They care about not letting the same issue happen to others. Offering the customer an explanation for the situation can help them understand that there were unexpected factors in play. If you explain to them that the situation was a one-time event or rare occurrence — like their package getting lost in the mail or if they're left on hold for an hour — it will help ease the tension and potentially get them to empathize with your company. 4. Provide context for what happened. Like we discussed above, it's important to understand where the customer is coming from. By looking at their history with your company, you're starting out on the same page in the conversation. Show that you understand the context for the situation so the customer knows that you're aware of the issues they've faced before. You could say something like, "I see that you've had this problem before, a few months ago." This can help you provide genuine empathy (and not the fake empathy that some customer service scripts can have). 5. Reassure the customer that this won't happen again. Even if the problem wasn't your fault — say, your logistics partnered failed to deliver the package on time — it's important to reassure the customer that you're doing everything possible to prevent this from happening again. Whether you're checking in with your product team, retraining your sales team, or revisiting the relationship with your logistics partner, you should indicate to the customer that their angry email has resulted in company-wide action. This will reassure them that they won't have this experience again and thus make it less likely that they'll leave you for a competitor. 6. Offer an incentive, refund, or discount. Offering an incentive is a great option when a customer's complaint is so extreme that you fear worse repercussions — or when they specifically demand a refund or free item. Alternatively, if a customer complaint is reasonable and polite, offer an incentive as thanks for remaining calm and patient with your team. If a customer's complaint is the result of an error on your end, do as much as you can to offer them a reasonable discount or refund when appropriate. If the customer is completely unable to use the purchase as a result of the error, it's only fair to offer a full refund. If an error resulted in an order delay or another type of minor inconvenience that doesn't impact the customer's ability to use the product or service, a small discount can buy goodwill with the customer. If the complaints are the result of a company-wide outage or error that impacted hundreds of thousands of customers, you may not be able to offer them all a discount or refund. Instead, own your mistake, apologize sincerely, and take steps to prevent the problem from happening again. 7. Allow them to respond with further questions, comments, or concerns. At the end of the email, before closing, always ask them to let you know if they have any more questions, comments, or concerns. You want to show that you're still open to further feedback and it's on them to end the conversation. The more opportunities you give them to interact with you, the higher the chance that their temper will subside and they will come to respect your company again. 8. Follow up with the customer. After leaving the path open for more questions, it's critical to follow up with the customer and give them a final status on the resolution of their issue. Whether it was a delayed package, a product outage, or a bad experience with the website, you want to reassure the customer that you've finished taking the necessary steps to ensure this doesn't happen again. For example, if the issue was that the package was delayed in the mail, follow up with them in three days to tell them they should've received the product they ordered. Alternatively, you can check the tracking number and notify them that the package should have been left in their mailbox or on their front step. If the customer experienced a technical malfunction, touch base with them to let them know that your team has finished working on the issue and that the malfunction is resolved. Best Sample Email for Responding to an Angry Customer Using the tips above, we've written a sample email that you can use to respond to an angry email from a customer. Hi [Customer], I'm so sorry that you had a negative experience with [product, service, or company department]. I've looked into the issue, and it seems that [briefly explain the reason for their bad experience, if applicable]. I've forwarded this issue to [head of the appropriate department], our [person's job title]. In the meantime, I'd like to offer a [discount/refund] for the inconvenience and will be checking in with you in a few days to update you on the status of [issue]. Once more, I sincerely apologize for the inconvenience. Please let me know if I can answer any questions, and I'd be happy to help! Best, [Your name] Don't stop here. Below, we've curated a list of the best customer service email templates for every support situation. 50 Customer Service Email TemplatesTell us about yourself to access the templates. Hi 👋 What's your name? First Name Last Name Hi null, what's your email address? Email Address And your phone number? Phone Number What is your company's name and website? Company Website How many employees work there? The Best Customer Service Email TemplatesLet's take a look at some of the best customer service email templates you can lean on when in a variety of situations with customers. Skip to:
Customer Refund Letter Templates
1. Thank You Email Template Once in a while, it's nice to send your customers a little thank you. After all, your company would be nowhere without the loyalty of your customers. This can be sent in several instances: right after they make a purchase, when you notice it's their anniversary with your company, or when they refer another customer. In a thank you email, you should never try to sell them something. It's simply an opportunity to show your appreciation. Hi [Customer], Thank you so much for referring your friend [Friend's name] to us. I've enjoyed getting to know them and doing business with them. I'm so happy that you've stuck around with us for this long and brought your friend to share the experience with you. We're lucky to have you. Thanks again for being such a fantastic customer! As a token of our appreciation, here's a [coupon/discount] for you to enjoy. Cheers, [Your name] 2. Questionnaire Email Template There are several kinds of questionnaires you may send your customers. From customer satisfaction surveys to demographics to Customer Effort Score (CES), each questionnaire offers valuable data to your company. Conducting a survey can help you get into the minds of your customers and make effective changes to your service experience. However, it's easy for customers to see a link to a questionnaire and immediately close the tab. Entice them into taking the questionnaire by mentioning its briefness or perhaps offering an incentive.Pro tip: Consider using one of these "thank you in advance" alternatives for a more polite approach. Hey [Customer], Thanks for your recent purchase with us! I hope you're enjoying your [product/service]. I'd love to hear more about your experience working with our team. Please fill out the following survey and give us your honest feedback. I promise it's short, and it'll help improve customers' experiences in the future. I know your time is valuable, and I appreciate your attention. Thanks, [Your name] << Attach questionnaire >> 3. Angry Customer Response Email Template Uh oh. You've got an angry customer, and they want to leave your business. This could have happened for a range of reasons. They might even be angry about external factors and not necessarily your business. Remain calm and think rationally. The worst possible thing you could do is fight fire with fire. It's okay to take some time to cool down before typing a response. Don't take their email to heart. Sometimes, a customer is so upset that there isn't much damage control you can do. The best move is to wave the white flag and move forward. This template is best used when the customer has indicated that they're taking their business elsewhere. If the customer is complaining but will remain with your business, you should use template #4. [Customer], I am so sorry to hear that you have had such a poor experience that you no longer want to work with us. Customer satisfaction is always a number one priority for us. I'm deeply sorry that that wasn't clearly demonstrated to you. As much as I hate to see you go, I completely understand how upset you must feel. I apologize again for any trouble we may have caused you. Good luck with your business, and I wish you all the best. Let me know if you have any more questions, comments, or concerns. Best, [Your name] 4. Customer Complaint Response Email Template Similar to an angry customer, a complaining customer is not exactly a ray of sunshine on your workday. They can be almost worse, it seems, than an angry customer. Anger can often be displaced or without reason, whereas a complaint is typically well-crafted and based on truth. Incidentally, there's often a greater opportunity of turning a complaining customer into a satisfied one. Just as they have probably put a good amount of time into writing their email, you, too, should do the same. It's important to remain eloquent and polite, even if the complaint frustrates you. [Customer], I am so sorry to hear that [provide a brief summary of their bad experience]. That should never have happened, and I completely understand how frustrating this must be for you. I will relay this message to the appropriate department. We are prioritizing resolving [the issue they faced with your product, company, or service]. Our team is jumping on that problem right away, and I will let you know as soon as it's fixed. I appreciate you letting me know about your negative experience. We strive to ensure every customer is satisfied with our business, and I apologize for any way in which we may have inconvenienced you. Let me know if you have any more questions, comments, or concerns. Best, [Your name] 5. Customer Service Follow-up Email Template When a customer reaches out to you for support, that shouldn't be the beginning and end of your interaction. A customer might not be expecting a follow-up, but that's what will make them appreciate it even more. Plus, it also indicates that your company is dedicated to not merely sales, but also fostering positive customer relationships. Hey [Customer], I hope you're enjoying your brand new product. I remember that you were torn between two versions, but I firmly believe you went with the perfect choice for you. If you're interested, I'd love to hear more about how you're liking the product. Let me know some pros and cons and if there's any way I can be of assistance to guide you through this process. I'm here for whatever you need and look forward to hearing from you soon. Cheers, [Your name] 6. Technical Support Email Template While it's more common for customer support engineers to provide technical support over live chat, phone, or another quicker form of communication, they'll sometimes handle support inquiries over email. Since email is not meant to be an immediate channel for communication, customers may use this method when addressing an issue that isn't urgent. Email also allows you to get a lot more information about the situation because customers can take their time to write out thorough responses to your questions. Take advantage of this and ask several in-depth questions in a single email to find a solution as quickly as possible. Hey [Customer], Thanks for reaching out! I'd be more than happy to help you. Before we dive in, can you give me a little more context on the situation? When did this issue begin happening? Has it been occurring consistently, or does it happen on and off? Have you tried any solutions on your own? These questions will help me find a more personalized solution to your problem. Thanks, [Your name] 7. Keep in Touch Email Template It's sad to see a customer go — especially one who has been loyal to your company for a while. Once you've built a real relationship with a customer, the last thing you want to do is break off ties as soon as they decide to take a different path. You want to show them that, no matter what, you still care about them and want what's best for them. And maybe, just maybe, they'll come back to you in the future. Hey [Customer], I'm sorry to see you go. Doing business with you in the past [amount of years they've been with you] has been great. I've learned so much from you and have made several updates to our products based on your thorough, thoughtful feedback. I appreciate everything you've done to make our company the best it can be. As you set onto a new path, don't forget about us! I'd love to hear about your successes in the future and the exciting growth your company inevitably will have. Please keep in touch. Good luck with everything! Cheers, [Your name] 8. Welcome Email Template Congratulations! You've got a new customer or subscriber. There's truly nothing more exhilarating for a business. However, as your company's customer base grows larger, be sure not to overlook newcomers. That's why it's important to send welcome emails. This will help them get acquainted with your company and also show them that each and every individual customer matters to you. Also, this is a good opportunity to shower them with helpful content. Hi [Customer], Welcome to [Your company]! I'm so excited to have you join us. We're feeling pretty lucky that you chose us, and I just wanna say thank you on behalf of our whole company. To get you settled, I wanted to share with you some of our best resources so you can make the most out of your experience with us. Subscribe to our blog [add link] for some great tips and knowledge to be successful in your industry. Check out our Instagram [add link], Facebook [add link], and Twitter [add link] for your daily dose of industry news, advice, and behind-the-scenes looks. If you're interested in learning more about your product, feel free to contact me or anyone else on our support team at any time. We're always here to help you in any way we can. Cheers, [Your name] 9. Account Manager Introduction Email Template It can be tricky to send out that first email as an account manager. Your new client has probably been speaking with one or more other employees at your company and has gotten relatively acquainted with them. As you will be working directly with them from now on, it's important to develop an even stronger relationship with them that will continue into the foreseeable future. Make it clear that you will be their direct contact from now on. You can take on a friendly, more comfortable tone. You want them to know that you're someone they can trust. Hey [Customer], I'm [Your name], and I'm very excited to be your new Account Manager at [Your company]! I've heard great things about you from my teammates, and I'm hoping they've said some good things about me, too. My role will be to guide you through anything you need. If you ever have questions, run into problems, consider an upgrade, or anything at all, I'm the one for the job. We will be working closely together, and I'll be helping you navigate your new product. I'm looking forward to meeting you. Do you have a few minutes this week to chat? Cheers, [Your name] 10. Account Manager Transition Email Template As much as you might love your company, you may get to the point where it's time to move on. Once you get a job offer that you can't refuse, it can be difficult to relay it to your employer, but even harder to tell your loyal customers. It's essential that you keep your clients in the loop about this change. Since you have been an integral part of their professional lives, they should be notified of your leave. This will help them prepare for the shift, as this change will affect them, too. Dear [Customer], After eight incredible years at [Your company], I'm excited to inform you that I have just accepted an offer to move on to [New company]. This new role will be an important player in advancing my career, and I couldn't feel more grateful for the opportunity. However, that means that I will no longer be your Account Manager here. I have enjoyed watching you grow and cheering on your successes. Working with you has taught me so much, and I will carry this knowledge on to this next chapter in my life. Luckily, I have an incredible replacement for you. [Replacement's name] is an outstanding Account Manager and a dear friend of mine. [She/he/they] has been working here for [amount of years] and has a lot to show for it. I genuinely believe you two will get along well and that [she/he/they] will be a huge support for you. They will be emailing you in the next couple days with a warm greeting and plans for you to meet. I'm looking forward to hearing all about it. Thank you again for being a great client for [amount of years]. I wish you all the best! Thanks, [Your name] 11. Free Trial Email Template If you notice a prospect who seems interested in your products but fails to make a purchase, don't sweep them under the rug. This is a perfect opportunity to mention a free trial. Prospects might be curious to learn more about your products but nervous to show their cards when they haven't gotten a chance to fully interact with your company. By offering a free trial, you're gaining the prospect's trust. Additionally, once a customer gets acquainted with a product during a free trial, it's harder to turn it down. Hi [Prospect], I noticed that you seemed interested in [product name] on our website. If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out. I'd be happy to guide you through the different options. If you're interested, I want to extend an offer for a free trial, as it can be tough to commit to a product from a mere description. Our free trial lasts 30 days and lets you navigate all premium features. It's a great chance to see which product is right for you and how much it can benefit you and your clients. If you're interested, email me back or give me a call. I can talk you through all the details and get you set up. Cheers, [Your name] 12. Renewal Reminder Email Template So, your customer purchased an annual subscription to your product? Great. However, it's hitting 350 days, and they haven't mentioned any interest in renewing their subscription. Yikes. That's the perfect opportunity to send a renewal reminder email. There's a high possibility they simply forgot. Or, it could be that they're on the fence about it. Either way, a gentle reminder could steer them in the right direction. Hey [Customer], I hope everything is going well with you and that you've had a great year navigating your product. I noticed that your annual subscription is expiring on [date of expiration]. Are you interested in renewing your subscription? If you're weighing your options, I'd love to chat further with you to help you come to a decision. If you'd like to upgrade to a new product, we can discuss that, as well. I look forward to hearing from you. Cheers, [Your name] 13. Customer Referral Email Template Now that you've built a solid relationship with a customer, it's about time to ask them (nicely) for a referral. If they've had a very positive experience with your company, it's natural that they'll want the same for their family, friends, and colleagues in similar fields. Hi [Customer], I'm so happy to hear that you're having a great experience with [product/service/company department]. Helping our customers help their customers has always been our goal. Since I've loved getting to work with you these past few months, I was wondering if there was anyone you know who might benefit in a similar way? It would be a pleasure to help them achieve their goals. I'm looking forward to it! Thanks, [Your name] 14. Customer Review Request Email Template If you've worked with a customer for a while and helped them achieve results with your product or service, you may want to ask them to review your product, service, business, or you personally. Reviews help increase ratings on review sites, which are one of the most trustworthy ways prospects research companies or products before making a purchase. Timing-wise, it might make sense for you to send this email within a chain you've already started with the customer about the good results or a successful project you collaborated with them on. You can either copy this template directly into a chain, or use the exact wording to start a new thread from scratch. If you sell a physical product that your customer personally uses, you might reach out 10-15 days after the product is delivered to ask them how it's going. Hi [Customer], I hope you're having a great week so far! I saw you've started [details about how they're using your product] — it looks like you've achieved some impressive [details of the results they've achieved]. How are you enjoying working with the tool? If you have any feedback or questions, don't hesitate to give me a call or shoot me an email, and I'll help you out! If you'd like to share your experience using [Your company's tool], here are our pages on [review site] and [review site], where you can give us a rating and share your feedback to help other customers like you. Thanks for your time, and give me a call if you have any questions! [Your name] Customer Refund Letter Templates Here are a few useful customer service email templates that you can use for refunds. 15. Refund to Customer Email Template Sadly, some customers are going to return your products. Don't worry, it's not you. But it's also not them. They aren't upset or frustrated like the customers above. They simply don't enjoy the product or find a good use for it. For instances like this, it's good to respond to a refund with an email expressing that there are no hard feelings and that you hope to do business with them again in the future. Hi [Customer], I've processed your refund, and you should expect to see the amount appear in your bank account in the next couple of business days. I'm sorry to hear that you didn't love your new product. I completely understand that it isn't for everyone. If you're still on the search for the right choice for you, let me know. I'd be happy to talk you through some of our other options and see if any of them feel like a good fit. Thank you for your time and for giving us a try. I hope to connect with you again in the near future. Best, [Your name] 16. Product Exchange Email Template Fortunately, not every unhappy customer will ask for a refund. Some may regularly purchase your product, so they know that one poor experience doesn't represent your brand. However, that also means they know what to expect from your product and will still be upset that it didn't perform up to their standards. They won't be angry enough to churn, but they will expect you to make things right. This is where this letter comes in handy. Hi [Customer], Thanks for letting us know about this faulty product. We'll do our best to assess the problem and determine exactly what went wrong with your [product name]. In the meantime, please accept this replacement product that I've personally assessed for performance. We'd like to offer our sincerest apologies for any inconvenience this may have caused. We hope you continue to enjoy using our product and we are happy to answer any questions or concerns you may have. Please feel welcome to contact our support team at [phone number], or reply to this message and we'd be more than happy to help. Thanks, [Your name] 17. Product Discount Email Template When it comes to refunds, not every company has the same policy. Some may not offer product exchanges or full compensation for specific products or services. Others may require proof of purchase to issue a refund and can only provide store credit without it. For these cases, your business may offer a small promotion so the customer will have a discount the next time they shop at your store. It's not the refund the customer is looking for, but it's better than leaving them empty-handed. Hi [Customer], Thanks for reaching out. Unfortunately, we can't offer a refund at this time. According to our policy, [policy description + explanation of why the policy is in place]. I've checked with my manager to confirm this policy, and while we can't offer a full refund, we can provide you with a discount of [discount amount] for the next time you shop in our stores. We sincerely appreciate your understanding in this matter. Please feel welcome to reach out to me with any questions you may have and I would be more than happy to help. Thanks again, [Your name] 18. Customer Apology Email Template In some cases, your customer service team won't be able to provide any type of refund or discount. This can lead to an awkward or stressful situation with the customer, especially if they feel like your company is in the wrong. While you should personalize every apology, this message can be a baseline to work from when you need to take responsibility for your company's work. Hi [Customer], Thank you for providing us this feedback. We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience this has caused and we appreciate your understanding in the matter. We know that [problem] has prevented you from achieving [customer's goal], and that we have fallen short of your expectations. I have relayed this feedback to the rest of my team and can assure you that this mistake won't happen in the future. That said, if there's anything else that I can help you with at the moment, please feel welcome to reach out and I would be more than happy to help. Thanks again, [Your name] 19. Return of Overpayment Email Template Depending on your business model, customers may have to pay for a product or service upfront and are reimbursed later if they paid more than they needed to. This either requires you to send them a check or wire the money via a direct deposit. Regardless of how it's transferred, customers will want to know where this money is coming from. While they'll be happy to accept the return, they'll be dubious of its origin if you don't notify them ahead of time. You'll also want to take credit for this refund as it shows your intention to provide an honest transaction. For these cases, you can use this letter to alert your customers of an overpayment. Hi [Customer], Thank you for your recent payment of [payment amount]. Upon review of your transaction, we've determined that the amount you have paid is more than what was required for this product or service. The actual amount that was due was [payment amount], thus leaving you with a credit of [credit amount]. Please find a [check amount or notice of deposit] enclosed in this letter. We strongly believe in providing an honest experience for our customers and can assure you that we are working constantly to prevent potential fraud. We hope this message resolves any concerns you may have about this transaction and are more than happy to answer any additional questions. Thanks again, [Your name] 20. Refund Notification Email Template There are times where customers are eligible for a refund, but just don't know it. While you shouldn't be eager for them to return products, it'd be dishonest not to notify customers when they qualify to do so. This type of proactive customer service builds trust with your customer base and creates a delightful support experience. Hi [Customer], We hope this message finds you well. We are reaching because you qualify for a refund for your purchase of [product name]. This refund is eligible for [period of time] and can be initiated by calling or messaging our customer service team. Please feel welcome to reply to this email with any questions you may have and I would be more than happy to help. Thanks, [Your name] 21. Refund Status Email Template To avoid any hiccups in the refund process, it'd be helpful to let your customer know the status of their refund once it's en route to their account. If you'd prefer to refer to your company in the plural form, simply swap the "I" for "We." Hi [Customer], I'm reaching out about the refund you initiated on [date]. Your refund has been deposited into your card ending in [last four digits of card]. You should see the amount credited to your account in about 3 to 5 business days. If you don't see the refund in your account, respond to this email, and I'll look into it for you. In the meantime, please let me know if I can answer any additional questions — I'd be happy to help! Thanks, [Your name] 22. Refund Not Received Email Template If your customer hasn't received a refund and reached out to you about it, you should act as if you're responding to a customer complaint: with empathy, sincerity, and clear intentions to resolve the problem. Most of the time, the delay is on the bank's end. In this instance, gently remind the customer that a few more business days may pass before the refund is processed. Hi [Customer], I'm so sorry to hear that a refund hasn't been deposited into your card ending in [last four digits of card]. I've contacted our accounting department to look into this issue for you. A refund has been issued, but it may take a few days for your bank to process the funds. While we work on the delay on our end, I've created a ticket in our system to keep you updated on your refund status. We'll try to resolve the problem as soon as possible. I sincerely apologize for the inconvenience this may have caused. In the meantime, feel free to reply to this email with any questions or concerns, and I'd be happy to help. Thanks, [Your name] 23. Out-of-Policy Refund Email Template Sometimes, customers reach out for a refund when they're past the date of eligibility. You have the option of offering store credit or giving them personalized support for getting the most out of their new product. Hi [Customer], Thanks so much for reaching out about order #[number]. I'm so sorry the product hasn't worked out for you. Because more than [number of days] days have passed since the date of purchase, you're no longer eligible for a refund. However, I can give you store credit for your purchase. Alternatively, I can set up a meeting with our customer success department so that you can get the most out of your product. Let me know which option you'd prefer. If you have any questions or concerns, I'd be happy to help. Thanks, [Your name] Create a Strong Customer Experience Using Customer Service Email TemplatesUsing email templates will help you effortlessly master every email conversation and promote strong relationships with your customers. Provide personalized solutions, connect with your customers, and retain their business without needing to write every email from scratch. The email templates above will help you create a winning customer service strategy — all while saving time and effort for your team. 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