The Daily Checklist for Social Media Success!

Maintaining your social media presence is essential in today’s online world. It can be a time-consuming task, but it’s worth it to build trust with consumers and create a consistent brand image.

Whether you’re a business owner starting out on social media or have been at it for a while and aren’t seeing the results you want, this daily checklist will help.

By following this social media cheat sheet, you’ll monitor your accounts effectively and become an asset to your customers.

Let’s get started.

Why Is Social Media Management Important?

With over 4.26 billion people on social media, it’s more important than ever to have a presence on various media platforms.

As a business owner, understanding how your brand is perceived online and what is said about it is essential. Your social media accounts represent your company’s values, so be consistent with the message you’re putting out there.

Consistency helps maintain the brand and builds trust with consumers. However, it’s also essential to have a strategy in place and understand your company and your target audience well. Otherwise, you’ll struggle to create content that resonates with your target audience.

If you don’t have a social media presence, you’re missing out on an opportunity to market your business for free. And if you’re not consistently active on social media, you’re not building trust with potential customers.

The Basics of Social Media Management

Before we get into the daily checklist, let’s go over the basics of social media management.

First, you need to understand what social media platforms your target audience is using. Then, you need to create profiles on those platforms and complete your profile information.

Once your profiles are set up, it’s time to start posting content. When starting out, it’s important to post regularly so your audience knows you’re active and engaged. Then, as you grow your social media following, you can experiment with the frequency of your posts.

Remember, quality is better than quantity when it comes to social media. Posting one high-quality piece of content is better than several low-quality pieces.

Your audience will also engage more with interesting, informative, or entertaining content. So, ensure you’re creating appropriate content for your target audience that will resonate with them.

Lastly, you need to supervise your social media accounts. This means keeping an eye on your activity and engagement levels, as well as any negative feedback.

Now that we’ve gone over the basics, let’s get into the daily checklist.

Daily Checklist

This social media checklist will help you focus on the most important tasks related to social media management. By following this guide, you’ll be sure to stay on top of your social media presence and build trust with your audience.

Here’s what you should do every day:

1. Review Your Analytics

The first thing you should do is review your social media analytics. This will provide you with a good overview of how your accounts are performing and where you can improve.

You should look at your overall engagement levels and the engagement levels for each post. This will help you identify which types of content have an impact on your audience and which ones don’t.

Lastly, look at your followership to get an idea of how well your social media marketing efforts are working. If you’re not seeing much growth, it may be time to adjust your strategy.

2. Share Engaging Content

Once you’ve reviewed your analytics, it’s time to start sharing content. Remember to mix up the content you share so your audience doesn’t get bored. Try to share a mix of text, images, videos, and infographics. And be sure to post both original and curated content.

Curation is important because it shows that you’re not just self-promoting all the time. It also helps you fill up your social media calendars if you’re struggling to come up with original content.

Just remember to provide credit to the original source when you share someone else’s content.

When you’re sharing content, be sure to use hashtags, @mentions, and geotags. This will help you reach a broader target audience and get more engagement.

If you don’t have time to post daily, you can schedule your content using a tool like Hootsuite. This will help you prepare your posts in advance so that you don’t have to worry about them every day.

You can also share user-generated content or repurpose content from other platforms. Just make sure the content you’re sharing is still relevant and engaging.

3. Respond to Comments and Messages

Another important task to do every day is to respond to comments and messages. This includes both positive and negative feedback.

Responding to positive comments is important and lets your audience know you appreciate their feedback. You should also reply to negative comments in a timely and professional manner. This will show your audience you’re committed to providing excellent customer service.

Use your responses as an opportunity to build relationships with your audience. Be friendly and helpful, and you’ll be sure to win over some fans.

And don’t forget to thank your fans and followers for their support! A simple “thank you” can go a long way.

4. Develop Relationships with Influencers

Finally, you should spend some time every day developing relationships with influencers. You can do this by commenting and liking their posts, sharing their content, and tagging them in your posts.

Try reaching out to influencers directly and introducing yourself. If they’re interested in what you have to say, they may be willing to collaborate with you on a future project.

Influencer marketing is an excellent way to reach a wider audience and get more engagement. And it can also help you build trust with your customers while diversifying your content.

The Bottom Line

By following this daily checklist, you’ll be sure to stay on top of your social media presence and build trust with your audience. Just remember to be consistent, engage with your followers, and monitor your analytics to see what’s working.

If you need help or are uncertain about how to do something, check out our other articles. In addition, we’ve got a ton of great resources to help you with your social media marketing.

 

How to turn Instagram followers into customers!

In the past few years, Instagram has developed into a juggernaut of a marketing platform.

Everyone is on Instagram, from small businesses to conglomerates, and they all are racing to increase their followers, likes, and comments metrics!

According to Facebook statistics, 500 million users log on to Instagram every day and spend an average of 30 minutes on the platform.

Right now there’s a huge opportunity for those who take action.

If you are a business owner with an Instagram page, but somehow struggle to find leads, conversions, and grow on the platform, you’ve made it to the right place.

In this article is going to show you the best methods of conversion and the biggest mistakes you need to watch out for when promoting your business on Instagram.

To start off let’s look at what you NEED to be doing to kickstart the process:

The DO’s of Instagram Conversion

  1. Be active in the community

The key here is to go from building an audience to creating a community of engagers. Remember, Instagram is more than a one-way platform. While audiences want to enjoy your content, what they really need is to be a part of it. Don’t forget that you’re behind the screen and you have the power to control their actions and influence the steps they take on their journey.

To create an active community on Instagram, remember to:

  • Reply to comments
  • Reply to DMs
  • Host giveaways and competitions
  • Encourage follower engagement in your content with call-to-actions and questions
  • Start conversations
  • Post on national days
  1. Switch it up.

Consistency is important, especially if you’re a smaller business looking to gain traction and successfully convert your audience into customers. However, sticking to the same content over and over is going to leave your follower’s losing interest. Nobody wants to scroll past 100 images that add nothing to their life. Instead, audiences want familiarity AND uniqueness. It sounds like a tricky combination to pull off, but it IS possible.

To ensure you’re sticking to a regular positing schedule whilst remembering to switch up you need to:

  • Experiment with different formats: Post stories, reels and both short/long form videos to vary the kind of content you give to your followers. This could even mean going live for your followers (building that active community at the same time). To start off, add in some carousels to your content as this is super simple!
  • Vary the content you use in your posts: Filmed a great ad for your business? Show off behind the scenes. Get creative with emojis and stickers and add new people to the mix. As a local business, reinforcing the idea of community is important, so don’t be afraid to involve others in your content.
  1. Become MORE than just your content

For a local business like yours, a large number of your followers might be those who live within your area or even come into your physical store if you have one. This makes showing who you are behind the brand even more important.

Don’t be afraid to show the real you and connect with the local audiences you have around you.

Get vulnerable and open up. Consumers love reality and you’ll find, we as a society are VERY nosey, so finding out more about the owners or team behind a brand is crucial if you want to maintain audience attention and start building a relationship with them.

To successfully be you, try this:

  • Incorporate pictures of a day at work into your content with the team involved
  • Reply to comments with the name of the team member who replied at the end of it help create that community
  • Use stories to document genuine business life

These 3 tips are sure to take your business from followers on Instagram to traffic on your website.

By keeping it real, switching it up and getting active online, conversion is guaranteed.

Now, it’s time to take a look at the mistakes you don’t want to be falling into:

The DON’T’S of Instagram Conversion

  1. Avoid over-selling

The most crucial part of transforming followers into customers is by making the transition feel seamless for them. Your audience does not want to be bombarded by boring sales pitches, they want value and relatability. And as a local business, this means incorporating ‘filler posts’ your community can engage with OUTSIDE of the sphere of sales, such as:

Weekend/Weekday posts: Use these as a check in with your audience to see how they are and/or update them on what’s going on for the business that day.

Quotes or sayings: You can’t go wrong with a bit of motivation every now and then to help push through the day!

Tips, secrets or how to’s: Always think about adding value. Help your audience learn more and positively change their life.

Doing more than just pushing sales will help you convert without it feeling like your customers have to do any challenging work or be convinced to take action.

2. Posting inconsistent content

While it’s important to switch up the format of your content, don’t end up losing your brand image in the midst of it. Sticking to a general theme, tone and voice is important for your followers to get to know your business more and want to become a follower.

So,

  • Make sure your posts flow well and represents your vision.
  • Stick to brand colors
  • Stick to ONE tone of voice for cohesive purposes

3.Not engaging with your followers

For audiences of businesses, Instagram isn’t just a window shop. It’s a place to interact, learn, chat and so much more. So, why limit yourself by not returning the favour? If you’re a small local business, building a positive reputation and good rapport with your followers will lead to more people visiting your page.

Consumers eat with their eyes and love a place where they feel valued, appreciated, and can get something out of it. So, ENGAGE! Get stuck into the community you’ve created and interact with your followers.

Conclusion

If you're a local business trying to convert your followers into customers, don't sweat it, you've got this!

Creating great content is all about the strategies you use to improve the customer experience even more, and by monitoring your analytics and clarifying your objectives on a daily basis, incorporating these tips into your marketing will be easier than ever!

 

Why is page speed so significant?

When it comes to the performance of your website, page speed is vital.

Your web pages must load quickly and seamlessly in order to lower your bounce rate and boost visitor engagement.

In this article, we'll explain why it's important, and show you how to measure it.

According to Google research, every second counts when it comes to page loading speed. Increasing loading times from one to three seconds increases the likelihood of a bounce (the visitor leaving immediately) by 32%.

A shocking 90% of visitors will leave a site if it takes longer than five seconds to load.

The speed of a website has a significant impact on user experience, SEO, and conversion rates. Improving website performance is critical for attracting visitors and keeping them engaged. Here are some steps that you can take with your developer to make your website load faster:

Run a website performance test

Website speed tests determine how well a website performs. Testing a website on a regular basis can help developers identify some or all of the areas that are slowing down website performance, as well as areas for improvement.

There are numerous high-quality site speed tests for measuring performance, many of which are free, such as Pingdom.com.

Google also provides PageSpeed” Insights for more in-depth performance testing while Google Chrome “DevTools” can also assist developers in evaluating the performance of their website.

Use a Content Delivery Network (CDN) (content delivery network)

CDNs increase website speed by caching content in multiple locations around the world. CDN caching servers are usually closer to end users than the host, or origin server. Requests for content are routed to a CDN server rather than the hosting server, which may be thousands of miles away and spread across multiple autonomous networks from the user. Using a CDN can significantly reduce page load times.

Image Optimization

Images account for a large portion of Internet traffic, and they frequently take the longest to load on a website because image files are larger in size than HTML and CSS files. Image optimization, fortunately, can reduce image load time. Image optimization typically entails lowering the resolution, compressing the files, and shrinking their dimensions, and many image optimizers and image compressors are freely available online.

Lower the number of HTTP requests, if you can.

Most webpages will necessitate multiple HTTP requests from browsers for various assets on the page, such as images, scripts, and CSS files. Indeed, many webpages will necessitate dozens of these requests. Each request necessitates a round trip to and from the server hosting the resource, which can increase the overall load time of a webpage. Furthermore, because the resources are loaded from multiple providers, a problem with one of the hosts may impact the webpage's ability to load quickly, or at all.

Because of these potential issues, the total number of assets that must be loaded by each page should be kept to a minimum. A speed test should also help identify which HTTP requests are taking the longest. For example, if images are slowing down a page's load time, developers can look for a faster image hosting solution (such as a CDN).

Cache your website's pages.

Caching is one of the most effective methods for speeding up your website. Caching saves copies of your website's files, reducing the amount of work required by the server to generate and serve a web page to a visitor's browser.

By requiring the server to use fewer resources to load a page, caching your web pages can help reduce Time to First Byte (TTFB).

There are several methods for caching your web pages. This can be done at the server level, which means your host will handle it for you.

Another option is to use a caching plugin, such as W3 Total Cache, a free WordPress plugin that makes caching web pages simple. After you've installed and activated it, go to General Settings > Page Cache and check the Enable box.

Reduce the use of external scripts.

Any scripted webpage elements loaded from elsewhere, such as external commenting systems, CTA buttons, or lead-generation popups, must be loaded each time a page is loaded. Depending on the size of the script, this can cause a webpage to slow down or not load all at once (this is known as ‘content jumping' or ‘layout shifting,' and it can be especially aggravating for mobile users).

Avoid using redirects at times if possible.

A redirect occurs when visitors to one website are forwarded to another. Redirects increase page load time by a few fractions of a second, or even whole seconds in some cases. Every second counts when developing a website that is optimized for performance. Redirects are sometimes unavoidable, but they should be avoided if possible.

Remember that every second your website takes to load increases the likelihood that your visitors will leave. If your website is running slow, how long can you keep running your business while losing leads?  Is it time to speed things up?

10 Most Common Digital Marketing Mistakes & How to fix them!

We are currently living in the internet age, which means your business needs to evolve along with it. Digital marketing can help you promote your company, brand, and products or services.

There is an audience to be reached online, as well as a reputation to be established. However, there is more effective and less effective ways to approach digital marketing. Check out these common mistakes to ensure you're doing it right!

Bad Performing Website Design

A digital marketing-focused website should include a call to action and a well-optimized landing page. Any promos or discounts should also be prominently displayed. In order to convert visitors into successful leads, you must have an informative and engaging website.

Not Having a Blog

Remember that you are not only marketing your business, but also yourself as a trusted industry leader. Publishing blog content that is valuable, informed, and easily accessible will establish you as a trustworthy voice. Furthermore, each blog post is another indexed page for your site, and more indexed pages mean your site will appear higher in Google search results.

It is not enough to simply create a blog; it should also be interactive. To get responses, submit questions in the comments section. Include guest posts or interviews with researchers or other successful individuals in your field, as well. Use this blog post writing guide to consistently produce the most important and relevant blog posts you can.

Failure to Convert Website Traffic into Customers

Visitors to your website who do not convert into customers are pretty much worthless unless they generate leads for you through word-of-mouth recommendations. The first goal is to get visitors to your site, but the second goal is to convert them into customers. Create a plan for converting online visitors into sales and a referral program that encourages people to recommend your business.

Didn’t Optimize for Mobile Users

Mobile browsing accounts for over half of all web traffic globally. So, if you're optimizing your site, don't forget to optimize it for mobile users as well, so that the load time is as quick as it is on desktop. Make sure the design of your site is also mobile-friendly.

Not utilizing Social Media

You might think you can get away with not using social media. I’m sorry to tell you that you’re wrong! It’s an essential way to turn leads into customers. Spreading your content, reaching your audience, and engaging with users will help you promote your business online. But don’t try to do it all yourself; learn how a social media manager can help.

Providing Lack Luster Customer Service

If a visitor who has never done business with you before decides to become a customer, they are taking a risk. Having good customer service is vital for lowering that risk because 70% of consumers will continue to do business with you if they have a good experience.

Help should be easy to find on your site so that people know they can get it. This could be a Contact Us page, a virtual chat, a helpline, or other options. Just make sure that if someone visits your site, they can easily get help if they need it.

Not Offering Deals

According to a Retail Me Not poll, two-thirds of buyers made an unplanned purchase purely due to a discount. Online discount coupons or limited-time deals are excellent pop-ups for your site, particularly on the landing page or when visitors are about to abandon their cart.

Sleeping on your Competition

It's possible that someone else is doing the same thing you are. Instead of pretending they don't exist, find a way to stand out. Identify what makes your business unique and showcase it on your website and social media channels. You should make it abundantly clear how your business stands apart from the crowd.

Lack of Social Proof

It's a known fact that showcasing your happy customers increases conversions. If you want potential customers to purchase with confidence, use testimonials, case studies, and success stories to demonstrate what your customers are experiencing. This will give potential customers that are on the fence peace of mind and help to avoid any buyer’s remorse.

Not Keeping Track of Your Leads

Keywords, email blasts, referring links, social media, and other traffic sources can all generate online leads. One of those sources may be generating leads that rarely convert into customers, but another may be routinely generating them. This is critical information to have so that you may update your strategy based on the data you know.

The Influence of Digital Marketing

To succeed, your business needs the right marketing tools and strategies. By adjusting your digital marketing approach, concentrating on the right leads, and building an optimized website, you can grow your business to its fullest potential.

 

Email Marketing Vs Sms Marketing – What’s Best For Your Business?

For decades, email has been the preferred method for sending and receiving mass messages and reaching audiences. Text (or SMS) marketing, on the other hand, is a quick, cost-effective way to share promotions and updates with customers. So, which reigns supreme?

SMS or email marketing?

In order to figure out which strategy is right for your business you need to consider factors like: cost, click-through rate (CTR), conversion rate, level of engagement, open rate, and ROI – just to name a few.

In this article, we will breakdown the differences between SMS marketing and email marketing. We'll explain each strategy and demonstrate how they work, their benefits and drawbacks, when to use them, and whether you should hire the services of a digital agency for help

So What Exactly Is Email Marketing?

Email marketing is mass-sending emails to people (leads or customers) on your e-mail list. The people on your list have chosen to be there. You send emails to inform current and prospective customers about new products, services, discounts, and special offers. Consider it a direct method of communicating with your customers in which you have their permission to send them promotional information. Your email list should be one of your most valuable business assets.

The Benefits and Drawbacks of Email Marketing

Every day, approximately 125 billion emails are sent. Email marketing is an important part of any business, and it works best for delivering more detailed information. It also has a much higher ROI than many other marketing channels and is quite versatile. In fact, an email campaign can be used for product updates, subscriptions, and promotions.

Here's why you should use email marketing:

It is reasonably priced – With a $40 profit for for every $1 spent on email marketing it’s still the best ROI in the game for over 2 decades.

Emails have the ability to be personalized to the recipient –Any reputable email marketing expert will tell you that this feature enables you to connect with your audience, thereby increasing the email marketing conversion rate.

The versatility of email is unlike any other marketing tool –You can use emails to provide detailed product information, make brief announcements, send reminders, welcome new customers, announce special offers, follow up with leads, or simply say hello to your target audience.

It plays on user habits and intent – 44% of consumers check their emails at least once per day. People open emails with specific intentions, such as looking for updates, product information, customer service, and so on. This is why email marketing is so important.

Emails are an excellent way to increase traffic to your website – You can increase the number of website site visitors looking for your products or services by using targeted email marketing services. Using targeted traffic increases the ROI of email marketing.

The Cons of Email Marketing

A crowded inbox makes it difficult to capture the attention of your consumer – Every day, we all receive approximately 121 emails. When consumers sort through those emails on a daily basis, it's easy to put everything in the spam folder. In many cases your emails will end up in the same folder as spam.

Emails can be prevented from inboxing – Email servers now have sophisticated filters. If your email appears to be spammy, it may be blocked from reaching your recipient's inbox. Any reputable digital agency can assist you in crafting emails that are more likely to reach your target audience's inbox.

People can easily delete or unsubscribe from emails – People may delete your emails or unsubscribe from your list for any reason like if they see messed up graphics, poorly written headlines, unreadable text, or blocked images or content that isn’t relatable to them

What Exactly Is SMS Marketing?

SMS marketing is the use of text messages to communicate with customers. SMS, like email marketing, is used to inform your audience about promotions, campaigns, updates, news, and more.

Before sending any promotional information, both SMS and email marketing ask for your audience's permission. The CAN-SPAM Act and the Consumer Protection Act are the primary laws that protect consumers from unsolicited SMS (TCPA). These rules and guidelines are followed by all good SMS marketing examples.

SMS and email marketing are both owned channels. This means you can choose who receives your emails or text messages.  It also means you have control over the type of user experience your customers will have.

You can send the SMS marketing examples listed below:

1. Promotional SMS: These are SMS messages that are intended to raise brand awareness, promote products or services, and boost sales.

2. Transactional SMS: These are text messages that contain information that your customers require, such as delivery updates, product specifications, and order information.

SMS Marketing's Benefits and Drawbacks

When comparing SMS marketing to email marketing, SMS has the advantage of capturing the recipient's attention right away. When you receive a text message, your phone alerts you, capturing your full and undivided attention right then and there. This is why the open rate for SMS marketing is higher than the open rate for email marketing.

This sense of urgency created by the alert is both a benefit and a disadvantage for SMS marketing. On the one hand, it may compel your customers to act immediately in response to your promotion. However, if sent at the wrong time, these texts can turn off users, who will either ignore or delete them.

Let's go over the specific benefits and drawbacks of SMS marketing.

Pros and Cons of SMS Marketing

Here are some of the benefits of SMS marketing:

Your customers do not require internet – It's worth noting that 15% of Americans (52 million people) today have little or no internet access. This is a massive market that is beyond the scope of any email campaign.

It has a better response rate -On average, text messages are read in three minutes. That's a response rate of up to 209 percent when compared to social media, email, or even phone calls.

It has a high level of engagement – SMS, like email marketing, is a marketing channel with higher levels of engagement than other lead generation strategies. higher engagement levels suggests a higher SMS open rate.

Here are some of the drawbacks of SMS marketing:

It has a limited amount of content space – You have only 160 characters to work with. D elivering powerful messages that short while still packing a punch requires a pretty big vocabulary.

It's more expensive -The cost of running an SMS campaign is higher than the cost of running an email campaign.

It may erode customer trust – Customers can easily lose trust with businesses that send them unwanted text messages or SMS that are poorly structured. Customers may become irritated if you send text messages at inconvenient or inappropriate times and It may also cause them to opt out.

What Is the Difference Between SMS and Email Marketing?

Which is better: SMS marketing or email marketing? Think about the following:

Insert the table here from the bottom of the article Chris.

One of the first things marketers notice is that the ROI of email marketing is higher than that of SMS marketing. This suggests that the conversion rate for email marketing is also higher.

These are the figures that email marketing companies will provide you with. The lower email marketing open rate, on the other hand, proves the case for SMS marketing. Text messages also have a significantly higher CTR and response rate.

The Answer: Omnichannel Marketing

Omnichannel marketing is the use of multiple marketing channels to increase your bottom line. Your business has unique needs, so balancing SMS and email marketing is recommended for better results. You have a better chance of capturing your audience's attention if you develop a marketing strategy that uses both in tandem.

When should SMS marketing be used?  It should be used to respond to customer questions, solicit feedback, promote one of your products, and collect signups for your programs. Keeping track of its usage allows you to stay within your marketing budget.

Email marketing, on the other hand, is better suited to promoting multiple products due to its lower cost. It can be used for company updates, newsletters, and a variety of marketing emails.

Working With a Seasoned Digital Marketing Agency

Finding the right balance between SMS and email marketing can be difficult, especially if you haven't had much success with either.  If you are looking to improve your SMS and email marketing results, connect with us today. We can help you create a customized omnichannel plan based on your budget and goals. Connect with us to learn more!

SMS Email
Open Rate

 

98 percent 20 percent
CTR

 

29 percent 2.5 percent
Engagement

 

High High
Cost

 

5 to 15 cents per SMS
(usually sent to thousands of recipients)
Monthly costs range from $9 to $1,000 a month
Av. response rate

 

90 seconds 90 minutes
SPAM Received

 

Less than three percent Nearly 85 percent is considered spam
Message length 160 characters As long as you need
ROI

 

$5 for every $1 spent $40 for every $1 spent
Frequency

 

There are currently fewer companies running SMS marketing campaigns Email marketing has been around for decades and the market is saturated

 

 

Help your business survive the recession with these 5 expert strategies!

If you’ve watched any tv news broadcast lately, it’s no secret that the economic future is clouded by uncertainties, with the COVID-19 epidemic still persisting, the ongoing crisis in Ukraine putting additional pressure on soaring interest rates, and Chinese lockdowns potentially affecting supply lines.

Economists predict that the United States will enter a recession by late next year or early 2024 as inflation ripples through the global economy. With a recession on the horizon, businesses and industry leaders are in uncharted territory.

Is digital marketing a good approach during an economic downturn?

To put it simply, Yes!

People will continue to look for products and services online even if overall demand has reduced, therefore your digital marketing efforts should not be shut down during a recession.

In fact, this is likely the most useful marketing expenditure you can make during an economic slump since it allows you to reach people who are actively looking for what you have to offer or who most closely match your target audience.

Experts agree that a strong internet marketing strategy is the smartest long-term investment you can make to safeguard your company during a downturn in the economy. Recession-proof business marketing methods are more important today than ever.

It's Time to Prepare Your Business for a Recession

If there is one thing that separates recession-proof businesses from the competition, it's the fact that they take action sooner, and start business planning for a recession before their competitors do.

Have you started making plans for a recession in your business? Follow these digital marketing tips to better prepare your business for a recession and safeguard your brand:

1. Improve Your Online Presence

Building and maintaining a strong online presence regardless of the economy is one of the foundations of recession-proof companies. Maintaining a strong digital presence enables you to capture a larger portion of the market if and when a recession occurs.

To stay top of mind with your target audience, invest in market research, create a mobile-friendly website, hire a expert to help you with your search engine optimization (SEO) and pay-per-click (PPC) marketing.

With a recession on the horizon, establishing a stronger digital presence is even more important in staying on potential clients' radars online.

2. Do not reduce your marketing budget

During a recession, business owners must decide whether to reduce their marketing budget, suspend marketing efforts, or double down on their digital marketing campaigns.

It may seem sensible to some to suspend marketing during a recession. Spending a lot of money on digital marketing may seem counterproductive when revenues are down. Consider what took place in 2020. Spending on digital marketing campaigns fell about the same time that 255 million full-time jobs were lost globally. Due to lower ad earnings during the COVID-19 epidemic, even Google had to cut its marketing budget by half.

So, why should you keep working on your digital marketing strategy and investing in digital marketing services?

Businesses that continue to market throughout a recession are more likely to survive, according to studies. During an economic downturn, many businesses reduce their advertising budget. This is a opportunity to show that your business is stable even when things are hard. So continue your digital marketing campaign efforts or, at the absolute least, dial them back slightly, but never fully suspend them.

To keep business flowing, have a digital marketing strategy in place. If you decide to discontinue your marketing efforts just know that it will be that much easier for your competitors to take a bigger slice of your customer pie.

3. It's Time to Optimize Your Website… Now!

Check out your website. Is it generating leads for your company 24 hours a day, or is there room for improvement? If you're not sure which parts of your website should be improved or updated, consult with a reputable digital agency – it's what they do!

Agencies normally will employ In-house conversion rate optimization (CRO) specialists who perform in-depth website audits to evaluate your website's interactions and discover areas you need to optimize to meet your goals.

Conversion rate optimization helps you make the most of your traffic by examining the data from your website to improve the consumer experience.

You will learn what pages are visited the most, where visitors spend the most time, which pages receive the least engagement, cart abandonment, and overall customer behavior.

Gather this info to create a data-driven strategy. That way, you'll know that any changes you make to your website are more likely to affect your bottom line.

4. Maintain Your Social Media Efforts

During an economic downturn, many people prefer to stay at home in order to spend less and save more. This also implies that potential customers spend more time on their mobile devices. This is an ideal time to use social media marketing to attract new consumers and nurture leads via your sales funnel.

Continuing your social media marketing during this time also ensures that your audience is aware that your business is still present and active online. Whether you reduce the number of posts sent per week or your advertising budget, a little can still go a long way to attracting new/existing customers.

5. Create Compelling Video Content

Certain web marketing approaches pay off tenfold due to their cost-effective, creative approach to audience involvement. Video marketing is one such example.

Video marketing is still one of the most engaging ways to connect with your target audience and deliver valuable information. It fosters trust and confidence in ways that text alone simply cannot.

Consider creating video content that is evergreen (always relative) and will continue to be useful content for years to come. This ensures that your dollar goes further as opposed to spending more on campaign-specific content.”

Share videos on your social media platforms. Request that customers create video testimonials for you to use on your website. Allow followers to communicate with your brand and ask questions in real time by live-streaming on Facebook, Instagram, or YouTube.

During a difficult time, Americans are more inclined to spend time online keeping up with friends and current events. Video marketing is a wonderful way to engage with your target audience where they spend the majority of their time and grow your customer base.

When done correctly, video marketing can be one of the most effective digital marketing ideas for maintaining revenue during a slump.

Optimize Your Marketing Budget and Choose Your Priorities Wisely

Digital marketing is not like a light switch.  You can't just turn it on or off, it is a continuous process.

Even though the economy is struggling right now, you owe it to your team, organization, customers, and community to figure out how to source, sell, and optimize your business to get through these uncertain times.

As a result, it is crucial that you begin improving your digital presence and investing in new digital marketing methods that produce positive long-term benefits for your business.

 

Why is page speed so significant?

When it comes to the performance of your website, page speed is vital.

Your web pages must load quickly and seamlessly in order to lower your bounce rate and boost visitor engagement.

In this article, we'll explain why it's important, and show you how to measure it.

According to Google research, every second counts when it comes to page loading speed. Increasing loading times from one to three seconds increases the likelihood of a bounce (the visitor leaving immediately) by 32%.

A shocking 90% of visitors will leave a site if it takes longer than five seconds to load.

The speed of a website has a significant impact on user experience, SEO, and conversion rates. Improving website performance is critical for attracting visitors and keeping them engaged. Here are some steps that you can take with your developer to make your website load faster:

Run a website performance test

Website speed tests determine how well a website performs. Testing a website on a regular basis can help developers identify some or all of the areas that are slowing down website performance, as well as areas for improvement.

There are numerous high-quality site speed tests for measuring performance, many of which are free, such as Pingdom.com.

Google also provides PageSpeed” Insights for more in-depth performance testing while Google Chrome “DevTools” can also assist developers in evaluating the performance of their website.

Use a Content Delivery Network (CDN) (content delivery network)

CDNs increase website speed by caching content in multiple locations around the world. CDN caching servers are usually closer to end users than the host, or origin server. Requests for content are routed to a CDN server rather than the hosting server, which may be thousands of miles away and spread across multiple autonomous networks from the user. Using a CDN can significantly reduce page load times.

Image Optimization

Images account for a large portion of Internet traffic, and they frequently take the longest to load on a website because image files are larger in size than HTML and CSS files. Image optimization, fortunately, can reduce image load time. Image optimization typically entails lowering the resolution, compressing the files, and shrinking their dimensions, and many image optimizers and image compressors are freely available online.

Lower the number of HTTP requests, if you can.

Most webpages will necessitate multiple HTTP requests from browsers for various assets on the page, such as images, scripts, and CSS files. Indeed, many webpages will necessitate dozens of these requests. Each request necessitates a round trip to and from the server hosting the resource, which can increase the overall load time of a webpage. Furthermore, because the resources are loaded from multiple providers, a problem with one of the hosts may impact the webpage's ability to load quickly, or at all.

Because of these potential issues, the total number of assets that must be loaded by each page should be kept to a minimum. A speed test should also help identify which HTTP requests are taking the longest. For example, if images are slowing down a page's load time, developers can look for a faster image hosting solution (such as a CDN).

Cache your website's pages.

Caching is one of the most effective methods for speeding up your website. Caching saves copies of your website's files, reducing the amount of work required by the server to generate and serve a web page to a visitor's browser.

By requiring the server to use fewer resources to load a page, caching your web pages can help reduce Time to First Byte (TTFB).

There are several methods for caching your web pages. This can be done at the server level, which means your host will handle it for you.

Another option is to use a caching plugin, such as W3 Total Cache, a free WordPress plugin that makes caching web pages simple. After you've installed and activated it, go to General Settings > Page Cache and check the Enable box.

Reduce the use of external scripts.

Any scripted webpage elements loaded from elsewhere, such as external commenting systems, CTA buttons, or lead-generation popups, must be loaded each time a page is loaded. Depending on the size of the script, this can cause a webpage to slow down or not load all at once (this is known as ‘content jumping' or ‘layout shifting,' and it can be especially aggravating for mobile users).

Avoid using redirects at times if possible.

A redirect occurs when visitors to one website are forwarded to another. Redirects increase page load time by a few fractions of a second, or even whole seconds in some cases. Every second counts when developing a website that is optimized for performance. Redirects are sometimes unavoidable, but they should be avoided if possible.

Remember that every second your website takes to load increases the likelihood that your visitors will leave. If your website is running slow, how long can you keep running your business while losing leads?  Is it time to speed things up?

 

The Business Offer Relationship

Most business owners don't use offers to incentivize customers. That's why most businesses miss out on new customers. Think about it this way. Let's say there are two restaurants side by side. The first restaurant has a mostly empty parking lot, you've never heard of it and you aren't 100% sure what they serve. The second restaurant has a ful parking lot, you've heard people talk about how great their food is, and you just received a free appetizer coupon on your phone. Which one are you likely to choose? The second one of course. Since you don't know the first restaurant at all, it takes a BIG effort on the part of management to get new people to show up. This is true in every business. Whether you run a restaurant or sell insurance. Your flow of business will be directly determined by how well you are known and the offers you use to attract business.

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