Category: Online Marketing

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Cortex Marketing: Why You Should Use Us For Your Business

Cortex Marketing Effective Marketing StrategiesIn today’s fast-paced digital world, the importance of effective marketing cannot be overstated. Businesses are vying for attention in an increasingly crowded marketplace, and the key to standing out lies in a well-crafted marketing strategy. While it may be tempting to handle marketing in-house, there are compelling reasons why partnering with a professional marketer, such as Cortex Marketing, can be a game-changer for your business.

1. Expertise and Experience

Cortex Marketing brings a wealth of expertise and experience to the table. Our team is well-versed in the latest marketing trends, tools, and techniques, and we understand how to apply these to different industries and audiences. This level of knowledge is hard to match without years of dedicated study and hands-on experience. After finishing this post, you can read more helpful tips and blogs here.

Why Social Media2. Strategic Planning

Marketing isn’t just about creating catchy ads or posting on social media. It’s about developing a comprehensive strategy that aligns with your business goals. Cortex Marketing excels at strategic planning, ensuring that every marketing effort is part of a cohesive plan, designed to achieve measurable results.

3. Cost-Effectiveness 

Hiring a professional marketer might seem like an added expense, but it can be a cost-effective move. Cortex Marketing knows how to allocate your marketing budget efficiently, avoiding costly mistakes and maximizing ROI. We also have access to tools and resources that would be expensive for an individual business to purchase on its own.

4. Time Savings with Cortex Marketing

As a business owner, your time is one of your most valuable assets. Managing marketing efforts can be incredibly time-consuming, taking you away from other critical aspects of your business. By outsourcing marketing to Cortex Marketing, you free up time to focus on what you do best—running your business.

Cortex Marketing Security and Tech Tools5. Access to Advanced Tools and Technologies

The marketing landscape is constantly evolving, with new tools and technologies emerging all the time. Cortex Marketing stays up-to-date with these changes and knows how to leverage advanced tools for data analysis, automation, and campaign optimization. This ensures that your marketing efforts are not only current but also highly effective.

6. Creative Excellence

Creativity is a cornerstone of successful marketing. Cortex Marketing has the creative skills to develop compelling campaigns that capture attention and engage your audience. Whether it’s through eye-catching graphics, persuasive copy, or innovative campaign ideas, our team can elevate your brand’s creative output.

7. Objective Perspective

Sometimes, being too close to your business can cloud your judgment. Cortex Marketing brings an objective perspective, helping you see your brand from the viewpoint of your target audience. This fresh outlook can be invaluable in identifying new opportunities and refining your messaging.

Cortex Marketing Measurable Results8. Measurable Results

Cortex Marketing focuses on delivering measurable results. We use key performance indicators (KPIs) to track the success of marketing campaigns and make data-driven decisions. This approach ensures that you can see a clear return on your marketing investment and continuously improve your strategy based on what works.

9. Cortex Marketing Scalability

As your business grows, so do your marketing needs. Cortex Marketing can scale our efforts to match your growth, ensuring that your marketing strategy evolves in line with your business objectives. This scalability is crucial for maintaining momentum and capitalizing on new opportunities.

10. Competitive Advantage

In a competitive marketplace, having Cortex Marketing on your side can give you a significant edge. We know how to position your brand, differentiate it from competitors, and create a strong market presence. This competitive advantage can be the difference between just surviving and truly thriving in your industry.

Conclusion

Investing in a professional marketer is not just a smart move—it’s essential for businesses that want to succeed in today’s dynamic market. The expertise, strategic insight, and creative flair that Cortex Marketing brings can transform your marketing efforts and drive significant growth for your business. If you’re ready to take your marketing to the next level, it’s time to consider partnering with Cortex Marketing. Contact us today and let’s achieve your business goals together.

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Email Marketing: Top 9 Steps To Successful Campaigns

These email marketing tips are presented by our partners at Hubspot. The original article was written by Lindsay Kolowich Cox 

Meredith Hill Email Marketing1. Understand who you’re emailing.

Have you ever heard the saying from Meredith Hill, “When you speak to everyone, you speak to no one“? What Hill is getting at here is that if you’re watering down your message to apply to your entire audience, you’re leaving an opportunity on the table — the opportunity for creating high-value, specific, relevant content that speaks directly to the recipient.

With this in mind, the key to a great email marketing campaign is identifying your audience and using email segmentation to ensure you’re delivering to the right people at the right time. If you can accomplish this and build it into your strategy, you can get more creative and specific with your messaging.

2. Create a goal for the Email Marketing campaign.

Low-Risk and High-Reward of Email MarketingEven with email marketing being a relatively low-risk and high-reward activity, you don’t want to send emails for emails’ sake. In other words, you won’t be successful simply because you marked it from your to-do list.

Instead, you should be intentional about what you want to get from your emails because that will help you target the right audience and build the right emails. For example, if you know you want to nurture leads from MQL to SQL, you can create a segment of MQLs and create content that is educational and persuasive enough to move them closer to a buying decision.

3. Outline the email (or emails) that will be included in the campaign.

Once you know who you’re emailing and why, it’s time to strategize how to move them from A (where they are) to B (where you want them to be, the goal of the campaign).

A confused Mind - Email MarketingKeep in mind that you can’t expect a single email to do everything. Your email campaign can be made up of multiple emails, so consider taking your email recipients on a journey with each email serving a single purpose. This will increase the odds of each email being successful in its role toward reaching your goal.  After all, “A confused mind says no.”

For example, if you’re doing a lead nurturing campaign, you might have a few educational emails to take them from the awareness stage to the consideration stage before providing more conversion-focused content.

The longer the buying process and sales cycle, the more emails you’ll need.

4. Spend time on the subject lines.

No one gets to the body content of your email unless they first click the subject line. That’s why it’s so important to consider your subject lines carefully: They’re like gatekeepers for the rest of your information.

Check out our article on the best tips for writing email subject lines.

5. Write copy that’s suited for them.

Once you know the purpose of each email you’re sending and you have the subject lines, you can write the copy that will engage your list. Consider where your audience is in their buying journey and provide the type of content that they’ll find useful. For example, it doesn’t make sense to promote products if you’re emailing a segment of subscribers who are largely in the awareness stage of the buying journey.

6. Use a comprehensive email builder.

Once you’ve written the copy for your emails, you’ll want to build them out in the email software client you’re intending to use.

Constant Contact Email MarketingThere are several options depending on your needs, including Constant Contact of which you can start for FREE today, with no credit card required. Within this FREE-TRIAL offer, if you click on this link, you will also get a call from Constant Contact’s awesome customer service team and get a 30% discount for the first 90-days/3-months.

With a comprehensive email builder, you can create, optimize, and personalize your own email campaigns without needing any technical or graphic design experience.

7. Email Marketing should always include personalization elements and excellent imagery.

Marketing emails need to be personalized to the reader and filled with interesting graphics.

Few people want to read emails that are addressed “Dear Sir/Madam” — as opposed to their first or last name — and even fewer people want to read an email that simply gives them a wall of text. Visuals help your recipients quickly understand the point of the email.

8. Email Marketing campaigns should Include calls-to-action where appropriate.

Remember, if you’re taking-up your audience’s time — and inbox space — with another email, your message must have a point to it. Consider what you want your email recipients to take away from the email.

In most cases, you’ll want to add a call-to-action (CTA) for them to take further action.

Your goal behind the CTA may vary depending on the audience’s buyer’s journey stage and what you want to accomplish with your email campaign. For example, you may simply want to engage them further with another piece of content, or you might want to get them to make a purchase.

Regardless of what it is, you should follow CTA best practices such as making the ask with clear language and emphasizing it with contrasting design elements.

9. Test your emails and make sure they work on all devices.

Once your emails are built out, check them over before hitting the send button. Effective email marketing campaigns are designed for all devices on which users can read their emails — desktop, tablet, and mobile. Consider sending them as a test to a colleague and checking them across multiple devices and email clients.

Want a quick refresher on how to master marketing email? Check out this helpful video:

 

Now that you know how to responsibly wield email marketing, grab some inspiration on other topics for your marketing.

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Your Target Audience May Not Be Aligned With Your Marketing

Ahhh, the ol’ “Who’s your target audience? question — I used to hate this question early on in my career, but I have come to realize that that question is part of a set of the most essential questions in marketing; it is, at the end of the day, all about knowing your audience.

Do You Ever Wish You Could Learn To Market Like A Pro?

Here’s a little secret to good marketing, all marketing secrets are subtle. The simple act of knowing & understanding your target audience is one of those subtleties and I’ll give you an example: When writing, if you list a feature, you need to also list the benefit; even if it seems obvious to you.

How To Identify Your Target AudienceSo, How Do You Discover Your Target Audience?

Rather than targeting everyone, you should focus on the ideal customer for your business. Many small business owners make the mistake of thinking that their product or service is right for everyone.

For example, targeting Facebook Ads to “all” (genders, ages, etc.) when your product is clearly for women over forty doesn’t make much sense. Not only is advertising to everyone rarely valid, but it can actually hurt your marketing efforts by annoying people and wasting your advertising budget unnecessarily.

Follow these steps when identifying your target audience:

Know Your Target Audience Demographics1) Determine your customer’s demographics. Unless you’re selling oxygen, not everyone needs your product or service. So who does? Men or women? Old or young? Conservative or liberal? What is their economic bracket, education level, and interests? Once you’ve narrowed the criteria down, it’s a lot easier to focus your marketing strategy on those who are most likely to need what you are offering.

Discover Your Target Audience & Ideal Customer's Needs2) Determine your customer’s needs. Now that you have a clear idea about the type of person you’ll be targeting to, you’ll have to identify their specific needs in the context of what your business is offering. In other words, what is the problem they are having that your product or service is the solution to? By putting yourself in their shoes and asking the questions they will have, you’ll be able to address their concerns in your marketing message before they occur.

Does Your Target Audience Know You?3) Determine how your customer will learn about you. We all have friends who prefer texting to calling, so we know that not everyone is receptive to the same modes of communication. Is your ideal customer older? Then you may want to run print ads. If they’re Millennials who have never even read a newspaper, then you may want to run Twitter ads. Is your audience local or global? Are they a trendy bunch or a niche crowd? The best way to reach your target audience is via the channels from which they get their information already.

Are You Mobile Ready For Your Target Audience?4) Assume your customers are mobile. These days more and more people are connecting with the world through their mobile devices, whether it’s to read news, shop or communicate. In fact, tech analyst Mary Meeker found that smartphones are outdistancing all other devices, especially the desktop or laptop computer, for Internet use. Of the 2.8 billion Internet users worldwide, 2.1 billion are mobile, a 23 percent increase from last year. So however you reach your target audience, make sure you include mobile advertising.

So in my own research — knowing that many of you are marketers and business owners, I came across this “Blogging Statistics and Trends in 2020” list which contains some nuggets that all marketers and online property owners should be up to speed on.

(This list is from a great Blog Post by Codeless)

  1. The average blog post length is 1,050 words (Source: Orbit Media)
  2. The average word count of content that ranks at the top of Google’s search engine results is between 1,140-1285 words (Source: SearchMetrics)
  3. On average, only 18% of companies’ blog posts are over 750 words (Source: Curata)
  4. Longer, in-depth blog posts generate 9x more success in lead generation than short ones (Source: Curata)
  5. Each business blogging post takes on average 3 hours 16 minutes per piece to complete (Source: OrbitMedia)
  6. The median average time spent reading an article is 37 seconds (Source: NewsCred)
  7. Marketers who prioritize business blogging efforts are 13x more likely to see positive ROI (Source: HubSpot)
  8. Companies that publish 16+ blog posts per month to their business blog get nearly 3.5x more organic traffic than those that publish 0-4 monthly (Source: HubSpot)
  9. Companies that publish 16+ blog posts per month generated 4.5x more leads than companies publishing 0-4 monthly. (Source: HubSpot)
  10. People will tend to read blogs with titles between 6-13 words. These blogs get the most consistent amount of traffic and hits (Source: HubSpot)
  11. On average, companies with blogs produce 67% more leads per month than those without (Source: TheContentPanel)
  12. 43% of readers skim blog posts (Source: HubSpot)
  13. 36% of people prefer list-based headlines (Source: ConversionXL)
  14. Odd-numbered listicle headlines outperform even ones by 20% (Source: CMI)
  15. Including a colon or hyphen in your title can result in a 9% improvement (Source: CMI)
  16. The “How-To” headline is a close cousin to the listicle, which is the third most popular headline preference at around 17% (Source: ConversionXL)
  17. 60% of consumers feel engaged/positive with a brand or business after reading custom content on their blog (Source: ContentPlus)
  18. Blogging is responsible for 434% more indexed pages and 97% more indexed inbound links (Source: DemandMetric)
  19. 47% of B2B buyers read 3-5 blog posts or content pieces prior to talking with a salesperson (Source: DemandGenReport)
  20. 55% of bloggers report checking analytics and social statistics very often (Source: OrbitMedia)
  21. The top 3 blogging success metrics today are page views, shares/likes, and time spent on page (Source: Curata)
  22. 1 in 10 blog posts are “compounding”, meaning that organic search steadily increases their traffic over time and improve lead generation (Source: HubSpot)
  23. 1 compounding blog post generates as much traffic as 6 regular posts combined (Source: HubSpot)
  24. Compounding blog posts generate 38% of all blog traffic (Source: HubSpot)
  25. 29% of leading marketing professionals reuse and repurpose blog content for their business (Source: Curata)
  26. 64% of B2B marketers outsource blog copywriting (Source: TopRank)
  27. Top content marketing leaders (B2C & B2B) outsource 24% of their blog post writing as part of their inbound marketing strategy (Source: Curata)
  28. 25% of marketers don’t outsource any content marketing creation (Source: MarketingBuddy)
  29. Writing content is the most commonly outsourced content marketing activity (Source: MarketingBuddy)
  30. 57% of business bloggers outsourced blog posts from contributed or guest blogging posts (Source: Curata)
  31. 81% of marketers plan to increase the use of original written content (or a guest post) for blog posts (Source: Social Media Examiner)
  32. 52% of bloggers do not use a formal editor (Source: OrbitMedia)
  33. 69% of companies use an editorial calendar for blog posts (Source: Curata)
  34. 69% of marketers say they plan to increase their blogging frequency in 2016-17 (Source: Social Media Examiner)
  35. 60% of all marketers believe blog creation to be their top inbound marketing strategy for lead generation (Source: State of Inbound)
  36. 59% of B2B marketers consider blogs the most valuable channel to increase their audience (Source: DemandMetric)
  37. 76% of B2B marketers blog often, and 73% publish case studies often (Source: Content Marketing Institute)
  38. 82% of marketers who blog consistently see positive ROI from inbound links and increased rankings in search engines (Source: State of Inbound)
  39. 82% of marketers curate blog content (Source: IMN)
  40. 16% of marketers curate content daily, 48% curate at least once a week (Source: Curata)
  41. Over 50% of marketers that curate content say it has increased brand visibility, thought leadership, SEO and organic traffic (Source: Curata)
  42. 41% of marketers that curate content say it has increased the quality of their lead generation (Source: Curata)
  43. Headline changes have the power to provide a 10% increase in clicks from internet users (Source: MarketingExperiments)
  44. Editing down your headline or title to eight words can result in a 21% CTR increase (Source: CMI)
  45. Negative messaging can result in a 63% click-through rate lift over more positive ones (Source: Outbrain)
  46. 44% of marketers say producing quality blog content is their biggest challenge (Source: Inc)
  47. Nearly 60% of marketers reuse blog content 2-5 times (Source: OzContent)
  48. 24.5% of blogger report getting “strong results” from their blogs (Source: OrbitMedia

I’d Love To Hear Your Feedback On How Your Target Audience Was Discovered!!

Let’s set up a short chat about how you used this info to discover your target and drive your message to your target audience.

 

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Online Marketing — Understanding The Fundimentals

What if there were a way to make sense of online marketing? Here’s the thing, it’s not just about the tools available to you. You also need to understand the fundamentals of marketing so you can get the most out of those tools. It’s certainly not easy when you’re a business owner by trade and a marketer by necessity.

Keep This In Mind About Online Marketing

If you were asked where most of your business comes from today, what would you say? Many small businesses tell me their best successes are “word of mouth.” situations. When done correctly, online marketing provides more opportunities to extend the word of mouth… and we all know how important that next sale is to your business.

Online Marketing On Keyboard KeyAs you know, business is built on relationships and ultimately sales. And as a marketer, it should be your goal to establish a rapport and drive repeat business through what I call “brand loyalty”. Online marketing further allows you to strengthen those existing relationships with current customers, and more easily build new ones with new customers.

If you are an experienced business owner or just considering getting started, you may already be overwhelmed by too many tools, never-ending expert advice, and the many marketing myths presented as fact. If you’re doing online marketing, you may be frustrated to find that it’s not as easy as many people claim it to be.

You Should First Know, You’re Not Alone.

If you’re like many clients, I know you’re busy trying to run and grow your business. From purchasing to merchandising to managing and more, you’re wearing many hats and don’t have the luxury of time to figure out how to navigate the cluttered and noisy world of online marketing.

I’ve mentioned that word of mouth now happens online. People are talking up their favourite businesses directly on social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram; they are consuming and sharing content they find useful or entertaining from those businesses; they are asking for connections specifically for recommendations and your business has an opportunity to be part of more of these conversations.

Online Marketing - TOMASo, How Do You Do That?

The more you can do to keep your business top of mind and make it easy for others to talk about you, the more you increase the chances of people recommending or seeking you out when they need what you offer. Beyond being part of the conversation, you must understand what people may find when they go looking for your business specifically by name, or a product/service that your business offers.

And, of course, be aware that if they don’t find your business when they go looking online, it begs the question, “Does your business even exist?”

It’s no secret that people are turning to search engines like Google to get more information about the businesses they’re investigating. Let’s take a look at some of the things that may show up on a search engine results page — or SERP — when someone searches for a business by name. If you are doing it right, people fund you via paid ads and organic (non-paid) search results, Google My Business listing, social media accounts, reviews, and info from other sites, just to name a few.

Definitions

  • Organic Listings: Organic listings are natural listings of web pages that Google has crawled and deemed valuable for the specific search term. These listings do not require payment of any kind to show up on the search engine results page (a.k.a. SERP). Images Along with the listings, images appear in an “image pack” — several images in a horizontal row. Clicking on the images will take a searcher to Google Images search on that topic.

  • Online Marketing SERP Four Areas
    As you can see, there are four different sections in this SERP.
  • Ads: This one is pretty straight forward. Ads (or Paid Ads) are paid listings on the search engine results page. Businesses will pay to showcase their products for this specific search topic, and most of the time, they only pay if someone clicks on the ad (known a PPC advertising).
  • Google My Business: Google My Business is a free tool from Google where a business can create a profile and show up better on local searches. An example of how this specifically benefits you is; Imagine you are leaving for vacation the next day, and you realize you don’t have a good hat for travelling. You don’t have time to order one online, so you jump on your computer or mobile device and search “hat shops near me.” An example of what will come up is all the hat shops that have an online presence listing “hat” “shops” in your geographic area. Google in an attempt to deliver better results,  bases your search on your geo-location, as such, your actual results will differ depending on where you are. Let’s talk more about Google My Business.

So, What Does This Mean For You?

Here’s the reality: If you’re not seen online, prospects can’t find you. Whether people search for your business by name or something related to your business, your customers and prospects should be able to find you.

You’ll want to make sure your business can be found, the information is accurate, and that you’re answering the questions your potential customers may have. As people visit your website and click through from various search results they’re starting to form opinions about your business.

Ultimately, they’re asking themselves, “Is this the right business for me?” If your business is present, engaging & interacting, and providing useful resources, you’ll increase the chances of people finding your business and choosing you.

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