Cortex Marketing

June 14, 2017January 13, 2018

How To Increase Your Online Presence

Are you ready to get serious about your online presence?

Your Online Presence in Your Personal and Business Branding

In today’s online world, it is crucial to pay attention to your online presence and the many ways in which ‘a potential customer’ can discover more about you or your business.

As an example, if you are looking for a job, you need to be aware of your digital footprint — the information connected with your name online. This is two-fold however as if you are a business, you definitely want to come up in the SERP (search engine result pages) when someone needs your product or service.

Forbes Magazine says: “For most customers in the 21st Century, their first introduction to a business is by discovering the business online. That’s why each and every business needs to have a strong online presence.” ~ Full Article at Forbes.com

And while your personal and business presence may seem like distant cousins, they are more like brother and sister. Each has its own set of pros and cons, and you should examine — if not leverage — each of those.

Some of them are:

The topic(s) of your content
Your overriding branding and character of that brand
Your message frequency
Your public-facing follow through in online message boards/forums/help centres
The quality of your publically presented messages and images
… and more… (contact me to discuss further)

So how are you approaching your own online presence? Let’s dive a bit deeper…

Website Optimization, SEO, and Your Online Presence

Let’s face it, none of us really know for certain what are the algorithms of Google, Bing or other search engines. Google — the owner of the 2 biggest search engines: Google.com and YouTube.com — keeps a tight lid on the actual formula, but they do give hints as to what they are looking to achieve regarding their users’ experience.

According to MOZ: “A webpage doesn’t always look the same to you and me as it looks to a search engine.” ~ Full Article at Moz.com

That all said, optimizing your site for its message, its focus keyword & content friendliness, and its code, is a synergy that just cannot be ignored these days.

If you use a WordPress site (like I do), I recommend the Yoast plugin. According to Wiki: “Yoast is currently considered the most comprehensive search engine optimization software available for WordPress users, with its developers responsible for over 10% of WordPress releases.”

FYI – WordPress is reportedly the most popular website management or blogging system in use on the Web, supporting more than 60 million websites — that means that about 6million WordPress sites use Yoast.

Being Visible Online

Being visible and top-of-mind is a science all on its own. The online world is full of opportunities for promoting your business. If you desire to grow your client base, then being found, being visible, and connecting with prospects and clients online, is going to be very important for you.

To ensure you will be visible online, you will need to address the following elements:

Your Relevant Content: This goes for both Social Media and your website. Your website content should contain the words and phrases that clients would use to search for your type of business. Now no ‘keyword spamming’; the recommended keyword density is 2.5%.

The Quantity of Your Content: The more written content you have on your website the more there is for Google to find, rank and return in their results. A very effective way to add regular new content to your website is by publishing a blog.

Good Coding Practices and Meta-Tags: On the technical side, the coding that sits behind your website pages should include relevant page titles, descriptions and keyword tags.

Links: Quality links to and from your website are important to search engines because they can indicate relevance and popularity.

Your Social Media Online Presence

Ah, Social Media, It is kind of hard to even think about being online without it anymore.

However, for your business, Social Media is an important part of your online presence. It improves your chances of generating additional connections and generating customer loyalty, allowing customers — and potential customers — the ability to easily engage beyond the sale.

June 13, 2017January 13, 2018

Which is Better? Online vs. Print Advertising

Advert Spending By Media Type — Source: OnlineMarketingTrends.com — As Projected for 2015 & 2016

“So, which is better, online or traditional advertising?”

A client recently asked me just that question. The answer, however, is not as straightforward as you might think. So in a twist of tradition, here is the ‘meat’ of my answer: “Advertising success depends on two factors:

Who is the target?
and
What are your goals?”

Let’s break down these two components…

Who is the advertising target?

Often overlooked, ‘knowing your target’ is a crucial piece of an effective sale conversion strategy.

“Everyone should want to buy my [widget/service]!”, a client told me once; and while potentially true, research shows that timing & relevance are a much bigger factor in making a buying decision. Crucial pieces of effective sale conversion strategy rely on saying the right message at the right time. As such, knowing your target and their buying cycles tends to lead to a significant lift in success when it comes to any advertising.

Demographics are a huge aspect of knowing your target

Today’s ability to track age, gender, location, how they saw your advert, how long they stayed, did they share it, etc., are at the core of the advantage of digital advertising. In fact, “Direct Response Marketing” techniques are heavily invested shopper data in an effort to ‘personalize’ the shopping experience for each individual.

What are your advertising goals?

Today’s goals seem different, but they’re not. In fact, the goals have not changed until the last 20 years. It is still all about the conversion of the audience or “target” — are you seeing the tie into the first advertising component above?

So, what did traditional advertising discover that digital ads still need to work on?

In short, ‘message effectiveness’. Tradition advertisers recognize that the timing at which their ads display — and the core of the offer — must be in alignment with the awareness level of the target. While simple messages like “free trial” and “try it now” are synonymous with today’s advertising, traditional adverts, traditional methodologies tend to focus on an awareness level that works off the brand awareness level — and consequentially, the true reason people buy — how the experience made them feel.

Today’s conclusion to this deep advertising question

I could probably write 10 more blogs on this subject and only scratch the surface, but the bottom line is, both types have their place. A wise marketing mentor taught me a lesson that I will never forget: “Never put all your eggs in one basket!”.

June 9, 2017January 13, 2018

Message From The President — June 2017

This Month’s Topic: “What is the #1 plan to create content?”

President’s Message for June 2017

I cannot remember ever being a fan of doing anything that does not have a clearly defined methodology and plan — it is just my nature.

It is my belief that without a plan, not only will your execution be scattered, so will your results.

This is not to say that I was not horrifyingly bad at writing content, I just did not understand how important the nuances of the plan are.

DON’T GET STUCK IN ONE MODE
The plan to do something — anything — is a double-edged sword. You ultimately get driven by your successes and pushed down by your failures. This psychosis is a uniquely human paradigm as if an animal in nature hesitates or worries too much that its methodology is wrong, it goes hungry — at its core, survival is a matter of trial and error.

That said, the other side of that sword is, without the patience & due-diligence needed to create your overall plan, rushing through something without a plan can often be [its] undoing.

OH YEAH, THERE IS A PLAN — HAVE PATIENCE
So why am I talking about animals, isn’t this blog post supposed to be about having a content plan? It is, however, I propose that the more we can be in tune with the natural instincts contained within our human DNA, the better we can define and identify the methodologies that work best for each individual.

As such, it is well known that successful people make lists and within the bigger picture — and truth of the matter — is these lists are mini-plans.

Planning works in many ways, accurately presented in this quote from time-management-guide.com:

“Planning is one of the most important project management and time management techniques. Planning is preparing a sequence of action steps to achieve some specific goal. If you do it effectively, you can reduce much the necessary time and effort of achieving the goal. A plan is like a map.”

Okay, that’s nice, but what is the #1 way to create content?

Be the resource your customers really need!

8 Tips to help plan and make your copy easy to read:

Use short paragraphs – four sentences max;
Use short sentences – twelve words on average;
Skip unnecessary words;
Avoid professional jargon and use common/layman language;
Avoid the passive tense
Avoid needless repetition;
Address your web visitors directly. Use the word “you”;
Shorten your overall post-length — keep it 300 – 1000 words.

Here are a few links to get you started if you are stuck:

Get this month’s free download: “Content Marketing For Dummies” from Kudani.

PLEASE NOTE: In this book, take a look at the PICASSO content marketing framework created for use with KudaniCloud software. This share is not to sell you on KudaniCloud software. I do not use KudaniCloud software and this share is not an endorsement of KudaniCloud software.

June 6, 2017January 13, 2018

Words Matter — How A Single Word Makes All The Difference

You likely know that specific words matter. You click on a headline because a single word strikes you.

What you may not know is, you click a call-to-action link or a signup button solely because a word creates relevance & emotion.

So really, how much do words matter?

The research behind this power of words is incredibly deep. Researchers have found that the word you use to describe a car accident (“contacted” vs. “smashed”) paints the way eyewitnesses view the event. Another study found that simple stock names that are easier to pronounce lead to quicker gains post-IPO.

Perhaps my favorite study is one shared by Brian Clark of Copyblogger. Social psychologist Ellen Langer tested the power of a single word in an experiment where she asked to cut in line at a copy machine. She tried three different ways of asking:

“Excuse me, I have five pages. May I use the Xerox machine?” – 60% said OK

“Excuse me, I have five pages. May I use the Xerox machine because I’m in a rush?” – 94% said OK

“Excuse me, I have five pages. May I use the Xerox machine because I have to make some copies?” – 93% said OK

I don’t know about you, but I thought Langer’s third request was rather elementary. Yet it didn’t matter. The trigger word “because” was all she needed.

The takeaway: As single words matter, when you want people to take action, always give a reason using an influential word or phrase!

FREE DOWNLOAD: Get “The 12 Most Influential Words In The English Language” — put together to help you chose the right words for your marketing copy — proven and guaranteed to get you better results!

June 1, 2017January 13, 2018

You’re Not Crazy, Most Marketing Messages Suck!

Yes, there is a reason you are not getting the marketing results you want; but are you brave enough to say it is your messaging strategy?

Maybe it is a simple as you are using sales messages instead of marketing messages.

As you may know, developing an effective “sales and marketing messaging process” is not easy — and it’s not rocket science either. This is where Scientific and Conversion Marketing blend, getting better results within this message heavy world.

The basics are this: If at a minimum you ensure all conversations and decisions about your messaging are centered on customer insight (awareness), relevance, and benefits, you will successfully differentiate yourself in the eyes of your reader. This single approach is one of the crucial changes you can make in your messaging to improve results — and the great thing is, it doesn’t cost more money to do so!

Most people in business develop their brand focused on basic business concepts like their mission, their marketing message, and their business model; and do you know which part of that process causes the most grief, stress, and more than a few hours of lost sleep? It wasn’t understanding and communicating their mission, and it wasn’t choosing a business model. It was figuring out a marketing message and how to communicate what you do in a way that is clear, easy to understand, and in alignment with your mission and values.

Why Is Crafting a Succinct, Powerful Marketing Message So Difficult?

A marketing message is simply a tool to open the door to a deeper conversation with someone — a tool to spark interest in prospects who may be ideal clients — a short 1-2 sentence story about who you serve, the benefit you bring, and why it would be awesome to work with you or buy your product!

Why Timing Is Crucial

But I think too many people, especially solopreneurs and new entrepreneurs, don’t realize it’s just a tool. Instead, they think their marketing message has to be perfect right out of the gate, and that if they just “get it right”, it will magically win them tons of new clients.

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but it just does not work like that. So they stress out, second-guess, critique, change, rewrite, freak out, second-guess themselves, and rewrite it some more.

Unfortunately, many marketing messages from businesses are about their business, about what they do, about their promise regarding their [widget] is, all-the-while missing that timing is a crucial piece of the methodology of a converting message. Sales messages become effective much further down the funnel and so if you are delivering a sales message too early, your results will falter. Marketing messages should drive an emotional response through relevance and an attempt to cause a set of conversions no matter where the reader is on the awareness scale.

Now Don’t Forget to Take Action!

Knowledge is great, but not if you don’t take action!

So let me help you start by teaching you this simple process of creating the right marketing messages, at no cost to you.

Exclusive to this blog post:
Click here to schedule a 60-minute coaching session for FREE!

Cortex Marketing

Posts

Which is Better? Online vs. Print Advertising

“So, which is better, online or traditional advertising?”