Archive for the ‘Internet Marketing’ Category
Friday, May 13th, 2022
A prospective client contacted us recently wanting to produce a white paper to serve as a promotional tool. The white paper needed to include: a focus on the new national campaign theme, a focus on the new local campaign theme, a focus on the areas served, a focus on the organization’s new direction for the coming year, a focus on…OK, hopefully, you get the point.
If you focus on everything, you’re focused on nothing!
It’s tough to focus. Any organization has multiple objectives and messages that need to be conveyed and there can be a tendency to try to “do it all” in one message. The trouble with that, though, is (more…)
Tags: areas of focus, content pillars, effective advertising, effective marketing, finding focus, focus areas, marketing strategy
Posted in Content Marketing, Internet Marketing, Marketing and Branding, Marketing Communication, Strategic Communications, Strategy, Uncategorized | No Comments »
Monday, February 21st, 2022

17877227 – social media
These days it’s probably safe to say that most businesses have a presence on at least one social media channel. In fact, according to a 2021 Entrepreneur article, 97% of Fortune 500 companies rely on social media. The number is probably less for smaller companies, but it shouldn’t be. Social media can be a very cost effective way to raise awareness, generate leads, and build business.
There are a lot of channels out there, though, and not every channel is right for every business – or audience. Just because a channel is getting a lot of attention – take TikTok, for example – doesn’t mean that it makes sense for your business.
(more…)
Tags: facebook, Instagram, linkedin, Social Media, social media marketing, TikTok, twitter
Posted in Content Marketing, Marketing and Branding, Social Media | No Comments »
Friday, February 18th, 2022
Strategic Communications is an entirely remote company and has been since 2008, long before the pandemic emerged. Over those years we’ve been able to leverage a number of digital tools and apps to help us do our work more efficiently. We often learn about these tools through our clients. Each new client tends to bring along at least one new tool we haven’t used before. Some of our favorites: (more…)
Tags: Canva, digital apps, digital marketing tools, Grammarly, Hootsuite, Microsoft, productivity tools, QuickBooks, Sendible
Posted in Content Marketing, Publishing, Technology | No Comments »
Friday, February 11th, 2022

We hear a lot about influencers in today’s digital marketing environment, especially related to such channels as Instagram and YouTube. Influencers leveraging these sites include well-known names (in certain circles) like
MrBeast, Jake Paul and others who not only have massive followers but are making a massive amount of money from those who want to leverage those followers.
While most small businesses aren’t likely to either build or gain access to these top influencers, they do have the opportunity to leverage another powerful group– brand ambassadors.
(more…)
Tags: brand ambassadors, employees as brand ambassadors, inlfuencers, positive word-of-mouth, spreading word of mouth, WOM
Posted in Brand Management, Internet Marketing, Marketing and Branding | No Comments »
Tuesday, January 11th, 2022

The field of marketing is vastly different today than it was even three to five years ago. While the basic principles and concepts of effective marketing, from an academic standpoint, really haven’t changed much, what
has changed is the
ways marketers do their work and the kind of work they do.
(more…)
Tags: careers in marketing, communication skills, data analysis skills, high tech, job skills for today's marketers, marketing careers
Posted in Career Advice, Content Marketing, Internet Marketing, Marketing and Branding, Training | No Comments »
Tuesday, January 4th, 2022

We work frequently with clients to evaluate/audit and make recommendations for improvements to their websites and write website content. In addition, Linda serves as a digital marketing specialist with the
State of Wisconsin’s Business Intelligence Team and
Purdue University. In this role she reviews and makes recommendations to websites of small but growing companies.
Through this work, we tend to see some very common (and, fortunately, easy to fix) mistakes being made. Here we take a look at “5 Simple Website Mistakes That Many Businesses Make.”
(more…)
Tags: avoiding website mistakes, content marketing, creating websites, digital marketing, digital marketing best practices, website marketing, website mistakes
Posted in Content Marketing, Internet Marketing, Web Sites | No Comments »
Tuesday, December 7th, 2021
We’ve been managing our own, and client, LinkedIn profiles and company pages for several years now. I’ve always been a big LinkedIn fan and I’ve seen interest in using LinkedIn for business development grow significantly during the pandemic as opportunities to connect in person with clients and prospects has diminished, or disappeared in some cases. As we work with clients who are new to LinkedIn we tend to see a lot of the same issues that are hindering their ability to use this powerful business-to-business (B2B) social media channel most effectively. After working with a couple of new clients to help them develop and fine-tune their strategy, I thought I’d share some of the most common missteps I see and offer some advice for others who don’t feel they’re getting enough traction on LinkedIn (or other social channels—the same best practices apply there as well). (more…)
Tags: best practices in social media marketing, communicating on social media, LinkedIn best practices, LinkedIn marketing, marketing with social media
Posted in Business Development, Content Marketing, Internet Marketing, Marketing Communication, Sales, Social Media | No Comments »
Tuesday, November 16th, 2021

First there was AIDA, then the notion of a sales “funnel” emerged and the concept of a buyer’s journey that began at the top of the funnel (TOFU), moved to the middle of the funnel (MOFU) and ultimately ended with a sale at the bottom of the funnel (BOFU). But is this concept too simplistic—and too linear—to truly represent today’s buyer’s journey? Was this model ever relevant in a business-to-business environment? Are content marketers wasting their time attempting to create copy that focuses, discreetly, on TOFU, MOFU, BOFU?
(more…)
Tags: Advertising, AIDA, buyer's journey, Marketing, marketing strategy, sales funnel, sales strategy, top-of-funnel
Posted in Business Development, Client Relations, Internet Marketing, Marketing and Branding, Marketing Communication, Sales | No Comments »
Thursday, October 7th, 2021

Social media has become a very cost-effective way to connect with, and influence, various audiences including customers and potential customers. In fact, over the years, we have come to rely less on more traditional forms of marketing communications (e.g., print or broadcast advertising, direct mail, etc.) and more on digital channels of communication, like social media.
Tags: brand journalism, content marketing, Facebook marketing, internet marketing, LinkedIn marketing, marketing with content, news jacking, social media marketing, Twitter marketing, writing content
Posted in Internet Marketing, Social Media | No Comments »
Thursday, June 24th, 2021
I have been fortunate enough to practice marketing before and after the emergence of the internet, social media, and digital marketing. While the channels for communicating have changed and grown significantly, the basics of good marketing have remained the same. These new channels also often come with something that traditional marketing efforts usually lacked─analytics. Or, at least, lacked the sophistication that now exists to understand the nuances of the target audience’s response. (more…)
Tags: analyzing data, analyzing web data, data, Google Analytics, marketing strategy
Posted in Analytics, Internet Marketing | No Comments »