Bryt Communications

Much has been said about why social media sites remain as powerful marketing tools even today. These platforms are only getting more subscribers each day, it’s no longer surprising that 2 million businesses were said to use Facebook for advertising in 2018.

Because we think social media marketing is the cure-all for all our business woes, new marketers sometimes set unrealistic expectations for their campaigns. Here are a few of those misguided assumptions, as well as the real challenges you will face once you start marketing on social media.

You’ve probably seen countless articles listing down often-missed grammatical errors, but this is not one of them. Article writing is a lot more complex than having impeccable grammar, especially if you’re writing to market your business online.

To maximize our articles’ impact on our bottom line, we sometimes do things that might actually do more harm than good. We’ve enumerated these pitfalls, as well as a few suggestions to avoid errors and make your articles more effective as online marketing tools.

The golden age for ecommerce has truly arrived. In 2019, this booming industry will reach a record value of $3.45 trillion retail sales. Yet, ecommerce is still expected to dominate the retail market in the coming years, peaking at 95% in 2040.

What’s the secret behind the success of ecommerce?

Everything happens on the internet with ecommerce, so the most successful ventures have perfected the art of content marketing, among other online marketing strategies.Whether you have a business to business (B2B) or business to consumer (B2C) ecommerce store, you simply cannot afford not to have an effective content marketing campaign up and running.

One of the countless challenges that startups face is growing past the initial buzz they get in their first few months. The truth is it is common for many startups to struggle to expand their operations and customer base. If your startup is facing this issue, content marketing services may just be the solution you’re looking for.

It is no secret among marketers that digital marketing has been dubbed “the great equalizer,” allowing startups to compete with some of the biggest names in their respective industries. Expectedly, a large number of startups who have realized this potential are now engaged in content marketing.

The auto dealer industry has never been more cutthroat, which is why it is absolutely critical for local dealerships to set themselves apart from their competition. In the past, this used to be a relatively easy thing to achieve. Running several newspaper ads, handing out promo flyers, and driving other traditional marketing methods were surefire ways to get people to visit your dealership and buy a car. Today? Not so much.

In the past, great food and word of mouth were the perfect combination to get people to try a restaurant. Today, however, the two are no longer enough to bring hungry customers rushing to grab a table. After all, many people are spoiled for choice thanks to a growing number of fantastic restaurants in major cities. So what is the new winning combination for restaurateurs looking to get more customers through their doors?

Great Food + Great Online Reviews + Great Content Marketing

Since today’s consumers spend more and more time online, your efforts to reach out to them should be online as well. Content marketing goes beyond simply having a social media account. High-quality, informative content to post on your website and social media profiles is what allows your restaurant to stand out from the thousands of other restaurants in your city.

Many roofing contractors mistakenly assume that content marketing has got nothing to do with their business. After all, the two industries could not be further apart: one entails manual labor with physical results, while the other is essentially more conceptual and virtual.

As seemingly distinct as the two may be, however, there is one element that links them together: the customer.

The Client Connection

Any business relies on its clientele to thrive. Where there is no demand, there is no supply.

What businesses have to understand is that most modern consumers are not only practical, but are also tech-savvy. Technology is heavily utilized for finding goods and services.

The sustainability of any business relies not just in providing quality service to existing clientele—company efforts toward lead generation must also be consistent. This, after all, is what keeps fresh business flowing.

Accounting firms and individual CPAs are no different. They require sustainable means of reaching new leads and converting them into actual clients—something that content marketing services are more than capable of achieving for them.

Understanding the Consumer Market

Real estate agents rely heavily on open houses, and rightly so to give potential buyers a good look at the properties on sale. While this method still proves effective, content marketing services can only work to complement and make real estate sales techniques more efficient and successful. 

In an industry where competition can be tough, it’s important for realtors to use better tools to reach potential leads, as well as innovative means to help close their deals. Investing in marketing content addresses these concerns for real estate agents.

Content Marketing Brings In Leads and Improves Brand Awareness

Handing out brochures and flyers simply won’t cut it anymore, and paying for print ads can be more expensive than necessary. Digital content, however, is a much more cost-efficient alternative for spreading the word about your brand.

Much like any other business, law firms need to promote their services to expand their clientele. With the countless traditional and digital tactics you can employ to boost your practice, why should you invest in content marketing services in particular?

The 2018 Law Firm Digital Marketing Survey, conducted by the Legal Marketing Association and Good2bSocial, introduces several reasons.

Your peers recognize the importance of going digital

More than half of the respondents, surveyed across the United States, agree that digital marketing is important: they give it a 4 on a scale of 1 to 5. Lawyers also see that it provides several opportunities for impacting their business:

70% say digital marketing improves brand awareness. 

70% believe it enhances thought leadership.

66% say it can distinguish their firm from their competitors.

59% say it helps provide more value to clients.

As we’ve often discussed on this blog, creating content is all about cultivating a relationship with your clients. When you reach out to them online, you’re not primarily seeking to push your business or promote your brand. You’re truly helping to educate them and solve their concerns, building goodwill and connections in the process.  

All this makes content marketing services an optimal strategy, especially if you’re a dentist.

“Soft-sell” solves a tough sell

How exactly can you promote your main service if it’s something people might be nervous about, like a tooth extraction? What would convince prospective clients to come to you, if that means undergoing procedures not many people—or anyone at all—considers enjoyable? 

At a point when all sorts of content are saturating the market, experts are talking about a new approach to publishing that can let your brand stand out. It’s called episodic storytelling, and while the biggest businesses deploy it through videos, there’s no reason why you can’t incorporate it into the content marketing services you currently employ.

What is episodic content?

Episodic content marketing focuses on creating posts centered on a unifying theme or topic. Each post takes off and builds on the previous one, much like episodes in a television series.  Any type of content can be episodic—be it text, images, video, or audio—and any of these can be shaped so that, like serials, content can also come across as a story instead of an advertisement. 

We’ve covered why infographics are a sound investment for your business, but once you’ve rolled them out, how can you make sure they continue to catch eyes across your content? 

To start, you can team up with an infographic creator to execute these refreshing infographic ideas. 

Package an offer as an infographic

Does every offer need to be advertised with the standard poster and a catchy tagline? With an infographic, the answer is a no. 

Hubspot suggests that infographics can break down “interesting things about an offer, like the problems it will solve and the most important information it contains.” This makes your business offers more compelling, to say the least.

Don’t second-guess promoting your business on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram just because you only have a brick-and-mortar store. Working with a social media marketing agency will bring you customers even if you don’t sell anything online.

Social drives sales — of any kind

A new study from Vision Critical reveals that social media drives “roughly equal amounts of online and in-store sales.” As the numbers show, 4 out of 10 of Facebook users go from liking, sharing, or commenting on an item in their feeds to buying it. Of these users, 30% physically go to a shop to make the purchase, and 29% finalize it online. Figures for Twitter, though lower, indicate the same behavior at 17% and 18%, respectively.

How do you know your blog is doing well? Blog management experts will tell you that it depends on what you want your blog to achieve. Do you want it to boost search engine visibility for your website? Establish yourself as an industry thought leader? Foster customer engagement? 

Whether you’re aiming for only one or all of these goals, there are established metrics that will help you gauge your blog’s performance. 

Page views 

Page views refer to every instance your blog is loaded on a browser: a sure sign people are coming to see your post. Considering the Internet’s level of saturation today, that scenario is preferable to having no one find it at all. 

Page views are the first indicator of blog performance. Yet while they are a basic metric, interpreting them isn’t so simple. You could gain hundreds and hundreds of this statistic and have them mean nothing for your goals.

There are multiple reasons why blogging is a staple of content writing services, and there’s no shortage of resources explaining its paramount importance. That said, this doesn’t mean blogs are the only type of content you should produce. To develop a well-rounded content strategy, you should also consider publishing the following.  

White papers

Blog posts are ideal for quick, informative reads. Sometimes, however, your clients need you to delve deeper into a subject.

This is where long-form content like white papers come in. 

Hubspot defines white papers as “in-depth reports on a specific topic that present a problem and provide a solution.” Typically no shorter than six pages—and sometimes reaching over 50—white papers are built on statistics, graphs, charts, illustrations, references, and other forms of hard data. They aim to “inform and persuade based on facts and evidence, not tell the world why people need to buy your product.”

Regardless if you’re launching your company website, blog, or social media page, there’s one visual element that you’ll want graphic design services to perfect: your company logo. It’s the one image that you’ll likely use across all your content, and the piece that will speak for your brand without the aid of any other marketing tool.

For these reasons, it is only imperative that you invest yourself in logo conceptualization and development. The following guidelines will help you stay up to task.

Define what you want

As the leader of your business, you best know what your brand stands for and what your logo should convey. Designers can tell you how it could look then make it happen, but only after you say what it should be like. 

Is your business to sell gifts or crafts? Perhaps pastels can set the right tone—a choice which you are less likely to make if you sell other products like electronics.