Fingerprint Marketing

Do you ever feel like your head’s spinning when it’s time to sit down and focus on marketing?

We have so many options these days for small business marketing that it can be overwhelming to choose which methods to prioritize.

Before you can even begin to figure out where to allocate how much of your marketing budget, you have to understand:

Why and what you want to market

Who you want to reach

And how to reach people in the most effective way possible

To top it off, you need to do it better than other businesses out there (your competition).

Today, we’re showing you exactly how to create a marketing budget for your small business. How much it costs, in the end, will very much depend on YOU: your needs, your goals, and your available resources.

The Purpose of Marketing for Your Small Business

The purpose of marketing is to get the word out about your products or services – in a way that draws in the right people and gets them interested enough to buy what you sell.

As the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) says, “marketing isn’t an expense – it’s an investment.” And like everyone else always says, you get what you pay for. Pay for the best software, tools, strategy, plan, and the right players to implement it all, and your business will thrive.

On the flip side, if you don’t invest in marketing and set up the right systems to get in front of the right people with the right messaging, your business will fall flat.

Here’s why marketing is a wise investment for your small business:

It Gets Your Name Out There

Brand name recognition can help you drive (a lot) more traffic to your website. 82% of searchers on Google click on brands they’re already familiar with. Keep people happy, and keep getting in front of them, and you’ll build a brilliant reputation for yourself over time.

It Shows the World What You Have to Offer

How will you make sales if no one understands what you’re selling in the first place? It starts with marketing – AKA getting the word out to the right people.

It Gets You in Front of People Who Want What You Have

You’re not supposed to market to everyone. That’s the best way to waste your entire marketing budget. Instead, you should establish a unique niche and target a specific group of people looking for exactly what you offer. Quality over quantity, my friend.

How to Determine Your Small Business Marketing Budget

You can figure out how much you need to allocate toward marketing by examining these fundamental elements.

1. Your Customers

Who’s going to pay for your services or buy your products? Create buyer personas so you have a detailed profile of the kinds of people who fit the bill. Pay attention to demographics, location, brands they love, online channels they use, and any unique traits.

2. Gross Revenue

Business 2 Community says that small businesses spend around 7-12% of their gross revenue on marketing. Ding ding ding! It’s the answer you’ve all been waiting for, folks.

Now, keep in mind that many small businesses don’t spend enough money on marketing. Others spend too much but don’t have the right strategies or marketing plan to spend their money wisely. Marketing budgets are all too often wasted. Such a pity.

3. Your Competitors

Before you can develop an accurate budget, you also need to research competitors and current marketing trends. What are other marketers in your industry doing that’s working? Are specific software, tools, and technology bringing similar businesses success? What channels and strategies help them build brand awareness, bring in traffic and leads, and make sales?

Campaign Monitor surveyed over 1,000 small business owners. Here’s what they found:

Social media is the most common platform for building brand awareness.

The best opportunity for gaining new customers is social media marketing.

78% of small businesses plan to increase spending on digital marketing moving forward.

The biggest goal – and challenge – is acquiring new customers.

The most-used channels are email marketing and Facebook (although many participants also reported that Facebook isn’t working for them).

Email marketing is the #1 platform for scoring the highest return on investment.

Keep these trends in mind as you form your marketing plan and budget.

4. Your Priorities

Figure out how much each channel, platform, strategy, and subscription will cost. Here are some areas to consider including in your budget and marketing plan. Think about who you need to hire for each task, the software and tools you’ll need, and the time to go into each job.

Advertising (on social and search engines)

Social media marketing

Email marketing

Content marketing

Search engine optimization (SEO)

Content management system (CMS)

Content relationship management (CRM)

Website hosting, design, development, maintenance

Design

Printing

Leave Your Small Business Marketing to the Pros

Marketing can be overwhelming, even for the most proficient marketers on the planet. Not only does it require a lot of time, energy, and strategy, but it’s always changing! Just when you think you’ve owned Instagram marketing or outsmarted Google’s latest algorithm, it changes. Back to the drawing board we go.

If you’d like to hand off the marketing madness to people who live and breathe the stuff, let us know. We’d love to get to know you and your business and develop a marketing plan that knocks your socks off.

Book a consult with us. First one’s on the house!

The post How Much Does Small Business Marketing Cost? appeared first on Fingerprint Marketing.

If you caught our last article on small business marketing, you learned why marketing is an investment – not an expense.

Good marketing impacts EVERYTHING: if people find you, how others view your business, and whether customers buy your stuff and tell all their friends.

With any smart investment, you need to know where you’re headed (goals) and how to get there (strategy). Strategies and goals are the two main components of a solid marketing plan.

A marketing plan is like a business roadmap, showing you what you need to do to get people to give you their money.

You may be thinking, “That sounds great and all, but where the heck do I start? And how much will I have to fork over to get it done?”

We’ll answer these all-important questions in just a moment. Let’s start with why you need a plan in the first place and what that plan should include.

What’s a Small Business Marketing Plan?

This is a road map that explains what actions your business should take to get from where you are now to where you want to be. It should outline your vision and goals, the strategies to reach those goals, and the budget you need to make it happen.

A marketing plan will also describe where to spend how much of your marketing budget. It can be updated annually (or more frequently) as you learn what works for your business and what’s not so hot in your industry.

Without a plan, you’ll be flying blind. Your marketing department could end up wasting a whole lot of time and money on efforts that don’t produce any real results.

What Should My Marketing Plan Include?

Here are some sections that companies routinely include in their marketing plans.

1. Company Overview

Really get to know your company for this section – warts and all. What products and services do you offer? Who are your primary customers? What are your business’s strengths and weaknesses?

Take a good look at financial reports, departmental budgets, and your company history to understand how money is being allocated and if it’s being used effectively.

Interview someone on the sales team for more insight into customer behavior for feedback on what products and services are resonating with people.

Include a summary of your company culture in this section as well.

2. SWOT Analysis

Write down your company’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats to assess where your business stands in the marketplace and possibilities for growth.

3. Target Audience

Who already loves what you’re selling? Create profiles of your ideal customers to use as the basis for your marketing. Where do they spend time online? What channels do they often use? What’re their buying habits? How old are they, and what are their greatest desires and fears?

4. Marketing Goals

What are your marketing and sales objectives that you want to accomplish throughout the upcoming term? Set quantifiable goals and summarize how you plan to reach each one. Do you want to grow your sales by a certain percentage? Are you planning on getting most of your leads through email marketing or Facebook? Or are you prioritizing SEO this year and focusing on website traffic?

5. Competition

Who are your top competitors? Make sure you research what marketing techniques are working for them and what tools and strategies they’re implementing. You can learn a lot from other successful businesses in your industry.

6. Unique Selling Proposition (USP)

What makes you different from everyone else? Your USP can give you an advantage over your competition. Is it your customer service? Do you offer the best prices? Are your products or services leaps and bounds better than the competition’s?

7. Channels & Strategies

Based on your target audience, choose what channels and strategies you’d like to implement in the coming year for marketing. Popular inbound marketing platforms and tactics include:

Blog

Social media

Search engines

Website

Email

Branding

Advertising

Video

8. Budget

How much are you planning on spending on marketing in general? Small businesses generally allocate 7% to 12% of their gross revenue to marketing.

How Much Will My Marketing Plan Cost?

That depends. You knew this was coming. For us to give you a definitive answer, we’d need to sit down and chat with you about your goals and business and stuff. Which we’d love to do – whenever you’re up for it.

The cost will depend on two main factors:

Type of marketing plan: Will your project include content marketing, social media marketing, website design, paid marketing, or some kind of combo?

Your partner: Are you going to work with an agency or a freelancer? If you choose an agency, size and prestige can make a massive difference in the cost.

You can expect to pay anywhere in the ballpark of $5,000 to $40,000 for a solid marketing plan.

Ready to Craft Your Small Business Marketing Plan?

We can help! Partnering with a marketing whiz with the skills to help you accomplish your goals while working within your budget is essential. We’d love to hop on a call with you to answer all of your pressing questions. And YOU can see if WE fit the bill – literally.

If you’d like to give us a shot, we’re ready to discuss your goals and vision to create a marketing plan that checks all the right boxes. Book a consult with us today!

  The post How Much Does a Marketing Plan for a Small Business Cost? appeared first on Fingerprint Marketing.

You mean I have to pay for my website to be designed AND pay for ongoing maintenance?

You better betcha!

Your website does many wild and wonderful things, but it doesn’t have a mind of its own.

Like the Great and Powerful Oz, you need a man (or woman) behind the curtain, pulling the right strings to keep everything running smoothly.

Times change. Styles and trends evolve. Websites glitch. Plugins and code become outdated.

Oh, and don’t even get me started on what Google thinks of “static” websites that just sit around on their bums.

Before we jump into specific pricing, let’s cover some basics: why WordPress website maintenance is necessary and what factors can play into the cost.

Why Does My WordPress Website Need Ongoing Maintenance?

When you hire an agency (or a freelancer) to maintain your website, they’ll check it regularly for glitches, mistakes, and potential issues.

Web maintenance is ongoing and repeats year over year. Specific tasks should be done weekly, monthly, quarterly, and once a year to keep everything in tip-top shape. A healthy website is essential in helping you continue to grow your business successfully.

Updates and Security

WordPress needs to be updated and backed up frequently. The designer of the template used to build your website may add new features that could benefit your business. Plugins and software often need updating to get rid of bugs and outdated components. Keeping your website up to date will also help it work faster and more efficiently for visitors and customers.

Security updates are the number one reason you need website maintenance. Security-related tasks can be time-sensitive. If someone isn’t watching and updating your website regularly, it could become a dangerous platform for anyone who uses it.

Someone could hack into your site and steal information, which happens every 39 seconds (2,244 times per day). You could have spammers running rampant if you don’t pay close enough attention. Malware could sink its dirty claws in and do some nasty damage.

According to Varonis, 64% of Americans never check for data breaches. But the cost to fix a data breach can be millions of dollars – $8.64 million on average in the U.S., to be precise. Scared yet?

Sometimes, components of your website stop working for no apparent reason. If you notice something’s wrong or acting funny, call your web designer to fix it for you as soon as possible – especially if it has to do with security.

Google and SEO

You need to update your website content continually so that everything remains current and relevant to your target audience. If your content becomes outdated, links break, or other SEO issues arise, Google can penalize your website. When this happens, your content can drop in rankings, throwing all of your hard work off-kilter. If it’s really bad, Google might even deindex some of your pages.

Analyzing your website statistics regularly and making updates accordingly to continue improving content and user experience will keep search engines happy.

Customer Engagement

When someone’s looking for a service like yours or for a product you offer, they want to find a solution quickly. And they want to buy from a company that looks trustworthy and established.

They’ll choose to work with a business with a quality website – one that’s secure, attractive, modern, and has killer content. You simply can’t accomplish all that with an outdated or unmonitored website.

What will website maintenance cost to outsource?

The answer to this question depends on several factors:

Size

Purpose

Audience

Complexity

If you have a personal blog or small hobby website, web maintenance won’t cost you much because your website will have few needs. WordPress is a self-hosted platform. You’ll be required to pay for your domain and hosting, but you can get away with just that if you want.

Personal websites can cost as little as $15 to $30 per month. Personal bloggers often update their own websites. Just make sure to stay on top of it if you do!

A small business website will cost a bit more and require more attention – around $30 to $100 a month for standard maintenance.

A large business or e-commerce website could cost $100 to over $2,000 per month, depending on the size and complexity.

Last but not least, a custom-built website that requires more time, attention, and care could cost over $2,000 monthly to maintain. If you need your custom site to be in top working condition at all times, you may need to hire an expert team of developers to make it happen.

Keep in mind that it can potentially cost more in the long run not to maintain your website (cue security breach). Make sure you prioritize value over cost when looking to outsource website maintenance tasks. The future of your business could depend on it.

WordPress Website Maintenance

If you’re not already updating your website regularly, it’s time to get on it. Ongoing maintenance will make your website more secure, faster, easier to use, and so much more fun to visit.

Our website maintenance packages include security and updates, ongoing support (a real person!), regular backups, hosting, and SEO. We’ll handle all the important stuff so you don’t have to worry a smidge.

Book a consult with us for a no-cost phone call. We’ll have a chat about your business website and let you know how we can help you best.

The post How Much Does WordPress Website Maintenance Cost? appeared first on Fingerprint Marketing.

It’s time to design a new website, and you’ve heard WordPress is all the rage.

You’re right about that.

WordPress is the most popular CMS in the world, powering 38.5% of all websites online.

Before you approach an agency or a freelance designer to build your website, it helps to have an idea of how much it’s going to cost.

We aim to answer that tricky little question for you in this article.

Just keep in mind that higher quality and more functionality typically come with a higher price tag.

Know the End Goal for Your WordPress Website Design

What’s the primary purpose of your website? It could be to sell a product or service, drive more traffic organically, bring in new leads, or become a trusted resource chock-full of content people are dying to read.

Who’s going to be using the site and why? User experience (UX) is the key to creating clear navigation. Think about how visitors, leads, returning customers, and business partners will use your website. Each group may follow a different route to get where they need to go.

Creating a web design marketing plan is the best way to ensure you set the right goals for your new website and develop effective strategies to knock them out of the park.

Understand What Factors Impact Price Range

When your website designer comes up with a quote for your project, they will consider several factors to estimate how many hours it will take to complete. Here are some of the biggest factors that can influence pricing.

1. Size

How many pages are on your current website, or how big do you expect your new site to be? How many different templates do you plan on using? Think about your homepage, contact page, service pages, landing pages, etc.

Do you want your blog content and website copy written from scratch, or are you going to use what you already have and just transfer it to your new website? Will your website host different types of media – like a blog, videos, animations, ebooks, or press releases?

The larger your website is, the more it will cost to design or redesign it.

2. Complexity

This also plays a large role in the overall cost of your WordPress website design. If you want your website to include…

Complex layouts and navigation

Custom coding

Fancy UX design

Ecommerce functionality

Extra content resources (like ebooks, blogs, and case studies)

Scheduling features

Accounts for customers

Video, illustrations, or animation

…it will require more time and expertise.

3. Type of Website

A small business website will cost much less than, say, a large ecommerce website. A basic site could include a homepage with a few product or service pages, contact information, and an about page. An ecommerce site might need hundreds of pages with specific details about each product, variants of certain products, shopping cart functionality, member accounts, and a plethora of other features.

“So, what’s it gonna cost me? Spill.”

The magic formula to pinpoint the cost of WordPress website design depends on what we already covered mixed with who you hire to do the job. Working with a rookie freelancer, for example, will be a whole lot cheaper than hiring a kick-ass agency. But, remember, ya get what ya pay for.

Option 1: DIY

Are you planning on building your website yourself? You guessed it – this is the cheapest option. But if you’re not a website wiz, you’re bound to pay for cutting corners sooner or later. Generally, the less you pay for a website, the more issues you could run into down the road.

Now, if you’re a solopreneur or launching a new startup, you might be able to get away with building your own website to start. Later on, when you’re more established, you can hire someone to create a more robust machine for your business.

Designing your own basic website could cost you as little as a few hundred dollars. For a more advanced WordPress site, expect to pay between $500 and $1,000 per year.

Option 2: Hire a Freelancer

The next step up on the pay scale is working with a freelance web designer. Expect to spend anywhere from $2,000 to $15,000, depending on the scope of your website. Keep in mind that while freelance designers can have bomb website skills, they likely don’t also have copywriting, video, ecommerce, and other specialized skills you may need to build the website you want.

Options 3: Hire an Agency

If you can afford it, your business can get the most bang for its buck by working with an established design agency. Instead of working with one person – hoping and praying they have all the necessary skills for your website to be a blazing success – opt for a whole team of skilled professionals!

You can find a design agency with graphic designers, web developers, copywriters, videographers, animators, strategists, SEOs, and more – for approximately $15,000 to $50,000.

Ready to Start Your WordPress Website Design Project?

You’re in luck. We’re so ready for a new client like you. We’d love to hear your vision and goals for your new website – and then make it happen! We’ll start by mapping out a custom road map to turn your new website into a lead-generating machine and moneymaker. How’s that sound?

Book a consult on our website for a no-cost strategy sesh. We’re waiting for you over here with bated breath.

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If you’re an entrepreneur or CMO, you run a startup, or you’re in charge of the marketing department for your business, you could eventually be tasked with writing an RFP for website design.

Having an RFP with well-defined goals, good organization, clear expectations, and a splash of personality will help you bag the right agency for your next project. It’ll also increase your chances of making that project a smashing success.

Today, we’ll walk through how to write an RFP, specifically for a website design or redesign project.

What Exactly is an RFP Anyway?

Let’s start at the very beginning – a very good place to start.

A request for proposal (RFP) is a document that gives an overview of your project. Once an agency receives your RFP, they will have the opportunity to respond with a proposal that outlines their solution for your website design project, including the scope of work, a quote, and a projected timeline. You can send one RFP out to multiple agencies to compare various quotes and offers.

An RFP is your first impression on your future partner, so make sure you put in the time and effort to make it a good one!

What Should I Include in My RFP for Website Design?

Here are the critical components of a structured request for proposal. Follow this format, and your project will be off to a great start.

1. Overview & Background

The overview section is where you get to introduce yourself and share a little about your company’s culture and core beliefs. Summarize who you are, what your company does, your history, and what products or services you offer. Also describe who you serve – your target audience or ideal customer.

Next, briefly explain why you’re submitting an RFP in the first place. Outline your pain points and why you need a redesign or new website (you’ll go into more detail later).

2. Challenges

Try to be as honest and upfront in this section as possible. What’s wrong with your current website? Why do you want to build a new one? Be as clear as you can. Maybe you’ve had some of your clients complain about their online experience. Or it could just be time to level up to your competitors.

3. Goals

Your goals, or core objectives, are the heart of your RFP. They’re the whole reason you’re going to all the trouble of writing the thing! So be authentic. How do you hope to solve the problems you just outlined in the previous section? What’re your most important objectives? Do you want to increase sales? Attract more traffic to your site? Engage people longer? Revamp your business brand?

The 2020 B2B Content Marketing Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends—North America report discovered that most B2B marketers use content marketing to successfully achieve goals like creating brand awareness, building credibility and trust with their audience, and educating their followers. Nurturing long-term relationships with customers and generating revenue are also essential goals businesses must aim for to continue growing successfully. Consider adding goals like these to your RFP at the get-go.

4. Project Scope

Your project scope is where you should get a little more specific. Here are some standard features you may consider including:

Brand identity

Graphic design

Development (front end or back end)

Site architecture

Content strategy

Lead generation

Analytics

SEO

Keyword analysis

Video

Photography

Copywriting

Quality assurance

Content migration

Redirecting old URLs

Project management

UX/UI testing

Blog

Security

Maintenance and hosting

Customer service

Additional features

5. Sitemap

Including your sitemap will give design agencies an overview of all the pages and resources on your current website and how to navigate them. From there, they can pinpoint dead ends, problem areas, and how to create a better user experience.

6. Timeline

Your timeline should include any essential deadlines you have for your project. Include the date you’d like for the entire website to be complete, plus any significant milestones along the way.

7. Additional Functionality

What technical aspects will your website require? Do you have a content management system? Email marketing integrations? Ecommerce functions? List those here.

8. Budget

Give agencies a range of what you’re willing to spend on your project. This will help you set clear expectations from the start to narrow down your pool of potential partners. You can negotiate the budget later on, but having an idea will help avoid wasted time on both ends. You won’t attract agencies who are too costly for you or too small to handle your needs.

9. Examples

Including some website URLs of other websites you love is always a great idea when working with a designer. Think about design, functionality, flow, and what you like about the experience of exploring the websites you choose. Include a few of your top competitors as well, so your designer can see into your industry.

10. Vendor Criteria and Instructions

If you have any requirements (such as capabilities, experience level, budget, etc.) for your vendors, add them here. Also include instructions on how to best follow up with you. Where should they send their proposal? Who should they address it to? If there are any other important details you’d like for them to include, list those as well.

Ready to Send Us Your Web Design RFP?

If you’re ready to dive into your website design project, we’d love to hear from you! You can even skip the RFP if you think we’d be a good fit.

Book a web design consultation with us today!

The post How to Write an RFP for Website Design in 2021 appeared first on Fingerprint Marketing.

When was the last time you redesigned your website?

Did you know that the lifespan of a typical website is only 1.5 to 2.5 years?

If your website…

Is past its prime,

Needs a facelift,

Doesn’t run smoothly,

Wasn’t set up with user experience in mind,

Isn’t mobile-friendly,

Or is just plain old-as-your-great-grandpappy,

…it could probably use a redesign.

Before you get overly excited (or stressed out), you need to take some time to develop a solid small business marketing plan.

And before you can develop that plan, you need to understand why that plan is essential to the future success of your business.

Why Your Small Business Website Needs a Marketing Plan

Your website has a ton of responsibility.

Today’s websites need to do many things – and do them well. If you’re still thinking of your website as a supercool yellow pages ad, you’re doing it wrong. Yellow pages were never supercool. Well, maybe when they were invented back in the 1800s. Not even kidding. That’s when they were invented.

You’ve probably heard by now that your website is your 24/7 salesperson. It needs to keep working while you’re taking time off in the evenings and on the weekends.

Your website doesn’t require nourishment or time off – so put it to work! Set it up right, and it’ll do its thing while you’re off gallivanting around the Grand Canyon or snorkeling off the coast of some remote island on the other side of the world. Internet access not required.

Your website is responsible for:

Creating brand awareness

Capturing visitors’ attention by showing the perfect solution to their problem

Building trust

Facilitating learning

Demonstrating how your business can (and does) bring your clients results

Housing entire sales transactions

And _____________!!! (You fill in the blank.)

If your website isn’t taking care of essential business, you better include any and all gaps in your new marketing plan.

Here’s what your website redesign needs to include:

A marketing strategy that kicks butt

Questions your buyers are asking and goals they want to achieve

SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, time-bound) goals YOU want to achieve

Search patterns

Useful interactions

Storytelling

A design interface that makes it EASY for people to do and find what they need to

Good Web Design is Freaking Important

Here’s why, y’all.

1. It makes an excellent first impression and builds trust.

Websites with poor design, unclear navigation, confusing copy, and slow speeds scare people away. They just do. Don’t be scary.

Beautiful websites with helpful information, on the other hand, attract visitors. And once you’ve got ‘em, keep ‘em coming back!

Content is a great way to build trust with visitors by giving them free resources. These resources could include blogging regularly about important issues your target market is facing, sharing videos addressing pain points, or creating complementary infographics or ebooks people can easily download.

2. It brings you traffic.

A website should be optimized so people looking for your products and services online can find you instantly. You need to answer questions on your website thoughtfully and strategically. You need to build authority so you can compete against the other 1.74 billion websites on the internet. SEO is a fundamental component of bringing lots of traffic and qualified leads to your proverbial doorstep.

3. It will lead people through the buyer’s journey.

The buyer’s journey leads people through three main stages. First, they’ll become aware of a problem they have and start looking around to learn more (awareness stage). Next, they’ll pinpoint their problem and start researching ways to solve it (consideration stage). Finally, they’ll find and purchase the best solution they can find (decision stage).

Here’s how we like to break this process down:

Awareness

Exploring Solutions

Comparing Vendors

Purchase (Cha-ching!)

Your website should address individuals at every stage of the buyer’s journey. You need to show them you understand the problem they have and that they’re not alone. Then present some great options for dealing with that problem head-on. Lastly, you need to convince them why you (not your competitors) offer the best solution.

Let’s Create a Marketing Plan for Your Small Business

Where there is no vision, the people perish.

If you don’t know exactly how to move forward toward your goals, you won’t reach them! It’s as simple as that. Instead, you could end up wasting a lot of time spinning your wheels and spending too much money in the wrong places.

A marketing plan is like a detailed roadmap that tells your small business exactly what to do and where to go. Your website designer should walk you through all of the essential steps you need to take to ensure you have a clear plan of attack before the redesign even starts.

If it’s time for your droopy website to get its long-awaited facelift, Fingerprint Marketing is ready to work! Our strategists, designers, and developers will put on their thinking caps and come together to create one heckuva website plan for you.

Ready to get started? Book a consult with us today!

The post Why You Need a Marketing Plan for Your Small Business Website appeared first on Fingerprint Marketing.

Email marketing isn’t dead. Heck, it’s not even dying.

In fact, it can be one of the best marketing tools for engaging leads and converting them into customers, especially during this weird COVID time.

You’re probably thinking, “That’s a BIG statement.” It is, but it’s also a true one. And we’re prepared to prove it to you.

Email Marketing is Alive and Kicking Butt

2020 has been quite a year. And we haven’t even reached election time yet (gosh, that’s a scary thought). When COVID-19 hit, we all cringed as we watched the stock market fall. But not all was lost during that unprecedented time.

According to data collected by Mailchimp that compared email engagement during March and April of 2019 versus 2020, the averages this year were better than last year. Click rates and open rates were up, and unsubscribes were way down.

Mailchimp also found that people wanted to hear from their favorite businesses more frequently – like every week. And smaller companies saw a more dramatic increase in engagement than larger firms. How cool is that? We’re all about encouraging small businesses as much as we can right now because, let’s be honest, this year’s been ROUGH.

If you still think email is dying out, check out Adobe’s 2019 Email Usage Study. They surveyed over 1,000 people in the U.S. and found that consumers spend about five hours a day checking email. FIVE. HOURS. A DAY. They also said people prefer receiving offers via email over social media, direct mail, and other popular marketing types.

Why Email’s Still One of the Best Marketing Tools for Growing Your Business

In 2019, the average adult spent around 3½ hours using the internet on their phone. Just imagine how much that’s increased during the pandemic. I know it has for me because my iPhone sends me regular phone usage reports. Ouch.

While this can feel depressing and unhealthy in a sense, it creates a big opportunity for email marketers and online businesses. Here are six reasons email is still at the top of its game.

1. People will check their email anywhere at any time, several times a day.

Let me ask you a question. When was the last time you checked your email? Or better yet, how many times have you checked your email today so far? And where all have you checked it? LOL.

If you’re an average American, the answer is a lot and pretty much everywhere – at work, during a Zoom meeting, at the dinner table, in the bathroom, in bed, even behind the wheel. Email has become an integral part of our daily lives.

Our job, as marketers, is to be in our customers’ inboxes regularly with messages that grab their attention. Figure out the best send times (when the most people on your email list are opening and engaging), then send them content they’ll love.

2. You can build trust through authentic relationships.

Engage with your audience. Be sincere and authentic. Personalize your emails so your contacts feel valued. Spend some time allowing your audience to get to know you – your personality, your quirks, and what you care about in the world.

Later on, when it comes time to sell your product or service, you’ll have a list of loyal followers who are ready to buy from you! That’s good stuff.

3. Email is cheap and has an amazing ROI.

Seriously, the ROI is insane. For every buck you spend on email marketing, you can recoup $42. That’s a 4200% return on investment!

4. You can segment your lists.

Mailchimp found that segmented campaigns have a 14.31% higher open rate and a 100.95% higher click rate than unsegmented campaigns. Unsubscribes are 9.37% lower, and bounces are 4.65% lower, on average. Those are some pretty dope reasons to segment your lists.

When you split up large contact lists into smaller segments, you can make your emails more specific and engaging for different groups of people.

5. You can automate emails to magically send on their own.

Need to send out a “welcome series” to new subscribers? Want to remind people who abandoned their shopping carts to finish checking out? Do you have blog posts you’d like to send to a specific list regularly?

Email automation allows you to engage with contacts in your sleep. You can create a workflow that sends out a series of emails or a single email to specific people based on certain criteria. Automation has the power to save you time while increasing engagement and sales.

6. Track, analyze, test, and improve performance.

Another awesome benefit of email is the ability to track and measure results. Watch your open and click-through rates to see how you should tweak send times, subject lines, body copy, calls to action, and contact lists.

A/B testing allows you to test two versions of the same email to see which one performs better. This insight can then help inform future campaigns.

Does Your Email Marketing Need a Little TLC?

Are you frustrated, confused, or at a loss when it comes to email? You don’t have to do it alone.

If you need help with email marketing setup, strategy, or implementation, Fingerprint Marketing would be thrilled to help. Book a consultation with us today!

The post Why Email Marketing is Important for Business Leads and Conversions appeared first on Fingerprint Marketing.

When you first create your website, everything is working and it’s all shiny and new. But then, it starts to get older, it’s not as exciting anymore, and you likely stop giving it the TLC it deserves.

Much like a car that needs regular servicing and oil changes – your website needs that too! (Well, not the oil change, but the maintenance.)

If you don’t keep up with your website maintenance, your website is going to stop working and no one wants that! Regular maintenance on your website keeps your website working and in good condition. 

Here are some things I recommend when it comes to keeping your website healthy that we do for our clients:

Backup your website daily and in full. Many hosting companies will tell you that they back up your website in full but in truth, they only partially back it up. If your website goes down, you want to be able to restore it quickly and restore all of it. You don’t want to lose your blogs, images, or content – that would be such a pain to start over. Full backups on a daily basis are important. 

Plugin Update Compatibility. Make sure any security updates for WordPress or any plugins for your website are playing well together. Your website is made up of different parts and functions and sometimes they work against each other when they are updated. Even though you may start out with everything being compatible, that doesn’t mean everything stays compatible. One example is Chrome and Explorer. When the browser is updated, it can affect your plugin’s ability to work the same as it did before the update. If you have a website maintenance service company like Fingerprint Marketing, one of the things they’ll do for you is test each plugin every time there is an update and make sure that your website is still functioning properly. It’s not uncommon to update a plugin and have it affect your website’s ability to load quickly or show all the features. Testing it beforehand and then checking that everything works well after the update – it’s going to give your website longevity. 

Monitor 24/7 that your website is up and it’s working. You never want to be the one who discovers your website is down. Leaving it to chance can mean it’s down for a considerable amount of time unless you are clicking on it frequently (and even then ANY downtime is bad!). If someone goes to your website and they get an error message, that’s lost sales opportunities. People rarely return to a website that was down, they think it’s a broken link and move on. It’s beneficial to have someone keeping an eye on it 24/7 and be able to restore it quickly should anything happen (see: The High Cost of First Impressions). We know that many of you rely on sales from your website. Don’t neglect to make sure it’s always up and running! 

Site updates. Make sure you add new content consistently. Google indexes websites that are active, but stops going to websites that don’t add new content. If you are not active on your website, it ultimately affects your SEO negatively. Think about how you can add new content in the form of blogs, podcast summaries, announcements, etc. so that you maintain your traffic. Many of our customers hire copywriters or appoint content creators to make sure they are consistent about adding quality, SEO-friendly content to their websites. Google rewards this!

Maintaining your website is going to pay off. 

If your site gets hacked, think of how much money it’s going to take to reproduce that content and rebuild your site if there’s no backup. It’s going to be a lot more time and money than it would be for a monthly fee to a website maintenance service company.

User experience is equally as important, keeping customer’s top of mind. You want to make sure to stay on track with what is trending. For example, when Google made the decision to push mobile-friendly websites up in the search rankings, people who weren’t staying current didn’t make any changes to their mobile experience and lost traffic. Paying attention to the trends keeps you from missing out.

Website maintenance is truly as important as the oil changes and routine service on your car. If your website is not functioning properly, if you have a broken link, or if something is missing, the person who’s looking at your website and deciding if they’re going to choose your business, is going to bounce. 

You never want a potential customer to close your website and not return. 

Make sure you have a web care process in place or hire someone who knows how to do it for you.

Book a free strategy call for a live audit of your website and how regular WordPress maintenance can help you land more customers. 

The post Why You Need Maintenance on a WordPress Website? appeared first on Fingerprint Marketing.

If you’ve ever visited a website that was so visually overstimulating that you instantly felt the need to escape it, you’re not alone… and if you’re a business owner with a website, it’s time to take a hard look at your own piece of virtual real estate and make sure you’re not serving up a dish of hot mess to your site visitors.

Welcome to the first in a series of posts where we’re going to share some of our biggest secrets to getting your website found, keeping your visitors interested, and turning looky-loos into loyal customers.

    The Good Ol’ Days

We all know that the internet has changed the way we do business. We can no longer expect that our customers are so loyal to us that they would never even think of doing business anywhere else.

Also gone is the decade where a one-page website with a little info meant you were solid in cyberspace.

Times have changed — have you changed with the times?

  What We Want

It’s common knowledge that IF a potential customer can find your website, that you only have a few seconds to “wow” them or they’re outta there.

We want so badly to make a good impression and to let our website viewers know everything we do, how we do it, why we do it, how much we want to do it for them, why they need to hire us to do it, and how to contact us so we can start doing it, that we might just be giving them too much information. Worse yet — giving them the WRONG information.

And that’s just the homepage!

  What Our Customers Want

Neat, tidy, attractive, informative, secure, easy to read, simple to navigate.

That’s a pretty short list — sounds manageable, doesn’t it?

True – the list is pretty short. And yes, very manageable — IF you know what your homepage needs to keep your site visitors interested and interactive.

  Fashion Faux-Pas

There are fads in website design just like there are in fashion, furniture, and facial hair. If your website is stuck in the 2000s, your competitors are going to eat you alive.

And in this day and age, it’s about so much more than just design — you must consider the content. What is on each page of your website and is it serving its intended purpose?

Let’s take a look at what should be on your homepage so that you can attract your ideal customers who want to come back to do business with you again and again — all while ignoring your competition.

  Homepage Essentials

Just like the importance of curbside appeal when selling a house, your homepage is where your visitors are going to decide to stop and look inside or just keep driving by.

  Who You Are, What You Do, and Who You Do it For

The best way to capture the undivided attention of a website visitor is to quickly speak directly to them about what is already on their mind.

Your company name, logo, what you do, and who you serve should be the first thing they see so they instantly connect your business to what they are looking for. Let them know they are in the right place to get their problem solved, their needs met, or their desires satisfied.

      The top of your homepage should be a LITTLE about you and a LOT about them.

Design matters here: Make sure your colors, style, branding elements, and info is clear and what will be used consistently throughout the site. They see it here, they’ll see it there, they will see it everywhere… so make it good.

Words are important, too. Remember, this is critical curb appeal so keep the word count low, the value high, and the read easy. PRO TIP: Even your most educated, affluent, or sophisticated site visitors appreciate a quick and easy read.

  Let Them Get More Info

Invite your viewers to opt in (sign up) for something that is very valuable to them in exchange for sharing their e-mail address. Then, keep your promise — send them good stuff: reports, videos, e-mails… whatever. Capturing these leads gives you the opportunity to continue to communicate with them so they will come to know, like, and trust you.

    Video and Images

Some like it, some don’t. There are people who prefer to watch and listen while others would much rather read it for themselves.

Video is a powerful way to deliver information and compel people to take action. If you use it (and we encourage you to!), be sure to include good copy (words) to describe what the video is about and then some highlights from the video (not a full transcript). Adding the copy will keep the attention of someone even if they choose not to watch the video.

Select your images very carefully. Avoid stock photos — you never know where else your site visitors have seen them (and what they were representing). Even a couple of high-quality images will go much further for your business that dull, boring stock images.

Remember that people process information differently so include a little of everything so you can appeal to a wider audience.

  Your Story

Consumers aren’t just looking for the lowest price on a product or service. They might think they are at first, but what will really get them to connect is to form a relationship with YOU and your business. They will buy into WHY you do what you do, not just the “thing” that you sell.

It’s this simple: Details tell, stories sell.

Even if you have an “About” page on your site, tell a bit of your story on the homepage to let your site visitors get to know you. It’s important to them… and it’s important to your business.

No, you don’t have to tell everything about you and your life — this is about how and why you do what you do. What got you into this business. What is your own story of transformation?

This part of your story can be mixed with your credibility builders.

  Make It Easy For Them

Make it so easy for this person to do business with you, that they’ll take immediate action. Be clear about what your site viewer needs to do to call you, come in, order, find out more, get questions answered, etc. Answer the questions before they even pop into the viewer’s mind. This will keep things simple for them and also hold their objections down. Don’t depend on a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) page to answer all of their questions — the most pressing info and questions should be provided or pre-answered on your homepage.

  Content and Copywriting

There’s a difference between content and copywriting (check out this blog post on the subject) but for now, we’ll just say this about that… Content serves to inform, educate, entertain, and build relationships. The purpose of genuine copy (copywriting) is to compel someone to take action. That action might be to sign up to get your free newsletter or it could be for them to press a button and spend thousands of dollars.

On your homepage, be sure to use some of both. Provide value and build relationships with good content (something that will really help the site visitor) and also use great copywriting that will compel them to do the next thing, whatever that is, so that they are taking a step in the right direction to get their problem or pain point solved.

If you have a blog page (and you should!), you can have starter content for a new blog on your homepage and then link to the blog page to access the rest of the article and see other blog posts. Post blogs regularly — don’t let your readers see that the latest post is from 2013, this makes you very out-of-style! PRO TIP: Don’t add dates to your blogs.

  Build Your Credibility and Social Proof

Tell your visitors why you are the expert. What is your education, training, and experience? Why should they listen to you? How have you helped other people? Remember, this is the homepage, though, and you want to keep it brief and relevant. You can add these credibility points in with the homepage portion of your story and put more details on your “About” page.

People are inherently skeptical and will believe what other people say about you before they will believe what you say about yourself (you are trying to sell them something!)

Having a couple of testimonials on your homepage is a great way to have satisfied customers speak on your behalf. If you don’t have testimonials yet, start gathering them and use them throughout your site. Even if you have a dedicated testimonials page, it’s good to have them sprinkled around so your visitors see them even without visiting that specific page.

    Navigation

We can’t say it enough. Your website should be clean and simple, even if you go with high design and even if you run a very complex business. Clutter is just that… clutter.

Be sure to include a menu on your homepage where your website viewers can easily click to get to other pages and information. Make it easy for them to get back to another page.

Include your social media links and invite them to meet you there. Don’t worry if you don’t have 10 social media networks going — whatever you do, do it well and post on it frequently.

  You May Only Have One Chance

Overall, keep in mind that your homepage may be the ONLY chance you have to connect with a website visitor. It’s always good to gather feedback on your website from your customers so don’t be afraid to ask them to fill out a quick survey or provide comments. You may have looked at your own site so many times that you’re no longer seeing the clutter so you MUST look at it through the eyes of your ideal customers.

Need a little help with your homepage? Contact us — we would love to meet you and show you how we can help you do better business with a better website!

  The post What Your Website Home Page MUST Have to be a Valuable Asset to Your Business appeared first on Fingerprint Marketing.

What your website needs NOW to Attract & Convert Business?

Here are some tips I have for you. Check them and I’m sure you’ll attract more clients!

Make sure all the directory listing are up to date

Claim your business.google.com directory listing

Content – Follow the answer formula by Marcus Sheridan

Mobile Ready Website (making sure you have that you have a secure https on your website)

Adding photos and videos on your website

Put a phone number or live chat for easy communication

Google yourself and google your competitors so you can stay ahead of the game

Making sure you have someone outside of your business that can give you honest feedback, this is really helpful!

  The post What your website needs NOW to Attract & Convert Business? appeared first on Fingerprint Marketing.

Social Media for your Manufacturing Business

Social media should be included in every marketing budget. Social media channels are the places where your company can attract attention, share technical content, and engage with customers who are looking for guidance, updates, and solutions to their technical problems. Considering the importance and the variety of all the marketing channels of social media: Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, Pinterest, LinkedIn, and Blogs, it’s no wonder marketing through social media is so critical to growing your manufacturing business.

Let’s take a look at how manufacturers can use some of these social media channels:

YouTube: Creating videos is not only a fantastic way to spread the word about your product line but also a great way to up your rankings on Google. Everyone is familiar with the ongoing marketing campaign of GoPro; They are pros at encouraging their fans to create videos using their product. The result is a memorable campaign that spreads the word about their product line and gets customers involved and excited about the product.

Instagram: with over 700 million users, Instagram is one of the biggest social media networks. Businesses around the world use Instagram to raise brand awareness, generate leads, and increase sales. Sven Alwerud, the founder and CEO of Jelly Skateboards, said, “it’s a powerful tool to display what we’re all about and how customers live that lifestyle. Instagram is invaluable—if you want to get more customers, you want more engagement, or you want more conversions”.

Blog: Using this channel allows manufacturers to provide relevant and dynamic content that their buyers want. Providing information like updates on industry trends, technical specifications, applications, and solutions, will appeal to the types of buyers in the manufacturing business and help form a solid vendor partnership. Because a manufacturer’s blog is an opportunity for technical keyword-rich content, it can also improve your search engine rankings.

LinkedIn: This is another well-known and respected channel that companies are using to advertise to professional audiences. LinkedIn has a wide variety of advertising products to promote your Company, including; ads that send direct messages to your target audience, advertisements that appear in the LinkedIn news feed, text ads, and more. Businesses are successfully using LinkedIn to increase their lead-generation campaigns and conversion efforts.

Pinterest: According to Marketing Week, there are 100 billion pinned images and 2 billion boards on the site. As an advertising platform, Pinterest can be used to share information, pictures, and customer testimonials. Manufacturers would be wise to make quote boards and videos on their Pinterest accounts to increase customer engagement.

Twitter: Using Twitter effectively can provide customers with quick bits of information about your company, industry news, and events. Twitter is excellent for communicating with your customers, make sure you respond to their comments and questions to build trust, and lasting professional relationships.

Digital marketing through social media channels can increase sales from existing customers, bring new customers to your website, and help build lasting professional relationships with your customers.

Keep navigating through our next series posts:

The post Social Media for Manufacturing Businesses appeared first on Fingerprint Marketing.

Welcome to part five in our series:

  Website Maintenance for Manufacturers

  The business-to-business marketplace is changing.  Your manufacturer’s website has become an instrumental tool you can use to market and sell products online, attract new clients, and use it as a place for both to research and find solutions to their needs.

  Why is regular maintenance to manufacturing websites so important?

  Because your website is an important part of your company, it needs to be maintained, just like your factory, to keep it running smoothly. Keeping your website running smoothly is required if you expect to attract visitors, and convert them into leads who will ultimately become loyal customers.

  Here are some things to consider when performing regular maintenance on your website:

  SEO Research and Optimization: This is critical for manufacturing websites; with 89% of B2B researchers using the internet during their research process, understanding the technical terms that your buyers are likely to use when doing an online search helps you target and update specific keywords, so your company continues to have greater visibility online. Data from Google Analytics, as well as Google Search Console, gives valuable information you can use in deciding what additional actions are necessary to improve your SEO.

Security Update: Contact and quote forms are a must-have on manufacturing websites and the information they collect is valuable. Google understands how important it is for websites to secure that information, and they will indicate that a page is not secure if it contains a form, but an SSL is not enabled. You should never lose a customer due to an alert that your site is not secure! By testing and reviewing your site for any security issues, you can make sure that your manufacturing site is safe. There is also an SEO benefit since SSL is now part of Google’s search ranking algorithm.

  Website Back-up: Back-up is essential and must be done regularly. You do not want to lose valuable data. Perform secure off-site backups of your database and file system so your website can continue to function while you work on it. If something goes wrong with the technology, your site can be restored to the most recent back-up, and you will never lose your valuable work to server or database crashes again!

  Fix Broken Links: These need to be fixed right away! Getting a 404, page not found message, is frustrating for a user; they may bounce and find another site to look at. It can also cause Google to downgrade your website. Make sure all internal and external links are working correctly.

  Load Speed: Your website needs to load in less than 3 seconds for the best user experience. Since manufacturing websites should have numerous photos, optimizing the size of photos is one of the ways you can increase your load speed and keep visitors to your site happy.

  Responsiveness: A responsive website adapts to any size device and will be deemed mobile-friendly and moved up in search rankings by Google. In contrast, non-mobile optimized websites will start to see a ranking decline in the Google search results. Review, test, and optimize your manufacturing site to keep it mobile- friendly as part of your website maintenance services.

  Updates: The large amounts of information manufacturing websites have can be technical and can change rapidly. Google will only place your company among its top searches if your content is updated frequently. Additionally, make sure your CMS is updated to the latest version and make sure all extensions are compatible with it.

  We know that as manufacturers, you are continuously looking for ways to improve your operations; keeping your website maintained is critical for your manufacturing business and its overall sales.

  We hope you found our series useful and informative.

  1.Social Media for your Manufacturing Business

2.Local Search Engine Optimization for your Manufacturing Business

3.Email Marketing for your Manufacturing Business

4.Video Marketing for your Manufacturing Business

5.Website Maintenance for your Manufacturing Business

The post Website Maintenance for Manufacturers appeared first on Fingerprint Marketing.

Welcome to part four in our series:

Video Marketing for Manufacturers

  Video marketing offers a significant opportunity for manufacturers. All the products, components, and mechanisms can be highlighted much better in a video than strictly in text. Video marketing is the perfect way to introduce exciting, informative, and interactive content to potential customers.

  Why Videos are essential to your Marketing Campaign:

  Yes, Videos boost your rating on Google and are a must for your website, but they are also the number one type of media used in marketing campaigns. The top social platforms for businesses to market through video are Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram. (Animoto, 2018) (Source: https://www.hubspot.com/marketing-statistics).

Video on these platforms pack a powerful punch, but watchers here don’t want to watch anything for very long. We recommend the video length for YouTube be 2-5 minutes, and Facebook and Instagram 15-30 seconds.

The addition of video helps break up the massive amounts of information manufacturers have available.

Your competitors are already using video in their campaigns. 87% of industry professionals say they use video as a marketing tool. (Wyzowl, 2019) (Source: https://www.hubspot.com/marketing-statistics). Incorporating video into your marketing strategy will keep you competitive in your field.

 Your buyers are watching videos. In today’s mobile world, consumers want to be able to quickly and easily get information. Watching a quick video is more appealing to a growing number of consumers than reading through content. 64% of consumers say watching a marketing video on Facebook has influenced a purchase decision of theirs in the last month. (Animoto, 2017) (Source: https://www.hubspot.com/marketing-statistics). Besides being the preferred way buyers learn about your product, videos also offer a more personalized understanding of your company and products, which is why they are so successful at influencing buyers to make a purchase.

     What Kinds of Videos Should You Use in a Marketing Campaign?

  A complete video marketing campaign will not only have great content, but it will also guide a potential buyer through the steps that will ultimately lead to a purchase ­­­­­­––– from first awareness of your brand to consideration and on to a final decision. A video sequence for a product your company manufacturers might look like this:

  Your first video is about introducing your brand. A promotional video highlighting the things that set your brand apart from others. You make these videos to capture your target audience. They are usually fun or exciting and makes your audience want to find out more about your product.

Next, you can give a bit more information to your interested target audience. By providing and educational video now, you will be able to answer simple, first questions a buyer might have about your product. And your video will come up in their inquiry on YouTube and Google.

Your potential customers are now aware of your brand and trust that your company is knowledgeable since you have also answered some of their questions in an online search they did. Your third video is about giving them more; more information about your product AND your company. This video is a mini-documentary about your company and shows a more personal side of who you are while still providing information about a product. A story about how a particular product has helped someone or provided a service to the community; this video can be a sequence of multiple videos, each highlighting different products. This type of video has a high rate of being shared among people you are trying to attract.

This next video in your marketing campaign will give customers detailed technical information they need to compare their options. Your potential customers now want to know all the features and benefits your products offer. Integrating graphs and animation into these videos will help your customers make a decision. Product videos can increase purchases by 144%. (Neil Patel, 2017) (Source: https://www.hubspot.com/marketing-statistics)

Testimonials are not only important to incorporate into a Website Design for Manufacturers, but also essential to incorporate into your video campaign. This type of video has the same function as they do on your website; they help build trust with customers and help in their decision making. A testimonial in the form of a case study video reassures customers that your product was able to solve a similar problem effectively for someone else.

Finally, the last video in your sequence of videos for your marketing campaign will give an interested buyer a final reason to go ahead and make a purchase. This video should answer commonly asked questions, but in a more detailed way than in your earlier video (#2 above).

  A well planned and executed video marketing campaign will be a valuable tool and reward you with increased sales. 64% of businesses who use video believe that it has directly led to increased sales.  Using video not only enhances your website but also delivers brand awareness, and information across all social media platforms, allowing customers easy access to information about your company and what it has to offer. Videos allow customers to see your products in action, and they answer customer’s questions about products without them ever having to drive to a store or pick up a phone. Stay tuned for our last post in the series, Website Maintenance for Manufacturers.

The post Video Marketing for Manufacturers appeared first on Fingerprint Marketing.

Welcome to part three in our series: Marketing Your Manufacturing Business Online Effectively.

An email marketing campaign is essential to a manufacturer’s overall marketing strategy. After all, email is the number one digital marketing channel. Email has the highest ROI of any marketing channel available, a median ROI of 122%!

With 3.7 billion email users in the world today, using email is an excellent way for manufacturers to introduce their products and services to customers, potential customers, and distributors. With an effective marketing strategy in place, manufacturers will be able to create and maintain a lifelong loyal customer list.

How Can Manufacturing Companies Improve ROI with Email Marketing?

Most people today will research a product or service online before buying. A successful Email strategy will guide prospective clients from first being introduced to your products to buying your products and then to rely on your valuable and informative content, and finally, to trust your company to be their first choice for products over and over again. The long-term effects of your Email strategy are a loyal customer base and increased revenue for your company. Here are some things to consider when planning your email strategy:

The look of emails can now be customized and personalized. Take advantage of this by customizing your layout, modifying colors and images to match your brand and adding call-to-action buttons. Also, according to Experian, emails with personalized subject lines are 26% more likely to be opened.

Build your email list by allowing customers to opt-in to receive your emails. You can add sign-up forms to any part of your website. Building your email list this way will give you a high-quality list of customers who are already interested in your business.

Educate your email recipients about the products you manufacture, your services, and your industry. Send recipients content that will encourage them to not only open your email, but also help them to make a purchase, and keep them interested in your products.

Buyers welcome emails that contain useful items and information, things like how-to videos for products, technical specifications for products along with product pictures, or brochures and e-booklets, discount coupons for a future purchase, updates about safety standards, and significant trends in your industry. You can also send links to your blog posts and other content you have created online; this has the added benefit of sending traffic to your website!

Send your email at an appropriate time for individual subscribers, especially if they are global. An email has a higher chance of being opened if it is at a reasonable time of day for that individual. Make sure you know the time zones of your subscribers.

Automate your email marketing. Automation allows your customers to consistently get the information they may want and at the right time. Perhaps a customer asks about a particular product; the message that should be automatically generated would include information about that product. A follow-up message might consist of a video on how to use the product; another follow-up message might have information on similar products, and so on, until a purchase is made. Future emails to this particular customer might be a loyalty discount coupon for their next purchase. Once you have the groundwork done, automating your emails makes email marketing one of the most affordable marketing strategies there is.

Don’t forget to ask repeat customers for a positive review. Reviews go a long way to help other customers to buy. Reviews also boost your SEO.

Use the email marketing tools available to you. Analytics can give you valuable information about customer behavior, the performance of your subscriber forms, the effectiveness of different kinds of content, and the ability to compare various campaigns.

Finally, make sure your email campaigns are mobile-friendly. Traffic from mobile users is vital to your business. The way people receive and read emails has changed along with the increasing use of mobile devices.

Email marketing has proven results for manufacturers. With the highest return on investment, low cost to implement, and the ability to create and maintain a loyal customer list, manufacturers should make sure to include the above elements in their marketing strategy for a successful email campaign.

The post Email Marketing for Manufacturing Businesses appeared first on Fingerprint Marketing.

This is part two in our series: Marketing Your Manufacturing Business Online Effectively

Searches for products and services “near me” has increased dramatically over the last few years. According to Google, local intent searches lead to a purchase more quickly.

Certainly, SEO is a part of your marketing strategy for your manufacturing business. As we have already seen in part one of our series, Social Media for your Manufacturing Business, many of the social media channels that you should be using to market your business will improve your SEO. Adding Local SEO to your strategy will help other companies and customers looking for products and services “near me” find your manufacturing company. Google takes all the information from the ever-increasing local signals, and it uses it to create a Search Engine Results Page (SERP) that will show all relevant information to that specific local area.

How Can Manufacturing Companies Improve Local SEO?

Customize Website Information to your Location: Adding regional keywords to a page heading and adding your company’s physical address will improve Local SEO and personalize your company’s website.

Google my Business: This is a free service that should be used by every company as part of their marketing strategy. A business profile lets you connect with customers across Google Search and Maps as well as manage all your business information. Registering your manufacturing business on Google Maps will increase its visibility and improve your rankings on Google. When local businesses and customers search for your products or services, you want your company to show up right below the map!

Google Ads: Having your add appear on Google while a relevant customer is searching for products and services your company offers, can direct local customers to both your website and your physical location.

Local Citations: Make sure you have the correct name, address and phone of your company on local listings. Even small discrepancies can mess with your Google rankings, so be consistent across all local directories like Yellowpages.com, Manta.com and any blogs, newspaper sites, networking groups like BNI and meetups, or event listings where your company information is cited. Since Google loves consistency, doing this will help elevate your search rankings.

Reviews: Reviews show searchers what other like-minded people think about your business. Reviews can influence a searcher to make a buying decision quickly. The appeal of reading a business’s Facebook page review is that the opinion on a company or the products they manufacture is coming from people you know. Since Google adds up the number and quality of reviews as a factor in determining your local search ranking, having reviews on Google My Business, Yelp, Citysearch, Merchant Circle, and Facebook are critical for your business.

Links: Another component in the Google search algorithm is having links to your site from trusted, well-established sites like the chamber of commerce and local networking groups. Joining groups like the Chamber of Commerce, Local BNI groups, or sponsoring a meetup.com group will get you a link from a membership directory or from an event page you are hosting.

It takes a lot of management and patience to stay on top of SEO, especially as the rules are constantly changing with every Google algorithm update. However, there is a lot of Local SEO to tap into to improve your visibility online and increase sales for your manufacturing company.

Stay tuned for our next post in the series, Email Marketing for your Manufacturing Business.

The post Local Search Engine Optimization for Manufacturing Businesses appeared first on Fingerprint Marketing.

With over four billion internet users worldwide, it’s no wonder the business-to-business marketplace has shifted; more than half of all industrial buyers and those who influence buying decisions, research online. Buyers comb the internet to find the components, equipment, and services they need before making a purchase or deciding on a supplier.

Today’s manufacturing businesses need a more prominent presence online to take advantage of today’s digital marketplace.  Although manufacturers have been slower than other industries to market their products digitally, manufacturers who include digital marketing into their budget will see positive results and gain an advantage over their competitors who haven’t embraced the digital world.

This post is the first in our series of 6 posts dedicated to marketing your manufacturing business online:

Social Media for your Manufacturing Business

Local Search Engine Optimization for your Manufacturing Business [coming soon]

Email Marketing for your Manufacturing Business [coming soon]

Video Marketing for your Manufacturing Business [coming soon]

Mobile Optimization/PPC/Podcast/Reviews (case studies, top people in the industry) for Your Manufacturing Business [coming soon]

Website Maintenance for your Manufacturing Business [coming soon]

Social Media for your Manufacturing Business

Social media should be included in every marketing budget. Social media channels are the places where your company can attract attention, share technical content, and engage with customers who are looking for guidance, updates, and solutions to their technical problems. Considering the importance and the variety of all the marketing channels of social media: Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, Pinterest, LinkedIn, and Blogs, it’s no wonder marketing through social media is so critical to growing your manufacturing business.

Let’s take a look at how manufacturers can use some of these social media channels:

YouTube: Creating videos is not only a fantastic way to spread the word about your product line but also a great way to up your rankings on Google. Everyone is familiar with the ongoing marketing campaign of GoPro; They are pros at encouraging their fans to create videos using their product. The result is a memorable campaign that spreads the word about their product line and gets customers involved and excited about the product.

Instagram: with over 700 million users, Instagram is one of the biggest social media networks. Businesses around the world use Instagram to raise brand awareness, generate leads, and increase sales. Sven Alwerud, the founder and CEO of Jelly Skateboards, said, “it’s a powerful tool to display what we’re all about and how customers live that lifestyle. Instagram is invaluable—if you want to get more customers, you want more engagement, or you want more conversions”.

Blog: Using this channel allows manufacturers to provide relevant and dynamic content that their buyers want. Providing information like updates on industry trends, technical specifications, applications, and solutions, will appeal to the types of buyers in the manufacturing business and help form a solid vendor partnership. Because a manufacturer’s blog is an opportunity for technical keyword-rich content, it can also improve your search engine rankings.

LinkedIn: This is another well-known and respected channel that companies are using to advertise to professional audiences. LinkedIn has a wide variety of advertising products to promote your Company, including; ads that send direct messages to your target audience, advertisements that appear in the LinkedIn news feed, text ads, and more. Businesses are successfully using LinkedIn to increase their lead-generation campaigns and conversion efforts.

Pinterest: According to Marketing Week, there are 100 billion pinned images and 2 billion boards on the site. As an advertising platform, Pinterest can be used to share information, pictures, and customer testimonials. Manufacturers would be wise to make quote boards and videos on their Pinterest accounts to increase customer engagement.

Twitter: Using Twitter effectively can provide customers with quick bits of information about your company, industry news, and events. Twitter is excellent for communicating with your customers, make sure you respond to their comments and questions to build trust, and lasting professional relationships.

Digital marketing through social media channels can increase sales from existing customers, bring new customers to your website, and help build lasting professional relationships with your customers. Stay tuned for our next post in the series, Local Search Engine Optimization for your Manufacturing Business.

The post Marketing Your Manufacturing Business Online Effectively appeared first on Fingerprint Marketing.

Is the thought of improving, redesigning or just maintaining your website weighing on you?

With all the elements to consider, it can be overwhelming. However, following a clear and organized strategy will greatly help you complete these tasks. Below are 5 strategies that will help you meet your goals of having and maintaining a great website:

State Your Goals and Identify User Paths

First things first, decide and write down what your goals for your website are. What are the primary things you want from your website? For example: for ecommerce sites, most people might say their top goal is to generate sales.

Now, identify just a few things you want visitors to do on your site that will lead them to your ultimate goal of generating more sales. Continuing with our example: you will want a visitor to make a purchase and successfully check out, but another thing you may want a visitor to accomplish while on your site, that will ultimately lead to future sales, is to join your mailing list. Always with the visitors coming to your site in mind, identify and draw out all the steps those visitors need to go through to arrive where you want them to. (the check out and the mailing list sign-up form)

In our example, the steps a person takes to arrive at the checkout may look like this:

They typed in some keywords into Google to search for something they think they need

They are led to a product page on your website

They choose their personal requirements to filter out unnecessary information and find information on a product that will work for them

They read testimonials about the product they are interested in

They look at the About Us page and the Contact Us page to learn more about your company

They choose a few items from the product pages and click add to cart

They check the shipping page to see how much shipping will cost and how long it will take

They join your mailing list for the discount they get for a first-time purchase

They continue to the checkout and complete a purchase

Putting yourself in the user’s shoes, allows you to see your website from the customers perspective. Now, you will be able to add notes next to the areas you identified in the pathway as an issue that you might find frustrating as a visitor to your site. Later, those issues will be easy to find and fix.

Organize the Structure of Your Website

Now that you have addressed the steps a user takes to arrive where you want them to, it’s time to use those steps as a guide and draw out a plan for the structure of your site. This step will provide you with guidance on constructing a thoughtful, comprehensive and balanced website.

Pages to consider when organizing the structure of your website are:

Home Page: You only have seconds to capture a visitor’s attention. Make sure to wow your visitors with eye-catching visuals and a short, to-the-point, list of your services and product types.

Products and Services: What products and services do you have? give each product or service its own dedicated page.

About Us: This is your opportunity to directly answer what a visitor wants to know; essentially, who are you and what makes your company unique?

Comparison Page: These are helpful if you have a large inventory of similar products and they can help a visitor make a decision and proceed to the checkout.

Photo Gallery or Portfolio: Visuals are a fantastic way of persuading visitors to become buying customers.

Testimonials: Testimonials help build trust with customers and help them in their decision making.

Self-identification pages: These are pages that users arrive at after being able to filter out information they don’t need. They receive information unique to their situation; each identified situation, which your site has products or services for, should have its own page. An example would be if you have a skincare company and a user is able to filter out and make selections which leads them to a page only with information and products for mature, dry skin, or acne prone, teenage skin. This helps users get right to the products they need.

Blog: This is your opportunity to capture first time visitors who need more information before they commit to buy; they have happened upon your site while doing research for something they might want. It is also your opportunity to supply these customers and returning customers with educational information and news related to your industry.

Contact Us: Contact information, including a physical address and telephone number, build trust with potential customers visiting your site. This page is also a good place to list your social media links such as Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn.

Terms and Conditions: And Return Policy if you have an ecommerce site.

Shipping: If you have products, people will go to this page before they go to check out to make sure they can get a product when they need it.

Of course, there are many pages you may need for your unique company. The ones listed above are some of the most common. They are extremely important to nearly every website and visitors expect to see them on a website.

Select Essential Content for Your Pages

Now that you have determined which pages you will have, let’s talk about how to choose essential content to have on those pages.

With your visitors in mind, and the steps you identified that they will take, you want the content they receive on each page to provide them with the information they need to move onto the next step in their path to, (continuing with our example), the checkout. Ask yourself:

Does this page give the user what they need to move onto the next page?

Is the user able to arrive at the next page quickly and easily?

Is it clear to the user how to get to the next step?

What page do I want the user to see next?

The information, at each step, should be a logical progression with the final result being a great user experience that generates a sale.

For the purposes of having a strategy guide to follow, writing down simple notes next to the pages you determined you needed, will help you write and expand on the essential content for your pages. Keeping notes about content in the order that a user would likely encounter it helps you stay organized and focused on what is essential.

Say Yes to Videos and Photos

Determine what your budget will be for video and photos and decide on which pages your photos and videos will go on.

Product Pages should have great professional photographs with multiple shots of each product. Using zoom features will help your customer make sound decisions and they will be grateful for the added help and ease of navigation your website offers. The addition of people from your company can help make the About Us page welcoming and personal. Photos that give additional information when hovered over, allows visitors to get instant information without changing pages.

Videos boost your rating on Google and are a must for websites. Short “how to” videos can really help a customer make a decision and offers additional educational information. Just make sure you use a third party to host your video, like YouTube, don’t load videos on your server.

These are the pages visitors coming to your website will spend the most time on, so don’t skimp on your photo and video budget!

Have a plan for Technical Setup and Website Launch

Pinpoint any functionality your website needs by reviewing the structure of your website and the user paths you identified above. This will also help you choose a CMS (Content Management System) that works best for your needs.

Technical elements to think about:

Optimized code for fast page loading

Cross-browser compatibility

Google Search Console integration

Google Analytics

Support for e-commerce

Adding plugins to expand or modify functionality.

Interactive functionality (e.g. zoom and hover for photos, clickable maps, self- identification tools)

Forms and contact collection

Mobile friendliness

Subscription and email follow-up

Video hosting platforms

Database functionality

The Strategy you use to build your website is interwoven with the technology you need to support it. Make sure you have the information you need so you can decide on the right technology for your website.

If you need to recruit some technical help, make sure they are also available on launch day to handle last minute hick-ups. Schedule time and date ahead of time!

On a final note, remember to put yourself in the buyer’s shoes when making choices for your website.

It takes a lot of work to put together a good website. All the technical elements; software, plugins, themes and hosting combine with all your creative content, images and texts, to make the website of your dreams. Maintaining it will be an ongoing process, but having a good strategy, will make your job a lot easier!

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