How to Measure the Success of Your SEO Strategy Posted on September 30, 2021September 2, 2022 by Natalie Slyman There’s not a single professional athlete who’ll tell you that they don’t measure their progress. Athletes track minute details every day as they practice because they know that success doesn’t happen overnight; it can take months and even years to perfect their routines. And SEO success, which hopefully comes faster, calls for a similar amount of tracking. To rank higher in search engine results, brands have to create consistent, high-quality SEO content that keeps customers coming back, and that means measuring their progress and adjusting their strategy if necessary. The stakes with SEO might be different — there’s no gold medal — but you’re competing against other businesses for leads, so the stakes are still very high. Instead of outsourcing your SEO, suppose you’ve taken the DIY approach and created and implemented the perfect SEO strategy — great! Now make sure you measure the success with trackable results. Here are seven metrics you can use to track your SEO strategy’s progress. 1. Keyword Rankings When you designed your SEO strategy, you did keyword research and chose the best keywords to focus on for your target audience. Now, measure how your site ranks by doing a Google search of those keywords. The search engine results will determine how your site ranks among your competitors. The goal is to appear on the first page, where you will have the most opportunity to earn more organic traffic to your site. And, if you’re using SEO tools, like SEMRush, for example, you should take note of where you rank for certain keywords so you can determine if your rank is climbing over time. 2. Organic Traffic Organic traffic refers to the number of visitors you drive to your website after you show up in their online search. If you’re working with an athlete who wants to appear on the first page of a search for “best basketball player 2021,” then ideally, your content should be optimized for those keywords. The person who searches those keywords wants that exact information, and if your site provides that for them, it will increase traffic to your site. Google Analytics will segment the sources of your organic traffic — what search engines people use to find you, their geographic location, and the time of the day they searched. This information can show you where your unique and returning visitors are coming from, so you can target those sources for more traffic later. 3. Time Spent on Page Getting users to your site is only the first step — you also want them to stick around a while. Create educational content that they want to consume. When users search for keywords in a search engine and your site pops up, do they find the information they want? If your content strategy attracts people and maintains them for more time, your strategy is effective. To grow this metric, experiment with both short and long-form content to see what keeps people on your site longer. Use visuals and video, if possible, as those two forms of content are notorious for increased engagement. 4. CTR If your site appears on the first page of search results, how many people click through to your site? The percentage of users who see your site pop up on their results and click to your site is your click-through rate (CTR). If your site provides users with the information they are seeking out, your CTR will increase consistently. SEO metrics are interconnected; the higher your keyword ranking is, the more potential your CTR has to increase. 5. Bounce Rate You know what it’s like when you go into a shop and you don’t find any products that interest you? You don’t purchase or pick up an item to take a closer look at; you just survey the room and then turn around and leave. Bounce rate is similar in that it measures how many people visit your site and don’t interact with any of your content. They come; they go. They don’t click on any of your links. A high bounce rate may mean you need to make your site more user-friendly, and you need to be better at correlating your content to the keywords you want it to rank for. 6. Returning Visitors Everyone has a go-to order at their favorite restaurant. You know that every time you order it, it’s going to be good. The same is true for returning visitors to your website. If people come back regularly, it means you’re doing something right — you’re providing a service or content that attracts new visitors and retains previous ones too. If your SEO is effective, all someone has to do is search a term and find your content one time. If they click through and actually check out your content and find that it feeds a particular need of theirs, they’ll be more inclined to return again and again. 7. Domain Authority How often does your domain appear in search results for users compared to your competitors? Domain authority predicts how often your site will pop up for the keywords that users search — the better your keyword ranking, the better your domain authority. Google doesn’t rely on domain authority when it ranks your site, but it’s a good metric to keep track of because it shows you how you’re doing in relation to your competition. People only spend about nine seconds looking at search engine results before they click on a link. You want users to find you, not your competitors, on the first page of their search results. These seven metrics — keyword rankings, organic traffic, time spent on page, CTR, bounce rate, returning visitors, and domain authority — can help you measure and grow your SEO strategy to make sure people come to your site first and stay there.
How Marketing Compliance Fits Into Your Marketing Strategy Posted on September 29, 2021September 29, 2021 by Jess Lunk Marketing compliance is probably the last thing you think of when working on a marketing strategy for your business. However, it comes into play with every single aspect of your marketing plan. If you’re driving traffic to your website, using paid advertising for your business, generating leads, or emailing your subscribers, marketing compliance needs to be looked into for each stream. The great news is that compliance practices can be easily implemented as long as you know what to do. We’re here to provide you with a deep dive into marketing compliance so you can get better acquainted with it and ensure you’re doing all you can to stay 100% compliant in your practices. What is Marketing Compliance? Marketing compliance is the practice of ensuring that marketing practices, sales content, and data follow the laws and policies set in place by the government to protect consumers. Making sure your marketing practices are compliant can sound tedious and overwhelming, but compliance is an important investment to make in your marketing strategy and in building long-lasting, trusting relationships with your leads and customers. Why Marketing Compliance Is Important Keeping your marketing practices compliant is about more than avoiding hefty fines. Think of marketing compliance like any other marketing best practice – the rules and guidelines are there to help you build trust with your customer base and get the most out of your marketing efforts. For instance, you know that false advertising about your product or service is not only dishonest and illegal, but it won’t get you anywhere in the long run. False advertising may get eyes on your brand, but if it leads to angry customers and a bad reputation, is it worth it? Marketing Compliance Standards to Know Depending on your marketing strategy, you may be impacted by different compliance standards. Here are a few you should know about: GDPR The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), a law that went into effect in 2018, protects the personal data and privacy of people in the European Union. The GDPR is law in the European Union, but it applies to all European Union citizens, regardless of where they reside in the world. So even if you strictly do business in the U.S., you still need to comply with the GDPR regulations, as European Union citizens could be perusing your site. And in turn, the GDPR also applies to non-European Union citizens who live in the European Union. The GDPR means that marketers have to be transparent regarding what they do with customer data, and you have to provide a way for customers to give you consent to have access to their data. If you’re using cookies to track users on your website or using online forms to collect user data, you’ll want to make sure you have the proper data privacy protections in place. This means letting site visitors know that your site uses cookies, having a consent disclaimer on your website forms, and ensuring your email list is opt-in only. Failure to comply is not only unethical; it could result in financial consequences. Google, for example, was fined $57 million in 2019 for not getting its users’ written consent to use their data for personalized ads. CAN-SPAM Using email marketing in your business? The CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 set forth requirements on how businesses can correspond with consumers and other businesses. While GDPR regulates how businesses can acquire and use user data, CAN-SPAM regulates what must be present in an email – such as an option to opt-out of or unsubscribe from communication. Using reputable email marketing software will help make sure you have these protections in place for your email strategy. Copyright Images Creating images for marketing content is no easy task – especially if you’re a small business without a designer in-house. While it may be tempting to scour Google’s image search for the perfect picture, you could find yourself paying fines if you use a copyrighted image without permission. Instead, find an affordable stock image site like Adobe Stock or Pexels. Or, try your hand at creating images from a simple design software like Canva. How to Keep Your Marketing Practices Compliant It may be time-consuming to keep up with all the updates on marketing compliance, but it’s necessary to maintain trust with your customer base. Plus, consumer watchdog and government agencies both keep a close eye on whether or not businesses are in compliance, so don’t think you can just fly under the radar. Because of the detailed level of work that compliance requires, it’s best to create clear guidelines for your team to follow. Here are a few tips (but no legal advice) on how you can ensure your marketing checks all the necessary boxes. Stay Consistent in Your Branding and Messaging One problem area businesses can run into is misrepresenting their business or products. Keeping your messaging and branding consistent across your digital presence is an easy way to ensure your team isn’t inadvertently sending a confusing or false message to consumers. Get Permission to Gather Data Double-check your lead forms for GDPR compliance. Make sure that when a user fills out a form on your website that you’re transparent about how you’ll use their data. If you use cookies on your website, invest in a tool to let users know what you’re tracking and give them the option to opt out. Keep Your Terms of Service Up-to-Date Ensure that the terms of service that you’ve published and shared online properly state your responsibilities, liabilities, and disclaimers. Occasionally review them to ensure they’re always up-to-date. Put a Review Process in Place You likely have multiple team members or even an outside agency or two publishing content or executing other marketing strategies on behalf of your business. Putting a review process in place to check those materials can give you peace of mind that you’re staying true to your brand and out of any compliance grey area. Safeguard the Data You Collect Since you collect customer’s personal data during onboarding, such as credit card numbers, birth dates, names, and emails, it’s important that you have a way to protect that information. For example, some businesses only allow people with security clearances to access sensitive information in order to protect it from getting leaked. To keep data secure and in one place, you can use automation software that will store customer’s information for you instead of storing it on your computer. This way, if you ever need to delete something, you can delete it in your software, and it is gone. If the information exists on a file on multiple computers, it will be difficult to assure a customer that their data is fully protected. And, if you receive personal customer data from the EU, make sure you brush up on the EU-US Privacy Shield and how it was recently struck down. Monitor Privacy Updates and Have a Protocol in Place Policy changes happen periodically, and you should keep up with them to stay compliant. Create a marketing compliance group at your company and assign one of your team members to be responsible for keeping up with updates. If you make any changes to your terms and conditions, you are required by the GDPR to notify your customers. Those customers can decide for themselves if they want to keep their business with you based on those updates, but having a protocol for notifying them regarding updates is a must. Ensuring that your marketing practices are 100% compliant is a challenging process, but if you break it down into actionable steps for your team, you can get there together. Take all the time you need to ensure that you’re compliant, updated on privacy changes, and protecting the data you collect on your customers.
5 Emerging Business Trends Small Businesses Need to Pay Attention To Posted on September 23, 2021November 15, 2021 by Guest Author Trends come and go. But for small businesses the importance of staying up to date with consumer changes is ever-present. If you want your small business to thrive during challenging times, having a finger on the pulse of emerging trends is the key to success. 2020 brought major changes to our world. Dealing with COVID-19 has been difficult for everyone, and economies globally have been hit hard by the pandemic. Some industries, like tourism and hospitality, are crippled—possibly permanently—while others have had to adapt to survive. Owners of small businesses, especially, have faced the hard task of competing with big companies in a time of extreme uncertainty. In general, small businesses have smaller reserves, limited cash flow, and fewer resources, making them extremely vulnerable. While many communities have attempted to encourage supporting local (and smaller) companies, businesses themselves have to follow trends if they want to keep up with the times. Overall Emerging Trends 2021 has been a bit of a roller coaster so far. Economies are still in a state of flux, leaving everyone unsure about the future. For small business owners, that uncertainty is even more troubling. That’s why paying attention to emerging trends is so important. We’ve taken a look at five emerging trends and what they might mean for small business owners and consumers. Let’s see what they are. 1. Cater to Generation Z Generation Z—those born roughly between 1996 and 2012—are fast becoming the most powerful consumer group, even if some are only nine or ten years old. Previous generations seem to perceive Gen Zers as distractible and lazy. But in reality, they’re socially conscious and know exactly what they want in life. In the coming years, this generation will become one of the largest consumer groups—in the USA, at least. Some companies have started to cater more for Gen Z, but many are still lagging behind. This consumer group is most at home online, making it imperative for businesses to have an online presence that goes beyond a website. Apart from technology, the biggest priorities of Gen Zers are factors like social justice, adaptability, and living authentically. While they live online, they also desire personalized service. Action tips: The main priority when it comes to attracting Gen Zers is open-mindedness. Gen Z values honesty and integrity, and would rather shop ethically if possible. To appeal to the youngest consumer group, business owners must be willing to operate ethically and transparently. 2. Adaptable Business Models One thing we all learned in 2020 was that adaptability is valuable—even essential. From our private lives to the business world, the sudden change forced society to give up certain behaviors and add new ones. For many industries, this proved fatal, as they’d never had to contend with such rigid restrictions before. Lockdowns caused non-essential businesses to close, at least temporarily, and those that remained open reported to remote working. When it came to reaching consumers, businesses had to adapt quickly and radically. Now, more than a year later, it’s clear that business isn’t back to “normal” (and may never be). Many people are more cautious about going out and spending time in shops or spaces where they’ll mingle with strangers. Businesses that have managed to survive, or even thrive, have turned to new ways, such as combining online and offline elements, contactless delivery, and offering services online instead of in person. As a business owner, the challenge now is to reach your target market and reassure them that you’re still there. While making sure that everyone is safe and healthy. Flexibility is the goal. And once again, open-mindedness is the way to achieve it. Action tips: A business continuity plan (BCP) has emerged as an essential tool to help businesses survive in these uncertain times. BCPs help business owners prepare for the unknown and formulate plans to ensure their survival in the face of unprecedented hardships—like the events of the past year or so. To formulate your own BCP, it’s best to get advice from a professional. But to start with, it’s a good idea to record a comprehensive list of your assets, equipment, data systems, etc. Hybrid shopping has also gained popularity over the past 18 months: paying online and picking up in person. The form this takes depends on what you’re selling. But it’s guaranteed that customers will appreciate this service. It can also give the impression that you’re willing to tailor your approach to individual preferences. 3. Growth of eCommerce Shopping online isn’t new by any means. But over the past 18 or so months, it has become the norm. Before 2020, it would be safe to say that some consumers, mostly young, felt at home shopping online. Now, businesses that don’t have an online presence stand little chance of surviving, let alone thriving. It’s tricky trying to pin down the exact statistics, but what is clear is that eCommerce has become a permanent fixture. Some sources estimate that 2020 saw a 30% increase in eCommerce. Tapping into the online market is something all businesses must aim for. Having an online presence is non-negotiable, but many smaller businesses are lagging behind in this aspect. One 2020 study looking at small businesses in the US found that more than one-third did not have a website—only a little better than the 40% recorded in 2019. When it comes to surviving COVID, small businesses took the biggest hit. Between February and April 2020, the number of active small businesses dropped by 22%. Business analyst Charlie O’Shea suggests that this devastation wasn’t caused by the pandemic but rather accelerated. That is, small business was already at a disadvantage, one of the problems being that they had a very meager financial buffer against bankruptcy. The solution? Unfortunately, there isn’t a clear answer to this, but what is obvious is the necessity of reaching your consumers both online and offline. Action tips: Keeping up in these economic times demands an innovative approach. The over-65s still tend to prefer brick-and-mortar shops. But in the coming years, the buying power will increasingly sit with people who’ve grown up online to some degree. There isn’t one specific solution to the conundrum (online, offline, hybrid), but potential customers definitely prefer clarity. Your website should be easy enough to navigate for the older population. Even if you don’t have physical business premises, stating your central location (the city, for example) can give a sense of stability. Show that you’re a real person rather than a nebulous internet presence. 4. Social Media Marketing The growth of eCommerce is closely linked to the ways small businesses advertise and promote their services. 2020 meant that people stayed home much more than usual, which meant they were online more than usual (especially those working and studying remotely). This typically meant that they spent a lot more time on social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. In 2019 there were already around 3.484 billion people active on social media; in 2021, that number has risen to a whopping 4.48 billion. These statistics make it obvious that going online, and especially on social media, is the only way businesses have of reaching their target market. We already know that Generation Z is fast becoming the most powerful consumer group, and they, more than any other population, live online. Under 30s are more drawn to Instagram, Snapchat, and TikTok. At the same time, more research has shown the different social media trends in various demographics —in terms of race, gender, level of education, and living situation. Action tips: Stay on top of research and follow the trends. Go online and interact with customers, find out what they like and don’t like, and try to understand the importance of being available 24/7. Part of social media’s power is its ability to connect people in real-time. 5. Socially Responsible Shopping Gen Zers are not only becoming the largest consumer group; their approach to life is overturning the status quo. Previous generations have largely got away with ignoring issues such as global warming and massive social inequalities. But Gen Z, now faced with those realities, is determined not to stand back and accept the status quo. Consumers are beginning to have an opinion about where products come from and how they’re manufactured and distributed. In April 2020, a study showed that 60% of survey respondents were consciously trying to “do their bit” in terms of the environment and wider society. Avoiding purchases that could damage the environment and choosing more sustainable, ethical options. Action tips: It’s hard to pin down one approach to the changing social and economic climate. But, once again, business owners need to be willing to change and adapt. Making a gradual switchover to more eco-friendly practices is something you can plan for strategically. Whether this means cutting down on printing or avoiding plastic packaging, you can implement your strategy step-by-step. The Takeaway It’s clear that the world is changing and is likely to remain uncertain for some time to come. For small businesses looking to thrive, the best preparation is a flexible approach and a willingness to monitor trends and adapt. Author Bio Nina Sharpe is a content champion for various outlets, covering various business topics from finance for startups to small business accounting tips.
6 Tips to Scale Knowledge Base Content That Truly Helps Customers Posted on September 16, 2021September 10, 2021 by Guest Author A well-conceived knowledge base can act as a useful virtual self-service portal for your customers. If you’re confused about why you should invest time and effort into creating one, look at the following statistics: As per Forrester, customers prefer knowledge bases over all other self-service channels. According to Forbes, around 40% of customers prefer self-service over human contact. Research by Social Media Today predicts that an overwhelming 91% of customers would use an online knowledge base if it were available and tailored to their needs. Clearly, you’ll find many takers if you have a comprehensive and strategic knowledge base integrated into your website or chatbot. In this blog, we will understand what it takes to create an impactful knowledge base–complete with tips, strategies, and hacks–that are equal parts educative, convenient, and useful for the customers. Let’s jump right in. How to Effectively Draft Knowledge Base Content Let’s start by understanding the steps you need to do to create an insightful and actionable knowledge base content: Step 1: Think About the End Goal of Your Content. Will your knowledge base be instruction-driven, or is it there to address the basic FAQ-type questions that your customers are facing on a daily basis? Do you need to include product-driven demos and how-to videos, or will PDF-type documentation suffice? You can answer all these questions and more once you have the end goal/strategy/purpose of the knowledge base nailed down. So collaboratively think about why you need a knowledge base in the first place before you start working on the content. Step 2: Speak to Your Customer Service Team to Understand What Kind of Content to Cover. As a rule of thumb, get your CX, marketing, and sales teams involved when brainstorming about the kind of content to include within your knowledge base-from the range of topics to the content format. For example, you can ask the CX team about some of the most common pain-points, queries, challenges, and misunderstandings of users and build knowledge base content that covers all these topics, as Dropbox’ Featured Articles section demonstrates below: Image Source Pro tip: If you are using helpdesk software, you can use a tag or custom field to flag the most-pressing customer queries and integrate it in real-time within your knowledge base. Step 3: Have a Proper Structure and Layout in Place. Once you have the list of hot topics in place, you can think about the kind of structure and layout your knowledge base should showcase. There are literally thousands of layouts you can play with. However, the trick lies in building an intuitive, organized, and logical structure, as Yoast’s knowledge base demonstrates below: Image Source Despite the length and breadth of topics covered, every article is neatly categorized based on various services and functionalities that the platform provides. Basically, try to group similar information together so that your customers can easily find what they’re looking for in one place, as Asana does via its top-3 categories: the basics, the functionalities, and the leadership tips on using the product effectively: Image Source Step 4: Look at the Existing Forms of Content. You don’t always need to start from scratch when building a knowledge base. Chances are that you already have a plethora of content to choose from. This includes FAQs on your website, internal documentation such as policies, etc., customer guides, live chat interactions, social media posts, product images, etc. that you can draw inspiration from and use as ammunition for your knowledge base content as Dyson’s knowledge base showcases below: Image Source Just make sure to reword the content, keeping it as crisp and relevant as possible, and look for duplication/inconsistencies that might be easy to miss. Step 5: Create New Content Consistently. Once you have a clear blueprint of the content forms, structure, layout, and type, all you need to do is work on creating new content. This ensures that your knowledge base is always current and addresses the user’s needs in real-time. To bring more authenticity to the content, make sure to rope in subject matter experts who can build on the approved outline. Also, ensure that the tone of voice and language used remains consistent and are in line with the branding requirements. You can also create an “In this article” section which outlines what customers can expect from the page to make the reading experience convenient. Rail Europe does this effectively: Image Source Pro tip: Make your knowledge base content SEO-optimized by using the right keywords. You can also use terms and phrases that your customers use often in relation to your brand to ensure that the content feels familiar and relevant to the reader. Plus, make sure to include the problem statement followed by a clear and simplified step-by-step process, and conclude with the result that the user should get in the end. You can also include related resources such as similar articles, questions, or topics. Next, let’s look at some of the most important factors you should consider when creating a knowledge base from a general perspective. Factors to Keep in Mind while Creating a Knowledge Base Update and refresh the content on a timely basis: As mentioned earlier, if your knowledge base contains outdated information, it’ll create a negative brand effect. So make sure to keep revisiting the content and promote topics that are most current. Create a dedicated team/person who will be responsible for making changes and owning the knowledge base. Use proper formatting–complete with bullets, related links, sub-headings, bold and italics, and short paragraphs–to boost visibility and readability. Avoid any unnecessary distractions and place the most important information first. Chronology is extremely important. When designing your knowledge base, embrace time-tested design hacks such as using contrast and white space as Lyft does expertly: Image Source As a gold standard, comb through your customer interactions to use catchphrases and terms that your customers use most often. The idea is to ‘get into the customer’s mindset’ and use their words/language to boost content readability. For instance, Canva uses phrases like “Something’s not working” to gain the customer’s attention: Image Source Promote your knowledge base in-app or on specific pages on the website (such as Product page, Checkout page, etc.) by using specific tools. You can also embed your knowledge base within your chatbot support tool, as Evernote demonstrates below: Image Source Always includes a Search bar to make it easier for customers to find the information instantly and easily. Finally, let’s look at some of the most critical challenges that you might face when building a knowledge base. Challenges while Creating a Customer-Centric Knowledge Base In this section, we will understand the top three challenges you might face when creating a user-centric knowledge base: Your knowledge base goals might not align with what the users want. For instance, you may have a worded FAQ section in place when users really want to see how to use your product, especially if it is complicated to use in the first place. Hence, time and care should be taken to narrow down on the right goals and strategies that genuinely address the user’s needs. The content included might be inaccurate or worse, irrelevant. This often happens with knowledge bases that focus deeply on the product features but not enough on how the product will benefit the reader. The content needs to be user-centric and should demonstrate user benefits at all times. Issues of team coordination and collaboration can lead to a disjointed knowledge base that feels (and reads) incomplete. This will further leave the reader confused and frustrated. In such a case, you should always include a Contact section at the end of every page to allow users to get their queries addressed instantly. The Takeaway The ultimate mantra of a knowledge base can be summed up as: “Empower your customers to help themselves as quickly and easily as possible.” This can only be done if your knowledge base is customer-centric, up-to-date, and value-driven from the get-go. So embrace the tips and hacks outlined above, and build a knowledge base that benefits your customers as well as employees for years to come. AUTHOR BIO Ashwini is passionate about business, entrepreneurship, eCommerce, emerging technology, and digital marketing. She is working with Acquire as a digital marketing expert. She is a free soul and adventurous scholar who spends her free time with herself and loved ones, music, as well as watching and playing sports. She is ocean addicted and on roads being a thrill-seeking traveler to get new experiences as she looks at life as our very own works of art.
Step-By-Step Guide for Creating a Monthly Social Media Calendar Posted on September 15, 2021January 19, 2022 by Natalie Slyman We live our lives by our personal and work calendars, so why not take that organizing principle and apply it to our marketing strategies too? Enter: the social media calendar. What’s a Social Media Calendar? A social media calendar is an internal tool where you can plan, assign, create and schedule content that will ultimately be posted to different social networks. Some businesses use something basic like a spreadsheet or an Airtable base to track this information, while others shell out for purpose-built software such as CoSchedule. Whatever you use, it should be easy for your whole team to access and collaborate with, and it should be customizable to fit your needs. The bottom line? A social media calendar can help you save time, create content more efficiently and methodically, and streamline workflows for your team members. The complexity of a social media calendar depends on the scope and size of your social strategy. If you’re posting on a lot of platforms and/or multiple times a day, your calendar will likely be pretty complex and require a super-organized structure. You might be wondering why you should bother planning out your posts a month in advance — after all, isn’t social media supposed to be spontaneous? Well, yes and no. Ideally, your engagement will be spontaneous, but when it comes to offering value to your followers, fortune favors the planner. Benefits of Using a Social Media Calendar It keeps your campaign on track. Whether you plan to post daily, weekly, or on a different cadence, scheduling your posts ahead of time will ensure you stay consistent. It limits the chances of repeat posts or typos. It’s easy to make errors when you’re typing on the fly or to accidentally repeat the exact same phrase three times in as many days. Seeing all your posts laid out in front of you will give you a better opportunity to proofread. It gives you time to create compelling content and try new angles. When you have a week or longer to think about what you want to say, you’ll have a better chance of saying something worthwhile, and when you do not have to churn out a new post every day, you’ll have more bandwidth to create off-the-cuff posts to align with current events and trending topics. So now that you understand the importance of a social media calendar, how do you create one of your own? We have a handy step-by-step guide for you, plus some examples of different ways successful organizations have built their calendars so you can get a feel for the real-world application. How to Create Your Monthly Social Media Calendar 1. Audit Your Existing Strategy Before you can implement a new strategy, you need to understand what’s working (and what’s not) about your current one. How have you been handling your social media accounts so far? Who’s responsible for writing posts? Are you scheduling at all, or simply writing and publishing right away? If there are elements of your existing strategy that have been performing well for you, think about incorporating those into your calendar. For example, if one person’s content performs better than the others, maybe they write all the copy and their teammates handle the images. 2. Understand Your Audience In any marketing strategy, understanding your audience is key. Analyze the performance data from your previous posts to see if you can nail down what kinds of content resonates most with your followers. Do they engage with social posts that prompt questions, or do they seem to prefer humor over earnestness? Once you know what kind of content is resonating with your audience, you can plan to increase your focus on that kind of content and think about what similar, previously-untried types of posts might also capture their attention. 3. Optimize Content for Each Specific Social Platform Take your analysis of your previous posts’ performance and divide that data by platform. Assess what kind of content gains the most traction in each context, and, if you haven’t done so already, narrow your focus to the platforms that are likely to work best for you. Do Tweets with polls do better than pure text? Are Reels better than static images? Make a note of what performs best on each platform, so you can replicate your success as you build out your calendar. 4. Establish Goals and Benchmarks Like any strategic tool, your social media calendar should be moving you toward various smaller goals on the way to your ultimate objective. Work with your team to define those goals: maybe you want to gain a certain amount of followers every week, increase your social presence or have every post get a minimum number of likes, shares, or comments. Whatever you choose, make sure you write out your benchmarks and designate metrics for measuring your progress so you can track your success and redirect where necessary along the way. 5. List the Kind of Content You Want to Publish on Your Channels What aspect of your brand personality do you want to showcase with your content? If you’re hoping to position yourself as an expert, you probably want to stick with educational content and stray away from silliness. If you want followers to see you as more of a clever peer, however, you might want to plan some irreverent commentary on current events or on-topic humor to keep things light and engaging. Maybe you want to be educational on LinkedIn and more silly on Twitter, based on your earlier analysis of what works best on different platforms. And either way, you’ll want to make sure you follow guidelines about how often to post promotional content. Whatever kind of content you decide on for each platform, stick with it — consistency is the key to building a unique voice on social media. 6. Plan Out Your Add-Ons Your calendar should include more than just the copy for each post; you should also gather the additional assets ahead of time. Images, infographics, charts, links, and anything else you’re planning to add to your posts should be ready to go when you finalize your calendar. Similarly, if you’re going to do themed days or posts that will be part of a series, now’s a great time to set that up as well. You wouldn’t want your next #tbt post to go out without the throwback photo of your business on opening day! 7. Establish a Workflow Once you have all your content brainstormed and your goals defined, you can establish the workflow you’ll use to implement your strategy. Decide how often you want to post to each channel, and select the optimum time of day based on your own data analysis or general best practices. Then designate different team members to be responsible for different steps: who will write the content, who’ll proofread it, and who gets final approval? Once you’ve decided on your workflow, write it down in a shared document, so your team can revisit or edit it as you go. 8. Map Out Your Calendar Now you can start honing and finalizing your posts for the month! Turn your brainstormed content into tightly written captions and pair them with compelling images that beg to be shared. As you plot out which posts to publish on which days, take note of any holidays you might want to craft special content and images for, and solicit feedback from everyone on your team to make sure your calendar is intuitive to anyone who might use it. Different Kinds of Social Media Calendars There’s no one right way to create your social media calendar — it’s all about what works best for your team and what programs you’re most likely to use. For example, if you use Monday or Asana at your organization, you have access to premade templates for social media content planning (or any kind of content planning, really). Source Source Or maybe you use Google Suite instead, in which case you can easily build your own template in Google Sheets or Google Calendar, inputting columns or using color tags to delineate important information such as publication date, channel, and subject matter. Source Source Alternately, you can design your own template, maybe something like this National Geographic editorial calendar, which includes brief descriptions for the cover stories and a couple of key feature articles for each month: Source Putting together a social media calendar may seem like a lot of work, and the first time you do it, it’s definitely a lift — but it’s worth the effort upfront to reap the benefits all month. Plus, it frees up your team to be more flexible when time-sensitive posts need to be created.
5 Skills Every Digital Marketer Needs Posted on September 9, 2021July 22, 2022 by Natalie Slyman Do you secretly love critiquing SuperBowl commercials every year because you think you could come up with better ideas? You might be a budding digital marketer. Because of smartphones and social media, we’re all natural marketers — we write captions, choose photos, and promote our posts with our friend groups. But to be a successful strategist, you need to build up a true digital marketing skillset. The excitement of being a DIY marketer is that you have the freedom to experiment. After you build up your knowledge base, you’ll know what tools and strategies can help your small business reach its target audience faster. 1. Strategy You know how people say you need to know the rules before you break them? It’s true for digital marketers too. Experimentation is an essential part of marketing, but you want to make sure you’re working within a standard strategic framework. You wouldn’t want to have a video go viral without knowing how to make the most out of the experience, would you? At the foundation of every marketing campaign should be a solid strategy with actionable goals and ways to measure success. Use project management tools and organizational skills on each campaign to maintain consistency and maximize the growth of each project. Every small business is different; some might need email marketing, some might need a more robust website or social media presence. The more you know about your needs and the needs of your audience, the better prepared you’ll be to develop a successful strategy. 2. Content Marketing Are you the person your friends come to when they need a proofreader or someone to bounce ideas off? Writing and editing skills are crucial for a digital marketer because they’re at the core of all communications. Brands and businesses need quality blog content for their sites in order to increase brand awareness and SEO. It’s crucial to create content with SEO in mind; that way, search engines will rank your content higher, making it more visible to your audience when they’re searching online. To create monthly content, you’re going to need to maintain an editorial calendar. Include a call to action on each post to encourage a high conversion rate, optimize before publishing, and remember to create content that compels the reader to take action. 3. The Ability to Automate Having a marketing automation tool that enables you to automate your processes whenever you can is a total game-changer. You can set up your email drip campaigns and newsletters to deploy while you’re busy taking care of other things. Take advantage of the extra time automation frees up in your schedule to generate more leads or to create additional content. Did you know that 95% of consumers check their email every day? Why not reach them where they are by sending them content they need? Using automation, you can set up emails to go out to segments of your list based on various qualifiers, so your emails are more personalized to their individual needs. Try doing that manually and tackling your to-do list. 4. Social Media 4.2 billion people around the world use social media. As a digital marketer, you need to know how to engage users on different platforms, create written and visual content, and study the analytics behind each post to understand what did well and what can be improved. Social media marketing can help you target your intended audience by demographics, interest, and geographic location. Try implementing an influencer marketing strategy to tap into a more engaged audience and increase your visibility. Building up your business’s social following online can lead to tons of opportunities. You can be asked to speak at marketing or small business conferences. Or, you could be approached by noted publications about webinar or guest-posting opportunities. 5. Video Creation Instagram is prioritizing creators, videos, shopping, and messaging. Photo-sharing is no longer a focus of growth for the app. The algorithm on Instagram prioritizes videos (IGTV, reels, and stories), and it’s probably what pops up first on your feed. This change was driven by the popularity of video-sharing apps like TikTok. Before smartphones, businesses needed to invest a lot of money into fancy video equipment, but now you can create high-quality videos from your phone. And you don’t need tons of tech experience to do it. Don’t be afraid to try something new. During the pandemic, video and audio apps like TikTok and Clubhouse took off. No one expected either to grow so rapidly, but because everyone was stuck at home and bored, they became outlets to reach the outside world. This is the power of social media. Learn to leverage it for your small business, and you’ll feel like a digital marketing pro in no time. Work on perfecting these five skills to up your digital marketing game and increase your small business’s marketing strategy. It’s important to have the basics down, but don’t forget to have fun. Experimentation can take you far, and who knows; you could even create the next big marketing trend!
Is SEO Worth It for Startups and Small Businesses? Posted on September 8, 2021July 22, 2022 by Guest Author A good SEO strategy doesn’t only attract your audience. The point is to catch Google’s attention and appear on the first page of the Google search results – which lets your customers find your website easily. However, getting Google’s algorithm to see you isn’t an easy task. A marketing team needs to produce a high volume of content, such as blog posts and articles, social media content, Ebooks and whitepapers, how-to guides and tutorials, videos and audio recordings, infographics, or other visual content. Producing all these pieces of content and organizing them into an effective strategy requires time and resources. It’s enough to make most startups and new businesses wonder if all the work an SEO strategy requires is actually worth it. How Does SEO Affect My Business? An effective SEO strategy makes your business visible to the audience you want to reach. Even if you are running a small or new business, optimizing your content and targeting your audience with keywords helps you stay competitive in the top Google ranking positions. The same principle applies to established brands. For example, Trenitalia, the official website of the Italian train service, is the most competitive company in the rail industry. You’d expect this website to be number one in search results. But, when you type something like, “book train from Rome to Florence,” Trenitalia appears at the end of the first page if not, the second one (which is where none wants to end up). Since the Trenitalia web page doesn’t optimize its content or have a solid SEO strategy, you won’t find its site on the Internet unless you search the brand. Of course, as a National rail company, Trenitalia won’t fail because of a weak SEO. However, search results lead ticket buyers to different platforms, like Omnio or Trainline. Since Trenitalia doesn’t appear, travelers will buy their tickets on side platforms that take a percentage of the purchase. For startups or small businesses that do not have that brand awareness and recognition, however, it’s crucial for your audience to visit your website to purchase products – and not get sidetracked by competitors. Which Types of Businesses and Startups Need SEO? Each business is unique, and you must find the best strategy to promote your product. In addition, SEO rules are changing every minute, and it’s impossible to find a perfect recipe to make it work. Industries like manufacturing and retail, healthcare, and home services have the most competitive SEO strategies because people are more inclined to search online for those kinds of service providers. If your business fits the following characteristics, it could benefit from building a solid online presence: Businesses with SKUs: Entrepreneurs who run location-independent businesses, such as eCommerce stores with hundreds of SKUs, can rank for each product, producing multiple pieces of content with different keywords. Local businesses: Obtaining more foot traffic requires using local SEO and search tactics, targeting customers based on the geographical area. Keep voice search in mind and mobile SEO when using this approach. Growing in popularity: A company that launched a new online service or website and aims to grow authority in the field should definitely increase its SEO efforts. Industries with high search volume: Transportation, personal finance, credit cards, health, wellness, or tourism have been in the game for a while. However, as mentioned earlier, having a longer online presence doesn’t necessarily mean having a good SEO strategy. Remote Startups Businesses: SEO strategies for remote businesses are key for customer visibility, along with gaining brand authority and a wider audience. 5 Components of an Effective SEO Strategy for Your Business The good thing about SEO is that you can monitor your rankings regularly to see how well you’re improving over time. You can track on-site visitors, how your competitors are doing, how your marketing campaigns impact online sales, and how well they lead visitors to your site. If you want to be successful, however, you need a strategy that works for your business. Here are five components every SEO strategy should include: 1. Keyword Research and Targeting Keyword research is at the core of any good SEO strategy. The key is to target keywords with low competition and high volume searches. For example, let’s say you’re a vegan food eCommerce business selling recipes and ingredients. Targeting the keyword “vegan food” isn’t the best way to stand out from the competition. Google won’t see any difference between your business and hundreds of others trying to rank for the same key terms. Instead, targeting specific keywords related to ingredients or meals will help you stand out more. In addition, it will help to target a wider audience over time, increasing qualified website traffic. 2. Local Search Engine Optimization The exact mechanism applies to local SEO, especially for mobile users. For example, let’s say you have a clothing store in different cities. Targeting local areas with your brand is a more effective strategy than just promoting your items with keywords. The goal is to build a presence on Google and Yelp listings to appear among the first results for local searches. With this method, you can increase your trust signals and rankings and encourage more local foot traffic. 3. Mobile Optimization Nowadays, most online actions happen on mobile phones, and Google is aware of it. If a website isn’t mobile-friendly, most likely, customers won’t return or buy from that site. As a result, SEO bots prefer mobile-friendly websites, and 80% of top-ranked websites are mobile-friendly. Especially with eCommerce and online services, SEO strategies are more effective when combined with mobile websites. 4. Content Creation People used to do their searches using specific keywords. However, that has changed over time. Today, most website visitors tend to search based on topics or questions. That’s why quality content always wins over quantity. Would you come back to a website that specifically answers a question or questions you searched, or to one that has tons of content but no concrete answers? 5. Link Building Finally, link building is the last pillar of any solid SEO strategy. To catch Google’s attention, it’s important to use internal links to related content on your website and backlinks to other relevant, high-quality sources. Link building helps you create a linear architecture on your website and absorb the SEO juice of the outside sites you’re linking to. Consequently, a Google bot can see how much relevant content you offer on your page, suggesting your page in the first result slots. Here are some methods to create a solid site architecture with external link building: Guest posting and writing, high-quality content for other websites that include links back to your related website content. Creating a blogging network to facilitate outreach within your industry or niche. Exchanging backlinks with other high-quality sites. Contacting experts in your industry and requesting they publish content that links back to your site as a reference. Just make sure the links your requesting are high-quality and applicable to topics these experts typically cover. Skyscraper technique Conclusion Despite the industry you are in, SEO is integral for every startup business. While there are other methods aimed at growing your online presence, like online ads, affiliate marketing, or webinars, few have the power to fuel rapid brand awareness like SEO. There are a lot of things a startup business must overcome in order to be successful. Don’t let brand awareness and exposure be one of them. Implement the tips mentioned above, and you’ll start to see your content rank higher and more site traffic. Good luck! Author Bio Costanza Tagliaferri is a Writer and Content Marketer at DistantJob, a remote IT recruitment agency, and ThinkRemote, a new media platform about the joys and challenges of remote work. She has covered a wide range of topics, and now she is focusing on technology, traveling, and remote work.
How to Be a DIY Marketer Posted on September 2, 2021September 2, 2022 by Jessica Lunk Being a small business owner means you have a lot of hats on your hat rack (including digital marketer). As an entrepreneur, you’re already a natural marketer for your brand, but with the help of additional tools and strategies, you can create a successful DIY marketing strategy without a large financial investment. The best approach is to create your strategy first and then find the tools to help you implement it. The more visibility you create for your brand, the easier it will be for new customers to find you and learn what your business is about. There are plenty of free or low-cost resources that will help you create a data-driven plan to achieve your goals. Keep on top of emerging technologies and platforms to find new opportunities to reach new demographics. Here are five marketing tools and strategies you can get started with right now. 1. Use a Marketing Automation and CRM Tool Integrated CRM and marketing automation tools provide your sales and marketing team with critical data that will help you create organic leads for your business. The data you collect will tell you exactly how your consumers interact with your content — how long they read your emails, what emails they open, and what promotions they click on. A CRM is a database that keeps track of every interaction a customer has with your product or software. It consolidates all of your customer relationships into one dashboard. Marketing automation assists you with managing email marketing campaigns that nurture your CRM leads, funneling that data in your dashboards for simple analysis. For eCommerce businesses, a CRM can help provide recommendations to customers based on past purchases, keeping track of items customers have placed in their carts and abandoned. You can also set up triggers based on consumer behavior, so if they download a guide or piece of content on your site, you can deploy an email series that provides them with similar content. Automation is an especially useful tool because it creates a personalized customer journey for each consumer, which lets your sales team share content and resources with leads that will be most helpful. Together, these tools will allow you to track each lead, focus on those most likely to make a purchase, determine lifetime value and profit generated, and explore where there is room for improvement. 2. Don’t Neglect a Social Media Strategy Social media is not just a tool for escapism. It’s an imperative marketing tool every business needs to leverage. Before you choose which social media platforms and tools you want to use, sit down and figure out what your business goals are for your social media strategy. Some questions to think about: What are your qualitative goals? Are you looking to sell more products? Do you want to create visibility for your business and the people behind it? Do you want to grow your following organically? Or, are you simply looking for another channel to push out and distribute your content through? Whatever it may be, know that there are tools at your disposal for you to use. Take advantage of free templates and videos online to walk you through creating a strategy that maximizes social media growth. Once you have your strategy down, choose the specific tools and platforms that will best help you reach your goals. Keep in mind that most social media platforms require you to post at least once a day in order to stay relevant and on the top of the social feed, so your best bet is to create a social media calendar and schedule posts ahead of time to keep up. There are many free apps available that will help you manage all of your social media accounts from one dashboard; these apps will also let you schedule posts, respond to comments, and track analytics. Try them out and see which one works best for you. 3. Get the Most Value out of Your Paid Ads When you invest in paid ads, it’s best to choose a platform that will push your business to consumers who are already interested in your product. When you have a specific goal and budget in mind, research which platform will work best for you to reach that target audience. Start out by picking a budget range. What’s the most you’re willing to spend, and what’s the least you expect to spend? Analyze your marketing strategy and pick a specific goal you want to reach. Facebook, for example, allows you to target specific audiences by demographic, interest, or geographic location, and they also provide ad consulting services to help you meet your marketing goals. Take advantage of these free services at your selected platform in order to maximize the potential reach of your paid ads. 4. Practice Consistent SEO Keywords are still king in SEO, so don’t forget to work them into your content. Before you hire an SEO company, take advantage of free SEO tools that help you research which keywords to focus on for each piece of content you create, whether it’s social media, a blog post, or something else. Moz’s Keyword Explorer, for example, will search through over 500 million traffic-driving keywords to find the best keywords for your website. Brainstorm which keywords are relevant to your business and build an SEO strategy around them. The key to staying competitive is to be consistent with your strategy. As you add more SEO-friendly content to your website, Google and other search engines will slowly recognize the value and rank your site higher and higher over time. It’s worth investing in SEO strategy because it can create an alternative revenue stream for your business. For example, a new customer who has never heard of your business can find you by searching for a keyword that you’ve built an SEO campaign around. 5. Don’t Forget the Analytics The most important part of any marketing strategy is analytics — if you’re not tracking the results of your implementations, you can’t know whether your strategy is successful. Setting data-driven goals will ensure that your online presence grows at a continuous rate. Data is at the core of any SEO, social media, paid ads, or marketing automation strategy. Whichever marketing software you choose should provide you with important insights into how your content lands with the specific audience you target. Setting reasonable but motivating deadlines will help you reach your goals faster. Try setting quarterly goals for growth and having regular check-ins to review your inbound marketing metrics and progress towards the goals you’ve set. A successful DIY marketing strategy relies on information; you have to look at what you’re doing well so you can do more of it and note the content that’s not performing so you can make adjustments to your strategy or try something different. Above all else, be prepared to experiment and play around with new ideas. You might be surprised at what grabs the attention of your consumers; it’s not always what you expect.
The Omnichannel Marketing Guide for Small Businesses Posted on September 1, 2021September 2, 2022 by Guest Author It doesn’t matter whether your business is a giant multinational with thousands of employees or you operate as a single trader, operating your business from home. Embracing an omnichannel marketing strategy can be one of the surest ways to strengthen the perception of your business and drive growth. In this article, we’ll be looking at how small businesses can make the most of the multiple channels for marketing available to them and deliver powerful brand messaging while doing so. What is Omnichannel Marketing? Omnichannel marketing is marketing that operates across multiple channels, that is, in multiple different media. It incorporates both online and offline marketing and is a way to describe the multifaceted way that your customers are likely to encounter your brand. More than that—as nothing we’ve said so far differs from multichannel marketing—omnichannel marketing also focuses on creating seamless messaging across all touchpoints via every channel to tell the right story about your business. Each business will, of course, have its favorite means of advertising, and only you will know what works best for your company. Does a door-to-door flyer campaign never fail to bring in customers? Or has introducing marketing materials through your CCaaS platform given you the best return on investment (ROI) in the past? Omnichannel does not mean sacrificing a marketing strategy that works. And neither does it mean placing equal emphasis on all channels. It is simply a methodology that seeks to unify your marketing efforts so that they can best complement each other and reach as many of your target audience as possible. Whether potential customers encounter your brand on their laptop, their phone, in a print publication, or through visiting a physical location, their experience should be continuous. This means messaging needs to be consistent, and there should be as little friction as possible as they move from channel to channel. 5 Tips for Creating an Omnichannel Strategy There’s no shortcut to perfect omnichannel marketing, but the following tips will help you get started on the right foot. 1. Finetune Your Branding Branding is the art of establishing your company as an authentic, reputable, and recognizable brand. From advertisements to in-store communications, the key to good branding—and omnichannel marketing—is to maintain a continuous narrative across multiple touchpoints. Good branding first requires that you have a clear idea of what kind of buyer your company is targeting. Use a buyer persona that represents a typical consumer of your product or service when designing your brand messaging. Remember to carry out research to best understand the kind of narrative that will most appeal to your persona. Source Brand messaging should tell a consistent story that is tailored to your target audience. The same story should then be reinforced at each stage of the customer journey, no matter the channel. To create consistent and impactful brand messaging, focus on design and stick to a single overarching brand plan that covers website design, advertisements, social media, events, influencer marketing campaigns, and the in-store experience. 2. Enlist the Right Help If you work in a small business, you will know that resources are finite. Advertising budgets are typically already overstretched, and marketing departments can’t afford to spread themselves too thin by dividing up into different teams for billboarding, social media, and events, etc. Outsourcing—the process of hiring an external third-party who specializes in something your organization needs—can be a simple and effective marketing tool for small businesses. There are many ways you can outsource certain marketing processes in order to optimize your omnichannel presence. For example, outsourcing a call center is an affordable and efficient way to increase your reach and generate new leads. You still get to write the script and maintain overall control over the telemarketing process, but by outsourcing, you save on having to employ extra staff for what can be a time-consuming part of your omnichannel marketing plan. Of course, there are important decisions to be made when it comes to choosing your contractors. Luckily, there is a range of dedicated companies providing call center solutions for small businesses. 3. Integrate Your Online and Offline Presence Thanks to smartphones, these days, most of us are never far from an internet-connected device. And technologies like virtual faxing are knitting together people’s experience of the online and offline world like never before. Consequently, although a cross-channel approach to marketing is important, omnichannel doesn’t just mean coordinating the different digital experiences of your brand. A proper omnichannel approach should also incorporate your offline brand presence and make sure it aligns with your online marketing. A great way to integrate your online and offline marketing is to create or take part in live events that are digitally accessible. One way to do this is through social media, using a platform like Facebook Live, Instagram’s IGTV, or Twitch to live stream directly to your audience. A good live event appeals to new customers but also has something to offer to your pre-existing customer base. Incorporate calls to action within your broadcast and encourage people to get involved, either during the event or to make contact via alternative channels. As well as one-to-many, broadcast-style events, more interactive, conference-style online events can also be a great avenue for engaging with your customers. With the right set-up, you can even facilitate conference call dial-in opportunities for in-location events, maximizing your reach across physical and digital channels. 4. Align Marketing With Other Business Processes Between websites, paid advertisements, reviews, social media, in-store experiences, real-world, and virtual events, there’s plenty to think about when it comes to making sure all your marketing efforts are aligned. But marketing is not the be-all and end-all of engaging with your customers, and as the overall customer experience becomes increasingly omnichannel, it also becomes harder to define what counts as marketing and what doesn’t. While the border zone between marketing and public relations has always been difficult to define, in the omnichannel age, the question of what is and isn’t marketing extends to other areas of the customer journey, setup as after-sales and customer support. For example, managing a business’s Facebook page might be thought of as falling under the responsibility of the marketing department. But many people now use social media as their first port of call when they have questions that are better answered by customer support teams. Rather than thinking of marketing as a specialized business process, try to incorporate marketing goals into a broader strategy for an omnichannel customer experience that includes all the different ways people might engage with your brand. The best way to ensure that your marketing objectives line up with the rest of your business needs is to have regular and open communication surrounding what these are. Use a cloud communications platform to get your whole team on board with your marketing plan, even if you can’t all be in the same place for a meeting. 5. Use Customer Data Collecting customer data is essential to creating the ultimate omnichannel brand experience. On the digital front, you can connect eCommerce browsing data to your email marketing campaign. You should also use digital means of communication to remind people of in-store opportunities. In the other direction, when customers do visit your physical business location, take the opportunity to sign them up for a mailing list, encourage them to leave a review, or connect with them on social media, so that they can become involved in future digital marketing initiatives. You can also use location data to direct website visitors to their nearest store. To really integrate marketing and the shopping experience, enable purchase options that allow your customers to pay digitally and collect in-store (or vice versa). If your company has an associated app, you can even target your customers with notifications on their mobile devices when they are near your business’s physical location. If you’re worried you may not have the technical know-how to follow a data-centric approach to sales and marketing, remember that you can always use a free eCommerce platform to make the process easier. Avoiding the Multichannel Approach A final point has to be made on the distinction between omnichannel and multichannel methods. In marketing, multichannel refers to an approach that simply enlists multiple different channels for reaching your customers. Omnichannel, on the other hand, is the methodology that has been described in this guide, in which multiple different channels are mobilized in such a way that they complement one another seamlessly. If you take one thing away from this guide, it should be that today a multichannel approach is just not enough, and not going fully omnichannel is a wasted opportunity to create a seamless experience for your customer. By following the tips laid out here, you will have the basic tools to ensure your marketing channels are synced up. So why leave it for the big players to reap all the rewards of multimedia commerce? Start planning your new omnichannel marketing strategy today! Author Bio Jenna Bunnell is the Senior Manager for Content Marketing at Dialpad, an AI-incorporated cloud-hosted unified communications system that makes virtual meetings and remote collaboration possible. She is driven and passionate about communicating a brand’s design sensibility and visualizing how content can be presented in creative and comprehensive ways. Here is her LinkedIn.