The Small Business Guide to Understanding Instagram Insights Posted on August 26, 2021August 20, 2021 by Natalie Slyman Many small businesses prefer to use Instagram marketing over other social media platforms一the visual medium enables brands to highlight their products with creative immediacy, while the caption length offers more opportunity to inform and educate than, say, Twitter. Hashtags make posts easily searchable, increasing brand awareness and garnering new followers, and Instagram posts average four times the engagement of Facebook posts. But savvy marketers know that, like any business strategy, your Instagram marketing plan is only as effective as the data used to assess your progress and make adjustments. Enter: Instagram Insights. If you have an Instagram business account, you have access to Instagram Insights: a free marketing tool that provides data analytics about your posts, followers, and profile. (If you don’t have a business account but want one, you can switch any public profile to a business account by going to settings > account > switch account type.) Understanding Insights for Your Instagram Account To access your Insights, head to your profile, open the hamburger menu (the three horizontal lines at the top right corner of the app), and click Insights. You’ll see some recent Instagram analytics, including how many people you’ve reached over the past week and how many of those accounts engaged with your content. To drill down into your audience data, click on Accounts Reached. Impressions will show you how many people saw your posts. Content Interactions tells you how many people liked or shared them一or saved a post, which is commonly considered by marketers to be “the new like.” Your Audience will show you your current follower count, and if you click through, it will show you a graph of new followers and unfollows in the selected date range. You can see which content resonated the most with your audience by looking at your Top Posts, Top Stories, and Top IGTV. For data on how many people have visited your profile and clicked on your website link, see Profile Activity at the bottom of the Accounts Reached page. All of these analytics can be shown within various date ranges. For example, within the last week, two weeks, month, or custom date range. And Instagram will compare the data to past performance and tell you whether the numbers have gone up or down in that time frame. Insights for Specific Instagram Posts and Stories So those are your overall account insights, but you can also see the data for individual posts by selecting the post you’d like to know about and then clicking View Insights. This will show you the basics, such as likes, comments, and saves, but it also shows the number of viewers who followed your account or clicked through to your profile or website after seeing the post. At the bottom of your Post Insights is the Discovery section. This shows you how people found this post一through your profile, their feed, the Explore tab, or some other source. This data can help you figure out where to increase your efforts to improve brand visibility. Just like posts, Instagram stories have their own Insights as well, which you can access by slowly swiping up from the bottom of your story frame and clicking the vertical lines to the left of the eye. That eye represents your impressions, or who watched this story, but the bar graph image shows more insights, including how many people watched the previous or next story, how many swiped over to the next account’s stories, and how many exited stories altogether after viewing. Which Metrics Matter Most for Instagram Marketing As with any marketing strategy, your reach will be the most important KPI for your Instagram business account, followed closely by your engagement rate一the benefits of a large reach are limited if nobody is interacting with your content. And, the less engagement your posts get, the more likely the algorithm is to bury them in people’s feeds. Other useful metrics include the number of audience members who find you through the Explore tab, which can help you figure out if you need to use hashtags more effectively to reach new audiences, and the number of shares, which will tell you if your content is hitting the right tone for word of mouth marketing. When it comes to your stories, the metrics you’ll want to pay the most attention to are the swipes and exits一how many people drop out of your stories altogether, either swiping to the next account or jumping back to their main Instagram feed. Ideally, you want people to stay engaged through your stories, and if they’re bailing after one or two frames, you may need to revisit your creative strategy to make sure you’re sharing quality content. Last but not least, you should track your new followers to make sure you’re steadily growing your audience. Instagram users are extremely active, with 200 million people visiting business accounts every day, and if you’re posting high-quality photos with relatable captions, you should be able to capture some of that audience. With any marketing strategy, data is king一analytics, and insights help you constantly tweak your messaging to make sure you’re targeting the right demographics and communicating with your customers in a way that makes them feel connected to your brand. Instagram Insights can feel intimidating at first, but like any analytics tool, it just takes a little practice一play around in the app for a bit, run some A/B tests in your stories, and soon enough, you’ll be ‘gramming like a pro!
Time to Scrub Your Email List: Preparing for iOS 15 Posted on August 25, 2021August 25, 2021 by Jess Lunk With Apple’s iOS 15 update just around the corner – likely mid-September – now is the perfect time to take a look at your email list and do a little bit of clean-up to ensure good performance as Apple rolls out new privacy protections for users. How will iOS 15 impact your email list? If you’re like most businesses, you rely on email marketing to reach subscribers, prospects and customers to grow revenue and propel sales. You also most likely use email open rate as one of the metrics that determines the success of your email templates and the health of your email list. With Apple’s iOS 15 update, users will have the option to opt-out of email tracking – including when and where they open their emails. Experts predict that most will do so, as we saw with the iOS 14 update. With that last update, only 5% of users in the US opted-in to having applications like Facebook track their activity, meaning the other 95% of users opted not to be tracked. According to Litmus, Apple iPhone accounts for nearly 50% of all traffic to email clients. Which means that we can conservatively estimate that open tracking for up to 50% of your contacts will be compromised at some point as iOS 15 launches and is adopted. And it may not be long before other top email clients, like Gmail and Outlook, follow suit. With this big change on the horizon, now is a great time to take a look at your email list and use the reliable open rate data you have today to scrub your contacts. With BenchmarkONE, it’s easy to tag and segment contacts, so you can ensure that you’re sending to highly engaged contacts that want to hear from you and keep your domain reputation sparkling clean. Here’s how: Identify Inactive Contacts Sending to engaged contacts is one of the best ways to keep your email list clean and healthy. High open and click rates, low bounce and unsubscribe rates and minimal spam complaints all signal to ISPs that your domain is healthy – helping you get more emails to the inbox. Now is the ideal time to tag contacts that have been sent several emails but have never opened them. You can then suppress these contacts from future email sends, or even give them a status like “Unengaged” or “Inactive” to suppress them from email marketing altogether. You can easily identify these contacts in BenchmarkONE: From the Contacts tab, open your contact filter. Under Contact Activity, select Email Activity. Add one filter for contacts that were sent any email either any time or for a specific time of your choosing. Add a second filter for contacts that did not open any email template at any time or at the specified time frame you chose for email sends. Add a tag or update their contact status Flag Emails with High Open Rate, No Clicks You may have contacts on your list that open every send, but don’t click. Maybe they read your monthly newsletter, or maybe you typically send them content without a CTA. With unreliable open data in the future, you’ll never know if they are engaged or not. Fortunately, it’s easy to tag these contacts in BenchmarkONE so that you can continue to send to these contacts after email open data is impacted: From the Contacts tab, open your contact filter. Under Contact Activity, select Email Activity. Add a filter for contacts that opened any email template at any time (or the time period of your choosing). Add a second filter for contacts that did not click through any email template at any time (or the time period of your choosing). Use Contact Score to further filter or sort your list. For instance, you may want to only select users with a contact score of 5 or above to indicate that they are not clicking through your emails, but opening them and engaging with you in other ways. Tag these contacts so they do not get suppressed from future email sends. Ask Contacts if They’d Like to Keep Hearing from You If you have a segment of contacts that you haven’t sent to in a while, or don’t have much email data on, it’s never a bad idea to opt them into email communication. Check in with an email update and a clear call-to-action to unsubscribe from your emails if they don’t wish to hear from you any more. It’s simple to automatically unsubscribe contacts from further email communication. You can either have contacts complete a BenchmarkONE form to unsubscribe, or simply click on a link in your email to unsubscribe. Unsubscribe via Form Create a form and include at least an email address field on the form. Add a form automation to unsubscribe the contact. Add a thank you page, or edit the thank you page text to indicate you have unsubscribed the contact from further email communication. You can embed your form in your website, or simply link to the plain version of your form. Add a link to your form in your email template. When the user clicks the link and completes the form, they will be automatically unsubscribed. Add a Link with a Tag Rule Create an “unsubscribe” tag. Under Tools > Rules, create an unsubscribe tag rule with an automation to unsubscribe the contact when the Tag score = 1. In your email template, add a link. Ideally, you would link to a thank you page on your website that confirms that the contact has been unsubscribed. When a contact clicks on the link in your email, they will automatically be unsubscribed. As marketers, we’re used to adapting to new strategies and technologies. A little preparation now can go a long way to set your business up for success as iOS changes make an impact across all email marketing platforms.
Content and Marketing Automation: How Both Strategies Fuel One Another Posted on August 25, 2021December 8, 2022 by Natalie Slyman The average customer journey these days involves a lot of self-service: we do our own research, read reviews of products and try to decipher which ones are real vs. paid or bot-generated, and then make the decision alone. It’s a big shift from the days of hand-selling in department stores, where a human would not only greet you but also educate you on your options and help you decide which one best fits your needs and budget. This isn’t a call to return to the past, though. Rather, it’s a suggestion of how marketers can infuse the presale steps of the sales funnel with that same human touch, that gentle guidance, and reap the ROI benefits—including an average of 5-15% more revenue. While eCommerce doesn’t allow for in-person engagement the way brick and mortar stores do, there are opportunities to educate your customers and infuse their interactions with your brand with personality. One of the best ways to do this is with a tandem strategy involving content marketing and marketing automation. Content Marketing Builds Customer Relationships Content marketing is a great way to bring customer service into the early stages of the customer journey. Instead of addressing customer needs reactively, content marketing enables you to make prospects feel seen and catered to before they’ve ever made a purchase. Take the example of floor sales. If you wanted to buy a couch in 1975, you might go to Sears. You’d sit on a bunch of different sofas and loveseats, all while discussing your specific needs and budget with the salesperson. By the time you’re ready to make a decision, that salesperson has (hopefully) convinced you that they know everything there is to know about couches, and their recommendation is tailored to your needs. That’s the customer experience we’re always trying to replicate: the feeling of being heard and cared for and ultimately guided to the right decision. The most efficient, cost-effective way to replicate that feeling is through digital marketing, leveraging personalized, relevant content that focuses on helping subscribers understand the products they’re looking at and gauge which ones will add the most value to their lives. Educational content like email newsletters, infographics, social media posts, webinars, white papers, and blog posts all add value to consumers’ lives and serve their needs. And that has the added advantage of positioning your business as a thought leader and expert in your industry. The more you deepen your prospects’ understanding and build their confidence about their options, the more you increase brand awareness and differentiate yourself in the market—and the more likely you’ll be their first choice when they’re ready to make a purchase. The proof is in the conversion rates: companies that adopt a content marketing strategy convert at nearly six times the rate of those that don’t. Between the new customers you’ll bring in and the word-of-mouth brand authority you’ll garner, it’s clear why email marketing is consistently in the top three strategies for ROI. Marketing Automation Helps Streamline and Target Lead Nurturing The wonderful thing about content marketing is that it’s scalable, especially when you combine it with a great marketing automation system. That personalization we talked about? It’s easy when you have customer data ready to be mobilized in your CRM. Segmentation makes targeting specific audiences by industry, age, location, or other demographic a piece of cake. Automation infuses email marketing with scalability and flexibility—just add new prospects to a segment or tweak your messaging in one place, and that whole email campaign is ready to go—while helping you stay consistent in your customer touchpoints. For example, email drip campaigns are a great way to improve your lead generation through content strategy, and they’re easy to implement with marketing automation tools. You can segment your prospects according to where they are in the sales cycle and any relevant demographic details, then target the content of your emails to serve their unique interests and solve any pain points. And with the ability to schedule all your emails in advance, you can make sure you’re not too pushy (which can send you to Spam and cause users to unsubscribe). Not only does the automation functionality help you personalize your content, but it also relieves your marketing team of the burden of repetitive tasks and basic marketing processes, freeing them up to focus on the strategy side, performing A/B tests, and tweaking the follow-up approach according to the metrics that matter most. Sharing high-quality content that educates and adds value to your target audience at the very beginning of your sales process is a tried and true strategy for lead generation and inbound marketing, and automation platforms streamline and improve your marketing efforts. Content marketing strategies and marketing automation are like peanut butter and jelly: sure, you can have one without the other, but why would you, when they pair so nicely?
HTML vs. Plain Text Emails Posted on August 19, 2021August 13, 2021 by Natalie Slyman Marketers are naturally driven to be creative. This intrinsic trait makes them gravitate towards visually appealing HTML emails because they allow more room for creativity. But do plain text emails have a statistical edge? In this article, we’ll delve into the details of HTML and Plain text emails. We’ll discuss the benefits and drawbacks (if any) of each to help you choose a suitable format to streamline your email marketing campaigns. HTML vs. Plain Text Emails: Definition and Benefits Plain Text Emails As the name suggests, a plain text email is a simple, format-free, text-based email. In other words, plain-text emails contain text only — there’s no graphics, images, or formatting (you can’t alter fonts, font size, or add italics). Here’s an example of a plain-text email: Additionally, you can’t embed links, and there’s no way to make the call to action (CTAs) stand out. You also lack the ability to add HTML snippets, which makes it difficult to track vital email metrics. Pros of Plain Text Email Requires minimal technical knowledge to create. Supported by all email clients, so they offer consistency in delivery. Better accessibility, even on devices like the Apple Watch. Faster loading time because they don’t have graphics or images, They are more personal and don’t feel automated. Cons of Plain Text Email Lack visual appeal. Difficult to make CTAs stand out. Don’t support tracking of key email metrics. HTML Emails HyperText Markup Language (HTML) is a standard coding language used to create web pages that handle italics, bold, and color text. An HTML email supports formatting, graphics, GIFs, and images, in addition to text. Unlike plain text email, HTML emails sport a more professional and modern look. You have more sophisticated design control and can embed interactive, visual, and media elements. Here’s an example of an HTML email: You’re able to use diverse colors and add attention-grabbing CTAs, and most importantly, HTML email supports HTML snippets which makes it easy to track essential email metrics. Pros of HTML Emails Better design control. You can create visually appealing CTAs. Better tracking ability. Cons of HTML Emails Too many HTML elements may direct emails to recipients’ spam folders. Some email clients don’t render HTML elements well, which could lead to a mishmash of code. Some email clients block images and graphics by default, making it difficult for recipients to get the full message. HTML vs. Plain Text Emails: The Key Differences When it comes to emails, looks can be deceiving. For this reason, to make an accurate decision on which email format is best for you, you have to consider other factors such as deliverability, engagement, and more. Deliverability Your email strategy will only work if the email makes it into your subscribers’ inbox. The most significant disadvantage of HTML emails is that they are way more likely to end up in a spam folder than plain text emails, especially if they contain broken tags. More often than not, antivirus software automatically removes the CSS styles of HTML emails. So even if the email gets to the primary inbox, it becomes difficult for subscribers to decode the message. If you care about deliverability, stick to plain text email. Better yet, utilize a hybrid email — one that blends a plain-text version and properly coded HTML email. Open Rates At first glance, HTML emails may seem visually appealing because of the purpose-built layout and stand-out CTA button — nearly all the attributes you want in an email to entice subscribers to open. However, if you look beyond the visual appeal, there’s a catch. The colorful headers, pixel banner and footer, and social network buttons may amount to distractions — something you never find with plain text emails. As a result, HTML emails have 11% lower click-to-open rates than text-based emails. Click-Through Rates Even if the open rates declined, you would expect HTML email to convert better, thanks to the attention-drawing CTAs. Right? Unfortunately, that’s not the case. Text-based emails deliver 17% higher click-through rates on offer links than their HTML counterparts. Email Analytics The one area where plain text email stumbles out of the gate is analytics. As mentioned earlier, text-based emails don’t support HTML snippets, and as such, it’s difficult to track key email metrics. Pick the Right Format For Your Audience When it comes to email, statistics have shown less is more. Text-based emails seemingly have the edge over their pretty counterparts. They deliver higher clicks on CTAs and embody the whole purpose of email marketing. That said, plain text emails have a few major drawbacks: no visual appeal and the inability to track. Fortunately, with BenchmarkONE, you can remedy the shortcomings of plain text emails. Our email functionality lets you add links, images and track the open rates of text-based emails. Now you can enjoy the best of both options. Sign up for free and get a first-hand feel for what BenchmarkONE can do for you.
Tips For More Effectively Qualifying Your Sales Leads Posted on August 18, 2021August 12, 2022 by Tricia O'Donnell There are key components at the heart of any business: products and customers. Every other function and activity exists to keep these aspects content and thriving. They have a symbiotic effect on one another – products are designed with customers in mind, and customers influence the evolution of the product. Creating this relationship is crucial for any business – and lead generation is an essential part of this process. Using the terms ‘lead’ and ‘prospect’ interchangeably defeats their purpose. There are important differences between the two, including why they’re both important, how to convert leads into prospects, and why you need to start doing this immediately. Leads vs. Qualified Leads Leads are people whose contact information you have. They may or may not be interested in your service – you don’t know them well enough to judge this just yet. Examples of leads are those who have signed up to be on your email list through a form on your website. Leads are at the top of your sales funnel, at the broadest part, and have probably just become aware of what it is your company does and offers. They need more convincing and resources before they can move along the buyer’s journey. Qualified leads, on the other hand, are narrowed down leads that have been characterized as being interested and able to invest in your product. They typically fit your ideal target audience and buyer personas, and they’re lower in the sales funnel than leads. Generating and Qualifying Leads Introducing leads into your funnel is a process you want to get right. This approach can lead to a healthy influx of potential customers to engage with and convert. Here’s a breakdown of the process: 1. Identify Target Audience and Sales Funnel The first step in your outreach should be to identify your target audience and then create a sales funnel they will journey through to eventually become customers. The process of filtering your leads and narrowing them down into prospects will be an essential part of your funnel. It requires identifying who they are, what their pain points may be, and connecting them to content that addresses those issues via email drip campaigns. It’s helpful to break down the three main stages of the buyer’s journey and from there, pinpoint questions and issues customers have at each of those stages. Then, look through the content you already have (or create new content) that ties into those concerns and questions. Source 2. Capture Leads Once you know your target audience, the next step is to find ways to reach out to them. Run lead gen campaigns via paid advertising on social media so you can tap into each platform’s audience demographics and targeting capabilities. Send dedicated email sequences or partner with other brands with a similar audience to host webinars or digital events. Also, make sure your website has pop-up forms and landing pages so visitors can easily sign up for your email marketing or provide their information in exchange for a whitepaper or helpful guide. The purpose? To obtain a database of contact information from within your target audience. 3. Consistently Generate Leads Lead generation doesn’t have to be expensive. And if your efforts are consistent, you can steadily generate leads without much effort. Here are some simple, cost-effective ways you can get leads: Content Creation and Social Media. Creating organic content on social platforms is the most popular way to gain a following and capture leads. The advantages here are that it’s cost-efficient and naturally draws an interested audience. The main thing to remember is to create content that will attract the right kind of followers. Podcasts. Podcasts have surged in popularity. Once again, this is content marketing – those who choose to listen to your podcast are interested in what you have to say, so cater your discussions to them. Email Sign-Ups. We mentioned this earlier, but create pop-ups on your website and include sign-up links on other platforms to help you generate a database of leads. Use email tools to help you segment, filter, and manage your lists so you can send the right content to the right people. SEO and Blog Posts. Optimize your website for organic search by incorporating keywords, managing the backend, and generating backlinks to help people find you. Blogs are a proven way to boost SEO rankings, giving you an opportunity to create digital assets that will keep bringing visitors to your site over time. UX/UI Optimization. After you lead people to your website, how will they find your products or sign up to be on your database? Optimize the user interface and experience to ensure your visitors end up where you want them to. Cold Outreach. When done right, cold outreach can work wonders and open up plenty of opportunities for you. However, be mindful of GDPR regulations as well as local laws. Press Releases. This traditional approach of informing people about happenings within your business is still a valuable tool. Have press releases appear in mainstream media to lend credibility to your business while getting the word out about new products or events. Personal Branding. Personal branding is having a big moment. Encouraging the key figures in your business to leverage their personal brand can work in your favor. For example, Elon Musk has more followers and fans than Tesla. Why? People are more inspiring than brands and can attract more opportunities. Referral Programs. Your current audience or customers are a valuable source of leads, and referrals tend to make the best customers. Incentivize referrals to get your existing customers to help you generate interest in your product. Networking. Almost all social and professional platforms have groups that you can join to network. This is a more personal and time-consuming approach, but it pays off because you get to talk to people that already fall within your targeted interests. This is a great source of high-quality leads and puts a face and name with your brand, helping to break down barriers. 4. Qualify Leads What does it mean to actually “qualify” leads? Qualifying is simply the process of determining whether a lead is more likely to be a good fit for your product or service. It’s important to do this because: You can save time and resources by marketing to people who have a higher probability of becoming your customers. It improves your customer conversions. It helps you customize and grow your product to better meet the needs of your target audience. You enjoy growth in revenue through more sales and better resource utilization. Let’s look at how you can qualify a lead to become a prospect. The most common method is to apply the BANT framework when approaching a lead: Budget, Authority, Need, Timeline. Budget Will your lead be able to afford your product or service? If not, then marketing to them won’t get you anywhere. Unless they have the ability to commit to your product, you’re wasting your time. Authority Who signs off on the decision to purchase? Is it the person you’re speaking to or someone higher up in the organization? Spend more time with the person who’s going to approve the purchase, otherwise, you might find yourself rejected simply because the right person was not convinced. Need Ask questions that will help you find out whether your lead genuinely needs your product and if they have identified and accepted this need. Unless they perceive that your product will solve a problem for them, they won’t commit. Identify their needs to tailor your communication and customize your product. Timeline There are many people who need solutions, but you need to be talking to those who need it most urgently. See if your lead has a timeline within which they intend to solve their problem – this ensures you only qualify people who are ready to take action. 5. Convert Qualified Leads into Customers Now that you have a database of interested prospects, you can focus your resources on converting them into paying customers. Things to Keep in Mind You’re almost ready to start generating and qualifying your leads, but before you hit the ground running, keep these four factors in mind for ultimate success: Referral Source. If you want to know which marketing avenues are working, it’s almost inevitable that you’ll reverse-engineer your strategy. You should record the referral path of every sales lead who contacts you, whether it’s by banner advertising, search engines, Google Adwords, social media, or any other route. You’ll notice trends and begin to understand what’s working—and what areas you could improve upon. This is valuable not just for maintaining a clear line of communication with your leads (e.g., if they found your product because they searched for “PPC agency,” you immediately know they’re not necessarily interested in your graphic design offerings), but also because it will save your company money and help hone your marketing strategy. Tracking each referral source means you can clearly see which sources are working and which aren’t, so you can stop wasting time and money on inefficient keywords or under-performing advertisements. Open Communication. Your marketing and sales teams should always be in contact with one another. If they’re not on the same page, folks in the marketing department might start sending qualified leads off to the wrong person in sales or sending leads that aren’t ready down the sales funnel, turning them off for the future. It’s shocking how many small businesses don’t establish what “qualified leads” even are or how the sales funnel process should look. Be sure to clarify from the onset what terms you’re using and how your teams should be communicating with one another. Have regular sit-down meetings to evaluate how the process is going, and ask around to figure out ways to smooth out any potential problems. Response Time. If someone is reaching out to you with interest, why would you leave them hanging? They’re effectively knocking on your door and asking to chat. Try to keep your turnaround time to no longer than 48 hours—24 is even better—and keep your sales team on their toes with ways to answer most questions in a friendly and comprehensive way. And for the leads that get turned off by a rapid-fire response, deploy an effective nurturing strategy that allows for more casual follow-ups down the line. Making a quick first contact is great, but it’s the subsequent moments of contact that will make or break your business in the long term. A Strong CRM. There’s only one way to combine all the information outlined above—you need an excellent customer relationship management tool. It’s the only way to cleanly organize your data, dividing leads into various categories and eventually customers. You can track all their interactions with your company, so your sales and marketing teams aren’t doubling over the same information, irritating them into not returning. You can also move unqualified leads into their own category, enabling your team to keep in touch while acknowledging that they aren’t ready or interested in what you’re selling right now. The best CRM software will enable you to go a step further, too, integrating your email marketing and data tracking analysis into the same bundle, so you can distinctly segment and communicate with leads with whom you have a certain relationship—say, at the beginning of the sales funnel instead of the end. It’s this kind of individualized relationship that makes your lead generation as efficient as possible. Converting leads into sales can be a complex process, but with the right tools and education, your business can make the most efficient use of the time and resources available to you. Products and businesses stay alive because of sales, and it’s always a smart move to bolster that part of your operations and equip your team to deliver their best.
Creative Customer Retention Strategies that Really Work Posted on August 12, 2021September 29, 2022 by Jonathan Herrick Have you ever been a regular at a coffee shop where the barista knows your name, your order, and what time you come in? Some baristas will even have your drink waiting for you when you show up. Sometimes you may even get a free drink as a reward for your loyalty. This kind of coffee shop-style strategy is an amazing way to retain customers, and retaining customers is not only good for your sales funnel, but it’s also good for business. You might think it’s impossible to replicate this digitally, but it’s not. Marketing tools like an integrated CRM, along with automation, can track all the same data as the barista who writes your name on your cup from memory, and they can do it at scale. Customer experience is so important that 60% of American customers say they’ll switch companies after two to three instances of poor service. Here are some creative customer retention strategies to encourage your customers to stay with your business for the long haul. 1. Take Critique Seriously This might sound like common sense, but great customer service increases customer loyalty. Gary Vee, entrepreneur and social influencer, likes to say, “being nice is ROI positive.” He believes that maximizing growth can’t be achieved without kindness in business and in life. If you have a customer who lets you know they’re unhappy with your service via email or social media, pay attention and listen to their feedback. Think about what you would want a company to do for you if you were in their position. Customer experience expert Shep Hyken emphasizes the importance of apologizing (even when it’s not your personal fault), taking ownership of the problem, and responding urgently with a solution. A refund or a discount is a good first step, but depending on the issue, you may need to broaden your solution. In a professional service business, sudden negative feedback from a purportedly “happy” customer might mean you need to check in with your clients more often or create a better process for receiving regular feedback. Because a five% increase in customer retention can increase ROI by as much as 25-95%, customer experience is key. It also has a ripple effect: a loyal customer may become a brand ambassador who may recommend your services to more people in their community. 2. Onboard With Care Could your customers figure out how to use your product or service on their own? Sure. Should you let them? Not necessarily. Onboarding is a customer success strategy that involves personalized training based on each customer’s needs. This saves the customer headaches down the line and allows you to drive home how your product or service will help address their pain points. Plus, it will enable you to provide them with real-time support from an actual human being within your company. Offering up that personal touchpoint at the beginning of the relationship will set the groundwork and show your customers you’re the kind of company that cares about whether or not they experience success using your services. 3. Create a Content Strategy With a Twist Content strategy is a great alternative way to catch the attention of your customers. A lot of brands are using social media sites like TikTok to create branded content that doesn’t sound or look like branded content. As a newer site that’s still establishing its algorithm, organic reach is higher on TikTok than other social media sites like Instagram. There are always different memes trending on TikTok, and some brands jump on that bandwagon, adjusting the meme content to make it relevant to their business. Content may not be quite as fast or direct as some other marketing strategies, but it has excellent potential to reach customers who already pay for your services. If they’ve already opted-in to your services or follow you on social media, keeping your business top-of-mind will help you capture more revenue from existing customers. Content strategy can also be used to reward customers for their loyalty. If they renew their subscription for another year, that’s an opportunity to provide an incentive to them for staying with you. You can offer special rewards like free eBook downloads or guides that give special tips and tricks about your services. If you employ a social CRM tool, you can discover what customers are saying about your business on social media. You can see if they’ve tagged you or posted about you on their social media pages. And, when you integrate your CRM with marketing automation, you can set up automatic email triggers that reward customers who take specific actions online. 4. Request and Embrace Feedback This tactic often scares brands because they think they’re going to open the door for tons of critique and negative commentary. And that may be so, but the benefits of asking for feedback greatly outweigh the negative possibilities. What you think would make your product or service better isn’t necessarily going to align with how your customers see things. By regularly collecting feedback from your existing clientele, you’ll be able to pinpoint areas that need improvement instead of shooting in the dark and focusing on various areas without any guarantee doing so will result in improvements. Plus, when people see that a business not only cares about what they think but puts their suggestions into action, they’re much more likely to be loyal. Develop and implement a system for gathering feedback from your customers so you can be armed with valuable information on how to keep them happy and coming back for more. 5. Host a Subscriber-Only Webinar Create incentives within incentives that your customers won’t want to pass up. Host a webinar with an influential thought leader in your industry who has a big following online. Make it available for free to anyone who already subscribes to your list. Segment your email list so that your offers only go out to those most interested in that topic. Offer a special discount, like two free months of your service, for existing customers who attend. This will not only increase the chances of attendance at the webinar but may also extend the time your current customers continue to work with you—giving you additional opportunities to “wow” them and keep them on board. 6. Instill a Rewards Program If you really want to keep your current customers engaged, sweeten the pot by rewarding them for their loyalty and continued business. There are a ton of different ways you can set something like this up, and what you offer as rewards can vary greatly as well. Start small by getting customers to sign up via an in-person or online opt-in, and then use their information to send them promotions and exclusive “VIP” discounts. As an added bonus, you can also reward existing customers for referrals, which will help with both retention as well as customer acquisition. Other ideas could be a yearly gift for the holidays, a special promo offer for birthdays, or other milestones the customers may be experiencing. Making it personal will give it an added touch that will let them know you care about them as a person outside of the business relationship. 7. Offer an Incentive to Return It’s always less expensive to retain existing customers than to acquire new ones. Have you had issues with any customers canceling their service recently? If you have, set up an automated email to send those customers a survey asking for feedback about their experience. Give them an exclusive offer if they return as a client. If the reason they were considering a different service was because of the price, you’ve already won by giving them a discount on a yearly subscription. They will stay with you for at least another year and are likely to stay longer the more time they invest in your service. At least 80% of customers gain increased loyalty for a brand based on positive experiences with their products and services. 8. Invest in Your Social Responsibility People love to do business with companies that share their values. When customers see that by shopping with you, they are indirectly supporting a good cause, you’ll win them over for sure. If you don’t currently have a team event or initiative aimed at giving back, make sure you consult with your team about various ways to get involved in your local community. Chances are, someone on your team already advocates for a particular charity or organization, or they may know someone who does and could use some extra help. Social good can be doing a variety of different things, but you should focus on acts that fit with your company’s schedule and your team’s passions. Maybe this means sponsoring a local school or recreational sports team, or volunteering with a charity that you care about, or pledging to donate a portion of every sale to a particular cause. This mustn’t be just a strategy to retain your customers. It should be something you genuinely care about and that you make a consistent contribution. 9. Gamify Your Strategy Reward your customers for reaching milestones with your company as if they were playing a game. Send them branded stickers or emojis via email when they make their first purchase with you. Share a fun social media filter with them when they refer a friend. Set up a point reward system that gives your customers points every time they make a new purchase. The points can be redeemed to unlock new features or services, like free shipping on an order. With the help of marketing automation, you can set up emails to go out each time a customer reaches a different milestone. Automation has many benefits, chief among them an increased efficiency; you can automate over 80% of your strategy. It’s like the famous adage, “Work smarter; not harder.” 10. Facilitate Ongoing Education Don’t just leave your customers high and dry once you’ve made that first sale. Show that you’re willing to invest in them for the long-term by providing them with ongoing education that will help them today, tomorrow, and five years down the road. Educate them and make it easy with drip campaigns and email newsletters. Establish an online knowledge base that can serve as a hub for all your most valuable content and any self-service tools and resources. You can also try creating a community forum or social media group where clients can go to ask your team questions or share other educational content that will help them. Not only will these things empower your customers and increase their appreciation, but they’ll take some of the heat off your support team at the same time. Win-win! Your customers will return again and again as long as you keep them happy. If they know they can get consistent, high-quality support and service from you, they won’t consider going to a competitor. And, while it can be exciting (and essential!) to acquire new customers, don’t forget about your existing, long-term customers. They are the real fuel that drives growth over the lifetime of your business.
The 2021 Life Jacket for Cyber Attacks At Small Businesses Posted on August 11, 2021April 3, 2024 by Guest Author There’s no point in denying the truth. Cyberattacks are on the rise, and this upward trajectory won’t abate soon. Even corporate behemoths, like Facebook and Marriott International, were hit with cybercriminal attacks over the past few months. While smaller businesses may seem like less appealing targets to criminals, they’re still just as at risk. It’s tempting to think that cyberattacks aren’t something that your small business really needs to concern itself with. Unfortunately, this is a dangerous misconception. Research shows that a hefty 41% of small businesses surveyed have been struck by a devastating digital attack sometime over the past year. Why Smaller Businesses are Prime Targets for Hackers As a small business owner, there’s probably no need to tell you how busy you are. Startup entrepreneurs almost always have their hands full. Because of this, many delegate cybersecurity to the bottom of their to-do lists as a result. Unfortunately, hackers have smartened up to this fact. Many now view small businesses as prime targets, as most of them don’t have the resources or knowledge they need to protect themselves. This is compounded by the fact that many small businesses still aren’t taking cyber threats seriously. Research shows that 37% of them don’t have cybersecurity plans in place, and 40% would have no idea who to contact if an attack did take place. The hard truth is that even if you have all the right programs, protocols, and technologies in place to protect your business, in many cases, it still won’t be possible to stop a breach. This is why you need a strategic response plan. You need to get the situation under control while minimizing its impacts on your company, your customers, and their personal data. Here’s your 2021 life jacket for cyber attacks and a guide to how to respond quickly, proactively, and intelligently to threats. How to Respond Immediately to a Cyber Attack It’s Better to be Safe Than Sorry Build your cyberattack response plan according to these guidelines to safeguard your small business against threats. Sharpen your knowledge. It’s crucial to act with speed after an attack takes place. You need to be able to find out what caused the breach, how to rectify the issue, and how to ensure that it cannot happen again. You may not have this experience as a small business owner, so align yourself with IT and cybersecurity experts who can handle the basics and provide you with the information you need. Take legal matters into account. The introduction of GDPR privacy laws last year included certain guidelines about how to handle data breaches. They stipulate you must immediately inform your Information Commissioner’s Office about the breach in order to guard your company against claims of malpractice. Have a lawyer ready to provide support as soon as you become aware of an attack. Keep your customers informed. Depending on your industry, your customer base, and the scale of an attack, you could be dealing with an avalanche of concerned consumers if cyber criminals strike. Create a plan for handling these communications efficiently across numerous channels like email, social media, and telephone. Your communication with customers about breaches needs to be personal and authentic, but there is some information you may need to keep private. Consult with your legal adviser as to what you should and shouldn’t tell your customers after a security breach. Train your staff well. It’s no use training your staff on how to handle cyberattacks after they’ve occurred. This training needs to happen before a breach strikes so that your employees are fully equipped to handle the problem as it takes hold. Train your staff about proper personal security practices and cybersecurity comprehension. Then, hold regular refresher sessions to drive the message home. Instruct your staff to keep their passwords private and unpredictable and to never share their professional login details with others. They must also always report suspicious emails and links instead of clicking on them and risking your business’s precious data. How to Protect Your Business from Future Attacks It’s far easier to put preventative measures in place than it is to deal with the aftermath of a devastating cybercriminal attack. Put these measures in place to protect your small business from attacks and prevent the financial and organizational turmoil that they can generate. 1. Insure Yourself If your crime-related fears come to pass, we guarantee that you’ll be grateful for having a specialist cyber insurance policy already in place. These policies can vary widely. It’s important to seek expert advice regarding the right options for your needs and how these options could change over time. Some insurance carriers offer immediate response plans for cybersecurity breaches. Others offer in-house forensic security experts and financial compensation to cover any losses you may incur. Do your research and find a plan that covers you and your company adequately. 2. Earmark Sensitive Information It’s a good idea to have a clear idea of what information your business stores is sensitive and what is not. The personal details and credit card information of your customers will obviously be favored by criminals. But depending on your sector, there could be other data that puts you at risk. 3. Put Technological Safeguards in Place There are plenty of different technological tools and programs you can use to protect your website and your business systems against intrusion. Consider setting up a web application firewall, installing reputable antivirus and anti-malware software on your employees’ computers, and utilizing cloud-based accounting software, like Freshbooks. Ensure that your eCommerce site is PCI-DSS Level 1 compliant and that limited access permissions are enforced, with only employees who require access to software, programs, and data granted it. These measures will protect you against online data security network breaches that target your payment network instead of a single bank card. If you have a dedicated hosting company, check that they have staff on board to regularly patch security vulnerabilities. If not, it might be time to move to a more secure web hosting service. 4. Secure Your Business Hardware There’s a huge amount of focus on digital data breaches today. But the reality is that physical property theft can lead to data breaches too. Your business’s laptops, PCs, mobile phones, electronic equipment, and servers need to be secured to safeguard them against theft. Install alarms and security cameras at your physical premises, and lock down computers and servers if you can. 5. Hire a Security Expert There’s no shame in admitting that you need specialist guidance to protect your small business against cyber attacks. If your budget allows it, we highly recommend hiring an outside security expert to evaluate your risk areas and guard your data and property, both in the real world and online. It’s important to be scrupulous with the company you choose to entrust with your data, so do your research and find a security agency that you can bank on, no matter what may come. 6. Back Up Your Data Backing up your business’s most important data is very important if you want to protect it against threats of all shapes and sizes. Your data is the backbone of your company, and if an invasion strikes, it’s crucial that you’re able to recover it. If you can’t, you risk losing your customer, employee, financial and operational records forever. Most modern businesses choose to back their data up to the cloud, as many cloud-based storage services offer additional layers of security to lock out threats. You can also save your backups to an external hard drive. But be aware that physical hard drives are prone to theft and destruction due to natural disasters and other unexpected occurrences. 7. Educate Your Staff We’ve mentioned this previously, but it’s possibly one of the most important steps you can take to protect your business against outside threats. A huge percentage of cyber criminals gain access to business systems through the unwitting actions and errors of employees, and it only takes one mistake to open up a window of opportunity for them. Educating your team can be as simple as reminding them not to open suspicious attachments, sending them refreshers on procedures for securing and encrypting sensitive and personal information, and asking them to change their passwords regularly. Simple measures like these can go a long way in ensuring that criminals don’t find the chance to attack that they’ve been waiting for. Be Proactive, Not Reactive The age of the internet has brought about dozens of exciting new prospects for small businesses. Unfortunately, with these prospects have come the risks of cyberattacks and data theft. You can’t enjoy the many opportunities the online world has to offer without facing the risks. But you can safeguard your business against them and ensure that you know exactly how to react should a breach take place. At the end of the day, the best way to curb cybercriminals is to stay one step ahead of them at all times. Put a variety of proven proactive measures in place, and you will be able to minimize the negative impacts of a cybersecurity breach on your company, your employees, and your customers, regardless of its scale. Author Bio Nina Sharpe is a content champion for various outlets, covering various business topics from finance for startups to small business accounting tips.
7 Easy Ways to Diversify Your Content Strategy Posted on August 5, 2021July 30, 2021 by Guest Author You know what they say: content is king. It’s also an excellent way to reach today’s consumers. Good content strategies are diverse; today’s marketers typically market to three audience segments at any given time. Learn more about diversifying your content strategy, including potential channels to explore and inspiration for great content, right here. 1. Know Your Audience While you’ll have a sense of the audience you’re targeting, it’s important to understand (regardless of which industry) that they absorb and respond to content in unique ways. For instance, while written content is still popular, 84% of people have been swayed by a brand’s video content. Multiple content types and channels are an essential consideration. Moreover, content consumers have different goals; some may have a clear idea of what they want to achieve with a purchase, while others are still figuring out their needs. Your content needs to embrace all of this in order to be truly diverse. 2. Understand Your Existing Content You should have a good sense of what’s working for your business—what’s driving traffic or conversions, as well as evergreen content. If you’re having success with older content types, don’t feel like you need to abandon them. Blog posts, like this one on free email marketing providers, are an excellent way to share information with people in a format that is traditional and reliable. They’re highly flexible, allow for high word counts, and offer backlinks to older content. The in-depth white paper is also still effective. While it’s time-consuming and requires real expertise, it’s a solid way to show your authority, especially if you need to strengthen the perception of a startup. 3. Embrace New Content Types Don’t be afraid to look at other content formats; Podcasts have been steadily increasing in popularity thanks to their convenience and availability. In 2020, 37% of Americans aged 12 and over had listened to one. That’s over 100 million people in the U.S. alone. You can either create one yourself within a certain niche or tap into a podcast’s existing audience by sponsoring it. The podcast needs to deliver real value to listeners, though; that means your sales messages can’t be overly intrusive. If you have to prioritize certain content types, have a go at comparing content avenues to make an informed choice. Image Source Another option you can pursue is video content. You might want to invite experts in your niche to discuss a problem on video, for example. This is another way of demonstrating your expertise whilst presenting it in a more accessible format. It’s also a great way to create strong workplace bonds if you get colleagues involved. 4. Come to Grips With Today’s Platforms A business’s own website is still valuable for content, and it’s definitely a good idea to have a main channel of distribution. But other channels help you put diverse content types to good use. If you have solid blogging experience, you might want to put content on a platform like LinkedIn. This is well-suited for long-form written content and enjoys a receptive business audience. Conversely, video content (depending on length and subject matter) might do better on YouTube or Instagram, in part thanks to a younger audience. Remember to embrace current ways of producing content suitable for your chosen platform. Today’s blogs use images, numbered lists, and other strategies to make content more appealing; this article on managing remote teams is a great example. While it’s worth using multiple channels, each one requires investment to be effective. A channel that doesn’t get much content is more of a hindrance than a help, so focus on those you can put to good use. 5. Repurpose Content It’s often a good idea to repurpose existing material content instead of creating new content. This helps you save time and reach a wider demographic. For example, you could turn a blog post on your website into a video, which you can then share on your YouTube channel. This, in turn, could be broken up into smaller snippets for use on social media. Similarly, if you hosted an online event, you could use the audio to create a podcast for broader distribution. Of course, you will need to consider how you present the information in each format. Say you want to turn a blog post into a video. What will the video look like? Will it be live-action, or is animation a better fit for the topic? You might also require to work with original content authors, which modern cloud communications platforms facilitate magically. Repurposing content isn’t a silver bullet for your content strategy. You need to have a clear sense of the content’s purpose (such as explaining the features of a product) and preserve some value across the transition—even if the specific value of your content changes. You also need to apply analytics to your content and see if it’s gaining you traffic or conversions. 6. Examine the Sales Funnel The sales funnel offers a roadmap for diverse content creation. People at different stages of the sales journey have different goals and respond well to varying content types as a result. Consider which part of the sales funnel you’re targeting; this will guide you towards the most suitable content types. It’s also worth looking at ways to increase top-of-funnel conversion rates besides conventional content production. People at the top of the sales funnel have a problem they need to solve. They’re not married to any particular product or service, so establish yourself as a possible solution. How-to guides can draw in these users, as can infographics, checklists, and video tutorials. This article on calls in queue might target top-of-funnel users, for example. People in the middle of the sales funnel are homing in on a particular solution. Therefore, you need to show these people how you can provide it. There are many different content options here; how-to guides are still ideal, but product overviews, case studies, and webinars are other excellent choices. You might also want to compare different product offerings, like this guide to picking the right small business phone system. By the time people reach the bottom of the sales funnel, they’re looking to make a purchase. This is where you need to provide insights into the benefits of your product. Product overviews, customer reviews, and success stories are your best bets for getting those conversions. 7. Don’t Forget User-Generated Content Just as customer nurturing campaigns provide a useful service for customers, User-Generated Content (UGC) gives your business a valued resource. It’s an excellent option for small budgets; it costs very little (if anything) to maintain, and it inspires trust in your audience. While price is the first consideration for shoppers, ratings and reviews are a close second. 89% of consumers see reviews as an essential resource when buying something. That’s why it’s often ideal to feature reviews on your site and direct traffic towards them. Of course, reviews aren’t the only way for you to engage with customers. If you’re on an image-friendly platform like Twitter or Instagram, encourage people to share relevant images with a branded hashtag. Contests and giveaways can also build brand loyalty and spread positive word-of-mouth amongst your audience. At the same time, remember that user-generated content has caveats. By its very nature, UGC is unpredictable; you can’t be sure what people will say about your business before you put it into action. You must respond quickly to potential public criticism and attribute any content that you use. It’s also unsuitable for certain industries like healthcare, which could raise compliance issues. However, if you can balance user-generated content with its downsides, you can give your business a significant boost in reputation. Embrace Diversification With regards to diversification, it’s all about finding the right balance. Less of a tightrope and more of a bicycle, if you fail, you can always brush yourself off and try again. By measuring and tracking each element of your content strategy diversification, you can rest assured that you are giving your content team – and audience – the best possible content across multiple channels and in the most suitable format. While indeed content may be king, variety is the spice of life, as they say. Author Bio Jessica Day is the Senior Director for Marketing Strategy at Dialpad, a modern business communications platform with call center recording—turning conversations into opportunities. Jessica is an expert in collaborating with multifunctional teams to execute and optimize marketing efforts, for both company and client campaigns. Here is her LinkedIn.
SEO Myths That Will Probably Kill Your Rankings in 2021 Posted on August 4, 2021July 30, 2021 by Guest Author SEO is tough. There are no shortcuts or quick fixes to ranking your website. And anyone who claims to have found an easy way out or “cracked the code” is definitely lying. Keeping up with the latest SEO rules, tactics, guidelines, and variables that boosts the ranking of a site is a difficult task. There are more uncertainties than certainties as far as SEO is involved. Consequently, there’s more room for trials and evaluation, which also opens the door for misinformation and misconceptions. Here are seven SEO myths that will probably hurt the ability of your site to rank in organic search in 2021. 1. You Need to Submit Your Site to Google to Rank The notion that you must submit your site to Google to rank is a myth. Google uses bots called web crawlers to locate and index content on its own. But if you’re revamping your current website pages or building new ones, you can make your content easy to find by submitting an updated sitemap of your site to Google. This was the first and central myth because many people give up and get the impression that optimization no longer creates opportunities for promoting high-quality sites. Still, on the contrary, it cuts them down. 2. Quantity of Links is more Crucial than Quality A few years ago, all you needed for your site to rank higher was to build as many links as possible. The quantity of links was more important than quality. But today, the focus has shifted from quantity to quality. Keep in mind that a link to another site is more like a recommendation or a vote of confidence. So you need to build it the right way and focus on its quality. For a long time, marketers worldwide have argued that all you need for good SEO performance is the quality of backlinks. As long as you are linked to reputable sites, you don’t have to worry about the link count. By default, your project will grow and develop. 3. Meta Keywords are a Crucial Ranking Factor In the past, meta keyword tags were an important ranking factor. Most site owners used long lists of keywords as a strategy for enhancing the ranking of their sites. The SEO process, then, was characterized by stuffing virtually any or every blend of a keyword. Due to the abuse of this meta tag, Google rendered meta keyword tags useless. The point is, neither Google nor Bing uses meta keywords at all. Yahoo and other search engines at least index them, so they count a little, but their weight in the ranking algorithms is very low. 4. Duplicate Content is Acceptable Duplicating or copying content was a popular SEO strategy for some individuals in the early 2000s. This strategy enabled the lazy or uncreative to increase how frequently keywords appeared on their sites. But upon the introduction of the Panda algorithm update, Google now focuses on getting rid of websites that duplicate or copy content. Failure to create unique content will keep your website from ranking highly – or ranking at all – on search engines. Concentrate on showing your proficiency and what makes you stand out from the crowd by consistently creating quality content. By the way, duplication of content on different pages of the site can get into the search results of a completely different page relevant to the promoted query. As a result, users who come to it can significantly spoil the behavioral factors, which will undoubtedly not have a perfect effect on the website’s ranking. 5. SEO is a One-Time Task One of the most terrible myths is that SEO is a one-time thing – something you do one day and you’re done. This myth is common among SMB business owners who are aware that they need SEO but aren’t willing to spend the time and resources required for its continual development. SEO is a continuous process. You need to constantly use the latest SEO trends, tactics, and strategies to boost your Google rankings and stay ahead of your competitors. Continuous SEO requires both a proactive and reactive approach. High-quality optimization protects your website against key algorithm updates, while continuous optimization maintains it at the top of search engine rankings when old practices stop working. For a more superior SEO experience, partner with an SEO consultant that offers unparalleled services that help businesses rank and perform better in search results. The main thing to remember is that no website can be said to be perfect in terms of SEO. It’s crucial to refine, change, and improve. Search engines are developing their algorithms, and web admins need to keep up with new requirements. You should do SEO monitoring with the help of residential proxies (Geonode is a helpful resource for this) since they enable geo-targeting, and as such, you can do test search queries from no matter which country. This helps you scrape the web without any misleading information. Therefore, conducting an SEO audit before optimizing internally is necessary. It will identify weaknesses and problems so you can understand the scope of the tasks ahead. 6. Page Speed Isn’t Important Google announced in 2010 that page speed is a critical ranking factor. Besides hurting your Google ranking, a page that takes ages to load will drive visitors to your competitors. It could also lower your chances of retaining your current users. So be sure to take your time to boost your page loading speed. That way, you’ll increase your odds of attracting new users and keeping existing ones for long. Speed is one of the thousands of factors that can influence a website’s ranking. The most important conclusion: if there are refusals in the metric, it is necessary to optimize the site load speed. And chasing beautiful numbers is precisely the same as saying: make me a beautiful site. 7. Having More Pages Boost SEO The idea that more pages translate to more traffic to your website is a myth. The reality is that Google, together with other top search engines, is more intelligent these days and focuses more on quality than quantity. So rather than setting up random pages, dedicate your efforts toward creating useful, informational content, boosting your page SEO, and adding quality backlinks. Google spokesman John Mueller said that there is no direct link between the number of pages on a site and its ranking in search results. Again, you need to understand that more pages mean more content, articles, more internal links, and other valuable elements for optimization. That is, it makes no sense to artificially increase the number of pages just for the sake of ranking, but there is an increase in the amount of helpful content. The Parting Shot Quality is an important aspect of a successful SEO process. Ensure you have quality links, quality content, quality keywords, and quality pages. Most importantly, understand that SEO is an ongoing process that requires both proactive and reactive strategies.