While you may feel like today’s business world is a whirlwind of new marketing ideas and social trends, it’s important to remember that what remains unchanged are strategies that propel potential customers to your offering/s. I will say however, that with the social media revolution came the need for businesses to refine their brand and re-establish their position in the market place. The always-on, anywhere, anytime connectivity mindset is today’s reality, so be mindful of this when considering marketing strategies for your business.

Here are three tips for establishing a marketing plan today;

Ensure your marketing strategies are in-line with your overall business goals. Every quarter take some time to evaluate whether you are realizing results from your actions. Be holistic in your approach, evaluate what is working and what isn’t working.  Consider employing more of what’s working and consider tweaks to what’s not working and give it another go.

Create an action plan that outlines your activities tied to your marketing strategies. Know your target customer, refine your value proposition and define metrics. It’s important you know your customer, and articulate your value in terms of how it will service them and / or improve business with their customers. Consider seasonal influences to keep your campaigns fresh and inspiring, assign a budget to your campaigns and create a social media editorial calendar for social activities.

Define metrics for each marketing campaign. This is tracking and measuring at the action plan level. Establish benchmarks, and plan to circle back to your action plan to record the results. This will be critical to measuring your marketing success. You should have multiple campaigns, so thinking you’re going to remember the individual campaign results six months from now is unlikely.

Savvy businesses today need to employ an artful mix of old and new marketing tactics to be a top performer and cut through noise of social media. Be on top of your game, and ahead of your competition, by creating a marketing plan and consistently implementing it over time. And, if it all seems just a bit too much give us a call 905.582.5870.  We will help you develop, or refine marketing strategies and plans that yields maximum results. Our focus is to identify the marketing mix that is right for you, a little or a lot, we are here to help, so connect with us today!

The post Tuesday Tip. Marketing Is A Gradual Process. appeared first on Juice Marketing Group.

Although you need to set aside time to complete your social media editorial calendar, you’ll feel better prepared to handle social for your business. For our clients, we do this via our monthly status meetings, we also have an active social media publishing schedule for weekly posts, tweets and pins. Having an editorial calendar will remove the feeling of drawing a blank when trying to come up with ideas to share with your audience. By planning your content ahead of time, you won’t scramble at the last minute for content, and your posts are sure to be relevant and consistent.

If you have questions on how to create your own social media editorial calendar, connect today and lets complete one that is right for you.

The post Tuesday Tip. Commit to a Social Media Editorial Calendar. appeared first on Juice Marketing Group.

Having a strong on line presence is essential in today’s digitally driven era. Being active on social media and publishing regular blog posts that showcase your unique style, voice and brand will help you solidify your place as a superstar interior designer. Savvy interior designers like Meredith Heron, from Meredith Heron Design, have leveraged social media, including publishing frequent blog posts, to strengthen her design brand and build a loyal fan-base. According to Meredith,“blogging gives designers a direct voice to the world about their process. It shows them doing vs. just talking about it. I think it’s imperative the real designers show their stuff.” She gets it!

In a profession like interior design; where style, preference and relationship with the customer are absolutely critical, publishing a blog seems a natural extension of your business. If you’re a well-versed interior designer achieving your clients’ individual style preferences, and then some by nudging their style boundaries, then there’s no question, your design business should have a blog. Period.

Still not convinced? Here are 3 reasons why your interior design business should have a blog.

• It helps demonstrate your expertise. By blogging you are demonstrating your expertise in design, process and execution.
• It increases your creditability. People like to purchase from businesses they feel comfortable with, and trust, and having an active blog helps foster that feeling, even if you’ve never met face to face.
• It increases traffic. By adding your brands’ keywords throughout your blog posts you will increase your search engine visibility. The same applies to your Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest and other social channels. Extra tip *if the photos you’re sharing are yours, watermark them with your company name or company url. Take advantage of the free advertising!

I hope this helps inspire you to get started. If you have questions on how to get started, connect today and let’s make it happen.

{original photos via Chloe Magazine}

The post 3 Reasons Why Interior Designers Should Blog appeared first on Juice Marketing Group.

Having a strong on line presence is essential in today’s digitally driven era. Being active on social media and publishing regular blog posts that represent your voice and brand will help you solidify your place in your industry.

Creating and publishing a blog will take time and discipline however, like anything else, it gets easier with practice. If your business can afford to hire a social media company with content writing experience, it will alleviate stress and help get the ball rolling. Just be mindful that the company your partner with has a clear understanding of your brand and brands’ voice. There are many social media companies out there, so speak to a handful and connect with one that feels right to you.

If you are taking the task on alone, here are some tips for starting and publishing a blog.

• WordPress is simple. Be sure to add a custom domain, so it appears like an extension of your website.
• Know your competition. Be an expert on what your competition is doing online, stay ahead and be different.
• Have a voice! The voice of your blog is the voice of your brand. Be consistent and clear.
• Include a least one photo. This allows for better sharing, and if the photos are yours, include your url. Take advantage of the free advertising.
• Try short videos. It keep things interesting and it allows people to get to know you better.
• Use keywords. Sprinkle keywords throughout your posts to allow for better search engine visibility.
• Get social. Blogging makes for easy social sharing, so share it across all your social channels. Short sentences make for good tweets, load up hootsuite and you’ll have tweets for days.
• Make it shareworthy. Give your readers a reason to like, tweet and pin your posts, and give them the ability to share through helpful widget add-ons.

If you’re not already blogging for your business in some capacity, I hope this helps inspire you to get started. If you have a question on how to get started, connect today and let’s make it happen.

The post Tuesday Tip. Publish A Business Blog. appeared first on Juice Marketing Group.

The flowers are blossoming, the birds are singing, well, not quite, but never the less our calendar says it’s Spring. For home and businesses alike, Spring is the perfect time to cleanse & freshen up.

Commit to scheduling time to spot check marketing efforts. From your marketing strategy to your initiatives, contact lists to social media evaluate what needs to be organized, revamped to retired.

Most importantly, consider how you’re progressing towards your marketing goals. If your marketing strategy is lacking results, incomplete or just lacking #marketingjuice, consider engaging with marketing pros (cough, cough) and get things on the realizing results track! There are several marketing companies out there, so do your research, speak with a handful and team up with one that feels right to you.

Need help with Spring cleaning your marketing? We’re ready to help with any and all aspects of your marketing spring cleaning, simply connect today and lets make it happen.

The post Tuesday Tip. Spring Clean Your Marketing. appeared first on Juice Marketing Group.

More interesting is the notion that while B2B’s consider social media important for driving traffic to their website (top objective), 61% described their social marketing strategy as ‘ad-hoc’.

So bizarre. Why not strategize and plan just as you would any other top line business initiative? Connect with us for your personal Vision & Strategy today!

Just a few of the notable findings from a recent study by B2B Marketing, in association with Circle Research, in their 2013 Social Media Benchmarking Report for B2B Social Media. This report was designed to provide insight on key B2B social media trends and activities in their organizations.

The infographic below provides the key highlights from the study.

From B2B Marketing’s 2013 Social Media Benchmarking Report

The post The State of B2B Social Media 2013 appeared first on Juice Marketing Group.

Are people finding it when they search? Does it persuade them to leave their contact information? Is there a reason for them to return? If not, it could be working harder for you.

Take time today to consider marketing strategies that are right for your business. Want advice? It’s our pleasure to help, connect today!

The post Tuesday Tip. Make Your Website Earn Its Keep. appeared first on Juice Marketing Group.

Know your customer. Understand their pain, demonstrate you can solve it and give them more.

Have you taken advantage of our complimentary marketing + social media audit. Connect today & lets talk.

The post Tuesday Tip. Know Your Customer. appeared first on Juice Marketing Group.

While I think many things need to come together well in order to have a successful marketing campaign, certainly having a clean and targeted list is a great foundation to build from.

How do you build your targeted prospect list? Well, successful marketing starts with strategic planning and though this planning process you should identify the threads that represent your ideal client. The names of consumers or businesses in your ideal client space make up your targeted prospect list.

Whether you’ve grown your list organically or purchased one along the way, it’s important pre-qualify to allow for a better quality list. Pre-qualify in terms of names and contact information of the business decision maker you are intending to reach for B2B businesses. If you’re a B2C business, it’s likely you have built your list organically and you pre-qualify buy aligning new & existing customers to the your ideal customer profile. Often times this one of those tasks that gets put on the back burner, but it’s a good idea to get into the habit of keeping your list clean with each eblast or perform a run through annually. Whether you’re using an excel spreadsheet or a savvy contact management system it’s important to keep on top of your prospect list.

Here are 3 ideas for building your targeted prospect list…

Relationships

Networking, referrals and other relationship driven marketing strategies are ideal for building your targeted prospect list.

Email Marketing List

Encourage website visitors to subscribe to your email marketing list. Email marketing is still one of the most cost-effective ways of brand promotion, and all too often it gets overlooked and forgotten. Ensure your opt-in is easy, straight forward and highly visible on your home page, and throughout your website. You can also offer an email subscription through Facebook, giving you yet another medium to build your list. Knowing your audience is essential, so make a concentrated effort to get to know your subscribers.

Build & Keep Building

Make a concentrated effort to build and qualify a minimum of 30-40 prospects per month. This number really depends on your sales targets but nevertheless, 30-40 will start you on a decent path. Before a prospect moves into a nurture marketing program (your email marketing list) they are a cold prospect. You need to continuously add to your prospect funnel so you can move people through the relationship life-cycle. Optimizing LinkedIn, attending trade shows, hosting seminars, surveys or contests, advertising and leveraging social media are great ways to build your prospect list.

Want to join the roster of business owners stimulating new business each week from our marketing ideas? Opt into our monthly newsletter for your serving of freshness.

The post Build Your Targeted Prospect List Continuously {Tuesday Tip} appeared first on Juice Marketing Group.

With little investment, small businesses and entrepreneurs can better reach prospective clients through social media and direct those prospects to their on-line stores. You don’t have to be a web designer or a programmer to create your own on-line store. Leiden Johnson of Business2Community.com says that creating an on-line store is great for getting your business started, since it requires very little time and capital to get started, especially compared to a physical brick and mortar shop.

Getting Started

There are many ecommerce sites that make listing and selling goods and services easy. The one I’ve been talking about lately is Shopify however, Ebay, Etsy, and Amazon are all tested and true. See which one is the best vehicle to move your product on-line. I also recommend B2C businesses use Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Instagram to reach clients. Use these social channels to post photos of the products you’re marketing and selling.

Before you build an on-line presence for your business and product, purchase a domain name and consider creating your own on-line shop and website or blog. Customers want to be educated and informed about what they are buying, says Kevin Kohn of LivePerson. He encourages entrepreneurs and business owners to use customer reviews to promote their product. He says the more you inform customers upfront the better your long term selling relationship will be. Kohn also strongly advises on-line shop owners to consider using live chat from LivePerson.com, in case customers need to connect with a representative with any questions. Kohn says that the average wait time for customers is five minutes; after that you may lose them to another seller.

Get the Right Tools

You’ve built your website, started a social channels, listed items on-line. Now what? There are millions of other sellers who have the same idea as you do. William Johnson of SmallBizTrends.com suggests that ecommerce entrepreneurs invest in on-line tools like Google Adwords to build a stronger on-line presence. Google Adwords allows users to place bids on keywords that point to your site or ads that are placed on Google Search.

Another great tool that entrepreneurs use to drive traffic to their on-line shop is Facebook’s Insight API. Insight and Facebook analytics can help entrepreneurs to see  demographic data and offer a way to measure the traffic that is going to their social sites and on-line stores.

Go Mobile

Just as it’s important to make your website mobile accessible, it’s even more important when you’re selling products. Think tablets too. It’s important that your site to be accessible from any device. After all, Kohn says, one in four consumers are making purchases through mobile and tablet devices, even while they are in a physical store. Bizarre, right? But if true, they should be buying from you, and not the other store.

Finally, think outside the your store walls to allow for bigger and better sales numbers, the end result will be far more grand than you thought possible.

Need help with a strategy and action plan tailored to helping you grow your business, connect today and let’s make it happen.

The post Marketing Strategies for B2C Businesses appeared first on Juice Marketing Group.