evisionmediasusanfriesen

[evisionmediasusanfriesen]

The Dos and Don’ts of How to Build an Email List

Whether you know it or not, learning how to build an email list is one of the best things you can do for your business.

Among many other benefits, email marketing gives you direct access to your past, current and future customers, allows you to segment the various members of your audience, and helps you build better brand awareness.

What’s more, as I pointed out in the first installment of this series, Why Building an Email List Is an Excellent Brand Booster, email marketing is a multi-billion-dollar industry, and it’s a strategy that has the potential to offer some pretty impressive returns.

Truth be told, many marketers consider email marketing to be the most effective marketing tool they have at their disposal.

For instance, as you can see from the graph below, in a survey from Litmus, which polled more than 1,000 marketers, 41% of respondents said email marketing is their most effective marketing channel, ranking it higher than video, organic/paid search, and even social media.

All things considered, these are some pretty impressive statistics.

But before you can start reaping the benefits of this strategy, you’ve got to build an email list, otherwise you’re not going to have anyone to email.

With that in mind, in this second installment of our three-part series on email marketing, I’m going to tell you everything you need to know about building an email list and explain some of what not to do, as well.

What You Shouldn’t Do When You Build an Email List

While there are many different strategies you can use to build an email list, there are also many things you should avoid doing when building one, as well.

Believe it or not, when it comes to email marketing, there are some pretty stringent standards.

You can’t just be sending emails out to random people willy-nilly, and if you do, you may end up dealing with some pretty severe consequences, including fines, lawsuits, and even being blacklisted by internet service providers.

That being said, before I explain what you can do to build an email list, let’s explore what you shouldn’t do.

Buying Email Lists

When trying to build an email list for your business, one of the biggest mistakes you can make is purchasing email lists.

While it might seem like a quick way to grow your list, it usually leads to poor engagement because the recipients haven’t shown any interest in your brand or what you’re offering.

Basically, you’re buying a bunch of random people’s email addresses, shooting emails out to everyone, and hoping that something sticks.

But at the end of the day, you want qualified leads on your list, meaning people who are actually interested in what you have to offer.

And when you’re buying email lists, that is not what you’re going to get.

What’s more, buying email lists can also lead to legal troubles, as many data privacy regulations, such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in the EU, the CAN-SPAM Act in the U.S., and Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation (CASL), require explicit consent from recipients before sending marketing emails, and violations of these regulations can result in hefty fines​.

Failing to Use Double Opt-In

If you want to ensure the leads on your list are actually going to be interested in what you’re offering, you should use a double opt-in process, which requires subscribers to confirm their email address by responding to a verification email.

Admittedly, a single opt-in is easier, but a double opt-in helps to ensure you’ll have a higher-quality list, as subscribers are more likely to be genuinely interested and provide a valid email address.

In any case, skipping this step can lead to an increase in spam complaints and a rise in fake or mistyped email addresses, which ultimately affects deliverability and engagement​.

Not Offering Clear Opt-Out Options

I know the idea is to get people on your list, and keep them there, but if you want to follow the rules, you’ve also got to give your audience an easy way to unsubscribe.

Because most email regulations mandate that businesses provide subscribers with an easy way to unsubscribe from marketing emails.

As a result, failing to offer clear opt-out options can lead to serious legal consequences, including fines and lawsuits.

And subscribers who can’t easily opt out will be more likely to report your emails as spam, which can seriously damage your reputation and deliverability rates.

Not Keeping Your List Clean

In case you’re not aware, keeping your email list clean involves regularly removing inactive or incorrect email addresses.

This may seem counter-productive, but the truth is, it’s incredibly important because if you send emails to unengaged or incorrect addresses, it’s going to skew your email metrics, which makes it much more difficult to interpret them.

This can result in poor deliverability and misleading data, which can cause you to make poor decisions about the effectiveness of your campaigns, or lack thereof.

Ignoring Data Privacy Regulations

Unfortunately, many businesses fail to comply with the data privacy regulations I mentioned above, including the GDPR, CASL, and CAN-SPAM Act.

These laws require businesses to obtain explicit consent from individuals before adding them to an email list, and failing to comply with these regulations can result in severe financial penalties, including fines of up to $10 million under CASL, for example.

Beyond the legal risks, these violations can seriously harm your company’s reputation, especially today, as consumers are becoming increasingly aware of their privacy rights.

Read: Why Building an Email List Is an Excellent Brand Booster

Without a doubt, building an email list is one of the best things you can do to boost the success of your business.

But if you’re new to this sort of thing, you might still be wondering what benefits an email list can actually provide.

With that in mind, this article explores several of the ways that building an email list can benefit your business, including giving you direct access to consumers, driving conversions, and more.

Keep reading here.

What You Should Do When You Build an Email List

You may not realize it yet, but as you grow your email list, you’ll be building one of the most powerful marketing assets available – one that allows you to nurture leads, build relationships, and drive sales.

However, building your email list is going to require a significant amount of time, strategy, and consistency.

With that in mind, below I’ve offered several tips on how to build an email list for your business.

Create High-Value Content and Lead Magnets

One of the most effective ways to build your email list is by offering valuable content in exchange for people’s email addresses.

This kind of content, which is often called a lead magnet, is designed to attract potential customers by providing something they want or need. Lead magnets can take on many forms, including:

eBooks: This kind of lead magnet gives you the opportunity to provide in-depth knowledge on topics that are relevant to your industry. For example, we offer a free eBook for new subscribers called the 7-Step Guide to Defining a Compelling Brand Identity.

Checklists: Simple, actionable checklists also make great lead magnets, as they’re easy for subscribers to digest and can be very helpful. For instance, a fitness coach could offer a weekly meal prep checklist to attract health-conscious subscribers.

Webinars: Hosting a free educational webinar or online course is another great idea for a lead magnet, as it allows you to provide valuable knowledge in exchange for an email. Then, after the webinar, you can nurture those leads through follow-up email campaigns.

Templates: Templates also offer a quick and useful resource that’s typically used as a lead magnet. For example, a content writer could offer blog or email marketing templates.

Discounts or Promotions: Retailers can also attract subscribers by offering exclusive discounts or special offers in exchange for an email address.

At any rate, lead magnets must align with the interests and needs of your target audience, and ideally, they should solve a problem, provide valuable insights, or simplify a task for potential customers.

Use a Clear and Compelling Call-to-Action (CTA)

No matter what you’re offering in exchange, a clear and compelling call-to-action is critical for encouraging people to give you their email address.

And regardless of whether it’s a button, form, or link, the CTA should stand out and clearly communicate the benefits of subscribing.

For example, instead of using generic phrases like “Sign Up” you should use action-oriented and benefit-driven CTAs like:

Get Your Free eBook Now!

Subscribe for Exclusive Discounts

Receive Weekly Tips to Improve Your [Skill/Product]

In any case, you should also make the CTA visually prominent by using contrasting colours, large fonts, and strategic placement on high-traffic areas of your website, like your home page, blog pages, and product pages.

Use Social Media to Drive Subscriptions

Social media platforms are a powerful tool for building an email list, as they help drive traffic to your sign-up forms.

That being said, here are some strategies for using social media to grow your email list:

Promote Lead Magnets: One simple thing you can do is to share your lead magnets across your social media channels by including links to your landing page where users can sign up.

Run Contests and Giveaways: Social media contests and giveaways that require people to give you their email address offer another great way to grow your list.

Add a Sign-up Button: Many social media platforms, including Facebook, allow you to add a custom sign-up button that directs followers to your landing page, or wherever you’d like them to sign up.

Use Stories and Live Features: Platforms like Instagram and Facebook offer Stories and live features that can be used to highlight your offers or promote exclusive content, and using these methods, you can direct your audience to a link in your bio or the comments where they can sign up.

Optimize Your Website With Sign-up Forms

Hands down, your website is one of the most valuable assets for building your email list.

That being said, you should make sure you’ve got multiple sign-up forms placed strategically throughout your website to help you capture leads.

Here are some of the key areas where sign-up forms should be placed:

Home Page: If you really want to put it front and centre, you can feature a prominent sign-up form high up on your home page.

Blog Posts: Readers who find your blog content valuable may want more information, so you may want to include email sign-up forms at the top, middle, or end of blog posts.

Pop-ups: Another way to include sign-up forms on your website is by using pop-ups, either when someone comes to your website, or when they’re about to leave, as you can use these pop-ups to promote your lead magnet or offer a discount in exchange for an email address.

Sidebars and Footers: Many websites use sidebars and/or footers to ensure that email sign-up forms are displayed on every page. This way, no matter where a visitor navigates, they always have the option to subscribe.

In any case, all you really need is a first name and email address, and if you ask for too much information, this can discourage users from completing your forms.

So, whatever you do, make sure that the sign-up process is as simple as possible.

Offer Exclusive Content

Exclusivity is another strong motivator for potential subscribers, as it adds even more value to your emails and makes recipients feel like they’re part of an insider group.

Having said that, if this is something you offer, you should let them know that by signing up for your email list, they’ll gain access to exclusive content that isn’t available anywhere else.

Here are some examples of the kind of content that will entice people to sign up:

VIP Sales and Early Access: Offering early access to sales or special promotions is a great way to encourage users to join your list, particularly if you’re in retail.

Behind-the-Scenes Content: Sharing sneak peeks, behind-the-scenes content, or insider info that’s only available to subscribers is another great way to encourage people to sign up.

Premium Articles: If you regularly produce valuable written content, you should consider offering premium blog posts or articles that are only accessible to subscribers. This strategy works especially well for businesses in finance, technology, or marketing.

Run Paid Ads

If you’re looking to grow your list more quickly, you should consider running paid advertising campaigns that specifically target email sign-ups.

For example, platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Google, and LinkedIn allow you to create ads that direct users to a landing page with a sign-up form.

But if you want your ads to be as effective as possible, make sure to take advantage of the targeting options offered by these platforms by using filters like demographics, interests, or job titles, so you can attract subscribers who are interested in what you’re offering and more likely to engage with your brand.

Focus on Quality Over Quantity

While it might be tempting to try to grow your email list as quickly as you can, it’s much more important to build a high-quality list than a large one.

Because a small list of engaged subscribers is far more valuable than a large list of disinterested or unengaged people.

With that in mind, you should focus on nurturing your subscribers by providing valuable, relevant content, and regularly cleaning your list by removing inactive subscribers and email addresses that consistently bounce.

This will help you maintain high engagement rates and avoid any deliverability issues.

Do you need someone to help build an email list? Why not set up a free 30-minute consultation with me to find out how we can help?

To your business success, Susan Friesen

P.S. If you liked the article, you might want to subscribe to our newsletter. We publish tons of valuable content to help you learn more about marketing, and subscribing is the best way to ensure you don’t miss out. Additionally, if you’d like to learn more about building a search engine optimized website, click here for our free website guide.

[evisionmediasusanfriesen]

Why Building an Email List Is an Excellent Brand Booster

When you consider the plethora of platforms and myriad marketing strategies that are available today, the thought of building an email list might seem a bit antiquated.

To be fair, if that’s what you’re thinking, I can see where you’re coming from, as email marketing has been around for so long.

Believe it or not, the first use of email marketing was way back in 1978 when Gary Thuerk, the marketing manager for Digital Equipment Corporation at the time, sent a mass email to hundreds of potential clients over ARPANET, which was the precursor to today’s internet.

But just because it’s been around for nearly 50 years doesn’t mean it’s some sort of outmoded, old-school strategy.

In fact, email marketing is still one of the most popular ways to market your business, and one of the best ways to position your brand, and there’s good reason for that.

For example, as you can see from the graph below, data from Statista shows that in 2023, the worldwide email marketing market had a value of 8.3 billion U.S. dollars, and that figure is projected to more than triple by 2030.

What’s more, a survey from Litmus, which explored email marketing ROI and polled more than 2,000 marketers from around the world, found that for every dollar marketers spend on email marketing, typically, they’re getting $36 back, which is a pretty impressive return on investment.

As you can tell, there’s a reason why email marketing is still as popular as it is.

But if you want to leverage email marketing to position your brand as a leader in your industry, market your business, and communicate with customers, then building an email list is essential.

After all, if you don’t have an email list, then who are you going to be emailing?

With that in mind, in this first installment of our three-part series on email marketing, I’m going to explain the importance of building an email list and explore how email marketing can benefit your brand positioning.

How Can Building an Email List Benefit Your Brand Positioning?

If you regularly read my articles, then I’m sure you’re already well aware of this.

But if you’re just tuning in now, then you might not know what I mean by the term brand positioning.

So, before I go any further, here’s a very brief explanation of what this term means.

Brand positioning refers to how your business is perceived in the minds of consumers, especially in relation to your competitors.

The brand positioning process involves, among many other things, identifying unique values and/or benefits that distinguish your brand from the competition in a way that will resonate with those whom you want to serve.

Now, let’s explore how building an email list can benefit your brand positioning.

Direct Access to Customers

Building an email list gives you uninterrupted access to your customers, which allows you to bypass potential barriers like the algorithms used by social media sites and search engines.

This kind of direct contact not only ensures that your content reaches your audience, but also opens the door for more personalized marketing.

Having direct access to your customers also allows you to do things like use emails to celebrate customer milestones, update subscribers on your latest products and services, and even refer to them by name in your emails.

Each one of these personalized interactions can have a significant effect on whether or not consumers will want to stay connected with your brand, and if your competitors are failing to do this, or not doing it as well as you, then it helps to position your brand as one that cares more about its customers and makes a point of connecting with them.

Customer Segmentation

Segmenting your customers allows you to take a broad email list and transform it into highly targeted groups that will receive emails tailored to their specific needs and preferences.

There are all kinds of different ways to segment your audience, allowing you to separate them based on things like their purchase history, geographical location, engagement level, and more.

Sending anniversary emails with personalized discounts to customers who made their first purchase a year ago, for instance, helps to re-engage customers and prompt repeat business.

This approach not only increases the relevance of your messages but also boosts engagement rates, and your brand positioning, as recipients are more likely to feel that your brand recognizes and values their unique preferences.

Better Brand Awareness and Consistency

Hands down, email marketing is one of the most powerful tools for building brand awareness.

But if you want your brand to be taken seriously, and properly positioned against your competitors, each email should be designed to reflect your brand’s identity, including everything from the logo and colour scheme to the tone of voice and overall messaging.

In any case, regular, consistent communication helps to keep your brand fresh in the minds of consumers, reinforcing your position in the market as a familiar and reliable brand.

And when you continue to use that consistent branding across all of your emails, it can improve your brand positioning by making you look more professional, and helping you build a more cohesive perception of your brand, all of which is crucial for long-term recognition, trust, and loyalty.

Cost-Effectiveness

As I alluded to above, email marketing offers one of the highest returns on investment of any marketing channel.

This is, in large part, due to the fact that it’s usually much more affordable than other strategies, not to mention its high potential for automation, which can be extremely effective.

Automated email campaigns can be triggered based on specific actions, like signing up for a newsletter or abandoning a shopping cart, ensuring that your emails are as timely and relevant as possible.

And when subscribers see that you’re taking the time to reach out to them in these ways, you’re positioning your brand as one that understands their needs and desires.

Building a Community

Building an email list gives you a great way to connect with your clients, but it also offers a platform for cultivating even deeper relationships with them than you could otherwise.

Through regular updates and exclusive offers, you can make your subscribers feel like you’re thinking about them, and that they’re part of your special community.

For example, offering a sneak peek at a new product or a special sale event just for subscribers can enhance your audience’s feelings of exclusivity and privilege, giving them more reasons to do business with you rather than your competitors.

These kinds of tactics not only work to increase your sales but can also reinforce long-term loyalty by rewarding your subscribers for their continued engagement with your brand.

Driving Conversions

A well-maintained email list can be a potent tool for increasing sales, or any other kind of conversion, for that matter.

For instance, things like tailored promotions, reminders of limited time offers, and personalized product recommendations can encourage your subscribers to take action.

Strategic emails like these are great for driving any kind of conversion, as they provide all the necessary information and motivation right where the decision happens: in your subscriber’s inbox.

And if you can make things this easy for them but your competitors are failing to do so, then your brand will be positioned as the more convenient option.

Read: Why Am I Losing Newsletter Subscribers? 6 Reasons Why People Unsubscribe and What You Can Do About It

If you’re interested in building an email list, chances are you’re thinking about sending out a newsletter, or maybe you already have one.

But whether you’re new to the world of newsletters, or you’ve been doing it for a while, when people start unsubscribing, you’re going to want to know why.

With that in mind, this article explains why you might be losing subscribers, and offers tips on how to stop people from unsubscribing, like segmenting your audience, using compelling subject lines, and more.

Keep reading here.

Leveraging Newsletters for Better Brand Positioning

An article about building an email list just wouldn’t be complete without talking about the importance of newsletters.

Newsletters are one of the most effective email marketing tactics, not least because they can play a critical role in strengthening your brand positioning.

A well-crafted newsletter can serve multiple strategic purposes – from connecting with your current and past clients to sharing your insights and expertise with new subscribers, and more.

With that in mind, here are the benefits of newsletters, as they pertain to your brand positioning:

Educational Content

One of the most significant benefits of newsletters, as they pertain to your brand positioning, is their ability to educate your audience about your products, services, and industry.

By providing valuable and relevant information, your brand can position itself as an authority in your field, which not only builds trust with your audience but also sets you apart from competitors.

For example, a company specializing in eco-friendly products could share things like the latest sustainability research or insights into industry regulations.

This kind of content is great, as it not only informs but also engages your audience by aligning with their values and interests.

Product Updates and Announcements

Newsletters also offer you the chance to introduce new products or services, and provide updates to existing offerings, or special promotions.

And by using your newsletters to introduce innovations or enhancements, this helps you to reinforce your brand’s reputation for staying ahead of the curve and keeping the needs of your readers at the forefront, which definitely can’t hurt your brand positioning.

Regular updates also help to keep your audience engaged, excited about what’s coming next, and remind them of the continuous value your brand offers.

Consistent Engagement

Maintaining regular contact with your audience through newsletters helps keep your brand top-of-mind when your competitors may be failing to do so.

What’s more, the consistent delivery of valuable content ensures that your brand remains relevant to your subscribers, making it less likely that they’ll want to switch to your competitors.

Furthermore, the regularity of newsletters means you can continually optimize your approach based on engagement metrics and feedback, which allows you to refine your content to better meet the needs and preferences of your audience.

Facilitating Customer Feedback

Sending out newsletters also gives you the opportunity to gather feedback from your customers, which can be invaluable when you’re trying to figure out how to position your brand in relation to your competitors.

Simple tools like surveys can make it easy for your subscribers to share their opinions with you, which helps you gather insights into what content works, what doesn’t, and what your customers truly want.

This feedback is also crucial for improving your offerings and adapting to the needs of your customers, and soliciting feedback via email demonstrates that your brand values customers’ input and is committed to continuous improvement.

Looking to start building an email list? Why not set up a free 30-minute consultation with me to find out how we can help?

To your business success, Susan Friesen

P.S. If you liked the article, you might want to subscribe to our newsletter. We publish tons of valuable content to help you learn more about marketing, and subscribing is the best way to ensure you don’t miss out. Additionally, if you’d like to learn more about building a search engine optimized website, click here for our free website guide.

[evisionmediasusanfriesen]

How a Fall Financial Review Can Help You Boost Your Revenue This Holiday Season

With fall just a couple of days away, and the holidays closing in fast, you’re probably looking forward to some much-needed rest, relaxation, and time with family.

But if you own a business, before you can enjoy any of that, you’ve got to get through what is likely your busiest time of the year.

And whether it’s the pressure to meet increased demand, working longer hours, ensuring sufficient staffing, dealing with inventory issues, or something else entirely, this time of year can overwhelm even the most seasoned business owners.

With that in mind, rather than waiting until it’s too late, and scrambling at the last minute, now’s the perfect time to set your business up for success with a fall financial review.

To be fair, when there’s this much going on, it might seem like there’s no time for this sort of thing, but if you put a solid strategy in place by doing a financial check-in now, you can avoid a ton of stress later on and ensure you and your business are ready to make the most of the holiday rush.

So, if you’re ready to increase your profits over the holidays, gain greater clarity, make more informed decisions, and start the season feeling more confident and organized, you’re going to want to keep reading.

Harvest More Revenue During the Holidays With a Fall Financial Review

If you want to be in a better position to handle the hustle and bustle of the holiday season, and have greater peace of mind as it arrives, preparing ahead of time with a fall financial review is one of the best things you can do.

Taking the time to do this will allow you to enter the holidays feeling more organized, less stressed, and ready to capitalize on the holiday rush.

With that in mind, the following tips will help you assess the financial health of your business, identify potential problem areas, and be as prepared for the holidays as you can possibly be.

Review Your Financial Statements

If you want to conduct a thorough financial review, your first step is to take a detailed look at your financial statements, including your balance sheet, income statement, and cash flow statement.

Each of these documents provides crucial insights into the financial health of your business, and here’s how:

Balance Sheet: This document shows your business’ assets, liabilities, and equity at a specific point in time.

Reviewing this is important, as it will help you understand how much capital you have available and what debts need to be settled before the holiday season.

Income Statement: Your business’ revenue and expenses over a specific period of time are reflected on this document, and reviewing it can help you identify trends in revenue and expenses, which is especially important as you prepare for the potentially high expenses and revenues that go along with the holiday season.

Cash Flow Statement: Cash flow is king, particularly during the busy holiday season, and a thorough review of your cash flow will help you determine whether you have enough liquid assets to cover increased operating costs during the holidays for things like extra inventory, seasonal staffing, and marketing campaigns.

Identify Opportunities to Reduce Costs

Once you’ve reviewed your financial statements, it’s now a good time to look for opportunities to reduce unnecessary costs.

With that in mind, here are some areas where you might find savings:

Inventory Management: Over-purchasing inventory for the holidays can lead to excess stock and tied-up capital, but by analyzing your sales trends from previous holiday seasons, you can make more informed purchasing decisions and reduce waste.

Subscriptions and Recurring Expenses: Many business owners pay for recurring services that they may no longer need or can downgrade.

That being said, this is the time to audit those expenses and eliminate or reduce them wherever possible.

Streamlining Operations: In an effort to reduce costs, you may also want to consider automating certain aspects of your business, like accounting or customer service, which can save you a ton of time and money in the long run, especially as demand increases during the holidays.

Finding ways to save in these areas is important for a fall financial review, as it allows you to reinvest that money in things like marketing or extra staff, which will directly contribute to your success this holiday season.

Set Realistic Revenue Goals

The holiday season is a great time to boost your revenue, but it’s important to set realistic revenue goals that are based on your past performance and current market conditions.

Having said that, here’s how to establish clear, actionable targets:

Analyze Past Holiday Sales: Start by looking at your sales data from previous holiday seasons so you can identify which products or services sold the best and which months or weeks saw the highest sales volume.

This will help you predict demand and set sales goals for the upcoming holiday rush.

Consider Market Trends: Next, you should think about whether there are any emerging trends in your industry that could impact holiday sales.

For instance, if you own a retail business, you might want to ask yourself if there are specific products that are predicted to be in high demand.

In any case, considering these aspects will ensure your revenue goals are grounded in reality.

Factor in External Challenges: Things like inflation, supply chain disruptions, and changing consumer behaviours can all impact holiday sales, so make sure to account for these external factors when setting your revenue targets.

Then, once you’ve established your revenue goals, try breaking them down into smaller, more manageable targets.

For instance, you can set weekly or even daily sales targets to help you stay on track.

Read: 10 Tips to Help You Get Back to Business This Fall

While they are extremely important, as a business owner, you’ve got more to worry about than just your finances.

And whether you’re organizing tasks, updating your website, dealing with scheduling, or something else altogether, the fall is a great time to focus on your business.

With that in mind, this article offers advice on how to get back to business this fall, so you can move into the holiday season with the best chance to succeed.

Keep reading here.

Assess Your Cash Flow and Plan for Extra Expenses

The holiday season often requires additional spending on everything from inventory to seasonal employees.

So, after reviewing your cash flow, you should begin to plan for these extra expenses.

That being said, here are some key considerations to make regarding cash flow and extra expenses during the holidays:

Holiday Inventory: If you sell physical products, now is the time to assess whether you’ll need to purchase additional inventory in order to meet holiday demand.

In doing so, make sure to use your past sales data so you can make smart purchasing decisions, avoiding both stockouts and overstocking.

Marketing: The holidays are a competitive time, so investing in marketing is essential.

As such, you should allocate part of your budget for holiday-specific marketing efforts, as running targeted holiday promotions, social media campaigns, or even paid ads during this busy time can significantly boost your revenue over the holidays.

Seasonal Staffing: Depending on the nature of your business, you may need to hire temporary staff to help manage the holiday rush.

If this is the case, make sure to plan for these additional payroll expenses during your financial review, and ensure you have enough capital to cover them.

Emergency Fund: It’s always a good idea to have an emergency fund in place, especially during the holiday season, as unexpected expenses, like shipping delays, vendor issues, or equipment breakdowns can arise.

At any rate, having a financial cushion will ensure that these problems don’t derail your business during the holidays.

Audit Your Payment Processes

During the holiday season, your sales volume will more than likely increase, so now is a great time to audit your payment processing systems and ensure everything runs smoothly.

Here’s what you’re going to need to consider:

Payment Options: Are you offering a variety of payment options to accommodate all types of customers?

Consumers appreciate the flexibility to pay with credit cards, mobile wallets, and other digital payment methods, and if you don’t offer it, they may choose to go elsewhere.

So, if you want to avoid turning customers away, you should make sure you’ve got a seamless, secure payment system that will accept all forms of payment.

Fees and Costs: Payment processing fees can add up, especially during the holiday season when transaction volumes increase.

Having said that, you should look for opportunities to negotiate better rates with your payment processor or explore alternative providers that might offer lower rates.

Security: With increased transactions comes a heightened risk of fraud, so it’s crucial that you make sure your payment systems are up to date with the latest security protocols so you can protect your business and your customers from any data breaches or fraudulent activities.

Revisit Your Pricing

As part of your financial check-in, it’s worth revisiting your pricing strategy ahead of the holidays.

The increased demand during this time offers a great opportunity to adjust prices, but it’s important to do so strategically by doing things like:

Seasonal Promotions: Offering limited-time discounts or bundled deals can entice customers to spend more during the holiday season. But you should make sure that your promotional prices still allow for healthy profit margins.

Price Adjustments for Increased Costs: If you anticipate higher costs for inventory, staffing, or shipping, you might want to consider adjusting your prices accordingly.

However, you should be mindful of not pricing yourself out of the market and conduct competitive research to make sure your prices remain attractive to consumers.

Plan Your Marketing Strategy

If you want to increase your profits during the holidays, a robust marketing strategy is essential.

So, during your fall financial check-in, make sure to allocate some funds for your holiday marketing efforts and ensure your strategy is well-planned. Here are some ideas:

Email Campaigns: Email marketing offers a great way to start building excitement with a series of holiday-themed email campaigns. These emails can offer sneak peeks of upcoming deals, special promotions, or gift guides to entice your audience to spend more.

Social Media Promotions: You can also use social media to engage your audience and boost holiday sales with festive content, giveaways, and limited-time offers.

Moreover, paid ads on platforms like Instagram and Facebook can also help you to drive traffic, increase visibility, and boost your revenue over the holidays.

Website and eCommerce Readiness: This goes without saying, but you should ensure your website and/or eCommerce platform is ready to handle the increased traffic that comes during the holiday rush, as a smooth, user-friendly experience can boost conversion rates and entice customers to keep coming back over the holiday season.

Collaborations and Partnerships: Another great marketing strategy, especially during the holidays, is to partner with complementary businesses for cross-promotions.

For example, if you sell home décor, you might want to consider teaming up with a local florist or furniture store to offer joint discounts.

Referral/Loyalty Programs: One of the best ways to encourage word-of-mouth is by offering incentives to existing customers who refer friends or family, as a discount for both the referrer and the new customer can be a powerful motivator.

What’s more, you can also boost repeat business by offering loyalty points or discounts to customers who make multiple purchases during the holiday season.

Influencer Marketing: Collaborating with influencers who are relevant to your industry can help give your brand additional exposure, as they can showcase your offerings in holiday gift reviews, explainer videos, and other festive content.

In any case, by reviewing your financial statements, and doing things like cutting unnecessary costs, setting realistic revenue goals, planning for seasonal expenses, and strategically marketing your business, you can ensure a more successful and profitable holiday season.

And with the right strategies in place, you can avoid the stress that comes with the holiday rush, and instead, turn it into a season of growth and opportunity for your business.

If you’d like to share the results of your fall financial review, go ahead and leave a comment below. I’m interested to know how it goes!

Looking to boost the success of your business? Why not set up a free 30-minute consultation with me to find out how we can help?

To your business success, Susan Friesen

P.S. If you liked the article, you might want to subscribe to our newsletter. We publish tons of valuable content to help you learn more about marketing, and subscribing is the best way to ensure you don’t miss out. Additionally, if you’d like to learn more about building a search engine optimized website, click here for our free website guide.

[evisionmediasusanfriesen]

Top Tips on Blogging to Keep Your Audience Engaged and Coming Back for More

Whether you’re a seasoned blogger or you’re just starting out, keeping your audience engaged can be incredibly challenging.

Consistently coming up with fresh ideas can be draining, and even with the best of intentions, blogs can sometimes fall flat, leaving your readers disengaged or worse, clicking away from your website without giving it a second glance.

Moreover, with so many voices competing for attention, standing out requires more than just good writing – it demands creativity, strategy, and a deep understanding of your audience.

Still, even with all these challenges, companies continue to invest in content marketing strategies, like blogging, and that’s because they work.

For example, the results of a recent Bynder survey are very telling.

The vast majority of marketers who responded to this survey, which polled more than 1,200 marketing professionals, have a strategic interest in content marketing, with 86% of CMOs saying they plan to either maintain or increase their investments in it.

What’s more, as you can see from the graph below, even with the economic downturn we’re seeing today, most marketers surveyed said that as a result of these economic conditions, their organizations have actually increased their investments in content.

But of course, if you want to see results from your blogging efforts, you’ve got to understand how to write an engaging blog, and what makes a good blog post.

Even if you think of yourself as a writer, blogging is a very different animal, which requires some special know-how.

With that in mind, I want to offer some tips on blogging to help you give your audience what it wants by consistently creating great content.

So, if you’re wondering how to keep your audience engaged, and want to know how to write better blog posts, keep reading to learn more.

Read: How the Benefits of Blogging Can Seriously Help Your Website and Boost Your Business in 2024

If you’re looking for tips on blogging, chances are you’re well aware of how it can benefit your business.

But maybe you haven’t taken the time to explore this, or you need a reminder of why it’s so important.

Whatever the case, this article explores the benefits of blogging, including better SEO, more website traffic and leads, improved relationships with customers, and more.

Keep reading here.

8 Tips on Blogging to Keep Your Audience Engaged

Whether you consider yourself a writer or not, if you have a website for your business, you should be blogging.

But trying to consistently come up with content that will keep your audience engaged can feel like a losing battle.

With that in mind, below I’ve offered several tips on blogging, so you can make your blogs more engaging and entice people to come back to your website and read more.

1) Update Your Blog Frequently

I know it sounds harsh, but if you’re not going to update your blog frequently, you’re probably just wasting your time.

But why is that?

Well, there are two reasons to add new posts to your blog on a frequent and consistent basis.

The first one being that if someone visits your blog and sees that the last article posted was six months ago or more, then their immediate impression might be that you’re no longer in business, or at least no longer maintaining your website, which is always a bad look.

Believe it or not, people’s reaction can be that drastic!

Most people won’t assume that you’re too busy to tend to your blog, but what they will assume is that you’ve abandoned your website, and therefore your business.

In my experience, most people tend to believe that how you do one thing is how you do everything, so if you’re publishing blogs haphazardly, putting out poorly written content, or not even blogging at all, that will reflect on your business whether you want it to or not.

Plus, if you’re not regularly publishing content, and staying top of mind with your audience, eventually, they’re going to forget about your blog and move on to the next thing.

The other reason to frequently update your blog is for Search Engine Optimization (SEO) purposes.

Because the more you write and post successful blog articles, the more Google and other search engines will see that you’re actively updating your website, and they tend to reward fresh content and websites that stay updated with higher search rankings, which makes it easier for people to find your website.

Now, if you want to stay consistent, you should make a posting schedule and stick to it!

But how often should you post?

Let me put it this way: Once a month is better than every six months, once a week is better than once a month, and multiple times per week is better than once a week.

You get the idea.

2) Provide Quality Over Quantity

As important as it is to post frequently, and regularly, if the content you’re posting isn’t any good, it’s not going to matter when you post it.

Having said that, you should post as much as you possibly can, but the content you post has to be excellent.

The key word here is quality. You want your blog posts to be engaging and valuable to the reader. This isn’t a space to wax poetic or list what you had for dinner last night.

This is your space to showcase your expertise and explain what your offerings can do for potential customers.

So, if you want your blogging efforts to be successful, you’ve got to write about topics that your target audience wants to learn about, and that’s why understanding your audience and knowing who your ideal clients are is critical.

You want to write about things that potential and existing customers will find interesting, valuable, informative, entertaining, and/or captivating.

You should write for your target audience, not for yourself, and not for the sake of having something posted, or to create glorified sales pitches for your products.

In doing so, when you’re writing something, you should always ask yourself what you want your readers to get out of it and what you want them to do or know after they’ve read it.

3) Try to Focus on One Topic Per Post

I get it. You’re passionate about your business, and when you sit down to write, you want to share every thought that comes into your head.

That being said, it’s great that you’re so passionate. And it’s great that you have so many ideas.

But you shouldn’t try to squeeze them all into one post.

In fact, it’s much better to stick to one topic or point for each blog you publish.

For one thing, it’ll help Google understand what your post is about, which makes it easier to connect with the right audience, as they’ll be looking for articles on that topic.

But it’s also easier to keep people engaged and hold their attention when you stick to one topic.

Plus, if the title of your article implies that it’s about one thing, but the reader finds out it’s a meandering mess of disparate topics, you’re going to annoy them, and at that point, they’re probably not going to return to your blog.

This might turn out to be harder than you’d think, and if you’re anything like me, that one specific topic will make you want to explain everything related to it and the next thing you know, you’re going down a massive rabbit hole.

But luckily, you can save all those ideas and rabbit holes as ideas for new blogs!

4) Include Relevant Images

If you want your blog posts to be engaging, images are a must.

Not only do images help your readers get a visual idea of what your article is about, but they also help to break up the text, emphasize important points, and create something that looks more interesting than just a massive wall of text.

But make sure the images you’re using are high-quality, in focus, and relevant to what you’re writing about.

Otherwise, you’re going to confuse or annoy the reader, who’s not going to appreciate looking at pixelated, blurry images that have nothing to do with your article.

Ideally, each article should have an appealing display image (or “hero image” as we call them), which will entice people to click on it, and you should also include a couple more images throughout each article to break up the text.

Using images in your blog posts is also one of the simplest things you can do to make your website more popular – both with users and with search engines, as they both appreciate attractive websites with lots of imagery.

5) Don’t Use Third-Party Blogging Services

Whatever you do, make sure to host your blog on your own website, and avoid using third-party services like Tumblr for your business blog.

Unfortunately, because these services are free and usually easy to set up, they can be very tempting to use.

But what you’re doing when you use these services is sending people to their platforms instead of your website – and at the end of the day, bringing traffic to your website is one of the main reasons why you should be blogging!

So, don’t leave the SEO benefits of blogging on the table.

If you have a blog, it should be housed on your website, and nowhere else.

6) Fix the Spelling and Grammar Mistakes

Honestly, this shouldn’t even have to be said. But, oh my goodness, does it ever need to be said!

I remember once reading someone’s blog post and the grammar mistakes made it so hard to read that I gave up. The irony is, she was a copywriter!

Can you guess what impression her readers have on her ability to write? Probably not so great.

Even if you’re not a writer trying to sell your services, publishing blog posts that are riddled with errors is going to reflect negatively on you and your business, because it looks like you either don’t know or don’t care about this sort of thing.

Understandably, not everyone has a degree in English. I don’t either.

And if you look hard enough, you’ll find mistakes in my writing.

But that’s not the point here, nor the expectation. The goal is to write something that is very readable and not full of obvious mistakes.

So, if you’re one of those people who has great ideas and lots of information to share but you’re terrible in the English department, it might be time to hire someone to help you.

We do this a lot for our clients – they’ll send us a rough draft, and then we’ll edit it, SEO-optimize it, make it look pretty, and add it to their blog.

Easy-peasy for the non-writer.

7) Make Your Blogs Easy to Scan

When you take the time to write a great article for your blog, you want to make sure people actually stick around long enough to read the whole thing, right?

Aside from having a compelling title, beautiful imagery, and a well-written article, another way to keep your audience engaged and coming back for more is to make your blog posts easy to scan.

Like it or not, the reality is very few people read anything online word for word, so it’s critical to ensure your main message comes across, or that there’s at least an indication of the various sections of the article when someone scans it.

To do this, it’s best to break up the text with headings, subheadings, bolding, images, and bullet points. But don’t overdo it on the bullet points!

I’ve come across many people who hear that they should use bullet points in their articles and then end up writing practically the entire thing like that.

Don’t be that person!

8) Create Long-Form Content

How do you truly captivate your audience?

Typically, it’s by connecting with a fascinating story, a personal anecdote, or by impressing with your expertise.

And in all of these cases, a few hundred words probably isn’t going to cut it.

No matter what the topic is, you don’t want to drone on and on, but as long as the level of quality remains the same, your articles will be better if they’re longer, as they’re just offering more value to the reader.

Plus, once you’ve done all that fancy formatting, readers will be able to scan your article, reading only the parts that are relevant to them, and they’re going to appreciate that.

What’s more, they’ll probably remember that, and as a result, they might come back to your blog.

And a word to the wise: when it comes to SEO, the longer the article, the better (assuming, of course, that it’s also well written and interesting).

I know. It’s a big puzzle to put together.

You have to post frequently, and you also have to post long articles, but those articles also have to be nicely formatted, well-written, and appealing to your target audience.

Phew!

Do you need help creating content that will keep your audience engaged? Why not set up a free 30-minute consultation with me to find out how we can help?

To your business success, Susan Friesen

[evisionmediasusanfriesen]

9 Lead-Generation Strategies to Help You Make More Sales

No matter what you’re selling, marketing is the cornerstone of your business.

Without it, it’s going to be tough to connect with consumers, and next to impossible to keep your business going.

But if you put some solid lead-generation strategies in place, you can ensure a steady stream of customers that will help you make more sales and keep your business running for years to come.

The term lead generation, also called customer acquisition or list building, refers to the process of attracting interested consumers to your business and nurturing relationships with them, with the end goal being to convert them into paying customers.

But with today’s consumers having more options than ever, you’ve got to get this right, as connecting with the right consumers, or failing to do so, can make or break your business.

However, simply building that list and connecting with potential leads isn’t enough.

You also need a plan in place to actively nurture those leads and convince them to convert, but many fall short of this critical step.

So, if you’re struggling with how to make more sales, and you’re looking for lead-generation strategies to help you bring in more business, you’re going to want to keep reading.

Read: Maximizing Your Website’s Potential: How to Get More Leads and Conversions Using This Simple Strategy

You can spend every waking hour learning how to generate leads, but if your website gives people the wrong impression, it’s not going to matter.

Like it or not, consumers expect your website to offer a great experience, and when they don’t have one, this can erode their trust in your business.

With that in mind, this article explains the importance of having a website that helps build trust and offers several tips to help you create a website that does just that.

Keep reading here.

Lead-Generation Strategies to Help You Sell More

Now that you know why lead generation is so important to the success of your business, you’re probably wondering how you can start generating all those leads and making more sales.

With that in mind, below I’ve explained some of the best lead-generation strategies that you can use to connect with consumers and ensure a steady stream of customers for your business.

1) Content Marketing

When it comes to lead-generation strategies, content marketing is arguably one of the most powerful approaches.

For instance, regularly publishing informative blog posts (like this one), that address your target audience’s pain points can help you attract organic traffic to your website.

And if people like your content, that might entice them to come back to your website for more, sign up for your newsletter, or even consider purchasing your products or services.

But if you want to ensure your content ranks well in search engines, so people can actually find it, make sure to SEO-optimize your blogs by breaking up the text with headings, including relevant keywords, and ensuring paragraphs are no longer than 1-2 sentences.

This will ensure your content is easy to read, simple to skim through, and will look good no matter what device you’re using.

2) Email Marketing

Email marketing is another great lead-generation tactic, not least because it allows you to reach your audience directly, and it pairs particularly well with content marketing.

For example, you can send out a newsletter that links to a blog article you’ve written, which encourages recipients to go to your website, consume your content, and if all goes well, become one of your clients or customers.

And by segmenting your subscribers based on their interests and behaviours, you can send personalized content that resonates with your subscribers on a very deep level.

Automated email campaigns can further enhance this strategy, but we’ll get into that a bit more in a minute.

3) Free Giveaways

One of the dilemmas of email marketing is how to get people to give you their information.

In my experience, very few people will actually do this on their own without any incentive, so what we typically do is offer some sort of free giveaway in exchange for users’ contact info.

Usually, the giveaway is some sort of report, white paper, or guide in the form of a downloadable PDF, access to a webinar or video, or something like that.

But whatever you choose to do, what you’re giving away should be something that’s absolutely irresistible to your audience, otherwise people aren’t going to bother signing up.

What’s more, you’ve got to make sure it’s relevant to what you do, otherwise you’re going to end up with a bunch of unqualified leads who likely have little or no interest in what you’re offering.

4) Email Automation

Once someone has given you their information, you can’t just sit and wait for them to contact you.

Email automation allows you to write a series of prescheduled auto-responder emails that will get sent to your subscribers at predetermined intervals.

These emails can link to additional information that can add even greater value to your giveaway, like related blog articles or videos, an invitation for a free consultation, or a “welcome package” for new subscribers that contains special offers and bonuses.

This can help you save a ton of time when nurturing leads, as you don’t have to reach out personally for each and every email, and you can just sit back and let the automation do its thing.

5) Social Media Marketing

Actively engaging with your audience on platforms like Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram allows you to establish an emotional connection with your followers, which can help you gain more leads and make more sales.

You can do this by sharing relevant content, responding to comments, and participating in conversations related to your industry, which shows your followers what you’re all about and can help them decide if they’re interested in what you’re offering.

Paid social ads are another effective tool for generating leads, which allows you to target a specific audience and then direct them to a landing page where they can learn more about what you do and sign up for your offerings.

The key is to focus your attention on the platforms where your target audience is spending their time.

6) Social Media Outreach

Another great lead-generation strategy is to reach out directly to your social media followers.

For example, when a follower leaves a comment on your social media, you can send them a private message to tell them that you agree with them or compliment them on how insightful they were.

Then, you can offer them a free consultation, a discount on one of your products or services, or something else of value as a thank you for their engagement.

You can also gather the contact info of those in your audience who have liked and/or commented and email them a personal note thanking them for being a fan and offering a special “insider discount” or something exclusive that they just can’t resist.

But remember, it’s against the law to automatically add people to your email list without their consent, so this can only be done by individually emailing these people.

You should also be careful to use this approach without the intention of trying to sell them something, and make sure to be genuine and authentically interested, so you can avoid turning them off right away.

7) Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is crucial for improving your website’s visibility and is therefore a key component of any effective lead-generation strategy.

On-page SEO, for example, which includes optimizing your content, meta tags, and URLs, can help your website rank higher in search engine results, and targeting keywords that potential leads are searching for can increase your chances of attracting the right audience.

For businesses that serve specific geographic areas, local SEO is essential, so if this is what you do, make sure to include geographical keywords in your website content that are relevant to the areas you serve.

You should also ensure that your Google My Business profile is optimized, and if you encourage satisfied customers to leave reviews, it can significantly improve your local search rankings, which may help you generate more leads, and in turn, make more sales.

8) Pay-Per-Click Advertising (PPC)

Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, particularly when it’s done through Google Ads, is another incredibly effective lead-generation strategy.

This tactic allows you to run targeted campaigns for the most relevant keywords, ensuring that your ads appear at the top of the search results when people search for those terms.

Retargeting ads can also be highly effective, as they allow you to reach out to people who have previously visited your website but didn’t convert, keeping your business top of mind and encouraging them to return and make a purchase.

9) Be Consistent

If you want your lead-generation strategies to be successful, you can’t just sit on your email list waiting for something to happen.

You’ve got to engage your audience often and on a regular basis, otherwise they may end up forgetting who you are or losing interest in what you have to offer.

But regardless of which tactics you’re using to generate leads, make sure to interact with your audience regularly.

So, if you’re focusing on content marketing by publishing blogs, or email marketing by sending out newsletters, try to publish on a regular basis, at least once a month.

If you’re focused primarily on social media, you’ll have to publish content more regularly, but the same rule applies. If you’re posting three times per week, do it faithfully and consistently.

Whatever you choose to do, if you want to generate high-quality leads and make more sales, make sure to be consistent when interacting with your audience.

Do you need some help coming up with lead-generation strategies? Why not set up a free 30-minute consultation with me to find out how we can help?

To your business success, Susan Friesen

P.S. If you liked the article, you might want to subscribe to our newsletter. We publish tons of valuable content to help you learn more about marketing, and subscribing is the best way to ensure you don’t miss out. Additionally, if you’d like to learn more about building a search engine optimized website, click here for our free website guide.

[evisionmediasusanfriesen]

9 of the Best Organizational Tools for Business to Help You Stress Less and Achieve More

No matter how you slice it, running a business is one of the most stressful things you’ll ever do.

Whether it’s dealing with cash flow, finding and retaining customers, scaling your business, or something else entirely, as a business owner, you’ve got a to-do list that never seems to end.

And with all of this on your plate, it’s easy to get overwhelmed, disorganized, and stressed out.

What’s more, if you’re working with a remote team, like I do, then things can quickly get even more difficult to deal with.

But, as I’ve learned over the years, if you make use of the best organizational tools for business, coupled with some solid planning and patience, you can become more productive, get everything organized, and in doing so, relieve much of your business-related stress.

I don’t claim to be immune to this sort of stress, but after more than 20 years of working in this industry, I’ve got a pretty good system in place that allows me to relax and achieve much more than I could in the past.

Since this is what I’m most familiar with, and it’s worked so well for me, I figured I should detail some of the stress-reducing business tools we use here at eVision Media to keep everything organized and accomplish more.

So, if you want to learn about some of the best organizational tools for business, and how they’ve helped me and my team, then keep reading.

Read: How Your Small Business Can Easily Leverage AI

But trying to wrap your head around how to use these tools, and understanding what they’re actually capable of, is often easier said than done.

With that in mind, this article explores six ways you can leverage AI and offers advice on how to implement it into your small business.

Keep reading here.

9 of the Best Organizational Tools for Business

No matter what kind of business you own, it’s impossible to keep track of everything, and trying to keep it all organized can feel practically impossible.

But in my experience, if you make use of the best organizational tools for business, you can streamline your business operations and make everything a lot less stressful.

With that in mind, here are nine of the best time-saving and stress-reducing business tools that I use to keep eVision Media operating smoothly:

1) Microsoft 365

At the top of my list of tools is Microsoft 365, which used to be called Microsoft Office (just in case you’re wondering).

This software suite is an integral part of nearly all my daily operations, and the apps I use most frequently are:

OUTLOOK

My Outlook is pretty much always open, as it’s the hub of my operations for my emails, calendar, and tasks.

Whether it’s through the use of email templates, automation options, or meeting scheduling, this tool allows me to be significantly more organized and productive.

I also use Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP) for my email so I can use Outlook on my iPad and iPhone as well, which allows me to keep all three devices synced at the same time.

EXCEL

Say what you will, but I love lists and keeping things organized.

At this point, I’m basically addicted to using Excel to manage many of my day-to-day operations.

Whether I’m using it to track progress on marketing and social media tasks we’re completing for clients, or for tracking our content marketing efforts, I can’t live without Excel!

WORD

If you own a business today and you’re not using this tool, I don’t know what to tell you.

Word offers a ton of useful features, including templates and themes, collaboration options to track comments and changes on documents, and document management capabilities, making this tool a must-have organizational and productivity powerhouse.

2) Evernote

Evernote is a note-taking and task-management software that allows you to create and archive notes, which can include photos, videos, and saved web content.

I started using Evernote several years ago and have never looked back. What a gem it is for keeping me organized!

There’s a free version and a paid version, but so far, I’ve only needed the free one.

In any case, I love this app, as it helps me to keep track of things like:

CURRENT PROJECTS

I use this notebook to track all of our website development projects, content marketing campaigns, and social media management tasks.

I just love how I can create checklists in Evernote to ensure I have all my bases covered as we work through each part of a project.

And because we can have as many as two dozen projects running at the same time, this system is invaluable for keeping me on top of things without me having to always rely on my memory.

LEADS

This is where I can easily take notes as I’m speaking with a potential client, so I make sure to do proper follow-up and don’t forget any details.

RESOURCES

I use this notebook to save website links, tools, and YouTube videos I want to remember and reference at a later date.

NOTES

I’m always coming up with new ideas and need a place to jot them down, so this notebook is an ideal place for me to add things like newsletter ideas, tips I’ve learned from webinars, and the like.

DAILY TASKS

This is basically my to-do list. I find this one the hardest to keep up with, as sometimes my tasks are completed so quickly, they don’t even make it onto the list!

Evernote also has a handy voice recording feature that I haven’t gotten into the habit of using, but probably should.

Another feature I don’t use much is the ability to share notebooks, but since my team and I use a separate project management tool, I haven’t found a need for this yet.

An alternative to Evernote is OneNote, which comes with Microsoft 365, but I’m a creature of habit and haven’t taken the time to explore it enough and see if it would work better for me.

Why try to fix what’s not broken, right?

3) Project Management

There are a ton of great project management platforms out there today, with each offering slightly different features and functions. Here are a few of the most popular options:

Trello, for instance, has a great notification system, and is quite user-friendly.

Asana, on the other hand, has arguably the best collaboration tools of any project management platform.

Monday.com is also great for real-time collaboration, and it’s one of the cheaper options out there, which makes it great for startups.

To manage our projects, our team uses a centralized project management system called EGroupware.

This is a completely secure, privately accessible system, which allows us to manage our entire team’s daily activities at an operational level, including connecting with team members, managing tasks and contacts, and more.

It may not have all the bells and whistles of some of the newer project management apps, but it’s 100% free open-source groupware, which makes it great for businesses that don’t have any budget for this sort of thing.

4) Time Tracking

For time tracking, most of our team uses a free software called Toggl Track.

Although there is a paid version, we use the free version of this app, and it allows us to track how much time we spend on clients’ tasks down to the exact minute.

This is extremely important for us to stay organized since we charge in 10-minute increments!

Another free time tracker we sometimes use as an alternative is called Clockify.

5) Email Marketing

For our email marketing, we’ve been using Constant Contact for several years now.

It’s quite a robust and affordable platform that allows business owners to send out professional emails with great deliverability rates.

Currently, it has a free and paid version, but keep in mind that the free version paywalls many important features, like scheduling emails, personalizing them, and resending them to non-openers.

However, depending on what you need it for, the free version might be just fine.

But luckily, there are many different email marketing services to choose from.

If you don’t want to pay for a mailer, a great option is MailerLite, as it gives you access to most features, even with the free version.

There are also a ton of other options, as well, including AWeber, ActiveCampaign, and Mailchimp, although I wouldn’t recommend that last option, as it’s not very user-friendly and lacks some of the features offered by other mailers.

6) Publer

When it comes to social media, one of the absolute best ways to reduce stress, be more organized, and accomplish more is to use some sort of scheduling software.

To keep organized and sane with our social media efforts, typically we use Publer, which allows us to pre-schedule many of our posts on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram.

Hands down, every business owner and entrepreneur using social media for their marketing efforts should use some sort of scheduling software (there are lots to choose from), not least because it will save you tons of time.

7) Hightail

We often need to send or receive large files to or from clients, which are too big to send via email, so we have a Hightail account that allows us to do this.

I much prefer using Hightail over Dropbox, as it’s quite a bit easier to use, which is extremely important when you’re dealing with clients who aren’t too tech-savvy, as we often do.

8) Team Communications

When communicating with my team outside of our project management system, typically I use either email or Discord, which is a free instant messaging software that facilitates file sharing, text, voice, and video communications.

It’s reliable, free, and allows us to keep everyone on the same page by providing timely updates to our team members.

A great alternative to Discord is Slack, which is slightly different, but it facilitates nearly all the same features.

9) Pen and Paper

Call me old-fashioned, but there’s just something about putting pen to paper.

Despite the long list of software and systems I use every day, I still like to have a notepad and pen handy so I can jot down quick notes on the fly if need be.

I don’t know about you, but for me, there is nothing more satisfying than striking a red pen through tasks on my list as they’re completed.

Need some help organizing your business? Why not set up a free 30-minute consultation with me to find out how we can help?

To your business success, Susan Friesen

P.S. If you liked the article, you might want to subscribe to our newsletter. We publish tons of valuable content to help you learn more about marketing, and subscribing is the best way to ensure you don’t miss out. Additionally, if you’d like to learn more about building a search engine optimized website, click here for our free website guide.

[evisionmediasusanfriesen]

How to Use the Power of Storytelling to Boost Your Brand

There are a million and one ways to promote your brand and what it has to offer.

But no matter how you’re promoting your brand, your efforts can and will be improved by the power of storytelling.

According to Stanford professor Jennifer Aaker, “Stories are remembered up to 22 times more than facts alone,” which explains in large part why they’re so effective when it comes to marketing and branding.

At the end of the day, stories are much easier to relate to than facts and figures, and they can also resonate with people on a deeply emotional level, which makes them easier to retain and more memorable in general.

Donald Miller talked about the power of storytelling in his best-seller, Building a StoryBrand, in which he explores this topic from a marketing and branding perspective.

Miller goes into great detail on how to craft a compelling narrative for your brand, who the characters in that story should be, and what it should focus on, among many other aspects.

If you’re new to this sort of thing, and you’re looking for a good starting point, I highly recommend his book.

But even if you’ve done all this research already, you may still be struggling to come up with ideas for how to create an exciting story for your brand.

So, if you’re looking to unleash the power of storytelling, but could use some tips for storytelling in digital marketing, then this article is for you.

Read: The Power of Narrative: How Building a Brand Story Can Help You Create an Emotional Connection With Your Audience

With that in mind, this article summarizes Donald Miller’s brand storytelling framework and offers tips to help you apply this method to your brand.

What’s more, it provides examples of how we’ve done this for our clients, so you can have a better frame of reference for how this works.

Keep reading here.

Using the Power of Storytelling to Boost Your Branding

Whether you’re doing it through visual storytelling, audio storytelling, or something else entirely, there isn’t a single campaign that can’t be improved through the power of storytelling.

But if you don’t know the first thing about writing a story, or how to apply this to your branding, then your efforts may end up falling flat.

With that in mind, below I’ve offered my top tips on how you can use the power of storytelling to boost your branding.

Understand Your Audience

Before you can tell a story that resonates, you’re going to need to understand your audience.

This is incredibly important, as knowing your audience allows you to create stories that not only capture their attention but also address their needs and desires.

You can do this by conducting market research to gather insights about your target demographics, and their interests, pain points, and values.

Once that’s done, you can then use this information to craft stories that speak directly to their experiences and aspirations.

For example, if your audience consists of environmentally-conscious consumers, your stories should highlight your brand’s sustainability efforts and environmental impact.

To do this, you could share behind-the-scenes stories about your eco-friendly manufacturing processes or spotlight the real-life impact of your sustainable practices on the environment as a whole and in the communities where you operate.

Define Your Brand Story

Every brand has a unique origin story that can serve as the foundation for its narrative.

This story should encompass your brand’s mission, vision, and values. It’s about why you started, what you stand for, and what you aim to achieve.

But remember, as Donald Miller points out in Building a StoryBrand, the hero of your brand’s story should be your customers, not your brand.

So, while things like your values are undeniably integral parts of your brand’s story, you should be focusing much more on your customers because they’re the real stars of the show.

In any case, your brand story should be the guiding light for all your marketing and branding efforts, so you can ensure consistency and authenticity.

For instance, TOMS Shoes has built a story around its “One for One” model, which pledges to donate a pair of shoes to a child in need for every pair of shoes sold.

This narrative not only explains the brand’s mission but also creates an emotional connection with consumers.

And by continually reinforcing this story through various campaigns, TOMS has built a strong brand identity centred around social impact and generosity.

Be Authentic

Authenticity is a key aspect of the power of storytelling, and this is true, regardless of what kind of story you’re trying to tell.

Consumers can quickly detect inauthentic or exaggerated stories, and this can damage your brand’s credibility.

At the end of the day, if it’s not believable or relatable, it doesn’t even matter if it’s true because nobody’s going to believe it anyway.

That being said, you should ensure that your stories are genuine and reflect your brand’s true character and values.

These kinds of authentic stories resonate more deeply with audiences and build trust over time.

For example, Patagonia’s environmental activism is a core part of the story built around that brand.

They consistently communicate their commitment to sustainability through real stories of their environmental initiatives and activism.

Whether it’s through blog posts, social media updates, or video documentaries, Patagonia’s authenticity shines through, making this brand more relatable and trustworthy than others.

Use Customer Stories

Depending on what you do, your customers could be your best storytellers.

With that in mind, whenever possible, you should share their success stories, testimonials, and experiences with your products or services.

This not only provides social proof but also allows potential customers to relate to those stories.

At any rate, user-generated content can be incredibly powerful, as it adds a layer of credibility and relatability that traditional advertising often lacks.

For instance, Airbnb frequently shares stories of hosts and guests, showcasing unique experiences and diverse backgrounds, which reinforces its brand message of belonging and community.

By highlighting these real-life stories, Airbnb creates a sense of authenticity and trust, encouraging more people to join their platform as hosts or guests.

Create a Narrative Arc

A compelling story has a clear structure: a beginning, a middle, and an end.

Having said that, you can create that story by introducing a relatable character (ideally your customer), presenting a challenge or conflict, and showing how the character overcomes it with the help of your product or service.

This kind of narrative arc keeps your audience engaged and invested in the outcome and encourages them to check out what you have to offer and see if it can help them.

For example, a skincare brand could share a story of a customer struggling with skin issues, discovering the brand, and then experiencing a transformation through the consistent use of its products.

This type of narrative could include the initial frustration, the discovery of the brand, the journey of using the products, and the ultimate resolution of healthier, clearer skin.

Leverage Different Mediums

The power of storytelling isn’t confined to just one medium, and you can use a variety of platforms and formats to tell your story.

Videos, blog posts, newsletters, social media updates, podcasts, and infographics can all be effective storytelling tools, as each medium offers a unique way to engage your audience and bring your story to life.

What’s more, experimenting with different formats can help you reach a broader audience and keep your content fresh and engaging.

For instance, Nike uses video advertisements, Instagram stories, and blog posts to share stories of athletes who embody their “Just Do It” philosophy, which helps to inspire its audience across multiple platforms.

By using this mix of visual storytelling and written content, Nike ensures their story reaches a broad and diverse audience.

Incorporate Visual Elements

Visuals play a crucial role in storytelling, regardless of the medium in which it takes place.

Heck, even a novel will have some sort of imagery on at least its front and back covers.

In any case, these kinds of visuals can evoke emotions, illustrate key points, and make your story more memorable.

Visual storytelling can be particularly effective on social media, where images and videos are more likely to capture attention than text alone.

But make sure to use the most high-quality images, videos, and graphics you can, as this will look more professional, and best complement your narrative and engage your audience’s senses.

For example, Coca-Cola’s “Share a Coke” campaign used personalized labels and customer-shared photos to create a visual and interactive storytelling experience.

By encouraging customers to share their photos with personalized Coke bottles, Coca-Cola created a visually engaging campaign that also fostered a sense of community and personal connection.

Engage with Emotional Triggers

Emotions drive decisions, so you should craft stories that tap into your audience’s emotions like joy, surprise, sadness, or inspiration.

This kind of emotional storytelling can create a lasting impact and drive deeper connections with your audience.

So, try to consider the emotional journey you want your audience to experience and how your story can facilitate that journey.

For instance, Dove’s “Real Beauty” campaign focuses on real women and their stories, challenging societal beauty standards and evoking powerful emotions of self-acceptance and confidence.

By highlighting authentic, emotional stories, Dove connects with their audience on a deep level, reinforcing their brand values of inclusivity and self-love.

Be Consistent

Consistent storytelling reinforces your brand identity and builds trust with your audience, but inconsistent messaging can confuse your audience and dilute your brand’s impact.

That being said, if you’re not being consistent, your audience is going to pick up on that very quickly.

So, make sure that your brand’s story is consistently communicated across all touchpoints, from your website and social media to customer service and advertising.

For example, Apple consistently tells the story of innovation, simplicity, and design excellence across all its products and marketing materials.

Whether it’s through product launches, advertisements, or customer service interactions, Apple’s story remains consistent, reinforcing its brand identity and values.

Measure and Adapt

Finally, it’s essential to measure the impact of your storytelling efforts, otherwise you’re not going to know what’s working and what isn’t.

So, make sure to use analytics tools to track engagement, conversions, and other key metrics, gather feedback from your audience, and be willing to adapt your stories based on what resonates most with them.

This type of continuous improvement and adaptation is key to maintaining the effectiveness of your storytelling, as regularly reviewing and adjusting your storytelling strategy helps to ensure it remains relevant and impactful.

For instance, analyzing your social media engagement and website traffic after a storytelling campaign can provide insights into what aspects of the story were most effective, allowing you to refine future efforts.

Need some help building your brand story? Why not set up a free 30-minute consultation with me to find out how we can help?

To your business success, Susan Friesen

P.S. If you liked the article, you might want to subscribe to our newsletter. We publish tons of valuable content to help you learn more about marketing, and subscribing is the best way to ensure you don’t miss out. Additionally, if you’d like to learn more about building a search engine optimized website, click here for our free website guide.

[evisionmediasusanfriesen]

11 Tips to Boost Website Traffic for New Business Owners

So, you’re a new business owner, and you’ve finally got your website up and running.

You’ve worked hard and invested a lot of time and money in making that happen, but even after all that effort, nothing much has happened.

You’re not being flooded with new leads, orders aren’t pouring in, and the phone hasn’t rung once.

At this point, you’re probably wondering, “Why am I not getting any business from my website?” and you’re likely looking at ways to boost website traffic.

But why is it that you’re struggling to get that traffic in the first place?

Well, unfortunately, that old adage that says, “If you build it, they will come,” simply does not apply to the World Wide Web.

If you want to boost website traffic, so you can start getting all those leads, sales, and clients, you’re going to need to make a concerted effort to attract it.

But if you’re just starting out in the business world, you may not know all the tips and strategies available to increase website traffic.

So, if you’re not sure what your next steps should be, keep reading to find out what you can do to get more people to visit your website.

Read: How the Benefits of Blogging Can Seriously Help Your Website and Boost Your Business in 2024

With that in mind, blogging offers one of the best ways to ensure a steady stream of traffic to your website for years to come.

So, if you want to learn more about one of the most effective ways to increase website traffic, then check out this article to learn how blogging can benefit your website.

Keep reading here.

Our Top Tips to Help New Business Owners Boost Website Traffic

Figuring out how to get people to come to your website can seem incredibly convoluted, as there are tons of different tactics, and arguably, far too many things to consider.

But if you take some time to learn how to attract more traffic to your website, you’ll realize that there’s actually a lot you can do, and it doesn’t all have to be that difficult.

With that in mind, below you’ll find our top tips on what you can do to boost website traffic.

1) Optimize Your Website for Search Engines (SEO)

KEYWORD RESEARCH

If you want to optimize your website for search engines, you’ve got to start by conducting thorough keyword research to identify what your ideal customers are searching for.

You can use tools like Google Keyword Planner, SEMrush, or Ahrefs to conduct this research and find the most relevant keywords.

ON-PAGE SEO

Once you’ve identified the keywords you want to use, the next step is to ensure your website content includes those keywords in a way that’s grammatically correct and feels natural.

In any case, the keywords you’ve chosen should be used to optimize title tags, meta descriptions, headers, and image alt texts.

TECHNICAL SEO

If you want to boost website traffic, you’ve also got to ensure that your website is technically sound.

Among other aspects, that means it’s got to have a fast loading speed, a mobile-friendly design that looks great on all devices, and a secure (HTTPS) connection.

CONTENT UPDATES

Search engines favour websites that consistently provide new and valuable information.

So, if you regularly update your website with fresh and relevant content, it can help to attract visitors.

2) Create High-Quality Content

BLOGGING

Blogging helps you build authority, credibility, and trust by allowing you to share your expertise, which can help attract visitors to your website who are interested in the topics you write about.

What’s more, as I already mentioned, updating your website with fresh content is another great way to improve your search engine rankings, and in turn, increase website traffic.

GUEST BLOGGING

Not only does guest blogging help to expose you to a wider audience, and position you as an authority in your industry, but it also provides backlinks, which can enhance your SEO and drive more traffic to your website.

So consider writing some guest posts for websites related to your industry.

VISUAL CONTENT

Visual content is much more engaging than its textual counterpart and is therefore more likely to be shared on social media, which helps to drive traffic back to your site.

So, whenever you can, you should make a point of publishing visual content, like infographics, videos, and high-quality images.

But whatever you do, make sure that this content is in alignment with your visual brand!

3) Leverage Social Media

PLATFORM SELECTION

When it comes to social media, the first thing you’ll need to do is choose the right platforms where your target audience is most active.

Otherwise, you’ll end up interacting with people who have no interest in what you have to offer, and that’s not likely to help you boost traffic to your website.

CONSISTENT POSTING

Once you’ve chosen the right social media platforms, you’ve got to make sure that you’re posting regularly if you want to keep your audience engaged.

So, make sure to share anything your audience would be interested in, including blog posts, special offers, behind-the-scenes content, informative facts, humorous anecdotes, inspirational quotes, case studies, and customer testimonials.

ENGAGEMENT

Social media can also be used to engage with your audience and build a community around your brand, which can encourage more people to visit your website.

This can be done by doing things like responding to comments and messages and participating in discussions.

SOCIAL MEDIA ADVERTISING

You can also invest in social media ads if you want to reach an even broader, yet more specific audience.

Platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn offer targeted advertising options to ensure you’re only advertising to your ideal customers.

4) Use Email Marketing

LIST BUILDING

If you haven’t done so already, you should start building an email list as soon as you possibly can, as this will help you stay in touch with your audience and drive them back to your website.

And if you’re looking for ways to encourage people to give you their info, you can offer incentives like discounts, exclusive content, or free resources.

NEWSLETTERS

Another great way to keep your audience informed and entice them to return to your website is by sending out newsletters.

So, once you’ve built up your email list, then you can start sending out newsletters and persuade subscribers to visit your site using valuable content, updates, and special offers.

AUTOMATION

You can also use email marketing automation tools to send personalized emails based on user behaviour and give new subscribers even more reasons to visit your website.

For example, you can send a welcome email series to new subscribers or re-engage inactive customers with personalized offers.

5) Engage in Online Communities

FORUMS AND GROUPS

Participating in online forums and social media groups related to your industry can also help you build authority and drive organic traffic to your website.

You can do this by sharing your expertise and providing valuable insights without directly promoting your business.

Q&A PLATFORMS

Another tactic to consider is answering questions on platforms like Quora or Reddit.

These interactions allow you to display your expertise by offering helpful answers and they also give you the opportunity to include a link to your website when it’s relevant.

6) Utilize Paid Advertising

PAY-PER-CLICK (PPC) ADVERTISING

Platforms like Google Ads allow you to run pay-per-click campaigns that place your website near the top of the search results for your chosen keywords and charge you every time someone clicks.

This allows you to use very specific keywords and target demographics, which helps drive highly relevant traffic to your website.

DISPLAY ADS

Display ads are a form of advertising that appears on things like websites, apps, and social media platforms.

Investing in these kinds of ads can help you reach a larger audience, increase awareness of your brand, and by extension, your website traffic.

RETARGETING

Using retargeting ads allows you to re-engage with visitors who have previously visited your website but didn’t convert.

That being said, retargeting can help bring them back to your website and complete their purchase or take whatever action you’d like them to take.

7) Analyze and Optimize

GOOGLE ANALYTICS

If you want to track your website’s performance, including your traffic, you should be using Google Analytics.

This platform allows you to analyze metrics such as traffic sources, engagement, and user behaviour to understand what’s working and what needs improvement.

A/B TESTING

Sometimes, what’s on your website just won’t resonate with your target audience.

With that in mind, A/B testing can help you identify what resonates best with your audience by testing out different versions of the various elements on your website, such as headlines, images, and calls to action.

8) Build Backlinks

QUALITY BACKLINKS

In case you’re not sure, the term backlink is just marketing jargon for a link from another website to your website.

These links can bring traffic to your site from those who click on them, and having backlinks from reputable websites can also help to improve your search engine rankings.

But you’ve got to make sure those links are coming from reputable websites, otherwise, it could have the opposite effect and end up hurting your website rankings.

RESOURCE PAGES AND DIRECTORIES

If you want to boost website traffic, getting your website listed on resource pages and industry directories is another great thing to do.

These pages often link to helpful resources and can drive targeted traffic to your site.

9) Offer Valuable Resources

FREE TOOLS

Creating free tools or resources that are relevant to your audience, like templates, videos, or e-books can also help you get traffic to your site, as they can attract visitors looking for useful tools.

WEBINARS AND WORKSHOPS

Hosting webinars or online workshops on topics of interest to your audience can also give people a reason to visit your website and keep coming back for more.

10) Local SEO

GOOGLE MY BUSINESS

If you’re looking to increase website traffic, you should also make sure to optimize your Google My Business profile.

This profile offers yet another way for people to discover your website, and it can help your SEO, as it makes you more visible to those searching locally, enhances credibility and trust, and maintains consistent NAP (name, address, and phone number) information on your business.

LOCAL CONTENT

Creating localized content tailored to your target audience can also help to bring local traffic to your website.

This can include things like blog posts about local events, news, or collaborations with other local businesses.

LOCAL DIRECTORIES

Getting listed in local directories and online maps can also help to drive traffic to your website, as it helps you attract local customers who are searching for businesses like yours.

11) Enhance the User Experience

WEBSITE DESIGN

A well-designed website builds trust and encourages visitors to stay longer.

Having said that, if you want to give people who visit your website a reason to stay, and a reason to return, you’ve got to ensure your website has a clean, professional design.

NAVIGATION

To avoid annoying or confusing users, and giving them a reason to leave your website, you should make sure it’s easy to navigate.

This involves using clear menus, categories, and search functions to help visitors find what they’re looking for easily.

MOBILE OPTIMIZATION

With the majority of users accessing websites via mobile devices like smartphones and tablets, if you want them to have a great experience on your site, it has to be fully optimized for mobile use.

LOADING SPEED

Slow-loading websites can frustrate users, which may cause them to leave and never come back.

So, if you want to stop this from happening, make sure to optimize your website’s loading speed, which should take no more than 1-2 seconds.

Do you need some help driving traffic to your website? Why not set up a free 30-minute consultation with me to find out how we can help?

To your business success, Susan Friesen

P.S. If you liked the article, you might want to subscribe to our newsletter. We publish tons of valuable content to help you learn more about marketing, and subscribing is the best way to ensure you don’t miss out. Additionally, if you’d like to learn more about building a search engine optimized website, click here for our free website guide.

[evisionmediasusanfriesen]

Why Am I Losing Newsletter Subscribers? 6 Reasons Why People Unsubscribe and What You Can Do About It

As a business owner, your mailing list is one of your most valuable resources.

This list of subscribers is essential to the success of your marketing efforts, as it offers a fast, affordable way to stay connected to your audience.

But when you send a newsletter and see that several people have unsubscribed, it can be incredibly unsettling.

When this happens, you’ll be wondering, “Why am I losing subscribers?” and you may even find yourself asking, “What’s wrong? Don’t they love me anymore?”

But you really shouldn’t take this personally.

Because in the world of email marketing, this is all too common.

For instance, as you can see from the graph below, a survey from Service Direct, which polled hundreds of small business marketers, found that the biggest challenge for email marketers is optimizing metrics, like unsubscribes.

All things considered, if people are unsubscribing from your newsletter, you’re definitely not alone, and it’s not always a bad thing.

For one thing, as much as you may want them to be, everyone is not going to be your customer.

What’s more, when someone unsubscribes, they’re saying “This isn’t for me.”

And that’s a good thing.

Because it’s better to have a small list of loyal subscribers than a long list of unresponsive ones.

Plus, doesn’t it feel good to get rid of all the tire kickers?

After all, your goal should be to create a tight list of raving fans who love, trust, and want to buy from you, not to amass subscribers regardless of whether they’re interested in what you have to offer.

That being said, if you’re losing newsletter subscribers, and you want to learn why this is happening, and what you can do about it, then take a moment and keep reading.

Read: One Big Reason Your Newsletter Open Rate is Low and What to do About it

Understanding why people aren’t opening your newsletters is just as important as understanding newsletter unsubscribes.

Like it or not, the success of your email marketing requires deep insight into these metrics and many others.

With that in mind, this article explains the importance of subject lines, as they relate to email open rates, and explores the reasons why your subscribers may be ignoring your newsletter.

Keep reading here.

Why Am I Losing Subscribers?

There are many reasons why people would choose to unsubscribe from your newsletter.

Sometimes, after people get an email or two from you, they find out that they’re just not aligned with you and your brand.

Or they don’t agree with your point of view on something.

Or maybe your content isn’t providing the type of information they’re looking for.

Moreover, many people will just sign up for your newsletter to get whatever sort of freebie you’re offering, regardless of whether they have an interest in your products or services.

And if they’re just interested in seeing what they can get for free, or they’ve unsubscribed for any of the reasons above, then you can pretty much guarantee they’re not your ideal customer.

But many other things can inspire your audience to remove themselves from your mailing list, aside from what I’ve already discussed.

So, if you’re asking yourself, “Why am I losing subscribers?” these common reasons for unsubscribing should help you figure it out:

1) You’re Emailing Too Often

Most subscribers are expecting one or two emails from you a week at the absolute max.

With that in mind, if you suddenly start sending four emails per week, people will undoubtedly find it annoying and as a result, many of them will unsubscribe, and some may even mark you as spam.

So, if you want to stop this sort of thing from happening, make sure to avoid sending your subscribers more than two emails per week.

2) You’re Emailing Too Infrequently

If you send emails sporadically or very infrequently, people will likely forget who you are, and start asking themselves, “Who is this? And how did I get on this list?”

And when people start asking those questions, it’s not long before they hit the unsubscribe button.

That being said, while emailing too often is definitely a no-no, you should also make sure you’re reaching out often enough that your audience won’t simply forget you exist.

It might take a while to find that sweet spot, but in any case, you should try to send the same number of emails each week or month, and schedule them to go out on the same days of the week and at the same times, if possible.

3) They Don’t Remember Signing Up

If you’re offering a freebie in exchange for newsletter sign-ups, you’ve got to make sure it’s absolutely clear that users are also going to be added to your weekly newsletter.

Again, you don’t want them wondering “Why am I getting this?”

One of the best things you can do to prevent this from happening is to add an opt-in confirmation to your campaign, which is a process where users must verify their email addresses by clicking on a confirmation link in an email they receive after they subscribe.

This not only helps to ensure they don’t forget they signed up but also prevents your emails from being mistaken as spam and ensures you’ve gotten subscribers’ consent to contact them.

4) You’re Too Salesy

When people subscribe to your newsletter, regardless of what they’re getting in return, chances are, they’re not looking for a sales pitch.

More likely, what they’re looking for is answers to their questions, content that addresses their problems and pain points, and other useful information that can enhance their lives.

Having said that, you should make sure to avoid being too salesy, as it’s just going to annoy people.

It’s okay to promote your products or services to your audience every once in a while, or include some calls to action in your newsletter or articles.

But you have to find the right balance between free valuable information and promotional materials.

Because if people feel like all you do is try to sell them stuff, then that’s not what they signed up for, and as a result, they’ll be more likely to unsubscribe.

5) Your Newsletters Aren’t Relevant

Regardless of what industry you’re in, if you want your email marketing efforts to be successful, you’ve got to understand the wants, needs, problems, and pain points of your audience.

This will allow you to understand what your audience is expecting from you, speak to that audience in a way that deeply resonates with them, and ensure your newsletters are directly relevant to the people who are reading them.

For instance, if you send out a newsletter for work-at-home moms, they’re not looking for articles about potty training because that’s not relevant to them.

They signed up for your newsletter to get tips on working from home, growing their business, or boosting their income, not how to raise their children.

So, you should make sure to think long and hard about what you’re including in your newsletters, and whether or not it will be of value to your subscribers.

Because if you’re not giving them what they thought they signed up for, it’s only a matter of time before they unsubscribe.

6) Your Newsletters Don’t Display Properly

In today’s world, the majority of your audience will probably be using smartphones and tablets to check their emails.

And if your newsletter doesn’t display properly on these devices, they may end up unsubscribing.

That being said, you should make sure to send your newsletter out in both its plain text and HTML forms.

This way, even if a subscriber’s email client can’t display all your beautiful imagery, they can still read the textual version of your email.

Furthermore, you should always send a test email and check it on all your devices (preferably phone, tablet, and PC) to see how it displays, so you can make any necessary adjustments before it goes out to your entire list.

Tips for Reducing Email List Unsubscribes

Now that you have a better understanding of why people unsubscribe from email lists, you’re probably just itching to learn what you can do to stop this from happening.

With that in mind, below I’ve provided several tips for reducing email list unsubscribes:

Segment Your Audience

One thing you can do to reduce the number of unsubscribes you’re getting is to segment your subscribers based on their interests, demographics, or behaviour.

This allows you to send targeted content to specific segments, which has been shown to increase relevance and engagement, reducing the likelihood of unsubscribes.

Provide Valuable Content

Quality content is what builds trust and keeps subscribers engaged.

And that means ultimately, the value of your content will be the deciding factor in whether or not your newsletter succeeds.

So, make sure your newsletter contains valuable and relevant content that solves subscribers’ problems and fulfills their needs, while also sharing industry insights, tips, how-to guides, or exclusive offers that you know will resonate with your audience.

Personalize Your Content

You can use data on things like past purchases, browsing history, or survey responses to personalize your newsletter for each of your subscribers.

Personalization fosters a sense of connection and makes subscribers feel valued, as it allows you to address them by name and tailor content based on their preferences, making it less likely that they’ll unsubscribe.

Optimize Email Frequency

If you want to avoid annoying your subscribers, you’ve also got to find the right balance between staying top-of-mind and stuffing their inboxes.

To do that, you should monitor engagement metrics like open rates and click-through rates to determine the optimal frequency for sending your newsletters and then test different frequencies to see what works best for your audience.

Use Compelling Subject Lines

If you want people to open your emails, you’ve got to craft attention-grabbing subject lines.

Otherwise, your emails may get buried before anyone even notices them.

You can do this by experimenting with different formats, such as questions, lists, or urgency-based phrases, to pique curiosity and inspire people to open your emails.

But make sure to avoid clickbait tactics, as they may lead to more unsubscribes.

Optimize the Design of Your Emails

No matter what your newsletter is about, your emails should align with your brand while being visually appealing and mobile-responsive, which means they’ll adapt to different screen sizes and look great on any device.

In any case, make sure to use a clean layout, eye-catching images, and clear calls to action to guide subscribers’ attention, so you can make it easy for them to consume your content and take the kind of action you want them to take.

Respect Subscribers’ Preferences

You should allow subscribers to customize their email preferences, including the frequency and content types they prefer.

Offering the option to opt down rather than opt out completely by choosing to receive fewer emails, for instance, respects subscribers’ preferences, reduces frustration, and encourages them to stay subscribed.

Set Clear Expectations

You also want to make sure you’re setting clear expectations during the sign-up process regarding the type and frequency of emails that subscribers will receive.

So, make sure to avoid surprises by only delivering what you promised and maintaining consistency in your communications.

This kind of transparency builds trust and reduces the likelihood of unsubscribes.

Monitor and Analyze Metrics

Regularly monitoring key email metrics, such as unsubscribe rates, open rates, and engagement levels allows you to analyze trends and patterns, so you can identify areas for improvement and adjust your email strategy accordingly.

One good thing you can do is to implement an unsubscribe survey, which asks people why they’re unsubscribing.

Not everyone will answer honestly, or at all, but any feedback you do get will help you to understand the reasons why people are unsubscribing and address any common concerns.

Re-engage Inactive Subscribers

Another thing you can do is to implement re-engagement campaigns targeting inactive subscribers.

You can send them personalized emails with special offers, surveys, or compelling content to rekindle their interest, giving them a reason to re-engage with your brand before they decide to unsubscribe.

Are you still asking, “Why am I losing subscribers?” Why not set up a free 30-minute consultation with me to find out how we can help?

To your business success, Susan Friesen

[evisionmediasusanfriesen]

The Benefits of Content Marketing for Non-Profits

When you think about how a charity or other non-profit promotes itself, content marketing is probably not the first thing that comes to mind.

But the truth is, content marketing for non-profits shouldn’t be seen as any less important than it is for any other organization.

Blogging and other forms of content should be considered key aspects of any charitable foundation’s marketing strategy, and the vast majority of marketers would agree.

For example, a survey from Salesforce, which polled marketers from non-profit organizations, asked respondents what marketing skills are most important to uplevel and most crucial to their success over the next two years, and not surprisingly, content marketing was at the top of the list.

However, a survey from TechSoup found that almost 70 per cent of non-profits aren’t even blogging.

Given the results of that Salesforce survey, that does seem a bit unexpected, but I suppose it could explain why non-profit marketers feel their content marketing skills are so lacking.

To be fair, this kind of content marketing can be quite tricky, as typically, you’re not targeting the recipients of a charity’s donations, but rather, its sponsors, donors, and volunteers.

That being said, content marketing for non-profits should not be ignored, no matter how tough it may be, as it’s still a critical aspect of any non-profit marketing strategy.

So, if you’re running a non-profit, but you’re still on the fence about the value of non-profit content marketing, or don’t know the first thing about marketing strategies for non-profits, then keep reading to learn more.

Read: 5 Content Marketing Trends That Will Dominate in 2024

Trying to come up with an effective non-profit content marketing strategy is definitely easier said than done.

If you want to ensure you’re not getting left in the digital dust, you’ve got to make use of all the newest tools and techniques, and in order to do that, you’ve got to follow the latest content marketing trends.

With that in mind, this article explores the trends that are set to dominate the world of content marketing in 2024.

Keep reading here.

What Are the Benefits of Content Marketing for Non-Profits?

Whether you’re trying to raise awareness, drive engagement, or increase donations, content marketing for non-profits is a powerful tool for helping your organization achieve its goals.

Through the use of storytelling, education, and community-building, your organization can use content marketing to forge enduring connections and cultivate meaningful change.

But as the survey I referenced above shows, chances are, you may still be on the fence about using content marketing for non-profit organizations.

That being said, below I’ve detailed some of the most beneficial aspects of non-profit content marketing, so you can understand how important it truly is.

Building Brand Awareness and Visibility

Content marketing serves as a beacon, helping to illuminate the mission and impact of non-profits for a wider audience.

Through a consistent stream of compelling content, ranging from blog posts to videos and infographics, you can extend the reach of your organization and captivate the interest of those who are aligned with your cause.

Moreover, if you optimize your content for search engines by doing things like incorporating relevant keywords, your organization can enhance its online visibility, ensuring that those who are interested in what you do will be more likely to be exposed to your message.

Establishing Authority and Credibility

Content marketing can help you build authority and credibility for your non-profit, allowing you to establish yourself as a thought leader in your field.

For instance, by disseminating high-quality, informative content, such as research findings, success stories, and insightful analyses, you can cultivate credibility with your audience.

And when your organization is perceived as authoritative and credible, people will be more inclined to support its mission and champion its cause, helping to fortify your influence and impact.

Engaging Supporters and Volunteers

Content marketing serves as a conduit for deeper engagement between non-profits and their sponsors, donors, and volunteers.

Through the sharing of captivating stories, project updates, and behind-the-scenes glimpses, you can foster a sense of community and belonging among your audience.

This engagement not only strengthens existing relationships but can also motivate new supporters who are inspired by your organization’s endeavours.

Educating the Public

Creating content allows you to explain complex issues and foster greater public understanding and awareness more easily and affordably than with other forms of marketing.

For example, by providing insights into root causes, potential solutions, and actionable steps individuals can take, you can empower the public to become advocates for the kind of social or environmental change your organization espouses.

In addition, the use of this type of content allows you to catalyze informed action, sparking a ripple effect of awareness and advocacy.

Fundraising and Donor Engagement

Within the realm of fundraising, content marketing is a great way to inspire generosity and solicit donations.

By telling the stories of those whom your organization has helped, along with emotional appeals, and strategic calls to action, you can compel individuals to donate to your cause.

What’s more, content also serves as a conduit for donor engagement, which allows you to express your gratitude to donors, share impact reports, and demonstrate how donors’ contributions are helping to create meaningful change.

Amplifying Impact

Content marketing for non-profits allows you to magnify your organization’s impact by extending its reach and inspiring collective action.

In addition, through the use of social media platforms, email marketing, and other digital channels, your organization can disseminate its message to a wider array of audiences.

This expanded reach encourages the mobilization of supporters, the proliferation of awareness, and the cultivation of positive change on an even broader scale.

Cost-Effectiveness

One of the greatest benefits of content marketing lies in its cost-effectiveness, particularly in comparison to other marketing techniques.

This allows your non-profit to create and distribute content to more expansive audiences at a fraction of the cost associated with things like traditional advertising campaigns.

Moreover, the enduring lifespan of your content can help sustain your organization’s engagement and impact, which can yield a high return on investment over time.

Measurable Results and Insights

One of the inherent advantages of content marketing lies in its measurability, which allows you to gauge the success of your efforts through quantitative metrics.

For instance, if you regularly evaluate things like website traffic, social media engagement, and conversion rates, you can gain incredibly valuable insights into the preferences, behaviours, and interests of your audience.

Armed with this data-driven intelligence, you can refine your content strategy, optimize future campaigns, and amplify your organization’s impact.

Long-Term Sustainability

Non-profit content marketing can help to ensure the long-term sustainability of your organization by nurturing relationships with supporters, volunteers, and donors alike.

By demonstrating a steadfast commitment to delivering valuable content and fostering open lines of communication, you can cultivate a devoted community of advocates who are steadfast in their commitment to your cause.

This sustained support can provide your non-profit with the stability and resources necessary to effect enduring change and bring your vision for a brighter future into reality.

Driving Social Change

Content marketing empowers non-profits to drive transformative social change by galvanizing awareness, inspiring action, and mobilizing communities.

So, whether you’re advocating for human rights, environmental conservation, or something else entirely, content marketing can help you amplify the voice of your non-profit, elevating its message to even greater heights and driving tangible progress toward a more compassionate world.

Building Trust and Community

Content marketing for non-profits is a vital tool that you can use to build trust and community.

This can be done through the use of things like authentic storytelling, updates and impact reports, interactive campaigns, social media interactions, online forums, and community events.

These efforts can help you humanize your mission, foster sincerity and transparency, ensure donors feel confident in how their contributions are being spent, and create a sense of belonging and ownership among the members of your audience.

What’s more, by showing appreciation for your supporters and connecting with them in these ways, you’re helping to encourage long-term commitment, advocacy, collaboration, and collective action.

Are you trying to develop a non-profit marketing strategy? Why not set up a free 30-minute consultation with me to find out how we can help?

To your business success, Susan Friesen

[evisionmediasusanfriesen]

11 Graphic Design Trends to Watch Out for in 2024

Whether you’re making marketing materials, creating content, or something else entirely, building a successful brand requires a lot of design prowess.

And no matter what it is you’re designing, if you want to ensure you’re making use of all the tools at your disposal, you’ve got to stay up to date on the latest graphic design trends.

For this year, I think it’s safe to say that the dominant trend will be the use of AI in graphic design, and that will likely continue to be the leading trend for several years into the future.

That prediction may sound a bit premature, but if you look at what graphic designers are saying, this couldn’t be any more obvious.

For example, a survey from Adobe, which polled 1,000 creative professionals in the U.S., including graphic designers, found that even by this time last year, many of them were already using generative AI in their work, with 48 per cent saying they’d used ChatGPT, and 34 per cent saying they’d used DALL-E.

What’s more, the vast majority of respondents expected to be using some form of AI in their work in the future, including 69 per cent of graphic designers and illustrators.

Moreover, a survey from Canva, which polled more than 4,000 marketing and creative leaders, including graphic designers, found that 97 per cent of them are comfortable with the rise of generative AI, with 70 per cent saying AI is enhancing their team’s productivity, and 69 per cent saying it’s enhancing creativity.

All things considered, it’s clear that the graphic design landscape is rapidly changing, and many of these changes will come as a result of advances in AI.

As someone who helps business owners develop their brands, this trend toward the use of AI in graphic design is incredibly exciting for me, as it offers many unique opportunities to hone your brand positioning.

But while AI will undoubtedly be the most dominant graphic design trend of 2024, it’s by no means the only trend that will be relevant over the coming year.

So, if you want to explore what’s shaping the future of graphic design, and find out which graphic design trends 2024 will be dominated by, then keep reading to learn more.

Read: Looking to Redesign Your Logo? Here’s What You Need to Know

If you’re interested in graphic design trends, then chances are, you might also be thinking about redesigning your logo.

But if you don’t design logos for a living, then it can be difficult to even know where to begin.

With that in mind, this article explains what you need to know to redesign your logo, including both the right reasons to update your logo and the wrong ones.

Keep reading here.

What Are the Latest Graphic Design Trends?

If you want to make sure you’ve got access to all of the best design tools and techniques, you’ve got to follow the latest trends in graphic design.

With that in mind, below I’ve detailed the graphic design trends that I feel will be most important to watch out for in 2024.

1) Artificial Intelligence (AI)

As is the case with most industries today, artificial intelligence (AI) is profoundly transforming the world of graphic design.

AI tools are being used to automate routine tasks, such as resizing images and generating colour palettes, allowing designers to focus more on creative aspects.

Furthermore, AI-driven platforms can analyze user engagement data to suggest design adjustments, making designs not only aesthetically pleasing but also more effective.

And as I mentioned above, for me, one of the most exciting aspects of this technology is how it can be used to benefit your brand positioning.

For instance, AI-powered tools can help refine your brand positioning by ensuring your branding remains consistent across all touchpoints.

However, at this point, there is still a stigma attached to anything created by AI, and people are becoming much better at spotting AI images, so you need to be aware of this and act accordingly.

For instance, if you’re trying to create a life-like or photo-realistic image, it’s going to be pretty obvious that it was made by AI, and a lot of people will not like it.

But in my experience, when it comes to creating imagery, where AI truly shines is in its ability to produce unique and creative images that don’t try to emulate reality.

Still, despite its limitations, and people’s negative perceptions, I think using AI art in graphic design will be one of the biggest design trends of 2024 and years to come.

2) Inclusivity and Accessibility

Designing for inclusivity and accessibility remains a priority in 2024.

When it comes to accessibility, the main focus is on creating content that is accessible to all users, including those with disabilities.

This involves using things like high-contrast colour schemes for better visibility, more legible typography, and considering colour blindness when choosing palettes.

Designers are also emphasizing the representation of diverse populations, incorporating images and themes that reflect a variety of cultures, orientations, and backgrounds, which makes designs feel more welcoming and relatable.

3) Sustainable and Eco-Friendly Design

With the growing awareness of environmental issues like plastic pollution, sustainable design is becoming increasingly relevant.

This push for more sustainable and environmentally friendly design applies to both the materials used in physical products and the digital footprints of online designs.

For instance, designers are minimizing waste by optimizing resources and choosing eco-friendly materials, and in digital spaces, there is a move toward more energy-efficient design practices, such as optimized images for faster loading times, which can help reduce energy consumption while you’re browsing.

4) 3D and Immersive Experiences

The adoption of 3D design continues to expand, fueled by advancements in AR, VR, and mixed-reality technologies, and it’s going to be one of the graphic design trends to watch in 2024.

These tools are bringing new dimensions to traditional flat designs, offering users more interactive and immersive experiences.

From web interfaces to advertising, 3D elements are increasingly being used to create a sense of depth and realism that enhances user engagement and retention.

5) Retro and Vintage

Nostalgia is driving the resurgence of retro and vintage design elements, with an emphasis on late 20th-century styles, which will be trending in 2024 and beyond.

This trend includes things like the revival of pixel art from the ‘90s, vibrant neon colours from the ‘80s, and smooth pastel shades from the ‘70s.

That being said, this year, you’ll see designers combining these old-school influences with modern aesthetics to appeal to both nostalgic older generations and the curiosity of younger audiences.

6) Typography Experimentation

In 2024, typography is not just about readability, but also about personality and expression.

Designers are experimenting with mixed fonts, kinetic typography, and custom typefaces that can enhance brand identity and user interaction.

Moreover, animated text and variable fonts are particularly popular, offering dynamic and responsive design options that adjust to various contexts and devices.

7) Dark Mode and Colour Gradients

Dark mode continues to be a favourite for its aesthetic appeal and reduced eye strain, particularly in low-light environments, and this trend is set to accelerate in 2024.

The popularity of these features has been growing exponentially, not least because they pair so beautifully with vibrant colour gradients that add visual interest and depth.

These gradients can be used in backgrounds, buttons, and overlays, providing a rich interplay of colours that draw the user’s eye and guide them through the design.

8) Data Visualization

As data becomes more integral to decision-making, its presentation is becoming more innovative, and this will continue to be the case throughout 2024.

Designers are creating more interactive and intuitive charts and infographics that allow people to explore and understand complex data with ease.

These visualizations can incorporate animations, clickable elements, and even AR components to make data exploration more beautiful and beneficial.

9) Authentic and Handcrafted

In an era dominated by interactions with AI, authenticity is becoming increasingly sought after.

With that in mind, handcrafted designs that include elements like hand-drawn illustrations or watercolour textures provide a more human touch that digital designs often lack.

These elements help brands stand out by offering a unique and artisanal feel to their visuals, which can resonate more deeply with consumers, and as a result, I think this art style will be one of the graphic design trends to watch this year.

10) Motion and Interactivity

The integration of motion design into web and mobile interfaces is transforming user experiences, and this trend will not be slowing down in 2024.

Throughout this year, you’re going to see more and more designers using these dynamic elements, as they’re crucial for guiding users, providing feedback, and adding a layer of depth to the digital experience.

The popularity of things like subtle animations, interactive elements, and smooth transitions will only continue to grow this year, as they can enhance the usability of interfaces, making interactions feel more natural and engaging.

11) Minimalism and Maximalism

Both minimalism and maximalism find their places in 2024’s graphic design landscape.

Minimalism appeals through its clarity and simplicity, making it ideal for conveying clear messages and improving user experiences.

On the other hand, maximalism embraces excess and complexity, offering rich, vibrant, and detailed designs that capture attention and evoke emotional responses.

But regardless of which one you prefer, you can expect to see more use of these art styles in 2024 and far into the future.

Want to create or redesign a logo, but don’t know where to begin? Why not set up a free 30-minute consultation with me to find out what we can do for you?

To your business success, Susan Friesen

[evisionmediasusanfriesen]

What’s the Difference Between a Tagline and a Slogan?

If you don’t build brands for a living, you may be under the impression that there’s no difference between a tagline and a slogan.

After all, they are somewhat similar, and the terms tagline and slogan tend to be used interchangeably.

If you were to go back several years and ask me this question, even I might not have known how to explain the difference.

But as I’ve found out over more than 20 years of helping business owners build their brands, there is a significant difference between a tagline and a slogan.

What’s more, I’ve learned that to create the best tagline and/or slogan for your business, and ensure you’re using these elements to their fullest potential, it’s important to understand the differences between them.

So, if you’re interested in using taglines and slogans in branding, and want to know the best practices for writing a slogan or tagline, how these elements can benefit your business, and how they differ, then keep reading to learn more.

Read: Crafting a Unique Selling Proposition: Unleashing the Power of Your Brand

Your unique selling proposition (USP) is incredibly important for the creation of slogans and taglines, as it helps you to communicate why consumers should choose to do business with you instead of your competitors.

With that in mind, if you want to come up with an effective tagline or slogan, first you’ve got to define what’s unique about your brand.

This article explains everything you need to know to craft a USP, including what a USP is, the benefits of having one, and how you can create one of your own.

Keep reading here.

How Can Taglines and Slogans Benefit My Business?

If you want to know the difference between a tagline and a slogan, you’re probably already thinking about using them.

But you might be on the fence about how beneficial these elements actually are and wondering if creating them is even worth your time.

That being said, here’s how the use of taglines and slogans can benefit your business:

Brand Identity and Recognition

Taglines and slogans are a key part of developing a memorable brand identity.

A catchy, unique phrase can become synonymous with your brand, embedding it in the minds of consumers.

For instance, Nike’s “Just Do It” encapsulates a spirit of determination and resilience that is instantly recognizable.

This association helps enhance brand recognition, making it easier for customers to remember and choose your brand over competitors.

Cost-Effectiveness

The repeated use of taglines and slogans, across various branding and marketing materials, can provide ongoing benefits without the need for significant further investment.

This makes the use of slogans and taglines a conspicuously cost-effective component of your branding and marketing strategies.

Communicate Your Core Values and Benefits

A well-crafted tagline swiftly and effectively communicates the essence of your company’s unique selling proposition, highlighting what your brand stands for and/or the key benefits it offers.

For example, BMW’s tagline, “The Ultimate Driving Machine”, communicates quality and a superior experience, helping potential customers understand what sets this brand apart from others in just a few words.

Keep Things Consistent

Taglines and slogans can amplify marketing campaigns by ensuring a consistent message across all platforms.

Whether it’s in print, online, or broadcast form, a strong slogan reiterates the same message, reinforcing your brand’s presence and message.

This repetition makes marketing campaigns more effective as the consistency helps solidify consumers’ understanding and recognition of your brand.

Create an Emotional Connection

Slogans can evoke emotions and create a personal connection with your audience, and by appealing to feelings, slogans can make your brand feel more relatable and approachable.

For example, Hallmark’s “When You Care Enough to Send the Very Best” touches on the sentimentality of giving, which resonates deeply with consumers who want to convey affection through cards and gifts.

Differentiate Your Brand From Competitors

Having a distinctive slogan or tagline can set your brand apart from its rivals, and this is especially true in more competitive markets.

The uniqueness of a catchy slogan can be a significant differentiator, highlighting a unique selling proposition or brand philosophy that competitors do not offer.

This differentiation is crucial in crowded markets where unique features and benefits might be similar across products or services.

Make Your Brand More Memorable

Taglines and slogans are typically short, memorable, and easy to share, making them effective for word-of-mouth marketing.

And because they’re simple to remember, customers can easily mention them in conversations, which can help enhance your brand visibility and organic reach, significantly boosting your marketing efforts without additional costs.

Gain Greater Loyalty

A strong slogan or tagline can foster brand loyalty by continually reinforcing your brand’s image and message to existing customers.

This serves as a constant reminder of why they chose your brand in the first place, which can help to encourage repeat business.

For example, Apple’s “Think Different” tagline encourages loyalty among users who see themselves as creative and innovative, as their values align with the brand’s emphasis on creativity in its products.

Stay Flexible

Slogans and taglines are highly adaptable and can be used across various media and advertising platforms, from TV spots and radio to online ads and social media.

This flexibility allows you to maintain a cohesive branding strategy across all marketing channels, maximizing your reach and the impact you have on your audience.

What’s the Difference Between a Tagline and a Slogan?

The difference between a tagline and a slogan may seem like an incredibly granular thing to discuss, but if you own a business, it’s important to understand the distinction.

Having said that, I should start by pointing out that the main difference between the two is how they’re used.

In a nutshell, taglines are used more for brand positioning, and slogans tend to be used for marketing campaigns.

A tagline will help to position your brand by associating it with the value of your offerings and what differentiates you from the competition, whereas a slogan is used to communicate the ideas of a specific marketing campaign.

But it’s not necessarily that cut and dried, and there’s still some overlap.

For instance, Nike’s famous tagline, “Just Do It”, which I mentioned above, was developed as part of the company’s first major TV advertising campaign, but it quickly became so popular that Nike started using it as a tagline, and it’s still their tagline to this day.

So, as you can see, taglines and slogans do have some similarities, but if you want to use them to their fullest potential, it’s important to understand their purpose and the differences between them.

With that in mind, here are the key differences between a tagline and a slogan:

Definition and Purpose

Taglines are permanent phrases associated with your company as a whole, and they’re designed to be timeless and typically do not change very often.

They reflect your brand’s identity, values, and overarching promise to customers, and their primary purpose is to enhance brand recognition and encapsulate the essence of your brand in a way that resonates emotionally with consumers.

Slogans, on the other hand, are more flexible and are typically used for a particular marketing campaign or a specific product or service.

They aim to highlight features, benefits, or the uniqueness of what’s being advertised, and they may change frequently to align with different marketing initiatives.

Duration and Usage

Taglines are long-term and remain consistent across all marketing and branding materials.

And because they’re intended to last, taglines help maintain a consistent brand message over time.

A well-known example is Disneyland’s “The Happiest Place on Earth”, which consistently reinforces the brand’s association with joy and magical experiences.

Slogans are short-term tactical tools used to draw attention to specific aspects of a product or highlight a promotion, and they often vary depending on your current marketing goals or target audience.

For instance, McDonald’s has used various slogans like “I’m Lovin’ It” as a tagline, but also campaign-specific slogans like “The Simpler the Better” for their advertising.

Emotional vs. Rational Appeal

Taglines often aim to create an emotional appeal and are crafted to resonate on a deeper level, building a connection between your brand and consumers that transcends the features of specific products or services.

This emotional resonance helps build brand loyalty and long-term customer relationships.

Slogans, on the other hand, tend to be more rational or directly informative, focusing on the practical benefits or features of a product, service, or promotion.

They are designed to be persuasive and drive immediate consumer actions, such as purchases or inquiries, and they’re often surprisingly straightforward, making them effective for conveying specific sales messages.

Branding vs. Advertising

Taglines are a core component of branding, as they help form the public perception of your brand and are integral to your brand’s voice and personality.

They’re something customers will remember even when they aren’t actively thinking about making a purchase.

Slogans, on the contrary, are primarily used in advertising and are crafted to be catchy and memorable for the duration of a campaign, aiming to maximize impact in a shorter timeframe.

They support specific marketing objectives and are often geared toward generating sales or promoting awareness of a new product.

Strategic Implications

The strategic use of taglines involves embedding them into the fabric of your brand.

That means every interaction with your target audience should reinforce the message conveyed by the tagline, thereby solidifying your brand positioning and emotional appeal.

For slogans, the strategy revolves around flexibility and adaptability, utilizing different messages to highlight specific aspects of a product and/or service, as needed.

This adaptability allows you to respond quickly and effectively to changing market conditions and consumer preferences.

Need help crafting effective taglines or slogans? Why not set up a free 30-minute consultation with me to find out what we can do for you?

To your business success, Susan Friesen

[evisionmediasusanfriesen]

What You Can Do to Create an Online Store People Trust

If you own an online store, you’ve probably worked really hard to get everything up and running.

But if you want to continue to reap the rewards of that hard work, and keep your store going long into the future, you have to create an online store people trust.

Because regardless of how good your offerings are, if you’re not seen as trustworthy, it’s going to be difficult to convince anyone to do business with you.

Luckily, there’s evidence to show that consumers already have a considerable amount of trust in eCommerce.

In fact, in a survey from Chubb, most consumers said they trust companies’ digital storefronts.

But even though most consumers seem to have trust in eCommerce stores, digital storefronts and eCommerce platforms are still at the bottom of this list.

That being said, some consumers will still be on the fence about whether or not they can trust you, no matter what kind of eCommerce shop you run, so you need to do whatever you can to show them your store can be trusted.

Looking at things from a demographic perspective, it’s also important to note that 18-26-year-olds seem to have the lowest trust in eCommerce and digital storefronts, while nearly 90 per cent of them have trust in social media shopping.

What’s more, those 59-68 years of age appear to have no trust in social media shopping and believe it or not, their most trusted place for shopping is actually digital storefronts, as opposed to brick-and-mortar.

I wanted to draw attention to this because if you want to create an online store people trust, then you’ve got to consider the needs, wants, and expectations of your target market and ensure you’re selling on the right platform(s).

But regardless of your target market’s age, or where they choose to shop, there’s a lot you can do to gain customer trust in eCommerce.

So, if you’re looking to build a trustworthy online store, then this is an article you’re not going to want to miss.

Read: Our Top 10 Tips to Enhance Your Online Store and Increase eCommerce Sales

If you want to boost online sales, it’s going to require a heck of a lot more than trust.

From optimizing your website and enhancing the user experience to leveraging technology and tools, if you want to increase eCommerce sales, you’ve got to offer consumers the best possible experience.

With that in mind, this article offers our top 10 tips on what you can do to improve your eCommerce store and sell more online.

Keep reading here.

How to Create an Online Store People Trust

Trust forms the bedrock of any successful business venture, and this is especially true in an online environment where customers often hesitate to divulge personal and financial information.

So, if you want to create an online store people trust, you’re going to need a multifaceted approach that encompasses various elements, including everything from website aesthetics to customer service and security protocols.

Here’s what you can do to craft an online store that instills confidence in your visitors and fosters long-term trust:

Professional Website Design

A professionally designed website is akin to a well-tailored suit – it exudes confidence, competence, and professionalism.

Having said that, you should invest in a visually appealing layout for your website that reflects your brand’s identity while prioritizing user experience.

Among other things, this requires a clutter-free interface with intuitive navigation, clear categories, and easy-to-find product listings.

Secure Payment Gateway

Another crucial aspect of creating a trustworthy online store is ensuring you’re using a secure payment gateway, as customers must feel assured that their information is safeguarded against potential threats.

So, make sure to partner with a reputable payment gateway provider to make sure you’re able to process transactions securely.

You should also implement Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) encryption to encrypt data transmitted between the customer’s browser and your server, which further enhances the security of online transactions.

Transparent Pricing and Policies

Transparency breeds trust, so make sure to display product prices, shipping fees, and any additional charges upfront to prevent unpleasant surprises during checkout.

In addition, you should make sure to clearly articulate your return, refund, and exchange policies, so you can set clear expectations for customers and alleviate any concerns they may have about post-purchase support.

High-Quality Product Images and Descriptions

Visual appeal plays a pivotal role in online shopping, and this is also true if you want to create an online store people trust.

People don’t want to see dark, blurry, out-of-focus, or pixelated photos, or products with descriptions that are missing pertinent information, as this makes it harder for them to make a purchase decision and also makes it look like you’re running a Mickey Mouse operation.

So, make sure to provide high-resolution images of your products from multiple angles to offer customers a comprehensive view, and you should accompany those product images with detailed descriptions that include things like key features, dimensions, and materials used.

Customer Reviews and Testimonials

Whenever you can, you should leverage the power of social proof by prominently showcasing customer reviews and testimonials on your product pages.

Genuine feedback from satisfied customers serves as a testament to the quality and reliability of your offerings and this can significantly boost consumers’ trust in your online store.

Moreover, you should make sure to encourage customers to leave reviews and ratings after making a purchase, and you should also promptly address any negative feedback to demonstrate your commitment to customer satisfaction and continuous improvement.

Contact Information and Support

Accessibility breeds confidence, so you should do whatever you can to make it effortless for customers to reach out to you.

This includes prominently displaying contact information, including email addresses, phone numbers, and physical addresses, if applicable.

You should also offer multiple channels for customer support, such as live chat, email correspondence, and telephone assistance, as timely and helpful responses to inquiries can help instill trust and foster positive relationships with customers.

Get in Front of the Right Audience

Getting in front of the right audience by making use of things like podcasts can significantly enhance trust in your online store, so long as you say the right things.

Podcasts, in particular, offer a unique opportunity to connect with potential customers on a personal level, allowing you to share your knowledge, showcase your products, and engage in authentic conversations.

This gives you the ability to position yourself as a knowledgeable authority and establish trust by demonstrating your expertise and fostering genuine connections with your target audience.

Trust Badges and Security Seals

Another great way to inspire trust in your online store is to display trust badges and security seals from renowned third-party organizations, such as SSL certificates and payment processor logos, as this can help reassure consumers about the integrity of your website.

These visual cues serve as tangible evidence of your commitment to safeguarding customer data and mitigating online security risks.

Mobile Optimization

It seems that everyone and their dog has a smartphone today, and as a result, optimizing your online store for mobile users is imperative.

Having said that, you’ve got to ensure that your website is responsive, which means that it seamlessly adapts to various screen sizes and resolutions.

Mobile optimization enhances the user experience, keeps people on your site for longer, and builds trust by showing that you understand the needs of modern consumers.

Social Proof and Social Media Presence

Cultivating a robust social media presence across relevant platforms can help you engage with your audience, amplify your brand’s visibility, and in turn, build trust.

One great way to do this is by showcasing user-generated content, such as customer photos and testimonials, to provide tangible evidence of the quality and popularity of your products.

These kinds of authentic interactions on social media platforms can help foster a sense of community and trust among your audience.

Secure and Streamlined Checkout Process

Shopping cart abandonment is one of the biggest issues for eCommerce stores, and this often happens because the checkout process seems insecure or is too convoluted.

That being said, you should do whatever you can to streamline your checkout process to minimize friction and facilitate seamless transactions.

For instance, implementing user-friendly features such as guest checkout options and saved payment information can help expedite the purchasing process.

What’s more, you should employ stringent security measures, such as CAPTCHA verification and address validation, to help mitigate fraudulent activities and safeguard customer data during online transactions.

Clear Privacy Policy

Transparency regarding data privacy is paramount if you want to create an online store people trust, as this instills confidence and reinforces your commitment to ethical business practices.

With that in mind, you should publish a comprehensive privacy policy that fully explains how you collect, utilize, and protect customers’ information.

Within this privacy policy, you should assure customers that their data will be handled with the utmost confidentiality and will not be shared with third parties without explicit consent.

Consistent and Distinctive Brand Identity

Establishing a distinctive brand identity is pivotal if you want to build trust in your online store.

This involves crafting a compelling brand narrative that resonates with your target audience and reflects your core values.

You should also make a point of consistently reinforcing your brand identity across all touchpoints, including your website, product packaging, and marketing efforts, as a cohesive brand presence fosters familiarity and trust in consumers.

Fast and Reliable Shipping

Timely delivery is a hallmark of exceptional customer service.

Having said that, you should offer expedited shipping options to cater to customers with urgent needs, while also providing standard shipping methods for cost-conscious shoppers.

In addition, make sure to provide shipment tracking information to keep customers informed about the status of their orders and alleviate any anxiety over delivery timelines.

This kind of transparent communication regarding shipping updates helps to enhance trust and fosters a positive post-purchase experience.

Hassle-Free Returns and Exchanges

A hassle-free policy for returns and exchanges signals confidence in the quality of your products and builds trust with your audience.

So, you should do whatever you can to simplify your return and exchange process to reassure customers and alleviate concerns about potential buyer’s remorse.

In any case, make sure to clearly articulate your return policy, including any eligibility criteria and associated procedures.

You can also offer free returns or exchanges whenever feasible to incentivize purchases and mitigate perceived risks for potential customers.

Continuous Improvement and Feedback

Another thing you can do to create an online store people trust is embrace a culture of continuous improvement by asking your customers for feedback through things like surveys and reviews.

These insights can help you identify areas for improvement across various aspects of your online store, including product offerings, website functionality, and customer service practices.

Moreover, demonstrating responsiveness to customer feedback underscores your commitment to delivering exceptional experiences, which helps foster trust and loyalty.

Looking to create an online store people trust? Why not set up a free 30-minute consultation with me to find out what we can do for you?

To your business success, Susan Friesen

P.S. If you liked the article, you might want to subscribe to our newsletter. We publish tons of valuable content to help you learn more about marketing, and subscribing is the best way to ensure you don’t miss out. Additionally, if you’d like to learn more about building a search engine optimized website, click here for our free website guide.

[evisionmediasusanfriesen]

Our Top 10 Tips to Enhance Your Online Store and Increase eCommerce Sales

Now that your online store is finally up and running, you’re probably excited beyond belief.

It may have taken months, if not years, to get to where you are today, and you’re likely anxious to start shipping orders to your customers.

But regardless of how exciting this can be, if you’re struggling to stay afloat, and you need to increase eCommerce sales just to keep your head above water, it can be incredibly devastating.

That being said, you can take comfort in the fact that eCommerce challenges are very common, not just for small businesses, but even for large corporations that are making hundreds of millions of dollars.

For example, a survey from Zoovu, which polled hundreds of executives from companies with a minimum of $200 million in eCommerce revenue, found that two-thirds of them “believe online commerce is broken” before citing a long list of issues.

Unsurprisingly, the majority of executives polled said they’re dealing with nearly all of the eCommerce challenges listed above, including things like how to provide more personalized recommendations, how to adapt the selling experience digitally, and a range of data-related issues.

What’s more, they detailed several other problems, including things like frustrated customers, low conversion rates, and lost revenue.

As you can see, eCommerce challenges are quite common, regardless of how big your business is, and even large corporations are looking for ways to improve their online stores and increase eCommerce sales.

Luckily, there’s a lot you can do to improve your online store, and even a few simple changes can help to significantly improve eCommerce sales.

So, if you’re looking for eCommerce optimization tips and want to find out how to increase online sales, then keep reading to learn more.

Read: How Cross-Selling Boosts eCommerce Sales

If you want to improve your online store and increase eCommerce sales, you need to make use of every strategy you possibly can.

Luckily, cross-selling offers yet another highly effective tactic that helps to improve the experience customers have when they visit your store, and in turn, boost online sales.

This article explains everything you need to know about cross-selling, including what it is, what to avoid when cross-selling, and how it can benefit your business.

Keep reading here.

How We Helped Our Client Improve Their Online Store

Recently, interior designer, realtor, and entrepreneur, Diane Lothian, came to us looking to update her online store, Riverhouse Boutique.

Initially, the store was integrated into her Riverhouse Designs website, which was built primarily to promote her interior design and home staging businesses.

But eventually, we decided that Riverhouse Boutique and Riverhouse Designs should have their own websites. Here’s what the online store looked like originally:

It looks fine, but from a brand positioning perspective, it was conflicting with her service offerings, and her unique selling proposition (USP) was nowhere in sight.

All of her products were there, and users could buy them, but nothing was compelling them to purchase anything.

The header image, for instance, is relevant to Diane’s interior design and home staging services, but not her boutique.

Having said that, here’s what the new Riverhouse Boutique header banner looks like:

Right off the bat, the heading and subheading communicate Riverhouse Boutique’s values, and its USP, reminding the user that it carries exclusive, natural, quality, and artisanal products.

And as you scroll down the page, there are more mentions of the selling points of Diane’s products, along with sliders to show them off, and links to various product categories, all of which make things much more convenient and enticing for potential customers.

Having a separate website for the boutique also works much better, as all the focus is put on the products being sold, and users won’t have any confusion as to what the website is all about.

So, as you can see, improving your online store doesn’t have to be that complicated, and some high-quality images and compelling copy may be all you need to make a massive difference.

Our Top Tips to Help You Increase eCommerce Sales

As I already mentioned, if you want to increase eCommerce sales, there are some simple things you can do to improve your online store, like updating your copy and imagery.

But aside from those strategies, there is a litany of things you can do to improve your online store, including everything from swift and simple solutions to tedious and technical improvements.

And if you want to have a firm grasp of what’s going to be best for your eCommerce store, then it’s important to weigh your options and be aware of what’s possible.

With that in mind, below I’ve detailed several strategies to help you enhance your online store and boost eCommerce sales.

1) Understand Your Customers

If you don’t understand your customers, trying to encourage them to give you their hard-earned money will be nothing more than a crapshoot.

Below I’ve listed a couple of things you can do to start getting inside the heads of your ideal customers and marketing to them in a way that entices them to do business with you.

Create Personas: You should begin by creating detailed customer personas, as understanding your target audience’s needs, values, preferences, behaviours, and pain points will allow you to tailor your offerings and marketing messages more effectively.

Collect and Analyze Data: You can also use analytics tools to gather data on how users interact with your site. This will allow you to find patterns in their purchasing behaviour, page visits, and cart abandonment rates, which can help you identify areas for improvement.

2) Optimize Your Website

You can have the best products or services in the world, but if your website looks or functions like it was built by an amateur, then you’re likely to have a hard time selling anything.

Here are several strategies you can employ to ensure your website is offering customers the best possible experience:

Mobile Responsiveness: With an increasing number of consumers shopping on their smartphones, offering a great mobile experience is crucial. A big part of this is making sure your website is mobile-friendly, meaning its layout will seamlessly adapt to various screen sizes.

Fast Loading Times: Page speed can significantly affect customer satisfaction and your website rankings, but tools like Google Pagespeed Insights can help you identify and fix slow-loading pages.

High-Quality Product Images and Detailed Descriptions: If you want to entice customers, you’ve got to provide clear, high-resolution images and detailed product descriptions. These elements help customers make informed purchasing decisions and reduce the likelihood of returns.

Easy Navigation and Search: A user-friendly eCommerce website will be able to help customers find what they’re looking for quickly, and this involves things like having an intuitive navigation menu and a robust search function with filters.

Professional Brand Presence: Another eCommerce optimization strategy is to make sure your website includes a professional brand presence that effectively communicates your brand’s values and USP. This can help to enhance your online store and improve sales by providing consistent messaging, differentiating your brand from competitors, and building authority, loyalty, and trust with your audience.

3) Enhance the User Experience

At the end of the day, the quality of the experience you’re offering to users will likely be the deciding factor in whether or not your online store will see success.

With that in mind, here are a few things you can do to ensure your eCommerce website is providing a great experience for everyone who visits it:

Simplify the Checkout Process: A complicated checkout process is a common reason for cart abandonment, and when customers abandon their carts, they’re unlikely to come back. So, make sure to streamline the process, minimize the number of steps, and offer guest checkout options.

Personalization: You can also use customer data to personalize the shopping experience for each one of your customers, which can be done by displaying relevant product recommendations, content, and offers based on browsing and purchase history.

Customer Service: If you want to keep customers happy, you should offer multiple customer service channels, such as live chat, email, and phone support. You may also want to consider integrating a chatbot into your website for 24/7 assistance with common inquiries.

Shipping Costs: To prevent cart abandonment due to high shipping costs, there are many things you can do, like offering free shipping thresholds or flat-rate shipping fees, providing clear shipping policies upfront and cost calculators early in the checkout process, absorbing part of the shipping cost into the price of your products, providing multiple shipping options, and even retargeting customers who abandoned their carts to offer them shipping discounts or incentives.

4) Make Use of Marketing Strategies

If you don’t market your online store, then regardless of how great it is, customers will be unlikely to find it.

Here are several marketing strategies you can use to promote your online store and connect with your ideal customers:

Email Marketing: Email campaigns offer a tried-and-true way to engage with customers, as they allow you to send personalized offers, product recommendations, and newsletters, which helps to keep your brand top of mind.

Social Media Marketing: Leveraging social media platforms can allow you to build brand awareness, engage with customers, and drive traffic to your site, and you can also use social media advertising to reach a broader audience.

Content Marketing: Creating valuable content related to your products or industry can help to build trust with your audience and drum up interest in your offerings. Things like blogs, how-to guides, and videos can attract visitors to your site and establish your brand as an authority.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO): Optimizing your website for search engines can significantly improve its visibility, making it more likely that potential customers will find it. You can do this by using relevant keywords, optimizing meta tags, and earning quality backlinks, among other things.

Paid Advertising: Through the use of things like audience segmentation and keyword targeting, paid advertising can help you improve your online store and increase eCommerce sales by promoting it to those who are actively seeking the kinds of products and/or services you offer. This helps to drive qualified traffic to your store, increase awareness of your brand, and make you more visible to your target market.

5) Leverage Technology and Tools

Like them or not, artificial intelligence (AI) and other tools can be a big help when you’re trying to boost eCommerce sales.

Here are some ways you can use AI and other tools to enhance your online store:

Use of AI and Machine Learning: Implementing AI technologies can allow for better product recommendations, inventory management, and customer service, through the use of chatbots.

Augmented Reality (AR): AR is another tool to consider, as it can enhance the online shopping experience by allowing customers to visualize products in their environment, such as furniture, before making a purchase.

Payment Options: If you want to convince potential customers to give you their business, it’s important to offer multiple payment options, including credit cards, PayPal, and even newer payment technologies like Apple Pay or cryptocurrency.

6) Encourage Customer Feedback and Loyalty

Reading reviews is something that most online consumers do, as it helps them gauge the quality of your products and services.

That being said, you should encourage customers to leave reviews and share their experiences, as positive reviews can help boost your credibility and attract new customers.

Believe it or not, even negative reviews can give you the opportunity to build trust, depending on how you choose to respond to them.

At the same time, anything you can do to improve customer loyalty is going to be good for your online store, so you might want to think about creating a loyalty program that rewards repeat customers by offering discounts, early access to new products, or exclusive deals.

7) Analyze Your Competitors

Paying attention to what the competition is doing provides invaluable insights into how you can enhance your online store and entice customers to do business with you, rather than competitors.

So, you should make a point of regularly analyzing your competitors’ websites and marketing strategies to learn from their successes and mistakes and identify opportunities to differentiate your brand.

8) Monitor Performance and Adjust Strategies

As you make changes to your online store, monitoring its performance will be key if you want to figure out what’s working and what isn’t.

With that in mind, you should regularly monitor key performance indicators (KPIs) such as conversion rates, average order value, and customer acquisition costs, and then use this data to adjust your strategies and improve performance.

9) Expansion Considerations

If you’re planning to expand, whether that’s globally, nationally, or into specific countries or regions, you may need to think about localizing your website by offering multiple languages, currencies, and payment options that cater to different markets.

For instance, if you’re okay with just selling in B.C., then this may not be necessary, but if you want your offerings to be available across all of Canada, then your website should have, at the very least, both French and English options.

10) Compliance and Security

You might think people aren’t paying attention to this sort of thing, but nothing could be further from the truth.

People will look into the level of security your online store offers, and any data breaches or other funny business can permanently ruin your store’s reputation.

So, make sure to stay compliant with any relevant laws and regulations related to eCommerce, such as those that pertain to data protection and consumer rights.

You should also implement strong security measures to protect customer data, such as SSL certificates and secure payment gateways, and regularly update your website’s security protocols.

Do you need some help optimizing your online store? Why not set up a free 30-minute consultation with me to find out how we can help?

To your business success, Susan Friesen

P.S. If you liked the article, you might want to subscribe to our newsletter. We publish tons of valuable content to help you learn more about marketing, and subscribing is the best way to ensure you don’t miss out. Additionally, if you’d like to learn more about building a search engine optimized website, click here for our free website guide.

[evisionmediasusanfriesen]

Why You Should Be Careful What You Post on Social Media

Social media offers numerous ways for businesses to promote their products and services, connect with customers, and gain the trust and loyalty of their followers.

But despite these benefits and many others, it also provides numerous ways to instantly ruin your reputation, reminding us that you’ve got to be careful what you post on social media.

Unfortunately, for some people, it can be very tempting to, for instance, start a flame war with every person who writes a bad review of their business, publicly air the dirty laundry of their personal life, or spew political opinions on every last subject known to man.

However, if you want to avoid embarrassing your business (and yourself, for that matter), and prevent yourself from eroding the hard-won trust you’ve earned for your brand, you’ve got to resist the urge to do this sort of thing.

Because at the end of the day, everything you write on social media, whether it’s for your business, or on your personal page, is going to be perceived as a direct reflection of your brand.

At the same time, it’s also a reflection of your character, and if you’re being obnoxious or offensive, like it or not, people will associate those actions with your business.

What’s more, once you’ve made a negative impression, it’s going to be very difficult, if not impossible, to regain the trust you’ve lost and fix the damage you’ve done to your reputation and that of your business brand.

So, whether you’ve been doing this for years, or you’re just starting to use social media as a business platform and want to learn how to be careful on social media, then this article is for you.

Keep reading to learn more about why you need to be careful what you post and explore several high-profile examples of brands that ruined their reputations on social media.

Read: What is the Best Social Media for Your Business?

Having a successful social media presence requires more than just knowing what not to do.

If you want your business to succeed in the world of social media, it’s just as important to ensure you’re picking the right platforms.

With that in mind, this article dispels the myth that there’s a specific platform that’s best for all businesses, and explains what you can do to determine which platforms are best for your business.

Keep reading here.

Why You Need to Be Careful What You Post

I’m not prone to this sort of thing myself, but I understand that it can be incredibly tempting to trash your critics, share intimate details about your personal life, or proudly parrot partisan political rhetoric.

But no matter how tempting these behaviours might be, the reality is, you’ve got to be careful what you post because in most cases, these actions will only hurt you and your brand’s reputation.

Here’s why you need to watch what you post on social media:

Brand Values One of the main reasons why business owners must be mindful of their social media presence is the direct correlation between their online behaviour and their brand’s identity.

Truth be told, every post, comment, or interaction on social media serves as a reflection of your brand’s values, personality, and ethos. Even the posts from your personal profile because ultimately, you are the face of your brand.

Inconsistencies between your actions online and the principles espoused by your brand can easily undermine your credibility, erode trust, and alienate customers who value things like authenticity, shared values, and social responsibility.

Virality Information today travels at unprecedented speeds, and this is facilitated in large part by the viral nature of social media.

As we’ve seen time and time again over the years – even with some of the biggest brands – a single misjudged post or controversial statement can swiftly escalate into a full-blown crisis, tarnishing your brand’s reputation and possibly causing irreparable damage.

With that in mind, business owners like you have to remain aware of the amplifying effect of social media and exercise prudence and restraint in their online communications to prevent potential backlash, public outrage, and negative media coverage.

Stakeholder Relationships Social media serves as a platform for direct engagement with many different stakeholders.

Aside from your customers, and potential customers, this also includes employees, investors, and business partners.

As a result, your behaviour on social media can have a significant influence on things like employee morale, investor confidence, and business relationships.

So, you should consider the impact your online activity could be having on both the internal and external perceptions of your brand, and try to take a strategic approach that will help maintain trust, foster transparency, and uphold professional standards.

Authenticity and Consistency Whatever your brand stands for, if you want it to be taken seriously and perceived in a positive light, you have to represent those values consistently and authentically in everything you do.

Otherwise, you’re going to end up being perceived as contrived, disingenuous, and unreliable, which could easily ruin the reputation of the brand you’ve worked so hard to build.

If you want to protect your brand’s reputation on social media, you should adopt a strategic approach that displays your brand’s commitment to consistency and authenticity.

This includes things like aligning your online behaviour with your brand’s values, fostering authentic and transparent communication, and responding promptly and empathetically to customers, all of which can help you enhance your brand’s image, strengthen customer loyalty, and mitigate potential crises.

High-Profile Examples of Why You Should Watch What You Post

Over the years, we’ve witnessed many high-profile examples of social media disasters that have ruined the reputations of both business and personal brands.

These examples offer a poignant reminder of the kind of damage that can be done as a result of inappropriate behaviour or comments on social media.

Let’s look at some examples of just how easy it is to ruin your reputation in this way.

Amy’s Baking Company The owners of Amy’s Baking Company, Amy and Samy Bouzaglo, gained notoriety after appearing on Gordon Ramsay’s infamous Kitchen Nightmares.

Their aggressive and otherwise obnoxious behaviour towards customers, employees, and Ramsay himself, including stealing tips from servers, and yelling at customers, was documented on the show and then went viral on social media.

The owners’ social media responses to criticism of their actions, which included referring to fans of Ramsay’s show as “pathetic” and “trash”, have likely damaged their reputation beyond repair.

Justine Sacco Justine Sacco, a former PR executive for InterActiveCorp, posted a particularly offensive racist “joke” before boarding a flight to South Africa.

The tweet went viral during her flight, and by the time she landed, she had become the centre of a social media firestorm.

She later claimed that the tweet was a joke meant to mock racism, but regardless of whether that’s true or not, it just goes to show that you have to be extremely careful about everything you say on social media because regardless of your intentions, people will always have their own perceptions.

Sacco was subsequently fired from her job due to the controversy and this incident will likely follow her around for the rest of her working life.

Elon Musk The CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, Elon Musk, has faced several controversies on social media.

In 2018, Musk tweeted that he had secured funding to take Tesla private at $420 per share, which led to a Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) investigation and a lawsuit.

Musk’s erratic behaviour and often offensive opinions being voiced on Twitter have also caused severe fluctuations in Tesla’s stock price and raised concerns among investors.

This example is important to understand, as it shows the massive financial impact that a few words on social media can have.

Anthony Weiner Anthony Weiner, a former congressman, gained notoriety for multiple scandals involving inappropriate messages and photos sent to women via social media.

In one of the most infamous incidents, he tweeted a lewd photo of himself, and will now forever be known as the guy who tweeted the photo of his bulging underwear.

Initially, he claimed his account had been hacked, but we later found out that he had accidentally posted the picture, which dealt a decisive blow to his credibility and the trust of his constituents.

He later apologized and refused to resign, but the incident tarnished his political career and reputation so badly that within about two weeks following the incident, he’d already stepped down.

Kenneth Cole In 2011, fashion designer Kenneth Cole faced backlash after he used the uprising in Egypt to promote his brand on Twitter.

He tweeted “Millions are in uproar in #Cairo. Rumor is they heard our new spring collection is now available online…”

This incredibly tasteless tweet, which attempted to capitalize on the suffering of the Egyptian people, was widely criticized as insensitive and led to a public apology from Cole.

Lululemon Chip Wilson, the founder of Lululemon Athletica, has faced backlash several times for controversial statements made on social media.

In 2013, he suggested that some women’s bodies were not suitable for Lululemon’s clothing, which sparked outrage and significantly hurt the brand’s image.

Wilson later apologized for his comments, but just this year, he’s been embroiled in another social media controversy, after he stated that he does not like the company’s promotion of diversity and inclusion, and criticized the models chosen for their ads, calling them “unhealthy” and “sickly”.

Wilson stepped down as CEO during the controversy in 2013, and in 2019, as a result of all the criticism of the company caused by his remarks, he was even stripped of his ability to appoint a representative to Lululemon’s board, despite still being their largest individual shareholder.

KitchenAid In 2012, a staffer handling KitchenAid’s Twitter account accidentally posted a tweet mocking President Obama’s deceased grandmother during a presidential debate.

The tweet was quickly deleted, and KitchenAid issued an apology, but the incident received widespread attention and did major damage to the brand’s reputation.

This incident reminds us that not only do you need to be careful what you post, but you also need to be careful who’s posting for you, which means you need to make sure you trust that person, and that they’re well-versed in your brand and how to properly represent it on social media.

Whether you own a large corporation or run a small business as a sole proprietor, the rules of proper brand positioning remain the same. Everything you do on social media becomes a direct reflection of the values of your business.

You may not realize the detrimental effect your posts and comments have until it’s too late to recoup the losses, so be diligent now to avoid disastrous outcomes down the road.

Do you need someone to manage your activity on social media? Why not set up a free 30-minute consultation with me to find out how we can help?

To your business success, Susan Friesen

P.S. If you liked the article, you might want to subscribe to our newsletter. We publish tons of valuable content to help you learn more about marketing, and subscribing is the best way to ensure you don’t miss out. Additionally, if you’d like to learn more about building a search engine optimized website, click here for our free website guide.

[evisionmediasusanfriesen]

Why Consistency in Branding Is Key When It Comes to Your Messaging

As someone who’s been in this business for more than two decades, I’ve worked with countless clients to help revamp their brands.

And after all these years, one of the most common issues I’ve seen (and have had to rectify) is a lack of consistency in branding.

Often, clients who come to us for a rebrand have been doing their own branding or had hired someone who didn’t dive deep enough to develop a strong brand position for them.

Sadly, most of these clients aren’t even aware that there’s an issue with their brand consistency; all they know is that things just aren’t working.

But if more business owners understood the importance of consistency in branding, especially when it comes to their revenue and how consumers perceive their brands, they’d probably be paying a lot more attention to it.

For instance, a Think with Google survey, which polled more than 1,500 U.S. consumers, found that 62 per cent of them “expect brands to deliver a consistent experience”.

So, if you’re not being consistent with your brand messaging, then it’s going to have a decidedly negative effect on how consumers perceive your brand.

And as you can see from the graph below, a survey from Marq, which polled over 450 brand management specialists, found that the majority of them believe that consistency in branding is key when it comes to communicating with customers and generating leads, but I’m surprised that number wasn’t considerably higher.

What’s more, the survey found that these brand managers believe brand consistency has the potential to significantly increase revenue, even by as much as 10-20 per cent.

As you can see from this survey data, consistency in branding is crucial, not just for the way your brand is perceived by consumers, but also when it comes to your profits.

Read: How to Define Brand Identity and Maintain Consistency in All Your Marketing Materials

Before you can maintain consistency in your marketing or your branding, you need to define your brand identity.

Because without that benchmark, you’re not going to have any way to determine if your branding is actually consistent.

So, if you want to ensure consistency in your marketing efforts, but you’ve yet to define your brand identity, then this article will tell you everything you need to know, including how to create a style guide and apply that to various aspects of your marketing.

Keep reading here.

Why Is Consistency in Branding So Important?

When it comes to your messaging, consistency in branding is crucial, as it helps to reinforce your brand identity, build trust with customers, ensure a cohesive brand experience across all platforms, and support the overall effectiveness of your marketing strategies, among other benefits.

Let’s explore some of the reasons why consistent brand messaging is so important.

Brand Recognition

Consistent use of formatting, writing style, tone, and messaging helps consumers to easily recognize and remember your brand. And when your brand is easily recognizable, it’s a lot easier for it to stand out in a crowded marketplace.

Trust and Reliability

When your messaging and brand presentation are consistent, it helps build trust with your audience, as it makes you look more knowledgeable, reliable, and professional.

When you consistently communicate things like your values, what you can do for potential clients, or your unique differentiators, consumers will be more likely to trust your brand and want to give you their business.

Clear Brand Identity

A consistent brand message helps to establish a clear identity and personality for your brand.

This clarity allows your brand to communicate its values more effectively, as you’ll avoid waffling, contradicting yourself, or seeming like you’re afraid to take a position on something, and this way, everyone will know exactly what your brand stands for.

Customer Loyalty

Consistent and positive brand experiences can lead to greater customer loyalty because when customers know what to expect from your brand and have had consistently positive associations with it, they are more likely to be repeat customers and recommend your brand to others.

Efficiency and Cohesiveness

Consistency in branding across all channels, including your website, social media, advertising, packaging, etc., creates a more cohesive brand experience.

This helps to ensure that your brand will be taken seriously, your message will be more easily understood by consumers, and your brand will be portrayed in the same way across all touchpoints, which is more efficient in terms of marketing spend and more effective in terms of communication.

Differentiation from Competitors

A consistent and unique brand message can make it much easier for you to differentiate your brand from those of your competitors, as it highlights the unique values, experience, and benefits your brand offers, making it easier for customers to choose it over others.

Supports Advertising and Marketing Efforts

Consistent branding makes advertising and marketing efforts more effective.

For one thing, it’s easier for people to recognize your branding when it’s consistent, and when messages are consistent, they reinforce your brand identity and values, which can help to make your marketing campaigns more impactful.

How Can This Be Applied to the Various Aspects of My Brand?

Now that you have a better understanding of why consistent brand messaging is so vital, it’s important to understand how this consistency can be applied to the various aspects of your brand.

This next section shares how this relates to some of the most fundamental aspects of your brand, and what you can do to ensure things remain consistent.

Brand Values

Ensuring consistency in branding when it comes to your brand values is crucial if you want to exude authenticity, differentiate your brand, and build a strong connection with your audience.

Among other things, consistency in your brand values helps to foster trust, appeal to customers seeking brands that align with their beliefs, and support long-term customer relationships.

But to do this, first, you’ve got to sit down and take the time to clearly define what your brand stands for. Make sure to take your time on this because if you want your values to remain consistent, you can’t just randomly change things whenever you like.

In addition, you should also do whatever you can to consistently integrate elements of your brand values into other parts of your branding and marketing and ensure that you maintain a uniform tone of voice throughout all your communications.

You should also train your employees to ensure they understand and embody these values and will know not to do or say anything that contradicts them.

Brand Promise

In case you’re not sure, the term brand promise refers to the promises your brand makes regarding its ethical principles, how it operates, and what it can do for potential customers.

Ensuring your brand promise remains consistent, both in terms of what you’ve pledged to do, and whether you follow through on that promise, is essential for building credibility and trust, as it ensures customers know what to expect from your brand, which reinforces reliability and helps to build loyalty.

If you want to ensure your brand promise remains consistent, you need to take the necessary time to clearly define what your promise is and commit to not changing it.

Then you can focus on ensuring that the various aspects of your brand work to reflect and reinforce your brand promise, and don’t contradict it in any way.

What’s more, you should also educate your employees on your brand promise, so you can make sure that customers will have consistent experiences with your brand.

Brand Personality

A consistent brand personality also helps to build brand recognition, foster trust, and create an emotional connection with your audience, while making your brand more memorable and differentiating it from competitors.

Again, the first step in ensuring consistency for this aspect of your brand is to clearly articulate the characteristics that you want your brand to embody and ensure they align with your target audience’s expectations and values.

And as with all the other key aspects of your brand, you should also educate your employees on what your brand personality is and what they can do, or should avoid doing, so they can properly represent your brand when interacting with customers.

Target Audience

Consistently communicating with your target audience across all points of contact helps to reinforce your message and values, making your brand more memorable and increasing the likelihood of them choosing your brand over competitors.

But if you want to create a recognizable brand experience that builds trust, loyalty, and a strong emotional connection, you’ve got to have a deep understanding of your target audience.

Once you’ve gained that understanding of your audience, including things like its preferences, values, and behaviours, you can begin to ensure that all the elements of your brand consistently reflect what appeals to your target audience.

It’s also good to create brand guidelines, which detail how all aspects of your brand should be presented and help to ensure consistency in your branding, as they can be used as a reference for anyone who works on your brand.

Vision and Mission Statements

Your vision and mission statements articulate your company’s core purpose and objectives, guiding the direction and decisions of your business, and this makes them particularly important when it comes to ensuring consistency in branding.

Consistent branding aligned with these statements communicates a clear and cohesive message to your audience, helping to reinforce what your brand stands for and its goals.

This helps to build trust, credibility, and loyalty by demonstrating your commitment to your brand’s values and objectives.

So, once you’ve defined your mission and vision statements, you’ve got to make sure that your branding and marketing embodies the values and goals expressed in those statements, otherwise, your brand will end up looking contrived and insincere.

You’ve also got to ensure that all your messaging reinforces those foundational assertions, and that includes training your employees on how to avoid contradicting these things when communicating with customers.

Need help revamping your brand or ensuring your messaging is consistent? Why not set up a free 30-minute consultation with me to find out how we can help?

To your business success, Susan Friesen

P.S. If you liked the article, you might want to subscribe to our newsletter. We publish tons of valuable content to help you learn more about marketing, and subscribing is the best way to ensure you don’t miss out. Additionally, if you’d like to learn more about building a search engine optimized website, click here for our free website guide.

[evisionmediasusanfriesen]

11 SEO Trends You Need to Know About in 2024

When you’ve been working in marketing for as long as I have, you tend to get asked the same questions over and over again.

One thing people are always asking me is, “Is SEO still relevant?”

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been asked this question, and I always answer with the same emphatic, “Yes!”

For the purposes of this article, I’ll say it again: Yes, SEO is still relevant in 2024, and it will continue to maintain its relevance into the foreseeable future, as search engines like Google aren’t going anywhere anytime soon, if ever.

And if search engines aren’t going away, then neither is search engine optimization. If anything, its relevance, and importance, will only continue to expand as we move further into the future.

You don’t have to take my word for it, though. If you ask anyone working in the marketing industry about the importance of SEO, they’re going to say the same thing.

For example, as you can see from the graph below, in a survey from Conductor, which polled more than 400 marketing experts from across North America, 93 per cent of respondents reported that SEO has had a positive impact on website performance and marketing goals.

This is just one example, but there are countless surveys like this out there, with marketers reporting great results from their SEO efforts, and this shows just how important this practice is.

With that in mind, if you want your marketing efforts to be successful, rather than worrying about the tired old debate over whether SEO is relevant or not (which has already been resolved long ago), you should spend that time and energy following the latest SEO trends.

That way, you can keep up with your competitors, as you won’t be missing out on any new tools or techniques that can help improve your SEO.

So, if you’re wondering what’s new in SEO, want to stay up to date on the latest trends in SEO, and want to learn how you can use these things to your advantage, then keep reading to find out about our predictions on which SEO trends will dominate in 2024.

Read: What Does SEO Do for a Website?

If you’re interested in the latest SEO trends, then you probably already know what search engine optimization is and how it relates to your website.

But if you’re not a marketer, then you may not know the first thing about SEO. However, if you want to appreciate the significance of SEO, then you have to understand this concept.

So, if you want to learn more on this topic, this article will explain what SEO is, what it entails, how it can benefit your business, and the consequences of ignoring it.

Keep reading here.

What Are the Latest SEO Trends?

If you want to keep up with your competitors in the SEO department, then you’re going to want to be aware of the latest SEO trends.

Otherwise, you could end up getting left in the dust while your competitors continue to climb the search engine rankings.

With that in mind, below we’ve offered our predictions for what will be the dominant SEO trends of 2024, so you can stay in the loop and be better equipped to compete.

1) Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning

The integration of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning in SEO strategies is becoming increasingly prevalent.

This trend is being driven by the need for more personalized, relevant content and the ability to analyze vast amounts of data more efficiently.

AI algorithms can predict search trends, understand user intent more deeply, and automate tasks like content creation, keyword research, and SEO audits.

That being said, businesses looking to maintain and improve their search engine rankings in 2024 will benefit from using AI tools to enhance content relevance, improve user engagement, and streamline SEO processes.

What’s more, Google will soon release updates that can distinguish between AI-created and human-created content, with possible penalties for content that’s created solely by AI, so that’s something else to keep in mind, and it’ll be interesting to see how that plays out.

2) Voice Search Optimization

Voice search is growing exponentially, and that means a significant portion of searches are expected to be voice-based in 2024.

This shift is happening in large part due to the increasing use of digital assistants like Siri, Alexa, and Google Assistant.

That being said, businesses that want to improve their SEO in 2024 should do what they can to help voice assistants understand and deliver their content effectively.

This involves things like focusing on natural language, question-based queries, and local SEO elements, as voice searches are often local and conversational in nature.

3) E-A-T and User Experience (UX)

Google’s emphasis on Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness (E-A-T) continues to have a significant influence on search rankings, underscoring the importance of content quality and site usability.

With that in mind, sites that offer valuable, accurate content and a seamless user experience are likely to rank higher.

Businesses looking to improve their search rankings in 2024 should focus on building their reputation through quality backlinks, user reviews, and clear, authoritative content that’s aligned with user intent, while doing whatever they can to improve site speed, functionality, user interfaces, and mobile responsiveness.

4) Video Content for SEO

With the popularity of video content continuing to rise, optimizing video content for search engines is becoming a critical SEO strategy.

Believe it or not, YouTube serves as the second largest search engine, making video SEO something that can have a huge impact on the visibility of your brand.

Businesses can leverage this strategy to enhance their SEO this year by creating engaging, informative videos that cater to their target audience, using relevant keywords in titles, descriptions, and tags, and embedding videos on their websites to increase the amount of time users spend browsing them.

5) Mobile SEO

The dominance of mobile searches necessitates a mobile-first approach to SEO, and this is especially true today, as Google’s mobile-first indexing predominantly uses the mobile version of a site when determining its ranking.

That being said, ensuring your website is optimized for mobile, with fast loading speeds, responsive design, and user-friendly navigation, is more essential today than it ever has been.

At any rate, businesses that want to improve their SEO in 2024 can make use of Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) to create pages that load almost instantly, improving site speed and enhancing user experience on mobile devices.

6) Local SEO

Local SEO is incredibly important for your search rankings, especially if your business is targeting local customers, and I think this is going to become even more crucial in 2024.

Businesses that want to optimize for local search can do this by ensuring accurate and consistent NAP (Name, Address, Phone number) information across listings, garnering positive reviews, creating locally relevant content, and coming up with local link-building strategies.

Moreover, having an optimized Google My Business profile continues to be a key aspect of any local SEO strategy, as it allows local consumers to easily find your business online.

7) High Quality Content

With the overwhelming saturation of content on the web, depth and quality of content are becoming crucial differentiators, and this is especially true today in 2024, as it becomes harder and harder to gain the trust of consumers.

With that in mind, long-form content that thoroughly covers a topic, provides value, and addresses user questions is more likely to rank well, not least because users are likely to spend more time consuming it.

So, if you want to improve your SEO in 2024, you should focus on creating comprehensive, high-quality content that meets the needs and intents of your target audience, incorporating original research, expert insights, and actionable advice whenever possible.

8) Semantic Search and Intent Matching

As search algorithms become more sophisticated, they’re better at understanding the context and intent behind queries.

And in 2024, as artificial intelligence becomes more and more advanced, semantic search and intent matching will become critical components of any SEO strategy.

Businesses looking to improve their SEO this year should optimize their content to match the intent behind search queries, focusing on topics rather than just keywords, and structuring content to answer questions directly and comprehensively.

9) Data Privacy and Security

With increasing concerns over data privacy and security, and data breaches becoming increasingly common, websites that prioritize user privacy and data protection are likely to see a boost in trust, and in turn, rankings.

That being said, in 2024, implementing HTTPS, offering transparent privacy policies, and ensuring secure data practices will become even more important, both in terms of consumers’ perception of your brand and how your website will rank on the search engines.

10) Zero-Click Searches

If you’re not quite sure what this is, a zero-click search is when someone searches for something on a search engine but doesn’t click on any of the results.

The prevalence of these kinds of searches has been on the rise and will continue to increase in 2024, due in no small part to chatbots and Google’s enhanced SERP features, including things like Featured Snippets, which can offer information related to a search query without the user having to click on a link.

As a result, if you want your SEO to improve in 2024, you’re going to need to look for new ways to connect with users via search engines, through things like a Google My Business profile or a detailed Q&A section on your website.

11) Longer-Tail Keywords

Typically, most of a website’s visitors come from longer, more specific keyword phrases, otherwise known as long-tail keywords, which are typically three, four, or five words long.

But recently, people have been noticing something new: Longer keyword phrases, made up of seven words or more, are becoming a major source of traffic.

This is likely to continue throughout 2024 and beyond, especially since Google is becoming more intuitive at providing relevant results for users’ search queries.

So, if you’re looking to improve your SEO this year, you should start injecting some of these longer-tail keywords into your content as soon as possible.

Want to improve your website’s SEO? Why not set up a free 30-minute consultation with our SEO specialist, Daniel, to find out how we can help?

To your business success, Susan Friesen

P.S. If you liked the article, you might want to subscribe to our newsletter. We publish tons of valuable content to help you learn more about marketing, and subscribing is the best way to ensure you don’t miss out. Additionally, if you’d like to learn more about building a search engine optimized website, click here for our free website guide.