Why is Marketing Important?

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The simple answer to why marketing is important, is that if no one knows that you exist, you do not really exist.  You can have the greatest product in the world, but if on one knows about it, it will not sell.  It is not enough to have a great idea or product.  It is not enough to have the latest and greatest infrastructure and equipment.  It is not enough to have a killer business model.  If you do not adequately invest and plan a marketing strategy to go along with your “awesome” business, it will not do well.

Yes, marketing costs money, but so does the business’ equipment, supplies, infrastructure, manpower, etc.  Marketing in my opinion, is a necessary business expense that should hold just as much importance and weight within an organization as inventory and supplies.  It is a necessity.  The statement that “you have to spend money, to make money,” is true.  However, most businesses take this to mean that statement applies to everything else, but marketing.  Often times, marketing is the last thing that a business thinks about or plans for when starting up.  I have heard it said plenty of times that a business needs to make money, before they can invest in marketing.  I disagree with this statement.  I believe that a business would actually make more money if they adequately planned and invested in their marketing efforts.

I believe that if you have a great product or service and you combine it with a great marketing strategy, the ROI is great.  Marketing is not just design (graphic, web, etc); it is research to determine who that customer is and how to target them.  Knowing who would be likely to buy your product or use your service, helps you determine where you should be marketing and how you should speak to them.  Marketing is messaging.  How does that target customer like to be spoken to?  Long form copy?  Bullet points?  Visual representations of ideas and messages?  Interactively?  Marketing is an experience created for the customer.  How do they like to engage with you?  Online?  Offline?  Copywriters, graphic designers, web designers and social media strategists, all help to convey this information in a way that will appeal to that customer.  It can get costly, but that cost can equate to higher profits and momentum to propel a business forward.

Marketing is very important if you want to be very successful.

Is Content Marketing a Trend?

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I start today’s post off with another question:  Is content marketing a trend?

My answer:  No.

“Content Marketing” is the latest marketing buzz word that is being thrown around amongst marketers, entrepreneurs and digital strategists.  According to Wikipedia, “Content marketing is any marketing format that involves the creation and sharing of media and publishing content in order to acquire customers.”  In today’s digital landscape, this is being done through the use of infographics, white papers, social media, ebooks, blogs, etc.  Wikipedia goes on to say, “Content marketing is focused not on selling, but on simply communicating with customers and prospects.”

Because of the recent explosion of content across digital mediums and platforms; it may feel that content marketing is a trend or fad that has just cropped up.  However, I would argue that content marketing strategies have existed for a long time in traditional marketing mediums.  In print, companies have distributed helpful literature in the form of pamphlets, leaflets and guides.  The literature did not directly sell anything to the consumer, but was helpful information.  It also kept the company top of mind for that consumer when they needed the services offered by that company.  In media, we have seen public service announcements that provided helpful information to the public and were sponsored by enterprises.

Technology has helped to change the marketing landscape and a traditional marketing strategy has now made the leap into the digital age.  So no, content marketing is not a trend.  It has just been repurposed to work in an ever changing, fast moving, and digital world.

Content Marketing: Is Blogging Dead?

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I have seen the question come up of whether or not blogging is dead fairly often recently.  For many, blogging is a part of their content marketing strategy.  For most that are using content marketing as a strategy, blogging is the only method that they are employing.  Blogging has been around for a long time, but in my opinion, only started becoming “popular” and the “thing to do” within the last five years or so.

I believe that it has become the popular thing to do for many reasons:

• The successful careers that have been launched by popular bloggers like Perez Hilton, Bryan Boy and many others.

• The potential to earn passive income/revenue from ads on a blog.

• The SEO benefits that bring traffic and new potential clients/customers to a business.

• The relatively low cost and ease to implement and maintain a blog.

Add to this an increased desire for many to become entrepreneurs or the next big thing, and we have seen an explosion of blogs and bloggers.  Everyone has one.

So, do I think blogging is dead? No, I don’t.

While I feel that the blogosphere and internet are saturated with blogs, I feel that it has turned into a trend that will die.  Wait, didn’t you just say that blogging is not dead?  Yes, that is what I said and believe.  It is the trend itself that I believe will die.  When the next big marketing concept hits, everyone will clamor to jump on that trend and many blogs will be forgotten and will die.  What will remain, will be blogs that were never about just pushing out content for the sake of pushing out content.  What will remain and continue to thrive, will be blogs that were in it because they loved to produce whatever content they were producing, they were passionate about it and believed it was worth while to publish.

Landing Pages: The What & Why

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If you are an e-commerce business or you are a small business focusing on an online marketing strategy; you have probably heard the words “Landing Page.”  What are landing pages?  They are single web pages designed to get the visitor to commit a very specific action or to deliver a very specific set of information.  They are pages with a specific purpose that usually help to drive sales in some way.

The Why

The premise behind why these types of pages are needed, is to cut down the amount of noise and distractions a visitor to your site might face in order to get a specific message across.  For instance, if you owned an olive oil company and wanted to push sales for a new flavored olive oil, you might want to create a landing page for that specific purpose.  Yes, you could create internal sidebar advertisements or banner advertisements throughout your site that called attention to this new product, but it will not be as effective as combining this strategy with a landing page specifically for the new product.

If you are advertising online and in traditional media to drive traffic to your site to buy this new product, your visitor may become distracted once they reach your site.  Even if the direct link they followed brought them directly to the product page, they may become distracted by other suggestions, advertisements on your site, or just the design of the site and navigation buttons.  While they are touring your site, they may forget why they came there in the first place and leave without making a purchase at all.  This is where a landing page built specifically for the new product can come into play.

If instead, a landing page was design that focused only on that product and included great and high converting sales copy, you could potentially land that sale.  Instead of driving traffic to your home page, product page or general store area of your site, drive the traffic to the landing page.  Visitors that followed your direct link to the landing page, will be more satisfied because the content they are seeing is directly related to their reason for the visit.  Landing on your home page may put them in the general category, but it does not relate specifically to what they were looking for.  The more relevant their “landing” on a “page” is to what they want or are looking for, the higher the chance is of you making a sale.  Relevancy is key.

Characteristics of a Great Landing Page

High converting landing pages utilize minimal graphic elements, are “clean” in their design presentation, simplistic and present information in an easy to digest format.  A visitor should arrive on the page and know exactly what you want them to know and what you want them to do.  Going back to our olive oil company example, the new product’s landing page should tell them the what, and the why.  The why needs to also be relatable in terms of why they need the product to begin with.  An easy way to do this is to combine using the AIDA (attention, interest, details, action) concept with the visitor’s need to know “What’s in it for me? Why do I need this?”

Avoid adding to many “actions” that the visitor may become distracted by and try to perform.  For example, navigation links, social media links, newsletter sign-ups, ebook downloads, etc should not be included unless that is the focus of the landing page or is pertinent to the call to action (CTA) on the landing page.  Make sure that it is very clear what you want them to do and as much as possible, keep that particular action “above the fold.”  In design speak, anything a visitor sees when they land on a page without the need to scroll, is considered “above the fold.”  When a visitor has to scroll down to see the rest of the content, that information is considered below the fold.

When designing your landing page, assume that everyone has ADD or a short attention span.  In our go-go-go society, people often do not have the time, patience or attention span to read long, boring copy or wait for you to get to the point with your copy.  Think PowerPoint presentation and keep it short, relevant and use bullet points.  Use big buttons and CTA text that stands out and calls attention to the action that you would like for them to commit.

Including testimonials, user reviews, and social proof (tweets and status messages on social networks from others) are also great ways to help reinforce why the visitor needs to buy your product or commit the action you are trying to get them to commit.

By removing a lot of the noise and distractions a user might face on your main site; you have a better chance of getting higher conversion rates from your visitors. Streamlining things and putting a laser like focus on what you want them to do, keeps them more focused on that task than they would be if you directed them to a more generalized area of your site.

This is especially helpful and beneficial if you use pay-per-click (PPC) advertising platforms like Google’s Adwords.  Link those ads directly to your landing page and you will see better results and conversions.

Social Media Day

Social Media Day is Sunday, June 30th

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Social Media Day

Social Media Day is being celebrated on Sunday, June 30, 2013 and there are a ton of events scheduled to happen on this day to celebrate social media.  Yours truly will be co-hosting a TweetChat with Janeen Geary Violante of Hudson Valley, a graphic design and web design firm.

We will be asking and answering questions on “Image Curation & Creation” and I have decided to put together an eGuide to show you how to use your mobile device to create visual content that you can share across your social media profiles.  Fill out the form below to receive your complimentary copy!