Marketing Fundamentals x Digital Marketing = 10x Results!

November 7th, 2019 Posted by Eagan Heath Marketing Fundamentals 0 comments on “Marketing Fundamentals x Digital Marketing = 10x Results!”

One thing I’ve really been digging into in the last few months has been marketing fundamentals.

I often say digital marketing is the new and better game because it’s more targeted and can be measured. You can grow your business faster when you use smart online marketing.

That’s a simple fact.

But the reality is, we can stand on the shoulders of marketing giants. We can learn from the greatest marketing minds of the 20th century to knock it out of the park in the 21st century.

Why?

Because we’re still communicating with our fellow humans. We’re still trying to get them to take that next step to buy from us.

The hardware is the same, and it’s just the tools that have gotten more sophisticated.

So I’m viewing our clients’ marketing (and my own marketing) using the lens of marketing fundamentals. I’m doing this because I see how:

MARKETING FUNDAMENTALS x DIGITAL MARKETING = 10X THE RESULTS

If you’re reading this, then you already know it’s important to compete and earn “impressions.” You need new prospects to see you on search engines, social media, websites they visit, and in their email inboxes because that’s where people’s attention is now.

But you can make your impressions even more effective when you speak directly to the needs of the person who is seeing a link to your website or visiting one of your pages.

So how do you do that?

Create a Persona for Your Prospects

Think about your very best customers or clients.

Draw each of them as a circle, then create a Venn diagram with the overlapping circles.

The part in the middle where all the circles are overlapping is what we’re going for.

Who are they? What is their role in what kind of company or who are they demographically?
What are the qualities that are similar between them?
What are their common struggles when they first come to you?
Most importantly: how do they describe their problem before they came to you and how do they describe the value your company provided them?

It’s worth reading that last one again, because it’s literally worth millions of dollars.

I’m serious.

Find the Magic Words

When you capture and leverage the voice of your customer (sometimes called VOC), they’ll bring you more just like them.

Here are some ways to find your customer’s language:

Call your customers and ask them
Read through your online reviews and testimonials
Record your happy customers on camera for a video testimonial (which is itself worth its weight in gold)
Send a survey
Add a second web form on your thank you page after people submit a form or buy from your website

Here’s another amazing trick from conversion copy writing expert Joanna Wiebe from CopyHackers: don’t ask “Why did you buy from us?” or “Why did you reach out to us?” but instead ask “What was going on in your life that led you to reach out/buy today?”

There’s something about the construction of that sentence that puts people back in their original frame of mind, rather than just answering “Why?” which might elicit a new answer they make up since they already took the action and are justifying it for different reasons now.

(Human brains spend a lot of time rationalizing the decisions we already made out of emotion.)

A Few Examples

For my digital marketing agency Get Found Madison, we have a few different types of clients we work well with (and get great results for!), so we are developing a persona for each:

Local Service Business Owners
Ecommerce companies in the $1M-10M range
B2B Companies with Marketing Teams eager to learn digital marketing

Here’s what Katelyn from the marketing team at our B2B client Naviant recently said in my Digital Marketing Mastery course. Before working with Get Found Madison, they had another SEO company they weren’t happy with. Specifically, they:

Didn’t communicate what they were working on or why
Didn’t achieve results
Were expensive

Then she said, “Honestly, we’ll probably never switch from you guys. It’s been so great working with you.”

I’d trade my kingdom for a video of what Katelyn said that day at the DreamBank in Madison (luckily she’s agreed to go on camera and say something similar again!).

The headline writes itself:

“Are you tired of your expensive SEO agency leaving you in the dark about what they’re doing and not achieving results?”

That could go in SEO titles and descriptions, Google Ad headlines, email subject lines, and web page headlines.

It could be the first sentence I speak in my next video.

Because are there other companies out there like Naviant who are experiencing the same pain points right now?

You better believe it.

If at all possible, I always try to speak to pain rather than pleasure. It’s the far greater motivator. (If you don’t believe me, you can read more about Kahneman and Tversky’s work on Loss Aversion.)

Surveys and Copywriting for Ecommerce

While we sometimes run video testimonial contest for my ecommerce company Splendid Beast Pet Paintings, we’re not always able to talk directly to our customers (though I bet we could if we tried!).

As such, it’s important for us to survey our customers (at least) annually to ask them about their experience and how we improve.

This year I made sure to include a version of the magical Joanna Wiebe question:

Think back to when you ordered your pet painting. What was going on in your life that led you to buy one?

If I wrote that question again, I’d probably say “your Splendid Beast pet painting” so we’d get responses the might demonstrate how people see our paintings differently than the competitors.

In any case, the vast majority of people who answered said it was either a gift or a way to commemorate a pet they’d lost.

At first, I was primarily interested in the quantitative data when we manually coded the customers’ free-text responses into birthday, Christmas, wedding and other types of gift.

But perhaps even more important is the qualitative data: the phrasing the customers used.

Check this one out that highlights a pain point Splendid Beast solved that I never would have thought of:

My parents are extremely difficult to buy presents for, so my brother and I got one of your paintings with both our dogs in it (the American Gothic template). Needless to say it now hangs at the bottom of my parent’s stairs and they get to smile at it every morning.

Wow. You can’t buy copy that good.

I’m ready to run that as our Facebook Ad copy right now.

Are there plenty of pet owners out there who are difficult to buy gifts for?

You know it!

And now we know how Splendid Beast can solve that problem.

Ready to do this for your business?

Persona creation and copywriting will be part of a Digital Marketing Boot Camp I’m offering soon. Email [email protected] if you’re interested.

Tags: Copywriting, Customer Avatars, Customer Personas, Marketing

Guest Blog Case Study

June 24th, 2019 Posted by Hannah Biggs Blogging, Local SEO, SEO Link Building 0 comments on “Guest Blog Case Study”

Guest blogging is a great way to build backlinks to your website, build relationships with people in your industry, grow your referral traffic, and improve your website’s SEO. Check out this guest blog case study about how we successfully landed a guest post for our client Reynolds Transfer & Storage.

Finding the guest blog post opportunity

One of the best tools to find guest blog posting opportunities is free and easy to use – Google! To find blogs and websites that accept guest submissions in our client’s industry, we used Google Search Operators combined with keywords and common phrases related to guest posting.

Keyword + “guest post”
Keyword + “guest blog”
Keyword + “guest post guidelines”
Keyword + “guest blog guidelines”
Keyword + “submit a post”
Keyword + “write for us”
Keyword + “contribute”

To find guest blog opportunities in the residential moving industry for Reynolds Transfer & Storage, we searched multiple combinations of target keywords and guest post phrases. Through this process, we found a number of relevant blogs that accepted guest post submissions, including Apartminty. Apartminty, an apartment search resource with a blog about apartment living, has a page dedicated to Guest Post Guidelines that appeared in our Google searches.

Guest Post Outreach

Once we identified Apartminty as a potential guest blogging opportunity, the next step was research and preparation for outreach. The Apartminty Guest Blog Guidelines includes what they’re looking for in a guest post, an application to be considered for a guest blog post, and contact information for the blog. Working with the team at Reynolds Transfer & Storage, we brainstormed potential blog post ideas tailored to Apartminty’s audience and submitted the application to the contact information listed on the page.

Along with the application, we focused on keeping the email containing the attachment short and to the point, with a clear subject line:

Guest Blogger Inquiry for Apartminty

Hello,

I am reaching out on behalf of Reynolds Transfer & Storage, a Madison, Wisconsin-based moving company specializing in residential moves with a commitment to environmentally sustainable business practices. We are interested in contributing guest blog posts for the Apartminty blog. I have attached the completed questionnaire for your consideration.

Please let me know if you have any questions.

Sincerely,

Hannah Biggs

The Results

Once we submitted the application, we heard back from the Apartminty team with a preferred topic. We wrote the blog post, submitted it for review, and received a publication date. Finally, our guest blog post for Reynolds Transfer & Storage was live on the Apartminty blog.

The post includes a bio with a link back to the Reynolds Transfer & Storage website. Below is the estimated domain authority for the backlink from Apartminty.

For more about improving your website’s SEO through guest blog posts, check out our post How to Write High-Quality Guest Posts.

Tags: blogging, guest blogs, Link Building, Local SEO, Search Engine Optimization

How to Create a Proper Competitor Backlink Analysis

May 20th, 2019 Posted by Emma Miller Local SEO 0 comments on “How to Create a Proper Competitor Backlink Analysis”

Researching the competition is one of the most important elements of business success in the modern business world. In fact, keeping tabs on the most successful actors in your field has always been an excellent way to bring prospects to your doorstep and surpass the competition in the long run.

Needless to say, backlink analysis falls right into this category and remains a crucial part of the discovery process. How else are you going to find out who’s linking back to their websites and how many outlets are there that are supporting their growth, brand reach, and boosting their rankings?

You need to research your competitors’ backlink portfolio and strategy in order to gain a competitive advantage and increase your own websites’ traffic and conversions. Here’s what you need to do to achieve this goal.

It all starts with keyword research

In order to improve your online authority in the eyes of the public and reach the top spot on Google’s result pages, you need to rank high for keywords relevant to your brand, services, and niche. With that in mind, your first order of business should be to conduct in-depth keyword research that will tell you what people are searching for. With these keywords in your hands, you can find out how your competitors are ranking for the same phrases.

What you might be surprised to find out is that there are smaller actors in your niche you never heard about that are ranking higher than you for specific phrases, so that you can broaden your search and discover even more opportunities for your own content. Once you have the list of keywords, you can go ahead and Google them.

Identify your competitors

The sheer number of keywords related to your business and niche makes it very difficult for your competitors to achieve monopoly over them. This means that not all keywords relevant to your business are dominated by the biggest competitors in the field.

This creates an opportunity to rank your website higher for select keywords, but it also hints at the possibility that smaller, yet equally important, competitors might be lurking in the shadows.

By Googling the keywords you’re most interested in, you can zero in on the competition in its entirety.

More importantly, this type of research will let you find out if their content is actually delivering and solving their audience’s problems. If not, they might get penalized for going after irrelevant keywords, which is something you should watch out for as well.

Now that you have them in your sights, it’s time to check out their backlink portfolios.

Examine the competitors’ backlinks

Here comes the good part. Find the list of all the links on the web that lead back to your website. Building this network of backlinks efficiently and effectively means positioning organic KWs on these target pages by finding and reaching out to authoritative influencers in your specific industry and niche. Keep in mind, though, you’re not the only one doing this, which is why discovering your competitors’ backlink profiles becomes imperative.

You can use a number of tools to monitor your competitors’ backlinks and discover the blogs that are linking back to their websites. One of these tools is Ahrefs. You can start by finding your domain-level competitors by using Ahrefs Competing Domains option. Results can be sorted by common keywords, keywords unique to competitor or keywords unique to target.

Once you do this, seek for page-level competitors. These don’t necessarily need to be your direct competitors but websites that rank well for a topic/keyword of your interest, thus competing with you. This can be done by using Keywords Explorer option – just add a keyword you’re trying to rank for (in this example I’ve used keyword Onsite SEO)

Then, scroll down for results in the SERP Overview section.

Finally, once you determined your main competitors, use the Backlink Profile option to directly find their backlinks. You can simply do this by adding their website in the Ahrefs search. These backlinks can be sorted by anchor text, date, domain rating, traffic, referring page… (In the example below you can see how Moz backlink portfolio looks like, since it is one of Ahrefs’ main competitors).

With all this Ahrefs data in your hands, you can analyze the top-performing content, the blog they’re featured on, and use it to discover new bloggers and opportunities for your own content and backlink strategy.

Monitor backlinks regularly to discover lucrative opportunities

It’s not just about discovering your competitors or checking out their backlink portfolios one time – it’s about continuous research and diligent backlink monitoring that will allow you to find new backlink opportunities for your website. After all, if a blogger was willing to publish a link to your competitors’ websites, then there is a distinct possibility they will be willing to do the same for you.

This is all provided that you have mastered the fine art of guest blogging, that is. Keeping tabs on their backlinks will also allow you to discover broken links and lost backlinks, which presents the ideal opportunity for you to step in with your own content and fill the gap, effectively replacing your competitor’s link with your own.

Improve on the best practices

If the competition is fierce, you need to be fiercer. There is no way around it, your content needs to have higher quality content, better storytelling, offer a simpler solution, and of course, take a more in-depth approach to every topic. Using the time-tested skyscraper method, you can offer higher quality content to bloggers and thus boost your brand authority while enhancing the authority of the blogger at the same time.

Complementing stellar content with careful social listening will further allow you to keep tabs on your competition and react effectively to their every move in the future.

In closing

Building backlinks is an essential part of a winning SEO strategy, as every link that leads back to your website has the potential to improve your traffic, conversions, and ranking in the online world. Use these techniques to analyze your competition’s backlink strategies and capitalize on their success.

HotJar heat map example

Make your website work harder (so you don’t have to)

April 12th, 2019 Posted by Eagan Heath Conversion Optimization 0 comments on “Make your website work harder (so you don’t have to)”

Short story: I’m speaking next Tuesday at Tingalls about how to improve your website and you can sign up here.

Longer story: You’ve likely heard me talk about optimizing your website for search so it shows up in the top spots on page 1 of Google where most people click, but what about optimizing for conversions?

Wait, what’s a conversion again?

That’s the action you want your visitors to take on your web page.

It could be:

Completing a form
Purchasing your product
Calling you
Emailing you
Subscribing to your email list

If more of your website visitors took these actions, then you wouldn’t necessarily need to bring a lot more people to your site. You’d be getting more leads and sales with the traffic you already have.

Make sense?

Conversion Optimization, baby!

That improvement process is called Conversion Optimization.

(It’s also sometimes called CRO, as in “Conversion Rate Optimization,” usually when a lot of website traffic is involved.)

The very best and largest companies in the world constantly test tweaks to their web pages to improve their results.

You don’t need to make hourly changes like they might, but you shouldn’t just “set it and forget it” when it comes to your website either.

If you’d like to learn more about this, I’m speaking next Tuesday during lunch at Tingalls Graphic Design on Fish Hatchery Road in Fitchburg as part of their Munch-n-Learn series.

I’ll be covering how to:

identify problem areas of your website using Google Analytics
record actual sessions of your website visitors
create heatmaps to see where people are clicking
use psychology and design to make your website more effective
ask for feedback to improve your website

You can sign up by clicking this link. Hope to see you there!

Tags: Digital Marketing, Web Design, Website Design, Website Marketing

How to Get the Most Out of Your Digital Marketing

March 19th, 2019 Posted by Eagan Heath Digital Marketing 0 comments on “How to Get the Most Out of Your Digital Marketing”

Marketing and advertising tend to follow where people’s attention is going, and as you’ve probably noticed, most people now spend a lot of their time online using various devices, from computers to tablets to smartphones.

And that trend is increasing.

That’s why it’s only going to become more important to reach your prospects by marketing your business on those devices.

Announcing the Digital Marketing Mastery 2.0 Training Course!

Hiring an agency like ours that specializes in digital marketing can admittedly be expensive for small and medium businesses.

At the same time, learning all that you need to know about Google Analytics, SEO, Google Ads, Facebook Ads and making your website effective can seem overwhelming.

That’s why I’ve created an intensive 12-month digital marketing training program called Digital Marketing Mastery 2.0.

You can check out the schedule and syllabus here.

If you’re ready to

learn some of the most valuable skills of the year (and decade)
attract more visitors to your website
bring in more leads and sales
and prove your ROI by measuring your results

then join us for the Digital Marketing Mastery 2.0 training series at DreamBank in Madison.

Sign up now to claim your spot!

Click here to apply for the full course! The final deadline to sign up and pay is March 27 because the first class is on the morning of March 28.

Watch the first class free

We made the first class free, and you can watch the recording of it below. It gives an overview of the principles of digital marketing, how you select channels, and how you measure the results to improve over time.

Ready to bring in more business online?

Then you’re ready to learn how to get visibility for your company when it matters most: when people are searching for what you do, when they recently searched for what you do, and when they’ve left your website without buying from you or contacting you.

Why Take this Course?

Digital Marketing can feel complicated and overwhelming
Yet these are some of the top skills of the present and the future because they help grow businesses
Hiring an agency can be expensive
Knowledge + Experience = Understanding. You’ll immediately get the chance to apply what you learn on your laptop during our workshops.

Is Digital Marketing Mastery 2.0 for Me?

Are you:

A marketer or business owner who wants to do your own online marketing (or at least better understand it)?
Willing to work a few hours per week learning valuable skills and growing your business?
Able to make changes to your website (or have someone else do it?)

What’s Included in the Course?

Monthly Lectures
Monthly Workshops immediately after those lectures
Monthly Online Office Hours
Lifetime Access to Online Video Lessons (over 16 hours of content)
Online Discussion Forum for Questions
Projects to implement what you know
A link from the Get Found Madison website
A LinkedIn recommendation from me if you complete all the work
Bonus videos and online marketing updates

What are the benefits to me and my organization?

Grow your business!
Learn valuable 21st century skills
Save $$$ by doing more in-house
Advance your Career
Tell your boss or clients what’s possible
Prove what you’ve achieved by measuring your results
Meet other smart local marketers and grow your network

What do other people who’ve taken the course say?

“The in-person format was the best part of the learning for me. I am more committed in that scene and I like to learn when it is interactive.

One of my clients is now creating a new web site because of this course and I’ve also become the creative online director for another company.”

-Shawn Smith (Shawn Smith Marketing)

“Whether you are new to digital marketing, wanting to expand your knowledge or simply understand what your digital marketing team does and learn how to improve on it, Eagan’s class will allow you to learn and grow your digital marketing skills. Eagan is an awesome teacher and provides plenty of materials and tools to help you understand the material both inside and outside of the classroom.

Personally, my skills expanded further than I thought they would. Having taken marketing classes in college I knew the fundamentals of marketing but none of the current digital marketing strategies that are essential for companies to be competitive. I highly recommend this course to anyone wanting to learn or strengthen their digital marketing skills to help grow their company’s digital presence.”

-Robin Lawson (Sullivan DesignBUILD)

“You have real-time examples from him [Eagan], his clients, plus feedback from classmates and they always have examples.

There’s always awesome questions that you yourself wouldn’t think to ask. It’s just a great brainstorming environment.”

-Elise Jensen (Powderkeg Web Design)

https://youtu.be/KxAjhB9MJtQ

What does it cost to just hire an agency to do all this for me?

Depending on the scope, $18,000-$60,000 and up per year. Monthly retainers are regularly in the $1,500-$5,000 per month range!

What does it cost to take Digital Marketing Mastery 2.0 in-person?

$250 per month for 12 months ($3,000 total)
$2,500 when you pay up front by March 27

What if I want additional 1:1 consulting outside of class and workshops?

You can enroll in the course and get everything that’s included, plus one hour of 1:1 consulting over video meetings per month for

$500 per month for 12 months ($6,000 total)

So how do I enroll in Digital Marketing Mastery 2.0?

Sign up by clicking this link right now and paying the first invoice by March 27, 2019.

If you want to be put on the list for when we offer the class again or if you want the online version, email [email protected].

Tags: Digital Marketing Training

How to do SEO for your local business: The Local SEO Checklist

January 12th, 2019 Posted by Ben Ratkey Local SEO, SEO 1 comment on “How to do SEO for your local business: The Local SEO Checklist”

Note: Looking for an actionable Local SEO Checklist for 2019? At the end of this post, you can download a PDF that distills all the important points into checklist items. You can also watch our in-depth video below.

“I know I need to work on SEO for my business’s website, but there’s so much to do and learn and I don’t know where to start.”

If that’s something you’ve said (or found yourself thinking), then this blog post is for you!

We want to de-mystify this arcane art of search engine optimization. We’re doing that by giving you a checklist-style guide to the main things you should be concerned about when it comes to SEO for your local business.

First off, here’s the big picture as a series of straightforward bullet points:

The Local SEO Checklist

Find the keywords you want to target and rank for.
Use your keywords for effective onsite optimization.
Update your site to use SSL.
Proactively work on link building.
Get your Google My Business page up to date and ask for Google reviews.
Create, post, and promote unique, high-quality, original content.
Use website analytics to measure your results.
Have a snappy and responsive mobile site that loads quickly.

Now we’ll take a look at each of these items, and explain how you can take practical steps to improve your business’s SEO.

Tags: Local SEO

keyword suggestions and volume from Ubersuggest

Free SEO Tools: How to Rank Higher Without Paying a Dime

November 15th, 2018 Posted by Eagan Heath SEO 0 comments on “Free SEO Tools: How to Rank Higher Without Paying a Dime”

There are now some truly amazing free SEO tools that can get you very close to all the way toward ranking higher for targeted online searches.

Wait.

Is it really possible to fully optimize for Google’s algorithm without paying for expensive SEO tools?

I would say yes. Now it is. And that’s awesome.

How to Optimize Your Existing Website for Search Engines

Once you’ve done your initial pass at optimizing your website for your target keyword phrases, you should monitor and work to improve your rankings over time.

As I often tell our team and our clients, the work of SEO never really ends.

We all need to remain vigilant to continue to reap the rewards of targeted search traffic from customers and clients who are looking online for exactly what we offer.

Here’s the process I follow when I’m optimizing my own pet portrait company’s website for Google search. While I love using fancy paid SEO tools like Ahrefs, SEMRush and Moz Pro, I can get pretty dang far using just the following free SEO tools:

Tags: ecommerce SEO, Free SEO tools, Google Search Console, new Google Search Console, Search Engine Optimization, SEO tools

Come Hear Us Discuss Multi-Channel Marketing at the DreamBank in Madison on Nov 27

November 14th, 2018 Posted by Eagan Heath Digital Marketing, Multichannel Marketing 0 comments on “Come Hear Us Discuss Multi-Channel Marketing at the DreamBank in Madison on Nov 27”

We’re returning to speak at the DreamBank in Madison on Nov 27 on the topic of Multi-Channel Marketing. Can’t wait to see you there!

Click here to register for free.

How Retailers Can Run Better Social Media Ads

November 6th, 2018 Posted by Victoria Greene Digital Marketing, Facebook Ads 0 comments on “How Retailers Can Run Better Social Media Ads”

Social advertising has taken off in a big way. Companies of all sizes are using social ads to get their brand in front of their target customers, generate traffic, and boost sales. Retailers especially can take advantage of the benefits provided by social ads.

But how can you get more from your ads? Here are some strategies to get you started.

Get the Basics Right

First of all, you want to make sure you get all the basics right. What does that mean?

Use compelling images. Visuals will get more attention and will bring your ads to life. Remember, social media is a crowded place. People are looking for content that catches their eye, and there is a lot of it out there. You have to stand out to get noticed.

Also, make sure you take a mobile-first approach. Obviously, it is important how your ads look on the desktop version, but mobile should be the priority. And use enticing language to make sure you attract people to your ads with your copy.

Engage Using Videos

Videos are a great way to help your social ads get more attention, and they can be even more engaging than images.

People love watching videos online, and they are a great way to show off your products and build trust by showing the actual faces behind your company. You could create video testimonials for social proof, interview people in your business, or show your products being used. Definitely experiment with video ads to see if they can get you more clicks and engagement.

Any time you can encourage engagement in the form of likes, shares and comments, you should! Prompt viewers to leave a comment or tag a friend. When Facebook sees strong engagement on an ad, that can drive your cost per click (CPC) down.

Experiment with Audiences

There are many options for targeting audiences on social websites. Facebook especially provides you with lots of options where you can target by age, interests, behaviors, and more.

Targeting based on interests can be especially effective. If you sell a certain type of product, you can target people with similar interests who will be more likely to be interested in your product.

For example, Splendid Beast is a pet painting business that targets their Facebook ads based on people who love dogs, specific dog breeds, and cats. They also create lookalike audiences based on previous purchasers and website visitors, then remarket to people who have already visited the website or interacted with their Facebook page.

You could also target people at certain moments in their lives, such as when they are getting married.

Experiment with these options. Start by targeting your main target market, but try different audiences as well by making tweaks. Once you have run a few ads, you will see what is working for you.

Advertise Promotions

Using promotions is a time-tested strategy to make more sales. But you need people to discover your promotions. When you post an update on your social account that you have a 24-hour discount, you’re just hoping that your customers see it.

That’s why you should use advertising. Create a standard ad just like you normally would, but make the promotion the main focus. Let your targets know that they can get a special discount if they act fast. A great offer will get noticed, so use this technique to break through the noise.

Use the Store Visits Feature

If you have multiple locations, you might be able to use the Store Visits feature in Facebook. This is where you can create different ads with maps and copy that is specific to the store that is located nearest to the target, and it’s a great way to send people to your physical stores.

Keep Things Fresh

Always try to do new things with your ads, and don’t be tempted to run the same ad all the time. If something works, that’s great. But experiment further. Change the images and the copy, otherwise people will quickly get bored if they see the same ad all the time.

Consider having five or 10 types of ads, some showing products, others showing reviews, and others with special roundups and collections. Then change your copy to use different messages so you are not saying the same thing all the time.

Find out what works, then optimize it further and keep on changing what you are doing to keep your targets interested.

Target Existing Customers

One simple technique is to focus your efforts on your existing customers. It’s cheaper and easier to sell to existing customers because they have already shown an interest in your products. Getting new customers, on the other hand, is hard work—and more expensive.

On Facebook, you can do this by using custom audiences. This is where you define the exact audience you want to display your ads to, which could include customers on your email list.

You should also create a lookalike audience based on your customer or email list, so Facebook can use its algorithm to help you find more customers and subscribers. Sometimes you can supercharge this technique by “layering in” interests. For example, Splendid Beast sometimes targets dog lovers who are also lookalikes of previous purchasers.

Use Facebook Collection Ads

Facebook Collection Ads are a great option for retailers. Using these, you can show a main image or video then display product recommendations. They are a great way to advertise a collection of products, especially around a certain time of year like the holidays.

Use Dynamic Ads

Dynamic ads are one of Facebook’s killer advertising techniques, and these are perfect for retailers.

And its efficacy is well-known, even for brands on the lower end of the financial scale. One need only take a look at the ad overheads of high-performing businesses of less than $10k to see that, for many of them, their highest expense is on Facebook social ads. Shop Trucksy alone spends $500 a month on its Facebook ads, but reports $8000 average monthly profits!

You will need to use the Facebook pixel on your website to use dynamic ads. Install it on every page, and this will then analyze the actions of visitors. You can then decide who to show your ads to based on their behavior.

It’s a very powerful tool because you can use it to advertise to people who have looked at specific products on your website or who have visited certain pages. You could then provide the visitor with a special discount on that product and give them a push using your ad.

Experiment with Different Platforms

When you find something that works for you, don’t stop there. If you find that Facebook ads work well, experiment on Twitter or Pinterest. You may find that other platforms are even more effective.

Always experiment with new platforms and types of ads, and constantly improve your results.

Social ads are a fantastic way to find new customers and get repeat sales from existing customers. If you have been using social advertising with unexceptional results, try some of the above techniques. Keep on experimenting and optimizing, and you may find that social ads can be one of your most effective ways to drive sales.

How to track your campaigns correctly using UTM parameters and Google Analytics channel groupings

September 15th, 2018 Posted by Eagan Heath Google Analytics 0 comments on “How to track your campaigns correctly using UTM parameters and Google Analytics channel groupings”

That’s nice that Google Analytics has all this info about our website traffic, but how do we see whether our campaigns are truly effective?

Well, good news, assuming you’ve set up Google Analytics goals to track, you can see if visitors are taking those actions after clicking particular links, whether from emails, Facebook ads, Google Display Ads, or even referral links from other websites.

Check it out in the video below. We also discuss our recommendation around how to handle Paid Social Ads, given the fact that Google Analytics came out before there were social media ads.

Here’s the UTM tracking templates spreadsheet mentioned in the video. Please select File > Download to save your own copy for your use. Use these recommendations in conjunction with a campaign URL builder.

This lesson is an excerpt from our Digital Marketing Mastery course. You can learn more about the course and watch the first class for free here.

Ready to learn more digital marketing for free?

SEO Case Study: #1 National Ranking in less than a year

September 5th, 2018 Posted by Eagan Heath National SEO 0 comments on “SEO Case Study: #1 National Ranking in less than a year”

Check out this SEO Case Study in which we discuss how we ranked Splendid Beast #1 for dog paintings in under a year and with fewer backlinks than the competitors.

One thing we didn’t dwell on in the video was “dwell time,” which is the amount of time users spend on the page or site after they click your link. From looking at the analytics, the dwell time for this page and for the site from this organic landing page has been really good. Google is likely interpreting that as a sign that we’re showing the searcher what they want to see: dog paintings.

Ready to learn more digital marketing tips for free?

Tags: ecommerce SEO

What's possible now with digital marketing?

What’s Possible Now in Digital Marketing? Digital Marketing Mastery Class Kickoff

August 11th, 2018 Posted by Eagan Heath Digital Marketing 1 comment on “What’s Possible Now in Digital Marketing? Digital Marketing Mastery Class Kickoff”

Digital marketing is changing so fast that it’s next to impossible for any marketer or business owner to keep up.

Luckily it all boils down to some basics.

You want:

the right people to see your brand and offerings at the right time
more people contacting you or buying from your website
more people coming to your website
more people coming back to your website
to measure what’s working and what isn’t so you can improve

Our Digital Marketing Mastery Course

To go more in-depth on how to do each of these things, we’re launching a course called Digital Marketing Mastery to show you the latest techniques and tricks to earn more leads and sales online.

We love keeping up with this stuff and teaching others what we learn and what we see working for our business and our clients.

We made the first class in our 6-month course free, and you can catch the re-recording of it below. It’s called, “What’s Possible Now With Digital Marketing.”

Check it out!

Note we’ll have an in-person class (at 555 D’Onofrio, Madison WI) as well as an online-only option if you’re outside town or can’t make our class dates.

What will the course cover and when are the classes?

As you can see from the syllabus and schedule, we’ll be covering the best strategies and tactics to increase business using

Google Analytics
SEO
Google Ads
Website Conversion Optimization
Social Media Marketing (organic and paid).

Most of the in-person classes will be on Wednesdays at 3:30 pm, but we have a few Mondays in there, too.

Who will this class be perfect for?

Marketing Directors
Marketing Team Members
Business owners who handle their own marketing

What problems will this address?

I don’t know where to start
I don’t where to focus
I don’t have a strategy, plan or budget
I can’t keep up with all the changes in online marketing
I get stuck when trying to implement digital strategies and could use step-by-step instruction I can refer back to

What outcomes can I expect?

At least twice as many website leads in the next 12 months.

This assumes you’re ready to invest in the paid online advertising channels we’ll teach you to use. Appropriate budgets will vary based on business and industry, but you should be ready to spend $500-1,000 per month in ads at the very minimum to test the strategies we’ll teach.

What requisites are there?

You should be eager to learn and implement the best strategies and tactics in online marketing.

To get the most benefit, you need to be able to make changes to your website or have someone who can.

We strongly favor WordPress as a website platform and Content Management System, but most of what we discuss can be done on other platforms like Wix, Squarespace, HubSpot, etc.

How much does it cost and when do I need to sign up by?

We have three options:

(EXPIRED) $900 if you pay $150/mo. for 6 months. This covers the 12 in-person classes, Q&A after each, and lifetime online access to the re-recordings in case you miss a class or need to review. Sign-up ends Aug 22 for this option.
(EXPIRED) $750 one-time payment if paid by Aug 15 (saves $150, or one month). Includes everything in Option 1.
$500 for lifetime access to the online videos only, no in-person or Q&A

Ready to learn digital marketing step-by-step?

Great!

Select your option below and we’ll send you an invoice. Once that’s paid, you’ll receive login access to the Digital Marketing Mastery website.

Tags: Marketing Training, Online Marketing

How to Write Guest Posts

How to Write High-Quality Guest Posts

July 17th, 2018 Posted by Ben Ratkey Blogging, Guest Blog 0 comments on “How to Write High-Quality Guest Posts”

We get pitched on guest posts all the time on our site. The pitches are often terrible and so are the submissions. As a result, we’ve drastically reduced the number of guest posts we accept. They often create extra work for us, instead of providing us free value in exchange for great SEO links.

But that’s not how guest posts have to be. They can be a great opportunity that’s mutually beneficial to both the writer and the site owner. If you’re interested in writing a guest post for someone and you want it be awesome, here’s how to do it.

website migration

Website Migration SEO: How To Redesign Your Website Without Losing SEO Traffic

June 9th, 2018 Posted by Ben Ratkey Local SEO, SEO 0 comments on “Website Migration SEO: How To Redesign Your Website Without Losing SEO Traffic”

Don’t neglect search engine optimization in the flurry of excitement around the launch of a redesigned website. Everything on the new site is fresh and up-to-date, and it looks slick as hell – but is that good or bad for your SEO?

It doesn’t have to be bad at all! We’ll explain how to maintain strong SEO and stay in Google’s good favor when you migrate to a newly updated website. It starts with knowing your old site and making sure nothing is lost or forgotten. Then we’ll tell you how to create redirects to avoid errors and confusion. Lastly, we’ll explain how you can make sure Google knows what you’re doing, so that the search engine will be friendly to your new site.

Tags: website migration, website redesign

Use this email template to ask for Google Reviews

May 30th, 2018 Posted by [email protected] Google, Local SEO, Reviews, SEO 2 comments on “Use this email template to ask for Google Reviews”

Reviews on your Google My Business page are almost certainly a ranking factor for Local SEO. And as you may know, once your business gets five reviews (update: nowadays you don’t even need this many), your stars start appearing.

Wisconsin SEO map pack results plumber

Those stars next to your business name help you stand out and make searchers want to click on your listing. Just look at the example above for “plumber verona.” Which of the three would you click if your shower drain was backed up?

Tags: Google My Business, Reviews

Free Talk and Webcast: 6 Steps To Earning More Leads Using Local SEO

May 10th, 2018 Posted by Eagan Heath Speaking 0 comments on “Free Talk and Webcast: 6 Steps To Earning More Leads Using Local SEO”

Looking to learn how to make your business website appear at the top in local online searches? Join us on May 15 in-person at the DreamBank in downtown Madison, WI at noon or tune in remotely via the webcast. See you there!

6 Steps To Earning More Leads Using Local SEO

Tuesday, May 15, 2018 from 12:00-1:00 pm.

You can sign up for the in-person talk here on Eventbrite.

You can sign up for the Webcast here on Eventbrite.

Tags: DreamBank

Why Aren’t You Using Custom Intent Audiences for Display Ads?

May 8th, 2018 Posted by Eagan Heath Google Display Ads 0 comments on “Why Aren’t You Using Custom Intent Audiences for Display Ads?”

What if you could only show your banner ads to people who are in the market for what you sell AND only pay when people click?

Oh wait, you can!

By using Custom Intent Audiences in Google Display Ads, which Google rolled out rather quietly last November.

While everyone focuses on Facebook, this could be your chance to break through to find cheaper clicks, better targeting and positive ROI.

Tags: Ad Targeting, Custom Intent Audiences

Business to Business (B2B) Marketing: Bring Prospects to Your Site

April 27th, 2018 Posted by Eagan Heath B2B Marketing 0 comments on “Business to Business (B2B) Marketing: Bring Prospects to Your Site”

B2B marketing presents challenges for even the savviest online marketers. “My prospective clients aren’t on Facebook, what do I do?” Luckily, there are still options when you’re selling to other businesses.

We describe a few of the most promising paid channels in this video.

Want to know the latest in digital marketing?

Senior Living Marketing: Make Your Website a Lead Generation Machine for New Residents

March 19th, 2018 Posted by Eagan Heath Assisted Living Marketing 0 comments on “Senior Living Marketing: Make Your Website a Lead Generation Machine for New Residents”

Huge thanks to the Wisconsin Assisted Living Association (WALA) for inviting us to speak about senior living marketing at their annual spring conference last week.

Here are the slides we used to discuss conversion optimization, website analytics, Google AdWords, Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Google Display Ads and social media marketing.

Make your website a lead generation machine for new senior living residents from Eagan Heath

Free Assisted Living Digital Marketing Webinars

Want to learn how we helped Milestone Senior Living increase their unit occupancy 11.8% in nine months?

Looking for help implementing these strategies at your organization?

Email [email protected].

Tags: Digital Marketing for Senior Living, Senior Living Marketing