Since I’ve been talking so much lately about the importance of building a real relationship with your target market lately, it keeps coming up “but how”…

In marketing, we refer to different levels of a relationship as Cold (stranger), Warm (connected/”acquaintance”), and Hot (very connected/”good friend”/paying client)…

So the goal of marketing is to take those Cold strangers and Warm them up, which is what lead me to developing what we call the “Evergreen Incubator” (get it?)

It’s a strategic system for Warming Up those cold people in your target market and getting them to Know, Like, and Trust you & have a strong preference to work with you over their other options.

I’ll be teaching this in our marketing workshop next week.

If you don’t have a system for attracting and warming up new people from your target market, you should probably get in on this.

It’s the foresight that leads to future success, “dig your well before your thirsty” / “the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago, the next best time is right now” and all those fun quotes about doing the work today that helps you win tomorrow.

If you want in, apply here – https://tresnicmedia.com/growthsystem/

The post How To Create Repeated Exposure For Your Brand That Doesn’t Annoy People appeared first on Tresnic Media.

Tap through the tweets on this post to read the full threads for in depth answers to the headline questions about how to grow your audience on Twitter

First, here was my quick intro:

What’s more important in marketing—building an audience or hitting sales targets?

How does an engaged audience help propel your marketing activities?

What are some ways to build an audience on Twitter?

How long does it take to build an engaged audience on Twitter?

What are some do’s and don’ts for when you’re trying to build an audience?

How do you measure the success of your audience-building activities?

Share some tips for maintaining an active community on Twitter.

What tools do you use to help build an audience?

The post How To Build Your Audience On Twitter appeared first on Tresnic Media.

This is a simple example of a powerful video you can use for social media. You don’t need to overcomplicate your design or make it crazy fancy. Just provide quality content in an easy way to consume. 

A great way to capture and document your content instead of creating from scratch is to record your zoom meetings, like this one, and then add some simple elements to make it more eye-catching and compelling in the social media feed.

Branded Social Media Video Talking To Camera

This clip we used for a social media video was taken from a live stream video podcast. It has a bit more design than the simple example listed above, but still nothing crazy. 

A nicely designed background with the brand colors, a headline, social profile (@GrowthSuite), captions, and a progress bar.

Branded Social Media Video From An Event

If you speak at events, getting clips from you on stage is not just awesome content to use for social media videos, it’s also proof to demonstrate your authority as a thought leader in your industry.

Audio Turned Into A Branded Social Media Video AKA Audiograms

Don’t have full or quality video, but a great audio clip or soundbite you want to get out there?

This style of social media video is perfect for podcasters or when you just missed that quality visual during your recording for whatever reason.

Use a layout with a textured background, a simple headline, photo, and a Fancy Captions box with highlighted captions to create a visually appealing video from a simple audio clip.

Super Simple Straight To Camera Social Media Video

When it comes down to it, your videos on social media are all about the quality of the content, not the design. If you are going to get hung up on design and tools and workflow – just first focus on putting out quality content. 

Simply record yourself talking to the camera on your phone and post it on social. Each platform is a little different, but with Instagram for example, you can easily have them add your captions and simple text to the screen for you with a couple of taps like I did on this one:

Want To Have Social Media Videos Like This Created For You?

Click here to apply to work with Tresnic Media on your own social media videos so you can reach and impact more people >>

The post Social Media Video Examples To Help You Increase Brand Awareness And Engagement appeared first on Tresnic Media.

Just one of the highlights was going from 35,000 impressions in 2019 on Google Search to 465,000 in 2020 ? (this is without spending any money on ads btw)

You can do the same thing with this simple practice…

How do you go from 35k to 465k people seeing you on Google?

Consistency and Patience…

This is something I’ve been consistently preaching about for a decade (see what I did there?)

Do you want people finding you online? Then you need to be publishing content. Period.

Content is what exists in the digital world, and if you aren’t publishing any, then you don’t exist.

This 2020 vs 2019 Google Search report you’re looking at here is the result of, yes COVID putting way more attention online, but how many businesses did not see 10X+ growth in attention this year? I’m gonna assume most businesses did not see that kind of growth.

So what’s happened here?

The real answer to this spike is that it’s the hockey stick traction that happens after being consistently publishing valuable content on their blog every single week since 2014.

You don’t have to wait 6 years to feel some impact of your work, but 10X year over year growth without any extra effort or major change in strategy?
Consistence and Patience.

Showing up.

Being a valuable resource.

Interested in seeing this kind of growth for your business?

Sign up below to get a free strategy session

The post How To 10X Your Organic Google Search Impressions In One Year? appeared first on Tresnic Media.

And yet, according to HubSpot, only 61% of marketers believe their marketing strategy is actually working while still pouring their resources into it and crossing their fingers.

That’s because they’re not putting their efforts into the right strategies tailored for the right online marketing channels.

For 2020, you should learn which channels are worth marketing to and what strategies for each can turn your brand from a lowly donkey into a fabulous unicorn.

These are the 7 channels you should focus your online marketing on for 2020.

Chatbot Marketing

If there is ever a new channel you should look into, it’s chatbot marketing—which has been taking over in recent years.

Chatbot marketing is replacing email marketing as the primary way of updating and communicating with customers.

According to Venture Harbour in 2018, 85% of online customer interactions will be handled by a chatbot—a prediction that has pretty much come true.

They can then contact your more easily, as well be updated regularly on your new products and services if they choose to opt-in.

Quicker responses can be expected from chat, and even more so with chatbots involved to handle inquiries and content delivery.

Using an online and sms chatbot can add more power to your live chat, thus making your brand even easier to engage and interact with.

Building a Facebook Messenger chatbot using a platform like MobileMonkey takes only a few minutes with no coding experience needed.

You can choose from a list of chatbots to see which one works best for your brand.

Social Media

The juggernaut that is social media still stands tall in 2020, letting businesses both big and small reach out to millions of users worldwide.

Social media marketing is not about advertising and sales, but creating relationships with customers and building communities.

That can then translate to sales by having the focus be about authenticity and customer service.

Of course, the true power of social media lies in being able to engage and interact with your audience, letting them know there are passionate people behind the brand.

If you happen to employ chatbot marketing, integrating it with social media can give you tons of reach.

It also encourages your audience to interact with you through chat and receive updates about your business.

Email Marketing

While it has been around for as long as online marketing has, email marketing is still something worth putting effort into.

Rumors of its death have been greatly exaggerated and talked about year after year, yet it still persists as more people than ever use email.

There were over 3.9 billion email users all over the world in 2019, according to a recent study by Statista.

People subscribe to their favorite online publications and businesses all the time, and that trend is not stopping anytime soon.

It takes an average of 6 to 8 touch points to generate a qualified sales lead, which can then turn into a conversion.

Successful email marketing is all about building an engaged and loyal subscriber base who get value from the content of your newsletter.

Pay-Per-Click Marketing

According to Moz, traffic from PPC ads result in 50% more conversions than organic advertising.

That’s because 97% of consumers use the internet to search for local businesses, according to BrightLocal.

Pay-per-click ads, or PPC, is still an institution in online marketing for one very good reason—it still works.

Perhaps not as good as it used to be back in the olden days (not to mention more expensive than ever), but it can still make a difference for your business.

In 2020, there are two dominant forces in PPC—Google Ads and Facebook/Instagram Ads.

Google search ads help you get to users who are searching for products and services similar to what your business offers.

Google display ads and Facebook paid social ads help introduce your products and services to users and create demand.

Content Marketing and SEO

Even in the age of social media, having a website for your business is still a game-changer, but only if you use it to its full potential.

One way to tap that is to prioritize content marketing, delivering your audience with your own original content.

Having a good mix of evergreen content and trending content can maintain your audience’s interest.

According to 99Firms in 2019, content marketing costs 62% less than traditional marketing, yet it generates thrice as many leads.

That content can then be made more powerful with the proper application of search engine optimization, or SEO.

According to HubSpot, over 64% of online marketers invest in SEO, and so should you.

SEO also does wonders for your ecommerce, making your product pages rank in search results.

The more your product pages show up in search results, the more new customers you can bring in.

Podcasts

This may seem like it’s coming from left field, but demand for audio content has exploded over the last decade.

They’re not something you start with, but it can be amazing once you have a significant audience who like your content.

However, just posting podcast episodes alone may not be enough to attract people who would listen.

A good way to promote your podcast is to make it more digestible by taking the best parts of an episode and make video highlights out of them.

Those video highlights can then be posted on your social media, thus showing how interesting your podcast is.

Your podcast can be a tremendous source of content, especially once it starts getting a listenership.

It can be a place where you can invite influencers as guests to learn more about them and to endear your business to their audiences.

The conversational format lets your business tell its story in a naturally human manner, making you and your brand more relatable to other people.

Word of Mouth (and Influencer Marketing)

Finally, there’s the old-school marketing method of spreading your brand through word of mouth.

While it does seem ancient, it’s still one of the most effective marketing channels, even in online marketing.

It’s something that has to work organically; else it won’t pick up any steam as people don’t think of it as believable.

Applying it in 2020 can work in two ways—either through referral/affiliate programs or asking customers directly.

A referral or affiliate marketing program can give people incentives to spread the word about your brand by giving them discounts or credits in return.

Referrals are the greatest source of ecommerce conversion, according to a recent study by Growcode.

That also allows you to leverage influencer marketing, wherein a prominent figure in your niche can help you market your brand.

They can also ask their audience to use affiliate links or coupon codes to both purchase your products and give them a boost at the same time.

You can also ask your customers directly to boost your brand by leaving reviews on your products and services.

This method is best done if you already built personal relationships with your customers, which can be done through the aforementioned chat and social media channels.

You can then showcase those reviews and entice more people to become patrons of your brand as well.

Not only does that build trust, but it can also throw in a bit of FOMO (fear of missing out) as well by focusing on how good your customers are having it.

Conclusion

Online marketing in 2020 is all about one thing, which is tapping into newer channels while also finding new ways to maximize older channels.

They all work, but it’s all about knowing how to use them to communicate the message and tell the story of your brand.

The great thing about online marketing is how small businesses can leverage it with little to no cost.

It’s omnichannel selling—using all available online marketing channels where the audience of your niche resides.

Your brand’s online marketing efforts will surely bear fruit with the right knowledge, lots of testing, and a good bit of patience.

About the Author

Larry Kim is the CEO of MobileMonkey, the World’s Best Integrated Web Chat, SMS & Facebook Messenger Bot Platform for Marketing and Customer Service. He’s also the founder of WordStream, Inc., the leading provider of Google Ads, Facebook Ads and keyword tools used by over a million marketers worldwide. The company employs over three hundred people and manages billions of dollars of ad spend on behalf of tens of thousands of customers. WordStream was acquired by Gannett for $150 million. Larry is ranked the #8 most popular author on Medium. He’s a contributor to CNBC and Inc. Magazine. Key interests include: Chatbot Marketing, Google Ads, Facebook Ads, entrepreneurship and startups. He received Marketer of the Year awards from Search Engine Land, US Search Awards, and PPC Hero.

The post What Online Marketing Channels Should You Utilize in 2020? appeared first on Tresnic Media.

Information for your customers and what they can expect from your products/services during this time? Are you open or closed? Will your service continue? When are you open? How can they get in touch with you? Things like that.

Insights relevant to your expertise: if you are an insurance broker, what should your customers know ABOUT INSURANCE right now? Check out Ryan Hanley from Rogue Risk as a great example of this. 

Marketing agency? What should they know about their MARKETING?

Plumber? Plumbing. etc etc. 

What NOT to communicate:

Unless you are a news organization, don’t try or feel obligated to share news that isn’t relevant to your expertise. There is plenty of information about the crisis from credible news sources and people know where to get it (and are being bombarded with it everywhere already)…

Which leads me to WHERE to communicate…

Right now, push communication is all white noise and your messages will most likely be missed, overlooked, or ignored on first attempt. 

Yes, it’s important to send out an email about your business status and post about it on social media. But make sure you have a clear message across your website. 

Don’t just add to the white noise of constant emails about a crisis 

The most important thing for you is that when customers seek out your status they can easily find it. I recommend a full width notification bar across the top of your website with a headline and button to a page with information. 

How Should You Communicate In A Crisis?

Be a leader and a source of positivity. 

There is enough chaos and unease right now that people want and need a strong voice shining light that pushes out the darkness.

There’s enough news content and info that scares people right now, let us be the voices that help bring joy and leadership. 

Communicate from a perspective of optimism and gratitude. 

Like the MLK quote that only light can drive out darkness.

Let’s be that source of light.

The post What, Where, and How Your Business Should Communicate In A Crisis appeared first on Tresnic Media.

Content is king. You’ve heard it a million times before, but creating interactive content is no walk in the park. Whether it’s Facebook strategies, content marketing, or even white papers, user interaction is essential. 

Even the best-planned social media marketing plans can prove worthless if your customers don’t engage, and with so many factors to consider, it is hard to tick all the boxes. 

There has even been some kick back against ticking too many boxes. Reaching the dizzy heights of Google’s featured snippet can work so well that it can actually lower your click rate. 

In this article, we’ll look at different techniques that draw in your users, and how to use that to improve your business.

Explore different interactive content types

We’ve all been there. Banging your head against a wall, wondering why your hard work on countless campaigns fails to gain traction. 

Online content is an ever-changing arena, which gives you a wealth of avenues to explore. While interactive videos have long been the king of the crop, there is a lot more on offer these days. 

The most shared interactive content 2016-2017. BuzzSumo. 

A great example is women.com – they even have a quiz section on their navigation bar. Their use of quizzes has been stunning, even brushing the mighty Buzzfeed aside. According to a study by BuzzSumo, women.com shared 1,402 quizzes In the space of just a year. That’s almost four a day. 

How to hook your users with interactive content

One key factor is sheer volume and consistency. They are easy and cheap to make, and if you use the right quiz tool, you can provide a winning user experience in no time. 

But what really sets the best content apart is the psychological element; it should be personalized and provoke an emotion. For example, an interactive car designer allows you to dream, a “test your trivia” quiz lays down a challenge, and a calculator showing how long it takes Jeff Bezos to earn your salary simply blows your mind. 

Going back to the staggering 1,402 quizzes per year by women.com, something you might notice (after finishing reading this article, of course) is that they are remarkably easy on the brain. You can excuse yourself for feeling proud when you pass with flying colors – that’s the whole point of the quiz. 

Whether it’s a quiz, a calculator, a Facebook poll, or an interactive infographic, your content must serve a psychological purpose. Luckily, every business has it’s emotional pull, and finding that is key to creating the right type of content. 

Universities offer the promise of knowledge and a higher salary, sports companies inspire, travel blogs give users an injection of wanderlust. Identify what makes your users tick, and you’ve already taken a huge step forward.

Quizzes that provide a challenge boost user interaction Typeform.

The UX revolution

UX has turned the digital marketing world on its head in recent years, and the standards are high. Never is this more important than when creating interactive content. Today’s world of online marketing is so vast that it’s hard to be heard above the void of noise. 

User experience can provide a massive boost to your conversion. Yes, it is a bottomless pit of complex, time-consuming adjustments, but it is worth the effort. For example, a 2009 UX renovation by Dutch airline KLM studied user eye movement on a screen. They implemented this information into their web page design, and hey presto, there was a 30% jump in conversions.

Over 10 years later, one of the major focuses is on webpage loading time. Nowadays, around 75% of online shoppers would no longer buy from a site if the page loaded too slow, or crashed. There are a vast array of ways to improve your site speed, but one easily applicable way is to convert images to .WebP format. These low-weight images can make a big difference and only require a simple online tool.

Intelligent design

Of course, the design of your interactive tools should be a top priority too, especially images. There are plenty of websites that gather the latest trends in graphic design, cutting a lot of the guesswork out of your creative process.

By optimizing your tools, you can capture user attention and allow your content marketing plan to take hold. With a bit of research and investment, site optimization can make a world of difference.

If you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it

Once you’re happy with your interactive content plan, you need to make sure it works.

There is an ocean of statistics available for companies to check how their campaigns are performing. From email open rates and bounce rates to time on page and completion rates, you can track all aspects of your campaigns.

The next step is to try different ideas with some simple A/B testing. This will help to identify red flags and start to push you in the right direction.

To sum up

To make content marketing king, it needs an army of market research behind it. 

From a psychological point of view, you need to know what makes your users tick and how to craft your work around that. User experience, albeit not directly content, is the gateway to your content, and you need to make those gates as easy to open as possible.

In conclusion, like many things in life, it is better to work smart than hard. So take all the inspiration you can, and inject it into your own business.

The post Why No One is Interacting With Your Content (And How to Improve it) appeared first on Tresnic Media.

For many, that last sentence will feel overwhelming and daunting. Maybe your palms are getting sweaty even as you’re reading. However, there’s an easy way to approach this focus and bring clarity to your strategy.
Combining efforts and campaigns among platforms will solidify your branding, save you time and energy, and create more interest in what your company has to say.

Think about your experiences with brands that have great marketing strategy across channels. It’s very likely that for a single campaign, you saw the same message on several of the following platforms:

• Email
• Facebook
• Twitter
• Website
• Retargeting ads

A strategy that takes the efforts you put into your campaigns and creates a consistent experience across all platforms not only makes your message stick more, but it saves you time and effort as you consolidate your materials and messaging.

So just how do you combine email marketing and social media? There are plenty of ways to not only combine efforts, but to drive results from one into the next. Check out the infographic below to see some of the value of email and social, along with ideas on how to combine your efforts to drive more traffic, build strong brand relationships, and boost your ROI.

Source: How to Combine Email Marketing and Social Media by Campaign Monitor

The post How to Combine Email Marketing and Social Media appeared first on Tresnic Media.

It’s not something to rule out when looking for immediate results. But if you want to see long term, sustainable success, then you need to think big picture and lay down a true strategy. Because once that tactic is done working, it’s back to the drawing board.

Tactics add fuel to your fire, but without a foundational strategy, your success will burn out quickly.

Step 1: The Fundamental Foundation

You gotta know your customers.

What are their pains?

Desires?

What conversations are they having with friends and colleagues?

What questions are they asking, what help are they looking for?

That’s how you build a connection with them. By joining the conversation that they’re already having, and answering the questions and problems that they have in front of them.

Then you need Message-Market Match. And for the sake of brevity, I’ll tie that to offer-market match.

You need to position your messaging and offers so that they resonate with your target audience, get them interested, and get them taking action.

Without that message-market match, you can’t get anywhere.

Step 2: Building your system

Growth marketing is about understanding that you can’t propose to a stranger in a bar and expect them to say yes.

And if there is someone doing that out there, they probably have a pretty low conversion rate.

You need to understand that to turn strangers into customers, it’s going to happen over a series of steps and sequences. And you need to control that sequence strategically, as best you can.

Have you seen the movie Training Day with Denzel Washington? This is chess, it ain’t checkers.

You have to understand where your customer is in their journey and where they are in your sales funnel and match your message with them. Have empathy for their situation.

• Do they even know that they have a problem yet?
• Do they know what solution they need?
• Have they met your brand yet, do you have any equity in that relationship?
• All of these things play a factor in what kind of message you put in front of that person at that time, and what their next step should be.

By mapping every step, you can set up your audience’s mindset to want to become your customer when the time is right for them to buy what you have, instead of you having to “sell” them on anything.

And within that system you need to aim high.

Let me explain… Did you know that only 3% of any given market is ready to buy right now? So if you are only going after the immediate sale, you’re losing 97% of your audience right off the bat.

So aim high in the sales funnel, at the beginning of their customer journey, and build a relationship with people.

Then when it comes time for them to need what you have to offer, you’re already going to be the brand that they want to do business with. They’re not searching Google for the product anymore, they’re searching Google for your name. Or better yet going directly to your website or product.

And that’s how you win in the big picture.

Step 3: Get to work

Now that you have your plan in place, we can get into tactics and getting shit done.

We like to say that activity equals visibility equals opportunity. And that success loves speed.

You can’t worry about being perfect right out of the gate. Get your car on the track and course correct along the way.

In today’s world, you need to be putting yourself out there.

That means creating content on your blog, social media channels, email, or wherever your audience is consuming information…creating digital assets that will get found by your customers during their normal routines. And creating your content in a way that your audience becomes interested and engaged enough to stay connected to you and learn more.

That content is also what will fuel word of mouth about your business.

People are sharing digital content all day long.

Whether it’s social media, email, text messages, DMs…but if you’re not giving them content to share, then don’t expect to see referrals and word of mouth help your business grow very far.

Practical Steps:

A practical tip for you to take home that every one of you can do right now is to make a list of every question that you’ve ever been asked about your business and the problems that your business helps people solve, and think about it from a customer perspective. This isn’t to talk about yourself, it’s to help them.

Then take that list, and start answering those questions one at a time on your blog, in a YouTube video, or on a social media channel.

That will help you build some momentum as a content creator and get you initial traction with your audience.

Change The Rules

Last thing I’m gonna leave you with…

Have you ever seen a little kid playing a game and start losing? What happens next?

When they’re losing, they just say “I’m gonna do ‘this’ even though it’s against the rules.” But it allows them to win because in their mind they aren’t going to lose. They’re gonna change the game so they can win.

Growth marketing is about results. Turning strangers into customers with a sequential system. But there are no rules on how you can get to those results (as long as you stay within the laws and general ethics of society of course).

So think about what arbitrary rules you can change to win more in your business?

How can you stack the deck in your favor so your competition doesn’t stand a chance?

Now go get to work and build your system and stack the deck in your favor.

The post 3 Growth Marketing Tips For Startups appeared first on Tresnic Media.

Yaoqi LAI

By combining your public relations efforts with social media, you have the unique opportunity of spreading your message much further than you could by focusing on one method and not the other.

What makes it unique is the direct contact you have with the audience – no intermediaries, no press, nobody to dictate the rules but you.

Using social media to amplify your marketing message is only one aspect of this great set of marketing tools.

Social media platforms also provide experienced PR firms with a unique opportunity that wasn’t readily available before.

What’s the opportunity that we’re talking about? It’s the ability to listen to your customers in real time.

By simply listening to what your social media followers have to tell you, PR specialists can learn about their audience. They can find out what moves them, entices them, and what keeps them awake at night.

This information is invaluable to PR teams all across the world.

And when you use it correctly, you’ll know the exact stories to place because your audience will tell you.

Telling the Right Stories Is Crucial in the PR Game

As far as content is concerned, public relations experts are in a unique position of being on the forefront of the narrative being shared online. They are creating stories and sharing content that the world will respond to in one way or another.

So, it’s imperative for PR firms to tell the right stories. And they have to hit all the right notes in order to achieve a lasting impact.

What are the right types of stories to tell?

Again, this all comes down to your social media audience. They dictate the direction of your content whether you like it or not.

If there’s a specific news story in the public eye that your audience is responding to, you should certainly begin telling stories about that topic.

For example, if your client is Plumfund, who is well-known for their hearty crowdfunding campaigns and one of the campaigns manages to help a family go on a travel around the world. Or a small community gets a new park they’ve been fighting for for years.

This news will probably go itself into the ether, but you need to jump on that positive bandwagon and push the story further.

And if you place a story that no one responds to, it’s time to readjust your strategy and begin listening to your social media contacts and really hear what they have to say.

Use Social Media to Boost Media Relations Efforts

The easiest way to improve your chances of receiving general media coverage is to begin interacting with the media community at large.

Ultimately, you should start using social media – especially Twitter – to interact with reporters, bloggers, and journalists.

Since these people are the biggest influencers, it makes sense to interact with them and help them as often as possible. By doing so, you increase your PR firm’s chances of being on a major influencer’s radar when the time comes to return the favor.

Using social media to track influencers is also another powerful way to improve your general coverage.

Social media sites make it easier than ever to follow important influencers in your industry.

By looking at their content, and seeing what stories they are developing, you can use this information to your advantage to pitch helpful and relevant story ideas that could generate additional coverage for you or your clients.

Use Social Media Monitoring for Reputation Management and Crisis Communication

If you’re going to make it in the PR game, you have to start using social media monitoring at a professional level.

Monitoring conversations taking place on social media sites like Facebook and Twitter make it possible to engage with your customers and respond when appropriate.

However, the greatest opportunity presented by social media monitoring is the ability to step in during a crisis situation.

If your company or client is under attack and being portrayed in a negative light, you can respond by telling your side of the story with transparency and honesty.

This will keep the public informed of your position and help put out any fires before they grow too far out of control.

Author Bio

Wendy Dessler

Wendy is a super-connector with OutreachMama who helps businesses find their audience online through outreach, partnerships, and networking. She frequently writes about the latest advancements in digital marketing and focuses her efforts on developing customized blogger outreach plans depending on the industry and competition.

The post How to Use Social Media Marketing to Boost PR Results appeared first on Tresnic Media.