A Step-By-Step Roadmap To Success

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Digital Consulting a first step to digital success
Digital consulting helps your chart your course to success

Digital Consulting ​​

Staging your success

Inbound marketing is a technique that draws the right people to your products and services
This Image depicts Inbound Marketing the best return on your investment

Inbound marketing

Offers the best return on your investment

Inbound marketing finds you the people for your product
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Marketing Research Process

Essential for positioning your company in the marketplace

image depictions of Strategy sets the overall frame work for your marketing endeavour

Strategy​​

Define your strategy; you'll define your success

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Pay Per Click advertising

Jump start your business with pay-per-click advertising

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Social Media Engagement

A treasure trove for your businesses.

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SEO

Build site authority with Google, Yahoo, Bing, search engines. Allow the right people to find you online

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Content Marketing Strategy

The right content attracts the right people

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Design

Make indelible impressions at a glance. Direct visitors intuitively to the next experience.

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Design

The key to any great experience is simplicity. Web design is no different.

Rise to the top

Increase Sales

Increasing sales is a mission all businesses have. This mission begins by understanding your audience well and solving their problems with your goods or services and eliminating anything that slows that goal. Let’s do that for you.

count on us

The ROI Experts

Get a handle on your bottom line. We’ll find the value you offer and a healthy return on it. Annually, thirds, halves, quarters, however you slice it, we’ll discover ways to increase your return through best practices.

The Winning Strategy

Best Practices

The best practice is to deliver the best service your audience could imagine and go beyond. At Ep, this is our core belief. If we all start there, brand awareness increases internally and externally, public relations is smooth, social acknowledgment grows, and a fan base develops around your company, your marketing cost decreases.

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We Have Great Answers

FAQs

Digital consulting is a specialized form of consulting that focuses on helping businesses navigate and leverage digital technologies to achieve their goals and improve their overall performance.

Inbound marketing is an approach to marketing that focuses on attracting and engaging potential customers through the creation and distribution of valuable content

Market analysis is the process of evaluating and examining various aspects of a market to gain insights and make informed business decisions.

Mike Kappel, CEO of patriotsoftware.com

A digital marketing strategy refers to a plan of action that outlines how an organization or business intends to use various digital channels and platforms to achieve its marketing objectives and goals.

SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, is a practice that focuses on optimizing websites to improve their visibility and ranking on search engine result pages (SERPs).

Content marketing refers to a strategic marketing approach that focuses on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and engage a target audience.

Web design refers to the process of creating and designing the visual appearance and layout of websites. It involves the use of various elements such as colors, typography, images, graphics, and interactive features to create an aesthetically pleasing and user-friendly website.

Graphic design is a creative field that involves the process of visual communication and problem-solving through the use of typography, imagery, color, and layout.

Pay-Per-Click (PPC) is an online advertising model in which advertisers pay a fee each time their ad is clicked. It is a way of driving traffic to websites, where advertisers only pay for the actual clicks on their ads rather than paying for the ad placement itself.

Social media marketing refers to the use of social media platforms and strategies to promote a product, service, brand, or organization. It involves creating and sharing content on social media networks to engage and connect with the target audience, increase brand visibility, drive website traffic, and ultimately achieve marketing goals.

Digital Consulting

What Is Digital Consulting?

Digital consulting is a specialized form of consulting that focuses on helping businesses navigate and leverage digital technologies to achieve their goals and improve their overall performance.

How Digital Consulting Help Organization

Digital consulting involves providing expert advice, strategic guidance, and implementation support to organizations looking to enhance their digital presence, optimize their processes, and capitalize on emerging opportunities in the digital landscape.

Digital consultants typically possess a deep understanding of various digital technologies, trends, and best practices. They work closely with clients to assess their current digital capabilities, identify areas for improvement, and develop tailored strategies and solutions to address specific challenges or objectives. Their recommendations may encompass a wide range of areas, including digital marketing, e-commerce, data analytics, user experience design, cloud computing, cybersecurity, and more.

The scope of digital consulting can vary depending on the specific needs of the client. Some engagements may involve high-level digital transformation initiatives, where consultants help organizations reimagine their business models and operations in the digital age. Others may focus on more targeted projects, such as developing a social media strategy, implementing an e-commerce platform, or optimizing a website for better user engagement.

Digital consulting can be provided by independent consultants or consulting firms specializing in digital transformation. It requires a combination of technical expertise, industry knowledge, and strategic thinking to help businesses leverage digital technologies effectively and stay competitive in today’s rapidly evolving digital landscape.

 

What To Expect

Your journey is unique and vital to us. Even top athletes need coaches. You are in the game. The coach’s advantage is he or she sees the overall play. Similarly, we act as an advisor or coach. With our experience, we examine your whole game plan for success.

To best serve you, we’ll need to get to know you better. Your company’s goal and history is the first step. You will appreciate for us this is a listening and discovery session. To best prepare, here are some general questions. See the link below for a more detailed list

Direction

Pointing the way to success can only prove fruitful if the path is understood. Our mission is to help, and also clarify steps to your destination. We will present the reasons for any suggestion in the form of the latest guidance, stats, case studies and depending on your learning preferences.

Consideration

Your previous, present and future content are crucial. It’s your voice; it’s your brand, its how you speak to your audience. Being that the internet is a search instrument where tens, hundreds and potentially thousands are searching for your content, your availability is critical.

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Inbound Marketing

What Is Inbound Marketing?

Inbound marketing is an approach to marketing that focuses on attracting and engaging potential customers through the creation and distribution of valuable content. It is a customer-centric methodology that aims to pull in prospects and build trust, rather than pushing promotional messages outwardly.

Inbound Methodology

The core philosophy of inbound marketing is to provide helpful and relevant information to potential customers, addressing their needs, concerns, and challenges. By offering valuable content such as blog posts, videos, ebooks, podcasts, and social media updates, businesses aim to attract individuals who are actively seeking information or solutions related to their products or services.

Inbound marketing typically involves the following key elements:
    1. Content Creation: Producing high-quality, informative, and engaging content that aligns with the interests and needs of the target audience. This content is intended to attract potential customers to the company’s website or other digital platforms.

    2. Search Engine Optimization (SEO): Optimizing content and website structure to improve organic visibility in search engine results. This involves using relevant keywords, creating meta tags, and ensuring the website’s technical aspects are search engine-friendly.

    3. Social Media Marketing: Leveraging social media platforms to distribute content, engage with followers, and build an online community. By sharing valuable content and participating in conversations, businesses can attract and nurture relationships with potential customers.

    4. Email Marketing: Building an email list and using it to communicate regularly with subscribers. Email marketing allows businesses to deliver targeted content, promotions, and personalized messages directly to interested individuals.

    5. Landing Pages and Lead Capture: Creating landing pages that offer valuable content or resources in exchange for visitors’ contact information. This helps convert website visitors into leads, allowing for further engagement and nurturing.

    6. Marketing Automation:Utilizing marketing automation software to streamline and automate various marketing tasks, such as lead nurturing, email campaigns, and personalized content delivery. This enables businesses to scale their inbound marketing efforts efficiently.

    7. Analytics and Data Analysis: Tracking and analyzing key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure the effectiveness of inbound marketing campaigns. This data-driven approach helps businesses understand their audience, refine their strategies, and optimize their marketing efforts.

In summary, inbound marketing focuses on attracting, engaging, and delighting potential customers through the creation and distribution of valuable content. By providing relevant information and building relationships, businesses aim to convert leads into loyal customers.

Inbound Creates Momentum

HubSpot, a champion in this methodology, uses a flywheel to explain.

 

Marketing, Sales, Service Friction

It should go without saying, marketing, sales, and services should act as one organization. Still, there are endless complaints about customers feeling lost in a perpetual maddening shuffle between departments; this is friction.

Keep Your Departments running smoothly

Marketing has the responsibility of attracting by blogging and content creatives, attracting leads. Sales teams add momentum through social selling, while customer service concentrates on referrals from present customers and making sure they are happy. 

Communication must be seamless. To make this possible and smooth, prevent valuable leads and customers’ from frustrating experiences, we solve this using HubSpot software.

At its core, HubSpot offers a free customer relations system (CRM) and tons of support, insight and training. It’s paid software catapults any organization into marketing heaven. I have never seen any company like it; it’s an inbound model company; its inbound marketing success is unmatched.

A Strategy To Attract The Right People

Inbound is developed around buyers personas. Creating content creation strategies that offer real value, publishing articles, content offers, videos, user-guides, ebooks and engaging with social media. This process has a proven track record of success. Solving your visitors’ pain points show a deep understanding of their needs and wants.

You have heard it said in business, “Location Location Location.” Combining SEO strategies in your content delivery program boosts your campaigns by finding you the right people, people looking for your services.

 SEO puts your company on Google Search Engine Results Pages (SERP). It produces website authority needed for Google to rank your site and recommend your organization to its searchers.

Customer Satisfaction
( Delight )

Here is a wise and honoured saying that has faced the test of time “All things, therefore, that you want men (or women) to do to you, you also must do to them.” That saying is ever faithful when it comes to delighting customers. 

Marketing, sales and service play a huge role here. Members belonging to this fraternity must be trained advisors to assist customers at any point in their relationship with your company.

In many cases, automation helps alleviate some of the work involved in returning thank you messages when someone makes a purchase or even fills out a survey. This type of automation, when personalized, makes your customers feel appreciated.

Chatbots are becoming more excepted. Exercise caution here! While I’ve had some good experiences, improperly programmed bots have caused me grief. Programmed correctly, it’s no doubt the future.

Keep abreast of social media, especially the channels you use. It plays a crucial role in modern marketing. A timely response to queries can prove fruitful.

Customers use your profile to ask questions, express their opinions, and review your products and services. Responding quickly and appropriately shows you care.

Inbound Marketing
( Summary )

Marketing Research​​ Process

What is Market Analysis?

Market analysis is the process of evaluating and examining various aspects of a market to gain insights and make informed business decisions.  

Market Analysis

Market analysis involves gathering and interpreting data and information about a particular market segment, industry, or overall market to understand its dynamics, trends, opportunities, and challenges. The purpose of market analysis is to assess the viability and potential profitability of a product, service, or business venture within a specific market.

Market analysis typically involves the following key components:
  1. Market Size: Determining the total size of the market, including the number of potential customers or target audience and the overall demand for the product or service.

  2. Market Segmentation: Dividing the market into distinct segments based on various criteria such as demographics, psychographics, geographic location, or behavior. This helps in identifying specific target markets and understanding their unique characteristics and needs.

  3. Market Trends: Identifying and analyzing the prevailing trends, patterns, and changes in the market. This includes examining consumer preferences, technological advancements, economic factors, regulatory changes, and competitive activities.

  4. Competitive Analysis: Assessing the competitive landscape by analyzing the strengths, weaknesses, strategies, and market share of existing competitors. This helps in understanding the market positioning and identifying opportunities to differentiate and gain a competitive advantage.

  5. Customer Analysis: Understanding the characteristics, preferences, and behavior of the target customers. This involves examining factors such as their needs, buying behavior, purchasing power, and decision-making processes.

  6. SWOT Analysis: Conducting a comprehensive evaluation of the market’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. This helps in identifying internal and external factors that may impact the business and developing effective strategies.

  7. Market Potential and Forecasting: Estimating the future growth potential and market opportunities based on the current market conditions and trends. This includes forecasting market demand, sales projections, and identifying emerging market segments.

Market analysis provides valuable insights that assist businesses in making informed decisions related to product development, pricing strategies, marketing campaigns, distribution channels, and overall business expansion plans. It helps in minimizing risks, capitalizing on opportunities, and aligning the business with the needs and expectations of the target market.

Recap

Market research helps your organization identify where you are among your competitors and how to position yourself in the market.

You can now look for areas your competitors may be neglecting. On further examination, these areas may turn out to be your niche market.

With market research available, this helps all involved, marketers, writers, content creators, search engine optimizers (SEO), web designers, UX designers, web developers.

This information gives you what you need to formulate a strategic advantage over your competition.

Other benefits

There are other benefits as well; consider a few.

A global look at your industry

We’ve all heard the story about Blockbuster and Netflix. Research helps you to see where your industry is heading; something Blockbuster failed to do. It allows you to take advantage of trends, and see whether or not a particular direction is worth your time and investment; you can anticipate changes in your marketplace. Market analysis shows stakeholders that you have an excellent understanding of your organization and industry.

Target audience

Once again, you can determine who your target customers are. These are folks who are the most likely candidate to be your customers. You would want to know their:

With this information, you can build personas. Of course, you’ll add your present customers to the mix. They would be a more reliable source in persona building.

Your competition

You want to take your competitors seriously. You can learn much from them.

What do they do better than you?

Where are they located, are their customers happy with them, and why?

What are their offers?

Prices?

Be meticulous; make a list of all your competitors using a spreadsheet. SWOT Analysis is a good idea.

There is much to business analysis. It would be hard to cover it all. We’ll stick to what’s relevant to marketing, sales and service and any overlapping factors.

We are professional freelancers specializing in market analysis.

Contact us, find out more

Marketing Strategy

What Is A Strategy?

A strategy is a process taken to accomplish an end goal.

What Is A Digital Marketing strategy?

A digital marketing strategy refers to a plan of action that outlines how an organization or business intends to use various digital channels and platforms to achieve its marketing objectives and goals.

A Digital Marketing Strategy

A digital marketing strategy involves leveraging online technologies, tools, and tactics to effectively reach and engage with a target audience, build brand awareness, drive website traffic, generate leads, and ultimately convert those leads into customers.

A comprehensive digital marketing strategy typically incorporates a mix of different elements, such as:
  1. Market research and audience analysis: Understanding the target market, their demographics, behaviors, and preferences to create more targeted and relevant marketing campaigns.
  2. Website optimization and search engine optimization (SEO): Enhancing the website’s structure, content, and technical aspects to improve its visibility in search engine results and attract organic traffic.
  3. Content marketing: Creating and distributing valuable and engaging content, such as blog posts, articles, videos, infographics, and social media posts, to attract, educate, and engage the target audience.
  4. Social media marketing: Utilizing social media platforms, such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, or YouTube, to connect with the target audience, build brand awareness, and foster customer relationships.
  5. Email marketing: Implementing targeted email campaigns to nurture leads, promote products or services, deliver personalized content, and maintain ongoing communication with customers.
  6. Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising: Running targeted advertising campaigns on search engines (e.g., Google Ads) or social media platforms to drive traffic to the website and generate leads.
  7. Influencer marketing: Collaborating with influencers or individuals with significant online followings to promote products or services and leverage their credibility and reach.
  8. Data analysis and measurement: Tracking and analyzing key performance indicators (KPIs) to evaluate the effectiveness of marketing campaigns, identify areas for improvement, and optimize future strategies.
  9. Mobile marketing: Optimizing marketing efforts for mobile devices, including mobile-responsive websites, mobile apps, and location-based targeting.
  10. Marketing automation: Utilizing software and tools to automate repetitive marketing tasks, streamline processes, and deliver personalized experiences to customers.

A successful digital marketing strategy should be aligned with the organization’s overall marketing objectives, consider the target audience’s preferences and behaviors, and leverage the strengths of various digital channels to maximize reach, engagement, and conversions.

The Digital Vehicles

Building A Digital Marketing Strategy

Create personas

Using actual data from your present customers, armed with a market analysis of potential customers, leads and new website visitors or anyone beneficial to your strategy. You build a profile of persons at each step of the buyer’s journey. You will be creating several. Only then can you address how you can solve for them.

Identify Your Goals And Channels You will Use

Your goal might look like this: To get a 20% increase in sales, I will need 500 visitors to my site each month for three months using Facebook, AdWord, Instagram, using gated offers to generate 50 leads a month and 15 sales each month.

Take Stock Of Assets You Already Own

You may want to examine the content you’ve used in the past that have been successful in previous campaigns. Make an examination of which channels were successful and those that weren’t.

Create Content That You Own

Creating content your company owns is an objective. They are assets. Certain types of content never become dated and or may remain fresh for long periods. Once designed and tested, these creations continue to deliver, long after the campaign is over. The market analysis will set a clear mandate on the type of content you will create to attract your audience.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

What is SEO or Search Engine Optimization?

SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, is the practice of optimizing websites to improve their visibility and rankings in search engine results pages (SERPs).

The Goals Of Search Optimization

It’s about understanding what people are searching for online, the answers they are seeking, the words they’re using, and the type of content they wish to consume. Knowing the answers to these questions will allow you to connect to the people who are searching online for the solutions you offer.

The goals of search optimization, also known as search engine optimization (SEO), are to improve the visibility and ranking of a website or web page in search engine results pages (SERPs). The primary objectives of search optimization include:

  1. Increased organic traffic: SEO aims to attract more targeted organic (non-paid) traffic to a website by optimizing its content and structure for search engines. By appearing higher in search results, websites have a better chance of being clicked on and visited by users.

  2. Improved visibility and brand exposure: SEO helps increase the visibility and exposure of a website or brand by appearing prominently in search results. When a website ranks higher for relevant keywords, it gains more visibility among its target audience, leading to increased brand recognition and exposure.

  3. Higher search engine rankings: The ultimate goal of SEO is to improve a website’s ranking in search engine results. Higher rankings lead to increased visibility, credibility, and trust among users. Most users tend to click on websites that appear on the first page of search results, making it crucial for websites to aim for the top positions.

  4. Enhanced user experience: SEO involves optimizing various aspects of a website, including its structure, navigation, content, and loading speed. By improving these factors, SEO aims to provide users with a better experience when visiting a website. A positive user experience leads to increased engagement, longer visit durations, and lower bounce rates, which can positively impact search rankings.

  5. Targeted audience and increased conversions: SEO helps attract a relevant and targeted audience to a website. By optimizing for specific keywords and creating high-quality, informative content, SEO aims to connect with users who are actively searching for products, services, or information related to a particular topic. Targeted traffic has a higher chance of converting into leads, sales, or desired actions on the website.

  6. Long-term sustainability: SEO aims to establish a strong online presence and long-term sustainability for a website by following ethical optimization practices. By focusing on organic rankings and delivering high-quality content, SEO helps build a solid foundation for sustainable growth, reducing reliance on paid advertising in the long run.

  7. Overall, the primary goals of search optimization revolve around improving visibility, attracting targeted traffic, enhancing user experience, and achieving higher rankings in search engine results, ultimately leading to increased brand exposure and improved business outcomes.

What Is A Search Engine?

A search engine is a software system that allows users to search for information on the Internet. It is designed to help users find relevant web pages, documents, images, videos, and other types of content based on their search queries or keywords.

How it works

Search engines work by using web crawlers or spiders (software programs )to discover and index web pages across the Internet. These crawlers systematically browse the web, following links from one page to another and collecting information about each page they encounter. The gathered data is then stored in a massive database called an index.

When a user enters a search query into a search engine, the engine’s algorithm retrieves relevant information from its index and presents a list of results. The ranking of these results is determined by various factors, including the search engine’s proprietary algorithms, which evaluate the relevance and quality of the indexed content.

Popular search engines, such as Google, Bing, and Yahoo, have become essential tools for navigating the vast amount of information available online. They help users find answers to questions, research topics, locate websites, discover news articles, access multimedia content, and much more. Search engines have revolutionized the way people seek information, making the Internet more accessible and empowering individuals with a wealth of knowledge at their fingertips.

SEO Objectives Recap

The description here of SEO is to provide you with an idea of what is involved in optimizing your website. This description is oversimplified here. 

You will find resources at the end of this section for a deeper dive if your time permits.

What Is A Technical SEO Audit?

A technical SEO audit is a comprehensive analysis of a website’s technical aspects to identify issues or areas for improvement that can impact its search engine visibility and performance. It focuses on the technical foundation of a website rather than its content or backlink profile.

SEO (search engine optimization) refers to techniques that help your website rank higher in search engine results pages (SERPs). One aspect of the overarching SEO topic is technical SEO. Technical SEO includes key ranking factors that are embedded in the structure of your website, including crawling, indexing and more! To understand how technical SEO affects the overall performance of your website, it is necessary to conduct a technical SEO audit.

Anatomy of a technical audit

During a technical SEO audit, various elements of the website are examined, including its structure, code, and server configurations. The goal is to identify any technical issues that may hinder search engine crawlers from properly accessing, understanding, and indexing the website’s content. By addressing these issues, the website’s overall search engine optimization (SEO) can be enhanced.

Key areas typically covered in a technical SEO audit include:
  1. Website crawl ability: Assessing how search engine bots can navigate and crawl the website’s pages, ensuring there are no barriers like broken links, improper redirects, or blocked content.

  2. Website speed and performance: Evaluating the website’s loading speed, server response time, and overall performance, as faster websites tend to have better search engine rankings.

  3. Mobile-friendliness: Checking how well the website adapts to mobile devices, ensuring it provides a good user experience on smartphones and tablets.

  4. Site architecture and URL structure: Analyzing the website’s structure, organization, and URL formatting to ensure they are logical, user-friendly, and optimized for search engines.

  5. Indexing issues: Verifying if all relevant pages are being indexed by search engines and identifying any potential indexing issues, such as duplicate content or improperly implemented canonical tags.

  6. XML sitemap and robots.txt: Assessing the presence and accuracy of XML sitemaps and robots.txt files, which help search engines understand how to crawl and index the website’s pages.

  7. Site security: Checking for any security vulnerabilities or issues that may affect the website’s search engine rankings or user trust, such as malware infections or insecure protocols.

  8. Structured data markup: Evaluating the implementation of structured data markup, such as schema.org, to enhance the visibility and presentation of the website’s content in search engine results.

  9. Technical SEO best practices: Assessing if the website adheres to recommended technical SEO practices, including proper usage of HTML tags, optimized images, canonicalization, etc.

  10. After conducting the audit, a comprehensive report is typically generated, outlining the identified issues and providing recommendations for improvement. Resolving these technical SEO issues can help optimize the website for search engines, improve its visibility in search results, and enhance the overall user experience.

Get a Free SEO Website Audit Today

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Resourceful Links On SEO Topics

Check these links for more on SEO

SEO 101 MOZ

HubSpot Technical SEO Guide

Content Marketing Strategy

What is content marketing?

Content marketing refers to a strategic marketing approach that focuses on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and engage a target audience

Content Marketing Strategy

Content marketing is a long-term strategy aimed at building a relationship with potential customers by providing them with useful information, entertainment, or insights, rather than explicitly promoting a product or service.

The main goal of content marketing is to provide value to the audience, establish trust and credibility, and ultimately drive profitable customer action. Instead of relying on traditional advertising methods that interrupt consumers, content marketing seeks to deliver information or entertainment that people actively seek out and engage with.

It is about delivering the right content to the right people at the right time, with the intention of influencing their behavior and ultimately driving them towards a desired action, such as making a purchase, subscribing to a newsletter, or sharing the content with others.

Content marketing can take various forms, including blog articles, social media posts, videos, podcasts, infographics, eBooks, whitepapers, webinars, and more. The content is typically tailored to the interests and needs of the target audience and can be distributed through various channels, such as a company’s website, social media platforms, email newsletters, or third-party websites.

Effective content marketing involves understanding the target audience, conducting research to identify their needs and interests, creating high-quality content that addresses those needs, and promoting the content through appropriate channels. By consistently providing valuable content, businesses can attract and retain an audience, position themselves as industry experts, and ultimately drive customer engagement, loyalty, and conversions.

Developing a Content marketing Strategy

Developing a content marketing strategy involves several key steps that can help you create and distribute valuable content to attract and engage your target audience. Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to develop a content marketing strategy:
  1. Define Your Goals: Start by clearly identifying your objectives and what you want to achieve with your content marketing efforts. Examples could include increasing brand awareness, driving website traffic, generating leads, or establishing thought leadership.
  2. Identify Your Target Audience: Understand your target audience’s demographics, interests, pain points, and preferences. This information will guide your content creation and help you deliver content that resonates with your audience.
  3. Conduct Content Audit: Assess your existing content assets and identify what content you have, what performs well, and what gaps exist. This will help you determine what type of content you need to create to meet your goals and cater to your audience’s needs.
  4. Develop Buyer Personas: Create detailed profiles of your ideal customers based on your target audience research. Include information such as demographics, motivations, challenges, and preferred content formats. This will help you personalize your content and deliver it to the right people.
  5. Keyword Research: Identify relevant keywords and topics that align with your business and audience interests. Use keyword research tools to uncover popular search terms and phrases related to your industry. This will help you optimize your content for search engines and improve your visibility.
  6. Content Ideation and Creation: Brainstorm content ideas that align with your goals, audience interests, and keyword research. Focus on creating valuable and informative content that educates, entertains, or solves problems for your audience. Formats can include blog posts, videos, infographics, podcasts, eBooks, etc.
  7. Content Distribution Channels: Determine the platforms and channels you’ll use to distribute your content. Consider your audience’s preferences and where they are most likely to consume content, such as your website, blog, social media platforms, email newsletters, industry forums, or third-party publications.
  8. Create an Editorial Calendar: Develop a schedule for creating and publishing your content. An editorial calendar helps you stay organized, plan content topics in advance, ensure consistency, and align your content with seasonal or industry events.
  9. Promote Your Content: Develop a promotion plan to amplify the reach of your content. Utilize social media advertising, email marketing, influencer collaborations, and other promotional tactics to increase visibility and engagement.
  10. Measure and Analyze Results: Regularly monitor and analyze the performance of your content marketing efforts. Use analytics tools to track metrics such as website traffic, engagement, conversions, and social media metrics. Identify what’s working and what needs improvement to refine your strategy over time.
  11. Iterate and Optimize: Based on the insights gained from your analysis, make data-driven adjustments to your content marketing strategy. Experiment with different content formats, distribution channels, and messaging to continually improve your results.

Remember, developing an effective content marketing strategy requires consistency, quality, and a deep understanding of your audience. It’s an ongoing process that requires continuous monitoring and refinement to achieve your desired outcomes.

Only then can you enter into a productive content creation process.

This is an oversimplified view of content marketing strategy and content.
We’ll be getting into more details on this broad subject in future articles.

In the meanwhile, here’s an in-depth article by: i-scoop; Content marketing: defining a content marketing strategy

Web Design

Web Design, What Is It?

Web design refers to the process of creating and designing the visual appearance and layout of websites. It involves the use of various elements such as colors, typography, images, graphics, and interactive features to create an aesthetically pleasing and user-friendly website.

Image showing Web design for desktop, laptop and mobile devices

Web Design

Web design encompasses both the aesthetic aspects and the functional aspects of a website. It involves planning and organizing the layout of web pages, determining the navigation structure, and creating an overall user experience that is intuitive and easy to navigate. Web designers also consider factors such as site responsiveness, accessibility, and performance optimization.

 

The goal of web design is to create a website that effectively communicates the intended message or information to the target audience while providing an enjoyable and engaging experience. It requires a combination of technical skills, creativity, and an understanding of user behavior and design principles.

 

Web designers often use various tools and technologies to create websites, including HTML (Hypertext Markup Language), CSS (Cascading Style Sheets), JavaScript, and graphic design software. They may also collaborate with web developers and other professionals to bring their designs to life and ensure the website functions as intended.

Visual Hierarchy

Being visual by nature makes it essential to order things visually. It helps our brain prioritize what action to take next. We look to lead the visitor to complete a  desired action. This action shouldn’t feel forced but comfortable, almost effortless.

The term UX, user experience is often used. It expresses where the focus of design should be. As time goes by, we’ll delve more into the psychological side to this subject, if you have a day or two set aside for reading, for now just the facts. When it comes to designing your website consideration of your overall marketing plan is most important, the users become our focus.

Logical navigation is essential, so let’s consider it.

Navigation

Your main navigation should be straightforward, void of clutter. Like a good servant, it shouldn’t be too far from a quick mouse click. Many use a stickie menu or stickie header; you’ve seen them; as you scroll, it’s always visible. 

What other types of navigation are there? There are breadcrumbs. It’s called breadcrumbs because of its nature. It should intuitively lead visitors along a trail of information to his or her final destination. It appears on pages as mini clickable headings. These are very helpful if, at a glance and click, it leads to the topic searched.

Another form of navigation is those found inline. Inline navigation is useful when words or phrases which are distinctly highlighted lead to more in-depth subjects. While this can be help full, if the inline link doesn’t suit your visitor’s intended interest, they should be able to get back to where they were. In this case, provided the user with a back button or open the link in another browser so they may return to the tab where they were if necessary.  

Navigation is the footer area is essential. Here the user has an opportunity to view other helpful links or a sitemap. This area is known for regenerating a user’s interest.

Consistency

Your pages should have conformity. Consistency is necessary, so the user knows what to expect from page to page. Headers used consistently establishes topic importance. Fonts types used correctly highlight what a user can expect from page to page. 

You may want to use colours and font sparingly to lessen confusion. It’s recommended a few colours, and a few fonts should be applied sitewide. 

The layout can be changed, but keep the simplicity of your site and your users in mind.

Accessibility

We can’t forget our brothers and sisters online with limitations. There should be no barriers to prevent interaction with your site. Making your website accessible is deemed good practice by Google and search engine standards, and they reward you for it in their system of rank and site authority. 

Accessibility is not a convenience; it’s a necessity. To give you an idea of what accessibility in-tales, keep in mind these features are not visible on your site, they are internal and must be triggered by someone with challenges. 

Here is where SEO and site design intercept, and can be challenging.
This concept is unknown to most internet users, and the implementation shouldn’t be an option.

Here are just some examples of where SEO and accessibility can overlap:

Conventionality

In designing, good designers keep in mind what the online public already knows and has come to accept as standard website convention. Users already know what a menu looks like, a button, a link, the pointer changes and the text colour changes when hovered. Use this website convention to your advantage. Remember user convenience.

Credibility

Credibility has the best rewards. Let visitors know what you do upfront. 

Let them know what you do best and let your customers in on selling your services. Deliver, Deliver and Deliver. While many use social media to build authority, your site should speak volumes and louder when it comes to credibility. There’s a monetary value attached to trustworthiness, build it and protect it. Make it easy for users to find your information. If your information solves for your users, Google rewards your site and rank it high.

User-Centric

Design your site to solve for your visitors. A website owner should consider users first while weaving the business plan to assist buyers and customers..

Graphic Design

Graphic design what is it?

Graphic design is a creative field that involves the process of visual communication and problem-solving through the use of typography, imagery, color, and layout.

Graphic Design

Graphic design encompasses various mediums, including print and digital media, to convey messages, ideas, or information in a visually appealing and effective manner.


Graphic designers combine artistic skills with technical knowledge to create designs that engage, inform, and inspire the audience. They work on a wide range of projects, such as branding, advertising, packaging, web design, user interface design, publication design, and more.


The key elements of graphic design include:
  1. Typography: The art of selecting and arranging typefaces to communicate a message effectively. It involves choosing fonts, sizes, spacing, and formatting to enhance readability and convey the desired tone.
  2.  
  3. Imagery: The use of photographs, illustrations, icons, and other visual elements to enhance the design and convey information or evoke emotions. Graphic designers often manipulate and edit images to fit the overall design concept.
  4.  
  5. Color: The strategic use of color palettes to create visual harmony, evoke specific moods or emotions, and differentiate elements within a design. Color theory, psychology, and the understanding of color combinations play a crucial role in graphic design.
  6.  
  7. Layout: The arrangement of text, images, and other design elements within a given space. It involves organizing and structuring the content to create a visually balanced and cohesive design that guides the viewer’s eye and communicates the intended message effectively.
  8.  
  9. Composition: The overall arrangement and placement of visual elements within a design. It includes the use of hierarchy, proportion, balance, and symmetry/asymmetry to create a visually appealing and well-structured design.
 

Graphic designers utilize various software tools, such as Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, and other design applications, to create their designs. They often collaborate with clients, marketers, and other professionals to understand project requirements, develop concepts, and deliver designs that meet the desired objectives.

 

Overall, graphic design plays a significant role in shaping the visual identity and communication strategies of businesses, organizations, and individuals in both print and digital media.

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Pay Per Click Advertising

What Is Pay Per Click Advertising? How it works.

Pay-Per-Click (PPC) is an online advertising model in which advertisers pay a fee each time their ad is clicked. It is a way of driving traffic to websites, where advertisers only pay for the actual clicks on their ads rather than paying for the ad placement itself. PPC is commonly associated with search engine advertising, particularly on platforms like Google Ads.

Pay-Pre-Click Overview

In a typical PPC campaign, advertisers bid on specific keywords or phrases relevant to their target audience. When a user performs a search using those keywords, the search engine displays relevant ads on the search engine results page (SERP). The position and visibility of the ads are determined by various factors, including the bid amount and the quality of the ad.

When a user clicks on an ad, they are directed to the advertiser’s website, and the advertiser is charged a predetermined fee or bid amount. The fee can vary depending on the competitiveness of the keywords and the bidding strategy. The goal of a PPC campaign is to drive targeted traffic to a website, increase visibility, and potentially generate conversions or sales.

 

PPC offers several advantages, such as immediate visibility on search engines, precise targeting options, and measurable results. Advertisers can track the performance of their campaigns, monitor click-through rates (CTR), conversion rates, and return on investment (ROI) to optimize their advertising efforts.

 

It’s important to note that PPC is just one form of online advertising, and there are various platforms and networks where advertisers can utilize this model beyond search engines, such as social media platforms like Facebook Ads or display advertising networks.

Jump Start Your Marketing With PPC

45% of small businesses engage in this type of marketing because it can offer an immediate return on their investment. It is an excellent way to jump-start your startup because getting unpaid traffic to a new website takes time; unpaid is called organic traffic. Some companies have used PPC with little success, why, became as simple as it sounds pay-per-click is much more involved.

The principles behind how it works must be understood to gain the upper hand.

Let’s examine some principles of how it works. There are a few acronyms and terms you should know.

Key terms:

Search Engine Marketing

Mentioned earlier in the description above was the fact that PPC is a form of search engine marketing. You can pay for search engine advertising, or you can use SEM without paying, that method is called organic marketing, but this is about PPC. Google, Bing, Facebook, many other platforms offer PPC as a service.

CPC (Cost-pre-click)

 

Cost per click is what you will pay when someone clicks your ad.

The system is an auction. An auction is a competition for a desired item, keyword, keyword phrase; in this case, it’s an auction for top placement of your ad or rank. 

You decide what you are willing to pay. You may be tempted to spend more to outbid the competition, not so fast! There are other considerations. 

There’s a formula, and here’s how it works: (Competitors Ad Rank/Your quality score)+ $0.01= your cost-per-click(CPC). 

Quality score, what that? We’ll get to that in a minute. Try to preserve your sanity as we proceed.

Ad Rank

Ad Rank is the position your ad appears on the search engine results page (SERP).

Quality Score

The quality score takes into account several attributes. Google, especially looks for these; other search engines follow suite because Google is the giant in this field. 

These features are click-through-rate (CTR); 

Google already knows how the best ads perform in your category, so they grade the quality of your ad according to the best performing ads in their database. 

The quality or choice of keywords used. 

When someone clicks your ad, they are lead to a page of some sort. The relevance of that page to your ad is rated; in other words, does that landing page fulfill the searcher’s expectations? 

Yes, Google takes note of how well you have crafted your ads in the past and rewards you or not.

Quality score =

So as you can see, throwing more money at a lousy performing ad can be likened to throwing your hard-earned investment out the window or giving it to Google and other platforms.
If you get your quality score right, even though someone else outbids you, you can still earn the top rank if your quality score is excellent.

CPM (Cost per Mille)

Cost per mille means cost per thousand. You pay per thousand views or what is called impressions. Impressions are used mostly for building brand awareness as display ads also do. Most platforms offer this service, but especially social media.

Campaign

Webster dictionary says a campaign is: “an organized course of action to achieve a goal.” So there are PPC campaigns. Let’s follow Webster’s advice. What is the purpose of this campaign or theme?  : e.g. A Sale on widgets.

 

Ad Group

An ad group contains one or more ads that share similar targets. You set a bid, or price, to be used when an ad group's keywords trigger an ad to appear. This is called a cost-per-click (CPC) bid. You can also set prices for individual keywords within the ad group. Use ad groups to organize your ads by a common theme, such as the types of products or services you want to advertise.

Keywords

Keywords, how do they work? As the word implies, there is a key to unlocking the secrete to ranking on Google’s search engine results page (SERP).

A keyword, or a focus keyword as some call it, is a word that describes the content on your page, ads or post best. It's the search term that you want to rank for with a certain page or ad. So when people search for that keyword or phrase in Google or other search engines, they should find that page or ad on your website or landing page.

Landing Page

Landing pages are a critical element in PPC and other forms of SEM.

This page is usually extremely focused. One thing you may notice about landing pages is the fact that there’s often no way to navigate off that page. You present your offer, and the visitor has a decision to make, sign up, or buy, or you may choose to have them subscribe for more information or a one time offer. Signing up for more info or a special offer is called a gated offer, in which you collect their data on a form and give them something of real value.

Later you may choose to use their information to further their interest in your product and services.

How you present your landing page counts towards your quality score. 

Google has do’s and don’t about landing pages.

Summary

PPC is rewarding once one understands the methods and requirements behind the scene. It would be best if you followed the principles discussed here, but more is required. A significant concern in any marketing venture is the margin between your spending and your return (ROI)

To be successful at any marketing, you must know how to calculate the return on your investment; also, the customer acquisition cost (CAC). Another calculation is the lifetime value of a customer (LTV). When these and other factors are in place and known, only then can one understand whether they are getting value on their spending.

Where Do You Go From Here?

We will continue to inform you about other considerations regarding PPC and different types of SEM. 

As the internet continues to grows and systems become robust, this and other subjects on marketing are becoming inexhaustible and highly specialized. 

To succeed in online marketing takes knowledge and know-how. Being in the trenches, so to speak, keeps us sharp and busy. PPC and SEM are challenging, you will need help to some degree, to what degree? That’s a choice you’ll need to make, and we are accommodating that way.

We know for experience, to research, formulate strategies, launch, monitor and feed a campaign with winning content takes an experienced team. Find out more, why we are passionate about what we do, and how we can help. We offer a free consultation to understand your goals and if our services can benefit your company and, of course, to see if we are a good fit for your project. Contact us by filling out our contact form and giving us a little info about yourself and your company, and the next business day, someone will contact you. We’d Love to hear from you.

Some systems and platforms make businesses and marketer’s lives easier, like Hubspot marketing software. Still, there is no total autopilot yet 🙂 We use their software for marketing, and love it, and you might find it works for you too. In the meantime, we can offer you professional Marketing Campaign management and free HubSpot software to test drive.

Check out these resources: We recommend these to you because it puts marketers and businesses on the same page. Enjoy.

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Increase website traffic with social media

Social Media Engagement

What is social media marketing?

Social media marketing refers to the use of social media platforms and strategies to promote a product, service, brand, or organization. It involves creating and sharing content on social media networks to engage and connect with the target audience, increase brand visibility, drive website traffic, and ultimately achieve marketing goals.

Social Media

The word social is related to society, and media has a relationship to publishing to the masses. Social platforms are where people socialize or hang out, exchanging thoughts and ideas. That’s what social media is all about. It’s a place where people meet, form social pockets, special interest groups, clubs, fraternities, a watering hole, even more so as the world awakens to the new reality of Covid19.

How it works

Since it’s a place where society frequent, social platforms have proven to be a treasure trove for businesses. Businesses can focus on their clients, their products and services, and even have the public weigh-in and comments on products and services offered. It’s a great place to build brand awareness. Social media marketing encompasses various activities, including:
  1. Content Creation: Developing compelling and relevant content, such as text, images, videos, and infographics, tailored to the target audience and the platform being used.

  2. Profile Management: Establishing and maintaining a strong presence on social media platforms by creating and optimizing profiles. This involves ensuring consistency in branding, providing relevant information, and utilizing key features of each platform effectively.

  3. Audience Engagement: Actively interacting with the audience through comments, messages, and discussions. This helps build relationships, respond to inquiries, and address concerns promptly.

  4. Community Building: Fostering a community around the brand by encouraging user-generated content, organizing contests, and creating a sense of belonging among followers.

  5. Paid Advertising: Utilizing paid advertising options offered by social media platforms to target specific demographics and reach a wider audience. This includes sponsored posts, promoted tweets, and paid campaigns.

  6. Influencer Partnerships: Collaborating with influencers or social media personalities who have a significant following and influence over their audience. This can help increase brand visibility and credibility.

  7. Analytics and Measurement: Monitoring and analyzing social media metrics to assess the effectiveness of campaigns, understand audience behavior, and make data-driven decisions for future strategies.
 

Social media marketing offers several benefits, such as cost-effectiveness, targeted reach, real-time communication, brand awareness, customer engagement, and the ability to gather valuable insights about the target audience. However, it requires a well-planned strategy, consistent effort, and continuous adaptation to changes in social media algorithms and user behavior.

The Difference Between Social Media Channels

All social media platforms are different; In that, they cater to varying types of socialites. The folks on LinkedIn differ from the folks on Instagram. The users on Snap-chat form a different demographic than on twitter. Knowing the difference is the key to running successful marketing campaigns.  

For example, if you are going for that target audience of athleisure-loving millennials, you may want to focus the majority of your social media efforts on Instagram — this is because millennials cover the largest portion of users on the platform.

Fun Facts

(Statista stats) Facebook Q1 2023

Users: 2.4 billion daily active users worldwide
Users: million daily active users worldwide

Instagram

Users: 500 million instagram stories daily

Instagram

Users: One billion monthly users worldwide

YouTube

Users: 14.3 billion visitors per month

Pinterest

Users: 445 million people visit Pinterest monthly

Statistics formulated by HubSpot.

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Brand Awareness

Everyone knows that social media is powerful. How powerful? Statistics show that 3.2 billion people are on social media globally. It easy to see why its a great place to invest. Approached right, it’s a business branding mecca. 

Lead Generation And Conversion

The content you produce has an enormous impact on leads generated and conversion rates. When someone engages with your profile, they have made themselves available. You can now answer any questions they may have, offer something that speaks to their pain point or solve an issue they have. Being helpful can always benefit you with likes and followers.

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