The Found Gen

Marketing That Works.

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Put Your Marketing Where Your Website Is

There are so few things in life that we truly have control over, we really should be taking advantage of them when we get a chance! With social media going off the rails – or at the very least being and unreliable platform – it’s time to focus inward. Your website is one of those rare things you can fully control, use it!

It’s Like Returning to Our Roots

There was a time when having an impressive website was important to companies. Over the past several years though it seems like so many people have forgotten to keep upgrading and refreshing. Now is the time to do that. You have complete control over the content on your own site and how it is presented.

Focus on the ways you can improve your site. Does it fully represent your brand? The color palette in your logo should match your site. The overall aesthetic should complement your logo. Add some bells and whistles. If your blogs aren’t categorized, they should be. You should also make sure they are searchable so if someone only wants to see the blogs you wrote about cookies (or whatever) they can just keyword search it!

 Speaking of Blogging… More!

Make sure that you’re blogging regularly. Very regularly. Four times a month should be the minimum since you’ll be spending less time on social media pursuits. If you really want to make a dent bump that up to eight times a month. The best way to achieve this is by aggressively planning. If you don’t already have a content calendar we should really talk. Take the time to make sure that your calendar is detailed and complete.

I like to fill in blog topics and notes at least six months in advance. This way I know I only have to set aside time for that task twice a year. If you fee like you need more flexibility start with three months in advance but make yourself an appointment to do the next three months. The quickest way to let your blogging goals slip away from you is to not have topics ready to go when it’s time to create! Having a space for notes about your topics is necessary. You think you’ll remember what you wanted to say. Trust me, you will not.

If this is sounding daunting, or like you just don’t have the time to devote to website building and content creation – that’s okay! That’s literally what we’re here for! It’s the only thing we do so that you can do whatever you do. Call us, let’s chat about outsourcing your marketing!

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Let’s Stop Confusing Sales and Marketing. Here’s Why This is Important.

Have you ever had a friend who you spent so much time with that people would get confused and call you by each other’s name? That’s what it’s like with marketing and sales. They’re together so much that people see marketing, but they think of sales. It’s important because if you don’t understand what marketing is, you’re probably doing it wrong. Let’s fix that.

Same Book, Different Page

The thing is that marketing and sales do go hand in hand. Sales couldn’t do its job without marketing, and for marketing to stay relevant sales has to succeed. Marketing’s job is to introduce your brand to a lot of people – to create brand awareness. It’s not designed to appeal to everyone, only to the people who are most likely to be interested in the product. The trick, the part that seems like magic, is a lot of research, some data analysis, and understanding your ideal customer.

As marketers we introduce you to those customers like we’re all old friends. The content we create for you is useful to them, and it’s interesting. Now that they’ve been introduced, and they feel comfortable they find more and more interesting and informative content on your site.

When Does Sales Come In?

When we pass the customers off to sales because they’ve realized they need your company – your product, your services. We didn’t talk them into something they didn’t want or need. We just found the people who were looking for you but didn’t know it yet. Now sales just has to make the product easily available and make sure the customer leaves happy.

This partnership doesn’t work if marketing tries to sell. Which is the reason the difference is so important.

We do this because we love it, so if you’d like to talk to us about outsourcing we’re here to help. Give us a call.

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What to Expect in the World of Marketing in 2023

Change. The theme of marketing in 2023 is going to be change. So, buckle in and be ready to roll with it!

New Social, Who’s This?

Social media is going through some upheaval. Twitter, Meta… we can all see you! Be prepared that there will be some big changes on multiple platforms, and you won’t have any control over any of them. If you put time and effort into those right now you run the risk of losing your time investment when this firestorm causes your engagement and visibility to disappear. Social media might make a comeback, but it’s going to take some time before it is likely to yield the kind of results we’ve seen over the past several years.

Instead of relying heavily on social this year redirect your effort in blogging, email marketing, and more traditional methods. If you’re already creating great content that’s something you won’t need to change. Except that you should be doing more of it! Publish a minimum of four blogs a month. If you really want to make an impact, make it eight blogs. On the other hand, trying some really outside the box strategies is also a good idea. I wouldn’t advice putting a ton of time and effort into carrier pigeons or anything like that but investing a small amount in something no one has ever done before couldn’t hurt! Your future marketing efforts will thank you!

What Even Is Traditional?

Everyone has relied on social media for contacts for so long that “traditional” almost seems alien! That combined with the pandemic keeping people separated so much over the past three years it’s like none of us even knows how to act anymore. Think back, or ask someone older than you, to the time when we did almost all our networking at happy hours or coffee shops. I think going back to having fewer, yet more meaningful and fruitful contacts is what we should all be aiming for in 2023. Realistically even if you have 5000 LinkedIn connections how many of those see your content or feel that they know you well enough to recommend you? Probably not as many as any of us would like to think.

This doesn’t mean you should completely abandon your social media presence. It just means to shift focus so that it is just a minor supporting character, and you are stepping fully into that main character energy. Build actual relationships with other professionals who are natural allies. Maybe going back to a happy hour once a month or so could even be fun again!

While you’re out having a good time and making those connections it’s a great time to think about outsourcing your content creation, so you aren’t having to carve out time to handle that as well. That’s what we’re here for and we love it! Reach out if you’re ready to make some changes of your own!

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How to Set Attainable Marketing Goals This Year

Setting big, lofty goals are great – as long as you build a roadmap to get there. This is one reason we’ve never been big fans of New Year’s Resolutions – the beginning of a new year is as fine a time as any to look forward and plan a strategy, but unless you spend as much time on the HOW as the WHAT, it’s not worth the effort.

Our advice is the same no matter the time of the year: look at the data and make a plan from there.

Look at Last Year’s Marketing Metrics

First, tally up every penny you spent on marketing – networking dues, advertisements, flyer printing, sponsorships, marketing agency retainers, marketing team salary etc. It should be a line item in your books.

If you want to get an even more accurate number, look at everyone on your team that has some marketing tasks but is not in a full-fledged marketing role – estimate their hours per month spent (ie proofreading marketing material, going to networking events, grabbing coffee with potential referral sources, etc.) on marketing and multiply that by their hourly rate.

This all adds up to your total marketing cost for the year.

Next, tally up how many leads you got last year. Divide your marketing cost by your number of leads, and you have your cost-per-lead.

Then divide your marketing cost by the number of clients you added last year – now you have your cost-per-client.

These two metrics should govern your entire marketing campaign – every action you take should be bringing these numbers down (the lower your cost-per-client, the higher your profit margins).

Look at What Is Achievable Through Marketing

Now, once you have those data points, look at what you can do. What actions can you take to bring down that cost-per-lead? The reality is simple: you can either:

  1. lower your costs
  2. grow your leads, or
  3. all of the above

If your goal is to grow revenue by, say, 40%, look at what that would take. Say your revenue was $5,000,000 in 2022. To grow by 40%, that means the goal would be to hit $7,000,000 in revenue in 2023. If you had 450 clients and assume you’ll make the same revenue per client this year, you would need to add 180 clients to your annual tally. The first place to look is to see what you can do to boost your conversion rate (ie keep the same number of leads but convert more of them). Next, look for where you could reallocate your budget.

If sponsoring that charity golf tournament doesn’t do anything for the bottom line, drop it. But if getting a booth at a trade show worked well, look at using the money you saved from not sponsoring the golf tournament on get a more prominent booth this year.

Want to get into the details? We’re here to help. Drop us a line and we’re more than happy to set up a free consultation.

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Why You Should Blog More Often?

The simple answer is engagement.

We could carry on telling you all about how more indexed pages improves your SEO and allows your business to rank higher on searches. It would all be true. Driving traffic to your site is a good reason, but in order to bring the right traffic for you it’s about more than algorithms.

Give the People Content!

Blogging more often is good but providing great content at the same time is better. Once you’re driving traffic to your site, you want them to find value in what’s there. Engagement goes both ways!

We’ve talked about it before, but this is where it’s so important to know who your customers are and what they’re interested in. Regularly posting blogs on a variety of specific topics within your wheelhouse is the best way to show off your knowledge of your field. Choosing pertinent topics, and getting those blogs published at the right time is key. An active and informative blog page helps to solidify your expertise for first time visitors and reinforces the trust your regular audience has in you.

How Often is Often Enough?

If you’re new to blogging, start with a manageable number of posts – something you can commit to and be consistent with. We always recommend starting with a minimum of one blog posts a week. However, keep in mind that posting 12 or more blogs a month triples your traffic when compared to posting 4 blogs a month or fewer.

If you’re already posting once a month, then now is a great time to stretch that blog power of yours. Step it up and see if you can manage to post two or three times a week. But remember – one quality blog post filled with interesting and accurate information is better than two blogs that don’t really say anything.

Also, you don’t have to do this all on your own. If the time commitment required to post enough blogs to drive the traffic you’re looking for is too much, there’s always the option of outsourcing your content writing. Working with a great marketing team means you’ll have expert advisors developing your content calendar, from topic selection to publication schedules and everything in between. Not to mention, the best marketing agencies (ahem, cough cough) offer top-quality content writing to develop the blogs and manage the publication of them too.

If you’re ready to have an awesome writing team backing you up, give us a call today. Our team of expert content strategists have been managing successful content and blog campaigns for our clients for over 12 years.

If you’re ready – we are too.

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Give Thanks to Your Customers and Clients This Year

Life, and work, has looked a whole heckuva lot different these past three years than it has in…well, a while.

For most of us, just surviving the workday each week takes more effort and brain power than we even thought possible. We show up, we work hard, and we never punch out thanks to Zoom, email, push notifications and that WFH lifestyle.

If you’re anything like us, your clients are what drive you. They become your friends – where their successes become your ultimate goals. Before you know it, you look forward to those blurred-out-background zoom calls and new project requests.

Your customers and clients are a big part of your life and your success. So, when was the last time you thanked them?

A Little Gratitude Goes a Long Way

This year, we’d like to challenge you to take that extra step to show your clients, consumers, partners, vendors, you-name-it – that you are appreciative of the work and the relationship you’ve developed.

And no, we’re not saying to just toss a mini-muffin basket their way and call it a day. Although, who has ever refused a basket of mini-muffins? But is it really the best way to let your clients know you appreciate them? The short answer is probably not. The muffins get eaten, the card goes in the trash, and ultimately the message of genuine gratitude gets lost.

If Not Mini Muffins, Then What?

Handwritten thank you notes are just retro enough to be cool. Do it right – use quality stationary, a personalized note to them letting them know how much you appreciate them and look forward to their next project. It doesn’t hurt to include a gift card. It can just be enough to buy them a coffee or a smoothie. It really is the thought and effort that counts here.

So, You Want to Make a Bigger Gesture

Maybe you did an exceptionally large project or want to recognize a long-time customer specifically. Don’t feel like you have to give the exact same “thank you” to everyone. Each client is different and expressing your appreciation for them can be different, too.

Setting up a time to have lunch brought in for your customer’s office is a big gesture. If you can coordinate it to a time that you know is extra busy for them – when you know they’re likely to work through lunch – all the better. It not only lets them know you appreciate them as your customer, but you recognize how hard they work doing their own thing.

Giving out your branded merchandise might seem a little ten years ago, but if you do it right it can be a great gift. The trick to it is an item people will use with a version of THEIR logo. So many times, businesses send gifts of their own merchandise – but really, a bigger statement is to have something made for your clients. It’s a little extra effort and takes away the soapbox and impersonal touch of sending your own stuff their way. Our recommendation? You can never go wrong with a custom YETI travel tumbler.

The important part is making sure they know how much you appreciate them. If you need some more specific ideas we can help with that!