The Found Gen

Marketing That Works.

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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!

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Marketing Should Be for Humans. Not Algorithms.

One of the biggest mistakes we see in marketing today is changing a strategy solely to appease algorithms on social media.

While social media is a key component in any successful marketing strategy, the best strategies focus on the WHY behind social’s power and prominence.

What is that? It’s the humans behind the algorithms.

Real people, not algorithms, are what purchase your products and solicit your services. Those real people happen to be on social media – and that’s a great reason to leverage it into your existing marketing strategy.

Be Warned: Social Media Is Subject to Change

Here’s the thing, social media algorithms are dictated by one thing: how they can drive more revenue. The best way for them to do that is to sell more ads (purchased by businesses seeking to connect with their target audience).

As their ad revenue dips, the algorithms change. Suddenly, your reach is lessened, your engagement dwindles and sooner or later, you are forced to decide if you want to pay a monthly subscription fee (read: ads) to the social platform so your audience can see your content.

Who’s winning here?

Control Your Content, Control Your Narrative

When we play the Game of Algorithms (written by M.E. Zuckerberg), we all lose. Instead, it’s best to focus your content and marketing on your audience rather than hitting certain KPIs on social metrics.

We always tell our clients to focus their content on the two things they can completely control online: their website and email list. Everything after that is simply leveraging tools where you can share your content with your audience where they are at the beginning, middle or end of their day.

The best marketing campaigns stay devoted wholly to their audience day-in and day-out – they don’t bother with the whims of a platform – good marketing campaigns tell the company’s story of how they provide value to their customers. Want to see what that should look like for your company? Drop us a line.  

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Stop Relying So Heavily on Data for Marketing

Data sets are great – they make you feel invincible, right? You have all this knowledge at your fingertips – and knowledge is power, after all. Pretty sure Machiavelli said something of the sort…or Russel Crowe.

For those of you who are data-fanatics, what we’re about to say may not jive with you at first. That’s okay. Just do us a favor and let it simmer for just a bit. Alright, you ready?

Here it goes: Data is not the end-all-be-all driver to a successful marketing campaign.  

No, of course we’re not saying that data isn’t useful, or that you should forego it altogether. We’re not masochists. But, we are telling you that focusing KPIs alone does not generate a robust marketing campaign.

So Much Data, So Little Impact

The ability to access data and analytics is at an all-time high. With fresh CRMs dropping daily and cool new apps to track all sorts of KPIs coming out faster than you can read this article, it’s almost impossible to avoid the data hype. Unfortunately, this can all too often create an addiction-like response to tracking these numbers. Tailoring your marketing plan and your content to only what the data sets tell you means that you’re reacting rather than acting. The result is a content strategy based on the past, not on what your audience is likely to do in the future. It also fails to tell you the most important information – why someone chose to interact with your content.

Thinking about the reasons your customers engage with you can help you better understand their motivations. Focusing on your customers’ motivations is the best way to decide what information you should be sharing, when, and how frequently. The goal is to share insightful, informative and engaging content that engages your customers on their level – based on their wants and needs, rather than your metrics.

Creative Leap of Faith

Ultimately, marketing should be driven by the value you provide your consumers or clients. Leveraging creativity to deliver distinctive and in-demand content does require taking some risks. Tap into pop culture, sentiments, and trends to create something unique that represents your brand. And guess what? Studies have shown that companies that focus on creativity first generate roughly ten percent higher revenue. So, even the data supports focusing on the creative!

We’re not saying you should ignore the data. What we’re aiming for is balance. Sometimes, that means working with a marketing firm that enjoys a good data set but also wants to really get into the work of the behavior and mindsets both of your business as well as your consumers. It’s understanding your audience that leads to the most creative, engaging, and results-driven marketing strategies.  

Too much reliance on data can detract from your brand identity and your overall mission. We’ve seen too many businesses get bogged down in the data and lose sight their original goals as a result. You don’t want that – we don’t want that for you!

We can help you curate content that builds on your brand and bolsters your engagement metrics too. We’ll still get you the data you crave, but you’ll know more about the best ways to use it!

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Ghost of Marketing Trends Past: Why Trends Come and Go

The first time you see a new idea, it catches your eye. If it’s unique and the timing is just right, it might become the newest trend. The trick in trends is to hit the sweet spot but move on to something new before it becomes tiresome.

For a while the different versions of a new trend are still new enough to get positive attention while having become familiar enough to be comforting. The longer a marketing trend hangs around the more likely it is to become trite. In a spooky context – if you were the first one in your neighborhood to get the giant, 12 ft skeleton your decorations were the coolest!

If you miss a trend the first time you might be able to swing back around to it after some time has passed to cash in on the nostalgia factor. People are drawn to things that are both new and familiar simultaneously. The way you might find yourself humming along to a song you’ve never heard because a bit of an older, popular song is part of the new one.

Is Trend Marketing for You?

Not every marketing trend will work for you, even if you do get the timing right. For example, unless you’re already experienced at creating and editing video content there’s no reason to create a TikTok account for your business.

Think of it like peer pressure in high school. The most important aspect of any marketing strategy is to stay true to your brand. If you find a trend that does fit into your brand identity jump on that! On the other hand, no matter how edgy and cool a trend seems if it strays from your branding, it’s definitely not worth straying from your plan. Don’t let the lure of being in the In Crowd tempt you away from your own, unique style. No amount of 80’s couture will ever be as cool as Molly Ringwald in a homemade dress. Stick with your own curated style first, and only use trend marketing as an accessory.

If you need a style guru, reach out to us. We love to help our clients figure out their own, personal style.

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5 of the Scariest Marketing Mistakes We’ve Seen

It’s spooky season, and we’re leaning in to the theme! We’ve compiled a list of some of the scariest, and most harmful, marketing mistakes we see too often.

5 Scary Marketing Mistakes to Avoid

1: Ignoring data and analytics. It can seem overwhelming, but it’s important information you absolutely shouldn’t ignore. It tells you which efforts are working best, and which ones are just not getting you any traction.

2: Ignoring your competitors. We’re not saying you should go head-to-head with anyone. But looking at what your competition is doing is a great way to find the ways to settle yourself into an underserved niche.

3: Not knowing who your ideal customer is. Marketing is never about you – it’s about your customer and their wants and needs. If you don’t have a solid grasp on who your customer actually is, you can’t know how to give them exactly what they’re looking for.

4: Forgetting to focus on customer retention. Once you have a good customer you don’t want to lose them! In the hustle of seeking out new customers it’s easy to take your current customers for granted with your marketing plan.

5: Not enough focus on maintaining your brand. This is just a remember who you are reminder. Your brand is your foundation, and you want to stay laser focused on it in everything you do. Once you focus long enough it becomes second nature.

Notice a Common Thread?

It’s a little like a horror movie really. Paying attention to your surroundings is the best way to avoid these marketing massacres. When planning out your marketing strategies it’s a good idea to have a punch list to keep you on track. Make sure that your marketing ticks all the boxes you’ve identified & you’ll be the Final Girl (or Guy.)

We can help you avoid marketing mishaps! Let Us Help! Get in touch today.