The Found Gen

Marketing That Works.

blog

by

SEO vs. Content Marketing: We’re All In This Together

You’ve read the articles, clicked on the links about Top 10 this or that lists detailing why you need to invest NOW in SEO. You may have already read the big, flashy articles screaming about how content marketing is the wave of the future. Or how social media strategies are currently the most (or least) important.

I’ve got great news: instead of pitting SEO vs Content Marketing, you’ll be pleased to know that SEO, content marketing and social media utilization all go hand-in-hand. They go together like peanut butter and jelly. Cheese and pepperoni. These pieces of the pie are in fact the trifecta of informing and influencing customers with media!

How, you say? Let me break it down.

Like Peas & Carrots: How Content Connects

It should never be looked at as SEO vs Content Marketing: SEO and content marketing work together to drive better results. As we’ve said before, SEO is not a magic bullet to ranking for important keywords. While SEO is an important piece of the puzzle, it shouldn’t necessarily dictate the messages you want to get across.

When creating any content for your site, blog or social media account, you should consider your audience. What do they need to know about your product, service or brand? By keeping all content focused on your main product messages, you ideally encounter important keywords naturally. Good SEO, then, can amplify these keywords as well as provide feedback for how your keywords rank or how they could be better positioned and used throughout your content strategy for higher ranking. In other words, SEO can provide a road map or gauge for positioning great content.

Social media works to further promote your great content. It also establishes your business or brand among your audience or potential customers. Social media helps establish relationships—yes, relationships. Which means, there needs to be a give and take, not just a one-way communication (or take take take). Think of everything you post through social media as “content.” Even if it’s not necessarily your content (and you’ve given the right attributes), it represents your brand, company and presence.

Also, through social media you can expand your online authorship with search engine giant Google. The more quality content you author and promote, the more likely you’ll rank for keywords embedded within that great content.

Each piece, then, fuels the other pieces—and the bigger picture—of your strategy. Keep the diverse, quality content flowing, promote it and connect through social media—then let SEO guide and analyze your efforts along the way.

by

Picture This: How Images Can Boost Reader Retention

Let’s face it: in the age of Reddit, Pinterest and Tumblr what you have to say may not be all that interesting. Don’t get me wrong, you may be an extremely capable writer, effortlessly throwing lightning bolts of connection into complex ideas to distill the cold and technical into something more accessible and potable. But how can you compete with pictures of puppies getting their heads stuck in peanut butter jars?

Your business is more than just the simplification and transmission of ideas. And at its core, your responsibility to your brand’s online identity consists of grabbing and then holding onto your reader’s attention…then transmitting your message.

But what is the best way to do that? In an age when anyone can literally search more than 58 million hits in less than half a second to important questions such as “What is a Belieber?” getting your content to stand out among all the indirect competition is a tall order.

So, what tools do you have at your disposal that can possibly attract and transfix a reader to your message right away?

Enter images. If pictures are worth a thousand words, which is the ballpark, you should let them do the work and trim your content so it’s all killer and no filler.

How does it work? I’m glad you asked.

Pictures Slow the Internet Down

Just because your most recent piece regarding Deep-rooted Agricultural Practices is getting less traffic than you hoped it would doesn’t mean it is poorly written or fruitless. It probably means you need a better understanding of how people browse the Internet.

When readers come to your site, you often only have a few seconds to make your content stand out and effectively convey your message. If they skim your content and all they see is an ominous wall of text, a strange buzzing starts behind their eyes and guides them over to I Can Haz Cheezburger, relegating your work to the too-long-didn’t-read history.

Images, on the other hand, can carry most of that first-impression weight for you. By adding visual interest to your online content, the images you choose become a kind of story in themselves, illustrating concepts and highlighting key points.

Images have the power to transform potential skimmers and scanners into readers suddenly interested in engaging with the content surrounding the images that attracted them in the first place.

Pictures Cut to the Heart of the Matter

Your manifest function as a blogger is to teach people about your subject. Whether you review books, blog the latest tech-news or report on a different industry, your audience size increases or decreases proportionally with its level of comprehension with regards to your subject. And what is one of the surest ways to increase reading comprehension? By making your audience care.

Pictures have a unique ability to instantly register intense emotions in people. They have the power to provoke a wide range of feelings: love, fear, thanks, misfortune, etc. And since memory is inextricably linked to emotion, to make sense of what they see, people automatically compare images to similar memories they have. For example, try to recall the most significant event that happened to you over the past 12 months. Chances are the moment you thought about was also the most emotional to you.

When you use pictures to urge your audience to feel a certain way, they begin to care about your content. Once they care, they become engaged. Then, when they are engaged, they have a higher chance of learning, or retaining, the information you are presenting.

The moral of the story: retention is the ultimate goal. It’s the most powerful way to connect with people, which should be your main focus with content marketing.

by

Driving Website Performance Through Content

You’ve heard it. Those whispers going around the internet, your networking group, random conversations you’ve overheard while in line at Starbucks. You know, the ones where people are consistently talking about driving their website—forward, upward, in motion, stop-motion—you name it.

You may not know what people are actually talking about (hint: they might not either), but it seems everyone is just abuzz with the idea of improving their website performance.

So, the question remains: how do you do it? How can you get your website to impress the pants off Google and be a lead-converting machine? Well, the answer may be simpler than you thought possible: through quality content. Sounds so simple, it must be crazy, right? Hear me out.

Engage Your Visitors

The first thing any potential lead is going to do when visiting your site is size you up. And yes, images are worth a thousand words each but if you don’t immediately catch their attention with your brand’s message—they’re going to go in search of the next guy.

Despite the fact that as a society, we read less than ever before—we still read. We’re entranced with a good story, a strong message and engaging content. It’s important, nay imperative, to hook your visitors instantly with a witty, dedicated and strong-worded homepage. Having one will inevitably keep visitors around for longer and encourage them to surf around your site—raising your conversion rate all the more.

Be Obvious About It

If it takes more than 8 seconds to figure out what you offer, you’ve already lost your sale. 8 seconds. That’s it. The human mind can scan for information even faster than that—I’m being lenient.

If your homepage and subsequent about and services pages are not explicit in what you’re offering, people are going to surf away faster than you can blink. Your website is only as good of a sales tool as you make it. If you can’t sell your business in just a few short paragraphs, or even words—you’re going to be left behind. While, if people can quickly get the gist of what you do—they’re going to be interested in learning more. The more they want to know, the longer they stick around and the longer they stick around…well, you get the point.

Blog Already, Will You?

Oh, so you’re still not blogging? You don’t have time? You don’t get the point? Stop making excuses for why you’re not doing something that is incredibly vital to your business’s success online and start doing it instead. Blogging is the one thing that is guaranteed to drive traffic to your site, increase your mailing list size, and establish you as a tour-de-force within your industry (if done correctly, of course).

Did you know that each post you write creates a new page on your site? Did you also know that each blog page on your site that boasts new, unique and quality content is gobbled up by Google? And did you know that the more food you feed the Google monster—the higher you’ll be ranked by their nifty new algorithms? Tis true.

By developing a strong readership through a tailored blogging strategy, you will be able to drive your website traffic and overall performance through the roof. It’s that whole, ‘If you build it they will come’ thing. But this time, it’s about your business—not Kevin Costner or James Earl Jones.

If time and effort really is an issue, consider outsourcing to a qualified, reputable content company—like ours—to help get you started. And then, before you know it, you’ll be chatting people up in line at Starbucks at how you bested the system and have one of the more potent sites online today!

by

Drive More Business: Email Marketing Tips

Unless you’re Google, you can’t (reasonably) claim to have anything that’s driverless about your business. It seems like we all walk uphill, both ways, in the snow and barefoot just to make ends meet. But I have news for you: it doesn’t have to be that way (enter email marketing).

Is there some trick that changes everything, one that gets you on the cover of Fast Company and driving a Bugatti when you’re tired of the helicopter? Not quite. But there is one that simplifies your entire marketing strategy, turns more leads into sales and makes your clients more loyal than you could possibly imagine. And it is straightforward—so much so that too many businesses ignore it. It’s email. And it will drive your business this year. Here’s why:

Everyone is Doing It

Today, almost every productivity hack includes some way to avoid checking email as regularly as we all do. The reason? Most everyone measures their days by how many emails they get. We get separation anxiety with our phones not because of our love of SnapChat but because we are focused on reaching inbox-zero.

Put simply, email is the key to getting in front of your current and prospective clients. Getting someone’s email address is the 21st century’s equivalent of a door-to-door salesman getting invited into a prospect’s home…which segways perfectly to my next point:

Sales Pitches: Kid Tested, Mother Approved

Regardless of what industry we’re actually in, we’re all in sales. And, ironically enough, most everyone’s weakest point in business is sales. Barring the rare artiste that is a natural at the cold-call, anyone would be remiss to pass up a tactic that can actually simplify the sales process while practically handing you converted leads.

People expect a sales pitch in an email. And while people expect to see sales pitches in ads across every medium, that’s not why they open the magazine or watch TV. But it is why they open your email.

What You’re Thinking Right Now

Now, I know what you’re thinking: ‘Sure, those points make sense, but I get tons of those promotional emails and I just ignore them. Why should I waste time just to have people delete it?’

To be honest, it’s a good point. But here’s a challenge: start paying attention to how many you actually open. Odds are you open at least 10% of them. Of those you open, you click through the links to check out what they’re saying. Once you start paying attention, you’ll discover that you actually end up buying from them more often than you ever thought possible.

Email Marketing: By the Numbers

Here’s a little math to back it up: let’s assume you have a contact list of 1,000. If you get a conversion rate of 1%, and average $200 a sale, each email you send will make you $2,000.

But this isn’t even taking into account all the other benefits of email marketing: the ability to tell your brand’s story, staying in regular contact with your clients (and stay in the front of their mind), further establishing yourself as a thought leader—the list goes on. In fact, you’d be surprised at the response rate (not to mention, some great personal responses) to a well-conducted email marketing campaign and how people begin to look forward to your emails.

Want to learn how to craft fantastic emails that will drive your business in 2014? Feel free to contact us today!

by

Why Blogging Can Make Or Break Your Business

When the blogging first came into our everyday jargon, it was hard to believe that the concept would become something substantial.

Now, while most of us have accepted that blogging is here to stay (at least for a little while longer), it seems almost impossible for businesses to accept that the simple act of blogging may be the factor that generates the most traction for their business.

The reason behind the reluctancy isn’t rocket science. To most businesses, blogging seems more like a waste of time than a money-generator. It takes the focus of your business away from your business. Right? Well, sure. If you spend more time blogging than researching in the lab, or prepping for court, or reviewing patient histories–that might not be the best alley for your business.

But then, why are you spending more than 20 minutes to an hour doing that? Or better yet, why haven’t you hired out?

ALLOW ME TO MAKE MY CASE

Just to throw in the three letters that most people dread these days when it comes to their websites, social media and more–let’s talk about SEO. SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, is what most people will tell you that your website and blog posts need to adhere to in order for you to see results with blogging. Those people are…relatively right.

Sure, when you blog you want Google and Bing to register your post and list it first. That way, when people google “Realtor, South Florida,” your beautiful three-page website pops up first on the list. But see, with a sea as big as the real estate industry in South Florida–what’s a three page website chock-full of SEO keywords going to do for you?

Now, when you blog, each post gains a new page. Each new page expands your site. With each content-rich post (notice the key word there), you can exponentially increase your reach.

With over 434% more indexed pages on a site with a regular business blog versus a site of a business who neglects to blog, the 80% of consumers who find businesses via the internet will find you first. And to top that off, they will have a wealth of information that solidifies your role as a source of information and expertise in the field.

CROWDED SOAPBOX

Many people and clients have come up to me asking why they should blog given the fact that there is already so much noise in the internet realm. What’s one more useless blog, right?

Wrong.

Yes, there is a great deal of useless chatter and by joining the fray you will be competing for consumer attention, but when did a little competition stop you before? Whether it is running your own business, providing your own service or selling your own product–all of which, I guarantee you, come with a competitor trying to offer the same service and usually at a lower price.

The deciding factor is content. You remember the age-old saying, “Content is King.” Clichéd, perhaps. But the phrase didn’t stick around this long because it was inaccurate.

Regularly creating and delivering content-rich posts will not only set your business apart from competitors and raise you a foot above the slough, it will generate more leads and drive more follow-through business to your company.

by

Generating Leads With Marketing

After launching our Marketing Agency in Miami, we noticed the importance that language has on generating leads with marketing. It should be pretty obvious that the right verbiage can define the difference between a simple page hit and a serious lead; the opportunity that well-written copy can present for your business is not something that should be taken lightly.

But what we’ve seen is that business owners often gloss over their content and just see it as filler.

Despite what people may think in regards to new digital tools and their ability to generate leads with marketing, words and language are even more prominent than ever. We present ourselves first and foremost not on how we dress but on how we dress our websites. Is your page aesthetically pleasing? Engaging? Yes, but is it well-written?

It’s almost shocking how many professionals and businesses today have not taken the time even to simply proofread the materials they put forth that represent who they are as a business.

IT’S ALL IN THE DETAILS

As businesses, we all go through the motions of creating documents and presentations that will help set us apart from our competition. We value our product and/or services and usually we can rely on that as a strong marketing platform. Good product begets more clientele.

That being said, we all know competitors with inferior products but are still able to generate leads with marketing. So we try and showcase the difference — creating content that sets us apart — and portray how our product is top-of-the-line.

But blandly stating that you offer quality services and products will get you nowhere. The average consumer, or audience member, reads hundreds of marketing pitches (be it websites, social media pitches, advertisements, marketing presentations, etc) a day, that makes thousands a week and millions a year. If you want to generate leads with your marketing, you have some stiff competition.

A simple restructuring of your word choice, putting forth more of your business’s personality, can garner more returns and generate more leads for your business than a full email-blast campaign of a 100,000 subscribers. Changing a simple sentence from, “We are the best IT service provider in town,” to “Here in town, we offer a unique blend of quality service with unparalleled IT and computer repair offerings,” can make a world of difference.

DEAL-BREAKERS

Now, to quote the great Liz Lemon–some things are just deal-breakers. If on a professional level, you don’t take the time to proofread your work and a potential customer reads a sentence that says, “When it comes to photography, their is no better studio in town to handle the special moments of your life,” what do you think is going to happen? Well, that potential client is now someone else’s actual client. Writing like that produces a stop-gap. It’s hard on the eyes and it’s even harder.

Let’s channel some more of Ms. Lemon:

  • Professionals, if you misuse “their, there and they’re”–that’s a deal-breaker.
  • Professionals, if you tweet that you are the best new “higher” for a company–that’s a deal-breaker. (ahem, it’s “hire”).
  • Professionals, if you switch “it’s and its” and “where and wear” throughout a document–that’s a deal-breaker.
  • Professionals, if you are trying to announce that you’re the best in your field and you misspell or misuse industry key terms–that’s a deal-breaker.
  • Professionals, if you dumb down your copy to appeal to your potential clients–that’s a deal-breaker.

I could go on, but you get the gist.

GENERATING LEADS WITH MARKETING

A recession is what you make of it. So is your business. Why sit in a mire blaming the economy for your business’s slow year or lack of growth? There is still money to be made out there. Look at the Kardashians–they’re doing just fine.

If you could guarantee more leads, more follow-through business and a higher overall interest in your brand–would you consider the avenue that would get you there?

Yeah, we thought so too.