The Found Gen

Marketing That Works.

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Hey, what “About Us”?

5 key elements to maximize the potential of your “About Us” page

When it comes to website content, we tend to focus on the obvious—blog posts, social engagement, calls to action. But, you might be surprised to hear that it’s actually the “About Us” page that is one of the most visited pages on any given site (another reason it’s so important to regularly go over your website’s metrics).

Stop and think about it and it makes sense.

The About Us Page

The “About Us” page is where your potential customer comes to learn about your company and the people behind the scenes. They look here before deciding whether or not to take your business seriously. You don’t want to miss this opportunity to present engaging and creative content in a setting that seems the most relaxed and organic. Basically, this is your chance to make a killer first impression.

Ok, so you get it: the “About Us” page is a big deal. Now what?

As with all good content marketing, you must be sure the information on the page tells a compelling story in an accessible way. An effective “About Us” page, then, should include these five fundamental aspects.

The Five Keys to a Great About Page

  1. Your company’s mission and purpose

Here’s your chance to set your company apart from the rest. Show off what makes you unique and why people should choose your company over the competition. A strong “About Us” page gives a personality and voice to your company’s vision.

Tell people why and how the company got started in the first place. What inspired you to create your business just might inspire others to do business with you. But even so, don’t go overboard: remember best practice and try to stay concise and targeted. You want to captivate not hold captive.

  1. Company history or timeline

Social media has made the timeline concept a familiar format that people respond to. Take visitors on a trip through your company’s history. Tell them when you started, how far you’ve come and show them what your company has accomplished along the way.

Be sure to include milestones and details about the growth of your business in a way that is visually engaging. Timelines are a great way to present a large amount of information in a format other than just boring, old paragraphs. (Hmmm, rethinking the format of this blog post suddenly.)

  1. Profiles or bios of team members

Now’s the time to let the passion driving your company’s vision shine. It’s real, living, breathing people who make up your company, after all. “Meeting the team” helps visitors connect on a more personal level, which enhances their relationship with your company as a potential customer.

And, despite the professional purpose of your site, this content doesn’t have to sound formal in order to achieve credibility. In fact, most people find it easier to connect with real human beings, so go ahead and let your employees express their personalities. You could even include Social Media profiles to make your business look approachable and engaging.

  1. Graphics or visuals of your business concept

Never underestimate the appeal of the infographic. Well-designed graphics will always pack a stronger punch than long-winded explanations of your business concept. Something that is easier to immediately understand will leave a lasting impression. After all, if people can’t figure out what you do, how will they know if they need your product or service?

  1. Multimedia content

There’s no way around it—internet attention spans mean people are much more likely to click on a play button than read down the length of a page. So, why not make a video that tells your story and allow it to speak for itself?

These days the integration of video and multimedia elements on websites is second nature, so it’s really up to you to open up this excellent avenue of communication with your customers.

Plus, uploading a video to YouTube or a sound clip to SoundCloud also offers an additional platform for promotion and exposure. You’ll increase the chances of people connecting with it, sharing it and coming back to your fantastic website and that killer “About Us” page.

Want even more inspiration? We found some great ideas here: bestaboutpages.com

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Why Internet Headline Writing Rules Are Bull$@!*

Will writing headlines about cute chihuahuas move the need on your marketing? Probably not.

Headline writing with catchy phrases and lists is all the rage these days…and they’re everywhere. You can’t scroll through Facebook without seeing some variation of one of these: “You’ll Never Believe the Video of This Cat Not Eating Five Ducklings!” “10 Reasons You Should Ditch Your [Fill in the Blank]” “30 Reasons [Fill in the Blank Town] Is the Best Place for Millennials.” These less-than-intelligent-sounding headlines don’t have to be the norm for online content.

Many companies are guilty of this style of headline writing to get more clicks, likes or views. It’s based on pulling users into a site and possibly bombarding them with pop-up ads, and requests to share or repost. Good headlines, paired with good copy, don’t leave readers feeling cheapened or deceived. Instead, they convince readers that this company is looking out for them. This company has their best interests in mind.

Look to the News

Headline writing doesn’t have to be so scammy. While the days of traditional print journalism headlines are quickly fading, news values are not. Headlines can be both optimized for search engines and intelligent. They can still scream “READ ME!” without misleading, misinforming or dumbing down a story.

  • Be authentic. Your headline should describe what a story is about.
  • Get them to read the next line. The introductory sentence and paragraph (newspaper lingo: the lede) tells the reader either the most important facts or leads them into the next graph, where the most important facts live.
  • Is it relevant? Is it useful? Is it specific? Basically, why is this story newsworthy or worthy of posting online? Journalists learn the bones of news writing based on these values: proximity, timeliness, consequence, rarity, conflict, prominence. Take what’s relevant from these and apply to an online article.

Make headlines fit the web by FIRST writing for people and THEN writing for search engines. It’s a rule that stands the test of algorithm changes and drama in the SEO world. Articles and headlines written for humans—with authenticity and integrity—will always reflect good SEO.

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Marketing to Baby Boomers

Digital marketing trends tend to build around strategies and platforms that use the latest technological advances. But what if you suspect that your target audience isn’t the most tech-savvy (the stereotype we’re talking about is marketing to Baby Boomers)? Would an email campaign or a Facebook push be more effective? Is your blog connecting with your core customers?

For businesses whose primary consumer base substantially comprises the Baby Boomer generation, it’s time to reconsider the notion that digital marketing isn’t a worthwhile investment (Perhaps basing assumptions about an entire swath of the population off your aunt’s failure to grasp social media is unfair).

The projected 74.9 million Boomers (the segment of the population ages 51 to 69 who are defined as a generation by the boom in births following World War II), combined with the rest of the population over age 50, control trillions of dollars in buying power. So almost any business would be foolish not to include marketing to Baby Boomers in its digital marketing strategy.

Marketing to Boomers: a Few Guidelines

  1. Don’t forget Millennial-centric smartphone apps like Instagram. Research shows that the majority of Boomers regularly use the Internet and shop online so don’t ignore these more Hipster platforms when marketing to Baby Boomers.
  2. But don’t discount any platform entirely (except Snapchat). You might remember when the news broke big a few years ago about Baby Boomers joining Facebook in large numbers (and supposedly scaring off many younger users in the process…). If you have a solid Facebook presence, use it to encourage interaction with these users; it’s a great opportunity to make your business relatable, which plays well with this market.
  3. Make email campaigns work for the Boomer consumer. In general, Boomers don’t respond well to pushy, aggressive sales tactics and like to be informed before making a purchase. Use your email communications to alert them to the benefits of your product or service, providing clear, organized content along with notifications about sales or specials.
  4. Take extra measures to ensure your website is well-labeled as a safe and secure e-commerce environment, with contact methods clearly accessible and reliable. Boomers are careful when it comes to making online purchases and often need to ask questions or speak with a live person in order to follow through with a sale.
  5. Finally, remember that a wide range of tech-savviness exists within the group. Do a little investigating about your current and target consumers and use digital marketing tactics designed to speak to that specific segment.

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How to Triple Your Subscriber List in 3 Easy Steps

Email. It runs our lives more than any of us would care to admit. From business to personal, we treat email as if it were part a life-support mechanism. So, why is it when it comes to business that building a healthy, and hefty, subscriber list is pushed to the back-burner?

One thing we tend to remind our clients of daily, here at The Found Gen, is that there are only TWO things you can control these days when it comes to your business’s marketing tools: your blog and your subscriber list.

Social media is constantly in flux, with new algorithms and pushes for ad buys changing the game before you can even blink. SEO tactics are at the beck-and-call of Matt Cutts. And practically every other marketing strategy needs to be ready to pivot at the drop of a hat.

But, email…that’s something you can control. So, why aren’t you? A sturdy subscriber list helps you stay in contact with your current, potential and even previous clients. A well-maintained list can act as your arsenal for generating sales, boosting brand notoriety and even opening doors that may have been shut ages ago.

We went ahead and compiled a few easy steps to grow your subscriber list quick.

1. Go Ahead & Ask For Emails

Sounds so easy, right? Well, it is. Every time you go out to a meeting or a networking event, you are collecting business cards. Why not spend a few extra seconds and simply ask if you can send them some information that you think will be of use. Always bring it into your conversation and what you’re talking about. We don’t recommend simply shouting it out after an 10 second introduction. That will never end in anything other than an “unsubscribe.” But offer to stay in touch, bring something back into conversation that they mentioned. For instance, if you’re a divorce lawyer and they mentioned their friend has a concern about alimony payments post-retirement–ask if you can send them some useful material on the subject. They won’t say no.

And for the online request, make a subscribe option prominent on both your homepage and your blog page. Provide incentives for guests to sign up. For instance a free Ebook or White Paper. Content is king. Give something to get something.

2 . Offer an Online Course

More often than not, an interesting webinar catches the attention of a lot of folk. Webinars have the added bonus of not limiting you to a specific location.

A client of ours once offered a webinar, offering a free online assessment along with it. All it took was one quick offer, that resulted in 7,000 sign-ups and a suddenly robust email list. Not too shabby, right?

In order to be successful at an online course or seminar, you need to narrow down your topic, create a sense of urgency that will in turn drive action, and keep it short and sweet. It’s easy for people to spare an hour or an hour a week for 4 weeks, but beyond that–things get tricky. So keep that in mind when planning.

3. Guest Post on High Value Sites

Blogging is one of the strongest ways to drive consistent traffic to your site. When you guest blog you open the door to reach a larger audience and get them interested in wanting to hear more about what you have to say.  So, it’s important to leverage your guest posting opportunities to drive traffic to your site up and subsequently your subscriptions too.

A few quick tips? Do some quick research and nominate a selection of sites where you feel your voice will be most compatible. Then take a deeper look into the overall style of the posts they share (read: titles, messaging, layout and calls-to-action). Seamlessly melding to another site’s style gives you a higher chance of being selected and asked back. But don’t forget to offer that bonus material that will drive attention back to your site and your subscription list.

All in all it’s not difficult to grow your subscriber list–it just takes a bit of effort. If you’re interested in growing your list but aren’t sure you have the time to dedicate to it, go ahead and give us a call. We’re happy to help get your subscriber list where you want it to be.

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The Benefits of Blogging for Your Business

The blog has come a long way from its early days as a communication platform for online diarists. For small business owners, it might be difficult at first to understand why blogging for business is such a beneficial activity. But blogging for business is indeed a powerful, multifunctional online tool.

In fact, it might be helpful to think of blogging in terms of that other, extremely popular business practice: content marketing. The content marketing strategy revolves around creating engaging, useful, targeted content and sharing it through any number of channels in order to attract and retain customers.

So why is content creation in the form of blogging so great for your business? Here are just a few of many reasons to take to the keys.

Attract New Visitors

Blogging is a great way to get inbound traffic to your website, especially if you have a limited budget. It basically creates content pages that search engines crawl as they process queries and return top results to users. The more new, fresh content and variety of topics you have on your site—and promoted across your social media networks—the better.

Target Niche Communities

If your industry or focus lends itself to niche passions and interests, blogging is a fantastic way to connect with those small yet important pockets of your potential customer base in a way that’s difficult with standard advertising. Think about specific topics of interest to those groups, and reasons why they might be conducting an online search (blogging for business is centered around just that). Then use your blog to offer educational or entertaining content targeting to those topics and provide links to the related services, products and promotions on your site.

Establish Your Biz As an Authority

For businesses that have a solid base of existing customers or operate on a B2B basis, blogging is a great strategy for reinforcing expertise, trust and experience. Think about topics of interest surrounding your core industry and then write to demonstrate your business’s authority. Financial firms can offer tips on saving for retirement or short, up-to-date posts on the stock market. Retail businesses can talk about seasonal trends or street-style inspiration. Go beyond promoting your services or goods and try to speak to what your customers really want to know more about from a reliable source.

Showcase Company Highlights

People identify with businesses they can connect with—and blogging for business is a great way to humanize your brand. Share updates, staff favorites, special sales events and success stories on your blog. Not only will it keep that search-engine-friendly fresh content coming, but it will also build the relationship with your customers and encourage them to engage more with your business.