The Found Gen

Marketing That Works.

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When Was The Last Time You Looked at Your Data?

Data should be behind the wheel of every marketing decision you make, but for so many businesses, especially small business with already a ton on their hands, it can feel like one more thing on the never-ending to-do list. And frankly, it can feel pretty low priority compared to your other business needs.

But data is important. Despite how overwhelming it can feel to track, manage, and interpret, data can guide some pretty big and important decisions when it comes to who you target, how you target them, and the most effective ways to continue to engage them.

We get it that not every business has the luxury of having a full-time data person scouring their marketing performance, and you certainly don’t need that.

But what you do need is consistent and regular check-ins with some of your most valuable metrics that power your content marketing strategy. Those metrics will vary based on your goals, but some fairly universal data points to monitor include:

  • Webpage views – How many people are visiting your website? Which pages are they landing on, and how long are they lingering? Knowing this information can help guide which new content you develop so you can continue to remain relevant.
  • Social media engagement – What is your post frequency and what kind of interaction or reactions are your posts generating with readers? Which posts perform most/least favorably?
  • Email engagement – What is your open rate and which links within your email are getting clicks?

These and other data points should inform every part of your content marketing strategy, which naturally will evolve as your get new data. After all, the more you know, the better you can target and reach the people that really matter to your business needs.

Lucky for you, we can help ensure that your metrics and marketing stay perfectly aligned for growing your business. Take the next step today by getting in touch with us at The Found Gen.

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Why is Content So Dang Important?

And why you better hop on the train or miss the ride

Hey! Look at me! Look at ME! I’ve got something you neeeeed!”

Cue the pop-up, tacky Instagram ad or creepy targeted banner ad showing you something you were just looking at on Amazon on a different website.

How are those marketing tactics working out for your business? How are they working on you as a consumer?

While we will probably never escape these invasive and just plain gross forms of targeted advertising, consumers are getting fed up and learning how to ignore it. Humans are sick of the sales drivel and getting better at sorting through the muck to find the brands that they value – which are usually the brands that value them. How do you show your customers that you value them? Give them what they want: relevant, informative, authoritative content.

Content is the art of communicating directly with your audience without getting all salesperson schmoozy with them. Rather than saying “Hey, buy my stuff!” you focus on topics and information that will be of use to your customers. If you’re doing it right, you get people to read and view your content, derive some kind of benefit from it, then eventually give you their business.

That’s the idea anyway. In reality, too many businesses treat content marketing as sales and do away with delivering valuable information, focusing instead on some kind of backhanded sales pitch.

We’re here to tell you that the old ways of telling people that 9 out of 10 doctors recommend smoking while pregnant are done. Tacky banner ads are done. Overselling your product or service is done. Telling, instead of asking, is done. Treating your audience like numbers instead of humans is SO DONE!

Content marketing is the only kind of marketing that is going to work with the savvy consumers of our times.

So, what can content do that other forms of marketing can’t? Here’s a list (read it and weep, email spam!)

  • Build your reputation. Build trust
  • Increase conversions
  • A cost-effective way to bring in new leads
  • Demonstrate your expertise and build authority
  • Set yourself apart from competitors
  • Enhance your social media strategy and builds traction
  • Improve your SEO ranking
  • Boost your PR strategy
  • Drive more inbound traffic and leads

And just for your edification, here’s a list of all the different types of content

  • Blogs
  • Videos and micro-videos
  • Social media posts
  • Info graphics
  • Podcasts
  • Case studies
  • eBooks
  • Webinars
  • Photos
  • Checklists
  • Memes
  • Whitepapers
  • How-to-guides

One last note before we let you go get to work on your content. As you are creating content remember that if your voice, your message, your branding is all over the place, people won’t be able to trust you as easily and your credibility goes out the window. Be CONSISTENT!

Be consistent in

  • Quality
  • Voice
  • Design
  • Publishing schedule
  • Your values
  • Your message

All right, we’re going to call it good for today, folks. We think you get the picture. Content is king. Consistency is the queen who actually calls all the shots. You need them both to succeed, especially in the post-pandemic marketing world.

Need help with content, guess who’s got you covered … See how we did that? Lots of useful, valuable information. Hopefully we built some trust by conveying how much we actually care about content and then a small nudge at the end.

We didn’t invent the content marketing game, we just make it look so good! All right, we’re getting carried away now. Signing off. Until our next scheduled content…

Social Media Marketing

Your website and your email list are your digital real estate.

It’s what you control fully and can provide a direct connection to your audience. Social media is the highly trafficked retail location that gets a lot of window shoppers.

But it’s where people spend a lot of time when they’re on the internet. And your company needs to be wherever your prospects are hanging out.

We’ll get you there.

Whether your goal is a Senatorial run in 6-8 years or simply staying front-of-mind with your network, we focus your social media profiles to accomplish your goals, making sure every post and every like is delivering the results you’re looking for.

The posts that perform the best are the ones we keep, tweak and replicate. If entertaining posts on LinkedIn do well at 6 am on a Monday, we keep ‘em coming. If an essay on Thursday night on Instagram tickles your audience’s fancy, then that’s what we’ll do.

What makes us different is we do the heavy lifting for you. We strategize, write, publish, engage and yes, even design, your feeds. Because social is tough stuff, and it takes time. And your time is valuable. So, go on and get to it – and we’ll take care of the rest.

DM us (or you can just write an email like a regular person) for all your social media needs.

Content Marketing

We could wax poetic on how we write compelling content that keeps audiences waiting…for…every…last…word.

But that likely isn’t why you’re here. And honestly, your audience probably doesn’t care either.

Your content needs to speak to them and give them what they’re looking for. If they’re trying to answer a question on Google, your content should be informative. If they’re scrolling through Facebook (or Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter…you get the picture) it should entertain them. If it’s via email, they should walk away glad they took the time to open it.

In short: you content should provide value. When it does, it doesn’t feel like a marketing ploy. It’s communicating authentically, building trust along the way. And people do business with people they trust.

Yes, it is that simple.

But first, they need to find you

The best content marketing campaign ever executed is Wikipedia. Their encyclopedic (pun-intended) amount of valuable content is literally the best, bar-none. And their interlinking strategy keeps people going down the rabbit hole learning more and more. This is why Google rewards them so highly on so many different searches. Odds are, if you’re searching for information, Wikipedia is worth a click.

And that’s why your website’s blog should be like a Wiki for your services. It really is that simple.

And it is a commitment

At The Found Gen, we play the long game. Our content marketing strategies are sustained and scalable, churning out content that your potential customers are looking for today and every day until the internet ends. We love it when a blog we wrote way back in 2014 is still driving a TON of people to our clients’ sites and converting into customers for them. It’s why we work with your team to perfect your content strategy on the daily, answering questions that are always asked in all the different ways that people pose them.

And no matter how things change – and they have always changed quickly – we make sure your marketing strategy is so well-formulated, scalable and nimble that it can change just as fast. It’s why we focus our strategies on the people and not the algorithms.

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What Online Marketing Tactics Should You Tackle First?

So, COVID-19 has sent your business for a loop? We get it.

And now you have to pivot your marketing strategies? We totally get it.

And you just have no clue where to start? We sooooo get it.

And a lot of people are shouting at you to buy ads or do SEO? Oof, yeah we get that too.

Look, there are STILL a lot of unknowns out there about how COVID-19 will affect the business world as we know it. One thing we do know is that the show must go on. Somehow, some way the world will come into the new normal and we all, as humans and as businesses, will have to adjust how we operate in a market that may never be the same.

How different will the world be? We just have to wait and see. But you can be guaranteed that there will be effects on your business. So, how do we prepare for the unknown?

Our recommendation is to stick to marketing tactics that work. You know, the kind that don’t break your proverbial piggy bank, don’t ride with fads (we see you tiktok), and don’t just slap a band-aid on it (cough cough, ads, cough).

 While we’re waiting to see what shape the world takes, we don’t have to reinvent the wheel. We can still keep the business rolling by focusing on content creation. Nothing mind-blowing here, just a friendly reminder that while fishermen (it sounds weird to say fisher-people) can’t fish, they repair their nets. In this case, your “net” is one or all of three of the digital ages’ most time-tested marketing forms.

Newsletters

One of the first successful marketing campaigns we saw personally during COVID came in the simple form of a newsletter. It was a small breakfast place with amazing food. The campaign was very simple, it basically said: “Hey, we’re cookin’ – if you’re eatin’. Open for pick-up. All our menu items are $9.99!”

And boy, did it do the trick. We ordered the next day and when we went to pick up our meal, there were dozens of carry out orders waiting along with ours. This café could have easily lost tens of thousands of dollars, but instead they sent out a newsletter that reached their fans and turned COVID into a win.

Never forget the power of a newsletter. And on that note, never forget the power of collecting emails. The more contacts you have for your email campaigns, the more effective your campaigns can be.

Blogs

Blogs have been the backbone of digital content for decades now. The main purpose of blogs is to drive traffic to your site with content-rich articles. But oftentimes businesses forget this or get too busy with the actual running of the business. In order to stay relevant as a business, your blogs have to stay relevant.

If you were searching for the best lawyer, would you go with the attorney who hasn’t posted a new blog since 2015, or the one who is staying up with the times and posting blogs about current events and contemporary subjects? We like relevancy and think it speaks to a brand’s status as a relatable business.

So, while you’re sitting around waiting for customers, write some blogs, or better yet, hire a team of professional content creators (cough, cough, us, cough) to create a content strategy for your company.

Social Media

Keep posting and keep engaging with your audience. Now is not the time to go silent. Post informative and engaging content. Post about how your team is grappling with the current state of the world. Just keep posting. But remember the 80/20 rule. 80% of the time you should be giving something to your audience: knowledge, insights, recommendations, a breath of fresh air. And 20% you can ask for something. Want to play it extra safe right now? Shoot for  a 90/10 ratio.

We know we haven’t necessarily delivered earth-shattering news to you with this blog, but we hope that it served as a reminder to keep the content mill churning. It can’t ever stop or your business will stop.

Good luck out there. We’d love to hear from you about how COVID has affected your business and how you’ve evolved or adapted to confront the changes.

Kamalame Cay

Kamalame Cay is a world-renowned private island resort in the Bahamas who was looking to boost their brand awareness internationally, through social media and email marketing when they came to The Found Gen in 2012.

 

Social Media

In 2012, we launched the resort’s initial social media campaign – where their only social presence was 152 fans on Facebook. Kamalame Cay now boasts more than 6,900 fans on Facebook with over 700,000 impressions per year. Online sales have grown by over 20% per year for eight years in a row. 

The Found Gen launched the resort’s Instagram profile in 2014. The page currently boasts over 10k followers. The resort now has a dedicated hashtag with over 2,400 user generated posts. In 2016, the company launched multiple secondary profiles on Instagram tailored to represent the specific interests of their guests.

Email Marketing

We were also able to launch Kamalame’s Cay email marketing strategy and campaigns, also starting in 2012. We leveraged the company’s existing mailing list to engage with prior guests and reach out to those who were interested in staying with the Cay but had yet to book.

With over 2,700 active users on their mailing list currently, we created dedicated emails including special promotional blasts to drive bookings and maintain a high rate of bookings each month.

We were able to generate over $50,000 in bookings from one eBlast.

Creative Marketing

When looking to create some unique events and opportunities to drive engagement and entertainment on island, we developed Sunday Luncheons – a now ever-present monthly luncheon serving five-star dining and wine pairings in partnership with Young’s Fine Wines.  Attendees currently fly in internationally, simply to attend these luncheons.