Archives for 2019

The Power Of Voice Search And Its Effect On Your Business

December 19, 2019 by Dabrian Marketing Group Leave a Comment

As all digital marketers know, search engine optimization (SEO) is a key component in a marketing strategy and one that is constantly changing. For example, when Google’s algorithm to prioritize websites that have been optimized for mobile users was implemented, we saw the entire industry pivot towards a “mobile-first” strategy to prevent any penalties handed out by the new algorithm.

So what’s next you ask? Voice search. Yes, that’s right, voice search. Don’t be surprised how this relatively new SEO trend could affect your visibility and credibility as a business in 2020 and beyond.

What Is Voice Search?

Voice search, or search by voice, is the ability to speak to a device – be it smartphones, laptops, or smart home devices – to make a request or search for information, rather than your standard text-based search. The voices inside these many devices are called voice assistants.

Some current examples of voice assistants are:

Amazon Alexa

A voice assistant on countless Amazon products such as Echo, Echo Show, and FireTV.

Google Assistant

A voice assistant on Google products like Google Home, Google Mini, and Google Home Hub.

Apple Siri

A voice assistant on Apple products such as iPhones, iPads, and Apple Watch.

To develop a sound SEO strategy in 2020, it’s important to understand the power of voice search and how to optimize it for your business. According to Google’s CEO, Sundar Pichai, around 20 percent of search queries are done by voice. More people these days use their voices to search for information for two reasons: it’s faster, and it’s natural. Not only do people use voice to search for information, but they also use it for the following:

Play music
Play games
Shopping
Set daily reminders
Make a phone call

Case and point, voice is here to stay and there is no way around it. It is not optional!

How Will Voice Search Affect My Business?

As I mentioned in the beginning, voice search is currently not a part of Google’s algorithm however it is still dictating current search results. Voice search queries often yield different results than if the user had typed in a text-based search. SEO wise, it’s a good idea for businesses to be on their toes with voice search components for their consumers who are adapting and switching over to that medium. According to experts in voice search, content must be optimized for voice. It needs to be more direct and conversational so it will be synced with search queries. This will help boost traffic by staying relevant and more visible to consumers.

Who Uses Voice Search?

According to an article by AllBusiness, people of all ages have used voice search for a source of information. However, the data also highlights the need for local businesses to utilize voice search to target younger customers:

76% of consumers ages 18 to 34 had used voice search to find information for a local business within the last year.
64% of consumers ages 35 to 54 had used voice search to find information for a local business within the last year.
37% of consumers ages 55 and older had used voice search to find information for a local business within the last year.

What Industries Are Most Affected by Voice Assistants?

Statistics show people use voice for mostly food-related requests.

Restaurants/cafés (51%)
Grocery stores (41%)
Food delivery (35%)
Clothing stores (32%)
Hotels/bed and breakfasts (30%)

Some of the things they may be doing, while asking for these industries, are checking inventory, checking business hours, or even making a purchase.

Typical Actions Taken By Voice Search Consumers

Voice search drives action for local businesses, much like a call-to-action button on a web page. Here are the possible outcomes after someone does a voice search:

28% of consumers call the business.
27% visit the business’s website.
19%visit the business in person.

Is Alexa The Future?

Voice search has been a useful tool for many people for many many years and many more to come in the future. As more people interact with them on a day to day basis, it’s only a matter of time before it becomes the number one source of information. This increase can make or break a business. The earlier you start, the more likely successful your company will be.

Subscribe for more information or get a quote for SEO for voice search.

Improve Your Brand, Sales and Improve Customer Loyalty With AdRoll

December 5, 2019 by Daniel Laws Leave a Comment

Online marketing shouldn’t be about guessing, but too often that’s what we have to do when trying to predict what our customers really want and how to make them buy.

Certainly we can sometimes make educated guesses by looking at separate data from all of our different marketing channels, but there’s still some A/B testing and finger-crossing involved that we are using the correct data and have enough of it to make proper decisions.

By incorporating the AdRoll growth marketing platform in your customer outreach efforts, you’ll be able to learn more reliable ways to combine all your analytics into one cross-channel stream and also gain access to all sorts of relevant customer information.

For example, AdRoll provides information on audiences. You can connect your Marketo or HubSpot CRM and target prospects based on their actions. You can also segment audiences based on your site pageviews.

Why use AdRoll?

Using the latest AI tools, AdRoll can blend your first-person data with robust second-party and third-party data to present you with accurate info about your ideal audiences. Clients can access AdRoll’s IntentMap that offers in-depth looks at more than 1.2 billion shopper profiles, including their past purchases, marketing preferences and demographic info. You have the option to run Ad Campaigns or Email Campaign on the platform. The Ad Campaigns can include social media platforms such as Instagram and Facebook. Their display network includes sites such as Yahoo!, CNN, People, and a lot more.

Having all of this data within easy reach can reduce your research time and guesswork and make it easier to target and engage current and future customers.

AdRoll has been designed to easily integrate with common e-commerce platforms such as Shopify, Magneto and WooCommerce, along with a variety of other add-ons. It also includes a social media and email presence to provide more “touches” for your customers and get them even more excited about what you have to offer.

Within AdRoll, you can see the overall impact that AdRoll is having on you business. The Attribution section can give you insight into which channels are generating the most revenue and influencing the time to a sale.

Part of the strength of AdRoll is being able to track every point of a customer’s journey through an ad campaign from awareness to purchase, plus any follow-up. It also includes the ability to optimize certain areas of this journey, including creating different types of customized messages designed to reduce cart abandonment.

Essentially, you’ll learn new solutions to attract business and convert visitors into customers. By creating a positive experience, shoppers will be more likely to remain loyal and return for future transactions.

How DaBrian Marketing can help with AdRoll?

DaBrian Marketing recently has received AdRoll certification, so we’re happy to share our training knowledge on this new platform with new and existing clients to help them better identify their customers, grow their sales and build awareness of their brands.

Though businesses can certainly try to learn this software on their own, it makes more sense to partner with an agency with AdRoll certification to help your business see success.

We’re happy to offer personalized strategies to help you create the perfect campaigns, including useful ways of tracking leads, sales, traffic and overall ROI. This includes looking forward in the short-term and the long-term.

Partnering with an agency with demonstrated knowledge of this platform can mean you have access to an impressive amount of tools, which can cut down on your costs and efforts and also improve your overall effectiveness.

Let us know how we can help you get started!

What Are Your Digital Marketing Priorities for 2020?

November 21, 2019 by Daniel Laws Leave a Comment

What are the key digital marketing trends for 2020 that your business needs to consider to generate more traffic, leads, and revenue? What should be a priority in your digital marketing strategy? Here are a few digital marketing trends that suggest where savvy managers should invest their time and resources next year:

Capture the Zero Position in Google Search to Get Found
Content Marketing, Creation, and Distribution like a Rockstar
Customer Retention with Marketing Data & Segmentation to save money
Use Artificial Intelligence with Digital Marketing for efficiency

Now, let’s dive a little deeper into what we mean and why you should care.

Optimizing for Zero Position on the Search Engine Results Page (SERP)

The zero position refers to the first Google search engine results that appear above the organic search (SEO) listings. It’s sometimes called a featured snippet, rank zero, or P0. By optimizing for the zero position on the search engine results page (SERP), you can steal relevant traffic from your competition and appear above them in the top SEO results.

It sounds really easy, right? Not really, the content you create should be part of a bigger content marketing strategy. You’ll need to consider the intent, keywords, difficult to rank, search volume and customer experience while providing content that dominates the zero position. The most common types are content are:

Answers to Questions (Who, What, When, Where, and Why)
How-tos or instructions
Definitions
Comparisons
Price/Cost Breakdowns
Best of Lists
Frequently Asked Questions

Don’t forget to add a call to action to the content.

Changing of Content Marketing, Creation, and Distribution

Content Marketing will continue to evolve in 2020. User and search intent will drive content creation and development with data being collected to provide better results through machine learning or artificial intelligence. Customers want to receive content tailored to their interests and needs. Your competition is going to focus more on catering to voice searches via mobile and smart speaker devices.

The creation of content should be in different formats to accommodate the user’s intent, personalization, voice search, and to increase your chances to appear in the featured snippets. Use the content that is delivering results and distribute it across platforms in a way that is helpful to your audience.

Improving Customer Retentions with Data & Segmentation

It takes less money to keep your existing customers happy so we recommend more effort into the middle and last stages of the buyer’s journey. Happy customers tend to tell their friends and provide referrals to help increase revenue. They are also more likely to give your direct and honest feedback about issues to improve your brand.

Be sure to keep them informed on your organizational changes or processes that would impact your relationship through email marketing or engage with them on social media. By collecting data and segmenting your customers, you have an opportunity to save costs while delivering on your products and services.

Leveraging of Artificial Intelligence for Digital Marketing

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been used in digital marketing going back to 2013 with Facebook. Here is a list of the most common uses of AI in digital marketing:

Voice Search
Programmatic Media Buying
Ad Targeting
Re-targeting
Marketing Automation
1:1 dynamic emails

Prioritize from the list and develop an action plan to implement. Using one or more of these could help to increase relevant traffic to your website, get more leads, and improve your overall revenue growth.

Don’t have the time or expertise to keep up! We keep up with the digital marketing trends so you don’t have to. Give us a call to learn more about 2020 digital marketing trends that will impact your business.

Conclusion

The 4 digital marketing trends for 2020 is not a complete list. You will be on the right track if you start by optimizing for zero position, use content marketing more strategically, improve customer retention, and use artificial intelligence with digital marketing when the opportunity is available.

We wanted to identify the trends that would improve your site traffic, help you to generate more leads, and increase your sales within budget. It’s also important to understand the digital marketing trends and how they will impact the competitive landscape.

Want more information on the top 2020 digital marketing trends? Check out the list of references:

4 Major Marketing Trends for 2020 and Beyond on Entrepreneur

What’s new? What’s next? 6 essential marketing trends for 2020 – Smart Insights

Top Marketing Trends For 2020 – Forbes

Improve Your ROI with Call Tracking With A CallRail Partner

October 30, 2019 by Daniel Laws Leave a Comment

What is CallRail?

CallRail is a tracking and analytics for phone calls and web forms. Optimize your marketing and increase the ROI on your PPC, SEO, and offline ad campaigns. It can help to reduce your business response time and increase your closing rates. You can event get alerts by phone, text, or email so your sales reps can contact potential customers quickly.

Why use CallRail?

Our agency uses call tracking to help determine how callers are finding your business. We know your customers are researching your business before they make a phone call. Call tracking gives us the ability to see what actions they took before they picked up the phone or fill out a form. We use this information to get a holistic picture of our work, optimize our strategies, and help grow your business.

Clients benefit from the ability to fully engage with their CallRail account or as part of our digital marketing. There’s also a ton of features clients can use for their business. Call tracking numbers and caller data are always owned by the client to help maintain full visibility on campaign and customer service performance.

Why Work With a CallRail Partner?

Over 700 agencies and counting are members of CallRail’s Agency Partner Program. As a partner, we get exclusive content, specialized sales support, and marketing resources to help agencies expand the business and retain more clients. By working with a CallRail agency partner, businesses can get access to additional support and resources too.

DaBrian Marketing Group recently joined CallRail’s Agency Partner Program to enhance our marketing efforts with call tracking and form tracking for our clients. CallRail is the top-rated call tracking platform and has helped over 100,000 businesses understand what makes their phone ring. CallRail also offers form submission tracking to help companies to see which channels, campaigns, ads, and keywords are generating form submissions.

“We’re dedicated to helping our clients develop effective strategies and prove that the strategies achieve their business goals through analytics. CallRail is another addition to our toolset to help small and midsize businesses to get the information they need to make better decisions. We partner with our clients to turn data into revenue-generating action that move businesses forward! said Daniel Laws.”

Learn more about call tracking, form submission tracking, and how it can help grow your business here. Schedule an appointment for a free consultation, and let’s see if we can help you get a better handle on your data!

Berks County Industrial Development Authority Gets a New Website & Logo

October 23, 2019 by Daniel Laws Leave a Comment

In May 2019, Berks County Industry Development Authority (BerksIDA) sent out a request for proposals for a new logo and website design. BerksIDA selected DaBrian Marketing Group to create or redesign BerksIDA’s logo and modern website for a modernized look and feel.

At the time, BerksIDA was one of many departments or organizations hosted on the County of Berks website. The brand of the organization was not identified on the site, and it was a challenge to locate their information on the massive website. The domain was owned and managed by the County of Berks, so the ability to update content or images required the resources of the county administrators.

We built BerksIDA, a new website that is customizable and easily accessible to have changes made. We also moved them to their own domain and worked with the Berks County webmaster to redirect the necessary pages. The website now has the capability for 3rd party integrations to expand or improve functionalities so it can be utilized as a business tool. With it’s new responsive design visitors can now enjoy the browsing experience on mobile, tablet, and desktop.

We worked with BerksIDA to create a simple logo that captures the regional context of Berks County, maintains some of the elements, and updated the marketing collateral. The marketing collateral consisted of new letterhead, business cards, DaBrian Marketing Group also created a print ad to be used in local publications for BerksIDA.

“It was a pleasure working with the staff at BerksIDA. They were very professional group of individuals who offered a lot of helpful incite throughout the course of the project.”
– Mark A. Mapp, Creative Director at DaBrian Marketing Group

About Berks County Industrial Development Authority

Berks County Industrial Development Authority (BerksIDA) was established by the County Commissioners on May 7, 1969, in accordance with the Pennsylvania Economic Development Financing Law (Act 102 of 1967, P.L. 251, formerly the Industrial and Commercial Development Authority Law). BerksIDA is committed to serving the residents of Berks County and their elected representatives, the County Commissioners, by implementing their plans, strategies, and initiatives for economic development. BerksIDA utilizes all of its legal powers, skills, relationships, and resources to accomplish its mission. BerksIDA’s primary focus is on financing, acquiring industrial land, developing specialized industrial parks and the infrastructure development necessary for economic development to occur.

If you need help with grant writing, site development, or financing, contact the Berks County Industrial Development Authority (BerksIDA) for assistance.

Developing a 2020 Content Marketing Plan for Your Bank or Credit Union

October 16, 2019 by Michael Sanders Leave a Comment

You’ve heard it before: content is king. In 2020, the digital marketing landscape will reinforce this adage more than ever. As Google’s algorithms increasingly rank pages with relevant information higher in its organic search results and users gravitate toward brands they trust, quality content can help savvy marketers stand out from the competition.

Educational content, specifically, is the tool through which banks and credit unions can engage with potential customers. In fact, one study by Powered Inc. suggests that consumers who receive educational content are 29 times more likely to enlist the provider’s services compared to traditional advertising. This means that educational content can help you drive new customers, increase the number of loan applications received, and improve the bottom-line.

But where should you begin with your own content makeover? Though the 2008 financial crisis is now more than a decade behind us, banks and credit unions are still struggling to win back trust. The non-profit Association of Retirement Plan Participants found that only 8% of those surveyed had faith in their financial institutions—down 5% from the previous year. Offering value to your current and prospective account-holders—such as financial education—can help re-establish and build trust, as well as engage consumers in a more lasting way than other marketing approaches.

At DaBrian Marketing Group, we leverage a simple approach that guides our clients through a four-step process for their content makeovers:

Via an initial audit we determine what digital and physical marketing resources the institution currently possesses – and what still needs to be developed.
Second, a careful examination of consumer buying stages helps to prioritize the content materials that will move the needle on larger business objectives in the short-, medium-, and long-term.
Next, we consider the content that has to be revised or created based on our audit and an understanding of potential customers.
Finally, we set the groundwork to distribute existing and new assets to the right people, at the right time, using the right channels.

It can seem overwhelming when first getting started, but what follows will guide your bank or credit union through an effective content audit, creation, and distribution process in 2020. Following this plan will help you generate more traffic, loan applications, and ultimately – revenue.

Starting Your Content Audit

Your content audit should start with an inventory of the marketing resources you already possess. To do this, create a checklist of haves and be sure to include the created by and modified by dates. We find that our bank and credit union customers often have resources (especially printed collateral) that is so outdated that it’s more efficient to start afresh. Note: your content audit checklist should include BOTH your digital resources and your in-branch assets! Here are some specific content types to consider to get you started:

In-Branch Assets

Flyers
Brochures
Guides
Worksheets
Screens
Articles
Surveys
Info graphics

Digital Assets

Website
White Papers
eBooks
Apps
Videos
Quizzes
Blogs
Podcasts
Calculators

As you move through the information, consider the kind of content each of your marketing personas might best engage with. Infographics and interactive online and mobile content might resonate better with Millennials, for example, while in-branch editorial content might connect better with older consumers.

Appraise Your Customer Buying Stages

The process where your potential customers become aware of your financial institution, learn about it, and (hopefully!) engage with it is called the buyer’s journey. You’ll need to consider if you have content to help advance prospects through each stage of the buyer journey. Here’s what you need to know about each stage and the types of content that often work well at each step…

Awareness – The initial stage of the journey begins when someone discovers your bank or credit union. Marketing assets might include blog posts, curated news content, and other fairly general materials that provide value to the prospect without mentioning your particular brand’s products or services.

Consideration – After becoming familiar with your institution, your audience may begin to consider it among other buying choices. Content created for this stage should still focus on financial education but you will want to begin interspersing brand elements so that your audience begins to consider you. Longer, deeper forms of content such as eBooks, videos, and webinars are often used during the consideration phase.

Decision – The final stage of the journey occurs when your audience values what you’re provided, trusts you, and considers your offering appropriate. At this point, your content should directly link to a sale: brochures, vendor comparisons, case studies, and trial offers may all be appropriate.

Revise and Create Appropriate Assets

Now that you know what you have and what you need to help prospects progress through the buyer’s journey you can begin revising and creating the assets you will need throughout the year. It is helpful to consider each phase in the journey – if you are short on time, produce some assets for each stage rather than completing all of one category at once. For example, if you intend to do a monthly blog series throughout the year, craft an outline for all 12 blogs but only set-out to immediately publish the 3 blogs needed for Q1. This will give your marketing team time to also produce content suited to later stages of the buyer journey.

Also, remember that content marketing should be helpful, and not come across that you’re just trying to sell to the reader. Each piece of content should be measured against its ability to educate your audience, grow the value of your financial institution, and point your audience—once they’re ready—to the appropriate products and services. Think about ways to marry your business goals to your marketing goals through the lens of financial education. What can you teach your audience about credit scores, for example, that may later impact their adoption of your products and services?

Create a Content Distribution Plan

After determining and creating your content needs, you’ll also need to begin thinking about how you’ll distribute the assets. You should also consider what assets you intend to “gate” – that is, locked behind a registration form. You trade valuable content (financial education, a tool, etc.) for valuable contact information (the prospect’s phone number or email address).

We recommend to most financial institutions with whom we work to gate content in consideration phase. Locking it in the awareness phase jumps the gun – these assets tend to be too general to have sufficient value to gain usable prospect info. By capturing an email address in the consideration phase, however, it gives you an opportunity to follow-up with tailored, personalized content in the decision phase. This will improve your conversion rate and allow you to better focus limited resources. Other distribution elements to consider:

Distribution Platforms – Select the websites, publications, and social platforms where your target audiences congregate. Which ones make the most sense for your brand? Do you have the marketing resources to appropriately manage interactions?

Distribution Process – Outline exactly what you want to have happen whenever an asset is created. The distribution process will be different for each marketing piece but the overarching principle is to repurpose as much as possible. Your team took the time to develop collateral so make sure it is promoted on as many platforms as possible. Turn a podcast into a blog, email the blog before sharing it on Facebook, and then send out Tweets of various stats and highlights from the blog.

Distribution Schedule – Finally, determine when you will disseminate content and how often you will publish and post it. You want to maintain a steady stream of material without overwhelming your followers. You also want to maintain space in your marketing calendar for news, breaking stories, and other unplanned assets.

Wrapping it Up

Being prepared for 2020, requires an assessment of your current content, both print and digital content. Make sure you have content that helps guide your current and future customers through your funnel from awareness through consideration until they make their decision. After that, you will know what content areas that will need to be created or recreated. Finally, determine how your content, print or digital, will reach your audience. Going through these steps (as difficult or easy as they are) will ensure you are prepared to make 2020 a year of great content marketing.

Looking for a bit more help keeping your content organized – try this Free Content Planner. Still have questions, contact DaBrian Marketing Group Today, while there is still time to prepare for 2020.