Marketing Strategy

Does Your Company Exist Without Social Media Marketing?

August 22, 2016 by Dabrian Marketing Group Leave a Comment

Your nieces, nephews, children, grandparents, and even great-grandparents are all on social media. Do you actually exist anymore if you don’t have a social media account? In today’s society, it’s our way getting to know someone. When we want to see what someone looks like, figure out when a birthday is that we forgot, or find out what someone has been up to these days, we check Facebook, Twitter or Snapchat. So, if this is how we get our news about each other, why doesn’t your business have a social media marketing strategy to get to know “these people” or should we say, your customers?

1. Immediate Customer Service

Whether you’re tagged directly in someone’s post or if someone mentions your company’s name at all, you can track what they’re saying about you. Directly responding to them publicly will show the customer you want an open and honest relationship with them.

2. Social Media Marketing will Humanize Your Brand

As mentioned through customer service, building relationships with your customers will further your lifespan as a company because customers will trust you. People don’t want to see advertisement after advertisement of you trying to get them to buy your product. People like seeing other people! Show off your employees, post about the holidays you celebrate, and give your company personality! Research by Texas Tech University shows it’ll bring long-term brand loyalty once you do.

3. Expand Your Company’s Reach

Traditional marketing can be limited at times. A billboard will soon become unnoticed by townies which limits its worth. Social media allows your company to be everywhere and anywhere at any time of day. A customer may tag you in a post boasting about your wonderful product or service which may be seen by someone outside your target audience. This customer may do the same and this process will be repeated over and over again. (and if you have ecommerce built into your website, they can buy your product from anywhere, too!)

4. Drive Customers Directly to Your Website

Whether it’s an organic post or a paid ad, interesting content will get people to click their way right to your services’ or products’ pages. Social media advertising is relatively cheap (as low as $0.10 per click sometimes) which means a higher return-on-investment (ROI). Paying for a few clicks to lead to one sale is definitely beneficial! Daily monitoring of engagement on what content your followers are interested in with further help your overall marketing strategy and what you should be focusing on. (That’s where we come in!

5. Outdo Your Competitors

Your competitors are already using social media to connect with their customers and possibly, your customers. Since social media boosts brand loyalty, it may be hard to steal customers back from your competitors. Share interesting customer stories, pictures, gifs, videos and more to get people to follow what YOU have to say, not your competition.

While there are many more reasons you should be utilizing social media marketing, these few mentioned should be the most relevant to convince your company to invest in it. Strategizing for each specific platform you could be utilizing will positively impact your business and your customers will also thank you. Not sure which platforms will be most effective for your industry? Stay tuned for my next blog.

For more information about Social Media Marketing contact us today or leave a comment below!

Our New eBook, Your New 5-Step Guide to Ecommerce

August 15, 2016 by Dabrian Marketing Group Leave a Comment

The Ecommerce Revolution

Shopping, today, is different for consumers when compared to traditional methods and practices. Where people once had to travel to stores and order from paperback catalogs for nearly every purchase, people currently sit down with a phone or tablet in their hands. Ecommerce – online shopping – has transformed the marketplace for retail companies.

The New Marketplace

The act of researching products online – finding their basic information, availability, and price – is almost a prerequisite to visiting a company’s physical location. Similarly, increasing amounts of people choose to purchase products through online stores in addition to visiting physical stores. This overall trend in consumer behavior is the reason that DaBrian Marketing Group’s new eBook, A 5-Step Guide to Improve the Performance of Your Ecommerce, has been written.

DaBrian Marketing’s Solution to Your Problem

Watch our SEO Consultant, David McDowell explain Ecommerce.

Within your FREE Guide to Ecommerce, our Bing Ads-certified team details the five major objectives that work to maintain an effective online store for your company:

Create a strategy
Use the right Point Of Sale (POS) system.
Study your customers’ journey.
Meet expectations.
Invest in the right channels.

Inside of this FREE eBook, find valuable information about today’s marketplace from reputable sources within the digital marketing industry. Get recommendations for several online shopping platforms that are easy to use and actually make shopping easier for your customers.

To keep customers buying from your company, let them make purchases in the most convenient way: online. Download your FREE Guide to Ecommerce, today.

Why Your Small Business Needs Digital Marketing

August 8, 2016 by Dabrian Marketing Group 4 Comments

As a business owner, your time is precious, budget is limited, and your hands are always full with a thousand different things. Currently, you have a website and are running ads in the local newspaper, but you know it’s not enough in today’s digital world. In order for your small business to be competitive in your respective industry, you need to utilize digital marketing.

Why Your Small Business Needs a Digital Marketing Agency

By hiring a qualified and reputable digital marketing agency, you will gain an entire team focused on your goals and objectives without the additional salaries and benefits to your payroll. As easy as it is to hire a digital marketing firm, you can just as easily fire them if they’re not performing to your standards. You pay for performance. Simple as that.

You will have more time to focus on your area of expertise. There are a lot of facets involved in digital marketing as you can see in the word cloud below.

You don’t have the time to learn it all, let alone manage it effectively and efficiently. You will quickly become overwhelmed. Hiring a certified partner agency with the likes of Google, Bing, Hootsuite, and Big Commerce, you won’t have to waste time training employees. An agency will allow you to hit the ground running as you and the agency focus on the areas of expertise you each possess.

Digital Marketing Helps David Fight Goliath

Digital marketing helps level the playing field. Done properly, it allows you to reallocate your marketing investment and target the audience you want to reach more efficiently. An agency will utilize their expertise and experience and be able to show exactly what is working and what’s not via analytics. The best practices large corporations use are the same ones an agency will (or should) be using. Let them use their expertise so you can use yours.

The fact is, many companies are still not utilizing digital marketing, so there is a real opportunity to grow quickly. This is especially true when you can eliminate the learning curve and hire a certified partner agency right from the start. They live and breathe SEO, PPC, email marketing, social media, click-through rates, and conversion rates. An agency understands that your success is essential for their success and ultimate survival. That is a rather big motivation, wouldn’t you say? So you’ve waiting long enough, hire a certified partner agency before your competition does.

For more information about our digital marketing services, leave a comment below or call us for a free consultation!

Stay Connected With a Social Media Certified Partner

August 1, 2016 by Dabrian Marketing Group Leave a Comment

What’s all this Hoot-n-Holler about Hootsuite?

Hootsuite is a social media management program which helps consolidate a variety of social media platforms into one location. From Twitter to Facebook to LinkedIn and even YouTube, Hootsuite gives us the ability to check posts, images, comments, reviews, likes, hashtags, and more all on the same page.
We can create individual posts to immediately share or schedule it for a later date and time. We can also bulk-upload an entire month’s worth of content at once. It shortens links (called ow.ly links) within the posts to allow for more room to write (which is extremely helpful with Twitter’s limit of 140 characters).
Hootsuite has many integrations. If you use MailChimp for your email marketing or WordPress as your website builder, there’s an app to include updates and track your activity. Tracking information through Google Analytics can be easily transferred into a Hootsuite analytics report for an easier way to disseminate the results.

Team Up With Hootsuite Certified Partners

Being Hootsuite certified requires us to take lessons on how it operates and pass an exam with a grade of 95% or higher. We understand the platform and know each of its capabilities (and there are a lot, believe us). As an agency partner, we have a point-of-contact on their staff that will immediately answer any questions or assist in solving any issues. Whenever any changes occur within the platform, we are the first to be aware of them. We are on Hootsuite every day monitoring the accounts, responding to customers, and making recommendations for your company, so we are completely knowledgeable on what it can do.

Hootsuite’s Analytics reports display just how well your social media accounts are performing and we always explain them, thoroughly, for you to understand.
Since we’re in-the-know, you’re in-the-know. You will never have a slacking social media marketing campaign if you’re on our team.

How We Use It to Help Your Company’s Social Media Marketing

Whether you have a campaign that you’re interested in implementing or you’re not sure what you should be doing with social media, we will work with you to get started. Whatever ideas you may have, we provide you with feedback on what will work the best. We work with you to develop a unique hashtag, customize the imagery, and figure out the distribution of posts across all accounts.

We will track specific keywords, hashtags, and geocodes (those are keywords within a particular location). Whenever someone mentions your industry or business, we will know about it. We will collaborate with you in order to provide the best customer service to your digital customers or prospective customers. We will represent your brand in its entirety; from tone of voice, to language, to imagery and video.
We won’t let you struggle like this social family.

If you’re ready for a kick-ass social media marketing campaign to connect with an assortment of current and potential customers, chat with us about what we can do for you.

Don’t Let Just Anyone Manage Your AdWords! Get a Google Partner!

July 25, 2016 by Justin Miller Leave a Comment

Potential customers are searching for your products and services on Google. While you have invested in SEO (search engine optimization) and are acquiring organic traffic, you could be reaching more customers with PPC (pay per click). The problem is: where do you begin? Keywords, Ad Copy, Bids, Match Types, Ad Extensions, Landing Pages, Budgets, Placements, Mobile Ads, Display Ads, Day Parting, and Bid Adjustments to name a few…

Don’t worry! There are digital marketing managers and agencies that can help you. However, be very careful when selecting someone to manage your Google AdWords account and digital marketing dollars. Here are a few things to look for as you search for help with your PPC:

Search for a Google Partner (Agency)

The first step to becoming a Google Partner is having at least one employee get individually certified with Google AdWords. One must take and pass at least two exams to become a certified individual. The first must be the basic Google AdWords Fundamental Exam. Afterwards, one can choose which speciality exam(s) to take. These exams cover Search, Display, Shopping, Video, and Mobile.

One employee must be individually certified for an agency to be an eligible partner, however, the agency still needs to meet performance requirements. These requirements dictate that the agency have a proven record with managing over $10,000 in 90 days as well as continuing to grow (in Ad Spend).

Not All Google Partner Agencies Are Equal

An agency with one certified employee in one domain of Google AdWords can showcase the same badge and “Google Partner” status as an agency with 10 certified employees in all five of AdWords categories. Recently, Google has addressed this concern by awarding agencies with specializations. These specializations require an agency to have at least one employee certified in a certain category and maintain a minimum of $10,000 managed spend in that category (search, display, shopping, video, or mobile).

Look for an agency that has employees that are both certified and experienced with managing ads within the categories that you are/will be running. Don’t forget to allow room for growth. Just because you aren’t thinking about video ads now, doesn’t mean that you won’t create them in the future. Having an ally that knows how to manage them helps to boost the performance of your other (search, display, etc.) ads as well as grow your business with profitable advertising.

Don’t Forget Google Analytics

Although it is not a requirement to be a Google Partner, having employees that are certified in Google Analytics ensures that the agency knows how to measure the efficacy of your ads and their performance beyond simple clicks. Connecting Google Analytics to your Google AdWords account allows for the tracking and monitoring of users that come to your website via PPC ads and their interactions with your pages. Having a PPC manager that understands Google AdWords, Google Analytics, and your business’ goals ensures that your Return On Ad Spend (ROAS) is maximized.

Before hiring a team to run your Google AdWords, make sure that they have the knowledge and experience to deliver the results that meet (or exceed) your expectations. First, look for the Google Partner Badge. Secondly, make sure that the agency has at least one person who is certified in the category or domain that you want to run your ads. Finally, look for individuals who are certified in Google Analytics to ensure that they can measure and showcase Return On Ad Spend (ROAS).

If you have PPC questions, if you are looking for help managing your Google AdWords, or if you just want to audit your current account, contact DaBrian Marketing Group(a Google Partner), today!

Why Stock Photography Shouldn’t Represent Your Brand

July 19, 2016 by Mark Mapp Leave a Comment

5 Reasons Not To Use Stock Photography

Throughout my experience as a Web Designer, I have noticed that many businesses struggle when they have to make a decision on whether or not to use stock photography to promote their brand. Although there are several good reasons to utilize stock photography on branded materials (such as limited budget, accessibility, variety, and quality), the negative impact of using them can prove to be much greater. This blog covers the 5 disadvantages or risks of using stock photography when promoting your brand and what alternative solutions are out there to avoid these potential risks.

1. Limited Restrictions

When purchasing non-custom photography, there are always license restrictions to abide by. Always make sure to read and understand all license restrictions associated with your purchase. Some restrictions may include crediting the author while some images may only be licensed for editorial use versus advertising/commercial use. You can view iStock’s License Help or iStock’s Content License Agreement to get an idea of the type of licenses or restrictions associated to stock photography purchases.

2. Non-Exclusive

You must remember that the same website you purchase your photos from may be the same website your competitors are purchasing from. This factor alone makes stock photography usage non-exclusive to your brand. There is always that risk of competitors finding and using the same imagery you purchased.

3. Lack of Creativity

It is almost impossible for a designer to come up with a unique and custom design concept when limited to using stock photography. Remember that these images weren’t taken with your brand or products in mind. Therefore, you may find yourself paging through hundreds of images to find that one that you feel will best represents your brand. Although image options are limitless with stock photography, unique or original concepts are not.

4. Predictability

Images submitted to stock photography websites cover a variety concepts. Since these concepts are limited, image options can seem to be very predictable or clichéd. It’s one thing to have a limitless amount of images to choose from. But, if you have 100 images depicting the same idea or concept, where is the variety in that?

5. Unnatural Compositions

When browsing through stock photography websites, it’s hard not to notice all the unnatural positions or “forced” compositions in most of the images containing people; especially people in business attire. Everything looks staged. This is the best way to make your website look like spam.

What Are The Alternatives?

1. Custom Photography

It is always best to utilize custom photography to represent your brand or to tell your brand story. Purchasing in-house photography equipment or hiring a professional to do the job will prove to be a better branding method than using stock photography.

2. Vectors/Illustration

Instead of using photos, more and more companies are using vectors or illustrations to promote their brand. Take Google for example.

3. Customize Your Stock

If you are going to use stock photography, find different ways to utilize the photo. Whether it is cropping out a certain portion of the image or combining two different images or concepts. These are just a couple of ways to make stock images as unique and original as possible while diminishing the chance of someone using the same image, idea, or concept.