July 2017

Why SEO in 2017 Has Become Even More Essential Search engine optimization (SEO) is nothing new. People have been talking about it for well over a decade now, but in that time, the marketing method has evolved to levels we never thought possible. Most local business owners are likely using SEO in some fashion, but many of them have opted for the DIY approach. For SEO in 2017, though, novice attempts won’t cut it for these reasons.

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1. It’s More Than Just SEO Now Search engine optimization is focused on getting a page ranked as high as possible on Google and other search sites. As it turns out, though, search algorithms will no longer be just about keywords, backlinks and usefulness. Google is rolling out an algorithm that will include mobile websites’ loading speeds in its calculations. Slower pages will suffer, and this is especially disastrous since more than 50 percent of internet usage comes from mobile devices.

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Why SEO in 2017 Has Become Even More Essential

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This means the person performing SEO at a local business will also need the skills to improve a website.

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Funny Bone Monthly Humor The Wrong Answer Two applicants, Smith and Jones, applied for work at an organization that had only one open position. The hiring manager sat the two of them side by side to take an aptitude test. When time was up, she found that both applicants missed only one question—the same one. After studying the results, the administrator announced that although both candidates had given the same wrong answer, candidate Smith had won the job. “Wait a minute,” Jones complained. “How can one wrong answer be better than another?’ “Well,” the manager said, “on the one question you both missed, Mr. Smith wrote, ‘I don’t know this answer.’ You wrote, ‘Neither do I.’"

2. Featured Answers Require Special Consideration A featured answer usually pops up when someone asks Google a question verbally rather than through text. The search giant still returns results, but it features text from one specific site at the top. Landing as a featured answer can do amazing things for a company, but it takes some work. Marketers need to find out the questions their potential customers are asking, focus on longtail keywords related to those questions and make sure the content is actually helpful. These types of tasks typically can’t be performed by amateur marketers. 3. Videos and Images Pick Up Speed Videos and images are powerful marketing tools, but they’ll soon have an even bigger stake in the SEO world. Google has acquired the video and image sites EyeFluence, MoodStock, Famebit, and Anvato. This means they’re likely gearing up to take on Facebook in the visual marketing arena. With more focus on graphic content, local business marketers will need to evolve. Search engine optimization might sound simple in theory, but it’s a complex and dynamic promotional tactic. Only the strongest in the arena will survive, and that’s why businesses need to really start focusing on SEO in 2017. ——————————————————————————————

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Hello! Welcome to our first edition of The Small Business Marketing Minute. If you’ve been with us for a while, you’ve probably notice a difference in format. There are so many important topics to discuss, we decide to add new components and rotate them. Please feel free to pass this newsletter on to friends and neighbors and share your personal journey also. Enjoy!

Quote of the Month

Top Seven Reasons Why Facebook is a Must Have in Your Marketing Strategy

Deciding where to spend your marketing dollars is often a tedious and confusing task. Looking at a Q1 statistics report of Facebook, it wouldn’t be wrong if we said that 2017 will be the year for Facebook marketing, and having it in your marketing arsenal will skyrocket your business.

media giant to market their brand.

Here are the top seven reasons why it makes the most sense for businesses to use this social

1. Early-stage brand awareness: The biggest goal of it is to capture the attention of the most people possible and direct them towards your brand/business. If used and managed properly, Facebook can become a key player in creating brand awareness. With the combination of real-time proxy metrics, both the reach and attention users give to a campaign, this provides brands with maximum exposure. 2. Quick feedback: Previously, to collect feedback, brands used to do direct mail voting polls or cold call surveys. Now, with the advent of Social media, brands need not look to any other method. Facebook makes it easy for businesses to simply post a question on their status, sit back and watch for the comments. 3. Powerful audience targeting: Facebook provides demographic targeting functionality when creating ads. You can target an audience according to geography, age, gender, education and interest. Audience targeting gets even more powerful when you start build3

Digital Marketing Tips

Business-to -Business (B2B) marketing is far more complex, difficult, broad, and rich than Business-toConsumer (B2C) marketing, and campaigns need to be handled in a very different way. The first thing you should do when contemplating digital marketing for B2B customers is to identify your customers, where they are on the internet, and what they tend to do there, and think of the best way in which you can deliver them your message. Buyer personas are all possible customers, and you should do everything you can to attract, convert, close, and delight them. These people are the reason you even have a site and every call to action and piece of content you create is for them. The heart of the B2B marketing strategies of today is content, with businesses able to show their expertise via blogs and websites. Buying behavior has been completely transformed by the web over the course of the last decade, with the internet now being any potential customer’s first source of research, making it vital for companies to have top class content and social media links to help them resolve their business problems.

Top Seven Reasons Why Facebook is a Must Have in Your Marketing Strategy

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-ing custom audiences. You can also target audiences based on their connection, so you can completely focus on your advertisement. 4. Low cost of advertising: Starting a Facebook business page costs nothing, and you can start it at any phase of your business. You can hire professional designers for designing page images or you can use images of your business. Getting your page rolling costs you nothing until you opt for paying for ads to get page likes, boost posts and run Sponsored Stories. All of this costs less than regular marketing methods. 5. Chatbots: With more consumers interacting with brands through Facebook, use of Chatbots are becoming an emerging trend. With more and more businesses selling on Facebook, user engagement and hours spent on the platform is increasing continuously. Facebook messenger Chatbots enable brands to create structured messages including images, links, and call to action buttons. 6. Facebook has the highest conversion rates: If you are looking forward to investing in social media marketing, then why not invest it in the social media giant, Facebook? It helps drive high conversion rates and sales. At present, Facebook is one of the leading social media networks and is driving an average conversion rate of over 1.85%. 7. Consumers prefer to connect with brands on Facebook: By a wide margin, consumers prefer to connect with brands that have an active presence on Facebook versus other social networking sites. Facebook marketing is still one of the best drivers for earning higher conversions and sales rates. To separate from the competition, you need to include unique strategies that can help you get your desired results. Need help with your Facebook Marketing? We can help! Call Rod Today— 757-525-3447 4

How to a Start Successful Customer Loyalty Program in 2017 Attracting new customers is essential for any business, but getting them to stick around is the real measure of success. Both online and offline marketing strategies can accomplish this for local business owners, but one of the most powerful tools at their disposal is a customer loyalty program. These programs provide incentives to keep people coming back, so here are three customer loyalty tips for 2017 that can equate to success.

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Quote of the Month

1. Offer Incentives for Loyalty Programs It’s not often that people will sign up for email lists or loyalty programs for nothing. Even if they follow a company on Facebook – which is a good indicator since frequent users of Facebook are 1.25 times more likely to exhibit brand loyalty – this doesn’t mean they’ll turn over their information freely. This is why business owners should offer incentives, such as a free birthday meal, discount or free sample, for people to sign up for their loyalty program. A simple “Get Your Tenth Sandwich Free” on a punch card is enough to increase loyalty – even if it doesn’t garner an email address. 2. Offer Automatic Payment Programs One of the best loyalty programs out there is the simple act of setting up automatic payments. This ensures that a client is loyal even if it slips their mind. Again, though, this will typically require motivation. One of the most utilized incentives in this area is a 5-10 percent discount. 3. Consistent Promotion of the Program An appealing loyalty program means absolutely nothing if people don’t know about it. Train staff members to offer the program and its incentives at every opportunity. And for those who remember the fact that brand loyalists use Facebook often, it becomes obvious that promoting the program on the social media platform is essential. Having 100 new customers in a single day might look good on that week’s books, but it amounts to very little if none of them ever come back. So, while effective promotions to attract new patrons are important, local business owners should also be focusing on the customer loyalty programs that will keep them coming back.

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Fight the Causes of Midafternoon Slump

Many people experience it—that sudden, unexplained feeling of fatigue that hits you somewhere between lunch and the end of the workday. You can’t focus, your eyes grow weary, and you wish you could just curl up for a quick nap. Here are some explanations for that loss of energy—and what you can do about it:

• Dieting. Dieting can cause afternoon fatigue, especially if you’re trying to cut too many calories too fast. That slows down your metabolism and can make you feel sluggish. Solution: Multiply your weight by 10; this is a healthy number of calories to maintain your energy each day. • Sugar and caffeine. Sugar and caffeine are stimulants, but the boost they give you is only temporary. Once that’s gone, you’ll feel more tired than before you consumed them. Solution: Drink a large glass of water in the afternoon and stretch out a bit. If you’re hungry, eat some fruit. The natural sugars will give you energy without the drain. • Alcohol. Alcohol causes sleep problems; if you’ve had too much to drink the night before, you’ll feel the effects the next day. Solution: Have a glass of wine early in the evening or none at all. • Cheese, turkey, and milk. These can all make you sleepy about an hour or two after you eat them. The amino acid in these foods acts like a natural sedative. Solution: Eat these foods at night; they’ll help you sleep when you really want it.

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July 2017 — Word Search Puzzle

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A MONTHLY NEWSLETTER TO INFORM AND ENTERTAIN OUR FRIENDS & CLIENTS

JULY 2017

JULY 2017 Promotional Ideas—Daily Holidays & Wacky Days: 1 International Joke Day 2 I Forgot Day 4 Independence Day (U.S.) 5 National Bikini Day 5 Work-a-holics Day 6 National Fried Chicken Day 7 Chocolate Day 7 National Strawberry Sundae Day 8 National Blueberry Day 8 Video Games Day 9 National Sugar Cookie Day

13 Embrace Your Geekiness Day 16 National Ice Cream Day 20 National Lollipop Day 21 National Junk Food Day 23 National Hot Dog Day 23 Parent's Day 23 Vanilla Ice Cream Day 28 National Milk Chocolate Day 28 System Administrator Appreciation Day 29 National Lasagna Day 30 National Cheesecake Day

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Hello Everyone, I

I hope this newsletter finds you well. We are well into summer mode now. Andrew and Jessica are at Camp Red Feather on Virginia Wesleyan College campus. Andrew is a counselor and Jessica is attending Teen Camp. Last month, Becky was a speaker at a Generations United Conference in Milwaukee, WI. Of course, I jumped at the chance to join her. I made sure to take some time to visit my alma mater, Marquette University. We spent Fathers’ Day weekend in Chicago. Our was right on the Chicago River across from Trump Tower. We have some great new tools for producing Facebook Ad videos and logo reveals. Let me know if you need a video for your website or advertising. I offering some great deals. — If you need help with your Internet Marketing, give us a call at 757-525-3447! ENJOY! Rod COPYRIGHT 2017

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