Lead generation 2 - YBR Marketing | SEO, Online Advertising, Web Design, Social Media Marketing, Lead Generation

What’s Your Unique Selling Position?

by Red/Marketer with a Soul | Sep 16, 2022 | Advertising Wollongong, Digital marketing wollongong, direct response marketing, Lead generation, local seo, Online Advertising Wollongong, Unique Selling Position, USP, word of mouth marketing

Get Out Of The Commodity Business By Developing A Unique Selling Proposition

You know you’re marketing your business as a commodity when prospects start the conversation by asking you about price.

Positioning yourself as a commodity and hence being shopped on price alone is a terrible position for a small business owner to be in. It’s soul crushing and this race to the bottom is bound to end in tears.

The answer is to develop a unique selling proposition (USP). Something that positions you differently, so that prospects are forced to make and apples-to-oranges comparison when comparing you with your competitor.

If they can do an apples-to-apples comparison of you and your competitors then it comes down to price and you’re toast, because there’s always someone willing to sell cheaper than you.

There’s Nothing New Under The Sun

Very few if any businesses or products are truly unique, so a common question is, “there’s nothing unique about my business, how do I develop a USP?”.

There’s no quick and simple answer to that question but here are a few ideas.

Firstly we want to get into the mind of our prospect. What do they really want? It’s rarely the thing you are selling, it’s usually the result of the thing you are selling. The difference may seem subtle but it’s huge.

For example someone buying a $50 watch is buying something very different from a person buying a $50,000 watch. In the latter case they are likely buying status, luxury and exclusivity. Sure they want it to tell the time just like the buyer of the $50 watch but that’s unlikely to be their core motivation.

So to get into the mind of the prospect, we need to discover what result they are actually buying. Once you understand this, you then need to craft your unique selling proposition based on the result your prospects want to achieve.

For example if you’re a printer, you’re a commodity business. You want to get out of the commodity business as quickly as possible. I don’t mean get out of the industry but you do need to change how you position yourself.

Stop selling business cards, letterheads and printing and start asking open ended questions such as, “Why are you coming to a printer? What is it that you want achieve?”. The prospect doesn’t want business cards and letterheads, they want what they think business cards and letterheads are going to do for their business.

So you could sit down with them and and say, “What are you trying to accomplish? Let’s do a printing audit and evaluate all of the things you’re trying to use printing for. By taking them through the process, you can charge them to do a printing audit. Then if they end up hiring you to do their printing, you can apply that consulting fee towards printing. This way you’re no longer viewed as a printer anymore. You’re now viewed as an advisor that’s serving their needs.

Use Outrageous Guarantees

Another great strategy for creating uniqueness in your offer is an outrageous guarantee. One which completely reverses the risk of the transaction.

To be truly unique when using this technique you must avoid the vague crap that everyone says e.g. satisfaction guaranteed, service quality, dependability.

You must have a very specific guarantee to address the fear or uncertainty that the prospect has about the transaction.

For example if you’re in the pest control business you’re customers want to know:

The pests won’t come back
The technician won’t leave their house dirty
That you won’t poison their family with chemicals

So you’re outrageous guarantee could be something like this:

“We guarantee to rid your home of ants forever, without the use of toxic chemicals, while leaving your home in the same clean and tidy condition we found it. If you aren’t absolutely delighted with the service provided, we insist that you tell us and we’ll refund double your money back.”

Compare that to a weak, vague guarantee like, “satisfaction guaranteed”.

Does an outrageous guarantee like the one above entail risk for the pest control service provider? Sure, if they do a crappy job. But in a case like that they’re likely to have to give the customer a refund anyway. It may even be a legal requirement.

Here’s the other thing about guarantees. If you’re an ethical operator, you are most likely already offering a guarantee but you just aren’t using it to your advantage in your marketing.

So why not make a point of talking about something that you’re already doing.

Most people are honest and won’t abuse guarantees if they’ve received the service they were promised.

Even after accounting for the few people who do abuse them, you’ll be far ahead because a strong guarantee will attract more customers than a weak and vague one.

A strong, results oriented guarantee will also drive you to deliver a great customer experience. This alone ensures that it’s worthwhile to have a strong guarantee.

Your customers have their own fears. When you can name the fears and guarantee
against them in your marketing, you give yourself an overwhelming advantage
over your competitors.

Pricing Strategy

I’m sometimes asked, “can’t lowest price be my USP?”. Sure it can, but can you absolutely guarantee that everything you sell will be priced lower than all your competitors including the behemoths like Target and Kmart? Unlikely.

So a USP that says “lowest prices on some things, some of the time” is not quite so compelling.

The fact is if you’re a small or medium business, you’re unlikely to beat the big discounters at the lowest price game.

Truth be told, you probably don’t want to. By charging higher prices, you attract a better quality client. As counter intuitive as it may seem, you get far less grief from high end customers than you do from low end ones. I’ve seen and experienced this in multiple businesses across multiple industries.

A better option than discounting is to increase the value of your offering.

Bundling in bonuses, adding services, customising the solution can all be of genuine value to your customer but can cost you very little to do.

This also helps you create that apples-to-oranges comparison that gets you out of the commodity game.

Don’t hate the player, hate the game. So as hard as it may be to resist, don’t play the commodity/price game.

Dedicated To Your Marketing Success

John

“I would like to acknowledge the wonderful Alan Dib from Successwise“

Why I Need Google Ads Conversion Tracking

by Red/Marketer with a Soul | Sep 13, 2022 | Digital Marketing SOPs, Digital marketing wollongong, direct response marketing, Google Ads, Lead generation, Online Advertising Wollongong, SEO Wollongong

Easy Steps to Follow?

Lucky for you, it’s seriously simple to track conversions using Google Ads. In this guide, I’ll take you step by step through how to set up and monitor conversions for your online ads and marketing campaigns.

You’ve got your Google Ads campaign up and running, and your ads and keywords are starting to generate an impressive number of clicks. Great! But unless you’ve got conversion tracking installed, you won’t be able to see how many of those clicks are actually resulting in sales.

Conversion Touch Points

Google Ad Conversion Tracking: How It Works

Conversion tracking is a system that allows you to monitor the performance of your Google Ads campaigns at an individual level. With this information, you can make changes to your account that will optimize your ads and increase ROI.

In order to get started, you’ll need to set up conversion tracking in Google Ads, which involves three things:

1) Turning on conversion tracking for each campaign or ad group (this is done by going into the “Settings” tab under “Tools”)

2) Setting up conversion values for each conversion type you want to track (you can do this by going into the “Conversions” tab under “Tools”)

3) Creating goals for each conversion type (the goal creation process is the same as setting up the conversion types)

Why It’s Important To Track Conversions In Google Ads

Google Ads can be a powerful tool for your business, but it’s only as powerful as the data you have about what works and what doesn’t.

In order to make the most out of your advertising budget, you need to know how many conversions each ad brings in. This is where conversion tracking comes in! Conversion tracking allows you to see which ads are driving the most conversions and then use that information to make adjustments that will help optimize your campaigns.

You can use conversion tracking with any of Google’s ad types, including text ads (formerly known as Search Network), image ads (formerly known as Display Network), remarketing ads (formerly known as GDN), YouTube video ads, and shopping ads.

Understanding Google Ads Conversions

Google Ads tracking is a powerful tool that allows you to track the effectiveness of your digital marketing campaigns. But if you’re looking to track conversions in Google Ads, you need to define your conversion, install the proper tracking tag, and choose an attribution model. Of course, if it were that simple, we wouldn’t need an entire blog post for it. We’re going to get into the step-by-step instructions for this shortly, but before we do, let’s unpack what each of those terms means so you can get a full picture of what this all means for your Google Ads account.

Defining Your Conversion

When you set up conversion tracking, you’ll need to choose a method for counting your conversions. This method is called an attribution model, and it can be either first click, last click or linear. The choice of attribution model depends on how many ads a user interacts with before completing a conversion action.

First click attribution gives all the credit to the first ad they interact with; last click attribution gives all the credit to the last ad they interacted with; linear attribution gives each ad a fraction of the credit based on how many times they interacted with each one before completing a conversion action.

Conversion value is an option within some conversion actions that allows you to assign a specific value towards that given action. For example, a business might know that form-fills from a specific landing page lead to a $2000 job versus a $200 one, so that page’s conversion action will have that value applied to it. This can impact bidding strategies within your account, like maximize conversion value.

Google tag is a code you add to your website that acts as the “middle man” between your website and your Google Ads account. We’ll fully explain the Google tag installation process and purpose later. For now, keep in mind that this is what enables your website to accurately signal completed actions back to your Google Ads account.

Google Ads enables you to track a variety of conversions.

There are several types of conversion actions in Google Ads, and each one has a different purpose. For example, a click-through is just that: someone clicked on your ad and then visited your landing page. A form-fill is when a user filled out an online form (usually to receive more information about your product). A sale is when someone makes a purchase through your website. Here are the five main types:

Website actions are the most basic or well-known types of Google Ads conversions. A website action could be a purchase, form-fill, button click, and more.

Website conversions are when your website visitors take an action on your site.

These are the most basic or well-known types of Google Ads conversions. A website action could be a purchase, form-fill, button click, and more.

Phone calls: This conversion type is also very popular as it’s simply a call to your business that originates from your Google Ads.

If you have a local business, this is one of the best ways to track conversions, since Google Ads can provide you with details about the number of calls your ads received and who made them.

The only downside is that there are no details on how many people actually went through with buying something once they called—you just get to know how many people called.

App installs and in-app conversions: These only apply to businesses that are advertising an app. Their purpose is to count app downloads or other interactions within an app.

App installs: When someone clicks on your ad and downloads your app, Google Ads counts this as a conversion.

In-app conversions: If someone opens your app after clicking on the ad, Google Ads counts this as a conversion. In-app conversions also include purchases, upgrades, or subscriptions made within the app.

If you’re not advertising an app, then these data types won’t apply to you.

Imported or offline conversions: These are actions that happen offline, but may have originated from an ad. You would import those tracked offline actions, such as an over-the-phone sale or in-person action, via a customer relationship management (CRM) platform.

Google Ads Conversion Tracking (GATC): This is the easiest way to track conversions on Google Ads. GATC is a snippet of code that you add to your site’s code so it can track actions on your site and report them back to Google Ads as conversions.

Free Professional Standard SOP: “Adding Google Ads conversion tracking to a site (using GTM)”

When a user completes an action that is specific to an advertiser’s physical location, it’s considered a local conversion action. These are automatically defined for you by Google Ads since they occur only across Google’s products or services, like Google Maps. Some examples of local actions are clicks to call, viewing a menu, or getting directions.

You’ll also have to choose a conversion category for your conversion actions. The point of this is to make segmenting your PPC reporting easier later by separating out data by category. There are 12+ conversion categories in Google Ads, but Google containers them into types:

Sale categories: Making a purchase, adding an item to a cart, initiating checkout, or subscribing to a recurring service are all examples of sales categories. These are the ones you’ll be familiar with if you’ve ever made a purchase online before—they’re what you see at the end of an e-commerce checkout process!

Non-sale categories: Clicking on an email newsletter signup form or filling out a contact form are examples of non-sale conversions. These kinds of actions are important because they represent potential customers who have become aware of your brand but haven’t yet made the decision to buy anything.

Leads categories: These include other website actions as well as local actions, such as submitting a lead form, booking an appointment, requesting a quote, calling your business, or getting directions.

There are further categories you have the option to select for unique Google Ads conversion tracking situations, like page views or downloads.

Conversion types: You can also choose from different conversion types. These include:

-Download

-Click on a URL

-Click on a phone number

-Click on an image (that is not an image ad)

Setting up Google Ads conversion tracking can be done in three steps.

Now that you know what to expect during the process, let’s walk through a basic website conversion action set up! In order to set up conversion tracking, you’ll need:

A website to place your Google tag code.

The ability to edit your website code: You or your web developer will have to paste a short snippet of code onto your website.

There are two core steps to start your Google Ads conversion tracking journey: creating a conversion action and installing your Google tag.

Step 1: Create a conversion action.

The first step for a standard Google Ads conversion tracking setup is creating a conversion action within the Google Ads platform. Here are the quick, easy steps to do so:

1. Sign into your Google Ads account.

2. In the upper right corner, click into the tools menu, and select the Conversions option located under the Measurement bucket.

3. You’ll be brought to the summary section within your Conversions view, where you’ll want to click +New conversion action.

4. Select website as your type of conversion action and follow the prompts to enter your domain and scan your website. This is to check if you have the Google tag installed on your site. If you don’t, you’ll receive a snippet of code you’ll be prompted to put on your website.

5. Choose how you want to set up your conversion action: either URL setup or manual setup (more on this below).

Which Setup is best?

While a URL setup is quicker and easier, it will only apply to you if you’re looking to track a page load as a conversion.

A manual setup allows you to track clicks on buttons or links, with the option to customize the event tag with conversion value tracking and transaction IDs.

It’s a fairly easy process. You just follow the prompts, and during this step you’ll select an attribution model and other settings. Click on the links below to

Instructions for a URL setup,

Instructions for a manual setup.

I’ve linked to an Attribution Model Guide, so you can decide which one is right for you.

Guide to attribution models.

Step #2: Set up your Google tag

If you’re ready to get started with Google Ads conversion tracking, the next step is going to depend on whether or not your Google tag is already set up.

If your Google tag is already set up and you created your conversion action using a URL, then you’re done and good to start seeing data on that conversion.

If your Google tag is not set up and you created your conversion action using a URL, you’ll get a screen with instructions on how to set it up.

If your Google tag is already set up and you created your conversion action manually, then you’ll get instructions on adding the action’s unique event snippet.

If your Google tag is not set up and you created your conversion action manually, then you’ll get instructions on both setting up the Google tag as well as adding the event snippet for the action itself.

Installing the Google tag

Your Free Access to our Professional Standard SOP: “Adding Google Tag Manager to a WordPress Site”

Step #3: Check your Google Tag

To ensure that your Google tag is properly installed and firing off conversion tracking correctly, follow these steps:

1. Sign into your Google Ads account and navigate back to the Conversions section via the upper right corner menu.

2. In the conversion actions table view, you can see under the Status column how any single conversion action is performing. You can click on a statuses to get more information about it or click on Resolve to see what could be causing it. Check out our Google Ads conversion tracking hang ups guide to know which statuses to look out for.

3. If everything looks good, then you’re ready to start analyzing data!

Looking at your Google Ads conversion data

Once you’ve set up your Google Ads conversion tracking, you’ll be able to start seeing conversion data in your account!

To see this data, you’ll want to add columns like “Conversions” (known as “conv.” in the column view of the platform), “Conversion Rate,” and “Cost/Conversion” to your view. That way, you can leverage those PPC metrics to know you’re getting the most bang for your buck.

And if you’re wondering how your conversion data stacks up against competitors, check out this search ad industry benchmarks.

Troubleshooting Google Ads conversion tracking

You’re not seeing any data in your conversion columns.

If you’re seeing zero conversions in your conversion columns, don’t worry.

It can take up to 24 hours for conversion data to start appearing in Google Ads. If after 24 hours your conversion still isn’t showing up, it’s possible that no customers have converted yet. One way to test this is by going through the motions of a conversion yourself by clicking on your ad when it appears and doing whatever action is required to trigger the conversion on your site.

If after another 24 hours your conversion isn’t registering, double-check that the code was installed correctly. You might have to install additional plug-ins or move the code to a different part of the page.

The campaign has received many clicks, but not many conversions.

If your Google Ads campaign is receiving a lot of clicks, but few conversions, it’s time to take a look at your landing page.

A common reason for this kind of discrepancy is that you’re sending users to your homepage instead of a dedicated landing page. Sending users to your homepage can result in low conversion rates because the visitor doesn’t know what they’re getting into when they click on the ad.

It’s also possible that your landing page isn’t optimized for conversion. Is there a prominent CTA? A simple form? Is the key information available above the fold? If not, it could be that people aren’t ready to convert when they arrive at your site and so they don’t do anything at all—or worse yet, they leave without converting.

Finally, it’s important to make sure that if someone clicks on one of your ads, they’ll be reassured upon reaching their destination that they’ll get what you’ve promised them—including the same keywords and copy so that the person is reassured upon clicking on the ad that they’ll get what you’ve promised them.

Thanks for reading, and we hope you got as much out of this article as we did in writing it. Ultimately, there is a lot to know about Google conversion tracking, but no matter what level of expertise you are at with your conversion tracking, hopefully this guide helped answer some questions and get you headed in the right direction to be more successful with your paid media strategy.

If you like to access our complete library of Professional Grade Digital Marketing SOP’s for FREE, just click on the SOP link in the sidebar or click on this link.. Become an Expert Digital Marketer minus the work..

Dedicated to Your Marketing Success

John

Why Advertising Agencies are the Best Option for your Business

by Red/Marketer with a Soul | Aug 12, 2022 | Advertising Wollongong, Digital marketing wollongong, direct response marketing, facebook advertising, Google Ads, Lead generation, Online Advertising Wollongong, SEO Wollongong, social media marketing

If your business wants to grow, advertising agencies are the way to go.

As a small to medium sized business owner, you would have to agree that one of the toughest things to figure out is how to get the attention of potential clients. While we have all heard that word-of-mouth is the best way to generate business, today’s customers are inundated with ads, promotions and information overload. As a result, they can easily ignore your message or even worse, get annoyed with it. That’s why advertising agencies are so important. They are trained strategists who know how to deliver your message in a way that will capture the attention of your target market and keep it from interfering with their world.

They also have the resources and experience to help you reach your goals.

When you’re in the business of selling products and services, it’s important to have an advertising agency on your side. They have the knowledge and resources to help you achieve your business objectives. They have the ability to develop creative campaigns that will attract customers to your products and services.

What’s more, they can help you build a brand that people will recognize and want to buy again and again.

Business owners who work with advertising agencies tend to see results quickly—and those results are often measurable in terms of increased sales or improved customer loyalty.

You get access to their expertise.

Every marketing campaign is unique. Your business has its own goals, needs and audience. You need an ad agency that can develop a customized strategy for your company based on your specific needs.

The best ad agencies are able to take the time to understand your business and your goals before they develop a plan of action. They know that effective advertising requires more than just creating an ad campaign; it requires understanding who you’re trying to reach and what message will resonate with them.

You get access to new ideas.

You’ve got a business to run, and you don’t have time to spend hours on your marketing strategy.

Fortunately, an advertising agency can help you get the most out of your marketing dollars. They can bring fresh perspectives to your business, helping you develop creative campaigns that will appeal to your target audience. They can also provide insight into the latest trends in your industry so you can stay up to date with current events.

You get access to more qualified leads.

It’s no secret that marketing is a challenging endeavor. In order to succeed, you need to get your message across to the right people at the right time—and that means being able to reach a diverse range of demographics.

You need to get access to more qualified leads.

When you work with an advertising agency, they are able to offer you a wealth of opportunities that would otherwise be unknown to your business. This includes access to advertising platforms and markets that might not be available to smaller businesses like yours.

You also get access to more qualified leads.

When companies advertise on TV or radio, they are often advertising to everyone in their local area or even state. This means that the leads generated by these ads may not be targeted enough for your business needs. With an advertising agency, you get access to a network of professionals who will target their campaigns specifically at your ideal customer base.

You might like to also read: >>Big Business vs Small Business Marketing<<

At the end of the day, an ad agency is the ideal choice because they are experts at creating marketing material. While they will require payment for the services they provide, it is a small investment that can pay off in a big way. Their expertise will result in a better advertising campaign than you could ever run on your own.

Ultimately, the agency you choose will depend on your own needs and preferences. But if you are searching for an advertising agency that can provide your business with primary or secondary marketing tools, such as commercials or advertisements, then an ad agency may be just what you need to help your company thrive.

Dedicated To Your Marketing Success

John

How To Compete With Big Spenders In Google Ads

by Red/Marketer with a Soul | Aug 5, 2022 | Advertising Wollongong, Google Ads, Lead generation, Online Advertising Wollongong

Every Small Business Can Compete With Big Advertisers

As a small business owner, you know that Google Ads can be an amazing way to get in front of the eyes of your target audience and grow your business. You also know that Google Ads can be expensive.

And you know what hurts?

When you spend a lot of time, energy, and money on your ad campaigns, and then you see the big-budget competitors out-spending you. It makes you feel like all that effort was wasted—like you didn’t even stand a chance in the first place. And it makes it hard to keep going when you’re feeling like there’s no point in trying to compete with those guys.

But here’s the thing, you don’t need to spend $50k+ per month on ads to get results, there is a way to compete with them without spending more money!

There are a few things you can do right now that will help level the playing field in your favor. Here are some tips and tricks for competing with big spenders without spending more $$

Big advertisers are always using conversion tracking

If you’re spending money in Google Ads, and you aren’t using conversion tracking, you need to ask yourself this:

How are you supposed to know what’s working? How can you optimise for success if you don’t have the data to back it up?

If your CTR (click through rate) is a measly 2%, and you’re not seeing conversion volume climbing as a result of your ads, then something is wrong. You might think that people just aren’t clicking on your ads, but maybe they are! Maybe they’re just not converting after they click.

Maybe they were too busy looking at their phones to notice the call-to-action in the ad. Maybe they didn’t have time to click on their mobile device while driving down the road at 60 miles per hour. Maybe they were distracted by a cat playing with string or something. Who knows?

The point is: if people aren’t converting on your site after clicking on your ads, then there’s probably something wrong with either your ad copy or landing page (or both). You need data from those clicks so that you can make the necessary tweaks and see results.

Even if you’re spending less money on Google Ads than Coca-Cola (and who isn’t?), you should care about ROI (Return On Investment). Getting conversion tracking set up on your website is relatively simple and completely free (unless you need a developer’s assistance). But it can make a big difference in your business. The $500 or $10,000 or however much you’re spending on Google Ads each month can significantly impact your business—and learning how and why is paramount to your success in Google Ads. That starts with conversion tracking.

Get Your Free Access To Professional Standard Analytical and Tracking SOPs >> “How To Set Up Google Tracking on Your Website” <<

Big advertisers have more landing pages than small spenders.

You know that ad that’s been working like gangbusters for you? The one with the low CPC (Cost per Click) and high CTR (Click Through Rate)? Well, what if we told you that was just the tip of the iceberg?

As it turns out, even with conversion tracking enabled and a structurally sound account in place, there’s a factor outside of Google Ads that can have a profound impact on performance. I’m talking about those action-inducing corners of your website to which you send paid traffic. I’m talking, of course, about landing pages.

Big-budget advertisers know that if you have multiple ads and multiple offers, you need multiple landing pages too. That’s because your prospects will respond much better to specific, tailored messaging that matches the ad they clicked very closely. If you’re sending all your traffic to one generic landing page (or worse, your home page!) they’re going to get confused and bounce.

When you’re small, it can be hard to find the time to build new landing pages.

But if you want to take your Google Ads campaigns to the next level, you need more than one landing page.

More than 1 in 4 (26%) of lower-budget Google Ads accounts only have a single active landing page, compared to just 4% of top-spending accounts.

We know this is a challenge—especially when you have limited resources at your disposal.

However, even if your Google Ads account is only a few months old and your team consists of just one or two people, there are ways for you to begin testing different images and copy on each page.

First off, duplicate the current design of your landing page and make multiple versions for each ad group. Then, optimize the language for each page based on the keywords being targeted by that ad group. This will help improve relevance for both users and Quality Score algorithm (in an ideal world, you can do this at the ad group level).

Get Your Free Access To Professional Standard Funnel SOPs >> How to Create a Lead Generation Landing Page <<

According to recent studies, big spenders have a 17% higher conversion rate than small spenders.

If you care about your business, you’re probably interested in improving your conversion rate.

You’ve probably heard that big spenders have a higher conversion rate, but why?

We’ll tell you: because they prioritise conversion rate optimisation.

When you start considering CRO, it’s tempting to skip right to your landing pages (if you have more than one!) and start fiddling with button colors and graphic elements. Don’t do that. Or, rather, do that later. But start at the beginning.

Make sure the keywords you’re bidding on relate to your business. Broad terms might bring in a ton of traffic, but paying for superfluous clicks is a waste of your budget. We recommend allocating more than half of your budget to high-intent, top-converting keywords.

You can see how important it is to create a landing page that converts.

It’s your chance to show people what you have to offer, and why they should buy from you. It’s also your opportunity to address their needs and concerns, so they can feel confident in their decision to choose you over the competition.

But there are a lot of things that can go wrong in this process. Your landing page might not be mobile-friendly, or it could be cluttered with too much information or make visitors work too hard to find what they need. Or maybe your headline is boring, or your call-to-action buttons are unappealing or difficult to find.

You need to make sure that everything on your landing page works together in harmony: everything works together nicely so it all adds up to a positive user experience for visitors. That means:

Using compelling headlines (just like your ads!)
Writing concise and targeted body copy (not too much information)
Testing different CTA buttons until you find one that works best for you

Top spenders have 38% higher click-through rates than average.

If you’ve ever spent any time in Google Ads, you know that a lot of people are bidding on the same keywords.

And if you’re not spending tons of dough in Google Ads, you can compete with the big guys by spending more time on your ad copy, and by getting creative.

Top-spending Google Ads accounts have an average CTR of almost 7%, whereas low spenders have an average CTR of 5%.That’s a 38% difference—a chasm in a world where a few measly percentage points can mean the difference between profitability and boarding your doors.

So how are the big guys doing it? The truth is, bidding more isn’t going to make your ads more clickable. The ads at the top of the SERP (search engine results page) are generally the ones with the highest Quality Scores, which correlates highly with relevance and better-than-expected click-through rate. If your ads really resonate with users, you can get high CTR even if you’re bidding less than bigger advertisers!

It’s no secret that the world has moved towards mobile devices. In fact, over half of all internet traffic comes from mobile devices—a number that’s only set to grow.

And with the rise of mobile comes a shift in how we consume content: most people don’t read past the headline.

By improving relevance (leveraging your target keyword) and including a call to action in your headlines, you can improve your CTRs without having to crack your piggy bank open.

Big Advertisers Are Using More Ad Extensions Than Smaller Ones (4,631 % more)

Chances are, you’ve heard ad extensions like Sitelinks, Location, and Callout Extensions can help improve your click-through rate (CTR). But have you ever wondered why? Or how?

For small businesses, ad extensions can be a huge difference-maker. Ad extensions can improve your click-through rate six-fold

When it comes to PPC (pay per click) ads, size matters, and these top spenders know that you can use every ad extension in the book to make your Ads big enough to blot out the sun (or at least the rest of the SERP).

Provided your ads are served in the top three positions, there are a dozen extensions you can use to increase both value and ad real estate (and that doesn’t even include the automated extensions Google’s want to sling your way just because it’s a Wednesday afternoon).

We get it. If you’re a one-man-band, routine optimsation and writing ads is time-consuming enough; worrying about optional ad extensions probably feels like a waste of time. That said, if you’ve got an hour or two to spare each month—and especially if your competitors are willing to take advantage of automatic extensions—you might want to consider enabling some of these extras for yourself.

Get Your Free Access To Professional Standard “Paid Strategies SOPs” >> How To Reverse Engineer Your Competitor’s Google Ads Strategy <<

>> Google ad alchemy template <<

When you’re trying to get a message across, it’s all about making it as easy for people to understand as possible. The same goes for online ads: Your job is to ensure that your ad gets noticed, so people can read your message.

That’s where Google Ads sitelink extensions come in—they make sure that your ad stands out from the crowd by providing additional information about your business or service in an easy-to-read format. In fact, 13.5% of Google Ads accounts don’t have their sitelink extensions applied to every campaign! That’s a huge number of potential customers who could be lost before they even see the main headline of your ad.

Don’t let this happen to you! Take a page out of the big boys’ playbook and implement sitelinks today!

Big Spenders Add More Keywords To Negative Keyword Lists Than Small Spenders

Negative keywords are the unsung heroes of any high-performing Google Ads account. You know they’re there, and you assume that they’re working hard to protect your campaign from irrelevant impressions, but you only think about them when something goes wrong.

If you’re bidding on all the right keywords (high intent! relevant! volumetrically salient!), but you can’t seem to earn a conversion to save your life, it’s probably not because your prospects don’t like you. Provided you’re tracking conversions, it’s likely that either…

A lack of negative keywords is causing a deluge of superfluous impressions, many of which are stealing budget away from those interested in your offer
Overzealous negative keywords are impeding your ability to enter auctions for relevant search queries

If you operate with a lean marketing budget, I’m willing to bet that it’s 1. But why is that?

Top-spending Google Ads accounts use many more negative keywords than low-spending accounts; 98% of top-spending accounts use over 250 negative keywords.

Say you sell men’s shoes, and you’re bidding on the keyword +men’s +shoes. How many of these terms do you want to serve ads for?

The first thing you need to know is that there are a lot of search terms that don’t convert.

Many of them are simply too broad to justify paying for (see: “shoes”). Others may be off-brand (like “sneakers” or “cheap shoes”). Paired with the sky-high monthly search volume on some of these, you’d be out of budget before you could blink.

Large advertisers have already figured this out, and devote a little time each week to reviewing their search query reports, between visits to the Ping-Pong table and chocolate fountain.

For the rest of us, by simply jumping into the search terms report available in AdWords, filtering out terms that converted, and sorting by impressions, we’re able to discern whether a search query is making us money or costing us money. While doing so, it’s well worth the little extra elbow grease to add negative keywords frequently if you want to maximize your ad spend and save money in Google Ads.

High spenders tend to have higher quality scores.

You might have clicked on the link above “Quality Score”, if not exactly what is a Quality Score?

You’ve probably heard the term before, but you’re not really sure what it means.

Well, wonder no more! A Quality Score is Google’s rating of the overall user experience that your ads and landing pages provide when users search for your keyword(s). This includes factors like ad relevance and performance, as well as landing page experience.

It all comes down to this: If you want to get a better Quality Score, you need to make sure that the people who click on your ads are happy with what they see when they get to your website.

If they’re not happy with what they saw in the ad or on the landing page, then they may not come back again. And unless they return (and return often), Google won’t show your ads as often. So if you want to keep getting clicks and make more money from them (which is why we all do this), then it’s important that you pay attention to how much people love what they see when they land on your site!

Image source: Wordstream

As you can see, Quality Score can drastically raise or reduce your average CPC. A perfect Quality Score can discount your CPC by about 50%; a heinous Quality Score can increase costs by 400%. At that point, you’re either bidding on the wrong keywords or there’s some serious work to be done on your ads and landing pages.

Impression-weighted Quality Score is a variation on the QS metric that’s available to you in Google Ads. The difference is straightforward: it adjusts for the number of impressions (shocking, I know), giving you some much needed context. Impression-weighted Quality score isn’t a KPI, per se, but it is an indicator of health. Like a Google Ads thermometer.

According to the latest research, top spenders have an average impression-weighted Quality Score of 6.3, where low spenders average just 5.6. That 12% difference might not sound like much, but in reality it represents unneeded budget inefficiency that small businesses simply cannot sustain. If you’ve got a lower budget, you need to do everything in your power to make sure you’re spending it efficiently.

To determine the impression-weighted Quality Score of a given ad group or campaign use the following formula:

(Impressions * Quality Score) / Impressions

Once you’ve got a handle on your impression-weighted Quality Score, it’s time to pull some levers to improve it. The factors that impact Quality Score the most are:

That all-important CTR (Click Through Rate)
Ad relevance (what is it?)
Landing page experience

Again, improving ad copy and landing page quality (resources to help with this) are the most direct ways to close the gap between the average joe and the multi-national conglomerate (at least when it comes to Google Ads)

>>>>Google Ads Grader<<<<

Big spenders are more active in their accounts.

The big spenders aren’t just spending more money in their accounts; they’re also spending more time there. We found that the $50K-and-up crowd are 1196% more active than the smaller spenders. They’re getting in there and actually doing all the stuff we talked about above.

Big spenders take more actions in their accounts, so they get better results.

Money can’t buy happiness, and it can’t buy you a perfect Google Ads account. However, with great budgets comes great responsibility—and business owners who spend a lot on their online advertising take their account performance very seriously, so they invest time and attention in their accounts, not just money.

So What Does It All Mean?

Even if you can’t raise your budget significantly, you can make like a big spender and commit to more activity in your account: adding new keywords and negative keywords, testing new ads, building dedicated landing pages, enabling every ad extension under the sun.

If you spend a month or two working diligently on your account without spending a penny more, and If done right, a series of small steps today can help steer your Google Ads towards greater profitability tomorrow.

Dedicated To Your Marketing Success

John

Essential & Affordable Marketing Tools For Your Marketing Tool Chest

by Red/Marketer with a Soul | May 30, 2022 | Advertising Wollongong, Digital marketing wollongong, direct response marketing, Google Ads, Lead generation, Online Advertising Wollongong, SEO Wollongong

Optimise Your Marketing Efforts

It’s not easy to run a small business. You’re probably spread thin and don’t have the budget or personnel to shell out for countless expensive marketing tools. The good news is that there are plenty of affordable and effective tools out there to help you optimize your marketing efforts and compete with the big guys. We’ve compiled a list of our favorite marketing tools to help you avoid marketing madness. You won’t need them all, and we’re not comparing apples to apples here. So find a few that work for your business and invest time and energy into maximizing them.

Read on to learn more about these tools for analytics, content marketing, lead generation, SEO, PPC, email marketing and automation, design, project management and social media below the infographic.

How are you measuring your small business’s success? The Power of Analytics for Small Businesses

What’s the only thing better than having great marketing analytics? Having great marketing analytics paired with easy to use customer engagement tools. You’re online, in a very crowded space, competing for your customer’s valuable attention.

If you’re looking for a solid analytics tool, consider these options:

Google Analytics

When it comes to marketing, the importance of analytics can not be overstated. The truth is that if you don’t have a solid analytics tool in place, you’re missing out on all sorts of opportunities to improve your business.

Chances are you’ve heard of Google Analytics. It allows you to capture and analyze data on your web traffic and visitors. When used effectively, you can greatly increase your site’s user experience and increase conversion rates.

Google Analytics is one of the best tools out there for analyzing your website’s traffic, but it’s not your only option. There are several other great analytics tools that offer similar functionality and can help take your business to the next level by providing insight into how people interact with your content.

KissMetrics

Do you have a SaaS business? If so, you need KISSmetrics!

KISSmetrics will help you find out where your prospects are coming from and map their journey on your website from prospect to customer. It gives you the important data you need to optimize your marketing channels, attract more customers, and get them to convert once they reach your website.

Hotjar

Hotjar is an all-in-one analytics and heatmap tool that integrates with tons of tools like WordPress, Instapage and Unbounce. Hotjar’s setup is incredibly easy AND you can record web visits to see where your customers are clicking and focusing on your website.

With hotjar, you can see how users are interacting with your site—from clicks, to scrolls and even mouse movements. You can also see how many people are using your site in real time!

Hotjar has several different types of tracking:

Heatmaps – See what areas of your page are getting the most attention (and which aren’t). This will help you optimize your pages for conversion!

Recordings – Record web visits so you can see what people are doing on your website or blog. Perfect if you want to see where they’re clicking or scrolling on a specific page.

Funnels – See how many users drop off at each step of the conversion funnel before converting. Use this info to improve your conversion rates!

Surveys – Collect feedback from visitors about their experience on your website or blog by creating surveys with Hotjar’s survey tool.

Intercom

You know what’s better than a customer? A customer who loves you.

And you know what’s better than a customer who loves you? A customer who loves you so much that they tell their friends and family, who also become customers!

But how do you get there? How do you take the first step to building that kind of relationship with your customers?

Well, first of all: stop doing things manually. If you’re managing a website or platform and answering customer service emails by hand, it’s time to change that.

Intercom is a customer messaging platform that allows you to see where your customers are getting tripped up and to send them targeted messages to solve their problems. The tool gives insight into areas of improvement on both your website and within your platform if you’re a Saas company. By automating customer service and triggering live chat, you can keep customers engaged and prevent costly churn.

How Small Businesses Can Use Content Marketing to Grow.

As a small business owner, you’re probably focused on growth. To that end, have you considered content marketing as a strategy for growing your business? It can be an excellent way to attract potential clients. If that is something you want to learn more about, read on..

WordPress

WordPress powers 27% of the internet. And there’s a reason for it. WordPress is the easiest content management system out there (in our humble opinion), and it’s super reasonably priced: free for personal use, but the best package for small businesses starts at $8.25 USD/month.

That’s right—you can get all the benefits of a professional website that you control at an affordable price!

You know what else makes WordPress so great? It’s easy to use, even if you don’t have any technical skills. You don’t need any special training or knowledge of coding, because WordPress does most of the hard work for you! And if you need help, there are tons of tutorials and resources available online to help you get started (just search “WordPress tutorial”).

What are some other benefits of using WordPress? Well, here are just a few:

-It’s free to start with and only costs money once your site gets big enough that there are fees involved in hosting it.

-It has thousands of themes available so that no matter what kind of business or brand identity you have, there will be something out there that suits them perfectly!

-It has built-in security measures.

Feedly

Don’t waste your valuable time searching for content.

With Feedly, you can search, organize and share relevant content directly from one place. Not only that, but it integrates with several project management tools such as Slack and Trello.

Here are some other reasons why you should use Feedly to curate your social presence:

– It’s easy to use

– It saves time by letting you focus on what matters most

– You can access it anywhere

Grammarly

Are you one of those people who never get their blog posts edited before they go live? You know the ones—they have all kinds of weird mistakes in them, like the fact that their subject and verb don’t agree, or their pronoun doesn’t agree with its antecedent, or their passive voice is clogging up their writing.

We feel your pain. But we also have a solution! Grammarly can help you avoid embarrassing errors like these.

Grammarly is an online grammar checker that works with your spell checker (if you use one) to catch errors in your writing that are way too common for anyone to make on purpose. It will even help you avoid common typos like “their” instead of “there.”

And if you spring for the premium version, Grammarly also offers a plagiarism checker that can help ensure that none of your content has been lifted from other sources without proper citations.

Co-Schedule

You’ve got a great content marketing plan. You know who you’re targeting, how to reach them, and how to keep them engaged.

Now it’s time to get down to business: writing headlines.

Headlines are the first thing readers see when they look at your content. They determine whether or not they’ll click on it—and if they don’t click, they won’t read any of your amazing content.

So we recommend using CoSchedule’s Headline Analyzer tool to make sure your headlines are as strong as they can be. This tool will give your headlines numeric scores AND suggestions for making them even stronger!

BuzzSumo

BuzzSumo is an excellent tool to help you uncover the trending topics and content that performs across various social media the best. You can also identify influencers (and spy on your competition if that’s what you’re into).

With BuzzSumo, you can:

1. Find out what’s trending across all major social media platforms (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Google+), including content published by specific people or brands.

2. Identify the most shared content on each platform for any time period between 1 month and 6 months—or even longer if you want to go back through history!

3. See which sites are linking to a certain piece of content.

Wistia

Video marketing is all the hype this year, and it’s no wonder why: people love watching videos! It’s a great way to show off your product or service in a fun and engaging way, but it can also be super intimidating. If you’re new to video marketing, I’ve got some great news for you: Wistia is the best resource for learning how to make videos that convert.

Wistia is an awesome video tool that helps you create stunning videos with ease. Not only do they offer analytics, automation and a place to host your videos (which is perfect if you’re hosting on your own site), they also have an incredible call-to-action feature that allows you to drive traffic back to your site no matter where your Wistia video lives on the internet.

Small Business Tools for Capturing Leads

Small business owners have unique challenges when it comes to generating leads. If you’re struggling with generating leads, check out these small business tools that can help you capture more qualified leads. I’ve worked with many (too many) SMBs over the years and know these tools in particular will help you thrive

JotForm

JotForm is a drag-and-drop form builder that allows you to create, publish and analyze online forms.

The best part? You can do all of this in no time at all! JotForm is the easiest way to build, host and share your forms. It’s free, easy to use and works great on any device.

You can build your form in minutes and customize it however you like. Once you’re ready to publish, JotForm will send users directly to their form so they can fill it out. And if you want feedback from users, JotForm includes a survey feature so you can collect information about how your customers feel about certain products or services.

JotForm helps businesses save time by eliminating the need for manual data entry and expensive software tools. It also helps them easily collect customer feedback so they can make informed decisions about what direction their business should go next.

OptinMonster

As a business owner, you’ve got a lot on your plate. You’re trying to grow your list, improve your conversion rate, and increase sales.

But how can you possibly do all of that and still make sure your website is running smoothly?

Enter OptinMonster.

OptinMonster’s simple lead capture forms are an easy way to serve up irresistible resources to your audience, growing your list. OptinMonster allows you to A/B test your forms to see what’s working and what isn’t so you’ll understand why your visitors are staying and going.

Unbounce

If you’re looking for a way to build a landing page without having to code or hire a professional web designer, then Unbounce is a great option.

Unbounce has beautiful pre-designed templates that will allow you to get your pages up and running in no time. You can choose from over 100 different templates, or use one of the many free ones available on their site. You can also create your own layout using their drag-and-drop builder, or add elements from Unbounce’s library of stock images and videos.

You can even use Unbounce’s built-in A/B testing feature to find out which designs are working best for your users.

LeadPages

LeadPages is a popular landing page builder that makes it super easy to create beautiful, professional-looking landing pages without any coding.

LeadPages offers pre-designed landing page templates, pop-up forms and the ability to send SMS opt-in codes. They boast tons of easy integrations and their Pro Plan starts at $48 USD/month.

Sumo

Sumo (formerly SumoMe) has an array of helpful lead capture tools, including sophisticated opt-in forms, easy integrations with just about any content management system, Google Analytics integrations and heatmaps. Pricing depends on your website visits but starts with a free package (best for those just getting started).

If you’re looking for a tool that helps you grow your mailing list while tracking the effectiveness of your campaigns, Sumo is the solution for you. The service offers many options for capturing leads and driving traffic to your website, including heatmaps and analytics reports.

SumoMe is an all-in-one platform that helps you grow your email list, improve your website’s performance, and make more sales through their email marketing tools. It has an intuitive interface that makes it easy for anyone to use; however, it does require some technical knowledge to set up correctly. If you’re looking for a simple solution without much customization then SumoMe might be right for you!

HelloBar

HelloBar is a tool that helps you turn website visitors into email subscribers, and those subscribers into customers. The tool is simple and easy to use, and it’s free for the first 100 emails you send.

The lead capture bar, called HelloBar®, adds a non-intrusive lead capture bar to your website. Visitors can enter their contact information right there on your site, and you’ll get an alert when they do so. You can then send them an email thanking them for signing up—and inviting them to subscribe to your newsletter!

The tool also allows you to promote your social content. When users click on any link in the bar, they’ll be sent directly over to Facebook or Twitter so they can share your content with their friends. They’ll even get a reminder of what they were just reading about right when they arrive at another site.

And finally, HelloBar® makes it easy for you to A/B test your messaging: just go through all of the options available in the app and see which ones perform best!

Qualaroo

Qualaroo is the best way to get the answers you need about your website, product and conversion funnel.

Qualaroo allows you to optimize your site by providing targeted website surveys to capture customer insight. With Qualaroo you can target questions to visitors anywhere on your website, in your product or in your conversion funnel. Their startup package starts at $199 USD/month billed annually.

Qualaroo is a great tool for getting valuable information from your customers and increasing conversions. The surveys are easy to set up and you can choose where they appear on your site. You can also set up triggers so that only people who have visited certain pages will be asked questions about them.

LiveChat

When you’re a small business, you have to use every tool at your disposal.

LiveChat is an easy way to engage customers on your website, capture visitor information and provide more personalized, immediate customer service. The LiveChat starter package starts at $19 USD/month—and it’s a great way to capture prospects from your website who might otherwise bounce.

Small businesses can save money on SEO and PPC with simple tools.

Talking to marketing agencies can get expensive, especially if they are trying to sell you on SEO and PPC without telling you that there is a much cheaper alternative. This guide provides some alternatives which will make SEO and PPC affordable for your business.

Wordstream

WordStream is the company to trust when it comes to all things PPC and paid advertising. They know their stuff and they can help you get the most out of your digital marketing efforts.

Their free Google Ads Grader is a surefire way to know where your small business can make improvements. It’s quick and easy to run through, and it will show you exactly what you need to do in order to make sure that your ads are reaching their full potential!

Not only does WordStream have a phenomenal team and company culture, but they’re absolute bosses when it comes to all things PPC and paid advertising. Their free Google Ads Grader is a surefire way to know where your small business can make improvements.

Yoast

Yoast is the most popular SEO plugin for WordPress. The tool works easily to optimize your content and landing pages to make sure your site is set up for success. With features like a readability checker and keyword optimizer, Yoast will make sure your content is optimized for the right eyes.

With Yoast, you’ll be able to take full advantage of our best-in-class features. You can simply install it on your WordPress site and get started optimizing your content automatically. You’ll get notified when one of our amazing features has detected an issue with your content or meta tags so you can fix it before Google notices it and penalizes you!

Google Adwords

Google AdWords is an incredibly important advertising platform that can help your small business reach new customers.

AdWords offers search, display and video advertising to help you reach your customers where they’re searching. This means you don’t have to pay for every customer who finds you on Google; instead, you can choose which customers are the best fit for your business.

There is a cost to using AdWords, but it’s worth it for your business to drive more traffic to your website.

SpyFu

SpyFu is the best tool for spying on your competition.

We all know that SEO is a competitive game, but we also don’t have time to waste. SpyFu makes it easy to see where your competitors rank, what keywords they’re bidding on, and what strategies they’re using—without having to do any of the hard work yourself.

SpyFu literally allows you to spy on your competitors. The platform allows you to search for any domain and see every place they’ve shown up on Google. You can also see a list of every keyword your competition bought on Adwords, every organic rank, and every ad variation in the last 10 years. Now that’s good detective work.

Ubersuggest

Ubersuggest will help you find the best keywords for your business. It’s a tool that helps you dig deep into Google’s search suggestions and find out what people are searching for—and then how they’re searching for it.

You can use this data to do a few things:

1) Figure out what people want to know about your product or service,

2) See what keywords they’re using to search for your product or service, and then

3) Use those keywords in your content strategy so that when someone searches one of those terms, they’ll find your website!

Email Marketing & Automation For Small Businesses

Email marketing and automation is one of the most effective marketing methods for small businesses. It permits sending personalized messages to interested audience, 24/7. But choosing from a wide variety of email services can be challenging. This article will teach you how to find the best email marketing service for your business.

Zapier

Automating your business is essential. It allows you to focus on running your company, instead of wasting time on the boring stuff.

But what if you don’t know where to start? Or how to do it? Or even what “automation” means?

Zapier changes all that. It’s an easy-to-use tool that allows you to connect your web apps for easier automation that will optimize your processes and keep your small business running smoothly. You can set up simple triggers (such as when someone submits a form), or create more complex automations (like when someone uploads a video). Whatever type of automation works best for your company, Zapier has got you covered—whether you’re looking for something simple or complex.

MailChimp

MailChimp is undeniably the most well-known email marketing platform. They have 15 million customers and tons of integrations, but they don’t offer the CRM feature. This tool is perfect for enterprise businesses who can build an integration with their CRM or for those not looking for CRM functionality.

With [tool name], you can easily view customer data in a single place. You can segment your subscribers into groups based on location, gender, interest and more. You can also create automated workflows based on actions such as purchases, abandoned carts or failed signups.

With this tool, you will be able to send personalized emails that improve your open rates and click-through rates. There are tons of features that make it easy to customize your campaigns according to your needs and goals. You can have up to 2000 subscribers with the “free forever” plan. So its great for low budget startups.

Mailerlite

MailerLite is a software tool that helps you create, send, and manage all of your email marketing campaigns.

MailerLite’s drag-and-drop interface makes it easy to create beautiful emails that get results. It makes it simple to design a template from scratch or customize an existing one, so you can make sure your message looks great on any device.

MailerLite also lets you schedule and send emails at exactly the right time, so you don’t waste money sending messages to people who aren’t interested in what you have to say. You’ll get more engagement with MailerLite because your subscribers are getting messages when they’re ready for them. You can have up to 1000 subscribers on their “free forever” plan.

Clicksend SMS

With Clicksend SMS automation for small business, you can set up a system that allows your customers to text you questions and receive responses automatically.

This is a great feature for small businesses that want to offer their clients the option of receiving answers through text messages.

You can set up as many automated responses as you want, so it’s easy to make sure every question gets an answer.

The best part about this service is that it’s completely free!

Small Business Social Media Tools

Small businesses don’t have the same social media marketing budgets as the big guys. In fact, most are limited to a few hundred dollars in their monthly marketing budget. How can you use social media to engage an audience when you’re on a shoestring budget? The answer is your creativity! Here’s a look at some affordable social media tools that can help you achieve your goals

Buffer

Social media can be a major time suck. Lucky for you, Buffer’s incredibly easy scheduling tool, content library and robust analytics make it easier to reach more people while saving you time.

Buffer is the easiest way to schedule social media posts in advance and analyze how they perform. You can use this simple scheduling tool to turn your social media posts into a set of tasks that automatically go out at the best times for your audience. They also give you suggestions on what days are best to tweet or post based on your past performance.

You can also use Buffer as a content library where you can store all of your favorite quotes, articles and images that you want to share—so when you’re ready to post, just drag them into our scheduling tool!

And with our new analytics dashboard, we’ve made it even easier for you to see how your posts are performing—and adapt accordingly!

Hootsuite

Hootsuite is the best social media management tool out there.

With Hootsuite, you can manage all of your social media accounts from one place. You can post to Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn from a single dashboard—and that’s just the beginning. The real magic happens when you start using the advanced analytics and reporting features to analyze your content performance and keep track of how your audience is responding to it.

The best part? Hootsuite has a “free forever” version that lets you monitor up to two social accounts at once, so there’s no reason not to give it a shot!

Bitly

Bitly is the most popular link management available. Users can shorten, manage and measure shared links across the web giving greater insight into engagement. Best news? Bitly is free (unless you want branded links and an enterprise account).

Social media managers know that tracking links shared on social media can be a nightmare. Bitly makes it easy to manage, track and measure all of your links in one place.

With Bitly, you can create shortened URLs for any link you want to share online. When someone clicks on your shortened URL, they’ll be taken to the original source of your content. This means that you can use Bitly to track how many people click on each link so you can see how effective each piece of content is at driving traffic back to your website or blog!

DrumUp

DrumUp is a newer kid on the block, but it’s effective nonetheless—and it does everything you need out of a social media scheduling tool.

Not only can you curate content, schedule it, and suggest hashtags for your posts to expand reach and engagement, but DrumUp has a few features that really make it stand out in the crowd:

-It’s easy to use. Just drag-and-drop your post into the timeline for your campaign, choose whether you want it posted as soon as possible or later on in the day (or week), and click “Create.” That’s all there is to it!

-The app is free and doesn’t even require an account—just sign up with Facebook or Google if you want to save your campaigns or access them on mobile devices.

-DrumUp suggests hashtags based on the content of your post so that you don’t have to worry about coming up with them yourself. Just input your message (and maybe a few keywords), choose a campaign name, and let DrumUp do all of the work!

Design tools for small businesses.

Looking for the right design tools to kickstart your next idea? Small businesses face unique challenges when it comes to design — and even the basics can sometimes be out of reach. That’s why we’ve put together this guide explaining the best design tools for small businesses with little money and time.

Canva

Visual content gets much higher engagement and conversion rates than text only content. Canva helps you create beautiful images and other visual assets. If you’re not ready to create images all on your own yet, Canva is the perfect option for getting started.

In fact, Canva is so effective at helping you create visually appealing content that it has been used by brands like Red Bull, Facebook, and Apple.

The best part? It’s free! You can even use it as a web app or download their iOS app if you want to use them offline.

Just select what kind of image you want (like an infographic or social media post), choose from a wide variety of templates, and customize it however you want!

With just a few clicks and some simple design skills, Canva can take your visual content from mediocre to amazing.

Stencil

You can’t have too many tools at your disposal when you’re creating content for social media and content marketing. Stencil is a great option for people who want to create high-quality images quickly and easily, even if they don’t have any design skills.

Stencil is similar to Canva, but with a few extra features that make it stand out. For example, you can upload your own fonts and use them in your designs—something that Canva doesn’t offer. You can also get started on an image from scratch by drawing a shape or using one of their templates. And the best part? They have almost a million images to choose from!

If you use Chrome, you can also install their extension so that you can create images while browsing the web!

Adobe Creative Cloud

Adobe Creative Cloud is the perfect tool for small businesses that want to make a big impact.

There’s a definite learning curve, but once you master Adobe Creative Cloud, the possibilities are endless. You can create professional and engaging images with ease—and pair them with any content you’re working on.

Don’t let the name fool you: this isn’t just for creatives. Creative Cloud gives small businesses the opportunity to share their story in a way that will capture the attention of their target audience and convert them into paying customers.

Project management tools for small businesses.

Project management is a critical part of any small business, and it can be incredibly difficult to get right.

But with the right tools, you don’t have to be an expert at project management to get it done—you just need the right tools.

Here are some of our favorites..

Slack

Slack is the place to be for businesses.

The platform helps teams organize projects by bringing communication into one place, sharing and commenting on files, and integrating with other apps to get more done in less time. Not to mention the Giphy feature is loads of fun during team chats. Oh, and it’s free for almost all businesses (unless you need an upgraded account).

But wait… there’s more! Slack has a ton of other incredible features that make it even better than it already is—like being able to add customized emojis to your messages, or search through all past messages in a specific channel without scrolling through page after page. It even lets you see which team members are online at any moment so you can easily reach out when needed.

We (like millions of other businesses) l-o-v-e Slack because it helps us be more productive and stay connected with our teams around the clock – no matter where we are in the world.

Evernote

It’s so easy to get lost in the shuffle of a project. When you’re in the thick of it, it can be hard to keep track of all of your responsibilities and deadlines, let alone your project documents.

Evernote makes it simple to create notes and categorize task into project-specific notebooks. You can even scan in paper docs to make keeping track of project documents a breeze.

Trello

Trello is a popular choice for small businesses because it offers a free plan for small teams and their business accounts start at $10 USD/month.

Trello’s main interface functions like a whiteboard, making it easy to use for anyone who’s unfamiliar with project management software. The setup process is also seamless.

Trello has more than 8 million users worldwide and gets good reviews from small business owners because of its seamless setup and ease of use.

Asana

You’ve got a lot of stuff on your plate.

And Asana is here to help you make sense of it all.

Asana provides a holistic overview of personal or professional to-dos with its simple interface and powerful integrations. It’s a great option for teams and individuals alike. With Asana, you can unify your workflows and improve productivity with smart alerts and notifications that keep everyone on track—no matter where they are or what device they’re using.

Google Drive

If you’re just diving into project management, Google Drive is a simple way to share and collaborate on documents, see revision history, and let team members leave & resolve comments. Drive offers a plethora of business tools including documents, spreadsheets, and presentation slides. Plus, it’s free.

The best part about Google Drive is that it’s easy to use. You can create new files in any format or upload existing ones straight from your computer or mobile device. You can also set permissions so that only certain people can view or edit your documents and folders.

Google Drive comes with a robust search engine that lets you find exactly what you need in seconds—whether it be an old presentation slide or an important document that was lost in the shuffle. It also offers real-time collaboration capabilities so everyone can see who’s working on what at any given time. The tool is even compatible with other cloud storage platforms like Dropbox and Box!

Marketing can be a relatively expensive proposition, but if you get the right tools at a good price (and in some cases free), marketing your business becomes more manageable and you save money. Hopefully this guide has shed some light on what to look for when purchasing marketing tools and how to get the best deal. The possibilities are limitless with great marketing tools, and now it’s up to you to make them work for you. If you found this article helpful please follow us on our social media platforms, we would love to have you onboard!

Dedicated To Your Marketing Success

John

Marketing FAQs

by Red/Marketer with a Soul | May 12, 2022 | Advertising Wollongong, Digital Marketing SOPs, Digital marketing wollongong, direct response marketing, Google Ads, Lead generation, Online Advertising Wollongong, social media marketing

When it comes to digital marketing, there are four main types:

Social Media Marketing (SMM)

Social Media Optimization (SMO)

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Pay-Per Click Advertising (PPC)

Social media marketing (SMM) is a way for businesses to connect with their customers, potential customers, and partners through social media platforms. SMM is a type of digital marketing that uses social media platforms to market a product or service.

The purpose of SMM is to increase brand awareness and generate leads by encouraging people who visit your social media pages to engage with your brand by liking your posts, commenting on them, or sharing them with their friends on Facebook or Twitter.

SMM can help you create buzz about your products, services, and events before they happen so that people who may be interested in what you have to offer know about it ahead of time. It also allows you to respond quickly to customer feedback or concerns so that you can address problems as soon as possible and build trust among current and potential customers.

Social media optimisation (SMO) is a strategy for increasing the visibility of a website or brand on social media. It involves creating content that is shared across different platforms, such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn.

A good SMO campaign will increase the number of followers of your pages, which can then drive traffic to your website and boost conversions.

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is the process of increasing your website’s ranking in search engine results pages (SERPs) through organic search engine results. It’s a marketing technique that helps you to improve your website’s visibility on search engines, like Google.

There are many factors that contribute to SEO, including your content and how well it’s written, the keywords used in your content, and the number of backlinks pointing to your site from other sites.

In order to rank well in search engines, you need to understand how they work and what they’re looking for when they crawl the web. If you want to get ranked high on Google or Bing, then you’ll need quality content that people want to read – but also keywords related to your niche which people are searching for online right now!

Pay-per-click advertising (PPC) is a type of paid advertising on the internet that costs you only when someone clicks on your ad.

It’s an incredibly effective way to get your ads in front of people who are actively looking for what you’re offering.

PPC ads can be placed on search engines, social media platforms, and other websites where users are actively searching for something related to what you’re selling.

You can set a budget for your PPC campaign so that you don’t spend more than you want to.

The best part? If someone clicks on your ad but isn’t interested in what you’re selling, they won’t cost you anything!

A paid strategy is a strategy that involves the use of paid advertising, rather than organic traffic (which is unpaid), to drive traffic to your site.

CPA, or Cost Per Action, is a type of marketing that compensates a business for the direct results of running an ad. For example, say you own a pizza parlor, and you run an ad on Google telling people to come and buy your pizzas online. If one customer buys a pizza online as the result of seeing your ad, then you get paid for that sale. The specific dollar amount you can receive depends on what kind of action the ad was intended to drive.

This type of marketing is great for businesses who are just starting out and don’t have much money to spend, because it only costs money when you have sales. And who doesn’t want that?

CPA marketing is a type of pay-per-action advertising, where an advertiser pays only when a person takes a particular action. The advertiser doesn’t pay unless that action is performed, so CPA marketing is sometimes used to refer to cost per acquisition or cost per lead.

This type of conversion-based marketing has been around for more than a decade, and it’s gaining popularity in online advertising as older methods of online marketing like pay-per-click are becoming less effective.

Cost-Per Click (CPC) advertising is a method of advertising that allows advertisers to pay for each time a user clicks on their ad. This type of advertising is very common in the internet industry, and it is used by many companies who want to promote their products and services.

CPC is one of the most popular forms of online advertising. It has been around for many years and has proven to be very effective at helping companies advertise their products. In fact, more than 80% of all online searches are done using this method.

The main advantage of CPC advertising is that you only pay when someone clicks on your ad and goes through to your website or landing page. This means that you only pay if there’s an interest in what you have to offer!

Do you want to grow your business? If the answer is “yes,” then you need to advertise.

Advertising is the best way to get your business in front of the right people at the right time. When you advertise, you are able to control how and when potential customers reach out to you and make sure that your message is getting across to them.

If you’re looking for a quick and easy way to scale your business, then advertising is it. You can set up an ad in as little as a day and start getting results immediately—all without having to spend a ton of money or get bogged down in complicated strategies. It’s no secret that advertising has been around for centuries—it’s tried-and-true!

In fact, most successful businesses today have invested heavily in advertising. It’s not just about getting the word out there; advertising can help build awareness for your brand, reach new customers, and keep existing customers coming back again and again.

How much should a business spend on advertising?

According to the American Association of Advertising Agencies, businesses spend between 0.5% and 2.5% of their revenue on ads. This number represents a good starting point for smaller companies, and a reasonable upper limit for mid-sized companies with more established client bases.

A company’s industry can also have an effect on their advertising budget. For example, many businesses in the retail sector spend at least 1% of their revenue on advertising, whereas businesses in the services sector typically spend less than 1%.

It is a common misconception that you should be focusing on one or two metrics when setting up your PPC account. However, a more effective approach is to look at all of the metrics and adjust your strategy based on what you find.

Typical metrics that people focus on are:

#1: Cost per conversion: This is how much it costs for every single person who buys from you.

#2: Cost per click: This is how much it costs for every single person who clicks on your ads.

#3: Conversion rate: How many people who click on your ad end up making a purchase at your site.

#4: Click through rate (CTR): This is how many times a person clicks on your ad after seeing it.

These metrics are important, but they’re not enough to tell the whole story. You should also look at things like:

#5: Average order value (AOV): Average amount spent by someone who buys from you, including shipping costs and taxes.

#6: Sales velocity Total number of sales divided by the total number of impressions your ads have received in the past month.

#7: Customer retention rate Number of returning customers divided by the number of new customers in the past month

Testing a PPC campaign is a multi-step process that involves both qualitative and quantitative analysis.

First, you need to analyze the effectiveness of your ad copy. To do this, you need to track how many people click on your ads. You can do this by using Google Analytics to see how many visitors come from each ad.

Next, you should examine the quality of those clicks. You want to make sure that the people who click on your ads are qualified leads—the kind of people who are likely to buy what you’re selling in your ads. This will help you determine if you need to tweak your ad copy or target audience.

Finally, once you’ve determined that your ad copy is effective and that it’s bringing in qualified leads, it’s time to analyze the effectiveness of your landing pages. You can do this by measuring how many people actually convert on those landing pages (i.e., purchase something).

Google Ads charges you for your ads on a pay-per-click (PPC) basis. That means that you don’t pay anything until someone clicks on your ad—and then you’ll be charged the amount determined by what you’re bidding.

So, if you bid $5 on a certain keyword, and someone searches for that keyword and clicks on your ad, you’ll be charged $5. If no one clicks on your ad, then it won’t cost you anything at all—so there’s really no risk in trying.

You can also set a daily budget for how much you want to spend each day on Google Ads. This means that if anyone ever clicks your ad, the total of all those clicks will never exceed your daily limit. So, if your daily budget is $10, and someone clicks on your ad 15 times in one day, then you’ll only be charged $10—not the total amount of all 15 clicks.

This approach allows you to maintain control over how much money is being spent each day on Google Ads for your business.

The difference between conversions and all conversions in Google Ads is that the former refers to the specific number of conversions you have, while the latter refers to the total number of conversions that have occurred when using your ad.

In other words, if you run an ad for a week and get 10 conversions, but one of those people also buys a product from your website on a different day, then you’ll see “10” in your conversion column, but if you look at all conversions (and you click on the “All Conversions” tab), you’ll see that there were 11 total conversions. This is because Google takes into account all of these extra purchases when determining all conversions.

If your Google Ad account is suspended, it means that Google has found that you have violated one of their policies.

Google can suspend an entire account or just certain parts of it. They will tell you which part or parts are suspended. You can find out more about this in the suspension notice they send to your registered email address. You can also find it in your account by following these steps:

1. Sign in to your Google Ads account at ads.google.com.

2. In the page menu on the left, click Settings.

3. Click Account access under “Account settings.”

4. Click Suspensions to see the details of the suspension, including a link to the policy that was violated and how long the suspension will last.

5. Review the information about why your account was suspended, then click Request review if you think your suspension was a mistake and would like to appeal it (this option will only be available if you haven’t requested a review yet).

6. If you think that your ad was incorrectly disapproved for violating our advertising policies, click Appeal an approval decision in the same section.

If you want to create content that attracts traffic and leads to conversion, your main focus should be on the results of your service or product.

Customers don’t care about the features that make up your service or product—they care about what it will do for them. So don’t waste time talking about how great your service or product is, dive right in to what it can do for your customers.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been asked that question.

It’s a good design, and it’s probably got a lot of great features, but if your visitors are leaving after they see your landing page, you’re not going to get anywhere. The best way to fix this problem is to make sure that your landing page is clear and concise. If you have too much information on the page or too many images, then you’ll scare people off before they even get a chance to see what your site has to offer.

The first thing you should do is look at what other companies in your industry are doing in terms of their landing pages. This will give you an idea of what works and what doesn’t work when it comes to getting people interested in visiting your site. Then take some time tweaking your own landing page so that it matches up with these examples as closely as possible.

The most important thing to do it conduct a competitor analysis and see where there is a gap you could fill in the market with your product.

You can make your product different from your competitors’ in a variety of ways, including:

– Price: Make yours cheaper or more expensive than theirs.

– Quality: Make yours better or worse than theirs.

– Distribution: Make yours available to a wider audience than theirs is, or vice versa.

– Positioning: where you want your product to be positioned in the market, ie whether it be a high end product or be exclusive..

Digital marketing tools are a boon for the marketers in this digital age. With such tools, the marketers can automate their routine tasks and give more time to their creative side. Digital marketing tools have made it possible to remove all the repetitive tasks from the shoulders of the marketers so that they can focus on creating strategies and implementing them in a better way.

Digital marketing tools help in saving a lot of time of the marketers as they help them to do analytics and create reports about their marketing campaigns. They also help them in doing SEO, social media management, content creation, and other digital marketing activities easily.

With these tools, the marketers don’t need to worry about what is happening with their campaign as these tools will keep them updated about every single thing that takes place within their campaign.

To optimize your videos, you need to leverage your SEO efforts in tandem with your video marketing strategy. Here are some things you can do:

* Make sure your videos are optimized for the keywords you want to rank for by including keywords in the title, description, and tags.

* Include a call-to-action on the first frame of your video and in the description so that people know how to interact with the content.

* Embed links to relevant pages on your website on all sites where the video is posted, as well as include links in the video’s description. This will help drive traffic back to your site.

* Your videos should be optimized for mobile devices so that they’re easily accessible from anywhere at any time, even if someone doesn’t have an internet connection (like when they’re on an airplane). Make sure they’re also easy to share with others via email or social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram.

* Create playlists of related video content so viewers can watch more than one piece of content at a time without having to navigate away from their current location.

There are many differences between web content designed to rank and content that is written to be read. The most important difference is that the content designed to rank focuses on keywords and keyword density, while the content designed for reading is written for a reader’s interests and comprehension.

Keyword density refers to how many times a keyword or phrase appears on a page in relation to how many total words are on that page. This is an important metric because search engines like Google use it as an indication of how relevant a website is related to a search term. So, if you want your website to rank high in Google results, you’d want it to have high keyword density—but if you just want people who come across your site to be able to understand what you’re saying, then having high keyword density might not be the best way to go about it.

In order to write content that’s meant for reading rather than ranking, here are some tips:

1) Use long sentences with few commas

2) Use short paragraphs instead of one big paragraph (you can also use bullet points or numbered lists instead)

3) Don’t use complex words.

Digital ads can be a powerful way to reach your customers and potential customers. The key is knowing what to include and what not to include.

Here are some tips:

-Be concise. Your potential customer is busy and they don’t want to spend too much time reading a bunch of text. Make sure the copy is brief, but also covers all the important points you want to make.

-Use images that are relevant, eye-catching, and convey a message about your product or service. You want people looking at your ad on social media or in an email newsletter to know immediately what it’s about without having to scroll down or read a lot of text first.

-Make sure it’s clear how people can get in touch with you if they have questions about what you’re offering (or if they just want more information).

It is important for companies to understand how the industry cloud can be used to capture value. The cloud allows organizations to create a business model that is more flexible, agile, and innovative; however, this requires a different approach to IT management.

The first step in capturing value from the industry cloud is to realize that you have access to a wide range of resources. In addition to storing your data in the cloud, you have access to other applications that can be used for business purposes. This will allow you to take advantage of many different types of technologies without having to buy them or maintain them on-site.

The second step is recognizing the benefits of using software-as-a-service (SaaS). This type of service allows organizations to focus on their core business rather than on managing technology infrastructure or maintaining software licenses. By using SaaS products, companies have more control over their data because they can access it whenever they want without needing any additional hardware or software installations at all!

Pricing structure is often difficult to maintain because of the need to constantly change it as the business and its products change.

If a company chooses to use a fixed pricing structure, they may find that they are stuck with an outdated price point that could be costing them money or not generating enough revenue.

For example, if a coffee shop has only one type of coffee available, it might be able to charge $5 per cup because there’s no competition and customers have no other options. However, if another coffee shop opens up down the street with cheaper prices and better service, then customers will start going there instead—even if their coffee isn’t as good. This is why many companies choose to use variable pricing structures rather than fixed ones in order to remain competitive in an ever-changing marketplace.

In the past, Google and Facebook ads were the only way to go. But now that we have more options, we can make better decisions about where to spend our money.

There are a lot of ad networks out there that offer alternatives to Google and Facebook ads. Some of these include Taboola and Outbrain, which are both great options for getting your content seen by more people.

However, there are also other networks that may be more appropriate for your business. For example, if you’re selling something that relates to travel or financial services like loans or mortgages then you might want to consider using LinkedIn Ads or Bing Ads instead of Google AdWords or Facebook Ads because they tend to work better with those topics than Google AdWords or Facebook Ads do (although there’s still room for improvement here).

All in all though, if you want people to see your content then using an ad network like Taboola or Outbrain will help get it seen by more people than just using either one separately would do on its own!

SEO and digital marketing are two of the most popular terms in the business world today. But what do they mean? And which one is better?

SEO stands for search engine optimization—a strategy used to make your website rank higher in search results. Digital marketing, on the other hand, refers to the process of promoting your business online. It includes things like search engine optimization (SEO), social media marketing, email marketing, and content marketing.

Each of these processes has its own goals: SEO aims to make your site more visible in search engines, while digital marketing aims to drive traffic to your site and convert those visitors into customers.

Got questions? Leave a comment below or give us a call, I’m always happy to help out if I can..

Dedicated to Your Marketing Success

John

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