This COVID-19 2020 pandemic has caused a lot of disruptions and changes in our daily lives, our way of living, employment, businesses, and most of all our finances. It broke us from our normal movement, our daily routine. Norms have changed. Big and small businesses closed. People were kept inside; there was less activity, relied more on computers, tablets, and mobile phones; our only window to the outside world. However, despite the pandemic, some were spared were lucky enough to be able to work pretty much without disruption. COVID has changed the way we do business and those who survived mostly are those who render their services through online portals or e-commerce website. And this is the opportune time for other businesses to follow suit. 

What Is An E-Commerce Website? 

An e-commerce website is any website that sells products online, making it easier and convenient for shoppers to make purchases. 

With the lockdown, all of our attention has moved virtually! Consumers are reaching out for their essentials through the internet recently. From the food industry to clothing to other dry goods. Commerce done virtually is without any argument a plausible cause. 

Whether you’re a medium or small-scale entrepreneur, building an e-commerce website is within the entrepreneur’s reach. It will help you grow and most of all, increase your business’ revenue. 

How Does This E-Commerce Work For You And Your Business? 

Before this pandemic, there was already an influx of online merchants, and man, some of them have reached the peak of success in their field.

The most famous is of course Amazon. One of the factors that made Amazon so successful is because their products or services are not focused on just one group of people – cloud computing, digital streaming, artificial intelligence are some of the few of those services they offer. 

How Do E-Commerce Website Generate More Revenue? 

Traditionally women spend more time and money on shopping, but on the other hand, when it comes to online shopping, 28% of men in the past five years have spent more time and money on online shopping than women do, according to recent studies. 

And yet it may be obvious to people living in the urban area, knowing that it is more convenient for them to shop at the nearest physical store, still, these people living in the major areas of the metropolitan spend more money shopping on their favourite e-commerce websites. This avenue your business will be treading on is a feasible way for a lucrative income.

Why do these people shop online despite shops being within their reach? Because of customer convenience. Through the e-commerce website, customers can gather information such as store hours, contact numbers, and even physical addresses; this information is a big help for drive-in-person sales. 

In addition to that, you can extend your hours of operation to 24/7. Meaning, you can connect with your customers 24 hours a day; this is beneficial to those who work graveyard shifts, or people who can’t just simply go to sleep early; nocturnal beings, for the better lack of word. And once your product or business goes popular, maybe, just maybe you can expand to other areas in your city or state.

One of the perks of having both a physical store and an online business is that you can combine your services into one; a multi-channel experience for both customers and your business. Your clients can make an early purchase of the product, you on the other hand can prepare it, pick it up when they arrive at the store. 

How Can I Make An E-commerce Website Successful? 

Once you have your e-commerce working and you can see that your business is gaining its traction online, you’ll come to realize that you can reduce expenses like payroll and increase efficiency. 

For example, you need less staff because your services will rely completely on the internet, orders and purchasing. However, of course, as time goes by and your business will start to expand, this would mean more staffing and more operations, thus more expenses, but of course there will be offset to the revenue your business is making.

• Online Payment Gateway. 

Organizing sales and keeping up with the inventory data is sometimes the reason why some entrepreneurs have apprehensions to operating an online business. Managing online sales is not that easy; otherwise, you wouldn’t have a hard time keeping up with your physical store, right? Wrong!

Having the right payment gateway will ease having these apprehensions, fortunately. You can accurately track your inventory without any apprehensions by using a payment. A payment gateway allows you to seamlessly connect your online ordering system with your store and inventory. 

• Search Engine Optimization 

Utilize the power of local business SEO. Using the right keywords and phrases which are associated with your business or your product is an effective tool in having a high ranking in search engines.

With the use of search engine optimization, users can easily pinpoint an exact website that will cater to the user’s needs. Thanks to Google’s indexing and ranking prowess, your website will immediately appear upon a click of the search engine. Imagine the power of e-commerce combined with these tools and what your business can harness from these techniques.

• Social Media Marketing

Just like e-commerce, having a social media presence is a must. It allows you to get in front of your consumers in a new and interesting way. Just look at Gymshark, a brand that was practically created through its Instagram followering.

And through word of mouth from your satisfied clients, they can easily create a “snowballing” effect in social media about your product thus making your business grow and giving you an innumerable ROI. 

Final Thoughts 

E-commerce now is more of a necessity than a nice-to-have. Never mind those apprehensions and fears of managing your physical store while having an e-commerce website. Never let your fear of failing in having one contradict your future of being a successful future entrepreneur in the following years. 

Don’t deny your customers the convenience they deserve while enjoying your product. Take advantage of what is happening now. This is the opportune time to operate your business online despite the ongoing pandemic. 

Having e-commerce is the way to go as your connection between you and your customers. Once you’ve learned the ins and outs of having an e-commerce website, everything will be an easy task. Always have a master plan near you, eventually, this will be your master plan, and soon everything will turn out well for your business.

How Much Should I Pay to be Seen First Online?

At Rad Websites, we get a lot of the same questions when it comes to creating search engine marketing strategies are profitable, sustainable and all around RAD.

How much does it cost to jump to the first place on the search engine results page?

Can’t I just pay to be seen first?

If I’m running paid ads, I’ll be seen at the top anyway right? I’m paying to be there!

Isn’t SEO included when you build my website? How can we possibly need monthly updates?

And guys, honestly- we get it. If you don’t live and breathe the Internet like we do, it’s actually quite overwhelming to understand and build marketing strategies for search engines that make sense to both us (the nerds) and you (the much cooler customers.)

It’s because online marketing has crafted it’s own set of rules over time. While we can apply a lot of off-page marketing principles to online marketing, there’s entire concepts we must keep in mind to get you seen among the noise.

The Internet is a really weird place. But it’s not going anywhere, anytime soon at least- and to be consistently seen online requires a whole lot of work on the back end.

The general theme of this particular blog? You can’t buy search engine ads and expect to triumph your competition with those alone. You just can’t. Let’s find out here How Search Engine Marketing will help you.

It’s Not All About Cost with PPC Ads

Consider the Online User Experience

At the end of the day, people often forget that Google/Bing/Yahoo are businesses. Yes, they get a tonne of revenue from paid ads- but, they rely on people coming back to their online space to make money.

Search engines get people to come back by being a quick, consistent and accurate source of answers for online users with pressing, immediate concerns.

(There is a slight hint of sarcasm in there. We get to see the stuff people search on Google on a daily basis. Entertaining doesn’t quite sum it up.)
But really though; search engine strive everyday to present the best solutions to those who continually use them. It places onus on the search engines to audit, categorize and filter websites to make sure each search gives you what you were looking for. They care about the user experience, because a positive user experience makes them return.

Google Decides First Place on the SERP by Their Everchanging Algorithm

In order to audit, categorize and rank websites to see just how well it will answer a particular search query, Google has an internal algorithm that they stick on their crawler bots who scan millions of websites a day.

Does anyone know the entire in’s and out’s of the Google algorithm? Of course not. They would never make it that easy.
Does it stay consistent so you can figure it out?

An even harder NO- they make minor changes to the algorithm up to 100 times a day.

However; there are many principles that leading Kelowna web development and SEO agencies know to be true, tried and tested. Of course, they all lead back to the user experience.

Now, we don’t want to overwhelm you (or quite frankly, bore you) by spilling the entire scope of our understanding of the algorithm.
(Trust us- we’ve tried at least ten ways to make alt tags sound cool and hip. They just don’t.)

Okay, so stick with us. In order to understand why paying your way to the top just isn’t going to work, you need to understand the mechanisms of paid advertisements and how your organic website plays a vital role in anything you do online.

The Quality Score of Pay-Per-Click Advertisements

A lot of times, we see businesses who throw a large chunk of money at paid ads and think “hey, that’ll do. I’m paying a good chunk of money, I’ll be seen.”

Unfortunately, no.

When you type in a search term- lets say web developers Kelowna- Google brings you two set of results. The first is a few paid ads at the top and the rest are organic search results (not paid.)

Paid or not, Google has crawled through your website and ad to see if you are a relevant and high quality candidate to show for that search query.
With organic results, Google scans hundreds of different items to decide your “worthiness.” With paid ads, it really boils down to three things which make up your online campaigns quality score:

Ad Relevance + Landing Page Experience + Expected CTR
Shooting back to “web developers Kelowna”:

• Does your ad talk directly about web development in Kelowna?
• Does your website or landing page talk directly about web development in Kelowna?
• Are people clicking on your ad when they search web development in Kelowna?

It circles back to two main concepts.

Your ad campaigns must be designed, written and executed flawlessly to show up amongst millions of advertisers.

Your website has also has to be designed, written, built and executed flawlessly to show up amongst millions of advertisers. Google puts a hefty weight on how relevant your website is- 60% of your quality score will depend on your website.

We are sorry to say- if your website isn’t rad, it will struggle to show up in both paid and organic search results no matter how much you pay. If your website isn’t clean, relevant, up to date and built properly- even paid ads won’t show very much.

Do People Still Click Paid Ads?

Absolutely! Paid ads are a great addition to your online search engine marketing strategy. Around 40% of people will go directly to an ad over an organic search listing.

But it’s important to remember they are an addition, not a solution. Without putting a good amount of effort into your website- or picking a web development company that does- you will simply be wasting your money paying for ads that Google still won’t show much.

PSA: This is a really, really good measure for search engines to put into place. Giants, like Amazon and Coca-Cola have billions to throw around online and it wouldn’t really be fair if only the biggest and richest got seen online whenever they wanted.

Plus, how annoying would it be to search for a web development company in Kelowna and you get ads for Vanilla Coke?

(Because cherry Coke is better. That’s what we meant.)

So, i hope you understand how much search engine marketing is important for your business/website.

How to Setup Google Ads That Work

Setting up Google Ads to boost your online marketing campaign does not automatically mean success. You probably have heard people telling you how they ended up wasting time with Google Ads. It only means that there are no guaranteed results here.

Do not get me wrong; I am not trying to dissuade you from putting the effort and time in it. What I am trying to tell you right now is that for Google Ads to work in your favour, you must be committed to it. It is not like you are getting the results you want overnight. You envision the prospective sales you get out of throwing a bunch of Google Ads. You perform some research, watch videos on YouTube, and read How Tos. After a day or two, you think you have more than enough to kickstart a campaign. Well, let me tell you right now that there is more to Google Ads than what you think you already know.

The Truth About Google Ads

Google Ads will work wonders if you know what you are doing. You may not get the results you hope for overnight, but success is inevitable. There is a chance that you have it set up in an hour or two and generate new sales right away. But do not think for a second that it runs on autopilot. It is the one mistake that a lot of people make, even those who see themselves as experts in internet marketing.

People search for all sorts of stuff on Google. But the one thing that makes all searches similar is that they all look for something specific. It could be a product to provide a solution or a service to provide a need. Your role is to give the searcher that solution. To do that, you learn how to anticipate the right search and at the right time.

Much has been said about search engine optimization and how critical it is to focus your marketing campaign on improving your website’s rank in organic search results. While it is true that SEO plays an irreplaceable role, you cannot deny that it is a painstakingly slow process. It is preposterous to expect results in a couple of months.

On the other hand, Google Ads gives you a faster turnaround. It is an essential component of your campaign, and these figures will tell you why:

• A small or start-up business will make $2 on average for every dollar spent on Google Ads
• Over 60% of individuals will click on Google Ads when they search the web to buy something.
• 90% of traffic that is generated by search advertisements is not replaced by organic clicks in case those ads are paused.

Know that those numbers are provided by Google, which exemplifies the true worth of investing in Google Ads. But before I start talking about setting up Google Ads that work, there is one thing I need to clarify for us to move forward.

It was about two years ago when Google decided to rebrand its Google AdWords platform, effectively renaming it into Google Ads. The idea was to integrate some features along with the standard text ads on a Google search. The new platform is more sophisticated, allowing businesses and brands to advertise via display, product listing, and even video.

For this article, my focus is on Google Ads search campaigns. So, if you are still interested, read on.

Creating an Account

The first step in setting up a Google Ads that work is creating an account. You can do it here How To Setup:

Supposed this is your first time, there is not much of a learning curve since there is a guided setup that makes the process easier than you probably thought. You just need to answer some questions, and you are good to go. You must import the Google Ad account to a Bing Ads account (provided you have one).

For this campaign to work, you need the following:

• Website
• Keywords
• Ad copy (the message you intend to convey to your audience)

Choose the Best Keywords

Do not forget that the way Google Ads work is that you pay for every click that your advertisement gets. Armed with that information, you will realize how critical it is to match your ad to relevant searches. If not, you are wasting away your money and efforts.

While you can come up with a hundred ways to bring keyword ideas to mind, you should know that there is a rather practical and quick way to choose an excellent keyword for the campaign. First, you must consider long tail keywords, and the reason is that it brings more specificity to your brand. Contrary to what you probably think, keywords are not case sensitive, but you must altogether avoid the use of special characters like that of #, &, and @. Be mindful of the use of spaces, too.

I talked to a lot of so-called experts in internet marketing about using branded terms. Most of them are not sold on the idea. However, my years of experience working with Google Ads made me realize how valuable branded terms can be. There is one reason why a branded keyword makes perfect sense, and that is to stave off your competitors.

When similar companies realize that you are an emerging competitor, they will begin creeping in by targeting the keywords you are using. This happens in cases when you have well-established competitors. The use of branded terms is an effective way of protecting your brand.

Furthermore, the quality score on those branded terms is expected to be high. Since you expect less competition from those keywords, it means that the cost per click will be reasonable, too. The ideal combination of a reasonable cost per click and a high-quality score usually corresponds to affordable clicks.

You may not realize it at this juncture, but creating Google Ads using your branded terms will help in sending a strong message to your audience. You likely will have your homepage rank for your brand name, and doing so means that visitors to your site will hover over the meta description before deciding to click. Simply put, your advertisement allows you to have much better control of your message.

Tips for a Compelling Ad Copy

After putting your best foot forward in figuring out the keywords to use, it is time to focus on your ad copy. This is where the magic happens.

The headline is critical because it grabs your audience’s attention. Google only allows 25 characters, but that is all you need to pique someone’s interest. When creating your headline, put yourself in the shoes of someone who is browsing Google to look for stuff they need. You never want to go to a website or ad because of a misleading headline. Therefore, you want it to be precise, relevant, and honest. The goal is to give someone enough motivation to read the next line.

Next, you have a bit more room to work with for the ad body, two lines and with 35 characters each to be exact. The ad body is where you describe your offer to your audience. It is your only chance to generate a comprehensive understanding of what you are trying to offer or sell to people. This is not the part where you try to create some mystery or force someone to do the guesswork. You also cannot write something too vague since it will do nothing but waste your money when you get clicks from ad visitors with high bounce rates.

The Landing Page

Google Ads can work to your advantage when they are high performing. They become an effective means for people to get to your website. The challenge that you must face is paying for the ads, regardless of a visitor becoming a customer or not. The way to improve your chances of conversions is to come up with a compelling and relevant landing page. You want it to fulfil the promise and high expectations from your Google Ads. You do not want to create an impression that your brand is only useful in creating a Google Ad but cannot live up to the hype.

Taking Advantage of Ad Extensions

One mistake that a lot of people make in Google Ads is undermining the importance of the ad extensions. You are probably one of those whose attention is solely on the headlines, descriptions, and path of the leading advertisement. You think that ad extensions are a waste of time. Well, you could not be more wrong about it.

Ad extensions are valuable because they help improve customer experience and add that much-needed boost for your main ad. Those extensions are a way to tell a detailed story about your brand, thereby affording the information that your target audience may want to learn about your company. I recommend putting some effort in the following ad extensions:

1. Callout extensions – You can take advantage of these callout extensions to build trust with your readers. You want them to feel like you know what you are doing, and in the process, it convinces them to check out your brand. Some examples are “quick and reliable service,” “guaranteed premium service,” and “worry-free subscription.”
2. Sitelinks – This extension is as straightforward as it can be – you simply add links that direct to the landing pages on your site.
3. Structured snippets – The purpose of this extension is to deliver information about the product or service features you are offering to prospective clients. The term “structured” means that the information you provide is based on highly specific categories.
4. Location extensions – If you happen to have a physical address or store for your business, you can use this extension by linking your Google My Business page to your Google Ads account. It is useful because it displays your business’ physical address, phone number, and other relevant contact information.

Go Mobile

More than half of your would-be customers will use a mobile device to browse the web. It is a trend that you must learn to embrace sooner than later. When it comes to Google Ads, you must see to it that you come up with a mobile-focused campaign. Going mobile is your only way to engage a significant percentage of your prospective customers successfully. In other words, you want to reach them using the right platform for their preferred device for browsing the web.

For this reason, I recommend that you create separate campaigns since it is the most convenient way to drive qualified clicks. I suggest that you perform some research on your own about the percentage of conversions on the different devices used to browse the web. You will realize that every data that you obtain will point towards mobile compared to both tablet and desktop.

A step in the right direction is to incorporate a positive bid modifier that detects visitors to your site who are using a smartphone. This method helps you maximize your ad’s visibility.

Another way is to add a copy of a previous campaign and negative bid mobile for the current campaign. You can use this method if mobile is driving a substantial percentage of conversions. And you intend to come up with aggressive budgeting for it.

Final Thoughts about Google Ads

Setting up Google Ads is no cakewalk, but you have lots of references over the web to get things started. But learning how to do it is just the first step. You must put in the effort, time, and patience to learn all the ropes for it to work.

I have seen a lot of people who wasted the opportunity to increase their sales using Google Ads because they did not understand the very essence of a PPC campaign. Before you dream of ramping up your revenue, you first must acknowledge that Google Ads is part of your investment in internet marketing. You put money to it and hope a return on your investment. Since Google charges you for every click on your ad, you must see to it that you are optimizing the campaign in a way that it will drive conversions as efficiently as possible.

7 Ways to Make Your Digital Marketing Strategy Totally Rad

Digital Marketing Is Important Because – Raise Your Hand!

We all know the importance of digital marketing in today’s world.

In an online driven world, a solid digital marketing strategy is one of the strongest tools you can pull out of the box- but the online space is insanely competitive.

Makes sense though. In comparison to off-page efforts, the ROI of online marketing is through the roof.

✔More than 46% of consumers will check their smartphones before getting out of bed.
✔Over 51% of smartphone users have discovered a new company or product while conducting a search on their smartphone.
✔There’s 369 active monthly users on Twitter alone.
✔3.03 billion people actively use social media around the world.
✔20% of users will read the text on a page, but 80% will watch a video.
✔60% of consumers click on mobile ads at least weekly.
✔Two-thirds of consumers can recall a specific brand they have seen advertised on mobile in the last week.
✔Businesses make an average of $2 in income for every $1 they spend in AdWords.
✔A delay of one second in mobile page response can reduce conversions by 7%.

And guys, these are just a handful of stats that help drive successful digital marketing strategies around the world.

Throw These 7 Things Into Your Strategy

If you’re looking to improve your digital marketing strategy, we have some rad tips to help you out.

From fun, flashy content to the not so fun techy parts, incorporating these into your online strategy will boost your profitability and help get you seen online.

Make Sure Your Mobile Compatible (& Not Just Your Website!)

Look around, and you’ll see everyone on their smartphone.

Seriously, the use of smart phones- even for online shopping- has near triumphed desktops and tablets.

If your website isn’t mobile compatible, you’re going to have a real tough time getting seen online. If your websites design, load time and content isn’t optimized for mobile, Google won’t like you.

Did yah know? Google gets just over 53% of ALL their traffic from mobiles.

Mobile optimization for your site is crucial, since 50% of people report they would use a brand less if their site didn’t work well on their phone- even if they already liked the brand!

Why?

Well the same percentage report that it indicates to them that a business doesn’t actually really care about their business.

But if you really want to step your mobile game up, leading online marketers see app development and mobile only PPC campaigns as an essential part of their marketing mix.

PSA- Adjust your social media campaigns for mobile as well- content, imagery & messaging will differ.

The world of smart phones is quick, and it’s busy. You also have limited screen space, so while you can get away with a touch of lengthiness on desktop, you certainly can’t on mobile.

Offer Online-Specific Promotions & Discounts

Just how a retail space entices customers by offering deals and promotions, your online efforts should do the same.

Again, the Internet is a busy place- stand out from the crowd and reward your customers.

It will also drive traffic to your website, increase brand loyalty and encourage sharing- (which is basically like the online world’s version of word-of-mouth.)

Video Marketing is THE Thing

Video marketing has surpassed every other form of online marketing out there.

Like, by far.

As we mentioned earlier, 80% of people will watch a video compared to only 20% of people who will sit there and read text.

Video marketing thrives off peoples busyness and laziness (the irony, we know.) It also thrives off peoples need for visual stimulation.

YouTube marketing may not actually work for everyone, but shaping some of your content as video rather than text is a sure fire way to increase engagement and conversion rates.

43% of people visited a company’s website after viewing a video, even if they’d never heard of the brand before.

Interact With Your Customers Online

If a prospective customer walked into a retail store and was ignored, we could likely all countdown to the bad Yelp review to come.

It’s the same online.

Whether communication is digital or in person, it still does the same thing. Communicating with your customers through your blogs, social media and website no only increases your organic traffic, but also builds rapport with prospective and continuing customers.

Don’t only comment on your stuff though. Engage in your online community, whether it’s local businesses or forums related to your brand.

Engaging with customers already at your door is a pillar in inbound marketing– which, if you haven’t read up on, you really need to.

Don’t Ignore Email Marketing

Email marketing is powerful. There’s a conception out there that email marketing is annoying or spammy, but it actually proves to be one of the highest converters out there.

That is, if it’s done correctly.

Multiple emails a day, (or even a week) with no personalization and poor design will send you to the block list faster than a toxic ex-partner.

But highly relevant, valuable and personalized messages sent at high converting times can be a money making addition to your digital marketing strategy.

Email marketing has a $40 ROI to every $1 sent, which is over double PPC ads at $17 to $1.

Don’t Forget Your Call to Actions!

If a customer can’t see a call to action on your website, ad or social media post within 3 seconds, they’re likely going to miss it.

Call to actions (or if you want to be really cool and hip, CTA’s) increase conversion rates by a ten-fold. They are the driver between converting a browsing customer to a paid customer.

Yet, it’s one of the most under-utilized tools out there.

Diverse Your Online Marketing Budget

It’s great to say you’re going to throw $3000 a month for your online marketing ventures.

But even if you stick within that budget, not knowing where it’s going or what it’s being spent on means your money isn’t being spent wisely.

Breaking it down into social media, website and blogging isn’t much help either.

You will want to know how much is being spent on each platform, yes. But you’ll need to dial those metrics in tighter than that. For example, you’ll also need to understand the dollars behind customer acquision vs. customer retention.

How to “Do” Content Marketing: 5 Ways to Build Your Content Marketing Strategy

Building a solid content marketing strategy is almost imperative to every online advertiser out there.

In today’s info driven, visually focused market, strategic content marketing is a cornerstone for most marketing strategies out there- but, it remains a little hazy as to what content marketing actually is and how to “do” it.

Content marketing has been around forever, way before the Internet even came into play. Our current definition of content marketing brings YouTube, blogs, articles and social media to mind- but content marketing encompasses so much more than that.

What Is Content Marketing?

Content marketing aims to create a story, a brand and a voice around a product or service. It involves the creation and distribution of relevant content to defined target segments, similar to creating paid ads for specific audiences online.

Content marketing is designed to initiate interest and buzz around said topics, and to support a business in capturing leads at every stage of the buying funnel. Effective content marketing doesn’t have the end goal of explicit promotion.

The goal is to produce valuable, relevant and consistent content for each defined audience in your market and to use this content to retain these leads.

What Isn’t Content Marketing?

Just because your activity online has content, doesn’t mean that it’s content marketing. Content marketing brings new and retained leads back to your brand continuously, rather than interrupting prospectives to throw your business right in their face.

Moreover, Content marketing is not a campaign of paid ads with content, nor is throwing up a blog post a few times a year. Content marketing is not push marketing; content marketing supports inbound marketing- and the outcomes are very different.

Wait- What’s Inbound Marketing?

In order to grasp the core concept of content marketing, you need to understand the methodology of inbound marketing and how effective content marketing is built around these ideologies.

Inbound marketing comes down to the idea of drawing people to your brand through relevant content, offers, products, services and communication. Sometimes known as pull marketing, it’s counterpart – push marketing- focuses on bringing your brand to people and interrupting their daily absorption of advertisements to see yours.

While we aren’t saying one is better than the other, and we certainly aren’t saying you shouldn’t have both methods in your marketing mix, we are saying that effective content aligns with inbound marketing and brings people to your brand.

Successful content marketing also considers each stage of the buying funnel and capitalizes on each potential customers needs at that time.

The Buyers Funnel Stage & The Inbound Marketing Flywheel

Inbound marketing runs on flywheel, which aligns perfectly with the typical buyers funnel. The flywheel of inbound marketing was designed to pinpoint stages at which you, as a company, can offer value at every stage to each potential and retained customer.

At each of the flywheel’s three stages- attract, engage and delight- there is an ample opportunity to speak to your potential leads in a language that suits exactly what they’re looking for and boosting the chance of a later conversion.

It’s almost perfectly parallel with the natural buyers funnel.

Stages of the Buyers Funnel

1. Awareness- prospective is aware they have a problem or a need, but not a whole lot of ideas on what to do about it

2. Interest- prospective has become aware of your brand, but is actively shopping around and still unsure of what to do next

3. Consideration- shopper has decided they need to take action and begins shopping around to select best option

4. Intent- shopper has now indicated the desire to purchase and is looking to be “swayed”

5. Evaluation/Purchase- prospective now has selected a brand and may or may not need prompting to take final step of purchase

Step 1 correlates with the desire to “Attract”, while steps 2-3 speak to the need for an advertiser to “Engage”.
Steps 4-5 demand the need for advertisers to “Delight”, where customer service and value are paramount to getting that final conversion.

While inbound marketing as a whole is imperative to successful marketing in today’s world, it’s important to understand in relation to content marketing to understand why and how to produce content- and most importantly, what to say and when.

Building a Successful Content Marketing Strategy: 5 Tips

#1- Content Marketing Relies on Inbound Marketing and the Sales Funnel

We just covered it above, but we can’t stress it enough. Understanding and practicing inbound marketing, and having a concrete understanding of the buyers funnel is crucial to effective content marketing.

For example, during the awareness stage, you need to focus on producing content that captures prospective by relating to their problem in a non-brand centric manner. Someone suffering from seasonal dry skin may not yet know why this is happening or whether they need a range of products.

Writing a blog article on tips for dealing with skin changes during the winter will draw a prospective to your brand, but not give them a brand centered sales pitch that will likely put them off.

Where as during the intent/evaluation stage, an email with well done video with an influencer using your product and reviewing it would be a great piece of content to produce. By this stage, the lead has already formed some attachment with your brand and is now in the stage of wanting to be sure they have selected the right option.

The wrong message at the wrong time is likely to lose you a sale.

#2- Consistency Is Key in Content Marketing

Content marketing is like SEO– it needs to be consistent.

The Internet is a busy place, and there’s literally millions of pieces of content floating around everyday. In order to get noticed, you need consistent content to make sure you’re always at the front line.

Customers also look for fresh content to show relevancy and timeliness, but Google also looks for consistency in order to decide search page rankings.

Old content, or content that is sporadically uploaded won’t be readily available to prospective clients when they need it.

Be consistent in your creation and uploads of content. And always review your own specific buyers funnel to see any opportunities for additional or better conversation with your leads.

#3- Great Content Marketing Requires “Topic Clusters”

You could create the best content out there, but it will never bring you the desired results if you’re uploading content that changes focus every time.

We use topic clusters within our content marketing for many reasons. Building topic clusters allows you to create tonnes of pieces of content centered around one main idea. Not only does it allow for very targeted keyword optimization, it also draws a path for your content marketing online.

By circling around main subjects and directing towards others, you have a distinct content network. That is harder to break and easier to get noticed than random pieces of content here and there.

For example, “seasonal skin care” would be a great centered topic, while your topic cluster could be comprised of:

i. How to deal with winter skin

ii. Best natural products for skin changes

iii. Summers here: how to choose your best sunscreen for the sunny months

And the list goes on.

Each article can branch off from a main topic, but be heavily and specifically keyword optimized while being written for each stage of the buying funnel.

#4- Only Use Platforms That Make Sense

There are tonnes of platforms to distribute content on.

Chances are, you should not use all of them.

Advertising platforms differ. So choose the ones that make sense to you. Where your target audience is, where you can get the best message across and whether it will drive traffic.

For example, we see lots of people making YouTube channels because they heard that YouTube is the second largest search engine around.

Is it? Yes.

Does that mean you should advertise on it?

No. Not if doesn’t allow you to put valuable content in front of your target audience.

#5- Don’t Forget Analytics

Content is measurable. Many people assume that there isn’t a way to measure the success of content marketing. But there is- and it’s important to do so.

Once marketers understand the difference between general content and strategic content marketing, we can begin to understand how to track these pieces the same as you would paid ads or a TV commercial.

Track your blog posts, videos, social media campaigns etc. the same way you would your website. Depending on your goals, your metrics may be different. But watch for conversions, bounce rates, time spent on page, email sign ups etc.

Content is not content marketing. Your content marketing Strategy should be very defined and measurable and should always have a goal. Otherwise, it’s just words.