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Marketing Tip of the Week: Dynamic Headlines!

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Quality content. Is there any more important topic in marketing? Is there any more important aspect to your marketing strategy? I would say no, but perhaps there is something equally important. After all, what does your customer see before they see your amazing content? What item draws them into your site and convinces them to read the nuggets you’ve mined out for their viewing pleasure? Your headline, of course!

The Importance of A Good Headline

The headline is there to entice your readers to invest their time in the content you’ve created. That makes its value directly proportional to the value of the content you’ve created. After all, getting the customer to read your content only matters if you’ve provided content worth reading. But having quality content doesn’t matter one whit if no one ever decides to read it. Therefore, your headline and your content are of equal importance and should be treated with equal care.

The Power of Curiosity

A good headline will grab your reader’s attention and entice them to read more. This can be accomplished in many ways, but one of the most popular involves piquing their curiosity with vague text or giving them just enough information that they feel compelled to learn more. An example would be just about any headline you see written for Buzzfeed or UpWorthy. These companies have made their bones using vague intros that draw the reader in. There’s no debate that this method works. Human beings are curious creatures after all, but just because it’s effective for them doesn’t mean that it will work for your needs.

Bringing in the maximum number of readers may sound good on the surface, but with every reward comes risk, and this is no different. Using the curiosity angle will increase your views for sure, but it can also increase your bounce rate. Customers who are enticed to open content they don’t really want to read may be less inclined to come back, and that’s never a good thing. These large companies use this method because they are casting a very wide net. They are willing to lose large percentages of the customers they reach because those that stay more than make it worth it. Most likely, your business caters to a much more select market and may not find that the benefit outweighs the potential cost.

Generating Excitement

Another way to get your customers to click on your content is to use headlines as excitement generators for your topic. That simply means to approach the headline as an opportunity to get your customers hyped up about your content. Use the title of this article for an example. I could have titled it “A discussion of headlines and their importance for your content”, but I didn’t want to put you to sleep before you ever read the first line.

As you can see, there is an art to writing headlines, and it is best learned through practice. There’s no one method that works for everyone, so feel free to experiment, but track the traffic on your content and see how different approaches work for you and your audience.

Marketing Tip of the Week: Video!

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In today’s world, marketing means more than putting an advertisement in the local paper. With the proliferation of the internet, super-fast computers and smart phones, taking marketing into your own hands on social media and your own personal web page is not only recommended, it’s necessary! And now there’s one more avenue you can travel to get word about your business in the hands of potential customers, video!

Do It Yourself
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You don’t need a camera crew and professional writing to make a great marketing video for your business. All you need is a smartphone, a vision and someone with the willingness to stand in front of the camera. Admittedly, smartphone videos are not as nice in quality as the more expensive options, but they are more than serviceable for the 30 second spots you’ll want to produce. These aren’t supposed to be masterpieces anyway. They are small videos to help get your customers and potential customers excited about your company.

So how do you do that?

Keep It Real

You want to make a video that shows passion and excitement for your company brand. You goal shouldn’t be to impress the viewer with your stylistic creativity. Instead, show them what makes your company great, what makes your products valuable. These traits will sell your video and by extension your brand.

Don’t Forget to Share

It does you no good to create a passionate and exciting video if it never goes anywhere. Put it on Facebook, Twitter, your personal website and anywhere else you can think to post it. Ask your audience to share it with their audience. There’s a lot of utility in the words, “Please Like and Share.” People will, and you will reap the benefits.

Videos are no longer unattainable expenses. They are an easy and cheap way to increase customer interest, and you can make one in an afternoon. So don’t squander the tools you already have access to, make a marketing video today!

Marketing Tip of the Week: 3 Social Media Marketing Tips

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A few weeks ago I talked about a few specific social media platforms and how best to determine which is best for you and your marketing strategy. (If you missed those posts, they are part 1, part 2, and part 3.) This week I’d like to focus on some general social media tips to improve your footprint on whichever platform you’ve chosen to use.

Social Media Marketing Tips

  1. Images are Your Friend – Using images with your posts is proven to be an extremely effective way to increase clicks, reposts and general interest overall. It’s as true on social media as in any other walk of life, a picture is certainly worth a thousand words.
  2. Post More than Once – What I mean by that is to post the same content multiple times a day. Why? Because your audience may check their site at different times of the day. Posting once in the morning, at midday and again in the evening will garner you the largest audience, and if you cater to a customer base from different time-zones, you have the best opportunity to reach your entire base.
  3. Don’t be Afraid to Re-post – As you build your readership, you may find that information you’ve posted in the past can be relevant to your new audience. You’ll want to avoid posting the same thing within a short period of time, but pulling information you’ve posted 6 months or a year ago and reposting it is more than acceptable, it’s smart. It allows you to reuse material and reduce the amount of new material you have to create while also providing your new audience with information they may find helpful.

Use these tips to help increase your footprint with Facebook, Twitter or any other social media platform of your choice. Join me next Friday for yet another Marketing Tip of the Week!

Marketing Tip of the Week: 3 Tips For Using Google+

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If you’re looking to improve your online visibility, it might be a good idea to use the social media site hosted by the web’s most popular search engine. Not because they give more weight to their own site, but because it is so seamlessly integrated into their processes that there is no need to game the system any further. And it is that seamless integration that makes it an invaluable tool for being recognized online.

3 Google+ Marketing Tips

  1. Complete Your Google+ Page – I put this first because it is by far the most important step. Fill out your profile completely, link to your product and web pages, and find and use key words to promote your business. This completed profile is what your customers and potential customers will use to find you in other places on the web.
  2. Circle the Competition – Google+ allows you to circle (or follow) your competitors. This is valuable because it allows you to see their marketing strategies, ad concepts, etc. You can determine how successful these strategies are and use them to inspire ideas of your own!
  3. Use Large Images and Catchy Headlines – The key to having your ads and other content viewed is in not giving the reader a choice about whether or not to view it. Large images will stand out when scrolling through a news feed, and once that draws the eye, a catchy headline will pull them in the rest of the way. Remember the old adage, “A picture is worth a thousand words”. Don’t go text heavy when a nicely placed image will do your talking for you.

So if you aren’t already on Google+, now’s the time to start, and if you are, allow these tips to help you be more successful!

 

Marketing Tip of the Week: Marketing Through Text

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This isn’t a subject we’ve tackled before, but texting is not only a completely viable marketing option for your business an increasingly more effective one as well. Everyone has a cellphone these days, and most carriers offer unlimited talk and text. Now that it’s largely free for customers to receive your texts, it feels similar to email except that a text appears much more personal and is more likely to be read immediately. Take advantage of your cellphone and use text marketing!

Keep Your Customer Engaged

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Marketing is all about keeping your brand top-of-mind with current customers while simultaneously enticing new customers into the fold. Texting allows a new and easy way to accomplish both of those goals.

  1. It’s more personal (and should be shorter) than an email. Because a text is often read immediately, it can be used to promote same-day sales or offers with a reasonable expectation of customer action. An email requires a more long-term expectation. The text is the tool you use when you want to promote a short-turnaround offer.
  2. Potential customers who may be interested in your products but want to be enticed into the store may subscribe to your text campaign in order to get the deal they want that will help them walk in.

Use Short Code

Have you seen those promotions that say, “Text 11456 for blah, blah, blah”? Companies do that because it’s easier for their customers to remember the shorter number, and the campaign is normally promoted on tv or radio and not in print. And THAT’S because this kind of campaign works best when piggy-backing on a larger more over-arching campaign. It becomes the call to action at the end of your radio or tv commercial spot.

The short code seems like a simple technique, it’s only two numbers shorter after all, but you’d be surprised how much easier it is to remember than a full seven-digit number. And remember, if the text will sign the customer up to a subscription of any kind, let them know up front. You don’t want to lose customers who become angry because they didn’t understand the texts would continue to come in.

So look into keeping your customers engaged and don’t neglect your full range of marketing opportunities by dismissing text marketing.

Marketing Tip of the Week: The Value of Failure

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As a business owner, you will most likely try hundreds if not thousands of marketing ideas to help grow your business. Due to one reason or another, the majority of them won’t pan out the way you intend, and some will fail entirely. It would be easy to see those disappointing or failed strategies as completely wasted time and resources, but doing so would be a mistake. As any truly successful person will tell you, there is value in failure.

You Have to Try to Fail
Marketing Tip

The first benefit of failure is that it indicates you were trying in the first place. Rarely will a business grow without some marketing being attempted, and never will it grow as fast or as large. Even failed marketing techniques will generate some awareness and garner you business. Don’t be afraid to try new things just because they’re unfamiliar.

Maybe you are a casual user of social media, but you’ve read about an interesting Twitter campaign that someone in your industry used that intrigues you. Try it! It’s necessary to attempt many different methods to find some that will work for you and your business. Don’t think you can do enough research to create the perfect marketing strategy; there are no perfect, universal strategies or columns like this one wouldn’t exist!

The only way to find what works for you is to try, try again, and be aware that even after you find something, it may eventually stop being effective. So fail, fail and fail some more, but at least be out there plugging away!

Don’t Stagnate, Evaluate

Failure provides an opportunity to evaluate the problems so that they can be avoided in future attempts. It does no good to fail if you are unwilling to learn from that failure. You should be breaking down every step of the process you used to determine what went wrong. Sometimes a strategy that failed today will work tomorrow. Don’t throw out the entire concept if only one aspect is broken.

For example: perhaps that twitter campaign we talked about earlier went nowhere. Potential problems could be that you were not offering your twitter followers something interesting enough to garner their participation. Perhaps you chose a poor time of year to try it, or maybe it coincided with a local event that overshadowed yours. Maybe you didn’t have enough Twitter followers to mount an effective campaign. Each of those issues are fixable, and once addressed there’s no reason not to try Continue reading “Marketing Tip of the Week: The Value of Failure” »

Marketing Tip of the Week – Engage Your Twitter Followers

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Twitter isn’t about gaining the most followers that you can. Most of your followers will never actually have any involvement with your brand. And, companies never actually engage with their followers to add value. How do you make the most with Twitter? FGmarket’s marketing tip will focus on turning your followers into customers.

Marketing Tip
Marketing Tip
Engage Your Followers – Instead of focusing on how many you actually have, start giving your followers engagement. You want quality followers instead of quantity; the ones that will follow you back. You are targeting your target market on Twitter.

Give Them Something to Read – Establish your brand through your tweets. Make sure you tweet valuable content to your customers about your business. Tell them about exciting updates or ongoing sales in your store. Give them something that will attain their attention.

Respond Promptly to Your Followers – You want to show your customers that you care about them. They may give you a shout out, re-tweet one of your tweets, ask questions or have a problem with your product. Make sure you respond to them. It could be a thanks or you can tell them you sent them a direct message so you can deal with their issue that they’re having with your business. This shows that you actually pay attention to them.

Be Fun with Your Tweets – Of course, give them something more than just what’s going on with your business. If you find great articles about something related to your industry or exciting events going on in the world, tweet them. Your followers may get tired of just reading about your business, so offer them up something exciting Continue reading “Marketing Tip of the Week – Engage Your Twitter Followers” »

Marketing Tip of the Week – Get More Email Subscribers

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Email marketing may be a big part of your business plan. This is actually one of the most cost-effective tools to help market your business. Customers who opt in have the chance to build a great relationship with you and this is a great way to learn more about you. How do you get consumers to subscribe to your email campaigns? FGmarket’s marketing tip of the week will focus on getting those subscribers.

  1. Marketing Tip
    Marketing Tip
    Create a prominent call to action on your website or in store     – Make your sign up visible. the more people who can see it, the more subscribers you will likely get. Also, make sure it’s up top. Most consumers will more than likely not scroll all the way down to the bottom of your page. They may skim through it, but they’re not going to read word for word.
  2. Make it visible on every page – Normally, you just find it on the homepage. People may not always land on your homepage when they first visit your site, depending on what they search for. Therefore, having it on every page increases the chances that they will see it and want to sign up.
  3. Ask – If people can show on your website, give them an option to sign up for deals and coupons before they check out. You can even ask in store. When consumers make purchases, ask them if they would like to sign up to be in the know of what’s going on in your store.
  4. Ask subscribers to forward to friends – Word of mouth is a great way to get new subscribers, however, it must be interesting enough for people to want to pass it on. You may also want to give your current subscribers incentive to actually forward it along to their friends.
  5. Have a link to past issues – This gives them an example of what they are signing up for. You must make sure your emails are intriguing enough to make them Continue reading “Marketing Tip of the Week – Get More Email Subscribers” »

Changes for the New Year

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Marketing Tip – Changes for the New Year

Start the new year off right by brainstorming new marketing ideas for your store. Why not make this year bigger and better than the last? Make this the year the one where you break record sale numbers and gain a multitude of new customers. Make this YOUR year. FGmarket has a few marketing ideas that maybe just what you’re looking for, for 2013.

  • Update Your Look – Think about rebranding your business. Have you had the same look for years now? Re-write, re-work, and re-brand your store. Change up the colors, signage, email marketing, marketing campaigns, re-define your whole business strategy. You may not be achieving the numbers you would like, so consider updating your business. It could draw in a lot more perspective customers.
  • Re-Brand Your Social Media – Social media is a key source in marketing your store. Potential customers will see your social media sites before they see anything else. Entice them with the right marketing tactics so they’ll be intrigued to find out more. Create an enticing landing page, cover photo, profile picture, and jazz up your about me page so potential customers can get a better understanding of your business.
  • Update Your Marketing Tactics – When was the last time you looked at your marketing strategy? Honestly, it should be updated constantly to keep with the ever-changing trends. Update business cards to make sure they contain your social media, give your print ads a fresh look, and possibly even research slogans. Also, consider what’s the best way to reach customers. Have you not being paying much attention to your social media sites? You might find that the majority of your customers are using it. Take a look at the best way to reach your customers and start investing your time into that form of marketing. Learn to balance between your social media sites, newspaper, or television ads, as well as networking and other forms of marketing strategies.
  • Change Your Website – Do you have a website for your business? Are you offering your customers all that you can? Consider updating your website and make it place for you customers to visit for great resources. Consider going with e-commerce, be a resource for customers, and develop a relationship with them through your website. Don’t just make it a place to visit so they can find out your store hours and address.

Change your marketing tactics for 2013. It’s okay to make changes, they can be just what you need for the new year. Take risks and receive great reward with the changes you’ll make.

Product Reviews

Dazzle with Puppy Luv Glam
Adorable children clothes are always great product lines to carry in your store. Every parent loves dressing their children up in cute clothing that will display their fun little personality. What if there was a company out there that combined fashion trends with dazzling puppy designs? Read More About Puppy Luv Glam

Find What You’re Looking for with Alexx Inc
Finding great accessories for your store is a must. Having accessories gets you great sales from customers who love purchasing useful items for themselves and giving them as wonderful gifts. Read More About Alexx Inc

Make an Unexpected Statement with Meadowbrooke Gourds
Are you always looking for unexpected decor to feature in your store? You want to offer your customers something extraordinary and items that they won’t find anywhere else. Read More About Meadowbrooke Gourds

The New England Cupboard – A Must for Every Kitchen Pantry
Gourmet food is definitely the way to your customers’ hearts. Are you featuring amazingly delicious food in your store? If not, you should. Not only do your customers love to stock up on it for their own pantries, but they always make great gifts as well.Read More About The New England Cupboard

Insider Tips

Seth Godin – Don’t be ridiculous because it’s a clever marketing strategy. No, be ridiculous because while the effectiveness allows you to be, the real intent is to be generous or thrilling or to touch some stars. Because you can.

Vendor Spotlight

Receive Stand Out Artwork from Kuvasz Companies Inc.
Finding the right products for your store is important. Don’t forget about finding the right accessories to go along with them as well.Read More About Kuvasz Companies Inc.
 Keep Safe with Thudguard US
Finding the right products for children in your store is a must, especially if you have parents that are always looking for items to keep their children happy and safe. Read More About Thudguard US
Enjoy an Enjoyable View with Birds Choice
As soon as the holidays are over, it’s time to start planning your spring product line. With the warmer weather, people look forward to getting out in their yards.404
 Todays Concept – Making Life a Little More Easier
What do you look for when buying products for your store? Finding products that make your customers’ lives more efficient and honestly easier are great to feature in your store.Read More About Todays Concept
Get Rid of Dust with Allergy Be Gone
Taking care of your customers is your number one priority. It’s important that they lead a healthy lifestyle and stay healthy.Read More About Allergy Be Gone
 Get Savvy with Parent Talk
What products do you feature in your store? Do you want to feature products that will help your customers and serve a purpose?Read More About Parent Talk

In The News

Sweet Treats for the Sweet Tooth
Candies and confections are great for the holidays. They make wonderful gift items for every occasion and for everyone. Plus, your customers may want a sweet treat for themselves to snack on. Read More About Sweet Treats for the Sweet Tooth

What’s in Style Next Season?
When it comes to fashion, it’s always important to stay on top of the latest trends. You’ll find that style is ever-changing. What was popular a month ago may not be popular any more. So, staying on trend within fashion is a must if you’re going to feature it in your store. Read More About What’s in Style Next Season

Marketing Tip of the Week – Blogging Tips

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Blogging is an important aspect of your website and store. This is a way you can interact with your customers and build relationships, which is extremely important in any business. Blogging lets you achieve this, however, there are some rules and tips to follow to make your blogging effective and truly efficient. FGmarket will focus on blogging tips to make your blog even better.

  1. Treat each article as it’s a part of your store. Articles are a part of your store. They are like a product of your store. Make sure it represents that. Get across your point and make sure it relates to your target market.
  2. Use your own stuff. Sure, you can borrow pictures from places and link it back to them or from your distributor. However, show your customers your actual products and store. It gives them a better visual and feeling for your store. Plus, if you don’t use your own photos, it can potentially be misleading to consumers.
  3. Include variety – Sure, you can write blogs with words over and over. However, why not include variety? Think about linking to your YouTube account or Pinterest account to tell a different story.
  4. Target your market – Think about your audience. What appeals to them and how can you reach them? Write blogs that are geared towards your target market. Make them interested and grab their attention.
  5. Spread the word – Your blog won’t do any good if you don’t have any followers. Have guest bloggers on your blog. This attracts different consumers and you may increase your followers.

There are many other tips on blogging, but these 5 stand out and are great when you are first beginning. Just remember your audience and how you can connect with Continue reading “Marketing Tip of the Week – Blogging Tips” »