Category: SEO

Importance of Newsletters For Your Business

Posted on | by Post and Courier Staff

“Sign up for our newsletter!” A phrase you hear quite often. But what are you signing up for? Depends on what site you are on and what that site may be offering to you. Have you ever wondered what exactly those businesses get from having a newsletter? Seriously. What’s in it for them?

The Post and Courier Newsletter Editor, Emily Daily, shares her insights and expertise in newsletters from her 15 years in media, marketing, and public relations.

 Leads to Clients 

Newsletters being sent to people that already have an established interest in the company or business. These leads come from website submissions, social media, and anytime a person reaches out to the company for more information. When a person signs up for a newsletter or offers their email address, this individual is considered a Marketing Qualified Lead (MQL) and is ready to learn more about your business. Now, you nurture your lead with follow up marketing emails, letting them know about special offers, information that only subscribers or MQLs would get to learn, and anything exciting that may be internally happening with your business.

“Not only is it important for marketing the business and sharing new product news or upcoming sales or events, but it’s also a way to connect with customers on a personal level. Many successful newsletters are written from a personal point-of-view, often from a business owner, CEO, or editor. This gives the readers a chance to feel like they have a true connection to the company.” 

– Newsletter Editor, Emily Daily 

Building Relationships

People want to feel like they are getting something from a newsletter. What information does your business offer that can be helpful to your target audience? What makes your business stand out? Offering knowledge and delivering it right to your lead’s inbox developing a personal connection that may otherwise have been lost. Newsletter Editor, Emily Daily, explains:

“The advantage of a newsletter versus a typical marketing email is that companies can create an established group of readers who trust their brand and stay updated with their news on a consistent basis. Every time a reader opens a newsletter from that company, they know it won’t simply be a marketing push – it will have other content that interests them as well. Therefore, newsletters tend to have much higher open rates and click-through rates, especially when they’re sent out on a consistent basis.”

If someone signs up to learn more from you, what will they be learning? Here are some options:

  • Awareness: New products or services? Perhaps a new team member! Let your audience know.
  • Expertise: What do you know that can help your audience? What resources do you offer? A guide? Article?
  • Promotion: What’s going on in your business? Having a sale? Special offer? Holidays are primetime to offer your loyal audience something special!
  • Coverage: Extra! Extra! Read all about it…in our newsletter! Compile a spot for readers, leads, clients to go to know about everything and anything that may apply to them. The Post and Courier often use this method with our niche newsletters – Breaking News, Sports, weather, climate change, food & dining, and so much more!  Instead of taking the time to search the website, we send you the links you want to know about it. A one-stop-shop of information!

Not Just Newsletters

A newsletter is not just an informative way to nurture leads and build client relationships. Newsletters are not only a great way to reach new audiences, but they are also a great way to advertise. Joining an established newsletter series can highly benefit your business. Each newsletter that The Post and Courier sends out has sponsorships. These are businesses advertising within a source that they know reaches their target audience and is a trustworthy, primetime, and amicable form of advertising.

“The benefits of being a sponsor for content like this are unique to broad appeal newsletters. The open rates will likely be higher percentages than general newsletters since the readers are specifically seeking out that content. This means they will also have higher trust in the content of the email. This makes your brand stand out even more.” – Marketing Coordinator, Michael Strong writing about Newsletter Sponsorships.

Adding newsletters and email marketing to your budget can significantly help you save in some areas while continuing to grow and nurture leads.

 

Better 4 Business: Print Advertising vs Digital Advertising

Posted on | by Post and Courier Staff

Newspaper/print advertising or social media advertising? While social media is climbing the ranks, the newspaper seems to remain steady and calm. Social media advertising is pushed more with every ad, but print remains relevant.

So, what’s the deal with newspaper advertising? Is it a valid competitor to social media? 

The answer? No. But not for the reasons you may think. 

A History Lesson

The year is 1997. The year social media was invented. 

While this was just under 30 years since computers came to fruition, it is also a decade before a mogul in social media advertising would be launched (yes, Facebook). 

Social media also falls approximately 2,054 years after the world’s first newspaper was published. (The first daily newspaper was only 392 years prior.)

In 1704, the first newspaper advertisement was posted. Just 300 years later, the first web banner ad was posted. And, again, Facebook would raise its stakes (and stocks) with Facebook Advertising in 2007. Ultimately, this changes the advertising game.

Print Advertising, Social Media, and $$$

The brief history of newspapers, social media, and the internet were to give you just a slight idea of why newspaper advertising is still around today. It started it all. 

Newspaper advertising gave way to print advertising and vice versa.

Print advertising refers to any hard copy type of medium with an ad. We’re talking magazines, brochures, and, the favorite, direct mail. 

 

Digital advertising has taken the main stage of advertising with nearly $40 billion poured into the advertising medium in 2020. Print advertising rolls in at $13.4 million this year so far. 

A few factors come into play here. 

Social media advertising can cost 25 cents to reach 1,000 people, while print advertising, more specifically newspaper, would, on average, costs $32 to reach 1,000 people.

But saving money does not mean it is better for business.

Throwing Money Away? 

While, yes, the numbers don’t lie, you can spend less to reach more people with digital advertising. 

However, is that the audience you want to reach? It may reach those people, but are they the right people? Are they actually engaging in those ads? Are those 25 cents really gaining that ROI?

Yes, ad targeting is a glorious tool, if used correctly. Our team here at The Post and Courier can curate the perfect social media plan for your business to target, reach, and rake in that ideal audience. 

But if you’re just putting money behind a social ad or Google ad for the sake of putting money behind that ad, you’re not utilizing the tool to its full potential. And, that’s the case for a lot of that $40 billion that’s getting thrown around. There’s so much that goes into placing a social media ad than just credit card information.

Digital advertising actually does not have as high of a payoff as print advertising. Printed publications stay around longer than social media and/or digital advertising. Social media or search engine ads disappear when the money stops flowing.

Print ads, on the other hand, stays around. Once printed, that publication, newspaper or magazine, stay on the coffee table, a shelf, in the waiting room of the doctor’s office.

“When people see ads online, they may forget them in an instant. If they see them repeatedly while flipping through a magazine, that message is more likely to stick.”

Additionally, print advertising sees ROI in word of mouth, uses of coupon codes, and an overall increase in sales. 

Print Advertising & Trust 

Beyond the dollar signs, trust is a major factor that breathes life into print advertising. 

According to MarketProfs, “Consumers trust print advertisements 34% more than they trust search engine ads.”  

What this tells us is that if you pour money into digital advertising and not properly strategize, you could come off as untrustworthy. 

Print advertising also comes with antiquity and being a consistent part of history. With that longevity comes loyalty. 

Just like a favorite restaurant, your favorite shampoo, maybe even your favorite supermarket. If you consistently shop from a place, you have a connection to it. Maybe your mom shopped there or your grandparents. 

Print advertising holds the loyalty of being a household name, always being there. This is something that can’t be replaced.

People trust what they are connected to. 

Print Compliments Digital Ads 

While both digital ads and print ads are very important especially in the digital age, having one and not the other could potentially hurt your business.

Not having social media or even a website leaves a whole group of people unreached. 

Not advertising in print also leaves a whole group untouched. 

Again, having a well thought out digital/social media advertising is the key to succeeding in the paid digital space. 

The same could be said for print advertising. 

Print advertising does reach a niche audience, but the same shows for digital advertising. As mentioned above, who you want to target can help you rake in ideal returns. 

By figuring out a strategy that references or involves your website or social media, can help drive traffic to those platforms leading you to see an ROI in both mediums. 

So, what’s Better 4 Business is both print advertising and digital advertising. The pair are like a fine wine and a good cheese. The antiquated and the modern complement each other.

What’s even Better 4 Business is combining your advertising efforts with marketing. Talk about a match made in heaven. 

 

The Value of Repurposing Content

Posted on | by Peyton Riddle

Reusing old content has become more valuable than ever in 2020. On top of that, there’s no better time to revitalize old posts than during the holidays. Between the stresses of dealing with COVID-19 as a business and planning time away from work, pulling content out of the vault can lift many burdens.

Depending on what your business produces to market itself, there will be different ways to repurpose it. But the core idea remains the same; take valuable content that has been buried under newer things, add a new spin on it, and push it back to the top of your feed.

Why reuse old content?

Before diving into your past catalog and simply re-posting everything you have, let’s dissect why this is important to do. Understanding the value of repurposed content will help you to decide which pieces to revitalize and how to do it.

Save time/money

The most obvious reason to go about this, is that you’ll save time and possibly money. Repurposing old content can often take a fraction of the time and effort it would take to create something new.

If you’re working with a third party such as an agency, you probably are conscious of both time and money. Your agency can help identify good content to reuse, based on how well it performed. The agency can then transform that at a faster pace and a cheaper cost than producing something original.

The process can even be automated. If you have timeless content, meaning it wouldn’t need any rewriting or additions, you can set up a system to automatically republish content. This is great for the holiday season once you start to take time off. This can be done through something as simple as using social media to post links to your content. Or on a deeper level, set up your website to push old, but relevant blogs to the top of the page.

Boost SEO

Your content can only truly boost the overall SEO of your website if people are visiting and spending time viewing your content. So don’t let your old content go to waste by hiding it in the past.

Giving people a fresh reason to visit your page will add to the existing SEO power that it built up originally. Whether you decide to update your existing content’s page, or copy the contents to create a new, fresh page, the SEO benefits will be great. You can attribute your new content back to the old post. More pages on your site means stronger search engine value. 

Reach new audiences

This boost in SEO is also one way that your repurposed content will attract new audiences. Perhaps your content didn’t’ achieve its full potential the first time. Giving it a second chance will do nothing but positive things for your brand’s reach. 

Times have changed dramatically in 2020. People are living their lives in ways we never saw coming, due to quarantines and social distancing. Chances are high that your business can play on these life changes in some way. Take a look back at your history of content marketing. You might just find something that is now relevant to a wider audience.

Just be sure not to overdo it by rehashing the same topics week after week. You don’t want people to see you as a brand with nothing new to say.

How should you reuse content?

Content marketing comes in many forms, and they cannot all be treated equally when it comes to repurposing. Once you’ve identified what’s worth reusing, you have to find the right approach to doing so.

Blogs

Blogs often rely on data to back up points, which builds up your brand’s expertise on a subject. One straight-forward approach to reusing old blogs is to update them with newer data. Add new links to externals sources, or even new backlinks to pages on your site that didn’t exist before. This all adds to SEO and brand image.

You don’t even have to keep the blog in written form to reuse it. Consider ways to turn your writing into podcasts or videos. Come up with new ways for audiences to digest your content. Not everyone engages with content in the same way.

Once you have a solid backlog of blog content, you can compile related blogs into a single collection. This can even take the form of a physically published book. 

The purpose of blogs in content marketing is mainly to build up the brand image by showing your expertise. Reminding people that they can engage with your content in different ways gives them more chances to see that you’re an expert.

Videos

Video content does not need to be reshot in order to be repurposed. Graphics, text, and animations can be added to transform your video.

Are you proud of a recent award or achievement your business achieved? Commercials or other video marketing pieces are a great place to insert graphics announcing your success.

If you have the time, recording new voice-over narration and adding new music is a great way to reuse videos. You won’t have to bother reshooting footage, and the content will still feel fresh. This is a great way to make new announcements for your business or share anything that has changed since the original video.

This is an important thing to remember even when shooting footage for entirely new videos. Always incorporate some level of timelessness. You can always cut things out, but try to get enough evergreen footage in your content that it can be trimmed and reused. 

Social Media

Social media is made for throwbacks. We’ve even dedicated a whole day of each week to it. Engage in the Throwback Thursday trend to reshare old posts with your followers. 

Hopefully, your follower count is always growing, so there should always be new eyes to share your content with. This can be done through stories, so you don’t have to clutter up your feed with duplicate content.

The cycle of reusing content can involve every channel. So if you’re refreshed an old blog for 2021, share that out on social media. You can do something as easy as taking the original image you used to post about the blog the first time, and add an “updated for 2021” text stamp on it. 

One important thing to remember when updating content that has been shared on social, is to make sure links still work. If you’ve gone back to edit an old blog, or have published a new version of a blog, make sure your posts link out to the new content. And always make sure no posts are linking to a page that no longer exists. Set up redirects to solve this issue.

Better 4 Business: Facebook or Instagram

Posted on | by Post and Courier Staff

Social media has become a dominating platform with 3.2 billion users worldwide. Facebook and Instagram making up a large portion of that use, especially when it comes to business and social media marketing.

While the excitement of using social media to gain more business is intriguing more than ever, you may not need to utilize both social media platforms to see immense success.

The decision and comparison can be overwhelming. We have taken the top attributes of each and broken them down for you to decide which is Better 4 Your Business.

Facebook 4 Business

Facebook, being the matriarch of social media, has many attributes that it brings to the business table.

Industries like alcohol, Food & Beverage, sports teams, hotels, and non-profits being the breadwinner of engagement. So, businesses do well.

For starters, a wider audience. Facebook has 1.6 Billion users, while Instagram has about 112.5 million. This audience is heavily diverse but has an older audience. What those numbers tell us is that Facebook has more opportunity for more people to see your content, paid or organic.

What those numbers also tell us is that while there is a high potential for more people to see your content, they most likely will not see or engage with it. Facebook has a significantly low engagement rate of only 0.09%.

This is why targeting ads is so important. And Facebook does this factor in a great way.

The implementation of an interactive carousel ad. This ad format has shown great success for a B2B audience. This leads to retargeting.

Retargeting tracks when prospects visit your site and then display a relevant ad to that user when they are on the platform.

Using a look-a-like audience to target the ideal audience is also a feature that Facebook does well. You can specifically target individuals with a specific demographic, interest, etc. This helps to strategically pinpoint an audience rather than hoping your ad reaches who you want it to reach.

In addition, retargeting via Facebook not only gains a more specified audience but plays well in SEO tactics.

“Facebook retargeting, in cohesion with SEO tactics, places an undisputed level of efficiency. Rather than targeting a new demographic of customers, using the pixel you are targeting users who have shown the initial interest based on SEO.” Seo Marketer

Another point worth mentioning is that Facebook’s online shopping presence is top-notch. Facebook Marketplace is a mogul in social media shopping.

Outside of shopping, Facebook’s business pages are highly reputable. In fact, having a Facebook Business Page unlocks several benefits for your business in the long run.

Insert Instagram.

Instagram 4 Business

Instagram has captured social media like its iconic logo. So much so, that other social media platforms actually use its design as a model, Facebook included.

Instagram is the trendier of the comparative duo. The demographics reflect this. Instagram tends to attract the younger audience, millennials more specifically.

What is most intriguing about the fact that a young audience drives Instagram stats, is that users report that they follow at least one business religiously.

Another thing to note? One-third of Instagram users have made an online purchase within the Instagram app. Sixty-percent of users uses Instagram to seek out new products, or have discovered new products using the app. This is why the influencer industry is booming!

Perhaps the best part of advertising with Instagram is that about 72% of marketers are currently making use of it.
Instagram also shines in social media for the median 1.22 percent engagement rate it carries. The lowest engagement industry is retail which is .67 percent.

That’s nearly 7 times higher than Facebook’s median engagement rate. In fact, this is 5 times higher than the highest engaged industry on Facebook.

Now, to be fair, again – Instagram does have a significantly lower amount of users than Facebook.

One thing Instagram undoubtedly does well at is the Instagram shop capability. Similar to Facebook’s carousel feature of showcasing products or a list of services in a way that does not feel like you are being sold to, this does exactly that.

Instagram also uses the same targeting, retargeting, and look-a-like audience models as Facebook. Actually, Facebook acquired Instagram in 2012. So, while they are two different companies, the puls side is that they both use Facebook Business Manager to post ads.

Then, the most obvious difference between Facebook and Instagram is that Instagram is more visibly pleasing. For most ads that you are served within the app, you do not even realize that you are viewing an ad. The flawless advertising makes Instagram a successful platform in this sense.

Best 4 Business

So, who reigns champ? Let’s review.

Facebook has 1.6 billion users compared to Instagram’s 11.2 million users. However, Instagram’s median engagement rate is nearly 7 times higher than Facebook’s. While this may attribute to more users causing the engagement rate to water down, breaking down the engagement rate per industry returns the same results.

Instagram is also geared towards a younger audience, but an audience that yearns to shop. Facebook also has a great Facebook shopping capability, the site shows great plays in carousel advertisements.

Additionally, having a Facebook Business page may hold a greater weight than not having one. Facebook Business is a noteworthy complement to your website and business.

Also mentioned above the fact that Facebook owns Instagram. So, regardless of which you prefer, both have the same advertising tools out of Facebook Business Manager. You won’t be jipped of that aspect if you choose exclusively Instagram.

Honestly, the two things the decision boils down to are what you want your content to be and who your audience is. Are you looking for more pictures or videos? Younger or older audience? Broad or specific audience? Breaking those down will help you to decide which is better 4 your business.

Another truth?

Having one over another will not hurt your business. Having both definitely will not hurt your business. What will hurt your business is not accurately strategizing your content and advertising on these platforms.

What could be Better 4 Business is partnering with The Post and Courier.

SEO marketing

10 SEO Mistakes to Avoid

Posted on | by Peyton Riddle

10 SEO Mistakes to Avoid

Search engine optimization (SEO) is crucial to building your brand and growing your business in 2020. As the use of technology has significantly increased over the last decade, so has the use of Google’s search engine. According to Statista, in April 2020, online search engine Bing accounted for 6.25% of the global search market, while Google had a market share of 86.02%. Additionally, in 2017 Google was responsible for driving 35% of all website traffic. 

SEO best practices are constantly evolving, as is Google’s algorithm. It is essential to not only continually monitor your website SEO conversions, but also continually optimize. There are a lot of intricacies surrounding search engine optimization, and it is easy to feel overwhelmed with what best practices to use. Today, lets discuss common SEO mistakes and how to avoid them.

 

1. Not meeting search intent 

It is important that the reader achieves what they’re looking for when visiting your page. If their needs are not met, your SEO ranking will be negatively affected.  Google ranks your site based on trust & value. This trust is established by behavior that shows your visitors find what they are looking for.

 

2. Writing at a high reading level

This is something that I personally struggle with every time I write a blog. As a writer, it is easy to forget that not everyone loves long, intricately structured sentences with fancy words like you. Not everyone, meaning Google.  Ideally, Google wants to see that your page is readable to anyone who visits it. This means keeping sentences short, and using words that everyone understands.

 

3. Outdated SEO techniques 

If you’re familiar with search engine optimization already, you know just how quickly the techniques can change. Google’s algorithm is constantly changing. It is important to understand the important SEO insights as they actively change. Here is a good list of 9 SEO insights you must follow right now.

 

4. Unclear SEO goals

Just as any marketing practice, without a strategy there is no way to measure your success or reach your goals. You should establish an overall SEO strategy, as well as a strategy for individual campaign initiatives. If you’re new to building an SEO strategy, I highly recommend checking out this article by marketing expert Drew Fortin.

 

5. Ignoring conversion data

Measuring the success of your SEO is extremely important. The primary goal of your search engine is to drive traffic to your company website. More specifically, the goal is to target relevant customers. Someone who is already interested in a product or service your company provides is more likely to convert. Without measuring your conversions, you have zero ability to measure the effectiveness of your SEO strategy. Here are some helpful tools to audit and monitor your SEO.

 

6. Using only text content

If you’re new to SEO optimization, text-only content is dead. It is more important than ever to include imagery and/or video in blogs, emails, and other means of content. According to comscore, adding video to your website can increase the chance of a front page Google result (SERP) by 53 times. Video increases customer attention, therefore leading to higher engagement. This Vidyard article is a great example of the benefits of video marketing.

 

7. Not good for mobile

Over 50% of users use their phones to view websites and open emails. Google search ranking practices Mobile-first indexing, meaning that Google predominantly uses the mobile version of the content for indexing and ranking.  Because of the shift in web traffic being driven by mobile users, new websites (built since 2019) are indexed mobile first. Keep this in mind when building your landing pages and blogs!

 

8. Not enough attention to your headings

Headings and subheadings are important because they make your page or article easier to read; thus, increasing your SEO value. The reader should be able to find what they’re looking for quickly. Otherwise, they will leave your page. Making minor changes to the text in your headings won’t directly affect your SEO value. Rather, it is the effect on the overall structure of the page. Use headings as signposts, and the text below to describe what they’re about. Applying structure and making the page easy to read for customers will help Google understand your page better, too. 

 

9. Writing for Google & not your audience

It is easy to lose sight of the purpose of the blog article or landing page you are building and cater specifically to SEO rankings.  As important as it is to keep search engine ranking top of mind, it is essential that you write for your audience and not Google. If you’re using a platform like WordPress, I highly recommend using the Yoast SEO plugin. Once you’ve begun utilizing Yoast, write FIRST for your audience and THEN integrate the SEO optimization. Yoast will provide a detailed list of SEO suggestions, and rank your blog or landing page accordingly. Ultimately, real people are who you are trying to reach and convert into revenue, not Google (sorry, Google).

 

10. Helpful content

This is one of the strongest marketing trends for 2020. With the current state of the world and the economy, it is more important than ever to produce helpful, educational content. If you are producing something to sell to your clients, you’re going to turn away potential clients before they can even decide if they want to buy with you. Your communication should come from an empathetic and honest place. However, don’t ignore the elephant in the room. Try new + creative email campaigns geared towards providing your clients with helpful resources.