Attraction, Not Promotion

by Elle Ray | May 8, 2016 | Content Marketing

Don’t Scare Visitors in Your Online Marketing

Online marketing shouldn't scare visitors

Most business people know the difference between advertising and marketing. Advertising is a direct pitch to sell your goods or services, while marketing covers the entire process of connecting with your present and future clientele. Advertising is just one component of your marketing efforts.

As a rule, marketing tends to carry more ethical components, giving customers room to make decisions without the pressure of a “buy now” promotion. And while “buy now” calls to action are part and parcel of your overall marketing scheme, good online marketing doesn’t pressure customers; instead, it attracts them with a wink and a nod, a compliment and respectful banter.

Online Marketing Works

Marketing works because it empowers your customers to take more control of their buying decisions based on common sense, education and bonding. Customers end up liking your advertising because you’ve taken the time to consider their needs and build relationships — even if those relationships are simply virtual.

You can and should use your website, blogs, social media and email to attract customers to your business. Once they realize how much they like you, your products and services sell themselves. Online marketing works today and will continue to grow as the most popular medium for building your business.

Tips to Attract Buyers

Marketing isn’t deceitful or cunning at all. In fact, honesty is the best policy when it comes to online marketing efforts. Some of the most productive, least threatening and cheapest ways to use this powerful medium include:

Make it easy for visitors to navigate through your website. Place social media buttons clearly, put your phone number, address and email on every page. Clearly mark each link so that your guests feel welcomed and appreciated.
Create good content. Respect your visitors’ time. Let them know right at the top of your web page who you are and what you do. Invite them in with easy-to-read content that includes well-crafted website copy, relatable graphics and entertaining and informative videos.
Give people what they need. Online guests don’t always know the right questions to ask. Adding an informative, thoughtful FAQ page can help. Make sure that your contact forms work and that you answer questions in a timely manner. Responsiveness builds trust, and trust leads to easy buying decisions.
Inform the media of important changes, highlights and hallmarks to your business through press releases. Loyal customers appreciate knowing that you are transparent and want everyone to have a chance to get to know you.
Rely on SEO, which includes keywords and market targeting, sparingly. Excessive SEO efforts turn off tech-savvy buyers who have seen enough of the tricks now to tell when their searches are being compromised.
Keep up to date with regular blog posts and emails to show your customers that you don’t take them for granted and continue to provide value. Build stronger relationships with continued communication through your blog.
Add value to your relationships with exceptional email newsletters that create a buzz, give your clients a one-up on those who don’t subscribe, and save them money, time and resources.
Use informational graphics to attract attention. Infographics are one of the leading attractors of successful websites. They are exponentially more productive than cartoons or stock pictures. Infographics also give you authority, something that you can’t buy with ads.

Now What Do You Do with Them?

Once you’ve built a customer base that is working (i.e., generating reliable income), you can use those same marketing techniques to give your customers reasons to stick with your company, even as competitors pound their doors for attention. You respected their time and attracted them to you, now:

Review your website and blogs regularly to catch errors that may have made it past the editing team.
Include in-depth, long-form content to your site that goes beyond the sound bites.
Respect their ideas and ask for tips on how to make your service or product even better.
Reward longevity with discounts, deals and insider info.
Expose your customers to the real influencers in your industry by curating expert guest blog posts.
Rely on your relationship and ask for referrals.
Hire an editing team if you don’t have one.

The Best Course

“Do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” is a universal mantra that covers every kind of ethical argument in any religious denomination. It’s also a good business practice, especially in your online marketing efforts. Think about your experience as you visit other websites. What do you like to see while searching, shopping or researching.

Give your visitors the same kind of content and ease of use that you appreciate. They’ll thank you with continued loyalty. That’s a win for your online marketing.

Ray Access is a content marketing firm that delivers targeted words to empower your business. Contact us about your specific project to receive a quote or discuss your needs. We write website copy, blog posts, e-newsletters and more. Everything we do is thoroughly researched, professionally edited and guaranteed original.

6 Ways to Grow Your Business in 2015

by Mark Bloom | Jan 14, 2015 | Content Marketing

You Need to Use All Your Inherent Advantages

happy employees help grow your business

If you’re a business owner, you have discovered the challenges of growing your business in a small market. You know how difficult it can be to find new customers amidst all the competition. Regardless where you do business, you can expand your reach and attract more customers in 2015.

The marketplace is changing, and if you adapt your marketing practices, you’ll capture more of the market than your slower competitors. Small businesses in particular have an advantage. They’re on a tighter budget, so they’re more likely to make sure every dollar spent on marketing generates revenue. But bigger businesses still can take advantage of the following advice; they only need the initiative.

2015 Changes and Challenges

The established ways of marketing and advertising are slowly fading. Fewer and fewer people read a daily newspaper. TV channels with the best shows allow people to binge-watch its episodes, sans commercials, thanks to DVRs. No one younger than 30 — an appealing demographic for many businesses — uses the Yellow Pages.

The tried-and-true ways of marketing your business have become unreliable. Smart businesses today are turning to new methods, with surprising success. If you want to stay ahead of the curve, here is some advice you can take to the bank.

How to Grow Your Business

Stop what you’re doing if it stops working. No matter what you’re doing to market your business, if you see a drop-off in your return-on-investment, stop and try something else. If that doesn’t work, try something new. The marketplace moves fast, and you have to act quickly to catch it.
Use social media. While it doesn’t work for every business, social media can help some businesses market themselves and attract a younger demographic. Social media campaigns don’t focus directly on sales, but on building brand awareness.
Update your website. More and more consumers are accessing the Web through mobile devices. If your website isn’t mobile-friendly, you may be losing business. In fact, if you haven’t updated your website in the past three years, chances are it may look dated to new visitors.
Shift the focus of your online efforts. It used to be enough for your website to act as your digital storefront. No longer. Use your website to answer customers’ questions. Share information freely. Build a relationship with your customers, and they’ll buy from you.
Blog to attract a wider audience. A business blog that is well written can help your business attract customers you were never able to reach before. By answering customers’ questions about your industry, by offering advice about your products or services and by tying your business to popular topics, you can bring more traffic to your website.
Build better landing pages. When you run an online ad campaign, you direct the people who click on the ad to a specific landing page. If that page has a bunch of unrelated items on it, you may lose the sale. Target that page for the specific ad by providing proof of concept, a solid sales pitch and testimonials.

Let Ray Access help you grow your business in 2015. We’ll answer all your questions.

Looking Ahead to 2014

by Mark Bloom | Jan 12, 2014 | Content Marketing

Website Trends to Watch in the Coming Year

Like we’ve always said: it’s no longer enough to have a website. Everyone and her brother have websites. To gain a competitive advantage, you now need an active website. If your website isn’t offering useful information to your clients and potential clients, it’s not reaching them.

Your website should be doing marketing work for you, attracting readers who turn into customers. If your website isn’t part of your marketing budget, with a constant investment, then you’ve wasted the money you’ve already spent on the site. It has to stay active to be effective.

Adding Content Isn’t Enough

In the past, we’ve said time and again that you need to keep adding to your website — such as with regular blog posts — to keep attracting readers to your business. The newest trend, however, suggests that simply adding content isn’t enough. You have to add useful content.

Useful content means answers to your clients’ questions. It means tips that can help your customers make better, more informed decisions. Your website content, as well as your blog post topics, should focus less on you and your company and more on your customers. Delivering useful content will help you stand out from your competition and pique the interest of search engines.

“Content Marketing” Is the New Buzzword Phrase

Search engines are refining how they rank pages. If you can deliver quality content, your site will be recognized, both by human readers and robotic search engines. Quality in 2014 will trump quantity.

Keywords will remain important, but if they are forced into the text unnaturally, Google and other search engines may penalize you. Instead, deliver clear, readable English that assists the people who are seeking solutions. Help these people, and they may become loyal customers.

Building Your Reputation, One Page at a Time

As you add useful information to your website, you are building value. That value will gain an audience, which will simultaneously build your company’s online reputation. If you are offering content that’s interesting, provocative, timely, and — most importantly — useful, then you are building value into your website.

Value, over the long haul, increases your online presence and your website page rank. Useful content delivered consistently over time ultimately translates into authority. So if you want to be seen as the authority in your field, your active website is the perfect vehicle to achieve that goal.

Quality Content Equals Good Marketing

To get ahead in 2014, think of your website as a marketing tool. Budget accordingly. If you don’t have the personnel to devote to this effort, outsource it. Ray Access specializes in content marketing. Let us turn your website into a marketing engine. You could say your company’s reputation depends on it.

Is Content Still King?

by Mark Bloom | Nov 29, 2013 | Content Marketing

And Is Content Still the Way to SEO Results?

Back in February, on Mark’s birthday no less, we published a blog post pronouncing that Content Is King. Here we are, some 10 months later, and we have to ask the question: Is content still king (or queen) when it comes to SEO and best practices for your website?

Our initial response is: Yes, of course content still rules the roost. After all, it’s content that draws readers to your website. It’s content that delivers SEO keywords. It’s content — useful, valuable information — that makes any site worthwhile.

We’ve always said that quality content is what will win the SEO wars, that Google and other search engines will eventually figure out how to recognize useful information from keyword-loaded crap. That’s still in the future, apparently.

Content Is Evolving

The definition of content is changing. Infographics are the current rage. Video is getting a lot of attention these days. Where does this leave the lonely word?

Words will never disappear. They are the foundation of language, even online. Infographics need words. Videos need scripts. And how often do you look for the pop-up “tooltips” that explain exactly what that little button or icon means?

The concept of content may change, but the goal has always been the same: to provide useful information people will want to read or watch and then share. If your content doesn’t reach that goal, then I don’t care how much SEO you’re buying, your website isn’t working.

Rethinking SEO

We came across an interesting article from CopyPress.com that talks about this idea. Basically, the article says:

To be good at SEO, you need to stop thinking about SEO.

In other words, the goal of SEO is to get beyond it. A local SEO expert told me once his idea of SEO was “creating community.” Not much about keywords in that sentence.

So, when you’re ready to treat SEO as a means to an end instead of as an end unto itself, contact us.

Your Website as a Marketing Machine

by Mark Bloom | Sep 5, 2013 | Content Marketing

How Your Business Website Can Generate Cash

An earlier article by a content marketing firm revealed that the fastest growing companies get at least 40 percent of their leads from online marketing. That’s impressive enough, but the tactics of online marketing are so common sense these days that it’s a wonder everyone isn’t doing it.

Your Website Can Work for You

Your website should generate phone calls

The most obvious online marketing strategy is using your website to attract potential customers and to reach out into the Internet to actively find potential customers. How can this work? Here’s a football analogy:

If a team has the fastest wide receiver in the game, that’s a tactical advantage. If the quarterback never throws to that receiver, however, the team has lost any tactical advantage and might be better off without that super fast receiver, who probably cost them a lot of money.

Your business website is just like that super fast receiver. You can have the slickest site in the world, but if you don’t use it properly to gain a tactical advantage, you might as well post a single page with your phone number on it. That site probably cost you a lot of money that you are now wasting.

To get the benefit of any website, whether it’s a super fast receiver or a third-and-long specialist, you need to make it active. An active site attracts the very people who are looking for your business. Those people are potential customers. It’s that simple.

How do you make a site active? Again, the simple answer is to keep it fresh. An active blog adds content to your website weekly. Adding information and changing content on other pages — even your About Us page — keeps the search engines busy re-indexing your site while moving your site up the page rankings.

Don’t Forget the Other Obvious Strategy

The other obvious online marketing strategy is SEO. SEO, in case you’ve been under a rock since 1999, stands for Search Engine Optimization. This strategy involves making each page of your website a clear destination for a specific question. Everything from the copy to the photos to the title should all say the same thing: what the page is about.

Keywords play a large role in SEO, but too many can backfire. Keyword placement on the page is important, but again, consistency is the real key. A content provider (gee, like us) can rewrite your website content to be SEO-friendly as well as human-friendly. It’s a win-win.

Hence Our Motto

We truly believe these strategies can increase traffic to your website without breaking your budget. It led us to our motto, which is: “If you’re ignoring your website, it’s likely ignoring you.” We mean it, too. Keep your site active and updated, and your company will benefit. Remember, according to CopyPress.com, the fastest growing companies get 40 percent of their leads online. What’s your percentage?

So when you want to use your website to grow your business, we can help.

Content Is King

by Mark Bloom | Feb 7, 2013 | Website Content

Your Website Content Will Reign During 2013

Most of you know that we’ve repeated our belief that content is king to our friends, our business associates, and of course, our clients. In fact, we’ll tell anyone, including you.

The best way to gain exposure on the Internet is to provide good, informative content on your website, delivered consistently over time. Good quality content is the absolute best way to reach your marketing goals and to establish your company as an authority in your field.

You may think we say this because we’re Ray Access and we’re in the business of providing content, but you’d be wrong. We say it because it’s true, and we’re not the only ones to assert it. We follow the trends of the online marketing industry, and we’ve found marketing experts, trendsetters, and bloggers who agree with us.

While we’re not privy to whatever Google or Bing has in store for the future of search engines, we believe sincerely that good writing and useful information will win in the end.

Keywords will always have value and backlinks work for now, but search engines keep refining their criteria. It always comes back to quality content, delivered consistently. Now others are confirming what we already knew. eMarketer.com recently wrote that content is the number 1 marketing priority for 2013, overtaking the focus on social media.

Getting on social media has been an industry mantra for the past several years, but eMarketer.com stated that “companies understand social media’s potential value in engaging customers and generating leads, but are having trouble developing effective methods of measuring return on investment.”

In other words, an actual visit to your website has value; a “like” really doesn’t. And even when you do develop a healthy social media presence, what are you going to give your followers? You’ve got to give them reasons — new reasons every day — to keep coming back for a visit. It’s your content that not only lures them in the first place, but keeps them coming back until you become a household word.