Mad 4 Blog

When managing a blog, whether it’s independently operated or hosted on your company’s website, one of the responsibilities is handling the comments that visitors leave. As a casual blog reader, you probably didn’t think too much about the behind-the-scenes process when you browsed comments or left your own. But when it comes time for you to be in charge of your own blog, knowing the consequences of your comment management choices can actually do a world of good for your website marketing.

The first decision you need to make is whether or not you’ll allow comments. Most blog servers offer this option (along with a few others covered below). If you decide not to let visitors comment, the responsibility is taken off your shoulders. But it can be a downfall for two primary reasons:

• First, it dissuades activity. Your blog’s readers may not feel as engaged with your content. They might not form an attachment with your website that makes them want to come back. On the other hand, if they’re able to read comments and leave their own, they might return to follow a conversation or simply because they feel involved and like you want to hear their feedback.

• Second, you’ll wind up with a static webpage that only generates new material whenever you post a blog (let’s say once a week). But when you let readers leave comments, new text is often added to the site. This not only entreats visitors to come back to the same blog post more than once, but also boosts your ranking with search engines that give credit to sites that are often updated. (This is why you also want to ask questions and invite guests to leave comments in your post.)

If you do want to allow comments, the biggest downfall is that you then have to moderate them. You can set up some flags so that sexually explicit or otherwise offensive comments are automatically taken down. But you may also have to read through and manually delete certain comments. You can have the blog set up so that it asks your permission to approve or deny every single comment that’s submitted before it goes live on your site. But some visitors don’t like to wait to see their comment posted, and it’s also more labor-intensive for you.

There are other quality control options that you can choose from most standard comment settings. One choice is to only let members of the website leave comments. Sometimes this means joining your site by creating a specific ID, but other times this can mean logging in via Gmail or Facebook. In this case, anonymous commenting is often not allowed and people may feel more restricted to voice opinions. Another option is asking potential commentators to pass a word verification check, which is designed to deter spambots (computer-generated spam robots) and confirm that you’re a human visitor.

Need advice on how to set up a blog – and then make it work hard to promote your business? Mad 4 Marketing knows the tips and tricks to boost your traffic and search engine rankings. Don’t hesitate to Contact Us.

In an ongoing conversation about how your business can and should integrate social media marketing into your complete campaign, this week we continuing discussing the ways to discern how and why to select your social media methodology. Last week, we talked about identifying your goals and assigning a budget. Now that you know what you’re seeking and how much you can spend, you’re ready to select the content:

Consider your media. On the Internet, you have an array of options when it comes to the format of your social media advertising; you are not restricted to stagnant banners and links. Are you interested in principally creating a dialogue with interested individuals? This can be done via discussion forums or posts that invite comments. Or would you rather post a video on the Web to entertain and intrigue viewers, who may also be inclined to share it elsewhere? You may wish to initiate sweepstakes or contests that generate video content as well as conversation and viral success. Different options require differing amounts of work, time and financial commitment on your end, and there’s no single solution that’s best for every business. So be sure to consider your unique needs and availability for operations once the campaign is launched.

Know your audience. Social media marketing is practically expected by a certain demographic; but it may not be for everyone. For example, will patients choose a doctor based on his or her tweets? You need to determine if your target audience will make purchasing decisions based on a strong viral campaign. Or are they more likely to react to a well-placed television commercial or billboard on their commute to work?

Test the waters. Although Mad 4 Marketing believes in integrating diverse campaign tactics to approach prospective buyers from all angles, sometimes you can actually miss the mark by spreading your budget into unfamiliar territory that won’t provide the highest ROI. Accurate, tested, pinpoint marketing is also always valuable. We recommend:

• Have a website up, no matter what
• Get your blog started and encourage visitors to comment
• Track your traffic and the activity of users on your page
• Survey your key demographic to see how social media fits into decision-making
• Start with one effort that you can focus on; if your Facebook Fan Page can get a certain number of “likes,” like 5,000, this may mean you’re ready to expand

Ready to learn more and discuss the best social media marketing for your business? Clearly you already found us on the Web, so Mad 4 Marketing must be doing something right! You’re just a few clicks away, so now all you need to do is Contact Us.

These days, it seems like everyone has a blog. In fact, most business websites would not be complete without one. The trick is to stand out from the herd—because in today’s fast-developing and competitive world of websites, just having a blog is only status quo. In fact, it may even be a waste of time and money if your voice is only going to get lost.

But before you can adequately market your blog, you have to understand the reasoning behind it. Not all techniques are suitable for all blog types, so what you use should be determined by the site’s overall goal. Some people build a blog in order to increase traffic to their website, while others create blogs in order to generate revenue. Of course, many blogs are also stand-alone pages created to exist as singular discussion forums.

In terms of marketing, most blogs are used to enhance SEO. They help business-oriented websites attract attention, build brands and communicate with prospective clientele. With this in mind, here are three top tips for marketing your blog:

1) Create an e-Newsletter.

Whether or not your company already sends out a regular newsletter, embedding links to your blog or even re-posting eye-catching selections from its posts might engage current e-mail recipients while informing new subscribers that the blog even exists. You can also see who’s using the links to click through to the blog to determine which posts and topics are generating the most interest. Just remember, re-posting your blog posts in full is a bad idea; it deters readers from ever actually needing to visit your website.

2) Build a Community.

Having individuals visit your blog on a regular basis is excellent. But each lone reader is actually an opportunity to expand your entire community. The first thing you want to do is inspire readers to leave comments so that they can bond with other forum members, who can serve as a reason for readers to return. This can often be done by including interesting topics and asking questions directly within the content of your post. You’ll also want to visit blogs similar to your own and get to know the readership there; as discussed above, it’s easy to make connections and participate by replying to others or leaving your own comments. You can also ask these website owners if they’d like to participate in cross-posting, guest posting, link exchanges or other ideas that allow websites serving the same readership to gain exposure on your blog while you contribute a new voice to theirs. In blogging, there is a focus on community, not a sense of competitiveness—and this benefits everyone in your interest group or business field.

3) Ensure Consistency and Quality.

No matter how well you succeed in attracting readers to your blog, your endeavors can never succeed if visitors only stop by once. In the blogging world as much as in the real world, first impressions are vital. To keep readers coming back again and again, an attractive website with appealing content is necessary. Next week, we further discuss how to encourage return readers and turn them into customers and clients–or just loyal fans.

So come back next week to find part two of the Top Ways to Market Your Blog.

Think it’s time to cut back your budget for marketing? Think again.
In a tough economy, it’s more important than ever to strategically market your business.

Across the nation, large and small businesses are looking for ways to trim unnecessary expenditures from their budget. For many, this might mean erroneously reducing or eliminating marketing budgets. In reality, it’s more important than ever to put your company ‘out there’ in order to flourish in tough economic times. Here are a few ways to advertise without breaking the bank:

Consistent Branding and 360-Degree Marketing
The most important aspect of marketing in a hard economy is to build and retain customer relationships. With so many messages bombarding prospective clients on a daily basis, you want your services and products to stand out at the forefront. The first way to do this is to keep your brand prevalent and accessible; this can be done with a strong branding message that stays in front of your audience. Your message should accurately reflect your unique services, and be consistent across various advertising touch points—from advertising to point-of-sale to customer service. You will want branding to make you recognizable and transparent across all marketing mediums: print ads, interactive, broadcast, logo iconography. As you connect to your audience through a 360-degree campaign–which may involve both traditional and nontraditional advertising tactics–your business will retain a powerful presence within customers’ minds as they make purchasing decisions.

Nontraditional Marketing Tactics
Alternative marketing is one way to boost your bottom line on a small budget. Rather than launch expensive mass media campaigns, you may actually make a bigger impact with pinpoint strategies. For example, grassroots marketing often involves using highly targeted outlets—such as ads displayed in shopping plazas or community newsletters—to connect with audiences on an intimate level. Your business can focus on creating messages that address the core group of individuals who are most likely to need your services. This can lead to a greater return on investment than bigger, traditional campaigns. A billboard that reaches a thousand eyes might equal 20 sales—but so might shaking 20 hands at an event where you interact with your audience—and it’s much more meaningful and cost-effective. Rather than reach as many sets of eyes and ears as possible, by using precise analytics to target and address your audience, you are given able to speak directly to your client base in a more personalized way. This builds brand loyalty and establishes a line of communication—which will not only benefit your business in the short-term, but have a lasting effect for years to come.

Interactive Marketing Strategies
Utilizing web marketing to maintain an online presence doesn’t have to be a budget-breaking endeavor. You can harness the power of the Internet on a limited budget by getting acquainted with blogging, e-mail marketing and free analytic tools. Once you’ve established a home base for your business online, all you have to do is give readers a reason to stop by and see what you’re all about. Hosting a blog on your website lets you speak directly to your industry peers and prospective customers, while managing your message. A blog can tie together e-mail marketing, web advertising and social media messages. Creating fresh content on a regular basis is also an affordable way to improve your page rank and increase traffic to your site. You can watch viewership climb by utilizing Google Analytics, a free online interface that automatically tracks and graphs your website’s unique visitors, daily traffic and other relevant data. Seeing how readers locate and use your website will help you understand how your audience thinks. Then you can continue to invest in cost-effective advertising techniques, such as e-newsletters, to encourage repeat visits and stay connected with your customers.

It’s pretty clear that we feel confident of the many benefits of blogging here at Mad4Marketing, which is why you’re reading our blog about marketing right now! Creating a blog on your website is a valuable way to gain readership, increase traffic and improve your search ranking. At Mad4Marketing we create SEO-strong blogs for our clients’ websites to increase visibility and brand awareness with a stronger web presence. If your company owns a website to advertise its services or wares, you already own pivotal Internet real estate—and setting up a blog will help you make the most of it.

•    Gain Readership – Generating steady content on your site keeps readers coming back for more, instead of seeing what you’re about once and then moving on. Humorous content, inventive stories and informative articles are popular, but sometimes readers are just intrigued to see the inner workings of your company and follow your business plan. Whichever angle your choose for your blog, just make sure your content is smart and original to keep readers enticed.

•    Increase Traffic – When a website regularly posts fresh content, search engines give it more weight for relevancy, and may list it higher among resulting search links. This is just one element of the complex formula dedicated to ranking pages, but if your competitor has a similar yet stagnant website while yours is dynamic, you’re likely to get first dibs on readers. Increased traffic is also vital if your website features advertising as a means to supplement business costs.

•    Improve SEO Rankings – Another way that blogs can help you improve search engine optimization is if you use relevant business phrases often within the body of your blog. Infusing your blog posts with key words will make your website rank higher when people search for those services and phrases online. There’s only so much text you can fit on any tasteful webpage, but blog content is limitless and gives you more opportunity to repeat your message and plug SEO.

It’s also important to update frequently. Many experts recommend that blogs be updated at least three times a week, and every day if possible. But more important than quantity is the quality of your posts, which is why it’s also sometimes more relevant to write when you have something to say rather than as much as possible. For less than three blog posts per week, we recommend asserting a regular schedule—and sticking to it! Earn return visits by adhering to your schedule so that readers will begin to follow your weekly postings (you can tell when this is successful if your website traffic spikes on the days blog posts go up). For example, Mad4Marketing is responsible for the Satori Living blog, which is updated twice weekly on Tuesdays and Thursdays to promote the premiere eco-friendly apartment rental community in Fort Lauderdale. Prospective tenants come to the Satori Living blog to learn about the Satori apartments and amenities, and we hope to encourage residents to come back again every week for information about local events, restaurant reviews and neighborhood highlights.

Whether for e-commerce purposes or just to draw customers to your company’s site for information, blogging is a surefire way to gain momentum and success with your website. We’ll continue to give you advice for improving your website and utilizing modern marketing techniques online through this blog, so visit us here every Monday morning to kick off your week with marketing tips, anecdotes and insights. (See what we did there? And you can do it, too.)

Welcome to the NEW Mad 4 Marketing Blog where our brain trust of marketing and creative professionals will keep you in the loop with the latest industry trends.

Why have we decided to start a blog?
Blogging is currently the most popular corporate social marketing trend, for many good reasons. Major corporations across the product and service spectrum such as Coca-Cola, Wells Fargo, Hewlett Packard, and many others have set up corporate blogs in order to communicate in a less formal fashion and connect on a personal level with their customers. Blogs can be structured in an infinite number of ways and the content of each blog is completely unique and customizable. The qualities most blogs share (especially when set up the right way) are as follows:

• Blogs benefit a search engine optimization strategy by adding regularly updated content under the company domain
• Blogs incorporate RSS feeds which enable readers to easily read recent posts without actually visiting the blog. Many social networking sites such as Facebook enable you to sync your blog via the RSS feed with your page on their site in order to extend the information to people within your network.

Blogging can turn your website into a valuable knowledge resource that customers turn to for regular updates on the company, products, and/or services.  If you are currently reading this blog about blogging, you can see exactly how effective this marketing medium can be. We invite you to come back and visit our blog regularly for weekly updates on the latest marketing and advertising trends or add our feed to your RSS feed syndicator.

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