Healthy Data Tracking 

Websites save user data to better personalize and improve the customer experiences with first party cookies. These are small data files placed in web browsers to remember your language, layout preferences, or the contents of a shopping cart. This helps maintain a positive user experience by keeping important and relevant elements intact. There are also third parties that work with websites to insert additional tracking methods like their own cookies and web beacons such as analytics and page tagging. 

Companies use third parties to record what users read, click, and visit online. This method of collecting data is ethical if it involves giving users the ability and opportunity to opt out your company tracking using third party cookies, usually in the form of a pop-up box that contains settings and data preferences. Remember you want to have the user to have the power to control their info. If they feel you are abusing their private info it can hurt your company’s reputation and at worst get you into legal trouble. You want to give users the choice of giving you information freely. You can use subscription or contact forms, quizzes, and surveys for your company website or email marketing. Make it easy to unsubscribe from your email list if you use email mail marketing. The data you gather from these methods, should assist in your marketing and advertising plans. You don’t have to have all these methods going at once. Apply data collection methods based on your business goals.     

Unhealthy Data Tracking 

While data collection isn’t inherently bad, what you do with the data you collect is important. Sometimes data collection for advertising can veer away from its true purpose. Using ads through Google Ads and on social media platforms should have the goal of showing user the most relevant and useful ad. Track only what is relevant to help you sell your product or service. Never sell the data you collect to data brokers. Data brokers are companies that can merge anonymized online data (like from a public record) with personally identifiable information to build a detailed profile of you and sell it to other companies that don’t have your information. Avoid purchasing from brokers as well. Pause and think about how you feel when you get an email or ad from a company you never were in contact with. This can demolish any organic relationship building with potential customers. 

Researchers at the University of Washington have shown that mobile ad networks tracking capabilities could be manipulated for highly targeted surveillance. Some banks can also use data collection to determine your creditworthiness. Insurers can use data to assess your premiums. These ways of using data collection, are examples of controversial and potentially damaging ways to use data. This is causing many users to turn to private browsing and ad blocking software causing a loss of revenue of content creators. As a business make sure when you collect your data keep it safe and come up with an ad strategy that is ethical and brings value to your customer. 

We can help with healthy data collection for your website and ads. Call 248.528.3600 or visit our Google Analytics page for more info. 

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1. Establish Your Company Values 

What kind of travel experience do want your company to represent? Are you exotic and adventurous or quiet and comfortable? Does any of your products or services benefit the environment and/or include fair-trade practices? Identify what your company stands for and work with a designer or marketing agency that has designers to include visual elements and persuasive body copy that accurately portray and represent what your company stands for. 

2. Identify Your Audience’s Interest

Find out what interests your target market. Is there anything specific that a lot of people in your target demographic talk about? Ask: who, what, where, when, how, and at what time? You can gather this information through user persona profiles, social media, and competitor research. Think about how you can create content from it. Examples include a FAQ section on your website, host live Q & As on social media, a how-to video, or surveys through email marketing. Once you have built an audience continue to build off that information with Google Analytics with your Website, Google Ads, Social Ads, and interactions from other digital marketing avenues. You can use data to help inform future projects. 

3. Choose Formats Popular with Your Target Market 

Short-form video is popular with young gen z and millennials, but not every piece of content must be in this format to get views. Look at different content styles on the social media platforms you are on. For example, on Instagram carousels often get high engagement rates. Your business could create a “what to bring to ______” post. Then include branded items and include “anything we missed?” statement at the end to encourage interaction. May sure to switch post types a few times a week so existing followers don’t get bored. 

4. Create Immersive Content 

With new technologies you can create or integrate exciting digital experiences on your website and social media accounts. VR, augmented reality, and Google Maps are a few ways to this. Since you are in the travel industry, this is a great way to create sneak peeks of tours, trips, or products in use. You want to entice the client to stay and interact with what your company has to offer. If create a positive and exciting experience online, they are more likely to trust and choose you over a generic company. 

5. Create a Unique Style

With competitive research you may be tempted to recreate popular layouts and slap your logo on it. At best you could lose potential clients due to brand confusion, at worst, you are accused of plagiarism and get into legal trouble. Make sure you are adding and changing up photos, videos, motion graphics, and body copy tone of voice to create something that is identifiable uniquely to your company. Not only will you stand out from the crowd, but you will create trust with your audience.  

Need help creating effective branded content? Call 248.528.3600

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1. Data-Driven Marketing

Data is always important when making informed decisions, but reports are not always brought to marketing meetings. This is changing in 2023. Successful marketing involves research and numbers as well as creativity and uniqueness. Using tools like Google Analytics to track and collect data from your website, Google Ads, PPC ads, email surveys, social media, and other digital marketing avenues helps inform what areas your marketing team needs to focus on. Going into meetings with reports and findings can create better connection between your design and sales time. It can also save time during meetings because the data will guide the conversation so your marketing team can create item truly tailor for you target market. 

2. A Rise in Video Content 

Long-form video such as tutorials, essays on industry topics, or webinars are becoming popular amongst b2b communications. They are a great way to show off your topical knowledge and build your industry authority. Going live through video platforms, such as YouTube helps foster community and allows you target audience to know that there are real people behind your company. You can answer any questions clients have about your product or service and discover knowledge from other experts in your industry. Short-form videos are good for business quick tips, sneak peaks, and announcements. These are good to post on social media to quickly grab the attention of your audience. They also do not take too much time out of your day, which is important for busy business owners and employees. 

3. Dark Social Prevention 

Dark social refers to when people share website links through email, SMS, and private messages on social media. These links do not have tracking codes automatically appended, so it is not possible to know how the website visitor found the content. As a result, it hard to measure attribution which can make hard to know which platform needs marketing attention or is effective. It can also make it difficult to educate your buyers about your product or service. B2B buyers like to research and self-discover before contacting a sales agent. They want to learn, compare, and review product options well before speaking to sales. You want marketing to drive funnel conversions through smart use and encouraging of direct contact instead of platform avenues. 

4. AI Utilization 

While AI technologies are controversial in terms of art creation and body copy creation, there are other ways to use AI tech that are timesaving.

• Personalized shopping creates recommendation engines through which you can engage better with your customers. 

• Virtual assistants and chatbots help improve the user experience while shopping online. 

• AI can help reduce the possibility of credit card frauds taking place.

• On Instagram, AI considers your likes and the accounts you follow to determine what posts you are shown on your explore tab. 

• Facebook AI is used along with a tool called DeepText.  It can understand conversations and can be used to translate posts from different languages automatically.

• AI can deliver highly targeted and personalized ads with the help of behavioral analysis, and pattern recognition, etc. It also helps with retargeting audiences.

• AI chatbots can effectively resolve customer issues, respond to simple inquiries, improve customer service, and provide 24/7 support on your website and social media. 

5. Lead Nurturing 

The process of engaging potential customers and helping them become a sale requires nurturing, especially if you are in an area where the economy is in a tight spot. Drip marketing campaigns in the form of sending out automated emails over the course of several weeks or months is one way to nurture a potential client relationship. With business clients being every busy it is important to stay in contact with potential client to close the sale. When the sale is done, you are still not finished. Add them to your email list and offering deals or notifying them about sales will help them keep your company top of mind for other product and services. 

 Create an effective B2B marketing plan with us today. Call 248.528.3600

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1. Keep a Consistent Post Schedule 

Viewers like to hang around a certain platform at a certain time. Ideally it would be great to post the exact moment your audience in on the Instagram app. Research the most likely times your target audience is on the platform. These are more likely to be ranges, rather than exact times. Publish posts 2-3 times daily based on those time ranges. For example, you are a selling backpack for students at the age of 10-12. You target audience is their parent. Good times to post would be 10 am – 12 pm for stay-at-home parents and 5 pm – 7 pm for parents off work. Post somewhere during these two post ranges to capture the attention of these potential customers. You can either use automatic posting software or you can hire a digital marketing agency to help keep up with schedules if you are struggling to post consistently. 

2. Create a Variety of Graphicly Appealing Posts 

Images, carousals, and short-form videos are all different types of post you can create for Instagram to keep your feed interesting. Create posts that entertain, educate, motivates, and sells your product or service. Make sure the design of your post follows these design principles:

• Contrast 
• Balance 
• Emphasis 
• Proportion 
• Hierarchy 
• Repetition 
• Rhythm 
• Pattern 
• Space 
• Movement 
• Variety & Unity 

Canva is a great resource for templated designs but beware by using templates you risk not standing out from competitors. You may need professional designers from a digital marketing agency or a social media marketing agency to help create uniquely branded content. 

3. Foster a Community-Based Relationship

To build a community around your business you need to be tagging influencers or complementary business, commenting on other Instagram accounts, replying to your followers, keeping track of your analytics, and incorporating the correct hashtags in your posts. This means setting aside time for research on various Instagram feeds for what are the most popular hashtags, post types with the most engagement, and more. If you are an entrepreneur or a small business, you may be able to set a side 1 full day dedicated to this. However, if you are a growing company or a large enterprise you need a full team managing your social media accounts. You can either build an internal team or look for a digital marketing agency that offers social media management services. 

Need help managing you Instagram account? Call 248.528.3600

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 Avoid keyword stuffing for SEO

 Avoid plagiarizing body copy 

Avoid pulling images straight off Google & stealing artwork 

Avoid spamming email marketing

Avoid posting only selling content on social media 

Avoid AI generated content if unfamiliar with the tools & copyright laws 

 Avoid prioritizing traditional marketing over digital 

Avoid not proof-reading social copy 

Avoid hiding cost for ecommerce 

Avoid making hard to cancel subscriptions 

Avoid inconsistent branding 

Avoid vague creative goals 

Avoid ignoring data tracking 

Avoid these tactics by working with us! Call 248.528.3600

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1. Use referral emails

2. Highlight good reviews 

3. Allow customers to send a text message inquiry

4. Have multiple ways to contact you (chat bots, website, phone number, & social media) 

5. Run a paid search ad or Google Ad

6. Update Google My Business Profile 

7.  Attend a tradeshow or local fair

8. Sponsor a team, organization, or charity 

9. Run a new paid social campaign 

10. Build an email list through company blog, newsletter, & coupon codes

11. Use QR codes on business cards & social posts 

12. Refer customers to complementary businesses 

13. Join a networking group

14. Participate in local community events & gatherings

Start a user-researched web project today? Call 248.528.3600

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1. Perform Competitive Research & Find Relevant Keywords

Look at your competition to see what their successes and mistakes are. See if any successful design elements or body copy tone that can be tailored to your unique company brand. By researching their negative reviews, you can avoid any obvious mistakes that have already been done by other companies your similar industry. Also use Google’s Keyword Planner to discover search engine friendly keywords you can use in your website’s headings and body copy. Incorporating relevant keywords will not only separate you from the competition but increase your value to Search Engines like Google and your potential clients searching from products or services like yours. 

2. Optimize Your Website’s Content for Mobile

Most searches come from users on their phone. Google also uses mobile-first indexing that prioritizing mobile-friendly design. If you want rank higher on SERPs, your website must be responsive and load fast. While most web templates come already responsive, it is still wise to check on your phone to see if any content or photos gets cut off or if your website loads slow. You may need help from a digital marketing agency if you can’t fix any cut off content on your own or if the template you chose is buggy and loads slowly. 

3. Set up Google Search Console

 Google Search Console is a tool that allows you to submit your website to be indexed, as well as view data about your website’s traffic and performance. This is useful for successful long-term SEO plans, digital marketing, and performance of your website. It allows you to view items such as user click-through rate and other performance elements. You can also keep track of any site errors that will help keep your website functioning optimally and prevent unsafe web practices. The data you gather will help you create comprehensive plans that don’t waste your money and maximize you ROI. 

4. Create a Sitemap and Submit It 

A sitemap contains a list of all the pages on your website in a single file. If you have a sitemap, this helps search engines index your website quicker and easier. Google has a tool that can help you create one or you can ask a digital marketing firm to help. It is also wise to include a link to your sitemap in your website’s footer. Once you submit your sitemap using web master tools, search engine crawlers will find your website and index for SERPs. The quicker this can be done more likely you will increase the rank of your website, thus gain more users and clients.

5. Add Structured Data Markup 

Structured data markup is a code that you can add to your website’s HTML code. It is used to help search engines understand the information on your website. This helps when trying to attract organic traffic. Structured data is a standardized format for classifying page content. For example, on a recipe page: what are the ingredients, the cooking time and temperature, the calories, etc. This will help your website become more engaging to your users leading to rich results. The more interaction users have with our website, the more value search engines register it as and keep it high on SERPs. 

Let us include a SEO plan with your new website. Call 248.528.3600

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1. User Interviews 

Go straight to the source. If you can have a one-on-one conversation with participants of your target market, then you find out directly what they want and need. While it is best to do this in person, this can also be done via virtual meeting or phone call. Pay attention to their attitudes, beliefs, behaviors, and experiences. Start will simple questions, then based on their answer go deep into the subject. If needed, have a list of pre-planned question ready, but make sure you are not too focused those questions that you don’t listen to the client. 

2. Surveys

Sometimes you only need info on a specific topic, or you need reactions after the purchase and use of your product or service. This is when you send out a survey to a large amount of your customers’ email. Make sure your email subject is clean simple and avoid all caps, you don’t want clients making the mistake of thinking your survey is a scam or spam. Keep the survey short, users are less likely to complete a long survey. If you want to provide an extra incentive by offering a discount to your store if they complete the survey. 

3. Focus Groups 

Gather a small sample group of your target market to discuss your product, service, or experience. Let them share their perspectives amongst themselves in a guided setting. This allows you to gain insights into the nuances and different types of views as individuals. This is especially useful when tailoring products, services, and experiences for individual clients, not just a whole demographic. Include a moderator so that they stay on topic and that they don’t influence each other too much. 

4. A/B Testing 

If you have 2 designs for your project, you can test them against each other. You can use live users or use A/B testing tools that can analyze your design and determine which your target market will gravitate to more. This is useful for designs that are similar but have a minor difference or the information is presented in a different order. If results come back overwhelming to 1 version, you can scrap the other. If your results are nearly even, you can chalk it up to personal preference and merge the two or provide personalized settings for the end user to allow them more control. 

5. Card Sorting 

This method can help determine items like website architecture. You break your products or services into categories. Using virtual or physical cards, assign each card an individual product or service. Provide them to the user and ask them to sort the cards into groups. The groups can be based on criteria based on user preference for example color, size, etc. This helps you identify patterns in what user views, which indicates what a user will like search when looking for a product or service like yours. You can then organize your website based on the results leading to the exact user experience your target market wants. 

6. Tree Test

Findability and usability of website content can be tested with the tree test method. This can be used as a follow up from the card sorting method or it can be used when you have large amounts of content, have multiple navigation options, or are updating your existing website. The tree test method involves asking participants to find specific items starting from the home page to the contact page. You give no indication of what the internal navigation or call-to-action buttons are but are allowed a few hints. This helps understand how users find and interact with your web content. 

Start a user-researched web project today? Call 248.528.3600

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1. Set up exclusive offers 

2. Use email marketing 

3. Update old web content 

4. Use PPC ads or Google Ads

5. Optimize your website for mobile devices

6. Invest in SEO services

7. Live-stream videos

8. Create short-form videos

9. Partner up with an influencer 

10. Use local search marketing (Google My Business) 

11. Integrate social media to your website

12. Use Google Analytics to track web visits & other data

13. Create a landing page 

14. Retarget your ads

15. Chop up long-form content into short-term content

16. Update or upgrade plugins & software 

17. Set up holiday calendar for the rest of the year

18. Send out digital coupons

19. Network with your local community or journalists 

20. Reshare popular posts 

21. Build a company blog 

22. Start a company podcast 

23. Highlight good reviews 

24. Create branded icons for your website 

25. Send out a quality service survey 

Need help starting these strategies? Call 248.528.3600

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1. Create a New Year post for social media 

2. Launch a new product or service 

3. Use Google Ads to help with specific marketing goals

4. Update your branding & website

5. Sponsor a charity event 

6. Offer a New Year’s sales discount 

7. Promote referral programs

8. Create a gift guide based on new year’s resolutions

9. Participate in festivals & events

10. Create a snappy email marketing campaign 

11. Launch a giveaway

12. Share popular purchases from the previous year

13. Host a New Year Event 

14. Highlight loyal customers 

15. Run a contest 

16. Share company New Year’s resolutions 

17. Blend digital marketing with traditional marketing campaigns 

18. Partner with complementary businesses

Need help create New Year content? Call 248.528.3600 

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