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. 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. 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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According to Google’s marketing retail guide, 40% of U.S. holiday shoppers say their holiday shopping experience has made them consider shopping much earlier for other milestones this year. This means your holiday gifts offers, specials, and other deals should be ready a couple months in advance. With consumers combining online and in-store shopping, preparing an omnichannel holiday strategy early will be critical to reaching shoppers along their purchase journeys. Have both your supply chain and digital marketing plan ready before November. 

If fact, it might be best to have new strategy right after the current holiday ends. According to the guide, June 2021 reported 31% of U.S. shoppers had already started their holiday shopping and 37% of shoppers who shopped the previous holiday season wished they had started earlier. During COVID-19 and currently, a lot of business’s supply chains had stock issues, causing over 50% of U.S. shoppers surveyed to say that they would start holiday shopping earlier to avoid an item being out of stock. This is especially important if you are an ecommerce business or a product-based company. Several suggestions from Google to include in a marketing strategy are:

• Use the Insights page in Google Ads and best sellers report to keep up with consumer demand. 
• Notify customers with promotions, sales, free and fast shipping options, and return and refund options directly to your product listings.
• Create a Business Profile and run a Local campaign to connect with local shoppers. 

If you are struggling with any of these items Miller Media can help with Google Ads and provides Google Analytics Consulting to create a marketing strategy that is successful. 

Multichannel Shopping is the Main Way People Shop

Omnichannel or multichannel shopping has led to only 4% of U.S. holiday shoppers not using digital channels for their shopping according to the retail guide. This means have a digital presence is a requirement for your business. Have a website, create social media accounts, and GoogleMyBusiness Profile for your business. If you are missing one or more of these avenues and can’t manage them yourself a digital marketing agency can help you. Also, convenience is key for people around the holidays. Minimize stress for last-minute shoppers, who rely on local and nearby stores. In Google Maps, searches for “gift shops near me” have grown globally by over 60% year over year. Make sure your on-page and off-page SEO is effective, so new or returning customers will see you first on Google’s results page. Other ways Google suggests helping shoppers see your business is with: 

• A Performance Max campaign, and through your app (if you have one) by deep linking to reach the right customers. 
• Smart Bidding for store visits or store sales. 
• Listing your products for free across Google Shopping 
• Local inventory ads and adding  Pointy  to your Business Profile to reach nearby customers by promoting available inventory. 

People Use Google for Holiday Inspiration

Google states that 43% of U.S. holiday shoppers that used Google said they did so to get gift ideas, and 64% said they did so for discovery and inspiration. This is very important for retailers. Search visibility is critical to capturing these shoppers. Include gift guides in your company’s blog. In addition, promote your products to your target audience at the right time across Google surfaces, like Search, YouTube, Gmail, and the Shopping tab. This takes SEO, website optimization, PPC, Google Ad creation, social media marketing, and other digital marketing services. All this can be overwhelming to maintain. If you are struggling to market your business while trying to run it, let the team here at Miller Media do it for you. 

Need help preparing for future holiday marketing strategies? Call 248.528.3600.

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A Mission Statement 

What is the goal that you want your company to achieve? What value does your products or services have for the public? This should be a statement the drives your company to continue to function. Think about what problem your company solves and how would you make lives or society easier with your product or service. This statement can be broad.

A Vision Statement 

How do you see your company maneuvering with the business word? What type of business do you appear as? Your vision statement should be purposeful. This is what keep stakeholders and employees interested staying with your company. Think about where your business will be long term. This statement often relies on internal goals for your company and helps drive decision making. Keep this statement specific and short. 

A Target Audience Description

Who is your product or service for? A useful way to narrow down who you want to sell to is to use one or more Buyer Persona profiles. The most common way to use buyer personas is to break it up into Primary Buyer (person who will love your product and recommend it frequently), Secondary Buyer (person who likes your product, but is less like to recommend your product and may return on rare occasions) and Negative Buyer (someone who does want, like or need your product). The profile usually consists of:

• Sex or gender identity (optional) 
• Income (helps in pricing)
• Lifestyle
• Daily tasks
• Likes & dislikes
• Other brands they are interested in 

Your Brand Personality 

How do you want the feel of company to come off to potential clients? Are you chilled and laid-back or are you serious and urgent? Look up adjectives that others would use to describe your company. The goal is to stand out in the market. Your brand personality will help inform your packaging, photos or illustrations, color pallet and other graphic elements to help market your product or service. 

Your Core Values 

Break down the beliefs your company has into simple words. These words are guide for behavior you want your employees to follow and brand to extrude. For example, you are gym and your company’s goals are to make exercise fun. Some core values you might come with are:

• Friendliness
• Humility 
• Humor 
• Optimism 
• Encouraging 

Let us help you come up with a brand style guide. Call 248.528.3600.

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What are Some Best Practices to Avoid Clickbait? 

Google’s algorithms can understand the content on your site and will check if it matches its headline and page title, so it is vital that you pay attention to your word structure. Google’s Page Title Update back in 2001 enables the search engine to display a “replacement” title tag when your page’s title does not accurately match its content. Make sure to check your page title and headers that they accurately represent what your content is about.

How to Create SEO-Friendly Titles & Headings

Start by doing keyword research. This can help you discover target keywords that you can include in your web page’s title, headings, and body copy. Using your target keywords throughout your content signals to Google that your page is relevant to your target keyword. You can use Google’s Keyword Planner to discover relevant or related keywords to target with your content and ads or hire a digital marketing agency with SEO services. Once you have your keywords, it’s important to implement them into your content. Include your target keywords in your page title and headings. Make sure you proofread to find and fix keyword stuffing in your content. Your goal is to make it friendly to web crawlers and readers. Pretend that you are a 5^th grade teacher and write your article in a simple manner. For your content’s semantically related keywords make sure to also check readability, page title meta descriptions, and backlinks.  

Successfully Match the User’s Search Intent

There are 4 types of user intent you can tailor your content to. Let’s take a look:

• Navigational Intent

When a user wants to navigate to or around a specific website of a specific company, they will likely add branded keywords in their search (ex. “Starbucks website”). Target these branded keywords with ads to increase brand awareness.

• Informational Intent

When users want more information on a certain topic. They might ask questions or use keywords that indicate they’re looking for help (ex. “Where can I get a pumpkin spice latte?”). Target keywords with informative content, like videos, lists, infographics, blog, and tutorials. Focus on creating useful, actionable content that answers your readers’ questions. This also may help lessen the number of common questions your potential client needs to ask, quickening the path to purchase.

• Commercial Investigation Intent

Once a user decides they want to purchase a product or service from your company, they will likely perform a search to compare the different options available (ex. “Starbucks vs Tim Hortons.”) Target keywords with comparison articles of your competition, reviews of the use of similar products/services, and how-to guides to capture web traffic. 

• Transactional Intent

Certain keywords or phrases signal that a user is ready to buy (ex. “Add to Order”). Users are ready to buy and are now searching for the best price value or deal. They are more likely to be susceptible to clickbait while looking for the best deals. Be extra careful when creating discounts or being transparent with your pricing. Make sure if it has an expiration date it is easily readable or if it is a subscription the yearly or month payment is accurate. Target keywords with strong, SEO-friendly content that highlights your unique selling proposition. Also target these keywords with ads, but make sure your CTA is clear, precise, and your landing page reflects what is in the ad. 

Avoid clickbait SEO practice and call us at 248.528.360. 

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1. Send a Pitch to a Journalist

Writing an email that includes your bio and a link to your website is the bare minimum. Think about what the journalist might want to write about in relation to your company or industry. For example, if Halloween is coming up, you might they be considering content themed around the getting ready for the holiday or Fall/Autumn? Say you sell furniture, you could pitch a few of your own creations as suitable additions to shopping guides the journalist might be pull together for the season.

2. Research the Publication & See What They Typically Feature

Do you have a favorite magazine or news outlet you subscribe to? Get to know the magazine or piece of media you can see content about your product or service in. Certain publications have inspiration pieces. Think about how they write them and match the tone. Journalists are busy and juggling lots of items, so make their life easier by sending them a text-rich, well-informed pitch deck along with everything they need like photos and logo files. If they have a submission page, follow their instructions to a “T”. The less correcting they have to do the more likely they will work with you now and in the future. 

3. Make Your About Page “Journalist & New User Friendly”

When trying to find out about a business to write about, one of the first things users do is click on the About page of their website. If they can’t find the information, they need they will back out of your website altogether. Here are the items that put users and potential journalist off and that you need to fix right away: 

• Not including your full business name
• Not including your location or locations you serve
• Not having a professional photograph of your business or its work 
• Not including an email address and/or contact form
• Not making it obvious that media enquiries are welcome (encourage questions)
• Not providing enough information about your background or history (how did your business come to be)

Make sure to add in details to make life easier for anyone hoping to write or interview you. If need to deliberately avoid some of the above features due to privacy concerns have a FAQ section or add a sentence that says, “For media enquiries, a professional bio, and a full portfolio please email us directly.”, then add a way for them to contact you. 

4. Become “Podcast Ready” 

Podcasts continue to grow in popularity for all kinds of industries. Buy a half-decent microphone and headphones. Let your internal marketing team up with your sales team to create media and graphic content. Also, on your About page say how you have everything needed for a quality broadcast and that you are open to podcast interviews with others in your industry or any media outlets willing to talk about your product or service. 

5. Add a Case Study Page  

Say your company launched a new product or service for a client and it was a complete success.  Create a nice case study that goes in dept about the problem and how your product or service solved it. Bonus if you can add a client testimonial. Then add it to your website. Make sure to create the visuals for all your social media accounts and link them to your new case study page. This help builds credibility and authority to your business. Potential clients have more reasons to trust you vs other companies that don’t have case studies. 

6. Spend 15 Minutes a Day Engaging with People

Social media gets a bad rep when it comes to discourse, but it doesn’t have to be a war zone. Take as few as 15 minutes liking or sharing people’s tweets, commenting on clients’ updates, and reaching out to brands you’d love to work with. This helps to build a network as well as raise your own profile. By being active on social media, you are opening doors and creating more avenues for brand awareness. 

7. Optimize When You Post 

Know when it is the right time to tweet, add an Instagram post or share a LinkedIn update. The algorithms are difficult to figure out because they are always changing. So, the best way to approach this is by analyzing your own feeds and seeing when you have had the best engagement. It is also a good idea to research when your target demographic in on the platform. For example, if you are selling to mothers. Avoid posting at early hours when they are taking their kids to school. To make life easier, schedule updates during the best times for you. Use an automation tool to schedule and publish your tweets and posts whilst you are doing something else or hire an agency that provide social media marketing services. 

8. Ask Clients if They Want to Stay Informed Via a Newsletter

Build your own subscriber list. Never rely on social media platforms alone. People take breaks or leave social media all the time. If a platform disappears, you still have connection to loyal customers. If you have your own newsletter to send out to people, you are in control. Create a well-designed monthly newsletter and include things like your latest product, service, or industry news. Include links to recent blog posts that demonstrate your wealth of knowledge. People are more likely to check email daily and there is a high chance they will open it every month. Include spaces on your website where they can sign up. WordPress has widgets and tools you can use. Mailchimp is also a good option to get start with due to it being free based on 2,000 contacts. 

9. Write a Blog

Speaking of a blog, add a blog to your domain and not as a separate site. Each blog post is a new landing page, enticing potential clients to you. Write about problems or questions potential clients might have. Users like to Google questions and if create a great piece of informative long-form content Google might show your business directly to them. Use it to educate, compare to competitors, and share industry insights with viewers. You can also use it to foster b2b relationships. You can share and interview other complementary businesses. This will strength your relationship and if you need to partner up on a project, they are more likely to say yes with enthusiasm. 

Need help integrating PR into your marketing strategy? Call 248.528.360

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1. Build Your Mailing List

Your email must be shared by users of their own free-will. Forms such as “subscribe”, “contact”, “become a member” are good examples to have on your website. When you collect their data include name, date, email, birthday or month, and any more pieces of info tailored to benefit them. Be careful not to violate privacy policies. To not come off as a scam, it best to give something in return for the info. Examples include discount codes, free eBook, or member-exclusive video. Remember to ALWAYS have an option of unsubscribing from your email list. It is illegal to send marketing emails without the opportunity to disengage.

2. Select an Email Service Provider (ESP) 

The old-fashioned way is to collect email addresses, add them to your contacts list under a label, and send email newsletters that way. This is time-consuming, inefficient, and you could be missing out on some fantastic online services that will increase your business efficiency. Here is the top 7 ESP used according to wpbeginner:

• Constant Contact
• SendinBlue
• HubSpot
• Omnisend
• Drip
• ConvertKit
• MailChimp 

3. Create a Marketing Strategy

There needs to be goals that you aim to accomplish in your email marketing plan. First start with your audience. Who are you going to be emailing? Who are you targeting to grab details to send your emails to? Knowing your audience can help you build your customer base and make sure you aren’t sending it to people who don’t need your product or service. Once you have your list and have been emailing for a while, segment your email info into groups. Organize by who engages, who opens the emails, and who clicks through. This will allow you to tailor different campaigns to your most engaged viewers. Speaking of content and goals. Are you trying to get the people who engage less to click through more? Do you want to reward the most active people on your list? Do you have news to give or a new product or service to market? Your campaigns should focus on answering these questions and be designed to accomplish these tasks.

4. Design Your Emails

Plan text on a white background won’t cut it. These emails usually end up in someone’s spam box or worse you email is reported and banned. You must add you brand colors and imagery to the email, so you look legitimate. Most modern email software in use, will also allow you to include HTML links, embed videos, and more, making it much more desirable to the end-user. Interactivity should help the potential client through the sales process. If you are struggling hirer a graphic designer or a digital marketing agency with designers to help you. 

5. Test the Email Systems

Before you send ANYTHING, test that it works. This also includes any automation you’ve set up. Here is a checklist of items to go through before you send to customers:

 Subscribe to your service and see if your free offer works.

 Set a test list with five or so emails with different browsers or different email software systems.

 Send the emails and then read them to find spelling or grammatical errors you may have missed.

 See if the emails work on mobile devices as well.

6. Implement Email Automation

If everything is working and you are quickly gaining more emails, it is time to start automating simple tasks. Have a welcome email, thank you email, the gift, and the multi-step EDM campaign all automated. This will free you from micro-managing email marketing and open up your time schedule to work on other more productive and profitable things with your business.

Too busy for email marketing? Let us do it for you! Call 248.528.360 

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1. Collect Detailed Demographic Data

Ask “Do customers even want this project?” or “How does my product/service meet my customers’ expectations? After that, do market research on who might need your product or service. Discover their daily habits and compare them to your product or service. Think about in what way will it help improve their lives. UX focuses on getting to know a specific demographic and building a product/service that will enrich and engage those users. The goal should be to get them to purchase initially and continually engage with your business. Use Google Analytics and keep track of who is already visiting your website pages to start. Look for their location (do get more local engagement or distant engagement?), age, gender (including non-conforming), profession, and lifestyle (what other items or brands do they purchase from).  

2. Build Strong Customer Relationships 

UX incorporates extensive knowledge of the customers to gain an understanding of why they use the products or services they do. This helps you build what customers need, as well as what they want. Getting to know the habits and expectations of your target audience means you can speak to them more easily. Hit specific messaging points that will bring them into harmony with your company’s mission. Social media and information sharing define consumer tastes. So, if you get stuck don’t be afraid to ask directly through email surveys or social media polls or questions. These two effective marketing avenues could be considered a successful user experience in themselves. 

3. Create an In-Depth Competitive Analysis

Examine the landscape of products and services that users may choose to use instead of yours. It is vital for creating the right set of features that will make your business different from similar brands or services. You want to fill in the gap that your industry has yet to solve. This type of analysis helps your marketing team recognize what features resonate with potential consumers, and therefore should be emphasized in your marketing material. Start with a framework to guide your assessment. Frameworks usually include these items:

• Mission
• Elevator pitch
• Products offered
• Strengths
• Weaknesses
• Brand differentiators

After establishing a framework, select targets based on what other options your customers have. Prioritize which competing businesses you want to keep a close eye on and those that currently offer a product or service most like yours. You want to monitor them in the long term. Also be on the lookout for partnership opportunities with your competitors. Sometimes your strengths and weaknesses balance each other out. 

4. Make Sure There is Adherence to a Core Idea 

Your product or service must serve its central goal. Every feature and interface element needs to serve the core of the product/service. Follow good UX practices, like staying true to your core messaging at all your company’s brand touch points. From your website and offline to social media, your marketing material must look like it belongs to your company while simultaneously relating to you target viewers. Regularly audit your marketing material to make sure every piece has purpose and is fulfilling the mission of your company. If you are busy, start with hiring a digital marketing agency once a year to consult and discuss your marketing material. They can help with one area of your marketing that you are neglecting, or they can simply provide thoughtful questions to help you improve your client’s experience. 

Let us help include thoughtful UX into your business’s marketing strategy! Call 248.528.360

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