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

The post 6 Useful User Research Methods appeared first on Miller Media, Digital Marketing Agency, PPC, Industrial Web Design, WordPress.

Post and Advertise on Social Media 

Create a feed that is festive and fun. If you sell products supply gift guides. If you are a service-based company create a joyous atmosphere around your services. Contests and give aways are popular during the season because people are hoping to get a least one free gift for someone this year. Make sure the contest or give away is fun and rememberable that way the client will be encouraged to purchase something from your brand in the future. Take group photos of your company being charitable and giving back to your local community. 

Organize or Attend a Value-Added Sales Event 

Invite groups of people to your store for an exclusive sales event or attend a festival where there is a high influx of people holiday shopping. Both ways let you meet new customers and local business owners you may partner up with in the future. These person-to-person meetings allow you to create a positive experience for customers that they will remember off the holiday season, thus building brand loyalty and trust. 

Decorate Your Website 

Whether you are strictly a small online shop or a small local brick-and-mortar shop, it is fun to decorate your website. Having a holiday vide will get people in the mood and brighten their day. Add a Santa hat to your logo or any other item associated with holidays celebrated at this time. Add falling snow to your website or create a fun cursor to grab visitors’ attention. These will increase retention rates and increasing the likelihood of visitor purchasing an item. 

 Celebrate Small Business Saturday

Across your social media use #smallbusinesssaturday to promote your business. Many towns have various promotions such as special events, advertising gimmicks, and public relations initiatives to take advantage of. While this year it was on November 26^th, some locations celebrate this year-round. Use Saturday during holidays to promote your most popular sales item and be on the lookout for holiday specials you can offer based on your local Saturday activities. Don’t forget to update your Google Business profile with holiday hours and events. 

It is not too late to start holiday marketing. Call 248.528.3600.

The post Ways Small Business Can Leverage Holiday Marketing  appeared first on Miller Media, Digital Marketing Agency, PPC, Industrial Web Design, WordPress.

Logo

Your company logo is needed so that visitors know that it is your company website that they are on. Make sure your logo is visible at a small size and that the colors are in RGB (digital colors). If you have an old logo, it may be time for a re-design by a professional design agency. If you have an illustrative one or one with a lot of detail, you may need to simplify or have your logo visible embedded in your top image. Be aware that if you have it embedded in your top image it could mean for future images your logo must be visible or you will have to forgo sliders or videos where the logo isn’t there. Logos in the header are often hyperlinked to take the user back to the home page. 

Navigation Menu 

Whether you have individual links to each page, a mega menu, or a hamburger menu, you need to have a way for users to navigate your website. Usually access to a navigation menu is at the top. There are some exceptions to the rule like side menus, but those are usually reserved for apps where users will swipe to access the navigation. Before designing your website, it is ideal to have a sitemap where you can figure out how many pages you need and how they will be maneuvered. This will inform what type of navigation to use. 

Call To Action 

You want to encourage users to take the next step in the sale process. CTAs that are usually at the top-right of your webpage are:

• Company phone number
• Email Us Icon/Link
• Contact Us Page
• Request a Quote Page
• Support Link

Search Bar 

A search bar is needed if you have a large website with a lot of products, services, or information. Distributor websites will have a search bar at the top of their website so users can type in the brand they want, and it will directly pop up. The users will not have to go into layers of webpages to hunt down what they want. This will prevent clients from giving up on your website and bouncing out. A simple search bar can improve click-through-rates and improve the user experience of your website. 

Ecommerce Icons 

 If your business is ecommerce, then you need icons your user can use to complete the purchase and continue for future purchases. These icons are: 

• Login/My Account icon
• Add to Cart icon 
• Add to Wish List icon
• A Like/Favorite icon
• A Share icon 

Need help fixing your web design? Call 248.528.3600.

The post Items Your Website Header Needs  appeared first on Miller Media, Digital Marketing Agency, PPC, Industrial Web Design, WordPress.

1. Keep the Number of Fonts Used at a Minimum

Resist using more than 3 different types of fonts for your website. If you use too many it runs the risk of looking like a broken site, which in turn, leads to high bounce-rates. Usually there is one font used for heading, one for body copy, and one for your main home display image. You may have seen fancy websites that have a bunch of fonts and look cool, but those clusters of fonts are usually images and are not meant to be read. They often don’t have any important info about the company’s product or service. 

2. Use Standard Fonts 

If you are wondering “how can you tell what type of fonts you can use for web?” Well, Google Web Fonts and Typekit have you covered. They have downloadable fonts that are guaranteed safe for web usage. Whether you are custom coding or using a web template from a site like WordPress these fonts can be integrated. Keep in mind the other rules mentioned and not get too crazy with downloading too many fonts. 

3. Limit the Number of Lines 

If you have a have a lot of content you want to share, make sure to limit the number lines of text. A wall of text can easily tire out a user. A general rule is to break up paragraphs every 6-8 sentences and break up paragraphs with supporting graphics. Different types of fonts can also eat up width space so before going live test out your website on different browser, screens, and mobile devices.  

4. Choose a Typeface That Works Well in Various Sizes

Sometimes all you need is one font that comes in regular, bold, and italic. Find a font that has different weights, and you can use it for your body copy and headings. This will allow for easy contrast, and you don’t have to worry about mixing up fonts. 

5. Use Fonts with Distinguishable Letters

Certain fonts make letters too indistinguishable. Take the word “Illusion”. Can you tell which the capital “I” and which is the lowercase “l”? If your target market has vision problems or doesn’t use English as their first language you may want to find a clearer font. You are more likely to find fonts with distinguishable letters if your search for “serif fonts”.

6. Avoid All Caps

If you have a short headline or one word that you to emphasize using all caps it is fine. Avoid using all caps for any sentence longer than 3 words. Not only is it hard to read, but it looks like you are “yelling” at the user. Depending on what you are selling this can be a huge turn off. For example, you are selling psych services for people with anxiety. Which sentence looks more inviting:

“We here to help you calm down. Our company deals with patients with anxiety get back to living their lives.”

Or

“WE HERE TO HELP YOU CALM DOWN. OUR COMPANY DEALS WITH PATIENTS WITH ANXIETY GET BACK TO LIVING THEIR LIVES.”

7. Have a Reasonable Space Between Lines

In paragraphs spaces between lines, it is possible to be too tight or too far away. Usually, your template or code will default to even spacing, but you still want to check on mobile and other computer devices. If lines are running into each other or are too far away that they don’t look like the info is together, then this will negatively impact the user experience. 

8. Have Color Contrast

No light text on a light background and no dark text on dark background. If your logo or brand colors involve hard to read colors incorporate a neutral color (black, white, grey) into the web design. Neutral colors rarely destroy brand consistency. It is very important for text, especially if you want users to read it, to be in color that the majority of the population can see. 

9. Avoid Coloring Text in Red or Green

Speaking of hard to read text colors, red and green. Individuals that are colorblind cannot read red or green text, especially if it small. Avoid at all costs for body copy. You might be able to get away with large headings if your background is white, but it is best to avoid these colors. If these are your brand colors, incorporate them into the graphics instead. 

10. Avoid Using Blinking Text

While it fun to use flashing text for social media marketing or online ads, it is best to avoid on your actual website. Flashes or flickers can cause headaches or worse trigger seizures in certain individuals prone to seizures. Users want to able to read important info without interruption.   

Let us create a type-friendly website for you. Call 248.528.3600.

The post 10 Web Type Tips to Attract Viewers appeared first on Miller Media, Digital Marketing Agency, PPC, Industrial Web Design, WordPress.

1. Why are you rebranding? 

You could be in one of the situations mentioned above or there might be other reason you want to rebrand you company. Here are some common reasons companies rebrand:

• Branch Out Internationally
• New Mission or Main Goal for the Company
• Internal and external brand are not aligned 
• New Owner
• Product or Services has changed 
• Your target changed age or interest
• Name change 
• Tech industry change (how brand in consumed)
• Scandal repair 

2. What is your brand’s goal?

How do you want to reposition yourself in the market? Everyone wants to increase sales but be specific in your goal. Do you want the rebrand to focus on attracting a certain demographic to a certain product or service? For example, you are a clothing company who previous sold casual cloths for the public, but now you want to upgrade to sell luxury lounge wear for specially women. You will have to research and create goals around attracting middle-to-upper class women who enjoy lounge wear. 

3. Is your current brand outdated? 

This is more of a problem for companies that have been around for a long time, but small companies can also fall for outdated graphics if they don’t have an internal marketing team. Print used to be the primary source of advertising, so a lot of old logos can be geared towards fitting those standards. Also, old computer graphics and websites from the early day of internet may still be in use if you don’t have anyone maintaining your website. This can cost you clients due to them thinking you are not around anymore or worse your old website can be a security risk due to hacking of old PHP code. Updating you brand can create trust among new and existing clients. It will also indicate that you are up to date with current standards of your industry and technology.

4. What marketing strategies will help support a rebrand? 

Speaking of digital and print marketing, what avenues will you new graphics appear on? Think about all the place your brand needs to be represented on. Common marketing materials are: 

• Social Media Ads + Profiles
• Website 
• Google Ads 
• Google My Business Profile
• Business Cards
• Letterheads
• Outdoor + Indoor Signage 
• Clothing
• Tradeshow Banners
• Product Packaging 
• Photography or Illustrations

5. How long will a rebrand take?

Depending on how much research needs to be done rebrands take a long time. It evolves a lot of research of human behavior and interests as well as designing of different marketing materials. If you are losing salesand need change right away go ahead and rebrand. It is more of a guaranty that success will occur and leads to fast results. If you are doing good, but pivoting to a different demographic, maybe slow down and stay in the research phase a little longer before rebranding your marketing material. You may discover that a rebrand is not needed or that you could start a separate business. 

6. How much should your budget be? 

If you do the marketing research yourself and create graphics in a free generator it should cost, you next to nothing. However, this might not be good thing. Maintaining your brand may turn out difficult as you need more graphics to continue advertising. That also may deter you from more important task related to running your business. An effective rebrand done by a digital marketing agency starts at $30,000. If you’re a small business this may seem high, and you may get away with upgrading your logo for $2,000 and having your internal marketing team do the rest but consider saving for more advanced services in the future. 

Ready to rebrand your company? Call 248.528.3600.

The post 6 Questions to Ask Before You Rebrand Your Business  appeared first on Miller Media, Digital Marketing Agency, PPC, Industrial Web Design, WordPress.

Perfect for a quick website audit, Grow My Store gives a comprehensive report on your website. That report includes competitive benchmarking, recommendations, and tailored insights to help you optimize your customer/user experience. You should also check out Test My Site for developer-friendly tips on boosting site speed. It is important to have a fast-loading website to decrease bounce rate. Any corrections suggested may require you to hire a professional web agency for help. 

Do you have an app version of your company’s website? App campaigns help reach mobile shoppers and encourages them to make a purchase, or take action, for example, installing the app itself. Embedding deep links provides better mobile experiences by taking your app users from your ads directly to the corresponding app page of your app. This is key to the customer journey and the path to purchase. It makes it easier for them to complete their desired action, which is essential for good user experience.

Showcase Product Information Across Google

On Google, the Shopping tab helps to showcase your products across many places where customers turn to shop and directly integrates your product within an ad experience. You can increase your exposure at no cost by listing your products on Merchant Center or directly through your e-commerce platform such as WooCommerce for WordPress websites. 

With video increasing popularity, you now can include an interactive product feed directly within the ad unit to turn viewers into customers. Think of the product feed  as a way to turn your ad into a digital storefront. Well design ads that display your company’s brand properly will attract new customers and flag down existing customers to your product or service. Create a seamless path to purchase between brand awareness and the call-to-action.

Increase your click-through rates and conversions by adding information about promotions, sales, free and fast shipping options, and return and refund options directly to your product listing. Shoppers are constantly on the hunt for good deals and want to know all relevant information up front, so it is best to have these pieces of information clearly visible.  

Engage New Customers

Customers shop across multiple Google surfaces every day. Google avenues are Search, Discover, YouTube, Maps, and the Shopping tab. To grow your online sales, it’s important to know which ad campaigns are right for your target market. Reach the right person and convert them into a loyal customer with Google Ads.

Back in April, Smart Shopping and Local campaigns gained an upgrade to Performance Max campaigns. Performance Max campaigns allow you to promote your products or services across all of Google’s advertising channels and inventory by creating one easy-to-manage campaign. This should be less stressful for small businesses due to fact they now can focus on one area of Google analytics instead of multiple analytics for separate campaigns. With new ways to discover, research, and purchase, customers are engaging across an ever-growing number of channels, and it is important to appear on most of them. 

As mentioned earlier videos are big in advertising right now. A Video action campaign is a simple, cost-effective way to drive more conversions on and off your company’s YouTube channel. This campaign helps you drive engagement with your video ads by scaling them across the YouTube Home feed, watch pages, connected TV, and more with a clear call-to-action button. These are perfect for businesses that require demonstration of their product or service.  

Inspired to start a Google Ad Campaign? Call 248.528.3600.

The post Insights to Grow Your Online Shop with Google appeared first on Miller Media, Digital Marketing Agency, PPC, Industrial Web Design, WordPress.

Reward Customer After They Complete a Task 

Offer a discount code or free shipping to customers that sign up for the first time or spend X amount of dollars. This creates a positive experience and rewards customers for giving up their personal information to your business. Customers will feel they are gain a bonus in addition to the product. Create trust and build a relationship between your company’s brand and the client. Building on that trust will help increase revenue and purchase conversion in the long run because your company will be helping the client make a valuable choice. 

 Add a “Last Item Left” Label 

Exclusivity and scarcity motivate customers to decide quicker on whether to make the purchase. If an item is never coming back or not coming back for a long time, they may want to purchase the item right away, so they feel like they own something rare and unique. Most CMS websites such as WordPress call it a “Ribbon” feature that you add to your product, and it will show up at the top corner of your product image. Say something like “1 left” or “gone Oct 15”. 

Send a “Item Left in Cart” Email    

Sometimes clients like to gather products but purchase them later. This can lead them to forget what they have in their cart. Send a reminder email 2-3 days later, notifying them that they have items in their cart. A lot of email campaign plugins on websites allow you to automate this task, it is called a trigger workflow. Depending on the type of plugin, it might ask something like this: send abandon cart email every _______ days. It will also allow your business to track your web visitors’ actions. This is helpful info for when coming up with a marketing strategy to keep user retention. 

 Partner with an Influencer 

An influencer isn’t just a young famous rich person, it can also be anyone with knowledge authority. Take a local boutique shop for example. If a travel blogger gives a raving review about how much they admire your hiking boots, reach out to see it they would like a free pair in exchange that they wright an article exclusively about those boots and send to their readers. This can help increase web traffic and brand awareness. Keep in mind a lot of followers doesn’t mean those followers have purchase power. Develop a social media marketing plan to include market research and specifically target potential clients that would be interested in your product and are able to purchase it. 

 Offer Free Trial Periods 

This tip is more for software or subscription-based services. Some products clients like to try before they buy. Keep generic tools free but provide one advanced feature that make your product special and different from the competition. Don’t make too difficult to cancel. Have turn-off auto-renewal payment available in their settings. Some companies make the mistake of putting cancelation too deep in the app or website account settings and this ends up frustrating the client leaving them never to return. In addition, have a survey that you send to gain feedback on how you can improve your product. This will encourage brand loyalty and make them feel included in the creation process. 

Update your E-Commerce Website with these features. Call 248.528.360

The post E-commerce Techniques to Get Customers to Complete the Purchase appeared first on Miller Media, Digital Marketing Agency, PPC, Industrial Web Design, WordPress.

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

The post 9 Overlooked PR Tips for Businesses  appeared first on Miller Media, Digital Marketing Agency, PPC, Industrial Web Design, WordPress.

First, start off your web design by design for everyone, in other words, make sure your design is based on the basic principles of UX/UI design. Resist assuming older adults need increased font sizes or that they will be viewing your design on the iPad only. Some maybe near-sighted or far-sighted, some maybe on a laptop, phone, or desktop. Research what goes on in their daily lives and how they use their devices. This will help when you come up with a design with the goal that will direct them to your product or service. 

Secondly, for brand elements, imagery, and headlines avoid labeling everything as “Senior” and using cliché photos or illustrations. Not all old adults are bed ridden or on death’s door. Most are self-sufficient and may need a little help here or there in certain tasks. Use imagery that has them active, doing daily tasks, or using your product or service. Also avoid photos with washed out, hazy lighting. For some reason certain photographers think it portrays the “golden years’, but in reality, it looks messy and out of touch. The same can be said of chalky or pastel sketchy illustrations as well. These were fine when the newspaper was the medium but looks dated on digital devices. 

Tech illiteracy of older generations is a fallacy and myth that still proceeds, and it is annoying. People 50 and over were the first generations to adopt tech. They bought the first cell phones, played Pong, used the first Mac and Microsoft computers. They didn’t grow up touch screen natives, but that doesn’t mean they didn’t grow up exposed to certain user interfaces. Think about design that trains and builds habits of modern use. For example, the “hamburger menu” seen on mobile website is second nature to younger generations, but old generations may not know the purpose. Instead viewing is as incompetence think of way to meet them halfway. Try labeling the “hamburger menu” as simply “menu” near the graphic. This will let them know where the navigation is as well as make them remember for future websites. 

Lastly, while it would be best to hire a digital marketing team with the target audience included in the web design team, that isn’t always possible, or you are not able to tell who is on the team. However, it is possible of testing to be done by the target demographic. LinkedIn, Reddit, local outreach, job boards, email surveys, and more are all available ways to create a testing group for your web design. Take notes on what they found easy or hard. Take these notes to the design and development team to make improvements based on productive feedback. 

Ready to create an Age friendly website? Call 248.528.360

The post Design for Your Parents, Not Your Peers appeared first on Miller Media, Digital Marketing Agency, PPC, Industrial Web Design, WordPress.

According to Google’s Retail Marketing Guide 48% of consumers in surveyed countries around the world say they get inspiration for purchases when they are online. Shoppers browse across Google and YouTube to discover new brands and products that are relevant to them. Their methods go as follows:

• Inspiration forms when watching YouTube Videos. 
  • 78% of people surveyed in the U.S. say they feel they get the highest-quality info about products when shopping or browsing on YouTube

• Browse Google Images

• Scroll through Google Discover to catch up on interesting topics

Engage Customers as They Research 

Before making a purchase, customers seek information from trusted sources to compare products and narrow down their options. Best in category, prices, and the latest reviews are important factors customers look for. 89% agree that YouTube creators give the best information about products and brands. YouTube reviewers hit all the important factors and more trusted due to the fact the person is visible vs a star review that is faceless and could be interpreted as a bot. Consider YouTube reviewers when coming up with a social media marketing plan. 

Consumers also look up information and articles on Google Search. 40% of shoppers go to Google when researching a purchase they plan to make in-store or online. It is important that your SEO strategy is up to date. Check your website’s ranking on Google SERPs. If it not where you want it to be you may need to work with a digital marketing agency on your on-page and off-page SEO techniques. And if your budget allows, invest in Google Ads. 

Convert Customers Looking to Purchase

Convincing potential clients is key. Shoppers buy from brands that can provide a seamless experience. 31% of consumers in surveyed countries say they are researching online more before purchasing to avoid out-of-stock situations, inventory blockage, and shipping challenges or delays. They want to be able to buy a product online as soon as they find it or see what a local store has in stock. 

Utilize Google Maps, especially for local business traffic. Google Maps searches for “shopping near me” have grown globally by over 100% year over year. Maps also use to be GoogleMyBusiness app. Currently you can set a profile using Maps. Create and maintain your profile so you can be found easily. 

The Shopping tab is an underrated tool business often forget about. Almost half (49%) of consumers in surveyed countries expect to be able to buy from any store online. You want your online store to show up in the Shopping tab. Make sure in your website’s CMS your product details like name, price, and description are accurate and visible. 

Update your marketing plan based on these tips today! Call 248.528.360 

The post Customers Use Google to Browse, Research, and Buy appeared first on Miller Media, Digital Marketing Agency, PPC, Industrial Web Design, WordPress.