Want free marketing wisdom delivered from your cell phone or mobile device at a time convenient to you? Whether you listen to podcasts during your daily commute, while at the gym or when you’re relaxing at home, they are an excellent source of free information. Some of the best marketing teachers of today have podcasts that you can tune into about all topics from social media, to SEO, start-ups and business mindset tips. Even if you outsource your marketing to an agency like us, or let your staff take charge, having a broad understanding of marketing is important, and listing to podcasts is one way to knowledge-up.
Here are the 10 marketing Podcasts we at Cloud9 Marketing recommend to improve your marketing IQ and inspire you to take the marketing of your business to the next level.
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Online Marketing Made Easy with Amy Porterfield
This is a great podcast to learn the basics of marketing for small business owners. Amy takes large marketing concepts and makes them easy to digest in bite sized chunks. She also provides plenty of resources to create actionable plans based on her teachings.
-
The Smart Passive Income with Pat Flynn
Pat Flynn interviews the world’s leading marketing experts with the intention of inspiring his audience to learn from the best and launch their online business idea to add additional income streams to their repertoire. Pat’s jam is businesses that offer an opportunity for a passive income, and in his podcast he teaches you exactly how to do this.
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Mixergy with Andrew Warner
Mixergy is a podcast designed for business owners and entrepreneurs and interviews different successful entrepreneurs about how they started, and how to find purpose and vision in your business. There are over 1300 interviews with big-name founders to date.
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Social Media Marketing Podcast with Michael Stelzer
Social Media Examiner (SME) is one of the leading publications in the world of social media, and the Social Media Marketing Podcast is led by Michael Stelzner and other members of the SME team. This is the go-to podcast for everything new and emerging in relation to social, providing listeners with strategies, and actionable tips they can use to enhance their social media results.
-
CopyBlogger FM
Copyblogger is another marketing institution and the number one source for information and wisdom about content marketing. Copyblogger FM offers short marketing lessons on topics such as email marketing, copywriting, content marketing, conversion optimization and more.
-
Marketing School with Eric Siu and Neil Patel
Two gurus when it comes to online marketing, Eric Siu and Neil Patel offer listeners unconventional marketing wisdom to bring valuable, actionable and useful tips to business owners and entrepreneurs. This is no marketing 101, instead marketing school offers a cutting-edge curriculum which exposes the latest tips and tactics from those killing it with online marketing today.
-
Foundr Podcast with Nathan Chan
In true Foundr style the Foundr podcast guides entrepreneurs on their journey, interviewing some of the greatest minds in business today. This podcast will teach you exactly what you need to become a successful entrepreneur whether you’re looking to bootstrap a start-up or raise VC money.
-
Perpetual Traffic with Ralph Burns, Keith Krance and Molly Pittman
This podcast covers everything there is to know about leveraging paid traffic in business, from Google Adwords to LinkedIn ads. To learn how to get more online leads and sales this is the podcast to listen to. Strategies discussed in this podcast are actionable and easy to apply to businesses of all sizes.
-
ConversionCast
Conversioncast is a spin-off of Leadpages, a landing page start-up which has exploded over recent years and is now an INC 500 company with over 40,000 subscribers. The podcasts gives insights into the company’s success and interviews feature real employees and their journey with the company.
-
Marketing Over Coffee with John J. Wall and Christopher S. Penn
This casual and conversational podcast, which is recorded from a different coffee shop each week, discusses the latest marketing news and tips covering a broad range of subjects such as social media marketing, search marketing, SEO, affiliate marketing, copywriting and more. Another great feature of this podcast is they take listener’s questions giving further insights into the daily discussion.
Looking for some help in upping your online marketing game? Here at Cloud9 Marketing we specialize in helping small businesses clarify their brand and deliver results-driven digital strategies across industries.
Optimize Your Whistler Business For Mobile
Google recently announced that at some point in 2018 they will be switching to mobile-first indexing. This huge change means that Google will now determine SEO rankings based on the quality of businesses mobile sites, rather than the desktop version. If you want your business to rank effectively for local searches, it’s important you start focusing your efforts on the mobile-friendliness of your site. We’ve outlined for you the difference between desktop and phone searches, and how you can adjust your mobile site to improve your local SEO ranking.
What’s the different between desktop and mobile?
Most laptop and computer searches have delayed search intent. This means that users may be searching for your business from home or work to see if you have what they need, but don’t plan to visit you straightaway.
This can also be true for mobile searches, as people usually grab the nearest device to them to look something up. However, most mobile searches come with immediate search intent, as people are already out and looking for places to visit in the area. Focusing on this immediacy, and having simple, readily available answers for mobile users, is crucial to optimizing your local SEO.
How do I optimize my local business for mobile?
Focus on Voice Searching
Phone users tend to avoid lengthy searches, as typing on a small device can be frustrating. Using audio is becoming the easiest and most popular way to search online, thanks to the rise of mobile chat bots and devices like Google Home, Amazon Echo and Apple Homepod. This means searches have become much more conversational, as customers actually say what they are looking for. By optimizing your site for shorter keywords, and common spoken phrases like ‘near me’ or ‘where can I find’, you can tailor your site to provide an optimal mobile experience.
Increase your Speed
Rather surprisingly, people are typically more patient on mobile than on desktop. That being said, 19% of people will abandon a page if it takes longer than 5 seconds to load. To create a frictionless experience, you should really attempt to improve your site speed. This can be done by tweaking your site to reduce the amount of redirects you include, and by grouping assets like JavaScript and CSS, so the browser has fewer files to load. You can also optimize and scale your images, and use browser caching.
Create a Mobile-friendly Design
Ultimately, if you design a mobile site with the user in mind, the results will speak for themselves. There are some great websites that can test how phone-friendly your site is, but you can first try clearing all the clutter and pop-ups from your site. Adjust your typography for a small screen, and make sure you leave enough room between clickable elements for fingers and thumbs. You can also try having a responsive design that can adapt to all screens: this means your site is all on one URL and will be easier for Google to index.
With mobile traffic now eclipsing desktop traffic, it’s important to improve your mobile site to keep up with these changes. If you need some help optimizing your site for mobile, our team at Cloud9 Marketing would be more than happy to help.
Local SEO for your Whistler Business Guide
Whistler offers an amazing array of top-quality services and companies. While this is what makes us such an incredible community, it also means that there is a lot of competition for local businesses. Your website allows you to speak to the entire online world, but if you’re offering local services you need to be predominantly targeting potential customers in Whistler. Optimizing your website for your geographical area is essential for boosting your SEO, and for showing customers exactly where they can find you. Here are our top tips on how you can improve your local SEO and generate better traffic through location-based searching.
#1 Get on Google My Business
Registering your business with Google My Business is the first step to optimizing your local SEO. It’s completely free to do, and allows you to manage your online presence across Google’s search pages, including Maps. It asks you to fill in a mini summary of your business that gets displayed at the top of Google’s results pages. This means it is essentially the first impression potential clients will get of your business, before even clicking on your website. It’s also important to update this on a regular basis with new photos, information, hours, etc. As well, encourage your customers and clients to review your business on Google – even a few reviews looks good.
What people see when they Google Cloud9 Marketing
#2 Keep your contact information consistent
It’s crucial that all your information is the same across online platforms. Not only does this make it easy for customers to find you, but also it shows you uphold a reliable business. NAP (your company’s name, address and phone number) is your digital thumbprint, and if this information fails to align across the different online profiles of your business, Google will recognise these inconsistent listings. The more times Google ‘sees’ your thumbprint on reputable websites, the more confident it becomes that it is displaying a trustworthy business in its search results.
#3 Build your online credibility
Even though this one takes time, having a solid catalogue of good reviews on your page is going to elevate your local credibility and improve your SEO ranking. A recent survey found that 84% of people trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations. Don’t be afraid to sincerely ask customers for reviews, and make it easy for them to do so by offering a multitude of potential review sites to use, such as Google+, Facebook and Yelp.
#4 Connect with other local Whistler businesses
If the Internet didn’t exist, you’d probably have to promote your business through regular networking, or by joining a Whistler business group, right? The truth is, you should still be doing the equivalent of this online. Start liaising with other local businesses and linking them on your site, and this will hopefully encourage them to return the favour. By engaging with respected companies you will show search engines that you are a trusted, reliable source.
#5 Write great content
If you keep producing quality, locally orientated content, then results will naturally follow. Keep your customers interested and engaged to increase their affinity with your brand. This can be via content promotions, polls, or just some interesting posts about what’s going on in Whistler next weekend. Maintaining steady blog posts and social media posts demonstrates your involvement in the local community, and can be a super effective way to increase your SEO.
Check out our tips on blogging to improve your SEO!
If you’re looking to get your Whistler business out there and feature on local search results, we can help. Cloud9 Marketing offers free SEO audits at no obligation.
Blog your way to the top & improve your SEO ranking
When fighting in the battle against established website giants to rank on Google’s first page, blogging for your company may fall at the bottom of your to do list. However, blogging can be one of the most effective (and cheapest) ways to master SEO and establish your website as truthful and reliable. It allows you to build upon your internet presence and increase interactions with other respected websites, and the everyday user, to get those all-important clicks. Below is a breakdown of how regular blogging can help your company triumph in SEO rankings and maximize your organic traffic.
#1: Blogging shows you’re relevant
First of all, maintaining and updating a blog shows search engines, and users, that your company is alive! The search engine spiders that crawl through the internet love fresh, updated content: similar to a singer with no new tracks, if you fail to keep a steady stream of new content, search engines could miss your site and assume it is losing its relevance. It’s all about elevating your internet presence, so don’t be afraid to include images and videos in your posts too, as these will give search engines even more ways of finding you.
#2: Blogging builds your reputation
Having a blog is the easiest way to demonstrate your in-depth knowledge of your field, and helps you to gain the trust of potential company followers. You can also associate your website with established and trusted sites through backlinking. By including related links in your writing, you not only give search engine algorithms big hints on what your page is about, but you also show users you really know your stuff. Guest blogging can also be a great way to boost your SEO, as working with writers who are experts in a similar field to you can really help your company’s repute.
#3: Blogging makes it easy to use SEO tricks of the trade
Keyword optimization is one of the most well known ways to drive traffic towards your site. But as everyone seems to know this already, it makes it impossible to compete with trusted mature websites using the same terms, right? While this may be true for obvious keywords, having a blog allows you to use long-tail keywords that can be tied back to your company. Here’s a great website that generates long-tail keywords suggestions for each search term.
#4: Blogging creates that all-important social media buzz
Though some companies still struggle to see the point of having a strong social media presence, Google actually returns social media search results. Connecting a blog to platforms such as Facebook and Twitter will give broaden your online platform so both search engines and users can find you. What’s more, the great thing about blog posts is that they are easily shareable. People are far more likely to share an interesting blog post over a company’s service page, and blogs shared move up in search rankings, so spreading your company across social media will really help elevate it.
#5: Blogging increases your online **sprawl**
A new blog post can be one of the easiest ways to optimize your website. This is because, each blog posts counts as a new indexed page on your website, which are basically pages found by search crawlers that have been deemed to have enough quality for relevant search phrases. The more posts you write the wider your overall online presence will stretch, and the longer users will stay on your company’s site as they hopefully get drawn in by other posts.
#6: Blogging is free
That’s right, setting up a blog and reaping all those benefits can be completely free. Even if you don’t have the time to do it yourself, paying for help can be one of the cost effective and most rewarding ways to improve your SEO quality.
Here at Cloud 9 Marketing our team of writers specialize in producing interesting content that drives traffic and brings results. For help, contact us today.
New Years Marketing Resolutions to Stick To
Did you nail it with your marketing in 2017, or did you leave a lot to be desired with your online presence? In a world where marketing is changing as quickly as Trump’s latest piece of bad press its important to prioritize your marketing while being strategic in your approach. Although it’s hard for us to understand, not all business owners love marketing, some find it frivolous or down-right cringe-worthy. Whatever your blocks, fears or distractions with marketing may be, it is in your best interest to prioritize your marketing in 2018, here are some marketing resolutions to stick to.
Thou shall engage in live video
It’s all about live video in 2018, whether that be Facebook Live, Instagram Live for live streaming on Youtube, the story-telling and engagement possibilities with live video is beyond any other form of messaging at the moment. You may be hearing a lot of virtual reality and machine learning, these things are coming too but for now, the most interactive experience you can give your current and potential customers is the experience of live video.
Thou shall delegate my marketing if I’m unable to prioritize
Many businesses start the year gung-ho with marketing which slowly takes a back seat as the year goes on while other, more pressing business matters take priority. Just because marketing doesn’t scream and wave for your attention, doesn’t mean it isn’t important. If you find you’re constantly being called to other areas of your business, or are too busy to give marketing the creativity and attention it deserves, it’s time to delegate your marketing to someone else who can give it all the love it needs.
Thou shall understand my web analytics
So many businesses have a website and an online presence but have no idea how effective either are. Understanding your web analytics will be hugely insightful as to how your online marketing efforts are performing and ways to tweak and optimize current performance to be even more effective. Being able to navigate Google Analytics should be the very basic step of understanding web analytics. Having a clear picture of your online position, including a solid grasp of search engine optimization (SEO) will help your business immensely in 2018.
Thou shall invest in digital marketing
In the new year make sure to prioritize digital marketing, and by prioritizing it we mean, allocating money to this very valuable aspect of your business. In a world where social media dominates content and engagement you must pay to play to really reap the benefits. If you’re not ranking well on search engines for important key words you may want to consider Google Adwords pay-per-click advertising to get those coveted click throughs to your website. You can’t ignore the return on investment with digital marketing, it’s measurable, tangible and undeniable in 2018.
Thou shall be clear about my 2018 marketing strategy
A clear marketing strategy is the starting point for a successful year of marketing in 2018. Define your marketing budget, outline your marketing goals and create a strategy to help you achieve these. Your goals may want to consider revenue, customer acquisition, engagement and/ or brand awareness. The beginning of the year is the perfect time to get crystal clear on your marketing goals, schedule time to do this in the next few weeks right now.
As mentioned, marketing isn’t everyone’s jam however almost everyone understands the importance of a solid online presence backed by a goals-driven marketing strategy. If you’re ready to up-level your marketing game in 2018 and need help, contact the team at Cloud9 Marketing, we’ve got your back.
Decoding the Facebook Algorithm
As a marketer, the importance of Facebook is undeniable; however, the application of it can be hair-pulling at best and down-right tantrum producing at worst. What makes one post the talk of the town, and the next one an utter flop perplexes even the most skilled marketers at times. The magic behind the Russian roulette of Facebook posts is the almighty powerful Facebook algorithm. An algorithm is a formula or set of steps used for solving a particular problem. Facebook uses its algorithm to sort, sift and make sense of the huge number of posts that are created each day to ensure the user experience is one that is useful and enjoyable.
Facebook’s algorithm ranks posts using the following four steps:
Inventory- What posts are available at the current time to show
Signals- Looking at available data called signals, Facebook ranks the content. Data is pulled from who posted the story, the current time, what device it was posted with and how much time is spent reading a particular post.
Predictions- Using these signals, Facebook makes predictions based on what you will do with the post (how likely you are to comment, like or share).
Score- Facebook assigns each post a score based on all of these things, this score dictates the posts that are displayed in a newsfeed.
As a marketer managing client’s Facebook accounts, yielding top results for clients is a priority. Maximizing Facebook reach and enhancing engagement are important metrics that clients expect in the age of social media. Facebook will look for the following characteristics when assigning a relevance score to a post:
All of these things impact the probability of a post being seen; the more engagement, the quality of the user, how useful and informative the post is, and how close the post creator is to the user will dictate relevance score and likeness to be seen by a given Facebook user. Friends and family posts are favoured over business page posts.
What Facebook likes
Creating content that is relevant, valuable and interesting is key to appearing organically in news feeds. Ensuring posts are informative, promote engagement, are positive in nature and are free of errors is important. It is proven that pages with a consistent posting schedule outperform ones that post randomly and sporadically.
Here are some things that the Facebook algorithm favours:
What Facebook doesn’t like
Just as the Facebook algorithm favours certain types of posts, it also penalizes posts that don’t conform with its overarching values and mission. The following posts types and actions will negatively effect relevancy score and ensure your posts are at the end of the browsing queue.
Recent Algorithm changes
Facebook is consistently updating its algorithms to ensure the user experience is high and to evolve with the changing landscape of social media. Here are some recent changes in 2017 that affect what people see and how they engage with Facebook content:
August 2017
May 2017
January 2017
Staying up to date with Facebook’s ever-changing algorithm is imperative to ensuring you are delivering the best results to your clients. By ensuring content is relevant, timely, informative and engaging, utilizing videos and having a solid page presence and well functioning website are all fundamentals to hitting home runs on Facebook. Cloud9 Marketing are experts in Whistler BC on everything social media, any questions about Facebook algorithms or to see our social media management packages, make sure to contact us.
7 Signs of a Strong Brand
Does your company exhibit signs of a strong brand? Besides being easily recognized by current and potential clients, a brand provides employees with direction, communicates values and purpose, and represents the sum of perceptions about a company. Branding goes far beyond logos and imagery and goes deep into a business’s identity, and how it wants to be perceived and experienced by people internal and external to an organization. Creating and maintaining a powerful brand is an art, and these seven signs of a strong brand are excellent indicators if you are on the right path.
Purpose
Knowing your why will help define your purpose and be the core value of your business, a nucleus for everything else that’s created afterwards. Your purpose will help you stand out from competition and be a point of differentiation compared to other businesses in your market. Knowing your business’s why will help establish intent and make way for more functional goals such as the need to make money and the desire to provide the best service in your industry.
Consistency
Consistency is important as it leads to brand recognition which is what all brands hope to achieve. Ensuring all communications are cohesive and relevant to the brand’s purpose will ensure consistency across all messaging both internal within the company, and external to potential customers, suppliers and competition. Consistency must be achieved by way of action (this forms part of the corporate culture), appearance and messaging. To address the visual aspect of brand consistency many businesses have style guides for reference and clarity.
Emotion
By working with a customer’s innate desire to belong and be part of something, businesses can build a tribe of loyal followers who are emotionally tied to a brand. By connecting with your customers on a deeper and more emotional level you will strengthen your relationship, appeal to their emotions and increase brand loyalty.
Flexibility
Although consistency is a core aspect of a powerful brand, flexibility will help brands stay relevant in today’s fast paced business world. To distinguish the two, consistency must be maintained at a high level, ensuring imagery, messaging and culture remain stable. Flexibility is important when it comes to executing campaigns, dealing with changing workforce dynamics and staying on top of industry changes.
Internal Engagement
Employees are the face of any company and therefor need to be the most cherished brand ambassadors that you have. Ensuring employees are living and breathing the company’s brand, are signed up for the corporate culture and are aligned with the company’s purpose, will help create consistency across all areas of the organization.
Loyalty
Loyalty is what keeps the business flowing and converts a one-time customer into a life long brand ambassador. Reward loyal customers and be sure to make them feel like they are part of something special. The cost to obtain a new customer is significantly more then retaining a current customer, encourage brand loyalty by showing your customers sincere appreciation.
External Awareness
No business operates in a silo and having your finger on the pulse of your external environment, including your competition, will help strengthen your brand strategy and identity. Take a close look at your competitors and find out what they are doing well and not so well, can you improve on anything they are doing or learn from their mistakes? Anticipate market trends and ensure your brand is staying flexible amidst changing environments.
Not sure if your brand passes the test? Let us help you. Specializing in brand development and strategy Cloud9 Marketing can help your business achieve a brand that ticks all of the boxes.
How to Know if It’s Time to Delegate Your Marketing to an Agency
We are a marketing agency, so of course we’re going to tell you that marketing your business is important. Unless you are offering the world’s most fantastic product or service, have no competition whatsoever and don’t care to improve performance or profits, marketing should be a priority. But as a business owner you may not have the skills, knowledge or know-how (or interest) to execute marketing strategies that work. It is important to understand when it is time to delegate any aspect of your business for the overall good, and marketing is usually one of the first areas to be handed over to professionals. Not sure if it’s time you left your business’s marketing to the pros? Here’s are some signs.
Your Facebook Business Page Header hasn’t been updated all year
If your Facebook Business Page headers hasn’t been updated in months, if it contains pixelated or cropped images, or is some cheesy stock photo that doesn’t represent your business or brand, it’s a sign you are not using Facebook to its fullest potential. All of this is assuming you have a Facebook Business Page, and if you don’t, stop reading right now and hand over the marketing reigns to a professional this second. Facebook is an excellent portal for potential customers to get to know your brand, and your Facebook header is an opportunity to let them know what is new and exciting with your company, or to explore what it is that you stand for.
Your last Blog Post was in 2011
If you can get past how silly the word ‘Blog’ sounds and get to the underlying function of a Blog, you will see the importance of it and hopefully stop neglecting this crucial part of your website. A Blog is a way to introduce fresh content to your website; search engines like this. Blogging about topics, products and industry news and events can help your business or brand gain authority, can provide value to your customers, and will provide you with more opportunities to be found on search engines. Don’t be that business that blogs once a year and then gives up. A regular and engaging Blog is an important part of every businesses content marketing strategy.
You don’t have an Instagram Account
We know that the world of social media can be overwhelming, and that it’s hard to stay on the bleeding edge of every new social channel and update online. Instagram is now mainstream, and if your business is not using it yet, you are getting well left behind. We can’t think of too many businesses that wouldn’t benefit from an Instagram account. The visually appealing content is a great tool for story-telling and building brand awareness, and is the place to reach the millennial demographic. We get it if you’re scared of adopting new social channels into the mix, let us do it for you.
Your website doesn’t display on mobile phones
Have you recently had someone tell you that your website doesn’t display well on mobile phones? Check yours right now, is it clear and easy to navigate from your mobile? If the answer is no, your website is not responsive, and you are potentially missing out on over half of web visitors because of this flaw. Mobile browsing minutes accounted for 70 percent of all browsing minutes in 2016. Websites should now be designed mobile-first, meaning appealing to mobile users before desktop users because mobile devices are what people are using to browse and buy online these days.
You have no idea what SEO stands for
Do the acronyms SEO, SEM and SMM baffle your mind? If you don’t know what the all-important SEO stands for, it’s time for you to step aside and let the professionals handle your marketing. SEO stands for search engine optimization. Essentially it is how people find your business online (for an in-depth explanation, see here). This is such an important thing for the success and longevity of your business we cannot even begin to explain. Without SEO you do not exist to pretty much everyone on the internet. Period.
You rather do just about everything else but work on your marketing
If you’re not jumping out of bed jazzed about marketing, you likely aren’t giving it the energy and attention that it requires. And why should you? You are running a business and probably have a lot on your plate. A good business owner knows when it’s time to part ways with different aspects of the business. If taking your dog out for a pee in the morning is more exciting than checking your web analytics, it’s time to delegate to an agency.
Lucky for you there are people that dream about digital design, study social media engagement and obsess about SEO. Here at Cloud9 Marketing we get our kicks from helping business like yours kill it online with tailored results-driven marketing strategies that get noticed. Can we help take your businesses marketing efforts to the next level? Schedule a one-hour free consultation and let’s chat.
10 Marketing Podcasts You Should Be Listening To
Want free marketing wisdom delivered from your cell phone or mobile device at a time convenient to you? Whether you listen to podcasts during your daily commute, while at the gym or when you’re relaxing at home, they are an excellent source of free information. Some of the best marketing teachers of today have podcasts that you can tune into about all topics from social media, to SEO, start-ups and business mindset tips. Even if you outsource your marketing to an agency like us, or let your staff take charge, having a broad understanding of marketing is important, and listing to podcasts is one way to knowledge-up.
Here are the 10 marketing Podcasts we at Cloud9 Marketing recommend to improve your marketing IQ and inspire you to take the marketing of your business to the next level.
Online Marketing Made Easy with Amy Porterfield
This is a great podcast to learn the basics of marketing for small business owners. Amy takes large marketing concepts and makes them easy to digest in bite sized chunks. She also provides plenty of resources to create actionable plans based on her teachings.
The Smart Passive Income with Pat Flynn
Pat Flynn interviews the world’s leading marketing experts with the intention of inspiring his audience to learn from the best and launch their online business idea to add additional income streams to their repertoire. Pat’s jam is businesses that offer an opportunity for a passive income, and in his podcast he teaches you exactly how to do this.
Mixergy with Andrew Warner
Mixergy is a podcast designed for business owners and entrepreneurs and interviews different successful entrepreneurs about how they started, and how to find purpose and vision in your business. There are over 1300 interviews with big-name founders to date.
Social Media Marketing Podcast with Michael Stelzer
Social Media Examiner (SME) is one of the leading publications in the world of social media, and the Social Media Marketing Podcast is led by Michael Stelzner and other members of the SME team. This is the go-to podcast for everything new and emerging in relation to social, providing listeners with strategies, and actionable tips they can use to enhance their social media results.
CopyBlogger FM
Copyblogger is another marketing institution and the number one source for information and wisdom about content marketing. Copyblogger FM offers short marketing lessons on topics such as email marketing, copywriting, content marketing, conversion optimization and more.
Marketing School with Eric Siu and Neil Patel
Two gurus when it comes to online marketing, Eric Siu and Neil Patel offer listeners unconventional marketing wisdom to bring valuable, actionable and useful tips to business owners and entrepreneurs. This is no marketing 101, instead marketing school offers a cutting-edge curriculum which exposes the latest tips and tactics from those killing it with online marketing today.
Foundr Podcast with Nathan Chan
In true Foundr style the Foundr podcast guides entrepreneurs on their journey, interviewing some of the greatest minds in business today. This podcast will teach you exactly what you need to become a successful entrepreneur whether you’re looking to bootstrap a start-up or raise VC money.
Perpetual Traffic with Ralph Burns, Keith Krance and Molly Pittman
This podcast covers everything there is to know about leveraging paid traffic in business, from Google Adwords to LinkedIn ads. To learn how to get more online leads and sales this is the podcast to listen to. Strategies discussed in this podcast are actionable and easy to apply to businesses of all sizes.
ConversionCast
Conversioncast is a spin-off of Leadpages, a landing page start-up which has exploded over recent years and is now an INC 500 company with over 40,000 subscribers. The podcasts gives insights into the company’s success and interviews feature real employees and their journey with the company.
Marketing Over Coffee with John J. Wall and Christopher S. Penn
This casual and conversational podcast, which is recorded from a different coffee shop each week, discusses the latest marketing news and tips covering a broad range of subjects such as social media marketing, search marketing, SEO, affiliate marketing, copywriting and more. Another great feature of this podcast is they take listener’s questions giving further insights into the daily discussion.
Looking for some help in upping your online marketing game? Here at Cloud9 Marketing we specialize in helping small businesses clarify their brand and deliver results-driven digital strategies across industries.
The Future of Digital Advertising
Digital advertising spend is now swallowing up traditional advertising and for the first time ever, digital ad-spend surpassed television ad-spend at the end of 2016. With traditional ad revenue expected to stay flat for the next several years, digital ad-spend is seeing double digit growth, with a 20% jump in ad revenues between 2015 and 2016 according to Business Insider. With Google and Facebook at the receiving end of most of the digital revenues, and with augmented and virtual reality set to impact the online advertising world, there are big predictions for digital advertising between now and 2020.
As consumers become savvier (and more annoyed) with online ads, the technology and format of ads are changing to offer a more user-friendly and integrated experience. The future of digital advertising has arrived, and here are some trends we can expect.
Video Ads
It’s well known that video is the preferred format of 2017 and we will see an increase in video ads as we head towards 2020. Video is the medium of choice for online storytelling and engages and hooks an audience quicker than others online formats. Video ads have an average click-thru-rate of 1.84% which is higher than any other ad format, and four times as many customers would rather watch a video about a product than read about it according to Hubspot.
Native Advertising
Native advertising is intended to fit the form and function of a website so advertising content appears seamlessly integrated, and in some cases, does not resemble an ad at all. Consumers are said to engage with native ads 20% to 60% more than standard display ads with increased engagement attributed to the authentic nature of the ads which complement the existing content on the site. Enterprise Innovation believes that native ad spend will increase to $53B by 2020, creating a more user-friendly ad environment for consumers online.
Influencer Marketing
The trend of influencer marketing is set to amplify over the coming years. Influencer marketing is a system where a business or brand uses paid promotion to leverage the social network of a particular influencer or influencers. Currently about 86 percent of marketers use this strategy however investment in influencer marketing is expected to double this year. What makes influencer marketing so powerful is that the promotion of a brand or product is coming from a trusted source. According to Convince and Convert the average business generates $6.50 for every $1.00 spent on influencer marketing.
Ad Targeting Gets Smarter
Currently online advertisements have the capability to target based on demographics, behaviours, interests and shopping patterns. With data mining a huge area of intelligence expansion, the technology for these contextual ads is getting smarter. Over the next few years online ads will not only be able to target users based on their experiences and actions online, but also on more deep-rooted desires and motivations. By targeting user intent, ads will become hyper relevant and increasingly engaging.
Augmented Reality
Augmented reality technology is innovating at a rapid pace. From video ads we will see a shift to AR ads where users will be able to virtually try on jewelry or see what a coffee table looks like in their living room. Google Lens and Apple AR are two pieces of technology that will propel AR ads. Although AR technology is now accessed mainly by early adopters it is expected the number of AR users will increase by 35% a year over the next 5 years.
Mining Visual Data
The ability to view images that prospective clients are posting, sharing and engaging with online is becoming easier. With the enhanced capability of visual data mining, advertising will be able to take these insights and create relevant content for their target market. Tools like MetaEyes are making visual data mining accessible for marketers.
We’ve come a long way from traditional print advertising and even the tacky pop-ups ads of yesterday are beginning to lose their appeal. Mobile-friendly has evolved to mobile-first and the pay to play system for online exposure is now widely accepted. The future of digital advertising will create ads that intuitively understand a consumer’s actions and intent, and offer more relevancy than they have in the past. How can your business stay relevant in the world of online advertising? Let Cloud9 Marketing help you reach customers online using the latest trends and technologies.
WTF is SEO? The Top 5 Questions We Get from Small Businesses
Out of all of the services we offer at Cloud9 Marketing, SEO certainly has the most confusion surrounding it. Not only do many of our clients not completely understand what it encompasses, but they often have unrealistic expectations on how quickly it works. Properly implemented SEO will help a website rank well on search engines, with everybody’s goal being that coveted first page spot. Results for SEO aren’t overnight, and it’s important for businesses to realize that its an ongoing process. Here are the top questions we get from small businesses about SEO.
#1 What is SEO?
SEO stands for search engine optimization. In short, it’s how websites get found online with the common number one goal; to be displayed on the first page of the search engine results page. Keyword research, content marketing, back-linking and user experience are all aspects of SEO, but none will be completely effective without the other facets.
SEO is probably the most complicated aspect of online marketing. Involving so many layers and disciplines, some of which can only be properly employed by techy types with knowledge of web design and HTML. With every business wanting more organic traffic, SEO is the way to get it. Of course you can pay to get traffic to your site, but organic Google rankings convey authority and trust, and SEO is how businesses get there.
#2 Should we pay for SEO in our business?
Although every online business could use SEO, not every business should allocate marketing budget to this area. In some cases, small businesses simply do not have the budget to compete with competitors for the top spots on search engines.
Businesses looking for immediate results will not benefit from SEO as SEO strategies take time (three months minimum for any impact). For small businesses operating in a competitive online space, who don’t have the budget to compete with online titans or who are seeking immediate results should opt for paid advertising, or other online marketing methods instead.
#3 What services does an SEO company provide?
Some SEO companies provide the gamut of SEO services while others focus on specific areas such as content creation, on-page optimization or link building. Having an audit done of your website is the first step to establishing your SEO needs.
Once you know what you’re dealing with, and understand the market in which you are competing, you can decide if and which SEO company can help you reach your goals. You may need someone who can cover every aspect of SEO from the technical to the content, to the links and authority; or you may simply need someone who can make some changes to the back-end of your website so it’s more search engine and user friendly.
#4 Can we do SEO ourselves?
There are some things businesses can do themselves to help optimize their website. Installing an SEO plugin such as Yoast can help ensure pages and posts are properly optimized for search engines using meta descriptions, title tags and focus key words. Blogging is an excellent way to increase organic page rank and can be done internally. By using popular key words for your business and industry you can generate more rankings for specific search terms. There are also a handful of free and cheap tools online that allow businesses to check their SEO status; MOZ.com, Ahrefs and Google Keyword planner are some excellent places to start.
#5 Why aren’t we getting instant results?
As a marketing agency that provides SEO services we are constantly abating client concerns about the lack of overnight results. It takes a minimum of three months for SEO results to flow in, and this can be even longer for websites that have had particularly poor performance or in ultra competitive market places. Patience with SEO is key. Understanding that SEO is a long game not an overnight miracle worker will help set realistic expectations when trying to improve your businesses SEO.
If you’re looking to rank on the first page of google and up your organic game on search engines, we can help. Cloud9 Marketing offers free SEO audits at no obligation.