MARKETING
How to Grow your Small Business with 6 Organic Marketing Strategies
As a small business owner, your priority is to build a strong online presence for your business and accelerate small business growth. With the right organic marketing strategies in place, you can not only boost brand awareness, but win over new customers, too.
As an insider, I know that digital marketing can be overwhelming if you’re new to it.
The main reason is because you usually have to work around a limited budget. Figuring out the best organic marketing strategies that can give you better ROI without draining your finances is challenge number one.
But relax! I’ve got you covered.
Here, we’ll briefly discuss 6 organic marketing strategies you can implement right away to boost your business’s overall success.
Let’s dig in.
Organic Marketing Strategies to Adopt for Your Business Growth
As an entrepreneur, you are constantly working on scaling your small business. From gaining a footing in the digital landscape to creating a sales funnel strategy, you have lots to take care of.
So take a look at these top 6 organic marketing strategies that can boost visibility and growth for your small business. Here you go!
1. Start a Blog
Content is still one of the most powerful organic marketing strategies for your small business. Starting a blog where you share valuable, relevant and engaging content regularly is always a fantastic idea.
Did you know, for example, that businesses who blog regularly can generate 97% more traffic to their website?
On top of that, having a blog will help you share your thoughts and values with the audience and establish your brand as an authority on the subject. Enrich your blog posts with graphics, images, and infographics to be more effective. You can even hire a professional writer for blog writing services if writing blogs is not your cup of tea.
The initial ROI of starting a blog may not be too impressive. But in the long run, the inflow of potential customers will be a lot more sustainable.
2. Create Diverse Video Content
Video content is the latest craze among netizens. People are simply in love with it. A story that would otherwise go on for pages can be effectively presented in the form of short videos. You can use a free tool and create highly engaging videos like:
- Product videos
- Brand story
- Testimonials
- Tutorials and guides
- Animated videos
You can post these videos on your website and share them on your blog and social media. As one of the most effective organic marketing strategies, videos can garner unprecedented attention.
3. Optimize Google My Business Listing
Do you know that a majority of buying decisions begin with an online search? You can reach out to your target audiences by adopting this specific organic marketing strategy:
Google My Business (GMB) is a free tool to help you manage your online presence. A verified GMB listing is vital for local SEO as Google Maps and Google Knowledge Graph utilize this information to rank your business.
In the below image you can see how Google, in its search results, highlights those businesses that have complete and verified GMB listings.
You can strengthen your business profile on Google by including user reviews and ratings, too.
4. Develop a Good Email Marketing Strategy
Email marketing is one of the top organic marketing strategies that can bring you strong ROI. You can create and distribute highly engaging email newsletters containing images, the latest offers, and a sneak peek of your team activities.
In a survey conducted by Content Marketing Institution, email newsletters ranked second among the content types that produced the best overall content marketing results.
What’s more, customers actually prefer email over other means of communication from brands. It’s no surprise that you can leverage email marketing for lead generation and also nurture your leads through it. An advanced email marketing tool can simplify and improve the efficacy of your email marketing strategy.
5. Create a Strong Social Media Presence
This list of organic marketing strategies would of course be incomplete without discussing social media marketing. Paid ads are not the only option to build a strong social media presence. You can include organic tactics in your social media marketing plan to achieve great results, too.
Work towards building a versatile social media feed containing blogs, images, infographics, videos, and news that add value to the readers. To enhance engagement, you can run content, surveys, and giveaway campaigns to trigger conversations and gain more followers.
This Valentine’s Day giveaway campaign by Plode ticks all the right boxes to grow their followers’ list.
6. Use Free Tools
Your small business might very well have a small team. To boost their productivity, you can add a variety of free tools to your toolkit that can help you deliver better results without inflating your budget. Collaboration in learning techniques will ensure that your employees learn to smartly utilize these tools.
You can research to find out the best tools to manage important tasks like keyword analysis, SEO audit, social media management, CRM, and much more.
If your budget allows, you can even subscribe to a comprehensive tool like Semrush to help you meet many of your digital marketing needs.
Ready to Adopt These Organic Marketing Strategies in 2022?
So there you have it! The best organic marketing strategies you can adopt right away to trigger brand awareness and visibility. Along with these, you can incorporate measures to improve domain authority to fuel Google ranking.
As they say, well-begun is half done, and adopting organic marketing strategies is a formidable weapon to ensure business growth in the long run.
So this 2022, do not shy away from considering new marketing techniques. Give them a try and enjoy better ROI!
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MARKETING
YouTube Ad Specs, Sizes, and Examples [2024 Update]
Introduction
With billions of users each month, YouTube is the world’s second largest search engine and top website for video content. This makes it a great place for advertising. To succeed, advertisers need to follow the correct YouTube ad specifications. These rules help your ad reach more viewers, increasing the chance of gaining new customers and boosting brand awareness.
Types of YouTube Ads
Video Ads
- Description: These play before, during, or after a YouTube video on computers or mobile devices.
- Types:
- In-stream ads: Can be skippable or non-skippable.
- Bumper ads: Non-skippable, short ads that play before, during, or after a video.
Display Ads
- Description: These appear in different spots on YouTube and usually use text or static images.
- Note: YouTube does not support display image ads directly on its app, but these can be targeted to YouTube.com through Google Display Network (GDN).
Companion Banners
- Description: Appears to the right of the YouTube player on desktop.
- Requirement: Must be purchased alongside In-stream ads, Bumper ads, or In-feed ads.
In-feed Ads
- Description: Resemble videos with images, headlines, and text. They link to a public or unlisted YouTube video.
Outstream Ads
- Description: Mobile-only video ads that play outside of YouTube, on websites and apps within the Google video partner network.
Masthead Ads
- Description: Premium, high-visibility banner ads displayed at the top of the YouTube homepage for both desktop and mobile users.
YouTube Ad Specs by Type
Skippable In-stream Video Ads
- Placement: Before, during, or after a YouTube video.
- Resolution:
- Horizontal: 1920 x 1080px
- Vertical: 1080 x 1920px
- Square: 1080 x 1080px
- Aspect Ratio:
- Horizontal: 16:9
- Vertical: 9:16
- Square: 1:1
- Length:
- Awareness: 15-20 seconds
- Consideration: 2-3 minutes
- Action: 15-20 seconds
Non-skippable In-stream Video Ads
- Description: Must be watched completely before the main video.
- Length: 15 seconds (or 20 seconds in certain markets).
- Resolution:
- Horizontal: 1920 x 1080px
- Vertical: 1080 x 1920px
- Square: 1080 x 1080px
- Aspect Ratio:
- Horizontal: 16:9
- Vertical: 9:16
- Square: 1:1
Bumper Ads
- Length: Maximum 6 seconds.
- File Format: MP4, Quicktime, AVI, ASF, Windows Media, or MPEG.
- Resolution:
- Horizontal: 640 x 360px
- Vertical: 480 x 360px
In-feed Ads
- Description: Show alongside YouTube content, like search results or the Home feed.
- Resolution:
- Horizontal: 1920 x 1080px
- Vertical: 1080 x 1920px
- Square: 1080 x 1080px
- Aspect Ratio:
- Horizontal: 16:9
- Square: 1:1
- Length:
- Awareness: 15-20 seconds
- Consideration: 2-3 minutes
- Headline/Description:
- Headline: Up to 2 lines, 40 characters per line
- Description: Up to 2 lines, 35 characters per line
Display Ads
- Description: Static images or animated media that appear on YouTube next to video suggestions, in search results, or on the homepage.
- Image Size: 300×60 pixels.
- File Type: GIF, JPG, PNG.
- File Size: Max 150KB.
- Max Animation Length: 30 seconds.
Outstream Ads
- Description: Mobile-only video ads that appear on websites and apps within the Google video partner network, not on YouTube itself.
- Logo Specs:
- Square: 1:1 (200 x 200px).
- File Type: JPG, GIF, PNG.
- Max Size: 200KB.
Masthead Ads
- Description: High-visibility ads at the top of the YouTube homepage.
- Resolution: 1920 x 1080 or higher.
- File Type: JPG or PNG (without transparency).
Conclusion
YouTube offers a variety of ad formats to reach audiences effectively in 2024. Whether you want to build brand awareness, drive conversions, or target specific demographics, YouTube provides a dynamic platform for your advertising needs. Always follow Google’s advertising policies and the technical ad specs to ensure your ads perform their best. Ready to start using YouTube ads? Contact us today to get started!
MARKETING
Why We Are Always ‘Clicking to Buy’, According to Psychologists
Amazon pillows.
MARKETING
A deeper dive into data, personalization and Copilots
Salesforce launched a collection of new, generative AI-related products at Connections in Chicago this week. They included new Einstein Copilots for marketers and merchants and Einstein Personalization.
To better understand, not only the potential impact of the new products, but the evolving Salesforce architecture, we sat down with Bobby Jania, CMO, Marketing Cloud.
Dig deeper: Salesforce piles on the Einstein Copilots
Salesforce’s evolving architecture
It’s hard to deny that Salesforce likes coming up with new names for platforms and products (what happened to Customer 360?) and this can sometimes make the observer wonder if something is brand new, or old but with a brand new name. In particular, what exactly is Einstein 1 and how is it related to Salesforce Data Cloud?
“Data Cloud is built on the Einstein 1 platform,” Jania explained. “The Einstein 1 platform is our entire Salesforce platform and that includes products like Sales Cloud, Service Cloud — that it includes the original idea of Salesforce not just being in the cloud, but being multi-tenancy.”
Data Cloud — not an acquisition, of course — was built natively on that platform. It was the first product built on Hyperforce, Salesforce’s new cloud infrastructure architecture. “Since Data Cloud was on what we now call the Einstein 1 platform from Day One, it has always natively connected to, and been able to read anything in Sales Cloud, Service Cloud [and so on]. On top of that, we can now bring in, not only structured but unstructured data.”
That’s a significant progression from the position, several years ago, when Salesforce had stitched together a platform around various acquisitions (ExactTarget, for example) that didn’t necessarily talk to each other.
“At times, what we would do is have a kind of behind-the-scenes flow where data from one product could be moved into another product,” said Jania, “but in many of those cases the data would then be in both, whereas now the data is in Data Cloud. Tableau will run natively off Data Cloud; Commerce Cloud, Service Cloud, Marketing Cloud — they’re all going to the same operational customer profile.” They’re not copying the data from Data Cloud, Jania confirmed.
Another thing to know is tit’s possible for Salesforce customers to import their own datasets into Data Cloud. “We wanted to create a federated data model,” said Jania. “If you’re using Snowflake, for example, we more or less virtually sit on your data lake. The value we add is that we will look at all your data and help you form these operational customer profiles.”
Let’s learn more about Einstein Copilot
“Copilot means that I have an assistant with me in the tool where I need to be working that contextually knows what I am trying to do and helps me at every step of the process,” Jania said.
For marketers, this might begin with a campaign brief developed with Copilot’s assistance, the identification of an audience based on the brief, and then the development of email or other content. “What’s really cool is the idea of Einstein Studio where our customers will create actions [for Copilot] that we hadn’t even thought about.”
Here’s a key insight (back to nomenclature). We reported on Copilot for markets, Copilot for merchants, Copilot for shoppers. It turns out, however, that there is just one Copilot, Einstein Copilot, and these are use cases. “There’s just one Copilot, we just add these for a little clarity; we’re going to talk about marketing use cases, about shoppers’ use cases. These are actions for the marketing use cases we built out of the box; you can build your own.”
It’s surely going to take a little time for marketers to learn to work easily with Copilot. “There’s always time for adoption,” Jania agreed. “What is directly connected with this is, this is my ninth Connections and this one has the most hands-on training that I’ve seen since 2014 — and a lot of that is getting people using Data Cloud, using these tools rather than just being given a demo.”
What’s new about Einstein Personalization
Salesforce Einstein has been around since 2016 and many of the use cases seem to have involved personalization in various forms. What’s new?
“Einstein Personalization is a real-time decision engine and it’s going to choose next-best-action, next-best-offer. What is new is that it’s a service now that runs natively on top of Data Cloud.” A lot of real-time decision engines need their own set of data that might actually be a subset of data. “Einstein Personalization is going to look holistically at a customer and recommend a next-best-action that could be natively surfaced in Service Cloud, Sales Cloud or Marketing Cloud.”
Finally, trust
One feature of the presentations at Connections was the reassurance that, although public LLMs like ChatGPT could be selected for application to customer data, none of that data would be retained by the LLMs. Is this just a matter of written agreements? No, not just that, said Jania.
“In the Einstein Trust Layer, all of the data, when it connects to an LLM, runs through our gateway. If there was a prompt that had personally identifiable information — a credit card number, an email address — at a mimum, all that is stripped out. The LLMs do not store the output; we store the output for auditing back in Salesforce. Any output that comes back through our gateway is logged in our system; it runs through a toxicity model; and only at the end do we put PII data back into the answer. There are real pieces beyond a handshake that this data is safe.”
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