A picture is worth a thousand clicks. This is why Instagram based their business model around pictures. Two connections worth taking seriously these days when it comes to your ever-challenging marketing efforts!
Simply Pro, the newest Genesis theme from Studio Press, maximizes your Instagram exposure with a SnapWidget photo gallery built right into the footer.
A very modern theme that showcases beauty, Simply Pro follows the design trends set by the top bloggers.
This minimalist theme comes packaged with customizable colors, so you can change whatever color to fit your needs. Other great features include a responsive styled slider, floating social media icons, minimal share buttons and the ability to upload your own logo or simply type your blog name in. It’s also responsive and looks great on any device!
Click here to see the Simply Pro theme in action.
– By Marcia Coffey
Find Marcia on Google+
Call Marcia at 561.906.3436
Newsletters. The smart choice for shoestring budgets.
Most of you spend less than 4% of your revenue on marketing. So what to do with a shoestring budget like that?
Get a newsletter. Create, design and write it on Mail Chimp. Free of charge for up to 2,000 contacts.
By all measures newsletters fit the bill for small businesses. They are affordable, they are immediate, they grab attention and they convert.
:: Email is actually the preferred communication channel for marketing messages for most consumers.
:: Email is almost 40 times more effective than Facebook and Twitter combined in helping a business acquire new customers.
:: Most email is opened on a mobile device, so email marketing really takes advantage of this popular and dominating technology.
:: Email is fabulous for customer retention.
:: Email warms up your warm market or existing customer base because people do business with people they know, like and trust.
:: Email gets immediate results. When running a small business, every sale, order, or appointment can have a significant impact. With email, you’re able to get the results you’re looking for right away.
Can’t be bothered to custom design and write your own newsletter? Let me do it for you. See if you can do better than Harold!
– By Marcia Coffey
Find Marcia on Google+
Call Marcia at 561.906.3436
How Pinterest Theming Targets Your Audience
Do you happen to have a new product that resembles the proverbial boulder not moving up a hill?
Yes, of course … you know that yours is the only organic cooking oil in the world that jazzes up popcorn like nothing else, not to mention what it can do for broccoli.
But, why would anyone buy this unknown gourmet brand of yours at three times the cost of ordinary cooking oil sold in a supermarket?
You love your product. Question is how to reach an audience that doesn’t know what it’s missing.
Pinterest could just be a cost-free answer for you. Consider isolating a theme that would be exciting, helpful and educational to your target audience and build it out visually just like a special issue magazine. Obviously make it a Cooking Theme for your oil and then design Boards of foods suited to your oil, with images of relevant recipes (preferably, some of them yours), nutritional values, tips, et al.
Give the theme a catchy name, with your keyword. Maybe “100 Gourmet Cooking Oil Surprises”.
Case History
Consider the story of Petplan Insurance which markets a “non-essential” product … so say the stats. In the U.S. only 1% of pets are insured (30% in the UK, and as high as 50% in Sweden). Petplan wanted to increase the awareness of both the availability and necessity of pet insurance.
They began creating boards with compelling images from their pet health magazine, fetch!. They then expanded into specific educational content such as the “Health Tips” and “Breed All About It” boards.
While the Petplan boards cover different subjects, they all feature ONE CONCEPT: “how great pets are!”
Petplan has seen a 87% increase in new site traffic, a 35% increase in page views, and a 12.5% increase in insurance quote requests!
Pinterest Theming Project I’m Working On
Aesthetic Dental of Jupiter offers general dentistry as well as cosmetic dentistry. Most people are very interested in all of the anti-aging or cosmetic dental procedures and need information.
So Cosmetic Dentistry is the perfect theme with visuals of all of the ever-changing advancements in the field.
It’s no secret that companies are using Pinterest for marketing purposes and doing so successfully. Pinterest is a great tool for raising brand awareness, driving traffic back to your website and increasing sales
– By Marcia Coffey
Find Marcia on Google+
Call Marcia @ 561.906.3436.
Follow @jmgroupdesign
Build A Website To Change Someone
Web designers like me often make the same mistake. We think design is the clincher that gets attention and gets the sale or lead.
Yes, it could get attention. But, it is the content and the point of view that grab the visitor by the hand to pick up the phone or send an email.
When clients tell me a website is an online brochure, I wince because it is so much more and so much less. It is not a sales piece like other direct marketing tools.
Check out the 5 reasons why you don’t want a brochure website in the 21st century –
Why A Brochure Website Doesn’t Work Anymore
It is a complex interaction between visitor and webmaster where success depends on answering these questions:
Who is this site for?
How did visitors find out about your site?
What do you want visitors to do when they get to the site?
How will they decide to do that, and what promises do you make to cause that action?
These days the web is a hi-tech universe of video, social networks, high-speed connections, mobile devices and so much more.
But unless you ask the right questions of your target audience, none of this will matter. There are no PPC campaigns, SEO wizardry, social media blasts, newsletter lists, and all the rest that substitute for quality content that moves your target audience to ACTION.
RESOURCES
Creating remarkable content is crucial for any Inbound Marketing strategy. Hubspot interview with the inimitable Seth Godin:
http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/11026/Seth-Godin-s-Advice-For-Creating-Remarkable-Content.aspx
The First Rule of Web Design
– By Marcia Coffey
Or, call Marcia, WordPress web designer, at 561.906.3436.
Follow @jmgroupdesign
A Merry & Sparkling Christmas to All
