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Video has become a driving force in content marketing. According to latest statistics in The State of Video Marketing 2019 by Wyzowl, 68% of people say they’d most prefer to learn about a new product or service by watching a short video. This makes video more popular as a learning tool than text-based articles (15%), […] The post A Beginner’s Guide to Content Marketing Using Video appeared first on Marketing...

Video has become a driving force in content marketing. According to latest statistics in The State of Video Marketing 2019 by Wyzowl, 68% of people say they’d most prefer to learn about a new product or service by watching a short video. This makes video more popular as a learning tool than text-based articles (15%), infographics (4%) presentations and pitches (4%) ebooks and manuals (3%).

One only has to look as far as YouTube’s success to see that video content is a thriving entity all on its own. In order to maximize the effectiveness of your content marketing efforts, there is no question that you need to incorporate video into your marketing mix for lead generation. Product videos have proven to be helpful in the decision process of the buyer’s journey, with a reported 46% of users taking action after viewing a video ad. In fact, you can create a thriving business using mostly video as your main type of content.

A Beginner’s Guide to Content Marketing Using Video

If you normally just use textual content, the thought of using video can be daunting. It doesn’t have to be! Here’s how you can get started using video in your business today.

Get the Basic Tools

You really don’t have to spend tons of money on the right tools for creating entertaining and engaging videos for your content marketing needs. However, at least spending enough to be able to provide adequate lighting and sound is important. With the help of a couple apps, you can even use your smartphone or iPad to create outstanding videos.

No One Hit Wonders

Videos don’t stand alone. If you create one, you really should create more than one. Having a regular video series as part of your blog is a good idea. It will encourage more viewers to take the time to view your videos if you have more than one. At first it may feel as if no one is watching, but take the time to stick to doing them during a time period and see what happens.

Video marketing tip: Host a regular video series to gain repeat viewers for your videos.
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Shorter Is Better

You don’t want to make a video super long. More than three minutes and you’re pushing it unless you have really high quality images and sound to match the length of your video. If you do have something long to say, try breaking them up and do a series with one point on each video over time.

Repurpose Content You Already Have

For your first video you don’t have to reinvent the wheel; instead use some content you already have. If you have a “how to” blog post, why not do a quick video demonstrating how to do “it”. If you have a blog post with five tips on doing something better, do five videos talking about each tip for two or three minutes. Using visuals outside of your face is a good idea, to make it more interesting.

Don’t reinvent the wheel. Use your existing text-based content and repurpose into quick videos.
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Leverage Events (Online and Offline)

Having an event such as an in-person interview, conference, or an online webinar? Why not record it, then edit it and repurpose it to use later. You can break up longer events into shorter videos with a little bit of editing and adding in visuals, and you could have a series of videos from one hour-long event.

Leverage online and offline events for your content marketing. Record your events, edit and repurpose into video snippets.
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Outsource

If you’re not sure about how to edit the videos or create them in a format that is usable by most browsers including mobile devices, consider outsourcing the editing process. Usually you would provide them with the raw video and they’ll cut it down and edit it to make it a more professional production.

You can actually even hire local people to record for you. It’s up to you how much money you want to spend. But, it costs a lot less than you think to produce very professional sounding and looking videos for your content marketing needs.

A Beginner’s Guide to Content Marketing Using Video
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Do not worry about being perfect. Take a look on YouTube at the popular videos in your niche. They are probably not perfect. There may be a few exceptions but more than likely the really popular ones aren’t perfect. And if they are perfect, that person has probably been doing video FOR YEARS; I guarantee they did not start out as perfect. I guarantee it!

As long as viewers can see something interesting, hear the audio and trust the value and truth of the information being shared, you’ll see success using video as one of your content marketing tactics.

Now that you have the basics covered, it’s time to talk about specific content ideas for your video marketing.

Nine Ways to Add Video to Your Marketing Strategy

Videos are a great way to improve your marketing results, this is not only my opinion, but it’s been proven. According to Animoto, video ads from brands on social media are the number #1 way consumers have found out about brands, even beating out recommendations from friends and family. When you realize that YouTube is the really the second most powerful and most influential search engine behind Google Search, then you know you need to add video to your marketing strategy. Here’s how you can do so:

Nine Ways to Add Video to Your Marketing Strategy
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1) Share Announcements – A fabulous way to get started with video is to add exciting announcements to your blog using video. Announcements can be made quickly with your webcam and the microphone that comes with your computer.

2) Add Customer Reviews/Testimonials – Ask your customers to make video testimonials or do product reviews for you. It’s a great way to add interesting content to your website, social media, and other networks.

3) Add to Your Email Campaigns – You can actually include videos embedded into your emails with a play button, or include a link to the video inside your email with a description of the video you want your list members to watch.

4) Show Demos – A great use of video is to demonstrate anything to your clients. You can give them examples via video about how to do things such as how to format a blog post on WordPress, or how to bake a cake. Explainer videos can make your product or service easier to understand than a PDF or long article. It all depends on your niche.

5) Use in Training – Video is a great thing to use in training for your contractors, affiliates and others. You can teach people how to do simple to complex things via video. It’s almost as good as being there in person.

6) To Show Interviews – Are there movers and shakers in your industry that you’d like to interview? Gather together a round table of experts, record it, edit it and use it in materials later.

7) To Cover an Event – Going to a live event? Capture video, put it together, add some annotations, music, and commentary, and you have a wonderful video to share with your audience.

8) To Add Interest to Your Blog – Text-based blogs can get a little boring. Adding in good pictures, and even a short video within the blog post can add a lot of interest, making it more likely that people will visit, comment and share. You can also add a video introduction to your website instead of the normal blog or home page.

9) To Use on Social Networks – All the social media channels offer space to put up a video. Why not make a video introduction showing a short compilation of the type of work that you do to viewers who find you there?

Video marketing tip: don’t forget to add a call to action with every video.
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Finally, don’t forget to remember a call to action with every video. Whether your call to action is to like, share, vote, or buy, it’s imperative that you develop a way to leave your viewers with a clear idea of what they should do next.

Ciao,
Miss Kemya

The post A Beginner’s Guide to Content Marketing Using Video appeared first on Marketing Sparkler.

Social media marketing mistakes, we all make them at one time or another. But why do some social media strategies fail? Well, everyone makes mistakes, including social media marketers. But make too many mistakes, and your followers and engagement will drop, along with your revenue. No matter how big or small, every brand must maintain […] The post 8 Terrible Social Media Strategies Brands Should Stay Away From appeared first on Marketing...

Social media marketing mistakes, we all make them at one time or another. But why do some social media strategies fail? Well, everyone makes mistakes, including social media marketers. But make too many mistakes, and your followers and engagement will drop, along with your revenue.

No matter how big or small, every brand must maintain a robust social media presence these days. However, keep in mind that building a social media presence is more than just gaining more leads, customers, and sales.

8 Terrible Social Media Mistakes Brands Should Stay Away From

Social media should be a two-way street where you can develop a community, increase your reach, and know what people think about you. In this post, we’ll talk about the top social media marketing mistakes and more important, what you can do to avoid committing them.

Having no social media strategy at all

Having no social media marketing strategy will make it more challenging for you. You don’t know:

• When and what to post.
• What are your content buckets?
• What your audience prefers or wants.

You’re probably aware by now that there’s lots of noise going on in social media these days, and if you fail to come up with a robust social media strategy, it’s quite tricky to cut through the noise.

Developing an excellent social media strategy means that you’re creating specific goals, establishing benchmarks, planning, and so on.

Not knowing what you want to achieve

A primary focus will be on building a strong social presence. The tricky part it to not let your social presence dwindle. What are your main goals? Do you want to gain more likes, followers, and leads? Or do you want to establish your brand authority? If you don’t know what your goals are in the first place, then it’s hard for you to achieve it.

If you don’t know what your social media goal is, it will be hard for you to achieve it.
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Ideally, every successful social media strategy should have:

• Goals
• Strategies
• Target audience
• Team
• Time Investment

One of the biggest social media marketing mistakes centers around productivity. Social media has the power to suck up precious amounts of productive time from you and your staff, and yet give you very little in return. That’s why it’s crucial to create a robust social marketing plan, assign tasks, and stick to the plan.

Once you’ve already set plans to attain these goals, you can now move forward to taking necessary steps to achieve them. Set a time limit to ensure that you aren’t spending countless days in fruitless endeavors.

Unidentified target audience

Knowing and identifying who your target audience is essential. You might be focused on working hard, and yet without defining clearly who your target audience is, you’re still suffering because you might be aiming in the dark.

Having little to no interaction with your followers

Don’t feed your audience with a load of crafted marketing messages and expect them to take it all in. Remember that social media is all about being social – it’s all about people communicating with people. Being social is about conversations, engagements, and building relationships.

That’s why it’s vital that every single time you post on your social media profile, add a bit of a human touch. Each time you respond to a comment, avoid an impersonal copy-and-paste corporate response.

Don’t be just a faceless company – reply with something that personally addresses questions and queries.

Should negative comments or events occur, it’s best to keep those emotions in check. Most situations can be resolved fairly. Instead of blaming others, it’s best to deal with the situation instead.

Not investing in paid social advertisements

Contrary to what most people think, yes, paid ads do work. Ads help to increase revenues, and keep your loyal customers coming back again and again.

Think about it – approximately 3 billion people are actively using social media each day, and those numbers continue to rise.

However, you also need to have a clear understanding of:

• Why you’re running a social media campaign in the first place
• Where to place your ads
• How will you able to reach more users on social media
• What type of ads work well with your business to achieve your goals

The key here is appropriate goal-setting and defined KPIs.

Being social is about conversations, engagements, and building relationships.
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Being overly promotional

While it’s true that most people hate promotional content, and even detest advertising, if you don’t invest on social media promotions, you’re may be limiting your potential for increased followers and likes on social media. This is why you have to use advertising subtly.

After all, your business needs to sell at one point or another. That’s why it’s okay now and then to post promotional material, as long as you don’t go overboard with it. The more engagement and social media interaction that you get, the more revenue you will enjoy.

Inconsistency in posting content

You can be inconsistent in social media in so many ways. From your posting schedule, the social media creatives you use, to the language you use, your brand should form a cohesive image across all of the social media channels you use.

In order to develop a successful brand, you have to make sure that:

• Your followers see you regularly.
• People can quickly identify your branded social media creatives.
• Users can easily relate to or be familiar with the type of social media tone that you use.

If these factors continuously change, then most of your customers won’t be able to recognize or relate to you. Of course, this is not the goal!  

You must be consistent in your social media efforts, from branding to content frequency and tone of voice.
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Producing low-quality content and visuals

The social media landscape is getting more and more competitive these days. No one wants to see blurry photographs and low-quality images in their feeds. Posting screenshots, low-quality images, or no images at all, can make your profile look dull and boring.

Moreover, compelling visuals do better than just plain text. That’s why you have to make sure that you’re using high-quality images in all your posts on social media. Pixabay and Unsplash can help you source free photos and videos. Meanwhile, Canva, Crello, and AdobeSpark help you create quality, branded images.

Wrapping It Up

Are you currently committing one of these social media marketing mistakes? Not to worry, you can quickly turn it around by following the tips above.

What’s vital is to establish your goal, set a plan, and identify your target audience. When you avoid these most common mistakes, you’ll be able to your brand faster, build a stronger base of loyal followers, and boost your revenues in the long run.

Ciao,
Miss Kemya

This is a guest post from Kevin Urrutia, founder of Voy Media, a Facebook Marketing Agency based in New York. Voy Media believes in the power of Facebook advertising in helping businesses to boost their sales and improve their conversions. Voy Media aids businesses to push the right message to the right audience in order to deliver the right outcomes.

The post 8 Terrible Social Media Strategies Brands Should Stay Away From appeared first on Marketing Sparkler.

A great way to promote your business is to position yourself as a local expert. Become a local expert in your field of expertise to boost your business in ways that you cannot imagine. It doesn’t matter whether you have an online business or a brick and mortar business; being seen as a local go-to […] The post How to Become the Local Go-To Expert In Your Industry appeared first on Marketing...

A great way to promote your business is to position yourself as a local expert. Become a local expert in your field of expertise to boost your business in ways that you cannot imagine. It doesn’t matter whether you have an online business or a brick and mortar business; being seen as a local go-to expert will strengthen your credibility and boost your profitability.

No time to read the full post? Listen on the podcast:

5 Ways To Become A Local Expert In Your Industry

Option 1: Start a Locally-Inspired Blog

Create a blog that is focused on your local area within your niche. Be sure to include locally-focused keywords and talk directly to your local audience about your subject. You can use your local blog as your expert resource center, for interviewing local people, writing information about your niche, educating the public about your niche and more.

Option 2: Offer to Speak at Events

Become a local expert through speaking. Speakers are seen as experts! Contact local organizations that might like to hear about your industry. Local organizations often need speakers; offer your services for a couple of different topics relating to your niche. You can contact college organizations, local associations, and groups by sending them information that you can talk about as an expert.

Option 3: Write for Your Local Paper (gasp!)

Yes, writing for your local newspaper will lend you credibility, especially in your local area. And believe it or not, people still read newspapers! Many local newspapers have community columns where local experts write about their niche. Contact the newspaper and offer your services. Sometimes you can even get paid, but even if you don’t get paid, having your byline in the local paper can make others look to you as the local expert even more. Don’t forget, most local newspapers now include an online version to read as well, affording you opportunities to have both print and online exposure for your business.

Option 4: Publish a Book

You have a body of knowledge and perspective in your field, and others want to read about it. Become a local expert through the power of self publishing. Today, with the advent of Kindle Publishing you can quickly become a published author. You can do a completely electronic version, or you can even use print on demand services (POD) to have a print copy of your book available for sale at the local events that you speak at. Being a published author immediately implies “expert.”

Option 5: Get Quoted

Get quoted in local media outlets, including print, radio and online outlets. Pay attention to local news stories and trending topics in your area. If you make it a practice to contact media to add to stories that appear in your local paper or on local news related to your niche, eventually they’ll start calling you themselves for help with their stories. Don’t turn down an offer and soon you’ll be the only one they call for help with stories relating to your area of expertise.

Final Thoughts

To establish yourself as a local expert it’s important that you study your subject in-depth so that you can become a real expert. It’s also important to believe in yourself so that the unstoppable confidence shines through. You must also be able to explain your subject matter in general enough terms that non-experts can understand. After all, an expert’s job is to impart knowledge to others that they’ve worked hard to acquire.

Finally, call yourself an expert. Add your expertise to your name and signature line, to your website, to your blog, to your business cards and every bit of marketing collateral that you have. The more you demonstrate yourself as an expert, the more other people will perceive you as an expert.

Ciao,
Miss Kemya

What strategies have you used to become a local expert in your industry?

The post How to Become the Local Go-To Expert In Your Industry appeared first on Marketing Sparkler.

Starting a membership site can be lucrative and fun. You get to nurture and support a community while enjoying profits for months or even years to come. If you’ve used other business models in the past, then you probably know that many models often create a feast or famine cycle. One month your profits may […] The post A Starter Guide to Making Money With Memberships appeared first on Marketing...

Starting a membership site can be lucrative and fun. You get to nurture and support a community while enjoying profits for months or even years to come.

If you’ve used other business models in the past, then you probably know that many models often create a feast or famine cycle. One month your profits may be high and you’re enjoying the good life. However, the very next month, you’re back to struggling just to pay the bills and keep the lights on.

With a membership site, you can accurately guess what your monthly income will look like. This can help prevent the feast and famine cycle of infinite launches and the intense financial stress that can go with it.

Not only do you have a monthly income, you also have a database of customers that are hungry for more of your products or services. That means, you can launch a new offering and share it with a dedicated fan base of people who already know, like, and trust you. Having a loyal fan base allows you to make even more money from each new product launch.

Start A Membership Site: Your Starter Guide to Making Money With Memberships

Many coaches and consultants are turning to membership sites as a way of earning recurring cash.  Membership sites can be great for bringing in money month after month, with very little extra work required to maintain them.

Part 1: Getting Your Membership Site Started

Part 2: Types of Memberships and Subscriptions

Part 3: Organizing Your Membership Site

Part 4: Membership Promotion Strategy

Part 5: Membership Communication and Messaging

Part 6: Make Sure Your Membership Site Runs Smoothly

Getting Your Membership Site Started

Let’s start from the beginning. A membership site is a site that’s password protected, and generally requires users to pay a monthly fee.  Most membership sites are protected by special scripts that handle the managing of the usernames and passwords of members.  They also take care of canceling members whose payments don’t go through, or members who cancel manually.

It is relatively simple to start a membership site.  You only need 3 things to get started:

• a membership script, aka membership management software
• a billing provider, and
• content.

The membership script will generally take care of the billing, member management, and protection of the members’ area.

Fortunately, there is an abundance of membership scripts available to fit any budget. From a simple plugin such as s2Member, to a more robust solutions like aMember or InstaMember, software options today provide a wide spectrum with all the bells and whistles you can think of. If you’re already using a content management system like WordPress, you can simply password-protect pages on your website without the use of an extra plugin at all.

No time to read the full post? Download this FULL POST with membership site planner workbook:

You can literally set up a full membership site in a couple hours. All you need to do is set up the script, add a billing provider such as PayPal, and add content to the members’ area. How’s that for simplicity?

Types of Memberships and Subscriptions

The first step is to figure out what type of membership/subscription site you want to start. Keep in mind, it may incorporate more than one of these ideas.

Type A: Online Membership Sites

The most common type of content-based membership is an online membership where members have access to certain content, advice, tools, etc.

For example, you can offer a monthly course, digital newsletter, articles, how to information… whatever your members want. Then, you can include downloadable software, offer coaching, provide templates or other tools. The deliverables you design for your membership subscribers is completely up to you.

Create Launch Profit (CLP) is a monthly membership site of marketing templates. This eSubscription Box offers a themed set of templates each month, curated specifically for solopreneurs and small business owners who need someone to write and create marketing system, yet lack the marketing staff (or budget) to hire full-time staff. Launching your membership site will be a breeze when you pickup these “Membership Site” templates from the CLP membership. Shop here for more info.

Type B: Physical Product Subscription

You don’t have to do everything online. There’s something about having a real physical product in one’s hands that appeals to people. It might be content delivered via print newsletter, magazine, CD or DVD. Or it might be a t-shirt of the month, wine of the month, craft project of the month or anything else your members would be interested in.

You could also start a membership site and include a combination of the above. For example, you could give some content online, but provide your members with a physical product to look forward to on a monthly or quarterly basis. Or, if you’re offering a wine of the month club, have your members log in to find recipes, wine pairings and other useful content.

Organizing Your Membership Site

Before you start writing, recording audio or video, decide on the specific topics your membership site is going to cover and how you are going to organize the information.

Here are a few things to consider before you start a membership program:

1. Look at what information is included in other similar membership sites. What ideas can you adopt and what can you do to make it better?
2. Think about your target market and what their biggest struggles are. How can your product address that?
3. How can you help them do it in less time and without as much work?

You may also survey your readers and customers on what they would find helpful. Always keep tabs on what your members want and evolve your membership according to their changing needs.

Membership Promotional Strategy

You’ve planned your membership site. You’ve assigned the content creation. Now it’s time to plan your promotion strategy to get members! Here are a few ideas for the pre-launch, launch and post launch phases, to keep a steady stream of new members coming in.

Promoting the product before launch is a great way to generate a ton of excitement and interest. Depending on the complexity and cost of your membership site, you could start your pre-launch promotions 30-60 days in advance, or more if you feel you can keep the level of excitement up.

Here are a few tips to get you started:

Pre-sales and Emails

• Create an early notification list. Set up an opt-in page where your sales page will eventually be to get those interested in the topic to sign up, so you can notify them when the membership site is ready. Have them sign up to get sneak peeks, be a beta tester or even just receive a discount on the launch price.
• If you have existing customers or access to a large mailing list, consider launching a pre-sales campaign. It can create a lot of early buzz for the product.
• Nurture your list of interested parties that have not yet joined. Share demos, discuss more of the features and how it will solve the problem. Offer a free trial. Ask if they’d like to participate in a group chat to get their questions answered.

So you wanna launch a membership site? Setting up your program will be a breeze when you pickup these “Membership Site” templates, a full soup-to-nuts package covering everything from a membership platform comparisons, to setup and sales processes, planning your members area content, and ongoing messaging to attract and retain members. Shop here for more info.

Content Marketing Ideas

• Blog about it… and blog some more. Find guest blogging opportunities related to the base topic of your membership site and share your wisdom, dropping a small product mention and link to your landing page.
• Email about it. Talk about the issues people face that subscribing to this membership product will solve. Talk about solutions they’ve tried before that didn’t work or not as well as expected.
• Host a live video or pre-record one to share a little about the membership, what it can do and how it will help viewers. Show viewers you understand their problem and help them visualize what life will be like after subscribing to your membership.
• Repurpose content you sent pre-launch into other marketing methods. Turn blog posts into videos, videos into checklists, etc.

Affiliates and Influencers

• Rev up your affiliates. Give them the launch details in plenty of time for them to schedule the promotion into their calendar. Give them pre-written content and images that they can use for promoting the product.
• Advertising: If you have the budget, create some advertising that talks about your brand and the membership product. Talk about the unique features of your membership and how it can change people’s lives or businesses.
• Touch base with influencers and bloggers within your niche. See who you can get on board to promote your product. Offer to write some emails, social media posts and/or blog posts to make it easy for them to promote. Be sure to offer them freebies they can share with their audience.
• Partner up with others to host a Q&A session, webinar or podcast to discuss the product, what it can do for others, how it came about, early results being seen, etc.

Finally, you will want to continue to nurture and build relationships with your buyers. Analyze the stats of all the marketing you’ve done thus far. Once you start a membership site, your work is not done. Repeat what’s working, tweak things that are doing a fair job and dump those that are not performing well.

Membership Communication and Messaging

As you get more members, your monthly income will continue to grow, and you’ll have money coming in each month. You’ll just need to continue delivering whatever it is you promised your members and subscriptions will stay on a steady increase!

If you have a membership website, you probably email your members once a month to deliver their content. But if you want your members to stay subscribed, you should be emailing more often. Frequent messages keep your members engaged with your brand and make it less likely that they’ll suddenly cancel their membership with no warning.

Ideally, you want to email your subscribers once a week. Use this simple schedule to start, and tweak it as you get learn more about your audience response rates.

Week #1: The Delivery Email

This email should contain a link to the new content you have available. Let subscribers know where to login to download their content and provide their username. Then take it a step further and offer them help if they can’t access their content for some reason.

Week #2: The Reminder Email

Some subscribers may have missed your original email or they may not have had a chance to download it on the day of release.

Encourage subscribers to download their content by telling them a little bit about it. For example, if you’re a wellness coach that provides nutritious recipes for families, you could say, “My kids love the applesauce muffin recipe I included this month. They asked me to put these muffins in their back to school lunches.”

Week #3: The Teaser Email

Use this email to tease your subscribers about what’s coming up next. This makes them curious and gives them a reason to stay subscribed. This doesn’t have to a long email and you shouldn’t include everything that you’ll be giving them next month.

It can be a simple message but it gives you a reason to stay in contact and keeps your brand fresh in your subscribers’ minds.

Week #4: The Expiration Email

If you do not have a content vault, and you swap content on a monthly basis, this is your chance to remind your subscribers that the current month’s content is going to expire soon. Urge them to download it while there’s still time.

Make it Personal

Try to be personal in every email you send to your subscribers. Let them know what’s going in your life or business. You could say, “Happy September! I really enjoyed this summer. But the kids are back at school again so I’m gearing up to set my autumn business goals.”

You want to weave in these details because it makes your connection with your subscribers even stronger. Plus, it gives you a chance to tell them about other neat stuff you may have going on.

Keeping your subscribers engaged with your content is one way to go above and beyond with your customer service. Little touches like consistent emails will make your brand memorable to your subscribers.

Make Sure Your Membership Site Runs Smoothly

When you decide to start a membership site, it’s easy to let your enthusiasm take over. However, before you launch, you’ll want to consider implementing three key practices to make sure your membership runs smoothly.

First, listen to your members. If they are providing feedback, do not be afraid to shake things up.

Second, do not get caught up with the technical aspects of running the membership. It’s perfectly fine to start with a bare bones version of your membership. Later when you’ve experienced some success and have a base of core users, you can go through and add those fancy extras.

Third, launching a membership will require a lot of marketing and promotion. Ideally, you want content ready 3-6 months in advance. This ensures your members get a steady supply of content while you’re adjusting to the responsibilities of running a membership.

So you wanna launch a membership site? Setting up your program will be a breeze when you pickup these “Membership Site” templates, a full soup-to-nuts package covering everything from a membership platform comparisons, to setup and sales processes, planning your members area content, and ongoing messaging to attract and retain members. Shop here for more info.

In Conclusion

Grow your offerings as you get more feedback and your income allows to add more content, tools or other valuable resources for your members. This makes your members want to stay for the value you’ve added.

You don’t have to be a guru or an industry name to launch your own successful membership site. With this information along with this tools in the Membership Site Templates Package, you can do it right now and start enjoying the rewards of recurring income.

Ciao,
Miss Kemya

The post A Starter Guide to Making Money With Memberships appeared first on Marketing Sparkler.

If you’re a non-data-driven marketer, you might think that building a data-driven social marketing strategy is too complicated. However, if you do not measure and track the right things on social media, you still end up wasting a lot of time and energy. You spend most of your time guessing what is and what isn’t […] The post 5 Data-Driven Ways to Maximize Your Social Media Marketing appeared first on Marketing...

If you’re a non-data-driven marketer, you might think that building a data-driven social marketing strategy is too complicated. However, if you do not measure and track the right things on social media, you still end up wasting a lot of time and energy. You spend most of your time guessing what is and what isn’t useful. This translates to a loss of money and other resources. You’re also losing a lot of opportunities to engage with your target audience.

The worst part of all is that you might end up hurting your brand image because you fail to give your audience what they want. Why? Because you don’t know what exactly it is!

The Benefits of Going Data Driven

Once you start adopting a data-driven mindset, there are so many benefits that come with it to improve your social media marketing strategy:

• Finding your target audience and the right personas.
• Identifying the right social media channels.
• Boosting the effectiveness of social media campaigns.
• Benchmarking against your tightest competitors.

All of this help enhance your social ROI. Jumpstarting a data-driven social strategy doesn’t have to be that tricky as long as you have the right tools, you can collect vital information effortlessly. That way, you can better understand and make sound decisions.

5 Data-Driven Ways to Maximize Your Social Media Marketing

Now, we’ll look at the five data-driven ways where you can maximize your social media marketing.

1. Set your Performance Indicators (KPI)

Various social media metrics help you understand how well your social media campaigns are doing, and the ROI that you get from them. However, the only way to ensure ROI is by measuring the right social media KPIs. You have to remember that social media success goes beyond your like, follower, and fan counts.

Ask yourself these questions:

• Are you engaging the right people?
• Are you reaching the right people?
• How many of your followers are inquiring about your products and services?
• What percentage of your audience become actual customers?

With that being said, your social media KPIs should be highly focused on engagement, reach, leads and conversions. The rest are just vanity metrics.

Your social media KPIs should be focused on engagement, reach, leads and conversions. The rest are just vanity metrics.
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You also need to concentrate on the KPIs that are relevant to the social media channels that your brand is active on. Also, the ones that have the most relevance to your target audience’s behavior.

2. Choose Your Tools To Measure

Choose the right tools that rely heavily on data to maximize efficiency, collaboration, and workflows. It helps you enhance your capabilities.

There are many tools are available across various social media channels, and most of these have native analytic software. For example, there are sophisticated tools on Facebook and Instagram that allow you to know who your most engaged followers are, and when are most of your audience online.

Tools like Facebook Insights help you boost your engagement by gaining insight into what specific content your audience mostly responds to and what particular times of the day that they interact with brands.

There’s also Buzzsumo, a social insights software allows you to look for keywords and find what’s trending on different social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, and Pinterest.

Are you using native analytics for tracking and measuring your social media efforts, or a 3rd party platform?
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3. Present Information Better

Don’t expect everyone to take your word for everything that you say. You should be able to back up your claims by using studies, statistics, and sources from third parties that are neutral. Your primary goal here is to be able to add credibility to your argument and rationale with other people.

Also, 65 percent of average internet users tend to recall more information if it’s presented visually than text. That’s why incorporating infographics should be an essential addition if you want to maximize your social media strategy.

4. Know Your Social Platform

They say that you should never put all your eggs in a single basket. Quite similarly, you shouldn’t invest so much on a single platform unless you know where your audience is.

If you have an older demographic, then maybe you should make Facebook and Twitter as your top priority. Meanwhile, Instagram and Snapchat are go-to platforms for younger audiences.

Do you know where your audience goes to find info about your industry, products and services? Go there and engage!
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There are different tools that you can use to track user engagement, such as Appsee, Hotjar, and Mixpanel. These will help you know who is engaging with your ads and will help you identify which social media accounts are appealing to your target audience.

Also keep in mind that if most of your audience is on Instagram, it doesn’t mean that you should alienate Facebook or Youtube altogether.

For instance, if you’ve recently gone on a company team building retreat, you can post fun photos and visuals on Instagram. Then, post an ad that will directly lead them to your profile on Facebook, publish an article on Medium and so on. That way, you’re already building steady relationships with leads, even before you talk to them.

5. Experiment with Paid Ads

These days, social media advertising has never been so cheap, and useful as long as you learn to do it properly. It’s not advisable that you boost every single post. You can promote one post and let the others be the touches. Here are a few resources you can read:

• Shopify’s Facebook Advertising
• Marketer Instagram Advertising
• Neil Patel’s Twitter Marketing Guide

A word about paid social media ads: If you see a video ad that has thousands of likes and comments, chances are, the majority of the page posts will have fewer likes, shares, and comments. This is because people are likely going to click, comment, like, or share a post if (a particular post) has already received massive amounts of engagement.

Therefore, it is not advised to boost every single post because you’re wasting money. Instead, focus on creating an attractive and compelling ad that you can promote and let that be your bait. That way, it’s easier for people to click on your ad and visit your page. Then, you can begin to build an excellent relationship with them.

5 Data-Driven Ways to Maximize Your Social Media Marketing
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The Bottom Line

Keep in mind that there’s no one-size-fits-all-strategy for all of this as every audience is different. In order to get the results you want, you must customize your social media strategy.

With these data-driven tactics, even small changes can make a significant impact. This will make your efforts a worthy investment in the long run.

Ciao,
Miss Kemya

This is a guest post from Lili Griffin, an e-commerce developer and Adwords specialist by day and a binge Netflix watcher at night. She loves sci-fi movies and laughs at silly YouTube videos.

The post 5 Data-Driven Ways to Maximize Your Social Media Marketing appeared first on Marketing Sparkler.

We all have bad habits. Some bad habits are of a personal nature, as in we eat too much, some drink too much, some of us don’t know when to shut up, I could go on forever… But I want to address one of the single most bad habits that plagues entrepreneurs. This bad habit […] The post The One Bad Habit That Requires Your Immediate Attention appeared first on Marketing...

We all have bad habits. Some bad habits are of a personal nature, as in we eat too much, some drink too much, some of us don’t know when to shut up, I could go on forever…

But I want to address one of the single most bad habits that plagues entrepreneurs. This bad habit keeps us stuck in the same lane, even though we say we want a change. It’s easy to succumb to and limits our life chances, and it’s based in fear and potentially contagious.

Unfortunately, this habit is one of the hardest habits to identify and break. However, once you recognize it, admit it, and work to overcome it, this bad habit Can. Be. Broken.

So, what is this single most bad habit that plagues entrepreneurs? The one that requires your immediate attention?

No time to read the full post? Listen on the podcast:

The One Bad Habit That Requires Your Immediate Attention

The one bad habit that requires your immediate attention is SETTLING.

Settling for less than you want.

Settling for less than you expected.

Settling for less than you worked for.

Settling for less than you deserve.

Many of us settle by accident, and before we realize it, time slips away and we look back and wonder what happened, how we arrived at our current circumstance.

Have you settled in your business?

Don’t think about what you say your business goals are, that’s just lip service. Instead, think about your actions. The action, or lack of action, you take when running your business. Evaluate your efforts from the past 12-18 months. Really take a hard look at what’s working, what’s not working, and the direct time spent on revenue generating activities.

Have you settled for less in your business? Here is how you can fix it!
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Answer the following questions:

• Are you using a strategic plan to guide your growth?
• Do you have a realistic operating budget?
• Are you actively expanding your network?
• Have you invested in marketing to grow the business?
• Are you positioning your business to launch new (or updated) products and services?

Out of these five questions, did you have any ‘yes’ answers? How many ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answers did you have? Be honest with yourself, as this assessment is for your only eyes. These questions are designed to help you begin to figure out if you are settling for the status quo in your business, or if you are proactively positioning yourself for growth.

What does settling look like?

You see, when you are settling in your business, it doesn’t have to be as obvious as declining sales, or no product launches.  Settling can also include things like standing in place; even though you are constantly working on growing the business. The key can come down to what you are spending time on, and the impact your actions are having on your biz.

On the other hand, are you drowning? Maybe wingin it, with no solid plans in place? Maybe stuck and not sure what to do? Or perhaps you have been doing the same things for so long and they’re not quite producing an increase in results and growth. Well my friend, I have news for you. Not addressing your current state of affairs is the same thing as settling. Your lack of action means you’re settling. This is one bad habit that you must get rid of!

Never settle for less than you want, expect, or deserve. Get UNSETTLED.
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Settling sucks. Settling isn’t fun, there’s no excitement in settling. Settling is stressful!

So what are you going to do about it?

Get Unsettled.

You must make a conscious decision not to settle. You must choose to abstain from the mediocre. Buck the status quo, take some risks and grab a handful of sheer determination.

Ok, you’re ready to get unsettled, now what?

Buck the status quo, take some risks in your business, and grab a handful of sheer determination.
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It All Starts With A Plan

You must set milestones, checkpoints, and measurable goals to force you away from complacency. When you have these measurements, these safeguards in place, you can easily see when you’re coming close to settling. Use these quantifiable measurements as your barometer to give yourself a kick in the pants and re-ignite your own fire when you start slacking off!

Sit, be honest with yourself, and assess where you’ve been, where you are, and where you want to go. Then look at what actions you need to take that will lead you to your destination.

If you need some guidance to get started, here are a few helpful posts:

• Are You Managing Your Time Or Is It Managing You?
• Marketing & Tech Essentials to Run Your Business
• 5 Powerful Mindset Strategies for Entrepreneurial Success
• How to Focus On Clear Actionable Goals
• Common Small Business Problems and How to Overcome Them 

Dreaming with no plan in place is just wishful thinking, which gets us nowhere. The real pursuit of these dreams is what separates the dreamers and do-ers, so create a plan, then take action!

Ciao,
Miss Kemya
Your fellow entrepreneur who refuses to settle!

The post The One Bad Habit That Requires Your Immediate Attention appeared first on Marketing Sparkler.

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