Marketing in the Time of COVID

While we’ve been confined to quarters, consumer buying behavior shifted significantly—and there’s more bad news for brick-and-mortar retailers. COVID has created new marketing challenges. 

These stats tell the story:

• eCommerce orders are up a whopping 108%
• Our daily Facebook habit has increased 27%, YouTube 15%, TikTok 15%
• 42% of us believe the way we shop will fundamentally change

The shift towards eCommerce has revved into high gear

The shocking bankruptcy/closing of some of retail’s oldest and most storied brands—the department stores—will further impact the way we shop. These behemoths have traditionally filled mall parking lots. Now those malls will likely shutter as consumers switch to online shopping.

The challenges of change

Smart businesses need to be nimble and adapt to change. I know one business owner who closed down one office, furloughed a few employees and began offering virtual services. All within one week. This is a guy who’s not afraid to make decisions and move on them.

One approach might rely on the messaging that so many have been sharing—that we’re all in this together. Somehow that’s comforting. 

With increased online engagement, conversion is now essential to business success

With reduced budgets, we are all content creators. We’re sharing photos and videos across social platforms. These are personal brand experiences that now have an official name: User-Generated Content (UGC); and it’s UGC that potential customers trust. People are looking for authenticity and connection. UGC can be sustainable and cost-effective, the way to build trust, grow sales and deepen relationships.

Building trust: Be the source of consumer confidence

One way to generate trust is through shared, authentic experiences. How to do this? By showing off our happy customers. Think case studies, showcasing successes. According to Nielsen Research, 92% of consumers trust earned media, like UGC, more than any other form of content.

In that same study, 87%  testified that social media posts help them decide what to buy, and 56% say that they rely on reviews to make informed online purchasing decisions. These findings transcend the high-priced photos and product descriptions on websites.

The power of Zooming in your PJs

One unintended side effect of the lockdown has been the dismantling of the corporate façade, of office formalities. Doing a Zoom meeting in your pajamas with kids wrestling in the background tends to humanize us. It brings us together. 

Preparing ourselves for what comes next

We all want our lives back. We’re angry about the way our government has mismanaged this crisis, heartbroken by the unnecessary loss of lives. But by now, we all understand that our former lives are going to be out of reach for a long, long time. 

This is the perfect time to be developing a marketing plan that leverages online delivery

Think about creating some case studies. Then think about how you’re going to use these. I’m working with one client and we’re creating animated explainer videos for YouTube advertising. Or maybe it’s time to finally update your website. Need help rethinking your marketing strategy? Contact Top of Mind Marketing. We’re writers and content marketing experts. 

COVID Downtime: Learn to Use Promo

I was in Europe when the coronavirus began to manifest itself. Those from Asia were wearing masks and gloves when I flew out of SFO. On my way home a month later in Paris, there were a few more masks and gloves, but no one seemed to be alarmed, including me. I was just delighted to be on an airplane with the luxury of empty seats. More than two months later, our pleasant, predictable lives have irrevocably changed. We’re in lockdown. We’ve stooped to hording toilet paper and bleach. Fantasizing about meeting our friends for drinks, going to a movie or getting a haircut. 

They tell us to stay productive

One article recommended setting goals and deadlines, scheduling breaks and lunch. I don’t know about you, but I’m not having any problem with breaks, and lunch is way too easy. Many of us wonder what we’ll look like when this is over. 

So now we have a little more time on our hands

While I’m busy, I’m saving time by not having to drive back and forth to meetings. I want to use this time productively.

Promo.com: A snappy promo application

I wanted a promotion application, and I found Promo.com. This little tool is pretty snappy. It’s fun, easy to use and affordable. I spent a few hours figuring out how to create my own little four-frame video that I can use in a number of ways—on social media sites or a website to promote a new product or sale. I’m doing a YouTube advertising campaign with one client, and this application will pair with the video, then link to a landing page on our website.

Use Promo as a turnkey product or customize

Promo.com be used as a turnkey product. Choose from millions of stock footage clips, high-quality photos and royalty-free music. Add your logo, swap out the text and it’s ready to go. But I like to customize this product. It’s very easy to import your own images or a video into the application. You have little frames where you can then select from Promo’s music choices and your own content. You can choose the font and how you want the text to show up on the video—it can slide in or pop and land on the page, etc. Wrap up your little video with a call to action–your name, contact and logo. 

This is a really great time to create or update your website

A website has a shelf life. Content becomes dated, styles change. If a website was built in WordPress, we can often apply a new template and create a completely fresh look, updating your site with a new look and feel without having to start from scratch. I’m using this time to completely redo my own site, and I’m going to simplify it. I’ve got more than 300 blogs on my site. Time for some serious housecleaning before migrating these into the new environment. 

If you’re thinking that this is a great time to redo your own website, contact Top of Mind Marketing. We’re writers and content marketing experts.

Case Study: Web Referrals Increase by 50%

Sometimes we forget how effective case studies can be

Rather than just telling your audience what you do, case studies are opportunities to actually demonstrate your ability to effect change, to showcase your expertise, to document how you’ve successfully helped your clients increase revenue.

An audit to understand marketing effectiveness                       

I’ve been working with one client for seven years. When we began working together, I did an audit to understand how they were spending their marketing dollars and how effective that investment was. They had a website and a presence on Facebook, Linkedin and Twitter, but posts were sporadic and haphazard. The person who had been writing blogs was neither local nor generating content that was relevant to their Bay Area clients. A monthly newsletter wasn’t showcasing their range of services.

Blogs became the workhorse of their content marketing program

My immediate goal was to improve the quality of their weekly blogs, which became the workhorse of our content marketing program. Well-written blogs accomplish a few things. They provide fresh content for your website and increase your SEO value, helping it rank in search engines. A blog is also an opportunity for you to share your expertise and position yourself as a thought leader. It doesn’t stop there. Your blog can be repurposed in your monthly newsletter. Excerpts can be used in social media posts. Add a link back to your website to drive traffic to your site. 

Increased web referrals by 50%

Over the course of the next year or so, our metrics showed that our steady efforts were paying off. Our website referrals increased by 50%. Since then, we’ve created a brand new website and rewritten the content, but we’ve continued to stick with our quality blogs, social media posts and monthly newsletter. 

Things that I do to help raise SEO value and clickthrough rates

• Create crisp, attention-getting subject lines for blogs and newsletters
• Identify and deploy keywords/phrases liberally throughout all content. 
• Write consistently high-quality content. 

What we’re doing during the coronavirus lockdown

This client has closed down one office, has most of his team working virtually and is expanding to new locations. Staying nimble and making critical business decisions as the economic landscape shifts is not something everyone can do. One thing I’ve always admired about this client is his ability to make decisions. No tortured conversations or looking back with regret. 

We’re also rebranding

We’re developing a new logo, which means new marketing collateral and a new website. In the virtual world that is the new norm—at least for the foreseeable future–we’re rethinking the way we’re perceived in the marketplace and the value we bring to our clients. Like every business owner these days, we’re identifying the pain point. When you break it down, it’s nearly always that simple. What is the problem that we can solve?

Now is the perfect time to work on your marketing! 

Is it time for a new or updated website or an expanded content marketing program? Contact us at Top of Mind Marketing. We’re writers and content marketing experts.

You, Your Marketing and the Role of Psychology

I suspect I’m not the only one gets so caught up in the frenzy of crossing stuff off my to-do list that I lose track of my bigger goal—actually reaching my clients with great information. We need to be sharing insights that will help users do their jobs, showcasing expertise that will make us look like heroes. All of this, of course, has to be immediate—we have three seconds to put this all together to capture audience attention. 

Reaching your audience on an emotional level; identifying the pain

We’re appealing to the emotions of our audiences. Those emotions are processing information five times faster than our brains, and they make a more lasting imprint. Whether you’re writing a blog, a newsletter, an ebook or a social media post, the principles are the same.

If you’re writing a newsletter, the subject line should be reach people emotionally—initiating excitement, urgency—even low-level anxiety. They’re all motivators. 

Our brains love images

• Brains process images 60x faster than they process text; 90% of all data that the brain processes is visual. 
• We form gut reactions in three seconds or fewer.
• We’re much more likely to remember pictures with text than either element as a standalone item.
• The primitive brain is particularly drawn to images of sex, danger and food. Before you begin adding irrelevant images of sexy people eating lavish meals in dangerous situations to your social media posts, know that this is the lowest form of clickbait and has fallen from favor. It lacks authenticity and it’s dishonest. This is not the way to build loyalty.
• We also gravitate to images of people. We are all looking for connections. I write a weekly blog for a legal services company. I thought that for Living Trusts my limited image options included boring pictures of legal documents. I had an epiphany and realized that Living Trusts are really all about people. They are about families, the people we love and want to protect. This opened up a huge resource of image opportunities.
• We read expressions on faces—they become road maps to what we will encounter within. All images of faces get our attention, but faces of babies light up emotion receptors.
• Include a face that’s looking toward you, establishing eye contact, so there’s a sense of talking to your audience, building a relationship. This is also a great place to sneak in a call to action!

Color is a strategic element of your marketing message

Colors and emotions are closely linked. Some estimate that as much as 62-90% of a product’s message is determined by its color. Companies choose colors that they believe will motivate customers to buy their products and improve brand awareness. 

• Yellow activates anxiety.
• Blue builds trust. Strong blue stimulates clear thought, light blue has a calming influence.
• Green is the color of balance and growth.

Let’s make the most of your three seconds to get in front of your audience! 

Contact Top of Mind Marketing. We’re writers and content marketing specialists. 

Facebook, YouTube and Election Security

The Iowa caucus got off to an inauspicious start, but it officially kicked off the 2020 Presidential race. Let’s take a look at how people are getting their election-year news.

Facebook leads social sites as pathways to news 

Facebook and YouTube are the most-used social sites for accessing news—43% of US adults use Facebook and 21% turn to YouTube for their news. 

YouTube is taking a very responsible position on disinformation

YouTube has pledged to remove digitally altered content, alluding to the rising use of deepfakes– media in which a person is replaced with someone else’s likeness. Those with advanced video and photoshop abilities are skilled at swapping out or doctoring photos.  

YouTube will not allow content that:

• Has been technically manipulated or doctored in a way that misleads users and may pose a serious risk.
• Aims to mislead people about voting or the census processes—providing an incorrect date, for instance.
• Advances false claims related to the technical eligibility requirements–claims that a candidate is not eligible to hold office based on false information about citizenship requirements.

Content that violates these terms will be removed

YouTube promises to remove content that violates these rules or that “impersonates, misrepresents, or conceals association with a government.”

Facebook has 35,000 people working on its security team

Founder Mark Zuckerberg made an earlier announcement that Facebook would not monitor political ads because it would be interfering with free speech. A massive outcry appears to have had an impact. Facebook reportedly now has more than 35,000 people working on its security initiatives, with an annual budget well into the billions of dollars. 

After 2016’s Cambridge Analytica meltdown, Facebook apparently has become better able to seek out and remove foreign influence networks. It’s relying on an experienced team of former intelligence officials, digital forensics experts and investigative journalists. These aren’t a bunch of kids with some social media savvy. These are experts across a wide range of disciplines who come with a big collective price tag. 

Elections are being won and lost on social platforms 

Trump and Clinton together spent $81M on Facebook ads in 2016. But social app policy decisions have global impact and these new guidelines are impressive. Yet social is still in the business of driving engagement. They love to promote or host controversial content because it drives engagement and satisfies their performance goals.

Controversial content: The Trump campaign’s specialty

Trump runs Facebook ads that drive users to interactive polls that collect email addresses. In this way, his campaign has been able to collect millions of names, location markers and email addresses. They feed this information into their databanks for ad targeting and email marketing. 

Emboldened by the impeachment results, we can expect more Trump ads to focus aggressively on divisive and sensitive topics that will spark debate on social platforms, further dividing the country. This will delight Trump and his supporters and drive more users to Facebook. 

Breathe deeply. The stage is set for a particularly bitter election-year battle. 

Contact Top of Mind Marketing for help with your marketing strategy. We’re writers and digital media specialists. 

Single-Page Website: The Right Strategy for Your Business?

I’m working with a client who has a new business that he wants to promote. It’s related to his existing business, but we decided to brand, launch and market this as a standalone entity. We also decided that a one-page website was the perfect solution for his online presence—at least for now. 

Is a one-page website right for you?

How does a single page site work? It’s simple. There’s no clicking. Ever. No complex navigation schematic or buttons. Everything lives on one page. All you do is scroll. 

There’s lots to love about single-page websites

• Professional-looking sites; can be built in a matter of hours; they’re easily updated.
• High conversion rates—no distractions!
• Fall within mobile-friendly guidelines, look great across all browsing devices.
• Ideal for those who need a quick site for a promotion–a pop-up event or store. 
• Perfect solution for an artist, for instance, who might be doing a gallery showing. User lands on the site and simply scrolls down the page. 
• Call out contact information on the header and footer, plenty of room for featured information. 
• Ideal way to set up landing page for a campaign.  A single-page site lets you create messaging and efficiently run A/B tests.

Ideal for users accessing information on mobile devices

Another thing that makes this model attractive is that with an increasing number of users accessing information via mobile rather than their desktop computers, information delivery has been reengineered from a formal dropdown schematic with drilldown to one that is less structured and relies on scrolling. A single-page site fits perfectly into this design model.

Drawbacks? You’re missing out on search engine optimization opportunities (SEO)

Single-page websites are designed around a central topic or theme—a keyword–so single-page websites can only target that single phrase. Multipage websites have more chances of ranking higher in search because they’re optimized for more keywords.

Something else to think about: We’re on a site to find more information

On a single-page website, it’s generally hard to find specific, comprehensive content–there isn’t space to create a separate page for each topic. It can be frustrating to land on a site and find a couple of sentences that really don’t provide enough details to answer our questions. For a single-page site, you really need to think about key messaging, then minimize everything else. 

Include a strong call to action

On the other hand, with single-page sites, there’s nowhere for the user to get distracted — every part of the page leads them toward a conversion point, driving more leads and business. 

The right tool for the job: Single-page design deserves a place at the table 

While single-page design won’t take over the future of web design, it likely will continue to be included in web development conversations because it fulfills a genuine need. 

Do you have a business or product launch that would be a good fit for a one-page website? Contact Top of Mind Marketing about a one-page website for your business. We’re writers and content marketing experts.

Want to Show Up in Search? Follow This SEO Checklist

Good content developers have learned to write both for people and search engines, using solid data to reach their audiences. 

But search engines have gotten a lot smarter. They’ve moved beyond individual keywords—they’ve learned to understand context. But writers still need to understand and deploy sound search engine optimization (SEO) principles. Apply this SEO checklist to every blog and landing page. 

Optimizing website content

To help your website show up in search engines, you need to optimize both content and select HTML source code. This includes page titles, metadescriptions, image alt-text, internal links, anchor text, URLs, etc.

The following checklist identifies those things you will need to address for every web page and blog. 

1. Metatitle. This is distinct from the headline on the page’s headline. It acts as a name tag for the web page.
   • It should in a keyword.
   • Maximum length: 50-60 characters.
   • Use your brand name. 
   • Use numbers, if appropriate.
   • Use how, what, why.
   • Provide useful info/create sense of urgency.

2. URL: This is what will show up in the page’s information bar. It’s important because search engines will be looking for this.

• Limit to 3-5 words.
• Include keywords.
• Try to avoid duplicating metadescriptions.

3. Blogpost. Search engines love fresh content, and writing and posting blogs are the best ways to keep your site updated with new content. 

• Use H tags for titles and subtitles: H1, H2 and H3.
• Add buttons and links to your social sites. 

4. Images: Label every image. Include name of your company and image description.

• Use alt tags: Include your company name plus description of the image.
• Use the correct size image for designated space—make sure images are not too big or your site will not load. Recommended sizes: 1500-2500 pixels. Those images you take with your smartphone? They’re generally huge files. If you plan to use these, resize them before uploading to your website.
• Each page should have an image. A carefully chosen, highly relevant image will enhance your story and provide visual texture. 

5. Body. Long-form content helps your site show up in search engines. Google needs words to rank. Think 1,000+ words. At the very minimum, 300 words. Frontload your content, with the most important information in the first paragraph. 

6. Keywords. Use Google’s keyword tool or others. Key in search phrases and see what words/phrases people are using to search for your term. Look for those with low-medium competition and bid price.

• Forget keyword stuffing. Good content is nonnegotiable. Use your target keywords in the first 100-150 words.
• Use semantically related words throughout body of content.

7. Internal Linking strategy. Create internal links among pages where there is a relationship. It encourages readers to stay on your site, drilling down through relevant pages.

8. Webpages:

• Check page-load time—if it takes too long, check image sizes. 
• Make sure your site is built with responsive design, adapting across devices.
• Avoid duplicate content. 

Do you need help optimizing your website? Contact Top of Mind Marketing. We’re writers and content marketing experts.