BroadVision Marketing Blog

All businesses selling products or services are familiar with the term “marketing budget.” This means a plan to organize and allocate future funding of business functions. If you only have money for a mini-compact car, you are not going to go look at limousines. Right?

Let’s say you have a marketing budget of $1,000. If we use this to bring people to a computer site, we would call the same amount we intend to spend a “traffic budget,” since we are working to get the traffic to the site or even to our brick and mortar store using computer advertising.

“Conversion” is not just a religious term. It now means getting the customer to meet the business and to interact with it. Conversion is the mechanism and process of pouring targeted consumers into, through, and out the other side of the marketing funnel. The conversion rate is only going to be a percent of all those who come to the site, the percent who actually buy.

One way to get people to the site and to convert is to encourage them to do something, to become interactive. The best way to do that simply is a “call to action (CTA).”

A call to action has four main parts:

1. The Call: This is the request that a person interact the way you want him to.


2. The Action: On the computer, the simplest action a person can make is to click a button.


3. The Outcome: What happens when the person clicks the button. This should be related to the call. For example, if you ask them to click to get a free coupon, you deliver the coupon when they click the button.


4. The Design: The design will make a difference in how people respond, but there are many different types of designs. You will have to do some experimenting to find the one that works best for you.

Your CTA needs to be on every one of your website pages. If you have a blog site, it should be at the bottom of each blog.

How are you doing with this information? Are you having trouble getting responses?

 

Jaco Grobbelaar, owner of BroadVision Marketing, helps business owners and business professionals put marketing strategies in place that consistently secure new clients. He can be reached at jaco@broadvisionmarketing.com or 707.799.1238. You can “Like” him at www.facebook.com/broadvisionmarketing or connect with him on www.linkedin.com/in/JacoGrobbelaar.

 

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Topics: marketing, Using Different Media, landing page, Conversion rate, Hubspot, Marketing Plan, Facebook, mobile marketing, Social Media, Marketing Principles, Business, social media marketing, Branding, Blogging, Twitter

[caption id="attachment_2499" align="alignleft" width="200" caption="Team Member Disrupting a Meeting"] [/caption]

Every project, every team and every team leader on all levels are going to come in contact with conflict. What That Leader needs to learn is how to spot it in others in order to minimize, divert or resolve it as soon as possible.

What are some conflict indicators?

Probably the most obvious indication is body language. If the team member is unhappy about something, his body language will be guarded, turned from the leader, he will have minimal eye contact with the leader and even show micro-expressions of mocking or frowning. A leader in the midst of conflict will show the same either to his up-line team or to his team members.  That Leader will study body language in order to become conscious of the meanings of what he sees, but even an uninformed leader will subconsciously be aware of the signs and know there is a problem, even if he is only aware of it in his gut.

Topics: YouTube, Team conflict, Controversy, Facebook, Social Media, Twitter, Leadership, Teamwork, Team, Team leader, Conflict resolution, team member

[caption id="" align="alignright" width="240" caption="Story Time"] [/caption]

Are you still worried about spending too much time writing your blog and not enough time doing your work? Not to worry, there are still some more good ideas around.

Let’s take a quick look at why you need some good ideas. First, there is the fact that you want to be consistent about publishing.  Your readers will quit coming to your site if you don’t put up work in a timely fashion. Whether you write three times a week or once a month, you need to be there when they come. People get very put out when they look up information and are sent to sites that haven’t been active for years.

Topics: WordPress, Arts, blog, Marketing Plan, Facebook, Search Engine Optimization, Social Media, Marketing Principles, LinkedIn, Business Owner, Business, Blogging, Twitter

[caption id="" align="alignright" width="240" caption="Image by HRC via Flickr"] [/caption]

What is your Facebook marketing strategy? Do you have one? You need a good strategy in order to make sure that you continue to grow and increase your page’s engagement activity.

When do you practice patience and when do you decide that you need to make some changes because you are not having the success you were expecting? Was your goal really realistic? Did you set a length of time that you were going to wait to get those good results?

Topics: Using Different Media, Google, YouTube, Fansite, Google Calendar, Marketing Plan, Facebook, Social Media, Marketing Principles, LinkedIn, Twitter, Marketing strategy

[caption id="" align="alignright" width="245" caption="Facebook logo"] [/caption]

Does Facebook overwhelm you? Do you have a daily schedule of what to do on Facebook to help you get results from Facebook?

Facebook marketing, when you know what you are doing, is a powerful business tool that can get you more leads, attract prospects that are highly targeted and put you in a position as an industrial expert.

Topics: Using Different Media, Online Communities, Fans, Social Networking, Facebook, Social Media, Marketing Principles, Business, Twitter

[caption id="" align="alignright" width="150" caption="Social media"] [/caption]

What is the ultimate purpose of social media? You want to get good solid leads that will convert into customers. Basically, social media tells you how your customers are getting interested in you and your company.

You use social media as a business process, which means that you develop a process in writing that you follow and test regularly to hone it. The sales department and the marketing department, as two very different entities, need to sit down together and discuss what criteria a lead must meet before being passed from marketing to sales. Furthermore, marketing needs to follow-up after the lead is passed on in order to find out if the sale occurred. Also in order to keep the customer for life, the marketing department needs to stay in touch with the client for future sales.

Topics: marketing, Using Different Media, Marketing and Advertising, Email lists, Sales, leads, Marketing Plan, Facebook, Social Media, Marketing Principles, LinkedIn, Business Owner, Business, Twitter

[caption id="" align="alignleft" width="240" caption="Marketing Plan"] [/caption]

A cook starts with a recipe. A tourist starts with a map. An architect starts with a plan. So why do many small business owners think they can run their business without a  marketing plan?

To many small business owners, marketing means advertising - which means big bucks. And yes, some sorts of advertising are costly, but marketing also includes lots of less costly ways to engage prospective customers. With some research, planning, preparation and execution, business owners can be successful with marketing without spending enormous amounts of their budget on advertising.

Do be sure and include some marketing in your budget, but it doesn’t need to be a high ticket item. A word of warning: as you look at what your competition is doing, remember that it might not work for you. Don’t copy them or customers might mistake you for them.

Here in brief are four main insights that can lead to marketing success:

Topics: marketing, Small business, YouTube, Marketing Plan, Facebook, Social Media, Marketing Principles, LinkedIn, Twitter

[caption id="" align="alignleft" width="178" caption="Mobile Internet Capability"] [/caption]

Topics: Mobile commerce, Mobile device, Foursquare, m-commerce, Facebook, mobile marketing, Social Media, Marketing Principles, Twitter, smartphone

[caption id="" align="alignleft" width="240" caption="Like Button"] [/caption]

Facebook business fan page owners are in the business of selling both their goods/services and proving they are getting their Facebook visited by the number of Likes they receive. In this regard a Like is a vote and a way to measure the effectiveness of the site.

Topics: marketing, Using Different Media, Online Communities, Likes, Like button, Facebook, Social Media, Business, Twitter

[caption id="" align="alignleft" width="240" caption="SUBWAY"] [/caption]

How many of you have tried your hand in social media by launching contests, promotions and branding campaigns on blogs, Facebook, Twitter,  and YouTube? OK, raise your hands.  If it worked for you, keep your hands up. Oops.

I have a clue for you. “Social” is not the same as “sharing.”

You have to identify your key influences and motivate them to share with their friends or you are missing the main idea. Social content works best when people share it.

Topics: Using Different Media, YouTube, Uniform Resource Locator, Brand, sharers, influencers, Meteor Solutions, super influencers, Subway, Facebook, Social Media, Marketing Principles, Branding, Twitter