Nowadays, social media is one of the main channels used by companies to reach their target audiences. But with so many different social networks available, how do you choose which will work best for you?
It’s not a one-size-fits-all solution.
For example, recent research has shown that teens and millennials are moving away from Facebook and into other social networks like Instagram and Snapchat. So if you’re primarily targeting teens, you may want to focus your resources on building a stronger presence on those networks.
To learn more about each social network’s strengths and weaknesses, check out the infographic below from Visage. It’ll cover the key stats, pros, and cons for Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and Snapchat. Acknowledging these can help you create and publish the most engaging content possible on the networks that work for you.
pros-cons-social-networks-infographic

Originally posted by Lindsay Kolowich on HubSpot

Since 2014, small and medium-sized business owners have experienced year-over-year improvement of business results, and they’re increasingly optimistic about the current economic environment. According to a recent survey, 56 percent of local business owners plan to increase their marketing budgets in 2016, with a big focus on digital marketing. Marketing channels that will see the biggest investment include email, social media, display, mobile and search (SEO/PPC). In short, marketing is now front and center for SMBs, who are considering what they can do to increase their momentum. We’ll see business owners continue to focus on three core areas that will shape the marketing ecosystem as a result:

1. Social media.

The majority of SMBs now have some kind of social media presence, whether on Facebook, Twitter or other emerging platforms — and they’re becoming more mature in their use of these platforms. We often see SMB owners who think it’s a form of marketing to simply post updates about their businesses, regardless of who’s paying attention or interacting with the message being delivered. But this isn’t marketing, and is essentially like talking to an empty room. While the number of “Likes” or Followers of a business are important, SMBs need to be engaged in constant conversation with their customers, responding to inquiries, soliciting feedback and creating the perception that the business is accessible and interested. SMBs also need to be thinking about what they can do to connect beyond their core “friends and family” network. Facebook, Twitter and other platforms also offer paid media opportunities to serve targeted ads to potential customers in addition to simply engaging their existing followers. By determining the characteristics of their core customers, businesses can create look-alike models to execute pay-to-play campaigns that can actually drive new business leads, going beyond just “likes” and shares. Lastly, with regards to social media, it’s said you can’t buy what you can’t measure. SMBs must educate themselves on the rudiments of social media measurement to get a basic grasp of whether awareness, likes and site visits correlate with business goals, especially sales.

2. CRM.

Digital channels such as email, social media, SMS (texts) and POS are all conduits for ad retargeting and nurturing your customer relationships. Each time a potential or return customer encounters your brand, incremental data is collected, which SMBs can analyze to make future exposure more meaningful. Little by little, as customers engage with your brand, a long-term relationship develops. SMBs are moving towards adopting more robust CRM systems that allow them to go beyond simple email distribution lists and connect all their digital channels. For example, a local boutique proprietor of clothing with several stores around the region can use a combination of digital and physical communications to manage local customer relationships. They may provide an in-store “guest book” for customers to sign and provide basic information such as email, snail-mail address and birthday. Using that information, the SMB can starts a friendly but unobtrusive correspondence via email with special offers to loyal V.I.P. customers and complement those communications with text reminders about weekend in-store sales or a hand-written birthday card mailed to homes. The store can also remind customers of those sales via social ads, and drive conversation to their Facebook page for additional interaction or promotion of specific pieces clothing to generate more excitement. Customer relationship management will come front and center over the next 12 months, moving from the enterprise down towards the small businesses that form the base of our economy.

3. High touch is in, self-service is out.

Website, SEO, SEM, Facebook, text, email, Pinterest, Instagram. In 2015, SMBs were over overwhelmed with marketing options, all designed to allow business owners to quickly get online and reach new customers. Spurred on by the introduction of Google AdWords, “DIY” became the approach most marketing vendors pushed SMBs towards – thinking it was the easiest strategy for both the business owner and the vendor. However, we’re now seeing a robust segment of small and medium business proprietors who adopt a “DIFM” – Do It For Me – or “DIWM”—Do it With Me – attitude. Service expectations are rising with businesses are fatigued by trying to figure it all out on their own. They want to understand what’s working and what’s not, and they want help in doing so. Related: 5 Ways to Provide Personalized Service to Small Companies — Profitably Businesses that cater to SMBs by way of consultative, high touch services will proliferate and prosper, much in line with the maturing of social media use and greater adoption of robust CRM systems. Marketing technology is continuing to reshape how small and medium businesses approach the customer experience and allowing them to move beyond presenting themselves as a “mom and pop” shop and more towards a sophisticated offering of their goods and services.

Originally posted by Allison Checchi on Entrepreneur.com

As reported earlier this month, Google has been testing longer text ads in search results across devices. On Tuesday, the company announced Expanded Text Ads will be available to advertisers later this year.
With the removal of right-side ads, Google now has the flexibility to give text ads more characters in a way that will look uniform across devices. Expanded text ads will be eligible to run across all devices and will be optimized for smartphones.
“These upgrades help your ads work harder across screens, especially for the on-the-go mobile consumer that wants to know exactly what you offer before tapping into your website,” said Google’s Senior Vice President, Ads and Commerce, Sridhar Ramaswamy, in a blog post announcing this and other news from Google Performance Summit.

More characters

The new ad format will have two longer headlines of up to 30 characters each and a longer description line of up to 80 characters. The display URL can include up to two directory paths that advertisers can use to describe the landing page content. The paths do not have to match the landing page URL.

Originally posted by Ginny Marvin on SearchEngineLand

Search engine optimization continues to be crucial in helping customers find you online. The main purpose of an SEO strategy is to improve your online visibility and make it a proven method for boosting revenue while building a solid foundation for all marketing efforts going forward. However, where do you start?

Here are 10 need-to-know facts about SEO.

1. Smart and effective SEO is a long-term solution and you should not expect immediate results.
When launching a digital marketing strategy, you have to determine how to measure your return on investment. Some efforts like pay per click advertising can start driving leads within a couple of days. However, SEO will take months or longer before you start noticing a difference in revenue, but your patience will pay off. Unlike PPC, SEO results are much longer lasting and cannot be turned off and on due to spend.
2. Websites with responsive design are favored by search engines.
These days, it is imperative that you have a mobile-friendly website. Search engines value customer experience, and it is proven that customers have a better experience when using a responsive site, no matter what device they’re using. Long gone are the days when your customers just went to their desktop computers to search for what they needed. The number of searches on mobile devices surpassed desktop in 2015, and search engines are not likely to rank you very high if consumers have to zoom in on your tiny print.
3. Pictures can be optimized to serve your relevancy and rankings.
It’s easy for us to see what’s in a picture, but how do search engines actually know what the picture contains? You need to help search engines identify your visual content. Save your image files using the primary keywords of your landing pages, include captions, and insert alt text to help search engine bots understand what consumers actually see in your pictures.
4. SEO and PPC advertising complement each other.
PPC advertising, otherwise known as search engine marketing, is a great way to quickly become visible on the first page of search engine results. If you can show up on the results page in both paid search and the organic listings, you’re taking up more real estate and boosting your credibility. Search engines value quality, keyword-rich content on both SEO and PPC so you could be rewarded with cheaper clicks over time as your landing pages have been optimized for relevancy.
5. Site load time affects your organic rankings.
According to Google, a reasonable load time for websites is about 4 seconds. Consumers want instant gratification and don’t like to waste time watching a blank or incomplete screen while your site loads. If search engines notice site visitors are leaving your site after waiting too long, you’re going to get outranked by your competitors running sites that load quickly. It also decreases the chances of your site being fully indexed because search engine bots have a limited amount of time and budget to crawl your site.
6. Search engines readily show your online review ratings.
Word of mouth online has a powerful impact on sales. Reviews are highly trusted by consumers, and your reputation influences their purchasing decisions over your competition. Encouraging your customers to leave positive reviews so that everyone else can see what you’re doing right is only the first step. By adding Schema.org markup to those reviews, search engines are then able to actually show those ratings in your results, greatly increasing the chance a consumer clicks to your 4-star (or better) business.
7. Site navigation is highly-valued for a positive user experience.
On top of having a mobile-friendly website full of relevant content, it’s also important to ensure it’s easy to navigate. You want your customers to be able to find what they need and not leave your website frustrated. Make sure you offer various options for consumers to get from page to page, like a top navigation bar, and include anchor text with hyperlinks within your content.
Search engine bots crawl your site to determine how your internal links direct to other pages within your site. The better organized your site is with internal links pointing towards pages you want customers to see the most, the more search engines will recognize their importance. Perform regular checks throughout your site to make sure there aren’t any page errors. Having pages that don’t work leads to a negative user experience and lessens your site credibility with the search engines.
8. Updated and consistent information boosts offline conversions.
Half of online searches for smaller businesses occur with the intent to visit in person. Need people to know when you’re open? You better have your business hours updated across rating sites and local listings. Alternatively, you don’t want potential customers getting your after-hours message because they found outdated information. Search engines look at this information as well. You need to have your business name, address, and phone number updated and consistent across the web or search engines won’t know what information to trust.
9. You can put yourself on the map with your Google My Business page.
Do you notice the map section on the Google results page with business locations highlighted? If your business has a physical location, or even multiple stores for customers to visit, you need to make sure you’re visible on Google Maps. This is done automatically just by activating your Google My Business page with your address. You can also give yourself an added boost by verifying your page. By going through this process, Google knows the information on this page is accurate and is more likely to rank your map listing above your competitors.
10. What gets you ahead today isn’t guaranteed to work tomorrow.
SEO practices are constantly evolving as search engines update their algorithms. Online search behavior is progressing with technology, and major search engines like Google strive to continue providing a positive user experience. They’re also trying to catch sites taking shortcuts to boost their rankings. Black hat SEO practices take advantage of current algorithms for short term gains but can result in getting penalized by a drop in ranking when caught. Stay up to date on best practices and your organic presence will experience positive, long-term growth.
There’s a lot to keep track of when it comes to SEO. Your SEO checklist is an ongoing strategy that requires patience while building a solid foundation for your paid media efforts. Whether you’re doing it all yourself or entrusting an expert to manage your SEO while you focus on running your business, taking these factors into consideration when optimizing your organic presence will help yield year-over-year revenue growth.

Originally posted by Jason Obenhause on ReachLocal Blog

Forget what you knew about emails in 2015. This year is going to be a lot less forgiving. Today, with more and more people aiming to reach the coveted state of “inbox zero,” email marketers need to be well-equipped to make sure their messages actually get across to their intended audiences. To help you in the process, below are seven email trends that you should remove from your email routine this year.

1. Sending Emails Without An Option To Unsubscribe

While it may seem counterproductive, the truth remains that you must leave options for email recipients to unsubscribe from your mailing list. You may not think of that email (and several follow-ups) from your salesperson as “email marketing” per se, but the recipient may still want to unsubscribe. First, they may no longer be interested in your product or service offering, so constant email bombarding could hurt your reputation. You can’t expect to get more sales by forcing content or promotional offers upon users who don’t have any interest in them. If anything, it may cause them tocall you out online. Secondly, there is also the possibility that these recipients showed initial interest but did not have any real intent to move ahead in the sales funnel. Perhaps they just wanted to download a white paper or browse through a specific web page. Either way, when considering the consequences of not including an unsubscribe button when sending out an e-newsletter, the choice is clear. In fact, in the US, organizations that violate the CAN-SPAM act by sending unsolicited messages can face penalties of up to $16,000 per violation/message. This means it’s paramount to honor opt-out messages as quickly as possible.

2. Cold Emails To Unknown Target Audiences

Email recipients in 2016 are less patient than the year before. This is directly related to the information overload era and the existence of other alternatives to grab attention. Therefore, the practice of sending out cold emails to unknown target audiences is slowly becoming obsolete. Instead, email marketers today are using behavioral segmentation to target specific buyer profiles according to where they are in the sales funnel. For instance, emails may be segmented to examine past purchase history or time spent on a specific product web page. In this way, marketers are better able to present segment-specific offers that have more potential to convert. Just remember, though, it’s still pretty important to follow CAN-SPAM, as well, and give people a means of opting out.

3. Spammy Subject Lines

You only have one chance to make a first impression. This is also very true when it comes to emails. Often, the subject line takes precedence over the name of the sender and is the first point in the email the eyes are drawn to. The subject line is basically your initial pitch to get readers to open and actually read through your content. In 2016, email marketers need to carefully choose their subject lines in order to reduce any spam-like inclinations. With so many trying to achieve inbox zero, many potential recipients are deleting emails with spammy-sounding subject lines, which negatively affects your CTR (click-through rate) and overall conversion rates. Look over this list of words that trigger the email spam alarm for some insights before you begin typing.

4. Overwhelming Email Signatures

So you have a fabulous product, and you are an amazing entrepreneur. Great. But that doesn’t mean you should include every possible way of contacting you and links to numerous online mentions and prizes in your email signature. Make sure not to overwhelm your readers, who just want to be able to easily reach out if they have any questions or comments. By adding too many graphics and too much content in your signature toward the end of your email, you can deter readers from internalizing the actual message displayed in your email. Check out tools such as Wisestamp or NewOldStamp to generate your email signature and test out a few options.

5. Unresponsive Emails

Sending emails that are not based on responsive design is a thing of the past. If you still insist on disregarding the power of responsive design, consider the fact that mobile email use is increasing, with about 50 percent of email being opened on a mobile device. This has major implications for the way we even begin to strategize email design. As such, marketers should consider (from the early onset) how messaging is displayed across smaller devices, from smartphones to tablets. Using a tool such as GetResponse that incorporates a responsive email design feature is a great starting point, as users can apply A/B testing to specific campaigns and check the responsiveness of their email marketing campaigns.

6. Sending Emails Without Tracking Performance

An old adage is that you can’t manage what you don’t measure. The same goes for measuring the success or failure of your email marketing campaigns. 2016 is poised to become a data-hungry year, one in which companies will need to provide concrete results and data-based decisions in order to stay competitive. Email marketers should consider using email tracking software such as Tout to stay ahead of email conversations and learn where and what needs to be fine-tuned to ascertain whether the problem stems from an issue of specific template choice, timing of the email or additional factors.

7. Multiple Calls To Action

The average email user receives dozens of emails on a daily basis. This includes direct work-related emails, fairly consistent offers and spammy messages. As such, email marketers should be cautious when sending out emails with too many different calls to action. Recipients exposed to such emails are often so overwhelmed with mixed messaging and promotions that they fail to stay in the sales funnel. The example below is what not to do this year: Consider staying more focused with direct and clear messaging to help ease your email recipient toward the next stage of the buying process. We’ve already seen email marketing predictions for 2016. But to further improve our email marketing, outdated habits must be retired for maximum effectiveness. To succeed in 2016, emails will need to be segmented, concise, data-based and measured for performance, designed for responsiveness and highly focused, with direct calls to action to move recipients further along in the sales funnel. Here’s to a year of many more conversions and lower bounce rates!

Originally posted by Tamar Weinberg on Marketing Land

With Google constantly changing their algorithm, it’s no surprise that there is yet another major adjustment that we need be aware of. Starting immediately, Google will discontinue the sidebar ads within search results, and only 1-4 advertisements will appear above the fold.

Google is constantly striving to improve their platform and enhance the way consumers can find accurate, high-quality content, which has likely stemmed this recent change.

Why would Google make this change?

This is a question that many people will have about the recent changes Google has made to their AdWords. They briefly tested out this change back in December, and evidently, liked the outcome. The potential benefits for Google from this change could be:

– Drive up Cost-Per-Click (CPC) prices, which increases their revenue.
– Decrease the amount of ads on pages, only showcasing the best advertisers.

Showing Only Google’s Listing Ad

Previously, Google search results provided advertisement spots within the right sidebar. However with this recent change, they will now only be showing three top ads from AdWords. The elimination of their sidebar ads will only happen on desktop search results, but across all languages. A Google spokesperson said, “We’ve been testing this layout for a long time, so some people might see it on a very small number of commercial queries. We’ll continue to make tweaks, but this is designed for highly commercial queries where the layout is able to provide more relevant results for people searching and better performance for advertisers.”

How will this negatively impact advertisers?

If you’ve invested and benefited from purchasing Google ads in the past, or were thinking of doing so in the future, these changes could directly impact you in a variety of ways.

– The price for Cost-Per-Click advertisements could potentially increase (using basic economics – less real estate [ads] more buyers [advertisers] drives up the price).
– It will force advertisers to ensure their ads are up to Google standards, in hopes of being shown in one of the four positions at the top of the page.
– Lack of opportunity to appear as one of the fourth Google advertisements.

How will this positively impact advertisers?

Any change can be hard to accept. Although it may seem like these Google changes only benefit Google and the already well-established and successful businesses, there is some good news for all companies.

– With less ads being shown, it will likely increase traffic opportunities.
– Provides motivation to strive forward in order to effectively compete with your direct competitors.
– Your traffic will not be affected by this change when search results are viewed via tablet, smartphone etc.

Originally published by Matt Goulart on Business2Community

Central States Media recently received 5 American Advertising Awards (ADDY’s) for its work with a number of partners. Silver Awards were presented to Central States Media for the design and development of websites for Gailey Eye Clinic, Peoria Country Club, and IT360, and for Illinois Institute for Addiction Recovery’s radio campaign. Central States Media also received a Gold Award for the design and development of its own website, csm2022.wpengine.com. This award, and their 4 Silver Awards, will be submitted to the district competition to compete for national recognition. “Helping our clients succeed first has been and always will be our approach. When one of our clients wins an award, it’s always a joy to see their reaction,” says Ann Johnston, President, Central States Media. “Great work is about a combination of different components: wonderful partners, fresh ideas, exceptional execution and an outstanding team.” Sponsored by the Peoria Ad Club, the local awards recognize creative excellence in advertising and design of promotional materials. The it360-winner2awards were announced during the annual American Advertising Awards Gala held February 11, 2016 at the PAR A DICE Hotel in East Peoria. Conducted annually by the American Advertising Federation (AAF), the American Advertising Awards are the advertising industry’s largest and most representative competition. The local American Advertising Awards is the first of a three-tiered national competition. Concurrently across the country, local entrants vie for recognition as the very best in their markets. At the second tier, local winners compete against other winners in one of 14 district competitions. District winners are then forwarded to the third tier, the national American Advertising Awards competition.

Display advertising works as a digital billboard online, increasing brand awareness. Display ads target a consumer based on their location and/or behavior. You may have also heard the phrase “Retargeting” or “Retargeting Display” and wondered what exactly that is. Retargeting Display works when a consumer searches for your business with relevant keywords pertinent for who you are and what you do. They may also have visited your website. The consumer is then ‘tagged’ as an interested prospect. When the consumer surfs the Web, they are recognized through the tag and your banner ad is displayed. The ability to target consumers interested in your products or services based on their behavior is an effective strategy. This builds top-of-mind awareness with consumers and can bring consumers who have already visited your website back to it. Audience targeting ensures you are connecting with the right audience as they surf the web. You can target by several factors, including geographic, behavioral, social, and retargeting. This targeting ability allows you to get your brand/business in front of the right people and reach them throughout the buying process. As the display campaign is optimized, the technology places your online ads on the most effective websites for optimum performance. As a result, you receive increased brand/business awareness which is a cost-effective tool to supplement your traditional advertising mediums.

The Illinois Society for Healthcare Marketing and Public Relations announced it’s Pinnacle Awards in October. These awards recognize members for the challenging, creative work they do on a daily basis and recognize excellence in clear and effective marketing and public relations communication. Central States Media received honorable mention in the following categories.

– E-Marketing & Social Networking – Dr. Jeffrey S. Poulter Newsletter
– Website Design / Development – Buehler Home Website
– Website Design / Development – Institute of Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation Website
– Integrated Marketing Campaign – EZ-4-U Collateral
– Video Production – PAL Health Technologies Xtremity One
– Website Design / Development – Dr. Jeffrey S. Poulter Website
– Print Advertising – Hopedale Commons Brochure

Click on our portfolio to view more pieces that we are proud of.

Central States Marketing is proud to be a local small business. We appreciate our business partners who we work hard for every day. As a way to give back, we want to celebrate Local Small Businesses and how they enhance the community.

Nominate Your Favorite Central Illinois Small Business

Through the month of November, nominate your favorite Central Illinois small business and give them a chance to receive $10,000* in Central States credit. This can be used towards graphics, collateral design, website design and website development. The winner will be chosen on Wednesday, December 2nd!