Google’s Local Snack Pack Shake-Up: What You Need to Know
Google recently shook up the local results in its SERPs, killing the local 7-packs in favor of a 3-pack that resembles the mobile experience. This post tells you everything you need to know about the change and what it means for your local marketing.
Sales Renewal’s insight:
Did your local listing make the cut?
As you can see from the example in the image (and yes, both our local florists made the cut!), Google has made some pretty big changes to the map and listings that show up for local searches. SEO experts say this is the biggest change to SERPs (search engine results pages) since the Pigeon update in July 2014.
If you’ve ever searched for a local business, chances are you’re familiar with what is often called the “Map Pack” results, or the businesses and map results Google shows when someone does a local search – “florist mendon ma” for example. These recent “Snack Pack” changes include a reduction in the number of Map Pack results from 5-7 to 3. And, much of the previously visible information, like business address and phone number, has been removed.
As with most changes Google makes, speculation abounds as to why, but a streamlined view, better alignment between the desktop and mobile experience, and – the biggie – positioning to become a money maker are three well-founded explanations.
Staying in or Moving into the Top 3 Positions
While the impact of these changes are still unknown and a clear “how to” has yet to be determined, local businesses are advised to continue to optimize for local search as they had been doing: website optimized for search; good quality link building; citations and directories; and focusing on customer reviews.
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The Nifty Guide to Local Content Strategy and Marketing
Learn how to grow your target audience and improve your local SEO with a strong local content strategy.
Sales Renewal’s insight:
This article is a well-thought-out overview of how to think about local marketing. Even though it’s not “just” about the written word, if you’re a local business, the written word is a powerful tool for raising awareness of your business.
Read Original Article
February Digital Marketing Advice Roundup – Outsourced Marketing, the Role of SEO and More
Looking for more information like this? The Sales Renewal Advice from Across the Web page features a selection of the best, actionable marketing and technology advice and, importantly, adds our perspective. Think of it as a Marketing Clipping Service for the modern world.
Here, then, are our favorite tips for the month:
Marketing Plans: From Hubspot, some advice about What to Cut From Your Marketing in 2015. As is so often the case, the rule of thumb is, “everything in moderation.” Sure, it’s fun to jump on every bandwagon that comes along, but by keeping the big picture perspective, you can be sure your marketing efforts are targeted and – more importantly – something you’re able to do without being overwhelmed.
Outsourced Marketing: If you’re running a business, you may feel that digital marketing is something you can do yourself. But a recent survey shows that even small businesses- 35% of them – hire outsourced marketing firms to help them create content and maintain a strong digital presence. Learn about the many advantages of such a firm here.
Local SEO: How do you make sure your local digital presence is as strong as your physical presence? According to Search Engine Land, it’s important to look at the big picture. In Local SEO In 2015 – Look At The Big Picture, author Greg Gifford summarizes: “You’ve got to work on everything” and “You have to be a jack-of-all-trades.” Sounds overwhelming, but it can be done with the right tools and support.
LinkedIn Advertising: Many businesses have been successful reaching prospective customers on LinkedIn with Sponsored Updates. But there’s a right way and a wrong way to do it. This article has some useful takeaways when considering a sponsored post on LinkedIn:
- Don’t talk about yourself.
- Keep it simple.
- Images matter.
Read the full article here.
Content Marketing: Got a blog? Get sharing. Get more from your blogging efforts by sharing and re-sharing (that’s the key). When you’re scheduling your blog posts, be sure to take the time to “re-schedule” them. This social sharing schedule timetable is a good guide for getting started.
ROI and Measuring What Matters: The customer journey is complicated! So is measuring the different types of marketing programs, because there’s really no way to do an apples-to-apples comparison. How do you attribute a “value” and ROI to each? This article from Click Z has suggestions for a good place to start.
Sales Renewal’s insight:
Each month we offer a roundup of useful, hands-on digital marketing advice from experts in their fields. We’ve extracted the most useful information into tips you can use, and we’ve also provided a link to the full articles in case you’d like to learn more. This month, our roundup of useful, hands-on digital marketing advice from experts in their fields covers SEO, ROI, online advertising, local marketing, and more.
February Digital Marketing Advice Roundup – Outsourced Marketing, the Role of SEO and More
Looking for more information like this? The Sales Renewal Advice from Across the Web page features a selection of the best, actionable marketing and technology advice and, importantly, adds our perspective. Think of it as a Marketing Clipping Service for the modern world.
Here, then, are our favorite tips for the month:
Marketing Plans: From Hubspot, some advice about What to Cut From Your Marketing in 2015. As is so often the case, the rule of thumb is, “everything in moderation.” Sure, it’s fun to jump on every bandwagon that comes along, but by keeping the big picture perspective, you can be sure your marketing efforts are targeted and – more importantly – something you’re able to do without being overwhelmed.
Outsourced Marketing: If you’re running a business, you may feel that digital marketing is something you can do yourself. But a recent survey shows that even small businesses- 35% of them – hire outsourced marketing firms to help them create content and maintain a strong digital presence. Learn about the many advantages of such a firm here.
Local SEO: How do you make sure your local digital presence is as strong as your physical presence? According to Search Engine Land, it’s important to look at the big picture. In Local SEO In 2015 – Look At The Big Picture, author Greg Gifford summarizes: “You’ve got to work on everything” and “You have to be a jack-of-all-trades.” Sounds overwhelming, but it can be done with the right tools and support.
LinkedIn Advertising: Many businesses have been successful reaching prospective customers on LinkedIn with Sponsored Updates. But there’s a right way and a wrong way to do it. This article has some useful takeaways when considering a sponsored post on LinkedIn:
- Don’t talk about yourself.
- Keep it simple.
- Images matter.
Read the full article here.
Content Marketing: Got a blog? Get sharing. Get more from your blogging efforts by sharing and re-sharing (that’s the key). When you’re scheduling your blog posts, be sure to take the time to “re-schedule” them. This social sharing schedule timetable is a good guide for getting started.
ROI and Measuring What Matters: The customer journey is complicated! So is measuring the different types of marketing programs, because there’s really no way to do an apples-to-apples comparison. How do you attribute a “value” and ROI to each? This article from Click Z has suggestions for a good place to start.
Sales Renewal’s insight:
Each month we offer a roundup of useful, hands-on digital marketing advice from experts in their fields. We’ve extracted the most useful information into tips you can use, and we’ve also provided a link to the full articles in case you’d like to learn more. This month, our roundup of useful, hands-on digital marketing advice from experts in their fields covers SEO, ROI, online advertising, local marketing, and more.
15 Statistics That Illustrate Direct Mail’s Potential Power
15 statistics that show why direct marketing should be considered as an element of your marketing mix (complied by Compu-Mail):
- Direct mail continues to be used heavily, with a 43% share of total local retail advertising.
- Young adults, 24 years and younger, are among the most direct mail responsive.
- 92% of young shoppers say they prefer direct mail for making purchasing decisions.
- An International Communications Research survey found that 73% of consumers actually prefer mail over other advertising methods.
- 59% of U.S. respondents and 65% of Canadian respondents agreed with the following statement, “I enjoy getting postal mail from brands about new products.”
- 56% of customers find print marketing to be the most trustworthy type of marketing.
- 70% of Americans say mail is more personal than the internet.
- Personalized print media has a more powerful presence than a personalized email, because the audience can recognize that it takes more effort to customize print media than digital.
- 76% of small businesses say their ideal marketing strategy encompasses a combination of both print and digital communication.
- 40% of consumers try new businesses after receiving direct mail.
- U.S. advertisers spend $167 per person on direct mail to earn $2, 095 worth of goods sold; a 1, 300% return.
- 98% of consumers bring in their mail the day it’s delivered.
- Of these, 72% bring it in as soon as possible.
- 77% sort through their mail immediately.
- 48% of people retain direct mail for future reference
Client’s Collaboration with Sales Renewal Leads to New Strategies, Brand, Site, Marketing Programs and … a Blue Ribbon
It is generally rare for two different companies, let alone a client and its vendor, to work together so thoroughly, on so many levels, that the resulting whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
However, thanks to Sales Renewal’s revolutionary JointSourcing Solution (a unique hybrid combining elements of joint venturing with elements of outsourcing, in which shared risks and rewards align Sales Renewal’s economic incentives with those of its clients), such synergies are the norm.
If you’ve been wondering how JointSourcing and its three, Blueprint, Build and Sell steps actually works in practice, in the real world, this latest installment of our JointSourcing in Action Case Studies series is for you.
This issue provides a detailed, step-by-step view of how Sales Renewal partnered with our client MATsolutions to overcome their business, marketing and sales challenges to produce a marketing & sales system neither company could have developed as quickly or efficiently on its own. One result of the collaboration: MATsolutions receiving the prestigious Blue Ribbon Small Business of the Year for 2014 award from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
As Steve Wedler, VP Sales and Marketing, MATsolutions has said:
“Over the last year with Sales Renewal’s critical assistance, we’ve rebranded the company, launched a new e-commerce site and introduced marketing programs and supporting technologies that truly distinguish MATsolutions from its competitors. Having two highly dedicated and bright teams responsible for this transformation has allowed us to deliver something far superior than either team alone could have. This award is a great acknowledgement of the advances we have made.”
Read the JointSourcing in Action case study.
Sales Renewal’s insight:
If you’ve been wondering how JointSourcing and its three, Blueprint, Build and Sell steps actually works in practice, this latest installment of our JointSourcing in Action Case Studies series is for you.
This issue provides a detailed, step-by-step view of how Sales Renewal partnered with our client MATsolutions to overcome their business, marketing and sales challenges to produce a marketing & sales system neither company could have developed as quickly or efficiently on its own. One result of the collaboration: MATsolutions receiving the prestigious Blue Ribbon Small Business of the Year for 2014 award from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
Quick Tip Tuesday: July Digital Marketing Advice
Each month we start our Quick Tip Tuesday series with a roundup of useful, hands-on digital marketing advice from experts in their fields. We’ve extracted the most useful information into tips you can use, and we’ve also provided a link to the full articles in case you’d like to learn more.
Looking for more information like this? The Sales Renewal Advice from Across the Web page features a selection of the best, actionable marketing & technology advice and, importantly, adds our perspective. Think of it as a Marketing Clipping Service for the modern world.
Here, then, are our favorite tips for the month:
Customer Reviews to Drive Revenue: We’ve written about this before, but we can’t emphasize it enough. Customer reviews and testimonials are important for all businesses, but are essential for businesses with a local presence. From providing excellent customer service and never paying for reviews to making sure your site has the correct schema markup for the search engines, this article offers five helpful tips for managing local reviews. Not sure where to get started? As you can see from this Infographic on MarketingProfs.com, Yelp is often a good place to begin.
Making Sure Your Site Is Mobile-Friendly: With more and more ways for visitors to view your website, having a responsive site (one that adapts to the screen size and platform of the user) is a given. As reported on TechCrunch.com, Google is now helping address this poor user experience in two ways. First, it will let users know if the website is not properly set up for smartphones and instead of sending you to the search page you’ve requested sends you to a single home page (“faulty redirects”). Then it lets you decide whether to proceed or not. Second, if you have Webmaster Tools enabled, Google will send a message if it detects that any of your site’s pages are redirecting smartphone users to the homepage as well as any faulty redirects it detects in the Smartphone Crawl Errors section of Webmaster Tools. Details here.
Twitter Tips to Keep Followers Following: This Ragan.com article offers some useful tips for managing your Twitter account. Highlights:
- Don’t rely on automatic reposting of your content – write content specific for your Twitter feed
- Stay away from ALL CAPS
- Don’t overuse #hashtags
- Use a shortened URL service for links – makes a better visual presentation of your content
- Interact with others – use mentions in your tweets, for example
Content Marketing Idea Generator: Stuck in rut with your content marketing? Facing a writer’s block? This article introduces five keyword-based tools – like Hubspot’s Blog Topic Generator – that may just help you get going again. Read more here.
Sales Renewal’s insight:
Each month we start our Quick Tip Tuesday series with a roundup of useful, hands-on digital marketing advice from experts in their fields. We’ve extracted the most useful information into tips you can use, and we’ve also provided a link to the full articles in case you’d like to learn more
How to Grow, and NOT, Grow Sales: SalesMemes 32
Sales Renewal’s insight:
As long as he’s getting his monthly billing, why rock the boat?
This is NOT the way Sales Renewal does it. Our shared risk & reward business model aligns our economic interests with those of our clients, resulting in our very persistent and determined approach to cost effective growth. See for example, Sales Renewal Wins Battle Against Google Adwords On Behalf Of Client.
Check SalesMemes.com every Friday to see the latest SalesMemes: the best and worst ideas to increase sales. See more #HucksterHank and his colleagues: #SmugMarketerSam, #TrustworthyTom, #BadExecutionBob and #GoodExecutionErica.
A Powerful, Cost Effective Way to Market Locally: A Business Sign
Many online sources of business advice have online myopia: they seem to believe that marketing didn’t exist before Google or that the only way to market a business today is through the Web.
At the risk of sounding like the old guy who yells at the kids to get off of his lawn, “hogwash” I say.
In fact, one of the most powerful, cost effective forms of local advertising is as old as business itself: the business sign. I know it might be surprising to think of the sign on your building or store as advertising, but if you think about the key elements of advertising–branding, impressions, ability to bring traffic through the door–they all apply to signage.
And while the cost of a great sign that can really put your business on the map, help you stand out and be easily remembered might seem high at first, business signs last an eternity in comparison to most online ads (10 years, if you obtain it from a high quality manufacturer). This means that from a cost-per-impression perspective, business signs can be dirt cheap.
Sales Renewal knows this first hand because one of our clients, Metro Sign & Awning, is one of the biggest sign designers in New England and we created a free Signage ROI Calculator for them that compares business signs to other forms of advertising. Here’s the comparison that results when some pretty typical numbers are input:
Seems to blow all the other forms of advertising away doesn’t it?
Our point here isn’t to sell you a new sign (though contact us if you’re interested because we’re sure Metro Sign will be happy to help you), but to remind you that marketing happened before the Internet was invented by Al Gore, and that some of the old ideas and methods are still relevant–maybe even more so–today. This underlines the importance of always looking widely for solutions and not to simply follow the herd or rely on today’s “hottest” fad.
Because sometimes, if you’re looking to do more cost-effective local marketing, the answer can be right outside your front door.
Sales Renewal’s insight:
Many online sources of business advice have online myopia: they seem to believe that marketing didn’t exist before Google, or that the only way to market a business today is through the Web. At the risk of sounding like the old guy who yells at the kids to get off of his lawn, “hogwash” I say.
In fact, one of the most powerful, cost effective forms of local advertising is as old as business itself: the business sign. I know it might be surprising to think of the sign on your building or store as advertising, but …
The 6 Best Practices That Will Grow Your Sales in 2014
Sales Renewal clients are accustomed to hearing the term JointSourcing – a unique business model that combines pay-for-performance with expense sharing. The model means that we focus on not simply what works, but what works cost effectively. The key to growing sales through JointSourcing is a multi-pronged approach to sales and marketing.
The six key “prongs” we focus on when creating a JointSourcing plan for our clients are:
1. Website Marketing
- This includes building a website that is written with your customers and prospects in mind. (Start by Choosing the Right Domain Name.)
- Optimize your website for search engines – all the right keywords and search terms in all the right places.
- If you sell locally, in a physical location, be sure to also maintain a local presence on the web.
2. Content Marketing
- Create good-quality content (for your blog, via downloads and white papers) on a consistent basis.
- Let people know you have this great content via social networks that are appropriate for your prospects and customers. (Want some tips for building your Facebook business page?)
3. Social Media Marketing
- Grow your social network – join groups, forums; interact with customers and peers – and spread the word about your business by creating fresh content for your network. (Here’s a real life example of how it works.)
- You can also look beyond the obvious major networks – have you considered using Reddit for your business, for example?
- And of course, your customers are often your best ambassadors – use customer reviews and testimonials to your best advantage.
4. Customer Marketing
- Keep the customers you have happy and earn ongoing revenue from them with E-mail newsletters (and remember to continually test your message!)
- Loyalty programs – from multiple-purchase discounts to special membership programs – are another way to generate revenue from loyal customers.
5. Paid Marketing
- Quick to start and offering near real-time control, advertising in general and Pay-per-Click advertising specifically, can be a very effective way to get your products or services right in front of prospects who are ready to buy.
- And with the right targeting, messaging and offer, direct [paper or email] marketing is hard to beat for growing B2B or B2C businesses.
6. Strategy and Management
- No marketing program should be contemplated without benchmarks and continuous improvement built right in. That’s why businesses need to employ all of the analytical tools and best practices available in order to be continually assured their sales and marketing programs are cost effective and yield the best R.O.I. (And please don’t forget the old fashioned telephone, because Marketing ROI without Call Tracking is Like Baseball Stats that Exclude Away Games).
Will 2014 be the year your business maximizes its online sales and marketing to grow sales? Sales Renewal can help get you started. Contact us to find out how.
Sales Renewal’s insight:
Will 2014 be the year your business maximizes its online sales and marketing to grow sales? Sales Renewal can help your business with JointSourcing – a multi-pronged approach to sales and marketing that focuses on the following 6 programs.