Are you overwhelmed by which digital marketing metrics you should be tracking? Confused about the difference between SEO and ROI? We’ve compiled this long, but still not quite comprehensive checklist of the most common metrics and to help you get started.
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How Much Should a Website Cost?
You know your business should have a website—but how much does it cost to build one? The level of your investment depends on factors like the amount of content and level of customization. This guide breaks down different website pricing tiers and what to expect from each.
Making the Most Out of Your Website’s About Page
While every website we build at GreenMellen is custom, there are a handful of pages that should be on all websites. This list includes a homepage, a contact page, and, the most personal of the three, an About page.
Crafting an effective About page is crucial for any website, as it gives visitors insight into the purpose, values, and people behind your company. It’s more than just a compilation of facts; it’s the narrative that defines your journey, mission, and the team behind the scenes.
Let’s explore how to make the most out of your website’s About page to engage with your audience and set the stage for building trust and fostering connections.
Identify What Works for Your Audience
All About pages are not one-size-fits-all; tailoring your About page to meet the needs and expectations of your target audience is the first step in creating a meaningful connection.
If you already have an About page on your website, look at your website analytics to gather insights into your audience’s demographics and user journey. Are they primarily young professionals, parents, or tech enthusiasts? Do they spend an ample amount of time on your About page? What other pages are they viewing on your website?
Understanding these details will guide you in shaping your content to resonate with their interests.
Share Your Company and Brand Story
Stories have the power to captivate and connect. Your About page should tell your brand’s story – the journey, challenges, and triumphs that have shaped it into what it is today.
A great place to start is by sharing the founder’s story. What inspired the inception of your brand? What problem did you solve that was missing from the market? What’s your vision for the future of the brand?
You can also highlight critical milestones and achievements that showcase your growth and evolution over time (this would also be a great visual piece to add, which we will discuss later).
Let Your Mission and Values Shine
A transparent representation of what you strive for and what matters to you most will build authenticity and resonate with like-minded individuals. That’s why we recommend adding your brand’s mission and values.
Not sure what to say? Ask yourself: what principles guide your decisions and actions? What drives your business to do what you do? Or, better yet, you can work with an agency on your messaging strategy to help you craft these statements!
Highlight Your Team and Culture
An About page can shine a light on one of your most important commodities: your team! You can also opt to create a separate page about your team, but if you want to “humanize” this page a bit, create a section for each of your team member’s bio, their role with the company, a headshot, and anything else you want to mention about them.
Visuals to Consider
No matter how great the content on your About page is, it could look lackluster without some supporting visual elements. These visuals should complement the content on the page, capture the user’s attention, and convey information quickly.
A few to consider would be:
- Headshots of your team
- A timeline with historical company milestones
- Images of your team working behind-the-scenes
- High-quality images from when the company first started
- Candid shots of your team at your workspace, company outings, business events, etc.
- Custom infographics that support any specific metrics or statistics laid out
- Video content of your team, your company, etc.
As long as these visual aids support your message, you can’t go wrong!
Let Customer Testimonials Do The Talking
Showcasing positive experiences from customers and partners is a compelling way to build trust and credibility.
Select testimonials that highlight the positive experiences your customers have had with your products or services. Include real stories and quotes that resonate with your audience, address common pain points, and demonstrate how your brand provides solutions.
If applicable, include endorsements from partners or collaborators in your industry. These endorsements not only build credibility, but also strengthen your connections within the industry.
Conclude with a Strong Call-To-Action
After users have heard your story, learned more about your company, and heard the words from your loyal customers, you need to end the page with a clear call-to-action of what they should do next.
The go-to option is to encourage users to contact you to get started with working with you. Make sure there is a clear button that links to your contact page, or include a form where users can submit their information.
Another call-to-action to consider could be to “Join The Team” if you are hiring, leading to your website’s Careers page or a job board.
Favorite Examples of About Pages
Here are a handful of our favorite About Pages to help inspire your website:
- GreenMellen (yes, we are biased)
- CroweBuilt Homes
- Hartman Simons
- Foxlane Homes
Crafting an impactful About page takes careful planning and thought, but the payoff is worth it. We hope this post helps you create a compelling About page that captivates and engages your audience!
If you need help with your About page or any other pages on your website, contact GreenMellen today!
Digital Marketing Scams: How to Spot and Avoid Them Online
In an era dominated by technology and connectivity, we have access to everything we want and need right in our hands. The internet plays a pivotal role in our everyday lives—from social media to grocery shopping and paying bills to everything else in between. And with that comes the scary reality of online scams. With cybercriminals becoming increasingly sophisticated, users must be vigilant and proactive in protecting themselves from becoming victims of online scams. Here are some practical tips to help you navigate the digital landscape safely:
Stay Informed
Knowledge is your first line of defense—an easy way to ensure you are not a target is to stay informed about the latest online scams and tactics being used. There are ample sources available for you to use when you feel unsure, such as blogs and media outlets.
If you are feeling uneasy about the communication you received online, you are likely not the only one. Sometimes all it takes is a Google search to discover that hundreds of individuals have received that same odd message or email too.
Educate your loved ones about online safety as well—By fostering a culture of cyber awareness, you contribute to a safer online environment for everyone.
For example, here is an odd message we have been seeing on Facebook recently, and maybe your business has too:
And when clicked on, you will be prompted to this page:
Prompts like these are in place to help you catch a scam waiting to happen. And that leads to our next tip: verify the authenticity of the sites you visit and links you are clicking.
Verify Authenticity
Often, one way to tell for sure if you are being scammed is by taking a closer look and ensuring authenticity—Cybercriminals employ various tactics to exploit unsuspecting individuals, such as phishing emails, fake websites, and fraudulent messages. Be cautious when clicking links or downloading attachments, especially if the communication seems unsolicited or suspicious. With all of our information readily available online, you will also have to beware of text scam incidents as well.
And you would be surprised how creative the scammers can be these days. For instance, here is an alleged text from our Technical Managing Partner, Mickey Mellen:
Luckily, I already have Mickey’s phone number saved and know that this is likely someone pretending to be him and leverage the fact he is an authoritative figure at GreenMellen. Receiving a text from your “boss” is one that we have seen a time or two—in which, if you respond, they will likely ask you to make a gift card purchase or something of that nature.
That is why you must confirm the authenticity of the communication you are receiving. And before ever entering any financial information, sharing your social security number, or even buying gift cards for your “boss” take the extra time to ensure that the conversation is legitimate. This step could save you a lot of time and effort later on down the road!
Secure Your Passwords
If the scammer is not coming in the front door, they are likely trying to sneak in through the back—by collecting your data and hacking into your accounts. How do you avoid this form of cyber attack? Secure passwords.
Use strong and unique passwords for your online accounts—Many browsers will even suggest passwords you can use that are harder to guess. Avoid using easily guessable passwords or reusing them across multiple platforms. You can assume that these individuals are already looking into your life, so yes, they likely know your dog’s name or your child’s. Implementing two-factor authentication adds an extra layer of security, making it significantly harder for scammers to gain unauthorized access to your accounts.
Lastly, another way to keep multiple passwords private and secure is to use a platform such as Bitwarden and LastPass. Sites like these are pretty much an encrypted vault where you can store all of your data without having to worry about accessibility or anyone else gaining access.
Social Media Awareness
Aside from using challenging passwords and two-factor authentication to protect them, another way to help protect you from digital marketing scams is to be aware of what you choose to share.
Exercise caution on social media platforms especially. Scammers often use social media to gather information about their victims. Be mindful of the information you share online and adjust privacy settings to limit access to your details. The less the internet knows about you, the better.
Be Skeptical
Be skeptical of too-good-to-be-true offers and deals. Online scammers often lure victims with promises of incredible discounts, freebies, or exclusive opportunities. Before making any financial commitments: research the company or website thoroughly, read reviews, and verify that the offer is legitimate. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
Also, be wary of random invoices—if it is from an organization you have worked with, reach out before providing any information to ensure it is legitimate. If you have never heard of the organization before, it is likely a scam and worth a little more research before paying.
Risk Requires Vigilance
At GreenMellen, we believe in building a brighter web. We believe that digital marketing and access to the internet provide an abundance of opportunities. But we also understand that with something that powerful and easily accessible comes the responsibility to ensure you practice safe habits on the web.
By staying informed, adopting secure practices, and cultivating a skeptical mindset, you can significantly reduce the likelihood of falling victim to online scams. Prioritize your online safety to enjoy the benefits of the digital world without compromising your personal information and financial security. You can also stay up-to-date on all digital marketing trends and tips by subscribing to our monthly newsletter.
AI Policies: What Are They and Does Your Small Business Need One?
It’s no secret or surprise that artificial intelligence (AI) has taken the world by storm recently. The business world and even small businesses are not immune from these sweeping changes.
Ignoring the impact AI will have on every industry is not a viable long-term option. The best choice for each of us is to proactively adapt ourselves and our organizations before we’re forced to do so or go out of business.
Researching and writing a set of AI policies is one step in the right direction. This process guides a small business through where AI is used and keeps us transparent with our team and customers.
But what’s involved with creating AI policies? Is it necessary in your industry? And what resources are available to help execute this new business documentation?
What Are Business AI Policies?
AI policies are guidelines and rules that govern the development, deployment, and usage of artificial intelligence technologies within a small business context. This will look different for every business and industry, so it helps to do your research.
Creating an AI policy for your small business keeps you in check ethically, legally, and organizationally. Currently, there aren’t nationwide laws or regulations requiring businesses to implement AI policy documents, but that could change soon.
It’s better to work on one before you need it, rather than be caught behind the rest of your industry or legal obligations.
What Should Be Included in an AI Policy?
Every business’ AI policy should be unique based on your situation. However, there are some basic components that you should consider addressing:
- AI Usage: How is your team using artificial intelligence? Which of your tools include AI components? Where might a customer expect to see AI-generated content?
- Training & Awareness: What is your team doing to stay updated with AI? How are you transparently informing your clients so they’re up to date?
- Values & Ethics: What company values determine your approach to AI? How are you handling people’s private data? Where is human oversight used?
- Risk & Security: How are you ensuring protection and risk mitigation where needed? What needs to happen to maintain trust with customers?
What Are the Benefits of Having an AI Policy?
The primary benefit of investing time now is avoiding addressing this urgently later. By being proactive, you’re showing clients that you’re innovative, and gives you a competitive edge.
Intentionally thinking through AI’s impact on your business helps you be efficient with using new technologies. It helps you avoid unnecessary risks and use AI properly instead of reactively.
It’s important to remember that an AI policy is as much for your internal team as it is for the general public. Most people won’t read a technical document like this, so the real value lies in the process of assembling it.
Does My Business Need An AI Policy?
Even if you’re a small business, creating a simple policy is likely in your best interest. There are a few instances where this might be more valuable than others:
- If you create digital content or products
- If you’re involved in digital technology or software
- If you work with national or international clients
How Do You Create a Business AI Policy?
Assuming you’ve decided that this is in your best interest, where do you get started? This doesn’t need to be a complicated process—just get started somewhere and gradually improves.
- Keep it simple: It’s tempting to stuff technical jargon into this document or rely on a lawyer to write a bunch of fancy words. But it’s better for your team and customers to remain plainspoken and limit the length.
- Meet as a team: Don’t compile the document in isolation. Assemble a few key team members, and maybe even outside help (like your marketing agency), to brainstorm what should be included. Get several perspectives involved.
- Do an AI audit: Take a snapshot of which digital tools you’re using including AI—it’s probably more than you realize. Documenting this list helps you be realistic about your AI usage.
- Leverage AI: Appropriately enough, you can use AI text tools to generate an outline or first draft of your policy. However, don’t rely entirely on AI. Review the copy and make intentional updates based on your human intuition.
- Keep it updated: Don’t simply write the policy and store it away to collect dust. Review it periodically and keep yourselves accountable. AI is changing rapidly and your policy should be revised to reflect this.
What Are Some Examples of Company AI Policies?
Most of the easily accessible AI policy examples are unsurprisingly from large technology companies. Your AI policy will likely look a little different from theirs. However, we can also learn from their example.
Are You Ready to Create an AI Policy?
Most people imagine artificial intelligence as an immensely complex topic—which, to be fair, it is. However, preparing your small business for dealing with AI doesn’t have to be. Creating a simple but intentional AI policy is a good first step.
This is an important conversation for digital marketing agencies like GreenMellen because it will have an outsized impact on our business model. We’re committed to being transparent with our customers on how we use AI. And we love educating everyone on technology changes like this.
More Resources
Truist Plaza
Truist Plaza
WEBSITE DESIGN
Completed in 1992, the Truist Plaza high rise is an iconic piece of Atlanta's skyline.
Along with its stunning architecture, Truist Plaza offers a Class-A experience for tenants and their guests, including a community manager, full-service dining, and seasonal networking and community events. We created a new website tailored for their tenants and visitors, which allows them to reserve conference rooms, view their dining offerings, and more.
Miller & Smith
Miller & Smith
WEBSITE DESIGN, MESSAGING
Since 1964, Miller & Smith has shaped the Washington region through beautiful and functional real estate developments and partnerships.
After completing a messaging strategy, we rebuild this website to showcase their properties and unique process. The result was a beautiful website that is both user-friendly and engaging.
Conducting an Annual Marketing Audit for Your Business
Hearing the word “audit” gives some people shivers because of its connotation with taxes and the IRS. However, an audit can be a genuinely beneficial tool when used properly. In this case, we’re considering what an audit can do for your business’s marketing.
If you’ve never conducted a marketing audit before, you undoubtedly have a few questions like:
- Why should I do an audit?
- How often should I audit my marketing?
- Who should conduct the audit?
- What should be included in the audit?
Since GreenMellen regularly handles digital marketing audits for our clients, we thought we’d walk through some of the basics to help get you started. This is helpful whether you decide to handle the audit yourself or hire an agency like us for help.
Why should I do a marketing audit?
Marketers and business owners are often guilty of working in the business instead of on it. This means you’re overly focused on knocking out urgent marketing tasks, rather than taking time to reflect on the efficiency of your processes or measuring your success.
A marketing audit allows you to step back and examine how you’re doing.
These are a few benefits of examining your marketing efforts with an audit:
- Think strategically about your marketing as a whole.
- Remind yourself what you’re doing well so you can be encouraged.
- Uncover your weaknesses and where you need to improve (or hire help).
- Prioritize where you should focus your effort moving forward.
- Find out new opportunities you can pursue (as you have margin).
- Document all of this in one place to compare your progress over time.
How often should you conduct a marketing audit?
We nearly always recommend auditing your marketing annually—once per year. This gives you a broad enough scope of time to examine and enough time to practically conduct the audit (even with a small team).
Trying to pull off an audit every month is impractical. Quarterly might be feasible if your marketing team is larger and your efforts are complex. Every other year might be a cadence preferred by smaller companies, but might not be often enough to be effective.
Whatever time frame you decide, prioritize this by planning in advance. Schedule time on the calendar to make the audit happen. Dedicate an entire day (or several hours spread out) to compile and review the information as a team.
Who should conduct the audit?
Depending on your team, the audit should likely be compiled by your company’s marketing leader. They may or may not have marketing in their title, but it ultimately falls to the person who oversees the marketing efforts. This person has the best familiarity with your strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities.
Once the audit is complete, it should be shared with and reviewed by your whole team. This could be the marketing department or your leadership staff. Essentially, anyone who should have input into how the marketing strategy should be executed.
If you don’t have the internal resources to handle it, you can also consider passing this responsibility to an external marketing agency. The benefit of this option is an agency’s understanding of marketing best practices and their objectivity. However, it does take time to coordinate by sharing your internal marketing platforms and then digesting their report.
What should be included in the audit?
This is perhaps the broadest and most difficult to answer question—but it’s also the most important. Audits come in many forms and sizes, but you must find the right one to fit your business. These are just a few things to begin collecting during a marketing audit:
- A list of your current marketing platforms and campaigns
- Your digital marketing data and results
- An overview of your digital marketing tools and technologies
- People involved in your marketing (both internal and external)
- Examples of your physical or print marketing materials
- A SWOT analysis of these efforts
Once you’ve gathered this information, spend some focused time as a team to review everything. Ask some important questions:
- Which are our most or least successful marketing channels?
- Do we need to add more channels or stop using any?
- Is our messaging and branding consistent across all channels?
- What could we do to make these channels more effective?
- Are there resources or tools that could help our marketing?
GreenMellen’s Marketing Audit Template
To help with this overwhelming, but important process, GreenMellen developed a Digital Marketing Audit Template. There’s no right or wrong way to do an audit, but this is a starting place that includes our take on marketing best practices.
These are some of the platforms we can help you audit with this free marketing resource:
- Branding & messaging
- Website & blog
- Email marketing
- Podcast
- Specific social media channels
- Digital advertising
- Reputation management
This is a tool we use to audit the digital marketing for our marketing clients every year. If you’re curious to learn more about how GreenMellen can help with your marketing, reach out to us to start a conversation.
PHP Updates: Why They Shouldn’t Scare You
There are a few common misconceptions that I hear quite often.
The first is that “Google is always changing the rules”, but they’re not. They certainly tweak their algorithm very often, but the core rules have been essentially the same for 25 years.
The second is that “You need to rebuild your website every few years to keep it secure”.
While there are a lot of good reasons to periodically rebuild your website (new design, different focus, better user experience, etc), if your site was built correctly and is well-maintained it should last a long time.
Here are two examples, both for WordPress-powered sites.
Big Trouble
We have a friend whose site was built elsewhere a few years ago and we’ve been helping to maintain it (we handle her WordPress updates, plugin updates, etc). Her host is going to upgrade the version of PHP on their server in the coming weeks (“PHP” is software that helps power most websites), and that upgrade is going to crash her site. The upgrade needs to happen to keep the server secure, but her website simply can’t handle it.
We’ve looked into it, and the way that her WordPress theme was developed was not very solid — there is essentially no option other than to rebuild it from the ground up. It’s going to be a significant time and energy cost simply to make the same site function on newer software. It’s very unfortunate.
No Trouble
On the other hand, we have a client whose site we built over 10 years ago (it launched in late 2013) and it’s going along just fine. PHP updates are a benefit to this site, as they should be, and not a detriment.
We’ve maintained this site for years, but it’s the core of how it was built that makes the difference. The way we build sites (using a “child theme” on top of a well-maintained framework) ensures that the site will stay secure and smooth for many years. It still requires that we keep things continually up-to-date, but there is no risk of a future hosting upgrade crashing the site.
That said, it’s generally not a great idea to have the same site for 10 years. I’m proud of the work we did on this site, but it should have been redone a few years ago to keep up with new design trends and improve the usability of the site; those things change a lot in a decade.
The key, though, is that they aren’t forced to redesign it. We always do everything we can to keep control in the hands of our clients, and this is a great example. We’ll encourage them to rebuild the site when the time comes, but their hand will never be forced.
It’s a good place to be, and it’s only possible if you build on the right foundation.
Hide Nothing: Why An Agency’s Marketing Tactics Should Always Be Clear
I was talking to a friend a few weeks ago who was working with a new company. That company had been outsourcing its SEO (Search Engine Optimization) work to a marketing agency for a few thousand dollars a month. However, it was unclear exactly what that agency was doing.
When asked for details on what work was being done each month, they were denied and reprimanded for daring to ask such a question. I don’t know the details of that situation, but I’ve seen similar before where companies were “doing SEO” for the company but didn’t disclose what they were doing.
Short answer: usually not much.
Marketing isn’t Magic
Even SEO, which can be complicated, includes tactics and practices that can be defined. If you’re working with a firm that doesn’t disclose details (even for “proprietary secrets”), you should break ties with them immediately.
The lack of transparency is unacceptable and often means they’re hiding something—usually because they’re not doing much work for the client. Strategy work can sometimes be a bit more opaque, but the ongoing tactics should be clearly defined, shared, and followed.
Get Proof of the Work Being Done
SEO is straightforward, though it can take work to keep it going strong. In most cases, this marketing service includes pieces such as:
- Keyword research to determine what specific phrases to go after.
- Work on the technical side of the website to make sure nothing is badly broken. This can take some time, but it’s not an ongoing expense aside from baseline security after a point.
- Generating strong content. This is often the bulk of the work, and companies deserve to be paid well if they’re doing a good job, but it’s not a secret.
Don’t let marketing agencies hide what they’re doing. Good marketing takes effort, but there’s no magic secret to this stuff. Follow best practices, know your audience, produce great content, measure the results, and repeat.
If a company says “We’re going to do A, B, and C for you every month for $x,xxx“, that’s awesome.
If they say “just trust us“, don’t.
Read More About Working with a Marketing Agency
Special Announcement: A New Podcast Format
After 60 episodes of the Brighter Web podcast, we’re changing things up. Starting in 2024, we’re bringing guests to the show and talk about digital marketing topics. We’ll be back in a few months with some new, slightly different-sounding episodes.
[Recap] GreenMellen’s 2023 Year in Review
For the past few years (2020, 2021, and 2022), our team has taken some time to review the past year and reflect on what we’ve accomplished together. This is a way to celebrate another successful season and springboard into the new year—in this case, 2024.
2023 marked our 14th year of building a brighter web, and our team reached new heights this year. It was a record year for active clients and revenue earned for GreenMellen. Our team grew, we moved offices, and we created a lot of digital marketing content for our amazing clients.
12 New Websites Launched
We love launching new websites—everyone feels like a little celebration of accomplishing something great together with a client. A new website is a breath of digital fresh air for a business and can help move your company forward.
In 2023, we launched 12 new websites for small businesses—exactly one per month. Here’s a list of those websites in case you want to check our work.
- Georgia Historical Society
- Hulsey Security Systems
- Miller & Smith
- CXO Partners
- Antares Wealth
- TekVox
- Division 9 Commercial Construction
- Waterstone Homes
- Waterstone Land Group
- Ultrastart Battery
- Homrich Berg
- Truist Plaza
2 New Teammates
Amanda Watson joined the GreenMellen team as our website support manager. She’s responsible for managing website maintenance and providing timely support to clients, working closely with the development team to ensure that any issues are resolved promptly.
Cami Merges was hired as our new data coordinator. This means she assists our clients with understanding the meaning behind their marketing metrics—from website traffic to email open rates. Data is important to understand, and Cami leads that for the GreenMellen team.
144 Blog Posts Written
Consistent and targeted blogging is still one of the strongest ways to get your website to rank well on Google and earn more organic search traffic. That’s why we post to this blog and help several of our clients manage an active blog on their business website.
In 2023, we wrote and published 144 blog posts. That’s nearly a new blog post every other day. To help you set the right expectations for your blog, here are some of our top posts this past year.
Top 5 GreenMellen Blog Posts of 2023
- 7 Pages That Every Business Website Needs
- How To Grow Your LinkedIn Presence In 15 Minutes Per Day
- 6 Best Practices For Creating And Posting Video Content To YouTube
- Website Insurance: Why Your Business Needs Web Maintenance
- Why You Should Have a Strategy Before Doing Ongoing Marketing
5 Marketing Awards Won
Our team was proud to be recognized for a few different marketing and business awards during 2023. Here’s a list of the awards GreenMellen received during 2023:
- Named a top Cobb County small business for the 3rd year in a row
- 2 AMY awards from AMA Atlanta
- 2 website awards from dotCOMM
1,023 Social Media Posts Published
There are plenty of questions when it comes to your business’s social media presence.
- What platforms should we be on?
- When should I post to social media?
- How can I write relevant social content?
- Is social media even relevant for my business?
We’re happy to help guide our marketing clients through these questions and more. We also manage social media for many of them and published over 1,000 organic and paid social media posts in 2023—which equates to nearly 3 unique posts per day.
34 Quarterly Recap Meetings
The GreenMellen team meets with each of our marketing clients every quarter to discuss platform metrics, content topics, and any marketing questions they have for us. This is our opportunity to sync up and ensure our efforts are aligned. These quarterly meetings tally up to 34 over the course of 2023—about eight each quarter.
4 New Community Partnerships
We love the opportunity to give back and support local organizations doing good. During 2023, GreenMellen sponsored 4 local nonprofits with community partnerships:
- MUST Ministries
- AMA Atlanta
- Cobb Chamber Marketers Group
- WordCamp Atlanta
We also enjoy working with nonprofits as marketing clients and offer a discount to any qualifying charities who need a new website or are looking for website maintenance.
22 Podcast Episodes
The Brighter Web podcast launched in 2021 with co-hosts Mickey Mellen and Robert Carnes. Since then, we’ve published over 60 bi-weekly episodes, including 22 new episodes about digital marketing this year. Next year, we’re also shifting the structure of our podcast in 2024 to include interviews with local marketing experts.
Top 5 GreenMellen Podcast Episodes of 2023
- Make Your Marketing More Sustainable with Evergreen Content
- Taking Control of Your Online Business Reviews
- A Special 50th Podcast Episode!
- B2B vs B2C: Why They’re More Similar Than You Think
- Maximize Customer Testimonials and Case Studies For Your Business
17 Marketing Strategies Created
At GreenMellen, we firmly believe you should have a solid strategy before pursuing marketing, including building a new website. That’s why we begin every marketing project with a strategy.
In 2023, we created 17 separate marketing strategies for clients. This includes strategies for:
- Messaging
- Email marketing
- Social media
- Marketing campaigns
4 In-Person Meetups
We shifted our monthly virtual meetups to in-person. To elevate the content and experience, we moved these to quarterly and hosted them at our new offices at Fireworks Co-working in Marietta. Our topics included: online marketing, social media, storytelling, and marketing data.
More than 60 local marketers and small business owners joined us for these sessions. We’re looking forward to hosting more meetups in 2024.
1,356 Website Support Tickets Closed
Responsiveness is one of our core values. We manage more than 200 websites for clients across the country. Our average response time to a support ticket is less than an hour during working hours. That’s how good our website support manager, Amanda Watson, is.
If you want a marketing agency that will answer your questions promptly and keep your WordPress website maintained smoothly, reach out to us to have a conversation.
Georgia Historical Society
Georgia Historical Society
WEBSITE DESIGN
Founded in 1839, the Georgia Historical Society is the oldest continuously operating historical society in the South.
With that long history, GHS needed a new website to organize its wide range of programs and publications. Not only that, but the Society needed to use the new website to effectively communicate with teachers, students, donors, researchers, journalists, and more.
This required extensive work to create over 60 new pages and import thousands of resources, articles, events, and news updates. Equipped with this new online resource, the non-profit Historical Society can effectively share America’s story through Georgia’s history.
Action Bias: Why You Don’t Always Need to Do Something in Marketing
When something bad is happening, it’s human nature to want to do something about it. Often, taking action can solve the problem. At times, though, doing nothing can be the best move. This is referred to as “action bias.”
I wrote about this a while ago on my blog as it related to various governmental legislation (where they “did something” to fix a situation, only to make it worse), but it applies to digital marketing as well.
We’ve recently had a few potential clients who couldn’t afford our services, so they chose a less expensive option. That’s not necessarily a bad move, but it was a waste of money in these cases.
Rather than investing in taking their website and marketing to the next level, they went with a more affordable option that didn’t do much for them. In both cases, the clients got a new website that was essentially the same as their old one, which accomplished little and wasn’t a good use of their money.
When to Spend More Money on Marketing
Many companies come to GreenMellen because they want to improve their digital marketing. We work through improving their messaging, improving their positioning in search results, and ensure users have the best experience possible on their site.
The result is a vast improvement in their marketing, which translates into more leads and more sales. However, this also requires a financial investment to do properly. After all, doing website design poorly or too quickly can cost you customers and revenue.
If you want to take your marketing up a notch, your budget also needs to go up a notch.
When You Can Afford to Spend Less
That said, there are cases when finding a less expensive alternative is a good solution. If you’re a new company, simply getting a decent website is a great place to start. New companies tend to have less money to invest in their marketing, so taking things slowly makes perfect sense.
That’s why GreenMellen offers launchpad websites for smaller or newer companies looking to get a basic website built sooner. This is a good place to start, but it’s not a suitable replacement for an existing, robust website.
We frequently refer companies to other marketing agencies that can build them a simple website to get things started economically and efficiently. It’s not a great long-term solution, but it can be a fantastic place to start for the right business.
When You Should Spend Nothing
There is also the case when you should spend nothing additional on digital marketing.
In these cases, you’d ideally increase your marketing budget to improve things, but that’s not always possible. Rather than spending less on a new website to save money, I encourage companies in this group to spend nothing on a new site.
If your current website is acceptable, then “saving” money when building a new website will lead to having a different site that is no different than what you have. Even if it was a great bargain, it’s still money that shouldn’t have been spent.
If you’re looking at your business and you feel like you need to “do something”, you might be correct, but sometimes doing nothing is the best short-term strategy that you can have.
Still Not Sure What To Spend on Marketing?
This isn’t always an easy distinction to make. How can you tell which category you fall into? If you’re not best served by investing in a new website, perhaps you’d be best spending that money on something else in digital marketing. But what?
The answer is different for each business and situation. So the best approach is to talk with a marketing agency about your specific context. Our team would be happy to have a conversation and explore the right solutions for your organization.
Optimizing Website Conversions to Grow Your Business
There’s no shortage of digital metrics to measure, but conversions are perhaps the most important. These are the actions that actually help your business to grow. But how do you measure and improve your conversions online?
What are website conversions?
- Form fill
- Download a file
- Watch a video
- Purchase
- Donate
What is conversion optimization?
- Making adjustments to your website to get people to take a desired action
- It’s an ongoing process that you must test and adjust
- Rand Fishkin (Sparktoro) – Precise attribution is hard to measure. Share our Blumer story.
- Less attribution, more refinement of optimization
Why does conversion matter?
- Because these are the actions to help your business grow
- Without a desired action, what are you aiming for?
- This is where the true value of marketing comes in
How do you get people to convert more?
- Pick a single call to action
- Make it clear how to take action
- Focus the content on the page around the action
- Give people multiple opportunities to click a call to action
- Make small changes and test to see how people react — A/B testing
How do you measure conversion rates?
- Count the number of conversions
- Count the number of website users
- Divide the former by the later
- You can also divide up the specific types of conversions
- This can be done directly in Google Analytics 4 (with help from Google Tag Manager)
Do platforms outside of your website influence conversions?
- Yes! It matters how people view your brand before seeing your website.
- It matters what landing page they come to
- It matters how many times & ways they’ve encountered your brand
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