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.
Search Results for:
[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
Audience Research: 8 Proven Tactics and Tools To Understand Your People
How well do you know your target audience? Understanding who you’re trying to reach is vital to effective marketing. So is knowing what information is relevant to your audience and how they prefer to communicate.
Industry experience and intuition can be a starting point, but fight the urge to make broad assumptions about your audience. Something that may have been true about them years ago may have changed more recently.
Audience research is a valuable and ongoing practice to better understand and appreciate the people our business serves. There’s no one-size-fits-all research approach, but we’ve compiled a few key tactics to get you started.
1. Public Data
There are several free websites that have compiled population and demographic data. This information can be used to gain a broad understanding of your audience.
Here are a few websites to check out:
Remember that this data is generalized and far from personalized to your audience. It takes time to comb through these numbers to find what’s relevant for your people. Public data is a helpful starting place but usually requires a deeper dive using other sources.
2. Audience Surveys
Want to learn more about your audience? Try asking them directly using a survey.
Surveys are valuable feedback tools, however, that’s also why they’re overused. The average person is asked to do a survey daily. And most of them ignore these requests because they don’t see any value for them.
If you want people to complete your surveys, remember to keep them short and be willing to offer a small incentive for their time. More importantly, craft the questions carefully so you can implement their feedback. There’s no value in a survey that gets ignored.
Thankfully, there’s no shortage of online survey tools like Survey Monkey and Typeform.
3. Focus Groups
Larger companies organize focus groups to collect live feedback from a representative group. Focus groups test everything from new products to upcoming movies and political candidates. However, they also require a heavy investment of time and resources.
For this reason, focus groups aren’t a feasible option for most small businesses. You might be able to get more informal responses from sharing new ideas with family and friends. Just remember that this feedback could be biased or incomplete.
Thankfully, video conferencing tools like Zoom have made focus groups slightly easier to organize. No matter where the meeting is held, be sure to take extensive notes and ask follow-up questions.
4. Conversational Interviews
Rather than speaking to a group of people all at once, consider doing conversational interviews with individual audience members one at a time. This process could take you longer or not provide as broad of a perspective. However, these conversations can be more informal and easier to organize.
Some businesses will choose to do conversational interviews with current customers. You can also mix in former clients or prospective leads. Some questions to consider asking include:
- Why did you consider doing business with us?
- What problem were you looking to solve?
- How and where did you look for solutions?
- What information helped make your decision?
- What would you tell someone else considering working with us?
Some clients might give slanted answers because you’re representing the business. Encourage them to be open and honest, and don’t get defensive if they point out something negative. These are opportunities for your business to improve.
These interviews follow a similar pattern to a case study interview. If the narrative is compelling, ask the client if they would let you share it with others.
5. Search Trends
Similar to public data, some tools collect information about what keywords and topics people are searching for online. Some of these are from search engines, while others gather data from social media platforms.
Many of these tools are free or at least have free options. Try them out to see which ones work for your business. They each offer different information which can be compiled into a more complete picture of what’s happening in your industry or environment.
6. User Behavior
How are users interacting with your current marketing? Examining user behavior data will present a smaller data set, but it’s completely customized to your business. And it should be readily accessible, assuming you’ve been capturing it properly.
Here are a few tools we recommend using to capture this information:
- Google Analytics
- Google Search Console
- A heatmap tool like Clarity or Crazy Egg
- Insights from your social media platforms
These insights help you understand what pages people visit on your website, and what content is most relevant to them. Use this information to optimize your website and content strategy. You can also use your findings from offline interviews for ideas on new content to create.
7. Online Reviews
People offer their opinions about businesses every day through online reviews. This is a highly public way to share their sentiments and feedback. Other potential customers use this information to make purchasing decisions, but you can use it to improve your business.
Take the needed steps to control your online reputation and respond to these reviews. This also gives you insights into how customers think and their concerns. No one wants a negative rating, but each one is an opportunity to get better.
8. Your Competition
Don’t forget about the businesses that have (roughly) the same target audience as you—your competition. Yes, you do have competitors and they’re not automatically the enemy. Instead, they can provide some insights about your shared audience.
Do some research about your competitors. What content are they sharing? How is their website structured? Which social media platforms are they active on? Which accounts do they follow?
Don’t automatically copy their every move, but studying them might give you new ideas on what to try with your business. You certainly want to stand out from the crowd, but you can also put your own spin on what’s already working in your industry.
Still Need Help with Audience Research?
Even with the right tools and tips, effective audience research takes time—which may be time you don’t have to invest. Audience research is a significant part of the messaging strategy process that GreenMellen does for many of our marketing clients. If you’re interested in getting a messaging strategy completed to point your marketing in the right direction, reach out to us today to start the conversation.
10 Ways to Monetize Your Digital Marketing Content
The internet is about far more than just making money—but that’s certainly something you can do. Content creators have found plenty of ways to earn income from the digital stuff they make.
This list is far from comprehensive, but here are 10 big buckets of ways to make money from the content you create online.
- Selling a service (like GreenMellen)
- Website development
- Coaching or consulting
- Graphic design
- Freelance writing
- Selling a physical product online
- E-commerce
- Swag
- Books
- Selling a digital product
- Ebooks and resources
- WordPress themes
- WordPress plugins
- Document templates
- Selling an online course
- Create a private membership forum
- Post Status
- Mighty Networks
- Private newsletter
- Accept donations
- Sponsorships
- Mostly for podcasts
- Directly on Anchor
- Website ads
- Google AdSense (and similar)
- Direct sponsorships
- Affiliate marketing
- Promoting products
- Getting a cut of the sales
- Amazon Affiliate links
- Publishing videos
- YouTube monetization
- Not just with ads, but to help promote other content
The Basics for Launching an Effective Digital Marketing Campaign
Digital marketing is an ongoing process. Effective marketing means planning for the long term and sticking with a sustainable effort. However, there are appropriate times when you can invest more than your usual effort and budget.
That’s what we call marketing campaigns. These are one-time initiatives to promote a specific component of your business. These campaigns go hand-in-hand with your marketing practices to promote and grow your business.
We see marketing campaigns all the time, but launching an effective campaign is easier said than done. Why should you consider investing in a campaign, and when is the right time to do so? Here is your guide to answer these questions and more.
Why Run a Digital Marketing Campaign
Marketing campaigns require extra effort and cost beyond your regularly scheduled marketing. So why should you bother with creating a marketing campaign? Here are a few benefits you can expect from an effective campaign.
- Boost your brand awareness beyond your regular channels.
- Pursue a single, focused marketing goal.
- Have a reason to test out new ideas for marketing.
- Gain new momentum or energy from your marketing team.
There are plenty of other reasons why a marketing campaign might be a good idea, but these reasons alone can be enough. The trick is finding the right timing and subject to rally behind. After all, the biggest defining factor for a campaign is having a clear start and end date.
8 Opportunities For a Marketing Campaign
While every business will have specific triggers for a potential campaign, here are a few ideas to get you started. Remember that these are time-bound, even if they happen predictably each year. Each one should be treated like a separate campaign.
- An upcoming event
- A company milestone or anniversary
- A seasonal sale
- A new product or service
- Important company news
- Educate customers about information
- Hiring sprees
- Partnership or advocacy programs
Campaigns can be easier to come up with for product-based companies—there are more products and opportunities for seasonal sales. Service-based businesses have a slightly different challenge, but campaigns can still be used effectively. The key is building strong campaign components.
5 Components of an Effective Campaign
A marketing campaign is more than just advertising. There are a wide number of elements you need to create to reach your goals. Think of a campaign almost like a separate business you’re trying to promote. These are the various pieces to consider.
1. A strategic plan
Who is your target audience? Hint: it should be a subsection of your business’ audience. What is the campaign timeframe? What goals are you trying to accomplish? These are questions your strategic plan needs to answer.
Plan far enough in advance that your marketing team can get together and build out a strong plan. Use this as your blueprint for what happens during the campaign. However, you’ll also need to be flexible and adapt as you learn while the campaign is happening.
2. Strong visual assets
Just like your business, a marketing campaign needs a strong visual identity. This should support your overall brand, while also being able to stand on its own. Knowing how your campaign should look and make people feel is a part of your strategic plan.
Create a list of the visual assets you’ll need to create. Graphics, logos, and photos are all options that can be designed by a member of your team. These will be vital as you build your content.
3. Marketing content
The marketing content is the stuff you’ll share across digital platforms. When paired with the visual assets, this content comprises the meat of your campaign.
- Blog posts
- Email copy
- Press releases
- Podcast episodes
- Social media posts
- Advertising copy
- Website landing pages
Make a list of the content you’ll need to work on. Assign the various pieces to your team. Be sure to finalize this well before launching your campaign. This allows you to review everything together and ensure that it aligns together.
4. Promotional plan
Decide which platforms you’ll want to share the content on. This largely depends on what audience you’re trying to reach and where you already have a presence. Based on your timeline, you can also decide on the frequency of how often you’ll post per platform.
It’s also important to get others to help you spread the word. This begins with an internal audience—a.k.a. your employees. Give them easy content to share on their platforms and provide them with a compelling reason to help you boost the marketing campaign.
Keep in mind that not all campaigns need to be exclusively digital. Plenty of marketing campaigns also mix in traditional media elements like broadcast ads or print materials. Consider what other elements you’ll need to create to spread your message beyond online.
5. Media outreach
Once you’ve gotten the internal promotions down, it’s time to look outside of your organization. Securing exposure from other organizations is a quick way to boost your reach. This primarily includes local media outlets, but can also mean influencers or your fans and customers.
Regardless, the most important thing is to clearly and confidently communicate the campaign. Let people know what it’s about and why it’s worth sharing. If you provide clear value to their audience, they’re more likely to spread the word.
Read More
- 8 marketing campaign ideas that customers will engage with
- Marketing Campaign Ideas: 35 Proven Ideas And Examples To Inspire Your Own
Are you ready to launch a digital marketing campaign?
If you need help with that, GreenMellen is here. We can execute on all the content types we discussed above or create a cohesive marketing campaign to help boost your brand. Just give us a call to start the conversation.
A Human Conversation about Artificial Intelligence and Digital Marketing
Artificial intelligence is all anyone can talk about (at least until the next trend happens), but what does it practically mean for our marketing and business? Do we need to be using AI tools? If so, which ones and how? AI and digital marketing is far more than just another hot topic—it’s a challenging issue to better understand. In this event, we hope to have a positive and productive conversation on how to navigate AI tools and confidently steer your business into the future.
GreenMellen Announces Series of Community Partnerships
GreenMellen is proud to announce several community partnerships with outstanding local nonprofit organizations during 2023.
These partnerships include sponsorships with MUST Ministries, the Cobb Chamber of Commerce, the Atlanta chapter of the American Marketing Association (AMA), and WordCamp Atlanta.
MUST Ministries
A Cobb County-based nonprofit, MUST Ministries serves families experiencing poverty by providing housing, food, clothing, and workforce development programs.
As part of developing a new website for MUST, GreenMellen is sponsoring several of MUST’s upcoming annual fundraising events.
- Gobble Jog – Casserole sponsor
- Cherokee Golf Tournament – Birdie sponsor
- Giving Gala – 1 Star sponsor
“When seeking bids for building our new website, we had to be fiscally responsible amidst a much-needed but enormous endeavor,” said MUST Ministries Vice President of Marketing and Communications, Katy Ruth Camp.
“GreenMellen graciously swapped a significant amount of the cost in exchange for sponsorships at various MUST events. This allowed us to get the best possible website for our clients and donors at a cost that would not impact our mission, while also exposing GreenMellen’s stellar services for our neighbors in need.”
Cobb Chamber Marketers Group
GreenMellen is a long-time member and supporter of the Cobb Chamber of Commerce. This includes being an active member of the quarterly Cobb Marketers group.
This is a group of local marketing professionals who work in a wide variety of industries who meet quarterly to network and share best practices with one another. To support the future growth of this gathering, GreenMellen has agreed to sponsor the Cobb Marketers group.
“My goal for the Cobb Marketers Group’s partnership with GreenMellen is to deliver more meaningful connections and content to our marketing community.” said the Cobb Chamber’s Executive Vice President, Marketing & Communications Amy Selby. “I believe this partnership will make our group a stronger resource for all.”
GreenMellen has been proudly recognized as a top small business in the county for the past three years.
AMA Atlanta Mentorship
The American Marketing Association (AMA) is the nation’s largest professional organization of marketing professionals. The Atlanta chapter is the third-largest local chapter of AMA.
GreenMellen marketing manager, Robert Carnes, is currently serving as the VP of Mentorship for AMA Atlanta. Therefore, GreenMellen eagerly supported the group as the first-ever sponsor of the AMA Atlanta Mentorship program.
One of many similar programs nationwide, the Atlanta marketing mentorship program connects experienced and young professionals to help build networks and expand careers. There are two mentorship programs each year in the spring and fall.
GreenMellen also took home two marketing awards at the 2023 AMYs hosted by AMA Atlanta.
WordCamp Atlanta
WordCamp Atlanta is the annual conference for the local community of WordPress website developers in Metro Atlanta. The 2023 conference took place in October after a years-long hiatus because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
A long-time supporter of WordCamp, GreenMellen was proud to be a Gold-level sponsor for the event. GreenMellen co-founder Mickey Mellen also volunteered to help organize the event, after being a speaker and organizer for WordCamp Atlanta events in previous years.
A Long-Time Community Supporter
GreenMellen has a long history of serving and supporting local organizations and nonprofits. The team offers a generous discount on projects and services for qualifying 501c3 nonprofits.
“These are among our favorite businesses to work with because they share our values and help to improve the community we live in,” said Mellen. “We’re proud to support local nonprofit organizations and help spread their impact.”
Creating an Effective Marketing Budget
Effecitve marketing requires an investment. For a business, this means creating and spending a marketing budget. But how much should you spend on marketing, and what return should you expect? There’s no one answer, so let’s examine the right approach.
Where do I start with my marketing budget?
- Figure out what you’ve spent to this point.
- Create a document to track everything and work with your accounting team.
- Develop an ideal budget for what you’d like to spend.
- Think big and work backward to what is realistic.
How much should I be spending on marketing?
- There’s no one right answer.
- It’s all about what’s most valuable to your business.
- This is much more than just advertising.
What categories should I consider?
- Marketing software/tech stack
- Content creation
- Advertising
- Networking events
- Sponsorships
How do I expand my marketing budget?
- Measure the ROI for what you’re seeing in return.
- Determine your most effective channels and increase there first.
- Look at the spend as an experiment—try something new and see if it works.
- Get your leadership’s buy-in so they understand the value.
10 Best Practices for Writing Business Social Media Content
In today’s digital age, social media is at the forefront of most businesses’ marketing plans. Companies use this indispensable tool to connect with their audience, build their brand, and promote their products or services. While that may seem straightforward, developing the content for your social channels may not always be so cut and dry.
To stand out in the ever-expanding sea of social profiles, you need to set some guidelines that will help you craft engaging, relevant, and authentic content that resonates with your target audience.
In this blog post, we’ll explore some essential best practices for writing business social media content.
- Know Your Audience
Before you begin brainstorming social media content, you should have an in-depth understanding of who your target audience is.
- What does your ideal client look like?
- What are their pain points?
- What questions do you think they may have about your industry?
- What social media platforms will they look for you on?
You likely already have developed an in-depth buyer persona for your business, but if you have not, this is the perfect time to start. Knowing your audience and what they are looking for will help you create content tailored to their needs, specific interests, and concerns.
- Set Clear Objectives
Now that you understand your audience and what they are looking for, let’s dive into what you want to achieve with your social media content. Some high-level ideas of what you might be looking to accomplish are:
- Increase brand awareness
- Drive traffic to your website
- Generate leads or boost sales
When creating these objectives, ensure that you aim for SMART goals (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound). SMART goals will allow you to have attainable objectives for your content and give you a tailored direction to take your message.
- Consistency Is Key
We now have established goals for reaching our target audience and hitting our business objectives. Next, we need to develop a clear brand voice. You will maintain this voice across all social channels—as well as you should remain consistent with the visual look and feel. This consistency provides a sense of familiarity and authenticity to your brand.
Another important part of consistency is sharing posts frequently. You can use platforms such as Sprout Social to schedule your posts. Scheduling content allows you to have regular posting and to build a content calendar that flows with your business—from holidays to sales. You can share timely content in a way that makes the most sense for your company.
- Easy On The Eyes
Another thing to consider when developing your social media content is what type of posts usually catch your eye. Aim to share posts with visual appeal—either an eye-catching graphic, photo, or video.
Social media is a visual platform, and your profiles should reflect that. At GreenMellen, we suggest using high-quality images of your team or business frequently. We also encourage using graphics to share information about your services or products.
If you do not currently have those assets available, we highly recommend investing the money into a professional photographer who can capture the essence of your business. A picture truly is worth a thousand words.
- Add Value
The ultimate goal for the content you are posting (or at least one bucket of it) should be adding value. Valuable content can take many different forms consisting of:
- Blog posts
- Podcasts
- Infographics
- Q & As
- Videos
- Sale offers
The main things a consumer looks for when they adventure to your profile—meaning the content you are sharing is intentionally meeting the needs of your audience. This approach not only establishes you as an industry expert but also helps to keep your followers engaged.
- Encourage Engagement
Speaking of engagement, this is also something your content should be actively pursuing. You will see more traffic to your page when you are producing content that is thought-provoking and encourages people to comment, like, share, etc. Some forms of content you can share to boost engagement are:
- Polls
- Asking questions
- Discussion prompts
Engagement is a two-way street on social media, and you should actively respond to comments and messages to maintain the relationship. By engaging with your audience, you will build a sense of community, trust, and value.
- Ever Evolving
Similar to the fact that the digital space is ever-evolving, that is also the case with social media trends. And I do not just mean trending hashtags or dances—I mean the platform updates that regularly occur on social media.
For example, when Instagram introduced Reels, it opened the door to a brand new type of content on Instagram. Platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn are constantly launching new updates, and by exploring those, you may find that one of them helps you to better connect with your target audience. Don’t be afraid to adapt and experiment with these new changes.
- Test And Test Again
While we are on the topic of experimenting and adapting, you should be testing your content consistently to see what performs best. A few different ways you can test your content performance are:
- Posting at different times
- Posting on different days
- Posting different types of content (eg. evergreen content buckets)
- Posting with different calls to action
By trying out different things, you will identify what works best for your specific audience. Use each time you test something as an opportunity to refine your data until you can nail down a plan of action.
- Over Analyze
You’ve probably never heard someone say it is a good thing to overanalyze—but social media is the outlier in that equation. Each platform gives you access to detailed data analytics.
When we talk about monitoring trends to see what performs well, those statistics will be easiest to follow along with when using data analytics. For most platforms, you will be able to review these metrics:
- Reach
- Engagement
- Click-through-rate
- Profile followers
Use these metrics to help determine the effectiveness of your social media content. The best kind of improvements to your planning are the data-driven ones!
- Be Authentically You
You probably saw the word authentic in this blog a few times already (4 times to be exact, if you count that last one). There is a reason for that! In the age of social media, editing, and fake accounts, your business must be authentically yours.
Be genuine and transparent, and show that you are human in your content. A few ways to do that is with team introductions to show the faces behind the brand, behind-the-scenes clips, and share stories about why you do what you do.
When you make your brand approachable and trustworthy, you build a sense of community and continue to expand your audience. Creating a sense of connection for your consumers with your brand.
#ThatsAllFolks
So there you have it—creating social media content for your business requires careful planning and commitment to be successful.
By taking the time to understand your audience, setting clear objectives, maintaining consistency, and ensuring you deliver valuable content, you can create content that encourages engagement and deeply resonates with your audience.
By staying updated with trends, closely monitoring analytics, and being authentically you, you will build a strong and loyal online community. Keep these best practices in mind, and you can unlock the full potential of social media for your business.
Have more questions about social media or want to hand the reins over to an expert in the field?
Cami Merges
Planning and organizing are two major attributes that make up Cami. From graduating with a Bachelor’s degree in Business Management from Kennesaw State University to receiving a Google certificate in Digital Marketing & e-Commerce, Cami is a well rounded, creative thinker with strong organizational skills.
Before joining GreenMellen her passions and journey have included digital marketing, web development, wedding planning, substitute teaching, and professional customer service throughout.
In her spare time, Cami enjoys spending time with her husband and Goldendoodle puppy, as well as, friends and family. She and her husband play pickleball, spend time outdoors, and travel.
Capitalizing on Networking Events for Marketing Growth
Digital marketing is useless without personal connections and word-of-mouth referrals. But is networking played out or ripe for you to take advantage of? It all depends on your approach.
How does networking help my marketing?
- Get to know people in a more casual setting.
- Face and name recognition can be as important as brand recognition.
- Build a relationship with people before you begin selling.
- You might also meet people who can help your business.
What kind of events can I network at?
- Conferences
- Tradeshows
- Panel discussions
- Volunteer opportunities
- Business happy hours
- Lunch & learns
What are some networking best practices?
- Attend events where you know who the audience will be.
- Focus on in-depth conversations with a few people.
- Are business cards still worth bringing? Yes, if you have them.
- Digital business cards are cool, but they break my process.
- I like receiving cards more than giving them.
- Follow up with people after you meet them—connect on LinkedIn.
Is it worth sponsoring networking events?
- Take a look at the cost and see if it fits into your budget.
- Determine the why behind your reason for being a sponsor.
- The reason might be exposure or trying to get more leads.
- It’s also good to get visibility in your local community.
What about speaking at events?
- Are you comfortable with public speaking?
- Do you feel like you have something of value to provide?
- What topic do people care about that you can help them with?
- Reach out to a few events that are actively looking for speakers.
Should I plan my own networking event?
- We do quarterly micro-networking events.
- This is with people we already know and want to introduce to each other.
- It’s fun for us and fun for them—that’s the point.
- This helps us to deeper our relationships and say thank you to our fans.
Two GreenMellen Websites Recognized with Annual dotCOMM Awards
ATLANTA—Marietta-based digital marketing agency GreenMellen received two annual dotCOMM awards for client websites launched during 2023.
The Homrich Berg and CroweBuilt Homes websites were both recognized as Platinum winners by the dotCOMM judges in their respective categories.
“We’re excited for this honor, especially because it reflects the great collaboration with our clients,” said GreenMellen co-founder Ali Green. “Every website we create is a collective effort, and we couldn’t get here without the hard work of our entire team.”
A wealth management firm headquartered in Atlanta, Homrich Berg was named the 18th best financial website. CroweBuilt Homes is a custom home builder based in Cartersville, Ga., and their website was listed as the 28th best in the professional services category.
The dotCOMM Awards annually honors excellence in web creativity and digital communication. One of the most highly recognized honors in the marketing industry, dotCOMM evaluates thousands of entries from more than 135 countries annually.
GreenMellen has already received other awards during 2023, including two AMY Awards from AMA Atlanta and being named a top Cobb County small business for the third consecutive year.
About GreenMellen
GreenMellen is a digital marketing agency located in Marietta, Ga. It’s our mission to build a brighter web by providing marketing solutions that help other businesses shine.
We provide website, branding, design, and messaging solutions to make your company’s digital presence meet today’s expectations. By uncovering the unique personality of each brand we work with, we can create a digital environment that personifies those characteristics and refines the user experience.
- « Previous Page
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- …
- 65
- Next Page »