LinkedIn, known for its professional and business-oriented users, provides a unique opportunity for businesses and brands to target a niche audience. As with any platform, however, success on LinkedIn requires a hyper-focused strategy tailored to a specific audience.
Here are five key tips for advertising effectively on LinkedIn, along with some insights into when and when not to post.
[Read more…]by Beth Rimmels
A lot of marketing terms get tossed around as if everyone knows what they mean. If you’re a business owner (especially for a new or expanding business), being absolutely clear will help you make better decisions – including when it comes to expanding marketing to grow your business.
Let’s start with the basics… the difference between outbound marketing and inbound marketing.
Outbound marketing gets its name from the fact that the business is reaching out directly to prospective customers. It’s marketing that initiates the process of converting the prospect to a customer through ads on TV, radio, in magazines or newspapers, direct mail, etc. as well as direct sales calls known as “cold calling,” trade show appearances, billboards, and such. Ads in games or computer apps also count as outbound marketing, as do press releases.
Outbound marketing can be great for making a splash. Think about how a new product can go from zero name recognition to being on everyone’s lips after a major campaign like a giant, light-up billboard in Times Square. Of course, such a campaign is expensive. Though some outbound marketing campaigns – like a direct mail campaign, social media ads, and PPC ads – can be much more budget friendly.
Inbound marketing is about drawing in prospective customers and building a relationship with them, getting them to buy, and keeping the relationship going… so they keep coming back and talk you up to their circle of friends and family.
Examples of inbound marketing are blogs and content on your website that prospects will find by searching the internet for a topic. The organic SEO that helped connect that search query to your business is also inbound marketing. Video content on your website, YouTube or social media, and podcasts are also inbound marketing. So are infographics, case studies, social media posts, white papers, and any material you create that prospects can download, such as product guides, buying guides, tips, and How-To’s.
If you have any doubts about the power of inbound marketing, consider this: According to Google, 63% of purchasing decisions begin with online research. That’s how big inbound marketing has become today.
Because this content can be optimized for organic search and social media to answer specific questions and/or target a specific audience, inbound marketing has been referred to as more of a narrow focus approach than the “big blast” of outbound marketing. Since inbound marketing is also usually digital, inbound marketing campaigns can also be more cost effective. Though a great deal of money can also be spent on inbound marketing campaigns, depending upon how many outlets are utilized, the amount of content created, and so forth.
Part of the difference between inbound marketing and outbound marketing is strategy. Outbound marketing is geared toward getting the largest number of people to see its efforts, which makes sense since it can involve billboards, mass mailings, ads on buses, park benches, shopping carts, and so forth, TV commercials, etc.
Some people have referred to outbound market as “throwing spaghetti against the wall and seeing what sticks,” but it is a very valid tactic for some products and services. Another term for it is “interruption marketing” because seeing the promo often interrupts something else the person is doing – a TV commercial interrupts a program, a billboard distracts you, and so forth.
Inbound marketing is highly targeted (when done correctly) and focuses on building a relationship with a prospective customer/buyer. Inbound marketing is about setting up a longer relationship, so the prospect moves from curious to interested, from researching to buying, and then from customer to enthusiastic fan.
If you want to grow your business, call Efferent Media. For more than 10 years, we’ve been growing new medical practices into industry leaders and mom-and-pop businesses into household names through the power of expert digital marketing strategies. Discover what we can do for you. Call us at (631) 867-0900 to get started.
Having a presence on the most popular and effective social media platforms has become crucial for companies to promote their products and services and connect with their customers. With an overwhelming number of choices available today, you may be asking yourself, “which social media platforms do I need for my business?” Below we’ll dive into the top five that you should consider using right now.
[Read more…]by Beth Rimmels
Economists often disagree but 2023 is being especially thorny for predictions about the American economy, which makes business strategy more difficult than usual. While the global economy is troubled and some American economists are predicting a recession, U.S. inflation dropped in November to 7.1% (as of this writing, December numbers have not yet been released).
[Read more…]As many social media advertisers know, finding the most successful combinations of creative and messaging is essential to running an optimal Facebook campaign. Questions you might ask yourself include: which ad creative size will bring in the most video views? What headline will help increase click-through-rate?
To find out the answers to questions like this, you’ll need to test several ad elements against each other. That requires creating multiple ads and changing each variable manually (creative, copy, headline, etc.) … but it doesn’t have to be this complicated! Let’s dive into how using dynamic creatives in your Facebook ads can streamline this process and drastically improve campaign success.
[Read more…]