1. You won’t get out of your own head

Everyone is different. Not everyone thinks like you, acts like you, or values the same things as you. Remember, your opinion is not the only one and other people may find value where you don’t.

The second I find myself in “total disbelief” while performing research and analysis, I need to step outside or get a cup of coffee. I have a hard time believing people think differently than I do—it’s one of my biggest obstacles during strategy meetings.

2. You forget not everyone works in your industry

Remember the whole world doesn’t work in your industry every day. Not everyone knows the ins and outs of your business like you do.

Take the time to stop, smell the roses, and find little details that potential customers and clients might really enjoy. One great example of this would be how MillerCoors claims that “Coors Light’s unique frost-brewing process locks in a taste as cold as the Rockies.” Now, you might like to know that all lagers are conditioned at near-freezing temperatures, and cold filtering is a popular alternative to pasteurization, because it’s FASTER AND CHEAPER. Not only does MillerCoors recognize that not everyone is a brew boss, but they are leveraging that ignorance in a very creative way.

3. You don’t invest in tools

Working for an internet marketing agency has provided me the opportunity to work with some crazy cool SEO tools. The amount of free software out there is amazing and it is changing the digital marketing landscape for the better. But! Keep in mind the paid version of a certain software is probably WAAAY better than the free version.

Don’t be afraid to invest in software. If you know what you’re doing, these tools can be invaluable.

4. You try to do it all

Yes, you are the greatest most capable person you have ever met… now hire someone and pay them what they are worth.

People go to college to get degrees in creative writing, technical writing, graphic design, and web development. Knowing your own limitations and knowing when to cut your loses and pay a professional can be the best solution sometimes. Taking time and money to go back and fix something that was never right in the beginning is usually a slow, painful, and expensive endeavor.

5. You don’t like talking about yourself

If you and your business are genuinely outstanding and your customers are satisfied, it’s not cheesy to ask for an online review.

There is no shame in promoting the genuinely outstanding qualities of your business. Finding a balance between commercial confidence and humility is key.

6. You don’t measure up

Compare yourself to the competition.

This is very simple, but most people find it difficult to actually do. Every consumer and/or client out there is comparing you to another vendor, manufacturer, or service provider. Don’t be afraid to do some (persuasive) comparison for them – and get creative! A simple graphic of a checklist with tally marks is boring.

7. You don’t ask for advice

Ask your customers and clients how you are doing and how you can improve. After all, no one knows your target market better than YOUR TARGET MARKET!

Simply following up with clients over the phone or via automated email follow ups can yield priceless information.

8. You don’t know where you belong

Take the time to think about where you belong in the digital realm and who you are trying to reach – this is a simple case of demographics.

If you can’t figure out where you belong or you don’t know how to reach your target market – revisit point #7 and #3.

9. You go through the motions

Banging out content for the sake of “fresh content” and posting inspirational quotes to social media for the sake of a daily post is probably hurting you more than it is helping. Users are people, and the people of 2015 have no time for lame content. You need a real content strategy.

10. You don’t leave your desk

Get out there and meet the people working in your industry!

Just because you run an online store or you run a hyper-local service based company does not mean you can’t get active in your niche. I got my start in digital marketing through the use of online niche forums. Join a community, go to webinars, share content, take someone to coffee, or become an active member of a meetup.com group.

11. You look down on social media

Remaining ignorant to the fact that social media is now a part of life will not help you grow a business in 2015.

“Social media” is not just Facebook and Twitter. Wikipedia lists nearly 200 different social media platforms and that doesn’t count the endless niche forums and enthusiast websites. There is nearly a limitless amount of avenues for you to share, debate, educate, and learn from. Take advantage of the beauty that is the internet.

12. You are “all business all the time”

Link equity and traffic signals brought about from lighthearted click bait has it’s place in the world.

A well-balanced content strategy that addresses every stage of the sales funnel needs to contain content more suitable for the general public. Now, I’m not saying put your logo in cat videos, but I am saying people are not all business 24/7, and your content strategy shouldn’t be either.

13. Communication breakdown

Web developers, SEOs, social media strategists, PPC strategists, PR strategists, and everyone else involved in marketing your company needs to be aware of your digital strategy—all the time.

Nothing makes you or your business look less capable than having conflicting marketing messages, outdated marketing materials, or a convoluted brand image. All team members/marketing avenues need to be marching to the same beat to be as effective as possible.

14. You don’t set goals

How do you know if you are making reasonable progress if you don’t set any goals? Set goals! Any goals! Then, once you have reached your initial goal, do better the next time. If you start losing steam and can’t make new progress, reread this list.

 Conclusion

If your online marketing strategies have lost their steam, stepping back and reevaluating the situation is almost always the answer. Asking people to give you their honest perspective, getting honest with yourself, or sticking your neck out and taking a risk can give the stir you need.

The post 14 Reasons Why You Don’t Succeed In Digital Marketing appeared first on Clix.

I recently read his article and pulled a few of the tips I think would be the most effective use of someone’s time. As I have never been one to appreciate even the slightest of spammy sales techniques, you might notice the 15 tips I chose to highlight all have a humanistic touch to them. I think one thing digital marketers often forget, is sometimes it’s a good idea to simply be human.

The following 15 tips are from Justin McGill’s article “An Epic List of 100 Growth Hacks for Startups.”

Amazon Book Reviewing and Commenting

If there are books published in your niche on Amazon and you’ve read them, start reviewing them. If there aren’t any books…well then, write one!

Discounts to Influencers

Find influencers in your niche and offer them heavy discounts (or even a free account) in exchange for some promotion.

Upload Training Videos to Lynda

Upload your training videos to Lynda.com, an online collections of training videos.

(I would also suggest starting a Vimeo account and adding these training videos to your own resource page)

HARO

Use helpareporter.com for press opportunities.

(HARO – Help a Reporter Out – is designed to enable journalists to connect with people who have expertise or experience in particular issues, so that journalists can obtain valuable advice and quotes for stories they are covering.)

Here is a detailed article that explains How to Use HARO to earn Earn Valuable Mentions and Links

Discounts for Beta Testers

Give half off or some other deep lifetime discount to beta testers who helped you validate your model.

Handwritten Notes

Send handwritten letters to key accounts / influencers. Actual handwritten letters are extremely rare these days so you will stand out.

If you spend time reading blogs in your niche (you should!), leave thoughtful/relevant blog comments.

Use the website/url field to link to your app.

Bonus tip: In the “Name” field use ‘your name @ company’ for more brand awareness for those that don’t click the link.

Utilize an FAQ Page

Create a separate page on your website specifically for FAQ’s.

• Position questions around your key selling points.

• Monitor search queries to your site and build content specific to those queries.

• Make note of actual issues or questions your customers are having and address them to lessen support requests.

Ask Users to Take Pics w/Your Product

If you have some enthusiastic customers, ask them to take pictures with your product and have them share it on their social feeds.

You can then use this social proof on your website!

Make Signing Up Easy

Just require an email (that will be their username) and one password input initially. Don’t have them confirm the password, don’t ask for an email AND a username (email can be the username).  Make it as quick and painless as possible.

Tweet or Mention New Users

Tag new users (or one’s with the biggest following if there are lots) in

Double Loop Referral Program

Dropbox made this technique popular by rewarding you with more storage when you refer someone, while at the same time giving that new referred user more storage as well.

tweets and on Google+ after they sign up and thank them for the signup.

In-App Sharing

Allow users to share milestone achievements or something they can be proud of and will want to share.

Downsell at Cancellation

When a user goes to cancel, offer to keep/store data or push them toward a lower tier instead.

If a user has been a customer for X number of months, offer a big discount (50% or so) to stay on their current plan. Make sure it’s understood this is a one-time offer and only because they met certain criteria.

Exit Survey

Make money from website visitors who leave by knowing why they left.

• Ask why they weren’t interested and what they were looking for.

• Use this data to improve your marketing and/or your app with the feedback.

• Let them know you can follow up with them in the future as the product evolves to meet their needs.

Annual Payments

Give customers the option to pay with annual payments. Reward them with X% off or # of months free. This gives you a large sum of cash upfront which can be put back into marketing.

If you think your startup could use some more help with digital marketing, contact The Clix Group.

The post 15 Digital Marketing Tips for Startups appeared first on Clix.

A blog can be a great asset to a company because it can have a huge positive impact on its digital footprint. In general, blogging can be used to help earn traffic, build brand awareness, earn back-links, earn social shares, boost SEO, and grow your addressable audience.

Here are 5 pro tips for the beginning commercial blogger:

1. You get what you give – You can’t just set up shop and expect people to start taking you seriously. Start posting in online forums, comment on blogs and articles, start spreading your name around your industry. If you want to start earning traffic and gaining participation, you have to be a participant yourself. (Note: Be sure to follow the rules and guidelines of online forums and message boards. Spamming is usually not tolerated and you will severely damage your brand’s image by getting banned from online communities and message boards pertaining directly to your brand’s industry.)

2. Give shout outs – Align yourself with others in your industry by mentioning, quoting, referencing, and even challenging industry influencers. Shout outs are usually more effective if you associate yourself with people who are just a bit more influential than yourself. The big dogs may not give you the time of day, but a medium dog may appreciate the acknowledgment and want to continue the conversation.

3. Embrace early adopters – Build personal relationships with as many followers as your can, especially the early adopters. Follow these people’s blogs and interact with them on social media. Earn people’s respect in an effort to establish an advocacy group for yourself.

4. Host it correctly – Never ever use a subdomain or a separate root domain to host your blog. Reason being, you will lose your ability to generate domain authority and you won’t get the rankings boost that comes with that high authority. Keeping your blog in a subfolder of your main site is the best thing that you can do for your SEO.

5. Create everything yourself – Taking your own photos and generating your own images and  graphs adds validity to you blog. Even if your photos aren’t ready for TIME Magazine, going through the effort of creating original content will carry weight with readers.

Want more? Check out some more tips for beginning bloggers.

The post 5 Tips for the Beginning Blogger appeared first on Clix.

1. Understand that communication is a two-way street.

I believe Jeremy Girard, a web designer, explains it best in his article Keys to Better Communication with Clients when he says, “the fact of the matter is that quality communication is not one-sided. It has to flow in both directions: from you to your clients and from your clients back to you.”
An online marketing firm needs to be sure to communicate all necessary information to their clients. It is the online marketing firms responsibility to check-in with their clients, but it is also the client’s responsibility to communicate back with their questions, comments, and concerns.

2. Follow-up with a recap of every meeting via email.

It would be ideal for both the client and the online marketing firm to do this, but at the very least the online marketing firm needs to provide a recap of every meeting. This is an opportunity to clarify any confusion from the meeting and provide documentation of all issues that have been addressed.

3. Be sure your online marketing firm responds to your questions/comments/concerns quickly.

If your online marketing firm goes many days without any type of response to you, not even something like, “I will get back to you within x amount of days,” then that shows that you are not a priority to them. Marketing firms should make it a priority to respond to all client inquiries within 24 hours.

4. Clients should provide their online marketing firm with as much information about their business as possible.

The only information that a client should not share with their online marketing firm is their accounting information. Other than that, your online marketing firm should be treated as an internal marketing staff member. This will make for the best results because the better your online marketing firm knows you, the better they can market you.

The new Penguin 2.0 update released by Google has shifted a strong emphasis to content in websites, social media, press releases, and blogs. The more fresh, quality content that can be made relevant for searchers, the better. One of the key ways to produce effective content is for a client to notify their online marketing firm about new updates, events, community involvement, awards, or anything else that could potentially be turned into content.

The post 4 Communication Tips for Online Marketing Firms appeared first on Clix.