Tag: small business marketing

How to Build a Successful Content Marketing Campaign

Creating great content starts with interesting your audience. Building great content marketing campaigns takes it a step further. Not only are you getting folks interested in your product/service offerings, but you’re also building relationships. Let’s examine how to build a successful content marketing campaign from the ground up!

Strategy

The first part of developing a successful content marketing campaign is figuring out who the content is for. Define your audience and their needs. What are they looking for? Once you know who you’re trying to reach, it’s time to figure out how to reach them. That means selecting a format or medium for your main lead magnet. What’s going to attract people and make them want to be a part of your brand?

Another way of looking at your content marketing strategy is through three rings inside one another. The outside ring refers to what your brand does. Inside that ring is a smaller ring; that refers to how your brand does what it does differently than everyone else. At the center is the most important ring–the ring that defines why you do what you do differently than everyone else. That’s where the heart of your content marketing campaign strategy comes from.

With your lead magnet and audience needs in mind, come up with a strategic and useful content plan to get people interested. Once you’ve got your content marketing campaign all planned out, it’s time to execute.

Execution

Planning and mapping out content is one thing–executing it is another. The best way to execute a successful content marketing campaign is through devoted landing pages. Think of your content as a magnet that attracts people to that landing page. If additional content can inspire them to want/need your product or service, that’s as good as a cross-sell/upsell!

Great execution starts with great research, organization, and copywriting. You have to really know what your audience is looking for. If you want to move folks through the funnel, your content has to be organized properly. In other words, each piece of content should have a specific function, whether it’s to raise awareness, drive interest, convert, solicit feedback, or something else. Finally, your copywriting needs to be on-point. Keep things direct, personal, and interesting!

Each piece of your digital presence plays an important function in any successful content marketing campaign. For instance, your social media–a preferred channel for content–complements your website, which is subsequently complemented by email marketing, and so on and so forth. The more you take advantage of each channel, the more likely you’ll be to inspire customers to jump on the funnel!

Follow Up

Content marketing is essentially a way to put your content to work as a salesperson. Since the customer isn’t being overtly sold to, he or she is more likely to pay attention to the content, and in turn, go through the sales funnel. Like a sales pitch, content marketing needs to follow up with the prospect.

However, unlike a sales pitch, your content marketing followup doesn’t involve knocking on the prospect’s door, calling them, or asking for the sale. Instead, the content itself moves them through the funnel. In other words, your follow up typically consists of more content–albeit with a sense of urgency. Let your content tell customers they need to act now. Keep the salespeople at home!

Content Marketing is an Ongoing Process

Though a content marketing campaign might be finite, content marketing is an ongoing process. That means one campaign should follow another. To that end, part of what makes content marketing successful is data and analytics. At the conclusion of a campaign, review all available data. What worked? Were you able to get enough leads? How many of those leads were you able to convert?

As with any successful part of marketing, the more honest feedback you get from your audience, the better. While you can’t directly ask a customer what pieces of content were the most useful in helping them make a purchase, you can review engagement and interaction metrics. Which pieces of content drove the most traffic to your website? Was there a particular medium (text/audio/video/infographic, etc) that got more engagement?

The most successful content marketing campaigns are data-driven. They take the data from past campaigns and then leverage it to create more effective content in subsequent campaigns. Whether you’re promoting a new product or building brand awareness, the principle is the same: content marketing works!

June 14, 2025
How to Rank Higher on SERPs

Less than 1% of visitors to search engines will go past the first page to find what they’re looking for. That means if your brand isn’t already on their mind, it had better be on the first page of search engine results. So how do you improve and rank higher on SERPs? Here are a few tips to propel your site from anonymity to renown!

Optimizing Your On-Site SEO

The single most impactful way to rank higher on SERPs is to optimize your on-page SEO. Fortunately, there are tools available to help. Depending on the content delivery service you utilize, there are built-in SEO plugins to help optimize your content. For example, if your site is on WordPress, you can use the Yoast plugin to make sure your content is properly optimized for SEO before you publish it.

It goes without saying, but you’ll also want to make sure your site has the proper HTML markup, alt tags on images, the right H1/H2/H3 use of headlines & tags, and no grammatical or spelling errors. Finally, your content should be written for humans–not robots. If your copy is unintelligible, stuffed with keywords, or otherwise dubiously presented, you’re doing more harm than good.

A Better Website Will Help You Rank Higher on SERPs-What Does That Mean?

In addition to optimizing your on-site SEO, the most obvious way to rank higher on SERPs is to improve your website. But what does that mean exactly? Does that just mean creating a more efficient website? Yes and no.

First of all, as mentioned, getting to the first page of search engine results requires a considerable amount of SEO work. That means not only choosing the right keywords for your site, but the right density, as well as the proper layout, appearance, functionality, and accessibility. If you have dead links, for example, your site will never reach the first page. If your keywords are off-base from what your brand does, you’ll never reach the first page.

However, if your website is securely hosted, full of reputable backlinks and properly formatted images, you’ll be on your way to moving up the rankings. At the same time, while your site may rank on the first page today, it doesn’t mean it will tomorrow. For best results, continually add to and update your page with engaging, keyword-driven content, connect and sync external accounts (like social media and Google My Business), and take advantage of other channels, like paid ads and email marketing, to drive traffic to your website.

The more search engines pick up that users are engaging, interacting, and sharing your website and content, the higher they’ll rank your domain authority. And while producing long-form content like blogs or whitepapers is more of a lead-generation tactic than SEO, it still has the potential to drive significant traffic to your website–and that’s where the higher ranking comes from.

Data & Analytics Are Your Best Resource!

Since part of ranking higher on SERPs has to do with creating better content, how do you know what content will drive traffic? That’s where data and analytics come in.

Tools like SERanking, SEMRush, and Google Analytics can give heaps of insight. Not only can they tell you how your site ranks for target keywords but they can give further insight into which keywords are driving traffic and what people are looking for. That means you can optimize your website–and content–for those keywords to keep things consistently fresh, relevant, and exciting!

Again, obtaining and maintaining a spot on the first page of SERPs is not a one-and-done process. Like most areas of life, maintaining superiority and success comes with constant hard work and improvement. That means if you want to rank higher on SERPs, you have to consistently put in the work. That means regularly auditing your content, getting feedback from your audience, making constant improvements, and of course, continuing to produce the kind of content that got you there in the first place!

June 6, 2025
Instagram or TikTok: Telling Stories With Video

People love video content. Whether it’s a funny cat video or a how-to on the latest tech gadget, your customers probably can’t get enough of it. Need proof? Both TikTok and Instagram have over a billion active users! When it comes to videos that get your customers engaged, which is better: TikTok or Instagram?

Why is Video Marketing So Effective?

First of all, let’s look at what makes video such an effective marketing tool.

People are 95% more likely to remember a message from a video than from written text. Shorter videos also account for the average person’s shorter attention span. Plus, the multimedia nature of videos makes them more likely to appeal to a wider audience. Finally, more than 50% of internet users watch online videos on a daily basis! It’s safe to say more people watch videos than read long-form internet content–especially on a regular basis.

That’s because video has the power to not only tell stories but show the way things are. Just like customers are less likely to believe a brand statement than a peer review, they’re less likely to believe written content–let alone pay attention to it. Whereas a list of brand features tells you what a product can do, a video of a customer using that product shows you what it can do. For example, including a video on your website or landing page can increase your conversion rate up to 80%!

There’s only so much emotion you can evoke from a still image or even the sharpest copy. Conversely, videos are a fantastic medium to evoke emotion, especially if they’re synced with music, sound effects, or natural human noises like laughter or conversation. Put it this way: which are you more like to interact with–a cat video or a picture of a cat?

TikTok or Instagram?

Again, there are over a billion active users on both Instagram and TikTok. So which is better to help gain exposure, interest, awareness, and conversions for your business? Let’s take a look at some statistics.

TikTok

-The biggest influencers typically see an engagement rate of about 18%.

-Almost half (~47%) of TikTok users are between the ages of 10-29.

–61% of TikTok users identify as female.

–53% of TikTok creators are between the ages of 18-24.

–49% of users made a purchase decision because of a video they saw on TikTok.

Instagram

-The biggest brands & influencers typically see an engagement rate of about 22%.

-Over half (~62%) of Instagram users are between the ages of 18-34.

–55% of Instagram users identify as female.

–53% of Instagram influencers are between the ages of 25-34.

–72% of users made a purchase decision because of content they saw on Instagram.

TikTok or Instagram: The Takeaways

While there’s no denying the burgeoning success and limitless potential of TikTok, Instagram arguably has more power–right now–to attract, engage, and influence your audience. While both TikTok and Instagram allow customers to purchase in-app, there are both more overall users and more users with actual purchasing ability on the latter app, as well as more functionality–like stories, reels, and posts, compared to TikTok’s singular video capabilities.

However, neither TikTok nor Instagram allows you to link external content to your TikTok/Instagram content, and TikTok only stores data for up to 28 days. That means if you want to keep engagement data long-term, you have to do it yourself. Finally, both TikTok and Instagram are pretty saturated with businesses. How can you make your content rise above the rest?

Which platform is more likely to generate interest and conversions in your brand? Is TikTok here to stay or is it simply the flavor of the month? More importantly, where are your customers more likely to spend their time–and where are they more likely to be influenced? Before you dive headlong into a TikTok or Instagram strategy, make sure you have the answers!

May 30, 2025
Think Global, Act Local: Big Strategy For Small Business

Even the smallest business has big dreams. Whether you want to take your brand global or lock up the bulk of your local market share, the principle is the same: you have to think big. In other words, think global, act local. So what does that mean exactly?

Think Global, Act Local

Think global.

Despite our obvious fundamental differences, human beings are by and large the same across geographical barriers, cultures, etc. We may look different and have different customs, cultures, and even expectations, but there are a few major similarities. For instance, human beings, as a whole, crave connection. Across cultures, human beings are looking to connect: both with each other and with entities that share a purpose or a way of thinking (i.e. your brand).

By thinking globally, you’re (hopefully) not having dreams of uniting the world. Even Amazon, arguably the world’s single greatest business entity, has its detractors. There are undoubtedly folks in the tech company’s namesake region for whom Amazon has no purpose–and certainly no market. Instead, thinking globally means cultivating a brand that will resonate with people outside your locality. It means coming up with a purpose for your brand that goes beyond providing a product or service.

As for acting locally, for starters, treat every customer like they’re in your neighborhood. Your brand isn’t just in a community, it is a community. If you can think of your brand as a family, community, or neighborhood, you can give your customers that connection they’re looking for. What’s more, you’ll create the kind of brand loyalty you see in brands that have successfully managed to take their business global.

Go Global, Stay Local

A small, local business has significantly fewer problems than a global brand. For starters, the infrastructure is drastically different. Bigger brands have to keep up their customers 24/7–as their customers never sleep! However, as smaller businesses grow–adding more locations, breaking into newer markets, and even introducing new product offerings, it’s important to keep those logistics in mind. At the same time, part of the concept of “think global, act local” means, again, treating every customer like they’re local.

Some businesses have a tendency to put the needs of new customers ahead of the needs of their existing, loyal customer base. One example is businesses that put the need for a sale ahead of the need for a happy customer. Interestingly enough, one of the most effective ways to build your brand is via grassroots, word-of-mouth marketing. Even the best pieces of content won’t measure up to a trusted source vouching for you. Again, since you don’t know whether that trusted source is down the street or halfway across the Earth, your best bet is to treat every customer like they’re part of your community–because they are!

Stay True to Your Values

Think of some of the biggest, most well-known brands worldwide. Now think of the brands that briefly came to worldwide prominence, only to fall by the wayside. What’s the common theme? Authenticity.

In fact, the very essence of “think global, act local” is authenticity. Customers can smell a fake from a mile away, and once they catch on that a brand isn’t what they thought it was, they’ll be looking for a connection to fix that broken connection. The important lesson: stay true to your values and customers will follow. Whether you express those values through content or brand identity, keep them consistent–even as you grow.

Start Thinking Globally and Acting Locally!

A brand is nothing without its customers. A business is nothing without a purpose. Whether your customers are in your neighborhood or around the world, your way of thinking should be the same. Similarly, whether your purpose is to change the world or to sustainably do what you love while being your own boss, if you can think global and act local, your business will be in good hands!

May 23, 2025
Five Ways to Make Your Brand More Memorable

Let’s face it: most people don’t remember most of the content they interact with. So what do they remember? Let’s examine five proven ways to make your brand more memorable!

Talk The Way Your Customers Talk

One of the best ways to make your brand more memorable in the minds of your customers is to talk like they do. Using relatable language will make your communications more like conversations than sales pitches. Since customers don’t like being overtly sold to, part of providing value is how you speak to them in the first place.

Instead of making generalized claims, such as “we are the best at what we do”, put your customers in the driver’s seat. Talking exclusively about yourself only plants the seeds of doubt. Is everything you’re saying true?

Focus on your customers and how they can benefit from your content, products/services, and brand as a whole. It’s a lot easier for people to remember how they can personally benefit, as opposed to an obscure accolade or accomplishment.

Create a More Personalized Experience

Is every customer exactly the same? Then why should they be treated exactly the same?

Your customers have different interests, needs, and expectations, which means a “one-to-all” form of messaging simply won’t suffice. Sending the same messages to everyone is akin to throwing darts at a wall and hoping one sticks.

Instead, develop detailed customer profiles to gain insight into how to really appeal to your customers’ unique personalities. Use data to figure out customer habits and create personalized messages–especially using email.

Something as simple as a product recommendation, “you may also like”, or “customers also bought” can go a long way. So can including your customer’s name on a marketing email. Don’t be afraid to solicit feedback. It may help you understand how to better serve your customers’ interests.

Appeal to Emotions

People don’t always remember the words you said, but they remember how you made them feel. The same can be said about marketing communications. Remember, emotion is the primary driver of sales decisions!

Take for example a television commercial that tugs at your heartstrings or makes you belly laugh. You might not remember the exact specs of the ad, but two things should stick out: the brand and the emotion you felt.

When creating content, think about the emotion you want to affect in your audience. How can you tweak your language, delivery, style, or any other component to better draw out that emotion?

If you can successfully appeal to your customers’ emotions, you’ll also simultaneously differentiate your brand–which can also make your brand more memorable. Customers will start to associate your ads and content with those emotions.

Be A Thought Leader

Is your brand a leader or a follower? Do you come up with new, innovative products, promotions, or ways to appeal to your audience–or do you do what your competitors are doing?

Being a thought leader is a great way to both differentiate your brand and make your brand more memorable. If folks look to you for new ideas and inspirations, it means they both trust you and they’re impressed by what you’re doing.

It also sets a standard for your competitors to follow. You don’t want to compare yourself to the benchmark, you want to be the benchmark. Look for new, creative ways to break through to your audience and offer value in ways your competitors aren’t.

Deliver Consistency

Being consistent is a great way to make your brand more memorable. Whether it’s delivering consistently valuable content, a consistently positive personalized customer experience, or a consistently superlative product or service, you want to reinforce your customers’ buying decisions. What better way to do that than putting your money where your mouth is?

From a visual standpoint, keep your designs, copy, and content thematically and visually consistent. If you have a brand color scheme, don’t create a piece of content with a whole new color scheme–it’ll just confuse your audience. Stick to using the same language, messages, and themes and you’ll build a rapport with your customers.

That should extend across your digital content. For example, if your website has a number of different pages, those pages shouldn’t all have different designs and layouts. Keep things steady and consistent across all media and platforms and all you’ll have to worry about is the content itself!

Make Your Brand More Memorable!

There’s no secret magic to make your brand more memorable. It takes hard work, consistency, and a fundamental understanding of your customers’ wants and needs. However, if you can deliver a superlative experience, you’re already on your way to cementing your brand in the minds of your customers. To really make your brand more memorable, keep doing what you’re doing!

May 2, 2025
Five Tips For Creating More Inclusive Content

As marketers, we want our content to reach as many people as possible. Of course, in order to reach diverse audiences, content has to be both engaging and inclusive. If part of your intended audience doesn’t relate to your content, they’re less likely to want to build a relationship with your brand. Here are five tips for creating more inclusive content.

Accessibility

Some folks–like the colorblind or visually impaired–can’t enjoy your content if they can’t physically engage with it. While building a branded color scheme–and including brilliant visuals–is a crucial part of digital marketing, it’s important to remember to make those visuals accessible to the visually impaired.

The best solution is to painstakingly include alt text in (almost) all your visual content. The basic rule of thumb is that if the image supplements the copy, include alt text. If the image is decorative, it doesn’t need alt text.

Avoid combinations like red/green, green/black, and green/purple. Those combinations can be difficult for people with colorblindness. In addition, avoid stereotypical color associations like blue for men and pink for women. Some colors may even have cultural connotations–so take that in mind while developing your branded color scheme!

Representation

Your customers want to be represented. Just like they want to see other people like them doing business with your brand, they want to see themselves represented in your content.

Think about your typical television commercial. The person or people represented are typically models or supermodels. Does that represent the average person? Probably not.

Instead, look to represent a diverse group of people–your intended audience. Don’t be afraid to show real people (who aren’t supermodels). Dove’s “Real Women” campaign shattered societal norms and changed the way we look at those who use our products and represent our brands.

Don’t alienate real people by suggesting that only the elite or attractive represent your brand. Dig in deep and represent folks from all backgrounds and walks of life. If possible, use real customers in your graphics–with permission, of course.

Avoid Generalizations & Biases

This one’s pretty simple. While we’re all guilty to some degree of harboring inherent biases, your branded content should be bias-free. As marketers, we need to be conscious of avoiding biases in every step of the content creation process.

Instead of designing for yourself, design for those you want to be represented. It can help to build detailed customer personas and profiles to better understand their complex needs. Once you know who your content is for, you’ll have a better idea of how to create it-and you’ll be able to create more inclusive content.

Use Common Language

The last thing you want to do is have someone skip your content because it’s too long or too complex. If you can keep it simple and use common, basic language, you’ll have a better shot of keeping more folks from start to finish.

Don’t use a five-dollar word when a nickel word will suffice. Unless your audience is exclusively highly educated, use the most simple words, bullet points, and even infographics and visuals to supplement your copy.

Tell Relatable Stories

Everyone loves a good story. In fact, people are 22 times more likely to remember a theme, statistic, or fact if it’s delivered via story. If you can tell stories with your marketing content, you’ll capture your audience’s attention more effectively than if you reproduced stats or self-promoted.

Think about each marketing message you want to deliver to your audience. How can you deliver that message while telling a story? More importantly, how can you make sure that story resonates with the folks you want to hear it?

Inclusivity = A Bigger Audience

If you can create more inclusive content, more people will relate to your brand. Look to represent your audience, keep things on common ground, and make sure everything you put online is accessible for everyone!

January 1, 2025
How to Create More Effective Social Media Campaigns

Building up a social media following and getting more engagement is one thing, but what about your campaigns? There’s no doubt your campaigns will differ in size, scope, and purpose. However, more effective social media campaigns have a few things in common. Let’s examine how to set up, refine, and manage a social media campaign to accomplish your goals.

Target A Specific Audience

Who benefits from your campaign? Your brand or your customers?

You want your customers to benefit from engaging and interacting with your brand–so they should be the focus. To that end, before you launch your campaign, you should have identified and fine-tuned your audience. Remember, you can’t reach everyone. Even if you could, it wouldn’t be effective.

Instead, focus on the customer persona(s) you want to reach. That could be a geographic area or a demographic swath. It could also be new/existing customers or any variation of folks you’ve reached or want to reach.

Most social media platforms make it easy to hone in on a select audience, which makes it even easier to target your campaign. Just make sure you set your parameters before you launch the campaign and watch as it reaches exactly who you want to reach.

Involve The Audience

It’s not enough to know your audience or to gear your campaign exclusively towards them. You have to get them inspired, engaged, and involved. So how do you do that? You have to get them to care.

Hashtags are a great way to involve your audience in raising awareness. Unfortunately, you need more than a few clever hashtags to get folks inspired to support your brand. Things like quizzes, games, and other interactive content are a great way to not only get people involved but to generate valuable feedback.

For instance, ask customers to weigh in on their favorite product, show off testimonials, and be transparent with your company culture. Instead of showing off your product or service, show off the people who make your brand what it is.

Long story short, more effective social media campaigns make the audience a part of the action rather than a passive onlooker.

Look At Your Competitors

One of the best ways to create a more effective social media campaign is to look at how your competitors have run their own campaigns. While you’re not going to steal their content or ideas, it can help to look at what’s worked–and what hasn’t.

With those insights, you can craft your own content series down to the finite details, orchestrating more engagement, interaction, and interest.

You may not be able to see how your competitors fared from their campaigns (in terms of sales data, etc.), but you can likely see interaction and engagement numbers. Use past data–both your own and your competitors–to fine-tune your approach and create more effective social media campaigns.

Take Advantage of New & Popular Technology

Part of separating yourself from the competition is differentiating your brand. In other words, why should people do business with you–especially if the difference between service or product offerings is negligible?

What better way to separate yourself from your competitors than by utilizing new, burgeoning technology? From live-streaming to TikTok and more, don’t be afraid to go where your customers are. The more spaces in which you advertise, the more opportunities you have to get eyes on that content.

Want to Create More Effective Social Media Campaigns?

Creating more effective social media campaigns comes down to doing the work. From researching your audience’s needs, wants, and interests to A/B testing copy, graphics, and delivery methods, there’s a lot that goes into it.

At J&E Media Corp, our battle-tested digital marketing experts can leverage our experience to craft more effective social media campaigns for your brand. Whether you’re looking to increase your brand awareness, get more folks interested, or convert more customers, we can tailor a campaign for you! Get in touch with us today to learn more!

June 22, 2022