Common Myths in the Marketing Industry

If you are a business owner, you may have heard many misconceptions about marketing and its effectiveness. However, your business could experience tremendous growth with the correct marketing strategy. Knowing the common myths in the marketing industry is essential, so you don’t prevent your business from growth and success. MYTH: Small Businesses Don’t Need Marketing One common myth in the marketing industry is that small businesses don’t need marketing. If the business is local, they may feel it is unnecessary to create marketing campaigns because they can rely on regular customers. If businesses rely only on word of mouth or foot traffic, they will not grow much. Relying solely on these two strategies also puts the company at risk for competition. A good marketing plan can help the business grow, stand up against the competition, and gain new customers while retaining old ones. MYTH: There’s No Need to Market to Existing Customers Having regular customers does not mean you do not have to market to them. It is a common myth in the marketing industry because businesses forget that their customers may still go elsewhere if they have not heard from you in a while or are pursued by your competition with an offer they think they cannot refuse! Customer loyalty should be a priority for any business, and marketing can help. Marketing to existing customers lets them know that their wants and needs matter. Staying in touch with your customers with email marketing or phone calls will impact the customer’s interest in working with you on a future project. MYTH: Social Media is Not for Business It is easy to think that social media is not a place for your business simply because so much nonsense is posted. Unfortunately, this is a pervasive myth. Social media is precious for business marketing. It is an affordable and effective way to market your business and spread information about the products or services offered. Social media is also an excellent way to engage with consumers and discover what your customers want from your products or services. Many common myths in the marketing industry keep businesses from thriving. Knowing about these myths can help ensure you get all the benefits of growth and success. To schedule a consultation, please call our offices at 410-205-6168 or utilize our scheduler to get access to our calendar.

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Marketing Strategies for Business Growth

If you have your own business, you know that marketing is a key component for success. After all, businesses that employ marketing see greater sales and growth. In fact, it is harder for a business to have success without implementing a strong and effective marketing strategy. In this blog, we’re sharing a few of our favorite marketing strategies for business growth. Customer Mastery Skills One essential marketing skill is to understand and shape customer purchase behavior. By knowing what it is that you can provide for them; what service do you offer that they need? Once you figure this out, you are more likely to have a successful marketing campaign and increase your annual sales. We recommend that after you determine what it is that your customers need and want from you, do it more! Easy to say, we know. Yet, when you shape emerging habits with new offerings, or sustain habits using existing sales efforts, you’ve mastered the customer process. Remember, when consumers are delighted by new experiences, even long-held beliefs can change, making them more willing to repeat the behavior. Content Marketing You’ve heard it before, “content is king.” This statement couldn’t be more true. Being able to create high-quality, relevant, and SEO-friendly content is a skill that will benefit your business greatly. We recommend aligning your brand message with your consumer mindset. Making sure your content is consistent with relevant keywords will also benefit your search engine performance. Remember, your customers want to learn information about your products but they also want it in the fastest way possible. If consumers are researching a product, they are looking for reasons to buy based on what it does and how it could be useful to them. If you are trying to grab their attention, you want to be sure you have succinctly described the product so you grab their attention and close the sales cycle. Social Media Management If there ever was a more essential marketing skill to learn it would be social media management. Social Media allows for easy and effective brand building. According to Sprout Social, 97% of Fortune 500 companies have a social media presence. From instagram to Facebook, TikTok and YouTube to LinkedIn and Pinterest, brands are looking for better ways to connect with their customers. But, what about you? Is your using social media to your advantage? The truth is, with new features and tools added nearly every day, it is essential to embrace the marketing skills needed to effectively use social media for your business. Furthermore, over 70% of businesses surveyed in 2021 said they rely on social media for customer engagement and brand awareness. This is 9% higher than email marketing and 45% higher than TV/radio advertising. After all, social media puts your brand in front of people much more quickly and easily than other forms of marketing. Social media is a lot like a website because it’s also a great place to tell your company story, to promote your products and services, introduce new team members, and host online sales events. In addition, social media is a great place to build relationships with your current customers and target customers. If you are posting regularly, remember to interact on the posts, share to other pages, or send in a FB message to your prospects. Learning the ins and outs of effective social media marketing will benefit your business in the long run and will help increase your brand awareness. Video Marketing Content may be king, but video is definitely queen. Video marketing is taking the marketing world by storm and if your business is not embracing video, just step aside because you will be irrelevant before you can spell “viscountess.” Leveraging video to improve your overall marketing strategy will benefit your business significantly. For example, instead of creating a post on social media, try creating a REEL. These short 30-second videos grab the attention of a wider audience much faster than anything else you can post these days. in 2022, streaming online videos and downloads accounted for 82% of total internet traffic! Marketing is something that takes patience, hard work and consistency. As a full-service marketing agency that knows the ins and outs of business. Silesky Marketing can help, learn more on our website sileskymarketing.com.

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Practical Branding Tips for Building a More Recognizable Business

Branding is important for all businesses. However, it’s important to learn effective marketing strategies to strengthen your brand for success. We’re providing you with a few helpful tips to successful branding. Brand Framework What does brand framework mean? It means you need to know your brand like the back of your hand. In fact, it is very important for successfully reinforcing your brand. Afterall, if you are not understanding your brand, it will be difficult to market your products and services effectively. So, how do you get started. We recommend that you do two things first: Brand Audit. This means you will gather information from all your marketing efforts and make sure that your brand is consistent throughout. What we mean is, consistent in the sense that your logo is always shown in the same brand colors and font, that the logo is sized effectively for the platform you have it on, and that your company is projected professionally. This will help tremendously in reinforcing your brand. Brand Purpose: When you craft your brand to serve your target audience and speak to them in the way they want and need, your business will set itself up for success and prosperity. So how do you do this? Brand Differentiator: The brand differentiator should be 100% unique to your company. For example, the Apple Genius Bar is something that is exclusive to Apple. Brand personality: The uniquely human way your company comes to life. When defined, it should include human traits. (Hint: “affordable” is not a human trait.) When deciding on your brand personality, ask yourself how your company emotionally connects with your customers. Consistency As we like to say in the biz, “consistency is key!” Consistency is one of the most important tips for successfully reinforcing your brand. When you are consistent with your brand, consumers will be able to see your marketing and immediately know what business it is. When you are not consistent, consumers may get confused and not be able to recognize you or your products. It is hard to build awareness to your branding if colors are constantly changed or the logo is often different. You want to stand out and be recognized by your target audience. Connect With Your Audience Talk your prospects’ language. This cannot be overstated. When you craft your brand to serve your target audience and speak to them in the way they want and need, your business will set itself up for success and prosperity. So, how do you do this? First, consider being present on all social media platforms and maintaining a relationship with your clients. Second, manage customer expectations. This is easy to say, but hard to do. Anticipate their needs before they even know they need them. Third, focus on more face-to-face business transactions and less robotic and AI-driven marketing. Lastly, thank you customers regularly. When you show appreciation for their business you not only make them feel appreciated, but you remind them that you are indeed thinking of them. Successfully reinforcing your brand and building brand identity is not easy. This takes a lot of hard work and dedication. If you want your business to grow and become successful, reinforcing your brand is the way to do it.

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How to Repurpose Old Content Across Channels Without Losing Quality

If you want to get more use out of the content you create, repurposing old content might be a good idea. Repurposing old content helps you get your information out better. But don’t be fooled; you shouldn’t just copy and paste your old blogs and posts. Instead, tweak the content to fit each marketing channel appropriately you post it. Here are some tips for repurposing old content the right way. Repurposing for Value Repurpose Relevant Content When choosing old content to repurpose, you want to ensure it is relevant and not random. For instance, take your most popular blog posts and make eye-catching social media posts from them. So, make sure you put a link to your blog in the caption so your followers can be redirected back to your blog post. Doing this an excellent way to freshen up an old post and make it new and exciting. The same can be done with posts as well. Take your old social media posts and tweak them slightly, with different wording and post them again. Again, this is an excellent way to keep your popular content circulating. Create Video Content from Written Content Taking content from a blog post and creating a video about it can be an excellent way to repurpose old content. This can be done with various topics, including clothing, product reviews, etc. For example, if you write about a specific piece of clothing, make a video showing the item and what it looks like while wearing it. In fact, you can even do this with cooking blogs. If you write tasty recipes, consider making a video of one of your favorites or most popular. Video is at the height of popularity these days. Most consumers want to see videos from their favorite brands and influencers. Thus, repurposing old content can be fun and easy. You can turn old posts into new and exciting content for your customers and followers in various ways. If it is done correctly, repurposing old content is beneficial to brands because you are circulating your content. Follow these tips, and you will be happy you did!

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Why SEO Is Essential for Business Growth and How to Build It

SEO or search engine optimization, gives your website better visibility in organic searches. If you happen to own a website, you have probably heard this term on more than one occasion. People search various things on the internet everyday. Using SEO helps your business become more visible to those using organic searches on Google or another major search engine. Why is SEO Important? You may be wondering what the importance of SEO for business is and the easy answer is that SEO generates more traffic to your website. It is essential because organic traffic makes up most search engines. When running a business, it is a good idea to utilize organic searches because otherwise, you’d need to spend money to get people to come to your site. With SEO being organic searches, this is the best way to increase traffic for your business site. Blogging and SEO Blogging is the perfect way to add content to your business website. When blogging, it is a good idea to write about topics that are relevant to your business. If you have a good amount of content on a particular topic, Google will label you an expert on this topic which helps tremendously with SEO. People want to read content that helps them solve a problem or answers a question. They use Google and other search engines to look for sites that can help them with their problem. If you are writing on a specific topic, your SEO efforts will be recognized, and you will be more visible in the organic searches. This will help your business increase in traffic. Therefore, SEO is important for business. SEO is important because it helps your business grow and increase traffic in high numbers. If used correctly, you are sure to see an improvement in numbers when it comes to your website. If you own a business and are looking for ways to grow, do not push SEO to the side.

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Valentine’s Day Marketing Strategies for Businesses

Valentine’s Day presents an abundance of opportunities for business marketing. Many people celebrate Valentine’s Day and tend to spend a lot of money on their loved ones. This is the perfect time to leverage the holiday of love for your business. Here are some marketing strategies that are useful for eCommerce businesses. Have a Valentine’s Day Sale During Valentine’s Day, millions of consumers shop online and in stores for their significant others and family members. This is the best time for your business to send out promotional emails or come up with discounts on selected items specifically for Valentine’s Day. Customers love sales and involving holidays and offering coupons and deals is a sure way to bring traffic to your business. Offer Benefits Many stores offer Valentine’s Day discounts and deals; however, you can make your business stand out by offering incentives as well. These benefits could include free shipping on orders of a certain price, free shipping on all items until Valentine’s Day, or even gift wrapping for the holiday. You can also offer a gift with a purchase of a certain amount such as a tote bag or a festive T-shirt. These deals are the perfect Valentine’s Day marketing strategy for your business. Promote Relevant Products for Valentine’s Day Make sure that your website and business social media channels are flashing Valentine’s Day hearts and love. You want your products to stand out as Valentine’s gifts over birthday gifts or everyday items. If you focus on the theme of red, pink, and glitter, you can’t go wrong! Design special Valentine’s Day limited edition items that can’t be bought any other time of year. This will make your business stand out and can increase your sales. With Valentine’s Day just around the corner, it is best to start promoting Valentine’s items quickly! This is the time of year when sales spike for businesses who have products relevant to the theme of love and hearts. Follow these marketing strategies for Valentine’s Day for your business and you won’t be sorry you did.

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Important Social Media Trends for 2023

Social media trends are constantly changing over time. To ensure your social media posts will increase engagement from your followers, it’s a good idea to keep up with these trends. Here are three important social media trends for 2023. Organic Videos and Reels Videos and reels are extremely popular in the social media world these days. If you are wanting to maintain your growth and reach more followers, you need to make sure that videos and reels are a priority. Stagnant posts do not go very far in 2023 because they are not as interesting to your followers versus seeing a video. Videos and reels should be short, interesting, and fun. Tik Tok Tik Tok is a social media platform where users can show off their talents or tell stories in short videos. Tik Tok has become one of the most used and important social networking platforms for marketing. This platform has a fresh perspective of the newer generations is expected to grow in 2023. If you want to see growth, Tik Tok is a good place to start. If your business does not yet have a Tik Tok, go ahead and create a handle so that you can start increasing engagement and see an increase in followers. Say Good-Bye to Gifs That’s right, Gifs are slowly fading from social media use. The use of Gifs and search of gifs has declined by about 200 million since 2016. Posts and vids that use gifs do not seem to get much engagement. They simply have been deemed ‘uncool’ by the newer generations and therefore are being used less. It is fine to use gifs in response text messages but try to keep them out of your social media posts. With social media trends constantly shifting and changing over time, it can be hard to keep up with it all. It is important for your business, however, to prioritize the new trends and implement them in all social media posts. This will ensure that you are getting engagement and increasing your outreach.

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2023 Business Growth Ideas

Growing a business requires hard work and dedication. With our fast-paced economy and advancing technology, it is easy to feel like your business is in a rut. To help ease some of the stress, move into 2023 with these four business growth ideas. 2023, The Year of Business Growth 1. Effective Communication Every business requires effective communication to run smoothly. You need to be able to communicate goals and strategies to your team so that everyone stays motivated and works toward one goal. Good communication encourages your team to share ideas and build off one another. 2. Utilize Social Media Social media is vital in growing your brand. This is an excellent way to reach a broad audience and potentially new customers. By using different social media platforms for your business, you can engage with customers and build customer loyalty. 3. Change Sales Strategies One thing is certain, business trends change frequently. Technology affords us new ways to grow in a more efficient manner and so our list of 2023 business growth ideas are adaptable. We want you to stay relevant to your customers. So, try one of the ideas. Start by creating a sales strategy that appeals to the recent changes in business to stay relevant. 4. Change Up Your Website Your business website will be one of the first things a customer will see. For this reason, the website needs to be appealing, engaging, and SEO friendly. It is hard for a business to grow if customers do not find the website interesting, or if it is hard to find because it is low on the search list. Businesses take time and a lot of effort, but if you utilize these four ways to grow your business in 2023, you can accomplish quick business growth.

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Blogging Affects Your Marketing Strategy

Blogging is a very important part of any marketing strategy. Blogging ensures that new information is consistently delivered to your readers to keep them engaged. This is the area of your site that is likely to build your brand’s audience and increase traffic. Blogging affects your marketing strategy is a positive way by letting your readers know up-to-date information about your business. The Benefits of Blogging Creating and maintaining a blog increases your SEO and helps to improve your search results. Blogging also drives website traffic and promotes your products and services. It is important to stay consistent with blogging so that new information is always available, and SEO is always updated. The more readers follow your blog, the more likely it is that new customers will follow you. Good blogging content for business could be anything from informing readers about the work you do, or interesting informative blogs about various topics related to your business. Blogging Affects Your Marketing Strategy in Key Areas Blogging is essential for business because you can advertise your company while sharing content that is meaningful and interesting to your readers. Statistically, 80% of businesses prefer to use blogging in their marketing strategy because it is more personal and a good way for readers to follow your business. This helps build trust and loyalty for the company’s readers as well. When it comes to your marketing strategy, blogging should not be overlooked. It is an excellent way to increase traffic to your website, grow your audience, and gain new prospects for your business. Staying consistent with blogging content improves SEO and increases visibility in searches. Businesses that blog often, have higher traffic than blogs that do not. Blogging affects your marketing strategy in many ways, all of which are positive. It is beneficial to any business to create and maintain a blog. Bottom line is, to attract new traffic or readers to your site you need to invest the time and energy in blogging and optimizing your site for search engines.

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Common Myths in the Marketing Industry

Marketing Strategies for Business Growth

Practical Branding Tips for Building a More Recognizable Business

How to Repurpose Old Content Across Channels Without Losing Quality

Why SEO Is Essential for Business Growth and How to Build It

Valentine’s Day Marketing Strategies for Businesses

Blogging Affects Your Marketing Strategy

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John Sindorf

Director of Strategic Alliances

Kiki DeVane

Marketing Operations Manager

Aizaz UI Hassan

Web Developer & Graphic Designer

Sue Hilger, MBA

Chief Growth Strategist

Mya Stengel

Content Developer & Video Editor

Ashelin Walker

Digital Marketing Strategist

Susi Silesky

Founder & Brand Architect