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Keeping your business afloat during a pandemic

In the past 24 hours, I’ve seen photos of empty restaurants, vacant boutiques and long lines for toilet paper. Images that are a stark contrast with a normal Friday night.

Social distancing should prove to reduce the effects of the virus on human illness and mortality rates, however many small businesses may not be able to withstand the impact of consumers distancing themselves from venues that are dependent on crowds, fans, and even worshipers.

So what can small businesses do to weather this unprecedented event?

Move to Virtual

Sales managers often rely on visiting customers at their place of work. That may not be available to them now. Instead of rescheduling your meeting for weeks into the future, consider scheduling it as an online meeting. Our favorite tool for this is called Zoom. It’s really affordable and super reliable. Google has also put some help out there for businesses by offering their enterprise meeting tools FOR FREE

Shift your Sales Strategy to Online

NIKE just informed us that they are closing 100+ of their retail stores for good. Why you ask? Because they understand that the strength of their brand will force those who want/need to wear their shoes will be able to find them online. All the sales without any social interactions to hold back sales. Win-Win. (or, not… that’s a conversation for another day)

Chinese companies in Wuhan Province were forced to confront the reality of coronavirus shutdowns well before most American companies. As storefronts shuttered their doors and workers practiced social distancing, savvy business owners shifted their sales strategy to avoid heavy losses.

The Wuhan-based cosmetics company Lin Qingxuan closed 40% of its stores — but the brand’s 100+ beauty advisors took to digital platforms like WeChat to engage customers virtually and increase online sales. “As a result, its sales in Wuhan achieved 200% growth compared to the prior year’s sales,” writes Harvard Business Review.

If you’re closing your store, find ways to keep your employees earning a paycheck by selling your products on social media, putting your email list to good use or using a video tool to reach new leads.

How quickly can an eCommerce website be setup?

Wix and Squarespace both have great and inexpensive web development portals to sell merchandise. For the time being, it may be best to try your hand at setting up a virtual store for your products.

Not at all technical, and want someone else to do this? Our web development team has set up online eCommerce websites in 48 hours or less. If you have a strong social media presence, you can drop links to your new eCommerce site and start selling to them very quickly.

The post Keeping your business afloat during a pandemic appeared first on Bash Foo Digital Marketing.

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Bash Foo COVID-19 Coronavirus Support Statement

Distributed to clients (past and present) 3/13/2020 

We know that organizations and individuals around the world depend on Bash Foo to ensure that their websites, email, ad campaigns, and digital marketing are all available to serve up experiences for millions of visitors. I wanted to send you a personal note to let you know how Bash Foo is dealing with the Coronavirus emergency.

First, the health and safety of our employees and customers is our top priority. We have implemented several sensible policies to this end, including encouraging employees that regularly work in our offices to instead work from home. Because Bash Foo is inherently a distributed agency, this emergency will have no significant impact on our operations. Our project, support, and technical teams will remain fully operational and can do their jobs entirely remotely, as needed.

Second, we are tracking Internet usage patterns globally. As more people work from home, and sales plans quickly migrate from convention centers and large meeting rooms into online Zoom meetings and email drip campaigns, peak traffic in impacted regions has increased, on average, approximately 10%. In Italy, which has imposed a nationwide quarantine, peak Internet traffic is up 30%. We estimate your website will see an increase in traffic of 15-20% over the next four weeks.

Traffic patterns have also shifted, so peak traffic is occurring earlier in the day in impacted regions. None of these traffic spikes raise any concern for us. Our webservers and digital networks are powerfully redundant and ready for the task at hand.

Finally, we recognize that this emergency has put a strain on the infrastructure of small businesses around the world as more employees work from home. Marketing plans created months ago may now be in play, but you may not have the ability to execute them, thanks to the new quarantine rules in your state or country.

I am making myself personally available, as well as our entire team during this time, so that whatever plans you had that changed thanks to the Coronavirus can continue to be executed with precision and excellence. While your marketing team may be struggling to deal with these emergency changes in life, our team is uniquely situated to assist them.

The healthy functioning of our economy depends on work continuing to get done, even as people need to do that work remotely. If Bash Foo can do anything to help ensure that happens, I believe we must do so.

Thank you for being a Bash Foo customer. These are challenging times, but I want you to know that we stand ready to help; however we can. We understand the critical role we play in the functioning of your marketing efforts, and we are continually humbled by the trust you place in us.

Together, we can get through this.

Mike McDermott President and Founder, Bash Foo

The post Bash Foo COVID-19 Coronavirus Support Statement appeared first on Bash Foo Digital Marketing.

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7 Signs It’s Time for a Paid Google Ad Campaign

Google Ad campaigns allow you to raise awareness about your business, target people who are already searching for exactly the keywords you cover and expand your reach. In spite of its many benefits, however, many businesses choose to forego Google Ad campaigns–or perhaps to put them off for an undefined “later.” The trouble is, you cannot benefit from a campaign you never create.

Is it time for a Google Ad campaign for your business? Consider these key signs.

1. You aren’t bringing in search traffic for the right keywords.

Creating an SEO-optimized website includes ensuring that your website brings in search traffic for the keywords that are most important for your business. Unfortunately, bringing your website up to the top page of those rankings can take time. If you’ve noticed that you aren’t bringing in search traffic for the keywords you most need to see traffic for on your website, running a Google Ad campaign can help increase your website’s overall visibility–including visibility for specific keywords. That ad campaign can also benefit your usual SEO, since the more visitors come to your website and stay on it, showing that you offer quality content.

2. You’re not targeting your advertisements.

Google Ads allows for highly targeted advertisements that will go straight to the audience you choose. Instead of casting out a broad net with a traditional advertisement, Google Ads allows you to send your advertisement directly to people who are already searching for that specific keyword. Based on your keyword research and understanding of the ad funnel, you can even target people who are at specific stages of the buyer’s journey, designing advertisements that will reach out, answer their questions, and help bring them into your funnel to complete that journey.

If you’re a local business, you can also benefit from Google Ads. You can narrow your targeting to people in a specific geographic region, including searchers using specific geographic search terms or those using the “near me” term.

3. You’re ready to expand your business.

When you create advertisements, you’re looking for opportunities to expand your business: to bring more traffic to your website. If you’re looking to expand your business, increasing your search traffic is a great way to bring in more leads and new business. Test your Google Ad campaigns and see how effectively they bring in the traffic you need–and what percentage of that traffic is new traffic.

Build your future ad campaigns based on these statistics and what they tell you about people coming into your business. As you decide to grow and expand your business, you’ll find that Google Ads campaigns are a great way to accomplish that expansion, from increasing awareness about the latest products you’re ready to offer to expand into new geographic areas. If you’ve recently changed the location of your business, a Google Ads campaign can also help new customers find you.

4. You’re looking for a budget-friendly way to launch a new marketing campaign.

The keywords you choose to target in your Google Ad campaign will determine the expense associated with your campaign. Some high-priority keywords may have a higher price tag than others. You can, however, choose the funds you want to put into your ad campaign. You may have a relatively low budget to work with, or you may have a higher marketing budget that will allow you to target a wide range of potential customers who are already looking for information related to businesses like yours.

Once upon a time, Google Ads campaigns were considered a more expensive form of advertising. As they’ve improved, however, many people have found that they can find a Google Ads solution within their budget. Even if you’re on a budget for your marketing campaign, you can still make the most of it!

5. You want fast results.

When you’re trying to bring new leads–and potentially new business–to your website, you may want fast results that will help you immediately start building your profits. Not every type of ad campaign will make that possible. Instead of relying on older, slower methods, including trying to build SEO through website content, consider the benefits of a Google Ad campaign. In some cases, traffic to your website can jump within a matter of hours. Many business owners also discover that their websites make a faster rise through search rankings when using paid Google Ads over free SEO tactics alone.

6. You want to build greater awareness of your brand.

Brand awareness helps guide many of the decisions customers make. If they’re considering making a purchase in the industry, they’re more likely to choose a brand they recognize one that has presented information they trust in the past or that has helped guide them through the earlier stages of the buyer’s journey. Through your Google Ad campaigns, you can build greater awareness of your brand even for customers who don’t click on that link and visit your website. Customers may also show a higher degree of trust for brands that appear in ads or Google’s recommended results.

7. You’ve noticed overall traffic to your website is decreasing.

Your website is like a digital storefront: it’s an opportunity for customers to visit your brand, check out the products you have to offer, and consider whether they want to make a purchase. If customers aren’t visiting your website, they’re less likely to make those important buying choices. If you’ve noticed a decrease in your overall website traffic, a paid Google Ads campaign can help bring in fresh, new traffic and raise awareness of everything your brand has to offer, which can, in turn, increase your sales.

Are you ready to launch a Google Ad campaign that will help grow your business and expand awareness of everything you have to offer? Do you need help designing an advertising strategy that meets your needs, created by a Google Partner? Contact us today to learn more about how we can help you reach your goals.

The post 7 Signs It’s Time for a Paid Google Ad Campaign appeared first on Bash Foo Digital Marketing.

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How to Transform Your Call to Action for Native Advertising

A native ad appears to be a natural part of the user’s feed or part of the site’s normal flow of content suggestions. You’ve seen them everywhere; on Facebook, in Twitter feeds, Google search results, even embedded in blog posts. Some are so smooth and well designed that users hardly realize they are being advertised to. This creates a seamless user experience that allows users to view the content without the usual no-promo bias we all put up when we think we’re seeing a commercial.

Then again, you’ve also likely seen these native ads that do the exact opposite. Where other content blends smoothly, a clunky native ad interrupts the user experience, jarring them out of the smooth flow of the UI and other content. Part of this is the imagery and color scheme you use, which needs to blend pleasantly with the platform. But the other part is your call to action.

Native Advertising Calls to Action

Your call to action is how you turn an advertisement into action. You don’t want viewers to just admire your ad, you want them to click and then move forward with the conversion process. But the conversion you’re looking for and the way you get that click will change from platform to platform, especially with native advertising where the content blends with the platform itself.

This means that simply copy-pasting your call to action from one platform to another is not going to fly. In many cases, A big “Contact Us!!!” is not immersive because it breaks the spell of your content being part of the natural flow. Instead, you need to think about the content, your audience, and how to inspire viewers to take action without actually telling them to do so.

The Curiosity Click

Many successful native ad calls to action rely on curiosity. They create an ad that is smooth in the interface but somehow piques the viewer’s interest and desire to know more. This creates a desire to click to go deeper into the ad’ context, and that desire is generated inside the user’s own motivations instead of being told to click by the ad itself. Curiosity clicks are done with linked images or embedded text links on the last two or three words of your blurb. If you successfully make users curious about the content behind the ad, their mouse will naturally gravitate toward that blue text or the button you have created visually. You will get the click that begins a buyer journey built on fascination. Of course, after your successful CTA, it will be your job to satisfy that curiosity while fueling the fascination for your brand and products.

Jumping at an Opportunity

Deals and discounts are challenging to slip into a native ad without seeming promotional. But it can be done with elegance and style-awareness. When you can get a user’s attention based on opportunity you can then inspire your viewers to click in order to take advantage of the opportunity. Especially if the deal is a limited window or something that your viewers may be highly motivated to jump for like half-off on Friday night pizza or a chance to get sold-out tickets to a big local event. But be careful. Opportunities are highly risky of seeming too promotional and ruining the native immersion. In fact, this method works best for events where the limited window is not manufactured, it’s a natural part of the environment. Just like your native ad.

Discover or Continue the Story

You’ve heard that telling a story is a compelling way to get the attention of your viewers without directly marketing to them. So in the small amount of space and time you have with a native ad, open a story that viewers can’t resist finding out more about. Create a hook with an unusual romance, a pet that does something spectacular, or a thrilling tale. Catch the user’s attention and, in a few words and images, wrap them in a story they simply must see the end of. If you successfully spark that curiosity and desire to find out the rest of the story, you’ll begin to generate completely natural clicks from a native ad that genuinely pleases your viewers. Platform users won’t think twice about diving in to hear a story because stories don’t feel like advertising. Of course, you then need to have the rest of a great story and more where that came from to keep those leads on-site.

Join the Discussion

Create a discussion that your users can’t resist joining. Make it about hot current events, or a controversial twist, or a desire to hear the real-life stories of real people on a particularly compelling subject. Or share something that someone else said that is inspiring and then invite the viewers to join the discussion. A discussion call to action isn’t promotional, it’s user-focused. Invite your ad-responders to make the story about themselves. Telling a personal story after hearing other personal stories is natural, human, and natively brand-building.

Make a Difference / Join the Cause

If your ads relate to a charity or make a positive impact on communities, highlight this and make it a story that inspires action. Your readers could be saving children, making a difference, or joining the cause that they believe in. Tell them about the plight you are solving or the difference you’re making and invite your native-platform viewers to jump in and join the cause. People love to contribute to causes that are meaningful and will click for their own motivations, not because an advert told them to.

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If you are running native ads, it’s vital to optimize your content if you want to optimize your results. Those ads need to blend beautifully and feel like a natural part of the platform experience, inspiring clicks with the power of the content itself rather than through traditional marketing methods or direct calls to action commanding them to click. For any brand that could use a little guidance on optimizing each individual native platform, contact us today!

The post How to Transform Your Call to Action for Native Advertising appeared first on Bash Foo Digital Marketing.

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How Much Time Are Your Automated Marketing Processes Really Using Up?

Automated marketing is a great way to streamline your marketing department and make sure that you can expand your reach and your customer base. In some cases, however, so-called automated marketing can take up a great deal more time than you think. Are you aware of how long your automated marketing tasks really take–and of where your time drains are? Consider how these strategies can help you become more aware of where you’re wasting time in your day–and how to reclaim it.

Take a look at how long you spend on miscellaneous tasks.

In many cases, miscellaneous tasks–those not really related to any specific goal or marketing campaign–can leave you scratching your head, wondering where the time has gone. To help you better keep track of those miscellaneous tasks, make a note of those tasks as you complete them throughout the day. For several weeks, keep track of how much of your time each day is spent on those tasks, whether it’s managing your email lists or sorting through and updating existing content. You may want to list the specific tasks you take care of on a regular basis and consider how those impact your overall campaign.

Try a time tracking app.

A time tracking app will automate the process of keeping up with what you’re doing every day. It’s all too easy to lose track of what you’re really doing during the day, whether it’s spending a little too long at the water cooler or dealing with those miscellaneous tasks related to your marketing automation processes. A time tracking app can make it easier to keep up with what you’ve really done during the day, including:

Harvest

Toggl

Time Doctor

Time tracking apps can keep up with what you’re doing on your devices throughout the day. They can let you know which programs and apps you use the most often, which projects you’ve spent the most time on, and where your time drains might be. As you use these apps, you’ll often discover that your productivity goes up because you can keep up with your actual time usage.

Keep up with your transitions. 

Transitioning from one task to the next can take up more of your time than you think throughout the day. Transitions between one job and another can transform your productivity. An effective transition may include taking a 5 to 10 minute break between tasks to help clear your mind and make it easier for you to focus on the new activity. Spending too much time on transitions, however, can completely destroy your productive flow throughout the day. If you have many transitions in your daily task list, including handling those important marketing automation tasks, you may need to group similar activities together to make it easier to take care of them.

Note how interruptions impact your flow.

Simply experiencing distraction in the middle of a task can, in some tasks, take much more time than you think: it can take as much as 25 minutes to fully return your focus to the task you were taking care of before the distraction. Often, distraction begets distraction: when you walk or click away to take care of one distraction, you find other things that need your attention. Even though some of your marketing tasks, including emails and social media posts, may occur automatically, you may need to take care of other things on your own: answering customer comments and emails or posting fresh content about recent industry events, for example. Keep an eye on how those interruptions impact the daily flow of your work–and how much time they take away from your other tasks.

Improving Your Time Management Skills

As you track your time more effectively, including noting how interruptions and distractions impact your ability to complete your job responsibilities, you may discover that many of your so-called simple work responsibilities take a considerably longer portion of your day than you initially thought. Do you need to improve your time management skills to make it easier to handle all of the tasks on your marketing agenda? Consider some of these strategies.

Minimize Interruptions

Take a look at the interruptions that are most likely to spend your day spinning off-course, including the ones that are most likely to result in excess distraction. You may need to turn off your phone or ignore your emails while you’re working on other tasks, especially tasks that require a great deal of attention.

Set a Timer for Transitions

When you know there’s a transition coming, set a timer. You can take five to ten minutes to refocus and get ready for the new task, but don’t allow those transitions to drag out for too long. Instead, get back to work as soon as possible.

Schedule Handling Marketing Automation Tasks

Your marketing might be automated, but there are many tasks you’ll need to take care of on your own. You will, for example, need to create the social media posts you have scheduled. You’ll need to write the emails that are part of your automated marketing processes. Once those tools have been created, they’ll be posted automatically–but in the meantime, you have to create them. Around the holidays, during new sales, or when you take on new products or services, you may need to change or review your current content and put together new content. As you develop a better idea of how long it will take you to take care of those tasks, you can work them into your schedule for the day so that you aren’t left scrambling to complete everything on your list.

As a marketing professional, time management is essential. Even the processes you automate require your time, energy, and attention, whether you’re creating those processes, creating the content that goes into them, or reviewing your content to ensure that it meets your needs. Learning how to manage your time effectively can help propel you to greater marketing success and remove a great deal of stress from your day. Want to learn more about how automation can help? Contact us today.

  The post How Much Time Are Your Automated Marketing Processes Really Using Up? appeared first on Bash Foo.

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Generating Demand with Birthday Celebration Marketing

“You say it’s your birthday. It’s my birthday too, yeah”

– The Beatles

Customer birthdays are a fantastic time for marketers. It would be our favorite time of year, but customer birthdays happen once a year all year long. Birthdays are a time to celebrate with your customer. On our birthdays, we expect to get presents and an abundance of fun opportunities to choose from. Many people spend time with friends or family and treat themselves to a few special birthday reward. This is the perfect time to offer your customers a gift they will love, one that benefits everyone involved.

Birthday Demand Generation

In the business of demand generation, birthdays are a fantastic example of using desire and positive sentiment to create a strong incentive to buy. Customers want to treat themselves to something good, and a special deal or discount on their birthday becomes a desire to take advantage of every good birthday opportunity. In other words, you have generated new and enthusiastic demand in your customer to accept their birthday gift and buy something.

Birthday deals, discounts, and special package offers are a hallmark of marketing existing long before the internet. Consider the Birthday Song tradition at family restaurants where birthdays are often celebrated with a nice meal out.  It’s nice to get a little party from the restaurant and maybe a free piece of cake. Birthday marketing handled with automation can offer that same warm feeling with an even more personalized birthday gift from your brand. Wishing your customers a happy birthday with discounts and bonuses made just for them.

Today, we’re here to share a few smart tips on demand-generating an awesome birthday message for each of your customers and loyalty club members.

Detailed Account Profiles

Your customers are the best possible source of birthday information about them. You can catch the birthday during registration, but the real trick is also knowing your customer’s favorite color, brand, and the products on their wishlist. The more you know about your customer, the more personalized and motivating your birthday gifts can be.

The best way to do this is with detailed account profiles. Make it possible and rewarding for customers to personalize their account profiles. Set the background to their favorite color, pick a few favorites, and start a wishlist. From there, each customer’s shopping habits can help you shape their preferences and desires.

AI-Driven Gift Selection

Personalized gifting is one of the superpowers of modern business with the help of business AI analysis. Set an algorithm to calculate what a customer will want in the future based on their shopping history and any personal information they’ve chosen to share. This is a task that takes time and effort to do by hand, but a computer can generate a potentially great birthday gift for any customer at any time.

This is true no matter what your business sells. If you sell carpets, an AI can pick out the colors and patterns each customer likes best based on previous choices or current set preferences. If you sell bedding, your AI will choose the fabrics, colors, bed sizes, and accessories based on things your customer has bought in the past.

You can generate one or several different gift options for your birthday customers with this AI-generated or algorithm-driven method.

Birthday Month and Day

For most birthday deals, the opportunity lasts longer than the actual day. You can’t guarantee that a customer will log in on their birthday, check their email, or choose to buy. So widen the net. Offer a special birthday-month discount where customers can consider the opportunity all month and finally treat themselves before or even after their birthdays. Make sure you are targeting your customers with an understanding of where they are most likely to buy.

You can then pair this with a more targeted offer on the special day itself. This way, your customer gets to celebrate their upcoming birthday and get your birthday wishes. A month-long birthday discount means customer’s birthday-week schedules don’t have to adhere to treat themselves to your gift.

Birthday Discounts, Packages, and Free Gifts

There are several different ways to offer birthday rewards and gifts to your customers. Discounts are the most common method, and often appreciated for customers treating themselves on their birthday. A discount can be the perfect opportunity to get a special desired item at a low cost. Your suggestion could be anything, and as long as it’s something the customer really wants, they may well decide to take up the opportunity.

Birthday Package Deals

Package deals are another way that some brands send birthday wishes. Gift baskets of any composition can be a special reward for someone shopping on their birthday week. A package of items that you know they’ll want is incredibly tempting. Especially if it also comes in their favorite color. You can make specific product sets available at a single discounted price or you can make an entire category of items available for a discounted selection.

In-the-Box Birthday Gift

And if they do make a birthday purchase, consider throwing in a little something extra, and hint that you will do so before the purchase is complete. The temptation of a free birthday surprise is often enough to drive curious birthday shoppers to fully complete their purchase. Birthday gifts and in-the-box surprises are always appreciated to make your birthday offer a real gift to the customer. This might be as simple as a chocolate bar or a personalized special birthday gift.

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Birthdays are the perfect opportunity to connect with your customers and generate a celebratory demand for your products. People want to accept their birthday gifts, take advantage of special birthday opportunities, and generally feel like the world is celebrating with them. They are ready for birthday greetings from every direction and are in the mood for a treat. As adults, birthdays take on a slightly different tenor . Your customers are more than prepared to treat themselves if a special birthday opportunity comes up that isn’t connected to friends or family. Every time one of your customers is about to experience a birthday, that is your perfect moment to use your automated marketing tools. Send birthday wishes to generate demand and increase the likelihood of a birthday sale. For more insights into demand generation and building strong customer relationships, contact us today!

The post Generating Demand with Birthday Celebration Marketing appeared first on Bash Foo.

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7 Reasons Why Automated Marketing is a Powerful Tool for Return Shoppers

When most marketing teams consider building an automated marketing experience, it’s only natural to start at the top of your funnel. The experience you plan to craft is one for new shoppers who are discovering your brand for the first time. But focusing only on the unique shopper experience is severely discounting (and not in the “good way”) the value of your return shoppers.

Automated Marketing is Ideal for Return Shoppers

Returning customers have bought from you before and liked what they experienced. They have come back to buy again, but they may not necessarily know exactly what they’re looking for or have the full motivation to complete the purchase. They also are less likely to need or want the help of a real person through live chat or email to push them along through the shopping experience.

Automated marketing is the ideal solution for return shoppers because they can enjoy the platform itself, guiding them toward the best possible product selections and rewarding them for completing each returning purchase. But you don’t have to accept simple generalities. Let’s dive into the seven most persuasive reasons why automated marketing is perfect for helping your return shoppers come back time and time again.

  Return Shoppers …

��Don’t Need the Whole Top-of-Funnel Pitch

Automated marketing usually stacks on top of all your SEO and blog content work designed to catch the attention of new shoppers and entice them into a purchase. But return shoppers don’t need any of that top-of-funnel pitching. They know exactly where your website is and already know that you carry things they enjoy. When automated marketing would usually pick up where SEO left off, return shoppers can jump directly into a delightfully automated shopping experience.

  …Feel Special When the Platform Comes to Life for Them

The automated marketing process for new and return shoppers can and should be different. Shoppers who get a “welcome first-timer” message the second, third, and fourth time they buy will feel your brand enthusiasm as hollow.

On the other hand, if your automated marketing greets return shoppers by name and thank them for coming back, your return customers suddenly feel remembered and special. Stack that on with exclusive deals just for them based on previous shopping and browsing histories and you’ve practically made a new friend, all without having to spend a single moment of human sales rep time.

Automated marketing is fantastic at making return shoppers feel appreciated and personalizing their experience in a rewarding and encouraging fashion.

  …Are Already Looking for Something to Buy

Another perk of a custom return shopper experience is that you know return shoppers are already looking for something to buy. They’ve read your blog if they care to, and they’ve browsed your products so they already know approximately what you sell and the variety available. They must be back for a reason and automated marketing is there to help.

Automated marketing often jumps right into offering customers products they might enjoy and discount codes that might inspire shoppers to fill their virtual carts. When you’ve got a customer who is already ready to buy, these encouragements just make the shopping experience more fun and rewarding. And their final purchase more assured.

  …Still Need Encouragement and Guidance to Complete a Purchase

Speaking of assured purchases, it’s also important to remember that while return shoppers are looking to buy, they also need the same kind of guidance and encouragement that many first-time buyers need to actually complete that purchase. Return shoppers are just as likely, if not more likely, to start filling their cart and then wander off because they’re sure they’ll come back for the items eventually. There is also a chance that return shoppers will fail to find exactly what they’re looking for, just like a new unconverted lead.

Automated marketing can help return shoppers not only find what they’re looking for by making AI-backed suggestions, but it can also keep up the shopping momentum all the way through purchase. Automated marketing encouragement often helps return shoppers complete their carts and the purchase process with satisfaction instead of getting distracted or discouraged on their own.

  …Appreciate Automated Cross-Selling of Associated Products

When a return customer is shopping through your site, they often don’t know exactly what they plan to buy. Perhaps they liked your shirt selection and would be happy with a whole outfit, if only they could quickly choose the right pants and shoes to complement their favorite tops. The examples are infinite, but the point is the same: most return customers actually enjoy when your automated marketing engine tries to cross-sell or even up-sell them on practical additions to their cart.

A shopper looking for a nice blender might really enjoy that your automated marketing platform suggests a smoothie starter pack to go with it. A shopper looking for kid’s Christmas gifts might be delighted to see your cross-selling selection of toys for a similar age group as the toy they’ve clicked. Cross-selling is, in fact, far more effective with return shoppers than first-timers who are not yet sure they love your brand.

  …Are More Likely to Return Again if Their Shopping Experience is Rewarding

Consider the second-time shopper who enjoyed their first shopping experience and has come back to see if a second purchase is just as satisfying. Automated marketing steps up to act as their personal assistant with a non-intrusive DIY flare that most people enjoy. Your automated marketing might suggest the perfect follow-up purchase or provide a discount code that delights your second-time shopper when they punch it into the checkout form.

When a return shopper has a wonderful time upon their return visit, they are far more likely to return again and again as a soon-to-be loyal customer because your website treated them right.

  …Have a Reason to Invest in Referrals and Loyalty Rewards

Finally, never forget that your return shoppers are infinitely more likely to get involved in loyalty programs and even refer your brand to friends and family for rewards than first-time shoppers giving you a trial run.

Return shoppers who know they will return have a strong personal motivation to join the loyalty rewards program and sign up for emails because they know they’ll be using those discounts and reward points in the future. They can confidently refer your brand to friends because they know the experience is good, and they’ll do so because they want the reward points to spend on future purchases.

When your automated marketing makes loyalty program offers, your return customers are going to be the real takers every time.

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Automated marketing isn’t just to usher new leads through the first conversion purchase process. In fact, once a shopper has returned for their second or third purchase, your automated marketing system can become many times more effective because your return customers are engaged and invested in interacting with the site and earning the discounts you have to offer.

Now all you must do is craft a unique and rewarding automated shopping experience that doesn’t mistake every visitor for someone who’s brand new to the site. Instead, greet your return shoppers by name, offer them personalized deals, and generally make them feel like honored loyal patrons of the brand. For more automated marketing insights, contact us today!

          The post 7 Reasons Why Automated Marketing is a Powerful Tool for Return Shoppers appeared first on Bash Foo.

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Sourcing as a Service – A New Way to Hire

As companies “lean up” their teams, they are finding that recruiting new talent is more than just a part time chore for “that guy in accounting”. And as the talent pools out there become more competitive, prospects are expecting more red carpet and less assembly line treatment from employers. “Why should I work for you?” vs. “Why should I hire you?”

Enter Bash Foo. Our teams for years have been mining leads for our clients, poring over gigantic spreadsheets of useless data to find just the right segment of engaged prospects and turning them on to our client’s products and services using persuasive copy and tried and true sales pitches. So what happens when the experts in lead persuasion try their hand at prospecting job candidates in addition to sales opportunities? *Cue suspense-filled background music…

Something awesome happens, that’s what!

Job candidates appreciate the approach of a marketing agency. We understand that they are a valuable asset to our clients and we treat them like gold, not just a job order. Reason being is that our clients trust us with their valuable marketing dollars and we know how precious those are. When used wisely, recruiting dollars are just as efficient at printing money for a small business as new sales are.

So. Just What is Sourcing as a Service?

Instead of bogging down your internal recruiting team or “that guy in accounting” with hunting for candidates and qualifying them, we do the legwork of building lists of ideal candidates for the job description supplied by the hiring company. This kind of partnership helps businesses boost productivity and save money by Bash Foo doing the “legwork” of recruiting.

Finding the right candidates, and those who are serious about the job market, is one of the most tedious tasks in the recruiting field. In fact, recruiters spend as much as 50% of their time sourcing candidates.

But, Bash Foo can procure the right candidates for the position, and all you need to do is focus on the actual hiring process. It saves time, money, and productivity.

Here’s how our marketing agency can empower your hiring team to make better placement decisions for your company.

#1 We Free Up Your Team’s Time and Productivity

If your team is 100% focused on scanning job boards, resumes, and LinkedIn profiles, they will have little time to focus on actually recruiting your potential job candidates.

By utilizing our sourcing service, you can keep a list of qualified candidates in the hopper for any upcoming opportunities that may arise in the company. Then, your recruiting team simply reviews without the pressure and distraction of hunting for candidates.

#2 We’ve Already Got the Tools…without the Fees.

Bash Foo has invested in quality tools to procure the right candidates for the job. Have you ever looked into what it costs just to HAVE LinkedIn Recruiter, let alone pay someone to use it? That’s right. It’s expensive. And there is no reason why you should carry that full burden of those tools alone. Bash Foo spreads those costs out across all of our hiring companies.

This allows you to find quality candidates for your job position, trim back on expenses, and increase productivity in your recruiting departments.

The lists of candidates you receive will include verified contact information and background details, so you know exactly who you are getting in front of before the interview.

#3 We won’t be Hounding You to Hunt

We do a good job of staying in our lane. As a marketing agency, we’ve got plenty of tasks to focus on, so we won’t be dogging you for job orders to go hunting.

We simply provide the sourcing we promised, deliver on that promise – nothing more, nothing less. We aren’t about fluff around here, but we will be here when you need us to take on the next opportunity.

So, how does the process work?

If recruiters are constantly stuck behind a computer researching and vetting potential candidates, they aren’t spending their time getting to know future team members.

By utilizing our sourcing service, your team can focus on finding the right fit for a company’s culture and the job position.

There are three general steps to sourcing as a service:

1. Identify your ideal candidate. This can be a short form or questionnaire to determine the exact candidate you are looking for, immediately disqualifying anyone who does not meet the criteria for the position or culture. 2. Within a few days, we provide matching profiles to review against your ideal candidate. At this time, we ask for feedback so we can continue to narrow down the search. 3. Then, we deliver a full list of qualified profiles (with contact information) which you can reach out to and begin the hiring process.

Companies of all sizes utilize sourcing services as a way to free up their internal departments. As your chosen marketing agency and now sourcing expert, you can trust us to get the job done.

If you are interested in learning more about hiring Bash Foo to source your next employee, reach out to us today. A member of our recruiting team will help you find the best fit, and do so easily and affordably.

The post Sourcing as a Service – A New Way to Hire appeared first on Bash Foo.

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Black Friday 2019 Roundup

Chances are you were not trampled down by the crowds if you went out Black Friday shopping. The sales data is in… And it should be eye opening to any business and retailer.

Black Friday Sales Comparison

In store: Sales in physical stores dropped 6.2% from last year, AND the number of shoppers in those stores fell by 2.1%

Online: Black Friday purchases made online increase by 20% to hit a record $7.4B.

I’m sure you are not shocked to learn that ecommerce outpaced physical shopping. Buying new pajamas while in your pajamas is the way to go!

The surprise found in this year’s sales data is the way that mobile online orders lapped any other form of shopping this Black Friday.

Mobile Phones Rule Black Friday

Mobile Orders: Shoppers were apparently too tired to open their laptop. 65% of Black Friday’s online deals happened on smartphones. That’s the biggest day ever for mobile ecommerce transactions. Up a full 35% from last year!

Pickup Orders: Why wait for 2 day shipping when you can pick it up at the store RIGHT NOW! The buy-online and pickup in store sales jumped 43% from last year.

Bottom line, if you retail anything. You really need to get a website. AND you really need to consider making it a “mobile first” website.

But what if you are a service industry? How many sales did you pick-up over Black Friday weekend?

Bash Foo offered discounts again and we netted 2 new clients, and 2 existing clients who opened their wallets this weekend to take advantage of a great set of discounts on digital marketing for 2020.

The post Black Friday 2019 Roundup appeared first on Bash Foo.

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Mapping All Your Top-of-Funnel Potential Entry Points to Optimize Conversion

Where do leads come from? This is a question that has spurred thousands of marketing campaigns and tactics. It’s true that some channels are going to be more productive for your brand and customer base than others. But the fact of the matter is that modern leads come from everywhere. They come from search engines, from friend recommendations, from affiliate links, and from social media. Leads will come to you from all directions. Therefore, to build a complete full-funnel experience, it’s vital to consider every entry point for the top of your funnel.

Today, we’re here to talk about mapping your top-of-funnel entry points so that you can map the full funnel experience for each lead, no matter where they may have come from.

The Funnel Conversion Strategy

For those of you who haven’t run into the funnel model yet, welcome to the marketing game. The funnel is the most common way in the current marketing industry to talk about the user experience. This is because of the way you ‘narrow down’ your audience from the very widespread group of people who notice your brand to the far smaller number who complete a purchase. At each stage of the ‘funnel’, we lose more people but also refine our true core customer base.

Recognizing the funnel is the first step, followed by analyzing what causes people to stay through or drop out. From there, you can begin to craft a complete customer experience from awareness to purchase, now known as the ‘full-funnel’ conversion strategy.

Starting At the Top of the Funnel

Some brands work the funnel backward, determining what makes a buyer based on what buyers do and read right before they convert. But the most common way to work your funnel experience is from the top, by mapping every possible entry-point where a member of your target-audience decides to jump onto your website, begin shopping, and perhaps eventually buy.

This is why it’s important to map your entire top-of-funnel, so you know where your customers are coming from and then create an online experience that encourages them along the funnel to the final purchase. With analytics, strategy, and a bit of luck your funnel will ‘widen’ so that more people are converting out of the original pool of brand awareness.

  Mapping Your Top-of-Funnel Entry Points

SEO Content Results

The current top of the heap for lead sourcing is search engine results. To win these results, you need either PPC advertisement, great SEO content copy, or both. Search engine leads come to you because they are looking for something specific and your website seems to provide it. Your search engine leads are looking for information that can be found in your blog or on an informative services page. Sometimes, they are already searching for a product or service that you offer.

PPC Shopping Results

PPC links usually win more directed leads, people who know exactly what they want and are happy to follow an ad-link to get it. There are search result PPC leads which boost your natural SEO results, but some of the most effective PPC leads are those done with shopping results. Google and similar search engines have really upped their game on showing searchers images and prices of the items they are most likely to want.

Third-Party Platform Recommendations

Then there are third-party platforms. Amazon, Yelp, eBay, or Orbitz, and other industry-specific platforms specialize in helping leads find what they’re looking for outside of the bounds of your website. Third-party platforms sometimes sell your product as a marketplace, and sometimes serve simply as a source of trustworthy recommendations and review sharing that direct leads to your website.

Google Map Local Results

Google Maps is an incredibly powerful source of leads for local businesses and any business with a brick-and-mortar location open to customers. Many people search for what they need locally and Google Maps (or other map programs) and follow the suggestions from there. Be sure to claim your business location, tailor your profile, and collect Google reviews for the venue.

Loyalty Program Recruit

Loyalty programs are a fantastic source of new leads when current customers recommend a friend. This is why so many brands offer incentives to current customers to recruit their friends and family, an interaction that should result in rewards for everyone involved. Loyalty program recruits aren’t just new leads, they’ve got a personal motivation for joining.

Social Media Conversions

There’s a reason you spend all that time and effort building an engaging social media campaign. When you catch the eye of a non-customer social media user, they can easily become a lead. Getting involved with your brand online can guide a person to show interest in your brand, check out your website, and enter the conversion funnel independently.

Affiliate and Micro-Influencer Conversions

Never underestimate the power of micro-influencers. Popular bloggers who love your product, social media e-celebrities, and podcast supporters can all draw in leads through affiliate links. These are effective because leads find you through a trusted source, their favorite micro-influencer, and are more likely to be seriously considering your product when they make that first click.

Real-World Conversions

Last but not least are leads who come to you because they’ve seen your product in action. They admired it on the desk or kitchen table of a friend. They saw a coworker using your software to get ahead. Or they asked a relative the secret to their success and found themselves on your website. Real-world conversions are fantastic because these leads have already seen that your products or services are good quality and want some for themselves.

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Each of these types of lead may come to you from a different direction, but they all set foot into your conversion funnel and need to be guided through a full-funnel experience. For more insights on how to build your funnel so that it can encompass every type of new lead from the beginning to the end of their buying journey, contact us today. We’d love to help you build your funnel into a concierge experience that leads will love and return-customers will come back for.

The post Mapping All Your Top-of-Funnel Potential Entry Points to Optimize Conversion appeared first on Bash Foo.

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9 Ways to Turn Your Videos Into SEO Assets

Every marketing team knows that videos are a powerful experiential asset. When users see a video on a site, in a blog, or on social media, they are more likely to stop and pay attention. Videos create a story, a journey, and a visual experience that users enjoy and often sticks in the mind more effectively than a pithy phrase or even a compelling still image. Despite the power of video when you’ve already got a user’s eye, video is also notoriously poor on the single most important aspect of modern marketing: SEO.

Web-crawlers and search engines can’t listen through the audio to know what your video is about or all the cool details you cover in your videos. Search engines can’t help users looking for an awesome animation of an apple on fire of a product demonstration even if that’s exactly what is in your video. But you can make it happen.

That library of videos you’ve been building can actually be SEO assets, but only if you know what to do. Today, we’re here to share this comprehensive guide on ten different ways to use both old and new videos to boost your SEO and help search engines know the real value that your videos have to offer.

1) SEO-Optimize Video Titles and Descriptions

The first thing you should do, even if you skip all the other tips, is to optimize your video titles and descriptions. The text surrounding and accompanying your videos is how search engines can know what’s inside. Make sure to use accurate and powerful keywords to categorize and promote the videos and go into detail in your descriptions. Use the names of the people, mention the topics, and consider framing the action with an outline of subjects discussed or activities displayed.

If you’re showing off products, mention the exact name and model of the product. If you’re hosting an interview, mention the topics covered and how insightful or funny the guests answers are. Think about how you search for videos, and what you wish could be used as search keywords to find video content for inspiration.

When the title and description of your videos are accurate, detailed, and SEO-configured then the viewers who want your videos will be able to find them.

  2) Add Helpful Backlinks to Descriptions

You know those YouTube videos with the helpful links to the original publisher, the interview guest’s website, or the Amazon page for the promoted product. Those links are useful! People click them, and, what’s more, they count as backlinks wherever you happen to host and share the video.

Any time there are links that relate to the content, share them! There’s a good chance that curious and engaged viewers will expand the description to find out more and will be happy to see those links available. You win backlink points and site visits and your users get to sate their curiosity and follow up on ideas and products your video brought to light.

  3) Create Precise Closed-Caption Files

Your video may not be crawlable by search engines, but the caption file is. Adding a closed-caption file isn’t just friendly for the hearing impaired (and people who can’t watch videos with sound at work/school), it’s also fantastic for your SEO. If you want to make your video spoken content accessible for web-crawling, all you need to do is create a transcript and then accurately apply it second-by-second to the video as it is spoken.

YouTube will do its best to translate the audio from your video into captions, but these can be hilariously (and sometimes embarrassingly) wrong. Thank goodness this generated captioning doesn’t count for SEO with Google!

Be sure to use someone with a sharp ear and your original script in-hand to get best results and Google will reward you by pulling up your video when it’s contents are searched for. The users will reward you, too, when someone who can’t use speakers or headphones gets to enjoy your content without sound.

  4) Use Transcripts as Descriptions or New Blog Posts

Those same transcripts you used for the closed caption are also very useful when put into your video description, much like song lyrics posted below a music video. This is more practical for short-script videos where the transcript won’t take up too much space, but your viewers may really appreciate it. Not only can Google crawl the transcript to pull details and keywords from your video content, but your viewers can look up quotes from the moments they enjoyed most.

An alternative to the full-script is using an outlined timeline, listing each topic you cover on a longer video with a timestamp so that your viewers can jump right to the part of the video they want to listen to or show their friends most.

  5) Load Onto Platforms Natively

If you want to rank better on each site where you post your videos, host then natively. Facebook prioritizes videos that are hosted on Facebook, for example. While Google prioritizes videos hosted on YouTube or natively on each brand’s own site. YouTube is your best one-stop-shop for video hosting and SEO but, quite frankly, hosting natively on other platforms is often the best bet for ranking on those specific platforms.

  6) Properly Archive and Describe on Various Sites

When you load those videos up, take the time and effort to make sure these videos are loaded properly into the platform. Be sure to give your SEO-configured titles and descriptions in the correct text-box sections. If you can add categories, hashtags, or other details specific to the platform, go through these and fill each of them out.

From there, be sure that your videos are archiving properly or, if you’re adding many at once, that you create your video archive in the way that works best for each platform. Every video hosting platform is different and there are unique approaches to making sure each platform can most easily search and promote your videos.

  7) Embed Related Videos in Long-Form Blogs

Those videos in your video library aren’t one-trick ponies. One of the best things you can do to reuse helpful and high-content videos is to embed them in long-form blogs. An embedded video can add a richer level of detail and engagement, especially when you are strategic about where they go. For example, you might embed your dishwasher disassembly video into a long-form blog article about getting better performance from your home appliances, or embed your cool animated infographic video into a blog that mentions the subject being explained.

You can also build new blog posts with the transcripts or content of each video, creating a double-whammy for your website visitors who might prefer to read or watch to gain the knowledge they seek.

  8) Take Your Best Frames and Quotes as Separate Content

Take a look at your videos frame-by-frame. There are bound to be some gems that can serve as truly amazing promotional images for your brand, products, or for the video series itself. A beautiful candid image of both your hosts laughing or doing something silly could be your ideal next Twitter image. Or a high-detail image of your product in the middle of an awesome use-case can become your best possible still-image demonstration.

Let’s not forget the quotes. Quotes have become incredibly popular as social media images and text content. They can be pithy, to the point, and shared thousands of times if the quote perfectly matches the current hot topics and events going on right now. You can pull funny quotes, poignant quotes, and quotes that perfectly sum up the points of your ad campaign because someone had a great moment on camera. Pair this with your best still-frame of the quoted moment for a one-two social media punch using old video content again and again.

  9) Use Library of Videos as Hashtagged Social Media Images

  Last but not least, don’t leave out the hashtags. Hashtags and your special keywords are the ideal way to get attention both from Google and your favorite social media platforms. Whenever you share a video or it’s harvested content, be sure to include at least two keywords or hashtags that will make your content extra-findable and compelling for your audience.

For more powerful SEO tips that will blow your new and old content out of the water, contact us today!

The post 9 Ways to Turn Your Videos Into SEO Assets appeared first on Bash Foo.

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How Channel Marketing Can Kick-Start Your Lead Generation for New Products

Developing and releasing a new product is an exciting time for any business. Naturally, you’re eager to see your product in the hands of customers to start getting that enthusiasm back ten-fold. Of course, releasing a new product also means collecting and converting new leads. The audience for your latest release may not be exactly the same as those for your previous products. Not to mention your desire to grow your audience by expanding your offerings.

One of the best places to look for new lead generation for a new product is your channel marketing partners. Why? Because channel marketing is all about expansion. When you reach out to other businesses for whom you are part of their supply chain, you also potentially reach their network of customers and business partners. By using the creative outreach process of channel marketing, you can kick-start lead generation for a new product as well.

Let’s dive right into the five ways that channel marketing can put your new product lead generation into high-gear.

  1) Channel Business Partners Have Their Own Clients With a Market for Your Products

Often, channel marketing involves selling to companies that either sell your product directly as retail partners or those who use your product as part of their production or packaging process. What makes it channel marketing is that you are selling to and partnering with other businesses instead of just trying to reach consumer-level buyers.

The primary benefit of channel marketing in this way is that you gain access not just to your direct buyers, but to the clients and audiences of your channel partners as well. In fact, your channel partners have every reason to hype your new product to their audience in order to promote how your product upgrades their own products.

Example: You sell bicycle accessories and have just released a new advanced safety bicycle light. Your channel partner sells assembled bicycles and will be proud to feature your new light as an upgrade to their products

  2) Channel Partners Have a Unique Perspective on Marketing Your Products

Channel partners also have a completely different perspective on how to market your products and reach new demographics. Because they have their own client base and a completely different business model from your own, they have the advantage of a third-party viewpoint not only on your potential buyers, but on the value of the new product itself.

Consulting with your channel marketing partners is a great way to expand your campaigns and your targeting capabilities for the potential buyers of your new product. Your channel partners can point out that your new product is more versatile than you realize, or even point you toward new channel marketing leads who have a different use for your product than you initially imagined.

Example: Your bicycle-selling channel lead also sells scooters and mopeds. They point out that your light is equally ideal for these personal vehicles and then point out that the senior-scooter market would also be a great channel for your new bike light.

  3) Channel Partners Want to Be on the Cutting-Edge of Their Industries

In fact, your channel partners are often your best allies when it comes to both developing and marketing new products because they want to be on the cutting edge. They have partnered with you for a reason and enjoy the value you add through your channel marketing campaigns. Each time you update your products and services, they benefit by staying on the cutting-edge, ahead of their competition.

Your channel partners not only want you to develop new products, but they want to be the ones to innovate the latest-and-greatest way to put those products to use. An enthusiastic channel marketing partner is one of your best possible lead-generating assets when they are as eager as you are to get the word out. The upgrade will have their customers clamoring for their new products that incorporate your products as well as creating interest for your stand-alone product for other uses.

Example: Your bicycle partner is not just offering new bikes and scooters with your light, they’re also offering to refit their own older products with a new light while simultaneously marketing your light as the cutting-edge of personal vehicle technology that they have special early access to.

  4) Channel Partners May Refer Interested Partners of Their Own

Your channel partners may also be interested in introducing your new product to their own business partners. To do this without adding to their own logistical overhead, they may recommend you to their manufacturers, their retailers, or their shipping partners. These referrals are to streamline their own services while also, incidentally, expanding your channel marketing leads.

Channel partners may be primarily interested in boosting their own success, but the synergy you’ve already worked hard to create with value-added channel marketing can really pay off. Especially when you have a new product that your channel partners realize would be more efficient to send straight to their partners to streamline the production process.

Example: Your new bicycle light can be bolted to the handlebars with the wires threaded through a hollow bike frame rather than creating a catch-hazard by clipping to the outside. So your Bike-assembly channel partner hooks you up with their manufacturer to install the lights directly instead of threading the wires after the bikes are assembled.

  5) Finding New Channels for New Products

Finally, there is the pure benefit of channel marketing, even without relying on existing partners. Perhaps your product is outside the purview of your previous channels, or you are just now getting into channel marketing for the first time. When you develop a new product, this opens doors to new potential channel partners.

Channel marketing is all about thinking creatively about the supply chain. Your new product might be better suited to restaurants where before you catered primarily to hotels. Or you have developed a new tool for small hands and thus open the door to partnering with children’s brands or brands that cater primarily to women. Every innovation and change in a new product can allow you to seek out new channel partners who, once connected, provide all the previous benefits in terms of generating leads and expanding your potential client base.

Example: Your new bicycle light includes a GPS feature that you market directly to parental safety brands and eco-travel brands in addition to your bicycle assembly partner.

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When it comes to generating whole new audiences of leads for both existing products and your brand new releases, channel marketing cannot be beat. Once you forge relationships with other businesses that sell, manufacture, or package with your products, their customers become your customers and their partners potentially become your partners. Contact us today to find out more about how to expand your channel marketing network and your buyer audience in one graceful lead-generating campaign effort.

The post How Channel Marketing Can Kick-Start Your Lead Generation for New Products appeared first on Bash Foo.

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4 Crucial Differences Between Mobile-First Design and Responsive Design

In the past decade, mobile phone use has increased drastically. Funnily, in 2011, more people owned phones in the world more than toothbrushes. In 2018, there were approximately 3.7 billion mobile phone users across the globe. The number is projected to increase to 4.6 billion by the end of 2019. As opposed to the past, when a phone was just a phone -a communication device- today, things are different. A phone has become a fundamental part of life used for communication, entertainment, information, and guidance.

The World Advertising Research Center (WARC) reports that around 2 billion people use their smartphones to access the internet. This number equates to 51% of all mobile users worldwide. People use their smartphones to access email, social media, banking, books, music, websites, bills, games, among other things. By 2025, it is projected that 72.6% of all internet users will utilize smartphones solely to access the internet. These statistics reveal the importance of developing web pages that function optimally on mobile devices. A website design can either result in customer satisfaction or disappointment. If a website is designed well to function according to the visitor’s needs, the user will have a pleasant experience. Whichever device -smartphone, tablet, or desktop- a customer uses to surf the internet, your website you be optimized for it. There are two primary methods for sites to function well on mobile devices, namely mobile-first design and responsive web design.

Mobile-First Design

As the name suggests, Mobile-first Design means that you design a webpage that is accessible on mobile-first before it is accessible on desktop. As the number of mobile users increases, designers and developers are turning their attention away from desktop to mobile. With this type of design, developers must pare down information so that it fits on a mobile screen -that has less real estate than a desktop one. They must include essential functions only to mobile design.

Most developers choose to begin with mobile-first design because it makes work more effortless in the long-run. If you start developing for a desktop first, you may have a hard time developing a mobile design. This is because you are likely to create functionalities that do not process and respond well on mobile. Also, something may look fantastic on a desktop but horrendous on a mobile device. Such a situation means that you disregard your desktop design and start to develop a mobile design.

Many people ask how they will know whether they should invest in a mobile-first website design. The answer is simple; it all depends on your website visitors. If most of your customers prefer searching the web on mobile devices, then you should consider a mobile-first strategy. If not, this strategy is not for you.

Responsive Website Design

In this design, you format your website so that it can be viewed from any device, whether it’s a smartphone, tablet, or PC. The website design adjusts automatically based on the size of a user’s screen. Therefore, a user can browse a website regardless of the device he uses. The responsive design combines moveable grids, layouts, and images that are flexible to allow viewing on both mobile devices and desktops. With a responsive design, you need one website. You don’t have to create two versions of a website -for mobile devices and desktop computers. The design, content, and user interface of your website is ‘responsive’ so that users can use any device to access it.

Differences between Mobile-First Design and Responsive Design

1. Purpose Responsive design is common for B2B firms because the content of their website should be informative and authoritative. If you are a B2B company, most of your users use a laptop or desktop to access your page. As such, responsive design becomes the best approach.

Mobile-first design is ideal for B2C businesses because their audience mostly uses smartphones to access the net. It has positive outcomes for increasing conversions for B2C enterprises.

2. Design Process Mobile-first design is like developing a mobile app. You start with a layout that fits a mobile device, then scale to a layout that can be viewed on tablet and desktop devices. In this technique, the goal is to offer excellent user experience characterized by fast download speeds, rich media content, and easy touchscreen navigation. The mobile-first design creates a compact design that can be leveraged to yield a desktop version. The responsive design begins with designing for desktop then proceeds to create for tablet and mobile. It starts with the maximum required resolution and then narrows down to the smallest screen. The content and layout of responsive design contracts to fit different devices. A single site with one URL and content source caters to the needs of a range of screen sizes.

3. User Experience Mobile-first design acknowledges that a majority of internet access is through smartphones and hence the need for excellent user experience on smartphones. With this design, you can be assured of a great experience on your mobile device. Nevertheless, this design is not optimized for desktops. On the other hand, responsive web design focuses on providing an intuitive and gratifying experience for all devices and every screen size. Desktop and smartphone users all benefit from responsive design. You can browse the net on 20” desktops, 15” laptops, 10” netbooks, 7” tablets and 3” smartphones.

4. SEO optimization Responsive design is great for SEO because it is adaptable to both desktops and mobile devices. Nowadays, Google ranks websites that are compatible with both desktop and mobile devices well. Additionally, a single version of a site improves page ranking. Mobile-first design is disadvantageous for SEO because a site will only be optimized for mobile devices. In many cases, you have two versions of a website – the mobile on and the desktop one. This means you have two URLs and have to engage in SEO for both, which would be a lot of work.

Whichever design you choose for your website, it is essential to note that visitors may not distinguish if it’s mobile-first or responsive. The goal of the visitors is to easily and quickly get the information they need. The best strategy is the consumer-first strategy that ensures that your customers get what they are looking for. That’s what matters!

If you need a website that is custom-designed to meet the needs of your market, contact us. We will be glad to help.

The post 4 Crucial Differences Between Mobile-First Design and Responsive Design appeared first on Bash Foo.

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Top 13 Google Ads Changes in 2018 and 2019

At last year’s annual Google Marketing Live event, the Google team let business owners and marketers know about the features and products that were about to roll out during 2019 for Google Ads. There was a lot to tell, as always when Google is in the mix. We’re going to look at the alterations and additions starting in 2018 and continuing into this year. Then we will explore this galaxy and beyond! Well, we will not be taking off into space, but we will take a peek at some of Google’s up and coming improvements.

Google from 2018 to 2019

1. YouTube Lead Ads

One of the changes that made many companies cheer was YouTube lead ads. Facebook lead ads have been successful for some time. But now, Google introduced its lead ads using YouTube, which will also appear in the mobile search results page. Mobile tools are where at least 80 percent of traffic generates, says Google Search Report. What makes this change so worthwhile is the fact that users are targeted based on previous content consumption pattern, and that fact makes the forms more relevant. The results also offer users faster loads and a Better User Experience.

Here are a few more reasons everyone is so excited about this semi-new feature:

1. In the world of digital marketing, the best thing a business can garner is leads.

2. High-quality leads result in YouTube lead ads.

3. When owners ongoingly increase the quality of their potential customers, they will acquire a higher rate of conversion.

4. Business owners who respond to their leads as quickly as possible are likely to gain new customers.

5. Business owners who follow up on potential buyers immediately will reap the rewards.

One company that assists customers with their pensions said that by using YouTube lead ads, they saw a 20 percent decrease in cost-per-lead and three times more sales-ready leads.

2. Easier Opting Out of Ad Personalization

The core values that dominated the Marketing Live event of 2018 were value, transparency, and trust. Outside of the buzzwords already popular (machine learning, frictionless), the keynote focused on innovation across all Google advertising products emphasized the stated values.

One of the quasi-new features was the ability of businesses to put a stop to advertisers who tailor your individual experience. “Why is this a good thing,” you might ask? This action is a way for Google to come across as more trustworthy and work toward keeping users engaged and pacified.

According to the New York Times, after shopping for a product online (let’s say a watch), users are now “followed everywhere by advertisements for watches. If a shopper ends up purchasing the watch, he or she will continue to be tracked by the unwanted, and now unneeded, watch ads. While some feel that at least these ads are representing something you might want to buy, others call the ads creepy and annoying.

Fortunately, now users can opt-out of these kinds of ads on Google and other sites.

3. What Used to be AdWords Became Google Ads

Now Google’s abundant ad products will be divided into three new units:

Google Ads (which took the place of AdWords)

Google Marketing Platform (allows enterprise marketers and their agencies to group ad creation and analytics under the same roof)

The platform includes:

Display & Video 360

Search Ads 360

Analytics 360

Data Studio

Optimize 360

Surveys 360

Tag Manager 360

Google Ads Manager (a programmatic platform designed to earn Google partners money, efficiency, customer engagement, and more aggregated advertising)

  This momentous change probably hinged on the growth of mobile advertising and the audience-centric capabilities that are growing. Google knows that having all their ad solutions coming out of the same location.

4. Responsive Search Ads

This change is a biggie, folks. This news came out at the 2019 Google Marketing Live Event, and these are the reasons why the change is significant:

Responsive Search Ads is Google’s most massive, newest, and most flexible search ad format. When a business writes a Responsive Search Ad, he or she can submit as many as 15 varying headlines and up to four different descriptions. This new process means that ad testing possibilities are almost infinite.

Google will test the different combinations of descriptions and headlines to see which of the combos perform highly. As time goes by, Responsive Search Ads will use the best messages of a variety of searchers as it relates to the keyword for which the person is searching. Google will know the device they are using, their history of browsing, and other variables. The result is that Google will know how to choose the right ad for the right customer. We told you this was big.

5. Two Trueview Features

1) Trueview for reach allows CPM bidding, a highly efficient feature that will enable businesses to reach more prospects.

2) Trueview for action helps companies advertise to YouTube prospects who recently searched for your business’ services or products.

The “secret sauce is Trueview’s bumper ads. Trueview points out that 87 percent of Bumpers campaigns drove a significant lift in Ad Recall and an average rise of more than 20 percent.

A “Targeting Your Audience” Campaign that Went Awry

Levi led the parade in a campaign that was called “Hotness Comes in All Shapes and Sizes.” The idea was to offer Curve ID Jeans to women who didn’t have the same shape and size as an ordinary runway model. (5’9″ to 6′ in height; 90 to 120 lbs.) Sadly, Levi’s did not follow through on this plan, and, instead, used “skinny” models. The models in no way represented the average American woman.

The ads did not feature models from the targeted audience. Once a targeted segment of the population is defined, the campaign must reflect this decision.

If the company had been using YouTube Lead Ads, we daresay this type of problem would not have occurred. It seems Levi had a “terrible, horrible, no good, very bad” campaign. But the marketing idea could have succeeded if the company had not only identified their targets, but also fulfilled its campaign’s promises.

2019 Announcements

6. Discovery Ads

These ads offer an open canvas for buyers and agencies alike to swipe through a carousel of images.

7. Gallery Ads

This writing and photographs will assist advertisers in combining captivating images and compelling content.

8. Smart bidding

This bidding is now a suite that includes:

Campaign-level conversion goals

Conversion action sets to share across campaigns

Seasonality adjustments

Maximize conversion value (Google will optimize your keyword bids to increase the conversion value of your campaign.)

9. Custom audiences

Google is combining custom affinity audiences with custom intent audiences.

10. The Audience Expansion Tool

This software finds consumers who match your custom audience.

11. Elimination of Friction

Yes, “friction” was a favorite word at Marketing Live 2019. The word when used in the marketing arena means making it less complicated for prospects to become customers.

12. Showcase Shopping Ads

These advertisements will enable businesses to deliver discovery-based purchasing experiences to a broader audience.

13. Google Mobile Shopping Tracking

Because consumers research using their smartphones before they visit an IRL store, businesses can influence the decisions of prospective clients by creating fabulous, relevant marketing experiences. Google is ready to help with this idea.

Bash Foo

We are ready to help you make sense of all the new Google tools. Contact us for information, assistance, and the development of excellent ideas that will help your business grow.

The post Top 13 Google Ads Changes in 2018 and 2019 appeared first on Bash Foo.

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5 Proven Ways to Determine if your Site is Too Slow

A fast website is essential to fostering a positive user experience and achieving a favorable search engine ranking. But how do you know if your website is running slowly? And what should you do if you discover that your site is too slow? Below are five proven ways to find out if your site speed is under-performing and some simple steps you can take to speed up your site.

How can you find out if your website is running slowly?

The best way to determine if your website is performing too slowly is to run a test. And thanks to the variety of free, user-friendly tests available online, you can find out quickly whether your site is in need of a jump start. Here are five free tests you can run to determine if your website is running slowly.

1) Sucuri

Sucuri’s load time test measures two key performance indicators: the length of time it takes to connect to your site and the length of time it takes for one of your pages to fully load. Sucuri also emphasizes the “time to first byte”, which specifies the amount of time it takes for content to be sent to a browser to begin processing a page.

2) Pingdom

Pingdom is a free user-friendly testing tool that offers a performance grade along with an analysis of your page load time and the bottlenecks affecting your site’s speed. Here is a list of the current locations from which you can choose to launch your test:

Washington D.C.

San Francisco, California

Frankfurt, Germany

São Paulo, Brazil

London, England

Sydney, Australia

Tokyo, Japan

3) UPTRENDS Free Website Speed Test

UPTRENDS offers a free online platform that allows you to test your website’s performance in some of the best browsers on the market. You can choose to test your site speed from cities such as Paris, Berlin, Singapore, Beijing, Amsterdam, and others. You can conduct testing from your desktop or favorite mobile device and manually select whether you wish to use Chrome, IE, or Firefox.

4) Google PageSpeed Insights Test

Google’s site speed testing tool evaluates your website and assigns a score using a scale of 1 to 100. Any score above 85 suggests that your website is performing well in terms of speed. The tool offers reports for mobile and desktop versions of your website and offers specific suggestions designed to improve your site’s time to fully load a page and time to display above-the-fold content by the browser.

5) GTMetrix

GTMetrix has analyzed hundreds of millions of pages in an effort to detect slow performance and identify opportunities for improvement. Their free tool enables you to test your page on a real Android device or a variety of simulated device options. You will be able to see how fast your site operates from seven different locations across the globe.

What can you do to speed up your website?

If you run one or more of the tests above and receive the news that your site speed is below average, it is time to swing into action. Fortunately, there are some straightforward steps you can take to address the problems above. From optimizing your files to removing “bad” plugins, you can provide a more enjoyable experience for customers who visit your website. Here are five things you can do to speed up your website:

1) Remove unnecessary plugins

A large number of plugins can really bog down your page loading time. Carve out some time to review your plugins and remove those that are not absolutely necessary. You can also examine your remaining plugins to see how they are impacting page load time by using Google Chrome’s “Inspect” feature to access the plugin developer’s tool panel. By clicking on the “Network” tab and reloading your website, you can view how long it takes for loading to occur.

2) Explore compression

Compression can help you reduce your page size and minimize the need for visitors to download data. Because compression is a setting on your server, the way that you implement it will hinge on the type of web server you have. If you hit any road blocks with compression, your hosting company should be able to provide guidance.

3) Use a browser-friendly image format

In general, larger file sizes require more time to load in a browser. If you are using heavy formats like BMP or TIFF, you could be hindering your load time. Take some time to review your images and consider switching over to JPG, PNG, or GIF if you discover any heavy formats.

4) Consider a new web hosting service

Sometimes a poor quality web hosting service is responsible for your slow site. If you use a free web hosting service or a service that fails to deliver proper support, you should consider exploring a new web hosting service that is known for delivering stellar support and resources.

5) Identify and repair broken links

Broken links drain your bandwidth, which can cause your site to operate more slowly. They also cause frustration among visitors, which can cause people to abandon your site. Make sure you periodically screen your site for broken links and either remove them or replace them with valid links to help speed up your site.

What is the single best step you can take to maintain a fast website? 

Maintaining a fast website is vital to helping your business attract customers and keep them happy. By following the tips above, you can keep your finger on the pulse of your site speed and prevent a poor customer experience with your site. But the single best way to speed up your website and keep it running fast is to seek the services of a trusted web development expert.

For over 18 years, bashfoo has delivered fast, responsive web design services to thousands of customers. Our skilled web design specialists have the tools and expertise to keep your site running fast. We invite you to contact us at bashfoo today to discover how we help customers increase sales by 40 percent. We look forward to helping your business thrive!

The post 5 Proven Ways to Determine if your Site is Too Slow appeared first on Bash Foo.

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Tips to Turn Google Maps Into Your Next Advertising Platform

Google Maps is undoubtedly among the most valuable tools the tech-giant Google has offered the world. When traveling to an unfamiliar place, you don’t have to resort of paper maps or ask people for directions. You simply open your Google Maps, indicate your destination, and you are good to go.

Google Maps is the most-used navigation app by mobile users. It ranks first in the US among the most popular mapping apps. In April 2018, Google Maps record 154.4 million unique users. Google Maps ranks fourth after YouTube, Facebook, and Google Search in the list of leading smartphone apps in the US. In May 2019, an estimate of 64.5% of mobile users in the US accessed Google Maps.

Google Maps is not just a navigation app; it is great for locating businesses. For instance, using Google Maps, you can find a business like a car wash, plumber, barber, or restaurant near you. As a business, Google Maps have numerous benefits for your business. You can use Google Maps advertising in your digital marketing strategy to help customers locate your business.

What is Google Maps Advertising?

Google Maps advertising refers to harnessing the power and functionality of Google Maps to make your business easier to locate. It is useful for not only large organizations but also small businesses. Today, using Google Maps will spice your marketing strategy and give you results, because nearly every person looking for services locally needs the help of Google Maps.

Benefits of Google Maps for Businesses

As the owner of your business owner, you can enlist your enterprise to be added to Google’s platform so that it is located on Google Maps. It is an easy process because you only need to provide your business details on Google My Business. This way, people searching for the name of your business or the services you offer can easily locate you.  Also, your business location is mapped for easy access. Among the benefits of Google Maps include;

Improve business visibility: customers can locate your business and even get directions to get there. Increased exposure for an enterprise means more revenue for the business. For instance, when a user searches for a restaurant near them, and your restaurant appears in the search results, the user visiting your restaurant increases sales.

Offers an online presence: Google Maps provides an excellent way for your business to get an online presence. Even if your small business lacks a website, Google Maps lets people know you and where you are located.

Ranking well for SEO: listing on Google Maps helps your business to rank well for SEO. It increases the likelihood of your business getting a first-page ranking on search results. Google Maps are essential in local SEO.

Increase competitiveness: Google Maps helps your business to stay competitive because it maps your business for all to see it.

Changes in Google Maps

Google is committed to continuous improvements of Google Maps to enhance its users’ experience. The tech giant spends much time and effort refining and improving the app to make it better. Any feature and change that encourage people to use Google Maps are good for business because they promote brand discovery. Here are some prominent changes to Google Maps and how they help your small business.

1.     Explore Feature

Although this is not a new feature on Google Maps, an updated Explore tab will improve this feature while presenting more top options. The Explore tab allows users to search for nearby restaurants, ATMs, barbershops, and pharmacies quickly and conveniently. The restaurant, pharmacy or grocery users are looking for maybe your business.

2.     Voice actions

This is an effort to make the user interface easier to navigate. For instance, a customer can find out how long it will take to get to a business or the current traffic situation without using controls. This feature is great when customers are driving to your business because it increases their safety.

Unlike in the past, where customer experience started when a customer walks in your store, currently, things are different. Customer experience begins when a customer searches for your business and the process of getting to it. The seamless the journey to your business, the better the experience you deliver.

3.     Proximity-based Google Maps Results

Google allows for proximity-based Google maps results whereby results depend on your location. For example, if you are in Denver, Colorado and search for a plumber, you will get results of plumbers in or near Denver. The plumbers will be organized into positions based on your location. The closest to you will be given the first position. You don’t get one result of plumbers but several so that you have numerous options. If your business is listed on Google Maps and a customer near you searches for your services or products, you are given priority. Such a customer is a qualified lead who has a high likelihood of converting.

4.     Google lens, Street view Integration, and AI technology

Google lens and street view use the power of AI technology to help users get directions on where to go and decrease the probability of getting lost. AI technology guides the user on their destination and assists in choosing the best routes. Google Lens allows a user to identify street signs and landmarks.

5.     Alternative-method travelers

Not all customers will drive to your store, others will use alternative methods like cycling. Google Maps has made several changes that benefit bikers. It has elevation data for bicycle routes and bikers can compare different routes. Also, Google Maps allows your customers to connect with private drivers like Uber and Lyft. All these alternative travel methods are valuable for modern travelers.

You may be nostalgic about the old-fashioned paper maps, but they were never as useful for businesses as Google Maps today. Businesses should capitalize on the changes that Google Maps make to improve user experience and make a company’s information accurate and accessible. Importantly, enhancing your business visibility and advertising on Google Maps takes time and effort. Google Maps don’t give you the quick fix to your marketing woes but is a long term strategy that bears fruits. You must be patient if you want to reap the rewards. Contact us to learn more about digital marketing ideas that work.

The post Tips to Turn Google Maps Into Your Next Advertising Platform appeared first on Bash Foo.

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A Solopreneur’s Marketing Toolkit for Increased Productivity

As a solopreneur, you’ve got work up to your ears and the pressure is high because you’re doing everything alone. From generating leads to retargeting, you find it hard to keep up.

To keep your solo business afloat, you must multitask and do more than one job all at once. With just one person (you) doing the marketing for your business, it’s easy to get overwhelmed and maybe even a little unmotivated. That’s why it’s so important to take advantage of the many marketing tools available so that you can save time and reduce the headache from running your business alone.

A SOLORPENEUR’S MARKETING TOOLKIT FOR INCREASED PRODUCTIVITY

There are so many things that come with running a business without the help of others. Marketing is only one of them. Allotting so much of your time to marketing can take away from the valuable moments you can be spending on other important tasks. With the below tools, you’ll not only become more organized, you’ll also be able to focus more on creativity and growth.

1. REPLY

Email marketing involves staying in touch with prospects, building relationships with customers, promoting products and services, and providing valuable content to readers. These are so many tasks and they can be pretty overwhelming for just one person to tackle. Luckily, there’s email marketing software that can help make your life easier by automating certain email marketing tasks. Reply is the perfect solution. The platform allows you to consistently stay in contact with your leads and prospects and personalize your email campaigns.

As a business owner who wants to convert as many leads to customers as possible, you likely spend lots of time sending emails. With Reply, you can email hundreds of people in the time it usually takes you to email just a few people. This means that you can really maximize your time and take on other marketing tasks you wouldn’t normally get to in that amount of time.

Below are just a few of the features Reply has to offer:

Send tailored, personalized emails and follow-ups

Send an onboarding series to introduce new subscribers to your business

Re-engage inactive subscribers

Get stats on your email campaign performance such as deliveries, opens, and clicks

Get early-stage product feedback from potential customers and influencers

and more!

2. ADWORDS EXPRESS

Google AdWords is a really powerful tool to launch you right into page one search results without waiting for your site to rank. But it’s super complicated for the solopreneur. As Bash Foo only takes clients who can budget $1,500 or more on ad campaigns per month, what about the solopreneur that can only budget say $200 a month? Adwords Express makes getting new leads easier and more affordable, without requiring you to study up on how to create a killer ad. It’s a smarter, automatic version of AdWords.

With AdWords Express, you just choose the category of your ad by entering a general keyword and Google automatically creates a keyword campaign based on search trends related to that category. This allows your ads to automatically show for up to thousands of keywords related to the one you entered.

Let’s say that you’re a plumber and your keyword is “emergency plumbing services”. Your ad will still show up if someone uses a related keyword such as “emergency plumber near me” or “24/7 plumber”. This gives you great flexibility with gaining exposure to your business. Once you’ve chosen a business category, written an ad, and set your budget, AdWords Express will automatically manage where and when your ads will appear.

3. HOOTSUITE

Every solopreneur needs a social media management system. Because you have little to no help marketing your business, your valuable time is likely taken up with so many marketing tasks, including managing your company’s social media accounts. That’s where Hootsuite gets its value, by keeping track of and managing various social media channels.

Using Hootsuite, you can monitor multiple social media networks in one place. They include:

Twitter

Facebook Pages

LinkedIn Profiles & Pages

Instagram

WordPress blogs

Vimeo

Tumblr

and more!

You can even add more than one of the same network. For example, if you have more than one Facebook page or have multiple Twitter channels, you can manage them within Hootsuite. Plus, you can post on multiple channels at a time. So if you create a post and you want that post to be on other channels, you can use Hootsuite to publish them all at once. This can be very useful if you’re in a rush and need to get things done more quickly and efficiently.

Another one of Hootsuite’s many features is the weekly Social Analytics Report that contains a summary and statistics on your social campaigns. With the report, you gain insights into the number of daily clicks, geographic location of users that click through, your top referrers, and most popular links.

Overall, this tool has perennially appeared on our list of “must have’s” for those who want to monitor and keep track of their social presence, as well as schedule posts daily/weekly/monthly with finesse.

4. INTERSELLER

Finding the email addresses of the right prospects can be a difficult and time-consuming task to undertake on your own. Interseller is a smart email outreach tool that allows you to reach out to candidates without needing to use multiple tools at once. Switching from one tool to the next to find and manage email contacts can take up a considerable amount of time all on its own.

Using Interseller, with just one click, you can find anyone’s email address and automatically send them initial emails and follow-ups all within one platform. This can help simplify the sales process and save you lots of time.

Interseller is our favorite cold outreach tool. The Chrome add-in integrates directly with LinkedIn so that you can run a prospect search there, select the contacts you find to be most “interesting” and then add them to a list of contacts you want to either call or send one of your cold “welcome” email sequences to. It’s by far our favorite way of selecting our next client.

Taking advantage of this marketing toolkit is marketing made easier for the solopreneur. For more information, don’t hesitate to contact us today.

The post A Solopreneur’s Marketing Toolkit for Increased Productivity appeared first on Bash Foo.