cta_digital_marketing

5 Features for your website that will help your business grow in 2022

jackie@ctadigitalmarketing.com (Jackie Calxite) — Fri, 29 Jul 2022 21:34:33 GMT

5 Features for your website that will help your business in 2022

Currently offering Web design services in South Jersey and also Columbus SEO

We are offering discounts to these locations

5 Features for your website that will help your business in 2022!

1. Future-proof your website. Updating a website can be time consuming and costly. Ensuring hackers are kept at bay and the technology stays up to date is key. Therefore, businesses will need to have a pro-active web designer or system that either automatically updates or uses AI technology to ensure the key messages are being delivered.

You need a software or package that does this automatically in the backend

Something with an ezzy pezzy editor to add pics and add content.

Our platform offers all these

2. Brick and mortar ONLY businesses a thing of the past. Every shop will need way of selling online using e-commerce technology. This may include delivery services too, but at the very least a click and collect function. This includes food, retail and even service-based industries that will now deliver their products using website technology, like Zoom or Google Meet. We can add all these widgets to your site. Your site should be informational but also a tool to do all things business quicker and faster.

3. Quick and easy to update. As so much more commerce will now be done online, reacting to the market quickly will be essential. Gone are the days that “Billy back bedroom” part-time web designer updates your website when he get’s around to it. Having a simple interface to do it yourself or reactive low-cost agency team to do it for you will be the norm.

4. Artificial Intelligence. It may sound Sci-fi but cutting-edge web designers have been using this tech for years to help deliver the right messages to the right customers, intelligently. Making this affordable and effective will ensure businesses gain more customers and browsers will receive messages that are of interest to them, a win, win!

5. Social media integrates with websites. Since the lockdown some figures are telling us that social media usage is up over 25%. Gaining this engaged audience and pointing them to your website is the perfect way of reaching the right prospects and then converting them into customers on the website. Also, showing a feed of relevant social posts on a website will now be the norm in any modern business.

After the lock down many people who where not familiar with social media are now more accepting of it. Many maybe even developed friendships that turned into real life relations. Things have definitely changed and it’s easy to add these features to your websites

Websites are now recognized, even by the most traditional of businesses, as an essential part of running a company. There has never been more demand for quality, affordable websites and here at CTA digital marketing Websites, we’ve never been busier and that doesn't look like it will change anytime soon. We offer the easiest web design software that even your Mom can navigate. For any website design it’s a must to also offer website design and also SEO services. If you can’t rank you don’t bank as a business. This two should be done together.

How to host a Webinar

jackie@ctadigitalmarketing.com (Jackie Calxite) — Thu, 21 Apr 2022 23:19:30 GMT

Best Blog Ever

Now more than ever, webinars are great way to show an interested audience exactly what you do and how you do it. Ever since we had a worldwide lockdown, webinar attendance and engagement has gone up as more people use online technology to showcase their business.

Here at CTA, we have upped our webinar game considerably in the last couple of months and we now run multiple webinars a week for our own new Blam Partner sales and Blam Partner education services. As this works so well for us (although we are always improving), I wanted to share what we’ve found and how you can run a webinar yourself for your business or side hustle.

1. Define what you are selling. It may sound obvious but thinking of the end result that you want to achieve for the webinar is essential to begin with. Eg. Do you want to actually make a sale at the end of the webinar, or do you want to book an appointment for the next stage of the funnel?

"Typically, for lower priced products (below $2k),

it is possible to sell during the webinar but for higher priced offerings

the next stage would be an appointment with a specialist to close the deal."

2. Choose your platform. If you are a beginner there are plenty of options that are free such as Google Meet or Zoom. As soon as you start getting serious about webinars though, you’ll need a pro software solution that can help automate, moderate and manage your webinars more professionally. Over the years we’ve tried a few with mixed results but as someone transitioning from one of the free platforms our recommendation would be Easywebinar or Webinarjam. Both of these offer great support, relatively simple interfaces and an expandable feature set as you grow our attendee and conversion rates.

3. Content delivery. Choosing the correct way to deliver your content and how that looks can be an important element to your branding. So switching between your office/home environment and a screen share should be a consideration. What’s your home/office set up look like, and have you done a good job with your presentation slides? All of these aesthetic things go to add to the look and feel of the webinar and helps the audience see the kind of organisation or individual they are buying from.

4. Content schedule. Having the correct flow to your webinar will improve your results no end and following a basic system as follows will help:

i. Introduction: meet and greet, webinar rules, agenda with outcomes and value gained, incentivise to share.

ii. Show the problem you faced and how you overcame it. Show the common situation and your common solution.

iii. Demo or show the features of your product or service. Emphasise the value and and the problem that is overcome by using it.

vi. Show the deal/pitch/price. “Stack” the offer by showing everything that is included and why it’s such a good deal. Include exclusive “webinar only” deal - make this genuine. Offer a guarantee I you have one at this stage.

v. Q&A: Take questions and deal with them live for all the viewers. Congratulate purchasers live on air (or those that have booked an appointment.

5. Practice and record. Practice, practice and practice again then when you are ready, record a live session so you can use it for reruns or automated webinars through your chosen pro webinar system. The slicker you get, the more conversions you will make and the more success you will see.

Of course these tips are great but they are no use to you if you can't get people to attend! This would be a whole other subject to write about in itself, and there are of course a lot of variables dependent on where you are with your business and your database. However, social media, Eventbrite and Google ads are a great place to start to build an audience to begin with, coupled with a robust booking and conformation process to get more attendees to turn up.

All of this should help set you up to start hosting webinars that will grow your business and build a sustainable income. However, if you are wondering what business that will be for, why not join us on one of our webinars where we show you how you can run your now Digital Marketing agency as a Certified Blam Partner. It is of course free to attend, and we'll demonstrate how selling websites and apps to SME's from anywhere in the world can be a fantastic way of earning

Is Design Dead with Canva making it so easy

jackie@ctadigitalmarketing.com (Jackie Calxite) — Thu, 21 Apr 2022 23:09:01 GMT

Design and why it's key

With the onset of so many online tools to enable business owners to create and manage their own brands, has the golden age of quality design now died?

As a trained “old school” graphic designer my heart sinks when I see websites, logos and literature that have clearly been designed without any understanding of design theory or creative subtlety. This is largely due to the accessibility of software that allows a relatively non-techie business owner to design a logo, build their own website and create their own brochure without any formal training.

"Is this a good or bad thing?"

Well, it works both ways depending on the business owners circumstances. For a "one man band" start-up or side gig, where money may be very tight and something is better than nothing, these free/cheap design options can help get the ball rolling. In this instance taking action is much more important than waiting until they can afford to employ a qualified designer or agency. Tools such as Canva and Wix are available to these entrepreneurs who’re willing to invest the time and energy into their marketing materials. The question any of these entrepreneurs need to ask themselves is "what is the cost of not using a designer", both in time and money. Is a poorly designed brand (often an unqualified business owner doesn’t notice the difference!) worth the time investment, and at what cost to the credibility of the business?

However, if a business is more established or the start-up has a budget for marketing (and why wouldn’t they!), getting the branding, look and feel and strategy behind it right, can be the difference between mediocrity and super success.

"So how can good design influence success?"

Here’s an apparent fact (according to Ryan Deiss, CEO of our extremely knowledgable partners Digital Marketer), design is pretty far down the list when it comes to making money on the internet. In other words, there are loads of examples of apparently poorly “designed” websites that have created millions in revenue. These websites however, have still had tonnes of testing, tweaking and strategy applied, a luxury that many small business owners don’t have.

What small business owners do have the opportunity to do, is create a brand and look and feel that represents their business appropriately and creates the opportunity to engage with the target audience from the initial awareness stage all the way through to nurturing their valued repeat customers. This means, having a great brand will get you more customers and increase engagement because it will build trust and credibility right from the beginning.

Simple examples of this you will have experienced yourself I’m sure. How many times have you landed on a website but found it to be poorly designed, difficult to navigate and frustrating to use and simply looked elsewhere and at what cost to the business?

In conclusion…

Getting the foundations of branding and design for a small business nailed down with the help of a professional designer should more than pay for itself, even in the short term. Focussing on building the business with the marketing messages, deals and solutions is a far more important than trying to be a designer yourself. To be successful, there is a lot to do when running any small business. Unless absolutely necessary, learning to be a designer shouldn’t be one of them!

Here at Blam, our goal is to provide cost effective branding, across websites, social media and literature that is beautifully designed, talks to the appropriate target audience and makes the business owner proud of their companies image. If we can deliver the best of both worlds, ie. fantastic design at an affordable price, entrepreneurs that work with us can focus on growing their business instead of wasting days trying to design a website or logo with no formal training. After all, when done properly a well designed website can be one of the biggest assets in the business, why leave that to an amateur?

Lunch and Learn Webinars

jackie@ctadigitalmarketing.com (Jackie Calxite) — Tue, 09 Nov 2021 19:38:05 GMT

Curious about Digital Marketing?

Curious about Digital Marketing...

Join me for our Lunch and Learn Series with MMSDC!

This week will be Email Marketing!

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/digital-marketing-5-part-lunch-learn-webinar-series-tickets-186659943917

Bounce Back Business Bundle

jackie@ctadigitalmarketing.com (Jackie Calxite) — Sat, 16 Oct 2021 18:51:34 GMT

We are offering an amazing package for business
Including all the following below!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6bhxS2S2U5A&t=124s

Why Your Website Needs a Lead Magnet

jackie@ctadigitalmarketing.com (Jackie Calxite) — Sat, 16 Oct 2021 18:51:29 GMT

How to gain more leads from your on-site visitors

I’ll bet you’ve done more than a dozen times? You know, been on a website and filled out a form in exchange for that “important” PDF that will solve all of your problems quickly. These “lead magnets” are designed to build trust and are so much more effective than the conventional “join our mailing list” style messages. If the business is doing a good job, you’ll then be given the opportunity to purchase from them with their follow up email campaign. We call this next step the "trip wire offer".

All of these tools are part of what we call the “Customer Value Journey” (CVJ), the process we use in marketing to map out the journey a prospect goes on when they become aware of a business for the first time. This journey always goes through the same stages and, when understood, can be the foundation of all of your marketing activity. It's fascinating to learn that the CVJ mirrors closely the journey we go on with any human relationship, from awareness to advocate or first eye contact to marriage.

The CVJ starts with the awareness stage, and often, this means the prospect sees some form of advertising, Google search or social post that sparks their interest. This then leads to the engagement stage where the prospect begins to assess whether they want find out more and start a conversation or undertake further information gathering on the business.

Then we get to the lead magnet. If the prospect is engaged with the website, they are likely to want to have a problem solved that is relevant to them, right there and then. It’s likely the main reason the prospect landed on the website in the first place. Therefore, a great lead magnet would offer to solve that problem quickly and easily, in exchange for an email address (and sometimes a few more details such as name and telephone number).

Effective lead magnets are marketing gold and the internet is full of examples that prove that when we get this right, the results can be amazing.

There are few things to consider before embarking on creating lead magnet, most important of which is knowing exactly who the customer is . We do this by creating a customer avatar. This process helps us understand our ideal customer intimately and allows us to put ourselves in their shoes in order to determine the problem that they need to solve with the core offer we are selling.

To help you produce a lead magnet yourself, we’ve put together a quick guide that talks you through the process step by step. This means you can produce a lead magnet from start to finish in less than an hour! It is accompanied by a “Lead Magnet Ideas Cheat Sheet” to help you build effective lead magnets to help you get loads ore leads.

The cheat sheet can be downloaded here , if you need further help get in touch with us today.

7 Great Reasons to Blog

grant@blam.online (Blam Websites) — Mon, 08 Apr 2019 14:19:17 GMT

Blogging is a great way to stay engaged with site visitors and keep your site content relevant and fresh. Here are 7 reasons to start blogging today.

1. It’s an easy way to engage with site visitors
Writing a blog post is easy once you get the hang of it. Posts don’t need to be long or complicated. Just write about what you know, and do your best to write well.

2. Show customers your personality
When you write a blog post, you can really let your personality shine through. This can be a great tool for showing your distinct personality.

3. A terrific form of communication
Blogs are a great communication tool. They tend to be longer than social media posts, which gives you plenty of space for sharing insights, handy tips and more.

4. Supports SEO
Search engines like sites that regularly post fresh content, and a blog is a great way of doing this. With relevant metadata for every post, you’ll make it extra easy for search engines to find your content.

5. Drive traffic to your site
Every time you add a new post, people who have subscribed to it will have a reason to come back to your site. If the post is a good read, they’ll share it with others, bringing even more traffic!

6. It's free
Maintaining a blog on your site is absolutely free. There are no additional hosting fees and no need to advertise. You can hire bloggers if you like or have assign regularly blogging tasks to everyone in your company.

7. Build your brand
A blog is a wonderful way to build your brand’s distinct voice. Write about issues that are related to your industry and your customers.

How to write an awesome blog

Mon, 08 Apr 2019 14:19:17 GMT

Writing an excellent blog is easy if you follow a few simple rules. It takes a bit of practice, it’s true, but the benefits are immense.

Write about what you know
Write about something you know. If you don’t know much about a specific topic, invite an expert to write about it. Having a variety of authors in your blog is a great way to keep visitors engaged.

Speak to your audience
You know your audience better than anyone else, so keep them in mind as you write your blog posts. Write about things they care about. If you have a company Facebook page that gets lots of comments, you can look here to find topics to write about.

Take a few moments to plan your post
Once you have a great idea for a post, write the first draft. Some people like to start with the title and then work on the paragraphs. Other people like to start with subtitles and go from there. Choose the method that works for you.

Don’t forget to add images
Be sure to include a few high-quality images in your blog. Images break up the text and make it more readable. They can also convey emotions or ideas that are hard to put into words.

Edit carefully before posting
Once you’re happy with the text, put it aside for a day or two, and then re-read it. You’ll probably find a few things you want to add, and a couple more that you want to remove. Have a friend or colleague look it over to make sure there are no mistakes. When your post is error-free, set it up in your blog and publish.