Incoming! Inbound Marketing Attracts Traffic and Wins Customers

Posted in: Inbound Marketing June 17, 2013

The art of inbound marketing is all about the customer. That’s why in the past five years, inbound marketing has become the savvy small business owner’s go-to strategy. It allows you to show not only your product or service, but your company’s heart; it creates space to tout your industry knowledge while reaching your customers at every purchasing stage; and most importantly, it reaches your customers where and when they want: online and when they’re ready to start the purchasing process.

What Is Inbound Marketing?

Inbound marketing rejects interruptive messaging as a strategy. Television and radio ads, direct mail, spam, telemarketing, and cold-calling … These are relics of traditional advertising strategies. Inbound marketing, sometimes called “permission marketing,” utilizes customer-friendly pieces, such as blogs, video, search engine optimization and social media to generate high-quality content targeted at customers in specific points of the sales funnel. It takes advantage of the fact that increasingly, people get online to arm themselves with purchasing power and knowledge. With a good inbound marketing campaign, their search for the best deal and best local vendor or provider will lead to you. In short, inbound marketing shepherds your customers to you, rather than hoping they will find their way.

How It Works

Inbound marketing works because people – your customers – value personalized, targeted content. This content is your way in. Through smartly produced blog posts, enewsletters, social media posts and other similar means, your company becomes a wealth of must-have information and a reliable partner in the eye of the customer.

Graphic courtesy of HubSpot

The great part about inbound marketing is that it comes naturally to most small or locally owned businesses. Inbound marketing, at its purest, is merely an extension of old-fashioned customer service from face-to-face interactions to online publishing. While much of the interaction remains the same – attracting a customer, converting them to your product or service, closing the deal, and delighting them enough to earn word-of-mouth advertising – the location of the interaction has shifted from the brick-and-mortar business to the World Wide Web.

As shown in the graphic above, inbound marketing utilizes a variety of tools to accomplish the feat of moving the interaction. It spans from your website to your social media pages and focuses on attracting traffic, converting visitors to leads and then sales, and being so delightful that your customers become brand evangelists for you.

The Takeaway

Inbound marketing allows businesses to stake ground in a new place, with new customers. Through the targeted use of quality content on blogs, white papers and other online pieces, businesses can increase their cyber presence, gain a loyal and engaged following, and convert interest to sales in a new and meaningful way.

Summer Intern – Libbie Bond

Posted in: Uncategorized June 13, 2013

My name is Libbie Bond, and I am the new summer intern at Akili Design & Marketing. This fall I will be a junior at Drake University studying creative advertising and graphic design with a concentration in leadership. I was raised in Earlham, Ia., a small town just west of Des Moines. Working part time at Jethros ‘N Jambalaya in Waukee keeps me busy in addition to my time with Akili Design & Marketing.

When I’m not interning or serving BBQ, I can be found with my nose in a book, scrolling through my Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr feeds, or spending time with my family and friends. As the oldest of four children, I have to uphold my reputation as “the best big sister ever” (I can’t say that my siblings actually believe that, but I like to think they do).

Studying at Drake University, I have become driven to get a head start into my field and career. Searching through possible internships early this spring, I saw Akili Design, and knew it would be a great fit and tremendous learning experience. So far, I have completed two weeks here, and I have really enjoyed writing website content and going to client meetings. Throughout the rest of the summer, I am looking forward to learning the ins and outs of the industry and strengthening my writing and design skills.

Case Study — Doherty’s Flowers

Posted in: Case Studies February 26, 2013

Client Doherty’s Flowers in Des Moines came to us three weeks before Valentine’s Day with a goal to increase their social media marketing, but also wanting to make the public aware of the benefits of buying local.

Valentine’s Day is the “super bowl” of flower shops, and they prepare months in advance. The biggest competitors for local flower shops are online sites that send their business to local shops; however, take around 30 percent of their profits. Consumers are unaware of the extra fees associated with buying flower arrangements online and can oftentimes save $10 to $15 by buying directly from the local shop’s website or simply calling.

Our strategy was to set Doherty’s Flowers apart from its competitors by reaching out to the media and encourage buying local. Though many Des Moines residents are familiar with Doherty’s Flowers due to its central location, the media have opted to promote one of Doherty’s competitors in the past.

We determined the following priorities:

Encourage consumers to buy from Doherty’s Flowers
Encourage consumers to buy local and not on websites
Increase visibility on social media sites

Media

We worked diligently and released a press release to local media stating the importance of buying local and also ordering flower arrangements early in the week. Our tactics were proven successful when all three major news stations, and the Des Moines Register, picked-up on the story and featured Doherty’s Flowers in its news programs.

WHO-TV

Today in Iowa Saturday

Des Moines Register

Social Media

One week before Valentine’s Day we released an online campaign encouraging Facebook fans to share Doherty’s Flowers page by offering a 12-12-12 giveaway. On February 12, 12 fans would receive a dozen roses for Valentine’s Day.

The campaign reached 132 users, engaged 83 users, had 53 shares and had 58% virality. The number of “likes” increased from 254 to 280.

Can we say Doherty’s Flowers Valentine’s Day promotion was successful? Yes. As an added bonus, Doherty’s Flowers did not have to spend extra money on advertising to reach the amount of people.

Improve the SEO strength of your website

Posted in: Search Engine Optimization November 30, 2012

Many businesses want to increase their search engine results to generate more leads. Here are some tips on how to improve your search engine results.

Add a blog

As mentioned in a previous blog post, adding a blog allows you to add fresh content easily and regularly, and that’s what search engines love. Updating your at least on a weekly basis, or even regularly, will give your site a distinct advantage on search engines.

Interactivity on blogs also gives added value to your site and can increase the likelihood of potential customers social bookmarking it as well as sharing it on other networks.

Add analytics to each page

Free analytics software, like Google Analytics, can provide you with a range of critical data about your website and how it is performing on search engines.

Features such as goal tracking, event tracking, bounce rates and intelligence can show you which keywords, search engines and traffic sources are producing leads and even sales for your business. You can also use this data to help you improve your site content over time.

Make each page unique

Google ranks the relevance of each website according to the content it contains, and is always seeking content not contained anywhere else on the Internet. Pages not only should be different from other websites, but also pages within your website.

So, if you have content on your website that is found on other sites, your page will have a risk of being ignored.

Use meta description tags

Meta description tags are used in backend coding of websites, and is what appear on search engine results pages. Meta tags will give the person an overview of your website before actually visiting your site. Use descriptions and keywords that will convince visitors to click on your site link versus your competitor’s.

Remove repeat words

As mentioned before, Google and other search engine’s algorithms are programmed to search for unique content. If there is not enough unique content from page to page on your site, you will run the risk of being penalized for duplicate content.

Add footer links

Linking between pages using plain text links can provide a significant increase to your search engine results. Using footer links that link between each page will help with your search engine results.

Use keywords

The best way for a page to rank for a certain keyword is to create content with that specified keyword to help target that phrase. It is important to create separate web pages for each product or service offered, so each page has its dedicated headers, keywords and body copy.

Use title tags that are keyword rich

Title tags in the backend help determine the content of your page. Use keywords for each page rather than using a static title, such as your company’s name. This will help increase your rank on search engines.

By using the suggestions above, you will receive the best possible results for your website.

Marketing for non-profits and small businesses

Posted in: Uncategorized November 29, 2012

I started my business in 2007 providing graphic design services for small businesses and non-profits, and have since expanded to providing services for bigger companies.

My mission still holds true in providing honest, affordable marketing services to my clients. I continue to offer services to small businesses and non-profits. Why? Because everyone needs marketing. We don’t limit our clients and we strive to provide services within our clients’ budgets.

Every business deserves a chance to reach out to the public and grow. The world of marketing changes constantly from social media to direct mail. What is right for your company? How can you grow and still reach thousands — even millions?

Big or small, non-profit or for-profit; we help our clients through difference strategies and tactics, which allow them to reach their goals.

Guest speaker at Iowa State

Posted in: Uncategorized November 1, 2012

I was recently asked to speak at Iowa State University’s PRSSA chapter about my business and what we do for clients. It was a great night, and it turned out to be a great question/answer session. Plus, it’s always great to go back to ISU! Here are some questions that students asked:

How was it starting your own business?

It was scary to start my business full time as I started Akili Design as a freelance business. I always had job stability and knew if I couldn’t bring any work in, I would be fine. With a new family life, I knew it was time to fulfill my dream. I pulled the plug and launched Akili Design & Marketing Services full time and have had more success than ever.

What advice do you have in managing multiple social media accounts so you don’t accidentally post the wrong thing?

Triple check log-ins!

Is there any advice you can give to finding a job after college?

Value your internship and network. Networking is so important in this business — and any business for that matter — as you never know who you will meet. Before my internship in 2007, I didn’t know if I wanted to stay in the design and advertising field. I wasn’t sure where it would take me, and I didn’t quite enjoy it as much as I thought I should. My internship taught me a lot about client relationships, deadlines, the fast-paced environment; and I loved it. I fell in love with what I do for a living and I now take that passion and put it in all my work for clients.

What kind of work does you business do?

We do anything from graphic design for clients to web design. We also work on media relations and help clients publicize and/or plan their events.

How our services can benefit your business

Posted in: Services March 27, 2012

I was working on putting together a presentation about our company and the services we have to offer and how each service benefits businesses. So, to give you a better understanding of what what we have to offer, we decided to turn our presentation into a blog post.

Marketing, as defined by the American Marketing Association, is the activity, set of institutions and processes for creating, communicating, delivering and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners and society at large. In other words, it’s the process by which companies create value for customers and build strong customer relationships.

Akili Design & Marketing Services offers the following services to help businesses grow and deliver results.

Creative

Design
Writing
Video Production
Branding

By using our creative services, we work to brand all material consistently and effectively by establishing certain looks and feelings in our design and writing. Our goal is to create brand loyalty and make customers come back to that business and less likely to be enticed by other brands.

Web and Digital Media

Web design
Content management
SEO development

Our web and digital media services is available to help grow businesses in different markets, as well as grow in your current demographic. Websites make it convenient for potential customers to research businesses and the services they have to offer. This day in age, consumers are more apt to do research online rather than calling the business directly — by doing this, customers are not only determining on whether your business is credible, but they are finding the convenience that your business is giving them by finding what they need on their own time. By having a web presence with information and options to receive a quote, etc., businesses are adding a value of satisfaction.

Public and Media Relations

Social media development
Public and media relations

Public and media relations services extends from traditional methods to new, social media methods. We work with different media outlets so you can concentrate on your business. Our traditional media services include writing press releases and working with the media to stimulate awareness of and demand for your company and products or services. Public relations creates seven times the credibility of advertising as it shows your company is proactive.

It’s no question social media is the new “big” thing. But do you know the benefits it can have for your business? People visit social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter to get more personal, rather than be bombarded by ads and that one-way street of communication. Social media allows for your business to strengthen customer service by answering customers’ questions and concerns directly, and in a timely manner. It also helps build the reputation of your business and creates loyalty and trust your customers want.

Production Consultations

Printing
Proofreading
Account management
Budgeting

By using our production consultation services, you benefit by concentrating on your business, while we take care of the small stuff. We have various connections throughout the state for printers and will work to get you the best deal possible on any printing services you need. We also help you retain your credibility by proofreading anything that will reach a larger audience — keeping your brand loyalty. Our experience will make running your business easier.

Multilingual Advertising
Have sources to translate into many different languages to help broaden your market. This will not only help your business grow to in different markets, but will also make your customers aware that you understand their needs.

Promotion and Giveaways

Giveaways and promo items for your office, trade show, events and more
Branded apparel

We are always competitive on the costs of our promotions and giveaways. People love giveaways, and if they can remember your business by using a pen with your company’s name you’ve succeeded. We will train businesses on how to engage potential customers into learning more about your business by having these items available at trade shows and events.

Akili – 4 – U

Custom invitations for graduations, weddings, parties, etc.

Our Akili – 4 – U services is not really a benefit for your business, but can help benefit your personal event by making invitations “pop” and unique. Of course invitations are also available to your business, as we can customize any event invitation or self promotion by bringing in your brand with that unique twist.

Prepare your business for new Facebook page design

Posted in: Social Media March 23, 2012

On March 30, Facebook pages are getting a new design, and that means your business strategy will need to change. Take a look at the changes and learn how brands can take advantage of some of the new features.

Cover Photo and Profile Image

One of the biggest changes is the cover photo. There will be no more photo strip across the top of your business page, rather you now will have one large image to showcase your page. Your image must be a minimum of 399 pixels and no larger than 850 pixels by 315 pixels.

One of the biggest downfalls with the cover photo is the fact that you cannot have a call-to-action—you can’t tell people to “like” or share your page or have any contact information at all, including your web address, phone number or mailing address. Take a look at Facebook’s guidelines on using cover photos.

Profile picture size will now be restricted to 180 pixels by 180 pixels, and will appear next to every post as a 30 pixel by 30 pixel photo. Your profile picture can now be used for an eye-catching photo or logo without a lot of words.

Larger, Highlighted and Pinned Posts

To help tell your business’ stories, pictures and videos will now be larger and eye-catching. You can also highlight a story (by clicking the star icon in the upper right of a post) so that it spans all the way across the Timeline shown in this Lexus post with a video.

You can also pin the story to the top of your Timeline for up to a week.

Setting Company Milestones

Another thing you can add to make your Timeline more interesting is Milestones. With Timeline, you can tell people about big events in the life of your brand or company.

Posts from supporters are now in a separate area than information you post, so your timeline becomes more focused on your company’s history or story. People now may be spending more time reading your Timeline rather than just coming to your page to ask a question. The more visually engaging you can make your Timeline, the better.

New Applications

One of the biggest changes is the removal of the default landing tab. Applications haven’t disappeared and are still available to showcase if you have created a custom welcome tab or added other special applications. You can have up to 12 applications to showcase, however, only the four applications that you move to the top row will appear prominently on your page. You cannot change the position of the photos, however, so technically you can showcase three applications.

Without the default landing tab, the applications give you a chance to be creative by changing the display photos and even renaming the app. The custom tab image is 111 pixels by 74 pixels.

Facebook Insights, Admin Panel and Messaging

Another change with the Timeline is the location of the Insights. You can now access them by clicking on the Admin Panel in the upper right corner of your page. The Admin Panel tells you about new notifications and gives you access to the “back-end” of your Facebook page.

You will still be able to see the old-style Page Dashboard if you click the Manage drop-down menu and then Edit Page. From the Admin Page, you can also invite your email contacts, invite friends, share your page and create an ad from the Build Audience drop-down menu.

Use the Build Audience drop-down menu to access several options on getting the word out about your page.

Facebook has done a nice job of giving us lots of options to learn more about the new page design from the Help drop-down menu. During the Preview, the Help drop-down menu links to tutorials, but once you publish your Timeline you will have access to some different options.

One of the capabilities will be to easily request a name change for your page. This name change is the title of your page, not the custom URL you may have set for your page. You can still access this form here. This is great news for people who have changed their company branding, have had a misspelling in the name or have other tweaks they have wanted to make, as this option was previously unavailable.

One of the most interesting developments of the new page Timelines is that we can now get more information on other pages that have changed to the new Timeline. When you click on the Likes box, just underneath their Timeline cover photo you can see the most popular age group, a People Talking About This Trend graph and their most popular week.

You can now see more Insight information about any page that has the new Timeline.

Companies could possibly hide the Likes box by swapping it to a lower position than the top 12 apps that are accessible to the public. But that would also hide the social proof of how many people like your page.

Pages will also have the ability to receive messages from fans. The Message feature can be turned on or off from the Manage Permissions area of the Admin Dashboard.

The Message button is enabled by default so if you want to disable it, you will have to uncheck the box. Messages can only be initiated by a fan—they cannot be initiated by the page to a fan. The page can reply to the message sent.

Facebook Advertising

Another new announcement that was covered in the fMC Conference was some changes to advertising. The ads will be larger and the product names are the Reach Generator and Premium on Facebook. The Reach Generator is designed to reach more of your existing fans than you currently are reaching through the news feed.

Mike Hoefflinger, Facebook’s director of global business marketing, said that currently pages only reach about 16% of their audience each week with posts. With the Reach Generator ads, pages can reach 50% of their fans each week and 75% each month. Beta testing done by brands such as Ben and Jerry’s was able to reach 98% of fans and double engagement.

The Reach Generator ads are designed to connect to your existing audience and will include the Page Post stories. The ads will not be based on CPC or CPM models, but will be an “always on” ad. These ads will be shown on the right side of the page and they will also go into the news feed and mobile streams.

Premium on Facebook is designed to distribute your stories to new connections and will be shown on the right side of the home page, in the news feed, in mobile streams and when someone logs out of Facebook.

Again, there will be a lot of big changes with Facebook pages, but there are a lot of ways you can use it to your advantage in promoting your business.

Summer Intern – Libbie Bond

Improve the SEO strength of your website

Marketing for non-profits and small businesses

Guest speaker at Iowa State

How our services can benefit your business

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