To help you start fostering those relationships online, we’ve put together 10 strategies for building a community that your clients and customers want to be a part of.

Let’s dive in!

1. Use Social Listening

The first idea is to pay attention to what your audience is saying online about your industry and what their problems are. This is called social listening, and it’s the perfect way to be proactive about what your audience wants from businesses like yours.

Take advantage of social listening tools to help you track certain keywords, topics and users. Tools like Mention are the perfect solution for watching conversations online.

Keep an eye on the online interactions surrounding each of the items you decide to track in order to learn more about what your clients are interested in and what they might want to learn more of from your business.

Then, solve those problems and address those interests any way you can. This doesn’t just have to be through your services. In fact, you can offer a resolution through your giveaways, content marketing, add-ons and more.

2. Create Community Groups

One great way to create genuine and authentic connections with your clients is to launch online community groups.

There are several online spaces that are perfect for hosting a community for clients and other interested parties to join, like Facebook or LinkedIn groups, Slack communities and more online community building platforms.

Brands like Visme host online communities for their users, providing informational content and product insights, as well as giving them a chance to discuss projects with each other.

Create and promote a community for both clients and potential clients to join. Start discussion threads, share valuable information and build an online group/networking area.

Not only is this a great way to build stronger connections with your clients, it’s also a great way to strengthen your personal branding as well as improve brand awareness.

It also enables your brand to create a word-of-mouth funnel for generating new leads. People will refer people to your community and they will want to work with you after seeing the value you already offer.

3. Promote an Open Feedback Channel

Create a way to get honest, anonymous client feedback. Put together a forum, web page, email account or whatever is best for your workflow exclusively for accepting feedback. You can also consider using chatbots to collect instant feedback on your website.

Moreover, make sure to pay attention to the feedback you receive and implement any necessary changes to better serve your clients.

There are many different ways you can create open feedback channels and welcome client concerns.

First, make sure to be open from the get go with your clientele so they feel comfortable leaving feedback and information in these channels.

Second, consider your target audience and the way they prefer to communicate. You want your feedback area to cater to your audience and be easy for them to use.

If they prefer email, send out anonymous surveys or provide a contact email specifically for this type of communication. If they’re tech savvy, you could create an open forum or embed a form on a web page. You could also create polls to share with your clients.

Be sure that you let all of your clients know about this channel for expressing concerns anonymously as well so that the chances they take you up on it are much higher.

4. Showcase Clients in Social Media Content

Talking about client success stories and your biggest clients is a great B2B marketing strategy. There are a number of different ways to do this.

First, consider creating case studies to showcase clients who have seen major results due to your work. These are effective selling tools and allow you to highlight your clients and get them more exposure as well.

You can also share client social media posts onto your own feed or simply promote their products and services, like we see in this example below.

For B2B and tech industry clients, using Twitter marketing tools. For more visually-oriented clients, sharing photos on Instagram can be a great way to lead your audience directly to your clients’ websites and social profiles.

If you hop on this strategy, you can measure engagement and clicks on those posts as one of your social media KPIs, and even let your clients know how each one has performed. They’ll definitely appreciate the added gesture and exposure.

Consider creating social media ads and PPC campaigns as well for even further exposure.

5. Create a Loyalty Program

Have you had a handful of clients for a longer period of time? Show them you’re grateful for their loyalty and continued business by creating a loyalty program.

This is a great way to reward return clients each time they sign up for services, when they reach major milestones or when they refer new clients your way.

There are many different types of loyalty programs and rewards you could offer, from discounts to cash bonuses, as well as simply asking long-term clients how they would prefer to be rewarded.

Another option could be to create an affiliate marketing program to give clients who refer to work your way a portion of the profits.

6. Check In With Clients

The best way to build a great rapport with your clients is to be incredibly communicative and upfront. There are a few different ways you can go about this.

For instance, create regular update meetings or emails to let clients know about your progress while you work on a project. Another idea is to be fully transparent about any clauses you may have in your contract.

Also, if any obstacles come up, be clear and communicative with clients from the get go. They’ll be much more appreciative to hear about delays beforehand, rather than after the deadline.

And if you’re waiting on a client for something, don’t be afraid to send a follow up email or two in order to help move the process along smoothly.

7. Put Together a Regular Newsletter

A fun strategy for both strengthening your existing client base and opening up an opportunity to gain new ones organically is by starting a newsletter that you send out to your email list.

Sending newsletters with valuable content can help your clients feel even better about working with you because you obviously know your stuff. Come up with a topic or structure for your newsletter that you can easily update with new information each time you send it out.

You also want to make your newsletter easily shareable so your clients can send it to others who might be interested, generating new leads for your list.

Also, be sure to promote your newsletter across your own online channels, like your website or social media profiles, in order to reach an even wider audience, just like this freelancer did on Twitter.

8. Offer Exclusive Discounts/Sales

One way to make return clients feel valued is by offering exclusive discounts or sales every now and then.

While you never want to sell yourself or your business short, occasionally hosting a flash sale or placing a discount code on a random web page can be a fun Easter egg for your clients.

Choose different outlets each time you decide to do this, like a blog post, a web page, a social media post, a newsletter, or even at the end of a webinar. Disappearing posts, like Instagram and Facebook Stories or Twitter Fleets are also the perfect platforms for announcing a limited-time only sale or a discount code.

9. Create Valuable Content

Content marketing is huge for creating connections – as long as you’re consistently creating valuable content for every step of the customer journey.

Not only that, but content marketing is also a great way to reach an even wider audience, both through social shares of your blog content and the organic traffic that your SEO content can generate.

Valuable content isn’t just limited to your blog, though. Creating video content, podcast episodes, infographics, SlideShares and other types of unique content are great ways to expand your network as well as share your knowledge.

You can further engage your audience through enticing YouTube intros, interactive content and the like.

10. Show Your Brand Personality

Being genuine and authentic in all of your communications, both with clients directly and in your online content, is a great way to build relationships and community foundations.

Social media marketing is all about building connections and being your authentic self, and you want to show your followers who you really are and what you really stand for.

Part of ensuring you show off the brand personality you want to convey is putting together a brand voice. This should embody your company mission, the traits you want your brand to emulate and the reason you do what you do.

Here’s an example from TOPOL.io where they showcase their brand personality through emoji and friendly, relatable messaging.

Look for ways you can convey the same fun, energetic voice in your own copy and online content so you can let your own brand personality shine.

Strengthen Your Own Client Relationships

Building stronger connections is key to long lasting client relationships, so it’s time to start putting a few of these strategies in place. Determine which ones make the most sense for you and your business, whether you’re a freelancer or solopreneur, or you’re representing an entire company.

The post Best Ways to Connect With Your Clients to Build a Strong Community appeared first on OmniKick.

The first group learns about products and services online and visits the location of the merchant to buy.

The second group finds products and services offline and use the web to learn more and compare prices.

The third group discovers products and services on the web. They sign up for the merchant’s newsletter and continue to learn more. And down the line, they decide to buy the product or service.

With an effective marketing automation strategy, you’ll be able to convert all these groups of consumers. In this article, you’ll learn the right way to use marketing automation to win more customers for your business, no matter your niche or industry.

What is marketing automation?

Marketing automation is a technology that does three things:

1. It allows you to track each prospect’s interaction with your company.
2. It gives you data that allows you to send personalized marketing campaigns to your prospects and customers.
3. It enables you to tie the outcomes of your marketing campaigns to specific revenue-generating opportunities.

Marketing automation lets you provide a great marketing experience to customers.

Examples of marketing automation

Nissan collects relevant information from customers when they buy Nissan cars. For example, they store the purchase dates customers bought their cars.

Nissan automatically sends an email after six months the car was purchased, asking the customer to schedule their first maintenance appointment.

Nissan generates a huge percentage of its revenue from maintenance fees.

This is a perfect example of marketing automation. It would be tough to send reminders to each customer every six months manually.

Squarespace, one of the world’s most popular website builders, sends an email message that offers 10% discounts to users who started their free trial but didn’t become customers.

Without marketing automation, it would be difficult to send discount offers to users who didn’t become paid customers after their free trial has ended. And manually sending this message to each user would be time-consuming or impossible.

And here’s another marketing automation example:

Casper sells its award-winning mattresses through its website. A few days after buying their sheets, Casper sends an email asking for a review.

Steps to Creating the Perfect Marketing Automation Strategy

For you to do marketing automation the right way, and get great results, you need to follow some important steps. Companies that follow these steps find it easier to win more customers and make marketing automation work well for their business.

So, what are these steps?

State your goals

Without goals, it’s hard to know if your marketing automation campaigns are working.

What do you want to achieve with your campaign? Do you want to increase brand awareness, engagement, or leads?

You should know the answers to these questions before you start an automation campaign.

Marketing automation can help your business in many ways. You want to ensure that you’re getting the most value as possible from the resources and time you invest in each automation campaign.

Let’s assume that Twitter and LinkedIn are the right channels for your business. You should use automation to increase your followers, reach, and engagement on those platforms.

A tool like OmniKick can help you turn your website’s visitors into social media followers. You can use the tool to create a popup where you ask visitors to follow you on social media.

Buffer is another automation tool you may want to use to schedule your posts on Twitter and LinkedIn. Use Buffer to schedule and spread your updates throughout the day.

Know who you want to target

Marketing automation is only effective when you know your customers. Don’t target everyone and expect automation to work.

For example, OmniKick lets you create high-converting popups that help you collect visitors’ email addresses on your website.

But each popup shouldn’t target everyone that lands on your site.

Let’s assume that you sell multiple fashion products like shoes, wristwatches, and bags. A prospect who visited the shoe page may not be interested in buying bags.

So, you may create a popup that targets shoppers who want to buy shoes. OmniKick lets you create unique popups for certain pages on your site.

After choosing the type of popup you want to create, and you’re inside the Funnel Editor, click “Display Rules.”

Scroll to “Who Should See This Optin Funnel” and turn on “The visitor is on specific page/s.” Specify an exact match of the URL and input it in the field.

Then click on “Add Conditions” to complete the process. Only visitors to that page would be able to see the popup.

Knowing who you want to target with your campaign helps you create a message that resonates with them.

Map out user flows

A user flow is the steps a prospect takes on your site before conversion. It includes all the pages they have to visit on your website.

Here’s how the user flow for ecommerce and subscription websites looks like:

And the user flow can also be different based on the traffic source.

For instance, let’s say you own an app development agency. Your site’s main conversion goal would be to get potential clients to contact you. And that’s the exact goal of Blue Label Labs, a New York app development agency.

When you visit their website, the goal is to get you to visit their contact page. But web users rarely go straight to the contact page the first time they land on a site.

That’s where user flow comes in.

After creating a user flow, you would be able to take visitors through the pages that educate and entertain them while slowly introducing your company, what you do, before asking prospects to contact you.

A user flow lets you take visitors through a number of blog posts or pages before finally asking them to convert. The conversion process could end up with you taking them to a landing page where they give you their email address in return for an ebook.

It could also mean taking them to your About and Contact Us pages where they would be able to provide more information about themselves.

Popups can help you collect the contact information of your visitors faster. They’ll see it on every page on your site.

With OmmiKick, you can create a popup within 5 minutes and publish it on your blog or website. Select one from our popup types, and you’ll see pre-made templates you can start collecting emails with.

Always segment your leads

This is one of the most critical aspects of marketing automation. No matter the kind of business you run, your target customers would be people with different needs. And some of them may even change as they move closer to buying.

The message you send to each prospect should address their unique needs at the stage they are in their sales journey.

Segment your leads to continue maintaining and developing your relationship with the prospect.

What is lead segmentation?

It means breaking down your leads into smaller lists based on their actions.

You could segment your list based on these factors:

1. The page the prospect visited
2. The pages they haven’t visited
3. The site (source) that referred them
4. The kind of device they used to access your website
5. The total number of pages they visited
6. The number of times they have visited your site

And there are many more ways to segment your list.

All your leads aren’t the same. Some are more interested than others. And some are more interested in some products and services than others.

With automation, you could quickly weigh the interest of a potential client and target them with messages that match their desires.

Don’t buy an email list

Yes, as they say, the money is in the list. But the money isn’t in a list you bought.

Customers’ emails are a big part of automation. Automation won’t work if you’re buying an email list from marketers or scammers on the web.

The email list you bought has probably been sold to hundreds or thousands of individuals and companies.

You’ll run into trouble with your email marketing automation provider when you buy an email list.

Ensure that every email is collected by you with the user’s consent.

Using a tool like OmniKick, you can build popups that collect email addresses on your site within a few minutes.

Here’s an example of a popup you can create with OmniKick.

By collecting your emails, customers will recognize your business because they willingly gave you their contact details.

Give something valuable in return for their email

Prospects won’t give you their email addresses simply because you asked. They’ll ask themselves what’s in it for them. Why should they give you their emails?

There must be a compelling reason why they should give you their email.

Most businesses offer something valuable like free e-books, free tools, free trials, guides, and others.

Note that the offer should be interesting enough to make prospects give you their contact details.

To make marketing automation work, you need emails. And to collect these emails, you need to offer customers something valuable.

For example, Nerd Fitness published an article titled “5 Best Strength Training Workout Routines For Beginners (Home & Gym).” On the blog, there’s a relevant guide Nerd Fitness offers its visitors.

Giving something away to collect emails is just the first step. Once you have prospects’ email addresses, you will be able to use the power of marketing automation to turn them from strangers to customers and advocates of your business.

Send automated campaigns

Email automation is different from one-off campaigns like newsletters and announcements. Automated email campaigns don’t go out to everyone in your email list.

Automated campaigns are only sent to subscribers when they meet a certain trigger. For example, if someone joins your email list, and didn’t read your first welcome email message, that person may not be ready to buy from you.

So, their relationship is different from someone who read your first welcome email message.

Automated campaigns let you recognize people who are ready to buy your product or service.

You can send an automated campaign to a customer who bought six months ago. Modcloth sends an automated six-month anniversary email. A coupon was included in the message.

You can also send milestone emails like birthdays, join dates, and other specific milestones. The emails are entirely automated. You set it up once, and every customer that hits the trigger will receive the message.

Get rid of inactive leads or subscribers

Email automation lets you recognize and remove inactive leads and subscribers. This is a powerful feature most marketers don’t often talk about.

It’s normal for some people to lose interest in your messages and brand. There are different reasons for this. It could be that the customer doesn’t need your product, or service again or they have moved on.

Keeping inactive leads or subscribers like this in your list would lower your overall email open rates. A high open rate ensures that providers like Gmail and Outlook continue to trust you, and your messages are delivering into the inbox or primary folder.

If your open rates are too low, Gmail and Outlook won’t trust you, and your messages might end up in the spam or promotion folder.

To avoid this, it’s recommended that you only keep subscribers and leads that are still opening your emails. If a subscriber hasn’t opened your email in the past six months, you should delete them.

Before you proceed to delete, you could send them one final message asking them to open and click a link to re-activate their email subscription.

If a subscriber opens the email and clicks the link, it means they want to continue receiving emails from you.

Make your messages feel personal

No one likes being marketed to, both online and offline. Your job as a marketer is to create an experience that makes the prospect feel like you’re talking to them. Automation can help you achieve that.

Automation helps you personalize your emails beyond the first name of the prospect. According to a survey, 94% of companies say that personalization is critical to their current and future success.

So, how do you personalize your email campaigns using automation?

Firstly, relevance. Your email message should be relevant to the subscribers’ needs or problems.

Let’s assume that you run a marketing agency and sell multiple marketing services. If your subscriber was interested in Facebook marketing, they shouldn’t receive content about search engine optimization because it’s irrelevant to their needs.

And here’s another example of relevance.

If you run a fashion shop where you sell both male and female clothes, male subscribers should only receive messages that promote men’s wear. The same is true for women.

With an automation tool, you can select the gender of who you want to receive your email campaigns.

Second, your email should come from a person. People are more likely to trust an email that comes from a real person than a business. The picture should show that it’s coming from a personal email with a name and face to prove it.

The person could be one of your employees or yourself.

Third, the name of the recipient should be in the subject line. The subject line should be so captivating that the subscriber has no choice but to open it.

For example, this email included the first name of the recipient.

Refine your automation campaigns regularly

You can do many things with little effort when you use automation. Still, you shouldn’t set up your campaigns and let them run forever.

The effectiveness of your automation campaigns decreases each passing month. Review your campaigns regularly. That could be weekly, monthly, or quarterly.

Ask yourself if the campaign is still relevant. Ask yourself what you can do to improve the active campaigns.

Automation is great and effective. It saves you time and makes you more sales. But you should still continue to improve it.

For example, the popups you created last year may not be driving as many sign-ups as they did when you first created them.

So, what do you do?

Create new offers to add to your popups. Test new CTA buttons, color, and copy. Change the images. Never stop tweaking your campaigns. They’re never perfect the first time you launched them.

Conclusion

The best marketing teams use automation. And they follow the principles laid out in this article. If you want to increase sales, you need automation.

OmniKick is a powerful tool for increasing social media followers and subscribers. Collecting customers’ emails is easy when you use OmniKick. Start your free trial today.

The post The Right Way to Do Marketing Automation appeared first on OmniKick.

Local marketing means targeting a city or state.

Hyperlocal means being more specific, targeting people in their homes, at work, at local stores that are a few blocks or streets away.

Have you ever wanted to find a local store or office when you were out?

If your answer is yes, then you’ve conducted a hyperlocal search.

Customers want to buy from businesses near them. According to a survey, 82% of smartphone shoppers conduct “near me” searches.

Google also revealed that there was a 500% increase in growth in “near me” mobile searches that contain phrases like “can I buy” or “to buy” between 2015 and 2017.

Start doing hyperlocal marketing if you want to grow your local business. In this article, you’ll learn 13 ways to gain new customers with hyperlocal marketing.

1. Optimize your Google My Business listing

Google My Business is a free tool that allows businesses and organizations to manage their online presence across Google.

For example, if you search for “elder law Maryland attorney” on Google, you’ll see a few firms from Maps on the first page of search results.

In the screenshot below, Elville and Associates, P.C. is the first result.

You can see when the firm closes, the link to its website and another link to view directions to get there.

Below is another screenshot of how the business appears on Google Maps.

Clicking on the business allows you to see more information. You can view the company’s address, busiest times of the day, photos, links to their social media accounts, and reviews.

For searchers to see this kind of organized information about your company on Google, you need to optimize your Google My Business page. Fill out all the information Google asks.

Even if you don’t have a store or office in a location, Google still allows you to list your company as a “service area business.”

Using Google My Business is easy. If you haven’t added your business yet, visit this link to do that.

2. Create content that targets local keywords

Instead of creating content that competes globally or nationwide, why not produce content that appeals to people in your locality?

For example, if you own an SEO company in Kansas City, you should include keywords of the city in your content.

Write an article like “The Best SEO firms in Kansas City.” You would have a better chance of ranking for that keyword when people are looking for the best SEO company in your city than when targeting the whole United States or the world.

Searchers in Kansas City would find your content helpful and are more likely to contact you than a random individual in another continent or state.

But if your company serves customers from everywhere in the country, then it’s okay if you don’t include local keywords in your content.

For example, the car hauling automation startup, Super Dispatch doesn’t need to use local keywords in their articles.

Their blog posts cater to everyone within the country who needs their service. The blog post in the below screenshot is a perfect example.

Still, I believe that any business would massively benefit from targeting local keywords in their content.

It’s easy to unearth some nice local keywords. All you need to do is find some broad keywords. Then add the location you want to target.

For example, the keyword “the best SEO agency” becomes “the best SEO agency in Kansas.” And that’s it!

3. Add your contact information to your website and make it visible

People who are ready to buy your products and services want to contact you. But if they can’t find your contact information, they would leave.

One of the things people want to see on your site is your phone number and address. If you can’t add a contact form to your home page, there should be a clear link that leads people to your contact page.

If your business has multiple locations, add all the locations, including their contact information to your footer. But if you only have one location, the header is the best place to put your phone number.

For example, On Your 6 Designs is a family-owned and operated company that sells handmade Kydex holsters. The company is based in San Antonio. They ensure that their contact information is visible in the header of the site.

In case you can’t put the full address of your business in the header, ensure that it’s in the footer. Visitors who have scrolled to the bottom of your site would have the chance to see your contact information again.

4. Create a consistent experience for both online and offline

According to a study, 97% of consumers learn more about a local company online than anywhere else.

People search for your local business online before deciding to visit it later offline. Because of this reason, the experience of your brand should be consistent everywhere.

Consumers shouldn’t feel confused before and when they visit your location.

I once visited a business location and was surprised to see that the logo I saw on the website is different from the one at the address. I thought I was in the wrong place.

Your logo should be the same across all marketing channels. The logo people see on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram shouldn’t be different from the one on your website.

And the logo you have online should be the exact logo offline.

Consumers love consistency when dealing with local businesses.

Another way to create consistency is by using the same tone for your copy, both offline and online.

For example, if you use positive words on your website and social media, you should continue that offline.

What you’re doing online shouldn’t be different from what customers get offline. If you’re struggling with consistency, I recommend you hire a brand expert.

5. Create authentic, great local content

Local content would help you get the attention of customers. But your content needs to be authentic and great.

Don’t publish mediocre content and expect people to visit your business location.

Big brands do have the money and team to dominate local search results with high-quality content. They often don’t invest in local-specific content because their goal is to dominate the entire country and world with their content.

Your local content is like David’s slingshot to Goliath’s plate of armor.

To compete with the big brands, you don’t have to write often. You only have to write quality local content that would rank for years to come.

6. Get online reviews

According to a study, 92% of consumers rely on reviews when making a local buying decision.

Reviews are one of the most important ranking factors on local search directories like Google and Yelp.

According to a Local Consumer Review Survey conducted by BrightLocal, about 50% of consumers interviewed in 2018 said they would visit the website of a business after reading a positive review.

Ask your local customers to drop a positive review of your business on platforms like Google, Yelp, Bing Local, and Facebook.

The more positive reviews you have, the better it is for your local business.

And please don’t ask all customers for reviews at once. That would be unnatural. A local business owner once told me that they would ask all their 500+ clients to drop positive reviews on their business on Google. I asked them not to do that.

Maverick Texas Brasserie, a French restaurant in San Antonio has received over 500 reviews on Google and enjoys 4.5 average stars from customers.

Gain your reviews gradually. Getting five positive reviews per week won’t hurt.

7. Use location-based advertising

What is location-based advertising?

Top platforms like Google, Facebook, and Bing know where your customers are. Consumers share their location data through the mobile phones they carry around.

For example, Google could tell the difference between someone that lives in a particular location and the person traveling.

With the huge location data these companies have, they allow you to target consumers who are close to your store.

For example, if you want to attract travelers to your store, you target them with ads. You can also target someone who’s around your competitors’ store or office.

Location-based advertising is a form of hyperlocal marketing you should start using today if you want to compete.

Location-based advertising could even be more effective if you do other things outlined on this page.

For example, if you have an active Google My Business listing, and you’re creating great local content, some locals would have been already familiar with your business. So, getting them to visit your store or office when they see it in ads won’t be difficult at all.

8. Add local schema markup to your website

Schema markup can help search engines understand more about your business and what it does. The more information you give search engines, the better they would present your website to searchers.

If searchers see a nice listing that tells them a lot before they even visit your website, it increases your chances of converting them into customers.

For example, here’s a schema markup for an organization.

As you can see, there are details like the company’s customer’s support phone numbers, headquarters location, subsidiaries, and more. And there’s also an option to search Oracle directly on Google.

For example, Earth Class Mail receives your paper documents through a virtual address and scan it for you to view online. They use schema markup.

You could see the year Earth Class Mail was founded on Google.

Using schema markup would help your local business stand out in search results pages.

9. Make your website mobile-friendly

Google revealed that 61% of its users are unlikely to return to a mobile site they had trouble accessing, and 40% would visit a competitor’s site instead.

A mobile-friendly site is easy to use. A ten-year-old should be able to navigate the site without issues.

More and more people start their purchase on their mobile devices. For example, Target saw that 98% of its guests shopping digitally, and 75% were starting on mobile.

Before consumers visit your store, they would have checked out your site on their mobile devices. That’s why you need to make your site so mobile-friendly so that people would be able to find the information they’re looking for very quickly.

10. Team up with non-competing local businesses

There are lots of businesses in your area that are not competitors.

What if you partner together to send customers to each other? That would be a win-win for both businesses.

While it’s true that you can’t partner with every business out there, some businesses would benefit from partnering with you, and vice versa.

Two heads are better than one. In some cases, two companies are better than one, especially when you combine resources and share expertise.

The partnership doesn’t have to be a big deal. It could be sharing marketing efforts, offering referrals with or without commission, or sharing information and advice.

11. Partner with local charities

Charitable giving helps you humanize your brand, build positive change in the community, and cultivate compassion with customers and the public. Some local companies are now supporting important causes by developing charitable partnerships.

Partnering with local charities could create more awareness for your business, but that shouldn’t be your primary aim.

If you don’t want your company to have a strong social or environmental commitment, don’t partner with local charities. It wouldn’t be authentic.

But if you believe that supporting a social or environmental cause is the right thing to do, then you should. It would have a huge positive impact on your business.

For example, Boston-based advertising agency Connelly Partners asks their employees to teach high school students the basics of marketing. They invite more students of color into the marketing world by employing them and paying off their students’ loans.

Godfrey Hotel Boston encourages its employees to volunteer at a shelter or food bank. The hotel pays employees for the time they’re volunteering.

12. Provide an exquisite in-store or office experience

By providing customers with an enjoyable shopping experience, you’ll get to turn them into repeat customers.

Consumers would return to a store where they were welcomed and treasured the last time.

As a local business, you need to value your present customers. Keeping them happy puts your business in a better position to retain future customers.

And one of the best ways to keep current customers happy is to “WOW” them.

If you have a store where customers visit to buy, you need to give them the best experience while they’re there. And if you have an office where clients visit, you need to treat them well while delivering the best service.

Offer customers an extraordinary, unique experience they won’t get elsewhere.

For example, Morning Lavender is a chick café in Tuskin, CA. They sell delicious coffee and tea drinks. The business has flowers on its walls to encourage customers to take photos while they’re in-store.

Customers put those pictures on social media, and that generates more awareness for Morning Lavender.

The point is that customers are more likely to return. And maybe with their friends next time.

Start with your employees. To make your customers feel great at your business location, employees have to be happy. They can’t deliver when they’re not happy.

If customers normally bring kids to your store or office, it means you also have to cater to those little ones. Make your store kid-friendly. Having happy kids at your store or office means the parents would return.

13. Create a landing page for each location

If your business has multiple stores or offices, this is for you.

Each location should have its landing page.

For example, if your local business has two offices in California, you should have a landing page for each one.

And if your local business has offices in multiple states, each should have its landing page too.

Why?

Because as a local business, visitors aren’t from the same place. Your business is more likely to rank in Google when you have separate landing pages for different locations than if you have just one.

CIRCA Jewels is a perfect example. You can sell your jewelry to them at their locations in various parts of the United States, Europe, and Asia.

The company created local landing pages for their locations in Maryland, California, Chicago, Barcelona, Madrid, and Hong Kong.

Each local landing page you create should have:

• Local-focused content
• Customer testimonials
• Address and map of the location
• Local contact information like phone numbers and opening times

Circle Surrogacy, one of the top egg donation agencies in the United States, is another perfect example of a company that has offices in multiple states. Each of their locations has its own standalone landing page.

Conclusion

Instead of focusing on drawing visitors from all over the country, you should target people who only live in the area where your business is and understand their user intent. This is helpful when you are starting a business.

Now you know what to do to dominate those areas and make customers choose you over your competitors.

Don’t just drive visitors to your site. Keep them and make them become customers. Use OmniKick.

OmniKick makes it easy for you to collect the emails of visitors with ease. Sign up for free to start using OmniKick today.

The post Hyperlocal Marketing: How to Make Customers Choose You appeared first on OmniKick.

We live in the age of visuals. There’s visual everywhere you go on the internet. So, web users are spoiled with visuals. In fact, they expect to see a visual after every few paragraphs.

We aren’t living in the days of the black-on-white text page again. There’re colors everywhere.

No matter the industry or niche you’re in, you need images. Almost every company out there is investing in content marketing. But very few are going further by investing in visual marketing.

Visual marketing. It’s an excellent way for you to differentiate your business and earn the attention of potential customers.

If you want to get more leads with your content marketing efforts, you need to start putting out a lot of high-quality visuals.

Visuals will help you get and keep the attention of prospects.

Visuals will help you create marketing messages that resonate with your audience. Instead of just telling them with text, you’ll be showing them.

Visuals will help you connect with your audience emotionally. It’s not that it’s hard to connect with a prospect emotionally through text. Visuals only make it 1,000% easier.

In this article, I’ll share with you everything you need to know to start acquiring leads using visual storytelling marketing.

What is Visual Storytelling Marketing?

Visual storytelling marketing is storytelling with the addition of images. Yes, images are the key thing that makes this strategy different from other digital marketing strategies.

Instead of trying to explain things with text, you rely more on images. And most web users like that because it makes it easier for them to understand things.

It helps them get your points quickly.

Why Visual Storytelling Will Always Work

Regardless of the kind of business you run or the industry you’re in, I want to assure you that visual storytelling marketing will work for you.

Why am I so sure of that?

It’s simply because our brains are great at processing images better than texts. In fact, our brains love images.

A study found that people only remember 20% of what they read after a few days of getting the information. But the same group of people would remember 80% of what they see.

You can use visual storytelling to show people. When you show prospects with visuals, they’ll remember the information. And of course, if they remember the information, they will likely remember your brand.

One of the toughest things in digital marketing is making people remember your company. By tapping into the power of visual storytelling marketing, you’ll be able to make people remember your brand over and over again whenever they see your visuals.

A study found that 90% of the information sent to the brain is visual.

Visit social media sites like Twitter and Facebook. You’ll see visuals everywhere. It’s because people love those visuals.

Images get more attention on social channels than pure text.

I haven’t met anyone who doesn’t like images. Information on images is easy to digest and share.

Examples of Visual Storytelling Marketing

Lots of companies, both B2B and B2C, are using images right now. Below are the key types of visual storytelling they’re using:

1. Photos
2. Memes
3. GIFs
4. Custom Illustrations
5. Charts and Graphs
6. Videos
7. Animations
8. Infographics

All of them may not work for your audience. I recommend that you try 2 or 3 at a time and watch your prospects’ response. If a particular type of visual storytelling tends to get more shares and engagements from your visitors, it’s a big sign that they like it.

Ensure that you’re mixing the ones that work for you together. You may use videos and infographics together. Never use one single type alone.

I’m a big fan of video, infographics, and photos. I think the three works in most industries and niches. So, don’t hesitate to try that combination if you’re starting.

Let’s look at each type in more detail and some examples.

1. Photos

You can use photos in any industry, niche, or platform. They’re everywhere online. It’s because people love pictures.

The kind of photos you share with your audience should be unique. Your readers shouldn’t have seen it anywhere.

Instagram is a great place to find unique photos. I get a lot of inspiration on the site.

Each photo you share should convey a message. And that message should be related to the topic your content is about.

I’m not a big fan of stock photos, but sometimes, they can help you convey your message well.

Free stock photos are another option you may want to try. Sites like Unsplash and Pixabay are great places to find nice free stock photos.

But my favorite images for visual storytelling marketing are the ones I create or take myself. I have 100% rights to the photo.

2. Memes

Memes are everywhere too. And people love them. Most memes aren’t good, though. So, you have to be pretty good at recognizing great memes you can use that your readers would relate to.

A meme may not make sense. But you can use it, along with texts, to convey a message to your audience.

For example, see how Ruffles uses memes on Instagram.

Note that the text you use with it is the key thing here. The meme itself doesn’t have to be related to your industry, product, or service.

Sometimes, a random person online would discover that a photo of themselves have been turned into a meme.

A meme should be funny and acceptable. Don’t use photos that convey the wrong message to your audience.

3. GIFs

A GIF is another fun visual you can use to attract and keep your prospects on your website. I’m sure that you’ve seen a lot of GIFs on social media. It’s because people like them.

You can share GIF that has nothing to do with your business as long as your audience finds it attractive. If you see a GIF and think that they might like it, don’t be afraid to share it with them.

What I often do is share a GIF on social media and see how my followers engage with it. If they like it, I could add it to one of my blog posts.

I also see GIFs in email messages I receive from brands. It’s fun. It’s a cool way to get an email subscriber excited about your brand.

Note that because email is a special place, ensure that the GIF you share there is unique and interesting. If you share a GIF your subscribers have seen many times on social media, I’m not sure they’ll look forward to your next message.

4. Custom Illustrations

Custom illustrations are already popular in the SaaS world. Almost every SaaS company uses them on its website. If your business is SaaS, you’ll have to create a high-quality custom illustration because there’re lots of them out there.

But if you’re in another industry not related to SaaS, you can use custom illustrations to gain attention and edge ahead of your competitors.

Custom illustrations are fun and interesting. Web users like them. They share them on social media.

Think of a comic strip. You combine an illustration with words. Without the illustration, the words are meaningless.

The key here is using it to convey a message to your readers. They’ll look at it because it’s visual. By doing that, you have their attention. So, you can use this moment to drop that powerful message.

Your audience will remember it. And if you’re the only business that produces and shares a lot of custom illustrations in your niche, your website would have a lot of repeat visits because people will want to see those illustrations.

5. Charts and Graphs

I’m a big fan of charts and graphs. They’re fun to read.

Just by looking at a chart or graph, you’ll get the complete information within seconds.

If you attempt to explain the information contained in a chart or graph with words, you might need to write more than 1,000 words.

So, if you conduct some internal or external studies and want to share it with your audience, I recommend you use a beautiful chart or graph. It saves your readers time, while at the same time helping you keep their attention.

6. Videos

Video is the most popular visual content format right now, and maybe the hardest to create.

Some people are shy to look at the camera. Well, if you’re good at speaking in front of the camera, you’ll have a big edge over your competitors.

You can do a lot of things with video, which you can’t do in text.

Video is the best way to convey a message. Your audience will also remember most of the messages a few days later.

Video viewers are 95% more likely to remember a call-to-action after watching a video compared to 10% when they read text format.

It’s easy to consume video content than text. With video, you sit back and relax as you watch. But in text, you have to read and move your head or eyes. Sometimes, reading itself can be uncomfortable.

Reading is also time-consuming. It could take 20 minutes to read an article. Convert the same article to a video, and it could take 5 minutes or even less.

That’s why business executives like videos. Because they are busy people, they don’t have time to read.

Web users want to see video content from brands.

Video should be at the top of your visual storytelling marketing strategy. It’s the number one content right now. And by 2020, 80% of traffic on the web will be video.

7. Animations

If you truly want to stand out in your industry, invest in animations.

Animations are fun. Web users like them.

Animations are illustrations that move. They are not that expensive to create. You only need a talented graphic designer to make them.

It’s another way to entertain your audience and collect their emails.

8. Infographics

Infographics are another popular visual storytelling type you can use to dominate your niche.

Some niches don’t have as many infographics as others. If your industry doesn’t have many infographics, you can use it to dominate your competitors.

Infographics are easy to digest and share. Use them to present exciting stats your audience will love to see.

Ensure that your infographics are colorful and attractive. When someone sees your infographic, it should make them stop and pay attention to it. That’s what good infographics do.

Infographics can come in any size or shape. It’s up to you to decide, depending on the topic. There’re lots of great designers out there who have experience with infographics.

There are also some fantastic tools for creating infographics.

4 Simple Steps to Using Visual Storytelling for Your Business

Can’t wait to start using visual storytelling in your business?

Below are the simple steps you must take before you begin using visual storytelling to market your product or service online.

Step 1: Know what motivates your prospects

How do you know what motivates your prospects?

Create buyer personas.

Businesses that have created buyer personas know what motivates their customers. A great persona would tell you everything you need to know about customers.

Keep in mind that customers aren’t visiting your website for the sake of it. They’re on your site to find solutions to their problems and solve their underlying emotional needs.

According to the Harvard Business Review, there’re roughly 300 emotional motivators. Below are the top ten:

1. Stand out from the crowd
2. Have confidence in the future
3. Enjoy a sense of well-being
4. Feel a sense of freedom
5. Feel a sense of thrill
6. Feel a sense of belonging
7. Protect the environment
8. Be the person I want to be
9. Feel secure
10. Succeed in life

Each visual content you create should contain one of these emotional motivators. That’s how you capture the attention of prospects.

Step 2: Choose the story that resonates with your prospects

Once you’ve recognized the emotional motivator you want to use in content, it’s time to work on a story you want to tell. I recommend you use personal stories or stories within your own company. Never make something up.

Your story could be about an employee, a customer, or a side project. Make sure you own that story. Doing that makes your audience feels connected to you. It brings them closer.

You don’t need a whole day to create a story. The story could be a sentence you could match with an image and share it on social media. It could be a blog post. It could be a meme.

The only requirement is that it’s your story, and it’s complete.

For example, Circle Surrogacy is a surrogacy agency in the United States. The agency uses its own stories in its blog posts and visual content.

Step 3: Use the right visuals that’ll impact prospects

You have to get the combination right. The content format and story should fit.

For example, there’s possibly no way you can share a case study with an infographic. It’s hard. And infographics aren’t perfect for case studies. They’re ideal for statistics and studies.

Videos and photos would be the perfect format for that. They’re more likely to have the right impact than infographics. You can find a lot of free images online to serve your purpose.

Look at visuals that work on the platform you want to use. For example, if you’re going to use YouTube to share your visual content, then a video will be the ideal format for your story. Of course, you can’t create photo content for YouTube. Same way if you want to use visuals for your online digital showroom, you’ll need a website.

Step 4: Test and Adjust

You must continue to test and adjust your visual storytelling campaigns. That’s how you know what works and what doesn’t.

Nothing stays the same forever. Your competitors may catch up with you. It means you have to change again.

To stay ahead of the curve with your stories, you must continue re-adjusting your campaigns. That’ll make it tough for the competition to beat you.

Conclusion

Visual storytelling is the present and the future. If you want to compete for attention and gain massive leads, I highly recommend that you start using visuals today if you’re not doing that already. It is a highly effective approach for b2b lead generation.

So, how do you collect leads?

Use OmniKick.

Your visual storytelling campaigns will send massive traffic to your website. But traffic, in itself, is worthless. You need to turn that traffic into leads.

And by using OmniKick, you’ll be able to collect leads on your website.

It’s free to sign up today. Click to start using OmniKick.

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