Here are five innovative and practical ways to use QR codes to boost your marketing and grow your business.

1. Drive Traffic to Landing Pages or Promotions

One of the most straightforward—and effective—uses of QR codes is directing users to a specific webpage. Whether it's a product launch, seasonal promotion, or exclusive landing page, you can print a QR code on flyers, packaging, posters or in-store displays. When scanned, it takes users straight to the action, skipping the need for them to type in a URL.

2. Encourage Social Media Follows or Reviews

QR codes can help grow your online community by linking directly to your social media profiles or review pages. Instead of asking people to “find us on Instagram,” let a QR code do the work. It’s all about reducing friction and making engagement seamless.

3. Simplify Event Check-ins and Registrations

Running an event? Use a QR code to streamline RSVPs or check-in processes. Whether it’s a product launch, workshop, or private sale, a simple scan can confirm attendance or give access to exclusive content or updates.

4. Add Value Through How-To Content or Demos

People love useful content. If your product or service benefits from explanation, QR codes are a great way to deliver how-to videos, setup guides, or demos directly to your customer’s phone.

5. Enable Instant Purchases or Bookings

QR codes can take customers directly to a purchase page or booking form, making it easier to convert interest into action. Especially in physical spaces—like markets, showrooms, or pop-up shops—this can significantly reduce lost sales.

Conclusion

QR codes are more than just convenient—they’re clever, cost-effective tools that bring your marketing to life. From boosting social engagement and simplifying event check-ins to enabling instant purchases, these small squares can make a big impact. By using a QR code generator thoughtfully, you’re already showing creativity and a customer-first mindset.

Keep finding new ways to connect, engage, and delight—because the businesses that embrace smart tools like this are the ones that keep growing. The best part? You’re already on the right track.

If you need help generating leads, please call us. We have an excellent lead generation program where we pay for all your advertising expenses and take all the risk for you. You only pay when you get results. This is a massive undertaking and understandably we're limited in how many companies we can help at any one time. If you're interested and find the program paused or not available, just leave your Preview (opens in a new tab)details and we'll let you know when it re-opens.

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What Makes QR Codes So Effective?

QR codes remove friction. With just a quick scan, your customers can be directed to videos, booking pages, product info, or exclusive offers. No typing, no searching—just immediate access.

Take, for example, a local café that placed QR codes on its tables, linking to a digital menu and loyalty signup. Not only did it cut down on printing costs, but it also increased signups by 35% in just one month. That’s the kind of practical result QR codes can deliver when integrated with purpose.

Where and How to Use QR Codes

1. In-store and On-Site Displays

Place QR codes on posters, product tags, or signage to direct customers to reviews, instructional videos, or complementary products. This keeps customers informed and encourages them to explore more without needing staff assistance.

2. Packaging and Labels

Whether it’s food, beauty products, or homewares, QR codes on packaging can link to recipes, tutorials, or user guides. It’s a simple way to add value and keep the customer connected post-purchase.

3. Marketing Materials

Brochures, flyers, and business cards can all benefit from a QR code. Direct users to a lead capture form, promo video, or feedback survey—whatever helps you continue the conversation.

4. Events and Pop-Ups

Using QR codes at events can streamline check-ins, provide real-time updates, or collect visitor data. One local art gallery used a QR code to offer visitors an augmented reality experience during an exhibition, significantly increasing engagement and social shares.

5. Social Media and Digital Ads

If you’re running digital campaigns, include a QR code that brings users to a landing page or exclusive offer. This simplifies the customer journey, especially when viewed on shared or public screens.

Tips for Getting the Best Results

• Make it mobile-friendly: Ensure the linked content is optimized for smartphones.
• Use clear calls to action: Tell users what they’ll get when they scan.
• Track performance: Use tools that let you monitor scan data so you can adjust and improve.
• Keep design simple but branded: Customize the look of your QR code while keeping it easy to scan
• Test before launching: Always scan test to ensure it works across devices.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

• Sending users to a cluttered or slow-loading page.
• Not giving context: A QR code with no explanation is likely to be ignored.
• Placing them where scanning is awkward—like too high, too low, or too small.
• Forgetting to check expiry dates on time-sensitive campaigns.

Conclusion

QR codes offer a flexible, low-cost way to boost engagement and enrich customer experience across multiple touchpoints. From in-store to online, they help streamline access to content and drive real-time interaction. By keeping your use clear, purposeful, and mobile-friendly, you can unlock their full potential. You’ve already taken a step forward by exploring innovative ways to connect—now it’s time to put that creativity into action. With a bit of planning and smart execution, QR codes can become a powerful part of your marketing toolkit.

If you need help generating leads, please call us. We have an excellent lead generation program where we pay for all your advertising expenses and take all the risk for you. You only pay when you get results. This is a massive undertaking and understandably we're limited in how many companies we can help at any one time. If you're interested and find the program paused or not available, just leave your Preview (opens in a new tab)details and we'll let you know when it re-opens.

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Why Online Reputation Management Matters

Your online reputation is often the first impression potential customers have of your business. Whether someone’s searching for your services, reading reviews, or scrolling through social media, what they find can directly influence their decision to engage with you—or not.

Let’s face it, people talk. And when they do, it’s not always directly to you. They could be leaving reviews, tagging you in posts, or sharing experiences in forums. If you're not monitoring these conversations, you could be missing out on valuable insights—or opportunities to correct course before small issues become bigger ones.

Managing your online presence isn’t about perfection; it’s about being proactive, responsive, and intentional.

Top Tools to Help You Monitor and Manage Your Brand Reputation

Below are some highly effective tools that make reputation management more streamlined and impactful:

1. Google Alerts

This free tool lets you monitor mentions of your brand across the web. Simply set up alerts for your business name, product names, or even team members, and receive email updates when those terms appear online.

2. Social Media Monitoring Tools

Platforms that track social media mentions help you stay informed when your brand is tagged, discussed, or reviewed on channels like Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn—even if the post doesn’t directly tag your page.

3. Review Management Platforms

Reviews on sites like Google Business Profile and industry-specific platforms can heavily influence potential customers. These tools help you keep track of your reviews, respond promptly, and identify recurring themes—positive or negative.

Tip: Consistent responses to both positive and critical reviews show your business is engaged and cares about its customers.

4. Customer Feedback Software

Tools that gather and analyze customer feedback—such as post-purchase surveys or website feedback forms—can offer direct insights into customer satisfaction. These insights often highlight areas that need improvement before they become public complaints.

5. Analytics Dashboards

Use these tools to track sentiment over time. They pull data from reviews, mentions, and social media to show trends in how your brand is perceived. Spotting a shift early helps you act quickly and maintain trust.

Practical Tips for Effective Reputation Management

• Respond Promptly and Professionally

Whether the feedback is good or bad, a timely and respectful response reflects well on your business.

• Show Appreciation

Thank customers who take the time to leave a positive review or mention your brand.

• Own Mistakes Gracefully

If a mistake has been made, acknowledge it and share what steps you’re taking to make things right.

• Monitor Consistently

Set a regular schedule to check in on reviews, mentions, and customer feedback—don’t leave it to chance.

• Share Positive Feedback

Repurpose great reviews or testimonials as part of your marketing. It builds trust with new audiences and affirms loyal customers.

Conclusion

Managing your brand’s online reputation isn’t a one-time task—it’s an ongoing part of doing business in a digital world. By using tools like Google Alerts, social media monitors, and review management platforms, you can stay informed, responsive, and in control. Being proactive about feedback not only protects your image—it builds stronger relationships with your customers. You’re already on the right path by exploring these strategies. With a smart, thoughtful approach and the right tools at your side, your brand can grow with confidence, credibility, and creativity.

If you need help generating leads, please call us. We have an excellent lead generation program where we pay for all your advertising expenses and take all the risk for you. You only pay when you get results. This is a massive undertaking and understandably we're limited in how many companies we can help at any one time. If you're interested and find the program paused or not available, just leave your Preview (opens in a new tab)details and we'll let you know when it re-opens.

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1. CRM Platform – Centralize Every Customer Interaction

Let’s start with the backbone of any CRM strategy: the CRM platform itself. A reliable system ensures that every customer interaction—email, call, form submission, purchase, or support request—is tracked and accessible in one unified dashboard. This eliminates data silos, reduces duplication, and ensures that anyone on your team can pick up where someone else left off.

For example, a local online retailer implemented a CRM system to consolidate customer records, sales data, and support history. As a result, their support team resolved customer queries 35% faster and increased customer satisfaction scores by 20%. With clear visibility across the customer journey, it becomes easier to personalize communication, spot trends, and act with confidence.

Key features to look for:

• Contact history tracking
•  Integrated communication channels
• Sales pipeline management
• Customizable reporting

2. Email Automation Software – Keep Communication Consistent and Timely

Consistent communication is key, but manual emails are time-consuming and inconsistent. That’s where email automation steps in. These tools allow you to set up sequences based on user actions—think welcome emails, abandoned cart reminders, and personalized birthday offers—all triggered automatically.

One marketing team working in the education sector created an automated re-engagement series for leads who hadn’t responded in 30 days. The result? A 22% increase in qualified conversions, without increasing their workload. Automation keeps your brand top-of-mind and ensures your leads and customers don’t fall through the cracks.

Use cases that drive results:

• Welcome and onboarding emails
• Loyalty program reminders
• Lead nurturing series
• Event or webinar follow-ups

3. Customer Feedback Tools – Listen to Improve, Not Just Respond

You can’t manage what you don’t measure—and customer sentiment is no exception. Feedback tools make it easy to collect valuable insights through surveys, review requests, and satisfaction scores. But more than collecting data, these tools help you analyse trends and identify areas for improvement.

A health and wellness brand, for instance, discovered through feedback analysis that customers were confused by their return policy. After simplifying their messaging and training staff accordingly, they saw a 30% drop-in support queries and a significant boost in customer satisfaction. Listening actively shows customers you care, and it allows you to continuously evolve based on their needs.

Best ways to use feedback:

• Post-purchase surveys
• Net Promoter Score (NPS) tracking
• In-app or on-site quick polls
• Service experience evaluations

4. Live Chat Software – Provide Instant, Human-Centered Support

Customers don’t want to wait—and they shouldn’t have to. Live chat tools allow you to be available when your audience needs help, offering immediate responses, guidance, or solutions. They also capture key details for follow-up, even when no one’s online.

A local financial services company integrated live chat into their site and noticed a 40% increase in form submissions and a 25% drop-in bounce rates. Why? Because prospects could ask a quick question and get immediate answers—something emails just can’t match in the moment.

Additional benefits:

• 24/7 chatbot support for FAQs
• Lead capture with personalized engagement
• Integration with CRM for follow-up tracking
• Real-time customer insight

5. Task and Workflow Automation – Save Time, Reduce Errors

Marketing managers wear many hats—campaign planning, lead scoring, reporting, and team coordination. Task automation tools help keep it all in order. From assigning leads to reps, to scheduling follow-ups, to updating customer records, automation ensures things get done consistently without slipping through the cracks.

A creative agency streamlined its new client onboarding using task automation. The result? A 60% reduction in manual admin, freeing up time for higher-impact work like strategy and creative development. It’s about working smarter, not harder.

Common workflows to automate:

• Lead assignment and scoring
• Customer onboarding checklists
• Follow-up task scheduling
• Campaign tracking and reporting

Conclusion

There’s no doubt about it—CRM success hinges on the right tools. When marketing managers embrace platforms that centralize information, automate communication, capture feedback, and streamline workflows, the results are clear: happier customers, more engaged teams, and greater efficiency across the board. By continually refining your approach and leaning into technology that supports your goals, you’re not just keeping up—you’re setting the pace. Progress takes creativity, courage, and consistency—and you’ve got what it takes to lead the way.

If you need help generating leads, please call us. We have an excellent lead generation program where we pay for all your advertising expenses and take all the risk for you. You only pay when you get results. This is a massive undertaking and understandably we're limited in how many companies we can help at any one time. If you're interested and find the program paused or not available, just leave your Preview (opens in a new tab)details and we'll let you know when it re-opens.

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Basic Demographics

Start with knowing the most basic demographics of your audience, including age groups, locations, gender, income, hobbies, and more. If your audience demographics fall into multiple categories, consider segmenting them and using a slightly different advertising campaign for each.

Why They Have Purchase Intent

One of the most important things to know about your audience is why they are looking for the product you offer. This involves understanding their pain points and the challenges they are facing.
Once you have that knowledge, you can directly address those pain points in your marketing. It will show potential customers that you understand them and convince them to buy your product or service.

Other Preferences

To maximize the effectiveness of your marketing, you will also need to know a few other important things about your audience. Learn about what social media platforms they prefer, how they buy, when they buy, and when they prefer to engage with your brand.

Things to Know to Help You Segment Your Audience

You must learn several facets about your target audience to help you segment them. Remember that segmenting your audience lets you deliver more targeted advertisements, emails, or other marketing efforts.

Special Interests

Pay attention to the various special interests of your audience. This will tell you what influences their buying preferences. If you run a fitness store, you could divide your audience into those interested in cardio and those in strength training. You can also categorize them according to those looking for gear to compete in athletics versus those doing sports for fun or exercising for fitness.

Subgroups and Cultures

You also want to look for subgroups within your audience to help with segmentation. This can be based on common experiences, such as watching particular shows. This will let you understand their motivation and create advertising that appeals more to them.

Turn the Information Into Buyer Personas

Once you have gathered the relevant information on your audience, turn it into buyer personas. Make as many as you need to in order to address your entire audience. As a bonus, buyer personas will give you further insight into preferences.

You will use these personas to better target your marketing efforts and create long-lasting relationships with clients.

How to Gather Details About Your Audience

Now that you know what information you need to gather about your audience, how do you go about doing so? There are several different ways to start gathering data on your audience.

Surveys

Surveys work well for providing specific information, such as the location most of your clients come from, what they are using your business for, and what their preferences are. With this, you can begin to look for patterns in how your services are utilized and how purchases are made.
You can ask for as much detail as you want with surveys. Just remember that response rates will be higher for shorter, simpler surveys, while more detailed surveys can provide you with more useful information. It’s a trade-off.

Competitors

Another way to get a feel for your potential clientele is to keep an eye on your competition. See what they are offering and the kinds of clients that frequent their venues. In fact, competitors are often one of the best tools to utilize in furthering your marketing strategies. Changes to their products, services, and campaigns can help you target their audience and, by offering improvements, win them over.

Complementary Businesses

In addition to competitors, you can look at complementary businesses. These are small businesses that aren’t your direct competition but have a similar audience. For example, a gym and fitness store would have complementary audiences. Or maybe a jewelry store and a luxury clothing boutique could work together. You can share audience research with this complementary company.

Engagement

In addition to this, you should also monitor comments, feedback, and other engagements with your audience. The more content you put out there in various forms and on a variety of platforms, the more information you will have about your clients. You will see what they interact with and what they aren’t interested in. Pay attention to what gets shared and what gets engagement so you can offer more of that. Use this information to create the best marketing strategies for your products and services.

Social Media for Data and Engagement

Before a paid marketing program, the various social media platforms are an ideal way to learn more about your audience. You can post frequently across a variety of social media accounts and see which posts get the most engagement. Each bit of content gives you the opportunity to evaluate what works best for your business.

Review the Data and Use It

Getting all the data is just one step of the process. You must use the data and analyze it to your advantage. Offer your audience what they want, and they will come to your business. Provide excellent value, and they will become loyal advocates.

Test New Ideas

You can also get important information about your audience by testing new ideas or marketing efforts with them. One example is when you are considering marketing on an additional channel. You can try a small-scale effort and gather data on how it works. Look at analytics, surveys, and feedback that come directly from your audience.

Conclusion

Getting to know your audience is not a simple process, but it is an important one. By knowing who your audience is, you keep your content on point with your clientele. It will also help you provide services and products that your audience needs.

Identifying your audience converts them into paying customers who stick around long-term and become loyal ambassadors of your brand. This is just one facet of why getting to know your customers well will help your marketing strategies.

If you need help generating leads, please call us. We have an excellent lead generation program where we pay for all your advertising expenses and take all the risk for you. You only pay when you get results. This is a massive undertaking and understandably we're limited in how many companies we can help at any one time. If you're interested and find the program paused or not available, just leave your details and we'll let you know when it re-opens.

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But saying you can use your smartphone to take photos for digital marketing is one thing. Doing so well can be intimidating. The following tips will help you overcome that intimidation and take great photos.

1. Clean the Lens

Before you do anything else, take a second to clean your smartphone’s lens. Given how much we use our smartphones, this is an essential step. You likely have fingerprints on your lens, and those can make images look fuzzy or soft. Or dirt may cause foggy streaks.

This is as simple as occasionally using a good lens cleaner. Then, use a soft cloth regularly to touch up the lens.

2. Set the Highest Resolution

Before you start taking the photos, go into the settings in your smartphone’s camera. Confirm that it is set to the highest resolution. This will give you the best-quality image and the most options for editing. The tip below about avoiding the zoom function serves a similar purpose.

3. Always Stabilize the Camera

Your hands may be steady, but it’s always best to stabilize your phone. This eliminates the risk of your hands shaking and causing small imperfections. The good news is that there are a lot of compact, affordable smartphone tripods. And if you don’t have another option, just prop it against a wall, water bottle, or another object.

4. Don’t Use Flash – Use Other Light Sources

Lighting is crucial for any photo, but you don’t want to rely on your phone’s flash. Ideally, you will never use the flash in your photos. Instead, you will add more lighting from another source. This is because the flash tends to deliver harsh lighting.

The best light source will always be natural light. But that isn’t always feasible. Indoor lights, another smartphone’s flashlight, or candles also make good options. Just make sure to position the light so you aren’t taking a picture right into it.

5. Stick to Simple Backgrounds

No matter the type of photo you are taking for digital marketing, try to stick to simple, soft, and neutral backgrounds. This is especially important for product photos. This may require changing your angle slightly to find a unique point of view, but it is worth it.

6. Try Different Angles

Speaking of angles, don’t always take photos of things that are directly in front of you. Experiment with taking photos from other angles. Depending on your goals and what you are photographing, you may want to bend down and shoot up or climb up higher and shoot down.

7. Use Portrait Mode Strategically

Depending on the background and the focus of your photo, consider using portrait mode. Given the name, it may seem like a no-brainer to use portrait mode when taking photos of people, such as employees for the About Us page or behind-the-scenes photos. But you can also use it for animals or even objects.

That is because portrait mode lets you focus on the subject within the foreground. It reduces the depth of field, making the object you focus on clear but everything else slightly blurry. This makes it a good option if you can’t use a simple background.

8. Use the Grids as Your Guides

Your smartphone will have the option to turn grids on or off. Turn them on whenever taking photos for your digital marketing. These grids will help with two things. First, they will help you make sure the photo is straight. Second, they will help you follow the rule of thirds, which brings us to the next tip.

9. Follow the Rule of Thirds

This photography rule says that the subject of your photo should not be centered in the frame. Instead, it should sit on the lines that divide the photo into thirds. This is where the grid lines come in handy. There will be two gridlines, each horizontally and vertically, dividing the image into thirds. Place the focus of your photograph on the line.

10. Avoid the Zoom

You may want to use the zoom feature on your smartphone camera but don’t. As you zoom in, the resolution of the photo decreases. This makes your photos look grainy and makes them harder to edit. So, if you need a close-up photo of something for your business, get close to the object in question.

11. Don’t Use Effects During Photography

Modern smartphone cameras have a lot of cool effects, such as black and white or various filters. While these look cool, they limit your options and can be applied later. It’s better to take a photo without any effects, as this lets you experiment with every single option available later on.

12. Adjust Your Exposure

Modern smartphones let you adjust many of the same settings that you would on a standalone camera, including exposure. Use this to your advantage if you understand how exposure affects images. On many phones, you don’t even need to do anything fancy. Just tapping the screen on the part of the image that you want to be sharp will automatically reset the focus with good exposure.

13. Edit in a Consistent Style

You want to edit your photos before using them for digital marketing. When you do so for the first time, decide what type of style you want. This is important as you should be consistent with your style across all your photos. This will help with your branding. For example, you may want to use the same filter on all your photos (but you don’t have to).

Conclusion

With the above tips, you will find yourself taking high-quality photos with your smartphone. Use them in all your digital marketing, from your website to social media to paid ads.

If you need help generating leads, please call us. We have an excellent lead generation program where we pay for all your advertising expenses and take all the risk for you. You only pay when you get results. This is a massive undertaking and understandably we're limited in how many companies we can help at any one time. If you're interested and find the program paused or not available, just leave your details and we'll let you know when it re-opens.

The post 13 Tips to Take the Perfect Photo for Your Digital Marketing – With Your Smartphone appeared first on Online Crowd.

In recent years, the internet search giant has made a considerable shift to give more weight to the intent of the search. The simple way to understand search intent is to put yourself in the users' position. Consider all of the factors behind why they are making this search. Is it because they want to purchase a product or they just want to learn something about it? Are they trying to find a website or just a quick answer to a question?

Search intent also comes into play when trying to optimize your content for SERP features like featured snippets and local business listings. For example, if you own a plumbing business in Los Angeles, people searching for “plumbers in Los Angeles” might be shown your Google Business profile, if you have one. Google’s algorithm understands that the person who made this search wants to find a local plumber. They won’t be interested in general information about plumbers.

Once you truly understand how Google has been using the concept of search intent to improve its rankings and provide more accurate search results, it’s not that difficult to optimize your content so that it fulfills the intent with which your audience is using the search engine.

Understanding the different types of search intent

Google has divided search intent into four types. The brief explanation that follows should make it evident which type of search intent you should be optimizing your content for, depending on the nature of your business.

Informational Intent

If a person is seeking to find out information about any particular topic, Google's algorithm will deem it to have informational intent. It could be something simple like “what is the capital of the United States” or complex like “what is the theory of relativity.”

Do bear in mind that not all queries that have informational intent will be posed as questions. For example, a person could search for “Einstein theory” or “Roger Federer age.” Google will then show content that is best optimized to answer these queries on the results page.

Navigational Intent

The consideration behind navigational intent is that the user must be looking for a specific website. They're not searching for the unknown. They know precisely what website they want to visit, but just need a little help getting there.

A lot of people commonly just type out the name of a website they want to visit in Google as opposed to typing the entire URL themselves since it's just easier. Queries with navigational intent might include things like “Mercedes Benz US website,” “Facebook login,” “Instagram Web,” etc.

Commercial Intent

A user is deemed to have commercial intent when they're looking for information about products that they want to purchase. They need a little help deciding what they should buy. This may include reading reviews and comparisons of similar products from different manufacturers.

For example, a customer who wants to buy a phone may search for “iPhone 14 vs Galaxy S22.” Someone who's in the market for a new car might search for “BMW X3 review,” etc.

Transactional Intent

A search with transactional intent represents customers who are further along in the sales funnel and are almost ready to make a purchase. They may have done the research and comparisons previously. Now, they want to go ahead and purchase the product.

The reason behind their transactional intent search may also be to find the best possible deal. A transactional intent search may include keywords such as “buy Apple Watch,” “macbook pro discount,” etc.

How to leverage search intent to improve rankings

A new approach to keyword research

Understanding your audience's search intent is generally quite obvious from the keywords they use in Google. If you sell leather jackets, the keyword “buy leather jackets” is definitely one you should be optimizing for. Keep that in mind when doing keyword research for content optimization.

SEO research tools, you can take your pick from the many that are available, are worth investing into. They can provide detailed information about keywords and the volume of searches across different regions and even languages. Many of the top SEO tools also indicate the search intent alongside keyword suggestions, thus making it much easier for you to sort out the relevant keywords.

Create content based on search intent

It should have become evident by now that the search intent of your audience should make it clear how your content needs to be structured. If your audience primarily has informational intent, create detailed blog posts that sufficiently answer their queries.

A product page works if your visitors have transactional intent. The structure of the content and the layout of the page should make it easier for visitors to find what it is they’re looking for. This would signal to the algorithm that your content is relevant.

Capitalize on your competitors’ weaknesses

It’s possible that despite not being able to entirely fulfill the search intent, your competitors’ might be ranking higher than you due to low competition on any given keyword. If Google's algorithms aren't able to understand if that content truly meets the search intent, chances are that the ranking will see a lot of fluctuation.

It shows that Google isn't confident in that content's ability and thus this presents an opportunity for content that can check all of the boxes for that query. Utilize any of the widely used SEO research tools to find out such opportunities and create content that’s evidently better that what your competitor is ranking with, while taking particular care of satisfying the intent.

Search intent goes hand in hand with other SEO elements

Other SEO factors still remain important. Fulfilling search intent alone isn't going to magically give top 5 rankings to all of your content. The various other ranking factors that Google weighs are still important, but search intent is an important part of that mix.

Ensure frequency of content, avoid repetition, and unnecessary keyword stuffing. By relying on SEO best practices with further optimization achieved through search intent, you give your content a much better chance of cutting through the clutter and reaching the top of the rankings.

If you need help generating leads, please call us. We have an excellent lead generation program where we pay for all your advertising expenses and take all the risk for you. You only pay when you get results. This is a massive undertaking and understandably we're limited in how many companies we can help at any one time. If you're interested and find the program paused or not available, just leave your details and we'll let you know when it re-opens.

The post What is Search Intent and How to Leverage It To Increase Rankings appeared first on Online Crowd.

Ad rates tend to be at their highest during the holiday season. Brands have to spend more to reach their intended audiences since most, if not all, of their competitors are also in the same race on the same social networks. It’s simply not a question of who’s got the biggest social media marketing budget.

An effective social media marketing campaign is never just about the budget. There are several other factors that play a crucial role in ensuring that the campaign is able to hit all of its goals, and the brand is able to achieve its desired ROAS. There’s a lot that brands can do ahead of the holiday season to ensure that they’re in a great position to push when the time comes.

Don’t fly blind into the 2022 holiday sales season

While it might sound amazing to just go guns blazing with your social media strategy for this holiday season, it would be better to take some time and study data from previous years to understand what worked and what didn’t.

Dive into the previous year's data to see which campaigns delivered the intended results or didn't. See which platforms saw the highest engagement for your content and where was the highest ROI achieved. Think of this data as the basis of your game plan for the 2022 holiday sales push.

For instance, it will make a lot of things clear, such as the platform where your most engaged audience is, what content and creatives have resonated with the audiences before, what sort of content to avoid this year, how customers responded to any offers and promotions, etc.

Once you’ve answered these and the many other questions that will come up when you’re going through the previous data, it’s time to get started with the preparation for this year’s holiday season.

Optimize your social media ahead of the 2022 holiday season

Start creating hype about your holiday deals

Some of the biggest brands in the world follow this strategy. They get into the groove much earlier than the crunch time. It gives them the opportunity to warm up their audiences so that they can be targeted more effectively during those crucial weeks.

Amazon is the perfect example of this. The online e-commerce juggernaut has its own online shopping event called Prime Day. Weeks before the actual event takes place, Amazon runs teaser deals and promotions to get customers excited for the main event.

Take a similar approach and start creating hype about your holiday deals. Give people an idea of what they can expect from the promotions that will be offered during those weeks. Give them the opportunity to take advantage of early deals. If they start buying from you ahead of the holiday season, chances are they will return to see your holiday deals when the time comes.

Launch an engaging hashtag campaign

Now is the right time to start elevating your brand profile, even if a lot of people already know about it. Remember, people are bombarded with ads and promotions during the holiday season. They may not be able to recall your brand. It's better to start an engaging hashtag campaign ahead of the holiday season just to remind the audience about the brand and also to introduce it to new people.

The possibilities are endless with a hashtag campaign. For example, you can create a unique hashtag that invites people to share their best holiday memories with your product. This is a great way to get the ball rolling on user generated content.

Customers will share their experiences and memories with the hashtag, leading to increased exposure for the brand and renewed interest among customers when the holidays come around.

Get your social media profiles into holiday mode

The brand assets that you use on your social media profiles are what create the first impression for your audience. Running promotions for the holiday season when all of the content on your website hasn’t been updated since the summer will not inspire confidence among those who come across your brand for the very first time.

Now is the right time to start updating those brand assets gradually. This will also ease the audience into the festive mode and they’ll essentially be informed that they can expect holiday deals and promotions from the brand in just a few short weeks.

Start by changing elements such as the profile and cover photos, perhaps add a festive touch to the bio as well. It sets the stage nicely for what’s to come.

Ask your customers how you can do better

Taking action on customer feedback is a great way to set yourself up for success. Is there anything that your customers felt let down by during the previous holiday sales season? Would they have wanted you to do something differently?

Now is the right time to reach out and engage with those customers through your social media profiles. Ask them for suggestions and feedback that you can incorporate into your 2022 holiday sales plan to ensure that customers get the best possible experience.

This will help build trust and improve the overall relationship with your customers ahead of the lucrative shopping season. If they see the brand they like making a genuine effort to improve based on their feedback, it’s quite likely that they will continue to support it.

Adding new resources if required

More sales during the holiday season will result in an increase for customer support. The last thing you’d want to do is to leave people with a bad customer support experience when they’ve ordered something for a loved one and there has been a problem.

Given the mad rush that the holiday season tends to bring, adding new resources to the team is just as important as optimizing the entirety of your social media presence. Whether you need new customer service agents or community managers for your social media profiles, this is a necessary step.

Ensure that the people are in place and have been trained in accordance with your brand guidelines to ensure that they can provide excellent customer support during what is often one of the most stressful shopping periods for customers all year.

Take this momentum into the new year

Once you’ve got a good momentum going during the holiday sales season, there’s no point why it shouldn’t be carried into the new year. That provides its own set of opportunities to increase conversions through targeted campaigns and messaging.

The holiday sales push can be a tough nut to crack for brands, particularly smaller brands with limited budgets, but the incredible opportunity that it provides makes it well worth the effort. All it requires is a bit of creativity and consistency. Combine that with a product that customers are happy to spend their money on and you’ve got this in the bag.

If you need help generating leads, please call us. We have an excellent lead generation program where we pay for all your advertising expenses and take all the risk for you. You only pay when you get results. This is a massive undertaking and understandably we're limited in how many companies we can help at any one time. If you're interested and find the program paused or not available, just leave your details and we'll let you know when it re-opens.

The post Preparing your social media for the 2022 holiday sales push appeared first on Online Crowd.

There's no shortage of community-building tools available to businesses. Whether you’re just a startup with a limited marketing budget or a well-established organization, there are plenty of tools that make it much easier to launch community-building initiatives that help elevate the status of your brand.

5 top tools to use for online communities

1. Community forums

Some of the largest brands in the world, across multiple industries, operate their own community forums. The forums serve as a sort of meeting place for fans of the company, who can learn from the experiences of others and ask any questions that they may have about the products.

Community forums are also great for troubleshooting, since members often help each other out and provide tips on how to extract the most value out of the products. Discussion forums also happen to be one of the oldest community-building tools. Back in the day, forums were only text-based, without any multimedia functionality. Now, you can choose from a wide variety of discussion forum tools that provide excellent usability with the option to add videos, emojis, GIFs, and more.

2. Live streaming on social networks

Live streaming has become an incredibly popular tool for building communities and keeping members engaged. Video content tends to perform very well online and customers are now increasingly making purchase decisions based off of livestreams. The numbers speak for themselves. Live streaming as a format saw over 8.2 billion hours of content being consumed in the third quarter of 2021. This number is only set to grow even more.

The great thing about this platform is that it doesn’t require any investment in additional tools. The largest social media networks like Facebook, Instagram, Twitch, and YouTube, are free to use and they’re also the leading live streaming service providers. Simply set up a free page for your brand on any of these services and start live streaming.

3. Email marketing tools

It's easy to believe that perhaps email marketing doesn't have the relevance in 2022 that it did before but this couldn't be further from the truth. Email marketing remains one of the most popular ways to build a loyal community. The ROI on email marketing is also considerably higher compared to other methods.

There are popular tools like MailChimp and ConvertKit that can supercharge a brand's email marketing efforts. They make it possible to capture emails through opt-in and lead generation pages, which is a great way to grow the email list. Similar tools also make it possible to segment and tag subscribers, set up automations for email campaigns while also providing detailed stats to help you get the best out of email marketing.

4. Facebook Groups

This is another great option for businesses who may not be able to spend a lot of money on their marketing efforts. Facebook is free to use, even if you’re a business, and Facebook Groups are a powerful tool for creating communities of highly engaged members. Since this happens to be the world’s largest social media network, the groups on Facebook tend to see a flurry of activity. Recent figures have shown that over 1.8 billion people use Facebook Groups every month. The potential here is endless.

Make the loyal fans and customers who join your group feel valued. They will be the most vocal advocates for your products. Use the group to provide them with exclusive access to the company, whether that's true interactive sessions with key decision makers or sneak peeks at new products. Businesses can get far more reach for their posts in groups that they can get for their pages.

5. Dedicated app

While this may be better suited to more established businesses, given the costs involved in creating a full-fledged app, a dedicated app is one of the greatest community tools with an incredible growth potential. There’s far more control over the user experience in your own app compared to that of a social network.

The business can provide features and functionality that it deems most appropriate for its community. For example, the app can also be used to provide exclusive deals and discounts on products not available anywhere else. This ensures that customers always purchase directly through mediums provided by the company, instead of going through a third-party. A separate app can only include more social commerce features that fully tie the customer into the brand’s ecosystem.

Why every business should build a community

There are benefits to communities beyond customer retention and increased sales. People inherently want to be part of a community, of a tribe. They appreciate the feelings that it evokes. In the case of businesses, it makes them feel that they have a voice and can influence how the company they love to patronize operates.

This provides exceptional growth potential for a business, as long as it’s able to effectively tap into the community. It’s not just about increasing sales or keeping customers coming back for more. Businesses must also listen to what their community is saying. Whether it’s push back for a marketing campaign that wasn’t well received or feedback that can genuinely help make their products better.

It’s supposed to be a two-way street. Take the guidance and criticism that you receive from community members in your stride. Ensure that they feel heard and that their legitimate concerns are addressed. Learn from their experiences to see how your products and services can be improved. Keep communicating with them so that they remain engaged and feel product of supporting a company that they feel emotionally invested in. Such potential is difficult to replicate through any other medium.

If you need help generating leads, please call us. We have an excellent lead generation program where we pay for all your advertising expenses and take all the risk for you. You only pay when you get results. This is a massive undertaking and understandably we're limited in how many companies we can help at any one time. If you're interested and find the program paused or not available, just leave your details and we'll let you know when it re-opens.

The post 5 Tools to Build Your Own Online Community, and Why Every Business Should appeared first on Online Crowd.

It will not only increase the chances that someone comes across a link to your website, but it also adds to your reputation factor in the search engines, giving you a boost in the search engine rankings.

With that in mind, what link-building strategies should your small business use?

Consider the following strategies, all of which can be done with very little resources.

Look for Mentions Without Links – And Claim the Links

Your company is likely mentioned more frequently than you realize. But most of those mentions likely won’t include backlinks. If you find those, you can ask for them to include a backlink. This should be a simple sell, as someone mentioning your brand is already satisfied enough to mention you.

Of course, take the time to look at the mention before reaching out and asking for a backlink. Don’t ask for backlinks from negative mentions; that would be in poor form and potentially counterintuitive.

Support the Local Community

One of the best ways to naturally build links to your website is to be active in the community. If you support or even just volunteer with local charities and nonprofits, they are likely to mention it. At the very least, you can write a press release about it that will be picked up by the local paper. If you go for a larger sponsorship or donation, the organization you help will almost always give you backlinks. Get creative with this, and don’t just focus on local charities. Don’t forget about schools or any other type of local event.

Consider Offering a Scholarship

Another way to support the local community and get some backlinks in return is by offering a scholarship. As a bonus, some of your backlinks will be very high value because they will be from .edu websites. Of course, you will need to budget for this, but it can be highly effective. Ideally, you want to limit applicants to those in the local area. You could also limit it to majors that are relevant to your industry.

Reach Out to Local or Niche Bloggers

Influencer marketing is real, and you can take advantage of it by working with local bloggers popular in your city. Bloggers will be in search of partnerships, however brief, with local businesses. After all, they can only come up with so many content ideas on their own.

Offer to write a guest post for their blog. Or offer a free service or product in exchange for a review or mention. Don’t forget to also create a natural relationship by resharing their content. They will eventually do the same. For the best results, make sure you choose a blogger who is relevant to your business.

Write Guest Posts

Local bloggers are far from the only ones you can offer to write guest posts for. Look for other websites that are relevant to your industry and accept guest blogging. You will have to find relevant websites that accept guest posts and come up with a compelling topic. Then, you will have to pitch the topic and get approval before you can even write the piece.

Promote Your Content

When you write something on your website or blog, go ahead and share it. Promote your content on more than just social media. You can even post on LinkedIn, Medium, and more.

Offer Testimonials or Case Studies

The idea of offering case studies or testimonials may seem a bit odd from an advertising perspective. After all, you want to gather these things for your company, not offer them to others. But most of the time, when you offer a testimonial or participate in a case study, the company in question will link back to your website. The caveat is that there is no guarantee they will backlink. On top of that, you are putting your reputation on the line, so only do this if you believe in the company.

Conclusion

With the above tips in mind, you should be on your way to getting more backlinks for your small business’s website. This, in turn, should lead to an increase in traffic and more sales.

If you need help generating leads, please call us. We have an excellent lead generation program where we pay for all your advertising expenses and take all the risk for you. You only pay when you get results. This is a massive undertaking and understandably we're limited in how many companies we can help at any one time. If you're interested and find the program paused or not available, just leave your details and we'll let you know when it re-opens.

The post 7 Link Building Strategies for Small Businesses That Deliver Results appeared first on Online Crowd.