We talk to a lot of people about websites—I mean, it’s what we do—and one trend that stands out to us is that many of our clients and potential clients have a lot of misconceptions about what makes for a good homepage. Many people believe a website homepage should be a simple, one- or two-section landing page with a navigation bar. We understand the desire for something like that (who doesn’t like simple?), but we tend to lead them in a different direction.

The fact is, your website’s homepage is often the first impression a prospective customer has of your business. A good homepage answers the questions your visitors are most likely to be asking: who you are, what you offer, and how they can engage with you. It’ll use eye catching visuals to tell your story, it will have a good amount of useful content for SEO, and it should hold the attention of visitors until they get to what they need. A good homepage doesn’t just focus on content or design or functionality singularly, but all of those things together.

What does that look like exactly? Let’s dig a little deeper.

1. Define the Basics

When we start on a new website project, we always begin with the most important questions. We first build the content around those answers, and then we move onto the design. So before ever writing a single word of content, you need to ask important questions that define the basics.

For example: Who is your audience? What are the main concepts you’re trying to communicate? What do you have to offer? What makes you different from your competition? What do you want visitors to do once they’re on your website?

Once you answer these questions, you’re on your way!

2. Prioritize Your Content Properly

After you ask the important questions, answer them in the different sections of your homepage. The content of your homepage serves a few important purposes. First, your homepage should introduce your service or product, answer the most important questions about your company and what you have to offer, and entice users to click further into the site.

Along the same lines, you should always format sections of the homepage so visitors will find and engage with the most important information first. It’s helpful to share the most pertinent content on the homepage because it saves users from potentially getting lost or disinterested before finding what they need. For example, the most important part of your homepage is what we call the “hero” section. It’s always first and it always has a header that answers the who, what, and where questions.

The secondary purpose for homepage content is SEO. The more information you share about what you do on the homepage, the more searchable your website is. You don’t have to input a book’s worth of content on your homepage (and you shouldn’t), but make sure you’re describing enough about your business so that search engines can get an idea of where to place you in their rankings.

3. Make Your Homepage Work For You

Your homepage should decrease your workload. Okay, now we have your attention. Yes, a decreased workload really is possible! But how?

You can position your homepage in such a way that it does a lot of the hard work for you. If your homepage answers questions that your customers normally ask in a clear and concise way, you save time by avoiding back-to-back-to-back phone calls and emails. Your prospective customers will be better informed when they contact you, and you’ll be able to better focus on running your business.

4. Use Clear Calls to Action

In our first step we asked what you ultimately want your visitors to do after reaching your site. Do you want them to email you? Fill out a form? Call you? Once you answer this, visually highlight the most important calls-to-action. One way to do this is to use eye-catching colors with enough contrast to help primary buttons stand out—and place them in prominent locations where users can’t miss them. It’s important to make the path to this action very clear using obvious, clickable buttons for a smooth user flow.

P.S. User flow is the path a user takes from landing on your site to the action you desire they make. It’s best to make this path as simple and obvious as possible. Need more info on the subject? Check out our blog on how to build a strong user flow!

5. Choose Eye Catching Visuals

We’ve covered how your calls-to-action need to stand out, but let’s talk about the page as a whole. Your entire homepage should be highly visual and catch the attention of consumers. A great way to do this is through professional and personal photography. If you have the budget, always say no to stock.

If you want to stand out from the crowd, a few other ways to utilize visuals other than photography are by using illustrations, videography, and other fun graphic elements. We spoke a lot about current design trends in a recent blog; if you’d like to get some good ideas in this area, go check it out!

6. Think About the Next Step First

We’ve talked about content and design, now let’s talk about how they can beautifully come together to make your homepage the complete package.

A great way to get your users to keep scrolling down the page to see all of the information you’d like them to know—and to get to that important call-to-action—is by pulling their eye from one content section to the next through your design. You want to be one step ahead of your viewer, thinking about how you’re going to invite them to continue their journey down the page from one section to the next.

There are a couple ways to do this, whether it be elements that overlap two sections or a fun button to the side that scrolls them down the page.

Conclusion

A good homepage is the best first impression you can give people of your business. Think of your homepage as your modern day storefront. The more visually appealing and eye-catching it is, the more it will cause visitors to pause and really look into what you’re offering.

If you know who you are, what you have to offer, what sets you apart, and who you’re going after, you’re on the way to building a great homepage. And as always, if these questions feel overwhelming, or if you just simply don’t know the answers and you’d like someone to hash it all out with, we’d love to do that with you.

A blog about budgets? Really, Tangible Strategies? REALLY?

Alright, alright. It’s not the most fun blog topic we’ve ever tackled, per se, but budget doesn’t have to be a four letter word. If marketing budgets lead to more prospects (spoiler alert: they do), and more prospects lead to more revenue, and… do you see where we’re going with this? Increased revenue is pretty great. I don’t know anyone who doesn’t want in on that. So let’s do this…

We talk about how hard it is to run a small business all the time… because it’s true. But it’s not all hard. It’s also so rewarding to offer a product or service you believe in, and to be your own boss! The problem is that just because you’re an expert in your specific field, you’re not necessarily an expert in accounting or marketing, and well, those are kind of necessary to growing a successful business! One big mistake many small business owners make is engaging in reactive marketing instead of proactive marketing. An example of reactive marketing is taking out a Facebook ad because your sales are low one month. Proactive marketing means making your efforts a line item in the budget rather than something you think about when your sales aren’t where you want them to be. To ensure more consistent sales and growth, it takes consistent planning. [Insert cheesy inspirational quote here.]

A good way to make sure that your money is being well spent is to develop a solid marketing plan before you set your marketing budget. Following a plan will help ensure you’re focussing your efforts in the best way possible. We wrote a blog recently on creating a comprehensive marketing plan, so you’ll definitely want to read that if you haven’t already!

If you don’t have time to read that and want a 3000ft view, the basis of your marketing plan should include an understanding of your target market and your competition, how you’ll reach your market, as well as how you’ll set yourself apart from your competition to make sales.

One of the most important facets of your small business marketing plan is—you guessed it—the budget. Your marketing budget is the cost of how you’re going to achieve your marketing goals within a certain timeframe (usually a year).

Many small business owners and managers aren’t sure how much to spend or if the money they do spend will even be worth the investment.

Let’s breakdown the process of how to create a small business marketing budget, so it doesn’t seem as cumbersome or mysterious, and so you can feel confident that your marketing budget will propel you towards your business goals.

1. Start With A Goal

In order to have a great plan or a great budget, you need to know what you’re working towards. So, what do you want? To increase your revenue by 10%? Establish 3 new accounts per month?

Once you have a goal, the next step is to calculate how much money you may need to spend on marketing each month to reach the goal. Whatever it is, it’s going to give you clear direction when deciding on a marketing budget, as well as the KPIs needed to measure your efforts, things like how many customers you’ll need to acquire to hit that goal, or how many leads typically turn into prospects and then customers. (KPIs? It’s all laid out in our Key Performance Indicators Blog.)

2. Figure Out How Clients Find You

One of the best ways to gather user data is through analytics. Most web hosting platforms will provide you with complimentary data, like how many monthly unique views your site gets or which search terms are leading the most traffic to your site. So check with your developer or hosting site to see if you have access to analytics. Online advertising will also provide you with insight into how people are connecting with your ads. Or you could also go straight to the horse’s mouth, aka – just ask your customers!

Include a question like, “How’d you hear about us?” on an interest form for prospective clients, or have your team ask those who call in, or even add a pop-up to your website. Wherever people keep telling you they saw you, focus more money there in the future.

3. Consider Your Revenue

Once you’ve created your fiscal plan, it’s time to determine the size of your marketing budget and allocate your funds. A common practice is allocating a specific percentage of your gross revenue to your marketing costs, but there are also a few other factors to consider when setting your budget (like your growth stage).

As a part of your overall small business strategy, you should always create projections for your yearly sales. These projections will help you decide on a marketing budget that feels doable. According to a recent industry survey, most small businesses spend around 10% of their annual revenue on marketing. However, if you have a new business, you’ll likely need to spend more than a company that’s already established. A bigger budget in the beginning helps build brand awareness and get your name out there!

4. Pick Your Platform(s)

If you’re a business owner, you know you’ve got to have an online marketing presence, but the options can seem endless… between Search Engine Optimization (SEO), social media (a number of platforms), AdWords, and more, the marketing dollars can add up really quickly.

It’s unrealistic for a small business with limited budget to compete in every area, so you’ve got to figure out which one works best for you. It’s so much better to focus your efforts and resources heavily in one or two areas, rather than trying to do it, which most often results in minimal results or success.

So, where do you fit in online? Good question. Well, if you’re a restaurant, you need to be on Yelp, but a Snapchat account isn’t so necessary. Who are your customers? If the majority is older than 40, we’d go with Facebook. If under 35, Instagram is where your customers are most likely to be!

Conclusion

We hope this made you feel LESS overwhelmed and not moreso. ????

Putting together a marketing budget will help you in the long run to stay on track with spending. It will also help you see which efforts have a better ROI, so you can adjust accordingly as your audience changes or grows.

Regardless of where you spend your marketing dollars the main takeaway is to plan for your marketing in advance instead of treating it as a last minute thought.

If this all still seems overwhelming, there are some great online resources that can help to point you in the right direction, like free online marketing budget templates. We’d also love to help answer any questions you have, or help you map out your KPIs and budget for marketing, if you don’t feel like you have the capacity for that!

But the end of the day, you need to know that Ryan Gosling thinks you have what it takes. And we do too.

If you’ve never heard the words “Accessibility” and “508 Compliance” in regards to web design, you’re not alone. As a business owner, it can be quite intimidating to learn how to run every single facet of your business, especially areas like finances (ugh) and design (fun, but quite a learning curve!). Now add on U.S. laws and codes your website must comply with, and things can get overwhelming… fast. (And don’t even get me started on all this GDPR stuff…) But seriously, follow after me…. Breathe in, now breathe out, and repeat as necessary.

That’s why we’re here! We’ve got your back. And we hope that by the end of this blog post, you feel as informed as possible about these extremely important aspects that should be implemented into your website design.

What Is Accessibility?

Simply put, accessibility is making sure that your website or app works for the physically disabled, whether they’re blind, a paraplegic, an amputee, or they have some other physical impairment that makes it difficult or impossible for them to use a keyboard or mouse in the usual way.

What Is 508 Compliance?

Section 508 of the U.S. Code is the law that enforces website accessibility. A good summary of this law is: “the use of text labels or descriptors for graphics and certain format elements. (HTML code already provides an “Alt Text” tag for graphics which can serve as a verbal descriptor for graphics). This section also addresses the usability of multimedia presentations, image maps, style sheets, scripting languages, applets and plug-ins, and electronic forms.”

If you have absolutely no idea what that last paragraph said and you’re thinking, “That’s all greek to me.” It’s okay. While all federal government departments and agencies—as well as any organization receiving federal funding—are required to have websites that are 508 compliant, not every business is required to be completely 508 compliant. (Whew!)

Why You Should Care

Even if your business isn’t *technically* required to be 508 compliant, we think you should still care deeply about your site’s accessibility for a few reasons. First, as we’ve already mentioned, it’s a good business practice to make yourself available to as many people as possible. It’s also good to show kindness and inclusivity to those with disabilities. Finally, just as a worst case scenario, you could get a fine from the government if you’re a business or organization that’s required to be 508 compliant. If you’re not in that category, there could still potentially be a lawsuit from web visitors with disabilities involved, as we’ve seen in the past with big companies like Target not having an accessible site.

Tim Berners Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web, actually said, “The power of the Web is in its universality. Access by everyone regardless of disability is an essential aspect.”

Think about it this way: almost all businesses, stores, and public venues have wheelchair access by ramps. This is mostly because they are required to, but it’s also because as a society we highly value equality and inclusiveness. Not to mention, it’s just plain bad business not to be accessible and get as many potential customers as possible.

So if brick and mortar businesses are placing high value on this, why are there so many websites with content that those with disabilities have trouble accessing? Unfortunately, there is still a chasm between people without and people with disabilities online, because of a lack of awareness about accessible online content. It’s like there are proverbial stairs and curbs in the way of disabled people accessing websites that others may visit often and even take for granted.

Maybe you didn’t realize that, because it’s not something you or anyone close to you has dealt with. No worries. We’ve all been there!

Think about it this way: have you ever been frustrated when your internet was EXTRA slow one day? Or if a site malfunctioned when you really needed it to work? Or even if the site had really bad user flow? Of course you haven’t. You’re an angel. ???? But for the rest of us, frustration often leads to a negative view of a brand, and that leads to bad business.

Take it from the famous Elle Woods, “Exercise leads to endorphins, and endorphins make you happy, and happy people just don’t kill their husbands. They just don’t!”

How does this apply to you? We thought it was obvious! Happy webpage visitors return more often and buy more, and happy customers don’t kill a business. They just don’t!

Heavy Hitters

Here are some of the most important aspects of accessibility that we think you should consider for your own website.

1. Color Contrast

Guideline 1.4.3 – Contrast (Minimum) – “The visual presentation of text and images of text has a contrast ratio of at least 4.5:1”

The first is the color contrast between text and background, because those who are colorblind will have a hard time determining different colors. Your text must have a contrast ratio of at least 4.5:1. Here’s a really useful tool for figuring out your contrast ratio. So, thin light text and a light background would make the content hard to read for certain people. You may have to adjust your colors ever so slightly (or majorly), and maybe add a dark overlay and/or a drop shadow here and there when putting text over an image to achieve this. It’s okay, drop shadows are totally “in” right now!

2. Color As The Only Indicator

Guideline 1.4.1 – Use of Color – Color is not used as the only visual means of conveying information, indicating an action, prompting a response, or distinguishing a visual element.

Unless you’re a designer, you’ve probably never thought about how using color to indicate important information or to direct users to take action could be an issue. If color is the only indicator, those with colorblindness will never get the cue. For example, if a product or a service time is unavailable, don’t just make it in a red font, while making available times green. Yes, the red and green fonts would be an obvious indicator to users without vision impairments; however, someone who is colorblind wouldn’t be able to see the difference. A quick fix is simply adding an icon or some other text indicator of products or times that aren’t available. Easy peasy!

3. Flashing Lights (& Words)

Guideline 2.3 Seizures: Do not design content in a way that is known to cause seizures.

Guideline 1.2 Time-based Media: Provide alternatives for time-based media.

Guideline 2.2 Enough Time: Provide users enough time to read and use content.

One of the more well known design elements that affects accessibility is flashy and bright images that can cause epileptic episodes. It’s best to consider that when choosing design elements. Another thing is fades. They. Look. Awesome. But users with dyslexia, ADHD, short term memory problems, or cognitive delays that affect reading comprehension might find it hard to read headlines that fade out. Even if you think the fade is slow enough, it may not be to some people. Since “enough time” is very vague and impossible to calculate, a creative solution could be to include a control that allows users to stop and start the animation so they can read at their own pace.

4. ALT Text

Alt text is a good way to make your website more accessible. It was originally intended to serve as a placeholder for graphics that didn’t load properly, but it eventually caught on as a way for screen-reading software to pick up descriptive labels so blind people could have a description of website images. It’s best practice to provide descriptive text for every image on your website by using alt text. In HTML, you can provide alternative text for images by adding alt=”your description of the image” within the image tag.

5. Specific Link Titles

People with vision impairment often use screen readers to visit websites. If they know where they want to go within the site, it’s pretty common for them to quickly tab from link to link, skipping over explanatory body text, just like we all do. So, “Click Here” is way too vague for a link title because it gives them no indication where they’re headed. Instead of “Click Here,” use a description of the page they’ll visit such as, “Call Us Today!” or “Register Now.”

It’s also important that you try to avoid using images for links, which are hard for people with low vision to no vision to interpret. If you absolutely want to use an image as a link for aesthetics, you should definitely provide alt text to tell disabled users where they’re going.

Conclusion

To sum it up, accessibility matters. A lot. And it’s in your best interest as a business owner—and in the best interest of your clients and potential clients—for you to have a more accessible website. One serious misconception about accessibility is that it always compromises aesthetics. There isn’t anything about being accessible that necessarily makes a design look ugly. Anything that you can do with web standards and other best practices can be done in an accessible way, so don’t fear, you still have plenty of room for creativity and excellence in your design! Excellence + inclusion = ❤️

Facebook just rolled out a huge marketing initiative to let us know how their News Feed is changing. They’re hitting a lot of concerns head on, such as fake news, lack of personal connection, spam, and more.

I mean, if you haven’t seen one of their commercials yet, we’d be surprised. It’s like, every time we want to binge The Office or Parks & Rec, with each new commercial break we’re *inspired* by how Facebook is changing to become more meaningful. But really, you should read up on all of those changes because they’re not as boring as they sound—in fact, they’re fascinating.

But for our purposes here, we’ll just be talking about the News Feed Optimization (NFO) changes as they relate to how your business page specifically will (or won’t ????) interact with your followers on their feeds going forward.

Since Facebook’s number of daily active users is leaps and bounds above that of any other platform, many are saying that NFO is the new SEO. And we’d tend to agree, for the most part. So, what is NFO? Let’s break it down…

The Algorithm

The NFO algorithm is always being tweaked, much like it’s SEO counterpart, Google’s PageRank. But this recent update is far more than a tweak and more like an overhaul. So, we wanted to highlight some of the changes so you know how they’ll affect your business’s Facebook presence.

Remember how we said Facebook rolled out a marketing campaign to let us know about all the changes they’re implementing to make our interactions on Facebook more meaningful? They’ll do this by means of tweaking their algorithm, which has over 100,000 signals, all of which determine what’s shown on the news feed. And everyone’s news feed is tailored specifically to them. So, with 2.4 billion users, this is not a small project…

The values used to shape the news feed have always been to inform and entertain. But now major emphasis is being placed on encouraging deeper, more meaningful conversations between friends and family.

What does this mean for the ranking of content published by businesses on their Facebook Pages? Well, it’s not the best news we’ve ever given you… but it’s not necessarily debilitating, either.

Alright let’s get into the nitty-gritty.

1. Page Posts

Let’s just rip this band-aid off. Shall we? Unfortunately, we’re told that there will be less content directly from business pages in the news feed. The content with the highest priority will now be more personal to the user, i.e. more from friends and family and less from brands and publishers. Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook CEO, announced that “public content–posts from businesses, brands, and media–is crowding out the personal moments,” and he’s focusing his efforts on correcting that. But not all is lost! If you’re active on Facebook Ads, you’re dealing with a separate beast altogether, and in terms of this ranking change, the visibility of your ads won’t be affected.

Facebook says that content from pages will still be an important part of the community, and pages that are trustworthy will still be prioritized in the news feed. How high? Well, it’s hard to say because who even understands these algorithms anyway?

Since content shared and talked about between friends will be prioritized, a great way to keep your business in the news feed is to encourage your followers to post about your business. Jewelers, for example, may run a promotion where they invite users to take pictures wearing their jewelry and offer to highlight the best photo. When Facebook sees that users are posting from their own accounts with tags to your business, it’s more likely your own content will be prioritized in the news feed.

Also, we’re thinking that since posts with a lot of meaningful engagement from followers will be even more valuable with the new algorithm, you should definitely check out our blog called, “10 Ways to Drastically Improve Your Social Media Engagement” if you haven’t already! Lots of good tips over there on how to get your audience talking!

2. Comments Vs. Likes

Posts that draw a lot of comments will be prioritized in the news feed over posts that only get a lot of likes. Liking is pretty easy, and therefore isn’t considered as meaningful. So, basically what you need to know is that until you hear otherwise, comments > likes.

The algorithm also weighs long comments more heavily than short comments. There are a couple of reasons for this. One is the idea that if a user takes the time to write a comment that’s thoughtful or ignites more conversations, especially on a phone (because #bigthumbprobs), the content of the post must be more valuable. So, that post will rank higher on others’ feeds as well.

Another positive here is that this will most likely cut down on the one-word or emoji bot-generated comments used to positively affect one’s news feed ranking, and what Facebook thinks will lead to less false likes and comments and more genuine connection.

3. Video

We’ve talked a lot about how video is becoming more and more important online. Well, Facebook’s Vice President in charge of the News Feed recently addressed this saying, “The biggest thing has been just the explosion of video. Video is a paradigm shift in a lot of different ways. Video is an important part of the ecosystem. It’s been consistently growing. But it’s more passive in nature. There’s less conversation on videos, particularly public videos. We’ve done a lot to try and nurture it… [but] you tend to just sit back and watch it. And while you’re watching it, you’re not usually liking or comment or speaking with friends…. [so] there will be less video.”

But video won’t necessarily automatically be less valuable, while friend content is automatically more valuable. The whole point of the change is that whatever inspires more meaningful engagement is more valuable, so if your video fits that criteria, it will be seen. And if your video content already inspires a lot of conversation, it may actually be seen more with the new algorithm!

Conclusion

We think all of this is pretty cool because it’s going to cause a lot of businesses to get real, and spend time really thinking about their posts, keeping in mind what their specific audience actually wants to engage with, and how their content can positively affect the people in their community. (BTW, you’re probably already doing a lot of this planning in your market research & profiling for any well-executed advertising efforts.)

If we could break down the news feed changes in one simple phrase it would be: “Less sales. More connection.” And we like that.

Okay, y’all. We’re excited about this blog. Mostly because we are ???? over the major design trends of 2018. They’re big. They’re bold. They’re everything.

Trends come and go, so don’t feel the need to automatically incorporate all of these—or even one—if they don’t fit your brand or direction. But if you see anything that speaks to you as much as they speak to us, why not go for it? No design is permanent, and it can be fun to switch things up from time to time to keep your brand fresh.

Alright, let’s get to it, shall we?

1. Gradients

Apple has been using gradients in their iOS icons for years, but now we’re seeing gradients that are big, loud, and even full screen. Popular gradients in years past were more of an ombre (different shades of one color), but now we’re seeing gradients with 2 or more distinguishable colors. And we don’t hate it at all. Don’t have the money for new professional photography? A simple gradient background mixed with a few strong design elements can be a super trendy, yet practical solution to represent your brand message and make your website pop.

2. Drop Shadows

Like gradients, drop shadows aren’t new, but they’re newly back on the up & up among designers. Flat design has been huge in recent years, and it isn’t necessarily going away, but it is morphing, adding in subtle depth by way of drop shadows.

This design trend isn’t JUST for aesthetics. It’s also great for user experience. Combining shadows with gradients is a fun and creative way to direct your users’ eyes to where you want them to look or click. Hello, good user flow. OH. And hello, conversions.

3. Bold Colors & Unexpected Color Pairings

2018 is all about color. Bold and unexpected color pairings are probably our favorite current trend, a la this recent Instagram graphic we created. (It was a really fun creative project to work on!) Vibrant and even clashing colors can be useful for newer brands hoping to instantly attract their visitors’ attention. Colors you wouldn’t normally see paired together can be very eye-catching and keep you in your users’ minds long after they’ve left your site. Like drop shadows, we’re seeing bold colors play a huge role in creating a great user experience. Anything eye-catching placed where you want your users’ eyes to go is a GO in 2018.

4. Custom Illustrations in Place of Photographs

Design this year doesn’t take itself too seriously, and illustrations prove that. They’re in. They’re fun. They’re lighthearted. Image-only design is out, and graphic designers are having a party creating custom icons and elaborate illustrations. This trend isn’t surprising from businesses that are creative and fun, but we’ve seen brands that are typically perceived as professional or serious, like the two examples below, use this design trend to stand out in their respective fields. And we like it.

5. Asymmetric & Broken Grid Layouts

This one won’t be for your everyday, run-of-the-mill professional or practice. But for those in a more creative field such as fashion, food, or even faith, we think asymmetrical layouts will be huge this year as brands create unique experiences to set themselves apart. One big change in 2017 was the introduction of asymmetrical and unconventional “broken” layouts, and this web trend has still been going strong in 2018. The appeal of the asymmetrical layout is that it is unique, distinctive, and sometimes experimental.

6. Animations

Motion catches a user’s attention faster than anything else. Complex animations are helpful for engaging visitors throughout their entire experience on the page. Animations can be simple scrolling effects, associated with various actions users might take, or serve as focal points on your website.

7. Microinteractions

While microinteractions are *technically* an animation, for our purposes they’re pretty different. They’re fun, like an animation, but they’re used for a much more practical purpose. Micro-interactions aren’t just for visual effect, but they can really help improve user experience, too. Here’s a great article about how microinteractions will help user flow. In case you don’t have time to read it, it basically explains that microinteractions are used to let the user know:

a) the button can be interacted with now, or
b) the button can be interacted with soon, or
c) the button is being interacted with already

And they do this in a subtle and tasteful way.

8. Big, Bold Typography

Remember how we mentioned images are out and illustrations and animations are in? Well, we’ve seen a lot of sites with jumbo-sized characters even replacing images. Large letters, lots of serif fonts, and unexpected font pairings as well as juxtaposing sans serif and serif fonts help create dynamic visuals.

With everything, there’s a cycle. Ahem, let me clear my throat. “In the ciiiirrccllleeeee, the ciiiiiirrrccllleeee of liiiiiiiiiiiffffeeeeeee.” (P.S. if you think we can’t reference the Brady Bunch one month and Lion King the next, you’re wrong.) The circle of life is the same for fonts. Sans serif fonts in all caps have been on-trend in recent years, and before that it was all lower case. I mean, I still remember the big reveal of the new Google sans serif logo in 2015. Well, this year we’re seeing a resurgence of serifs, and we’re seeing a lot more in Title Case or Sentence Case.

We’ve had a healthy debate over serif and sans serif for a few months, and we won’t say who on our team was and who wasn’t on board at first, but someone is coming around. (YAY!)

Conclusion

2018 is gearing up to be, IMHO, one of the most fun years in recent memory around the web. In case you didn’t notice, we said the words, “BIG” & “BOLD” several times. We can’t wait to see what designers are going to come up with and how they’re going to push the limits this year. We’re also having a lot of fun incorporating some of these into our designs whenever we can.

Are you BOLD enough to take on any of these trends?

Notice that we didn’t say, “4 EASY Steps to a Legit Marketing Plan”? That’s because creating a successful marketing plan takes time and a lot of thoughtfulness. But, it could be the secret ingredient that you need to take your small business to the next level, so it’s definitely worth it!

As a small business owner, you may already be thinking about how this won’t apply to you because you’ve got one thing on your mind: your budget. But stay with us, because even if you have a small budget, it’s still super important for you to create and execute good planning for your marketing. We’d even argue that it’s MORE important to have a plan if you have a small budget. No business is too small to have a marketing plan, because if you have customers or clients, you’ve gotta communicate with them about your products or services somehow. That’s where a good plan comes in.

A good marketing strategy will be multi-faceted, actually doable (!!!!), and executed consistently over time. We’ve put together a list of some good steps to take in developing a plan that will hopefully help you get started.

1. Market Research & Profiling

The first step is to do extensive research on your industry, as well as on local and regional B2B or B2C trends. This step ensures that the planning and development of your strategy is as well-informed as possible. Once that research is complete, the next step is to create target client profiles. Before you spend a ton of time and money marketing your small business online, it’s important to know who your ideal customer is. Who do you think would be most interested in, but also able to afford your product? This will help with directing your planning and marketing towards your specific target audience.

You can categorize your ideal customer by demographics and lifestyle. Some examples are: What age, sex, income level, and geographic location is your customer? Are they trend setters or trend followers? (or neither?) Conservative or liberal? Spenders or savers? How often do they purchase what you have to offer? Once you answer these questions, you can begin to notice patterns that will be really helpful with narrowing down and properly targeting your advertising. This step is about getting the biggest bang for your advertising buck, and let me tell you, we are ALL about that life.

2. Branding & Communication Audit

When constructing a plan for future marketing and advertising, it’s a good idea to step back and take a 10,000-foot look at your past and current communication. Haven’t done much communicating with your audience yet? Take a look at other successful companies in your industry. A communication audit will analyze all correspondence on social media, on your blog, on your website, and anywhere else online or in print.

During this audit, it’s crucial to be honest and objective about your company’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and competition. This is necessary because in looking at the big picture, you may find things that you’re currently doing that you absolutely love and some things you really don’t. Try to view your company’s communication the way a customer would—imagine being in their shoes. This will help you to find new ways to strengthen communication about your brand, your mission, and your products or services. And you may even discover a make-or-break hole in your communication that launches you into new success.

3. Draft a Marketing Plan

After you’ve got all your research, profiling, and communication audit done, it will finally be time to create a plan for the marketing efforts. (Yay!) During this step, you’ll detail the exact methods you want to use to reach your audience going forward. In addition to typical methods, your plan should include detailed descriptions of high-level and low-level KPIs, how those will be measured, and an implementation timeline. If you’re not familiar with KPIs and what we just said seems like it’s in another language altogether, we wrote a blog outlining some important KPIs for small businesses to measure that you can read here.

A typical marketing plan will be a projection of 6 months’ to 1 year’s time and needs to be revisited after that period to see how things are going and to make any necessary adjustments. Keep in mind that your plan will be a living document with the intention of being revised and strengthened as various efforts are executed from month to month. So don’t forget to review your plan on a regular basis.

4. Set a Budget

In theory everyone knows to only spend what you can afford. But in reality, many businesses spend way more than their means on things like advertising thinking it will all eventually pay off. Maybe it will, but often times it doesn’t, and this is especially true for people who move forward without a set plan and a strict budget.

I know it’s hard, but try as much as possible to be as objective as you can about the costs you can expect. It’s best practice to over estimate rather than under estimate. (Isn’t it funny how things always add up?) Your budget should include and all aspects of your marketing, including ad spends, implementation costs, and production costs for any collateral.

Once you start figuring out how much each marketing campaigns and tactic you chose is going to cost you, you MIGHT realize that you don’t actually have the dream budget for your dream plan. (Womp womp.) Hey, that’s okay. The reality is, you should be spending somewhere between 10-15% of your overall revenue on marketing. And meeting that budget requires adjusting your plan until you have a mix that you can afford! Once you’ve set your marketing plan budget, it should be set in stone. I know that seems so obvious that we shouldn’t have to say it. But sticking to a budget is HARD. It’s not for the faint of heart, but it will pay off in the long run.

Conclusion

It’s important to establish a strong marketing plan for the future direction of your company’s advertising, branding, and PR efforts. First you want to identify the audience you want to target, then you need to outline specific methods you plan to act on to market toward your audience. Don’t forget to specify how you’re going to measure success, and most importantly, be flexible enough to allow adjustments when necessary.

We can’t stress enough how important this is if you’re a small business with a small budget. Creating a good marketing plan will set you up to grow. And as you grow, your marketing efforts will grow too!

If you have any questions, we’d love to meet with you for general consulting, to assist you in your research, or even help with marketing execution!

In case you haven’t heard, we’ve announced a summer internship opportunity beginning in May of 2018. Get the details below of the program available, and if you’d be a great fit for it, send your resumé and cover letter to hello@tangiblestrategies.com.

Creative Content Internship

This summer, we at Tangible Strategies are offering an internship position like no other. We’re calling all interdisciplinarians (you know who you are)—photography students with a passion for sculpting, graphic designers majoring in world history, creative writers who macramé on the side—get the idea? Our Creative Content Internship Program is best suited for individuals with a knack for communicating brand messages in new, innovative ways, whether that’s through engaging illustrations, interactive social media campaigns, or gripping photography. If you’ve got that interdisciplinary itch and a love for growing local businesses, this is the internship for you.

Ideal candidates are located in the Greenville, SC area, are seeking an agency-setting summer internship, and have both aptitude and experience in design, copywriting, and/or photography.

Responsibilities
Specifications
Qualifications
Preferred Qualifications

 

In order to be considered for the internship position, students should submit their resumés and cover letters to Anthony Reese at hello@tangiblestrategies.com.

Sometimes, it feels like Google is all we talk about. Like, Google is the new Marcia. (Oops, does that reference age us?)

Let’s be real, Google is king. Or, errr, queen. (Looking at you, feminists.) But you get it. As a business owner, you probably know that Google holds a large part of your fate online, and you might even spend a lot of time and money trying to please the Google SEO gods, just hoping to be one of the chosen websites worthy of that coveted first page search result.

Well, at the end of 2016, Google announced that they’d soon begin warning Chrome users by labeling sites without SSL Certificates as not secure. Late last year, Google even started sending emails to site owners warning them of the upcoming changes about SSL Certificates. Google said, “Beginning in October 2017, Chrome will show the ‘Not secure’ warning in two additional situations: when users enter data on an HTTP page, and on all HTTP pages visited in Incognito mode.”

The internet tech blogosphere has been going crazy over all of this for a while, but maybe you’re not techy, so you’re thinking, “What’s an SSL certificate?” We’re glad you asked.

What Is An SSL Certificate?

SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) Certificates make your website safe by doing background checks and encrypting any data entered on your site, and the term is often used interchangeably with the term TLS – Transport Layer Security. . And the most basic way we can explain it is that it’s what makes the difference between HTTP:// and HTTPS://. But does all this really matter?

Why Ppl Say You Should Care

Encrypts Sensitive Information

Encryption, in terms you can (hopefully) actually understand = making all communication/information entered on the site between the client and the server secure, so no one else (aka: the bad people) can read it. This is a key point for all websites with e-commerce, but it’s equally important to encrypt any data submitted using forms. So, if your website has a contact form, this applies to you!

Helps SEO Rankings

Some studies show that HTTPS websites have a higher advantage of ranking over HTTP links, so switching to HTTPS will benefit your website, even if you don’t have any forms. It’s important to note that there’s not a lot of significant evidence that supports this, and honestly, this specific element is probably not even in the top ten list of what Google prioritizes for SEO. But every bit helps!

Builds Brand Influence

Most visitors will choose not to browse a website if it isn’t secure. Would you? I mean, I’m sure you remember at least a couple of companies off the top of your head that have suffered cyber attacks that have damaged their reputation. Depending on the scale of the attack, a cyber security breach can have a short term effect (I vaguely remember the Target security breach a few years ago, but I online shop there quite often now). If the event becomes widespread in the media, or if it’s devastating to a lot of people, it can have a major impact on a brand long-term (Re: Equifax). All that to say, if you want people to trust you and your brand, get secure!

Why You Should Actually Care

Okay, let’s just pause for a second and address that thought that’s most likely going through your head: “These are all good reasons so far, but they don’t really apply to me… not really anyways.” We get it… So in case you’re not already convinced, here’s the kicker.

Users Will Receive Non-Secure Site Warning

Starting in July of this year, Google will actually begin penalizing ALL websites that don’t have an SSL certificate. Users will get a clear “non-secure” message when entering your website if you don’t have an SSL certificate. We aren’t talking a small, subtle warning. We’re talking a blatant, in-your-users’-faces warning, a la Kevin from The Office.

Chances are once a user sees that, they’ll immediately click off of your page. Goodbye sight traffic. Goodbye sales. So we’re here to tell you, Google has given a clear deadline and you have until July to make the switch.

What Will It Cost You?

In this case, the benefits FAR outweigh the cost. The cost of the SSL certificate will depend on your hosting company. We know that Blue Host offers free SSL certificates with all WordPress websites, GoDaddy has them for $120 a year, and HostGator’s price is $40 per year. The only other cost associated with it is a one time installation fee for your developer to make the switch for you. Like we said, this is affordable. (Yay!) So, start by checking with your hosting company to see their fee, and then get with your developer to start implementing it.

Conclusion

Basically, if you have a website and it’s the year 2018, you need an SSL certificate, preferably now, but definitely by July.

Procrastination is human. We get it. And listen, there are still big websites that haven’t addressed the warnings yet. But because we’re a small business, we know how hard you work as a small business owner. We’d hate to see your website lose traffic because your visitors get a big warning that your website isn’t secure.

It’s pretty inexpensive and your web developer will spend no time tackling it. So just do it! ????

How do you measure the success of your small business? If we could guess, we’d say you probably typically focus on sales and revenue. (Which, by the way, is a great place to start.) But we’d like to propose that you don’t stop there.

A great way to assess the success of your small business is by measuring key performance indicators, or KPIs. In the world of tech/e-commerce/digital startups, this is a super common term, but maybe as a small business owner you know little to nothing about KPIs. Maybe the mention of measuring statistics online has your heart beating fast and has you typing the web address to Wikipedia as fast as you can. Step away from the Wikipedia. And don’t worry. We felt the same way about all this at first.

If you’re a small business owner, we know a few things about you automatically. First, we know that you care A LOT about what you do. Second, we know that you’re an extremely dedicated and hard working person who wants your business to thrive. If that’s you, we’ve put together a super non-intimidating list of key performance indicators you can start thinking about or maybe even tracking!

What Are KPIs?

A KPI is a measurable value that helps a company know if they’re reaching their business goals successfully or not. Organizations often use KPIs to analyze metrics from specific platforms. KPIs can measure financial performance, operational and internal processes, sales and marketing, and customer satisfaction (among many other things).

Key performance indicators give you the answers you need in order to know how to move forward with your business. But before you can get useful answers, you have to ask the right questions. It’s important not to waste time in your already busy schedule getting answers to questions you don’t care about or that won’t help grow your business.

Choosing the KPIs to focus on all boils down to a having good grip on what is important to your business, or in other words, “What is your why?” Once you figure out who or what you’re going after, you’ll be able to decide which KPIs you should start measuring.

To get you started, we’ve put together this handy dandy list of KPIs we think might be important for you to track along with a little more information about each.

1. Customer Acquisition Cost

Customer Acquisition Cost, or CAC, is the cost of getting a prospective customer to buy your product or service (also known as your cost for marketing). Your CAC can be easily calculated by dividing the total you’ve spent on marketing during a certain period and dividing that figure by the number of customers acquired in that same period. So, say a company spent $1,000 on marketing in a year and acquired 50 customers in that year; their CAC is $20.

Like we said, as a small business owner, we know you’re passionate and you love what you do. These are really great attributes that can make you a successful entrepreneur. However, a common pitfall of many entrepreneurs is that they can sometimes be too optimistic and assume everyone else will automatically “get it” and love their product or service as much as they do. Loving your product or service is great. This will help you sell it in an authentic and exciting way. However, one thing you have to be careful of is to not underestimate the cost it will take to convince people who’ve never heard of you to love your product and eventually become new customers.

Sometimes business owners are shocked at the amount of money needed to acquire customers through things like SEO/SEM, PR, Social Media Marketing, direct sales, channel sales, etc. And many businesses fail because they don’t pay attention to their CAC or find a way to get their CAC low enough. Successful businesses, on the other hand, are not only aware of their CAC, but they actively brainstorm and execute ways to lower that cost, or adjust their product or service cost to increase their margins.

2. Customer Lifetime Value

Unfortunately, a lot of business owners overlook Customer Lifetime Value (CLV), even though many agree that it’s a key factor in determining the present and future success of a business.

The lifetime value of a customer is basically the gross margin you can expect to make from that customer throughout the lifetime of your relationship. A big pitfall for many businesses is when their CAC (which we just talked about) exceeds their CLV, while successful businesses will have a CAC that’s not just less, but considerably less than their average CLV.

So, it’s important to come up with a good plan to find out your CLV as soon as possible. Measuring the net profit that you’ll make throughout your relationship with a customer is super important because it helps you realize how valuable they are—or aren’t—to your business. And once you realize which customers are valuable and why, it will ultimately help you properly focus your time, energy, and resources on going after that person and others like them. It’ll help lower your CAC because knowing who you should be targeting helps you spend less money targeting individuals who don’t ultimately turn into customers.

Hopefully you’re starting to see how all of these are connected and could thoroughly help you build a successful business model.

3. Traffic-to-Lead Ratio

Now that we’ve focused on some high-level, generic key performance indicators, we’ll focus on some more specific examples of KPIs that relate to individuals elements of your marketing efforts. Your Traffic-to-Lead ratio addresses the performance of your website specifically and is calculated by dividing the number of visits to your website in a particular timeframe by the number of leads generated over the same timeframe. For example, if you have 100 website visits in a month and 10 of those visitors contacted you, your traffic-to-lead ratio is 10:1 (a 10% conversion rate).

The traffic-to-lead ratio is important because in analyzing your site traffic, you may discover that you have a great conversion rate, but your overall traffic could be higher. If this is the case, you may decide to invest in pay-per-click advertising or organic traffic-generation methods. Or you may discover that you’re reaching a large audience but have a low click-through rate. In which case your action step would be to re-evaluate your target audience or optimize your site’s copy, calls-to-action, and images.

4. Social Media Engagement Conversion Rates

Let’s say you’re one of the lucky ones, and your marketing and social media campaigns are working, your website traffic is high, and people are super supportive of your brand. But maybe your actual sales figures don’t seem representative of your traffic numbers, and things just aren’t adding up. This could be caused by a couple of things. For example, maybe visitors are getting half way through a purchase and then backing out, or maybe they’re viewing a couple of pages of your site but ultimately leaving. It’s important to figure out why, but it’s also super comforting to know that you’re not alone.

(Tangent, if you’re not one of the lucky ones who has great social media engagement, check out our blog on social media engagement for some great tips on how to boost it.)

Although social media now accounts for more traffic to websites than organic search, conversions from social media traffic are lower across the board. According to statistics from Shareaholic, “social media is now the No. 1 driver of referral traffic to websites, responsible for 31.24 percent of the total. In fact, social media traffic has an average conversion rate of 0.71 percent, which is very small compared with search’s 1.95 percent and email’s 3.19 percent.”

One thing that can help your conversions from social media traffic is to give your audience an incentive to purchase. Strong calls to action, such as flash sales or promo codes, are a great way to boost conversions. Another important way to boost conversions is to share your content and offers multiple times. It’s something psychologists refer to as “the mere-exposure effect,” which means the more exposure we have to something, the more we notice it and the more we begin to like it.

So in short, if you want your audience to grab onto your message or your product, it’s important that you regularly expose them to it by posting about it often. In fact, Buzzsumo recently researched over 100 million articles and found that resharing content can boost engagement by 686 percent.

5. Landing Page Conversion Rates

In short, a landing page is a page within your website that’s sole purpose is to drive conversions. It’s focused on one goal, and it’s optimized to achieve it as many times as possible.

The best way to maximize your traffic is to optimize the first page people land on. On average, each small business website has just three landing pages, and by tracking your landing page conversions you can stop spending time and resources optimizing pages that don’t turn into conversions, and pour all of your resources into the one that is.

A homepage can be a landing page, or a landing page can be a completely separate page within your website that users land on after clicking an advertisement or social media link. A good landing page always has a clear “ask,” telling visitors what they get and what they’re submitting information for. Studies show that the sooner you start asking for email addresses the better. So, a great idea for a landing page is a highly visual page that asks for the user’s name and email address, and tells the user what they will receive in return.

A great example of a landing page that converts is the homepage of a company called Ipsy. Before you’re able to browse their products, they ask a few questions about your preferences and for your name and email address so they can follow up with emails and deals. What they want website visitors to do is clear, because it’s the only option when a visitor lands on the page.

6. Advertising ROI

Return on Investment, or ROI, is the money an investor in a business earns for the money they’ve invested. Your return is the net profit of your business and is used to measure the success of your investments.

Return on investment is the most common profitability ratio, and there are many ways to determine the overall ROI of your business. But when looking at advertising ROI specifically, your equation would look something like this:

(Sales Revenue – Advertising Cost) / Advertising Cost

So if you invested $1,000 dollars in an ad campaign and saw a $5,000 increase in revenue, your ROI is 400% or 4 times the amount you spent on advertising.

The trick to successfully calculating your Advertising ROI is in determining what portion of your revenue is attributed to a single marketing effort. When advertising, it’s good to use a unique call-to-action to associate with your campaign. Unique website links, single-use phone numbers, or discount codes are all great elements to use when tracking a specific campaign. That way, you can easily measure how many clicks and/or purchases come from a specific advertising campaign and ultimately see if your return on investment is lucrative.

Many people think return on investment is the same as profit but that’s not the case. ROI specifically looks at the money you invested in advertising and the return you receive on that money based on profits from the campaign.

Conclusion

Show of hands if your brain is on major overload right now. ✋???? We know this is a lot of information, but we hope it’s useful and helps you with some ideas of where to start. Measuring the success of your business can be an intimidating task, but it’s an absolutely necessary aspect to regular growth and development. We hope you’ll take this information and run with it in the right direction towards defining your key performance indicators and growing an extremely successful business!

Picture this: you’re single. Like, sticking the fork directly into the whole pie single, and every time you open your computer there’s another engagement announcement. Meanwhile you’ve got a closet full of bridesmaid gowns that, as the character Kevin from 27 Dresses says are, “instruments of torture inflicted on you by a bride who wants you to look ugly.” Basically.

The old “always a bridesmaid never a bride” struggle is sometimes *too* real on social media, and I’m not just talking about being engaged to be married. It often feels like engagement is happening for everyone else while you’re sitting at home every night, waiting for a click or a like, wondering what you’re doing wrong, or what you could possibly do to get someone, anyone, to notice your business.

Engagement on social media can be defined simply as getting your audience to like, share, click and comment on your posts. Why is engagement important? Well, mainly because it helps you know if you’re posting things your followers actually like or care about, and it helps grow your business. Sounds simple enough. But in reality, it feels anything but simple. If you have little or no engagement on your social media, it’s time to reassess your content strategy. If you’re feeling frustrated or don’t know how to stand out in the crowded space of social media, we’re sharing a few tips. Here are 10 ways to drastically improve your social media engagement.

1. Stop the Scroll

The first step in getting someone to engage with your brand is to stop their mindless scrolling. You can’t engage with an audience that’s thumbing past you. The best way to get their attention is to post things they want to see. Grab their attention with eye-catching, unique, high quality photography (i.e. not shot on your iPhone 4). It’s also super important to note that photos including faces get skipped over way less.

Research shows that simply adding an image to your post on Facebook and Twitter can result in a way higher interaction rate. On the same note, an Instagram image with human faces gets 38% more likes and an increase in comments by 32% on average. Pretty sure it has something to do with those algorithms no one understands, but either way… chin up and say, “cheese!”

2. Be Funny

Most people on social media want to be entertained — not sold to. I mean think about it, people go to their social media apps to relax, maybe to escape the stress of life, and keep up with people they care about. So it’s important to be positive, and humor is a great way for your brand to promote on social media while still keeping an audience engaged. Keep it light and fun, or people will begin to ignore or even (duh duh duh) unfollow your posts.

3. Use Simple Calls to Action

A great way to get more engagement is simply by asking for it. Start the conversation. On Facebook, you can ask for a specific reaction with the different reaction buttons. A fun one on Twitter is to ask your audience to respond with their favorite GIF. A great way to encourage a reaction from your followers on Instagram is to use emojis as prompts.

This approach sets the tone and shows the reader how you hope they’ll react. For example, ask everyone if they’re looking forward to an event or the launch of a new product, and prompt them to answer with a ???? in the comments if they’re excited. Or, if you share something humorous, include the classic ????. It’s relatable, and it lets your audience know what you’re sharing is funny (as if they didn’t already know).

4. Invite Followers to Share Content

User generated content is a buzz-phrase that a lot of marketers talk about, and with good reason. It’s one of the most effective methods of social media marketing and it’s pretty inexpensive. (Don’t have a clue what user generated content is? Read about it here.) The truth is, people consider information coming from a personal friend/someone they follow to be more trustworthy than business branded content. Utilizing user generated content helps you engage and share content through your passionate customers. As a result, you’re able to show consumers why they can trust your brand. It leads to higher engagement and ultimately grows your sales. Win-win.

5. Share Your Followers’ Tagged Photos

Think about how much time people spend trying to get shoutouts on social media from celebrities they love. Let’s be real, if GaryVee shared a photo of me on his Instagram, I might die. (Wait, what?) And here’s the thing, your loyal followers feel that way about you too. There’s value in shouting out to your loyal customers who love your products or services. Think about how many people they’re going to tell that you shared their photo! It’s really a great feeling to be acknowledged by a brand, and it will certainly either convert someone into a loyal follower, or keep them a loyal follower.

6. Be Receptive To Your Audience

More and more people are turning to social media to ask customer service related questions. They’re tired of arguing with automated phone robots or waiting a week to get an email reply. They know most businesses are active on social media because that’s where people are communicating. When someone DMs you, it’s important to respond within 5 minutes. (Side note: Facebook actually displays a badge for businesses that average a response time less than 5 minutes so that users know they get quick answers.)

Take 10 minutes a day to sit down and comment back to every comment and message. Whether it’s answering a question or giving a ♥️ or a ???? back to a nice comment, it really doesn’t take that much time, and it adds a personal touch that will go far with your followers.

7. Work as a Team

People love getting free stuff. Plain and simple. A great way to gain a bigger following and increase your audience is by teaming up with other companies or charities to host giveaways. You can use it to gather email addresses and even gain new followers. Giveaways are a great way to grow your audience because, by combining with others, you gain some of their audience as well!

8. Get Personal With Stories

While posts in the feed need to be carefully curated, stories are much more personal so they’re a little more chill. People love and crave genuine connections, and stories are a fun way to let people know about you, your day-to-day, and a behind the scenes of your business. You don’t have to stress as much over the quality of the content, but you do still want to stay on brand. Another huge plus to stories is they always display at the top of your feed and will never get hidden from your followers based on some mean ol’ algorithm.

9. Poll Your Followers

Case studies used to be very time consuming and expensive, but thanks to social media, you can get real time feedback from your customers at the push of a cute little button. Last month Instagram introduced polls as a part of their story feature. Twitter and Instagram polls are a great way to get people to stop scrolling through and engage with you, and as a bonus, they’re a super easy way to get really useful feedback from your customers.

10. Use Live Streaming

Live Streaming is the same deal as Stories, but with a little twist. You can use live streams for a personal story, or a fun behind the scenes of your business. Another great use for live streams is a teaching moment or even to announce a new product. Live streaming really is a fun way to answer FAQs or just say hey to your audience.

Conclusion

I’m sure we didn’t have to tell you why engagement is important. Retaining clients and growing your business are both major, but the process feels anything but simple sometimes. We get it. We really hope these tips help! Please feel free to let us know how these tips work for you!