Cybersecurity is not a topic that most small businesses are concerned about when it comes to digital marketing.  But here is why you should care and how it can impact you business.  Since we deal with a lot of our customers websites and occasionally their sales and marketing data and customer inquiries, we see this topic as very relevant and should be top of mind for all businesses.   Having a secure web host is just one of the many things you should be evaluating as a business.

Spectrum News Charlotte recently featured Sterling Technology CEO, Tom Blanchard as a situation matter expert on Cybersecurity and spike in recent inquiries due to the recent Mecklenburg county hack and data ransom situation.

“Some of our clients in the past could have gotten away with free anti-virus software,” Blanchard said. “But the risk is getting too high so they need paid enterprise-level software."

As a business we are noticing more and more that even small business websites are becoming more prone to hacks and its important to have a strong local IT partner who uniquely understands how to mitigate your risks, prevent downtime for your business, loss of money, and in the case of Mecklenburg county, risk having your data at ransom.  

The easiest way to sum this up: "if you aren't actively trying to protect your data, just know someone else is always trying to hack it."

Content has become an extremely important strategy in online marketing so its natural for a lot of small businesses to ask how content can help their overall strategy to produce the desired results.  Here are a few of the top questions we are often asked here at Banyan Creative about content marketing.

1.  What is Content Marketing?

Content marketing is the process of producing useful or helpful information to your target consumer's, rather than just sharing all about your product or service.   The purpose of producing that content is to build trust and authority on a specific topic.   This hopefully builds trust with the consumer and eventually entices them to buy.

2.  Isn't content just a blog?

Most people think of content marketing as regularly updating your blog.  And thats a great place to start.  But content marketing could include PDFs, Slideshares, Video, Social Media posts, whitepapers, infographics, ebooks, webinars.  It can be be any medium used to distribute your content and message to your audience online.

3.  Where do I start with content marketing?

It can be a temptation to just start blogging without any strategy.   But the most important part at the outset of content marketing is to develop an overall plan and goal for why you are doing and what you hope are the desired outcomes.

4.  How do I define my content strategy?

Like any form of marketing, the most important questions we ask our clients over and over is "who is you are target persona", and "what are the problems that they have that you are solving."  Using these two questions we can reverse engineer the types of content we are writing about.  For example:   If our target is realtors, and we are offering a software that saves a realtor time and money, we want to lead with topics about "how realtors can better manager their time to make more money for their business."   We want to stay away from leading with our solution at the outset, and offer helpful tips before just selling product or solutions at the outset.  Be helpful and interesting. Not so salesy.

5.  How often do I need to be putting out content? 

It depends.   I know most people don't like this answer, but there is no universal answer here.  Putting out fresh content all the time is extremely valuable to your business but it does take time, energy, resources, and a good plan for it be successful.  Your strategy will help dictate how often you are putting out new content.  For most local businesses, it really can depend on what your competitor's are doing.  We always say here, if you aren't putting out content at least 1-2 times a month on that topic, its difficult to say you are an authority online on that subject.  While we don't necessarily know that posting twice a week vs multiple times a week to have a proven impact in terms of percentage of growth, we do know that Google clearly prefers websites that update their content on a regular basis and helps with the Search Engine Optimization (SEO) efforts in showing up in the rankings on the search engines.   

 For a great example of a great case study and long term content marketing strategy that has had a huge impact on the bottomline, check out our friends over at https://buffalojackson.com/.  They have committed to weekly blogs and monthly helpful tips to their target audience for several years running.  And the results are quite impressive helping boost their online sales through their website.

As a small business owner your website is one of the most important tools you can have.   It does 3 really important things for you.

1.  It can add value - You want to educate your customers and your prospective customers on what the value of your product or services.    Keep in mind, a website has little value without business goals, objectives, or a solid marketing strategy behind it.   Does your website add value to your business today?

2.  You can collect data -  Its a wonderful tool to figure out what their needs are so you can meet those needs.  Its all about having the relationship with your clients and understanding how to enhance those relationships.  Using a proper website strategy, it allows you to collect the right data you need to drive business decisions and grow relationships with your customers.

3.  You can conduct business 24/7 - In the middle of the night, someone can click, put their credit card in, and guess what, you have made a sale!   A great website is your frontline sales force.   It helps quantify, qualify and for e-commerce business close the sale without any human interaction.   Check out buffalojackson.com and see some of our recent work to help grow their online business ten-fold using this 24/7 strategy.

4.  It can be found head of your competitors - What good is a website if your customers can't find it?   Its like having a billboard in the middle of a desert.  A well optimized site using (SEO) Search Engine Optimization.     When people don't know who to call for services the first place for most people is to "google it".  Are you able to be found for services you offer?  Or are you competitors showing up ahead of you?  If thats the case you are losing sales.  

Need help with your small business website strategy?  Contact us at Banyan Creative.  We love helping small businesses grow!

I met a guy recently who lost over 50 lbs. I hardly recognized him, because I hadn't seen in a few years and obviously with that much weight loss he looked much different.    So I asked him "what was your secret to losing all that weight?"    

He said, "Eating better and regular exercise for about 2 years straight."  I was expecting some dramatic crash diet at the latest quick fix exercise.  So this was not exactly the exciting answer I was looking for, but it got me thinking.....   We get contacted several times a week from Charlotte small business owners looking for a "quick fix" in their marketing.    They want to know "what's your most basic plan to optimize my website?"  or   "I need leads now! What can you do quick?"     I more often respond with something like.  "We can't help you if you are looking for a shortcut."  

The truth is we are all looking for shortcuts without putting in the hard work over a long period of time.   When it comes to their online marketing, small business owners often in tight cash flow situations don't allocate enough resources to advertising or marketing until they are in dire straights.    It doesn't help that businesses are bombarded with emails or cold calls with things like "Guarantee SEO #1 Ranking on Google" or "Do this 1 Weird Trick on Facebook to increase your following 4000%"

So lets change our thinking a bit here.  If you want to build a web presence like the man who lost 50 lbs. instead of signing a 90 day trial with another web marketing company, why not invest in 2 year strategy of "healthy eating and exercise" for your website.   

1. Wean Yourself Off Shortcuts in Your Online Marketing

It’s so easy to adopt SEO or even social media tricks, and when they actually WORK it can be incredibly hard to turn them down.    Or maybe you found a certain keyword within your PPC strategy thats driving tons of traffic, so you crank up the budget on it.   Another example, if all of your competitors are outranking you thanks to their huge volume of paid/spammy links, the moral high ground’s not gonna put food on the table, or leads in your CRM?   So I feel your pain.   But keep in mind.  Shortcuts are often just for short term results.  Regardless of my personal feelings on whether or not they’re good for the Internet, I’m not going to say tricks don’t ever work, but what I am saying is focus on your longterm goals, not a short term ranking or other web traffic strategies.  

2.  SEO is Hard and Requires a Long Term Investment

It is way harder to build great content and fix bad code and build linking relationships and get people to share and link to your content and then do all that again, over and over, than it is to submit to a bunch of directories, and hire a freelancer or Fiverr.com to spin some content to syndicate on article sites and to comment spam neglected blogs and then buy a bunch of links.    But you really get what you pay for here.   Small investment often means small return.
 
However, it’s a lot easier to build great content and fix crummy code and build linking relationships and get people to share and link to your content and then do all that again, over and over, and have it NEVER STOP WORKING, than it is to completely change everything you do every year or so because your websites keep getting algorithmic hits. And it’s a lot less stressful, in the long run, not to have to explain to business owners why their site is never going to rank because of low level tactics.

Just like with weight loss, doing things the right way (the hard way) may not work as fast, but it will work for the long term.   Check out one of small business clients results below.  They committed to blogging 6-8 times a month, in addition to publishing keyword rich buyers guides for commonly asked questions.   While their competitors poured more money into paid advertising, they focused on good, quality professionally written content.  They focused on their strengths, not on their weaknesses.

The result 

• Doubling their traffic and online sales are up 150% year over year for 3 years straight now.  
• They focused on long term goals with SEO.  And they are reaping the benefits after many of their competitors are long gone.  
• They are hiring staff, while their competitors are going out of business.
• They chose long term growth over short term gratification

Are you small business in need of a long term SEO strategy?  Give us a call.  We are in it for the long haul and have a handful of happy clients who have reaped the benefits over the years.   Now take the road last traveled.  Trade in that ice cream for an apple. You get it?

About the Author: Sam Casey is the Managing Partner at Banyan Creative based in Matthews, NC.  We enjoy working with small businesses who are focused on long term goals for their web marketing.    
  

“Every day, in every way, I’m getting better and better” — Émile Coué

Overnight success is a myth.   Give up believing there is one magic bullet to make your business more visible online.    You have to put in the work.   And you have to sustain that effort every day.  

Successful people know that making small continual improvement every day will be compounded over time, and give them desirable results.  

​Unsuccessful people think that by doing one thing or one tactic it will take them to where they want to go so they can take their foot off the gas and relax to a life of ease..

We often laud the quick success, or the one hit wonder.   We live in a culture of instant success. But success is hard to replicate over and over again without daily discipline to get a little bit better each day.  We all have limitation.  But all of us can improve just 1% each day.

In our roles as small business marketing experts, we are constantly approached by clients looking for fast sales growth.  Often they have a big goal with a focus on making some large improvements that don't actually exist within their budget or timeframe.   I would compare it to a brand new runner who wants to run the Boston Marathon right out of the gate.  

Many business owners think that just by redesigning a website, running a campaign, putting a small amount of focus to marketing effort will all of a sudden yield magical sales growth that they don't currently have.  

Contrary to this thinking, our best clients we have a realisitic focus on 1% growth everyday.  5% growth each month.  10% growth each year.  And they are committed to that discipline in their marketing.    Patience and diligence over flash then fizzle. They don't expect one channel to be the gravy train.  They test, They evolve. They tweak, they revamp, and sometimes even take a few steps back after a failure.  Until they hone their messaging to matter to their audience.

The truth is that overnight success, also leads to overnight failure.  Focus on daily disciplines in your marketing that yield a 1% growth every single day.  Realistic goals look more like growing your email list 5% each month.   In one or two months thats not impressive or sexy.  In 18-24 months thats serious marketing growth.  

For most small businesses, your goals should be to acquire 2 new emails a day,  5 more visits to your website than yesterday.  1 more blog post a week.  2 new articles a month.  1 new compelling video each week, 1 more good new conversation over the phone or in person.  By itself none of these activities are impressive.   But do them everyday for a year straight and all of a sudden your marketing presence, and your pipeline will start to look a whole lot more impressive than your competitors.

Why?  Because most companies and invididuals lack the daily discipline to win 1% or 1 day at a time.   Small, quiet wins are how to build a great business that you are can actually sustain and grow with over time.  

Get better 1% everyday and win long term.

We have all been to those presentations.... I'm talking about the ones where the speaker comes armed with PowerPoint slides, tons of data points, charts, graphs and motivational quotes.   In our world, we call that "product dumping."  While it seems like a good idea on slide 22 to keep adding more bullets to your message the reality is that it will likely not be memorable for about 99% of your audience..  

Now think about another presentation where the speaker uses a powerful story to get his point across.    I'm guessing you could remember the speaker, the location, the stage, the context of the story they were telling, and maybe even the point they were trying to make.   Its a little easier to remember that kind of presentation isn't it?    Why?  Because great stories create great memories.

My grandfather was a great story teller.  He used to tell me about his battles in World War II,  how he met my grandmother, a giant fish he caught and his greatest rounds of golf.  He knew how to capture my attention as a young boy.  He understood the power of a story well told  I'm not even sure how many of his stories were actually true.  But they sure were memorable!  

A great story, when told well and at the right time can change lives.  

As for marketers, a great story helps compel customers or prospects to take a desired action.  Here at Banyan Creative we believe in the power of telling great stories.

What is Story-Based Marketing? 
Story-based marketing is the strategic use of narratives (otherwise known as stories), rather than data or descriptions, to sell a product or service and build out a brand.  It can be used in video ads, print ads, social media, websites, and anywhere your organization reaches your audience of prospective buyers/investors/donors/clients.

Why Does it Work?  
We live for stories.  For centuries, stories have been used to entertain, teach lessons, and pass on history. It makes perfect sense that these same stories would increase your ability to connect with your audience.  So why use Story-Based Marketing in your content marketing?

Stories Make it Memorable and Meaningful
Using stories, you’re able to communicate complex messages simply and memorably. Of course, the facts and figures are important, but let’s be honest: Too often they go through one ear and out the other. The data is much more likely to make an impact if the viewer can attach a name, a face, or a story to your info.

Stories Show Rather Than Tell
Audiences today are more marketing-savvy than ever. They rely more and more on recommendations from friends and doing research on their own. They are more likely to resist a message if it’s too direct or heavy handed. Today’s consumer doesn’t like being told what to do — but by showing them rather than telling them, you can guide an audience to a conclusion without outright telling them what to do.

Emotions Are More Persuasive Than Facts
Stories are so powerful in a marketing sense because people connect with them on an emotional level. While facts and figures can be compelling to the logical mind, a well-crafted narrative appeals to our empathetic, emotional side, too. Stories also show off your organization’s values, which builds trust with your audience.
Crafting a compelling story is an excellent way to establish your brand, share your message, and show your audience why it matters.
How Can You Use it?There are several ways to incorporate storytelling into your marketing strategy. Here are a few tips:

• Case studies are a great place to start. Think of your most successful client or customer, and tell their story: What were their needs? How did you help them? What was the end result?

• Put yourself in your prospective customer’s shoes. Who are you trying to attract? What are their greatest pain points? What would catch their eye, pique their interest, or pull their heartstrings?

• Characters are essential. Build them into your marketing — they give your audience someone to connect with.  Who's the hero?  Who's the bad guy?   Characters development is essential to good story telling.

• Don’t be afraid to let your organization’s values shine. It builds trust, likeability, and audiences love an org with personality!

• You don’t have to ditch your data — a powerful statistic followed by a narrative example is sure to drive your message home.

• Social media is your friend. Create shareable content, like a video or an infographic, and post it on Twitter or Facebook. If it’s compelling, your followers will do the rest!

And lastly wanted to give you a great example of great story telling from one of our favorites BuffaloJackson.com.  A simple story when well told draws you in.  

There are a ton of exercise apps out there to help monitor, track and share your workouts with your community and social networks. With the rise of Peloton and on demand fitness tied into social media platforms you can expect this trend to grow.

We do a lot of cycling here at Banyan Creative and recently launched a bike tour business called Yellow Bike Tours with a few partners. We are testing out ways to get that business more visible online and one of those ways is through apps like Strava that aggregate and track all our riders data for link building.

We came across Relive.cc and so we decided to give it a try. Relive.cc is an overlay on Strava which allows you to visually see via Esri which specialize is spatial data, GPS mapping and analytics, and track your progress, top speed and images shared. Following your ride you get an automated email with your ride summary and fly over video.

Check out our latest ride here. Friday afternoon spins after a busy week are just what we needed. Two thumbs up for Relive! See you on the road.

https://www.relive.cc/view/886446322