Businesses and consumers rely heavily on the internet for decision making when it comes to partnerships and purchases. At the same time, businesses use the internet to reach their target audience and promote their business. Google Ads help businesses digitally reach that desired target audience through their SERP advertising and gain measurable results from it.
Here are some reasons why you should implement Google Ads into your digital marketing strategy.
Increase brand awareness:
Google Ads raises awareness by putting your brand in front of other consumers who are searching using keywords relevant to your business.
Works hand in hand with SEO:
A feature that Google Ads has that can help your SEO strategy is testing keywords in order to see if conversions derive from them. After that, you can use that data to improve your SEO strategy and make sure you’re using keywords that will produce results once your website is optimized.
Encourages your audience to take action:
Using Google Ads remarketing ads process consists of categorizing audiences based off of what source they went through to get to your site and targeting them through the Google Display Network.
Outrank competitors:
With an Ads share report, you’ll see how many times your competitor outranks you on Google. By choosing “Target Outrank,” you can adjust your bid in order to outrank the competition.
Increase visibility online:
The Enhanced Cost Per Click strategy on Ads adjusts your bid based on the previous conversion data and other insights such as location, device, browser, time of day and week that potential consumers engage with your ads.
How do we know that Google Ads are effective?
Measurable and Scalable:
Google Ads provides many PPC metrics that allow you to measure what strategy has been working and what does not. From here, you can determine which campaigns to proceed with and which to turn off. Google Ads is also pretty scalable, considering the fact that it does not require excess effort to get leads. If you create a campaign that’s converting at a good rate, you can increase your budget, which can result in increased leads and profits.
Flexible:
Google Ads has the flexibility of hyper-targeting the audience you want to reach. For instance, you can specify keyword match types, use ad extensions, access non-search users with Youtube and Gmail Ads, leverage the display network, and narrow down the audience by location, time of day, language, browser or device.
Faster:
A perk of Google Ads is not having to wait long to see results. Putting resources into your Google Ad campaign will bring you impressions and clicks instantaneously. Since it’s so fast, you can test certain keywords or audiences to see if they’re worth pursuing in your SEO strategy.
Easier:
Google seamlessly combines your advertising needs into one platform. Google also suggests how to adjust your spending on ads based on Google’s observations of their performance.
Taking over SERPS: Google prioritizes Google Ads over organic results since they fall under the same umbrella. Once you start your PPC campaign, you will be able to get your ads high up on SERP, where they have a higher chance of getting clicked.
Ultimately, why should your business use GoogleAds?
You control your budget:
Many small businesses operate with a restrictive budget, so they want to make sure they’re investing their money into something that will produce results. Adopting Google Ads into your digital marketing strategy will allow you to allocate your spending as you please with no minimum investment or monthly ad spend.
The only thing you’re paying for is results:
They call it “pay-per-click” because that’s exactly what you’re doing. Google Ads also tracks who has been clicking your ads but not converting, to see how you can adjust your ads.
Ads show up in the perfect placement with precise timing:
Google is everyone’s go-to for just about everything. If someone takes their time out to search for something, chances are they are ready to buy, which is a perfect time to place your ad in front of their face.
Your competitor is using it:
Global paid search spending has been increasing exponentially and much online revenue is made based off search ad impressions that your competitors are using. If the competition is using Google Ads, it’s definitely something worth looking into.
Google has such a massive reach and pretty much provides the answer to everything online, so why wouldn’t you want your business advertised on their platform?
If you’re ready to set up Google Ads for your business, feel free to contact us and we’d be happy to assist you!
When you think of advertising, what comes to mind?
Commercials, billboards, annoying pop-ups, and all that stuff. Your average person probably sees dozens to hundreds of ads every day across all platforms. To be honest, it’s almost impossible to avoid them unless you don’t read papers or magazines, use the internet, listen to the radio, watch television, or go outside. So whether you like them or not, they’re here to stay. But how did they start? We thought it’d be fun to talk about the history of advertising and how the major platforms have evolved over the years.
Advertising dates back to the ancient world. Evidence has been found that thousands of years ago, people in ancient Egypt people wrote on papyrus for posters and notices. Going back even further, old stones have been found painted with notices in India dating back to around 4000 BCE. But that was the old way of doing it, so how about the new way? What we think of as “modern advertising” really goes back to the invention of the printing press. Once movable type was created and machine printing a possibility, advertising soon followed. People were able to produce leaflets and posters in larger quantities. Utilizing this new technology people could advertise anything from a shop to public elections, or a local theater group putting on a production. It allowed people to get the word out and spread their message. From there, a world of possibilities opened up. During the 18th century, town newspapers started to pop up throughout Europe and the North American colonies. Shops and stores in town were able to create and design advertisements to be displayed in these papers and for the first time “mass marketing” became plausible. While print ads are becoming less popular today, with fewer and fewer people reading physical newspapers and magazines, there will always be a place for print ads in the world of marketing.
Billboards
By the 19th century business began to think differently about how to grab people’s attention, which gave rise to the billboard. The first recorded mention of a large format billboard was from 1835 in New York. Jared Bell began printing 9×6 posters advertising the circus. When printing technology more rapidly advanced through the next century, billboard advertising became more accessible for businesses to advertise with. Over time, billboards managed to get larger and more complicated, with some even using physical objects extending past the borders or popping out of the ad itself (the Chick-fil-a cows would be a good example). And in recent years, advancing digital technology has allowed for some billboards to become all digital; instead of having to plaster the advert on the existing billboard, you can just upload a file that now plays on a 30 something foot screen above the highway. This method is cheaper, easier, and allows for the owner of the billboard to make more money since they can have multiple ads play at the same time by just switching to a new one every few seconds. Billboards are a tried and true method of advertising for almost 200 years, and as long as people go outside we’ll see them for many more years to come.
Radio
Any talk about inventions that truly changed the world must include radio. Theories and concepts for broadcast radio began in the early 1800s, and scientists and inventors continued to work on the potential technology throughout the century with early stations and broadcasts appearing in the late 1800s. Towards the beginning of the 20th century, radio technology was more viable than ever with several stations operating throughout the world. As time went on, radios became cheap enough that some people were able to own them in their homes. Music, news reports, and daytime dramas became great sources of in-home entertainment and marketers seized this open opportunity. The first radio ads began to play over public radio in 1922 and in the next 10 years, most stations featured some sort of commercial. Some companies even began to sponsor radio programs. The most famous of these were soap operas, weekly radio dramas that played during the day and targeted women, many of which were sponsored by companies that manufactured soaps and cleaning products (hence the name). Radios became common in society very quickly, with everyone wanting one in their home and car companies beginning to place them in their vehicles. Even now, millions of Americans listen to the radio every day while on the way to work and back home. News, music, and other forms of entertainment have allowed radio to be a viable platform for advertising for nearly a century.
TV
It’s doubtful anything in the 20th century made a bigger impact on culture than the television. For decades, TV was the center of every American home. The family would gather around the TV a couple nights a week to watch the latest episode of “I Love Lucy,” “Happy Days,” “The Cosby Show,” “M.A.S.H.,” and “Seinfeld.” It changed the face of entertainment and marketers began to slide in. In the home, TVs didn’t become mainstream until the late 40s and early 50s, but even before then ads were showing up. The first TV ad debuted in 1941, a 10-second spot for Bulova watches that played during a New York baseball game. Within the next few years during the war, TV broadcasts became more scarce while the nation was focusing its efforts and resources on the war. But things picked back up after the war ended. In the 50s, sponsored programs became all the rage; much like the soap operas on the radio in the 30s. But by the 60s sponsored programs had fallen out of style, and commercials as we know it became the trend. During the 70s, laws regarding how you could advertise on TV became standard, such as not being allowed to advertise smoking during children’s programs. Today, TV is a bit of a dying breed. While millions of Americans watch every day, more and more people are cutting the cord in favor of online streaming services. Even the most popular shows on TV today pull far smaller numbers than the most-watched shows just 20 years ago. It’s hard to say that television is dying, but it’s certainly falling out of favor. So the real question is, how much longer are marketers willing to put money into TV commercials over its new media competition.
Digital
Then comes the newest form of major advertising, digital. This is a bit easier to talk about because unlike every other method I’ve mentioned so far, it’s recent (dating back to the 1990s). So to narrow it down, let me explain this medium. Digital is what the advertising world refers to when it comes to marketing using digital devices, primarily through the internet. You can argue that digital marketing dates back to the 80s with people sending out spam alerts to internet users in the hopes of getting their information, or even to 1993 where the some of the first clickable ads appeared on the website Global Network Navigator. But the online world of advertising really began to change with Hotwired. Hotwired was an online based web magazine that got the idea to have advertisements appear on their website to earn extra cash. They called them “banner ads,” a term that is still used today. As time went on, the internet became more accessible, coding became more advanced, and advertisements became more commonplace. Video ads, pop-ups, interactive banners, email marketing (which first began to show up in the early 90s), etc. Things began to change once again in the late 2000s with the rise of social media and mobile marketing due to the saturation of smartphones. All of a sudden, people were connected to the internet constantly, going online to be entertained and see what’s happening in the world. There are people who have access to high-speed internet every minute of the day and you can bet that advertisers love those potential customers. With people canceling their newspaper subscriptions, cutting their cable, and turning off the radio to listen to their phone while in the car, so-called “traditional” media has one foot in the grave while digital marketing is constantly on the rise.
It’s hard to boil the history of advertising down to a few pages. It’s a tactic that is traced back thousands of years. You could write a thesis paper on each of the major mediums that were mentioned in this post. But at the end of the day, this was just meant to be a quick summary. It’s obvious that ads will never go away. No matter where you get your news and entertainment from, marketers will find you. Commercials, sponsored content, product placement, etc. Marketing and advertising are here to stay, and whether that’s good or bad is up to you.
Sources:
http://blogs.ubc.ca/etec540sept10/2010/11/29/the-evolution-of-advertising-from-papyrus-to-youtube/
https://www.qualitylogoproducts.com/promo-university/history-of-tv-ads.htm
https://bizfluent.com/info-7746188-history-print-advertising.html
https://oaaa.org/AboutOOH/OOHBasics/HistoryofOOH.aspx
https://www.voices.com/solutions/radio/history-of-radio-advertising
https://www.adpushup.com/blog/the-history-of-online-advertising/
Survey the landscape. Is your takeaway on point? Do you feel like every communication gemstone is reflective of identical vertical modes, diminished in unique viability and achieving an overall flat arch of rhetorical effervescence?
In other, far more human words: Do your communications sound like they come from a human or a “Today’s Interwebs Copy Generator”?
As a consumer, I like to be talked to, not at. I like to feel like I’m engaged in a conversation with someone, a real live human being. I don’t want to feel like I’m reading a spiel originally written for a brochure which the CEO thinks sounds on point and which uses today’s greatest business lingo. For example, if I’m shopping for shoes, don’t tell me:
Shifting the paradigm of footwear into a new tomorrow.
Tell me:
They look great, they’re comfortable, and they’re affordable. Give ’em a shot!
A few years back, after the McDonald’s hot coffee lawsuit, McDonald’s put a little warning on the side of their coffee cups that read (and I’m paraphrasing here) something like:
WARNING: THE CONTENTS OF THIS CUP ARE EXTREMELY HOT! BE CAREFUL! YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!
A few laters, when Starbucks was slowly starting to take over the world, I noticed they also had a warning on the side of their cups and it went a little something like this:
Caution: The beverage you are about to enjoy is extremely hot.
Which one sounds like it was written by a human and which was written by a multinational corporation that owns everything but a pulse and a soul? (Note: To their credit, since that time, it looks like McDonald’s has updated their cups so now they say, “Caution: I’m hot!” Which is an improvement, but carries with it all sorts of creepy new connotations.)
Bottom line: Write like people talk. Because people have hearts and feelings and the capacity to care and understand.
“But what if people don’t buy it? What if people think I’m a huge, soulless multinational corporation who can afford to hire someone to write like a human?”
Relax! This is where another element of storytelling can help you out. Don’t just tell your story, tell your backstory, too.
In traditional storytelling, the “backstory” is everything that happens before the story begins. And sometimes there’s a lot of backstory (The backstory of “Star Wars: Episode IV — A New Hope” can be seen in “Star Wars: Episode I — The Phantom Menace,” “Star Wars: Episode II — Attack of the Clones,” and “Star Wars: Episode III — Revenge of the Sith.” But even “Episode I” had a backstory. Which I’m sure is coming soon to a theater near you.) and sometimes there’s a little backstory (In “The Wizard of Oz,” there has to be a story of why Dorothy is living with an aunt and uncle instead of a mom and dad and I bet how she met Toto is interesting, too.)
You can take the same approach with your backstory, as well. It can be as simple as “Made in the USA” or as detailed as an “About Us” page that reads like a history book.
When Jebediah Clinkenhammer arrived in Baltimore on March 19, 1844, he announced, “Worry no more! I am here to produce and provide you good people with the finest trousers you have e’er seen!” It was a Tuesday. On Wednesday…
An authentic backstory, when told in an authentic voice, will give your brand the authenticity you need not just to be trusted, but to be liked, as well. And how often do we maybe pay a little more or get a little out of our way to shop with people we really like?
One thing to note: an authentic story is not a panacea. It can only take you so far. You can tell people about your history and how much you love your work, but until you show them — through providing a great product or service backed by great customer service — you’re just spinning yarns.
Now, go. Tell your story.
For years, Millennials have held the attention of marketers around the world as they have grown to be an influential, powerful demographic. But now it may be time to shift gears a bit and take a look at their successor, Gen Z.
Gen Zers were born roughly between the years of 1996 to 2015 in a completely digital world. The oldest of them experienced the post-9/11 America as well as The Great Recession of 2008. Growing up in these hard times has caused this generation to spend more cautiously in comparison to their older siblings, the Millennials. For that reason, marketers need to do a great job appealing to their interests to tap into their $44 billion buying power. Not to mention 40% of the U.S. consumer market is projected to be Gen Zers by 2020.
Tip 1: Don’t Use Celebrity Endorsements
Celebrity endorsements just don’t work like they used to on the younger generation. “So if we can’t use celebrities to endorse our products, who should we use?” Great question. Gen Zers would likely to be more receptive to viewing endorsements by their favorite YouTube, Snapchat, or Instagram influencers. According to a survey of Gen Zers, 63% said that they would prefer to see real people in brand advertisements vs. celebrities.
Tip 2: Have a Strong Online Presence
Gen Z prefers to shop, research, and communicate online; they do it constantly. So it follows that having a strong online presence is extremely important when trying to appeal to them from a marketing standpoint. That means you need a top-notch website and a killer social presence. Your website should have all the information they need to make a sound decision as well as links to your social channels to get the “real scoop” on your brand. Your social channels should include engaging content and, most importantly, evidence that you communicate with your audience regularly and transparently.
Tip 3: Integrate a Social Responsibility Element into Your Business
According to a recent study, 60% of Gen Zers are gravitating towards career paths that will have a worldly impact, and 76% are conscious and concerned about man’s impact on the environment. That being said, integrating a social responsibility element into your business could definitely give you a competitive advantage when trying win over Gen Zers. But be sure to actually stay true to your social responsibility claims; Gen Zers can smell a phony a mile away.
Tip 4: Be Everywhere Digitally Possible
On average, Gen Z uses five different screens to view media: smartphone, TV, laptop, desktop, and tablet. This means if they’re watching one screen and ads begin showing they’ll just divert their attention to the next screen available. Keeping this in mind is crucial when deciding when and where to have your ads show.
Tip 5: Create Content that Gets the Message Across Quickly
If you thought it was hard to get a Millennial’s attention, check this out. Officially, Gen Zers have an average attention span of eight-seconds. You read that right, eight seconds. Effectively communicating your brand’s message in eight seconds is not an easy task, but is necessary to reach this demographic. For this tip, we recommend that you seek quality content creators that will help your audience understand what the content is about and why it matters to them in that time window.
Need some help leveraging these tips? We’d be happy to lend a hand. Boxcar has experience creating content, interacting with social influencers, strengthening online presence through web design and social media, and much more. Hit us up!
If you’ve heard it once, you’ve heard it twice: “All businesses should participate in social media.” I know that we’ve even mentioned it to you before in some of our past blog posts – All About Social Media Strategy, Social Media Campaigns for Small Businesses. While the statement is completely true, do you specifically understand why? I’ll tell ya:
“Social Media Marketing can help you reach your marketing goals.”
I’m sure you assumed so. But how does it help you reach those goals? First, let’s identify what goals social media marketing can help you attain. Social media marketing can help your business:
- Boost website traffic
- Ignite conversions
- Build brand awareness
- Establish a brand identity and positive brand association
- Improve communication and interaction with key audiences
Now that we understand what goals social media marketing can aid, how do we use social media to achieve them? Here are a few tips to get you started on creating a successful presence:
Content Planning
Research the type of content that is relevant to your industry. What types of content are your competitors posting? Ensure that you post content that resonates with your target audience.
Present a Consistent Image
A social media presence helps your business project your brand image across a variety of different platforms. While every platform may have a different environment and voice, your brand’s identity and image should stay consistent.
Create Engaging Content
Similar to other forms of digital marketing, content value is essential when it comes to social media marketing. Ensure that you are consistent with your posts and provide truly valuable information that your target audience will find compelling. There are various types of content that you can share on your social media channels. This includes images, gifs, videos, infographics, how-to guides and more.
Promote Your Original Content
Your social network is the best place to share your brand’s original content for your target audience to engage with. One way to build a large and loyal following on your social media channels is to post all of your original content to make sure that your audience is able to find your new stuff right away. Great blog content can actually help you build a substantial following as well. It’s an interesting way that content marketing and social media marketing have proven to be beneficial to each other.
Share Curated Links
As I mentioned before, sharing your original content on your social channels is a great way to boost your brand’s clout, but it’s also a great opportunity to share content produced by other great creators. If these other creators provide engaging, valuable information you believe your brand’s audience will appreciate, do not hesitate in sharing them on your social network. Curating content and linking to sources other than your own improves trust and reliability, you could possibly even get some links in return.
Social Listening for Competitive Intelligence
Keeping up with your competitors on social media should definitely be a top priority. Staying in-tune with their social activity can provide valuable insight for keyword research and other social media tactics. If you find your competitors are practicing successful social media techniques that your brand isn’t, consider integrating their techniques into your social media plan. Build on it and do it better.
With these tactics implemented into your social media marketing plan, your brand is destined to meet the goals mentioned above in due time.
If you’re looking for something a bit more specialized for your brand and industry, drop us a line. We’d love to help!
Everyone wants to communicate.
We all have a message we’re trying to send to the rest of the world — especially to those who may benefit from our products or services. At the same time, everyone wants to sound professional. We all want to sound like we know what we’re doing and we know our business. After all, would you ever trust a doctor who said, “In my professional opinion, I would prescribe a thingamajig for your whatchamacallit.”?
But all too often we go to the extreme with our “professional lingo.” We try so hard to sound professional that we wind up confusing the message. Bottom line, net-net, you don’t have to die on the hill if your back-of-the-envelope writing becomes a real pain point with potentialized future assets.
Instead of trying to shoehorn as much business lingo into your written communications as you can, try this: Tell a story.
Tell your story.
Before you run off to grab a quill and some parchment, let’s first talk about what makes a story a story. You might be familiar with one of the simpler descriptions of a story:
You get your hero up a tree.
You throw rocks at your hero.
You get your hero out of the tree.
We prefer an even simpler definition: A story is a quest. Somebody wants something and they’re on a quest to get it. But with all great stories, you’ll find that the hero is besieged by obstacles at every turn. In Moby Dick, Captain Ahab doesn’t just drop a line in the water and wait for the whale to take a bite. He has to search, he has to fight against the elements, he has to struggle to the very end to take revenge on the whale who took his leg. Does he win? Does he lose? That’s why we keep reading. To find out how it ends.
Even if you sell fishing equipment we understand you’re not telling the story of “Moby Dick.” But that doesn’t mean you’re not on a quest. Nor does it mean your quest is any less urgent or important than Ahab’s. When telling your story, define your quest.
To clean every last inch of grout on earth!
To simplify the home buying process!
To help people catch more fish!
Now let’s talk about casting. Who plays which part? This one’s easy: You (your business, service, or product) are the hero. Your potential consumers are the villagers being attacked by the fire-breathing dragon. And this fire-breathing dragon provides the obstacles.
In real life, however, these obstacles come in the form of consumer doubts and fears.
Does it work on tough stains?
Is it expensive?
Is it all natural, free range, open sourced, completely organic, and so on?
Of course, like the author of any good story, you know the answers to all of these questions. And you should know the answers to all of the questions that pop up as you and your audience continue on your journey.
How does the quest end? With the sale of course. If you tell a compelling story, your audience will stick with you to the very end, the happiest of endings, the sale.
So that’s how you communicate your business to the world. But there’s more to it than this. There’s a backstory, there’s a voice and a tone, there’s even a setting. How does it all work? I’m glad you asked. It all works like this…
To be continued.
There are many components that make up a social media marketing strategy, some more proven than others, but today we are focusing on social listening. Are you there? Good. But are you listening via your brand’s social media channels? That’s another question. Not enough businesses are. Some of you are probably wondering,
“What is social listening anyway?”
Social listening is the process of monitoring digital conversations to understand what customers are saying about a brand and industry online.
Nowadays you’ll find that most conversations are happening online on various social media channels. This is why social listening is so important. These digital conversations are the “new word of mouth.” The great thing about this is it’s documented, available for your analysis, and can be altered in your favor if necessary. This leads us to understanding.
Why does social listening matter to your business?
Social listening can allow you to discover and address gobs of feedback and insight. This knowledge will allow you to change and innovate according to your customers’ needs and reinforce the positive aspects that you have in place. The fact that you are tuning in already grants you a competitive advantage over those who are not. Here’s why social listening should matter to you:
Remedy customer complaints
Many times customers resort to their social network to vent about issues they’ve encountered with certain businesses. If you are social listening you can identify those posts and address them with your organization’s customer care techniques. Once the complaint has been addressed and resolved, you’ll find what was once a negative post about your brand has become a perfect example of how your business remedies negative customer experiences — for all to see.
Get honest feedback
There’s a difference between what a customer will say while you’re in the room and while you’re not. Participating in social listening allows you to chime in on the conversations that your customers are having about you, your products or services while you are not in the room. These conversations allow you to realize what your customer cares about the most, has questions about and what needs you are currently not fulfilling. Your customers may not always tag you in the conversations that they are having about you, but it’s still important to listen in!
Find possible leads
I see this all the time. People reach out to their social network for recommendations on which business to go to for various services and/or products. Facebook has even implemented a type of status that you can post on your timeline that is specifically for gathering recommendations within an area. These are the type of posts that you should be monitoring for related to your industry. It’s the perfect opportunity to engage with a person that you know is seeking assistance that your business can very well provide.
Finding industry influencers
Ah, the influencers. You want to know who these people are. They are called influencers for a reason; they can make or break you with a tip tap on their keyboard or with a product review video on their YouTube channel. If you participate in social listening, you can first identify who the influencers are within your industry. Next, you can leverage these industry influencers to speak in favor of your brand. Once you’ve identified them, engage with them!
Staying in-tune with competitors
Remember what I said about competitive advantage? This is where it comes in. Social listening for conversations about your industry will not always be about your brand, obviously, but they may be about your direct competitors. You may find that current customers of your direct competitors are unhappy with the service or product they’re provided. This is your chance to swoop in and be the hero by suggesting they become your customer where all their troubles would be washed away with your superior service or products. You can also just take a note of it. (This also applies to positive feedback about your competitors by their customers.) Observe whether your competitors participate in social listening. Use these insights to improve your business.
How do I get started with social listening?
First, you need to identify which channels are most relevant to your business. Where do people go to talk about brands and brand experiences?
The most obvious places to look are review sites: Yelp, Google, etc. These will be the easiest monitor as they are extremely straightforward. All you really have to do is monitor these sites by going to your brand’s designated page and address the reviews accordingly.
Then there are the not-so-direct places people turn to have conversations about brands, like social media platforms: Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Instagram. Here you will need a bit more of a strategy. Here are the steps I recommend:
I. Develop a curated list of keywords and topics relevant to your brand and industry.
Some examples to get you started would be company brand name, competitor names, brand taglines and slogans, campaign names, and industry buzzwords.
II. Choose a method of monitoring. Will you be using a monitoring tool?
What monitoring tools are out there? There’s Twitter Advanced Search, Google Alerts, Hootsuite, or just the search engine within each social channel!
III. Begin listening!
Okay, I’m social listening. What now?
If you find a great post about your brand, here’s what you do:
First, thank them for sharing their experience with their network and let them know how much you appreciate them as a client. Once you’ve done that, retweet, share, like, favorite, and so on. Do it all! You may also want to give them a treat in the form of a coupon or free item. The purpose of all this is to encourage people to post about your brand.
If you find a negative post about your brand:
Get your customer service team involved! These postings are public and should be taken very seriously. After consulting with your customer care team, relay their proposed remedy to the client on the post that they’ve shared or have them take over the correspondence. Try your best to convert that negative post into a positive post by resolving the proposed issue.
Wondering if this whole social listening stuff is working?
There are a couple of ways that you can track the success of your social listening activities. One way is observing the reaction of engaged clients via social listening. Did they post about your interaction? Do they feel that their customer experience has been enhanced as a result of social listening? Another way of gathering this information would be to create a survey asking all engaged customers directly what they felt as a result of social listening.
Love the idea of social listening, but just don’t have the time or the resources to start engaging? Drop us a line and we’ll get you started!
Tim Hill, Interactive Designer
Q: As a Boxcar Creative insider, what trends do you see amongst the group? Any unique in-office habits?
It’s not a trend, per say, but I think everyone at Boxcar works on finding ways to improve and expand their craft. It’s awesome to see our project manager learning HTML and CSS (shout out, Sean)!
Q: What’s your vision for the world of digital communications? How does Boxcar Creative align with that vision?
A: My vision for digital communications is to continue delivering useful information in unique and engaging ways. Boxcar has a great team with many skill sets and the ability to adapt to whatever challenges we come across.
Q: Who are you outside of Boxcar Creative?
A: I have a wonderful wife and two boys. Most my time is spent avoiding the takedown with one child on my back and another hanging on my leg, ha!
I enjoy doing things outdoors. I like camping, fishing, working out, and tending to my ever growing number of animals. You can also catch me playing some pickup basketball on the weekends!
Q: What has been your favorite Boxcar Creative project? Why?
A: I can’t say I have one favorite. I enjoyed designing and working on Cool River Cafe. Sionna logo development was a fun project. Not only did we illustrate the logo, but we animated it as well. I think it turned out great!
Q: Where do you look for inspiration?
A: Oh man, inspiration is everywhere! Nature, film, music, magazines, online, the boxcar team – the list could go on! For web design, I visit sites like Behance and CSS Design Awards.
Q: What part of your role at Boxcar Creative are you most passionate about? Why?
A: I can narrow it down to three things – Design, user interaction, and animation. I enjoy the process of creating something and then having it “come to life” through user interaction/transitions and animation.
Q: What is the most rewarding part of working with a client?
A: Simply helping them with their needs. There is great satisfaction completing a project knowing that you have helped tell their story or improved their process!
Q: What advice would you offer a young professional just starting in the industry? Is there something that you wish someone had told you?
A: Constantly be learning. Technology is always changing and you need to have an idea of what’s going on. Find ways to keep inspired. Surround yourself with those who share your interests and are motivated.
Jim Kuenzer, Director of Creative Strategy
Q: As a Boxcar Creative insider, what trends do you see amongst the group? Any unique in-office habits?
A: First, there’s a ton of overlap. We’re doing a fantastic job of supporting one another and, when one of us gets overwhelmed, jumping in to lend a hand. And part of that, which is the second trend/habit, is learning. We’ve got a studio full of students. People who want to know more about their jobs and continually grow.
Q: What’s your vision for the world of digital communications? How does Boxcar Creative align with that vision?
A: People seem to really enjoy being completely immersed in their phones and tablets all the time. But it would be nice to see someone’s face instead of the top of their head. My hope is that we can find the balance between our digital lives – in particular, our social media lives – and real, physical life. It almost seems like people do things so they can report on it. And then, of course, we expect the likes and the comments and all of that. How about doing stuff for the sake of doing stuff and foregoing this endless need for validation?
I think our greatest success has been that we, Boxcar Creative, understand the need for balance. Our site design philosophy has been to give the user what they need so they can continue their day. I’m sure we could create huge juggernauts or add addicting games to keep people engaged with our sites. But I think everyone is better off if we can quickly answer questions or provide solutions.
Q: Who are you outside of Boxcar Creative?
A: Father, husband, son, brother, writer, musician, actor, reader, photographer, cyclist, camper and Arsenal supporter.
Q: What has been your favorite Boxcar Creative project? Why?
A: Oilogic. We haven’t done a lot of work for them, but I’ve enjoyed writing stories for them. Also, it helps that they’re fun to work with and their products smell nice.
Q: Where do you look for inspiration?
A: Everywhere. There’s no shortage of it.
Q: What part of your role at Boxcar Creative are you most passionate about? Why?
A: The writing.
It’s interesting what’s happened to the English language since social media has taken off. Sometimes it feels like we’re creating a new hieroglyphic language with our incessant use of the emoji. Other times it feels like we’re just being lazy, writing all lower case with no punctuation and sum shorthand 2 say d things we wnt 2 say.
But what kills me is “business speak,” businesspeople making their jobs sound more complex and complicated than they are. Their feeble attempt at job security.
As we, the business writers and content creators, have created new ways of describing products and their benefits, readers have become savvier. They can see through the smokescreen. So while business writers may think they’re being clever or pulling a fast one when they shoehorn 50 words into a sentence that only requires five, readers can see right through it. Consumers are being bombarded with marketing messages non-stop. They can quickly separate the genuine from the phony.
I’m passionate about writing clearly and succinctly. I’ve sworn a blood oath to Strunk & White to “omit needless words.” I eschew adjectives and adverbs in favor of specific nouns and verbs – and I avoid using verbs as nouns (and vice versa).
Sometimes a consumer’s only contact with a product is through that product’s written communications. If what I write is disingenuous or dishonest or too clever or pleonastic, people will know. And we will lose a customer.
Q: What is the most rewarding part of working with a client?
A: Earning their trust.
Q: What advice would you offer a young professional just starting in the industry? Is there something that you wish someone had told you?
A: Don’t make any permanent decisions until you’re 30. This goes for everything: where you’re going to work, where you’re going to live, who you’re going to spend the rest of your life with. Wait until you’re 30 to make it permanent. Travel, experience life, have fun.
To creative types, SEO can seem overly technical and a bit robotic (after all, we are dealing with the Googlebot). But search engine optimization is vital for writers with a digital presence because search engines help people navigate the digital landscape. If your work isn’t being shown in search engine results pages (SERPs), no one is reading it. Because SEO needs to be woven into the very fabric of your digital presence, it can’t be confined to the more tech-minded SEOs. Writers and creatives need to know how to optimize their work for their businesses, agencies, or personal digital endeavors to succeed.
SEO cannot be an afterthought.
Imagine that you’ve written the most perfect case study known to humankind. You really nailed down your brand’s voice, the turn of phrase is remarkable, and you’ve displayed a world-class knowledge of semicolons. Now imagine that you revisit this masterpiece case study with the intention of optimizing it for search engines. Chances are, your case study isn’t going to come out looking as great as it did when you first wrote it, but if you don’t optimize it, it won’t be visible to your readers. This catch-22 is why writers need to be knowledgeable of SEO goals and implement those strategies into their work from the beginning.
Keywords are the focus of SEO copywriting.
Conducting thorough keyword research is the first step in developing an SEO-conscious writing style. If you’re starting from scratch, thinking about your business’ goals or services will point you in the right direction. Things like business or product names, industry or niche-specific terms, and services offered are all great candidates for targeted keywords.
It’s also important to target multiple keywords, especially long-tail keywords. If you work for a business that manufactures writing instruments, and you’re writing a blog post about which of these writing instruments is the best for college students, you need to be targeting words other than “pens,” “pencils,” and “school supplies.” You’re much more likely to rank for a term like “fine-tipped marker pens” than “pens.”
While targeting keywords is absolutely necessary to have a webpage rank in a SERP, it’s important to avoid stuffing too many keywords onto a page. This will make your work seem spammy and untrustworthy, and search engines will penalize your site. While there is no “ideal” keyword density, most SEOs recommend 1-3%.
Search engine optimization is widely regarded as something that only metric-minded analysts need to have a handle on, but this is not the case. Search engines exist to help a person with a query find an answer. The demand for search engines is a uniquely human one, and creatives need to embrace SEO strategies to succeed in an increasingly digital world.