Author Archives: Mike Gingerich

About Mike Gingerich

Author: Mike Gingerich, President of web firm Digital Hill, Co-Founder of TabSite . Digital and Social Media Marketer, Speaker, and Business Consultant. Part geek, part marketer, total digital junkie! Seeking to add value, make the complex simple, and leave a positive impact. Follow me on twitter: @mike_gingerich.

New Mobile Feature for Waftio

New Mobile Feature for Waftio

Early next year, Google will roll out an update to build upon the overall mobile-first use of the Internet by daily web users. Since over half of Google’s searches come from mobile devices, the focus on improving the mobile search is unsurprising. One of the things the upcoming change focuses on is reducing intrusive interstitials (especially pop-ups) that hamper the mobile experience and frustrate users by blocking access to content unless users take action. The following examples of pop-ups violate Google’s new mobile search rules:

  • Interstitials that make content inaccessible immediately after visitors come to the page from the search results
  • Pop-ups users have to dismiss before continuing on the site
  • Pop-ups that mimic the above-the-fold part of the page but the original content is inlined under the fold

Websites that don’t meet Google’s new standards will be penalized. If the content you have worked so hard to produce is visually obstructed by a pop-up (in a way that violates Google’s criteria), the site’s mobile rankings may go down.

In response to this new update, we’ve made a few changes to our Waftio app.

To be helpful to all users of Waftio, we’ve altered the way pop-ups can be used so you have more control.

What does this mean for your website?

We’ve added a feature to Waftio that puts you in control of your site’s mobile user experience with Waftio. Our new update includes the option to disable pop-ups only on mobile devices. This way your site won’t hinder mobile visitors view of your content. Hence, your visitors will have a more pleasant time navigating the site.

This is an optional item to turn on in the Waftio settings area.  We keep you in control and give you the power to continue to grow leads with your website!

Targeting Your Ideal Client with Facebook Ads to Grow Website Leads

Targeting Your Ideal Client with Facebook Ads to Grow Website Leads

Successful inbound marketing is knowing who your customers are, and targeting them carefully so that you get maximum ROI for your digital marketing spending. Sounds great, but once you know who you want to reach, there’s still the small matter of figuring out how.

Fortunately for everyone, there are online tools designed for just this purpose, and Facebook’s laser targeted ad services are one of the very best.

What Are Facebook Ads?

Facebook ads range from those that show up in your news feed, and look like posts from friends, to those in the sidebar and elsewhere. Some look like ads, while others (usually called boosted posts) are actual posts that have been “sponsored” to show up in news feeds.

How Do Facebook Ads Work?

Facebook ads work (basically at least) like most PPC ad types. You set up the ad, set a budget, and pay per click or action. There’s a dashboard, where you can see what’s happening with your ad set, and you can have more than one at a time.

How Much Do They Cost?

Like most PPC advertising systems, there’s a cost per click or action for your Facebook ads, but since you can also set a total or per day budget, you can control your spending at a granular level.

So far, so good. Now, here’s how you really get more from Facebook ads.

Facebook Ad Targeting Tools

The thing that sets Facebook apart from most other advertising systems is the targeting options available. Because Facebook knows so much about their users, there are almost endless options you could choose, to reach only the people you want.

Choose geographical areas, languages, gender, and age. Then select from thousands of interests. Make your choices broad or very specific. Then choose when your ads will run, and where. Exclude people who already like your page, or add a tracking pixel, to track actions on your site.

In most cases, it’s best to start your Facebook ads a little broader, and then narrow it down over time, so that you spend less for clicks, views, and actions.

Creating Great Ads

The final step in Facebook ad success is the ad itself, and while targeting is very important, it’s the ad itself that will be driving traffic to your page or website.

Make sure that the image is relevant and interesting, and that you have rights to use it! Choose a clear, simple image, and remember that Facebook doesn’t like loads of overlaid text, so keep it simple. Write a great hook, and add an action button.

If you’ve chosen the right target audience, and crafted a great ad, you should soon see traffic to your site, blog or page spike.

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Using Facebook Live Video to Drive Social Media Traffic to Your Landing Page

Using Facebook Live Video to Drive Social Media Traffic to Your Landing Page

Live video apps were introduced in 2015 but didn’t really come into play until 2016 when Facebook introduced their Live Video feature. Previously Periscope and Meerkat (which has since shut down) captured the market share of live video, but now Facebook is dominating the live video game.

Doing a live video can be a bit nerve-wracking to start, but as long as you prepare and know how you want to use Facebook Live video, you’ll knock it out of the park. A perfect way is to use Facebook Live video to drive social media traffic to your landing page from your Facebook page.

Are you launching a new product or service? Trying to build your email list? Sharing a new online course you’ve created? These are great reasons to go live on Facebook. If you’re running a new campaign or preparing for a launch, here are a few tips for using Facebook Live as a part of your traffic-driving strategy.

1. Determine your topic.

Don’t go live without preparing what you want to say. It’s a live video, but you should treat it more like a live news broadcast. This is a reflection of your business, so you want it to be as professional as possible. Enlist an employee, business partner, or really nice friend to be your cameraman or invest in a tripod for your smartphone. Dress nicely, find a room that doesn’t give you a terrible echo, and practice.

2. Schedule your live video.

If you have verified your Facebook Page (gives you a gray checkmark next to your business name), then you can schedule the time(s) that you plan to go live so that your audience is aware ahead of time and can tune in. If not (and even if you use the previous tactic, too), you should create a graphic with the date and time of your live stream and share it on all of your social media sites. Run a Facebook ad to promote your live stream as well.

3. Include a link in your caption and mention it during your broadcast.

When you go live, be sure to include the link to your landing page in the caption of your live stream. If you use landing page software like LeadPages, you may have created a domain redirecting to the page. This makes it easy to read the link off while live. If not, try to use a bit.ly link or create a really simple permalink for your landing page so that you’re not calling out a bunch of slashes and hyphens during your Livestream.

When you create your live video content, on several occasions let your viewers know what they can find/do on the landing page (information about new course/product/service, discount, contest, email signup, etc.) and slowly read off the URL again.

4. Repurpose your live video.

Once you have finished with your live broadcast and your heart is back in your chest, Facebook will then publish the video as a post on your feed. Pin the video to the top so that it’s the first thing that anybody visiting your page sees.

You can also share the video URL on Twitter, in other Facebook groups, and on your own profile. However, there are also tools for you to download your Facebook Live video (if you didn’t save it immediately after the broadcast). Then you can upload it to Youtube and Pinterest.

Facebook Live is a great tool for directing more web traffic to your landing page.  Just follow every step in this guide.

Ways to Use Waftio for Your Next Product Launch

Ways to Use Waftio for Your Next Product Launch

Waftio is a set of 3 apps (Survey App, Form App, and Sweepstakes App) all designed to engage your customers and enhance your business at the same time.

You can deploy each one as a landing page, an embedded object, a widget popup, or a popup box. Out of all 4, landing pages and embedded objects are generally acceptable to use, but popups are a little more controversial. The typical visitor is annoyed with popups because they interfere with browsing. There’s nothing subtle about them.

But it’s this lack of subtlety that makes them work so well. They grab attention and demand action when done right. To ensure that you’re tantalizing your visitors more than annoying them, here are some creative ways to use Waftio popups your next product launch:

  • Ask for your visitors’ opinion
    People will feel more engaged if they know their voice counts, so include them in some decision-making processes, no matter how small. Have them vote on a name for a new product, or ask them what they want to see for the next launch.
  • Show them a sneak peek
    A product launch should generate buzz even before its scheduled release. A good way to do this is by offering a sneak peak via an inviting announcement on a popup.
  • Give discounts
    Who doesn’t want a good deal? But don’t give it away too easily. Ask people sign up with their email addresses to get an exclusive promo code. Just make sure your promo is worth their effort.
  • Offer interesting content for download
    When you post relevant information on your site, people are likely to provide their contact information in exchange for additional content. So work on your blog posts first. Once you’ve got that covered, visitors will be looking for ways to contact you instead of the other way around. This makes popups more welcome than usual.
  • Address an FAQ
    It’s frustrating to have to hunt for the FAQ section of a site to get a useful answer. To show visitors that you care about their needs, provide an answer to a few FAQs on a popup. This works so much better if the answer is positive (e.g., Free shipping? We got that covered!)
  • Run a contest with a cool prize
    People will go to great lengths to win a fun freebie, so if your prize is interesting enough, even a popup screen covering the whole page won’t faze determined visitors.

But as interesting as these popups are, give your visitors an easy way out. You can design your popups to be as big and colorful as you want. But make the close button accessible and visible. The last thing you want is for a visitor to leave your site because they can’t get past the popups on the page.

Popups are irritating if they solely serve your business’ purpose, and not your visitors’. Make your popups matter by keeping in mind what your visitors want.

New Google Rules for Popup Forms

New Google Rules for Popup Forms

Let’s be completely honest here: a lot of people have been overusing pop-ups in their marketing efforts, and they can be annoying. However, while all blinking, flashing pop-ups are definitely a no-no for any website, an elegant, well-placed and understated pop-up has been proven to improve list building.

Unfortunately, the former has caused a backlash against the latter, and the latest fallout in the battle of the pop-ups comes in the form of a Google penalty.

While that may send you into a panic, it’s not all doom and gloom. Here’s what you need to know:

1. You Have Time

Google has announced that it will be penalizing sites for certain types of pop-ups, but they won’t be doing it immediately. In fact, the changes are due to come into effect in 2017. Which is a lot more warning than we’ve had for most of the big Google changes so far!

2. It’s Not Universal

The king of all search engines isn’t penalizing all sites for pop-ups. They’ve decided to make this a mobile specific change and only sites that use pop-ups on mobile are being targeted. This means that if you disable pop-ups for your mobile site, you still keep your mobile friendly tag, which is, admittedly, a big deal for search rankings.

3. It’s Broader Than Pop Ups

The truth is, this change is not only about pop-ups. Google is trying to improve the mobile user experience all round, so they’re targeting all sites that use interruption marketing, or use the area above the fold purely for email gathering purposes.

If you don’t put list building ahead of customer experience on your site, you’ll probably be fine.

4. Allowed Within Reason

Google understands that the internet is a major marketing arena for most companies, and they’re not unreasonable. Which means that you won’t be penalized for all above the fold marketing. As long as your marketing doesn’t take over the page, you’re in good shape!

5. Mobile Friendly Sites Are the Future

Since Google added the mobile friendly tag to search results, more than 85% of all sites have opted to change their design to keep up with the times. This is more proof that mobile friendliness is here to stay. So while the mobile friendly tag may be disappearing soon, it doesn’t mean it will disappear as a ranking factor.

Make sure that your website works for mobile users, and put their needs ahead of your desire to gather marketing data. It really is that simple.

How to Measure Conversions on Your Website With Facebook Ads

How to Measure Conversions on Your Website With Facebook Ads

One of the biggest complaints marketers have about social media is that there’s no way to track conversions or ROI. Other than tracking which social network is sending more traffic to your website, there isn’t a way to track organic social media marketing.
Enter Facebook Advertising

Facebook Advertising has really changed the game when it comes to targeting your specific audience and tracking how many conversions you get from each ad. In fact, many digital marketing agencies have begun offering Facebook Ad-only services because of how their power.

Because this is still a relatively new development in the scheme of social media (Facebook Advertising has only been a prominent player for a couple of years now), not many business owners know how to use them to their advantage. Learn how to measure conversions with Facebook Ads.

1. Create a Pixel

How to Measure Conversions on Your Website With Facebook Ads

When you open Ads Manager to create a new ad, you have 3 options for your marketing objective: Awareness, Consideration, and Conversion. Click the option under conversion called “Increase conversions to your website”. Create a name for your campaign, then click continue.

The first thing you’ll be asked to do is select a conversion event. Do you want to track how many views you’re getting to a blog post from this ad? Do you want to track new email signups? New purchases or registrations? There are several conversion event options created for you to select from.

The next step is verifying your pixel. When you click Verify Pixel after selecting a conversion event, a box will open with your pixel code. You’ll install the code on your website in between the <head> and </head> codes to get the pixel working and tracking your clickthroughs.

2. Create Your Ad

Create your copy with a clear call to action and include a visually appealing image that doesn’t contain too much text. Make sure you’re targeting the correct audience, but don’t get so specific that Facebook can’t show your ad. Consider how much a new registration, purchase, or lead is worth to you before deciding on your budget.

3. Create a Valuable Landing Page

It doesn’t matter if your ad and targeting are perfect if you’re sending people to a busy or flawed landing page, they’re not going to convert. Make sure your landing page is clean and contains only the information the customer needs to know or do to take action.

You can use third-party service like Tabsite to create a landing page. When capturing leads, ask for the bare minimum–email address. Expecting people to fill out a long form full of required fields is unrealistic, and they’ll leave the page.

How to Measure Conversions on Your Website With Facebook Ads

4. Experiment with Facebook Ads

There are a number of ways to track conversions with Facebook Ads. Does your company do business over the phone more often than online?

Try call tracking from your Facebook Ads. Use a third-party service to generate a phone number that redirects to your business and is only used on Facebook.Then, check your analytics to determine how many times that specific number has been called.

Try video ads to see how those increase conversions.Leave links in the captions of your Live videos. Experiment and see which ads get you the most conversions.

Facebook Ads are changing the digital marketing game in terms of tracking ROI and increasing conversions.

4 Tips for a Better Digital Marketing Strategy

4 Tips for a Better Digital Marketing Strategy

As a small business owner, you know how important digital marketing is to you and the growth of your company. Digital marketing is the use of tech for promotional purposes. If you want to establish a thriving, recognizable brand, then making use of these techniques is a must.

Today, it’s almost impossible to find a company not using photographs, social media, and websites to spread the word about their brand. However, even though you use these digital strategies, you may not have the results other, more successful businesses get.

The question is, what are you doing wrong?

Maybe nothing.

In many cases, success is only a matter of redefining and tweaking your strategy. Use the tips to enhance the digital marketing strategies you have in place:

1. Define Your Goals

The problem of visible results may relate to the goals you have for your digital marketing strategy.

There are three key elements to an effective strategy:

  • Make sure you’re realistic.
  • Make sure you’re specific.
  • Keep an optimistic outlook.

While the mission statement of your business may read “keep growing the business effectively,” you need goals that are better defined. The goals you set can relate to reaching a certain number in sales for a quarter or to increase traffic to your website.

2. Put a Priority on Mobile Optimization

If you have yet to recognize the importance of a mobile website, it’s in your best interest to hop on board right away.

The number of mobile devices has increased steadily over the past few years. As a result, the number of mobile sales has surpassed that of desktops. If you don’t have a site that’s mobile friendly, you’re basically asking your customers to go to your competition.

Don’t worry, you don’t have to invest large amounts of money into this effort, but it’s a good idea to guarantee your website is mobile friendly/responsive.

3. Make Sure Your Business is Social

Even if you have made the decision not to engage on social media platforms personally, your business still needs a presence. The fact is, tons of potential customers are using social sites. Facebook alone has 1.49 billion users.

Make sure you take some time to figure out where your audience is. For example, interior designers likely want to target sites such as Pinterest and Facebook, while those selling business outreach services may find better results on LinkedIn.

4. Track Website Analytics to See What Works

You can’t determine the effectiveness of your digital marketing efforts by looking at ROI alone.

Some of the other factors you must consider include:

  • The traffic – has it increased or decreased?
  • What percentage of traffic is organic vs. referral based?
  • How long do visitors stay on your landing/blog/video pages?
  • How many shares or views does your content have?
  • How many calls-to-action and clicks does your site receive?

When you take the time to create a digital marketing strategy that implements these tips, you’ll find success for your business. Consistency and creating a clear plan is essential.

How to Use Social Engagement to Increase Website Traffic

How to Use Social Engagement to Increase Website Traffic

If your company has been resisting social media because of the, well, social part, consider giving it another look.

Social networks can be a simple, yet effective way for new customers to learn more about your business, and for existing customers to build their loyalty. These networks can be places to engage with users in conversations, show off your cool staff and your cooler products and services, get people excited about what you do, and make it easy for them to buy.

Why is it important? Look at the numbers. As of June 2016, Facebook has 1.71 billion monthly active users worldwide, and 1.13 billion daily active users. Twitter has 84 million monthly users and Instagram 200 million. Granted, not all of these users will be interested in your business, but it’s likely that people in your target market will be on one or even all of these networks. And who knows? Given the global nature of the Internet, some unexpected customers in other parts of the world may want what you’re offering.

Companies looking to take their social networking seriously can try these strategies to drive business.

  • Start blogging

    Part of the reason that some companies are intimidated by the idea of social networking is the fear that they always have to come up with interesting things to say. A smarter solution is first to focus on creating and maintaining a company blog. Doing this will accomplish two things: it will give you all sorts of fresh things to talk about on social media and drive people to your site. It will also provide fresh content for people who visit your page. What you don’t want is to have a site that never changes. Newcomers may like visiting once, but you won’t get the return visits you need.

  • Make it easy to interact

    Design your posts to get people talking, whether it’s a current blog post, your thoughts, a photo, or someone else’s post you are sharing. You can throw out a question or a theme and encourage people to respond. Each platform has its own version of “I like this,” such as a thumb’s up, heart or star. But what’s even better is when people share your post. This extends your reach and draws in more people who may not have seen your initial post.

  • Make every path connect

    Include links to your site in every social media post as a call to action. Drive site visitors to your social media. Push your site and social media all in any other communications, such as email newsletters, direct mail, texts, or other marketing materials. This global approach is a good way to get noticed, even if someone isn’t part of one network.

  • Make it mobile friendly

    Desktops and laptops are still used; more people are visiting sites and social media through their mobile devices. When planning your social strategy to drive sales, make sure everything looks good and functions on common mobile devices.

  • Consider “promoting” posts

    Major networks encourage businesses to pay to have their social activity be seen by more users. Posts can also be targeted to appear more in front of certain demographic groups of likely customers (men/women, certain age groups or locations.)

Implementing these keys can help a business drive social traffic to their website.  Combined with a lead capture strategy on the website, this is a strong form of marketing known as social lead generation.  The key is engaging and growing your audience on social and then moving that community over to your website.

How about you?  Are you using social media for lead generation?

6 Ways to Use Instagram Stories for Business

6 Ways to Use Instagram Stories for Business

When you think about the ways to use social media for your business, Instagram may not be the first channel that comes to mind. However, with the new feature offered by this platform called “Stories,” more and more businesses are hopping on the Instagram bandwagon.

“Stories” provides you the ability to create a string of videos and images that join together and then disappear after 24 hours. This offers you an effective and wide-reaching way to spread a message. Here are some specific ways “Stories” can be used for your brand:

Build Buzz and Create New Content Teasers

Instagram Stories offer a smart way to take your followers or customers behind the scenes and provide them a sneak peek of what’s coming in the future. Let them take a look at what is going on that is new or different in your company or take them on a journey to meet the staff in your office.

These small peeks into your business will not only help to strengthen your relationship, but also help to build buzz for new campaigns.

Create Short Term Contests and Games

If you want to provide a reward for your followers who remain engaged and active, consider creating a quick contest with Instagram Stories. These represent the ideal way to keep your followers interested and coming back for more. Since the Stories feature only lasts for 24 hours, they have to participate now or risk missing out altogether.

Increase Awareness and Traffic to Other Campaigns

Are you planning to host a Facebook Live Video spot? Do you need a few more people to register for your webinar? Instagram Stories can be used as a tool to remind your followers there is something exciting going on today, and they have one more chance to join in.

Creating an engaging image or short video can drive last minute sign-ups and help you get some additional traffic on other social media platforms.

Offer a Special Promo Code

If you are looking for even more ways to reward your active Instagram followers, consider offering them a coupon or discount code that they will only receive if they open your Instagram Story. The fact that the promotion will end in just 24 hours may be the thing that will encourage them to buy now, rather than waiting.

Flood Your Instagram with New Followers

You may wonder how you can gain new followers with Instagram Stories. With this unique feature, you’ll have Instagram exclusive content, which is an added bonus for anyone who is following you.

Announce rules for contests and let followers know this is the only way they’ll get this information. To get the information on an ongoing basis, they’ll have to follow you.

Set Engaging Content Apart from all the Rest

Instagram allows you to see what parts of your Stories generate the highest number of views. If you notice that specific content from the story is more engaging than other parts, you can post it on your Instagram feed for all of your followers to see.

This latest Instagram update has a number of fun ways and new opportunities for brands to engage customers and followers while sharing industry related information. With a bit of creativity and innovation, chances are you can think of a few new ways to promote what your business has to offer.

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Best Practices for Lead Generation Using Sweepstakes

Best Practices for Lead Generation Using Sweepstakes

People like free stuff.  They do!

Whether it’s as simple as movie tickets to the latest blockbuster or as grand as an all-expense paid trip to the Caribbean. It’s for this reason why sweepstakes have always been a go-to method for marketers when it comes to generating buzz.

There’s nothing quite like a giveaway to get people engaged, make them click on like, write a comment, share a post, follow a page, subscribe to a newsletter, and sometimes even create their own content.

But it isn’t only a buzz that sweepstakes can generate. Contests generate leads as well, which isn’t a surprise considering the lengths people are willing to go to just nab an interesting prize.

Of course, the big question is whether you’ll get relevant leads that end in conversions — and not just casual passersby hoping to win (and with no intention of coming back again).

To make sure you get high-quality leads here are some best practices for lead generation using sweepstakes:

Give Away a Gift Certificate for your Products or Services

A cash prize will get lots of signups via your opt-in form. You can bet that most of them will unsubscribe once the contest is over. People are always interested in money even if they’re not interested in your business. By giving away a gift certificate for your products or services, those who’ll join are interested in what your business can offer.

Keep your Prizes Reasonable

If it’s too good to be true, then people will think your contest is a scam designed to harvest personal information for malicious purposes. Even if you can afford to give away a huge freebie, make your prizes tempting yet still believable. Like a $50 voucher to be used for your products or services.

Save the grand prizes for special occasions, like your business’s milestone anniversary.

Make Participants Work for it a Bit

Most sweepstakes just ask for a name and email address. Aside from being no fun at all, this can turn away great leads. They may think they don’t stand a chance to win (and can’t be bothered to join at all).

To get genuinely interested participants, make people exert a bit of effort before they can join. Ask them to fill out a survey or give a creative answer to a question. You’ll be able to filter out the non-relevant leads, and also get information from relevant leads. Just make sure your prize is worth the extra effort.

Allow Social Sharing for More Chances of Winning

People will be willing to share your sweepstakes with their networks if you give them referral incentives. Such as additional entries for every signup they get through their referral link.

Without this option, participants might not tell others about your contest in an attempt to keep the competition pool small. Fewer joiners mean higher chances of winning, after all. But with the assurance of added entries per share, they’ll have a reason to spread the word.

When it comes to sweepstakes for lead generation, everyone’s a winner — your business included. As long as you know how to do it right.  Plan your contests well and you may come out with the top prize of high-quality leads.