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    Author: Alex Wilks

    Alex Wilks has been working as a copywriter and digital marketing strategist since 2018, with added specialties in social media and email marketing. With a Bachelor's Degree in Journalism and Communication, she is a natural content writer with the ability to connect well with her target audience.

    How to better engage with your followers on social media

    Posted on by Alex Wilks

    Social media engagement is what drives social media marketing. While most brands want more engagement on their social posts, they don’t always know how to revamp their strategies to feed algorithms, which is why they go unnoticed. That said, the more engaged your audience is, the more that other people will see your posts and the better you’ll achieve those social media goals. Let’s dive into the world of social media engagement to learn more about understanding it and how to increase it. 

    What is social media engagement?

    Social media engagement is a term that’s used to measure how much your audience interacts with your content. While it varies by platform, these actions include likes, comments, and shares. Although it’s easy to compare social media engagement month over month and year over year, this is a great way to identify what is working and what needs improvement. 

    Tips for increasing your social media engagement 

    If you’re in the realm of needing improvement, here are some ways to get started:

    • Set some new goals based on your metrics: Whether you use Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or LinkedIn, your social media metrics offer information on whether your social strategy is working well or not. Set clear engagement goals so that you know what to focus your content efforts on. This can be done by seeing how many people interact with your posts on average. 
    • Understand each platform: Each platform has its own metrics and trends, so this will require you to adjust your social media engagement strategy accordingly. 
    • Know your audience:  The key to improving your social media engagement is understanding your target audience. Since your brand is making content for a particular audience, always keep them in mind when deciding what to share on your social channels. 
    • Understand what makes an engaging post: Since every network is a little different, be sure to pay attention to what content does well on each platform. Check your analytics regularly to identify how your posts are performing with your audience.
    • Know when to post: The best time to post is when your audience is the most engaging. Knowing how often to post is equally as important because you don’t want to flood your audience with too much content. In our opinion, once a day in the morning, early afternoon, or evening is appropriate. Try them all to compare what offers you more social media engagement.  

    We hope this blog taught you a bit about how to better engage with your followers on social media through strategy. 

    What other ways do you interact with your audience? Drop a comment below. 

    5 essential tips for increasing email conversion rates

    Posted on by Alex Wilks

    Email marketing remains the reigning digital marketing champion when it comes to return on investment (ROI). Since professional businesses everywhere rely heavily on email to announce events, promotions, new product launches, and more, it’s a great resource for generating leads, traffic, and sales. That said, if you currently don’t send emails or your email conversion rate is low, this could be because your list needs more prospects and the delivery needs work. Keep reading for five tips on how to improve your email conversion rate. 

    Be personable

    Most consumers don’t have the time or the desire to read long emails. Even if they happen to open yours, if the design is bland and the information is impersonal, chances are they will delete it. This certainly doesn’t help your email conversion rates. An easy remedy for this is to make your emails sound more personable and not like a robot created them. Encourage replies, start a discussion, and allow them to reach back to you. Also, keep in mind that an email is not a brochure. It was designed for interpersonal communication, which is why you should do just that!

    Tell a story

    Those email conversion rates will see an uptick when you make further efforts to engage with your readers. This means that when they open the email, you could tell them a story. Storytelling is a powerful marketing technique because well-written narratives resonate with readers. If the first couple of sentences can grab your audience, they may likely stay to read the entire thing. Then, this offers an opportunity for you to add a call-to-action right at the end to strategically entice them to take advantage of what you’re offering. 

    Make it mobile-friendly

    With a vast amount of consumers using their smartphones as their primary devices, your emails must be compatible with these screens to ensure a high email conversion rate. Since no one likes to get an email that is hard to read, investing in mobile optimization will allow your potential customers to scroll through easily and read the details of your email without the need to zoom in.  

    Add links to all images

    While elements like buttons always possess links back to business websites, sometimes entrepreneurs forgot the power of images in their email conversion rates. Whether the consumer meant to click the image or not is irrelevant, the part to focus on here is that you want to make it easy for them to take action. 

    Get creative with your subject lines

    If no one opens your emails, how are you supposed to increase your email conversion rate? In our professional opinion, your subject line is the gateway to higher conversions through emails. So, be sure to take added time in crafting an interesting subject line to entice subscribers browsing through to take a shot at what you’re offering.

    Whether you’ve tried email marketing in the past with little to no results or you’re new to it entirely, it’s a digital strategy that’s worth investing in. Try out some of our tips from above and if you need added assistance, Trek Marketing is happy to help get you started with our monthly email marketing service!

    What elements are on your email checklist? Drop a comment below to share.

    Bulk content creation and how it can save you time

    Posted on by Alex Wilks

    Whether you’re looking for a professional digital marketing agency to conduct content creation services or some tips on how to handle things yourself, this blog will offer a range of ideas for your social media platforms, blogs, website pages, and more. 

    What is bulk content creation?

    Bulk content creation is when a large amount of content—photos, videos, captions, and hashtags—are drafted and pre-scheduled to publish for some time. As a good rule of thumb, it’s best to plan about four weeks’ worth of content, but you should be open to any trends that may appear. 

    What is the purpose of bulk content creation?

    Sending out social media posts just for the sake of staying active isn’t going to cut it. While social media is all about interacting with your audience to create lasting business relationships, your social media strategy needs to take on some leadership to incentivize potential customers to buy your products and/or services. Bulk content creation allows you to plan and do just that!

    One of the best examples of this is preparing for the holiday season. It’s essential that you plan, schedule, and orchestrate your social posts to ensure you have enough time to carry out seasonal campaigns. That said, if your business schedule is too full, be sure to reach out for content creation services that you don’t need to miss out.

    How does bulk content creation save you time?

    Saving time is a matter of using the right tools to work effectively. Since there are vast options when it comes to scheduling content, the most important thing you need to know is the following:

    • The date of publication
    • The time of publication
    • Platform output 
    • Created Content
    • Creation caption (including hashtags)
    • Status of post

    Quality is everything. Before your content can impact your audience, it must demonstrate value. This means that prospective followers should gain something from your post—knowledge, a discount, entertainment, etc.

    Are you inspired to start creating your content in bulk? Let us know if you need any pointers in the comments section below. 

    5 ways how to build an email list with Instagram

    Posted on by Alex Wilks

    Is your end-of-2022 resolution to grow your email list? Are you hoping to utilize your following on Instagram to increase email subscribers? In this blog, you’ll learn five ways to use this popular social media platform to generate email signups.

    How to build an email list using Instagram 

    Did you know that you can grow your email list with Instagram both organically and through paid ads? Instagram and Meta Business Suite have several tools for generating email subscriptions. Let’s walk through these options so that you can learn how to build an email list.

    • Direct link from bio: The easiest way to collect emails is to include a signup link within your Instagram bio. You will first need to create a website landing page with a subscription form that’s designed to collect email addresses from visitors. Then you can add the link to that page on your bio, making it easy for your followers to navigate there. How is this done? Scroll down to the links section and tap edit. Then, enter the URL. Consider also adding a call to action (CTA) to encourage profile visitors to tap the link.
    • Create an email sign-up lead form action button: Instagram rolled out a new feature that allows businesses to include a lead form on their profile. This form is displayed as a button under the business bio. To add a lead form action button to your profile tap the “edit profile” button and scroll down to the action buttons. Then, select add lead form from the list of available action buttons. Tap “done” and the button will be added instantly. 
    • Automate your DM responses: Did you know that email signups and lead forms aren’t the only way to collect contact information through Instagram? In fact, you can ensure that your DMs collect what you need. For those who receive lots of DMs, we recommend setting up an auto-reply to turn prospects into subscribers. This could easily start as a welcome message or a response to FAQs. Simply prompt users to provide email addresses and saved your responses to create a list. To set up saved replies, open your Instagram account and go to business settings. Select “saved replies” from the menu, tap the “+” button and create a response. 
    • Boost your organic content: Posts, reels, and stories possess the power to generate email signups, and this can be done by sponsoring content to help you attract more viewers. Promoting organic content can be done easily and quickly via the “boost” button on your Instagram account. Be sure to choose the goal based on how you want to collect new signups (i.e. directing them to your lead form).
    • Run engagement ads: Boosting content to an uninterested audience is far less effective than running paid promotions through a full-funnel campaign that educates potential customers and warms the audience up to your business. 

    So, how do you build an email list with Instagram? From engaging with potential subscribers to directing followers to your landing pages, there is a wide range of options for generating new email signups. 

    Which of the above ideas are you going to use to build up your strategy? Drop a comment below to share.

    How to write great SEO titles as part of your overall strategy

    Posted on by Alex Wilks

    Did you know that your search engine optimization (SEO) title is your website’s gateway to higher click-through rates? Since the SEO title is a potential customer’s first point of contact with your business, it must work to rank you as high as possible on search engine results pages (SERPs). While simply ranking high allows readers to see you first, it’s typically the title that will capture their attention. This blog will assist you in creating engaging headers, which in turn will take your SEO strategy to the next level. 

    Tips for creating titles that are optimized 

    Here we will provide some best practices for coming up with SEO titles and subheadings that will be optimized: 

    • Utilize a/some keyword(s) throughout the content: Aside from mimicking what competitors are doing, you can invest in your SEO strategy by researching the right keywords to help your content rank better. Be sure to remember that using too many technical words might confuse the reader, so when writing a title, be sure to stick to direct, concise words that are used by the general public. The keyword(s) you select work best when included in the title as well as within the content. 
    • Consider how long it is: While titles should be descriptive to attract readers, you want to make sure that they won’t get cut short on a SERP.
    • Emotional hooks are key: Not only do content titles possess the power to hook a reader emotionally but they should also evoke a response emotionally. For example, excitement or interest. When your title is fun and engaging, a reader thinks, “Oh, I want to know more about that.”
    • Don’t forget to sprinkle in your brand when you can: Now, this tip doesn’t mean that every title should include your company name. However, when it’s appropriate to do so, be sure to use add the name and stick to words that fit your brand voice to promote consistency throughout your site. 
    • Know your capitalization: If you capitalize incorrectly, your title will look spammy and not achieve the best ranking possible. Plus, no one wants to read or take tips from an author who leaves errors in their titles. As a rule of thumb, either capitalize all of your words or just the first one—don’t forget to capitalize the names of people, countries, etc. 

    Consistency and professionalism are key in formatting the titles that are used within the content on your website. So, if you’re looking to revamp your SEO strategy moving into the new year, consider the above tips.

    Which tip did you find most helpful and plan to implement into your SEO strategy? Drop a comment below to share. 

    7 useful tips for creating more festive holiday emails

    Posted on by Alex Wilks

    A solid email marketing strategy is needed for any business to reach potential customers, especially amid the buzz of the holiday season. That said, since inboxes are jam-packed with a wide variety of emails this time of year, you need to stand out, especially for those on the hunt for last-minute gifts for their loved ones. Hopefully, this blog serves as inspiration, with useful tips on how you can create festive holiday emails. 

    Are you ready to get started?

    Here are a few strategic email marketing tips that will help you to gain traction this holiday season:

    • Brainstorm: Before investing time and money into holiday email campaigns, we recommend that you analyze anything that you completed this time last year. This allows you to see what performed well and if anything can be recycled and reused. 
    • Review your competition: When in doubt, it’s easy and takes little effort to see what competing businesses are doing. Simply sign up for their newsletters and await emails to your inbox. 
    • Spend time on the subject line: Opening rates are extremely dependent on how well a subject line grabs the attention of the audience. Since the context of each email varies greatly, as will the result in given situations. However, as a rule of thumb, you should stick to 50 characters, be mindful of spelling and grammar, utilize capitalization, and consider powerful language. 
    • Take advantage of the holidays: Even if you’re hosting a sale or announcing a new product, a simple holiday greeting is a great way for your email marketing strategy to show the receiver that you care. 
    • Don’t forget the call to action: As much as you don’t want to believe it, customers rely on you to tell them what to do. If you’re promoting an item of a sale, be sure to include a “buy now” button in a large, colourful way to catch their attention and let them know what you’re hoping for. 
    • Account for everything: If you’re showing a picture of an item or service in your email, ensure that it’s something that they can buy. There’s nothing worse than getting hyped up about something that isn’t even available. Also, on that note, it needs to be easy to access as well. Remember to link the items and if needed, create a holiday landing page to make finding things easier. 
    • Emphasize a deadline: Most promotions have an end date, so if you’re running a campaign this holiday season, be sure to mention that this amazing deal won’t last and that it’s only available until a certain date. Likewise, with shipping times varying, make a note in your emails that there is a deadline to receive an item by Christmas. 

    We hope that you’re now feeling inspired by your email marketing strategy and that you’re keen on creating holiday-friendly emails to better connect with your audience. If you need help getting organized or want a professional company to handle the details for you, we’re happy to chat and answer any further questions you may have about holiday email marketing.

    What promotion are you offering or planning to offer for the holiday season? Drop a comment below to share with our readers.

    How to create an effective holiday landing page

    Posted on by Alex Wilks

    While landing pages are excellent tools to drive website traffic and sales any time of the year, they’re particularly effective over the holidays. Since the season of gift-giving offers shoppers a bombardment of offers, it can be challenging to get noticed among the plethora of stores targeting the same audiences. Continue reading to learn more about how creating a landing page could help your business this season.  

    What is a landing page?

    The best landing pages are a single-page concentrating on converting customers for a specific offer. They’re used to generate leads, collect email addresses, gather market research, or capture direct sales of goods and services. Part of the reason they’re so effective is that they work to eliminate barriers where customers become distracted and forget to take action—navigation issues, visual clutter, and slow checkout processes.

    How is a landing page different from a product page?

    A product page is a broader catalog on your site. These pages are dynamic and can be sorted and filtered to narrow down a variety of options. Then, the customer can take action by adding them to a wishlist, their online shopping cart, sharing, or purchasing them. 

    What are the best practices for creating holiday landing pages that convert?

    Since we specialize in professional content writing, we can offer you a few tricks of the trade that will give you the best chance of creating successful landing pages. 

    1. Keep your landing pages simple: The best landing pages are the ones with no distractions. We recommend eliminating headers, footers, navigation menus, and share buttons so that visitors know exactly what to look at. 
    2. Quick load times are important: No one wants to wait on your website to load and chances are that they won’t. Make sure that your landing page loads fast and that it works across all devices. 
    3. Your call-to-action (CTA) should be compelling: If you don’t ask, customers won’t be inclined to act. CTAs need to be compelling so that the messaging is direct and appeals to buyers. Use generic language but create a sense of urgency.
    4. High-quality photos are a must: One or two images should do the trick in showcasing the purpose of your landing page. If it’s to sell a particular product, display photos from multiple angles and be sure to include the item in use. 
    5. Use this as an opportunity for add-ons, upgrades, and cross-sells: The holiday season is all about helping shoppers find the gifts they’re looking for, so why not provide suggestions that increase your sales? Add-ons like gift wrapping and personalized messages are super popular!
    6. Make it festive: The best holiday landing pages should include messaging and graphics that match the rest of your website but with a twist. Be sure to keep the charm that your customers know and love about your business but also utilize holiday-themed photos and language where appropriate to get shoppers in the gift-giving spirit. 

    Are you ready to create the best landing pages for your holiday shoppers? Drop a comment below if you have any questions before getting started. 

    Digital marketing tips for the holiday season

    Posted on by Alex Wilks

    The holidays are quickly approaching, and the holiday season means big business for e-commerce companies. While big box stores are bound to get an influx in sales, the holiday season is also a great opportunity for small businesses to shine. Shoppers are always on the hunt for the best deals, the quickest and cheapest shipping, and unique products to give away as gifts. Since November is when people begin to explore and evaluate their options, it’s a great time to focus on your marketing plan. Here are some tips for the holiday season.

    Set SMART goals

    After you take the time to brainstorm some ideas, it’s time for you to set some business goals. Since goal setting is an important part of launching a successful marketing campaign, we recommend that you try using the SMART goals formula—an acronym that offers a framework to develop a path to success.

    What does SMART mean?

    • Specific: Focus on one area or task
    • Measurable: Assign a number or percentage to your task to measure progress
    • Attainable: Can you reasonably achieve your goal?
    • Relevant: Can you benefit from achieving this goal?
    • Time-sensitive: Can you create a deadline and ensure that you hold yourself accountable? 

    When creating goals, it’s important that you focus on one area at a time. For example, if you want to increase traffic this holiday season, you will want to invest in digital marketing services that directly correlate to an influx in traffic. Next, once you pick your goal, make sure it’s something that you can measure. You could say, “I want to increase my traffic by 10% over the holidays” which is something that you can track through Google Analytics. Not only do you want to ensure the said goal is measurable, but it also needs to be attainable. The holiday season has already started and for most people, ends by January 1. Is it attainable for you to increase traffic by 10%? Possibly 5% would be a better benchmark. With a specific, measurable, and attainable goal, you need to test its relevance. Will a 5% increase in traffic have a positive impact on your business? It absolutely will! Finally, you need to make sure that your goal is time-sensitive. Set your deadline. You have at least six weeks onwards to get the job done and keep yourself motivated.

    Be sure to define your target audience

    When speaking with a specific person, we naturally adjust what we say and how we say it. Your marketing should be the same. 

    Here are some questions to ask yourself when marketing to your target audience:

    • How well do you know your customers?
    • What makes them buy specifically from your business?
    • What are your customers thinking when they begin the holiday shopping journey?

    Knowing your audience is an essential part of creating marketing materials that will appeal to them. 

    Don’t forget to tell your story

    Customers join a retailer’s business journey at varied stages, so the holiday season is a great time to reintroduce yourself. 

    Your story could include:

    • How you got started
    • Your brand’s history
    • Customer success stories
    • Advice on products or services

    Hi, we’re Trek Marketing! We hope that all of the above holiday season digital marketing tips allow you to better connect with your audience in a successful and impactful way. 

    Which tip(s) have you added to your radar for the holiday season? Drop a comment below. 

    How to prepare your shop for increased holiday traffic

    Posted on by Alex Wilks

    The weeks leading up to the holidays are some of the busiest of the year for e-commerce businesses. That said, with more people hunting on the wide web for gift ideas, it’s safe to assume that you can expect a higher-than-average number of visitors to your store—as long as your SEO, social media, and email strategies are working in your favour. Needless to say, if you aren’t equipped to handle an increase in website traffic, it will cost you sales this holiday season, so it’s best to be prepared. 

    Don’t make any big changes to your website layout

    While it’s great to keep things fresh, especially during the holidays, changing up your website’s layout right before the biggest shopping time of the year isn’t recommended. Shoppers rely on consistency, especially when they’re trying to find products to fulfill their orders, and drastic changes to these processes can be frustrating and cause unexpected technical glitches. So, instead of focusing on a web re-design, use this time to present holiday deals to get those sales up. You can create a holiday-specific landing page, a new shopping category, change up with some seasonal banners, and update your content to showcase special deals. Basically, you can develop a festive look without changing the website’s functionality. 

    Ensure mobile shoppers can also enjoy

    The start of November is the perfect time to prep your website for mobile commerce. Since almost every online shopper has a phone these days, it would be silly to not ensure that your website is legible and workable on a smartphone. 

    Our sister company Numinix Web Development offers a mobile optimization service that will adjust font and button sizes and enable mobile payments to ensure that the customer experience is the same regardless of the device they wish to use.   

    Stock up on inventory

    Whether you have items that are seasonal or you have a list of popular goods, it’s important to look at your previous year’s sales trends. This ensures that you can properly stock your products before the influx of sales can in. Keep in mind that if you have inventory on the way, you should be providing regular updates so that customers can come back to purchase. It’s also a good idea to offer alternative suggestions to keep sales in-store rather than offering up sales to your competitors because of a lack of inventory. 

    Which one of our proposed tips for an increase in website traffic do you find most important? Drop a comment below to share with our readers.

    How to allocate your digital marketing budget

    Posted on by Alex Wilks

    While there is no universal strategy for small business budget allocation, successful e-commerce companies will invest in a mix of both paid and organic initiatives. With a wide abundance of marketing channels available in various sectors of online advertising, it’s important to know where your money can be wisely spent to yield a higher return on investment (ROI) and which activities will strategically reach your target audience. In this blog, we will walk you through some steps that you should take when appropriating your marketing budget and offer tips on how to better budget yourself in the future. 

    Making the most of your digital marketing budget

    Whether this is the first digital marketing budget you’ve ever built or you’re looking to give your process a little refresher.

    Here are some steps that can help you to determine where the money should go:

    • Use a budget tracker: All businesses need to track their expenses and analyze where cuts can be made to further the profit. Likewise, your first step to allocating a budget for digital marketing for a small business is to prepare data into a report that shows proposed spend, actual spend, and the results of your spend for future planning.
    • Review goals: Your organization’s top priorities and initiatives are things to consider when budgeting for the next quarter. However, when reviewing these goals, you also need to factor in new product launches, deals, promotions, and event signups.  
    • Select the right sales channels: What works for one business or industry may not work for another, which is why outreach, demographics, behaviours, and intent are elements to consider when choosing the right sales channels. This will not only help you to avoid wasting money but also build up your buyer persona. 
    • Paid search: Online ad campaigns like Google Ads may use up much of your budget because of the cost-per-click but if you secure the right visitors to your website, the investment is well worth it.  
    • Paid social: Popular choices include Facebook ads, Instagram ads, and LinkedIn ads, which show up for potential customers on their social feeds. Depending on the dollar amount you spend, your chances of acquiring new customers can become heightened. 
    • Content marketing: Content is king and since it can typically be put online for little to no charge, the only cost associated with the content is the time that it takes to write. If you can do that yourself, great! But if you’re one of the many who need to rely on freelance writers to produce awesome business content, be sure to budget what you can afford and post as much as you can. 

    If you allocate your budget based on data, you’re setting yourself up to be successful. Since Trek Marketing works with digital marketing for small business, we have all the services and expertise you need for allocating your budget. 

    What other strategies do you consider when depending on your business budget? Drop a comment below to share.