IM Sphere

The best way to grow ANY business is for your customers to grow it for you. That’s where word of mouth comes in: customers going out of their way to tell other people (prospective customers) about your products and services.

Since the cavemen days, this has been the most effective and cost-effective form of customer acquisition. Yet today, even though (and perhaps because of the fact) we are surrounded by advertising options, we almost reflexively design marketing programs that talk TO customers, instead of letting the customers talk with each other.

At Convince & Convert, we believe that every company in the world could benefit from a better word of mouth strategy. But some companies need word of mouth more acutely. Are you among them?

Here’s our quick checklist that helps determine if you really need a word of mouth boost:

1. Your Customer Acquisition Costs are Going Up

One of my favorite sayings isn’t ENTIRELY true, but it’s true enough. It’s from Robert Stephens, founder of GeekSquad:

Advertising is a tax, paid by the unremarkable.

If you have to buy every click, every lead, and every sale you simply are working too hard to get new customers.

Adver… Read More

Do you use social media to market a local business? Wondering how to measure the effectiveness of your online efforts? In this article, you’ll learn how to track and report on organic and paid social media marketing for a brick-and-mortar business. 4 Social Media Goals for Local Businesses While retail marketers are still engaging in […]

The post How to Track Social ROI for a Local Business appeared first on Social Media Marketing | Social Media Examiner.

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One of the most difficult parts of social media marketing is actually proving its ROI. It’s easy to throw numbers around – likes, new followers, comments and so on – but how do you actually prove your return on investment from social media? 

How do you demonstrate that your work is bringing in revenue or helping the brand reach its marketing and business objectives? 

In this post, I’m going to share some of my best and most effective tips, tricks and tools to help prove your social media ROI. Let’s go.

Vanity Metrics vs. Actionable Metrics: What’s the Difference?

“Vanity metrics” is a term that’s thrown around a lot, but what does it actually mean in the context of social media marketing, and how is it relevant to measuring and proving your ROI?

What Are Vanity Metrics?

Vanity metrics, as the name suggests, are metrics that might make you feel good about yourself – such as generating a bunch of likes on an update or having a large number of fans and followers – but if the metrics aren’t actually relevant to your specific social media marketing objectives (usually, the one’s management or clients ask for), then they are simply vanity metrics. They might look good on paper (or that P… Read More

A website without images will look plain, boring, and borderline unprofessional.

Think about it for a moment: When was the last time you visited a website that didn’t have any photos? If you actually encountered this rarity, you probably left the site fairly quickly for fear of spam, phishing, or malware. Simply put, barren sites without any visual content can appear shady and untrustworthy.

Not having images hurts your site, and having images helps. They’re appealing. Photos in your blog posts will break up the text and make it easier for people to read and scan through your content. Detailed product photos show prospective customers exactly what they are purchasing. The perfect position of an image can help you design a homepage that converts.

Studies show that three days later people only remember 10% of the information they hear. When that information is paired with a relevant photo, 65% of it gets retained.

Bottom line: You should be using photos and other visual content on every single page of your website.

Sure, you might recognize the fact that you need images on your website. You might even have some images that you want to use. But are you legally allowed to use them? Do you have to pay?

This is a common problem among website owners. They don’t know where to get images. So, they’re hesitant add visual content to their site for fear of copyright infringement or hefty legal fines. Not to worry.

In t… Read More

One of the most difficult parts of social media marketing is actually proving its ROI. It’s easy to throw numbers around – likes, new followers, comments and so on – but how do you actually prove your return on investment from social media? 

How do you demonstrate that your work is bringing in revenue or helping the brand reach its marketing and business objectives? 

In this post, I’m going to share some of my best and most effective tips, tricks and tools to help prove your social media ROI. Let’s go.

Vanity Metrics vs. Actionable Metrics: What’s the Difference?

“Vanity metrics” is a term that’s thrown around a lot, but what does it actually mean in the context of social media marketing, and how is it relevant to measuring and proving your ROI?

What Are Vanity Metrics?

Vanity metrics, as the name suggests, are metrics that might make you feel good about yourself – such as generating a bunch of likes on an update or having a large number of fans and followers – but if the metrics aren’t actually relevant to your specific social media marketing objectives (usually, the one’s management or clients ask for), then they are simply vanity metrics. They might look good on paper (or that P… Read More