IM Sphere

Too many people are wasting money on advertising (online and offline), failed content marketing, and influencer marketing of dubious value.

But the waste of money and effort isn’t the worst part. The worst part is that you are sitting on the solution. You already HAVE what you need to dramatically grow your business. Did you know that between 50 and 90% of all purchases are influenced by word of mouth? But yet, you don’t have an actual word of mouth strategy. How is that possible?

Did you know between 50 and 90% of all purchases are influenced by word of mouth?
Click To Tweet

For most businesses, word of mouth creates more customers than any other acquisition mechanism. Yet, it’s also the acquisition mechanism that we take almost entirely for granted.

You have a marketing strategy. A sales strategy. A content strategy. A social media strategy. A hiring strategy. You have a whole desk full of strategies. But you don’t have a strategy for the MOST IMPORTANT thing you can do to grow your business: giving your customers a consistent story to tell about your company.

Wondering how to add IGTV content to your marketing mix? Looking for creative ideas for your Instagram TV videos? In this article, you’ll find six ways to use IGTV to grow your brand’s visibility with a new Instagram audience. #1: Reach a New Audience With Previously Published Video Content IGTV provides the perfect opportunity to […]

The post 6 Ways to Use IGTV for Business appeared first on Social Media Marketing | Social Media Examiner.

… Read More

Posted by MiriamEllis

64% of 1,411 surveyed local business marketers agree that Google is becoming the new “homepage” for local businesses. Via Moz State of Local SEO Industry Report

…but please don’t come away with the wrong storyline from this statistic.

As local brands and their marketers watch Google play Trojan horse, shifting from top benefactor to top competitor by replacing former “free” publicity with paid packs, Local Service Ads, zero-click SERPs, and related structures, it’s no surprise to see forum members asking, “Do I even need a website anymore?”

Our answer to this question is,“Yes, you’ve never needed a website more than you will in 2019.” In this post, we’ll examine:

Why it looks like local businesses don’t need websites
Statistical proofs of why local businesses need websites now more than ever
The current status of local business websites and most-needed improvements
How Google stopped bearing so many gifts

Within recent memory, a Google query with local intent brought up a big pack of ten nearby businesses, with each entry taking the user directly to these brands’ websites for all of their next steps. A modest amount of marketing… Read More

Cold emailing has largely become a black hat strategy; nobody likes to send them and nobody likes receiving them.

But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t use them. According to Yesware, you can receive a response rate of as high as 30-50% from cold email. But most businesses are not even getting 1% returns from this channel.

Why?

Because getting people to respond to an ice-cold email is tough.

The question is how you can warm up your cold emails. If you can optimize them, you can boost your response and return rates from this channel.

Optimizing cold emails doesn’t just mean adding recipients first name in the email – though it does work. But you’ve got to show your recipients that you’ve put work into understanding them.

Below are a few tried and tested strategies that you can use to get better returns from cold emailing.

General best practices for cold emailing

These practices may seem obvious to some, but they’re certainly not universally in play. Make sure that you incorporate these into your cold emailing strategy:

1. Provide value

What does your receiver get by opening your email? Is it a piece of helpful content? A sol… Read More