How to Engage & Inspire With Interactive Content Marketing

Easy Ways to Stand Out from the Competition Using Interactive Content Marketing
I'm sure you've heard the old adage "Content is king." While that's certainly true, it's not enough anymore to simply write a text-rich blog post and expect engagement to happen.

According to a study by Microsoft, the average human has an attention span of eight seconds. Eight seconds! You need to attract your readers' or followers' attention and require their active engagement quickly.

That can easily be done with something called interactive content marketing.

While pieces like blog articles and eBooks are considered passive content, interactive content requires the person to actively engage with the content, whether that's by swiping, tapping, answering a question...

In this article, I'm providing 3 ideas you can use to attract your audience's attention and stand out from your competitors.

Some of you may remember those "choose your own adventure" books from childhood. The TV show Black Mirror did an incredibly unique episode called "Bandersnatch" that let you choose game designer Stefan's moves and his ultimate fate.

While you're probably not going to go that far with your marketing videos, one easy interactive marketing tool is having a Facebook Live where you answer questions and take comments virtually.

Here's an example. During episodes of my Tea Time Tips on Facebook, I ask questions and encourage my viewers to comment. They can also ask questions that I answer live in the video.

It's a fun and simple two-way conversation that gets everyone involved with the episode versus me just talking "at" my followers.

Polls and Questions
These are great interactive social media marketing tools. Let's start with polls. I'm going to go with a Facebook example again, because it's so easy to create a poll while you're making up your post. Here's how:

In addition to polls, another way to easily encourage engagement is by asking a question in your news feed on Facebook.

While it's a good idea to keep your question relevant to your business, go ahead and have some fun with it! You want your audience to be motivated and excited to answer your question, whatever that might be.

Here's an example from one of our clients who owns Malarys Fashion Network, a clothing boutique in Cloverdale, BC. Yvonne framed a fashion-related in a lighthearted way on her Facebook page and got a high number of engagements, including 20 comments.

To do this well, think about some interesting topics that relate to your business. Here are a couple of generic prompts that could help:

• Can you recommend some good [your product or service category] books this summer?
• What business advice would you give yourself when you were just starting out?
• If you could run your business in any period in history, when would it be and why?

Infographics
Infographics engaging visuals to communicate stats or other information quickly and clearly. Neil Patel did a great article back in 2014 on the power of infographics. It's still relevant today, and you can read it on our blog.

However, it's time to step up your infographics game with interactive elements. It's true that it takes more time and effort to create a two-way infographic instead of a static one. But if it's relevant to your business and captivates your audience, the traffic, engagement and social shares you get (which will link back to your site) will be well worth it.

There are numerous sites out there that allow you to create infographics from a template, or you can hire a professional graphic design company to create them for you.

Here's an infographic Google did to explain the complex topic "How search works." You can interact with various elements to move you through the content, which is much more interesting than a long page of text.

Now that we've gone over some ways that you can create these unique content marketing pieces, let's look at some of the benefits.

I talked a bit about it increasing engagement: you share an interesting and fun piece of content and users are more likely to interact with it and share it themselves.

In addition to increased user engagement, here are 3 other ways that interactive marketing tools can be beneficial:

They can collect data for you.
As marketers we rely on data to make decisions that will benefit our business. It can be a challenge to collect behavioural data by asking questions outright for a few reasons: Customers are extremely wary of these tactics and it's not fun!

(When's the last time you filled out one of those surveys a website randomly asked you, just because?)

By using a poll or engaging question, you can learn more about your audience's likes and dislikes. If you're inviting your audience to interact with an infographic, you can gain valuable insights by looking at where they navigate and click.

They increase clicks and conversions.
As a small business owner, you should always be looking for ways to engage with potential clients. It can be a real challenge to get someone to download your eBook or to convert on a landing page on your website.

That's where interactive content comes in. It can boost your click-throughs and conversion rates big-time. TheContent Marketing Institute did some case studies of brands that each saw upwards of 50% click through rates when they used it.

Put yourself in your potential customers' shoes: what would you rather click on at the top of the marketing funnel?

A 'Submit' button on a website asking you to provide your email so the business can send you a white paper? Or, a quiz or poll that asks for your opinion on a relevant topic, then asks for your email to send you the answer?

You'll find that many people are much more willing to provide their info if it's presented in an engaging way and it doesn't seem like you're asking.

They build brand loyalty.
When a viewer just reads an article or watches a video, their participation is minimal, and so is their engagement. But content people can interact with is different; it can create deeper relationships.

Research has shown that the more of a relationship a consumer has with a brand, the more likely they are to be loyal long-term customers. You start to be seen as an expert in your area, and people trust you.

And the more people trust you, the more likely they are to buy from you.

The content marketing landscape is always evolving, and you need to be willing to change with the times if you want to be successful.

Expect to see more interactive videos, quizzes, polls, questions, infographics and more; it's time to seriously consider adding these to your marketing tools if you want to stay ahead of the competition.

We know it can be nearly impossible to keep up with your marketing when you've got a business to run!

Susan Friesen, founder of the award-winning web development and digital marketing firm eVision Media, is a Web Specialist, Business & Marketing Consultant, and Social Media Advisor. She works with entrepreneurs who struggle with having the lack of knowledge, skill and support needed to create their online business presence.

As a result of working with Susan and her team, clients feel confident and relieved knowing their online marketing is in trustworthy and caring hands so they can focus on building their business with peace of mind at having a perfect support system in place to guide them every step of the way.

Visit http://www.ultimatewebsiteguide.ca and download your FREE "Ultimate Guide to Improving Your Website's Profitability - 10 Critical Questions You Must Ask to Get Maximum Results".

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What Is A Responsive Website And Why Does Your Company Need One?

So, what does a responsive website mean? A responsive website has pages that render well on almost all devices and screen sizes. Responsive websites became more important as mobile design became more important. As the variety of screen sizes and resolutions increased, developers had to develop more ways to ensure an excellent user experience independent of what device and system were being used. Collections of technologies were developed to help create a more standardized user experience.

One of the most important parts of responsive design is called the fluid grid. Previously, developers would make websites based on fixed pixels; fluid grid uses proportions instead of fixed pixels to layout web pages. Media queries is another important part of responsive design. Media queries allow a website to obtain information about the device and system of the user to conditionally apply styles to a website. Media queries can also be used to conditionally style depending on if a device is in either landscape or portrait mode.

Some of the areas that need careful planning to create a responsive website include images and layout structure. Images that would look great in desktop could look distorted on different devices and resolutions. HTML5 allows for the property called data-fullsrc for the image tag. On any screen that is wider than 480 pixels, the higher resolution image will be loaded; for smaller screens, the lower resolution image will be loaded. JavaScript is sometimes used for implementation. For designs with multiple column layouts, changing the layout for lower resolutions is an important consideration to make sure that a website is responsive.

So why does your company need a responsive website? Depending on your business, more users will be visiting your website from a mobile or tablet than a desktop computer. Responsive design is something that you want to get right from the beginning as problems and redesign will cause it to be significantly more difficult to understand how your website is used. Working on analytics and conversion rate optimization (CRO) will be more difficult if there are multiple versions of your website. Another reason that building a responsive website is important is that many companies and individuals will judge the quality of your company and brand by how well your website looks and works.

Overall, responsive web development is used to make your website look great across all devices (desktop computer, tablet PC, and smartphone). Without careful planning, your website could not be useable for certain individuals trying to use your website and will lead to smaller net income for your business.

If you are looking to develop a responsive website, contact us, and we can build you a responsive website or make your current website responsive. Contact us here: http://www.junodigitaldevelopment.com/contact.html Juno Digital Development is a leading provider of web development and digital marketing services to a wide variety of companies from Fortune 500 companies to start-ups.

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How to shorten an affiliate link using Bitly, Tiny Url, and Bud Url.

Simple ways of how to shorten your long affiliate links so they look professional using 3 different simple sites.

How to Properly Do Your Own SEO in 2019

Search Engine Optimization is a great way to make money online. There are so many ways to achieves success using only SEO. This is probably why so many internet marketers claim to know exactly how to rank your site #1 on Google. But wait! If they really know the secret to internet marketing and this solution only costs $50 do you really think they would be selling their service on freelancing sites? Personally, if I knew how to rank on search engines for $50, I would be spending all day making new websites and ranking them on Google. I wouldn't bother trying to sell this secret method to others, certainly not for $50. In reality, SEO costs more in the range of $2,000 to 10,000$ depending on the niche you're in. So don't bother buying backlinks from so-called gurus, it will only get your web pages banned from search results. With new Google and Bing algorithm updates, it's harder to rank if your buying backlinks. Even expensive backlinks can now be flagged by search engines. Once they know you're buying your links, say goodbye to your position, your web pages will simply disappear from the results. So is there a new method to rank websites? Yes, and I will explain exactly how it's done. I have seen billion dollar companies use this technique to rank on Google and Bing. The best part about this SEO method is that it's free. This is perfect because Google will ban your site if you buy backlinks.

So how do you rank on the #1 spot for FREE?

Back in the dawn of the internet, SEO used to be about getting the biggest quantity of links pointing to your site. Marketers would submit their site to directories, they would submit bulk articles with links to thousands of websites. They would post blog comments with software to an uncountable amount of blogs and they created tones of web 2.0 social backlinks. Nowadays, I can't stress this enough, these outdated techniques do not work, they will harm your SEO efforts and get you banned from search engines. The solution is to adopt a mindset that is focused on getting your site noticed for real. You want real backlinks that generate traffic and brand awareness. And no I'm not talking about contacting your competitors and asking them politely to post your backlinks on their website. The solution is to spread the word about your brand or product.

So where should my links come from?

Write on Blogs, News and real article sites. You need to take the time to write about your product and your niche. Show your expertise on the subject. These sites are craving for real content. A single blog post can generate more money than you might think. Some blogs pay bloggers and marketers hundreds per post, and you get a backlink to your site in the process. Don't worry about not being the best writer out there. Most people only want a professionals advice, they don't care if you have a PhD in literature, they only want to "learn how to fix my computer" or "learn how to play the guitar". Your opinion and expertise are worth more than you think.

Where can I find the right blog or news site to post on?

You need to take the time to research your backlink source. Search for the terms "Blogs that Accept Guest Posts" on Google. When researching for potential blogs make sure to check the Domain Authority of the blog you're going to post on. Read a few posts on that blog to see if the content is genuine, some blogs use autogenerated content and search engines don't like that, this type of content usually doesn't even make sense so it's easy to spot. Check the number of links pointing out to other websites. If you see a large number of outgoing links then don't bother posting on that blog.

I'm not good at writing can I buy blog posts?

Yes, but be careful! The only place I completely trust to buy blog posts is Adsy. All of their blogs are legit and they do not use PBNs. The articles they provide are real and unique. The blogs have high DA and PA. To make sure you are getting quality backlinks, don't buy the whole process as a service. Don't buy packages that say 50 PBN backlinks for $10. Since you can't really know where these links are coming from I strongly discourage buying this kind of product. If you're not using Adsy you should outsource the article writing itself. Then check the quality of the article, run it through a duplicate content checker to see if it already exists on the internet. If it does already exist it won't get indexed so it's worthless. Take your time, do some research, find blogs that have real readers. And then submit your articles to a real audience. Only then will your backlinks be worth the time and effort.

How many links should I get?

The number of links varies depending on the niche you are in. The rule of thumb is to roll out one article per week. And from there it's not really a matter of how many backlinks but how much time it's going to take. It usually takes a few months of blogging to rank in a low competitive category. You can increase the number of posts you write every week to rank faster but remember to post on a regular basis to spread the indexing evenly. You don't want to get 100 backlinks one week and then nothing for a month, that would raise a red flag to search engine bots. Remember that a quality link from a real blog or news site is priceless. I have seen websites with five quality links rank before other sites that have thousands of domains pointing in.

In conclusion, Google and Bing now rank content, not keywords. Your site has to have great content and the sites linking in just as well. Write about your niche, show your expertise and you will be rewarded with the #1 spot on search engines.

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5 Must-Haves While Looking For A Digital Marketing Agency For Your Startup

Every startup or small scale business holds the potential to grow if it has the right ingredients. The ingredients are the right idea, funding & a professional digital marketing agency to hoist the digital campaigns & plans for such business.

To expand any business's horizons it has become important for them to be a part of such a digital era. Digital marketing over conventional marketing is becoming one approach that is no doubt output-oriented, steadfast resulting and most of all cost-effective.

A brick & mortar business in today's time requires a website, social media presence & some key strategies & actionable tasks to evolve as a recognized brand in the market. But before starting with the process, the key is to understand what your startup must look for in a digital marketing agency before partnering with their services - apart from their digital marketing startup package.

Here are the 5 must-haves to look for in a digital marketing firm of today other than digital marketing startup package:

1. Hard to miss - their website

The first thing you need to approach is their website, their website will help you decide how well they can plan for your website's marketing. Check if their website is up to date and has all the capabilities that any website should host. Their website will speak volumes about their agency, their achievements, competency and the efforts they may be willing to put in your startup's website to make it trending & best-selling.

2. Referrals for the credibility

It is the most crucial thing to do - to check the company's profile & market image before extending a contract with them for their service. You can contact their ex-clients or customers to get the preview of their work pattern & check how well they have managed to publicize certain brands in the search engines. The best way could be testimonials & the portfolio embedded on the website.

3. Veteran of the current technology, software & marketing methods

Digital marketing is effortless if it doesn't house the latest technologies, software, tools & the methodologies. Look for the veterans or experts that are familiar with the latest social media performance monitoring & analytics tools, knows the search engine's guidelines and can come up with customized strategies suitable to the brand/company profile.

4. Complies well with your startup's goals & ideas

A well-reputed online marketing agency knows how to come in terms with any startup's shared goals, nature & idea behind it. An agency must comprehend the nature of business & must revert the strategies or plans that work in their demeanour.

5. Flexible in terms of making communication with the client

Such marketing firm should be easy in terms of bringing right communication on the tables. They should not lapse in terms of communicating the core messages like the process, progress or the suggested actions for the certain project.

It takes the right digital marketing firm to flourish any startup to with creativity, innovation, insightfulness in their coming process.

I am Shivam Mishra, an ardent reader who is keen to find new things about online marketing and startup package in India. I share this article about the cost of startup digital marketing and its agencies.

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Different Ways You Can Monetize Your Website

There are a number of methods being used to make money using the world-wide web. Often the approach that is presented seems quit simple. However this is not always the case. The various methods to make money online are actually more involved than initially made out to be.

The key to starting the process of making money online is to build your own website, such as a blog and monetize it. There are several ways you can do this. Keep in mind you will need you to get traffic to your website and provide content, which will keep the viewer engaged. The longer someone is reading the content on your website, the more likely they are going to click on the ads that appear on your site.

Of course one of the best ways to monetize your website is to place ads on it. There are many companies that want website owners to place ads on their websites to market their products. This is known as affiliate marketing. When the website owner joins the company as an affiliate they get a commission when somebody purchases a product through that website. The commissions will accumulate and be placed in the website owners bank account or a certified check will be sent through the mail.

There are many affiliate programs available. If you do a search of this you will see just how many that are available. Many of these pay high commissions and give great advice on how to monetize your website. They also will give you advice on how to increase traffic to your website. Increasing traffic to your website is one of the most important keys to making sales.

Another way to monetize your website involves placing ads on a search engine. This system uses the pay-per-click approach. Your advertisement is placed in the results of a search, based on a keyword. The owner of the website bids to use the keyword. If the owner wins the bid, an advertisement will appear in the search results which will direct the searcher to your website, if clicked on. Interestingly in some cases you will be allowed to craft your own ad. Of course each click that occurs will cost the website owner money. However the ad that directs potential customers to your website can make money. This is because the ad is often placed on the first page of a search based on the keyword being paid for. When using this type of monetization it is important to choose keywords that are cost effective and produce search results that potential customers will be interested in.

Making money online is possible. Creating a website with engaging content and monetizing it is key. However it will take some time and patience. You will have to follow a proven approach to achieve your goals. Remember nothing comes easy.

Best Regards.

There are a number of ways you can monetize your website or blog. Click here to learn more about these.

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Banner Ads and Pop Up Ads: Which Is Better For Increased Website Traffic?

The internet is full of banner ads for every possible company and product you can imagine. Although many complain about the forms of advertising, there is not much difference in internet advertising and telemarketing phone calls to your home.

The interesting thing is however that web users prefer to be annoyed by internet ads over unexpected phone calls. This acceptance of ads has created a breeding ground for millions of pop-ups and banner ads on the internet. Sites use them individually or together, but some still wonder which is better for increased website traffic. Consumers have offered a response, perhaps not verbally, but with statistics of effectiveness.

Pop-ups are typically seen as annoying advertisements. Those that include blinking lights can even be hazardous to some users with certain medical conditions. They have been considered the most hated form of web advertising available. With pop-ups being so annoying however, consumers may wonder why they are still being used so frequently. The truth is that pop-ups are terribly aggravating, but they are indeed effective overall. For some crazy reason, there are millions of people who actually utilize them when they appear on their screen. This is partially due to many sites using pop-up ads as an excuse and reason for offering free services to site users. They will state that they must use these forms of ads in order to offer the site for free. Users, who don't want to pay, but still want to use the site, will likely accept the excuse without question.

The trouble with pop-up ads these days are that there are many programs on a computer that will not allow pop-ups. This means that when a pop-up is meant to appear on your screen, your installed pop-up blocker program does not allow it to happen and instead blocks the advertisement from reaching you, the user. These programs are very effective most of the time and can cost advertisers a great deal of money if the ad is not reaching the intended target. Advertisers are now coming up with newly programmed pop-ups however that can bypass these blocker programs and still deliver the ads to your screen, whether you like it or not.

Banner ads began to appear on websites in response to the annoyance consumers felt from pop-ups. Advertisers thought that if banner ads were not as bothersome, they may offer even better results than the pop-up ads. Many websites began putting online ads in all available areas of their site. Upon doing so, they soon realized that although banner ads are not typically as bothersome as pop-ups, they are also not as effective. Advertisers began using banner ads less frequently. Many of the banner ads were not as noticeable as an aggressive pop-up ad right in the user's line of vision. Some are off to the side of the screen and out of the direct eye contact.

Some advertisers would rather use banner ads when asked, because they seem more attractive to viewers. This may be more comfortable for the user, but it means something completely different to the advertiser. An advertiser wants their ad to be noticed, even at the user's expense. They would rather annoy the user and get the ads noticed than the ads simply sit being unnoticed. In whole, advertisers were not seeing a large turnout with banner ads, and therefore many sites no longer use them for advertising purposes.

The answer to whether or not pop-ups or banner ads are best really lies with who you speak with. Consumers are more fond of banner ads than aggravating pop-up ads. Advertisers however, will tell you the exact opposite. They both have a place on the internet and their own group of fans. Advertisers will continue to replace banner ads with pop-ups because they are more effective. The power of the choice lies in the hands of the advertisers at this time and until users want to force them to change their ways, the advertisers will continue to support pop-ups over banner ads.

James Savage has created a website that provides excellent online and offline marketing tips. Also, there are many free online training courses that will show you excellent website marketing strategies. To learn more about advertising your website go to https://MyHelpShack.com

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How to Marie Kondo Your Website

9 Website Redesign & Refresh Tips

You've probably heard of Marie Kondo by now: she sparked a whole movement of decluttering, and has a Netflix show called "Tidying Up With Marie Kondo."

Also known as the KonMari method, her focus is on organizing your home by getting rid of items that do not "spark joy."

While her method applies more to dresser drawers and workspaces, there's no reason why you can't Marie Kondo your website! Just like your home and office, your site needs to be cleaned from time to time.

Here are 9 website redesign and refresh tips to help you get the most out of the experience:

Do a content audit

You can't see where you're going if you don't know where you've been, right? A content audit is about taking inventory of all the content on your site so that you can see what's relevant and what's not.

If you've got blog posts that are years old, it's time to decide if there's value in repurposing them with up-to-date content, or taking them down. We're doing this right now as we prepare to revamp our website. Many of our very old articles are either being trashed or repurposed for future, more up-to-date articles.

Be careful not to kill a blog post that's driving a huge chunk of your traffic, but don't hold on to every article if the info is no longer relevant or your target audience has changed.

Also, if you have products or services available online, make sure the description and pricing for each is current.

Revisit your content strategy

While you're doing your content audit, explore your analytics to see what content people are spending time on and what content is performing poorly.

Once you have a clear picture of your best-performing articles, blogs and videos, you can work on creating fresh and engaging content and/or repurpose the right stuff.

It can be helpful to create a content calendar that breaks down weeks or months by theme.

Let's use marketing for health coaches as an example. In January, you might want to focus on healthy eating, breaking bad habits and fun workouts to tie in with New Year's resolutions.

In June, you could focus on water-based workouts, refreshing summer meals and the importance of sunscreen. Brainstorm a list of ideas and go from there!

Make sure your pages look good on mobile

You should be keeping mobile in mind every time you create a new piece of content, and now's the time to take an even closer look.

Too many business owners put all their energy into website redesign, neglecting this critical part of the user experience. Or, some business owners feel their audience doesn't use mobile to access their site.

This is a poor assumption that can have huge ramifications. Many people are browsing your website, reading your eNewsletter and checking out your blog on their smartphones. If in doubt, check your Google Analytics that will tell you how much website traffic comes from mobile phones.

Ensure web pages are easy to follow, buttons are big enough to click on and no content is lost when you're looking at it on a smartphone.

Check for broken links

This is another great way to dust off your website. Broken links not only annoy and potentially drive away visitors (often sending them right to your competition), but they're also bad for your search engine rankings.

There are various tools that let you scour your site for broken links, so use them.

Update your About Us page if needed

Do you have bios from employees who left six months ago? Has your company received new awards or accolades?

If a potential client lands on your site and sees outdated info, they're going to think twice about buying from you, so keep your About Us page fresh and polished.

Ensure your software and plug-ins are up to date

This is essential not only to tidiness, but to website security.

You may be tempted to ignore those messages telling you to update to the latest version, but they're essential to prevent security vulnerabilities and keep your site at optimal speed and functionality.

This is especially crucial if you have access to visitors' information such as credit card numbers and email addresses.

Consider a site refresh

Maybe your business has evolved and you want to rebrand your logo. Or, maybe you're seeing photos from two years ago on your "What's New" page!

Let's use the example of a health and wellness website design. If a health coach originally worked with millennials with limited budgets but now targets pregnant and breastfeeding women for meal and exercise planning, he or she would need to add brand messaging, photos and content that appear to the new target audience.

Small changes can make a big difference, but make sure you're rebranding for the right reasons if you're thinking about updating a key part of your brand identity. Here's one of my blog articles that might help: The Right Reasons for Rebranding Your Business Logo.

Check for clear calls to action

You need to show visitors what to do, or else what they'll probably do is leave. Now's the time to fix clunky CTAs that aren't working (look at your stats for insight) or find pages where they're missing.

Here are some things to keep in mind when you're optimizing your CTAs:

Use actionable text that draws in your visitor (think "Download the eBook" not "Click here").

Make CTA a main focus. If you have lots of links, images and copy competing for attention, your call to action could get lost.

Create urgency with words like "today" and "now."

Experiment with the first person. According to a study by Unbounce, changing button text from the second person ("Start your free trial") to the first person ("Start my free trial") resulted in a 90% increase in clicks.

Strong CTA for coaching website

Speed up your site

Do some pages on your website take a long time to load?

According to MatchMetrics, 14% of your audience will start shopping at another site if your page loads are slow, and 23% will simply stop the shopping experience or walk away from the computer.

Take a long look at your hosting provider, image sizes and videos and installed plugins to start to get to the root of what's causing your lagging responsiveness.

Whether you're just freshening up your online presence or need to do a complete website redesign, get professional help if needed.

Imagine having the time and energy to be creative, network, build strong business relationships and do what you love to do while an experienced, skilled and passionate "all-in-one" boutique firm relieves you of the burden of having to know how to do it all yourself.

Susan Friesen offering 10 Critical Questions You Must Ask to Get Maximum ResultsSusan Friesen, founder of the award-winning web development and digital marketing firm eVision Media, is a Web Specialist, Business & Marketing Consultant, and Social Media Advisor. She works with entrepreneurs who struggle with having the lack of knowledge, skill and support needed to create their online business presence.

As a result of working with Susan and her team, clients feel confident and relieved knowing their online marketing is in trustworthy and caring hands so they can focus on building their business with peace of mind at having a perfect support system in place to guide them every step of the way.

Visit http://www.ultimatewebsiteguide.ca and download your FREE "Ultimate Guide to Improving Your Website's Profitability - 10 Critical Questions You Must Ask to Get Maximum Results"

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Competitive Positioning for Nonprofits

How to Create a Brand Positioning Statement

It's an important question every organization must ask themselves: what sets you apart from the competition?

Notice I said "organization." Don't think that just because you're part of a nonprofit that you don't need to put time and effort into branding! Nonprofits need to be aware of the link between a brand's strategic value and its organizational impact.

Here are a few things that can happen if you don't put the time and effort into creating this simple yet powerful statement:

* You'll probably be confused with similar organizations.

* Your messaging will be all over the place.

* Potential donors won't trust you.

It's true that big charities have the benefit of a marketing team: the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has a director of global brand and innovation, while UNICEF has a chief of brand-building.

Fortunately, even if it's just you, it's not overly difficult to come up with a positioning statement that will set you apart from your charitable competition. That is, if you're willing to do some research and deep thinking before you start typing.

What Is Brand Positioning?

First, let's cover the definition of brand positioning. It's the art of matching your marketing message with the beliefs, feelings and desires of your ideal customer.

You do that effectively by making yourself "visible" as the kind of organization an individual would be attracted to.

However, this statement isn't customer-facing like your tagline is. Think of it as an internal statement that supports ideas before you develop specific marketing messaging.

It's also important to remember nonprofit brand positioning is a bit different than for-profit branding. Here's why statements are different for a charity vs. for a for-profit business: you want people to donate to your cause, but you're not focused on messaging around the lowest prices like Walmart is, or on the biggest showroom selection like Ikea is.

Competitive positioning for nonprofits is more focused on the "why": what is your mission? Your product is the good you're doing.

For example, UNICEF's "why" is "to protect the rights of every child."

UNICEF isn't focused on undercutting their competition or saying they're the best charity out there. (Also, some charities wish to collaborate and support others in their efforts, not necessarily compete against them.)

How to Create a Non-For-Profit Positioning Statement

Now that we've clarified the difference, let's look at how to create your nonprofit positioning statement:

Define your unique selling proposition (USP).

It's great that there are so many nonprofits supporting various causes, but this means that people are faced with an overwhelming number to choose from. You want them to pick yours.

While you're not selling a product, you are selling a commitment-whether that's to provide clean water to villages or save turtles from extinction. Your USP is something unique that you have to offer.

Like a small business owner does competitive research before defining his or her brand, you need to do the same for your charitable organization. Conduct some research on similar charities and find out:

* Who's their audience?

* How are they positioning their brand?

* What are they doing well?

* What are they doing poorly?

Here's one of the ways that charity:water sets themselves apart from other similar nonprofits. They don't focus solely on the fact that they provide clean drinking water to underdeveloped countries. They highlight that they prove every project "with GPS coordinates and remote sensors to ensure water is always flowing."

Don't be afraid to be bold.

Think of creative ways to encourage potential donors to give to your cause. A website with a few lackluster paragraphs and a donate button isn't going to cut it. Neither is a bunch of copy that has the same messaging as similar charities.

Traditionally, nonprofits have focused on safe, neutral messaging; that's changed now. Just look at F**k Cancer, a health organization working for early detection and prevention of cancer worldwide!

While you don't need to use expletives in your nonprofit brand positioning statement, tagline, logo or other materials, think outside "we do good" messaging and be a bit edgy.

Tell your full story.

Don't make potential donors try and figure out why they should support your initiative. Spend some time thinking deeply about your nonprofit positioning statement as it relates to your story.

Did a family member deal with the disease you're raising funds to eradicate? Make it personal. Did you become passionate about animal rights when you adopted a pet from a shelter? Consider that angle.

Take a look at your About Us page for inspiration. Here's a local dog rescue's story that is part of everything they do.

Create a narrative around your brand rather than only focusing on what you do. It's especially important for charities to do this well, as many people are naturally suspicious of people asking for money.

Share the knowledge.

It's one thing to come up with great nonprofit positioning, but getting everyone on board is essential. Ideally, your team should be involved in developing your brand positioning strategy.

At the very least, they need to understand why it's there and how to use it. Everyone who's a part of your organization is a brand ambassador, so give them the tools they need to spread the word to potential donors, family, friends, the grocery store clerk...

Once you've created your nonprofit positioning statement, don't just forget it in the depths of a desk drawer or in a file folder on your PC. Refer to if often: when you're writing website copy, developing logo designs and reviewing materials someone else has created.

By using it to influence everything you create, you'll have a consistent message across all of your marketing collateral, leading to increased awareness, trust and donations.

Susan Friesen, founder of the award-winning web development and digital marketing firm eVision Media, is a Web Specialist, Business & Marketing Consultant, and Social Media Advisor. She works with entrepreneurs who struggle with having the lack of knowledge, skill and support needed to create their online business presence.

As a result of working with Susan and her team, clients feel confident and relieved knowing their online marketing is in trustworthy and caring hands so they can focus on building their business with peace of mind at having a perfect support system in place to guide them every step of the way.

Visit http://www.ultimatewebsiteguide.ca and download your FREE "Ultimate Guide to Improving Your Website's Profitability - 10 Critical Questions You Must Ask to Get Maximum Results".

Article Source: https://EzineArticles.com/expert/Susan_Friesen/260293

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Complete Guide To Control The Bounce Rate Of Your ECommerce Site

A little bounce rate is quite normal. But, when your site experience higher of it, it's scary. You are obviously losing a considerable number of visitors who could have otherwise stayed and ordered something. So, what's making them move out of your site so sooner i.e. within 5 seconds? Yes, a bounced visitor is someone who has left the site within just 5 seconds of visiting without making a move to any other page or pages. For this reason, bounce rate is considered as one of the chief success metrics by the retailers. The lesser it is, the better.

Besides, the bounce rate is also taken as a parameter by Google to rank the site and hence higher rate can take your site down in the search engine results. Consequently, a climbing bounce rate is an alarm to the eCommerce merchants. There are many effective ways to keep it under check and push visitors to step ahead in the conversion funnel of your site. Here they are.

Optimise the position of every CTA (Call-to-action)

The only thing that can drive a visitor from any of the web pages to the checkout point is a CTA or Call-to-action tab. So, check whether the CTAs of your site is positioned appropriately at the most obvious places which visitors can see instantly and take decisions about checkout. Besides, you need to optimise the place of CTA to help visitors know who you are, what products you have and so forth. Put slogans and quirk descriptions. Make the CTA tab bold and vivid. In every way, make the CTA honest as well as convincing.

Maximise the loading speed

Isn't it evident that your website has more bounced customers because it loads slowly? Visitors expect a site to load in a couple of seconds and hence they will immediately back out and switch to any other site shown on the search engine results if it loads too late. Find out the root causes of your slower load speed, like heavy images, more scripts, increased HTTP requests and so forth. With the help of your eCommerce developer, optimise them for unhindered speed.

Work on the content

Sometimes, visitors leave because they do not get clearer information or the ideal description that they wished for. Also, they are not going to read too much. Review and modify your content, keep it precise and make it as helpful as possible to the targeted buyers.

Put things that would engage visitors

Another useful way to check the bounce rates is to engage the visitors at the first instance. Place a provocative banner in the landing page, use a catchy title, showcase your benchmark products in bundles, put videos, and do whatever else needed to grasp the interests of the visitors. Putting up interactive elements on the landing page would entice them at once to click ahead for checking up the products.

Oversimplify the navigation of the site

The better visitors can understand the navigation path of your site, more likely they are to stay. Just after visiting your site, they should be able to understand where's the menu, how to search a product, where to click for placing the order, and everything else about the navigation.

Put your top offers at the visible area of the page

You can play with the urgency notion to hook your visitors. Place the best deals with time-bound on the banner or top area of your home page that is visible to everyone even before they scroll down. Displaying limited time offers can bag your website many customers spontaneously because a lot will think of losing the offer soon and hence proceed to buy.

Bounce rate is inevitably a deceptive key performance indicator (KPI) which signals how your website is performing in capturing the attention of visitors. Adhering to these above tips will help lowering it a lot as they are brought to you hereafter prioritising the visitors' behaviour that causes them to leave a site.

Rob Stephen is an expert Magento developer in Sydney at GetAProgrammer, a top-ranked website and eCommerce development company having inherent specialisation in Magento development services. He likes to share his eCommerce development ideas and knowledge in his free time. You can see more of his excellent writeups on the LinkedIn page.

Article Source: https://EzineArticles.com/expert/Rob_Stephen/2369700

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