Sarah:  All right, let's get right to it. So, we're talking about digital marketing. That's our forte, but we're going to talk about something a little bit more, which is separating fact from fiction. What do we mean by that? Well, there are so many myths out there to try to decode and misconceptions. And that's what this show is all about because if you're a business owner, sometimes it's like, I'm hearing all these different things about what I should be doing and what I shouldn't be doing and really what's the truth behind it. So by the end of this show, we're going to help you understand the digital marketing world and basics a little bit more. And some things that really are the facts to help you stay on top of your business. So let's get going.

Glyna: All right. As Sarah said, we are ready to get started so I want to welcome everybody to Marketing Mix. Every week, we will be here to talk about different types of digital marketing topics. That's where the mix comes in. And let's go ahead and take a look at where everybody can find us, Sarah.

Sarah: Of course. So, every week we go live on Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter, and you can catch the replay on Instagram. And we do a shortened 10-minute version of this on LinkedIn that you need to check out as well. And don't forget about our podcast! We are growing with our followers and subscriptions to that, and we're so thankful. So, tune into that, and don't forget to subscribe to our YouTube channel. We are, again, plugging away with helpful videos, resources, all to help you in the business world with marketing.

Glyna:  Yes ma'am.

Sarah: Yes. So Glyna, I know you probably come across this all the time, just having to separate the myths and misconceptions when you get hit with them. And I think it's important because if you're running a business and you're spending your marketing dollars, it's like, how do you know if what you're doing is right and if you're missing anything? So, we put together a little fun questionnaire and we want you all to join in and comment if you think you know the answer. It's multiple choice. We promise you if you get the wrong answer, we won't heckle you. We just want you here. So we're going pop these up and if you think you know the answer, let it out. So let's get to it.

Glyna: All right. Number one. How long does SEO take to work? A month, instantly and only for $9.99 a month, three months, or a week. All right, let's see.

Sarah: I don't know. I'm leaning towards B on that.

Glyna:  We will get you on page one for $9.99 a month. That sounds like a great deal, but no, it's actually C. About three months. Now I'm not saying that you're not going to get any results before three months, but it just takes a little bit of time to get that groundwork laid out. That being said, SEO is also never-ending, so it's not like an on and off switch. It's kind of like, I tell people to think about it as equity in your house. It takes a while to build up equity in your home. It's the same way with search engine stuff. It takes a little bit of time to build up that SEO equity, so you can't just turn it on and off. You can't win at SEO if you're just doing it halfway. So, we hit it full force here at Fusion One Marketing and you will get results, but it takes just a little time.

Sarah: Yeah. If you ever see those ads that say, $29 a month and we got the best SEO program and it's going to take a week and to me, it's like "red flag"!! Because truly to stay on top of it and to get traffic and increase conversions, and do all of those things, it's ongoing. As you said, it's building equity. It doesn't stop. And you have to adjust to Google's algorithms, which are always changing, so it's not one and done ever. So, it's just really important that you know that, that it takes a bit to build it, and then you have to sustain it. So it takes work.

Glyna: That's exactly right. Let's move on to the second myth. Why is blogging valuable? I guess it's not a myth. I guess it's why is it important? All right. A, it helps drive traffic to your website. B, it establishes your business as an industry leader. C, provides relevant and useful content to your audience. Or D, all of the above.

Sarah: It's so interesting to me because I still feel like there's this misconception about blogging and its value, but let's go ahead and give the answer. It's D all of the above. Blogging does all of these things, which is exactly why it's so valuable and search engines love fresh content. They love fresh, relevant content. So, blogging is one of the best ways and most straightforward ways and powerful ways to provide that to the search engines, which they love, and that improves your ranking and your trustworthiness and all that sort of stuff. So, when you create those blogs consistently, you're giving the search engines fresh content, and it provides your business another opportunity to kind of insert those relevant keywords that you need to do too because those are what the consumers are using for typing in the types of services or products that they're looking for. So it's all good.

Glyna: Yeah. All good. All the above, because on the consumer end, if you're writing helpful and informative blogs, it's a great way for your business to build trust and credibility. I mean, you want to be the expert and you want to be able to show people that you are, and blogging is a perfect way to do that. So, if you're going to provide content that's valuable, the customers are going to just see how much knowledge and expertise that you have, and that can lead to more inquiries and actually some more conversion rates.

Sarah: Yeah, exactly. So, blogging is valuable, people. All right. Number three. What does your target audience mean? We've done a few shows about this. So let's see if you know the answer to this. A., customers within a five-mile radius. B, your highest-paying customers. Don't we all love those guys, right? C, anybody with a pulse and a wallet. Narrows that down. Or D, people most likely to be interested in your product or service. So, without any more suspense, the answer to that is D. People are most likely to be interested in your product or services. So, I was going for a pulse.

Glyna: I wish that was the case. If you have a pulse and a wallet, come on! Yeah. It just doesn't work that way. Does it? I mean, a lot of businesses make this mistake. We talk about it all the time. They're just throwing stuff up against the wall. They're not targeting anybody and they're not doing any homework about who their ideal customer is. It isn't really getting anywhere. You have to really have a clear idea of who your audience is so that you can run more relevant campaigns and get better returns. I mean, it only makes sense. You want to target the people who need your stuff.

Sarah: Absolutely. We've talked about this in previous shows like I mentioned. And so really what you want to do, if you're trying to find your target audience, start looking at your existing customer base. Start identifying the commonalities and common characteristics, like their age, their interests, their location, their behaviors, buying behaviors. And this is going to help you shape that branded content, that useful content that they want to see and that they respond to.

Glyna: Yes, exactly. All right. What do we have for number four? We're going to talk about website design. So, which of the following factors in website design affects SEO? Loading speed, mobile responsiveness, navigation, or all of the above?

Sarah: That's a thinker.

Glyna: Yes. And if you've been watching us at all, you should be able to answer this.

Sarah: So the answer is D, all of the above. So when it comes to SEO, so many things always point down to SEO, but you think about keywords and you think about page relevancy. You think about link building and so on, but really your website design can have such an effect on your search ranking. So people expect websites to load quickly. So if yours doesn't, this is going to increase the bounce rate and search engines. They take this as a sign that your site isn't worth ranking, and then you just get lower on the visibility

Glyna: That's exactly right. And people don't realize this. They don't even think about it. And we run into this again a lot. People put a website out there and they never go look at it again, but you have to make sure it's loading quickly because Google...That's one of the main things that they look at is load speed. In other words, how fast does it come up? And they actually give preferential treatment in the rankings for people who have websites that will display properly. So search engines prioritize websites that offer a positive user experience. I mean, and it just kind of makes sense, but we need to make sure it loads quickly.

Sarah: Truly. And one of the most effective ways is making navigation easy on your website. So if people can't find what they're looking for and they can't find it easily, then they're done. They're not going to stick around which is a signal to Google that it's a poor user experience. And then this is going to have, again, a negative impact on your ranking. So yeah, just you've got to pay attention to your website design. It's crucial.

Glyna: Yes. And then the last thing again, it has to be mobile-responsive. People aren't just looking at stuff on their computers. They're using their smartphones more than anything really now and also tablets. So regardless of the device, you have to make sure that you're still offering a great browsing experience to the end-user. If you can't guarantee this, search engines are just going to boot you out of there. They have no patience when it comes to a website that doesn't have mobile responsiveness.

Sarah: Yeah. It's so important. All right. Number five. What is online reputation management? This is a big one. Is it A, a system that deletes any negative reviews? B, a variety of tools and strategies to protect and improve your online presence. C, an automated system that generates a steady stream of fake positive reviews? Or D, a customized branding tool? Interesting.

Glyna: I'll let you answer that. Which one is it?

Sarah: Okay. It is B, which is a process that utilizes a variety of tools and strategies to improve your online presence. So yeah, nothing out there is going to delete negative reviews.

Glyna: It's going to say I'd like that one to be true.

Sarah: Wouldn't we all? Or another one which is an automated system that gives you just a ton of positive reviews. Wouldn't that be nice? But no, online reputation management, you really do need to know about it, but it is a process that uses a bunch of tools and strategies to help improve your online presence and get some more reviews.

Glyna: Yes, exactly. So I'd like to plug our review system just a little bit. If you don't have a way of doing this, we have a really cool review system that can help out. So if you want to know more about that, let us know. So it's very important. Again, always make sure to manage your reputation online, make sure that you know when somebody's left you a review, mentioned something about your company. You have to actively monitor that. And again, it includes monitoring of reviews, addressing questions, all that good stuff. You just have to keep on top of it.

Sarah: So true. So really essentially what an online reputation management system does is it helps manage those little fires before they become really big fires. So the more reviews that you have online, the better your visibility ranks with search engines. These are all the things that search engines are looking for. So we provide, as you mentioned, we have an awesome review system and it really provides multiple ways to improve your customer experience and gather more online reviews. It makes it really easy. We can integrate it all with a lot of customer feedback options and all that stuff. So it's awesome. I mean, we have seen it work fantastic with some of our clients.

Glyna:  Yes, we definitely have. So again, reach out. I can always send you an example. So, let me know if you'd like one. Number six. What's the best way to know if your marketing campaign is working? This is funny. A, asking every caller how they found your business. B, spend money on every form of digital marketing. C, use a metric dashboard to track the performance of all your marketing efforts. Or I love this one D, whether or not you can afford Christmas bonuses at the end of the year. I love that. All right. And the answer is... Drum roll, please. C, you need to use some sort of dashboard to track all of your performance and your marketing efforts.

Sarah: Yeah. It's just crazy. It really should not be D. I mean, you should not be sitting there, like thumbing through your money, like oh this year I've got the extra money. That means my marketing worked.

Glyna: Must have worked.

Sarah: Yeah. You have to have the ability to track your marketing campaign. It lets you know what's working and what's not working. I mean, that's what it comes down to. And you need to have a plan or a strategy that you can allocate your marketing dollars so that you're not just throwing money out the window, so that's what marketing dashboards do. They provide the ability to continually track the performance of all of your marketing campaigns in real-time through data that you can see.

Glyna: That's exactly right. And if you have the right type of dashboard, it can pull a variety of data from all different kinds of sources. I mean, you could track your social media, your website, campaign platforms, call tracking, and even more. Marketing data can then be exported and turned into a marketing report, which will also help you improve things like your campaigns, how your website's performing, really just your overall digital presence. And the big thing is you want to prevent yourself from wasting time and money. And that's what you have to track. Sarah, I know I've told you this before. You would be shocked at the number of people I ask if they're already paying somebody for their digital marketing, "Well, how many calls are you getting from your marketing dollars every month?" They have no idea. They have no idea. They have no tracking and they're just throwing that money up against a wall. So track, people, track. Track. Track.

Sarah: Track. So, let's move on to number seven. What is the purpose of hashtags? Is it A, to make you sound funnier? B, it makes it easier to find info by a specific theme or topic. C, there is no purpose to hashtags. Or D, similar to emojis, adds personality to your posts, which is making them more engaging.

Sarah: Would you believe it or not? There is a purpose to hashtags and it's B. Making it easier to find info by specific theme or topic.

Glyna: Yes. I know they just throw hashtags out there or they don't think they're useful, but they really are. And when it comes to social media, hashtags are used to draw attention, organize, promote, and connect to your audience because they're using them to search. When you use hashtags, your posts become searchable by anyone on that platform. I don't think people are really getting the search part of it, but many people use these hashtags. I can't. Oh boy. So make sure that you're using the correct ones that are going to be of interest to your ideal customer and you'll be increasing your chances of being found.

Sarah: Exactly. Think about it like this. Hashtags are great as a research tool. So, they work similarly to search engines. And so if you search things by... And you got to remember this. This is important. Don't use hashtags that have nothing to do with your niche industry. So, truly you have to look at it as a searching tool and if you're a business, when you find the right hashtags for your industry, all that's doing is it's helping to increase your visibility in those areas because people are searching for content by specific hashtags, so they have a purpose.

Glyna: Yeah, so please don't throw stupid hashtags out there. You don't even know. When you're throwing stupid hashtags up there, they might lead to something you're not really wanting them to lead to.

Sarah:  Can I say this real quick? We were doing some research earlier in the week just on some specific types of hashtags that we saw that others were using. And I did it and I thought, are they just making up these hashtags? Because literally there were only 33 posts that included that hashtag. So, there's no relevance to it. It needs to have a purpose to it if you want to get anywhere.

Glyna:  Let's talk about websites. I get this question a lot. How often should you redesign your website? Two to three years. Never one and done. That's funny. Every five years, or until it's hacked? I mean, some people do. Believe it or not, it's every two to three years.

Sarah: Yeah. And ultimately, the frequency of how often you should redesign your website should just be sort of based on a couple of things. One of them is your online goals. I mean, if your site's no longer reaching its maximum potential, then it's time for a redesign. And if it's just not performing well. I mean, that's the thing. We say two to three years because that's how technology is working. It means it's working to the point where your stuff will become out of date if it's not kept up to date. Also, just look at it as, if you're not getting traffic or conversions, it's just not performing the way that it should. It's just time to reevaluate it.

Glyna: Yes, exactly. And I mean, there are other factors to consider too that may be caused to redesign sooner. You may be rebranding. People change their logos. People change their branding or you need new functionality and maybe your current website won't accommodate that. As an industry-standard consider redesigning at least every three to four years to maintain a moderate online presence. We say two to three is the best, but at least look at it every three to four.

Sarah: Yeah. That's really true. All right. Well, that is a wrap for us today. Hopefully, we've helped answer some of these basics so that you feel a little bit more equipped when the digital marketing world when you have to make these types of decisions with your marketing. As always, if you would like more information about ways that we could help you in any area of marketing, we'd love to have a free consultation with you. We're here to help.

Glyna: Absolutely. Well, thanks for joining us and we will see you next week.

Sarah: All right. Bye.