People start shopping in October for the holidays.

Worried how your sales will go this holiday season?
More people than ever will be making their gifting purchases online, and that includes products, services and gift cards.

Now’s the time to start planning your email and social media marketing for the upcoming online shopping season. Take a look at our suggestions below, and see how you can expand your marketing strategy to bring in more sales.

Did You Know? 

Local businesses have different SEO needs than larger online-only companies.

Local businesses have a distinct advantage over online only and established big-box conglomerate store Brands.

As a local business, you have the ability to establish deep community loyalty - something most big-box companies have difficulty with.

Instagram audience numbers continue to increase - offering a huge untapped opportunity for many businesses to expand their reach and Brand awareness.

Have you been using Instagram to maximize your social media following?

Did You Know?

Instagram Stories boasts over 500 million daily active users

With a dramatic reach for Brands, Instagram serves up an advertising audience of 1.16 billion people.

Nine out of ten marketers used video in their last years marketing strategy.

Businesses have learned adding Video to their email and social media marketing is taking their sales and Brand awareness to the next level.

Is it time to start or revise your Video marketing strategy?

How active is your business on Social media?

Now’s the time to up your game, because online time has never been higher.

Did You Know?

Online and digital use during the past 18 months has increased by 43%.
(resource: smartinsights)

Online Time Upsurge

People are spending more time online for several reasons:

• Researching companies, services and products.
• Online shopping. 
• Connecting socially with those who share common interests.

A Website is the Most Valuable Asset Your Business Has!

• In order to function properly and stay on top of search engine algorithms, sites require frequent optimization. 

• Without frequent optimization websites don’t function properly.

• Sites not functioning properly fall behind in the search engines.

• When websites fall behind in search engine indexing, income and goals are affected.

Ultimately you’ll lose more sales than you can ever imagine.

What is Website Optimization?

Website optimization is the process of utilizing tools, strategies, and experiments to improve the user experience, and overall performance of a website.

Appearances Matter!

Does your business use a free Email provider to send and receive email?
That’s a definite no-no in the ‘let’s be successful’ online business world.

Small Businesses Can Do Better

• If your business isn’t using an Email address such as: @yourbusinessname.com or @yourdomain.com, then you’re coming across as unprofessional.

• Why would people make a purchase from your website if they feel they can’t trust you? It’s always better to use a custom Email address created under your own domain name. 

Dedicated Email accounts are often included with website hosting plans. Email can be downloaded and read through a client such as Outlook, Apple mail, etc – or can be managed and read in the cPanel of your hosting account.

Choosing a Domain name for your business website seems like it should be a simple task – but in reality it isn’t.

Pairing a relevant Domain name with the proper TLD extension for your business is crucial.

Remember –
A Domain name is a direct representation of your Brand, and intertwines with everything from Social media posts to marketing assets to digital ads.

Going with the right Domain name at the start of every business journey can:

• Be one of the best marketing investments ever made.
• Contribute to the growth and longevity of a business.
• Escalate the Brand and set it apart from competitor companies.

Have you been wondering what those tiny images are in the subject line of email you receive?

Each one of those tiny images is called an Emoji, and they’re being used more and more to attract the eye of the reader, create urgency and trigger emotions.

• Emojis are not 100% utilized in the business world but they’re catching on.
• People are scanning and sifting through countless emails every day on multiple platforms.
• Emojis have come to help readers prioritize email and sort through what’s important and what’s not.
• Marketing email has seen a spike in open rates that include an Emoji.

An SSL certificate can make a huge difference in your marketing efforts 

Whether your website is: 

• A Blog

• Educational or Informational

• A Non-Profit

• A Local Business Selling Services

• Making Ecommerce Sales

Google is suppressing sites in search results without SSL status.

 A website is your primary asset when it comes to marketing your business – so all the time and money you invest into it could be a waste of time if it’s buried in the search results.