5 Proven Ways to Boost Your Word-of-Mouth Marketing in 2023
In this article, we’ll recommend our top 5 easy yet effective techniques for creating an impressive oral advertisement strategy and taking your organization to new heights by 2023!
With digital content saturating the market, getting visibility in business is a huge challenge. While traditional marketing strategies are losing traction as consumers become more and more suspicious, one method that never fails to work is word-of-mouth marketing.
In this article, we’ll recommend our top 5 easy yet effective techniques for creating an impressive Word of Mouth Marketing Strategy and taking your brand to new heights by 2023!
What is W.O.M.M. and why is so effective
Before delving further into it, let’s get to the basics of word-of-mouth marketing. Essentially, it is when customers spread information about a business or product among their peers – be it through verbal conversations, social media posts or other means. Unlike traditional advertising which requires investment from companies themselves; this form of promotion comes free and has much higher reliability as its source of origin is often perceived as being trustworthy.
As the digital age continues to evolve, so does consumer skepticism of traditional advertising. With a plethora of marketing messages coming from every direction, consumers have learned how to distinguish what feels like “marketing.” Therefore, businesses should prioritize word-of-mouth marketing in 2023. This type of communication carries more weight as people are likely to believe and act on their friends’ or family members’ recommendations due its reliability and trustworthiness.
Word-of-mouth marketing is invaluable in forming an active community around a business. When customers feel involved and welcomed, they are more likely to stay loyal to the company and advocate for it among their peers. This snowball effect leads to further success as each new customer increases the amount of word-of-mouth referrals exponentially!
Types of Word of Mouth Marketing Strategies
Business owners can create a strong word-of-mouth marketing approach by taking advantage of these five straightforward techniques. Word of mouth promotion is an effective way to advertise products or services and to cultivate a devoted following for your brand. Here are the top five methods that successful business operators use:
1- Use Instagram stories to show your audience that you are human:
People bond with other people, not merely companies. If you share your business’s tales and experiences or even a bit of yourself, it can help form an honest and more understandable rapport with your customers. This strengthens the trust they have in your brand while also prompting them to spread positive words about your company to their social circle; ultimately helping increase sales!
2- Build a non-business related channel to expand your social
circle:
If you want to widen your online reach and create a strong connection with an even larger audience, it’s essential that you promote content on social media platforms that are not exclusively related to your business. Building a personal blog, creating an account for something outside of work or hosting podcasts is the perfect way to do this. Not only will this help grow your presence among potential customers but also expand your digital circle!
3- Sponsor local events:
Showing your support for the local community by sponsoring events such as charity runs, sporting tournaments, or cultural activities is an effective way to create brand recognition. Not only will it provide you with a chance to meet your prospective customers face-to-face and get their valuable input and feedback, but also give you leverage in building a positive reputation within the region!
4- Showcase your brand as an active member in your community:
Participating in local events, giving back to the community and supporting causes will not only demonstrate that your business is socially responsible, but it can also help build trust with customers. As a result of this loyalty they are likely to share information about your company with their family and friends – driving even more footfall through word-of-mouth.
5- Leverage short videos on Youtube:
Have you ever thought of leveraging YouTube to effectively promote your business and strengthen its online presence? Producing short, captivating videos can certainly do the trick! From showcasing products or services to sharing stories of how your company makes a difference in people’s lives, there are countless opportunities for you. You could also provide helpful advice and tips about using your offerings that would further build strong customer relationships with those who follow you.
In summary, building a strong community and focusing on word-of-mouth marketing can be a key driver of business growth in 2023. By leveraging these simple tactics, business owners can increase trust, attract new customers, and encourage loyalty.
Don’t take my word for granted, just watch this episode on Shark Tank!
In Season 14, Episode 10, you’ll observe the far-reaching effects of social media on your business success.
Despite having a great product or service, if you don’t have an online presence and a strong social media platform to showcase it on, then chances are that potential customers won’t be aware of it – leaving your business out in the cold!
Is your business in need of a marketing boost?
Let’s chat and explore how I can help you succeed! Reach out to me at mfgseo.co, and let’s get the ball rolling. I’m excited to discuss this opportunity with you soon!
SEO marketing trends keep changing with time but understanding their essence and the latest practices in these trends can help. Learn all about these SEO marketing trends in the article below.
Search engine marketing (SEM) and search engine optimization (SEO) are often used interchangeably, but they are actually two different things.
SEM is a type of internet marketing that involves paying for ads that appear at the top of search engine results pages (SERPs).
SEO, on the other hand, is a process of optimizing website content and structure to improve SERP rankings organically (i.e. without paying for ads). Both SEM and SEO can be effective ways to improve visibility and traffic, but they should be used as part of a larger internet marketing strategy.
SEO (search engine optimization) is a bit difficult for people to understand. If you search for SEO on the internet, you will find endless information on the topic, but understanding it is a different story. Most of this information can be confusing and technical that doesn’t make sense to most people.
You have most likely heard of terms like on-site, off-site, technical, and local SEO. That’s not even the full list considering SEO applications and strategies are expanding each day. We are going to dicuss SEO, as well as the popular marketing trends that you can expect from businesses in 2022. It will help you improve your marketing strategies, and get the right results.
SEO Categories
Let’s divide SEO into the following sections for better understanding :
On-Site
Off-Site
Technical
Local
On-Site SEO
On-site SEO begins with high-quality content that goes directly on a site. It is because most search engines like Bing, Google Chrome, Internet Explorer, and others use bots to crawl on web pages to rank site results. Several elements including Meta Descriptions, Title Tags, Alt Tags, internal links all play a vital role for these crawlers. This signals the search engine about the page content and its relevancy.
Off-Site SEO
Off-site SEO or link building includes adding links to authorized and credible sources to improve the quality and ranking of your site. It is an essential part of Google’s understanding of the SEO concept. We also suggest you avoid buying links because it is an older practice, and Google can easily track it.
Technical SEO
Technical SEO revolves around using site improvement s for better ratings. This includes meeting the site’s technical requirements to improve your search engine results. This may include site structure to user experience issues like core web vitals. You also have to ensure a consistent URL structure, which is one of the toughest areas of SEO.
Local SEO
Local SEO involves practices that improve your site’s local ranking. It also includes your site ranking with certain keywords used highly in your area. This kind of approach works best for smaller businesses and gives them a chance to rank higher in results, compared to the bigger sharks in the industry.
You probably have a lot of information to absorb by now, but there are some other things you should keep in mind. For example, we believe that SEO is not just about On-Site or Technical, or local SEO, etc. Instead, things like CRO also matter. Let us discsuss it in detail.
What is CRO?
You will need to implement CRO – Conversions Rate Optimization Strategies if you want to see conversions from your search engine marketing. These include a change that helps improve the conversion rates, i.e. visitors into potential leads. However, it is a bit technical and requires extra attention. For instance, your website should be optimized for the following things in 2022.
1- Website Speed
Your site’s loading and functioning speed is a big indicator of conversion rates. Users generally leave sites that take more than 3 seconds to load.
2- Website Mobile Response
Mobile optimized sites are a must-have in 2022 because 90% of the internet traffic comes from mobile devices. You will receive increased traffic once your site is optimized for mobile users. You can reach out to a mobile developer to make this happen.
3- Content SEO and Semantic SEO
Semantic SEO requires gaining a deeper understanding of your audience. You can think of it as keyword research but there is a lot more to it. Businesses need to take take a look into their traffic’s search and intention. This makes businesses think beyond ‘what questions they start with’. It also encourages users to look for things that the traffic may search for ahead, and provide it on site.
Note that keyword optimization is not enough to improve ranking. It is why users have to produce content that meets the intent and needs of the customers. Fortunately, Content and Semantic SEO address this need.
Reducing sites with sponsored, guest, and affiliate content
Making robust ranking changes in these sites accordingly.
4- Local SEO
Local SEO aims to optimize a site so that users in the area can easily find content. It also assists ranking ability with certain keywords and phrases. However, local SEO is not as simple as it seems. It doesn’t only include adding a location in your site keywords You will also need to take care of plenty of other things such as the Google Business profile, as well as your Schema mark-up, and more.
5- Internal & External Links – More Than Just a Signal
Internal links refer to a link from another page on the same website. This includes hyperlinks from other pages as well. However, areas like website navigation are also an example of these links. These internal links also pass the authority on your pages and allow readers to know more about your business. Notice that you won’t see a change in the Domain Authority, but you will still pass “page authority” through them. Internal links also allow pages with search engine rankings.
6- SEO Anything- including Social Media SEO
Social media marketing allows users to SEO optimize pretty much anything they can come across. This includes the following information formats.
Images
Audio
Videos
Text
Social media plays an essential part because it not only has an impact on SEO ranking but also the links shared on social platforms. These links increase brand exposure and allow traffic increase. Moreover, customer experience will impact your website stats such as time spent on your site, pages read, etc. All of these factors contribute to improving site reputation and response rates in search engines.
In 2022, we encourage businesses to be mindful of what their users want so they can create content for their audience. This is where conversions will happen, not from tactics but a strategic approach. Therefore, these simple methods can prove helpful for creating better strategies.
Bottom Line
Understanding SEO trends is a bit difficult for most companies because it requires strategies that focus on a broader approach. However, focusing on simple steps like user intent, updating expanding content, first-party data collection, and understanding differences across platforms can help you optimize your SEO strategies. We can offer a marketing assessment, for your SEO needs.
It all starts with knowing where your brand is at! Let’s have a chat soon!
Content marketing is a fast-paced industry with consistent changes and developments. Let’s talk about content marketing trends for businesses in 2022.
The Evolution of Content Marketing
The content marketing landscape has gone through several changes in the past few years. Everything, from the means of content to the strategies for maximum content exposure, has changed. For example, there were only a few platforms for online content marketing in the past. People used to advertise and market their products through billboards, print media, and television.
Things have changed, but a few ground rules remained the same throughout this time. These include understanding your target audience, picking the right promotional strategies, and having clear business objectives for your industry.
While content creation is interesting, it can overwhelm some of the content creators because staying ahead with content marketing requires consistent vigilance. We understand that it is difficult for most content creators to grasp the techniques across so many platforms and a wider variety of audiences. So, here is our guide for the best Content and online marketing trends for 2022.
No worries! We got you!
Our team has put together everything you need to know about content marketing trends in 2022 in this article, followed by several online marketing trends that we believe are relevant to growing a business in 2022!
Let’s focus on helping you develop an effective content marketing strategy and maximize your audience.
Content Marketing Trends for Creators in 2022
The year is 2022 and you’re reading this article on your smartphone while walking down the street. You only have a few seconds to read and, for it to be successful, the content creator must make an impression right away.
Content marketing has hit the mainstream and provides both media companies and independent creators with opportunities to reach their audience. The best practices of the past are still viable, but new strategies are emerging, making it more important than ever for content creators to stay on top of current trends.
The following are five major content marketing trends that you need to know to get ahead of the curve and stand out from your competition at a time when consumers have shorter and shorter attention spans and more content is competing for their attention than ever before.
Evergreen Content
Evergreen content refers to articles, blog posts, videos, and the like that are always relevant because of their subject matter. Rather than focusing on current events or timely topics, evergreen content is more about timeless advice and wisdom. The goal of evergreen content is to provide value, regardless of when it was published, meaning that it never goes out of style.
Since there’s no expiration date for this kind of material, search engines will continue to find and index it. In other words, evergreen content can have a much longer lifetime than topical material and deliver organic traffic for years to come.
This kind of content will help your content stay relevant, even when it’s published years back. It will not only help the audience for the time being but will also remain a source of info for them in the future.
Marketing teams and creators should shift from a single editorial calendar to evergreen content marketing campaigns. Rather than creating a new content piece every month, take time to create evergreen or timeless pieces that can live on your site and bring in organic traffic for years.
Omnichannel
Omnichannel marketing aims to bring together and cooperate the various channels that businesses use to interact with customers to provide a consistent brand experience.
It’s important to make sure that your brand is presented with consistency across each platform; however, it’s also crucial to adapt your message for each channel according to the way your audience uses it.
Knowing what your customers want is critical to building an omnichannel strategy. This is where market research comes in, to help you understand what type of messages work for your audience and which channels they use.
You need to be where your customers are. If they’re spending more time on a particular platform, then it makes sense to place a stronger emphasis there.
User-Generated Content
One of the biggest challenges for businesses is building a reliable impression on the market and consumers. However, this is something you can easily counter with user-generated content. The user-generated content (UGC) refers to posts, photos, testimonials, and videos created by the users instead of the brand itself.
The UGC takes the authenticity of any business to the next level. People are more likely to trust companies that have tons of satisfied customers, positive feedback, and similar information that improve quality products/services.
Statistics reveal that consumers are most likely to prefer products that have positive reviews, compared to those without them. Furthermore, it also acts as a trust signal and builds a stronger, loyal customer base.
The main reason is that many people do not trust mass media sources and deem them unreliable for their retail decisions. Ensuring your customers are satisfied enough to create user-generated content for you will help you improve your content marketing in 2022.
Implement Social Listening
Social media platforms help track mentions and conversations related to a brand. Owners can then analyze them for insights for further opportunities. This makes it easier for them to compete with other businesses.
However, it is a two-step process, which involves the following:
Step 1 Monitoring social media channels for brand mentions, products, competitors, and keywords concerned with your business.
Step 2: Analyzing information to find ways to implement what you already know. This can include something as small customer response or something major such as shifting brand positioning. Either way, it plays an essential role.
Social media listening tools allow understanding how customers and potential customers’ sentiments about your business. You can do this by analyzing social media platforms. It also allows businesses to learn what they think about the competition.
Moreover, the tactic works beyond the numbers to consider the data mood. This “online mood” is also called social media sentiment.
My recommendation as an expert is: Instead of using generic tools to generate content, use social listening tools to communicate with your audience. And create content for them!
Social Media Topic Testing
Social media in 2022 is all about creativity!
It is important to run social media experiments if you want to stay ahead of the competition. A few witty jokes or puns contribute to user engagement. You can add factors like the poll to add more entertainment and direct participation by the users. However, you need to be smarter than asking simpler questions like “What should we do?” Instead, use gamification tools to achieve this target.
Content Tracking
You can’t grow what you can’t measure. Tracking content can be challenging, especially when it comes to reporting. Therefore, you should know how to track things for better business growth.
We suggest tracking the following KPIs for content performance.
Engagement: which pages generate more engagement
Offer downloadable to your social media followers and keep track of it!
Web visitors: users and page views
Bottom Line
Still not sure what to do with Content marketing trends in 2022? Of course, these trends have become quite complex. You will be considering several platforms like Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, etc, and each of them is going to impact your audience. It won’t be easy for you to pull this off right away, but you can still do it with enough help.
However, simple steps like content tracking, using social media for topic testing, creating socially validated and user content and incorporating an omnichannel for your business can help make a difference in your business.
We hope you found this content marketing trend guide helpful. Ensure reading out our future articles for each social media platform. It will help you increase audience and response and take your business to new heights.
Are you looking for a law firm marketing plan that has actually been created by a lawyer who is now a digital marketing strategist? You’ve landed in the right place.
In this article, my goal is to give lawyers and law firms a legal marketing game plan that adjusts to reality. So what exactly is reality? The most successful attorneys are not successful because they rank #1 in Google. They are successful because people know about their excellent work.
Does that mean that lawyers should not use digital marketing and social media marketing? Not really. But, certainly, their online marketing needs to be done differently. Social media marketing for lawyers is different than social media marketing for e-commerce, for example.
Keep reading, because in this article you will learn all about what it takes to market yourself differently for the better.
What Is Multichannel Marketing And Why Does It Fail For Law Firms?
So, let’s start with the basics. What exactly is multichannel marketing?
Multichannel marketing is pretty much taking you back to the days when a potential client opened the yellow pages, found your office, and called to make an appointment. Think back to the dark ages…before the Internet was really even a thing.
Marketing was a static message. You needed a message for the Yellow Pages, made for people to understand. You had your brochures with another message. Then, radio commercials, TV, etc. All of that advertising was created in hopes that the user would find you in one channel and respond. So, you needed to create different messages, depending on the channel in which you would advertise in order to get those end-users to respond.
That’s essentially a multi-channel approach. However, in today’s ‘digital everything’ age, users don’t behave that way.
In most cases, potential clients will use many different channeling outlets to figure out more about your law firm before actually contacting you. This is so essential for potential clients because it gives them the power and ability to do their own research.
Your potential clients come to your office prepared. In some cases, you will find that they have done extensive research before considering to even call you in the first place! You might have several stories when your clients think they know more than you! Because they learned on Google! Right?
How can we market to meet our users’ expectations? That’s the main question! Let’s just start by agreeing with one main rule: stop following a multi-channel approach.
Here’s an example of the “old fashioned and out of date” multichannel marketing.
The old way of multi-channel marketing.
We see the multichannel model failing, even in other forms of advertising like:
Paid leads
Paid display banners
Paid search
Legal listings (lawyers.com, avvo.com, etc.)
Print ads
Etc…etc…
Lawyers Don’t Want Leads From Google Searching
Contrary to what traditional marketing agencies will tell you, the way your law firm will grow is not from the volume of website visits, calls, or emails. As a lawyer and marketer, I would not set up a marketing plan strictly focusing on quantity. I know for a fact that the best clients are the ones who were referred by existing clients. I would prefer more quality contacts.
The chances of selling to a new customer are between 5 and 20 percent, while the probability of selling to an existing customer is between 60 and 70 percent.
So, in theory, what do lawyers need to do in order to grow their law firm? Avoid marketing practices that are predicated in attracting cold traffic, and instead focus on:
Provide excellent service.
Engage with their community online and offline.
Produce educational content.
Use social media channels to nurture their community with educational content, in a way that ignites relevant conversations.
I understand that it is so tempting to pay for Adwords, pay per click, newspapers ads, magazines, etc. But it will be better if instead, you craft a marketing strategy that actually helps you to communicate with your audience and warm them up so they can get you referrals.
The Omnichannel Marketing Approach
In today’s Now Economy, consumers demand highly relevant and personalized experiences as they interact with brands on a multitude of devices. As their expectations increase, an omni-channel strategy becomes mission-critical for marketers.
Omnichannel marketing really puts the customer at the core in order to ensure a completely consistent, unified experience at every touch point as opposed to simply enabling that touch point. Multichannel means many, and omnichannel means all (the customer is literally at the center).
Think about omnichannel as a holistic approach. The user is the center of your marketing and not the other way around.
A Law Firm Marketing Plan Example
The key ingredient for building your refreshed marketing plan for your law firm (or office if you’re a solo) is to put yourself in the users’ shoes. What do they want to see? What do they want to hear?
Multi-channel marketing consists of putting words in consumers’ mouths, whereas omnichannel marketing focuses solely on listening to what the client wants then delivering.
Let’s craft a simple marketing plan that gets you clients for your law firm, following the omnichannel approach.
Take A Look Of Your Online Marketing With The Users Experience In Mind
Think about what goes on in the minds of those potential users, when they have a need and believe they need to speak to an attorney. Let’s say, a worried mom that was involved in a car accident this weekend.
Worried mom researches online “car accident attorney near me”.
Found law firms advertising on Google, didn’t click in any.
Checked for the first law firm, organic, and found https://www.thevalentinelawfirm.com/. The website design is great! Clear, specific, represents trust and approachable. A great vibe!
Didn’t click on any page from the website.
Worried mom takes a look at the website for a few seconds and found the social media platforms. Great!
Worried mom checks that the lawyer has videos so she can now associate a face with the name. Great!
Additional points: Worried mom sees that some of her close friends are following this law firm. Fantastic!
This exercise should take you to identify the kind of content that your users are expecting to find when they are searching. The key to turn users into real leads is to provide them with the information they need, in a way that makes them easy to access.
Build A Content Marketing Plan Based On What Your Target User Can’t Find on Google
I’m sure you’ve considered writing a blog. However, when it comes to actually writing it, you can’t really think of topics that your users will find interesting. Who wants to read a law blog? Right?
Think about your blog as your library of resources that can facilitate conversations with your prospects.
Your content marketing doesn’t always have to be a long blog. It can be a checklist with items that are needed in case of a car accident. Or, if you’re a divorce attorney, a calculator of child support, with the appropriate disclaimers of course.
Create content based on a niche so that those users can find the information and follow you easier. You will be able to add other topics later. But now that you’re refining your content marketing plan, try to stick to a specific topic so users can identify your name with the kind of clients you want to take. Make it easy for them!
Build A Strong LinkedIn Profile (If You Haven’t Yet)
Don’t forget to add LinkedIn to the mix. Studies have shown that 92% of B2B marketers include LinkedIn in their digital marketing mix. Now, remember, to market a law firm is different than marketing for e-commerce. Your users are not expecting to see promotions. They are expecting to see real value from your social channels, including LinkedIn.
One simple goal for this platform is to get your profile to the all-star status. This impacts the number of views that your profile will get.
If you’re not sure if your profile is all-star, check on your dashboard and look at the top right. You should see the rank. Sometimes you get the all-star by just following the suggestions from LinkedIn.
I wrote a detailed article with everything you need to boost your LinkedIn profile and you can check all the details later, here.
Best Practices For A Strong LinkedIn Profile
1) Photo. No logo. Not your team. Not your office. A professional photo showing you approachable and trusted. Not sure if your photo makes the cut? Try this software! Photofeeler.
2) Your specialty. What do you do? Speak directly to your potential leads. Assume they search for you. Use common and clear words.
3) Your “summary” should be creative. Please, don’t be boring here! If you make it the exact same way as your competitors are writing their summary, nobody will be compelled to read it. Use emojis and bullet points.
4) Video! This is a great way to show your authority. Especially if you’re looking to build your authority.
5) Contact info. Most people forget to add their contact info or they hide it.
Don’t forget to add your content to your profile. For example, if you create a checklist or an article for your blog, you can add those on your LinkedIn profile via articles or media items on your profile.
As you will see below, LinkedIn will help you ignite referrals. Always keep that in mind. Give your clients reasons to share your content. If, for example, you’re participating in a conference to keep learning about something, share something thoughtful about your experience. Ignite those conversations!
Solidify Your Referral Marketing
Since we are taking an approach to online marketing that more user-centered, building authority and ultimately, building loyalty is what will pay your bills.
One word that should be on top of your head- referrals! And we are not kidding! Up to 76% of marketers are prioritizing customer loyalty over customer acquisition in 2018. (IDG)
Yes, we want to ignite your referral marketing engine.
Referral marketing is the preferred marketing source for many businesses including law firms. Business to business companies with referrals have a 70% higher conversion rate, and they report a 69% faster close time on sales.
Helping your customers become brand advocates is a smart business move no matter which way you cut it. Here’s an area where LinkedIn comes handy.
Don’t be afraid of connecting with your clients on LinkedIn. When their connections look for recommendations to hire a lawyer, your clients can easily tag your profile and you will be able to stay on top of those conversations.
Omnichannel Marketing: One User, One Voice, One Message, One Flow
Your law firm marketing should be simple. One ideal user. Craft the information that will help them build trust and loyalty. Stay in touch with them via social media, in particular, LinkedIn.
Don’t forget that what makes a law firm successful is excellent work. But if people don’t know about it, you won’t grow.
We’re currently helping clients revamp their marketing strategy. Who do you know that would benefit from great strategy? Share this article. Or if it’s you, please complete this 30 seconds assessment and we will schedule a complimentary session!
