While that’s certainly an extreme example, many marketers fall into the trap of not forming a budget plan for their content marketing efforts – which can cause their eyes to become bigger than their wallets. 

Sure, it’d be great to roll out an innovative new digital marketing campaign using interactive technology, but if you can’t afford it, there’s no way it’s going to happen. 

While budget restraints often crush more ambitious ideas, being able to form a realistic marketing budget is a necessity for any organization that wants to survive, especially small businesses. 

It’s no secret that the pandemic wreaked havoc on overall marketing spending during 2021, but it’s beginning to bounce back. 

In fact, the average market budget rose to 9.5% of company revenue in 2022, up from 6.4% in 2021, and the numbers are continuing to rise. It won’t take long before market budgets return to where they were before the pandemic, which was around 10.9%.

That means small business owners will have a bit more money to allocate toward marketing in 2023, which is why you need to learn how to create a smart yet realistic marketing budget. 

Read on to learn how you can develop a budget that helps you meet (or exceed) all your marketing goals for the coming year. 

The Importance of Marketing Budgets for Small Businesses

A proper marketing budget will outline all of your marketing investments and expenditures, including:

• Paid advertising 
• Pay-per-click ads (PPC)
• Website domains (including blog domains) 
• In-house marketing staff and new hires 
• Software tools (CRMs, project management, etc.) 
• Sponsored web content 
• Freelancers 
• SEO
• Backlinks 
• Any other channels you use 

As you can see, quite a bit goes into a marketing budget, and you don’t want to leave anything out, or you risk spending too much when it’s already too late. 

Why are marketing budgets so crucial for small businesses?

They are because you need an airtight marketing strategy if you want to scale your business. 

If you overspend on advertising, you’ll eat up a large portion of your revenue, and scaling will become very difficult. 

Conversely, if you don’t spend enough on marketing, you won’t be able to acquire enough new customers to scale. 

That’s why small businesses, more than any other sized business, need to master their marketing costs. By hitting the sweet spot between over and underspending, you’ll be able to acquire new customers without eating up all your revenue. 

Also, by paying attention to essential metrics along the way, you’ll be able to measure your return on investment (ROI) to ensure you’re getting the most value from your marketing dollars. 

Knowing which tactics to focus on 

Constructing a winning budget means discovering which marketing tactics are the most effective. For instance, B2B marketing tends to focus on informative blogs and follow-up emails to guide prospects down the sales funnel. 

On the other hand, companies targeting Gen Z’ers and millennials will have more success producing video content on social media platforms like YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram. 

How do you know which type of content/advertising to focus on?

This is where knowing your target audience comes into play. It’ll take some serious market research on your part to uncover the channels that your audience prefers to use (i.e., blogs, videos, emails, social media, etc.).  

From there, you can develop a content marketing strategy through the marketing channels your prospects use the most. 

Determining the Right Marketing Budget for You 

The first step in creating a marketing budget is to take stock of all your current marketing activities. 

That will provide you with a foundation to build on (unless you find that you’re overspending, in which case you’d have to scale your efforts back). In 2022, the average marketing budget accounts for 9.5% of a company’s revenue, but is that the right number for you?

Consider that B2B companies have a higher average due to lengthy sales cycles, with their budgets accounting for 13% of company revenue. 

As such, the type of business you have will also determine the size of your marketing budget. If you’re a brand-new startup, you’ll need to allocate a significant portion of your budget to building brand awareness, for example. 

Here are some steps to follow when evaluating your marketing spend.

Align your budget with your marketing tactics 

Ensure that you’re spending money on the right type of marketing activities that your target audience responds to the most. 

For instance, if you’re spending money on short videos that appeal to Gen Z’ers, but your product is for older generations, you need to rethink your strategy. Otherwise, you’re flushing your marketing dollars down the toilet. 

Remember, the goal of marketing is to achieve an ROI. Thus, if you’re seeing no revenue from all the money you’re spending, it’s time to A) go back to the drawing board and B) stop producing ineffective content. 

You’ll find the greatest success when your marketing strategy and budget work in tandem, so strive for that. 

Audit your existing marketing budget 

If you don’t have a grasp of your current marketing budget, you’ll need to calculate it.

How do you do that?

You do this by adding everything you spend on your marketing plan each month, quarter, and year. Beyond that, you need to segment your budget by your current marketing initiatives. 

Let’s say that your initiatives are to increase brand awareness and to retarget prospects that left without checking out. In this scenario, you would segment your marketing tactics according to these two initiatives. 

It would look something like this:

Initiative 1: Build brand awareness

• PPC ads
• Influencer marketing
• Social media marketing (posts, quizzes, surveys, etc.) 
• Search engine optimization (SEO) 
• Blogging and guest posts 

Initiative 2: Retargeting 

• Email marketing (retargeting emails) 
• Pop-up windows 
• CTA buttons 
• Google ads
• Promotional blogs 

As you can see, each initiative has content supporting it listed underneath. For your budget, you should also list the amount you spend next to each item to calculate your budget. 

Determine the effectiveness of each channel 

As stated before, the goal of any marketing campaign is to achieve a return. That’s why you’ll need to check how effective each marketing channel has been for you in the past. 

If you’re spending a large chunk of your budget on videos that aren’t generating leads or conversions, they aren’t worth the money. 

You’ll need to check your metrics to determine how effective each channel is for your business. 

How do you do that?

Tools like Google Search Console and Google Analytics are fantastic tools for seeing which pieces of content perform best for you. 

Using them, you can check metrics such as:

• Total organic traffic 
• Leads generated
• Conversions
• Click-through rate
• Bounce rate 

To refine your budget as much as possible, keep what works and get rid of what doesn’t. That way, you’ll know you aren’t wasting a single penny of your marketing budget. 

Cut any unnecessary costs 

Besides keeping what’s effective, you shouldn’t stop there. Instead, analyze your current vendors and tools to see if there are any ways to save money. 

For example, you may be spending too much on marketing software tools. Make some pricing comparisons to see if there are any comparable programs that you can switch to save money. 

Yet, it’s crucial to closely evaluate a new vendor or software tool before committing to them. The last thing you want is to switch platforms only to realize the product is either inferior or is missing key functionalities that are crucial to your operations. 

Besides software tools, you should take a look at the following:

• Freelancer pay 
• SEO agencies 
• Graphic designers
• Vendors that provide promotional products 

Do what you can to uncover the best deals for your marketing tools without sacrificing quality. Doing so will help you cut unnecessary costs while squeezing the most out of your ROI. 

Marketing Costs Breakdown 

Speaking of unnecessary costs, you’ll need to familiarize yourself with the most common types of marketing costs. 

That way, you’ll have a general idea of what each marketing tactic should cost you, which can help you uncover the best deals. Otherwise, you’re at the mercy of whatever companies want to charge, which isn’t a good way to save money. 

Besides software and content creation, there are plenty of other expenses that go into a marketing budget. These include outsourcing work (freelancers, graphic designers, web developers), advertising, in-house personnel, and additional services. 

Here’s a list of marketing costs that you’ll likely run into when developing your budget. 

Marketing software tools 

In today’s age, marketing software is basically a necessity, especially if you want to remain competitive. 

Something as basic as keeping track of your marketing team’s work becomes incredibly challenging without the aid of cloud-based software. Without a project management tool like Asana, you’re left to rely on written to-do lists and dozens of email threads. 

There are many different types of software tools that marketers use, including:

• CRM. CRM stands for customer relationship management tool, and it’s used to keep track of your customers and prospects. Popular examples include Salesforce and HubSpot. 
• CMS. Content is king, and to create and publish it, you’ll need a CMS (content management system). WordPress, Wix, and Squarespace are all examples of CMS programs. 
• Project management tools. These tools allow marketing managers to keep track of their team’s progress on projects and other initiatives. Common examples include Asana, Trello, and Monday.com. 
• Lead generation software. Generating and tracking leads is made easy with cloud-based software tools like Pipedrive, Lusha, and Slintel. 

Membership fees for these programs can add up, so take stock of them all when formulating a budget. 

Pro tip: Some of these programs (such as Asana) offer totally free versions, albeit with some limited features. Yet, they can still suffice, especially for small businesses, so check each tool for a free version. 

Freelancers

The need to hire freelancers pops up from time to time during marketing campaigns. Perhaps you’re short on writers, or you’re trying out a new strategy and want to see if it works. 

Either way, freelance writers, designers, and web developers all count as marketing expenses, so don’t forget to factor them into your budget. 

Networking sites such as UpWork and Fiverr are excellent places to find reasonably priced freelancers. 

Advertising 

PPC ads, Google ads, and social media ads all count as marketing expenses, so don’t forget to include them. 

Since these types of ads cost money, you need to A/B test them to ensure they’re working at peak efficiency for you. Also, determine which types of ads work and which don’t, and get rid of the ads that don’t. 

Not only that, but digital marketing isn’t the only field that involves ads. You also need to include any physical ads that you run, including banners, signs, brochures, and others. 

In-house personnel and new hires 

Your marketing team doesn’t work for free (if they do, you’ll have some legal issues on your hands), so you need to include their wages in your budget. 

The same is true for any new hires you intend to onboard, which come with their own costs. 

Besides their wage, you also need to factor in their computer, workstation, benefits, technology, and costs related to onboarding (training, tours, policy information, etc.). 

Content creation 

Creating content will likely account for a large portion of your marketing budget. Blogs, videos, infographics, whitepapers, and eBooks all cost money to create, even if you do so in-house. 

Content creation involves a lot of strategizing on behalf of managers and coordination from the marketing team. 

Why is creating content worth it?

Content brings in 3x more leads and conversions than other marketing channels, so it’s well worth the effort. 

Creating a Marketing Budget for 2023

We’ve covered quite a bit of spreadsheet knowledge so far (calculating marketing costs and devising a strategy), but that alone isn’t enough. 

You need to know how to create a marketing budget that your team sticks to like glue, so let’s learn how to do just that. 

Step #1: Identify your marketing goals 

First and foremost, you need to start by clearly defining your marketing goals, both short-term and long-term. 

In other words, what do you hope to achieve from spending all this money on marketing? Do you want to expand your reach, increase your revenue, or rank #1 on Google?

Start by identifying your long-term goals, and then include short-term goals to help you get there. 

Here’s an example:

Long-term goal: Rank #1 on Google for (blank) keywords. 

Short-term goals: 

• Acquire ten high-quality backlinks each week. 
• Look for SEO quick wins (keywords within striking distance).
• Create relevant blog content that gets shared on social media. 

As you can see, each short-term goal supports the ultimate long-term goal, which forms a path to success. 

Step #2: Create a buyer persona 

The content you create will depend on the needs of your audience, which is why you need a buyer persona. 

What’s that?

It’s a fictional avatar that represents your niche audience. The avatar should have the following:

• A name 
• An age
• A career 
• An address
• Hobbies
• Interests 
• Desires 

Of course, you can’t make all these factors up. Instead, you need to base them all on market research from your target audience. 

That way, your buyer persona will closely resemble someone from your niche audience, and you’ll be able to speak their language (as well as understand which types of content they respond to the most). 

Step #3: Use (or create) a marketing budget template 

You don’t want to keep track of your budget in your head, so you’ll need a spreadsheet to keep track of things. 

That’s where marketing budget templates come in handy. 

There are plenty of marketing budget templates online that you can download for free. There are different templates for content, paid advertising, public relations, and others – so make sure you pick one that’s appropriate for your business. 

Another option is to create a template from scratch in Excel or another spreadsheet software. Just remember to save your template for future use so you don’t lose it. 

Step #4: Beware of hidden costs 

A noticeable advantage of keeping a marketing budget spreadsheet is it helps you avoid end-of-the-year freakouts when you notice how much money you spent. 

That’s because many marketing costs have a way of creeping up on you. 

The last thing you want is to have to spend additional money that wasn’t in your budget. Not only is that wasteful, but it reflects poorly on your planning abilities. 

To avoid this issue, keep a close eye on your spreadsheets. Also, beware of ‘hidden’ costs that aren’t immediately apparent. 

In product marketing, for example, most marketers allocate money for product launches and promotional ads – neglecting product testing, focus groups, and message testing. 

Step #5: Measure your ROI for next year’s marketing budget 

Once everything is set up, it’s time to monitor your success. For each marketing tactic that you spend your precious budget on, you’ll want to determine if it helped you or hurt you. 

That will help you form a winning strategy for the next year. 

As long as you keep what works, discard what doesn’t, and continue monitoring your progress, you won’t have any trouble maintaining your marketing budget. 

Closing Thoughts: Creating a Marketing Budget for 2023 

As the adage goes, you have to spend money to earn money – and that’s definitely true in the case of marketing. 

Being able to form a thought-out marketing budget will help you reduce expenses and increase your ROI, which will help you take your small business to the next level. 

Do you need help forming a winning SEO strategy at your company?

Then you need to check out our managed SEO services at HOTH X as soon as you can. Our team of SEO gurus is always willing to share their expertise, so don’t wait to book a call today.      

The post How to Create a Marketing Budget for 2023 appeared first on The HOTH.

By that, we don’t mean a generalized version of all your existing customers. 

Instead, we’re talking about a fictionalized buyer persona that has a name, picture, personality, common pain points, and even marital status. 

If that sounds more along the lines of writing a fictional novel than a marketing strategy, you wouldn’t be 100% wrong. Yet, creating an ideal customer avatar is a tried and true marketing effort that produces actual results – which is why companies of all sizes create detailed customer profiles. 

The proof?

93% of companies that were able to exceed lead and revenue goals all had one thing in common – they segmented their databases according to buyer personas. 

Also, Hubspot found that the use of marketing personas made websites 2 – 5 times more effective and easier to use by their target audience. 

These stats reinforce the effectiveness of creating a fictionalized perfect customer avatar for your business. With only a basic marketing persona (created by analyzing demographics only), you’re leaving a lot on the table – which can lead to incorrect assumptions and false categorizations. 

That’s why we’ve put together this guide for fleshing out your ideal customer persona – complete with a customer avatar template you can use. 

Read on to learn how you can create a client avatar for your business or organization. 

What are Customer Avatars Anyway?

First, it’s crucial to clear up the confusion surrounding the terminology, as customer avatars can go by several different names (as you may have discovered in the intro). 

Customer avatars are also called:

• Buyer personas 
• Customer persona 
• Marketing persona 
• Target market 
• Target audience 

All these terms can refer to customer avatars, but they can also refer to more general marketing personas, hence the confusion. 

However, here is the true definition of a customer avatar:

A customer avatar is a detailed profile of your perfect potential customer. It focuses on a single, fictional person instead of categorizing people into generalized groups. As a result, no assumptions are made about the person, and the avatar outlines every detail about them, which provides marketers with a myriad of targeting tools. 

So if you see the term ‘buyer persona‘ referring to a specific person representing a potential customer, that’s a customer avatar. Yet, if the buyer persona is used to represent general demographics, it’s not a true customer avatar. 

Also, many businesses and organizations utilize more than one customer avatar, so it’s crucial not to limit yourself to just one if you market to a broad audience. 

A customer avatar is a great way to avoid trying to market your products and services to everyone, which is always a mistake. With an avatar, you’ll get to know your typical audience member on a personal level, which is highly valuable for your marketing campaigns. 

Does Your Company Need a Customer Avatar?

Some business owners will question if they need to create a customer avatar or not. After all, if you’re already studying your target audience‘s demographics and buying habits, what’s the point?

Let’s put this issue to bed right now – every organization (even nonprofits) can benefit significantly from creating customer avatars. 

Why is that?

It’s because having a detailed understanding of your typical customer is ALWAYS a good thing, no matter your industry. If you understand your audience on a deeply personal level, it will benefit every aspect of your operation. 

It’ll also help you avoid wasting time and valuable resources on losing endeavors. For instance, if you don’t know what your customers truly want, you’ll have a hard time creating content and developing new products. 

Creating customer avatars is even more crucial for startups and small businesses, as they will help you make the most out of your budget. Doing the research involved with creating an avatar will also inform you how much you need to segment your market (i.e., how many customer avatars you need to create). 

Building a customer avatar isn’t a one-off task, either. 

Companies that find the most success with their avatars understand that a customer’s wants, desires, problems, and hangouts all change over time – hence the need to update your avatars periodically. 

Even churches and charitable organizations benefit from creating avatars, which is why they build donor avatars. 

It shows that developing an intimate understanding of a target market is always a good idea, no matter the industry or type of business. 

What are negative customer avatars?

Besides avatars that represent ideal potential customers, some companies also opt to create negative customer avatars. 

What are those?

A negative customer avatar represents the type of customer that you DON’T want. Believe it or not, this is also a beneficial practice that any company or business can employ. 

To start developing a negative customer avatar, think of all the nightmare customers you’ve dealt with in the past and make a list of their traits. 

What were they most disappointed with by your products or services? What traits did they have in common? (i.e., argumentative, difficult to please, trying to take advantage of the system, etc.)

Not only will this help you discover which types of consumers to avoid with your business strategy, but it can also help you identify areas in your business that you can improve. 

For instance, you may uncover that you need to improve your customer service by analyzing negative customer experiences with your brand. 

An additional benefit is that negative customer avatars can help you avoid spending time and resources on a market segment that has no interest in your products or services. Without taking the time to analyze your audience in this way, you might continue to waste money targeting the wrong customers. 

Certain types of customers won’t be a good fit for your products or services for reasons besides personal ones, too. 

It could be that a prospect is too technically advanced for what you sell or that certain prospects only use your content to conduct their own research. 

The Benefits of Using Customer Avatars 

If you’re still on the fence about developing customer avatars for your digital marketing strategy, it might be because you’ve yet to see what it will provide for you. 

After all, creating customer avatars will take effort from your staff, which can be quite an investment if your employees are notoriously pressed for time. 

The good news is all that market research won’t be for naught. 

Instead, the little amount of money you spend developing customer avatars pales in comparison to what you stand to gain from incorporating them. 

Still don’t believe us?

Then check out these numerous benefits your organization will see from defining customer avatars. 

Identify your target audience 

No business will get very far without a specific target audience in mind, as few products and services are universal. 

If your idea is to market your business to absolutely everyone, you’ll likely wind up wasting all your money with little to show for it, which is never a desirable outcome. 

While it’s commonplace for companies to study demographic information and customer buying habits to learn more about their audience, creating a customer avatar takes this research to the next level. 

You’ll be able to truly get inside the mind of one of your customers, which will help you develop the perfect messaging for them. That’s the best way to relate to an audience, build a following, and boost your conversion rates. 

With a detailed customer avatar, you avoid speaking to the wrong people in your ads and content, which will help you squeeze the most out of every penny of your budget. Even with a well-defined niche to focus on, you’re likely still wasting money by not having a customer avatar to go along with it. 

Avatars will help you penetrate further into your niche so you can solve your audience’s pain points, answer their questions, and speak their language to win them over. 

According to ITSMA, buyers are 48% more likely to go with solution providers if they personalize their marketing to address their personal issues, and developing a customer avatar is the best way to do so. 

Avoid potential business risks 

A customer avatar helps you keep your eye on the goal when crafting ads, articles, and blogs for your company. 

Without one, your content likely won’t scratch your potential customers‘ itch. Instead, you may end up focusing on the needs of prospects that aren’t the best fit for your company but only seem like it at the time. 

What do we mean by that?

Let’s consider an example. Say that you sell parts for classic cars online but don’t have a customer avatar. A few well-meaning customers asked if you could provide more modern parts instead. Eager for the business, you accommodate them and start carrying modern parts, which in turn alienates your true fans (classic car enthusiasts) – causing a steep drop-off in revenue. 

Having a detailed and well-defined customer avatar for your business would have helped you avoid this issue entirely. 

Perfect your messaging for email marketing 

With a customer avatar, it becomes far easier to write emails directly to your target audience. You’ll know what type of language to use, which will make it feel as if they’re reading an email from a friend. 

In addition, you’ll have an intimate understanding of their primary problems and questions, which will make your emails far more effective. 

Writing convincing calls-to-action (CTAs) will also become easier to boost your conversion rates. 

Last but not least, your customer avatars will let you know if you need to segment your email marketing campaigns. For instance, if you have three customer avatars, you should create an email marketing campaign for each one. 

They make product development easier 

Since you’ll know your customers on a near-personal level, knowing which new products and services they’ll go for will become far easier. 

Once again, this will help save your company a ton of money. 

If you build a new product that doesn’t interest your audience or solve one of their problems, don’t expect it to sell very well. That’s why it’s so imperative to use customer avatars to inform product development decisions. 

Defining a Customer Avatar for Your Business 

Now that you know why customer avatars are so crucial, it’s time to learn how to create one for your organization. 

Building a customer avatar will take a lot of time and effort, and you shouldn’t base anything on guesses. 

Instead, you’ll need to base everything on accurate data and in-depth market research. 

The good news?

This guide contains everything you need in order to build a customer avatar from scratch, so let’s get started. 

Step #1: Pick a name and choose a picture 

The first step is to give your customer avatar a name, but it shouldn’t be any old name (i.e., Jim is too vague). 

Rather, the name should include some specific information about who they are. An example will be naming your avatar CEO Jim if your products target business executives. 

It’s imperative to think about who your potential customers are during this step to come up with the best name possible. Say your niche is health and wellness, and you’re targeting fitness enthusiasts. In this case, you could name your avatar something like Fitness Fred. 

If your audience is segmented into a few groups, you’ll need to come up with avatars for each one, which means coming up with more names. 

You should also choose a photo, as it helps to visualize what your avatar looks like. For this, try to imagine one of your most loyal customers. Someone who regularly buys your products and doesn’t hesitate to leave glowing reviews. 

What do they look like?

You can even go so far as to use their social media profile picture as your avatar photo. While it may seem tempting to skip this step, putting a face to the name will help you humanize your avatar. That comes in handy whenever you sit down to create content, as you can picture that you’re writing directly to your avatar. 

Step #2: Define their demographics and psychographics 

Next, you need to analyze your existing customers, paying close attention to their demographics and psychographics. 

Demographics will help you identify who your customers are, and psychographics will help you uncover why they buy your products. 

For your demographic information, analyze your customers based on the following:

• Age 
• Gender 
• Income
• Marital status 
• Kids 
• Habits 
• Hobbies
• Job-status 
• Religion 
• Race 

Psychographics include what your audience believes, enjoys, and values. While demographic information tends to be readily available, psychographic information is a bit more tricky to uncover. 

Ways to uncover psychographic data include:

• Create polls on Facebook and Instagram asking your audience what they enjoy and value. 
• Conduct former client/customer interviews to get a glimpse into how they think. 
• Start a focus group or gather data from an existing one. 
• Investigate your website analytics to uncover customer preferences and buying habits. 

These are all ways you can generate a psychographic database if you don’t have one already. 

Step #3: Identify their primary goals 

Next, what does your avatar hope to achieve in life? What is their ultimate goal, and how can your products and services bring them closer to that?

For instance, if your audience consists of entrepreneurs, their goals are likely to be something along the lines of:

• Earning enough revenue to quit their day job 
• Finding independence and freedom 
• Setting their own work hours 
• Discovering ways to earn passive income 

Just like that, you have a series of goals that can influence your content, products, and services. 

Step #4: Uncover your avatar’s backstory 

Where did your customer avatar come from? Did they spend a lot of time working jobs they hated before finding their calling? Do they come from cities or small towns?

These are helpful questions to ask yourself, as they’ll help you further understand your customer avatar and the decisions they’re likely to make. 

Understanding their background will also help you gain insight into your avatar’s mindset and what you can do to satisfy their needs. 

Step #5: Fill out a customer avatar template 

Last but not least, here’s a free worksheet you can fill out to define your customer avatar:

Demographics

• Age: 
• Gender: 
• Marital status:
• Children:
• Income: 
• Location:
• Occupation:
• Level of education:
• Religion:
• Race:

Primary goals 

• What do they value above all else?
• What are their primary beliefs in life?
• What is their primary goal, and what do they hope to accomplish?

Information sourcing

• How do they stay informed?
• Which websites do they frequent?
• What are their preferred social media platforms?

Difficulties and challenges 

• What challenges do they face?
• What are their primary pain points?
• What questions will they likely ask?

Purchasing 

• What possible objections might they have to your products or services?
• What is their monthly budget?
• Are they the direct buyer, or will they go through somebody else?

Once this template is complete, you’ll have a fully-defined customer avatar or avatars ready for immediate use. 

Final Takeaways: Defining Your Customer Avatar 

That’s what it takes to define a customer avatar that’s detailed enough to provide excellent results. By creating a customer avatar, you’ll gain invaluable insights into your target audience that you wouldn’t have found otherwise. 

That’s why creating avatars is a revered marketing technique practiced by organizations of all types and sizes. 

If your business has hit a snag, defining a customer avatar may be just what you need to snap out of it. 

Do you need help formulating a marketing campaign for your business?

If so, don’t wait to reach out to us at HOTH X, our fully managed SEO services. Our experts will handle every aspect of your digital marketing strategy, including defining your unique customer avatar, so don’t wait to book a call today.   

The post How to Define Your Customer Avatar (and Sell More to Them)  appeared first on The HOTH.

In fact, Google Maps has 154.4 million monthly users and is the most popular navigation app in the US alone!

Not only has Google Maps update changed the way reviews are seen, but it may also change the way you use Google Business Profile.

For example, if you were to look up “bakeries near me”, the marker would show the rating of every bakery nearby that’s registered to show on Google Maps.

Similar to this: 

With that said, let’s explore why you need business reviews and how to update your Google Business Profile to display your reviews on Google Maps:

How Do You Make Google Business Profile Display Reviews?

Once your Google Business Profile (formally known as Google My Business) is verified, you can submit the location of your business and it will display your reviews of your business on Google Maps. 

Here’s how you can verify your business using Google Maps:

1. Make sure you’re signed in to your Google account
2. Open Google Maps on your desktop, iPhone, or android phone
3. Enter your business name in the search bar
4. Click your business’s name
5. Click “claim this business” or click “manage now”
6. To pick a different business click on, “I own or manage another business”
7. Select your verification option and follow the on-screen steps 

There are three different ways to add your business:

1. Enter your address in the search bar. On the left, in “Business Profile,” click “add your business.”
2.  Right-click or tap on the map at the top-left corner. Then click “Add your business”
3. At the bottom of the menu click “Add your business.”

It is also vital to make sure that you fill out all of the information that Google asks you about your business. 

As a reminder, local residents who search for your business in the Google Maps app  will now see ratings along with the location marker. 

Does Google Reviews on Google Maps Affect Local SEO?

The short answer is yes. Google reviews do help improve search rankings.

Google states, “High-quality, positive reviews from your customers can improve your business visibility and increase the likelihood that a shopper will visit your location.”

While many factors are involved in search rankings, online customer reviews can be a strong signal to search engines that your website is trustworthy and authoritative. 

Because local searches contribute 22.6% of website traffic, there are huge opportunities for your local audience to see your business when searching for local brands near them.

In fact, a staggering 94% of consumers say a bad review has convinced them to avoid a business.

With that mentioned, owner responses can be a great way to start a positive two-way conversation about your business with your customers. 

Positive Google Business Profile customer reviews can also be beneficial for SEO. 

Additionally, Moz has previously described responding to online reviews as a chance for public relations on social media that can influence your business listing on the SERPs. 

Here are a few ways to ask for a Google business review: 

• Make it easy with a link
• Personalize your message but keep it short
• Ask your customer to write a review after a purchase is completed
• Mention it on social media
• Include your review link in weekly newsletters 

Considering how this update can benefit you as a business owner and attract new potential customers, you should motivate your existing customers to leave a positive review if they enjoyed your service.

How to Reply to a Google Maps Review

As a business owner, you can’t change or delete a review, but your customer can do it if they want to. 

Most customers will feel motivated to change the review for a more positive one if they had a negative experience but were attended to promptly by your customer service team.

To reply to a review, follow these steps:

First, you need to verify your Google Business profile. If you haven’t verified it yet, follow the steps described here to do it. 

When on your desktop, open the Google Maps app. 

1. You can reply to reviews from either Google Search or the Google Maps app. 
2. If using Google Maps, tap your Account Circle and select Your Business Profile.
3. If using Google Search, type in your business name in the search bar directly.
4. Click on Reviews. 
5. You’ll see all of the reviews and their star rating in a chronological list. Select the review you’d like to reply to and type in your answer. 
6. Click Reply.

Negative reviews will lower your star rating, but they can be turned into a net positive if you assist the customer promptly.

Take note of their negative experience and avoid making your reply personal or about the customer. 

If there’s an issue that can be solved by email or phone, provide the customer with your contact lines in the reply and help them solve the matter. Google also recommends signing off with your name or initials to make your reply come off as authentic.

An updated review will show upcoming customers that your business cares about their clients’ experience and improving it even after a negative experience. 

Quick note: replies might not show up on Google immediately. 

The good thing is that the reviewer will get a notification the instant you reply to their review, meaning they can update it as soon as they read your reply.

Rules for Google reviews

For your customers to add ratings on reviews, they also have to follow Google’s content policy and review policy.  

Reviews might be removed from their page for policy violations like inappropriate content or spam, and these reviews aren’t reinstated. 

Google doesn’t allow anonymous reviews, so user information will be disclosed to the public. 

Your Online Reputation Matters For SEO

Google Maps’ most straightforward benefit is helping users find your business location. Now, visitors will find out the ratings of each nearby business that matches their search query to better understand which one to choose.

If business ratings were important in the past, now they are a necessary component to keep updated for SEO.

Not only will positive ratings increase your business’ visibility, they’ll also serve as a reference for customers nearby searching on Google Maps.

The HOTH offers a ton of free SEO tools and resources. 

Schedule your call with one of our experts today and don’t forget to sign up now! 

The post New Google Maps Update – Your Online Reputation Is EVEN More Important Now appeared first on The HOTH.

While longer ads are an excellent marketing tool, bumper ads are an often-overlooked complementary element. These six-second messages let you retain audience attention and shine the spotlight on your company or product without interruption.

To highlight how great this advertising format is, we’ve delved into its foundations and provided five excellent bumper ad examples, along with a guide to creating bumper ads and tips on how to get the most from them.

What Are Bumper Ads?

Bumper ads are unskippable YouTube ads that are up to six seconds long. They appear before a video begins or during it and are a great opportunity for brands and marketers to showcase a concise yet highly impactful message.

(Image Source)

Since they’re only a few seconds long and unskippable, audience attention retention is much higher than with other ad formats. They’re also less likely to frustrate viewers who just want to get to their video.

When run alongside other ad formats and longer videos, bumper ads build brand awareness and can help with YouTube SEO.

When to use a bumper ad?

Bumper ads are an effective way to get around “ad blindness,” a term used to describe how most users have learned to ignore ads — even video ads.

When you demand just six seconds of someone’s attention, there’s a higher chance you’ll get it.

The best way to use a bumper ad is to send a single memorable message about your brand. The aim is to make a great impression from the first second and lead users to your website, products, or services.

Most marketers primarily use bumper ads to boost brand reach and awareness.

How to pay for bumper ads?

Google and YouTube use the Cost-per-Mille (CPM) model for bumper ads. In this bidding model, brands are charged for every thousand views their ad gets on YouTube.

To ensure brands stay within their budget, Google uses Target CPM. This is when brands can set the bid for how much they want to pay for every thousand times their ad is played. Google Display then optimizes your bid to get the maximum number of impressions within your limit.

With an estimated cost of around $1 to $4 per thousand views, bumper ads are relatively cheap compared to other forms of advertising.

Bumper Ad Examples

Bumper ads are an excellent avenue for brands and marketers to unleash their creativity. Here are five brands that got it right with their bumper ads:

#1. General Insurance

General Automobile Insurance Services is primarily focused on auto insurance. However, rather than creating a generic car accident/mishap-based bumper ad, they used their six seconds to add humor and catch attention.

Using a tattoo error to highlight how everyone makes mistakes and needs insurance to cover them is an out-of-the-box concept that works.

Another thing General Insurance gets right is the messaging. They focus on a single message and don’t delve deep into brand details or product features. Instead, they entice readers back to their website to learn more.

#2. Dove

Dove focuses solely on its product in this bumper ad. They go straight to the customer’s pain point — “Does your anti-dandruff shampoo leave your hair dry?” — and then provide the solution — the Dove Dermacare Scalp shampoo and conditioner.

The narrator also says 1–2 lines to explain how the new haircare series helps with anti-dandruff care.

This is a more generic bumper ad format, where they simply talk about the product. But it works because those six seconds lead any viewers with the same problem directly to a solution.

Since the ad focuses on one product rather than the brand, this kind of bumper ad makes sense here.

#3. Liberty Mutual

Liberty Mutual Group provides customized insurance for auto, property, motorcycles, and more. Since its offerings are more complicated than the Dove ad above, the Liberty Mutual team went the creative route.

The main benefit of insurance is to save money. Liberty Mutual uses their bumper ad to show just how much money they can save you.

Rather than a simple tagline or statement saying “we save you money,” they choose to show it via a user that has saved enough that they can now buy customized items for their dog.

Notice how this implies that they don’t just save money, but they save so much of it that they can also afford to splurge on unnecessary and fun purchases. Thus, proving how great their insurance is.

#4.Grammarly

Grammarly, an online text-editing platform, adds flair to a direct message with their bumper ad. The student-focused ad uses a statistic about how prevalent the tool is among its target demographic.

It further underlines its popularity by adding a catchy yet relatable line at the end, with the actor saying, “It’s more popular than all-you-can-eat pizza.” This statement is complemented by an end screen that shows the Grammarly logo and a clear line that says the tool is free.

All of these elements combined are aimed to entice college and school students to try out this free app that can make writing easier.

#5. Adidas

Brands can also show their products in action in their bumper ads. Adidas’ ad for their RDY collection of sportswear is a cut-down version of a longer interview with Japanese Olympic silver-medal-winning boulderer Miho Nonaka.

The ad shows the athlete in action wearing their gear, plus a quote from her. It ends with a screen that tells users how to find that specific collection.

A bumper ad like this gets straight to the point, and instead of telling users how good their product is, it implies it by showing the best of the best using it.

5 Best Practices for Effective Bumper Ad Campaigns

Now that you’ve seen some excellent bumper ads and how they get viewer attention, it’s time to create and implement your own bumper ad campaign.

Need help getting started? Our PPC experts can help.

Otherwise, here are five best practices for engaging and profitable bumper ads:

#1. Use clusters

Bumper ads must be a part of a cluster of ads that highlight the product/service/brand. Each ad in this cluster is focused on one specific message.

Let’s say you want to advertise a marketing software that:

• Is easier to use than competitors
• Has more features
• Has better integrations

You can use a bumper ad to showcase each of these advantages. The first bumper ad can focus on the great UI, the second can focus on unique features, and the third can focus on third-party integrations.

You can break down this campaign into more ads, say one for each feature or key integration, or you can pair these up with longer ads that explain them more thoroughly.

Topic clusters are a common strategy in content marketing and can be used to plan your bumper ads as well.

#2. Avoid complex messaging

Since your bumper ads are only six seconds long, you must avoid complex messages. Instead, focus on the key takeaway for the end-user or customer.

For example, in the Liberty Mutual Insurance ad, rather than delving into HOW they save customers money, they focus on what customers can DO with the extra money.

Longer ads can explain the how, but your bumper ads should simply tell users why they should care about your product.

The message must be simple, memorable, easy to understand for your audience and handle one main element (customer question, pain point, feature, product).

#3. Aim for visual appeal

In most of the ads we’ve shown above, eye-catching visuals are what reels users in at first.

General Insurance hooks viewers with the sneezing-while-getting-tattooed gag, while Adidas directly shows the athlete in action.

Notice how there’s no dilly-dallying or basic company logo, nothing that a user would see in another generic ad. All logos and slogans are saved for the last two seconds. The first four are all about impact.

Even if it’s a very short ad, users will turn away or tune it out if there’s nothing interesting. This is why it’s important to get straight to the point.

#4. Mix bumper ads with other types of ads

Tailor your bumper ad campaigns such that they lead to longer ads or other brand videos. You can use them alongside TrueView ads, display ads, and overlay ads.

Sheba, a popular cat food brand, created a unique ad campaign to connect with pet owners. They wanted to help cat owners get past the dreaded “4 am wake up,” so they used bumper ads in the daytime and customized ads at night — all of which led to a 5-hour video created to help owners get back to sleep.

The campaign was a massive success, with a 100% increase in ad recall among satisfied cat owners.

While some ads can be cut down to create bumper ads, like in the Adidas example, it is recommended to create bumper ads separately.

#5. Use targeted ads

Like most Google Ads assets, you can target your bumper ads toward a specific audience. This target audience is defined by demographics (age, gender, location, etc.), interests, marital status, education, etc.

You can set these parameters so Google knows who to show the ads to make the biggest impact. You don’t want to show high-schoolers ads about homeowner insurance. Targeted ads help prevent situations like this.

Bumper ads can also be used for remarketing. This is when you target people who have previously interacted with your brand, website, or product.

While you can’t build remarketing lists off of bumper ad viewers, you can use data from other ad formats to show bumper ads to the right people.

How to Create Your Own Bumper Ads

Follow these steps to create a YouTube bumper ad:

• Create a Google Ads account: Start by creating a Google Ads account to monitor all your YouTube ad campaigns and related data.

• Create a new campaign: Click on “Campaign” to navigate to the campaigns page, select the ‘+’ button and choose “New Campaign.”

• Add campaign goal: In the following screen, select “brand awareness and reach” as the ad goal.

• Select campaign type: When prompted, select “Bumper” as your campaign type.

• Add campaign details: Campaign name, budget, language, and targeting options can be customized in this step to ensure that your bumper ads reach the right audience.

• Create and upload ad: Create a bumper ad with your advertising team, choose a banner to go along with it, and then upload your ad.

You can learn more about the process here.

Give Your Brand a Much-Needed Lift with Bumper Ads

Bumper ads can elevate your advertising campaigns by exposing your products to a focused audience that can’t ignore the message. They can lead viewers directly to your website or longer ads or videos that further explain your offering.

If video production, Google Ads, and paid campaigns are not your forte, you can always let the experts at The HOTH handle it. Schedule a call today!

The post YouTube Bumper Ads Guide: How to Make a Big Impression in Just 6 Seconds appeared first on The HOTH.

Google announced on Oct. 14 that they would start using continuous scrolling on mobile search results pages. This will benefit users looking for the best content online as well as businesses who depend on the search engine for profits.

Keep reading this blog to learn more about continuous scrolling. We’ll discuss what it is, why Google has decided to switch to it, and what it could mean for small online businesses like yours.

What’s Continuous Scrolling?

Social media apps like TikTok and Instagram have been successfully using continuous scrolling for years. The format is more user-friendly and allows viewers to see more content.

Until this point, Google users could only access other pages by scrolling to the bottom and clicking on the next page number in blue.

While they could keep clicking and clicking for new pages, Google data cited in the recent announcement stated that most don’t go past the fourth page of results.

A 2020 Google study found that the click-through rate or CTR for results on the second page were less than 1% per position. Between the first page and tenth page, CTR drops from 46.9% to 1.5%.

Now, when a user reaches the end of a page on their mobile device, the next page of results will automatically load. The “See More” button will also appear later in the scrolling.

According to Google:

Here’s Why Google Is Changing Search Results

Google’s intention with continuous scrolling is to make “browsing search results more seamless and intuitive.”

Specifically, they want to help users find the right information when their search questions are “broad” and “open-ended.”

Users with these types of questions want to consider more results before making a decision. They could be conducting research, searching for a restaurant, or trying to find inspiration for a craft project.

The upgrade is also more in line with what users are accustomed to seeing on popular social media apps.

It will take some time for continuous scrolling to be available for all. According to Google, “this new search experience is starting to gradually roll out today for most English searches on mobile in the U.S

The Benefits to Small Online Businesses

Every change to Google’s platform has consequences for businesses who depend on it to sell products or services.

At The HOTH, we believe that the addition of continuous scrolling on mobile devices will be an advantage for small online businesses.

Our clients want to use SEO to appear higher in Google rankings. The work we do with content writing, guest posts, and link building help them reach the coveted first page of search results.

But, with continuous scrolling the first page won’t be as important.

Users will seamlessly be connected to the second, third, or fourth page. That content will likely experience a boost in clicks and traffic.

Getting to the first page may still be their goal but thanks to continuous scrolling they’ll also be finding new customers on other pages.

What Should You Do Next?

Are you wondering if your business should do anything different in light of continuous scrolling? Right now we recommend monitoring your analytics.

See how your content is performing on pages two to four. Once you get a sense of what’s happening, it may be wise to shift some resources to other content you never considered highlighting before.

Do you need help with writing killer content or reexamining your strategy? Simply book a free consultation call with one of our experts to get started.

The post Google’s Continuous Scrolling Good News for Small Online Businesses appeared first on The HOTH.

Advertisers had been subject to the second-price auction since the early days of online display advertising but slowly many platforms have switched to using the first price of the auction winner.

While the official announcement from Adsense stated that it requires “no action for you” and that “you will likely not see a change in your earnings,” we wanted to post this blog to cover what might actually happen to your Google Ads.

First-Price Auction vs. Second-Price Auction

If you’re new to Google Ads or your campaigns have been on autopilot up until now, you may have never heard of first-price auctions and second-price auctions.

It all gets pretty technical but basically, it’s how AdSense determines the price you pay for ads.

Companies will create display ads in the Google Ads Manager. These ads will go to a bid in AdSense and the final price will be set based on who wins the auction.

Previously, ad rates were set by the second-price auction. This means that AdSense would use the price of the second-highest bid. Why would they do this?

Using the second-price auction was one way to keep costs lower and help out smaller businesses.

Imagine there’s a bid for sneaker advertisements on Google. A huge company with an astronomical budget could throw down $100 as a bid because it’s only a tiny share of their revenue and they’ll likely make it back with sales.

But, a small mom-and-pop sneaker store may only be able to bid $5.

It used to be that whoever won the bid would only pay $5 because they would use the second-highest price.

Under this new model, the highest bid of $100 would be used regardless of who won. The huge company had inflated the price to increase their chances of winning.

Why Does This Change Matter?

Now let’s get into the details about how this change could be damaging to businesses with smaller budgets.

No one wants to admit this but the use of first-price auctions will increase prices for everyone. Remember, they could start charging the $100 ad instead of the $5 ad.

On top of that, the change could be disastrous for smaller businesses that don’t have an effective bidding strategy in place. Some of them may be managing Google Ads on their own and not paying much attention to their bids.

If they aren’t carefully examining bids, they could see ad charges go through the roof and begin to eat away at their limited budgets.

According to AdSense:

They also said the switch was in line with what other platforms have already done.

AdSense stated the changes will be effective at the end of the year. Publishers stand to make higher revenues as a result.

Preparing for First-Price Auction

Here’s the big question most of our clients will ask: how can I prepare for the switch to first-price auction?

The true effects of the first-price auction won’t be felt until 2022. In the meantime, businesses running Google Ads should begin scrutinizing their bids.

They need to get used to having precise control over their ad bids, studying their bids within the Google Ads Manager, and sorting through data to find out what’s working.

If these online businesses don’t want to start wasting their ad dollars, they need to build an effective bidding strategy. This includes considering ad goals and deciding whether to focus on conversions, clicks, or visibility.

Build Your Winning Bidding Strategy

Do you need any help with developing a bid strategy or managing your Google Ads?

HOTH PPC is our pay-per-click product that helps clients of all sizes earn a higher ROI.

Just because you’re a smaller business doesn’t mean you can’t stay competitive in first-price auctions.

It only means you’ll have to take a long, hard look at your bids. We can help with that!

Our expert team of Google Ads certified marketers can help you to create a bid strategy and walk you through every step of building effective Google Ads.

All you have to do is book a call with us today to get started.

The post AdSense Switches to First-Price Auction: What It Means for Your Business appeared first on The HOTH.

Recently, The HOTH has put the finishing touches on our integration with Service Provider Pro (SPP).

SPP makes ordering and delivering white label SEO products quicker and more efficient than ever.

The big perk of using SPP with The HOTH is once your customer purchases a service, the order will automatically shoot into The HOTH’s system for fulfillment. No more being a middleman!

The entire goal of SPP is to help SEO and digital marketing agencies improve their day-to-day from monotonous, repetitive tasks to spending that time actually growing their business!

This article will discuss how SPP works for resellers and the benefits of integrating your HOTH account with this system.

What Is Service Provider Pro?

SPP is an agency management tool that allows you to seamlessly integrate with and offer HOTH products to your clients. Additionally, it acts as a CRM, support desk, point of sale, and much more.

Entrepreneurs and agencies can subscribe to SPP on a monthly or annual basis.

Once inside, users have the ability to connect their SPP account to their HOTH account with only a couple clicks.

Through the SPP dashboard, agencies can create custom services, craft order forms to capture information, track orders, issue invoices, and generate reports.

What HOTH Services Are Available in SPP?

Our most popular SEO products are currently available in SPP:

• HOTH Guest Post (Domain Authority and Publisher Traffic)
• HOTH Blogger (Regular and Pro)
• HOTH Press
• HOTH Syndication

The same options and variants available inside The HOTH’s ordering system are available inside SPP. With guest posts, for example, users can switch the word count and domain authority.

We’re working hard at The HOTH to hook up more products so keep an eye on our SPP Page to monitor which products we’ve added.

The benefit to being fully “hooked up” means that when your customer purchases, the order shoots into The HOTH’s system automatically, and returns to your customer automatically when the order is complete.

No more wasting your time as the middleman copying and pasting order inputs!

The Other Benefits of SPP

We’ve touched on how SPP can save you time with submitting orders but what are the other benefits?

Using SPP makes it easier to scale up your business. After all, the way you manage 10 clients is completely different than the way you manage 100.

The SPP dashboard puts all of your valuable information in one spot. That means you can access your entire client list, track orders, check on payments, and much more.

Not only does this program give you direct access to best-selling HOTH products, but it helps you with client management.

Users can create multiple order forms, confirmation pages that send messages to a client’s email, a member’s area where clients can see the progress of their order, and intake forms.

If you have multiple employees the program makes it easier to coordinate your efforts. There’s also a section where clients can easily contact you with questions or concerns.

Ready To Grow Your Business?

We hope you’re excited about SPP. This software makes it easier than ever before to coordinate orders between your agency and The HOTH.

The days of manually inputting orders or going through pages of emails to provide updates or performance reports to your clients are gone! SPP keeps you and your team organized so you can start focusing on getting more clients.

Would you like to learn more? Visit The HOTH + Service Provider PRO to watch some video tutorials and read FAQs.

Click here if you’re ready to get started with SPP.

The post The Easiest Way To Resell HOTH Services: Service Provider Pro appeared first on The HOTH.