Strategies for a Scalable Business

Every business starts with an idea. Big companies have to start somewhere, so even if your business is small right now, that doesn’t mean it can’t grow into a successful and profitable business!

Are you struggling with growing a business? These 5 strategies will help you scale your business and get ahead of the competition.

  1. Build On Your Skills
  2. Collaborate With Others
  3. Invest In Yourself
  4. Plan Your Goals
  5. Create Value

Scaling Versus Growth

Scaling a business is all about how well your business grows and increases revenue. Growth and scaling are similar because they support more profits, customers, and staff. The main difference between growth and scaling is that scaling can deliver more services and products without spending more money. 

For example, you may have grown your business by gathering more customers. However, you’ll need a new customer service member to handle the intake of new customers. Scaling means you’ll be able to take all the new customers without needing to hire new employees to cover the workload. 

Build On Your Skills

Knowing your strengths and weaknesses is the best thing you can do when growing your business. Don’t be afraid to step aside if you need to and away from certain areas if they don’t fall under your strengths. But, on the other hand, be comfortable not knowing everything, so you always have a learning mindset. That way, you can keep building on your skills and bringing more to your business.

Collaborate With Others

One way to stay motivated is to communicate with other business owners. There are lots of ways to connect with like-minded people! Learning what others are doing will inspire you to keep moving forward and give you the insight you need to tackle any conflicts that come your way. Join groups on social media or set up coffee hours with local business owners in your area, and you can start collaborating with others.

Invest In Yourself

Investing in yourself may sound like building on your skills, and those two ideas are similar. However, investing in yourself is a shift in mindset vital to growing your business. It would help if you were in charge of your schedule, identify talent in your company, and create benchmarks. Then, only you can meet the demands of your business.

Plan Your Goals

Focus on building a solid foundation through strong skill sets, embracing your core strengths, and creating a strategic plan. With a thorough plan, anything is achievable:

  1. Research your business’ competition and evaluate your actions to set yourself apart.
  2. Write a plan of action to get you where you want to be with your business.
  3. Break down each big goal into smaller steps leading you in the right direction.

Create Value

Lastly, to have a scalable business that will continue to grow, you need a service or product that is valuable to a large population of people. It should satisfy a need or provide a solution to a common problem. If there is enough demand for your product or service, that is a good sign you are ready to scale your business. Current trends may impact customer expectations and are something to consider when you start to scale.

If your sales model and processes are working smoothly, and your profit margin looks good, you should be set to scale your business up!

Growing your business can be difficult. But with EZMetrics, it doesn’t have to be. We provide tailor made ad campaigns to bring you results. Schedule your clarity call today!

3 Key Habits for a Successful Business

Is your goal to run a successful business? Then you need to have the right mindset!

You’ll be most successful when you learn to trust yourself. Trusting yourself starts with holding yourself accountable. When you stick to your routine every day, it’ll be easier to check tasks off your list, even on days when you don’t feel like it. Whatever type of business you have or want to start, you’ll need to keep these three main ideas in mind.

Have A Vision

Sit down and write everything you envision for yourself and your business. Your core values will stand out to you, and identifying your values is a great place to start. Your customers can best relate to you when they see what is important to you. Then, turn your brainstorm into a vision board, or write it into a statement. Next, you’ll be ready to type up your plan and outline the roadmap of where you want to go. 

Your business plan will come together quickly when you’ve made time to get creative with it. The key to sustaining your vision and goal is to make time to get creative and brainstorm new ideas. So make time on your calendar for one hour a week to get your colored markers, and go for it!

Manage Your Time and Your Resources

Once you have your plan, devise a daily schedule to manage your time well. At first, it may seem like you’re spending a lot of time planning. However, all the work you do to set up systems to organize and plan will be helpful for you in the long run. Good planning and organizational skills can be practiced and will take some time to make into a habit. Make lists of daily, weekly, and monthly goals to remind yourself of the steps to get to where you want to be.

You’ll want to update your records promptly, keep a hard copy, and store them electronically. If your computer crashes, you’ll have everything you need to keep running smoothly. If things do not go smoothly and to plan, don’t get worked up about it! You’re going to hit roadblocks along the way. Take a deep breath and remind yourself that you got this. When you are calm, you’ll be able to figure out what isn’t working and what to do about it.

Attract People Like You

You’ll attract more positive people to your company when you stay positive. A positive attitude will look attractive to others, and they’ll want to work with you. Build positive relationships with your customers, and they will spread the word about your company. 

Be flexible and able to pivot quickly to changes. Growth requires constant change, and when you want your company to grow, you’ll have to be willing to learn and seek out knowledge. Do your research and understand your competitors. You may have to make quick decisions to stay ahead of the pack!

Business Success

Sometimes it can be hard to see the growth when you’re working away daily. However, if you want to be successful in your business, you will need to understand the market and your financial situation and jump at opportunities whenever they come to you. 

You can use a few strategies to increase your sales and keep growing your business year after year. One way is to boost your advertising, send out email blasts to your customers, or offer an incentive for referrals from existing customers. Focus on having a great product or service; remember, your personal growth will directly impact your company’s growth.

Take the first step to building, launching, and scaling your business. We make digital marketing easy. Our ultimate goal as your agency is to see your business increase its returns on paid advertising campaigns. Call EZMetrics today!

Human-Centric Marketing

Human-Centric Marketing
Utilizing the Emotions & Personal Motives of your Perfect Prospect

So.. What Is Human-Centric Marketing (HCM)?

HCM is about focusing on the “human” in your marketing efforts to help gain genuine insights of what kind of approach works best with them.

The Human Centric Approach requires Brands to:

  • Focus on utility in its communications
    How does the brand work for the human and how do you explain that to your audience.
  • Define its purpose
    Why does your brand exists and what is your brands mission.. be clear and direct. 
  • Focus on simplicity and context when engaging in dialogue
    Don’t use fancy words 
  • Seek to engage audiences in active participation
    Reply to comments on social media, give more than just a generic comment, mention their name for a personal touch
  • Focus on human values
    Pain points aren’t the only aspects to focus on when implementing marketing strategies. The values which are considered basic inherent values in humans include:
  • Truth
  • Honesty
  • Loyalty
  • Love
  • Peace
  • Be prepared to embrace irrationality as part of human nature

People will have their options, think of clever and respectful ways to embrace and engage to help the consumer see the situation in a different light

The most common way of identifying customers is through traditional profiling approaches like their demographic profile, but human-centric marketing Ignores this.

Instead, it focuses on a combination of three things:

OCEAN Profiling

Based on Michel Kosinski, Big Five model that assesses five personality traits: 

  • Openness
  • Conscientiousness
  • Extroversion
  • Agreeableness
  • Neuroticism

Big Data Analysis

or the digital traces of everything we do, both on and offline. Big data analytics is the often complex process of examining large and varied data sets — or big data — to uncover information including hidden patterns, unknown correlations, market trends and customer preferences that can help organizations make informed business decisions.

Ad Targeting
Which is personalized advertising aligned as accurately as possible to the personality of an individual consumer. Essentially, it becomes a “people search engine .. or a way to find similar customers based on definitive matches to correlated psychographic data.

The idea behind this is that demographic concepts should receive same treatment due to gender or race is ridiculous, considering people under the same demographic profile are still vastly different in terms of psychometry.

Marketing today should mean putting humans at the center of your brand’s story, surrounding them with experiences informed by data, and ultimately making them feel validated and appreciated.

Identify Growth Opportunities
Embracing human-centric marketing can offer insights into your customer base that traditional forms of marketing simply didn’t have access to.

The first step in crafting a human-centric marketing strategy is delving into the psyche of your clients to identify their needs, whether or not your company is meeting those needs, and how you can better address them. 

By creating your buyer personas and studying them, you can identify areas to focus your messaging and frame your products and services accordingly.

Increases Customer Satisfaction
This is the key to building the message or adjusting your operations. Correspond with the type of person that you are targeting, and  ensure that they will listen to your message or acknowledge your product and services. 

There’s no possibility of creating an effective human-centric marketing strategy without surveying your existing customers. But by doing so, you send the message to your existing customers that you are validating their cares and concerns and actively listening to them. 

This makes your customers feel more valued, leading them to purchase your products and services more often and generate more leads to your company by steering their friends and acquaintances in your direction. Make the experience personal to create these intimate bonds!

Elevates Your Brand Profile
Branding is a big deal right now in the marketing world because it’s a great way to distinguish your company from the competition. But branding is more than that – it’s also about how your target audience thinks about your products, services, and company culture. 

Using a human-centric marketing approach can elevate your branding if you focus on the customer experience at every stage of the buyer’s journey. 

Focus on delivering an experience that makes the customer feel valued and you’ll see the power of positive perception at work for your business.

In conclusion, Human Centric Marketing will help you truly connect with your audience and grow a quality relationship with a strong bond of trust and loyalty which in the end makes selling your product or service so much easier.

5 Tips on Building a Better Social Media Experience

Tip #1 - Your First Duty Isn’t To Sell On Social Media, It’s To Earn Trust.

Having a Car Salesman Mentality is great when your selling cars but not so great when creating a connection. People want to connect, have meaning, and be able to see a better future when in your community and using your product and or service. 

A true fan of your brand will not only be loyal but will also help grow your audience without knowing it. Brand Ambassadors get paid to advertise your company.. true fans do it for free and with confidence.

People who are passionate about a business want the world to know how great it is and how it helps them. Passion is built on trust and without trust you really have no chance of connecting with your audience at all.

Don't Worry, It's A Lot Easier Than It Sounds

  • Share Value Content Weekly
  • Do Giveaways & Contests
  • Take Polls & Ask for Feedback
  • Showcase Testimonials

Tip #2 - Daily Content Is About Elevation, Not Imitation.

Genuine, Honest, Original Content. Borrow Trending Topics for Higher Reach and Traction but the Content must be original. Most just copy and paste and maybe change a word or two and then pick out a similar pictures using the same image sources on the internet. This may work for a few but most people will catch it and then your credibility is gone.

A good tip to keep in mind is to let the market help you with your topics when you can’t seem to think of what to create. I always explore google trends in the industry of what I’m designing for and try to find something of value to elevate for our audience so they get that little extra.

Tip #3 - Create Content With Thumb Stopping Power

Pattern Disrupt. This is a term you’ll see more often. Stopping people as they scroll is First! Then comes hooking their interest and curiosity with a compelling title that instantly strikes an emotion.  Imagery is key because is isn’t something they are familiar with seeing it can become lost in the mix with all the others. 

Know your audience and see what other imagery is being used by competitors in the same industry. Make sure your imagery stands out from there’s, use design techniques that are not common. Useful elements we use are:

Lens Flare

These mimic a sun glare which people can’t stare at or observe so image isn’t stuck in our head. These instantly Catch the eye because we can observe it without it hurting the eyes. Great for Pattern Disrupt.

Diagonal Cuts

With all platforms using the Golden ratio and Block layout for their sites, you don’t see a lot of slants and Angles. Using Colors in the shape of Diamonds, Triangles, and Circles will help stand out from the normal Boxes that one sees everyday.

Depth-of-Field

One of my Favorite Tricks! A slightly Blurred Background with a high contrast in focus and sharp foreground object is a Major Eye-Catcher! This must be done right or it will throw everything off. Try to avoid low resolution imagery when using this technique. 

Striking Color Combos

Colors play a huge impact on how a picture sets the mood/tone. Grab your primary brand color and your accent color and start playing around with combinations that fit the emotion your going for.

My Favorite Tool Ever! for color: Adobe Color
It’s Free & Amazing!

Tip #4 - Start the Conversation

It’s easy for any business to share articles and posts related to their industry. But what most are missing is that they can capture a new customer with these simple shares.

Some businesses will miss out on adding a CTA in the description or better yet the Comment section, be the first to comment in your post with a call to action or just a simple P.S. to engage a little more with your audience. It helps to start conversations which will build a good relationship and allows you to guide the conversation in the direction you want it to go.

Tip #5 - Genuine Connection Is Key

It’s easy for any business to share articles and posts related to their industry. But what most are missing is that they can capture a new customer with these simple shares.

Some businesses will miss out on adding a CTA in the description or better yet the Comment Section, be the first to comment in your post with a call to action or just a simple P.S. to engage a little more with your audience. It helps to start conversations which will build a good relationship and allows you to guide the conversation in the direction you want it to go.

Conclusion

When it comes down to it, Build your social media experience with genuine content, engage with people as much as possible and give them something worth scroll stomping for.

5 Common SEO Mistakes You Should Be Avoiding

In today’s digital world, search engine optimization is regarded as an essential component of any business’ content marketing strategy. Why? It is the most powerful way to gain traffic to your website, your blog, your social media pages, and your sales funnel through the organic search results of search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo. By understanding search engine optimization techniques, you can increase sales, target your intended audience better, and establish authority in the web space. The problem with search engine optimization is that it is constantly evolving, leaving even the most successful companies using faulty SEO techniques. In this article, we will explore some of the most common SEO mistakes that you should be avoiding, regardless of whether you are a content marketing strategist, a small business, or a large company. 

SEO Mistake #1: Not Paying Attention to What Impacts Conversion Rates

When it comes to getting your customers to go from prospective buyers to actual paying customers, there are a lot of elements that can impact their journey from one to the other. In this section, we will take a look at a few areas that are wreaking havoc on your conversion rates. 

  • Your Website Site Speed is Slow. If your website doesn’t load within a few seconds, regardless of what your offer is, 40% of potential customers will actually abandon the attempt. This means that you will lose out on potential conversions because the traffic will head elsewhere. If you are looking at metrics or statistics, this is known as having a high bounce rate/exit rate. In order to speed your website up, you need to compress images into smaller files, enable browser caching so that the page loads faster for repeat visitors, and reduce server response times by using a reputable server host. 
  • You Are Not Linking Internally. Both search engines and website visitors rely on internal linking to get around your website and find the relevant content that they want. If you do not have internal links with proper anchor text, the search engine crawlers are not going to know what your page/content is about and as such, you lose out on a high volume of traffic because your links do not get seen. 
  • You Are Not Optimized for Mobile. More than half of the internet traffic these days comes from mobile devices, whether it be a smartphone or tablet. If you haven’t made your website mobile-friendly and responsive, chances are visitors are finding your website difficult to use. Use a readable typography, make CTA buttons clear and easy to use, minimize the need for scrolling and pinching, and always test the functionality if your website on mobile devices. 

Other issues that impact conversion rates are having duplicate content, having a poor social media presence, failing to update SEO techniques, failing to provide high-quality content, and not utilizing interactive touch elements like surveys, buttons, and checkboxes.

SEO Mistake #2: Not Understanding Keywords and Their Descriptions

When you don’t understand how keywords work, it can be very easy to choose the wrong ones, which draw in the wrong crowd. The right keywords will be based on your target audience and should include long-phrase keywords as these convert better as they are specific to your business. Beyond this, make sure you are using titles, heading tags, and keyword descriptions properly as these will have a massive impact on your SEO results as search engines place more importance on these keywords than on those within your product descriptions or text content. Make sure to make your headings unique, short, and not overstuffed with keywords and include your brand name in your tags. 

SEO Mistake #3: Not Knowing What Hurts Your Traffic. 

  • Not Prioritizing Link Building. Although social media offers brands and businesses an amazing network to get their products and services exposed to the mass public, it does nothing to help build links that continuously convert. Make sure that you are also focusing on link building and gaining backlinks from authoritative sources. In doing this, you will create the opportunity to have a steady feed of long-term traffic.
  • Not Optimizing Link Structure. Having internal links is not enough, you have to use an internal linking strategy to ensure that your links are pointing to cornerstone content. This type of content is what you value to be the most important, educational, knowledgeable, or valuable content that you offer.
  • Not Publishing Long-Form Content. To put it simply, not publishing enough long-form content that is over 2,000 words means you are probably having less of an impact on your readers. Long-form content takes a lot of time and effort to create and in turn, offers considerable value to your readers. This also means that it tends to rank higher in search engines because long-form content showcases proof that you are an authority on a particular subject.


SEO Mistake #4: Not Engaging in Value-Added Content/Products/Services

The term value-added essentially means an extra feature that goes above and beyond standard expectations and provides more to the customer. You want to stick to value-added issues only, that provide the customer with a solution that goes above and beyond their initial problem. This will make them feel good about your brand/business, it will make them feel like they are getting more out of their money, and it can provide a positive customer experience.

SEO Mistake #5: Lack of Time Management. 

If you do not engage in smart time management, you will have less time for working on projects, getting more clients, and building on top of your current SEO strategies. What you want to do is track how much time is being spent where and how much of that time is actually being spent working. Then record what your biggest time sinks are and give them a profit/hour ratio. Finally, find out what your most efficient profit makers are and do more of these. This way, you can optimize your time doing what is working and outsource the tasks that are necessary for your business but bog down your own personal volume of work. How does this help with SEO? It causes you to focus more on tasks that help you convert, whether it is creating affiliate pages, writing out blog posts, or capturing backlinks.