At Crimson Fenix, we specialize in creating a user experience that makes website viewing on any device inviting.

Social Media is FREE!

Remember marketing in the days prior to the internet? Other than printing copies of your latest business promotion event and hanging them around town or handing them out, it didn’t matter what form of marketing… it cost you money.

Imagine websites and social media as virtual storefronts visible to the world. Your website being the virtual store and all the free social media outlets being “distributors” of your marketing, each with a door leading right to your online storefront. Whether you sell goods, services, ideas, or a little of each of these if you aren’t using the internet for marketing, you are losing business.

But, regardless of the marketing, be it free or an expense, if it’s not done “right” it just won’t work! And any time spent is money lost.

Marketing is a science.  Effective marketing combines elements from multiple available resources and mixes them with consistent, repetitive, and informative content that will engage an audience.

It seems as though technology is changing so fast the overwhelming number of social media options and how to implement them all into marketing creates a marketing wall with the capital letters LEARNING CURVE on it.  There is just no way a small business owner can manage running a business and manage an effective social media marketing strategy.

Chances are, you didn’t build the building your business is located at, you rent it or are purchasing it and someone else built it and manages it and maintains it.  Look at website design and social media the same way.

Sure, there are website builder programs available for free online and anyone can build a website with the newest drag and drop builders. If you are running a business you probably don’t have the time to build a professional website no matter if it is free, and most free self-design websites look like free self-designed websites.

A few basics either overlooked or implemented wrong are, sizeable fonts, foo-foo flash/images, failure to size images for optimum loading, internal page link usage, broken links, no SEO on website or pages, site not registered across all search engines, poor quality layout, poorly chosen images. Honestly… as I type, the list in my head goes on endlessly so, you get my point.

You have stumbled across those websites and you didn’t stay long.

Remember at the beginning I said your website is your global storefront.  So why would you, a professional at whatever your business is, try to build a store visible to the world yourself?

Unfortunately, the internet is now the first place people look for a business and that first impression will say a lot about your business.  If you have no website, you won’t be located at all.

Some business owners think a business Facebook page does the job of a website for them, WRONG!  Facebook is a door leading back to your storefront not the storefront.

Think of social media as your public relations department or like a greeter in a restaurant.  When the customer walks in the door a big smiling face is there to greet them and guide them to the area they will get further help, order drinks and food.  Proper use of social media is just that, greeting your customer and leading them to your virtual store to the world, your website.  And, the exciting thing about social media is its repetitive ability to target an audience and also their audiences’ audience.

The “views” (reach) are exponential.  Every time your business actively posts something that your audience then repost, all their related audience will see your message also.  And the cost for that is FREE!!

But wait, first you need a website.  A professional website.  So let’s go back to that for a few minutes.

It’s amazing how many businesses just don’t have a website and there is no good excuse. Especially saying a website isn’t in the budget.  A good professional builder should be able to design an adequate single page website for under $1000.  Sometimes a single page site is adequate, but in most cases an average website has a minimum of 5 pages.  A well-designed single page site can do as a start.  So, start with what you feel is affordable and budget to build it, just like you were opening a new physical location. I assure you website building, updates, maintenance, all need to be done by a professional – remember this store is your global store and just like brick and mortar it needs to be constructed with professional products and skilled, qualified builders.  And just like any structure it needs regular maintenance in order to function properly.

Let’s do a little comparison.

A website, a virtual store to the world, can be built for about what you pay in monthly rent at your physical location.  Maintenance on that virtual store to the world is comparable to paying an additional monthly electric bill.  Now, like any store your goal is to build it into a profitable business.  In order for your business to grow you need help, employees.  The more productive your staff the more profitable the business.  Your virtual store to the world is no different.

Have a billboard? How about a full page in a monthly magazine? How about a radio or TV ad?  These types of marketing typically require lengthy contracts that require costly monthly payments.  They each offer limited reach and its usually difficult to track results.  If you invested that type of money on terrestrial marketing, imagine what your virtual store to the world would look like!  And even more exciting, your website can have billboards, have its own magazine articles and ads, it can have voiceovers like a radio ad and even video where you can broadcast your message!  Your website combines every type of terrestrial marketing into a trackable multimedia powerhouse with the ability to reach the world.  WOW when it’s said like that it sounds really powerful, because it is!

And that opens up a whole other can of worms, analytics.  The only analytics provided in terrestrial marketing are those of the media seller, how many publications are published and who they are distributed to, the Arbitron rating of the radio station, the amount of potential traffic viewing your billboard, etc.  The more magazines published, the higher the Arbitron ratings, the amount of traffic seeing your billboard, all effect the amount you pay monthly and you never see trackable numbers or analytics.

Your website will show you the number of visitors, how often they return, what device they used to get to your site, how long they spent on the site, if they opted in with their information, if they followed your Facebook or other social media from there, what pages were visited, and so on.  No other marketing media is trackable like your website, enough said.

Hey, I’m old school, I come from terrestrial marketing! I know it’s power and I know it works if done properly so I’m not saying not to use terrestrial media. I’m just pointing out the importance of implementing a website to further capitalize on the terrestrial medias abilities. Plus, a clear understanding of the cost of terrestrial marketing compared to the cost of website design and maintenance and social media management will help you in budget planning. Just having a website isn’t always enough and terrestrial media will amplify your exposure if you use it as another door to your virtual store to the world.

All terrestrial media should point right back at your virtual store.  And let’s face it, most businesses can’t compete with companies who spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on Google AdWords.  Organic ranking is getting more difficult and the more doors you create to your virtual store the more visibility you will get and the higher your organic rating will become.

I could go on endlessly about ranking and organic ranking but I’d like you to continue reading and not fall asleep.  I will however point out a few very important things that can be done that can increase your organic ranking so you understand how it all comes full circle landing smack dab on your home page.

Doors, doors, doors!

The more doors you create the more people will visit your virtual store to the world.  But, creating doors isn’t enough, you have to put a big beautiful sign above your door that will invite them in, just like that greeter at the restaurant.  Only these signs are made of content.

Content.  Just a seven letter word but it might as well be a 1000-page novel with a bad ending.  Because that’s what it feels like when people try to write content.  Choosing a topic, having to do research, not thinking you’re a good writer, not knowing how to lay out what you want to promote, and the number one BIGGEST reason content is so very difficult to do… ding ding ding… Did you guess?

They don’t have time!

Understand something right now.  Without content you have no social media marketing platform.

Blank business pages on Facebook, Google +, Twitter, Pinterest are useless.  But yet, if there was content, those social media doors could open right into your virtual store to the world.

Oh but wait, there are those who post content, it just isn’t done properly so it doesn’t work.  Poorly taken images, messy spaces, personal photos, typos in writing, poor writing skills, leaving posts that have nothing to do with your business or growing business, again, this list is endless.  And truth be told in many cases social media can be more damaging than good if not managed with the strictest of guidelines.

So what makes content good, inviting, engageable? TIME!

It takes time to regularly schedule the release of content that will invite people to your website or physical location.  It requires planning in advance.  It requires researching a topic and you sitting down and creating content.  Good content should include images, sometimes coupons, sometimes celebrations, sometimes information, or sales, anniversaries, and the employee of the month, etc.  Talk about innovations in your industry, charities you support, news relating to your industry.  These types of things will engage your audience and keep them looking for more information from you.  You may even be considered an authority on something, use that status.  Video is a powerful tool and research shows YouTube is the second largest search engine after Google.  Videos deliver great content BUT they can’t be campy, cheesy or poorly done!  Commit to a ten minute well thought out, scripted, professional quality produced video every month and build from there.

Let’s run through an example.

A restaurant could have their head chef do a monthly video on a special dish. Have him describe the dish as he prepares it and present the beautiful dish to the camera. Share ingredients (not amounts) and invite the viewers to come in and enjoy that dish for a special price, all month. Make a thing of it. That can be an entire marketing campaign.  Your chef becomes the expert and your audience will come back, both to the videos and to your restaurant. Right there you just built trust and credibility with your audience. THEN… invite your guests to leave positive feedback! Do a drawing and let a customer do a quick appearance in a video encouraging others to come enjoy what is there.  That customer will post your video, share it, get all their friends to watch it.

You create a wall of dominos made of money falling right into your bank account.

I understand someone in China is not going to come in your restaurant but once they see your video on a certain dish, they may follow you for more videos.  You are building organic content and you will gain a higher Google ranking with fresh new content that your audience responds to.  Oh, and if your videos get enough views you can actually get paid for your video.

So as we draw to a close, let’s go back a few paragraphs to where I said, “So what makes content good, inviting, engageible? TIME!” 

Time is the one factor holding most people back from a social media campaign that drives traffic.

Even if you pay a staff member to “keep on top of it”, trust me they are missing key elements that are costing you traffic.

This is where you take control! Take control of the unlimited potential available to you and commit to investing in a professional website and develop it into that virtual global store.  Create unlimited doors to your business with social media and responsive marketing.  You owe it to yourself and you owe it to your business.

Call Crimson Fenix Marketing today and schedule an appointment.

Website Engineering & Social Media Capitalism

Designed around the most restricted budgets.

We build at your pace.

Did you know that responsive websites are rewarded by Google in search engine ranking. Understandably, websites that lack mobile-friendliness are, therefore, penalized. Priority is given to sites that are designed for optimum viewing on all devices. Websites that are not responsive will appear much further down the list of search engine results.

Responsive design automatically resizes fonts, images, videos and other elements on your website. Optimal viewing, easy navigation and easy reading requires a design that prioritizes the user experience, regardless of the device.