encompass blog

Small businesses can accomplish so much through posting original content to Facebook—developing an audience, building brand visibility, and engendering social shares of their best content. However, to really get the best results from Facebook, organic reach is insufficient; it must be paired with an investment in paid ads. Fortunately for small business owners, Facebook’s built-in ad platform is a robust tool that offers many opportunities for targeted advertising. When used strategically, it’s an investment that can pay off handsomely.

When it comes to marketing, it’s generally a good idea not to put all your eggs in one basket. This is certainly true for retailers, who face a number of questions about how online consumers seek and find new products—via Amazon, or through Google, Bing, and Yahoo. The answer, of course, is a little bit of both, but really understanding it requires a nuanced perception of the consumer journey.

As you are no doubt aware, the world of search has changed dramatically over the last few years—and one of the most seismic shifts has been with the medium itself. Where search engine queries were once largely confined to desktop computers, the increased prevalence of mobile devices means that more and more searches are conducted on the go. In fact, mobile searches are more common than desktop ones, something that has key implications for marketers. One such implication is that mobile users—increasingly reluctant to type out a full search query with their thumbs—are using voice search more than ever before.

In a perfect world, the consumer journey would be simple and straightforward. It might look something like this: An interested customer conducts an online search, and comes across your company website. After visiting the site and reading up on your products and services, the customer decides to make a purchase. That customer either buys the item directly from your ecommerce store, picks up the phone to call you, or drives to your brick-and-mortar location to complete the transaction.

There is an ongoing misconception that search engine optimization (SEO) is primarily a concern for digitally-based businesses—that brick and mortar stores don’t have the same need to establish search engine visibility. This couldn’t be further from the truth. Even if your company doesn’t conduct transactions online, consumers use search engines to find local companies—and if your business isn’t present in local searches, you’ll miss out on significant foot traffic.

Every piece of content you publish should have a specific goal—whether it’s getting sign-ups for your email list, traffic for your website, downloads of your e-book, or phone calls to your sales team. Whatever your goal is, it needs to be indicated somewhere within the content itself—specifically in the form of a call to action. A call to action, or CTA, is essentially an invitation for your reader to take action—to leap ahead to the next step of the consumer journey. Every piece of content you produce needs a CTA at the end, and the CTA should always be clear—but with that said, you don’t have to resort to clichés. Specifically, you don’t have to include the words ‘click here’ in every CTA, as many do—and in this post, we’ll tell you why.