Julee Klein Marketing LLC - Blog

Frequently Asked Questions About Digital Marketing Strategies

Tue, 14 Jul 2026 21:49:43 GMT

Guest Post by Marissa Perez, Co-Creator, Business Pop

Frequently Asked Questions and Real World Answers

As you discovered in our previous article, Five Digital Marketing Strategies Small Business Owners Need Right Now, digital marketing has changed. With AI-powered search, the decline of third-party cookies, and a fragmented discovery landscape, the tactics that drove growth in 2022 are already losing steam. Small businesses that adapt now will compound a real competitive advantage. Here are some common questions about understanding digital marketing strategies.

What is first-party data, and why does it matter for small businesses?

First-party data is information you collect directly from your customers through your own channels, such as email signups, purchase history, and website behavior. Unlike third-party data sourced from external platforms, first-party data is not subject to cookie deprecation or platform policy changes. Owning it means owning the relationship.

How is local SEO different in the age of AI Overviews?

Traditional local search engine optimization (SEO) focused on ranking in Google's map pack and organic results. AI-era local SEO requires optimizing for AI-generated answer summaries that may recommend businesses without users ever clicking a link. This means prioritizing structured data, consistent business information, genuine reviews, and authoritative local content.

How often should you update existing web content?

At a minimum, revisit your highest-traffic and highest-intent web pages every six months. When updating existing web content, add updated statistics, refresh the introduction, and ensure the content continues to directly answer the questions customers are asking. AI systems penalize stale content by favoring more recently updated sources.

Do you need high production quality to succeed on YouTube?

No. Clarity, consistency, and useful content matter far more than production value, especially for small business audiences. A well-lit smartphone video that directly answers a common customer question will outperform an expensive video that does not address real search intent.

How do you know if your social media presence is building trust or hurting it?

Ask yourself: If a potential customer visited your profile today with no prior knowledge of your business, would they feel confident enough to reach out or buy? Look at the recency of posts, responsiveness to comments, the quality of reviews visible on the page, and whether the content reflects who you actually are as a business.

The Key Takeaway About Understanding Digital Marketing Strategies for Small Business Owners

Navigating today's digital marketing landscape requires small businesses to prioritize owning their data, adapting SEO and content strategies for AI, and building genuine trust through consistent, authentic engagement. By staying agile and focusing on direct customer value rather than perfection, small businesses can effectively compete and build lasting authority.

Guest Post by Marissa Perez

Marissa Perez has spent more than 10 years honing her marketing skills and helping business owners. She co-created Business Pop to provide insight and advice to those entering business ownership.

Editor's note: JKM has not received compensation for publishing this guest post and we do not sell links. We will only publish submitted guest posts that we believe are of value to our small business clients.

Five Digital Marketing Strategies Small Business Owners Need Right Now

Tue, 14 Jul 2026 19:56:53 GMT

Guest Post by Marissa Perez, Co-Creator, Business Pop

The rules of digital marketing have changed faster in the past two years than in the previous decade.

AI-powered search, the decline of third-party cookies, and a fragmented discovery landscape mean that the tactics that drove growth in 2022 are already losing steam. Small businesses that adapt now will compound a real competitive advantage. Those who wait will find themselves competing for scraps.

Key Takeaways:

Owning your email list is one of the most defensible marketing assets you have in an AI-driven world.
Local SEO now means optimizing for AI Overviews and agentic search engines, not just Google's blue links.
Reformatting and repurposing existing content is one of the fastest ways to gain AI citation visibility without starting from scratch.
YouTube functions as both a search engine and a trust-building tool, and small businesses are underusing it.
Social media is no longer just a broadcast channel; it is the primary way new customers validate whether your business is real and worth trusting.

1. Email Marketing: Why Owning First-Party Data Is Your Biggest Advantage Right Now

In the age of AI, the most valuable marketing asset a small business can hold is not a social media following or a Google ranking. It is a permission-based email list.

Third-party cookies are on their way out. Platform algorithms change without warning. But your email list belongs to you. As 71% of marketers increase their first-party data sets, those who own the customer relationship and data collection process are no longer at the mercy of platform policy changes. That independence is worth more than any paid placement.

The performance data reinforces this. When asked to identify their single most effective marketing channel, 41% of marketing professionals choose email, more than double the next category. For B2B marketers, that figure rises to 42%. And the returns are substantial: email marketing returns an average ROI of between $36 and $42 for every dollar spent.

The key is not just building a list. It is nurturing it intelligently.

How to Nurture Your Email Contacts Effectively

Segment based on behavior, not just demographics. AI-assisted email platforms can now track opens, clicks, purchase history, and browsing behavior to serve each subscriber content that is relevant to where they are in the buying journey.
Send triggered sequences, not just broadcasts. Triggered emails based on user actions consistently achieve double-digit engagement advantages over one-size-fits-all broadcast messages, with an average open rate of 42.1%.
Use newsletters to build trust over time. 58% of marketers now include newsletters as part of their email strategy, up from 46% in 2024, because newsletters build relationships, keep customers coming back, and establish trust with subscribers who are not yet ready to buy.
Move beyond open rates. Open rate data is increasingly unreliable. Focus instead on click-through rate, reply rate, and conversion as your primary performance signals.

For small businesses, the practical starting point is straightforward: make capturing email addresses a priority on your website, at your point of sale, and in every customer interaction. Then show up consistently and offer genuine value.

2. Local SEO in the Age of AI Overviews: How to Be Visible in Agentic Search

If you run a local business, the search landscape has shifted beneath your feet. Google processes roughly 14 billion searches daily, while AI systems like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Claude now handle another 4 to 5 billion queries. Being visible in traditional search results is no longer enough on its own.

A search for "best Italian restaurant in downtown for a romantic dinner" might generate an AI Overview highlighting two or three businesses with synthesized descriptions, key details, and reservation links, all without the user ever visiting individual business profiles or websites. The shift is fundamental: you are no longer optimizing only to be clicked. You are optimizing to be cited.

The stakes are high. According to SOCi's 2026 Local Visibility Index, which analyzed more than 350,000 locations, only 1.2% of locations were recommended by ChatGPT, 11% by Gemini, and 7.4% by Perplexity, compared to 35.9% appearing in Google's local 3-pack. AI local visibility is up to 30 times harder to achieve than traditional local search visibility.

Top Tips for Local AI Search Visibility

Keep your Google Business Profile active and complete. Your Google Business Profile is often the primary source of data for AI-driven local search results. Treat it like a social feed, with regular photo uploads, posts, consistent review responses, and accurate service categories.
Ensure your business information is consistent everywhere. Name, address, phone number, and service descriptions should match exactly across your website, Google, Yelp, Apple Maps, and any industry directories.
Create content that directly answers the questions your customers ask. AI systems reward genuine expertise. Build authentic, original content that only you can provide, reflecting your real experience and specific local knowledge.
Implement structured data markup (schema). Schema helps AI systems understand and extract your business information accurately.
Earn citations from third-party sources. Distributing content to a wide range of publications can increase AI citations by up to 325% compared to only publishing content on your own site.
Build and respond to reviews consistently. Reviews are one of the strongest trust signals for both human users and AI recommendation systems.

Beyond Google, the emerging concept of Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) encourages businesses to structure their web content so that AI assistants can easily parse, extract, and recommend it. Think of it as making your business legible to machines as well as people.

3. Web Content: Repurpose and Reformat What You Already Have

Most small businesses are sitting on a library of underperforming content. Blog posts that ranked briefly and faded. Service pages written years ago with no updates. FAQs buried in the footer. This existing content is one of your fastest opportunities to improve AI visibility without starting from scratch.

Businesses that regularly refresh and repurpose content generate 76% more traffic than those relying only on new posts, according to HubSpot's State of Marketing Report 2025. And 65% of marketers now use AI tools for content repurposing, making it increasingly essential for staying competitive.

The reason this matters for AI search specifically: 44.2% of all LLM citations come from the first 30% of text, meaning the introduction of any article or page. ChatGPT is more likely to cite content that uses definite language rather than vague statements, contains a question, has a high entity density, and uses simple writing structures.

Content Reformatting Recommendations

Add a clear summary at the top of every key page. AI systems pull heavily from the opening section. Lead with your most direct, specific answer or value statement.
Convert long-form guides into structured FAQ sections. Question-based headings make content far more likely to appear in AI Overviews and featured snippets.
Update your cornerstone pages regularly. AI engines weigh recency when selecting sources. A guide published in 2024 with no updates will lose ground to a 2026 article on the same topic. Refresh your key content regularly, add updated data, new insights, and a clear "last updated" timestamp.
Use clear heading hierarchies (H1, H2, H3) and short paragraphs. Nobody, human or machine, enjoys walls of text. A well-structured page is more likely to be quoted directly in an AI answer.
Repurpose written content into video and social formats. A single well-performing blog post can become a YouTube video, a series of social posts, an email newsletter, and a set of short-form clips, each extending your reach to a different audience.
Add schema markup to FAQs, service pages, and review sections. Structured data makes your content explicit and machine-readable, increasing the chance it surfaces in AI-generated answers.

If your content is not easy to parse, AI models will not use it. Organize pages with clear subheadings, comparison tables, bullet points, and FAQ sections.

4. YouTube: Your Most Underused Discovery Channel

YouTube is not just a video platform. It is the second-largest search engine in the world, and for small businesses, it remains dramatically underused.

90% of users say they discover new companies or products on YouTube. 70% of people have bought a product after seeing it in a YouTube ad, and 87% of viewers have made a purchase after seeing a brand on YouTube. Those numbers are not marginal. They reflect a platform where discovery and purchase intent intersect at enormous scale.

83% of small and medium-sized businesses with a YouTube channel believe it helps them reach new audiences and grow their customer base. The businesses that are not yet on YouTube are largely leaving that reach on the table.

YouTube ranks as the second most visited website globally, behind only Google. Treat YouTube as both a social platform and a search engine. Investing in discoverable, SEO-optimized video content helps your brand show up where billions of users are already looking.

Beyond discoverability, YouTube strengthens trust. US viewers say YouTube offers the best shopping-related content, including instructional videos (91% agree), product reviews (81%), and unboxing videos (76%). Around 31% of users turn to YouTube for validation or to gather more information before making a purchase.

How Small Businesses Can Use YouTube Effectively

Treat YouTube like a second website. Optimize your channel name, description, and video titles with the same keywords you use on your website.
Start with answers to common customer questions. "How does [your service] work?" and "What should I look for when choosing [your product category]?" are high-intent topics that align closely with how customers search.
Use YouTube Shorts for fast discovery. YouTube Shorts now averages 200 billion views daily, nearly tripling from 70 billion just a year ago. The YouTube algorithm heavily favors channels that post Shorts, using them as a discovery engine for long-form content.
Repurpose existing content into video. Blog posts, FAQs, and customer testimonials can all be turned into short, searchable videos with minimal production investment.
Optimize metadata carefully. Descriptive titles, keyword-rich descriptions, and accurate tags determine whether your videos surface in search results and suggested feeds.
Post consistently. Even one video per week signals to the algorithm that your channel is active and worth promoting to new audiences.

YouTube content also feeds directly into AI search. AI Overview and LLM systems increasingly cite video content alongside written sources, making YouTube a dual investment in both human and machine discoverability.

5. Social Media Is How People Validate Your Business Before They Buy

Many small business owners still think of social media primarily as a broadcasting tool. In reality, it has become the first place potential customers go to determine whether your business is legitimate, active, and worth trusting.

Social media is now the preferred product discovery platform for consumers aged 18 to 44. But discovery is only the beginning. What follows discovery is validation, and social media is the primary venue where that happens.

82% of consumers look for reviews to validate a company before buying a product from social media. They are not just checking your star rating. They are looking at how recently you posted, whether you respond to comments, how you handle complaints, and whether real people seem to interact with your content. An inactive or neglected social profile is a red flag, not a neutral signal.

73% of social media users say they will buy from a competitor if a brand does not respond to customer feedback. Responsiveness is not a nice-to-have. It is a conversion factor.

Why Your Social Presence Matters Beyond Engagement

Your social media activity now feeds into AI search signals as well. AI systems consider engagement, mentions, and presence across platforms when determining which sources to trust. A strong social presence enhances your overall visibility and credibility.

When a brand's message appears consistently across multiple authoritative sources, including Reddit, YouTube, industry publications, and its own website, it is more likely to be featured in AI-generated answers. Establishing your website as a hub that connects all these active channels is essential for building the digital presence recognized by modern discovery engines.

Practical Steps to Build Social Validation

Post consistently, not constantly. A regular cadence of genuine, useful content outperforms sporadic high-volume posting.
Respond to every comment and review. 88% of consumers trust businesses that respond to reviews, including negative ones.
Show real people and real work. Behind-the-scenes content, team introductions, and customer stories build credibility that polished product photos cannot replicate.
Encourage customers to tag or review you. User-generated content is perceived as significantly more trustworthy than brand-produced content.
Maintain consistency across platforms. Your name, contact information, and brand voice should be consistent across Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Google, and anywhere else you appear.

How These Five Digital Marketing Strategies Work Together

These digital marketing strategies are not independent. They reinforce each other and work best when incorporated together. In the next article, we’ll consider each marketing activity as we create an overall digital marketing initiative. For example:

A YouTube video drives a viewer to your website, where a well-structured page earns an AI Overview citation. A customer finds that citation, checks your social media to validate you, subscribes to your email list, and becomes a repeat buyer. You can nurture them directly without paying for every impression.

Each strategy plays an important part of the whole. Email gives you the relationship. Local SEO and AI-optimized content give you the discovery. YouTube builds trust at scale. Social media validates the decision. Each one makes the others more effective.

Final Thoughts on Digital Marketing in Today’s Environment

Digital marketing in 2026 rewards businesses that own their audience relationships, show up consistently across multiple platforms, and create content that both humans and AI systems can trust and understand. You do not need to do everything at once. Pick the area where your current visibility is weakest, build a repeatable process around it, and expand from there. The compounding effect of these five strategies, built steadily over time, is what separates businesses that grow from those that struggle to be found.

Guest Post by Marissa Perez

Marissa Perez has spent more than 10 years honing her marketing skills and helping business owners. She co-created Business Pop to provide insight and advice to those entering business ownership.

Scam Alert: Is Your Business Facebook Page Really in Violation?

Sun, 30 Mar 2025 19:20:14 GMT

By Julee Klein, Marketing Consultant and President, JKM

How to Tell if That Facebook Message About Your Business Page is Real or Not

Your small business just received a direct message in Messenger claiming that your Facebook Business Page is in violation of terms of service or copyright complaints. But is it real?

No. If you receive a message via Facebook Messenger that your business page is in violation of anything - e.g., terms of service, copyright, or other complaint, it is a scam.

Why? Because Facebook aka Meta does not notify page admins of business page violations via Messenger. And certainly not via a personal profile like "Andrea Rassmussen" or any other individual's name. (No offense to any real Andrea Rassmussens out there!)

So how can you tell is a violation notification is real or fake?

Easy. Page owners and admins will receive a Notification NOT a message. Rememeber, anyone can send a message via Facebook, but only Facebook and Meta itself can send a notification about your business page.

Notifications appear under the bell icon on Facebook. Messages from anyone else on Facebook appear under the talk bubble icon aka the Messenger App icon.

Message icon (talk bubble) vs. Notification icon (bell symbol.) Only Facebook can send notifications.

Another "tell" is that the scammer will include a link to a shady subdomain, non-Meta website or non-Facebook sub-page. And example would be https://pageviolations.noticeme.net or https://linktr.ee/pageviolation1234. Never click on these links! Here's an example of a fake violation message:

Scam message sent via Facebook Messenger from another user.

What does a legitimate Facebook violation notification look like?

Here is a look at what a real, legitimate Facebook Copyright Notification looks like:

Screenshot of a legitimate Facebook page notification.

Notice here that the page's profile image will appear in the notification. This is so that users who manage multiple Facebook Business Pages can identify which page is experiencing the issue. For agencies like JKM that manage over 30 Facebook pages for small businesses, this is extremely helpful and allows our social media managers to easily identify which client's Facebook page needs attention.

What should you do if you receive a scam violation message?

The bottom line is that bad actors are creating pages that spoof and mimic Facebook, but they can only use Messenger and the links will always take you off the platform - something Meta would never do! So what is the best way to handle these?
🛑DO NOT RESPOND.
🛑DO NOT click the link.
🟢But you can report the page to Meta. Here's the link to Meta's Help page on how to do that: https://www.facebook.com/help/355811251195044
Notice the URL? Yeah, facebook.com.

By Julee Klein, Marketing Consultant & President

Julee Klein is the President of Julee Klein Marketing LLC, a full-service digital marketing agency based in Morgan Hill, California. JKM is focused on serving small business owners in the greater Silicon Valley area. You can get in touch with Julee on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram @JKMktg

How to Measure Digital Marketing Success Without Manual Effort

Fri, 11 Oct 2024 07:00:00 GMT

Guest Post by Sarah Mitchell, Digital Marketer

Measuring the success of your marketing efforts is crucial. However, manually tracking metrics can be time-consuming, prone to errors, and overwhelming. That's where automation can help businesses assess their digital marketing performance. By leveraging automated tools and analytics platforms, you can effortlessly monitor key metrics, gain real-time insights, and make informed decisions without the burden of manual effort. Here, we'll guide you through automating your marketing analytics, helping you measure digital marketing success while saving time and resources. Discover how automation can revolutionize your marketing strategy and lead you to greater success with less effort!

The Importance of Automating Digital Marketing Analytics

Real-time data can make or break your strategy, making automating digital marketing analytics essential today. Relying on manual tracking is time-consuming and increases the risk of human error, leading to inaccurate insights and missed opportunities. On the other hand, automation allows you to streamline the process, ensuring that you stay in charge of your marketing efforts without being bogged down by tedious tasks.

With automated tools, you can continuously monitor key metrics like ROI, conversion rates, and engagement levels, giving you a clear, up-to-date picture of your performance. This approach saves time and resources and empowers you to make quicker, more informed decisions that can significantly boost your marketing success.

Key Metrics to Track in Automated Marketing

You must focus on the key metrics driving success when automating your marketing efforts. Tracking ROI, conversion rates, and engagement levels is fundamental to understanding the effectiveness of your campaigns. Automated tools allow you to monitor these metrics in real time, giving you immediate feedback on what’s working and what isn’t.

Additionally, by analyzing consumer behavior through these metrics, you gain insights into how consumers shop, enabling you to tailor your strategies more effectively. Automation simplifies the process and ensures accuracy, eliminating the guesswork and providing you with a comprehensive view of your marketing performance.

Leverage Analytics Platforms for Automated Success

Leveraging analytics platforms is a game-changer in achieving automated marketing success. Tools like Google Analytics and HubSpot offer powerful features that automatically tracking and report essential metrics. As a result, they allow you to stay on top of your digital marketing efforts with minimal manual intervention. By setting up automated reports and alerts, you can receive real-time updates on your campaign performance, helping you quickly identify trends and areas for improvement.

These platforms also allow you to customize your dashboards, focusing on the metrics that matter most to your business. With automation, you can efficiently measure digital marketing success and ensure your strategies are always data-driven and aligned with your goals.

Digitize Business Processes to Complement Your Automated Marketing Efforts

Digitizing your business processes is a powerful way to support and enhance your automated marketing efforts. Integrating digital tools across various functions creates a more cohesive and efficient operation that drives better marketing outcomes.

Here are the key benefits of digitizing your business processes:

Streamlining Operations: Automate tasks like inventory management, billing, and CRM to improve efficiency and support marketing automation.
Enhanced Customer Experience: Use digital tools to provide instant support, improving customer satisfaction and retention.
Data Integration: Seamlessly integrate digital business tools with your marketing platform for better decision-making.
Real-Time Feedback: Utilize real-time data from digitized processes to adjust marketing strategies quickly.
Scalability: Easily scale your operations and marketing efforts as your business grows.

By embracing automation, businesses can streamline their marketing efforts and gain more accurate insights into campaign performance. For example, implementing chatbots in customer service allows for instant responses to inquiries, improving customer satisfaction. This way, customer service digitization enhances customer interactions and satisfaction, which in turn supports the effectiveness of your digital marketing strategy.

How to Use AI and Machine Learning for Better Insights

AI and machine learning are revolutionizing how businesses gain insights from digital marketing efforts. These advanced technologies analyze vast amounts of data faster and more accurately than any manual process. They enable you to uncover patterns and trends that might otherwise go unnoticed. By implementing AI-driven tools, you can predict customer behavior, optimize ad targeting, and personalize customer experience with a previously unattainable precision.

For example, AI can segment your audience based on their preferences and buying habits, enabling you to tailor your messaging to resonate more effectively. Machine learning algorithms continuously learn from new data, refining their predictions and recommendations over time, which helps you stay ahead of market changes.

The Role of CRM Systems in Measuring Marketing Success

CRM systems are invaluable tools for measuring marketing success, providing a centralized platform to track and analyze customer interactions. These systems capture data across all touchpoints, from initial contact to post-purchase follow-ups, offering a comprehensive view of the customer journey.

By automating data collection and analysis, CRM systems eliminate the need for manual tracking. As a result, they ensure that you always have accurate, up-to-date information at your fingertips. This data helps you assess the effectiveness of your marketing campaigns, as it allows you to see how your efforts translate into actual customer behavior and sales. Additionally, CRM systems can segment your audience based on various criteria, helping you tailor your marketing strategies to different customer groups.

Common Pitfalls to Avoid in Automated Marketing

While automation offers numerous benefits, some common pitfalls can undermine your marketing efforts if not carefully managed:

Over-reliance on Automation: Depending too much on automated tools can lead to a lack of human oversight. It can result in missed nuances or errors that require manual intervention.
Neglecting Personalization: Automation can sometimes make your marketing feel impersonal. It’s important to balance efficiency with personalized touches that resonate with your audience.
Outdated Systems: Failing to update your automated tools and systems regularly can lead to inefficiencies or inaccurate data, affecting your marketing decisions.
Ignoring Data Quality: Automation is only as good as the data it uses. Poor data quality can lead to misguided strategies and wasted resources.

Maximize Your Marketing Success with Automation!

By leveraging automation, you can efficiently measure digital marketing success, making your strategies more effective and data-driven. Embrace the tools and practices discussed to save time, reduce errors, and enhance your overall marketing performance. With the right approach, automated marketing can lead to greater success with minimal effort.

By Sarah Mitchell

Sarah Mitchell is a digital marketing expert specializing in automation and data-driven strategies. With over a decade of experience in the industry, she is passionate about helping businesses streamline their marketing efforts for maximum efficiency and success. Sarah's focus on innovative tools and techniques empowers companies to measure and optimize their digital marketing performance.

Editor's note: JKM ran this article through various artificial intelligence (AI) detector tools, which indicate that this article may have been written with the assistance of AI technology.

6 Steps to Transform Into a Do-It-Yourself Small Business Marketer

Thu, 30 Nov 2023 01:00:13 GMT

Guest Post by Marissa Perez, Co-Creator, Business Pop

Navigating the complexities of marketing can be overwhelming, especially for small business owners and entrepreneurs. However, the advent of the digital era has provided individuals with the tools to take charge of their own promotional initiatives. The rewards are twofold: substantial cost savings and a deeper understanding of how to present your brand to the world. Follow this six-step blueprint to help you become your own marketing powerhouse.

1. Assess Your Present Promotional Approaches

Before you take the reins of handling your own business marketing, it's essential to conduct a thorough examination of your current strategies. This means diving deep into your existing promotional efforts to identify their effectiveness. Perhaps you're focusing too much on social media and neglecting other avenues like search engine optimization (SEO), or maybe your email campaigns are strong, but your online advertising is missing the mark. The purpose of this step is to scrutinize every facet of your current marketing approach and to be prepared to make necessary changes.

2. Identify and Understand Your Ideal Customer

To make the most out of your promotional campaigns, you’ll need to zero in on who you're trying to reach – your target audience. Customer personas, market research, and data analysis can be beneficial here. Pinpoint the demographics, geographic locations, and preferences of your potential customers. Armed with this knowledge, you'll be better equipped to formulate strategies that speak directly to the audience that matters most to you - your ideal customers.

3. Elevate Your Content Game

Quality content across both your website and social media channels is pivotal in driving customer engagement and promoting brand loyalty. Invest in learning how to create content that doesn't just attract eyeballs but also solves problems and adds value to the lives of your consumers. Review your existing content and look for ways to repurpose and improve your old content. A balanced mix of articles, videos, and infographics can go a long way in establishing your brand as a thought leader in your industry.

4. Re-Evaluate Your Marketing Outreach Platforms

If you're committed to handling your own business marketing, taking a close look at the platforms you're currently using is vital for long-term success. The digital landscape changes rapidly. The platforms that worked for you last year might not be the most effective way to reach customers today. River B2B Telemarketing Services points out that this means you need to periodically re-evaluate your marketing channels to ensure they're still the best tools for reaching your target audience. Whether it's social media platforms, email newsletters, or pay-per-click campaigns, take the time to assess the performance metrics for each channel.

5. Hone Your Core Message

Your marketing efforts must hinge on a strong, consistent narrative that perfectly encapsulates what your brand stands for. The story you tell your customers – through advertising, content, and design – should align with your core values and effectively communicate your unique selling points. Invest time in crafting this message; it's the foundation upon which your brand is built. This definitive storytelling guide by SEMrush is a great resource to help you get started.

6. Measure, Optimize, Repeat

When you're handling your own business marketing, measuring the effectiveness of your campaigns is non-negotiable. Using analytics tools can provide critical insights into whether you're drawing in new customers and how engaged your audience is with your content. Taking a data-driven approach to marketing allows you to pinpoint areas that need fine-tuning for better results. In essence, consistent monitoring of key metrics empowers you to make informed decisions and optimize your self-managed marketing strategies for maximum impact.

The Benefits of Self-Managed Marketing

Becoming a DIY marketing powerhouse offers a myriad of benefits, such as direct control over your campaigns, reduced operational costs, and a nuanced understanding of your brand. By assessing your present strategies, identifying your target audience, elevating your content game, re-evaluating your outreach platforms, honing your core message, and measuring your effectiveness, you can harness the full capabilities of self-managed marketing to take your brand to unparalleled success.

Not ready to DIY your marketing? Julee Klein Marketing is here to help small businesses get started and get noticed. Reach out today for as little or as much marketing support as you need.

Guest Post by Marissa Perez

Marissa Perez has spent the last 10 years honing her marketing skills. She co-created Business Pop to provide insight and advice to those entering business ownership.

A Look at All of Google's SEO UPdates in 2022

Mon, 19 Dec 2022 20:38:38 GMT

By Julee Klein, Marketing Consultant and President, JKM

SEO Matters to Small Businesses and There Has Been a Lot to Keep Up With in 2022

A lot of small businesses we know have a website that typically gets updated once a quarter if at all. That's been a big problem for a lot of businesses this year as Google has increased the frequency and severity of their algorythic updates that affect search engine optimization (SEO.) Put more simply, Google has been constantly changing key factors and signals that affect how your website ranks in search results.

Google's 2022 Updates Focus on Rewarding Quality Content and Good User Experiences

Page Experience

What we've learned from those updates that Google did announce is that it's become mission critical to focus on "page experience" otherwise know as User experience. How your website's visitors interact with content on each page of your website matters more than ever. But regarding it's Page Experience Update in February 2022, Google has said, "A good page experience doesn't override having great, relevant content."

Product Reviews

Likewise, according to Google, their Product Reviews Update "aims to better reward high quality product reviews, content that provides insightful analysis and original research, and is written by experts or enthusiasts who know the topic well."

Helpful Content

Google has also prioritized weeding out unhelpful content in 2022. It's now using machine learning to help identify unhelpful or "thin" content and demote it in search results. Their Help Content Update released in August and updated in December is intended to improve the quality of search results by promoting the most helpful content. For more informtion, check out Google's developer article on What Creators should know about Google's August 2022 helpful content update.

Combatting Spam Content and Links

Google released a Spam Update in October of 2022 that affects al websites in all languages. And agin in December it followed this up with another Link Spam update to address those sites paying for links and otherwise violating Google's terms on link farming and creating spammy experiences for web users.

According to Search Engine Roundtable, with this new Link Spam update, Google "will "neutralize" links that it detects as being spam and thus links that are detected won't be counted and may show a decline in rankings." This is the case accross search results in al languages.

Here's a Visual Breakdown of All of Google's Critcal Updates in 2022

Thank you, Maggie Rousseaux with Oncrawl for putting together this helpful visual that outlines all of the important Google updates in 2022 affecting small businesses. View the original article with a transcription of the infographic here.

Infographic courtesy of Oncrawl.com

Don't Ignore SEO in 2023

With all of these changes to Google's algorythm and the importance they are placing on good, helpful, quality content, please revisit your website. Is it helpful to you customers and web visitors? Does it provide authoritative content? Does it help the visitor learn what they want to know about your bsuiness? Does it answer the most common questins you receive about your business. Is it easy to navigate? Does it render well on a mobile device? Is your website truly accessible to all users - even those with a visual impairment?

If you've answered these questions with anything other than a resounding "YES!", then it is time for an SEO Audit and a website redesign. Have questions? We're here to help.

By Julee Klein, Marketing Consultant & President

Email Marketing Spring Cleaning for Small Businesses

Thu, 03 Feb 2022 19:31:04 GMT

By Julee Klein, Marketing Consultant & President

Dust Off Your Email Marketing and Start Generating Revenue

Maybe your marketing plans are off to a great start this year. Or maybe you're bogged down with too many other small business issues to focus on marketing. But the reality is that most of your sales revenue this year is going to be generated by your existing and returning customers and those referrals they send your way! How many of those returning customers and referrals you receive is going to depend on your email marketing efforts and staying top-of-mind.

But Do You Really Need a Weekly Email Newsletter?

Most of the small business owners we talk to about email marketing have aspirations of doing a regular newsletter-style email series. Most want to try this on a quarterly basis and some fantasize about a monthly or even a weekly newsletter.

There is nothing wrong with this approach if you have your content creation process in place and you are regularly churning out great conent on socials, on your blog, or elsewhere on your website. The problem is that most small business owners don't have the marketing resources to create great content on a regular basis - at least not enough for a weekly or monthly newsletter. For most local business owners that would be like publishing a magazine while keeping all other business operations going. If you do want to go this route, you'll definitely want to outsource to an agency like JKM to generate content and handle the newsletter.

If you dont have the buget to bring in a marketing agency, our advice on email newsletters is to adopt a quarterly schedule to start and supplement that effort with weekly or monthly single-subject offer emails that are timely and drive sales. But be sure that every email - newsletter or single subject - has a clear call to action for the recipient to take the next step to engage with your brand and complete a purchase.

Email Marketing Content Ideas for March

Although JKM is a Certified Constant Contact Solutions Provider and Partner, you dont need to be a Constant Contact user to pick up a tip or two from their marketing team. They've shared this great March 2022 Marketing and Holiday Planning guide with us and we think it's worth a read.

Email Marketing is All About Staying Top-of-Mind

If you have a growing list of past and present customers as well as leads coming in from your website, the best way to convert those contacts into additonal sales is by regularly emailing them about what great work you do, your new services and specials, and any offers, coupons, and promotions.

In additon to these email content ideas above, there is probably a lot you are already doing as a local business that you should be sharing in your email campaigns. Are you sponsoring your local Little League team? Share that info and offer a discount for anyone who mentions it when making a purchase. Just one example of making some of your other marketing and advertising efforts go a little further by promoting in your email marketing.

This Spring, recommit your email marketing efforts to stay top-of-mind with your customer base and set a goal to increase sales by a certain percentage through your email marketing efforts. You might be amazed by what you learn and what you achieve. And if you need a hand, we're here for it!

By Julee Klein, Marketing Consultant & President

Blogging Statistics and Trends for Small Business Owners

Wed, 31 Mar 2021 04:10:31 GMT

By Julee Klein, Marketing Consultant & President

The State of Small Business Blogging in 2021 and Beyond

If you’re a small business owner or an entrepreneur looking to start your own blog, you may feel overwhelmed when thinking about creating a blog strategy from scratch. A lot of resources, time, and tactics go into creating a successful blog, but without knowing where to start, it can be easy to feel discouraged.

With over 3.5 billion searches on Google every day, it’s clear the impact and reach that blogging has. But without the know-how to make your blog stand out, readers can easily get lost in a sea of content. That’s where we can step in to show you how your business can benefit from blog article content done right.

For some background, blogging and article content creation have exploded since the early ’90s, and the landscape is constantly changing. With more than 576,000 websites created each day, it’s estimated that 77% of internet users read and interact with blogs.

The Benefits of Small Business Blogging

According to Demand Metric, 60% of people will seek out a product after reading content about it, so business blogging can be a great way to bring traffic and potential customers to your website. Of marketers, 60%say that inbound marketing — such as blog content —is their best source for quality leads. Ensuring that your blog posts are high-performing can build brand awareness and grow your sales.

But success is not limited to eCommerce or B2C industries. According to Content Marketing Institute, in 2020, 13% of B2B marketers said blog posts are the highest performing when nurturing leads and Demand Gen Report found that over 71% of B2B buyers read blog content during their purchase process.

It’s clear that the future is bright for business bloggers, but predicting what trends are worth incorporating into your strategy can be more difficult. Let’s look at what makes a successful blog and how writing an optimized article can increase your website traffic.

The Anatomy of a Successful Blog Article

Articles with longer headlines, usually over 14 words, and contain more than 3,000 words in the body copy are proven to perform better in backlinks, traffic, and social shares. The same goes for content that is organized with subheads and separated with visuals. Blog posts that include an image every 75–100 words get twice as many shares as those without them.

While some small business owners don’t put much thought into headlines or the length of their articles, in reality, you could be missing out on significant opportunities to increase shareability. Headlines in the form of a question get 23.3% more social shares, and blog posts that take 7 minutes to read earn the most engagement.

We recommend aiming for articles that are between 2,000-4,000 words long. We find these are the most successful, especially if you have a specific niche or are selling to a target audience. However, the industry you’re in and the type of blog post you’re creating can also play a factor in the optimal article length. Remember to keep the readers’ best interest in mind and structure your content to help them best.

For more up-to-date blogging ideas and trends, explore the following infographic from WebsiteSetup that outlines the state of blogging in 2021 and beyond! Creating blog content can be inexpensive and provide you with more leads, more sales, and better brand recognition. Incorporate a few of their blogging statistics and strategies to help you make data-informed decisions this year.

But do blog articles actually lead to purchases?

Marketing powerhouse, HubSpot surveyed almost 300 consumers to learn if they had ever made a purchase from a brand after reading that brand's blog post. A slight majority, 56%, said yes. And while a small sampling of consumers, this does confirm that blogging and producing blog article content can be an effective way to market your small business brand and sell your products and services.

If you're convinced and committed but struggling to get your small business blog off the ground, review our helpful content marketing ideas cheatsheet or consider outsourcing your marketing and bringing in experienced reinforcements.

By Julee Klein, Marketing Consultant & President

How Startups Can Benefit from Outsourcing Their Marketing

Mon, 20 Jul 2020 21:14:14 GMT

Guest Post by Artur Meyster, Chief Technology Officer, Career Karma

Start-up Challenges? Consider Outsourcing Your Marketing

If you have a startup, you understand the challenges of keeping all marketing efforts optimal and your financials in a good state. This is only possible if you allocate your resources toward prioritized activities.

You have two choices when it comes to Digital Marketing: you can use in-house talent or hire outsource companies. While both have merit, when it comes to startups, outsourcing could be the best choice. Let’s explore why.

Minimizing the Risk of Campaign Failure

Since you’re just starting in Digital Marketing, you probably don’t know which strategies work best for your startup. So, you may end up testing different methods to find out which one will provide the best outcome. On the other hand, an outsource company such as a digital marketing agency has more comprehensive experience, so it’ll be able to come up with the best strategies for your company. This minimizes the risk of campaign failure and will increase the possibility of success for your company.

Evident Results

Digital marketing requires Data Science more than any other department because this will be the only way to monitor the performance of current strategies. Agencies that specialize in digital marketing must show you results and metrics to prove the efficiency of their approach. Most outsource companies will plan these strategies based on data provided by customers through web logs or customer service systems. This way, they’ll be able to create outcome-generating strategies.

According to a recent Profoundry survey, a majority of startup companies seek to attract new customers. Yet, 71 startups developed their campaigns without a documented digital marketing strategy, making it harder to track the performance of their plans and spot errors.

Avoiding Directionless Strategies

Directionless strategies are a big mistake among many startups. You begin with the idea that having multiple channels will increase your traffic and although you surely need to have a multi-channel strategy, you also need to know which channels will work better for your business. This way, you won’t spend money and time creating content for platforms where you won’t have an audience.

Every move you make must be strategically planned. Therefore, you should consider putting all your efforts into platforms that will generate leads for your company. Outsource companies usually have this covered; you’ll enjoy a strategic, multi-channel plan for your business.

Focusing on Relevant Business Activities

Something essential at any company is time management. If you make all the marketing efforts yourself, this takes resources away from other aspects of your business relevant to your success.

Outsourcing digital marketing will give you time to manage core business activities. The outside agency will handle marketing strategies, customer service, community management and other tasks. The only thing you’ll have to worry about is reports and metrics.

Lowering Operating Costs

Hiring in-house talent may end up being more expensive than hiring an outsource team to do your digital marketing. Hiring gig workers for specific jobs can lower costs.

When you use an in-house team, you’ll need to handle expenses that every employee should have, like fixed salaries and employee benefits; you’ll also need to invest in infrastructure for each employee. This is something you won’t need to worry about if using an outsource company.

Outsourcing Marketing Leads to Better Outcomes

Outsource marketing teams will be beneficial for your company, not only in terms of budgeting but also time management. These companies will generate outcomes for your startup that no other team would. However, when choosing the right outsource company, you need to hire one that matches your company's vision and understands your perspective. This way, both parties will enjoy successful collaboration and your startup will receive more traffic and leads.

Guest Post by Artur Meyster

Artur Meyster is the CTO of Career Karma (YC W19), an online marketplace that matches career switchers with coding bootcamps. He is also the host of the Breaking Into Startups podcast, which features people with non-traditional backgrounds who broke into tech. You can get in touch with Artur on Twitter and LinkedIn.

5 Effective Tips On Providing Customers With A Personalized Experience

Mon, 08 Jun 2020 22:48:18 GMT

Guest Post by Ashley Wilson, Freelance Writer

How to Provide the Personal Touch in Five Easy Steps

If there's one thing that suffers under automation, it's how cold and impersonal technology can be. Sure, we can use AI and data mining to provide a tailored shopping or search experience.

But how often do you feel like the companies and websites you visit really care about you and your needs?

Unlike B2B marketing, which focuses on addressing problems and directing solutions based on the needs of a business, digital marketing to consumers requires folding your audience into your story in a way that allows them to create an emotional attachment to your brand.

Customer touchpoints are all of the platforms and methods you use to reach out and interact with customers. One of the main ways to make overall service more personal is to make each interaction feel like it's coming from a capable friend who cares about their problems and wants to offer solutions.

Here's how it's done.

1. Create Custom Packaging and Greetings

What would be more appealing to you: plain packaging with nothing more than a mailing label or personalized packaging that lets you know that what's inside is special?

By offering personalized packing, sending thank-you notes, and remembering occasions like customers’ birthdays or important anniversaries, you're letting them know that they and their business mean something to you.

2. Say Their Names

In an age of bulk emails and generic, one-size business practices, people like to feel that you’re reaching out to them personally rather than fishing for leads in a large pool of possibilities.

When creating emails, conducting sales calls, or engaging in other forms of personal interaction, use the customer's name when greeting them and throughout the interaction.

Just don't go overboard. Use their name once at the beginning of the call or mail, sprinkle it throughout during the discussion as appropriate, and end by thanking them for their time and attention by name.

This is a practice that needs a little forethought. Some older people and those engaged in certain types of business where formality is appreciated might be offended by what they consider "too familiar".

Make sure to find out the person's name and ask them how they prefer to be addressed. You want to be engaging, not offensive.

3. Tailor the Shopping Experience

One way that automation enables greater personalization is through data mining and analysis. Using digital tracking, customer surveys, and feedback, you can provide your customers with relevant products and services based on their interests, purchasing habits, and purchase history.

Other ways that you can tailor the shopping experience is through technology like online chat and automated email services. Chats allow you to triage customer complaints to determine problems that need immediate action.

The rest can be handled through a chatbot that can answer basic questions or walk customers through the checkout process. They can also catch people who abandon shopping carts before they leave your website and try to address any issue(s) that prevent closing the sale.

Through automated messaging, you can send special offers or discounts based on purchases or interests, thank customers for their business, and reconnect with those who've dropped out of sight.

Professional mailing platforms like Mailchimp can be synced with customer or lead lists and configured to dispatch by date, time, or when certain criteria are met, such as a completed sale.

4. Create Programs and Incentives That Support Customer Loyalty

How often have you continued to conduct business with a company because they treat you right and show appreciation? You'll gain more revenue through existing customers than through new business, so why not reward your customer base for their loyalty?

By creating customer incentives and loyalty or reward programs, you're providing your customers with positive reinforcement that encourages them to keep doing business with your company. Done right, you'll even get customers to do the outreach for you.

You can achieve this through contests, discounts for friend referrals, encouraging customers to tell their friends about your company, and through social proof.

5. Listen to Your Audience

If you want to reach your customers where they live and engage their emotions, listen to what they have to say.

By listening to your customers’ needs, you'll be better able to craft a solution or demonstrate how your product can relieve their pain points. Present them with an offer that's tailor-made for them, and they won't have any reason to find another service provider or purchase from your competition.

That can only be achieved if you know who your customers are and what they want.

If you need some help to start, consider something like the Challenger sales method. This method is effective because it focuses on building trust at every step of the process and educating customers in a meaningful way.

This helps you avoid blatant hard-sell tactics that turn people off and refines your approach to one that's more knowledge-based.

Another very effective method is called SPIN. No, it's not the way they tailor bad news to neutralize its effects. SPIN stands for:

Situation. You have to understand the customers’ situation.
Problem. Show the customer how your product solves their problem or how many issues it can resolve.
Implication. Why do these problems need resolution?
Need. This is the payoff. It works by allowing the customer to reach their own conclusion, led by you.

Final Thoughts

No one wants to feel like a number. By crafting a personalized experience for your customers, you're fostering brand loyalty and providing them with better service.

Use the above tips as a basis for streamlining your outreach, service, and approach. Your customers will thank you and so will your bottom line.

Guest Post by Ashley Wilson

Ashley Wilson is a digital nomad and writer for hire, specialized in business and tech topics. In her self-care time, she practices yoga via Youtube. She has been known to reference movies in casual conversation and enjoys trying out new food. You can get in touch with Ashley via Twitter.

Editor's note: JKM has not received compensation for publishing this guest post.