
Winners of Most Innovative Strategic Marketing Agency 2023

Today Catherine did a presentation in the weekly Midwest Business Network Group about the backlinks and demonstrated the benefits of them when it comes to ranking on search engines and brand awareness!
A backlink is a link created when one website links to another. They are also called “inbound links” or “incoming links.” – they are important to off-page SEO
They represent a “vote of confidence” from one site to another and are a signal to search engines that others vouch for your content. If many sites link to the same webpage or website, search engines can infer that content is worth linking to, and therefore also worth surfacing on a SERP (Search Engine Results Page)
#1 Turn brad mentions into quality backlinks and/or #2 send “feeler” emails
So, earning these backlinks can have a positive effect on a site’s ranking position or search visibility. However, you could create the best content out there from your perspective, but it’s a competitive landscape, and Google takes myriad other factors into account when ranking pages on the SERPs. One of those being… how authoritative (or trustworthy) the provider of that content is.
You might think that “authority” is subjective, but Google has one critical way to measure it: backlinks.
If your business is not growing, it’s dying, there’s no middle ground. The world is quickly passing by those that are standing and perhaps satisfied with simply getting by your business growth is fuelled by marketing.
Not every business is in a position to hire someone else to handle their marketing. Most businesses have to do some or all the marketing themselves. The problem is most business owners are not marketers by trade and they have limited knowledge of how to structure & implement a marketing plan. This is where a marketing coach comes in to help.
A marketing coach is an expert consultant who works closely with business owners to help you build your own marketing capabilities. With their help you can more easily identify challenges and build a fully systemized approach to marketing.
This coach has years of experience generally marketing high-growth businesses. Their job is to understand your business values, mission, and goals, and to advise strategies for success.
#1 YOU FEEL STUCK AND DON’T KNOW WHAT TO DO NEXT
There is a lot of noise out there so having a marketing coach that has seen what works has actually implemented those strategies themselves they’re able to see what’s going to be the best move for your business. They’re going to be able to really narrow down that ROI and be able to tell you this is the right next step for your business and then hand hold you through that process, so that you don’t have to learn from the mistakes that others have made before you. Allow those marketing coaches that have made those mistakes before be able to guide you through that seamlessly.
#2 SUCCESSFULLY UTILISE THEIR SKILLS
This because they’ve tried all the things and they just don’t know what’s working. This is different from the person who doesn’t know what the next right step is. There is definitely people out there that will try all the things and then maybe have a successful launch or quarter or maybe not and then they look back and they really don’t know what to attribute that. They are also people out there that are doing more than they probably need to and so being able to kind of look at all of those tactics that you’re doing and then be able to eliminate the ones that really aren’t going to be helpful for your business can really be valuable to the time that you’re spending on your own marketing. Therefore, if you’re doing 10 things a week let’s narrow it down to the really the three or four that are moving the needle the most and maybe that’s really all you need to be doing. This can be extremely beneficial in giving you time back in your day
#3 REACH THEIR IDEAL CUSTOMER
Many of us will assume that we know what our customer is and as we get more customers then we can really fine-tune that down. You are think questioning where are those people hanging out online, where are they spending their time, so that I can then leverage those places and those opportunities to make them good marketing opportunities for me. Therefore, sometimes this can be getting a little creative and not just looking at your demographic and find which magazine it fits. This may work for some but for others a marketing coach is looking for a better ROI, more targeted and better analytics.. This will allow you to really see what’s working and what may need to be tweak. So that can come along with some creativity to make sure that you’re reaching those ideal customers
#4 YOU’RE DOING RANDOM ACTS OF MARKETING
So let’s say you’re using Facebook Ads, cold calling, digital marketing, and all of that. If it’s working for you, then great. But think about it. Implementing tactics without a solid strategy leads to the “bright shiny object syndrome,” which keeps you chasing the wrong things. You need a strategy, which is the big-picture planning you do prior to the tactics. So instead of doing random acts of marketing, having a solid marketing plan that fulfils your goals and objectives.
#5 YOU NEED MORE SUPPORT
There are several business owners that I work with that quite frankly they’re just not ready to go to the next step, so they can only reach and achieve a certain amount before they really need to employ somebody that does marketing day in and day out.
That’s when a marketing coach comes in handy, so if this is something that you think you would be interested in exploring kind of how a marketing coach can help you?
A lot like any other coach, a marketing coach is a guy that can put you on the path to achieve optimal results. A marketing coach can eliminate the guessing game that is not working for you. They will take the time to help you understand how marketing works and get you focused on the activities that really matter.
A marketing coaching is not just for busy business owners. It’s also perfect for people just starting their businesses with no marketing experience at all or for larger companies with in-house marketing personnel who need help realigning their marketing strategy & outlining actionable marketing activities. It’s perfect for someone who needs a structured plan to follow and a person to hold them accountable to getting it all done
Some false assumptions:
Do you need help to get off the ground? Are you trying to upscale your business? No matter what your definition of success is, a marketing coach will help you make that happen
We are absolutely thrilled to have won Boutique Marketing Consultancy Firm of the Year – Ireland in the Corporate LiveWire Innovation & Excellence awards!
When Catherine started Ryan Marketing Solutions less then 2 years ago, she never expected that her company would be winning awards at this stage
Thanks to the judges & organisers, thank you to all our clients and to YOU for being part of our journey!!
Let’s say you just have started recently your business and you are very excited about things to happen. Everything is exactly how you have planned (central location, awesome products or services, etc) but you hardly get any customers in. Guess what? You’re not alone.
More than 20 percent of small, medium size businesses fail within the first year of existence. By the end of the second year, 30 percent of businesses will have failed. After 5years more than 50% have shut their doors.
This is due to different factors such as:
Below I am going to list 5 Digital marketing tips for small to medium sized businesses that will help increase brand awareness & reach, drive more sales and make your business more profitable.
If a start- up business this can be achieved through research on your competition. Find out who are their customers, their interests, needs, expectations, behaviour. Then ask yourself, what do I bring new to the market? How do I differentiate myself from them? Is my product or service better than theirs?
One way of doing competition research is by using Social Listening Tools such as Hootsuite, TweetReach, BuzzSumo, Sprout Social, Buffer, etc. It’s a laborious process and involves some skills. (That’s why Ryan Marketing Solutions is here for to help you).
If the business is already established you can use analytics to accurately determine who, where your customers are. Google’s, Bing, Social Media native analytics tools can show you precisely how & when your customers interact with your content, what device they are using, conversion rates, engagement rate, etc.
Social media is the No1 tool that helps businesses boosts their online presence.
Did you know that there are over 3.5billion (keeps growing) active social media users, and every 6.4 seconds a new social media account has is created.
Did you know that every social media user has an average of 7.6 social media accounts? And they spend more than 145 minutes on social media every single day.
These are facts that cannot be ignored. If you want to drive awareness to your business brand there is no better way than building up your social media presence. Ideally you should do an audience research prior to creating those, to establish what channels your customers are using.
For example, 84% of digital marketers are targeting Millennials- GenY (born between 1980-2000) in their social media strategy, followed by Gen X –born between 1960- 1980 (52%), then Gen Z – born between 1997- 2012 at 22%.
There’s no right or wrong in choosing a social channel. Personally I would create channels on every social media platform available and choose to advertise my business products or services ONLY on those where my customers are.
There are many types of content that business owner can utilise in their digital marketing strategies. The most engaging content out there at the moment is video.
Recent conducted studies found that 54% of customers desire to see more video content from business or brand they’re interested in. Furthermore, 88% of video marketers are pleased with the ROI- Return of Investment of their video marketing accomplishment on the brand social media channels.
From above findings we can deduct that demand for video content is desirable by many consumers and there is high demand.
Video content gets more views, is more engaging and is by far the most preferred type of content. If you want to get up to 66% more qualified leads per year then focus on creating quality, original videos (Take a look at Ryanair channel on TikTok ).
To create video content might sound daunting but there are tools (free or paid) that can help you accomplish that. You can also use social media channels live video features to create content. However, producing a good quality video does not come cheap, and it might raise the cost of your digital marketing campaign.
Other type of content includes:
As you can see there are a multitude of content types available to create. It’s up to the business management (marketer if they have one) to choose the most suitable type. As a general rule focus on creating unique, relevant to your brand content that keep your customers engaged.
Consistency is another element that you should be aware of. For example, you can’t just simply put a blog post out there and do nothing for the next 3 months. Search engines spiders (not that scary insect that you might think of) will avoid crawling your website if there is not any new content added. In time this will affect your SEO – Search Engine Optimisation rankings.
“The advertisement is the heart and the soul of the commerce”.
If you’re just starting up or you’re an established business advertising can only bring benefits to your brand. Marketing can be divided into 2 main categories: Outbound Marketing & Inbound Marketing.
Outbound Marketing includes TV advertising, email marketing, Flyers, Brochures, magazines, posters, radio advertising, newspapers, etc. They tend to be less used nowadays because targeting customers is difficult, cost ineffective, ROI tracking is difficult or impossible, etc.
If you choose to advertise your business through such channels, be prepared for huge charges. Not saying that is not effective way but it will incur huge marketing costs.
In contrast choosing inbound marketing (content marketing, social media, email marketing) will help you reduce your marketing costs, get recognised sooner and build long term relationship with your customers. Maintaining relationships and building trust is the key element in any digital marketing campaign.
Advertising through social media (Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram) incurs high benefits because of its huge audience size. You can also choose your target audience (Do not go with the ad default options) and create personalised ads for each category of customers.
Also you’re in control of your spending as you choose the daily amount spent and how many days want your ads to run for.
If you opt out for Google’s PPC or Bing advertising (search or display) you’ll get almost instant results. But those results come at a price. If you’re just starting up I recommend hiring a digital marketer or marketing agency who knows how to properly configure those ads. You can’t just simply go with the default ads settings as your entire budget will be spent very fast.
As a general rule use Display & Social Media Advertising to increase brand reach and awareness or if you’re selling cheap products or services. Use Bing & Google PPC – Pay Per Click advertising only if you want to sell a premium product or service.
This type of marketing is relatively new compared to social media marketing but is one of the in vogue digital marketing trends at the minute. If done right it can increase trust, credibility of your brand, increase ROI, awareness and get more conversions.
Did you know that 8 out of 10 consumers have made a purchase from an influencer’s suggestion? Or that 80% of Business to Consumers B2C businesses currently or intend to work with influencer marketing.
There’s no doubt that Influencer Marketing is profitable if done right. It won’t be cheap but with the right niche influencers your brand can grow to new highs.
As fresh social media platforms emerge (see TikTok, SnapChat or the new METAVERSE thing) there are more influencers marketing opportunities to avail of.
Need Inspiration? Have a look at your competition. Do they use an influencer to improve their brand awareness? Who is their brand ambassador? Or they didn’t. If not is an opportunity for you that you can’t miss.
Running a business in today’s market proves to be a huge challenge, especially if you’re just starting up. But with the right approach, mindset, skills you’ll succeed. A mix of social media, SEO, video & influencer marketing might be the key for unlocking your success.
There’s not a nailed template or path you should follow. Every business is different and addresses different markets. Try to be unique, transparent, and consistent in the type of content you create. Also adapt to the new trends, don’t get stuck in the past.
If your business needs help, advice, consulting don’t hesitate to contact Ryan Marketing Solutions. We are here to help your business thrive and succeed.
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