It's OK to have questions. We like questions.

It's OK to have questions. We like questions.

Digital marketing can be confusing. Acronyms like SEO, CTR and the like. Geo-targeting. Social media channels. Responsive web design. It's easy to get lost in the clutter. We've put together answers to some of the more common questions we get. Please reach out to us with your specific questions, too.

Digital marketing can be confusing. Acronyms like SEO, CTR and the like. Geo-targeting. Social media channels. Responsive web design. It's easy to get lost in the clutter. We've put together answers to some of the more common questions we get. Please reach out to us with your specific questions, too.

General questions

Digital marketing means you are marketing to people on their electronic devices: computers, smartphones and tablets. Any device connected to the Internet. Digital marketing takes on many forms: search engines like Google, email, Facebook and other social media, ads on websites and apps, etc. It's a fast, efficient way to connect with your customers and prospects.

More and more people are spending more and more time on the Internet. That's the world we live in today. Your business needs to find its place in that digital world because that's where your customers are, and increasingly will be in the future. That doesn't mean you have to change everything that's made your business successful in the past, though. We'll start with where you are, the foundation you've built, and get your business moving on its digital journey.

Yes, digital marketing can feel overwhelming. That's why it's important to have a plan, one that fits within an overall marketing and advertising budget. We've researched all the digital marketing products and know how to match them up with the needs of each unique business. Generating website traffic. Building a Facebook following. Creating a brand. Making the phones ring. We will help you figure out what makes the most sense for you, based on what you're trying to accomplish, your budget and what you already have in place.

We work with you to stay in your budget and accomplish your goals. We have clients that make digital marketing the largest share of their budgets and others, just getting started, with much smaller budgets for digital. We will show you how digital marketing works and what it can do for your business, then you decide how you want to invest.

EndeavorsNow is different. After more than thirty years in the media business and in living and working in the communities surrounding Hardin County, we bring a lot to the table. We know marketing, both traditional and digital. We really are different...We show up on time. We keep our promises. We are polite, honest and respectful. Don't just partner with any digital marketing agency. Work with a local company you know and trust, one that will go above and beyond for you.

Websites

No. 1 would be if your website looks OK on a large screen but not on a smartphone, since many older sites were not built with mobile devices in mind. Next, check the consistency of your branding. For example, do the logo, colors and slogans on your website match what you're currently using elsewhere? Have you introduced products or services that aren't listed on your website, or have you discontinued some that remain on your website?

We try to have our  5-page websites up and running within 45 days. We offer several industry-specific templates to choose from that include some customization as well. Of course, some websites take a little longer, especially those with a more custom design and more pages. We will work within your timeframe and try to launch your new site as quickly as possible.

The short answer is, it depends. We first want to make sure we're building a site that you'll be happy with. After all, you will own this site when it's completed. It needs to be exactly what you want and that could mean a lot of different things. We offer industry specific template themes or we can build in all your custom design ideas. Some websites also include e-commerce and others are informational only. With all the widgets, bells and whistles available, we really should talk first. But, I promise you, we've been told we have a better price than most others around.

Yes, all of our websites are optimized for smartphones, tablets and desktop/laptop computers. That's called "responsive" design, meaning your website will respond to the particular device it's being viewed on to ensure that photos, headlines and other design elements are in the right place and text is easy to read.

Yes. You own everything we design and develop. You'll need to host your website somewhere (we offer that service, too), but don't trust web developers who make you pay monthly to rent your site and then threaten to turn if off if you stop paying. It's your website. You own it.

Search engine optimization

Search engine optimization (SEO) is an effort that optimizes your website to rank for specific keyword searches and also promotes your website to do the same. It's Google's way of making sure when someone types in a search term ("lawn mower repair," for example), the list that's generated is the best match for what the person searching intended. You wouldn't want to search for lawn mower repair and have a furniture store show up in the list -- unless, of course, that furniture store also did lawn mower repair.

The majority of web traffic is generated by search words and terms. With a good SEO plan, more people will visit your website and they will be people who are more interested in your products and services.

Keywords are the words and phrases searchers use—usually with search engines like Google, Bing or Yahoo—to find relevant pages, images, videos, or any kind of information.  Businesses should consider specific keywords when creating content for their website.

This question is the source of endless speculation and debate because each search engine uses different methods. Experts generally agree rankings are based on relevance and authority, but the factors that determine them are many—and inconsistent. The best way to achieve a high search engine ranking is to create one of the most thorough web pages possible for a specific keyword or topic.

Your listing with Google My Business gives customers the means to access your business, but more importantly, it depicts what it's like to actually go there. Most importantly, it displays all of this information before a user even has to click through to your website. That's why it's important to keep basic information like hours of operation and products/services you offer up to date, as well as posting photos and updates about your business regularly.

Digital advertising

Pay-per-click, known as PPC, is a way of buying web traffic. You've probably also heard it called "Google AdWords." With pay-per-click, advertisers pay a fee each time one of their ads is clicked and the person who clicked is sent to the advertiser's website. Search engine advertising, like on Google, is the most popular form of PPC. You can define the geographic areas where you want your ads to appear and how much you're willing to pay each time your ad is clicked.

The simplest form of Facebook advertising is "boosted" posts. You pay for a particular post you've published to be shown to more people, giving the post an extra "boost" beyond the audience that would have seen it on its own. Boosting is relatively inexpensive and a service we provide to all our social media customers. You also can create Facebook ads that look like regular posts on the surface but are labeled "sponsored content." You can include slideshows, videos, music, pretty much anything to make your Facebook ad attractive. Like the boosted posts, you can set your own budget and determine geographic locations for your ad.

Email marketing has come a long way since the first black and white typewritten emails were sent out a few at a time. Email is a much more vibrant and enticing way to connect with your audience. With email marketing, you have an opt-in list of clients who are highly interested in hearing from you about your products and services. It's also possible to know the delivery success and open rate of your emails. Email marketing is a great way to keep your current customers up-to-date with product updates, specials and offers.

Content marketing is the creation and distribution of educational and/or entertaining information for the purpose of generating brand awareness. A good example of content marketing is a company newsletter.

Pre-targeting is a premium form of digital display advertising. With pre-targeting, your ads run on national websites, but only in the precise geographic areas you choose and on websites likely to be visited by your customers and prospective customers. Unlike other types of digital display advertising, pre-targeted ads are guaranteed to run near the top of a web page, on the first screen visitors see. Pre-targeting does not use "cookies" or track people's browsing history in any way, eliminating concerns about privacy.

Social media

Online reputation management - commonly called ORM - is the management and maintenance of your online reputation. The process involves creating new, high-quality content pertaining to the business to begin shaping their reputation on Google. Often, this is done in response to negative items appearing in the search results, but it can also be executed proactively. A negative online reputation can be fixed. We can help you repair your online reputation by positively branding your company and establishing you as an expert in the field, creating quality content, claiming web domains and executing an SEO strategy.

Social media are an incredible way to tap into potential customers over and over again. It is also a great platform to let people know about your brand, as well as get a sense of your business personality. It's said that we must interact with a customer almost 17 times before they are ready to take action with our business. Social media are a great way to keep a consistent message and presence with your potential customers.

Without a doubt, Facebook is No. 1. That's because 69% of American adults use Facebook, and three out of four of them visit daily. Facebook gives you a great deal of versatility: photos, videos, and content from other websites and other social media platforms. After that, it comes down to the type of business you're in and the audience you're trying to reach. Instagram, Twitter and Houzz, to name a few, all have unique attributes for social media marketing. We'd be happy to talk with you about which best fit your business.

You want to grow your audience, the people who "follow" your page. And you want to increase their level of engagement with you, those "likes," comments and clicks. That requires both consistency in posting and variety of content. It's not like your personal Facebook page, where your family and true friends are going to stay connected no matter how sporadically you post or how many times you put up a photo of your awesome spouse/child/grandchild/pet. With a business Facebook page, you have to give people reasons to follow you. Over and over and over.

Inconsistency. Hands down. Going for weeks without posting, then putting up half a dozen posts in one day, all going live within a matter of hours. That happens generally because the person tasked with Facebook had other more pressing work to do.

Measuring results

Google Analytics is a free website analytics platform that gives you insights into how users find and use your website. Everything from which and how many pages they view to how people get to your website -- and much more. While it's free, you have to install a Google Analytics tag on your site. That's relatively easy, and all our websites come with Google Analytics installed.

Start with the basics to give you a sense of how much website traffic you have and whether traffic is growing, stagnant or declining over time. Since your website is the showroom window into your business, you'll want to know how many people come there each month, how many pages they look at and how long they spend on your site, as well as how many pages they view each time they visit. You also want to track how much traffic your social media, Facebook in particular, send to your website. It's a good idea, too, to see what devices people are using to access your site: desktop, tablet or smartphone.

One of the great things about social media is the ability to track the number of fans/followers your page grows each month and know exactly who has connected with your page. Facebook, in particular, makes it easy to see the ages, gender and city of your pages followers as well as engagement rate of each post.

The cost per click or cost per each 1,000 impressions (views of your ad) are the top two things to consider when including digital display in your marketing plan. Depending on your goals, you may want to try to lower your cost per click while at the same time being sure to get enough views of your ad to create interest in your product or service.

That's one of the great things about digital marketing: You can measure all kinds of stuff. Our approach is to regularly review key performance indicators that give you an overall sense of how things are working, then dive in deeply from time to time for details. That balances the need to be on top of things without spending all your time doing it. We prepare a custom monthly online "dashboard" for each of our customers showing them the big numbers: website analytics, Google My Business listing activity, social media, digital display advertising, pay-per-click campaigns, reputation management, Facebook advertising. Everything. We'll give you login credentials to view the dashboard at your leisure. Or we'll email you a PDF copy. Or we'll hand you a printed copy. Whatever works best for you.

What's your next step?

What's your next step?