About Laurel Lindsay

Laurel Stark née Lindsay has helped thousands of businesses get better results from their online marketing since she began her career as a web marketer in 2003. As a speaker, author and CEO of The New Media Group, she’s been featured on CNN, Entrepreneur.com, CTV and ShawTV.

5 reasons to drop everything & go to social media camp.

Posted on February 6, 2015 by Laurel Lindsay

Just the word camp elicits a feeling of freedom, learning and fun doesn’t it?

While this type of camp is decidedly missing the roasting of marshmallows, there are plenty of reasons to justify putting business as usual on hold to attend.

1. You’ll actually learn useful stuff you can apply right away in your business.

If you don’t feel 100% comfortable in your social media strategy or execution- this is the place to get clear and confident by learning actionable tips from the best minds in Social Media in North America.

There are as many as 5 sessions running at once, and they’re classified from beginner to intermediate. There are also workshops, coaches and handy poster sized summaries of each talk for easy note taking.

Most sessions offer a hand out or some sort of supplemental material you can refer back to later as well as instruction during the seminars.

Reference materials created during Tod Maffin’s talk last year.

2. Networking opportunities

Social media camp feels a lot different than many other conferences.

They’ve done a great job of structuring it so networking and community building happens naturally in the various in-between-session rooms that serve up popcorn as well as plenty of charging space for your devices.

Most attendees (67%) are key decision makers in their business, so with hundreds of attendees, there are plenty of movers and shakers to meet.

You may get to rub shoulders with best selling authors and TV personalities in between their talks or at the always packed local pub across the street.

This year’s keynote is marketing expert John Jantz- the Author of the Duct Tape Marketing series of books.

3. Time to reinvest back in your business.

There’s so many things demanding your attention every day it can be hard to prioritize personal development & learning.

It is critical though, to allocate a percentage of your work time to ongoing training in order to remain competitive.

As Darwin famously said -it’s not the strongest or the smartest of the species most likely to survive-it’s the most adaptable to change.

The undeniable way social media has influenced the consumer buying cycle and how we interact in our relationships demands the attention and adaptability from all professionals.

4. Location, Location, Location

There are few places in Canada that are as beautiful as Victoria BC in May.

With one of the most temperate climates in the country and flowers year round, Victoria is about as tropical as you can get without crossing the border.

After the long, cold, hard winter why not spend some time in the milder climes of the West Coast of Canada?

You may want to take an extra day or two and visit the many things to do and see around this picturesque city. Gorgeous beaches, surfing, whale watching, tropical rain forests and some of the best local dining in Canada are all popular attractions..

5. You’ll make my day.

From Social Media Camp 2013

Not lying.

I’d love to see you at Social Media Camp!

I’ll be around for the majority of the conference soaking up all the learning.

As well, I am thrilled and honoured to be asked to present on the topic of my book Social in 17 – how to effectively market yourself on social media in just 17 minutes a day.
The conference is the 6th of it’s kind and takes place May 21-23.

You can get your tickets here, but hurry, they sell out fast: http://bit.ly/1Dqe5se

For more information on Social Media Camp check out their website: www.socialmediacamp.ca

The One Marketing Tactic That Has 2x The Return On Investment

Posted on January 27, 2015 by Laurel Lindsay

Today we are going to talk about the 1 marketing tactic that has 2x the return on investment when it comes to increasing your sales.

Images courtesy of https://twitter.com/buzzbuilder

So I am going to give you 5 ways to implement this tactic. So if you were looking to boost your sales in 2015, keep reading!

Surprisingly, the one tactic is actually email marketing. 2x more effective than most other marketing tactics!

So here is how you can implement this and still stay within the Canada anti-spam legislation.

The first thing to email marketing is building your list-gather email addresses from your prospects.

One way you can do is have a free promo on your website like “Get a Free Report Just by Entering in your email address”. Once you have your prospect’s email address you can do a couple different things with it.

The second step to successful email marketing is follow up:

One of the most effective ways to follow up is set up an automatic drip campaign which is a series of automated emails that go out 3, 5, 7 and 9 days after your prospect has signed up for more information.

A targeted email drip campaign like this can produce tremendous results when it comes to converting those qualified prospects to actual sales.

Three ways to make email marketing easier:

Another thing you can do if you are very brave is cold email your prospects. Simply email them directly from a personal email account and craft a sales letter as to why you can solve their problem or ease their pain better than your competition.

Another thing you can do is use a CRM software which is a relationship management software.

It will notify you that you need to follow up with your prospects, peers, coworkers, colleagues etc. Make sure you don’t leave it too long before you talk to them.

There is a famous saying, “If you haven’t spoken to your customers or been in touch with them within the last 90 days, they are no longer your customers.”

Automate your email marketing:

So a really great way to do this that is super easy, is to send out a monthly email newsletter You can let people know what is going on in your company, any new tips or tricks you have to offer them that are of value and simply send that out to your prospects, clients or any one else in your community you would like to stay in touch with.

Another thing you can do is email folks directly through LinkedIn.

You may have to sign up for their premium service but instead of a cold email it is a little bit more of a warmer connection because folks can see who you are directly linked to.

That is your one minute tip! If you liked this, please share and subscribe to our YouTube channel!

Killing it with a Social Media Plan

Posted on January 27, 2015 by Laurel Lindsay

Social media is many things to many, many people. It’s a way to keep in touch with friends near and far, current or past. It’s a means of sharing photographs, touching moments, thoughts, and videos of people falling over. It is also one of the most potent weapons a business has in its marketing arsenal, and one which can hit far more target customers far more easily than any other marketing method.

Unfortunately, many companies are still employing an uncoordinated scattergun approach to their social media marketing, meaning a lot of their ammunition is wasted. If they want to increase their hits, they need to shoot for a real social media plan and set their sights on some tangible targets.

Which platforms best fit your audience?

Not every social media platform was created equal, and the first step to crafting a social media plan is to decide which ones are likely to give the greatest return on the time invested in them. Visual platforms such as Pinterest or Instagram attract a different demographic to Facebook and Twitter, and it’s not uncommon to see a company succeed on one and relatively fail on another.

Identifying where your target audience hangs out online is crucial to finding them with your social media.

Although your social media plan won’t need to include activity on every platform out there, especially in the beginning, it might still be prudent to register for any you might use in the future, just to make sure you grab the handle before somebody else does.

Setting goals for your social media plan

Once you have your platforms chosen and profiles set up, you should define exactly what you want to achieve on them, and this means setting real, measurable and achievable goals. These goals come in two flavors: interaction on your activity, and the effect it is having on your business in the real world.

While likes, comments and shares are a decent indicator of whether anyone is interested in your efforts, the real point of your social media plan should be bigger than this; growing your business is the real target. Whether this means increased traffic to a blog, more email addresses captured, or more physical sales made, you can only hit your target if you have defined what it is.

What to post

Knowing what to send out is the key to keeping your followers engaged and in attracting new ones. Even on the less-visual platforms such as Twitter, images work well, although there should always be a mixture of post types. Successful social media campaigns may include images, quotes, links back to the related website, videos, or exclusive company information and announcements.

Social media should also be social, and this means not being selfish. As well as posting your own content, sharing other people’s content that you feel your followers will benefit from is an integral part of a respected social media presence. It will mark you out as an authority with your finger on the pulse of the whole industry, while also helping to network with those whose content you are sharing.

When to post

On certain platforms, the timing of your posts is everything. On Pinterest, people may be searching for specific posts regardless of when they were made. On Twitter however it’s all about the now, and people may not look too far back down their feed. This means if they didn’t see your tweet at the time you sent it, they probably never will.

Because of this, posting several times a day and then monitoring the optimal times for interaction from your audience is vital.

Analyze and automate your social media plan

Once you have been posting for a time long enough to have results you can analyze, analyze them. Find out which type of posts have seen the most interaction and which have led to the real world goals that you set being achieved, and concentrate on producing more of those.

Check also for patterns indicating the best performing times for you to send out your content and ensure you always post at these times.

With so many posts going out per day, no successful social media plan is implemented completely manually. By using services like Buffer or Hootsuite, you can automate and schedule your posts while also using their analytics tools to check your performance.

Of course, any interaction you receive on your posts has to be responded to in a personal, human way, and automating your posts allows you the time to do this every day.

A complete social media plan

Beginning with deciding which platforms to use and developing right through to having all of your posts automated, crafting a complete social media plan could mean the difference between firing posts aimlessly out into the ether or having them hit your target audience.

Business Owners- Win some Love- Just in time for Valentines Day

Posted on January 21, 2015 by Laurel Lindsay

Business owners like you inspire us!

So this Valentines Day- we’d like to show you some love.

In our “I Heart My Business” contest, there’s two ways to win a small business pampering package… from our business to yours!

1. Grand Prize: Show Your Love

If you dare….tell us why you love your business in the comments below to be entered to win a “I Heart My Business” pampering package worth $250!

The contestant with the most likes wins!

2. Runner Up Prize: Spread the love.

Not feeling particularly poetic? No worries- you can still win!

Share your favourite contestant’s video and be entered to win the second prize; a gift certificate for an hour long massage!

Good luck!

The contest winners will be announced on Facebook on Feb 14th- Valentines Day.

This promotion is in no way sponsored, endorsed or administered by, or associated with, Facebook, Twitter or any other Social Network.

Learning from Successful Social Media Campaigns

Posted on January 21, 2015 by Laurel Lindsay

An ancient Chinese proverb advises ‘to know the road ahead, ask those coming back’. While it’s a safe assumption they weren’t talking with successful social media campaigns in mind, the sentiment remains.

For anyone wanting to develop their own campaign, analyzing and learning from what has worked before is an invaluable part of the preparation. Successful social media campaigns of course need imagination and originality in what the audience will see, but the philosophy behind the scenes contains some staples that have been proven to work time after time.

Plan your assault

Previous successful social media campaigns have all had one thing in common: a clearly defined goal. If you don’t know what you are trying to achieve, how will you know when you’ve achieved it?

Identifying your goals also helps you to tailor a campaign best suited to them; offering a free e-book download in exchange for an email will attract more subscribers if that is your goal, while spreading the word about a limited edition offer can increase sales, and a contest requiring the entrant to like, share, or use a particular hashtag can be great for raising your brand awareness.

Knowing your audience and the social media platform they tend to frequent is also essential.

Spread the word

If your social media campaign is to be successful, people are going to need to know about it. For those that already have a high number of loyal and enthusiastic followers, this is going to be far easier than for those just starting out.

If you are part of the latter group, there are still ways you can get your campaign in front of the eyes of people who may have never heard of your company before, and paid advertisements are an easy way to get your message out.

It is also a good idea to contact influencers in your field who may be willing to help you promote your campaign. If you can give them enough reason to share your campaign, it could be reaching thousands of their followers; thousands of people who listen to what this person has to say.

Ensuring that people are going to want to share your campaign is also vital, as is making it easy for them to do so. Incentives and prizes can help, but the most successful social media campaigns have always had more to them than that; they have gone viral due to people buying into the campaign itself, and whether the tone is fun or serious, generating an emotional attachment will always lead to a more successful campaign than any prize will.

Keep it simple

The vast majority of successful social media campaigns have been lessons in simplicity. If people are confused in any way by what you are asking of them, they will quickly move on to the next thing on their timeline. Simplicity comes in many forms, but the most important one here may be the action you are asking your audience to take. The easier it is for them to get involved, the more likely they are to do so.

Simplicity also extends to the design of your campaign. Keeping words and images consistent across the board will help people to recognize it, and if you’re offering a competition prize, making sure it is relevant to your campaign or your company will also help to keep the message clear.

Break new ground

The final thing we can learn from previous successful social media campaigns is that copying them will lead to failure. Nobody will buy into an identical campaign that is simply being rehashed by a different company to the original.

Everyone is looking for the freshest content online, and successful social media campaigns are often what they find. Learn the foundations from the masters, and use your own originality to make yours stand out from the crowd.

The One Simple Trick To Closing 9x More Sales Leads

Posted on January 21, 2015 by Laurel Lindsay

Today we are going to talk about the one simple tool you can employ in 2015 to increase your sales close ratio by 9x what it was in the past.

Images courtesy of https://twitter.com/buzzbuilder

Now that sounds great for all of us who are looking to boost our sales leads as well as convert more people from just leads to actual sales right?

So the one and only thing you need to do to boost your conversion rates is to get back to your web leads within 5 minutes of them contacting you.

Very very simple but also very complicated. How do you do that in such a busy society? You can’t always be sitting in front of your computer!

There are a couple different ways you can do this:

The first thing you can do is, If you have an assistant or receptionist, you can ask them to ping you immediately, as soon as you get a web lead and you can then call or email them back right away and close that time gap between inquiry and response.

The second thing you can do is set up an auto responder. So if someone is contacting you through your website and they’ve sent in their email address, you can have an automatic email reply go out including some information that they are inquiring about.

It might not be as specific as you would have liked but as long as you are delivering some value that is certainly going to increase your odds of converting that lead into a sale.

The third thing you can do is have your emails go to your smart phone and turn your email notifications on audibly so you get a noise every time somebody emails you and you can get back to them right away.

Another thing you can do is actually have an SMS or text notification. Some mobile marketing services offer the ability to actually text you whenever you have a brand new web lead and that way you can get back to them right away!

That is your one minute tip! If you like this, please share, and don’t forget to subscribe to my channel!

Images courtesy of https://twitter.com/buzzbuilder

Get On Google- How to Add Your Business To Google Maps

Posted on January 20, 2015 by Laurel Lindsay

Here is a quick tutorial video that can help you add your business to Google Maps & get on Google for Free!

So first, type in your address into Google and it will show you the position marker on a map.

It should give you the option to add a place that is missing if you are not yet visible on Google, here you will want to fill in the relevant information like your website and name.

Once you have done that, there is a link asking “are you the business owner?” Click there.

Then you claim this Google Place.

Fill out the proper information and verifications. In the “Category” option – which is for search engine purposes – you want to think about what are people typing into Google that are going to be looking for what you offer.

You have to pick form the pre-populated category then hit continue. Follow the prompts.

Choose a verification mode and it will prompt you that it will not appear as verified until it is verified but it will be added.

Next you want to edit any information that may be missing and search engine optimize the area.

Click to enter your website and edit everything like hours of operation, photos etc. It is very, very important to fill in these fields as complete as possible.

Now, let’s focus on Introduction.

Here is where you want to add in links to your website in order to drive traffic back to your site and have it working as efficiently as possible for you. Here you can also add in as much information as you like.

Once you have completed that, go back and look over the page and double check in the future to make sure it has been verified.

After about two weeks, if this hasn’t been done, call Google directly and get your page verified!

The Effectiveness of Mobile Marketing

Posted on January 13, 2015 by Laurel Lindsay

Research shows the effectiveness of mobile marketing

Set aside your traditional marketing channels, mobile marketing is exploding like dynamite. Reaching customers on a smartphone or other hand-held device is one of the best strategies for today’s marketers. And mobile marketing isn’t just growing; it’s booming. So, as a marketer you know mobile marketing is highly effective in enticing consumers to buy what you have to sell.

Marketers use mobile to reach customers quickly (in real time). And customers use their smartphones and tablets to communicate, shop, search, travel, play, read, and discover, from dusk to dawn.

The proof that mobile usage—and mobile marketing—are surging in popularity isn’t just in knowing there are 1.4 billion smartphones in use around the world; the evidence lies in the latest research on how and why customers and marketers are crazy about their mobile devices.

Let’s look at the following statistics:

Consumers check their mobile devices 150 times a day.
Ninety percent of the time mobile users respond to text messages within 90 seconds of receiving them.
Seventy-nine percent of smartphone owners use their devices to buy products and services

How Marketers Use Mobile

Consider that customers use their smartphones and tablets to email, text, post, tweet, buy, and connect. This means that mobile is a multi-channel “product,” and that marketers can use mobile marketing in a number of ways. For example, marketers can measure what customers want in a brand. They can advertise, post messages, and move customers to commerce sites to view their products. Finally, they can answer customers’ questions and measure their satisfaction with a purchase.

According to a provider of multi-channel communications to some of the world’s best retail brands, 20 percent of all current mobile traffic goes to e-commerce sites.

If you’re still not convinced of the value of mobile marketing, consider that customers spent $182 billion on mobile commerce last year alone. And that number is estimated to grow to $707 billion by 2018.

What’s more, mobile empowers marketers to create, deliver, and measure personalized marketing campaigns. “Nothing gets marketers closer to consumers than mobile,” says Greg Stuart, CEO of the Mobile Marketing Association. “There is no other platform that is as personal and pervasive.”

The personal value of mobile-marketing campaign

Because mobile is personal, research shows that one campaign message doesn’t appeal to all consumers. In a one-message-fits-all campaign, the marketer sends a single message to teens, seniors, business professionals, and other target groups.

For years marketers bought 30-second radio commercials and mailed brochures to millions of homes. Research shows, however, that these campaigns may entice some but not all of the consumers reached. Mobile marketing calls for a focus on each customer group by deploying a campaign that is deeply personal and practical.

Summary of Mobile Marketing

This article has looked at impressive research findings surrounding mobile. The key to making mobile marketing effective is knowing that:

Mobile marketing must be a key strategy in your marketing plan, especially since smartphones and tablets are used to communicate, shop, search, travel, play, read, and discover;
Mobile is surging in popularity. Remember, consumers spend a hundred billion dollars on mobile purchases each year;
Your mobile-marketing messages must be on all channels—mobile email, mobile social media, and so forth;
Your mobile-marketing message must be personal. You need to craft a single message for each type of consumer group.

Make mobile marketing a part of your marketing strategy today.

Three Steps to Getting on Google

Posted on January 12, 2015 by Laurel Lindsay

If you want your website to be noticed, you have to get on Google.

And if you want to get on Google, you have to make yourself as visible as possible to them and their web crawlers.

Then of course once you’re on, you’re going to want make sure you stay there.

Getting and staying on Google can be broken down into three easily remembered stages:

· Build (on-site SEO)

· Engage (off site SEO)

· Stay fresh (regular content)

Let’s elaborate and see what these points really entail.

Build – on-site SEO

Anyone who maintains their own website, be it for business or pleasure, should at least be aware that SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is a thing, even if they might not really understand it.

They also need to know that it comes in two flavours: on-site and off-site, and taking care of the on-site SEO while building your website is paramount if you want it to get on Google.

On-site SEO includes everything that your web design team can arrange for you, either behind the scenes or for public consumption; quality content with relevant keywords, page titles, Google text snippets, URLs, H1 or H2 headings, correctly tagged images, outbound links, and having a site map.

All of these will affect your Google rank, although some (content and titles) carry more weight than others (alt tags on images).

Engage – off-site SEO

As the name suggests, off-site SEO covers everything you can do in other places online to improve your own SEO and help you to get on Google.

One metric used by Google to measure your ranking is the quality of your inbound links; that is, links from other places directing people to your site.

The practice of link building has long been a big part of any SEO campaign, although the focus has now shifted to the subtly different but more interpersonal practice of link earning.

Advisable ways of earning the high quality links that help you to get on Google include reaching out to bloggers and asking them to link to your best content, or offer to write a guest post with a link back to your site.

Leaving useful, non-generic comments on relevant blog posts with a link back to your site also works, as does being active and respected on a forum that allows you to display your web address in your signature or in posts.

Building a community on social media is another great way to improve the engagement with your content, if you can encourage your audience to share it directly from your site.

Stay fresh – regular content

While on and off-site SEO practices help you to get on Google, the ubiquitous search engine also takes into account the freshness of your website and its content.

It makes sense; after all, Google wants you to keep using its service, so strives to give the most relevant, freshest results it can. Stale websites get punished by falling in the rankings.

Even if most of your website’s pages are static and don’t change, there are ways to maintain a steady stream of new content. The most common is a regular blog, with the opportunity for people to comment on the posts.

Depending on the nature of your site, running a forum is also a possibility and helps with the fresh posts and interaction that Google values so highly.

Get on Google, Stay on Google

Being found through organic search engine results is vital to your business, and that means one thing: you have to get on Google.

By following the three key stages of building, engaging and staying fresh, you’ll give yourself the best of chance of both getting and staying there.

The Importance of Good Pay Per Click Management

Posted on January 6, 2015 by Laurel Lindsay

Today we’re going to talk about best practices for Pay Per Click (PPC) management.

PPC is one of the most effective ways to generate new sales leads, if done right.

Image courtesy of Buzz Builder

Pay Per Click ads are those ‘Sponsored Links’ to appear at the top of your Google search..

If you were to click on one of them though, the company behind it would have to pay Google a pre-arranged price for bringing you to their site, even if you had no interest in what they were selling.

Hence, the importance of a diligent pay per click management strategy.

Well executed, ongoing pay per click management is imperative to the success of any PPC campaign, and can be broken down into three parts.

It has to be well planned, tracked and analyzed, and constantly evolved.

Planning a campaign

Fail to prepare, you know the rest.

When done well, PPC is a powerful way to bring targeted, high converting leads to a website.

When done badly, it can lead to the ads being ignored or, worse, the hemorrhaging of a company’s funds through uninterested people such as yourself clicking on them.

Good pay per click management starts in the planning.

Keyword research is arduous, but essential. Bidding the right amount for each keyword is crucial.

Organizing keywords into different campaigns and groups helps to keep things organized.

Identifying your target audience and their search habits is critical.

Not having optimized landing pages for conversions would render the whole thing pointless.

Tracking a campaign

Pay per click management doesn’t end once the campaign is underway. In fact, it’s only just begun.

The first part of your ongoing management, tracking your traffic through a token on your landing page URL tells you which ads are working and which aren’t, and gives useful insight into who you are attracting.

Your traffic needs to be more quality than quantity.

People who are already searching for your product, who are from your target area, who stick around on your site instead of bouncing straight off, who maybe even convert to a sale, and perhaps ultimately become a repeat customer are your personal goldmine.

Constantly analyzing your traffic will help determine how close you are to striking it rich.

Evolving your PPC campaign

The second ongoing part of your pay per click management, after collating enough data, is to modify, evolve and optimize your campaign accordingly. This is done through continuous and regular analysis of the information at hand.

Once you know what keywords are working, you can push them. Any expensive keywords that aren’t converting, you can stop using. Add new ones to test in their place. If long tail keywords are bringing more success, bid for more of those. They are cheaper anyway.

If people are bouncing from your landing site, modify it. Even split testing a few different designs can prove useful.

Try using different ads to direct people to different parts of your sales funnel; an educational PDF should lead to the top, while a coupon will go directly to the sales page.

Good pay per click management

Search engines reward intelligent, well targeted campaigns by charging less per click, and only good pay per click management can take you to that stage.

Overnight success stories are years in the making, but planning, tracking and evolving your campaign will see you on the right track.

Welcome to the neighbourhood

Author Archives: Laurel Lindsay

About Laurel Lindsay

5 reasons to drop everything & go to social media camp.

Just the word camp elicits a feeling of freedom, learning and fun doesn’t it?

1. You’ll actually learn useful stuff you can apply right away in your business.

2. Networking opportunities

3. Time to reinvest back in your business.

4. Location, Location, Location

5. You’ll make my day.

The One Marketing Tactic That Has 2x The Return On Investment

Today we are going to talk about the 1 marketing tactic that has 2x the return on investment when it comes to increasing your sales.

The first thing to email marketing is building your list-gather email addresses from your prospects.

The second step to successful email marketing is follow up:

Three ways to make email marketing easier:

Automate your email marketing:

Business Owners- Win some Love- Just in time for Valentines Day

Business owners like you inspire us!

So this Valentines Day- we’d like to show you some love.

2. Runner Up Prize: Spread the love.

The One Simple Trick To Closing 9x More Sales Leads

Today we are going to talk about the one simple tool you can employ in 2015 to increase your sales close ratio by 9x what it was in the past.

The Effectiveness of Mobile Marketing

Research shows the effectiveness of mobile marketing

Let’s look at the following statistics:

How Marketers Use Mobile

The personal value of mobile-marketing campaign

Summary of Mobile Marketing

We've helped hundreds of businesses leverage the power of the web to boost their sales.

The impact on sales has been huge!

They've increased our sales drastically

It was surprising how fast we got the exposure we needed

As seen on:

Contact Us

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