marketing strategy

In the days when a company website was the only aspect of a business' online presence, controlling brand consistency was pretty simple. With everything all in one place, you only had one shot at getting your audience's attention, but once you had it, there was only one set of branding you had to manage.

In the traditional, offline marketing models, often things were compartmentalized and kept completely separate. Your newspaper ads probably had little to do with your mailing list, except that the overall goal was to bring more business in. These days, the online marketing model is a little bit different, with every aspect contributing to the overall goal of gathering an audience so that everyone can join in on the conversation, in the expectation that some of those audience members will become and remain customers.

The winter holidays are upon us, and for most businesses that means the potential for a significant uptick in company interest. However, to convert those interested people into customers- either last minute shoppers or post-holiday sale-seekers - you'll want to give your audience a reason to choose you over their other options.

These days, consumers rely more and more on the social aspects of research when they're considering where to spend their money. In other words, recommendations from real people can mean as much or more to them than advertisements or other marketing campaigns. Testimonials are a great way to show that people find your product or service valuable, but how do you get strong, believable testimonials to use on your site?