“It seems that advertisers are insistent on using digital, which they affectionately call ‘social media.’ I believe in weaving digital and print together for 2018. I’m not ready to count out the traditional media except for radio. It takes more effort to plan and recommend a varied mix of digital to advertisers but it can’t be discounted any longer.”

– Rick Charnack, Regional Manager, Family Magazine

Authenticity

“Be authentic. Be true to who you are as an organization and understand that business is about relationships. Nurture those relationships, including with your staff/team, and they will nurture you.

This also means avoiding the hype du jour and being true to your mission and vision.”

– Mary Ann Green, Public Relations Expert, Magink LLC

Use Instagram

“Instagram! Instagram! Instagram! – If you have not implemented Instagram into your marketing strategy for 2018 then you are missing out. Facebook owns Instagram so it is easier now to cross-promote over both platforms when you convert your IG account to a business account. Personal posts are not recommended for your business IG account. Limit hashtags to no more than 3 per post.” (Editor: From our experience, using all 30 allowed hashtags works better but it’s individual.)

– Jeffrey Van Houtte, Content Marketing Specialist, Socialpath Media Marketing

Do Better Research

“One tip, proven to work every time: Research. Beats jumping from media to media, refines your lead funnels, and saves money from wasted advertising while bringing in leads of higher quality – faster.”

– Mark Mehling, Conversions Expert, Take Control Marketing

Don’t Overpromise

“Be sincere. Don’t offer something you can’t do or promise above and beyond to make the sale. Everyone dislikes pushing sales reps or being overpromised and not delivered. Show what you can deliver, represent and deliver what you say you do. Be yourself.”

– Ashley Fox, Marketing Expert, Retire-At-Home Services

AI

“Start paying attention to AI / Machine Learning much more closely. And focus less on keywords, more on “themes” for your landing pages.”

 – Zachary Bennett, SEO Specialist, IntuitSolutions

Simple Is Good

“Make it easy for people to understand what your business provides and where you provide it. There are many tools for doing this job, but the job must get done. People take the path of least resistance and when they need a product or service, they want answers quickly and easily. I prefer to focus on online marketing because it reaches people that are in a buying mode and actively searching for a place to spend their money. My marketing strategy is to make sure my clients get found for relevant searches for what they do and where they do it, while communicating their expertise and trustworthiness. Simple is good.”

–  Michael Doran, Founder, Atlas Solutions

Include Direct Mail in Local Business Marketing Strategy

“I’m going to go out on a limb and say direct mail marketing should be part of any local business marketing strategy for 2018. With everyone headed towards digital and social direct mail is becoming more and more affordable. Back in the old days we used to get smothered with advertising in the mail, it was so annoying. These days I’m so happy when I get something in the mail, especially when it’s an advertisement from a local business. I recently bought plantation shutters for our home from a direct mail piece. It works!”

– Patrick Foote, Digital Marketing & Technology Expert, ATL Consultants Group (ATLCG)

Quality SEO

“In my opinion, it is investing in quality SEO and outperforming your competitors through high quality content. Oh yea, don’t forget about making your content strategy have some voice search intent as Google has shown research for voice search, and its utilization is increasing dramatically. Google says 20% of mobile searches are voice search.

It can be a little easier to rank for local related keywords with low search volume. Therefore, what I have seen work pretty much instantly is on-page optimization utilizing targeted keywords in a natural way and then adding valuable content to your targeted page is one of the most effective ways in terms of quick rankings.

Yes, content is still King!

When adding content to the targeted page based on user intent behind the keywords you are trying to rank for, the content needs to be better than your competitors.

Here is how you can make it better. Use SEMRush’s On-Page Checker and SEO Content Template.

Step 1. Get a SEMRush account if you don’t have one, best SEM tool out there!

Step 2. Go to the SEO Content Template section and type in your targeted keywords, this report will show you how many keywords your competitors are using to rank for that keyword on the page that is ranking, what links you need to build for that page, header and title strategies, and much more.

Step 3. After you write your content, place SEO elements on the website’s page, use the On-Page Checker in SEMRush to see how your content compares to your competitors at this point. The cool thing about the on-page checker it will give you a grade, so you may need to make some adjustments from there.

Step 4. After completing step 3, submit page to be fetched and rendered by Google so that Google crawls the page and indexes your new changes quickly.

We have literally seen a page go from not ranking to the 1st page in a day by doing this. This will NOT always happen, but is a great start. Keywords have different competition levels, so more effort will most likely be needed.“ (Editor: CrossCap has no affiliation with any of the aforementioned tools.

– Lamar Hull, Organic Clicks, LLC

Have a Plan

“1) Think “Mobile First”
2) Have a Plan, Keep it Simple, Start Today!
3) Identify where you are today, where you want to go tomorrow, find someone that can help you get there and take action.”

– Don Richardson, Digital Marketing Consultant, Digital Popcorn Marketing

We at CrossCap can’t agree more with Don Richardson: having a detailed marketing plan that outlines business goals and execution strategy is crucially important in order to stay focused and beat the competition. Depending on the complexity of your marketing plan, proper marketing planning software can come in handy in helping you achieve productivity, transparency and streamline your marketing operations.