How to use SEO Best Practices to Get More YouTube Views

Video is no longer just another tactic to help you get the most out of your content marketing. It has become an absolute must if you’re serious about getting your product or service in front of the right people. According to a recent Hubspot report, video was the most commonly used form of content marketing in 2021, overtaking blogs and infographics. 

However, simply creating videos doesn’t mean your customers will find or watch them. Developing a strategy to increase YouTube views is just as important as creating videos. This is where understanding YouTube SEO best practices come in handy. YouTube SEO, as the name suggests, is optimizing your videos to rank higher on the YouTube search engine. 

4 SEO Tips to Get More YouTube Views

If you’re looking for a way to increase your YouTube views, here are four SEO best practices as you add and upload your videos:

1. Incorporate Keywords Strategically

Keywords play a valuable role in any SEO campaign. Whether you’re optimizing your website or uploading videos, identifying the right SEO keywords for your business is the first step. When it comes to YouTube, there are several places you want to strategically incorporate keywords for your videos. You want to include your keyword in the video title, description, tags, and file name. It’s helpful to identify one or two main words that describe your video and feature them prominently in your description and title.

2. Add a Custom Thumbnail Image, Cards, and End Screens to Your Video 

The video itself also plays a key role in SEO for YouTube. A custom thumbnail image for your video can make a drastic difference in the click-through rate. 

Cards and end screens are also helpful images to create and add to your video. YouTube cards are preformatted notifications that encourage people to take desired actions during your video. End screens appear after a video finishes and tell a viewer what they can do next. Both cards and end screens can optimize the viewing experience and encourage viewers to watch another video or take further action when they’ve finished.

3. Use Subtitles in Your Video

Using subtitles and closed captions is another tip for success in YouTube search. Both subtitles and closed-caption files contain the text from the video in a transcript. This is where using keywords while talking is important. By including keywords in your video and adding subtitles, you’re able to reach our audience and increase your rankings. Make sure you provide accurate captions and subtitles and don’t indulge in keyword stuffing.

4. Create Engagement and Ask for Comments to Increase Rankings

Engagement is one of the biggest factors in your video rankings. Comments on videos also appear to be an influential ranking factor. As you create your videos, consider how you might ask for feedback or comments. Another thing you can do to increase engagement is directly replying to comments on your videos. Responding and creating a dialogue will help you create a community from the ground up. 

All these components may seem a bit complicated, but they’re incredibly easy to deploy. Remember: there’s a huge audience on YouTube, and when you optimize your videos for YouTube, you also increase your chances of your brand reaching your target demographic.

Discover our unique approach to helping small businesses optimize their SEO efforts through Green Apple’s SEO Silo.

5 Ways to Repurpose Your Outdated Content

Let’s face it. You put a lot of time, energy, and effort into creating content for your audience. As time goes on, it can be deflating and frustrating to see the shelf-life of your content become outdated. But that doesn’t always have to be the case. Finding ways to repurpose your outdated content is a great way to get the most out of your content marketing and be more agile in your marketing efforts.  

Why Repurpose Your Outdated Content?

Here are a couple of specific reasons we love helping our clients find ways to repurpose content:

1. Repurposing content enables you to maximize the investment you’ve already made. 

Rather than crafting every single piece of content from scratch, repurposing outdated content enables to you tweak what you’ve already created. This saves time, energy, and money. In most cases, you don’t have to do a complete overhaul, (although that’s also an option). Repurposing content enables you to take what’s already there and make sure it appeals to today’s audience. 

2. Repurposing allows you to maximize your best content for new audiences. 

Repurposing content can help you take your great, old content and give it a breath of fresh air (and some much-needed visibility). It’s also worth considering updating calls-to-action to articles that are still generating traffic to help you increase lead generation potential.

5 Ways to Repurpose Your Outdated Content

There are several approaches you can take to repurposing content. Here are a few tactics we’ve found to be most valuable. 

1. Conduct an SEO Audit to Determine Which Content to Update

The first step in repurposing outdated content is to identify which blogs or resources are the most beneficial to refresh. This is where a content audit can help. An SEO content audit is a process of assessing existing content on your website to determine how you can get more and better quality organic traffic to each blog post or resource.

2. Add New Ideas or Project Examples to Your Content

One simple way to make outdated content more relevant is by updating it with new insights or portfolio examples. More than likely, the majority of your content is evergreen. Why throw out the whole post when only 20% is outdated? Updating your content could be as simple as adding a few recent statistics or highlighting a new “tip or trick” based on the latest industry insights. 

3. Turn Content into Infographics, Videos, or Podcasts

Transforming written blog posts into videos or podcasts is a great way to extend the shelf-life of your outdated content. These are also helpful ways to repurpose content for different audiences. Some people prefer visual infographics over text statistics. Others choose podcasts over ebooks. Reformatting your content for different mediums means appealing to more audiences and extending your reach.

4. Utilize Content in Email Series

If you’ve written a few blog posts on the same topic, consider repurposing them into a newsletter series or email course. An effective marketing E-newsletter can showcase your best blog posts and resources. You can send this on a monthly basis or create custom email journeys for different personas as they’re added to your email list. 

5. Add Guest Posts or Third-Party Articles to Your Site

If you’ve already been guest blogging as part of your digital PR campaign, why not maximize that content by adding it to your site? All you need to do is to ask the owners of the sites if they’re comfortable with you republishing the content on your own blog. This also provides them with added exposure to the post if you include a link back to it saying where it was originally published.

When it comes to maximizing your content marketing effort, find ways to work smarter, not harder. These tips will help you develop a strategy to repurpose outdated content and reach more people. Any effort will be worth it as it gives you a chance to help others, build your audience and grow your business. For more help in optimizing your content efforts, reach out to us to schedule a strategy session.

Brand Reputation Management: How to Reach Out for Testimonials

person sitting at table with laptop

Testimonials and case studies are two of the most effective marketing tools to manage your brand’s reputation. As potential clients read through a testimonial, they can picture themselves in that person’s shoes and see how they can solve their problems with the solutions that you provide. They help you communicate one of the most important marketing messages, described by marketing guru Seth Godin as, “People like me do things like this.” 

While businesses recognize the importance of testimonials, many struggle to find effective ways to capture them and integrate them into their marketing efforts. Over the years, our team has worked with clients in various industries capitalizing on the power of testimonials for brand reputation management. Here are a few things we’ve learned about how to manage your reputation.

The Power of Testimonials to Manage Your Reputation

Brand reputation is essential for building relationships with customers – both existing and potential. Testimonials play an important role by enlisting your most enthusiastic brand advocates to deliver some reputational equity on your behalf.

Here are just a few statistics that speak to the importance of testimonials and customer reviews:

  • 72% of consumers say positive reviews and testimonials make them trust a business more. (Source)
  • 95% of people say that reviews – whether positive or negative – influence their purchasing decisions. (Source)

Acquiring more customer reviews also has a significant impact on the ROIs of your marketing efforts. According to Bazaarvoice’s Conversation Index Volume 8, when users engage with reviews on your site, three things are sure to occur.

  • Consumers are 58% likely to convert.
  • Your chances to generate more revenue per visitor increases by 62%.
  • Users are likely to increase purchasing by 3%.

How to Get More Testimonials & Customer Reviews

Now you know why testimonials are important, here are our tips on how to get them:

1. Use Customer Survey Platforms and Tools 

In today’s digital world, there are a variety of tools you can use to easily capture customer testimonials and feedback. While we’ve used several survey platforms to capture customer responses for our clients, Green Apple recently began using the Delighted survey platform to capture feedback on behalf of our clients. 

2. Monitor Your Google Reviews

Google is also an important source for customer testimonials, especially as people use the platform to search for your brand. Maximizing the potential of Google reviews starts by setting up a Google Business Profile page and then finding creative ways to generate more Google reviews from happy customers. 

3. Check Out Your Facebook and LinkedIn Reviews 

Your Facebook and LinkedIn pages are also great places to generate reviews. If you don’t have any testimonials, consider asking your followers to leave reviews and incentivize them for sharing their feedback.

How to Use Testimonials to Generate New Business

Once you’ve curated a library of testimonials and customer reviews, how do you maximize their potential? Here are a few ways to turn customer testimonials into solid content marketing that improves how you manage your brand reputation and generates new business: 

1. Strategically integrate testimonials throughout your website.

Testimonials are a great way to support the claims you’re making on your website. That’s why it’s important to include them throughout your website — on your home page, specific products/services, or even your contact page.

2. Create social media graphics with testimonials.

Social media is an excellent platform to promote reviews because it also gives you the ability to tag the reviewer and generate even more reach. Because social media is a more visual platform, it’s a good idea to spend some time making your customer testimonial look sharp and catch the eye of your audience. 

3. Produce video testimonials.

Creating a video testimonial is another way to provide visually-engaging content for potential customers! A video testimonial can be used on several different platforms, including your website, social media, email campaigns, and in sales meetings.

Want to Capture and Leverage More Customer Testimonials?

Green Apple Strategy uses a variety of tactics to help our clients gather, analyze, and leverage essential customer feedback. From content development to PR and social media management, Green Apple Strategy can craft a marketing approach to help you attract and retain qualified leads. Reach out to us today for a consultation.

Is Print Advertising Still Viable?

Printing press

Let’s face it: It is becoming increasingly difficult for brands to stand out and earn attention in today’s noisy world. While most of our content marketing focus has gone digital, especially in the news and media industry, print advertising is still a viable tactic to consider. Here are some surprising statistics about the viability of print advertising that are important for businesses and marketers to know:

  • Print ads generate a 20% higher motivation response, even more so if it appeals to more senses beyond touch. 
  • There is a 77% higher brand recall for print ads vs. 46% for digital ads.
  • Magazines and newspapers delivered the highest ROI of advertising at 125% — more than other ad mediums, like TV and digital’s ROI of 87%. 

Print advertising isn’t dead. Depending on our clients’ target audience and goals, we’ve found that print advertising has some advantages over digital features.

4 Benefits of Print Advertising

Here are four unique benefits that print advertising offers for your marketing:

1. Print advertising can help boost brand awareness and reputation. 

Print can be a powerful ally in reinforcing the brand message, establishing brand identity, and raising brand awareness. In fact, the percentage of people who pay close attention to print ads has more than doubled in the past decade, from 23% in 2010 to 49% in 2020. 

2. Print advertising increases the longevity of exposure.

Ad view times are incredibly low online. When you invest in print media, you create an opportunity for your advertisements to stick around for years. Whether it’s in a magazine, newspaper, or other printed publication, investing in print advertising provides long-term exposure for your audience. 

3. Print advertising is often more memorable.

The internet can be a distracting place. This weakens the effectiveness of digital advertising. On the other hand, people tend to remember more of the print content they read, which could have a bigger impact on mindshare for your brand. A recent study found that 75% of people reading the print ad could retrieve the information on it, compared to 44% who saw a digital version of the same ad.

4. Print advertising helps create a more emotional connection with your audience. 

Creating an emotional connection with potential customers is essential for inspiring them to take action. According to a study conducted by the United States Postal Service and Temple University’s Center for Neural Decision Making, print advertisements initiated a more robust emotional response than digital. Printed advertising has the unique ability to engage all the senses, which, in turn, creates a more emotional experience.

How to Strategically Invest in Print Advertising

How can you make print advertising work for your brand? Here are a few key strategies to consider:

1. Identify publications that reach your target audience.

Knowing your target audience is an essential part of any marketing strategy. When it comes to print marketing, this is important because you need to know what publications will help you reach your audience and what advertisements will be most appealing if you want them to work. 

2. Make sure your advertising grabs their attention.

You want to make sure your print ads and marketing campaigns rise above the noise. If you want to grab your audiences’ attention, your print advertising should make a statement that instantly intrigues and entices your customer. You can do this by using things like a strong headline or compelling images.

3. Create an omnichannel experience with your print advertising.

Combining traditional advertising, like print, billboards, and direct mail, with digital ads has proven to be four times more effective than those just employing digital resources to generate consumer engagement. That’s why it’s important to consider how to drive your audience to engage online through your print advertising. It could be adding an enticing “hook” and driving people to your website or social media accounts. QR codes have also become an effective way to combine print and digital advertising. 

4. Find ways to track & measure your advertising performance. 

Print advertising can be harder to track than digital so you can never be sure about how many people you’ve reached. That’s why it’s important to find creative ways to analyze your investment. One of the best ways to track print advertising is by placing a unique URL within the ad that leads customers to a specific landing page just used for that purpose.

Developing the most effective print advertising campaign comes down to the basic marketing principles of knowing your audience, creating compelling content that inspires action, and constantly analyzing your efforts. If you’re looking for a new way to reach customers, consider the impact print advertising could make for your business.

The 7 Strategies Your Email Newsletter Should Use

woman working on a laptop

When it comes to the basic “blocking and tackling” of effective email strategy in 2022, email newsletters are on the starting line. After all, 81% of B2B businesses name newsletters as their top content marketing strategy. However, the popularity of newsletters often makes it one of the most difficult tactics to deploy. It’s important for every business to consider how their newsletter is going to stand out in the crowded inboxes of their audience.

3 Benefits of Email Newsletters for Marketing

Before we dive into the email strategy for developing an effective newsletter, here are just a few important factors to consider:

1. Newsletters provide a way to educate current and prospective customers.

An effective email newsletter is informative and relevant. It should appeal directly to the subscriber’s interests and cover the topics from the industry. Because of this, newsletters provide your audience with a better understanding and knowledge of your brand in a way that is helpful. 

2. Newsletters help you keep leads warm.

Not everyone who visits your website or submits their email address is ready to buy. Newsletters can be a great way to keep potential customers engaged and informed until they’re ready to make the decision to buy. 

3. Newsletters can enhance your brand reputation and highlight your expertise.

Newsletters also provide a way to establish yourself as a thought leader in your industry and build expertise. By sharing relevant industry news and providing perspective on important topics for your audience in your newsletter, you become a trusted voice for them. 

7 Effective Strategies for Email Newsletters

So how do you create an engaging newsletter that creates momentum for your marketing efforts? Here are seven strategies to consider:

1. Choose an Email Software that Works for Your Brand

There are many email service providers out there on the market and choosing the right one is not easy. While we’ve used several survey platforms to send newsletters for our clients, our team likes the features and functionality that Campaign Monitor provides. The key is to find software that can meet your requirements and can guarantee both high deliverability and quality of your emails.

2. Set the Right Expectations by Letting People Know What to Expect from Your Newsletter

Because of how many emails are sent daily, people are more and more reluctant to share their email addresses. Whenever you’re asking people to sign up for your newsletter, it’s helpful to answer the question “What’s in it for me?”

Helping people recognize the value of subscribing to your newsletter and setting expectations for how you will communicate with them goes a long way in maximizing the ROI of your campaigns. 

3. Use a Clean and Consistent Template

You want to make sure your newsletters are skimmable and easy to read. Whether you use an out-of-the-box template or get one created especially for your brand, using a consistent design will help your brand achieve a layer of cohesiveness and flow.  

4. Make Sure Your Subject Line is Compelling

You only get one chance to make a great first impression with your subject line. According to research, 64% of readers make the decision to open an email based on the subject line alone. Here are a few different subject lines you can use to elevate your email newsletters.  

5. Consider Adding an Emoji to Your Subject Line

At Green Apple, we’ve found emojis help our clients’ newsletters stand out in a crowded inbox. One study analyzed over 9K email campaigns on mobile and found that subject lines that included emojis increased email open rates by 1,071% on Android and by 662% on iOS.

6. Make Your Newsletter Helpful & Informational More than Sales-Driven

Newsletters are better for cultivating customer loyalty and brand equity than they are for hard selling. When it comes to the content you create, it’s important to embrace the mindset of “always be helping.” One way to integrate this into your newsletters is the 90/10 rule: 90% informational content, 10% sales material. With the right balance, less is more and the educational material will lead to more sales than product copy.

7. Continually Analyze & Test to Find What Works

As with any marketing tactic, in email strategy, it’s important to constantly test and analyze your newsletter to see what works. You want to track the metrics that indicate whether or not your newsletter is working and test new ideas along the way. This includes testing out different strategies for send date, layout & design, calls-to-action, etc. 

Email newsletters might be something we’re all familiar with, but it can challenging to create a successful one for your own brand. We hope these insights and strategies help you develop a newsletter that delights subscribers and creates momentum for your marketing efforts.

What are Social Infographics and Why Do You Need Them?

Social media logos on phone

The social media landscape is constantly evolving and changing. One of the newest and most impactful trends? Social infographics. According to the latest research, the average attention span on the platform for video content is just about 2 seconds. On a desktop computer, the average attention span is 2.5 seconds. On a mobile device, it is 1.7 seconds.

Platforms like Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter, and Tik Tok are all valuable ways to stay connected to your audience. And yet, it’s become increasingly clear that your audience’s attention on social media is getting shorter and shorter. Social infographics provide a solution.

What are Social Infographics?

Social Infographics are short-form, visually-engaging content. They are designed to communicate a message as quickly as possible. There are many different forms of social infographics, including photos, videos, or micro-videos. In essence, social infographics are intended to be quick, easy to digest, and convenient to share. 

Why is Short, Image-Driven Content Important? 

Here are a few specific ways social infographics have become an effective way to create engagement for brands in every industry:

  • Social infographics are easy to digest. In an age of information overload and busy work lives, effective communication often requires the essence of the message to be delivered in the shortest time possible. 
  • Social infographics are incredibly effective on mobile devices. According to Google, more than 50% of web traffic comes from mobile devices. Social infographics are often created with mobile in mind, so they quickly capture an individual’s attention as they’re scrolling on their phones. 
  • Social infographics are more memorable. According to Forbes, adding infographics boosts credibility since 90% of all information we remember is based on visual impressions. Social infographics provide a way to help the content you create stick in the minds of your audience. 

 

Easy Ways to Create Social Infographic Content

One of the best things about social infographics is that you don’t have to look far to create countless content ideas. Here are a few specific ways we’ve worked with clients to create infographics for their social accounts:

Today’s consumers are craving short, easily-digestible content. (No pun intended.) Social infographics are a great way to create engagement and get the most out of your content. Take some time to think about the unique ways you can repurpose content into short, visually engaging content and discover the impact it can make on your content marketing efforts.

How To Upgrade Your LinkedIn Profile

linked in logo on an app icon

LinkedIn has always been the premier social media network for business professionals. But in recent years, LinkedIn has become a powerful marketing tool for businesses in every industry. While it’s important for brands to have a strategy for getting the most out of their LinkedIn page, equipping employees to elevate their personal LinkedIn profiles has become equally important.  

Your LinkedIn profile is important because it both represents employees as individual professionals and it can represent your company as a whole. Your profile can be a tremendous asset for someone who is deciding whether or not to do business with you or to accept a position at your company. If you work in customer relations, your profile can give clients in your portfolio confidence that you know how to take care of their needs. That’s why it is important for your marketing company to support employees on LinkedIn by sharing best practices and ideas for your employees to optimize their profiles. 

How to Upgrade & Improve Your LinkedIn Profile

If you’re responsible for marketing or business development, here are a few simple tips you can share to help your co-workers create compelling LinkedIn profiles. 

1. Choose a professional profile picture.

Your picture makes a big first impression on your profile. A professional headshot is ideal, but we realize finding a professional photographer isn’t always easy or affordable. 

Just because you don’t need an image taken by a professional doesn’t mean your picture shouldn’t be professional. Taking a high-quality photo on your smartphone doesn’t have to be complicated. Find a simple background and have someone take your picture for you. According to LinkedIn, you should aim for your face to take up about 60% of the image once it’s cropped.

2. Highlight the impact you’ve made in the headline. 

Your headline is the first thing that people see after your picture, so you want it to catch people’s attention. (It will default to your most recent job title if it’s not altered.) 

  • Start by adding your title and any relevant auxiliary roles (ex. speaker, author, nonprofit involvement, etc.)
  • Include relevant industry keywords
  • Add a value proposition statement about how you help people 
3. Write a compelling profile summary. 

Your summary is where you can really show your personality and share your story. It doesn’t need to be complicated, but it should be compelling. Rather than re-stating your resume or work experience, use your summary as a way to define yourself in your own words. Whether you use it to describe your unique calling or skill set, provide context for your career choices, highlight your biggest achievements, or show off your personality, the summary is your chance to share who you are in a way that is more personal and approachable.

4. Know your audience and what will get their attention.

As you craft your profile, think about who will be reading it — potential clients, new business opportunities, or future employees. Are there certain skills or areas of expertise they would want to know about? Once you have an idea of what readers might want to see, you can use these keywords in your headline, summary, experience, skills, and anywhere else they make sense on your profile. 

5. Use the features section to show off your best work. 

The features section on LinkedIn allows you to showcase media, links, and LinkedIn articles and posts at the top of your profile. This is a great way to highlight your expertise and skills in action. It could consist of a recent blog post you wrote, a presentation you’ve given, or a portfolio of your recent work. 

6. Ask for recommendations from recent clients.

It’s helpful for potential leads to see how you’ve helped other people. This is where recommendations can really enhance your credibility. Think of 2-3 people who have benefited from your work and ask if they’d be willing to write a recommendation. Many times offering to write a recommendation for them is a great way to return the favor.  

7. Engage regularly through posting and commenting.

Marketers know that consistent engagement is essential for producing results. While you don’t have to post every single day, it’s important to showcase consistent activity by writing posts and engaging with others. Set a recurring reminder on your work calendar to add a post or interact on the site for a set amount of time. If you don’t feel ready to write your own posts just yet, start with commenting. This will help humanize & upgrade your LinkedIn profile and show readers you’re actively connected to others. 

Your LinkedIn content has the power to paint a picture for your clients, prospective employees, and anyone coming in contact with your brand. Our hope is that these three marketing best practices will help you upgrade your LinkedIn profile in a way that benefits you and your business.

Campaign Monitor: A Marketing Agency’s Review

two people talking to each other in an office setting

In a world where marketing trends evolve rapidly, email marketing remains a tried-and-true strategy for engaging with customers. Whether you’re nurturing leads or driving sales, email continues to deliver exceptional ROI. Recent data supports its relevance:

  • Email marketing revenue worldwide is projected to reach $17.9 billion by 2027 (Statista).
  • 99% of consumers check their email daily, making it one of the most effective ways to reach them (Hubspot).
  • Email generates $36 for every $1 spent, highlighting its unmatched ROI potential. (Litmus).
  • For B2B businesses, 73% consider email marketing essential to their strategy (SoCal News Group).

Selecting the right platform is essential to maximize the effectiveness of your email campaigns. At Green Apple Strategy, we’ve experimented with numerous email marketing platforms over the years. After extensive testing and evaluations, Campaign Monitor consistently stands out as our top choice—particularly for B2B and service-based businesses.

Our digital marketing team recently conducted an in-depth audit of available email marketing platforms to ensure we’re using the best tools for our clients. Campaign Monitor emerged as the clear winner. Here’s why we’ve made it our platform of choice and continue to rely on it to drive exceptional results:

Why We Recommend Campaign Monitor

Campaign Monitor offers an intuitive experience with powerful features designed to optimize email marketing efforts. It’s easy to use, provides robust reporting, and offers upgrade options to scale alongside your business needs. As we continue to explore add-on features, we’re confident it will remain an invaluable resource for email campaigns this year and beyond.

1. User-Friendly Platform

Campaign Monitor’s simple and intuitive interface makes it easy for marketers of all experience levels to create, manage, and optimize email campaigns. Here are some key highlights:

  • Easy-to-Use Templates: With pre-designed templates, creating beautiful and functional emails is straightforward. The templates are easily customizable, allowing us to quickly tailor content to fit our clients’ branding.
  • Centralized Client Management: Managing multiple campaigns is seamless because all client accounts are accessible from one central dashboard. This feature is invaluable for marketing agencies juggling several client projects simultaneously.
  • Responsive Customer Support: Campaign Monitor’s customer service team is prompt, knowledgeable, and quick to offer helpful guidance whenever we have questions.

Another standout feature is the automation builder. 

campaign monitor automation

This essential tool allows us to craft personalized customer journeys and lead nurturing campaigns, ensuring subscribers receive timely and relevant communications. Campaign Monitor’s email automation tools can streamline workflows, improve efficiency, and enhance audience engagement—all vital for growth-driven marketing.

2. Easy Creation of Beautiful, Effective Emails

Email design plays a significant role in conversion rates. With Campaign Monitor, even marketers without design experience can produce professional emails. Here’s why:

  • Drag and Drop Layout Editor: This tool simplifies the process of building and editing emails, allowing users to easily add images, text, and other elements without needing coding knowledge. It’s intuitive and user-friendly, reducing the time spent on design.
  • Customizable Templates: While the platform’s default templates are excellent, Campaign Monitor also supports custom design work, making it possible to craft unique, branded emails tailored to specific campaign goals.
  • Mobile-Responsive Design: All templates automatically adapt to different screen sizes, ensuring emails look great on any device—a crucial feature.

3. Valuable Insights and Reporting Tools

Data-driven insights are essential for refining and improving email marketing strategies. Campaign Monitor’s reporting tools provide clear, actionable information:

  • Detailed Analytics: Metrics such as open rates, click-through rates, and engagement trends are easily accessible. This data helps identify what resonates with audiences and informs future campaign strategies.
  • Campaign Dashboards: The platform’s dashboards offer a comprehensive overview of performance, making it simple to evaluate the effectiveness of each email.
  • Client-Friendly Reports: We can quickly generate reports that clients can easily understand, providing them with transparency and insight into their campaign performance.

One standout feature is click maps, which visually display where users are clicking within an email. This makes it simple to identify high-performing content areas and adjust future designs for maximum engagement. Additionally, A/B testing capabilities allow us to test subject lines, content, and layouts to determine what drives the best results.

Elevate Your Email Marketing with Green Apple Strategy

At Green Apple Strategy, we are always searching for innovative ways to help our clients engage their audiences and achieve marketing success. Campaign Monitor has proven to be an invaluable tool for building impactful email campaigns, and we’re excited to continue leveraging its features for our clients.

If you’re looking to elevate your content marketing strategy and optimize your marketing campaigns for growth, our experienced team is here to help. Reach out today for a consultation and discover how we can help you create a roadmap for marketing success.

When to Use A Professional Photographer Instead of Your Smartphone

Capturing the attention of your audience is essential for any marketing campaign. Photos and images have become essential to achieving that goal. While technology has made it possible to take high-quality photos with a smartphone, there are times when hiring a professional photographer is important. 

Over the past few years, Green Apple has worked with our clients to hire professional photographers for employee headshots, Google My Business pages, marketing collateral, Google 360° tours, and drone footage. While hiring a professional photographer can sometimes be expensive, the quality of the images often provides a greater ROI in the long run. 

Here are just a few important statistics that highlight the importance of your photography:

  • 67% of consumers say the quality of a product image is “very important” in selecting and purchasing the product. (Source)
  • 75% of online shoppers rely on product photos when deciding on a potential purchase. (Source)
  • Good visual content is 40% more likely to get shared on your social accounts (Source)

4 Reasons to Invest in Professional Photography for Your Marketing

If you’re trying to decide whether or not to hire a professional photographer for your image needs, here are four factors to consider: 

1. Professional photography helps elevate your brand. 

Poor quality images, outdated images, or obvious stock photography can hurt your business. Having your own proprietary images to communicate your unique values, services, and products are invaluable. Good photography helps people to truly get a sense of what your company offers. 

2. Professional photography helps tell your story. 

Having high-quality, personalized content to market your business is so important to standing out online. A good photographer knows what customers want and can provide ideas and insights to elevate your images. 

3. Professional photography can equip your business with marketing assets. 

Great images are a long-lasting asset that can be reused over time and repurposed for many different applications. Whether you need a new piece of marketing collateral or want to build a library of images for social media, taking the time to hire a professional photographer can be an invaluable asset. It allows you to create high-resolution images that can be used on marketing assets for many different platforms and purposes. 

4. Professional photography can help you increase conversions. 

If you want to attract attention and customers to your brand, you need to have an impactful first impression on your audience by having great personal branding photography. Professional high-quality photos allow your customers to have a better understanding of you, your products, or your services. If a high-quality photo builds brand confidence, leads are more likely to purchase from your brand. 

When to use a Professional Photographer instead of your Smartphone 

Here are a few specific times we recommend clients hire a professional photographer: 

1. Team headshots

It looks professional when your team page uses similar images. A professional photographer ensures all of your headshots are consistent — from the lighting used, the background chosen, and the size and resolution of each shot. Taking the time to hire a professional photographer for your headshots instills the value of quality.

2. Images for your new website

The images on your website make a significant impression on your audience. It’s more difficult to create a good first impression with low-quality images or stock photos. If you’re investing in developing a new website, it’s valuable to set aside room in your budget to invest in new images that support a website redesign.  

3. Marketing collateral

Brochures, catalogs, or annual reports all need high-resolution images to build legitimacy and trust. Memorable images can help you tell a more compelling story and paint the picture you’re trying to create. 

4. Corporate events

You put a lot of time, energy, and money into your corporate events or parties. Why not invest a little more to ensure it is captured through compelling photography? Photographing your parties and outings is integral to showcasing your brand as a relevant and engaged community partner.

In marketing, photos add a component to communication that written and verbal methods do not. The old adage that a picture is worth a thousand words continues to hold true, even in the digital age.

Olivia Cooper Promoted to Client Relations Director

Olivia

Green Apple Strategy is excited to announce Olivia Cooper’s promotion to Client Relations Director. Olivia joined Green Apple as a Client Relations Specialist in 2018 and was promoted two years later to become a Senior Client Relations Specialist. Her new role will allow Olivia to continue to serve our clients while growing her capacity to lead and develop other members of the Green Apple client relations team.

Marketing has been crucial for businesses to adapt during and after the pandemic. During this time, Olivia played a valuable role for many clients. She embraced new challenges by developing creative strategies to support client retention and growth. Because of the work of Olivia and the rest of the Client Relations Team, we’ve built even stronger relationships with many of our clients over the past two years.

To celebrate her newest achievement, we wanted to highlight a few of the specific ways Olivia’s promotion will empower her to make an even greater impact on our team and our clients. 

Providing Greater Overarching Strategy and Creative Problem Solving

In her new role as Client Relations Director, Olivia will focus on providing oversight and strategic direction on all client accounts. This shift allows her to leverage her skills of problem-solving, opportunity analysis, and strategic plan development to impact more of the work we do for clients. 

“I’ve really enjoyed being a part of the growth we’ve had with several clients over the last few years,” said Olivia. “Each day, we serve as a strategic partner and that means constantly bringing ideas and opportunities to them in hopes of growing their brand and, ultimately, their business.”

Mentoring and Developing Others 

Another important part of the Director’s role is helping to mentor and lead the Client Relations Team. As Director, Olivia will have dedicated time to invest in the client relations team to provide training and guidance to help them grow in their roles. 

“Green Apple is in a phase of growth, so I’m really excited to be a part of expanding the Client Relations team and fostering an environment for the team where we all continue to learn from each other and the relationships we have with our clients,” Olivia said. “ We have a group of insanely talented (and fun!) people on the Client Relations Team and I’m really motivated to continue to work with them to enhance the services we provide for our clients,” she added.

“One of the things I love most about leading the team at Green Apple is watching people grow and develop as they discover their gifts and lean into their work with passion, commitment, and creativity,” said Samantha Pyle, Owner and Chief Strategist of Green Apple Strategy. “Since her very first day, I’ve watched Olivia bring the best version of herself to our clients. I am grateful for her partnership and excited about the greater impact she can make by stepping into the director role.”