Sean Parnell
Shopify vs. WooCommerce: Choosing the Best Platform for Your Online Store
If you’re ready to explore the world of e-commerce, you’ll probably find yourself comparing two of the most popular online store platforms: Shopify and WooCommerce.
Understanding the key differences between Shopify and WooCommerce will help you select the best solution for your business, depending on various aspects of your business, such as your level of technical expertise, customization needs, and budget.
The Basics: Shopify vs. WooCommerce
Shopify is a fully hosted, cloud-based e-commerce platform that offers a comprehensive solution for building, managing and growing an online store. For many businesses, Shopify is their entire website, not just e-commerce, including a home page,
... Continue Reading >>3 Critical Website Measures
Every company knows they need a compelling website to stay competitive. Still, far too many spend little or no time tracking and evaluating the effectiveness of their website and online marketing campaigns. Over the last decade, our experience has taught us that having the answers to 3 basic questions—and knowing what to do with that information—can lay the foundation for higher conversion rates, increased sales, and greater ROI on marketing budgets. These answers can be the difference between success and failure.
- How many unique visitors does your site get per month?
- What are the top 5 pages on your site?
- What are the top 5 sources of traffic to your site?
7 B2B Marketing Steps for Fueling Sustainable, Double-Digit Growth
From manufacturing to software developers to professional services to contractors, breaking through competitor noise in the B2B marketing landscape isn’t easy, but it’s essential for growth. Picture this: you’re not just aiming for incremental gains but for sustainable, double-digit growth that propels your business forward.
Achieving this requires more than just surface-level tactics. It’s about diving deep into market research, crafting compelling stories, and executing a balanced mix of inbound and outbound strategies. Here are seven essential steps that will transform your B2B marketing efforts into results you can measure by leads and sales, not noise.
1. Marketing Strategy
An effective marketing strategy isn’t something you can whip up after a few sales calls.
... Continue Reading >>Four Takeaways from the Google Search Algorithm Leak
The Google search algorithm has always been a bit of a guessing game for marketers and SEO specialists. The only solid evidence of Google search determinants up until this point has been culled from search and website data from testing various SEO strategies (i.e. trial and error) and statements from Google itself. The guessing game, however, while far from over, has been flooded with new clues.
In March, thousands of documents from inside Google’s Search division were leaked online, detailing what has been described as 14,000 ranking features. As reported on May 29, Google confirmed the authenticity of the documents in an emailed statement to the The Verge, while also attempting to downplay the relevance of the information.
... Continue Reading >>How to Cut B2B Marketing Costs and Increase Leads & Sales
“Reducing marketing spending will, in most cases, only make a bad financial situation worse. You can almost never save your way to profitability.”
– Craig Bloem, Inc.
When the market falters or new obstacles cut into your business goals, are you tempted to cut marketing costs? Be careful not to cut your leads and sales as a result:
Not all outsourced marketing is effective, so how do you select the right partner?
The right marketing partner is a cost-effective way to control costs without losing the momentum that marketing provides for your sales efforts. Here are some key criteria for identifying the partner – and the ROI – that you need.
... Continue Reading >>The Formula for Successful Messaging in Headlines, Ads, Emails & Everything
The book Tested Advertising Methods by John Caples is an all-time classic and must read for all marketing professionals.
Though first published in 1932, the fifth edition has been updated so that its even more relevant today and, in our opinion, is relevant for print and digital ads, Google Ads and other pay-per-click campaigns as well as for blog post and web page titles (H1 headings), page titles and meta descriptions (SEO), email campaign subject lines and preview text, direct mail pieces, company tag lines, and anywhere else you promote your messaging.
Why is this book so good and relevant over the last 100 years? Because it takes a simple and powerful approach to writing headlines and other copywriting that generates leads and sales.
... Continue Reading >>How to Increase Lead Generation with Thought Leadership
It may seem obvious to say that people seek out businesses that demonstrate thought leadership in their industries, but you would be surprised at the number of business owners whose marketing includes few examples of it – or none at all.
When a potential customer is researching your products and solutions, thought leadership can be a powerful differentiator. There are few ways as effective at driving leads as guides, industry publication articles and whitepapers that demonstrate the depth of expertise and experience you provide.
So why don’t more marketing efforts feature this type of content?
In many cases it’s because of a mistaken idea that marketing should lead with the benefits of products and services.
... Continue Reading >>B2B Podcast Marketing Recommendations
If you can justify the signifiant amount of time needed to recruit guests and record them, podcasts are an additional way to share thought leadership, increase brand awareness, and generate leads – and video podcasts are even better because you can promote them in all the ways you promote podcasts and videos.
Below are recommendations for getting the most out of this effort – since we are not podcasting experts, we are focused more on how to effectively promote it with the right level of external support, plus other recommendations that could help increase lead generation for you.
Recording & Production
Subject Matter
- Identify subjects where you can offer unique thought leadership
- Guests are recommended – especially those with their own podcast and are willing to help promote yours
- Up to 20-25 minutes in length is recommended (at least at first)
Equipment
- We’re not the experts but know you shouldn’t rely on your computer’s mic or AirPods
- Recommendations from PC Mag
Content
- Title/name
- Description
- Original cover art (3,000 x 3,000 pixels in PNG or JPG)
- Name of host(s)
- Website
- Selected category(s)
- Primary language
- Episode titles within 20 characters and description
- If you need help creating your podcasts,
WP Engine vs. SiteGround: Which is Better for Your WordPress Site?
While both WP Engine and SiteGround make starting and managing a WordPress website easier than with non-WordPress hosting like GoDaddy, Network Solutions, and HostGator, our experience over the last five years is that WP Engine is better suited to host websites for small and mid-sized and large-sized businesses. Users praise WP Engine for its custom software solutions, testing environments, and overall great experience for any website.
Because WP Engine is dedicated to WordPress entirely, it’s built to be the best option for efficiently managing WordPress sites, while SiteGround must also accommodate other content management systems. As SiteGround initially appears to be the cheaper option, featuers we believe most websites need all cost extra and make WP Engine a better deal.
... Continue Reading >>Leveraging B2B Marketing Efforts for Double-Digit Growth
The B2B sales and marketing landscape can be a murky place.
Visitors may flock to your website but create few qualified leads. A flurry of sales activity doesn’t necessarily lead to sustainable gains. You can flaunt your services at all the right trade shows and still go home with little to show for it. And every five minutes some new “must do” marketing platform or technology pops up on the scene.
It’s never been easier to sink time and money into marketing your business. What’s harder is creating a focused and disciplined strategy that’s tied to genuine and measurable ROI.
At Innovaxis, we specialize in helping B2B businesses develop and implement marketing strategies that deliver sustainable,
... Continue Reading >>
