RJM's
Insights

Even today, when dealing with the senior market, digital marketing solutions can often be seen as "too new". Public perception of seniors is that they haven’t needed to, or aren’t interested in adapting to new technologies such as social media, smartphones, tablets, or online shopping. But inside senior living, we know that’s not the case.

Continuing care retirement communities and independent living campuses have seen their active seniors participate in learning sessions for iPads, join social media to keep up with grandchildren, and insist on fast and reliable Wi-Fi and broadband access.

Mary Meeker’s Internet Trends Report is out!

“Mary who?” you ask?

A partner at the venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins, she has been covering the emerging technology markets since early in her career. Serving on the boards of companies such as Square and DocuSign, she releases a yearly report on trends on the Internet. And the report is no light reading – this year’s spans 294 slides and covers everything from monthly active users for social media to the U.S. GDP and unemployment rates.

Released on May 30, we understand if you haven’t spent the time to go through all 294 slides quite yet. So, we thought we’d take a moment to pull out the important points that we saw.

This is not a political discussion. We’re an advertising agency.

But with the amount of every company’s budget that has shifted to digital advertising in the last few years, it’s hard to ignore all of the issues going on in social media these days from a purely marketing standpoint. Because when it comes down to it, social media is us. It’s our customers. And that’s what we’re focused on. The customers.

While it may be easy to blow off all of these stories in the news today swirling around Facebook, Google and Amazon, we must pay attention. Too many companies have invested into building large marketing infrastructure around these platforms to pass these stories off as pure political fluff.

The internet has dramatically changed the transactions between businesses and consumers. Today more information, activities, and services are available to consumers online. This has resulted in many websites being deemed a place of public accommodation, requiring ADA compliance for those with disabilities.

Are you Maximizing Your Current Customer Accounts?

Increased competition and new banking methods make customer acquisition harder than ever. Instead of struggling to acquire a new customer, try switching your focus from acquisition to expansion through cross-selling. Expanding the number of products and services that your current customers utilize allows you to increase deposits or revenue without incurring the costs needed to convince a new customer to switch banks. Cross-selling and customer retention is critical in getting ahead of the competition.

If the promise of technology has always been to make life easier, it has surely fulfilled its mission for the consumer, and left the small business owner and marketer behind to enjoy the aftermath. As the speed of both the progression and adaptation of technology continues to climb, consumers become more mobile, less attentive, and ultimately, less brand loyal.

And the business owner and marketing executive is left to try to adapt. Staying informed on all the options, and which ones make a difference, can sometimes feel like a new position in itself. 

2017 is well underway—but are your digital strategies? If you were living under a rock the past few years and don’t understand how important search rankings are—93% of online experiences begin with search. When it comes to SEO, not only are Google’s algorithm updates changing rapidly, but also customers’ usage and expectations. Usability has heavily influenced Google’s algorithm in the past year. Here are my top 3 SEO updates of 2016 influenced by consumer usability:

Fifteen years ago, Google was barely a newborn. Literally only a month old as a company, Google consisted of nothing more than a few founders and some loosely tied together hardware in a Menlo Park garage. By 2004, Google was a billion-dollar company being publicly traded on the NASDAQ. But this isn't a story of their meteoric rise; it's a story of how they have pulled your business into their journey.

Over the Christmas break, I happened to be in Detroit with family enjoying the last days of the Walter P. Chrysler Museum. Shortly after we left, the inevitable discussion of where to eat came up. So I did what every good American now does and grabbed my cell phone. But I didn't fire up Facebook. Or Twitter. I started tapping icons for many social media outlets that many businesses don't even consider.

After all is said and done, what do we know for sure? First, we know that it's rare, if not unheard of, for a business owner to say that their website isn't important to their business. Years ago it was established that to not be online was to miss out on opportunities that could elevate business sales to numbers beyond normal expectations. Second, we know that the average business is reaching thousands of people per month with their site. This in itself deserves congratulations for many business owners.