In November, a long-lost friend (not really lost) started talking over email. We had been emailing back and forth for a week about his frustrations in getting his website to convert from visitors to customers. I will start out this person is not a customer as he is happy with his current provider and is also a close friend of his. He wanted to be heard about his struggles, what he is currently doing, and think of ways to improve his situation in the upcoming months.

As we talk to more people about taking advantage of generating leads from their website into opportunities we move to the talk of branding and marketing. We find that many people believe they are the same thing rather than two distinct items. Branding and marketing are not the same and each has a very important role that is used collaboratively together in your organization. Using marketing and branding together you can achieve a set of goals. In this article, we will define clearly what branding and marketing is and how each one used collaboratively can be used to grow your business.

This week and next week will be two weeks of predictions from industry leaders and those in the digital marketing field. For some these will be guesses while others are more educated guesses with some hard research behind them. For the past three years, we have predicted trends in the digital marketing space. This year is more exciting than the past as we have a large variety of sources we tapped into, cancelled many of our old marketing methods that produced no results, as well as tests we did internally to make this year's set of predictions. We are going to only write about what we see as the top 5 items.

Each year we go through and establish the core fundamentals for the coming year for not only ourselves but each of our social media maintenance plan clients. When a digital marketing campaign is built, you create directions for your business to build your brand and market to your current and future customers. These are plans and not written in stone as the further we look out the more we know things will change over the time. Whether you are a fortune 500 company in the Chicagoland area or are in a growing community like Merrillville Indiana your time spent on your digital marketing campaigns will benefit your business.

Every business has a story and they want to be heard. Whether you are in a small town like Chesterton Indiana, a college town like Valparaiso Indiana, or a big city like Chicago Illinois. You want your story told and to be heard by others. To get your story heard you need to market to those looking around you. In this post, we delve into more on being found locally.

Being found locally for any small business is crucial. As of May 2015, Google acknowledged that search on mobile devices in ten counties, including the United States, surpassed that of desktop searches. With this revelation of how important mobile search is it is more important than ever that your business is truly prepared for local search. Searching on mobile uses geographic (location based) search to determine the most relevant information.

The internet has been insecure for far too long. Google with the largest browser share is doing something about it. The question is how many people will listen. Based on the size of Google I would say that the Google Chrome Security team will achieve this much-needed additional security.

When a business doesn't have a strategic plan, what tends to happen is what we call the "copy" syndrome. This is where you look at one, or more, businesses and emulate aspects of their business. This often leads to changing directions midstream without focus and forethought. You essentially become a follower rather than a leader in your field. Rarely do these followers ever get out of that rut and become leaders in their field. When JM2 brings clients into our Valparaiso office we talk with them; it's our way. We don't ask directed questions to learn about them. Those questions all come out in regular conversation and we start to learn about their culture, who they are, their values, and more. This valuable information allows us to better serve them without having to "interrogate" them.

We talk with several businesses every week about increasing their business either through search engines or through social media channels. Many of these businesses do not need social media as it is not a good fit for them. Social media used correctly, and for the right type of business, can increase your brand awareness, increase customer loyalty, and build a trust through an active community of loyal followers. When used correctly social media is a powerful tool for those businesses that can benefit from it and a complete waste of time, resources, and money for those that use it incorrectly. We are going to delve into the most common social media myths that we have brought up to us.