5 Ways to Use Google Trends for SEO Research

As marketers, our job is to capitalize on what’s popular in the “here and now.”

When big news hits, how does the data get interpreted? One great way to figure out what is popular is with Google Trends.

This tool identifies current and existing trends in search marketing. You can then take what you’ve learned and apply it to any (and all) of your marketing strategies.

This article will help you understand how to use Google Trends and the specific steps you can take to maximize your efforts.

What is Google Trends?

Google Trends is an incredible tool that helps marketers identify trending topics across varying industries. While initially created for journalists, the world of journalism and marketing have a lot in common.

Both the journalist and the marketer are vying for attention. Whatever it is they’re trying to do, they want to get the attention of as many people as possible using information that is relevant and interesting to the audience.

In comes Google Trends. This resource will show you what topics are currently trending and how to use Google Trends to draw the attention of your chosen audience.

For example, in October 2021, the Pittsburgh Steelers are the number one trending search on Google. This could be due to a recent football game during the busy football season.

Google tells us this is a popular topic, so it might be a good idea to create some content around that topic. Of course, there are a million other factors that go into deciding what content to create, but Google Trends at least tells us what is popular.

The Google Trends search bar.

If you have a specific topic that you want to cover but aren’t sure if it’s trending, you can search for it in the search bar at the top.

For example, I decided to search “cryptocurrency” to see what Google had to say.

A google trends chart showing the popularity of cryptocurrency over time.

As you can see, you get a chart ranging from 0 to 100, with 100 being incredibly high interest and 0 being nearly no interest.

A few times across the last two years, cryptocurrency has spiked as a highly searched keyword on Google. This could be due to the release of new and popular coins or a lot more people getting established in crypto and keeping track of trends.

Why Should You Use Google Trends for Marketing?

Even if you aren’t involved in content creation, you should know how to use Google Trends. Marketers who use this tool do so because they understand the importance of capitalizing on trends.

We’re often very focused on producing the most evergreen content possible, but we should also work to maximize our efforts by finding the right time and place to put out a certain piece of content. Here’s how to use Google Trends:

Find Interesting Topics

Whether you’re a blogger, content marketer, or SEO professional, you need to find interesting topics people want to read about. In the SEO world, we’re so focused on our keywords and technical SEO that we sometimes forget that people actually want to read about topics that interest them.

A great way to find what interests people the most is Google Trends. The tool will tell you how much interest surrounds a specific search phrase so you can determine whether or not it’s worth creating content about it.

Keep in mind that not all popular trends are a good choice. To work, look for popular trends that are also related to your industry.

Inspire Creativity

Google Trends is not only useful for written content, but visual content as well. If you’re trying to figure out what to do with your social media or how to improve a featured image on your blog post, Google Trends can help you figure out what your audience wants to see.

By creating a relevant and interesting image, you’re not only generating attention for your content, but showing your target audience you understand them and know exactly what they want. This has many SEO-related benefits, too.

Identify (and Leverage) Seasonal Trends

If you’re in the travel, e-commerce, or tourism industries, your business might be seasonal. Identifying when to stock up on certain items can be difficult.

For example, let’s say you sell a piece of bass fishing equipment in your e-commerce store. You could use Google Trends to see when in the year bass fishing trends the most. Let’s take a look for ourselves.

A google trends chart.

As you can see from the image, the interest in bass fishing gradually increases through the late winter and into spring. It peaks in early summer and then drops back down as you move into fall and winter again—at least in the Northern hemisphere.

This would tell an e-commerce store owner that it’s time to really start pushing your marketing campaigns in the late winter, because this is when interest is trending. You may also want to increase your inventory to prevent backorders.

5 Ways to Use Google Trends for Marketing

Now that you understand some of the motivation behind how to use Google Trends for SEO, let’s look at the actionable steps you can take to make a difference in your various marketing campaigns.

1. Get Ideas for Blog Posts

Google Trends is a great way to find new and exciting topics to write about. If you’re a writer, you know how challenging it can be to produce content your readers will love and will rank well on Google. Google Trends is a sure-fire method to find good topics because they tell you exactly what is trending.

Best of all, they provide you with specific topics and queries around trending search phrases. Let’s stick with the bass fishing example and scroll down a little bit. One is related topics, and the other is related queries. Here’s what it looks like:

Generate blog post ideas using google trends.

Now you can expand on the theme and write about related topics. Major League Fishing and Bass Anglers Sportsman Society were some top related topics. Based on that, perhaps they were trending since Major League Fishing launched in 2022. On top of that, it was Bass Pro’s 50th anniversary, making a big year in fishing overall.

It’s important to choose blog post topics based on trends if you’re writing something that is time-sensitive. If it’s not evergreen content, it needs to be completely relevant to your audience at the time you publish it.

2. Get Ideas for Social Media Campaigns

Google Trends searches aren’t only for organic search marketing; you can use them for social media as well. Building a large social following and constantly coming up with interesting content to promote is a tall task. Google Trends can help.

We can use the related queries section to identify trending topics and build creatives and copy around that. For example, we see a few searches relating to a bass pro fishing tournament. If we run a fishing e-commerce store, perhaps we want to create a social media campaign on that topic. We could use the tournament to draw attention to our brand and maybe mention professional fishers using gear or lures we offer.

Another interesting query is “winter bass fishing lures.” That is one of those seasonal examples I was talking about. Now might be a good time to create a social media campaign around our best fishing lures for the winter season. People are preparing to fish when it’s cold and we can use that to our advantage.

3. Use It to Improve SEO

One obvious area to use Google Trends for SEO is in organic search. It can also help with keyword research. Not everyone is using Google Trends, so you can use it to identify relevant keywords and then use free SEO tools like Ubersuggest to decide if it’s a valuable keyword or not.

Best of all, you can look at years’ worth of data so you can plan for the future by knowing whether or not a topic is evergreen enough to put in the time and effort.

Google trends chart for the term bass fishing.

If we take the same bass fishing keyword and spread it out across five years, it becomes more apparent that the trend will continue for years.

Each year the volume rises and falls during the same months. This can fuel your marketing strategy and help you prepare for the months ahead.

4. Find Long-tail Keywords for Paid Campaigns

Finding the right keywords for your paid campaigns is crucial to your success. It’s also important from a financial standpoint, because the sooner you find the right keywords, the sooner you can start capitalizing on paid ads.

If we narrow our bass fishing search down to 90 days, it tells us more about what is trending right now.

long tail keyword research in google trends.

There are three long-tail keywords, with one of them being “bass pro fishing bibs”. A bib is what fishers wear to cover their clothes when they get into the water. They also wear them when it’s getting cold as opposed to waders. This tells us fishers are looking for gear to help them keep warm as the temperatures start to drop.

If we’re not currently selling fishing bibs on our e-commerce store, this would also tell us that now is the time to do so. We may create a paid campaign around that type of product with an image of someone using a bib in a fall-like setting.

This would appeal to our target audience, and we know the term is trending, so there should be plenty of paid search volume.

5. Find Trending Topic Ideas for Webinars

When you’re creating a webinar, you want to reach the right people (those interested in what you have to offer) at the right time. Google Trends can help you do just that.

Sticking with the fishing theme, perhaps you’re selling a course on bass fishing and you’re using a free webinar to draw people in and get them to buy the course. You’ll want to use currently trending topics in social media and PPC advertising to get these people’s attention. You also need to know what anglers are actively searching for on the internet.

In comes Google Trends. The tool lays it all on the line for you to start speaking their language. There should be no need to guess or take chances between proper keyword research and Google Trends.

FAQs

Is Google Trends free to use?

Yes, it is a free tool from Google. Google Trends takes a quick look at what’s trending in the news, what people are currently searching for, and how things change over time. These searches can be based on season or geographic location.  

Can Google Trends be used for SEO?

Google Trends is an excellent tool that can support SEO through niche content planning. Put in the keyword you’re curious about following and gain valuable insights into how many people are talking about that topic and other closely related topics. This allows you to curate a highly personalized SEO strategy. 

Conclusion

Being able to identify trends is important for all marketers. No matter what industry you’re in, your target audience is actively searching for things on Google, and you need to figure out what those things are.

Google Trends is a great way to get started. Need more help? Reach out to our digital marketing team.

Do you think Google Trends is a powerful marketing tool? Why or why not?

The post 5 Ways to Use Google Trends for SEO Research appeared first on Buy It At A Bargain – Deals And Reviews.

5 Ways to Use Google Trends for SEO Research

As marketers, our job is to capitalize on what’s popular in the “here and now.”

When big news hits, how does the data get interpreted? One great way to figure out what is popular is with Google Trends.

This tool identifies current and existing trends in search marketing. You can then take what you’ve learned and apply it to any (and all) of your marketing strategies.

This article will help you understand how to use Google Trends and the specific steps you can take to maximize your efforts.

What is Google Trends?

Google Trends is an incredible tool that helps marketers identify trending topics across varying industries. While initially created for journalists, the world of journalism and marketing have a lot in common.

Both the journalist and the marketer are vying for attention. Whatever it is they’re trying to do, they want to get the attention of as many people as possible using information that is relevant and interesting to the audience.

In comes Google Trends. This resource will show you what topics are currently trending and how to use Google Trends to draw the attention of your chosen audience.

For example, in October 2021, the Pittsburgh Steelers are the number one trending search on Google. This could be due to a recent football game during the busy football season.

Google tells us this is a popular topic, so it might be a good idea to create some content around that topic. Of course, there are a million other factors that go into deciding what content to create, but Google Trends at least tells us what is popular.

If you have a specific topic that you want to cover but aren’t sure if it’s trending, you can search for it in the search bar at the top.

For example, I decided to search “cryptocurrency” to see what Google had to say.

A google trends chart showing the popularity of cryptocurrency over time.

As you can see, you get a chart ranging from 0 to 100, with 100 being incredibly high interest and 0 being nearly no interest.

A few times across the last two years, cryptocurrency has spiked as a highly searched keyword on Google. This could be due to the release of new and popular coins or a lot more people getting established in crypto and keeping track of trends.

Why Should You Use Google Trends for Marketing?

Even if you aren’t involved in content creation, you should know how to use Google Trends. Marketers who use this tool do so because they understand the importance of capitalizing on trends.

We’re often very focused on producing the most evergreen content possible, but we should also work to maximize our efforts by finding the right time and place to put out a certain piece of content. Here’s how to use Google Trends:

Find Interesting Topics

Whether you’re a blogger, content marketer, or SEO professional, you need to find interesting topics people want to read about. In the SEO world, we’re so focused on our keywords and technical SEO that we sometimes forget that people actually want to read about topics that interest them.

A great way to find what interests people the most is Google Trends. The tool will tell you how much interest surrounds a specific search phrase so you can determine whether or not it’s worth creating content about it.

Keep in mind that not all popular trends are a good choice. To work, look for popular trends that are also related to your industry.

Inspire Creativity

Google Trends is not only useful for written content, but visual content as well. If you’re trying to figure out what to do with your social media or how to improve a featured image on your blog post, Google Trends can help you figure out what your audience wants to see.

By creating a relevant and interesting image, you’re not only generating attention for your content, but showing your target audience you understand them and know exactly what they want. This has many SEO-related benefits, too.

Identify (and Leverage) Seasonal Trends

If you’re in the travel, e-commerce, or tourism industries, your business might be seasonal. Identifying when to stock up on certain items can be difficult.

For example, let’s say you sell a piece of bass fishing equipment in your e-commerce store. You could use Google Trends to see when in the year bass fishing trends the most. Let’s take a look for ourselves.

A google trends chart.

As you can see from the image, the interest in bass fishing gradually increases through the late winter and into spring. It peaks in early summer and then drops back down as you move into fall and winter again—at least in the Northern hemisphere.

This would tell an e-commerce store owner that it’s time to really start pushing your marketing campaigns in the late winter, because this is when interest is trending. You may also want to increase your inventory to prevent backorders.

5 Ways to Use Google Trends for Marketing

Now that you understand some of the motivation behind how to use Google Trends for SEO, let’s look at the actionable steps you can take to make a difference in your various marketing campaigns.

1. Get Ideas for Blog Posts

Google Trends is a great way to find new and exciting topics to write about. If you’re a writer, you know how challenging it can be to produce content your readers will love and will rank well on Google. Google Trends is a sure-fire method to find good topics because they tell you exactly what is trending.

Best of all, they provide you with specific topics and queries around trending search phrases. Let’s stick with the bass fishing example and scroll down a little bit. One is related topics, and the other is related queries. Here’s what it looks like:

Generate blog post ideas using google trends.

Now you can expand on the theme and write about related topics. Major League Fishing and Bass Anglers Sportsman Society were some top related topics. Based on that, perhaps they were trending since Major League Fishing launched in 2022. On top of that, it was Bass Pro’s 50th anniversary, making a big year in fishing overall.

It’s important to choose blog post topics based on trends if you’re writing something that is time-sensitive. If it’s not evergreen content, it needs to be completely relevant to your audience at the time you publish it.

2. Get Ideas for Social Media Campaigns

Google Trends searches aren’t only for organic search marketing; you can use them for social media as well. Building a large social following and constantly coming up with interesting content to promote is a tall task. Google Trends can help.

We can use the related queries section to identify trending topics and build creatives and copy around that. For example, we see a few searches relating to a bass pro fishing tournament. If we run a fishing e-commerce store, perhaps we want to create a social media campaign on that topic. We could use the tournament to draw attention to our brand and maybe mention professional fishers using gear or lures we offer.

Another interesting query is “winter bass fishing lures.” That is one of those seasonal examples I was talking about. Now might be a good time to create a social media campaign around our best fishing lures for the winter season. People are preparing to fish when it’s cold and we can use that to our advantage.

3. Use It to Improve SEO

One obvious area to use Google Trends for SEO is in organic search. It can also help with keyword research. Not everyone is using Google Trends, so you can use it to identify relevant keywords and then use free SEO tools like Ubersuggest to decide if it’s a valuable keyword or not.

Best of all, you can look at years’ worth of data so you can plan for the future by knowing whether or not a topic is evergreen enough to put in the time and effort.

Google trends chart for the term bass fishing.

If we take the same bass fishing keyword and spread it out across five years, it becomes more apparent that the trend will continue for years.

Each year the volume rises and falls during the same months. This can fuel your marketing strategy and help you prepare for the months ahead.

4. Find Long-tail Keywords for Paid Campaigns

Finding the right keywords for your paid campaigns is crucial to your success. It’s also important from a financial standpoint, because the sooner you find the right keywords, the sooner you can start capitalizing on paid ads.

If we narrow our bass fishing search down to 90 days, it tells us more about what is trending right now.

long tail keyword research in google trends.

There are three long-tail keywords, with one of them being “bass pro fishing bibs”. A bib is what fishers wear to cover their clothes when they get into the water. They also wear them when it’s getting cold as opposed to waders. This tells us fishers are looking for gear to help them keep warm as the temperatures start to drop.

If we’re not currently selling fishing bibs on our e-commerce store, this would also tell us that now is the time to do so. We may create a paid campaign around that type of product with an image of someone using a bib in a fall-like setting.

This would appeal to our target audience, and we know the term is trending, so there should be plenty of paid search volume.

5. Find Trending Topic Ideas for Webinars

When you’re creating a webinar, you want to reach the right people (those interested in what you have to offer) at the right time. Google Trends can help you do just that.

Sticking with the fishing theme, perhaps you’re selling a course on bass fishing and you’re using a free webinar to draw people in and get them to buy the course. You’ll want to use currently trending topics in social media and PPC advertising to get these people’s attention. You also need to know what anglers are actively searching for on the internet.

In comes Google Trends. The tool lays it all on the line for you to start speaking their language. There should be no need to guess or take chances between proper keyword research and Google Trends.

FAQs

Is Google Trends free to use?

Yes, it is a free tool from Google. Google Trends takes a quick look at what’s trending in the news, what people are currently searching for, and how things change over time. These searches can be based on season or geographic location.  

Can Google Trends be used for SEO?

Google Trends is an excellent tool that can support SEO through niche content planning. Put in the keyword you’re curious about following and gain valuable insights into how many people are talking about that topic and other closely related topics. This allows you to curate a highly personalized SEO strategy. 

Conclusion

Being able to identify trends is important for all marketers. No matter what industry you’re in, your target audience is actively searching for things on Google, and you need to figure out what those things are.

Google Trends is a great way to get started. Need more help? Reach out to our digital marketing team.

Do you think Google Trends is a powerful marketing tool? Why or why not?

The post 5 Ways to Use Google Trends for SEO Research appeared first on #1 SEO FOR SMALL BUSINESSES.

The post 5 Ways to Use Google Trends for SEO Research appeared first on Buy It At A Bargain – Deals And Reviews.

5 Ways to Use Google Trends for SEO Research

As marketers, our job is to capitalize on what’s popular in the “here and now.”

When big news hits, how does the data get interpreted? One great way to figure out what is popular is with Google Trends.

This tool identifies current and existing trends in search marketing. You can then take what you’ve learned and apply it to any (and all) of your marketing strategies.

This article will help you understand how to use Google Trends and the specific steps you can take to maximize your efforts.

What is Google Trends?

Google Trends is an incredible tool that helps marketers identify trending topics across varying industries. While initially created for journalists, the world of journalism and marketing have a lot in common.

Both the journalist and the marketer are vying for attention. Whatever it is they’re trying to do, they want to get the attention of as many people as possible using information that is relevant and interesting to the audience.

In comes Google Trends. This resource will show you what topics are currently trending and how to use Google Trends to draw the attention of your chosen audience.

A Google Trends result.

For example, in October 2021, the Pittsburgh Steelers are the number one trending search on Google. This could be due to a recent football game during the busy football season.

Google tells us this is a popular topic, so it might be a good idea to create some content around that topic. Of course, there are a million other factors that go into deciding what content to create, but Google Trends at least tells us what is popular.

The Google Trends search bar.

If you have a specific topic that you want to cover but aren’t sure if it’s trending, you can search for it in the search bar at the top.

For example, I decided to search “cryptocurrency” to see what Google had to say.

A google trends chart showing the popularity of cryptocurrency over time.

As you can see, you get a chart ranging from 0 to 100, with 100 being incredibly high interest and 0 being nearly no interest.

A few times across the last two years, cryptocurrency has spiked as a highly searched keyword on Google. This could be due to the release of new and popular coins or a lot more people getting established in crypto and keeping track of trends.

Why Should You Use Google Trends for Marketing?

Even if you aren’t involved in content creation, you should know how to use Google Trends. Marketers who use this tool do so because they understand the importance of capitalizing on trends.

We’re often very focused on producing the most evergreen content possible, but we should also work to maximize our efforts by finding the right time and place to put out a certain piece of content. Here’s how to use Google Trends:

Find Interesting Topics

Whether you’re a blogger, content marketer, or SEO professional, you need to find interesting topics people want to read about. In the SEO world, we’re so focused on our keywords and technical SEO that we sometimes forget that people actually want to read about topics that interest them.

A great way to find what interests people the most is Google Trends. The tool will tell you how much interest surrounds a specific search phrase so you can determine whether or not it’s worth creating content about it.

Keep in mind that not all popular trends are a good choice. To work, look for popular trends that are also related to your industry.

Inspire Creativity

Google Trends is not only useful for written content, but visual content as well. If you’re trying to figure out what to do with your social media or how to improve a featured image on your blog post, Google Trends can help you figure out what your audience wants to see.

By creating a relevant and interesting image, you’re not only generating attention for your content, but showing your target audience you understand them and know exactly what they want. This has many SEO-related benefits, too.

Identify (and Leverage) Seasonal Trends

If you’re in the travel, e-commerce, or tourism industries, your business might be seasonal. Identifying when to stock up on certain items can be difficult.

For example, let’s say you sell a piece of bass fishing equipment in your e-commerce store. You could use Google Trends to see when in the year bass fishing trends the most. Let’s take a look for ourselves.

A google trends chart.

As you can see from the image, the interest in bass fishing gradually increases through the late winter and into spring. It peaks in early summer and then drops back down as you move into fall and winter again—at least in the Northern hemisphere.

This would tell an e-commerce store owner that it’s time to really start pushing your marketing campaigns in the late winter, because this is when interest is trending. You may also want to increase your inventory to prevent backorders.

5 Ways to Use Google Trends for Marketing

Now that you understand some of the motivation behind how to use Google Trends for SEO, let’s look at the actionable steps you can take to make a difference in your various marketing campaigns.

1. Get Ideas for Blog Posts

Google Trends is a great way to find new and exciting topics to write about. If you’re a writer, you know how challenging it can be to produce content your readers will love and will rank well on Google. Google Trends is a sure-fire method to find good topics because they tell you exactly what is trending.

Best of all, they provide you with specific topics and queries around trending search phrases. Let’s stick with the bass fishing example and scroll down a little bit. One is related topics, and the other is related queries. Here’s what it looks like:

Generate blog post ideas using google trends.

Now you can expand on the theme and write about related topics. Major League Fishing and Bass Anglers Sportsman Society were some top related topics. Based on that, perhaps they were trending since Major League Fishing launched in 2022. On top of that, it was Bass Pro’s 50th anniversary, making a big year in fishing overall.

It’s important to choose blog post topics based on trends if you’re writing something that is time-sensitive. If it’s not evergreen content, it needs to be completely relevant to your audience at the time you publish it.

2. Get Ideas for Social Media Campaigns

Google Trends searches aren’t only for organic search marketing; you can use them for social media as well. Building a large social following and constantly coming up with interesting content to promote is a tall task. Google Trends can help.

We can use the related queries section to identify trending topics and build creatives and copy around that. For example, we see a few searches relating to a bass pro fishing tournament. If we run a fishing e-commerce store, perhaps we want to create a social media campaign on that topic. We could use the tournament to draw attention to our brand and maybe mention professional fishers using gear or lures we offer.

Another interesting query is “winter bass fishing lures.” That is one of those seasonal examples I was talking about. Now might be a good time to create a social media campaign around our best fishing lures for the winter season. People are preparing to fish when it’s cold and we can use that to our advantage.

3. Use It to Improve SEO

One obvious area to use Google Trends for SEO is in organic search. It can also help with keyword research. Not everyone is using Google Trends, so you can use it to identify relevant keywords and then use free SEO tools like Ubersuggest to decide if it’s a valuable keyword or not.

Best of all, you can look at years’ worth of data so you can plan for the future by knowing whether or not a topic is evergreen enough to put in the time and effort.

Google trends chart for the term bass fishing.

If we take the same bass fishing keyword and spread it out across five years, it becomes more apparent that the trend will continue for years.

Each year the volume rises and falls during the same months. This can fuel your marketing strategy and help you prepare for the months ahead.

4. Find Long-tail Keywords for Paid Campaigns

Finding the right keywords for your paid campaigns is crucial to your success. It’s also important from a financial standpoint, because the sooner you find the right keywords, the sooner you can start capitalizing on paid ads.

If we narrow our bass fishing search down to 90 days, it tells us more about what is trending right now.

long tail keyword research in google trends.

There are three long-tail keywords, with one of them being “bass pro fishing bibs”. A bib is what fishers wear to cover their clothes when they get into the water. They also wear them when it’s getting cold as opposed to waders. This tells us fishers are looking for gear to help them keep warm as the temperatures start to drop.

If we’re not currently selling fishing bibs on our e-commerce store, this would also tell us that now is the time to do so. We may create a paid campaign around that type of product with an image of someone using a bib in a fall-like setting.

This would appeal to our target audience, and we know the term is trending, so there should be plenty of paid search volume.

5. Find Trending Topic Ideas for Webinars

When you’re creating a webinar, you want to reach the right people (those interested in what you have to offer) at the right time. Google Trends can help you do just that.

Sticking with the fishing theme, perhaps you’re selling a course on bass fishing and you’re using a free webinar to draw people in and get them to buy the course. You’ll want to use currently trending topics in social media and PPC advertising to get these people’s attention. You also need to know what anglers are actively searching for on the internet.

In comes Google Trends. The tool lays it all on the line for you to start speaking their language. There should be no need to guess or take chances between proper keyword research and Google Trends.

FAQs

Is Google Trends free to use?

Yes, it is a free tool from Google. Google Trends takes a quick look at what’s trending in the news, what people are currently searching for, and how things change over time. These searches can be based on season or geographic location.  

Can Google Trends be used for SEO?

Google Trends is an excellent tool that can support SEO through niche content planning. Put in the keyword you’re curious about following and gain valuable insights into how many people are talking about that topic and other closely related topics. This allows you to curate a highly personalized SEO strategy. 

Conclusion

Being able to identify trends is important for all marketers. No matter what industry you’re in, your target audience is actively searching for things on Google, and you need to figure out what those things are.

Google Trends is a great way to get started. Need more help? Reach out to our digital marketing team.

Do you think Google Trends is a powerful marketing tool? Why or why not?

Your Guide to Small Business Lending Trends In 2022

It’s no secret the past two years have wrought havoc on the economy.  Workers were laid off in droves.  Small businesses suffered. Now, with things starting to get back on track, many displaced employees have found their own entrepreneurial spirit.  As a result, they are looking to start their own business. In fact, it’s being dubbed “The Great Resignation,” and it’s going to turn small business lending on its head. 

What’s Ahead for Business Lending

Many of these displaced employees are in the 30—45 age range. While some are looking for other employment, many are considering starting a business. Of course, this age range typically does not yet have a huge retirement plan, or a lot of savings at all for that matter. As a result, the demand for small business financing is going to increase greatly.  

Whether you are ready to start a business or already own one, there are some things you need to know about small business lending in the new year.

Interest Rates Are On the Rise

Everyone is saying it, and they’re right. Sadly, interest rates are rising. Thankfully, throughout the pandemic the Fed kept the rate low.  Obviously, it was an effort to counteract all the other crazy things happening in the economy. Now, it’s becoming obvious that a correction will be needed. 

It’s time to pay the piper, and the Fed is considering rate hikes as early as this year. What does that mean for small business lending?  If you need business funding, or think you may need it in the future, now’s the time to jump on a loan or a line of credit. 

Inflation is Coming Fast and Furious

Here is another reason to make sure you secure funding as soon as possible. Inflation is imminent. In fact, according to comments made to CNBC by Fed President James Bullard, it’s coming sooner than expected:

“… we were expecting a good year, a good reopening. But this is a bigger year than we w

ere expecting, more inflation than we were expecting.” 

It’s already started, and it always gets worse before it gets better. Make sure you have access to funds now, before it costs you more to get them.  Then, when you start to feel the squeeze of inflation, you have what you need. 

Regulations Aren’t Likely to Change Much

Even though small business funding options are increasing, it’s not likely the industry will see tighter regulations soon. Business owners will still have to find their own reliable and affordable funding. 

This is where the services of one of the business credit specialists at Credit Suite can be especially helpful. These specialists have their finger on the pulse of the small business lending industry. They can help borrowers make informed decisions based on that knowledge. 

The SBA Will Likely Play a Much Smaller Role

The Small Business Administration has had a tough couple of years as well. This is due mostly to the fiasco that ensued with the Paycheck Protection Program. A good idea that must be rushed is virtually guaranteed to have problems. The SBA was directly in the line of fire. 

They are working to rectify it, but their role in small business lending will likely be smaller in 2022 than it has been in the past. 

Online Lenders Aren’t Going Anywhere

Not only are online lenders sticking around, but they will continue to offer more options as their role in business lending continues to grow. 

The demand for business funding services that are less stringent when it comes to approval processes is stronger than ever.  There are plenty of alternative small business lenders standing ready to fill the gap. 

According to the 2019 Small Business Credit Survey 32% of small business applicants used online lenders, and that was before the pandemic. That number is very likely to grow in the coming year for a number of reasons. First, online lenders are typically more flexible. Also, they tend to offer a wider range of funding solutions, including:

Furthermore, they are usually faster and more efficient.  Not only do borrowers get faster approval, but they typically gain access to funds faster as well. Not to mention, you can apply for funding with just a few taps on a keyboard.  

It’s likely that this year and in the years to come, online lenders and other fintech companies will continue to provide lending solutions to small businesses. 

Online Lender Examples

There are a lot of well established online lenders out there, and new ones are popping up everyday. Be sure to vet each one carefully, and double check details before you apply, because they can change often. We have reviews on a number of them to help.

Here are a few you can start with: 

With all of these choices, we highly recommend that you check their websites directly for the most recent qualifying and term details, as these can change over time.

Credit Line Hybrid

If you need more of an alternative loan option rather than an alternative lender, a credit line hybrid may be a good option. This is a form of unsecured funding, and the Credit Suite Credit Line Hybrid has an even better interest rate than a secured loan. In fact, it can sometimes be as low as 0% for the first few months. 

It’s a credit card stacking program, and many of the cards report to business CRAs. That means, you can build business credit and access cash for your business with no personal guarantee. 

You do need a good credit score,  or a guarantor with good credit, to get an approval.  The minimum FICO is 680. There are no financials required, and you can often get up to $150,000. It is important to note also, some cards may report on your personal credit. 

Fundability, Including Business Credit, Will Be As Important as Ever

With increasing demand and competition for all types of business lending, building strong fundability will be increasingly important. Part of strong fundability is having a good business credit score. There are many ways to build your business credit score. 

You need help from someone with inside knowledge of the industry and relationships with the vendors and lenders that can help you build your business credit. This makes the whole process go faster and keeps frustration to a minimum. A free consultation with a Credit Suite Business Credit Specialist is a great place to start.

The post Your Guide to Small Business Lending Trends In 2022 appeared first on Credit Suite.

6 MarTech Trends in 2021 and Beyond

Are you hoping to identify MarTech trends that can help your campaigns be more effective and run more smoothly?

As our marketing capabilities evolve, so do the tools we use to measure our successes and how we achieve that success.

In this blog, we unpack the six biggest MarTech trends looming over the marketing industry and how you can use them to your advantage.

What Is MarTech?

Marketing technology, or MarTech, as it is more commonly known, refers to software and platforms that help individuals or organizations achieve marketing goals.

This term is very inclusive, covering everything from email templates to data analytics.

While every individual, agency, or company has unique MarTech needs, the constantly-growing field is making great leaps to fill any open niche.

Over the past twenty years, the field has seen truly exponential growth. Today, being a marketer doesn’t necessarily mean you have to be incredibly tech-savvy, but it does mean that you need to understand the benefits of tools that can improve your strategy and help you reach your goals.

Your competitors are likely using MarTech to help their campaigns succeed. If you’re not looking toward how you can automate, optimize, and ideate your campaigns through MarTech, it’s time to start.

Examples of MarTech

As we mentioned above, MarTech is a very wide umbrella. However, some forms of MarTech are more common than others. These include:

Email Marketing

With more than 50 percent of survey respondents copping to checking their email in excess of ten times a day, it’s no wonder that email marketing is an easy way to try to reach your target audience. While the operative word in that sentence was try, marketing automation tools can get you that much closer to your goals.

To reach them, you need tools and platforms that not only disseminate your emails but provide in-depth analytics that gives you a real-time view of reader practices and interactions. As email marketing continues to grow and evolve, the demand for personalization in this medium will also continue to grow.

Marketers should use automation and AI to deploy targeted emails engineered to attract a particular audience segment. To achieve successful personalization, use data to assess customer habits and preferences for each audience segment and then craft corresponding templates. Then your MarTech tool can do the rest.

Content Management

While managing your website content used to be a time-consuming, exhaustive process that took hours of coding, new marketing technology has automated cumbersome processes, allowing marketers to dedicate time to other important pursuits.

Content management systems (CMS) have evolved over the years, now equipped with the capabilities to develop the following kinds of websites (along with many others):

  • social networking
  • blogging platform
  • static website
  • news
  • online store

Predicted to achieve a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 16.7 percent, as CMS capabilities grow, so will collaboration and planning tools that unite workflows to allow complete management of content from creative to back-end development.

Data Analytics

Today, marketers can harness the power of data analytics to gain an understanding of customer preferences and behaviors—including how they shop, where they spend their time, and how they discover new offerings—as well as market trends.

MarTech tools that allow marketers to dive deep into these data sets are invaluable, as they provide never-before-seen maps of how consumers operate online. By tracking online behaviors, marketers gain a deeper understanding of their customers.

As MarTech data tools become even more intuitive, marketers will have even more visibility of customer journeys, following them from initial interest to final purchase. These insights will be captured through cookies and CTR, among other trackers. As the tools become more refined, so will understanding of consumer behavior, allowing marketers to readjust their strategies.

6 MarTech Trends

To help you decide which MarTech offerings you want to add to your stack, we broke down the six biggest trends that are likely to impact both the MarTech world and the marketing world well beyond this year.

1. Increased Spending on Analytics

If you’re tempted to bypass adding an intuitive analytics tool to your MarTech stack, don’t. These tools can help you gain a better understanding of nearly every aspect of your marketing campaigns, from buyer behaviors to conversion rates.

In fact, researchers expect marketing analytics budgets to grow by 61 percent over the next three years.

That’s huge. You don’t want to miss out on getting in early on a tool that can quite literally change the way you see your business.

Some of the many benefits of marketing analytics tools include:

  • viewing real-time, comprehensive outcomes of marketing efforts across channels
  • improving lead generation through actionable insights
  • gaining insights into customer behavior and preferences
  • using predictive analytics to enable your business to be proactive rather than reactive

2. Higher Emphasis on Personalization

We nodded a bit toward the importance and growing prevalence of personalization in marketing campaigns.

In short, this strategy means delivering individualized content to audience members. This personalized route builds a connection with consumers, treating them as individuals rather than a mass market.

Some common (and growing) opportunities for personalization include:

  • targeted emails
  • custom video messages
  • product recommendations
  • social media

In the coming years, this prevalence will only grow, and marketers who don’t use tools to aid them in personalization will fall behind.

In fact, 99 percent of marketers claim personalization helps advance customer relationships, and 44 percent of consumers say they would be willing to switch to a brand that better personalized its marketing material.

If you’re not taking advantage of learning more about your would-be customers through tools and data, you’re missing out—not only on reaching customers more strategically but also on building relationships.

3. Transition Away From Third-Party Cookies

If you’re an advertiser or marketer who has relied heavily on third-party cookies, you may be in for a bit of a shock.

In 2020, Google announced its plan to phase out third-party cookies within two years. With Google Chrome composing almost 65 percent of the web browsing market according to statcounter’s data below, this move will have a dramatic impact on how marketers gather data.

browser share percentage

If in the past, you relied on information from cookies to gain an understanding of consumer behavior and identity, you’re going to need to recalibrate your strategy.

Recently, Adobe found two in five brands are not prepared to transition away from cookies, indicating businesses do not have a strategy for gathering consumer data post-cookie.

After the transition is final, marketers will no longer be able to capture individual consumer data. To prepare for this future, digital marketers must align with the trend of personalization to reach and understand their intended consumers.

4. Higher Need for Data Privacy and Security

If you’ve been keeping an eye on the news, you know that data breaches are on the rise. The United States alone has seen data breaches grow from 660 annually to over a thousand within the past decade, according to Statista.

If you think this number doesn’t apply to you, think again. Your website and consumer data are among your business’ most valuable assets. You need to protect them from malicious attacks at all costs.

MarTech Trends in 2021 and Beyond - Data Privacy and Security

5. Increased Importance of Campaign Automation Tools

Marketing automation can make every aspect of your marketing campaign easy. By using these tools, you reduce time spent, error, and unnecessary cost.

We’re not the only ones who think this way: The marketing automation market is primed to grow 8.55 percent annually, with 51 percent of companies already taking advantage of these tools.

  • Time-saving: With tools that automate time-consuming processes like project management, all members of your team will rejoice in the sheer amount of time they can reclaim after implementing these tools.
  • More effective spend: By pinpointing processes that devour valuable time and treating them with automation software, you can use your budget much more effectively, saving both time and money.
  • Scalability: MarTech automation tools scale with you. If you’ve got a big vision for your organization, these tools fit your business needs for today and tomorrow.
  • Concrete measures of success: We’ve talked about the importance of data and metrics a lot in this article. All MarTech automation tools come with data insights that allow you to track everything from productivity to campaign spend.

As you assess your organization’s needs, look at how marketing automation tools simplify your processes and streamline campaign creation. The benefits of marketing analytics tools include:

6. Growing Importance of Direct Mail

Thought direct mail was dead? Think again: Forty-two percent of direct mail recipients engage with your send either through reading or scanning.

Further, 73 percent of Americans prefer direct mail marketing, as it allows them to read the piece at their leisure rather than forcing immediate consumption.

This year and beyond, you should reassess your organization’s direct mail strategy to see if there are new (or overlooked) avenues for you to contact your prospects directly through their physical mailbox, according to Who’s Mailing What:

MarTech Trends in 2021 and Beyond - Growing Importance of Direct Mail

Outside of the above statistics, benefits of direct mail include:

  • opportunities for personalization
  • builds familiarity and trust
  • easy to track
  • complements your digital campaign
  • cost-effective

MarTech Frequently Asked Questions

What Is MarTech?

Marketing technology, or MarTech, as it is more commonly known, refers to software and platforms that help individuals or organizations achieve marketing goals. This term is very inclusive, covering everything from email templates to data analytics.

Is MarTech a Good Investment for My Business?

Yes. With MarTech making up 30 percent of North American marketers’ business budget, you would be well-advised to take advantage of marketing automation tools and platforms that can help you take your campaigns to the next level.

What MarTech Trends Will Dominate the Market?

While there is a slew of MarTech trends that reshape the market year after year, we can confidently report that these six trends will be game-changers in the MarTech world:

  • increased spending on analytics
  • higher emphasis on personalization
  • transition away from third-party cookies
  • increased need for data privacy and security
  • increased importance of campaign automation tools
  • growing importance of direct mail

Is Direct Mail Still a Good Marketing Strategy?

In a word, yes. Direct mail is still an extremely effective marketing strategy. While there’s a lot of conversation around digital marketing, this classic mode of reaching potential customers is as effective as ever.

Want proof? Forty-two percent of direct mail recipients actually read what you’re sending them. Compare that to your average email clickthrough rate (CTR), and you’ll understand the true, measurable value of direct mail.

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MarTech 2021 Trends: Conclusion

As marketing needs and customer predilections continue to change, so will the tools we use to meet them.

However, the six marketing trends outlined in this post are here to stay.

To help your organization grow with these MarTech trends, be sure to invest in software that can help you achieve all of your marketing goals. Tools are meant to be used—be sure you’re taking advantage of them to outmaneuver your competitors.

What’s your prediction for the biggest marketing trend in 2021 and beyond?

Three Social Media Marketing Trends to Embrace This Year!

Social media is one of the fastest-changing industries out there. It is changing everything: Your customers’ expectations, the way they find and interact with you. Is your business keeping up? Here are a few ideas … The post Three Social Media marketing Trends to Embrace This Year! appeared first on Paper.li blog. The post Three … Continue reading Three Social Media Marketing Trends to Embrace This Year!

Three Social Media Marketing Trends to Embrace This Year!

Social media is one of the fastest-changing industries out there. It is changing everything: Your customers’ expectations, the way they find and interact with you. Is your business keeping up? Here are a few ideas … The post Three Social Media Marketing Trends to Embrace This Year! appeared first on Paper.li blog. The post Three …

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Three Social Media Marketing Trends to Embrace This Year!

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Three Social Media Marketing Trends to Embrace This Year!

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