How to Transform Your Website With Your Personas and Goals In Mind
Transform your website with this proven 5-step process.
5 Reasons to Set Up a Loyalty Program for Your Outdoor Brand
No matter what your product or service is, outdoor companies face a ton of competition within the industry. As an outdoor brand, it is essential to find ways to keep your customers engaged and build brand loyalty among your competitors. Loyal customers do not just care about a great product but also how the brand […]
3 ways to use sweepstakes to build an engaged audience
Sweepstakes are more than just a giveaway Running an effective sweepstakes is one of the most powerful marketing tools to help you build an engaged audience for your outdoor brand. In today’s day and age, having a large audience or contact list is not enough. New privacy restraints from companies like Apple have caused major […]
How to Build a Buyer Persona and Why They Matter
Even the best marketing strategies and tactics can only get you so far if you do not know who you’re marketing to. Creating a buyer persona is an integral part of marketing. Buyer personas help outdoor marketers and businesses understand the needs, desires, and habits of their customers while also predicting what triggers them to […]
8 Must-Have Content Marketing Skills!
Content marketing skills are powerful, but only if done right. It’s researching what your specific audience wants to know. It’s talking to them as a friend, in your own unique way and voice. It’s keeping up with current trends, so you can create valuable content that resonates with your audience. Follow along this blog and […]
3 Unique Ways We Utilize Personalized Content with Examples
In content marketing it is getting harder than ever to grab your audience’s attention utilizing generic material. By personalizing your content, you are more likely to engage your targeted customers. In this blog, we’ll break down 5 ways we have utilized personalized content with examples. You will know if they are a man or woman, […]
How We Personalize the Customer Journey and Map It
Want to drive more traffic to your site and social accounts? Put yourself in the customer’s shoes. Customers are on a journey. From the moment they first learned about you to their first purchase, every step leads to a curated path. As a digital marketer, it’s your responsibility to drive them to your desired conversion […]
How To Leverage Video In Your Sales & Marketing Campaigns
Generating views for videos can be quite hard for any company. Some have never tried to develop a video marketing campaigns for their users at all. This is an untapped gold mine for a lot of businesses. And deserves the attention of anyone looking to generate leads on the web. Your video marketing campaign(s) should […]
SEO vs. SEM: How the Outdoor Industry is Paving the Way
Depending on what you may have read, what others have told you, and your own past experiences, you may have formulated thoughts on SEO or SEM and how they can impact your bottom line. Built and managed the right way both of these avenues can lead to huge potential ROI. We have seen the greatest […]
LinkedIn Ads Are Not As Expensive As You Might Think
LinkedIn ads are becoming more and more popular and setting up a campaign can be hard to understand. You may end up spending far more than you expected to try and get some kind of return on investment and be left at the end of it all with nothing to show for it. Here are […]
5 Top Video Marketing Recording Devices for 2020
As we approach 2020, it is important to stay on top of changing industry trends to ensure you are staying at the forefront of video marketing content. Users love being fed fresh, high-quality content and we have put together our top 5 video recording devices coming in 2020. Portal+ from Facebook With innovative and fresh […]
Do’s and Dont’s of Content Marketing in the Outdoor Industry
Much of our approach to content involves building a story for your outdoor brand. There are a few key foundational ideas in building this story which led us to produce a list of do’s and dont’s of content marketing in the outdoor industry. Have a Content Marketing Strategy A content strategy unifies your content marketing […]
5 Reasons to Increase Your Content Marketing Efforts
We all build content intended to convert traffic into leads and then into customers. Each company with a desire to be successful wants to establish itself as a knowledge source in the space. We write blogs such as this one to try to establish some of that trust and authoritativeness, as well as expertise. Most […]
3 Reasons Your Paid Ads May Not Be Seeing Success
Developing paid advertisements can start off looking like a foreign language and end up looking like your college English class; you feel like you should understand the subject but just can’t get the grades in. There was a point where it was all gibberish to us as well. Through the years we have taken the […]
Social Media Is Not Free
Businesses view social outreach as a revolutionary tool that allows them to expand their marketing efforts. To reach your audiences at no cost posting to the social sphere is a quick solution. However, social media channels are now inundated with content of varying quality. Making it nearly impossible to tell what is legitimate and what […]
Mapping Content to the Buyer’s Journey
As potential customers consider a purchase or service, they likely research the various market options. They’ll make an informed decision based on quality, price and other factors. In most circumstances, they don’t make a spur-of-the-moment decision without evaluation. Instead, a potential buyer – regardless of product – goes through something called the buyer’s journey. This […]
Basting Your Content
We have discussed content strategies and the need for regular optimized content quite a bit lately. So what better time to include some festive comparisons as we approach the holiday season. For the purposes of this blog, let’s consider your content as a turkey. When you are cooking a turkey, you can set it in […]
What To Do If You’re Struggling With Top Of The Funnel Strategies
If your company is struggling at the top of the funnel, we’ve got 5 tips that will attract prospects to your website and convert qualified leads into sales. Your outdoor company has built a beautiful website and the sales team is ready to answer any questions prospects have. But they’re waiting…and waiting…and waiting. The sales […]
Outdoor Video Marketing Trends You Must Know For 2020
Our team has put together an infographic outlining the important upcoming outdoor video marketing trends that will impact the digital marketing industry as a whole. As we approach 2020 it is important to understand the ways you can adapt to critical marketing updates in technology. Sources like Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok have all garnered massive […]
Creating An Effective Call-To-Action
Quality content on a blog post or website is key to attracting prospective clients. At Sage Lion Media, every email we send, blog post we write, social media post we create, a call-to-action is included. In our blog today, let’s review what a call-to-action is and some best practices when creating an effective call-to-action. What […]
3 Reasons Why Your Calls To Action Are Not Converting
Have you ever read through a blog post and left because no one “told” you what to do next? You were left hanging in space, free to leave at anytime. Leaving your visitors (prospects) hanging is the first simple way to NOT generate more leads. It’s important to have calls to action in every step […]
Building a Story for Your Outdoor Brand
In 2017, Donald Miller published Building a Story Brand and it has become a measure of standard across the internet marketing space. The overarching message instructs the reader to clarify their message so their customers will listen. So many of our clients come to us with a version of struggle related to the solution Donald […]
2 Tactics After Attending a Trade Show To Increase Sales
Whew, this year’s IFTD was a whirlwind and a big success here in Denver. While at the show I met up with a bunch of clients. Hung out with old friends. And met several new prospects. As the show wraps up I’m getting ready to follow up with a few leads I had positive interactions […]
Inbound Marketing is Like Air Traffic Control
When I was hired by Sage Lion Media at the beginning of the new year, I was tasked with implementing agile/scrum methodologies. Prior to joining Sage Lion Media, I worked at a few reputable digital marketing agencies located in Los Angeles, Denver & Chicago. And before entering the world of inbound marketing I had the […]
Top 5 Outdoor Industry Marketing Trends That Will Matter in 2020
Outdoor Industry Marketing in 2020 The landscape is ever changing in the world of internet marketing as a whole as well as the outdoor industry’s niche, but the core values stay the same. As a product owner or service provider, you want to capture potential leads looking for your product or service, educate them on […]
How to Optimize Your Facebook Ad Funnels Using Video
Needless to say, marketers must be more creative than ever to not only attract audiences, but also keep their attention. Many businesses use Video Facebook Ads as a key part of their digital marketing funnel. Using video is a great way to boost your funnel strategy and ultimately drive conversions. The average human’s attention span is […]
Using Lead Scoring to Find Hidden Customers
Lead scoring is a dynamic process that needs to grow over time. Treat your first foray into lead scoring as an experiment. You need to work closely with your sales team to make sure the leads you are identifying are really qualified to purchase. If you don’t have a sales team, then you need to […]
Growth Driven Design: What’s Wrong with Traditional Web Design?
We’ve been doing traditional web design for almost 12 years now. In that time a common theme has continuously repeated itself. A potential client usually has one of these four problems with their website. Our website is broken, features that used to work no longer function. We haven’t updated our website in years, we’re too […]
4 Reasons Your Nonprofit Should Have A Blog
Content marketing is dominating marketing trends and if everyone was blogging and doing it well, we’d leave you alone. However, due to shrinking budgets and overworked staff, blogging has taken a backseat for many nonprofits. Producing quality blogs and posting consistently can be taxing for a nonprofit. But what if we told you: Blogs give […]
Should You Hire A Marketing Agency Or An Internal Team in 2019?
As small to mid-sized outdoor companies grow, it becomes tougher to be the CEO wearing all the hats. You feel trapped between your need to grow and the realities of hiring an employee. And you’re unsure if you need a marketing agency or freelancer to help you.
The Perfect Recipe To A Successful Lead Nurturing Campaign
A lead nurturing campaign is a series of (ideally) automated emails that move a lead from the top of the funnel to the bottom. Automated emails are ideal because depending on the volume of email sign-ups you receive, emailing each prospect can be timely. Hubspot has a free, automated lead gen tool we like to […]
Customer Retention: How Valuable Are Your Current Customers?
We talk a lot about driving more traffic to your website, converting prospects to leads, and leads to customers. But do you remember learning in Business 101 that it costs more to acquire a new customer than to keep an existing one? That’s why it’s so important to always think about customer retention. Acquiring new […]
Are Meta Descriptions Hurting Traffic To Your Website?
In December 2017, Google upped the character limit to 320 and it left us wondering, “do I need to update my client’s meta descriptions?” This thought snowballed into a series of questions around meta descriptions followed by a lot of Google searches and researching. What we found out was: They’re important Character length matters depending […]
The One Tool You Need For Better Engagement At IFTD
IFTD is coming up quick and if you’re like me, you’re looking for leads. Of course, I’m excited to check out the shiny, new gear and have late-night “meetings” with old and new friends. But if I came back to the office with a tan, hangover, and no leads, my team of marketing gurus would […]
How We Crushed Our Client’s Sales With Databox
We juggle a lot as an inbound marketing agency. Each client has a different product or service which requires a different strategy to achieve their goals. While some agencies struggle working with a variety of clients, we thrive! I’m not saying we don’t want to pull our hair out sometimes but we love the challenge! […]
Are You Missing Leads By Not Tracking Calls From Your Website?
Are you that person that rolls your eyes when you see a friend calling you instead of texting? Yea, me too. But when it comes to business, phone calls are important. Especially when your product or service can’t be sold through e-commerce. One of our clients manufactures and distributes heavy machinery. Their product is not […]
How To Get More Customer Reviews & Improve Your SEO
People want to be heard loud and clear when they’ve had a negative experience with a product or service. Rarely do people leave positive reviews. Even though you might get repeat customers and awesome sales, you could lose potential customers who saw your 1-star average on Facebook, Google, or Yelp. Maybe it’s time to, dare […]
Hubspot Adds Instagram
Sage Lion Media loves Hubspot. Hubspot makes marketing simpler for our agency and managing our clients. With their marketing automation tools, we have more time to prospect, brainstorm, and chase fresh powder after a snowstorm in the mountains. Hubspot is always improving their marketing automation tools and this month, they announced some pretty big news. […]
Understanding Keywords For Your Outdoor Business
Every website is vying for that number one spot on Google Search. It could be the main website, a blog post, or a landing page but each and every one of us wants to be the first thing people see. While search engine optimization (SEO) rules on Google are constantly changing, keywords have stayed fairly […]
The Latest In Social Media
We are 3 months into 2018 and a lot has happened with social media. From Kylie Jenner costing Snapchat $1.3 billion to Facebook potentially slapping businesses in the face with its new algorithm. Let’s look at what’s been going on in the world of social media marketing. And I promise to make no more Kardashian/Jenner […]
Google Chrome Is Coming For Your Ads
Have you noticed fewer ads the last few days? The day of ad reckoning is upon us. Last June Google warned us they would start blocking annoying ads natively within their Chrome browser. Well, that day has come and gone, and the web seems like a nicer place right? I want to shed a little […]
2018 Inbound Marketing Trends
It’s a new year which means new marketing trends to help grow your business. While some trends in 2017 are still relevant like blogging and social media, we did some research to see what new marketing tactics will help your company thrive in 2018.
7 Last Minute Checks Before A Trade Show
Trade shows can have a huge impact on any size business. Over 80% of attendees have some sort of buying power so if planned correctly, companies can network with potential customers and even close deals on the spot. This is a chance for salespeople to take a break from the cold calling and emails and […]
Why Outdoor Wilderness Programs Should Use Inbound Marketing
In the past, most outdoor wilderness programs focused their marketing efforts on traditional outbound strategies, including trade shows, telemarketing, print ads, and radio or television ads. But with the availability of technology, the focus has quickly shifted to inbound marketing strategies such as blogging, podcasts, webinars, search engine optimization, infographics, YouTube videos, and eBooks. The […]
How Inbound Marketing Can Help You Get More Outdoor Therapy Clients
Quit handing out 10 cent trinkets at your trade show booth and start having meaningful conversations with future referrers. And please save your money on purchased email lists and grow your list organically. These are just a few of the differences between traditional marketing and inbound marketing. Inbound marketing is a proven way to help […]
You Weren’t Expecting To Cold Call: Inbound Sales To The Rescue
I started Sage Lion Media because I was passionate about the outdoors and pretty good at design. Having to sell my services was nowhere in the picture. I thought my work and a small link back to my website from the footer of our projects was all I needed to climb the ladder of success. That […]
Three Simple Fixes To Improve Your Wilderness Therapy Website
Building a website can be surprisingly easy these days. Sites like Wix and Weebly provide free templates so you can create a site without hiring someone else. Building a user-friendly website is a different story. While free website templates are great tools for people just starting their wilderness therapy business, the bigger you grow, the […]
Why Segmenting Emails Is Important And How The Heck To Do It Before #GivingTuesday
In 2016, 40,000 nonprofits participated in #GivingTuesday with more planning to join the movement this year. Email marketing has the highest ROI for nonprofits so it’s important your nonprofit is heard over everyone else. Taking the time to segment your #givingtuesday email list can drastically improve the results of your campaign. Segmenting your audience will […]
Four Common Reasons Your Emails Are Being Marked As Spam On #GivingTuesday
Nonprofits are rushed to create an email campaign which takes time and money that most of them don’t have. Once the email is created, a few test sends are fired off to a personal email and a few work email addresses and if all goes well, the email is then automated to send to donors. […]
What Makes An Effective Nonprofit Story?
A powerful story can help your donors cross from casual reader to impassioned donor. An effective nonprofit story pulls on the emotions of the viewer. It cuts to the heart of the viewer, engages their emotions and demands they take action. It’s one thing to tell your story in a way that inspires. It’s another […]
Vertical Video Works for Marketing
Smartphones never leave the hands of their consumers and rarely do you see people scrolling through their social media horizontally. When video ads first appeared on apps like YouTube, viewers could only watch them if they flipped their phone. When Snapchat tested out vertical video, advertisers saw “up to nine times more engagement!” Take Advantage […]
Answer Questions Using Google Maps
Google Maps is now allowing you to interact with your consumers when they search for your address. Their new program allows you to answer questions using google maps from mobile users who are using the app. Outdoor marketers can respond to questions about their business location or other FAQ’s before customers even walk through the door. […]
Facebook Helps Marketers Amplify Influencers Posts
Facebook is making things easier for marketers by adding the ability to amplify their influencer’s post. Now when influencers promote your brand on their page or blog, marketers are able to boost that exact post. Marketers can then customize their audience with Facebook’s precise targeting so you can reach your ideal customer for maximum results! […]
The Marketing Undercurrent: Relevant Digital News for Outdoor Marketers
We’re super excited to launch the Marketing Undercurrent here on the blog. Our goal is to keep you quickly informed through short videos on new tools and techniques to boost your business and drive leads to your website. We want to make things simple and Marketing Undercurrent is here to keep you in the know […]
Googles New Feature Will Jumpstart Your Journey of Visual Discovery
Google image search is a bit of a mess. You’re not really sure where an image will take you when browsing on your phone. Google recently updated their search algorithm to address this problem. Google is now adding badges to some images in their mobile app to help users find exactly what they want. “These […]
Share Your Next Outdoor Video in One Dedicated Space: YouTube
This mobile-only feature works like a text message thread or email. The plus side, once the video is shared with a contact, you can message directly without leaving the YouTube app. And who doesn’t want to share a video without receiving one? When responding to a video thread the user can press the reel icon […]
Start Talking To Customers With Facebook Messenger
With more than 1.2 billion people using Messenger every day, the social media powerhouse has decided to take their messenger ads out of beta and launch to the mainstream. According to Facebook: “People will see Messenger ads in the home tab of their Messenger mobile app. When they tap on an ad, they will be sent to […]
How To Identify And Organize Your IFTD Trade Show Attendees Before The Show Starts
It doesn’t matter how good your product is if no one knows it exists. IFTD/ICAST are massive trade shows with lots of shiny doodads begging for attention and lots of qualified trade show attendees. Your success is heavily dependent on pre-event marketing. The more planning and work you do ahead of the show the more […]
What’s So Smart About SMART Goals?
When we are in the Discover phase of a website build or a Growth Driven Design project one of the first things we do is try to discover a few smart goals. SMART goals are critical for long-term marketing success. A SMART goal stands for: Specific – Your goal should be unambiguous and communicate what is expected, […]
5 Photography Trends for 2017
We are well into 2017 and trends for the rest of the year are starting to manifest in unique ways. We have seen trends appear and disappear on Instagram, the same is true with photography. Color is back With the rise in Instagram’s popularity over the years, it’s easy to see how filters have become equally […]
5 Hospitality Photography Tips
Photography can make or break a customer’s decision to purchase anything from your business. The same holds true to those in the business of hospitality. So what can you do in order to take the best possible photos for your marketing campaigns? Here are 5 tips to take outstanding photos of your lodge: 1) Stage […]
3 Marketing Story Types To Help Sell Your Product
Story has been one of the most efficient ways for humans to communicate for centuries. Everything we do online is telling a story. It’s the story people hear from you that tells them what your product is and what it’s like to use your product. A great story means a great experience for your customer. […]
3 Twitter Video Ideas Outdoor Marketers Should Be Creating
The explosive growth of online video continues to dominate social media. We are starting to see interesting statistics on the effectiveness of video as a marketing platform. 100 million hours of video are watched every day on Facebook. (Source: HubSpot) Videos on Facebook are shared 7 times more frequently than links. YouTube has over a […]
Unboxing: Our Latest Backcountry Drone, The Mavic Pro
We’ve been eagerly anticipating the arrival of our new Mavic Pro and it finally arrived early in 2017. While we’ve been busy flying this thing around take a look at some of our initial impressions during our unboxing video.
Engage New Customers With These 4 Email Types
Being able to engage new customers with remarkable content is an excellent way to welcome them into your tribe. Once we understand where your new customer came from and who they are, we can begin nurturing them. The first purchase by a customer is an important time in your developing relationship because loyal customers can […]
Engaging New Holiday Customers Starts By Understanding Who They Are
Google Analytics is one of the best tools you can use to begin engaging new holiday customers. Before we start reaching out, we need to segment our audience based on these new users so that we can begin to analyze the data and look for patterns and trends. We also want to make sure we […]
How To Survive A Denver Trade Show At The Merchandise Mart
We’ve been going to the Fly Fishing Show for years. In that time we’ve learned a thing or two about how to make sure the time there is fun and productive. We shared our knowledge with our clients through this infographic. As the outdoor industry continues to face threats from land sales and public auctions, […]
2017 Fly Fishing Trade Show Impressions From Denver
We’ve been going to the Denver Fly fishing trade show for many years now. It’s one of the highlights of the new year. On a side note it’s pretty much guaranteed to snow or be really freaking cold that day here in Denver. This year was no exception. But while it may have been cold […]
An Active Role For Helping The Outdoor Industry
I don’t think there’s anything about the new year that isn’t exciting. I love being able to reassess, relaunch and redesign. 2017 isn’t any different. We’re moving full speed ahead on a lot of new initiatives that should be a huge asset to our friends in the outdoor industry. New Outdoor Industry Focused Website Late last […]
Delivering A Client Thank You This Holiday Season
It’s been a rollercoaster of a year here at Sage Lion Media. But what year isn’t full of highs and lows when you’re running a small business. One thing that has remained steady is our collection of amazing clients. I’ve been racking my brains for a way to tell a client thank you. The usual Holiday card is […]
5 Emerging Marketing Trends For 2017
It’s never too early to start looking ahead to the upcoming year. When it comes to marketing trends, they’re always changing. A good marketer needs to absorb what’s changing around them and prepare to act on what’s important to the business or risk being left behind by competitors. As you push to end 2016 on […]
Upcoming Video Trends
How are you utilizing 2016’s upcoming video trends for your business? Trends for online video have changed drastically in 2016. Facebook now has Live video streams, Wistia now offers in video calls to action, and Instagram has incorporated Stories. Here we will take a look at all of the upcoming video trends and how they […]
3 Benefits of Growth Driven Design
Has this ever happened to you? You design and build a beautiful website, launch and watch the success roll in, for a month or two. When month three and four roll around, you notice site performance is starting to collapse. Soon your site analytics are back to the same levels as before you started. What […]
Selling Products on Facebook Live For Your Outdoor Business
With the introduction of Facebook Live streams, all sorts of marketing opportunities have become available to businesses to get in front of our audiences. With that said, there are several ways we can utilize this feature to begin selling products on Facebook live. Whether you’re a local Fly shop selling products to anglers or a travel […]
Creating a Micro Brand (or Site) Around Your Holiday Campaign
With all things in life, do things deliberately and with a purpose. This includes your Black Friday campaign. Creating a Micro Brand around your holiday specials could be your ticket to standing out from your competition. Develop a Micro Brand Around Your Specials Brand awareness is very important to creating a solid marketing strategy for your […]
3 Reasons For Creating a Black Friday Content Calendar
You’ve just booked an epic float trip, down a beautiful piece of water that’s been on your bucket list for years. You could go totally on instinct and hope the conditions, the fish, the hatches, and your selection of flies perfectly align without any pre-planning on your end- but it’s probably better to have a plan an understand […]
Putting Your Best Photos Forward for Black Friday
Moving into this Black Friday, traffic to your site will increase over the next few months exponentially. People have become conditioned to start their search for good deals on products they want, gifts for loved ones, and new product launches around this time of year. First impressions Good website imagery can make or break your […]
Selling Experience As Gifts This Holiday Season
As we speed towards Black Friday and the holiday gift giving season, the stress of the holidays is already bearing down on me. In my family life I have kids, a wife, in-laws, parents, siblings, coworkers, etc all in line to get gifts. Then I have to make a list for myself so that everyone […]
The New Mavic Looks Like The Ultimate Backcountry Drone
It’s the season of new drones. This years crop looks amazing with a huge focus on creating smaller, more portable drones that can easily move from spot to spot. At first glance this new Mavic drone looks like it could be the ultimate backcountry drone. I don’t even know where to begin to describe this […]