Category: Marketing

Welcome back! Here’s Part 3 of our Heroes Selection of top tips. Please get in touch with any feedback you may have!

Serious thought and consideration needs to be put in to the creation of a successful website. If not, then a poorly considered website could actually do nothing but harm a business by creating the wrong perception of the service/product that is to be received! 

There are a large number of factors that need to be thought-out when creating an effective website, some specific to the type of industry being communicated about! However see below for a few top tips on points to consider.

 

• “Now where on earth do I find…… ?” – there is nothing more infuriating than trying to navigate through a website and feel like you’re being sent in to a never-ending spiral of impertinent information! You must ensure that your website is easy to navigate and does not put off a potential customer and make them leave your site in sheer frustration!
• APPEARANCE – obviously thought around what a website looks is a huge topic to discuss. A few key elements to consider, in my opinion, are that your website needs to reflect your company, it’s brand and at the same time look appealing and professional. This could be the first impression a potential customer has of your business so make it count! In addition make sure there is a call to action!
• CONTENT – we all know of websites where designers have got carried away with the use of garish, flashing graphics! The content of web pages need to be carefully considered and perhaps used appropriately. Consider regularly updating the text to keep visitors engaged or perhaps using multimedia to create some amusement. The use of ‘Key Words’ in your text content is vital if you are to be found on Google and other search engines. Our advice – use a copywriter to develop the content around key words researched through Google. Make sure you include words that are actually being searched for and not what you ‘think’ is being searched!

So if you plan on creating a new web page or perhaps spruce up an existing one, it is worth considering the points above.

 

There are numerous other elements to consider aswell as those highlighted but please do let us know your experiences of what works and what doesn’t work for you and your business.

Here is the second of our Heroes hints and tips…do let us know your thoughts!

DESIGN

When it comes to the design of your marketing materials, whether this is internet based or printed materials, all businesses need to ensure a few objectives are considered and built in to the end results for the plan to effective.

AIDA is a widely used acronym that is used throughout the marketing world which focuses attention on the desired outcome.

A – Attention or Awareness. To attract the attention of the customer.

I – Interest. Raise the customers interest by communicating advantages and benefits.

D – Desire. The customer will want/need the product/service.

A – Action. The customer will take action/purchase.

With this acronym in mind you will want to ask yourself some questions about your marketing materials design and content to achieve such goals, for example:

• Is there a clear benefit to the customer?
• Who is the target audience for the material

As E. St Elmo Lewis (American advertising and sales pioneer) stated:

The mission of an advertisement is to attract a reader, so that he will look at the advertisement and start to read it; then to interest him, so that he will continue to read it; then to convince him, so that when he has read it he will believe it. If an advertisement contains these three qualities of success, it is a successful advertisement.

The HEROES SELECTION are a series of hints and tips on how to achieve more business. Over the coming weeks we’ll give you this essential information to unwrap!

To begin with here’s the first of our HEROES…enjoy!

EMAIL MARKETING

Isn’t email somewhat dated given the explosion of the use of Social Media?! Absolutely not!

Email marketing works and there are a huge number of surveys that have concluded as such. For example, the recent Digital Marketing Outlook Survey from the Society of Digital Agencies revealed that 70% of brand marketers planned to invest in email marketing.

I’m not going to throw a load of figures at you but to summarise, as long as constructed in the appropriate way, then email marketing can work because it can be targeted, it builds relationships and can drive direct sales. 

There are a number of things to consider when building an email campaign but here are a few points to get you started: 

• PRIORITY 1! Don’t just try and sell on your first email to any prospect! Give valuable information, advice and tips so you build your reputation and credibility. Build that relationship for the long term.
• Now get personal…Build that relationship – by personalising your email to the recipient will increase both the amount that the email is read and, if pertinent, the click through rate.
• Which day of the week?! May sound a little crazy but it’s been concluded that the best days of the week to send out such communications are Tuesdays and Wednesdays! (see Smart Insights) “WHY?” – I hear you ask! Well, it’s all to do with the proximity to the weekend! Midweek and people are more likely to be receptive to such emails. This may of course depend on who your target audience is aswell!
• Be consistent! As long as your audience have signed up to regular newsletters then ensure that your newsletters are standardized with their look and feel as this will strengthen the brand awareness. In addition make sure the email is distributed at the same time and day, regularly.

So there’s some food for thought to get you started! 

Please add your comment and links to any stories related to Email Marketing – perhaps you had a successful campaign for your business, do let us know. If you need help then also drop us a question.

Due to a number of economic factors, the art of Marketing is far more complex than it once was! 

All organisations, large or small, need to regularly ensure they are differentiating themselves from their competitors. To help you achieve that over the coming weeks we’ll be divulging our Top 10 Marketing Tips.

If you work through you should be able to recognise where more focus or change is required for your own business and as such gain more business as a result!

 

NUMBER 1 – Where to put your company name?!?!?!

It may seem like common sense to use as the heading for any marketing materials but this is not the case. Create some intrigue!

Marketing materials generally have just seconds to make an impact and draw potential clients in. As such it may be more pertinent to understand the purpose of your marketing material and focus on that instead, for example, consider the benefit of the product or service, what’s in it for the customer?

Obviously it goes without saying that you still want to include your company name and contact details but once you’ve drawn the individual in then they’ll be wanting to find this information in any case! Don’t necessarily be exhaustive with the contact information – perhaps just include the company name and website for example, in turn this will direct people to your website where you can then communicate further detail accordingly.

As for business literature such as letterheads, compliment slips etc – be different! Perhaps put your logo at the bottom rather than, as usual, at the top. The font size, colour and style are also important but at the same time you want the name to stand out not the font! Perhaps make the company address smaller and in a different font to generate interest.

To conclude, you need to consider the medium you’re designing, the message you want to portray to customers and how you want company’s identity to be perceived.

 

 

We would love to hear what has and hasn’t worked for you and your business – please do get in touch.

We all have moments where we’ve cursed that repetitive email popping in to our Inbox with an automatic response of hitting the ‘Delete’ button. That’s even without reviewing it’s content! We just know that it will be a waste of our time looking at it – the content isn’t pertinent!

Needless to say no business wants to make their audience have such a response to their communications.

Within our previous Blogs we’ve discussed how to ensure the content of any email marketing campaign remains specific to your clients and also given numerous ideas on types of content. The next thing to consider is the frequency of such emails – what is the right balance? a few points need to be continually considered:

 

• Historical recipient responses – a good starting point is to analyse previous emails. What was peoples activity? Obviously this may vary by commodity type but a few things to consider are (i) what links were followed, (ii) was there an increase in purchases of a product type as a result.
• Seasonal variances – is it pertinent to increase/decrease depending upon the time of year i.e. Christmas
• One size fits all (?!) – perhaps it’s not possible to have a generic ‘one size fits all’ approach to communicating with your audience! Consider whether it’s possible to change the frequency for different segments or reduce emails for the lower responding customers. It might also be possible to give customers the choice on how often they receive such messages

 

This is an ongoing task that needs constant assessment and as such reflected in the email marketing strategy.

Once you’ve assessed your audience’s responses this will assist in finding the right balance between over and under exposure with future emails.

One final point to make is that perhaps this Blog reaches you a little late and you’ve lost the interest of a number of customers already – all is not lost! Perhaps once you have your newly considered email marketing campaign organised it’s worth distributing a re-engagement campaign with an offer.

Ensure your customers understand and appreciate your value by fully considering all the aspects we’ve discussed in this and previous Blogs…lets make sure your email isn’t one of those thrown in to the Trash!

In our previous Blog we spoke about how businesses can ensure their email marketing newsletters are specific to their recipients – the last thing any business wants is to be considered as a nuisance and as such lose potential valuable custom!

As well as considering those ideas previously provided in respect to how to manage the content of your newsletters, we wanted to offer some additional thoughts on what type of varying content you could consider inserting in to your newsletters.

• Advice – much like we find ourselves writing this email marketing blog to help our business associates, why not write some content that will help your clients with relevant problems.
• Top 10 Tips – why not provide a list of succinct tips that offer help to customers or associates on a product or service. Look out for our own Top 10 Tip list in a forthcoming Blog!
• You’re the Expert….so why not offer your opinions on relevant news topics, industry developments.
• Case studies – what projects you’ve recently been working on or perhaps completed. Show images of the work or even obtain recommendations from the client. As well as great advertising for your own business your client gets some free advertising for themselves!
• “It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas…” – consider forthcoming holidays and dates and whether able to tailor some content around these such as Easter, school summer holidays, Halloween…..
• Customer feedback – why not give your customers the opportunity to offer their opinions or feedback. Obviously this is valuable information but could in turn produce some further content.
• Day in the life…– why not ask a colleague to write a piece about their working day or even interview them.

 

The list above just skims the surface of possibilities but hopefully it will help to build on the commitment of your customers.

Email marketing is all about building relationships so take this information and go and add value to your customers inbox!

How many times throughout the week do you find yourself disappointedly sighing at another nuisance marketing email clogging up your Inbox?!

Why is this though?! Surely you subscribed to receiving these emails from a provider so that you’d be better informed about a product or service or maybe, if you’re lucky, offered some form of discount.

A recent study of such email marketing behaviours, identified that over 60% of people would consider defecting to an alternative brand or even ends a relationship, due to being repetitively sent irrelevant messages.

So how do businesses ensure they keep their marketing email content relevant to retain subscribers and keep them loyal to their brand?

There are numerous actions businesses should consider such as:

• Proactive content management – everyone that works for your company should constantly, as part of their day-to-day activities, consider whether something is pertinent to the businesses email newsletter. If so, detail should be stored in a suitable folder for future use. This gives an increased volume and more diverse type of content.
• Who’s listening to you? – after sending out a newsletter you should have access to a report detailing what recipients responded to i.e. what links were clicked, which parts of the website were visited the most. All this gives valuable information on what readers are most interested in.
• Be nosey! – what are your competitors up to? Why not sign up to their newsletters. Food for thought!
• Social media – what are the forums, LinkedIn groups, networking sites, competitor’s blogs all saying about your business, products, services or even sector? What topics are generating interest with your client base?
• Drive traffic to your Social media channels – use emails to engage and build relationships with your closest contacts ie clients and suppliers who are on your outlook contact database. Easy to export and set up.

 

In conclusion it’s all about ensuring your content is relevant and up to date with latest news.

So now you understand how to ensure your content is focused what sort of content can you consider?  ….another Blog to follow shortly…