Social media can be an effective marketing tool for your business, increasing brand awareness, customer interaction and letting you measure the effectiveness of these conversations. However, when there is no strategy behind it, social media marketing can quickly turn into a time sucking black hole that generates little positive results. With that in mind we have put together a 5 step plan for developing your company’s social media marketing strategy.

1. Listen And Learn

First of all it is critical to listen to what is being said about your brand. You may not use social media at the moment, but you are probably using other media channels such as websites, direct mails or newsletters etc. Ask yourself questions like:

• Who are my intended targets and am I currently reaching them through these existing channels?
• What is the overall message my brand is communicating through these channels?

And more importantly:

• Where do these channels fall short?
• Are we passive participants or active engagers?

Furthermore you have to understand what is being said about your brand, or if your company is not being mentioned, what is been said about other brands in the industry.

The purpose of this is to understand the conversations of all social media platforms within your industry. Try to envision your interaction with social media as a cocktail party. It would not be effective to visit a cocktail party and hand over business cards to people you have never talked to. People prefer to do business with people they like; therefore social media allows you to interact directly with your potential customers.

2. Define Your Demographics

Once you are aware of the shortages of your offline sales pitch and what is being said about your brand or industry, you can start defining your target demographic. Social media is comprised of many different platforms. Rather than trying to participate in all of them, start with one or two that includes the most people from your demographic. Developing specific demographics will facilitate you in deciding how (what tone) and where (which platform) to engage with your customers.

 3. Define Your Business Objectives And Resources

Now you need to determine how much time you will invest and what goals you want to achieve with social media marketing. Many people, upon first glance, associate social media marketing as free marketing – a common misconception. Even if money is not exhausted directly, time and energy is invested in social media marketing which have a significant opportunity cost. You need to set up SMART goals in order to allocate your internal resources.

Examples of metrics are:

• Number of Facebook fans and followers
• Number of fan posts, likes and comments
• Mentions and retweets
• Ratio of fan activity to your activity
• Ratio of fan activity to fan number
• Information gained
• Conversations generated

4. Creating Your  Social Media Strategy

Now that you have information on who your target demographics is, what they are talking about and what goals you want to achieve, you can start developing your  social media strategy. Keep in mind that every single social media platform has its own ecosystem. What might be acceptable on Tumblr might be considered spam on Facebook. A specific style of writing might spread on Twitter but fail on Linkedin. Therefore it is critical to customise your message and style of writing for every platform.

Furthermore building a community is a very effective social media marketing strategy. Using brand communities to drive sales, propagate marketing, or crowdsource operations is the true power of social media. Examples of ways to engage the community could be to create a contest or offer an exclusive discount. Contests have the ability to build buzz organically and can be further enhanced by the criteria you set. For example, the entry with the highest number of likes will be taken into account when choosing the winner.

 5. Measure Success

Like every other marketing campaign you should measure the success of its execution from start to finish. Things to take into account might include:

• Volume of conversation  compared to competitors –   using Facebook Insights
• Engagement
• Conversions – using Google and Web Analytics with the ‘big three’ measurements being:
  • Unique visitors
  • Visits / session
  • Page views

But measuring social media success also includes non-numerical metrics:

• Did we learn something about our customers that we didn’t know before?
• Did our customers learn something about us?
• Were we able to engage our customers in new conversations?
• Do our employees have an effective new tool for external feedback and reputation management?

Hopefully you can see now that social media has great potential to add useful elements to your marketing, but still requires a structured strategy to be effective. Whilst there is still a world of knowledge to explore, the core foundations in this article should have you on the right track to a winning strategy.

You would place an ad in the yellow pages, maybe a few more in local papers, then keep your fingers crossed and hope for the phone to ring.

In the digital age, print advertising is seen as a rather antiquated method of bringing in customers. However, if done correctly it can still be a great way to increase leads and sales for your company. Here’s how:

There was a time when print advertising was near enough the only form of marketing that small businesses would embark on, for the simple reason that it was the only place where peoples’ eyes congregated on a daily basis.

You would place an ad in the yellow pages, maybe a few more in local papers, then keep your fingers crossed and hope for the phone to ring.

In the digital age, print advertising is seen as a rather antiquated method of bringing in customers. However, if done correctly it can still be a great way to increase leads and sales for your company. Here’s how:

1. Use Niche Publications – Mass media marketing is fine for products with a high customer value OR broad product appeal to the general public (think cars or chocolate bars). For anything in between, this method of advertising always proves futile. Finding out what niche magazines/newsletters your target audience read, and advertising here, is a far more cost effective way to reach your potential customers.

2. Specific Offer – It may seem counter-productive to target your ads to only one single offer. However, your ad will be exponentially more compelling to any potential buyers. If your business offers 5, 10 or 20 products or services, choose ONE offer per ad and sell the reader like mad on its benefits.

3. Track Everything – It is vital to track exactly which of your ads give you ROI and which don’t. Set up a unique 1300 number and landing webpage for each unique ad. Furthermore, assign a unique promo code to every special offer.

4. Pictures Vs Print – Pictures are very expensive in terms of space. Don’t use pictures merely as decoration or to make an ad look attractive. Use them only when they form a better selling argument than the same amount of space set in type. Where advertising is concerned, a picture is RARELY worth a thousand words!

5. Benefits not Features – Print ads need to be benefit-focused rather than feature-focused. The reader needs to know what your products will do for them, rather than just what they do.

6. Credibility Indicators – Buyers who have never used you before want proof of your credentials. If you have any qualifications, certifications, glowing testimonials or companies you are proud to have worked with – let the reader know. These logos and testimonials won’t take up much space, and the reader will view you as experts in your field.

7. Call To Action – You need to make it clear what you want your potential customer to do after reading your ad. Your call to action should be something like ‘Call Us Now Quoting Code xxx123’ or ‘Visit Our Website For A Further Discount’. Make it stand out so potential buyers know EXACTLY what you want them to do.

Most customers are happy to give referrals, but rarely are they asked or prompted to, meaning they stay silent. That’s where we can help. Read these 5 tips on how to entice and encourage people to refer your business and see how they can help you:

As a business owner, you’re probably aware that referral marketing is one of the cheapest, fastest and most effective ways of finding new business. But how actively to you engage in it?

Most customers are happy to give referrals, but rarely are they asked or prompted to, meaning they stay silent. That’s where we can help. Read these 5 tips on how to entice and encourage people to refer your business and see how they can help you:

1. Give Existing Customers An Incentive To Refer

Providing existing loyal customers with a reward of incentive for referring your business works very well. It doesn’t have to be something huge either. Things like 10% off their next purchase or gift vouchers for aligned products can have a dramatic impact on their willingness and motivation to promote your brand.

2. Provide A Special Deal For The Referred Customer

Think of how much more motivated your customers will be to recommend your business if their friend gets a good deal out of it. People will see this as adding value to their friend and not necessarily your business, but it will still generate results. This technique works even better when combined with the one above.

3. Make Sure Everyone Who Visits You Understands Your Marketing Positioning

If you get the vibe that a potential customer isn’t serious about doing business with you, don’t drop your effort. Feed them with all the information they need to understand exactly what it is your business is aiming to provide. Even if they decide not to buy, they will be more likely to refer those who have needs that fit your company’s offerings.

4. Be Easy To Find And Contact

Sounds basic, but you wouldn’t believe how often people try to recall your business but only remember little parts here and there. Have business cards handy, run a search-engine-friendly website and engage in social media. List contact information prominently, making it simple and fast for customers to get in touch with your business.

5. Build Relationships With Industry Colleagues

These are people who frequently have contact with your target audience (eg. Web developers referring to graphic designers or wedding planners who refer clients to florists or caterers). Often you can provide a similar referral service in return, otherwise offer a reward for every five successful customers they send you.

If you’re wondering why you never thought of these tricks, don’t worry, thanks to us you don’t have to. Try them out and see how well they work for your business.

1. Offer Valuable, Free Content – When potential customers first visit your website they don’t want to just be hit by advertising and sales spiel about how great your company is. By offering free, interesting and valuable articles or videos or podcast that solve problems your customers are facing not only positions you as an expert in your field, but builds trust and credibility so that when customers decide the time is right to purchase, the business they buy from is yours.

2. Use Landing Pages – A common killer of conversion rates is sending web traffic from Adwords and search engines straight to your homepage. By sending your customers to segment or product specific landing pages, your content will be highly relevant to your web visitors, meaning they will be more likely to walk down your conversion path rather than bounce back to the search engines and your competitors.

3. Make Big, Bold Changes – What you say is more important than how you say it. Change the core message of your headline or offer, rather than just tweaking the wording.

4. Focus On ALL Pages Of Your Conversion Path – not just your homepage. There are three key areas to converting your website visitors to customers – Conversation (homepage, product page, landing page), Exchange (form paths, shopping cart) and Post-purchase (upsell offers, thank you page, backend offer). Testing ALL areas of your conversion path, rather than just the first one, will improve your sales handsomely.

5. Analyze Google Analytics – A free tool from Google but one that is absolutely vital for you to understand which parts of your website are successful and where customers are exiting, so you know where you need to improve. If you don’t know how to use Analytics, there are countless free tutorials online so you can get up to scratch in very little time.

There are a number of risks that people need to hurdle before they buy from you. These differ for every business and industry. The job of guarantees is to make these hurdles as small as possible or, even better, disappear.

When potential customers are first introduced to your business they usually have no idea whether you are the most trusted, honest, long-established experts in your industry or simply a bunch of cowboys with a snazzy website. Offering guarantees can reassure customers they are in safe hands.

There are a number of risks that people need to hurdle before they buy from you. These differ for every business and industry. The job of guarantees is to make these hurdles as small as possible or, even better, disappear.

There are two types of guarantee that you can work for any business depending on the situation:

Mitigation – Where you reduce the risk to doing business (Eg. Simply return the product for a full refund if not completely happy).

Reversal – Where YOU assume the risk instead of the customer (Eg. Return the product if not completely happy and we’ll refund 110% of what you paid).

To find the hurdles and risks of doing business with you, you need to ask yourself the question: “Why would someone choose not to buy from me?” and “Why would someone choose to buy from my competition instead?”

What you need to ask is what are the barriers to purchasing from your business, and how can you negate these barriers using guarantees?

Popular guarantees are:

• Satisfaction
• Product
• Delivery
• Customer Service
• Price

It is far easier than you’d expect coming up with solid guarantees for your business – often companies already have guarantees included in their service but have forgotten to tell anyone. For instance a client I recently worked with who owns a party hire company told me in nine years of running his business he’s never been late with delivery. I told him to stop keeping it a secret and use it as a guarantee!

Guarantee Relevance

Guarantees have to be relevant to your customers’ concerns, and you have to be confident of meeting them. If you deal out hollow guarantees that you can’t stick to, they will have a negative effect on how your business is perceived in the long term.

Some people will be reluctant to believe your guarantees. Give them overwhelming evidence to support your claims. Leave nothing unproven. Use testimonials, case studies any other credibility indicators to show you are true to your word.

With that in mind, here are 7 ways to easily grow your business by giving the most value possible to every customer you serve:

Many companies think that growing a company is all about getting new customers through the door. While this is one way, it is not the only way.It is far easier to sell to an existing customer than it is to gain a new one. It is also much cheaper, with no acquisition cost.

With that in mind, here are 7 ways to easily grow your business by giving the most value possible to every customer you serve:

1. Upsell – When a customer wants two of what you’re offering, let them know that if they by three, five, ten or even a hundred they’ll be saving even more. If you can provide your customer more of what they want and at greater value to them, why not offer it to them?

2. Make A Premium Version Of Your Product/Service – Chances are you’re offering your customer good value for money for your product/service. Why not pull out all the stops and offer your customers a luxury, no expenses spared option as well? Let them choose which one they want.

3. Cross-sell – McDonalds makes $300 million per year with one simple sentence – ‘Do you want fries with that?’. Do you have any other products/services that your customer might want?

4. Get Their Details – Send them a text when it’s time to use you again. Call them to find out if they’re happy with your company. Mail them to let them know of any special offers. Do what you like, but make sure you get their details in the first place!

5. Wish Them A Happy Birthday – No one gets tired of receiving kind wishes on their birthday. Even if it’s just a quick email to let them know you’re thinking of them. If you can offer them a gift or discount next time they visit – even better!

6. Offer A Warranty – For a little extra cost you can give your customers complete peace of mind, knowing that if anything should go wrong you will fix the issue, no questions asked.

7. Make A Follow On To Your Current Product Or Service – Is there anything you can offer your customers 3, 6 or 12 months down the line that will add even more value to their original purchase? It’s your duty to let them know about it!

By trying out just a couple of these ideas you will find more and more cash flowing in to your business with hardly any effort at all.

Write down the top three tips you feel you can help grow your business and you’ll be pleasantly surprised when you implement them. Good luck!

So what are the other marketing benefits of blogging? Let’s move on from the business reputation side of things and focus on the other benefits you can look forward to when incorporating blogging into your marketing strategy.

In the previous post we talked about the first 3 marketing benefits of blogging for your small business. We touched on the notion that it is an effective way for you to interact with your customers on a much more intimate basis and makes you more memorable than your competitors.

So what are the other marketing benefits of blogging? Let’s move on from the business reputation side of things and focus on the other benefits you can look forward to when incorporating blogging into your marketing strategy.

Low cost marketing channel – The biggest lure for blogging in comparison to other marketing avenues is that it is incredibly cheap and it can be easily incorporated into any business website. The only costs you really have for a blog is in man hours of someone writing the content and then uploading it each time. The best way to get started is by reading other blogs from similar businesses to see exactly what information people value and to build ideas on what you can write yourself.

Keeping your website fresh – When your website content remains static people have no reason to keep returning to it. You should try to develop a relationship with customers where they visit your site even without the need to purchase. This helps keep your brand in the front end of their mind, and ensures they don’t end up being swayed by the efforts of your next competitor. A blog is one of the easiest ways to keep website content fresh and up-to-date, giving people an incentive to come back and take in some really useful information. Make your business memorable by offering a dynamic website experience that is worth their time and over a period you’ll see a greater return on your profits.

For more information on how blogging can be incorporated into your marketing strategy, as well as other marketing options give one of our experts a call on (03) 9015 6874

Building and maintaining a consistent blog can often be a tough task to take on for small businesses that aren’t used to having an online social presence.  While some people can make it look easy, it is essential to overcome hesitations and consider incorporating regular blogging into your marketing strategy.

There are a few misconceptions and fears that prevent businesses from taking on blogging, including the thought that it needs tending to no less than 2-3 times a week to make the most impact. Not necessarily! While frequency is important so that your blog doesn’t drop off from people’s radar, it is the consistency and quality content that sets up a positive experience with your readers. There is no point in blogging several times a week with overwhelming and irrelevant content.

Over the next two parts of this blog we’re going to take a look at why blogging may be one of the most effective and risk-free marketing benefits that your business should take on in this new digital age.

Developing a reputation as an expert – A business’s reputation is what helps develop the trust between your current and potential customers. Writing blogs on topics that are related to your business showcase that you have the knowledge within the industry. Content that helps your readers solve their problems will make you more memorable than your competitors. But don’t worry about giving away too many of your secret herbs and spices. After readers finish implementing the more simple advice, they will turn to your business as the experts to help them when it comes time to take them to the next level.

Helps with search engine optimisation – Blogs are very search engine friendly, not just because of the ability to spit some targeted keywords in them, but also because search engines always prefer new content over more out-dated pages. You can do some simple keyword research online using keyword tool systems or if you would like a more in-depth understanding and overview you can contact marketing agencies to have a look at what keywords are trending within your industry. These keywords are then used to help you determine ideas for blog posts, including the targeted keywords in the blog titles and throughout the post itself. Remember, top keywords will often change over time, so it’s important to re-research and update your list every so often.

Enhancing your company persona – Blog marketing is one of the most cost-effective ways to develop a more personal connection with your customers. Dedicated readers will begin to develop a relationship with the business, resulting in a subconscious form of trust that you rarely achieve with normal marketing and advertising. The comments featured on blogs also allow you to learn more about your customer base as they frequently post comments, both positive and negative, about their recent experiences. Never fear a complaint though. Use this as an opportunity to open a healthy customer dialogue and show others that will no doubt see the interaction online that you do indeed care about customer feedback, and care enough to respond and act.