The technology doesn’t really matter!

The was a time when a well crafted ad, placed in the correct environment was the way. However marketing has changed.

Customers are much less interested in messages that are pushed to them. They want to discover new & interesting things for themselves & then show their friends how clever they are at unearthing a great deal or recommending a winner.

Get inside your customer’s head

All you have to do is make it easy for them to ‘find’ your offering & share it!

The link between Google & social networks has never been more important. A friend highlights a great ‘new thing’, you start by searching it then maybe look for recommendations on social networks before sharing it with your friends. But here’s the critical point – it will only get shared if it’s either very bad, which of course you want to avoid, or it makes the sharer look good. 

The best content is not only a good read & easy to comment on but it is also easy to share & gain some kudos in doing so.

Here’s some tips on how to improve your content;

• Pictures are better than words: video, photos, infographics etc
• Add share options to everything
• Tell  the story behind your product
• 140 characters is a good target: customers are used to short text
• Be funny, approachable, honest & credible
• Seek feedback, what do people think?
• Will your content impart some credibility to your customer?
• Only the best deals will do
• Don’t forget the keywords & remember to research the results

Don’t paint over the digital cracks!

We can all see that digital marketing is evolving at an ever increasing pace – a website that looked fresh just a couple of years ago, now looks old and outdated.

A redesign can be the answer but here is where you must balance form and function. A gorgeous looking new site can also wipe out all your hard earned site traffic.

Here are 10 top tips from searchenginewatch.com together with some of my suggestions,  if you are considering a design update of your website;

1. Don’t just use designers. Get a team together that includes a search specialist, a customer specialist, a developer and someone who can bring the whole project together and keep it on track. A fresh look and functionality with SEO in mind is always the best solution.
2. Google loves speed. Use the redesign as an opportunity to re-code and condense. As well as upsetting Google, a slow site annoys users.
3. Don’t delete or duplicate. Build your new site away from the eyes of the search engines and employ permanent redirects (called 301’s) for your old pages/URLs
4. Don’t let Google see what it shouldn’t. Identify which pages shouldn’t be checked by the search engines e.g. login pages
5. Tracking. Ensure your Google Analytics code is in your new site before it goes live
6. Check the flow. Is the content hierarchy still relevant? If not simplify through a good folder structure
7. Page URL’s. Relevant, keyword-rich text in page names without the filename extensions is the way forward. Don’t forget the 301’s from your old URL though!
8. W3C/Section 508/Code Validation. Safe to say you should ensure your new site adheres to these compliance requirements. Raise the question during the early planning stages.
9. Usability. Aim to shorten the number of clicks/steps a visitors needs to make to reach a goal or purchase
10. Benchmark your old site. It might look better but without some comparative measures and statistics versus your old site you won’t be able to make improvements or indeed prove it was all worthwhile.

Avoid the mistakes and make the best of the opportunities a redesign presents and you should end up with a better looking site that also performs better!

 

7 Steps to Feeding the Sales Funnel

A client & I were discussing the merits of having a single person looking after sales & marketing versus splittting the two roles. To help the discussion I created the following example sales funnel & thought it would be useful to add the 7 steps to feeding just such a funnel.

BTW I decided on a horizontal funnel as I strongly believe you have to push AND pull your prospects through the process. The days of letting gravity do some of the work are long gone!

1. Within your overall customer target define a segment. Preferably one where you have previous success &/or can offer a unique benefit. Also ensure the segment can be profitable based on your business model.

2. Research this segment via Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Blogs, company websites etc. You are looking for angles & insights that will help to define your approach. For example, I spotted on LinkedIn that a prospect we had seen last year had recently moved jobs presenting two opportunities – contact the prospect in his new role & see if we can help his new company & secondly contact his old company offering interim & recruitment support.

3. Optional but consider buying a reputable email list for your defined sector (opted in etc) or start to build a contact list manually. Even if the original contact isn’t the correct one,  by going to a senior level you can ask for the most appropriate contact.

4. Create concise content to attract your segment. It might be testimonials from similar companies, case studies, tips & advice, research findings, new offers, trail invites etc

(Coming soon,  a post on my Top 100 Content Generating Ideas - start Following my Blog via Email now!)

5. Email up to 3 times over a 6 to 8 week period with different but related content. Drive traffic to your site & integrate with your social pages & PR.  As well as direct responses, look for customer interaction via Analytics that will make your cold call that bit warmer!

6. Call referencing the email/interaction.

7. Follow up with support material.

Example sales funnel

View more PowerPoint from FraserRitchie

Top 5 types of content marketing

Knowing exactly what content your customers consume online is often a dilemma for the growing business. What content type should you target to gain maximum exposure? Where should you focus your valuable time, particularly as content creation & marketing is known to be very time consuming?

Here are the top 5 types of content, according to The Wall, you will need to increase;

• traffic to your site
• customer engagement &
• social network shares.

All seem sensible inclusions to me for any digital inbound marketing plan.

1. Blogs

There are many  benefits in running a blog – here’s my previous post on the Magnificent 7 Benefits of Blogging but blogs are often ignored due to time. What do you write about? How often & when do you allocate some time in your hectic schedule?

Here are three ways to implement a blog without having to invest too much of your own time;

1.1   Hire someone to write 3-5 posts for you per week

1.2   Invite people to write a guest post

1.3   Use your blog to share images, videos, or simply curate posts from other websites.

2. Images

A picture paints ….. just look at Flickr, Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter and Instagram. We all love information that is presented through images e.g. infographics.

Here are 3 types of images to share;

2.1   High definition product/service images

2.2   Your sector relevant infographics

2.3   Team event, office space,  you/your team  doing business tasks

3. Infographics

A great, fresh way to present large amounts of information visually, they are also easy to share and much easier to  view than long paragraphs of text.

Try curating  infographics in your business sector first before starting to design your own or briefing someone to design them for you.

4. Videos

The affordability of video cameras & Smartphone’s  with a hi res camera, makes it very easy to capture videos e.g. an interview at a conference, a demonstration or a successful event.

5. Text

Can’t beat text & really nothing exists without it e.g.  newsletters, flyers, direct mail, white papers, eBooks, and presentations.

Content is king as they say. Make sure your business is creating some in at least a couple of the above channels.

If you would like some help in content creation & content marketing please get in touch.

Too old for digital?

Yes today’s world is digital, social & always connected but that’s no reason to feel that it’s all too much & your traditional skills & years of experience aren’t relevant anymore. In fact I would argue they have never been more relevant!

Customer’s needs are generally the same whether they are online or not. You still need the same marketing techniques to turn an interest into an action – Attention, Interest, Desire & Action (AIDA) is still relevant even if the final action is now different.

The Process may be quicker, customer able to harness greater knowledge but if you can sell a widget in a shop or a service at a meeting, you can sell the very same online. The other P’s remain whether you use 4, 7, 9 or 12 of them.

BTW here’s the full 12 although I bet there will be more– Product, Price, Place, Promotion, Permission, Partnerships, Personalisation, Purpose, People, Processes, Philosophy & Packaging

So don’t believe you are old fashioned, find someone who can translate all those years of experience into digital & results. Also start dipping your own business toe in the digital water. Search out some answers online, in forums, whitepapers & expert groups.

Digital isn’t going away but your business might.

Top 10 website redesign check list

You’ve added a blog & maybe some social feeds. You’ve ensured the search engines can easily find your site, however there will inevitably come a time when you will need a redesign.

There is little doubt that the redesign cycle is shortening, so when that time comes around don’t just focus on how it will look.

This is a great opportunity to place your website at the very centre of your business, right next to your customers. An opportunity to design how will it support your marketing activities such as email, social media, lead generation, brand awareness & sales conversion?

A quick search for website development check list or similar will return plenty of tactical advice e.g. this great list has over 400 specific items! 

Our list is a more manageable 10 points & has been designed specifically by inbound marketing specialists, Hubspot so your new site integrates with other key marketing functions;

1. Audit

Create a record of what your site currently delivers e.g. number of visits/visitors/unique visitors, bounce rate, time on site, current SEO rankings for important keywords, number of new leads/form submissions, total amount of sales generate.

2. Set Goals based on the Audit

‘Our site is looking a bit old’ or ‘it’s been a while since the last design’ or ‘such & such has a new site so we need one now’ are less valid reasons. Yes there is merit in how your site looks & answers your customers needs but if you are going to invest both time & money in a new site, make sure you have specific & measurable targets for 6 months, 12 months & 24 months.

3. Don’t throw away the good stuff!

Your existing site will have some content & links that perform well, so make sure your review the whole site inventory & brief the design team thoroughly on those you wish to keep.

4. Know the competition

A day or two researching your key competitors & noting likes & dislikes will identify where you can improve & offer your customers a better service.

5. State your Unique Value Proposition

This is vital. Immediately answer in plain, simple language if what you do is right for your site visitors, and why they should buy/convert/stay on your website. See my previous post on  What is it you actually do?

6. Know your visitors & build your site around them

Segment the your key targets in personas & understand all you can about each e.g.

• demographics including job title, role, company information & industry
• needs such as what information they are searching for or what trends are influencing their business decisions
• online behaviour e.g. are they active on Twitter, Facebook, or other social networks? what search terms do they use? what kind of online information do they tend to consume? which of your products or services do they spend the most time researching?

7. SEO

Ask the experts as this is tricky, time consuming & requires constant attention. Start by taking our quick 7 point SEO health check developed in partnership with the springboard to see where your SEO can be improved.

8. Calls to action

Once you have a visitor, your site must prompt practical further engagement . Think about;

eBooks, whitepapers, contests, promotions, product purchases, email newsletter subscription, free trial, contact us,  consultations & demonstrations.

9. Create a content strategy

There is no getting away from the fact that in general more relevant content generates more visitors. Build a plan to continue adding content to your site. Some suggestions to follow in a future post.

10. Consider the extras

Blog, Landing Pages, RSS subscription, shareability & analytics are all well worth including within your redesign brief.

So next time you are considering a website redesign, prepare a list similar to the above (& check off the 400+ tactical list!) or ask us, we would love to help.

Google is a bat!

We hear all the time about Google’s spiders crawling over the internet. In fact they are really more like bats when it comes to images!

Google can’t ‘see’ your image or logo but you can help it understand what it represents by ensuring you have good, descriptive ‘alt text’ attached to your images i.e. a good description of the image & what it is aiming to portray.

Obviously you don’t want to start stuffing every image with hundreds of keywords but if you match the textual content of the image (or banner ad) to the alt tag content you will be fine as regards compliance.

Like many SEO techniques, it is the sum of the parts over time that generates the results rather than any one activity.

2013 website amends invoice attached!

You’ve finally agreed on your new website design & structure. Your decisions have been supported by some good insight into what your customers are looking for & what your competition is doing. You’ve incorporated good practice in coding, so that it can be easily found by the search engines. Best of all it doesn’t seem to cost a huge amount but…

…have you considered the longer term costs?

For example is the all singing, all dancing platform suggested by your web team flexible to adapt with your business? Can anyone in your organisation update the site content with ease?

There should be a section in your digital brief called Future Proofing.

Here’s what I think should be included;

Design Update – We may want to change the look & feel of our site in the future.  The current design should be an overlay to the site structure & content. Any visual changes should be easily implemented without affecting site functionality.

Bolt On – The selected platform must have a strong support system so new modules & functionality can be easily added when required.

Content – Our web visitors expect our site to change as we introduced new products, services, offers & knowledge.  The selected Content Management System should be intuitive to use by anyone with basic computer skills & allow them to edit, add or delete content and menu headings.

You will have noticed I’ve used ‘selected’ a couple of times in the above.

I’m increasingly of the view that your web team shouldn’t be wedded to a single system or platform. Instead they should have a range to offer & be able to identify which is the most appropriate for your requirements today & in the future.

Alternatively ensure you brief at least 3 or 4 web teams & keep asking those searching questions to avoid a nasty website amends invoice in 12 months time!

The digital train is leaving – are you on it?

We have all read articles about the ‘Digital Revolution/Explosion’. We know ourselves how easy it is to be connected virtually everywhere. But have you really considered the effect this rapid smartphone/smarttv/tablet adoption is having on how your customers buy from your business?

These were the predicted online trends a good few years ago that are now a reality.

Consumers are now;

• locating shops
• researching products
• comparing prices and reviews
• making purchases online
• relying  on the recommendations of friends and colleagues to help inform their buying decisions
• increasingly impervious to marketing hype preferring authenticity and honest answers
• in control with more power, influence, and discriminating than ever before.

So what is digital marketing?  Basically any digital channel that reaches consumers and that can build stronger relationships e.g. corporate websites, online communities, internet search-and-display advertising, mobile technologies, online videos, and social media such as Facebook and Twitter.

How much should you invest in digital marketing? It’s no surprise that there is a clear link between increased investment & increased expertise but what should you invest in digital marketing?  I feel that answer depends on where you believe your company is on the digital maturity scale. Within this scale I see three distinct stages & investment levels;

experimenting with <10% of total marketing budget

building with between 10% & 20%

digitally evolved with over 20% & sometimes over 50%

To help you decide on how digitally mature your business is I’ve listed below 8 statements.

1. Our digital marketing strategy is in line with our business objectives
2. We understand how our target consumers use digital channels & we select the most appropriate through testing their relative performances
3. We use objectives & metrics to select our  different marketing channels
4. We employ digital listening to assess our brand health
5. We have a centre of digital excellence
6. We have a  clear decision making process where digital overlaps with other departments
7. We encourage digital experimentation through a test & learn culture
8. Our CEO/MD believes in the importance of digital

Much like our SEO fitness scorecard, if you answered No to more than 5 then I would suggest you are in the experimenting stage & may lack the necessary capabilities in house.

Time to consider bridging this gap with some external support? Mind the digital gap!

Video – 4 tips

4 quick video tips for a Friday;

1. Video is like a Pringle – you can’t eat just one!

One video is definitely better than no video at all and could help connect a client to your company. However a selection of videos can describe the multiple uses of a product, or explain to viewer how to do something particular with a service. This can have positive effect in reducing customer queries or information gathering errors.

Keeping a regular flow of new videos ensures an increase of viewership and can position your business as the ‘go to’ place within your industry.

2. Help you get found

Video content will increase the likelihood of your business being found on Google & other search engines.

Search Engine Optimization encompasses a range of tactics to ensure your site is attracting your customers & is easy for the search engines to ‘index’ what you offer.  The more video content the more SEO.

A 2009 study by Forrester Research found that with video, you are 53 times more likely to be found on Google’s first page of search results. Imagine what that multiple will be in 2012?

3. Keep it short & simple

Video almost forces you to cut down on complexity and to be concise – you only have a couple of minutes maximum so use all the features video can offer to get your message across quickly!

Plan, script, voice over, effects & testing are all critical to craft a great video.

and finally…

4. Don’t just put video’s on your website

Broaden your viewership potential by harnessing the power of social media & online syndication.

Numerous studies have shown how for example videos in press releases can dramatically increase views or when in emails how they can increase click through rates.

Think beyond your site – where else can you broadcast your videos?

To see some of the video’s we’ve helped develop please visit fjrcom.com