by Francois Muscat | Sep 2, 2020 | LinkedIn, Social Media Marketing
As a social media marketing platform, LinkedIn is not necessarily the first to come to mind. It has a reputation (unfairly assigned) as a tad stuffy and conservative. However, LinkedIn marketing is a powerful means of driving awareness of your brand and increasing your revenue precisely because the content on LinkedIn is more professional and industry-related. When it comes to digital marketing, 80% of B2B leads come from LinkedIn.
LinkedIn’s Seven Marketing Opportunities
Whether your goal is to increase your brand awareness or to generate fruitful leads, there is a range of features built into LinkedIn to drive these results.
- Pages– Engage with prospects and existing customers using text, links, videos, and images relating to company news, blogs and vlogs, industry news, research, case studies, etc.
For every promotional-type post, you should share four pieces of relevant content.
- SlideShare– Presentations such as webinars, product how-tos and tips, and infographics can be shared with over 70 million monthly unique visitors to SlideShare.
Link your SlideShare presentations to your website to create credible inbound links.
- Groups– Network and boost your standing as a thought leader in your industry by contributing to conversations in Groups.
- Publishing– Stand out as a trustworthy source in your field by publishing your expertise, experiences, and lessons learned as well as pieces on industry trends.
Publishing is available in 20 languages!
- Sponsored Content and Direct Sponsored Content– While both types of ads may be a single image, carousel, or video formats which appear in the feed of targeted LinkedIn members, Sponsored Content Created is visible on your organization’s LinkedIn Page or Showcase Page; and Direct Sponsored Content is not.
- Sponsored InMail– Used to send personalised content marketing material to your target audiences via LinkedIn Messenger.
- Text Ads– These ads appear on the right-hand side or top of the LinkedIn desktop feed and are charged as PPC (pay per click) or CPM (cost per impression).
WSIOMS
Contact WSI OMS for more information on how to use LinkedIn in your networking and marketing campaigns.
by Francois Muscat | Aug 28, 2020 | Social Media Marketing, LinkedIn
LinkedIn, the world’s largest professional network, offers a variety of features to help you reach your ideal customers – LinkedIn Pages, LinkedIn SlideShare, LinkedIn Groups, Publishing on LinkedIn, LinkedIn Sponsored Content and Direct Sponsored Content, LinkedIn Sponsored InMail, LinkedIn Text Ads. But, as with all social media marketing aimed to drive brand awareness and revenue, you need to test and measure your results. Only through actively testing, measuring, and refining can you reach the level of success your input deserves.
LinkedIn has built-in features that are designed to filter your audience, measure campaign results, and help improve your ROI.
LinkedIn Website Demographics
To maximise the impact of your LinkedIn marketing efforts, target your strongest prospects. Use the free Website Demographics tool for useful audience insights – industry, job title and seniority company name, size, and location. Use this data to customise and share content which resonates with those most likely to become leads and customers.
LinkedIn Audience Network
You want your Sponsored content and ads to reach more professionals on LinkedIn and all over the web, right?
Get in front of the right people, block the bad matches, and still stay on budget using the LinkedIn Audience Network (LAN – not to be confused with the lawn dressing or a local area network!)
LinkedIn Conversion Tracking
Having used the tools above to make sure you reach your ideal prospects and influencers, you will want to measure the impact of your LinkedIn Sponsored Content and Text Ads.
LinkedIn Conversion Tracking – part of Campaign Manager:
- Records conversions on your website or landing page.
- Measures leads and sign-ups, purchases and page views, installs and content downloads.
- Identifies the demographics (industry, company location and size, job function and seniority) of people who are becoming leads.
WSI
WSI OMS offers award-winning solutions to all your digital marketing challenges. Contact us for more information on how to use LinkedIn in your networking and marketing campaigns.
by Francois Muscat | Aug 25, 2020 | Digital Media Marketing
I will be speaking about digital marketing for financial advisers at the Glacier IdeasLab Summit on 8 and 9 September 2020. Glacier Insights provides investment professionals and financial intermediaries with information on the markets, and I’m honoured to be invited to speak at the event.
Why financial advisers need the Internet more than ever
I do a lot of work in the investment and financial sector. One of the reasons I enjoy speaking to financial intermediaries and other wealth management consultants is because I understand the challenges they face and how to use digital marketing to overcome these challenges.
Financial advisers no longer control all of the information investors rely on to make financial decisions. Google has made access to all information free.
What used to work for financial advisers – even before Covid – was simple: they are skilled salespeople who would meet prospects face-to-face. They were in control of all the information that investors needed when they were making decisions. Times have changed and the Internet makes owning all the information obsolete. Financial advisers no longer control all of the information investors rely on to make financial decisions. If they want their practice to make waves, the Internet is the most important tool.
My speaking slot will be from 10:55 – 11:25 on both days. I look forward to meeting everyone, and I will be doing a thought leadership article on digital marketing for financial advisers after the event.
by Francois Muscat | Aug 24, 2020 | Content Marketing, Inbound Marketing
Content marketing and inbound marketing are often terms used interchangeably amongst marketers. Neither method is better than the other, and both approaches, when used together, can create fantastic results. In this blog, we go into detail below to examine the differences between them:
Content marketing
Content marketing provides valuable information that will attract and retain customers through social media, Search Engine Optimisation, and PPC. Here are some reasons why businesses should focus on content marketing as part of their digital marketing strategy:
- Almost 30% of all internet users use ad blockers, which means that your organic and paid content needs to be specific and target your audience to be effective.
- Content marketing drives six times higher conversion rates.
- Content marketing costs 62% less compared to traditional marketing plans, while the return is almost three times as high.
Inbound marketing
Inbound marketing refers to the methods used to convert customers by using content marketing, social media marketing, SEO, and branding. This methodology is applied in three ways:
- Attract: Draw in the target audience with content that establishes you as trustworthy.
- Engage: The goal of inbound marketing is to convert visitors into customers by using tools like landing pages, calls to action, etc.
- Delight: Support your customers that have purchased to retain them.
There is tremendous value when combining inbound and content marketing tactics. Inbound marketing is needed because it will make your website great by using methods to compel visitors to take action and convert into customers. Meanwhile, content marketing will make your site attractive to visitors and provide valuable content that optimises SEO for better ranking. By using both, your brand is more likely to succeed online.
WSIOMS offers content marketing and website design services. Contact us today!
by Francois Muscat | Aug 20, 2020 | Blogging, SEO
Blogs and SEO go hand in hand in the digital marketing industry. If you’ve been neglecting your SEO strategy, you could spend a lot of time on creating content for your blog without seeing the organic traffic you’re aiming for. We’ve rounded up 5 SEO tips to help you drive organic traffic to your blog.
Driving organic traffic to your blog with our SEO tips
1. Don’t write blindly
The most common mistake made by bloggers and writers is to think that trending topics will drive massive amounts of traffic to a blog. While a trending topic may be a great way to grab attention, you’ll need to be an established, trusted name in the industry you’re writing for (with lots of followers) to benefit from writing about a trending topic. If you’re not a well-known expert in the industry, you won’t be the go-to resource, and the interest in the trending topic you just wrote about will die off long before a large number of readers find your article or post.
You can remedy this by writing what we call “evergreen content” that will keep attracting the attention of readers for a long time. Evergreen content is not time-sensitive, and stays relevant for long after it has been published, driving traffic to your blog over several months or (even better) years. Evergreen content does not rely on a specific event or trend to remain relevant, instead it remains valuable for readers over a long time and does not need to be updated often to remain factual and correct.
Research is key to understanding if your topic is trending or evergreen. You can research topics by using search engines, keyword research tools (to determine traffic) and by looking at what your competitors and other writers in your industry or niche are ranking for. Another great tool to determine if your content is evergreen is Google Trends. Do a quick search for your topic and you’ll be able to see if your topic has a notable “spike”. If there is a spike, it means that your topic could be trendy (or possibly seasonal) which makes it less applicable in your search for evergreen content. If the line is more or less straight (with spikes and dips), it might be an evergreen topic. Try searching for “Christmas” and “social media” for a demonstration of how this tool works.
2. Understand why people are searching for a specific term
If you want to rank better on SERP, then you need to have an understanding of why someone could be searching for a specific topic so you can write content that answers the question. Google wants to deliver the best search results to its users, so if you miss the “why” of the search, then your content will not be aligned in a way that will get you to rank.
When someone searches for “coffee” they’re most likely looking for a place nearby that sells coffee. So, if you’re writing about the history of coffee, you won’t rank above the results that provide direct, relevant information. If you’re in the coffee industry, think about answering some more pertinent questions such as “where can I buy a vegan latte” or “summer coffee recipes”.
3. Write deep, not long
Many resources about SEO and blog writing will tell you that your content needs to be over 2000 words in length or some other number. Instead of trying to hit an arbitrary number, rather take a look at what is typical for your industry and write enough content to answer a specific search query.
You need to focus more on covering your topic in depth so that your reader gets all the information they might need in one place. Google wants to provide its audience with great results, and that includes giving them results that answer their questions comprehensively.
Use the search engine results page (SERP) to ensure that you cover the most important aspects of your topic by reviewing the results that already rank and checking that you’re covering what your audience may want to know from a search query.
4. Earn links by creating valuable content
Google will know that your content is relevant and valuable to others if your content is linked to by others. While it seems simple, it is incredibly powerful to have other bloggers, writers and online sources to link to your content. It shows Google that you know what you’re talking about and that you are a trust-worthy source of information.
Whatever you do, don’t be tempted to buy links or gain them through similar schemes. This goes against Google’s user policy and can get your page(s) or entire website removed from rankings altogether.
There are ways to create link-worthy content, including sharing unique insights and personal experiences that people will genuinely be interested in. You could also curate information into a definitive guide and provide an insider look at the information that people would typically not have access to (data that you’ve gathered or research that you’ve done). The key here is to be ethical about how you provide information- be sure that you’re allowed to share information, credit your sources and don’t plagiarise information from other writers.
5. Spend time on your title and description (H3) title tag meta description
This is where you need to get a little creative without crossing the limits of what is displayed. Because Google truncates your title tag and meta descriptions, you need to keep them short and sweet while using your chosen keywords and attracting attention with powerful terms, also called power words.
Keep your title under 50-60 characters and your meta description under 160 characters. Put your keywords first (or as close to the beginning as possible) and create something that will get the reader to stop scrolling and click on your post.
If your SEO strategy needs a revamp, contact WSI OMS to find out how we can help you to drive organic traffic to your blog with an improved SEO strategy.
