by Marianna Muscat | Aug 2, 2016 | Content Marketing
Many conventional marketing approaches are too expensive for startups or small businesses, so inbound marketing with its various techniques, makes a lot of sense. Since inbound marketing is all about attracting prospects to your business – rather than actively going and out and searching for them yourself, using advertisements, cold-calling or direct mail – it’s a lot more affordable and successful.
Here are five techniques that can make a real difference to your business:
- Give away a free guide or eBook
Creating a guide or resource that relates to your business and offers solid information is a great way to establish a loyal following, as well as building up your email list. It’s a good idea to keep the guide as specific as possible, since you are targeting a certain type of visitor, one who will hopefully convert to a customer.
- Focus on relevant keywords and optimise them
To gain traffic from keywords used in searches, you have to use those keywords on your site. Rather than using loads of different keywords to cover all your bases, pick the few keywords that are really valuable and reflect exactly what your business offers. You can then create specific pages on your website that relate to those keywords.
- Ask and answers questions on social media
By following and interacting with companies on social media platforms, you can establish yourself as an expert in your field, which could ultimately lead to conversions. By actively participating in conversations, your name will be recognised and associated with your brand, resulting in a follower feeling like they know you already when visiting your site for the first time.
- Guest blog
By guest blogging, you can reach a larger audience, as well as build your personal brand and gain powerful linkbacks. A list of publishing brands on the landing page of where your guest blog appears can give you a lot of credibility and prestige.
- Create an email opt-in pop-up
Although some people hate them, a pop-up email opt-in is a very successful way to build an email list, which in turn builds your following.
Try some of these techniques, and see how they can benefit your business. For more on inbound marketing and how it can increase your business, contact us. We offer a wide range of cutting-edge digital marketing services to amplify your exposure.
by Francois Muscat | Aug 1, 2016 | Content Marketing
In the past, you might have had one or two sales representatives sourcing business and following up with leads. As digital marketing becomes more sophisticated and complex, however, you are creating more customer data that can be used to help you automate your marketing strategies. Here are four useful ways that you can automate your social media, mobile, content and other digital strategies:
Integration with sales
Your marketing automation and sales team need to go hand in hand. Open the lines of communication so that your marketing team is aware of the type of content that is needed at each step of the sales funnel. Also ensure that your web analytics and marketing team are providing sales reps with important stats and customer feedback information so that they can follow up with hot leads.
Email campaigns
Emails are still one of the most preferred types of communication methods. Create drip email campaigns with highly targeted content so that you can continue to engage with potential customers that showed interest in your website, exhibition stand or any other market touchpoint that you have.
Landing pages
Some people think they should only be creating landing pages if they are embarking on a paid search advertising campaign. Landing pages should be created to provide relevant, valuable and targeted content in exchange for contact information.
Testing and optimizing
Marketing automation strategies should be revised and continuously improved upon so that you know which landing pages, headlines and email copy are working well.
For more information and advice about marketing automation strategies from WSI OMS, please contact us today.
by Marianna Muscat | Jul 26, 2016 | Content Marketing, Facebook
Most marketers wanting to use video in their marketing will turn to YouTube – unsurprisingly, since 300 hours of video are uploaded every minute! YouTube has a massive audience, so it seems like the best platform. But Facebook is another equally large and growing video home – with four billion video streams daily, Facebook is a force to be reckoned with. Think about using Facebook for your video marketing and how you can engage with more fans on the platform.
- Upload your videos natively – meaning, upload directly to Facebook, rather than sharing it as a link. Native Facebook videos are seeing more interactions than those from YouTube or Vimeo.
- Catch the attention in the first three seconds – the autoplay function means the video will play as people scroll though, so grab the attention, with or without sound. Create a compelling title. Using a thumbnail also does a great job in grabbing attention – whether custom made or generic.
- Create exclusivity for Facebook – by posting your video on Facebook only, you make it seem more special, and fans are more likely to follow future video posts. You can promote your video content on other social media
- Make videos that are shareable – like all content on Facebook, it gets discovered by sharing. You either want your audience to relate to the video, respond emotionally or find it fascinating enough to want to share with the world.
- Create a teaser – providing a bit of information from the video, like a key quote, will set up the expectation.
- Add a call to action – this could appear at the end of the video – click through to a website, replay the video, watch related videos, etc.
- Tag other pages – this helps to spread the organic reach of your video. Tag people who contributed to the video, are mentioned in the video, who inspired the video.
- Use video insights to determine performance – Facebook provides metrics like video views, average duration of views, audience retention etc. This can tell you a lot about how your audience engages with the video and help you to increase it next time round.
- Feature food – food is by far the most popular content for video uploads to Facebook. It’s an interesting fact, but obviously, can’t work for all businesses.
- Embed your videos in your blog posts – this will increase your reach.
For more on using social media for your business, contact us. We have loads of experience in social selling and social networking.
by Marelise da Silva | Jul 14, 2016 | Content Marketing, Website Content, Website Optimization
Creating an awesome web page that people will visit again and again isn’t easy, but there are some things you can do to improve your chances. Ultimately, you want your readers to experience a page that is user-friendly and quick to look at, as well as offering something interesting that your readers will pass on to others. Here are eight simple tips to try:
- Ensure your page loads fast
Internet connections are getting faster and faster, but there’s always something more to download. Speed is something people only notice when it’s absent, so while you might feel your efforts at improving your loading speed go unnoticed, it goes a long way to improve experience. Make sure your images are optimised for speed and that the page has no broken links.
- Keep your page simple
These days, people skim read, so get to the point and avoid excessive content. Show your readers what they want to see, but provide enough detail to keep them satisfied.
- Have clear navigation
Your readers need to be able to navigate round your page with ease and speed, or they won’t stick around. If the page is long, use anchor links to lead the way around.
- Use small images
Make sure your images are resized and optimised to be as small (quick to load) as possible.
- Write for a global market
Consider your readers might be from all over the world, so make sure things like currencies, measurements, dates and times are clear and not specific to a particular country.
- Check your spelling
People judge websites by the quality of the writing, so make sure you don’t have errors.
- Make sure your links work
Broken links show readers that your site is not maintained and they’re unlikely to spend time on your page. Use a HTML validator and link checker to help check older pages for broken links.
- Provide your contact information
It doesn’t have to be every detail, but supplying a way for your readers to contact you often creates a level of trust. Usually, they’ll only contact you if there’s a problem.
If you need help with your website design, or want to know more about creating a great page, give us a shout and we’ll point you in the right direction.
by Marianna Muscat | Jul 12, 2016 | Content Marketing, Copywriting, Online Marketing
There’s a wealth of information out there for small businesses and marketers on how to optimise their landing pages to improve conversion rates. Sadly, you can’t trust everything you read online, so bad information could lead to bad decisions which ultimately are to the detriment of your business.
Here are three of the most common misconceptions about landing pages:
- Low conversion rates = problems with your landing page
You can improve your conversion rates without touching your landing page – looking at your target audience is a good place to start. If you are targeting the wrong people, nothing will make them convert. Look at your keywords and focus on high commercial intent keywords that have strong buying signals. Refine your location targeting options, by using geotargeting, but be careful not to set too large an area. For businesses handling a lot of mobile traffic, try using Call-Only ads – a format where the visitor clicks a single button and calls your business directly from an advertisement. Skipping the landing page stage altogether can have a big impact on your conversion rate.
- A/B testing on your landing site is the ultimate optimisation
It’s easy to become obsessed with tiny details in the quest to perfect your landing page, but you could just be wasting a lot of valuable time. Typically, in a conversion rates A/B test, the performance of the control and the variant level out over time. Rather than focusing on small design detail, try doing something bold, giving your prospects something they want, like a special offer or discount. At the same time, consider your sign-up flow – asking for user data early in the buying process can be off-putting, so ask users to sign up at the end, or offer a more flexible sign-up process.
- The landing page is the last opportunity to get visitors to convert
In today’s always-on, multi-device environment, people rarely go through a funnel from your landing page. To capture more conversions, you need to think about remarketing – where your message ‘follows’ a prospect around the web, keeping your brand or product top of mind, allowing the user to convert when they’re ready. Social media is perfect for remarketing, as the visual nature of ads on Facebook are very effective.
There’s a lot more to conversion rates than a landing page. Although your landing page optimisation is important, it could be the rest of your process that needs adjusting. For more on social selling and optimisation of your site, contact us today!
by Marianna Muscat | Jul 6, 2016 | Content Marketing, Copywriting
Recent surveys and analysing of shares and posts revealed that 50% of content gets eight or less shares and even fewer links. A constant supply has resulted in content getting less engagement than ever before. It’s not that the content is dropping in quality either – there’s just so much great content that the bar has raised higher.
‘Content shock’, a term coined by Mark Schaefer, refers to content supply that is exponentially exploding while content demand is flat. Many social sites with great content are experiencing a dramatic drop in traffic. Some have responded by increasing their content output, which has led to more total shares, but still less per post.
Is there anything you can do to ensure your content doesn’t compound the content shock problem? There is, actually, starting with more research. Many people rush into content production without enough research, which leads to a gap in the information as to why and how content resonates with your audience. If you have investigated the content your audience likes, shares and engages with, you can align your content creation to fit. If your content answers questions that your audience is asking, you stand a much better chance at content success. It also helps to know what your competitors are doing and finding out what content works for them.
Finding the right platform for your content is another way to get it shared. By understanding who will read, share and link to your content, you’ll have the upper hand. Social networks play a huge role in content discovery, but that doesn’t mean your content will lead to links. People share for different reasons, so it’s vital to have a strategy in place for link building.
Monitoring your content shares and keeping track of changing trends can be an eye-opener. Social sharing takes place quickly, so an article you schedule for posting a week ahead about something trending today, will not get the shares you hope for, no matter how great the piece. Knowing what the hot topics are and responding to issues of your audience is a definite step in the right direction.
If you are finding your content is not getting its time in the spotlight, contact us and we’ll review your content marketing strategy, as well as look at the way you use social media in your business.
