The importance of having a social media presence in business is increasing. With an estimated 3.6 billion people currently on social media platforms and using them regularly and efficiently, every business needs to have a social media marketing strategy. Using a digital marketing agency to manage your social media will help you successfully promote your business’ brand across social media channels more efficiently in less time. Here are the services that a digital marketing agency will utilise to grow your social media following:
Social Media Optimisation
Social media optimisation is the digital marketing strategy of creating and improving your social media plan to get measurable results by:
Using inbound marketing attract customers to your social media profiles
Staying up to date and capitalising on current trends
Building relationships with current and potential customers
Encouraging page interactions by using like, share, tags, etc.
Driving relevant traffic to your website
Online Community Management
Outsourcing your community management to a digital marketing agency is beneficial to your business for the following reasons:
Community managers are up to date on social media channels with what they can offer and how they can potentially work best for your brand.
Offering a new perspective and fresh ideas to make your brand stand out in the evolving social media world.
Your social media is consistent by always being updated and that someone is responding to questions and comments.
Use a digital marketing agency to manage your social media marketing and don’t join the thousands of dormant accounts that are embarrassing and that were supposed to be populated.
Contact us today to help you with your social media strategy & other digital marketing services WSI OMS offers.
If you’re looking into influencer marketing to boost your brand, but you’ve got a limited budget, consider partnering with micro-influencers. Micro-influencers promote brands, product launches and services while making use of the power of niche marketing. Here’s how it works:
Who counts as micro-influencers?
Later describes micro-influencers as people who have a significant, but not massive, social media following. This number is subjective and can range from anywhere between 10,000 to 500,000 followers. The exact number usually depends on who you talk to and the influencer market you are targeting. Micro-influencers have specific niche audiences that are deeply engaged and connected to them. Whether you’re a beauty, fitness, fashion, lifestyle, wellness, food or travel brand, there is probably a large pool of micro-influencers available to reach out to.
How do micro-influencers differ from macro-influencers?
For starters, major social media influencers (or macro-influencers) have attained some sort of “celebrity status”. These types of influencers often have hundreds of thousands (or even millions) of followers, and it probably costs an arm and a leg just to have them promote or endorse a brand’s product or service. These types of influencers also tend to lead more lavish lifestyles than your average consumer. Some extreme and notable examples of influencers that fall into this bubble are the Jenners and Kardashians.
On the other hand, micro-influencers are much more like your everyday consumer. Although the criteria of who qualifies as a micro-influencer remains very subjective, they are overall more relatable and personable to their niche audience. If they were to recommend a product or service, it might seem more like a trusted recommendation from a friend rather than a celebrity endorsement.
Why should I partner with micro-influencers?
Micro-influencers can be extremely valuable for your brand because they’ve already built a strong following. They’ve established a certain level of trust and a relationship with their followers through their personal brand. As a marketer, collaborating with micro-influencers can help you cast a wider net to increase your brand visibility. Here’s how:
By expanding reach:
Whether you want to promote a campaign for your business or promote a new product/service, working with a group of micro-influencers can help you reach a wider audience. They can promote your brand using videos that will help ignite your marketing campaigns or other types of content. It’s also more important than ever before to understand the importance of using Instagram Stories for business, especially when it comes to influencer marketing.
By helping you build lasting relationships:
Working with micro-influencers can help you build lasting relationships with their followers. Studies have shown that influencers with a smaller following have a much higher engagement rate than top-tier influencers. Rather than just tagging your business or brand in a post, micro-influencers are more likely to give honest opinions and reviews on your product.
By giving you a higher ROI:
Rather than spending your entire influencer marketing budget on a macro-influencer celebrity to promote your business or brand, investing in collaborations with a group of micro-influencers can help you get more bang for your buck! This is definitely a great way to save on your marketing spend.
How to find micro-influencers
Now that you have a general idea of who micro-influencers are and what they can do for your plan, now comes finding the right micro-influencers for your influencer marketing strategy. Here are a few key considerations to keep top of mind:
Make sure they are relevant to your brand.
Will they do a good job representing my brand? Do their values align with our brand and business values? Make sure to do your research beforehand and ask yourself these questions. Targeting the wrong micro-influencers will result in a very low ROI.
Engage with them and show appreciation for their content.
Realistically, you’ve got to know why you are reaching out to specific micro-influencers. Get to know them before reaching out to see if they’re a good fit for your marketing strategy. Engage with them and show some appreciation for their content to get a feel for how they interact with their audience. This can help you determine whether or not they are a good fit for your brand.
Look for micro-influencer fans.
Conduct an Instagram search to find content that may contain your brand. Follow branded hashtags and there’s a possibility that micro-influencers may already be a part of your brand’s fanbase. For example, many micro-influencers in the beauty industry are constantly promoting and tagging different brands’ products. They name drop brands all the time when doing reviews, sharing their makeup and skincare routines. And not all of these posts are sponsored or in collaboration with those brands. Beauty companies like Glossier see this as a unique opportunity to approach these types of micro-influencers because they know they are already an ambassador for their line of products.
If you’re interested in influencer marketing, or you’ve found a micro-influencer you’d like to partner with, contact WSIOMS for help with your influencer marketing strategy.
I do a lot of work and training on how Financial Advisors can use LinkedIn to market their practice and for lead generation, which has led me to develop a few clear-cut marketing strategies for these professionals. Recently, I hosted a webinar for 323 financial planners that belong to the Financial Planning Institute of South Africa.
The Financial Advisor and Planners signed up for the webinar because they wanted to learn how to prospect for new clients using online techniques, how to stay relevant in this competitive market, how to prepare for succession planning, how to use social media to keep their client relationships going, and how people over 50 can bridge the gap if they are stuck in their traditional ways of prospecting.
Why financial planners need digital marketing
“Financial advisors no longer control all of the information investors rely on to make financial decisions.”
In the past, Financial Advisors were in control of the information that investors relied on to make financial decisions. Google has made access to all the information free, which makes it easy to see why financial advisors need digital marketing. If a practice is to succeed, it will have to use the Internet.
With a homepage having about 10 seconds to deliver a compelling message, we discussed what Financial Planners need to make sure website visitors have an experience on the site that will lead them to initiate contact. I then talked briefly about all the components of digital marketing including SEO, content marketing, social media, website design, email marketing, analytics, paid search advertising and digital campaigns. I also delved into the importance of inbound marketing – and the role of blogging and email marketing – to give Financial Planners ideas on how they can use the Internet to solve financial problems for clients, establish themselves as experts, increase traffic to their websites, and produce contact data for their email drip systems.
With cold calling having a 95% rejection rate, Financial Planners were keen to discuss and learn about other methods – such as a customised email marketing campaigns – that are less disruptive and leave a positive impression of their practice.
The single biggest trend that impacts the way Financial Advisors market their services in inbound marketing. With outbound marketing tactics offering diminishing returns, the Financial Advisors were eager to explore ways that content creating, free offers, social media, and email marketing can be used to connect with potential clients.
We also delved into the social media channels that Financial Advisors can afford to be on, the social media platforms that offer the most value for Financial Advisors, what they can expect when interacting with their target audience on these platforms, how to connect with centres of influence, and how to successfully connect with their prospects online.
I want to thank the Financial Planning Institute of South Africa for setting this up and letting me speak to their financial planners. Get in touch if you would like tailored digital marketing or LinkedIn training for yourself or your team, or if you need WSI OMS to help you with your digital marketing or online presence.
Whether you’re a small business owner or a digital marketer working with a limited budget, you’re most likely trying to get the most value for your money when it comes to online marketing tools. Luckily, there are some great tools available to help you with most of your marketing activities, and many of them are free or incredibly affordable.
Online tools that every business owner or digital marketer should know of:
The latest tools from SEO Book will provide you with all the benefits of the expertise from across the marketplace. The site offers training courses, as well as audio and video content on the latest updates within the SEO marketplace. It also lists the latest tools for growing companies.
Whether you’re looking to check the authority of a particular domain, conduct a reverse image search for your SEO campaign or check Alexa rankings, the options available through SmallSEOTools.com will provide the ideal resource.
SEOToolSet focuses on the in-depth data that your SEO campaigns need to thrive. Tools include the latest reporting options to gain insight on elements such as link analysis and domain indexing. The data revealed by these tools can help keep your firm moving forward toward its SEO objectives and driving efficiency within your campaigns.
From finding and fixing errors within your SEO campaigns to getting rankings from Google, the options within Raven’s tools will keep your campaigns moving successfully forward. Raven’s standalone site-auditor is a great tool to quickly find and eliminate SEO flaws that could otherwise see your content penalised within the rankings.
WebCEO’s suite of SEO tools will provide you with enterprise-level features for comprehensive SEO campaign management. The company also offers tools for link detoxing and local SEO campaign management to keep your company connected to your local audiences.
Outbrain helps optimise your content, amplify content reach, and ensures it connects with relevant audiences across your marketplace. You’ll achieve higher engagement across your campaigns and thereby maximise revenue growth over the long-term.
Curata is the ideal tool for a streamlined content production and analysis process. The solution helps you to drive content ideation while giving you clear data on the types of content most valuable to your qualified audiences. It also allows you to build a predictable content supply chain that takes pieces from the draft stage through to analysis and their use within the conversion optimisation process.
Through the Ahrefs Content Explorer, you can learn the most popular content on any topic. The tool allows you to use filters and sort information via language, traffic, backlinks, and word count among other metrics so that you can hone in on the type of content that will best engage your high-value audience members.
Gaining insight into how your competitors are using keywords within their PPC campaigns can help give you the advantage in the marketplace. Spyfu puts the latest market research at your disposal and keeps your team moving towards their ROI objectives within their PPC campaigns.
Getting engagement through your landing pages should ensure that your company achieves a swift ROI from invested marketing funds. Unbounce gives you the tools to build refined landing pages that continually deliver effective performance for your organisation.
Using iSpionage, you can begin to learn more about your competitors and the offers they’re presenting. The data delivered through the tool can help your team improve your offers and ensure a lasting return on investment for your campaign funds. Components such as iSpionage Campaign Watch give you clear insight on competitor actions, highlighting your competitors across both the desktop and mobile verticals.
Having access to a trusted data source for your PPC campaign can ensure your brand is continually moving forward. SEMrush combines a full range of campaign management components, such as search engine position tracking, competitive intelligence and backlink audits and analytics to ensure a constant flow of actionable data on campaign performance.
Helping companies manage their multiple social media platforms and providing them with clear data on campaign performance, Hootsuite is the market’s most trusted product for effective social media management. The solution also helps to track mentions to help growing brands retain control of their company’s reputation.
SproutSocial helps brands plan, organise, and rollout content that engages a qualified audience and begins important conversations within the social media platforms. The system provides companies with qualitative data regarding their social media marketing performance to help them make more effective decisions when rolling out new content.
MeetEdgar is the social media content scheduling tool for the proactive marketing team. The system works to catalogue the best performing social media updates by category and then automatically shares the content with your audience based on when it’s most likely to gain the most traction online.
The SEO Analyzer from Neil Patel will provide you with concrete information about your SEO performance and how to improve your performance over time. The reports offered through the Analyser help pinpoint errors within your site’s SEO and highlight how to make quick, effective changes to support improved SEO performance.
Woorank is ideal if you’ve got a number of pages to check. Work through content issues and analyse thousands of pages in minutes to review technical SEO elements and ensure every component is managed with precision.
SEO Optimer helps your team improve the on-page elements within your site. The tool gives you clear information on site performance and on how the natural elements on your site can be used to boost the site’s rankings in search.
Google Webmaster Tools is your set of optimisation tools for effective management and maintenance of your site. Within the Webmaster Tools, you’ll discover all the components you need to make fast, effective decisions on how to improve the performance of your site. You can analyse your clicks and determine their source, discover more about how your site performs with specific audiences, and learn which content is most popular.
Varvy can help you improve both the speed and functionality of your site for both mobile and desktop audiences. The tool helps eliminate elements that negatively impact site performance and provides important information about the problems within your current site setup.
Each of these tools provides you with a range of benefits, but they can take some time to master. If you’re interested in learning more about any of these online tools, talk to one of our digital marketers, or contact us for help with your digital marketing strategy.
Inbound marketing and business to business (B2) marketing are different because individuals want an experience and businesses are focused on a positive return on investment. Both, however, want a problem solved. We provide a quick guide to inbound and business to business (B2) marketing.
What is Inbound Marketing?
The purpose ofinbound marketing is to attract customers by creating valuable content and experiences tailored to them. It forms connections customers are looking for and solves problems they already have. It is, however, not enough to attract people to your website, you must also continue to help and support them after they become a customer. Inbound marketing strategies include three aspects:
Attracting strategy: create and publish content such as blog articles, content offers and social media that provide value and optimise content with SEO. Attract the right customers with relevant content at the right time.
Engaging strategy: communicate and deal with leads and customers in a way that will help create a lasting relationship with customers and potential customers on the channels they prefer. Use tools such as conversational bots, email marketing and marketing automation.
Delighting strategy: ensure customers are happy and supported long after they make a purchase, as delighted customers can become brand advocates. Use tools such as email and marketing automation or create content customers can share.
What is Business-to-Business (B2B) Marketing?
Business-to-business (B2B) marketing involves the sale of your product or service to another company. It targets the needs, interests and challenges of individuals who make purchases for or on behalf of their company, thus making the company the customer. Here are some B2B marketing strategies you can use:
B2B email marketing: business customers look for logic and a positive return on investment (ROI), so emails must focus on things that matter to them.
B2B digital marketing: to be effective you must define your buyer persona, use the best website design, optimise your presence with SEO and use pay per click (PPC) advertising.
B2B content marketing: content marketing provides valuable information to the consumer and business blogs are a great content marketing resource.
B2B social media marketing: businesses are more likely to purchase from a company they can track through social media, so social media is a powerful tool to build brand awareness.
Link building is an essential part of SEO and a powerful way to boost your website’s presence on search engines.Contact us today for more information on link building and the inbound marketing services WSI OMS offers.
Having grown up with technology, digital natives are very comfortable with curating their digital experience, and unfortunately for digital marketers, they love using ad blockers. Ad blockers have been part of the digital landscape for a very long time. Still, the rise in the use of ad blockers is quite alarming to digital markers- climbing from 21 million users in 2010 to about 75 million users in 2019 in the US alone. So what does this mean for digital marketers?
Digital natives and ad blockers explained
What is an Ad Blocker?
Ad blockers – also known as content blockers – are simple software programs that prevent ads from being shown on websites. They are typically browser add-ons, the most popular of which is AdBlock Plus.
Without ads on websites, pages load quicker, and data usage is lower – something that is good news for people with limited data plans or who live in areas with slower networks. Another benefit of ad blockers is that they can block the tracking and behavioral monitoring technology that profiles user behaviour. If you don’t want your online browsing monitored or browsing preferences sold to advertisers, ad blockers can be an attractive way to guard your privacy.
Who are Digital Natives?
Digital Natives grew up in the digital age, learning about technology from childhood. This exposure to technology in their formative years means that digital natives have a greater familiarity and understanding of technology than the generation that came before them.
Why are Ad Blockers a problem for digital marketers?
So what if users are blocking ads on their browsers? Shouldn’t users have a choice as to what they want to ingest on the internet? And the answer is yes, of course. But if you take a step back and look at the macro-view, you start to see the long-term impact that the adoption of ad blockers can have.
A majority of websites on the internet exist thanks to online advertising. Everything from blogs about Labradoodles to sites like the New York Times depend on online advertising revenues. That money helps pay for the writers that produce the content, the hosting costs, and the maintenance of the site.
When you visit a website, you might see an ad for a product you like, then you click on the ad and make a purchase. This gives the site owner a small fee, the product seller can sell their product, and the user can buy what they like.
But Ad blockers disrupt this process because if you have an ad blocker installed, you won’t see ads, so you won’t click and purchase – that means that the site owner doesn’t get their money and the product seller can’t sell their product.
What Can Digital Marketers Do?
While the situation can seem dire for advertisers and their clients everywhere, there is some good news:
There is data on user preferences and if your strategy is too aggressive in following users across multiple devices, if your ads are annoying or irrelevant, you’re going to get blocked.
Users are taking their data management more seriously and expect the sites they visit to be trustworthy.
Users are willing to undo ad blocking on sites that are giving them the content they want.
Strategies that won’t chase visitors away
Committing to creating ads that aren’t disruptive. That means no pop-ups, no auto-playing video ads with sound, no large sticky ads and no prestitial ads with a countdown.
Having a website data policy and being clear as to what your visitors can expect when it comes to tracking cookies, data storage, etc.
Creating excellent content that makes visitors want to support your site and prompting them to turn off their ad blockers to read further.
Digital Natives are going to continue to make up a more significant part of the digital population. And that means addressing their concerns when it comes to their privacy, and their digital experience is going to become more important.
If you want to break free from the dreaded ad-block, reach out to WSI’s Digital Marketing experts to ensure that your online presence doesn’t cause friction with your potential customers.
