by Francois Muscat | Apr 9, 2020 | Digital Media Marketing, Events
On Wednesday, 8 April, I hosted a webinar discussing how business can get ahead during COVID-19. Over three hundred digital marketers and business owners attended the sessions, where we covered practical ways of doing a competitive analysis.
Why now?
Some businesses are pausing their digital marketing services due to times being uncertain, but when things change – and they always do – they may find that stopping their SEO activities, for example, has left them in a poor position in Google SERPS.
Instead of setting yourself up for a difficult time in the second half of 2020, you can use this time to strengthen your business. On Facebook, I’ve seen many people using the lockdown period to get to some serious decluttering and DIY-ing around the house. In the same way that some restaurants close down for renovations so they can be a better business when they reopen, you should using this ‘shut down’ period to renovate your digital strategy – and you do this by looking at what your competitors are doing.
Take stock of your digital presence with a marketing audit
Use this lockdown to sit back and look at the big picture of your business’ digital marketing strategy. You may find that your market is changing and there are new areas to focus on. Take stock of your digital presence by doing a marketing audit.
During the webinar, I discussed how digital marketers need to do what they do best – stay on top of the latest trends, understand the data and the insights it provides, and know what their clients’ clients are doing. Then we discussed the different components of a marketing audit (website audit, SEO audit, content audit, social audit and insights). Watch the webinar replay to learn how to do a competitive analysis
Over the next few weeks, WSI will be running a free webinar series to share practical digital marketing tips, tricks, and best practices that you can use to overcome the marketing obstacles you are facing today. Based on some of the recent research we’ve seen, companies that embrace digital marketing will be in a much better position to engage and network with their customers through this crisis.
These 30 minute webinars will occur every Wednesday from April 1 – May 6 | 11:30 AM – 12 PM EDT
Topics being covered:
- April 1 – Video Marketing: How Using Video Creates Revenue, Retention, and Relationships for Your Business
- April 8 – Competitive Research: How to Analyze the Marketing Activities of Your Competitors to Get Ahead
- April 15 – Database Management: Learning the Basics of Managing Your Customer Database to Grow Your Business
- April 22 – Persona-Based Marketing: Understanding Your Target Audience in Challenging Times
- April 29 – Conversational Marketing: How to Reimagine Your Customer Communications Using the Latest Technology
- May 6 – Website Conversions: How to Convert More of Your Website Visitors into Leads
Please send your questions, comments and feedback to: contact@wsiworld.com
How To Join The Webinar
This webinar meets 5 times.
Wed, Apr 8, 2020 5:30 PM – 6:00 PM CAT
Wed, Apr 15, 2020 5:30 PM – 6:00 PM CAT
Wed, Apr 22, 2020 5:30 PM – 6:00 PM CAT
Wed, Apr 29, 2020 5:30 PM – 6:00 PM CAT
Wed, May 6, 2020 5:30 PM – 6:00 PM CAT
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by Francois Muscat | Apr 6, 2020 | Digital Media Marketing, Training
On Wednesday, 8 April, I’ll be hosting a webinar on using competitive research to find out how your competitor’s marketing activities have changed and how you can get ahead. This forms part of the WSI Ahead of the Curve series, which shares practical digital marketing tips and best practices to help you combat the impact of COVID-19 on your business.
Doing an updated competitive analysis is important during the COVID-19 crisis. During the webinar, you will learn how to use competitor research to find out how competitors in your industry have changed their marketing activities and how you can adjust your digital strategies to gain a competitive edge. You will also learn how you can use your competitors’ marketing strengths and weaknesses to your advantage and how to prioritise your efforts when implementing your research and insights.
Register for the webinar here: https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/7988692352981537547?source=WSILinkedIn
by Marelise da Silva | Mar 14, 2020 | Digital Media Marketing
If you want to improve your digital marketing strategy, you will need to optimise your website for mobile. With the number of searches done on mobile increasing rapidly, Google is giving priority to websites that play well with mobile devices. The two short and easy tips below will help you to understand Google’s Mobile-First Indexing principle.
Load Speed
Speed is more important than ever, especially when it comes to mobile searching. Google knows that people aren’t as patient as they used to be, which is why they want your site to load within two seconds. This may seem ridiculously fast, but everyone expects things to be instant. So, what can you do to make your website load faster?
Optimise your images so that they are small and easy to load. There are a number of great WordPress plugins that can do this for you. If you don’t have a WordPress site, then you will need to edit your photos so that they are small for your website. A good rule of thumb is to compress the image to 400 pixels.
Other things that you can do is minify your code for faster loading (this also makes it easier for search engine crawlers to index your pages) and make use of website caching. What website caching does is store the website. If a person has visited your website before, then some of the files will be stored, making it easier and faster to load when they visit your website again.
Avoid Page Redirects
If you have a lot of redirecting pages on your website, then you need to remove them. Search engine crawlers and servers have to work extra hard to understand where all the content on your site is, so a high number of redirects can harm your SEO efforts.
With these two simple principles, you can improve the way Google indexes your website which will be incredibly beneficial to your digital marketing efforts. If you want to learn more about digital marketing, be sure to follow our blog for tips on small business marketing, email marketing, SEO and social media marketing.
by Marianna Muscat | Mar 2, 2020 | Digital Media Marketing
Google ads automation can revolutionise your PPC strategy. Digital marketing trends are changing and leaning heavily towards automation- but that’s not something you should be afraid of! In fact, automation only makes your job easier. By automating features of your Google Ads campaigns, you can see business insights and increase conversion rates with minimal time spent online. As digital marketing experts well-versed in Google Ads automation, let us give you a few tips.
Tips and tricks to make the most out of Google Ads automation
Define your objectives
Google’s algorithm can only provide you with valuable information if it knows what information is valuable to you. The best way to ensure that you and Google Ads are on the same page is to perfect your tracking. Use Google Tag Manager to tell Google which actions you care about so it can tell you what you want to know- and deliver relevant results.
Try smart bidding
Smart bidding is no longer reserved for large, high-budget campaigns. This automation feature is extremely helpful because it can bid on campaigns for you. If you’re a newbie, be sure to start small and utilise bid caps.
Use close variants
Close variants can help you identify variations of your target keywords that are just as effective, but at a more affordable CPC. It may seem daunting to change your keyword strategy, but doing so with Google Ads automation will help you identify customer value and reassess your investments.
Google Ads automation is helpful, but we know that it- along with other SEO and digital marketing strategies- can be confusing. Don’t waste your valuable time by spending hours trying to learn all you can about PPC ads and automation. Instead, contact us today and let us use our tested and proven strategies to grow your business.
by Marelise da Silva | Feb 26, 2020 | Digital Media Marketing
Digital marketing creates a lot of online customer engagement, resulting in extensive customer data that can be used for strategic decision-making in your business. Customer engagement is, however, only sustainable if the conversations with your audience are relevant to them.
It makes a huge difference when you are able to give the right message, to the right person, at the right time and place. While this may sound simple enough, it can be tough to get right. When you are having conversations across so many different channels, you will quickly realize that you have opportunities on mobile, social media, through your website as well as your call centre.
Customers are looking for an experience that ensures regardless of on which platform (where) they are interacting with you, you need to know everything about them. They expect you to know that they were just on your website and are now calling the customer helpdesk about a specific problem.
Most of us have had some kind of disastrous encounter with a call centre, where you explain your problem to one person, only to get put through to the next person (where you have to explain the problem yet again). It’s bad enough when this happens on one channel, but when it happens across multiple channels, the effects can be harmful.
This is the type of problem that data-driven marketing promises to solve. With the proliferation of data, the Internet of Things and cloud computing, we have more information on customers than ever before. We are now at the tip where the opportunities of what we can do to create better customer experiences will explode.
Let Us Support You to Create Sustainable and Relevant Customer Conversations
Digital marketing that combines content marketing and SEO can help to set you apart from your competitors. Allow us to help you set up a winning strategy. You can also contact us for more information about small business marketing.
by Marelise da Silva | Feb 20, 2020 | Digital Media Marketing
Digital marketing allows a business to connect with customers on multiple platforms simultaneously. The average consumer uses multiple platforms to access information. So, using social media marketing and email marketing might ensure you reach customers at different times of the day as well as at different points of the purchasing cycle.
Before you start to create social media profiles on every platform available, there are a few things you need to determine, such as:
Who Are Your Customers?
You not only need to know exactly who your ideal customers are, but also what their needs and desires are. By knowing who your target audience is, you will be able to create content that appeals to them specifically.
Where Do Your Customers Spend Their Time?
You likely have a few ‘ideal customers’, with some of them reading white papers and the others waiting for more visual content on Instagram. Knowing where your audience spends their time will help you tailor your cross-channel marketing strategy for your brand.
What Are Your Customers Challenges?
Instead of writing about how great your product is, write search engine optimised blog posts that address the problems they have.
A visual representation of this information will help you identify the trigger points where you can engage with the right customer at the right time. If a person has downloaded your mobile app, then triggering a push notification if they haven’t opened the app yet is a good example of a cross-marketing trigger point that can be automated as part of your digital strategy.
Customers expect a seamless experience with brands. According to Oracle, close to 80% of consumers now use at least two communication channels before making a buying decision. In addition, 30% use three or more channels before making a buying decision.
Experts at Digital Marketing, We Know the Best Online Platforms for Your Small Business
Map out every possible scenario of consumer engagement with your brand to find new communication opportunities. If you need help with your small business marketing or SEO, contact the experts today.
