by Francois Muscat | Dec 30, 2015 | Digital Media Marketing, Social Media Marketing, Website Optimization
The performance of your website, content and social media all impact on your business’ bottom line. Using marketing performance metrics and monitoring them regularly will allow you to adjust your strategy to get the most return on your time and effort. Getting your strategy right when you have the data which tells you how, will lead to visits, return visits, lead generation and ultimately, conversion.
Marketing performance metrics are the tools you use to measure the value of your content – using these tools can shape the type of content you write. Most people use Google Analytics, a free tool which provides masses of data and good insights into your content performance.
To figure out the data, you need to decide which facts are important. Here are a dozen top measurements to look out for:
- Overall blog visits – Traffic source breakdown
- Blog homepage visits – Number of posts published
- Top viewed posts – Average views per post
- Average inbound links per post – Average comments per post
- Social shares per post – New blog leads
- Conversion rate – Email subscribers
This kind of data will clearly show which content is driving the most interest. The trick now is to put it into your strategy and make the necessary changes. Using quantity metrics, for example, will focus on how many users, number of page views, bounce rate and inbound links to your website. If the data tells you have low traffic and low staying power, it means your content is weak and needs a major overhaul. High traffic and high staying power with shares to other pages would indicate your content is engaging, and is well suited to being repurposed.
Audience performance metrics are also known as vanity, or feel good measurements. They are used to understand what content is popular and where. They tell you the number of views and comments per view, unique visitors vs. repeat, number of shares per post, to which sites. This kind of data will inform you where you need to expand your presence.
Content performance metrics measure how your blog is doing and what you need to do to improve its productivity. It tells you the shelf life of your blog: how long it gets views, what days, what times. It gives you some insight into your visitors – how many comments and shares are you getting? How long do people spend on your page? How many loyal visitors do you have (the ones who visit your site five or more times a month)?
The content conversions illustrate the actions a visitor takes: did they sign up, subscribe to a newsletter, take a free trial?
Analytic tools are packed with valuable information which can help you make important decisions about your content and marketing strategy. By using them properly, you can create better content which will help you achieve your goals quicker.
Content marketing is only one of the many services offered by WSI
A digital marketing company, such as WSI, is exactly the type of company you need if you’re looking to increase your content effectiveness. Their wide range of services covers all aspects of marketing for online platforms and they can help you decipher performance metrics to improve your blog productivity. Contact them today to find out how they can assist you.
by Marelise da Silva | Dec 17, 2015 | Visual Marketing, Website Optimization
Many studies are conducted daily on the impact various types of communication have on people and it can be quite complicated stuff. One thing that’s a no-brainer though is that pictures sell stories. Research shows that 93% of our communication is visual – images are quick to consume and easy to remember (why movies are easier to recall than the book). Writing posts for your blog is an important marketing tool for your business, so you want to get it right, right? Using images to break up text is an easy way to keep the short attention span of your average reader a bit longer, as well as making your post memorable.
If you can remember three things when creating a post, it’s more likely to be shared (because people like to be helpful and will share anything that resonates with them). These three things are: Keep your post simple; Use beautiful graphics; Provide helpful information. An important step if you want to follow these three guidelines is to create a style guide for yourself and use it whenever you post anything.
A style guide consists of a colour palette, the mood and feel of the brand, font choices and types of image. When choosing a colour palette, pick two or three colours and be consistent. Using the same colours will help people recognise and identify with your brand. The mood could be playful, serious, inviting, controversial, safe, comforting – once the mood has been identified, ensure it ties in with the rest of the style (serious brands would not use a colour palette of hot pink and lurid purple, would they?). As with colours, pick two or three fonts for your brand and keep it simple. When it comes to images, tell a story with consistent images and graphics. With sharing in mind, it’s important when using images in your blog posts to make sure they’re easy to share – use Open Graph images.
Titles are hugely important too, since they are the attention grabbers. Using keywords is valid, but write for humans, not programmes. Meta titles become the subtitles when shared on social media, so they count too.
There are a number of online design tools to help create your own templates, resize designs and add professional effects to your images, such as Canva, MonkeyPic and Adobe Creative. For those with more time, Lynda.com provides online tutorials in design and there is always a lot to watch on YouTube. Remember, people love to share and to be helpful – there’s a wealth of information on the Internet.
In addition to online tools, there are many Apps for use on your smart phone. Your mobile device images can be enhanced, labelled, edited or filtered and then shared across all devices. Some good ones are: Word Swag, Over App, PS Express, Adobe Colour and Camera Awesome.
There’s a lot you can do to improve the visual side of your marketing, but it is time consuming and takes a bit of practice.
Use the services of a digital marketing company like WSI
If your business is too small to warrant the employment of a full time social media strategist, you might want to think about outsourcing. The experienced marketers at WSI can effectively manage your social media marketing, content marketing and content creation. Why not contact them today to find out their views on visual marketing?
by Marelise da Silva | Nov 26, 2015 | E-mail Marketing, Website Optimization
You email subscription list is not only valuable for your digital marketing strategy, it’s vital to ensure achievement of your core business objectives. However, regardless of how well you plan and execute your email marketing efforts, you will use subscribers over time, which may leave you stumped, wondering what you could be doing wrong.
The length of your email list is affected by two main factors, the number of people that are added to the list and the number of those who fall out (list churn). People may fall out of your list for very many reasons, a lot of which don’t have anything to do with you.
There’s a lot about list churn that is beyond your control. However, there’s a special category of people you still hold some sway over: the ones who are considering unsubscribing but haven’t done so yet. Here are a few examples and how to treat them.
Emotionally unsubscribed people
There are two ways people unsubscribe to emails: manually unsubscribing and simply falling inactive. The latter group simply stop clicking/opening emails, or programming spam to automatically send the mail to the spam/bulk folder. Some may want to read them but lack time, so they create a subfolder for your emails, but never get to them.
It’s a lot of work to re-engage a disengaged subscriber, but you can initiate a campaign that might see you win as many as 20% back. The best you can do is to improve your mobile marketing and digital marketing strategies to ensure they don’t disengage in the first place.
Managing manual unsubscribes
You can actually do more for those who unsubscribe manually than you can for those who just become disinterested. The first step is to ask why they are unsubscribing. You can use a survey as they’re leaving, or simply take any of the below reasons that are applicable to you.
- Sending emails too often
- Sending emails too infrequently
- Sending overly promotional emails
- Sending irrelevant emails
- Sending emails that don’t add value
- Sending emails that are not optimized for mobile viewing
These reasons cause many subscribers to drift off, but they have easy solutions. Once you determine the reason for your clients’ unsubscriptions, even if you don’t win them back, you can re-engineer your strategy to ensure that you don’t make the same mistakes with the new subscribers you earn every month.
Contact us today for more information!
by Marelise da Silva | Nov 19, 2015 | Website Optimization, Website Development
It’s normal to need more hands-on management as the business grows, given that you can’t do everything by yourself with a bigger business to manage. Processes that were efficient in the past, like digital marketing, can become very time consuming, which makes self-management unsustainable in workflow management.
At face value, a simple option might be to engage a business administrator allowing you to focus on the more important aspects of the business. The business administrator would be in charge of recruiting, handling work correspondence, social media marketing, PR and staff and affiliate management, among others.
This is all good, but being an extra employee, the financial burden on the business is considerable, especially for smaller businesses with cash flow and profitability snugs. In addition, lots of time must be devoted to the advertising, recruiting and training process before they are proficient enough to handle your business by themselves.
There’s a simpler solution however; thanks to WordPress and its over-active community of developers, you can get plugins to handle most of your repetitive administration tasks, including specialist fields like mobile marketing (often free or at minimal initial cost). By using plugins, you eliminate the costs of having a new person on your staff, and it also allows you to stay in control of your administration – win-win!
There are plenty of examples, but below are three plugins that you can use for general business administration.
- CRM
WP-CRM is a customer relationship management (CRM) plugin that includes features to store customer details and notes, schedule meetings and reminders as well as manage user capabilities and roles. WP Issues CRM is another alternative.
- Email marketing and management
Email marketing is part of any business’s marketing strategy and with your WordPress CRM; you can use details to speedily design and embed content into newsletters in Mailpoet Newsletters to be transmitted to your customers. This includes integration for recent posts, features to auto-trigger creation and sending of email newsletter. You can also use The Newsletter Plugin for more advanced options including pre-programmed templates and social media integration.
- Invoicing
WP-Invoice is another free plugin that seamlessly integrates with WP-CRM and delivers advanced invoicing functionalities include configuration of multiple payment options, invoice creation and client tracking, among others. Smart Invoice Billing Management Plugin should be your choice if you’re looking for an easier-to-use option.
Contact us today for more information!
by Marelise da Silva | Nov 12, 2015 | Online Marketing, Pinterest, Website Optimization
Many people mistakenly believe that involving themselves in random pinning on Pinterest will do wonders for their social media marketing campaigns success. Unfortunately there’s a bit more effort required to get your Pinterest account working for you and earning new followers for your brand. You need to learn how to build a strong presence on Pinterest that offers your followers and potential followers an attractive and engaging visual experience.
Keep in mind that most browsers use Pinterest as a source of inspiration and as such you need to cater to this particular need that your browsers have. If you want to reach your target audience, keep your social media campaign’s visual portfolios or pin boards interesting, positive and inspirational. You will need to share who you are, build your expertise, share your passions and interests with others as well as entertain and inspire others.
Below are a few tips to using Pinterest effectively to grow your business brand’s following:
- Make your pins as appealing as you possibly can with intriguing images, clear text and detailed descriptions.
- Don’t forget to use a variety of keywords in your image’s names and descriptions. This helps browsers find your particular type of pin in their feed discovery search.
- Add branding to your pin with your company website address and of course your logo. Don’t let this overwhelm the image though.
- If you want to ensure that your pin does well in Pinterest’s Smart Feed, avoid the use of hashtags.
- Always post pins at peak times on Pinterest and make sure that you are pinning a few times a day. This will also help you to ascertain when the best times to pin are.
- Re-pin and share other related pins or those of your target audience. This will gain you some added exposure and start to create an online relationship with your customer base.
Online Marketing Strategies Professionally Crafted by WSI
At WSI we offer social media marketing tips and advice as well as professional online marketing strategies and services to help you grow your brand’s following. With our assistance you can boost your online presence and reach your target audience with greater ease.
If you would like to learn more about effective online marketing strategies and how to boost your presence on Pinterest and other social media platforms, WSI can assist. For more information and advice, contact us at WSI today.
by Marelise da Silva | Oct 29, 2015 | Community Management, Social Media Marketing, Website Optimization
With so much out there, social media marketing can seem like a very complicated thing to manage. As always, it starts with a solid strategy and getting the basics right. There are a lot of common issues that social marketers face, so here are some of these explained.
Having a presence on every social network
This is not necessary – you need to be where your customers are. Different social networking platforms appeal to different people, as well as various industries or sectors, so having a presence everywhere will not be as targeted and specific as you need it to be. Don’t dabble in areas you are unfamiliar with – it will weaken your business image.
Consistent handles
Make it easy for people to find you, by using the same usernames across every network you are on. Using different social media handles might lead to missed opportunities, when someone tags you. Checking if your choice of username is available across multiple networks is a good idea.
Relevant content
Generating and posting content for your posts can be difficult, but by finding out what your customers are interested in, makes it easier. Following influencers in your industry is a good place to start; keeping abreast of what is trending is a good way to stay relevant. You can also ask your followers to tell you what they want to see.
Regularity of posts
There is no magic answer here. How often you post depends on a number of factors, such as resources and time. If you find it hard to come up with regular content, then post when you can, but keep it consistent. One blog a week, of good quality, is way better than numerous sub-standard posts. Content can be reposted on different networks, just remember to tweak it slightly to suit the platform, as the followers are not always the same.
Getting more followers
The simplest way by far is putting the right information in front of your follower at the ideal time. If you can get great content, that is relevant and interesting, in front of your followers, you are more likely to engage with them and gain their loyalty. Every follower has their own contacts they could potentially recommend you to, so don’t miss out on any opportunities. Use social media to drive traffic to your website.
Is bigger, better?
Having more and more (and more) contacts is not the best idea. You do not need to accept every LinkedIn or friend request. Try to acquire a following of like-minded people and build a network that has substance. Who you follow is just as important as who follows you.
Investing in social media advertising
With so much free stuff available online, it may seem crazy to pay for advertising on social networks, but it is a clever strategy. Adverts on Facebook are highly targeted, so will usually give you a return on your investment. Promoted Pins on Pinterest have good results. Find out and test what works on which platform.
Have a plan
A calendar of what gets posted where and when makes it easier to see where you are up to and will help to align your social media marketing with your strategy. Planning ahead when you have something big to launch or announce, by reaching out to influencers, can help a post gain momentum and even go viral.
Knowing when to outsource your social media management
Deciding whether to keep your social media management internal or to outsource it is a difficult decision to make. Outsourcing will free up the considerable amount of time it takes to manage a social media strategy, while also giving you access to valuable expertise. The team at WSI have experience in all aspects of social media and would love to chat to you about a solution. Contact them by phone or email and find out more about leveraging social media.
