Marketing top tips you need to know this spring
There are plenty of ways to market your business from direct mail to online blogs, but do you know how to effectively use marketing tools for your business?
The increase in the use of artificial intelligence (AI), SMS marketing and messenger chatbots offer 24/7 opportunities to interact with customers and potential clients, however, removes the potential for genuine and more positive engagements with customers. Automation is your friend, but don’t forget that the customer is seeking out your business and your expertise, so make sure you show this to them – personalisation is the key!
Email Newsletters
Strengthen your relationship and raise awareness of your other business interests, products, blogs and important news with e-newsletters. This popular platform allows you to further track the customer journey with reliable analytics and provides personalisation that is person-centred, no automated copy involved. Here are some helpful tips to utilise in your campaigns:
- Segmentation – use more than one email list to customise your content, some customers might be more engaged with your latest news such as charity work whereas others might engage more with a product focused e-communication.
- Consistent theme – include eye-catching content such as images, graphics and feature your logo, but keep it clear. A clear and consistent content structure and email template will increase recognition of your marketing communications and help familiarise customers with your communications. You want them to know it isn’t spam content, whilst letting your professional communications shine!
- Branding – be sure to add in your business logo and use your brand colours to raise brand recognition. Keep them engaged from the moment they open the email.
- Opt out – it’s key for the purpose of GDPR (and keeping your customers sweet!) that you include an obvious and simple unsubscribe feature in your email. MailChimp is a great e-communication software that adds in this feature automatically for every campaign, we highly recommend it, find out more by getting in touch with us on 01925 963 651.
Social Media; Facebook
The most up to date statistics from November 2018 show that 2.23 billion people log in to Facebook each month therefore it’s quite likely that your target audience are active users. Facebook’s updated newsfeed from January 2018 has changed the focus on the platform to meaningful connection which has increased user engagement, making monetization increase as users value the targeted content that they see. There couldn’t be a better time to use Facebook Ads and Boost posts – so monitor your Facebook data on the Insights page and add a bit of thoughtful promotion to widen your reach with your most popular posts.
Social Media; Instagram
1 billion people use Instagram, but that isn’t the only recent statistic to pay attention to. There are 5 million business profiles and over 200 million users visit at least one business profile every day, with 72% of users purchase a product they saw on Instagram. This includes a variety of products, from clothing to music festivals to food. If you’re a fashion brand, quite simply, get on Instagram! 96% of fashion brands have an Instagram, so join in and start posting! Additionally, 75% of users take action after looking at a post, such as visiting a company website – it’s high time you get your products noticed with Instagram!
New tools you must try – LinkedIn Native Video
The main benefit: auto-play. You may have noticed that some videos play in your newsfeed without you having clicked on them, this is LinkedIn Native Video. Like that of Facebook’s video auto-play, if a video is uploaded to LinkedIn or recorded directly from the add video option in your newsfeed, it will auto-play when another user scrolls to it – without them having to tap it. This is more likely to garner attention than embedded videos appearing from other platforms such as YouTube.
According to Hootsuite, a social media scheduling platform, recent metrics show that Facebook Native Videos generate 10 times more shares than linked videos, a statistic that is likely to cross over with LinkedIn. So, what are you waiting for? Give it a go, you could announce news or showcase your work to your followers and reap the benefits of extra attention and increased awareness.
Social Media to retire in 2019; Google+
As you may already know, Google has shut down their Google+ social network due to low consumer adoption; it would be a good idea to sort out your account if you have one, including pre-scheduled posts. The official closing date was April 2019, but for the scheduling site we use, there have been no posts scheduled to Google+ after 28th February 2019, and this will be similar for most platforms. We recommend you check what your system has in place for the closure. If you have a Google+ icon on your website as part of your social media links – we would also advise taking this off.