Instagram can work wonders for enhancing a business’s image and customer reach, but it isn’t all plain sailing.

In her second article on the topic of Instagram, Sharon Stevens-Cash – director of Derbyshire-based digital marketing firm Gravity Digital – tells you what not to do.

Instagram is a fantastic way of showing off aspects of your business that you didn’t before – the beautiful images, the light-hearted fun, your products being used by actual people – but it does pay to know what you’re doing as otherwise your Instagram campaign might fall totally flat. My previous article went through the benefits of this mercurial modern app, now here are some of the traps into which the unwary business may fall.

The dangers of the ego following

Sometimes, business Instagram accounts focus too much on gaining a large following. This is what I like to call an “ego following”. The point is often made about social media for business that it’s not so much about selling yourself as engaging with your audience, and rather than investing the time into an Instagram account with tactical following and frequent posting, many people choose to buy followers from companies which offer this service.

Doing this is nothing but an expensive number-boosting exercise because the following you gain will be neither relevant nor useful to you for promoting your products and services.

The reason why businesses buy followers is that Instagram can be a difficult platform on which to build an audience. You must invest time, follow a structured plan and have a little bit of patience. If you post regularly, tactically follow other accounts and engage with your users then it’s likely that your Instagram following will steadily increase.

Staying on schedule

As a platform, Instagram has many restrictions. One of these is scheduling. Scheduling makes our lives easier when it comes to social media, as we are able to plan far in advance what we’d like to say on social streams, offering up free time in the work day. This is easy for Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and LinkedIn. Instagram can be scheduled, but still needs man power. Sigh! You have to queue up a post, this is then sent to your phone where you have to physically copy and paste the image yourself. So, as far as time-saving is concerned, it must be said that Instagram doesn’t score particularly highly.

Not so insightful

In my previous article I talked about the benefits of the insights feature on Instagram, allowing you to learn more about the demographics of followers. While that’s true, it must be hoped that Instagram will develop its insights feature further as compared with Facebook and Twitter data – where you’re spoilt for depth of detail – the insights on Instagram don’t seem particularly useful by comparison. However, things are always developing in the digital world so hopefully this will improve.

Doesn’t work on your desktop

With social media business profiles, it’s always handy to have a desktop version, just for ease of access and the larger screen. Unfortunately for Instagram they’re behind in this area. You can’t even post from your desktop or see messages, only scroll through your feed and notifications. Hopefully as they are rolling out more features, a fully functioning desktop app will be one of these.

Changing algorithms make it hard to stay on track

Instagram algorithms are forever changing, literally every day. What used to happen is that the app would show posts in reverse order so the most recent post from one of your following would show up when you first opened the app. Then, you’d scroll through a feed of time ordered posts – simple.

Things have got more complicated, however. Now the app will calculate the popularity of a post, the age of the image, whether it’s a video, how active the account has been and how many hashtags the poster uses. The problem with all of that where SMEs are concerned is that the app considers so many factors there’s no real way to stay in sync. You could open your Instagram feed and see an image from five days ago. Worse still, it means when you are posting, people may not even see what you’re putting out there.

A way around this is to ensure you are monitoring when your followers are most likely to be online, increasing engagement and using hashtags appropriately. Consulting with a digital marketing specialist can really help with this.

Linking up – or not

A final issue with Instagram is linking. Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin all allow you to place a link within your post. Link clicks are imperative to social media marketing because they mean that someone has seen your post, found it interesting and they’ve chosen to pursue your product or service by clicking the link. Instagram, on the other hand, only allows you to put in a link in your original biography. This means users will have to make the effort of clicking onto your profile and then find the link in your bio, then they have to search for what they are looking for specifically. Online users are too lazy for this now. They want everything to be delivered to them, they shouldn’t have to go searching for it.

But despite its limitations, Instagram is still a great tool and well worth a look. Get in touch with us at Gravity Digital if you’d like help with your social media management.

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Instagram pitfalls your business could be making

Instagram isn’t just for celebrities and beauty bloggers. It can be a great way to show off the lighter side of your business and help you reach new audiences. Sharon Stevens-Cash, director of award-winning Derbyshire digital marketing firm Gravity Digital, outlines how to make Instagram work for your SME.

For many businesses, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn are where they limit themselves when it comes to promoting themselves on social media. That’s a shame, because despite its associations with fame and glamour, there’s a lot more to Instagram than initial impressions might suggest.

That’s not to say using Instagram for promotional purposes doesn’t have it pitfalls – and I’ll be outlining those in a later article – but used right, it has plenty of benefits for your brand.

It’s all about image

Instagram is all about beautiful photography and interesting images, and that gives lots of businesses a real chance to shine. Of course, this does depend on your business but as an example, if you run a B&B or glamping site in the countryside, you’re likely to have stunning scenery around you. Use this to your advantage and let your snaps sell your business through the power of imagery. If you run a restaurant, take photos of your most mouth-watering looking dishes, and post them preferably just before lunch time when stomachs are rumbling!

Expand your footprint

Instagram has a cool factor and for many people, it may be the only social media channel they engage with. By using Instagram to promote yourself you’ll get a wider online audience reach, enabling more people to see your great products and services.

A loyal following

Once you’ve gained a loyal following by getting your tone right on Instagram, good engagement should follow. If your followers are intrigued by the products and services your business offers, they are likely to comment, like and re-post images from your feed.

One of the great business applications of Instagram is that it allows people to see your products used by real people, and the hope is that your product’s users will post photos of your products in use, tagging your business. This means that your audience is even larger, their friends will see these images, who then may repost onto an even larger audience. It’s a never-ending snow ball effect.

A great example of this is our client Mr Fothergill’s. At Gravity Digital we run the Mr Fothergill’s Instagram account. The majority of our posts are re-posts as the platform has a large gardening collective who enjoy sharing their allotments and progress. Often if they’ve used Mr Fothergills products in their garden, they will tag us and we get to share it, showing how wonderful these products are in real life situations.

And relaaaax

One of the reasons why people engage with Instagram is that it’s a more relaxed platform than others. This allows your business to show a bit of personality. Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn are more formal but with Instagram you could, for example, take a snap of your team enjoying a zipwire experience on a team-building day. Using the app like this is a great way of showing users that you are real people behind the business, not just robots.

A bonus to doing this comes when recruiting new employees, as they are likely to look for you online, through your website and social media channels. When they notice that you enjoy a sociable work environment, they are likely to be interested in vacancies you can offer.

Keeping it real

A new feature recently added to Instagram is called live stories, a very similar concept to Snapchat. Real time stories allow you to directly engage with your audience. People can ask questions about your products and discover in real time what new ranges are.

Getting to know your followers

You can use Instagram as a business page. This allows you to connect with your Facebook business page and gives your account a different appearance. It offers easy access to your email, phone number and directions. Users can click on any of these buttons and the action is easily carried out for them.

The clicks on these are also monitored in the insights part of the app – these are similar to those shown on Facebook, offering you the opportunity to see which posts work well with your following, therefore helping you gain a larger audience. Plus, it offers the demographics of your follows to ensure you are attracting the people you want.

It’s all about promotion

As Instagram is linked with Facebook, it allows you to promote posts and pop on timelines of those who don’t follow you – yet. This will enable you to reach a wider audience and gain further engagement on posts, similar to the effects Facebook adverts have.

Keep collecting

Instagram has a collections feature that is ideal for gathering groups of Instagram accounts that you like and interact with. The feature keeps these all in one place so they are easy to find. You can also save posts you like the style of, which you can then use later as an inspiration for your own feed.

Archiving

The newest feature on Instagram is the archive facility. This is an area on your account that only you can see. Here, you can archive any posts that may not have performed well but you may like to keep for posting at a later date. Or, you can keep them so that you can check them again later and try to work out why they didn’t perform well.

So, Instagram, as we have seen, can be a great app to engage with for your business. It can boost your profile and reach people you didn’t before. However, nothing is without its downside. In my next article, I will be outlining the pitfalls of Instagram so that you can reap all the rewards without any of the negatives.

Happy Instagraming!

Read more:
Growing your following on Instagram

The terms social media is one of the most widely misunderstood that we come across along with digital marketing itself!

Many people believe that social media relates solely to two household names, Facebook and Twitter, that have emerged in recent years and gone on to dominate the field.

In reality there is a lot more to social media than these two forums!

The social media environment does include, of course, social networking sites (including Facebook), however, social media also includes media sharing, bookmarking sites, social news streams and a range of micro-blogging sites, other than just Twitter. And this is a just a starting point.

But for businesses the important issue is to understand what social media channels there are, what social media their customers use and which of the social media tools will improve the business’ profile and brand.

The obvious place to start an explanation is with familiarity – with the two big boys – Facebook and Twitter.

Launched outside of American college campuses in 2006, Facebook, a social network, has taken the world by storm and as of August 2015 had more than one billion users worldwide and a net value of $250 billion.

Getting a presence on Facebook is often touted as vital for any business as part of its integrated marketing approach but this isn’t true.

If you are selling widgets to manufacturing managers, is your time really best spent trying to track down interested parties on a platform designed to engage people socially?

Understanding where your customers are and what platforms they interact with is essential, so for business to business customers, Facebook may not be the right avenue, however, for a business to consumer firm, like a hair & beauty business for example, Facebook really makes sense.

Twitter, meanwhile, is one of the 10 most visited platforms in the world and with more than half a billion users has been nothing short of breath-taking in its growth.

It has been at the vanguard of the personal media micro blogging revolution since its launch in 2006.

The idea of allowing users to communicate via 140-character messages couldn’t be simpler – and your business can take advantage of the Twitter sensation.

It allows you to communicate directly and quickly with your customer base, both collectively and individually. Of course Twitter is a useful tool, but again, not for every business – a fact that applies to every social media platform.

Aside from Facebook, there’s LinkedIn, the world’s biggest business-led social networking site. With almost 400 million users across the globe, it has become a vital way of building and maintaining connections with other businesses and customers. There is also Google+, a smaller player in the market but one which still has more than half a billion users and is growing rapidly. Setting up a Google+ account is simple and is suitable for most businesses as part of a social media approach – it will help the SEO of any website.

Away from social networking, media sharing is playing an increasingly important part of social media strategies for businesses. YouTube, now owned by Google, is the web’s No 1 site for sharing video content. But as well as sharing the world’s videos, YouTube is also a social network in its own right, with comments sections providing lively debate and opportunities for marketing. Your business can tap into this resource, as it can with Instagram, one of the internet’s top photo sharing sites. There is also the likes of Pinterest and Vine, two useful sites for promoting photos and short videos respectively. Pinterest has grown quickly into one of the web’s top sites for presenting images in a fashionable way across a range of platforms including mobiles and tablets. Vine, owned by Twitter, allows you to embed a six-second looping video as part of a Tweet. It is an increasingly popular method of sharing videos, especially among younger audiences.

One of the more established social media channels relevant to business involves bookmarking sites such as Delicious and StumbleUpon. These allow users to share bookmarked documents with each other and promotes information sharing – including information about your company. If used correctly, social bookmarking can help bolster your website, increasing hits and introducing you to new users as an alternative to a traditional search engine.

There are also social news sites, such as Reddit, Digg and Propeller, which enable you to submit news stories and share them with other users, who either vote up your submission, or vote it down. Although enough down votes results in an article being deleted!

Some of these sites use content editors who can promote your items and ensure you an even wider audience. Social news outlets should not be seen as an opportunity to sell, but more to share your key messages about your business, generate publicity and share the benefits of your goods and services.

The final aspect of social media which needs consideration are forums and blogs. These are a growing and major facet of the internet which brings people from across the world together.

Promoting your business on relevant forums is an excellent way of spreading the word about what you do with no cost attached to it – or a small one if you become a forum sponsor.

Blogs are also an excellent method of communicating your expertise on the field in which you operate. A well-written blog can be a persuasive tool for potential customers – perhaps this blog has persuaded you I know what I’m talking about?

Read more:
Using social media to grow your business

In today’s fast-paced world of constant communication online, businesses need great digital marketing strategies to capture and keep their customers’ attention. With clients on the move and accessing their information and products via mobile phone or tablet – as well as their desk-based laptop – it’s vital for businesses to adapt their traditional marketing approach and bring it up to date.

With increased opportunity comes increased challenge, and for pre-generation-Y, the profusion of new digital marketing terms now in common parlance can be like a whole new foreign language that must be quickly mastered in order to keep up with the pace. The crucial point is that digital marketing is not just about reaching new audiences, but about measuring engagement so that ad campaigns can be effectively targeted and budgets don’t go through the roof.

With that in mind, here is our handy glossary of common digital marketing terms that crop up most in our conversations with clients on how best to present their online shopfront. We hope it is useful!

PPC – Pay Per Click

This is a method of internet marketing whereby advertisers pay a set amount each time an advert is clicked. This may be seen as a “bought visit” to your website as opposed to what we would call an “organic visit” – one where a customer enters a word or phrase, into a search engine and clicks on a website link that has appeared as a result of the words entered. As the name suggests, you pay a sum of money every time someone clicks on your advert.

AdWords

AdWords is a service offered by Google and is a form of PPC advertising. AdWords targets adverts against specific searches in search engines. When a prospective customer searches on Google, ads appear above the organic results in the top three positions, and also at the bottom showing three more ads. Through the display network, Google also uses advertising space on thousands of websites who have signed up with Google to display Google ads on their sites.

SEO – Search Engine Optimisation

This is a hugely misunderstood technique in the digital marketing world. SEO enables the growth of organic search engine results. It involves elements of improving rankings, driving traffic and increasing awareness of the site across search engines. A good SEO strategy will mean that a business’s website will achieve a better ranking on search engine results pages for a wide range of search phrases.

Responsive websites

Responsive website designs are sometimes also referred to as mobile-friendly designs and to a large extent the terms can be considered interchangeable. Being ‘mobile friendly’ is a big part of getting part of the SEO right for your website, since Google will mark your website down a notch or two for not being mobile friendly. Responsive designs are simply a website design that will work well for your customer whether they are viewing it on a mobile screen, a tablet or on a laptop. The design ‘responds’ to how the customer is viewing it, making it a good experience for the user.

CTR / CPC / CPA

These are all mainly advertising acronyms used to describe how successful an ad campaign is performing.

CTR means “Click Through Rate” and is expressed as a percentage. It indicates the number of visitors clicking on an advert as a proportion of how many times the advert was seen. Low CTR means a poorly performing ad!

CPC means “Cost Per Click”. This is the cost of a click on an advert for a particular phrase.   Some phrases cost much more per click than others which is dictated by how popular those phrases are.   Paying attention to similar phrases that cost less is a way of getting more value out of advertising campaigns.

CPA means “Cost Per Acquisition”. This is a means of calculating how much advertising spend it costs to make a sale. With a 1% conversion rate for instance, it would take 100 clicks to make one sale. Taking the CPC for all of the 100 clicks and adding them together gives you the CPA. If the CPA outstrips the profit you are making on the sale itself, your ad campaign needs a rethink.

CMS

A CMS is a “Content Management System”. Most websites should be run on a Content Management System these days and if yours isn’t, then give us a call! Once upon a time, websites were hand crafted page by page. This quickly showed itself to be a problem when someone decided to make whole site changes such as to change the logo or the colour of the website. It also soon demonstrated that it was costly to always get a web designer to change small pieces of copy on one page, or to add a new news item. Content Management Systems allow you to edit the content of the pages of your website without touching the design, which also makes it easier and cheaper to keep your website up to date and in good order.

eShots and Email Newsletters

Email Marketing via email newsletters and eShots will be something anyone with an email address will be very familiar with. It is the modern day equivalent of direct mailers. A good eShot should capture the readers’ attention by being eye-catching and easy to access. Due to Data Protection laws protecting people’s inboxes, you need also to be careful in how you acquire your email addresses and you need to ensure you stick to the rules in allowing opt-outs too.

Hashtags and tagging

The younger generation has been raised with social media and so social media related phrases come naturally to younger people. Hashtagging and tagging someone are two very different things though.   Hashtags are a word or a phrase preceded by the # symbol. Introduced originally on Twitter to help people to filter out conversations on this platform hashtags are now widely adopted on other social media websites such as Instagram. They are also now considered to be marketing tools for getting a wider group of people to join in on a single conversation online.

Meanwhile, tagging someone is when you add your friends and connections on social media into a post so that they notice it in their notifications. Widely used on Facebook and Twitter to cut through the noise on these two busy websites.

LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter Ads

Just like Google, large social media websites also allow you to pay for ad space on their websites. Because people are signed into social media, this makes it much easier to target audiences demographically. After all, on Facebook you enter your date of birth, where you live, where you work, check into restaurants, bars, airports, cinemas and museums. This demographic information across everyone who has a Facebook account allows highly targeted advertising to take place. Twitter and LinkedIn also target although less specifically than Facebook. When looking at advertising budgets, don’t discount social media advertising.

As we have said before, the Internet is not a mysterious force. It is published by and then used by people, just like you and me. Therefore, when considering and planning a digital marketing strategy, it is always a mistake to forget that customers are still people who have the same characteristics as they do when they walk into your shop. Your digital presence should be helpful and convey your marketing message quickly and effectively, but not bombard the customer with loud, shouty messages that will simply turn them away. We hope this article will help you navigate the constantly evolving digital world. While it may seem different from that of previous business generations, you will come to realise that it is in many ways just the same.

Read more:
Digital decoded – top ten digital marketing terms all businesses need to know

Sharon Stevens-Cash, from Derbyshire-based digital marketing specialists Gravity Digital, outlines the enormous potential of the social media giant’s latest innovation, and offers some pointers as to how businesses can make the most of it.

Make no mistake, Facebook Live is massive. With latest figures showing 1.79billion monthly active users, the social media platform has an eye-watering reach – and for businesses, that has exciting possibilities when it comes to getting your message out there. But, as with any huge audience, getting that message right is absolutely key – if a good reputation can now travel faster than ever before, so can a bad one.

So what is Facebook Live? 

Launched earlier this year, Facebook Live is a new video streaming service on the platform which enables users to livestream video broadcasts straight from their mobile phone or other device. While this idea in itself wasn’t new, Facebook’s huge audience means many more people can potentially tap into the videos, plus its developers have offered interesting features such as the ability to watch again. With research showing that video postings have a 135 per cent greater reach than photos, it seems that people really are very tempted to click on that tantalising ‘play’ button.

How should it be used? 

After all, broadcasting and videos are nothing new. The difference with Facebook Live, however, is that it offers your business the chance to engage directly with Facebook users and offer exciting, interesting live footage of whatever you want them to see, be that a sneak peak of your new shop, glamorous guests arriving at the uber-stylish party your PR company has organised, or a hand-held video showing members of the office embarking on a gruelling charity run. Yes, it was possible to post video clips online before, but the live element means that you can now draw people in as your news is happening. The possibilities really are huge. But careful thought is also needed so the remarkable opportunities this offers are not wasted. Here are a few pointers on how this valuable new resource works, plus tips on how to make the very best of it.

Immediacy

To use the service, go to your Facebook page when you are ready to start filming and tap on the live stream icon. As soon as this is done, followers will get a notification, which will immediately then request them to engage with the content. You can also write a description of what you’re filming so everyone knows what’s going on. An important point to remember is that all live videos are archived. This means that if a user misses the video, they can go back, view comments and watch it after you’ve stopped recording. This offers a further extension of the platform for users to share their experiences of your product, plus giving you more free marketing.

But, going back a step or two, immediacy is all well and good – and it really is – but the marketing possibilities of Facebook Live will work best if you herald your video in advance and tell your followers what you’re going to livestream. That way, when they’re notified, they’ll know what to expect and will be more on board when you start filming.

Tip no 1: be prepared

The first rule of successful video streaming is to prepare the stage for what you are going to film. If you look at videos posted by some of the Internet’s new young breed of stars, you’ll notice the background to what they are filming is generally immaculate, so make that your starting point. If you’re going to be speaking static to viewers, think of it like taking a photograph and make sure there are no strange items behind your head as you film. Speak clearly into the microphone and prepare what you are going to say so there are no tedious ums, ers, and general thread losing.

What to video?

So, here we come to the million-dollar question: what should you livestream? As with all social media marketing, the secret to pulling in viewers is to provide engaging content. And the way to do that is to give freely, rather than be heavy-handed and try to sell. Launching a new product? Offer a behind-the-scenes view of your business and show customers your staff packing it up or preparing for a launch party. By offering an insight on what you do daily, how your business prepares its products and services ready for consumers, live video gives a chance to break the rules and show a little personality behind your shopfront.

Some more ideas: is your business in the food industry? A new restaurant, maybe? Offer a free cooking demo of a new item you’re putting on the menu that evening. Or maybe you run a clothing shop. Livestream footage of the new autumn/winter range arriving, heralded in the preceding days so as to build excitement, is a great way of reaching out to customers. Perhaps your business is launching a new product. When it’s ready to market, offer a tutorial as to how to use it to give people a better understanding.

Not only are all these great ways of engaging with consumers on a new platform, the livestreaming gives a portrait of your services in an intimate way that offers a real sense of exclusivity, giving viewers the sense they are there in the room with you. Or, in the case of Ricky Gervais’s now famous Facebook Live video, in the bath. But moving on.

Interactive

By giving users the option to comment on videos and share them, Facebook Live also an opportunity for a question and answer session directly with you. Customers can ask direct questions about the products or services you may be showing through live video, and this allows you to resolve their queries. It may also provide valuable insights into what your customers actually want.

Tip no 2: targeting

As with many Facebook features, you can target specific groups or users, ensuring you are reaching out to the correct group. Whilst in live mode, businesses can see exactly who is watching the video. Facebook offers insights into every area of your live postings, plus the demographics of each person watching the video, which will help you target your next group of customers.

As you can see, the potential really is immense. So use it well!

Read more:
Facebook Live: What is it and how should you use it?

Here’s my contribution. As the co-founder of a digital marketing agency, there are lots of things I’d like to see less of in 2017 when it comes to how businesses are putting their message out there in the great big world of the Internet.

We are now well into the 21st century but in my view, there is still a serious lack attention to detail when it comes to implementing digital marketing, and understanding the impact this can have on general business. With almost every actively trading company now having a digital presence – whether it’s their website, a LinkedIn profile or an online directory listing – there is just no getting away from the fact that companies are now interfacing with the public in many more ways than via their physical shopfront.

But despite this, it seems that many are not quite getting the importance of how a company comes across on the digital airwaves. A business profile is now multi-faceted; fail to pay attention to any aspect of how that’s transmitted – whether it’s with poor photography on the website or an overly brash social media sales pitch – and you may well start to see a negative effect on your bottom line. The digital age has brought with it many new subtleties to traditional marketing messaging and you overlook these at your peril. As with any aspect of business, the key is to think things through carefully and pay attention to detail.

Bad websites

A business website is so important. It must not be shoddily put together. This doesn’t mean flashy graphics or lots of clever pop-ups; it means the site should be easy to navigate with clearly written content. Watch out for the simple things; nothing will put customers off like a grammatical error or a typo that interrupts the flow of what the customer is reading. Also, think carefully about what your customers will want to know, and create a site that leads them where you want them to be with the minimum of effort.

Websites that can’t be viewed on a mobile or tablet

As I’ve written before in this column, careful thought must be given to how your site will be viewed on mobile phones or tablets. Maximise customer engagement by ensuring the site works across multiple platforms. A site that isn’t mobile friendly will seriously annoy everyone who tries to use it while on the go, which, let’s face it, is pretty much all the time these days for a vast proportion of the population.

Sales pitches on social media

There is a golden rule that is worth bearing in mind when we talk to people on social media – the 80:20 rule. This means you should split your social broadcasting efforts to avoid pushy oversell. Spend 80 per cent of your posting efforts giving out information that is useful to your audience or sharing ‘fun stuff’ related to your industry. You can then spend the other 20 per cent on promoting your products and services.

Every brand has a story and channels like Facebook and Twitter are very powerful tools for talking to customers.   If you continuously put out messages that are out-and-out attempts at selling all the time you will turn people away.   Rather than reaching out to people, you’ll quickly get ignored online as all that sales broadcasting will show the world that you aren’t conversing, you are just ‘telling’.

If you want to engage through social media, you need to provide sparkling content that offers readers something.  So for instance, if you are a cook shop, you can share recipes and info on seasonal ingredients to keep your potential customers coming back to your brand because they find your shared content useful.  Then, when you push out your special offers or news of an in-store sale, you will find you audience hasn’t already tuned you out.

Failure to measure up

It’s no good spending time and money on digital marketing if you don’t then measure how well it’s doing. Lots of people seem to view the Internet as a rather sinister shadowy entity that can’t be controlled.  However, what we all need to remember is that this is just a tool operated by actual human beings. In the same way you would measure response to a leafleting campaign, do so with your digital campaigns. Google Analytics and social media stats will help you find out how many people are looking through your online shop window, and you can then think about how better to target them. Always remember that for every click, view or like, there is a person at the other end. A lack of focus on digital marketing is often caused by a mindset that sees all things digital as technology rather than people.

Sales pitches masquerading as blogs

This is similar to the earlier point made.  A blog is categorically not supposed to be an out-and-out sales pitch. Selling and telling are different, and if there are any golden rules in the shifting sands of the Internet age, this is one of them. A blog should be informative, engaging, and, if possible, provide some insights into you and your company. People like to read about other people, so if you stories that brings your staff to life for customers, or you have stories about how your brand has touched the hearts of your customers then your blog readers will love it.

A blog which tells everyone how fantastic your business is will just make your target audience switch off.  Think of it as you would talking to a friend: no-one likes a show-off.

Bad photography

Digital media demands great images; it’s often what makes us look twice. The amount of bad photographs that get put on company websites is depressing, it’s just a real turn off. Investing in great photography will pay dividends.

Won a prize at an awards event? By all means, shout about it on your site, but don’t put up the badly lit photo of your company directors with their eyes shut that someone took on their mobile. It will just make you look amateur.  If you have a range of beautiful products, then treat them in the way they deserve by shooting product pictures professionally to do them true justice.   Similarly, if you have products that aren’t… ahem… let’s say, the most photogenic of products, then enlisting the help of professional photographers can really help you present your products in the best possible way.

E -newsletters with bad subject lines

These can be great tools in getting news about your company and products across to customers. Unlike a blog or social media posting where sharing ‘non-sell’ messages and keeping an authentic voice is improtant, this is a forum where you can perfectly and legitimately advertise new products to your clients.  They have after all, signed up to hear about your special offers so they will be expecting to hear from you. However, you should also beware of a “look at us, we are fantastic” approach as this can put people off.  Be clear in your message and take time to think about how the subject line will appear in people’s inbox. You want clarity, not confusion to get maximum open and click rates.

Lack of engagement

If you meet someone after you have spoken at a conference or an exhibition and they say to you, “Hi, I really liked what you said in there,” it would be the height of bad manners, not to mention terrible business, for you to just walk away without a word.   It’s the same with social media, email and web form contacts.   If someone gets in touch with you, don’t ignore them.  Answer comments, whether it’s on TripAdvisor, Google+ reviews, in your ‘enquiries’ inbox or any where else where you invite interaction, and you’ll reap the reward in engaged customers.

Don’t give too much information

In this complex world of digital, we are all on the verge of content overload.  Don’t add to that negatively with your own digital publishing efforts.  It is important that you don’t just write words on your website for the sake of filling blank space. As I said before, always be aware you should be offering value to your customer and seeking to connect with them, not just finding 300 ways of saying how amazing you are.

The Internet and the digital age isn’t going anywhere, so it’s time to engage with it properly. Do it well, and I predict that 2017 will be a year of growth!

Read more:
Marketing tips for 2017

Today’s consumer expects to be able to visit your business website on any device, from their mobile phone to their tablet to their desktop. That creates an interesting challenge for businesses and designers: how to create a site that works across all devices, provides the same essential information but adapts to fit not only varying screen sizes but customer behaviour too? The goal here is to create a user experience that is seamless and positive whatever, and wherever, the access point.

Research has shown that people have different expectations when they check out a site on their movevable device as compared with when they look at it on their static desktop, so a business’s job is to make sure their virtual shopfront interfaces with their customer in the best possible way each time.

One size does NOT fit all 

Creating a mobile-friendly website categorically does not mean simply shrinking your existing desktop site to fit a smaller screen. Both laptop and mobile users deserve sites that have been well thought through for their needs – and with half your viewers looking at your site on their desktop, the way your website performs for them is equally as important.

Key differences for mobile users:  

Speed – Mobile users are typically in more of a hurry to cut to the chase and get vital information quickly than desktop viewers; this may be because they’re on the move, checking their phone between meetings, or relaxing in front of the TV in the evening, browsing your site at the same time, and therefore easily frustrated with anything that’s hard to see or too fiddly. These users will not be prepared to spend as much time exploring your site as your desktop visitors, but they still expect to be shown the same information; this means re-prioritising by switching on and off elements of the site to make them appear differently depending on the viewing method. There will be differences too in how a device is used. For example, a desktop site can have “mouseovers” – content that is uncovered when you hover over it with a mouse – while, clearly, a mobile user has no mouse, so will need this information to be accessed in a different way.

With this in mind, design the mobile site so the parts the user is most likely to want to view are clearly visible on the landing page. A user survey conducted by Google and AnswerLab uncovered some interesting insights into what mobile users valued most when accessing sites from their device. Consider the following when making things as easy as possible for your mobile user:

• Big, easily-pressed buttons
• User-actions – such as “buy”, “get quote” or “check availability” – will benefit from being situated in large letters on the landing page, while on a desktop you may prefer a more subtle approach so as not to put off the customer with too much of a sales pitch early on in their visit
• Clear means of getting back to the home page, e.g., selecting your business logo
• Edited down content on the landing page so it’s shorter and punchier
• Adding filters to menus so they are pared down but the same level of content is still there 

On the move – Adaptability is key for any business to succeed and web design is no different. When creating your across-all-devices web strategy think carefully about what mobile users may want and need, that desktop users won’t – and also, what advantages a mobile phone may have over a laptop. For example, if your business is customer-interfacing – a shop, for example – consider including mobile-specific features such as directions to your premises which use the phone’s GPS. However, it is important to respect your customer too: many people don’t like to feel they have been “found” by mysterious Internet forces without being asked first. So, if you’re including a tracking feature consider incorporating a “Find me” button rather than a button which asks for your customer’s location – that way, they feel they are in control and not you. Another common feature of a mobile-only site is a ‘call me’ button that allows users to call you up while checking the site.

Different times of day – One very exciting new area to consider when designing sites, which we are pioneering at Gravity Digital, is to change information on our mobile-friendly sites depending on the time of day. As with all the other points above, the best way of coming up with innovative design is to put yourself in the shoes of your users. In particular, think how their needs will change as the day progresses. At eight in the evening, a mobile user may be interested in different information than they are in the morning – whether that’s because they are out with friends or watching TV at home. Your business could give different content than when the site is accessed at 10am. Let’s say your business is in idyllic country cottages – you could include a ‘sunset’ picture in the evenings, which will make your site feel fresh and up to date. Or if you run a restaurant, a button which tells people how busy you are when they press it at 7pm, or what the specials are today, will be both innovative and useful. First thing in the morning? Think about what commuters might need when looking at your site. Remember, everything is flexible, from colours to content.

The key is, as with all areas of business, try to think about the needs of your customer and put them at the forefront of every decision you make. That way, you’re sure to come up with multi-purpose, user-friendly websites that will take you from strength to strength.

Read more:
How to get your website right

Generally promoted as the answer to your digital marketing problems, many digital marketing specialists seem to think that if you have an Adwords/PPC programme then your business will thrive – and perhaps more importantly they infer that you have to do nothing else except sit back and wait for the results to start rolling in.

However, despite this, once you look at the cold hard results, many customers find that this success is just not there. At Gravity we have decades of digital marketing experience and our work is based results. That means we measure the outputs of our work every step of the way and our clients get to see the results – good, bad or indifferent. We have nowhere to hide.

And it’s perhaps because of this thorough measurement that we have had the opportunity to make sure we are achieving results for our clients – but it’s not a straightforward process and Adwords or PPC is certainly not a digital marketing miracle worker. As with all marketing tools, there needs to be planning – the development of a structured, defined and balanced programme of measureable activities, otherwise you’ll find that your money disappears into the internet ether with nothing to show for it.

Many new clients have come to us with bad experiences, having noticed the successive rise of Google Adwords popularity and, understandably, decided to participate. But having taken a leap of faith, many businesses have reported negligible results and consign the whole experience to the dustbin, saying investing in AdWords is simply throwing good money after bad.

But this experience doesn’t have to be the case. In our experience pay-per-click can still be a highly effective tool in a company’s digital marketing strategy – provided the campaign is properly managed. And that’s the key, ensuring there is a defined and constructive AdWords campaign, as opposed to picking a few words, running with them and paying for them at the end.

So, what do you need to do to have an effective Google advertising campaign? Take the following tips from us, they work.

Choose the right keywords

This might sound like an obvious one but it takes more time and thought that you may initially think! If you want to pay for popular keywords that lots of businesses are fighting over, you will pay more for them. It’s up to you and your digital marketing strategy team to work out how much you are prepared to pay for a more expensive keyword. Clearly, a niche product will be cheaper as the keywords required will be rarer. But, even if you manage to buy some good, cost-effective keywords, you still need to keep on top of your campaign and make sure you’re getting your money’s worth from every marketing penny you spend.

Take the time to design the right landing page

You’ve set up your AdWords account, and your first customer has taken the bait and made that all-important click to land on your site. But this is not enough. What you need to do now is put yourself in the mindset of the person who has got as far as your landing page. It is crucial that you get this part right, and make sure that the website’s opening page, the one which says a big “hello!” to your visitor, answers the queries that led them there in the first place. If, for example, the visitor has responded to an advert for a special offer on a sofa, they don’t want to land on your “about us” page. Give them the experience they have signed up for – believe us, it is only too easy for your prized customer to get impatient at not being able to find what they were looking for, and click onto another site.

Analyse results and react to users

For any advertising campaign to work effectively, you need to spend time analysing results and reacting to engagements by users. We have found, from having spent much of our time getting the best value for money out of AdWords campaigns, that any time you can spend analysing large tables of numbers is always time well spent. It may seem a dull way to spend an afternoon, but trust us when we say that we have found it well worth it.

Check your Google Quality Scores

Quality Score is Google’s way of measuring how relevant your ads are in relation to the keywords you are bidding on.  If everything is working well, the visitor’s search will match them with your ad quickly and appropriately; they will then click through and land on the right page of your website, to be shown the correct way to the sales basket.

Always remember that Google is an incredible machine; it has eyes on every move we make when using it to search, and, as a business, it will score your campaigns based on relevancy and quality of experience. Google doesn’t just take your money to advertise your business, its systems actually judge your ads for relevance and quality. A high score means you will pay less per click and earn a better position on the search ranking, while a low one has the opposite effect, by being more costly and achieving lower search results. You have been warned.

Know there are no overnight successes

As with every aspect of business, you should never buy into a new marketing tool and expect it to totally transform your sales without putting time and effort in. Marketing is like a plant, it needs watering and attention to properly grow. It’s no good signing up for AdWords as if you were waving a wand over your marketing and hoping for the best. All advertising needs work, analysis and reaction. That means, when you have properly analysed your customers’ reactions to your ads, you need to reassemble with your marketing team and try to improve their experience in whatever way you can, so that you will achieve better results, a Higher Quality Google score, and, that all important bottom line, more sales.

Know your company’s skills set 

If you have digital marketing expertise in-house, use it to work at your AdWords campaign and you will see the results for yourself, however, if you don’t, consider the employing an expert agency to run it for you.  It may seem like investing even more money in a campaign whose hard-line sales results you have yet to see, but, if you choose marketers with a proven track record in getting the most out of digital marketing, the results will be more than worth it.

Read more:
Google AdWords – is it all that it’s cracked up to be?

You have your website in place. Your SEO is in order. You’ve got blogs written and published – about all the right topics.

You’ve got one or more social media platform accounts up and running with a reasonable number of followers or likes.

Now is the time to see what your strategic digital marketing campaign can do.

Before you start, though, it’s important to get the balance right between doing too much and doing too little to get you the results you want. When entering the world of digital marketing for the first time, it’s important to be realistic about what is ahead of you.

Diving in and doing one of everything is not the most productive – or cost effective – approach. With social media, without a plan in place, you can easily overstretch yourself and your limited resources.

When you set out on your online campaign, you need to focus on what your customers need and balance that with what time and money you are able to dedicate to the social media cause.

Whilst inspiring customers to purchase should be your over-riding aim, you also need to make sure it’s possible to deliver within any constraints you have.

Focus on the elements you consider to be important and ensure they are given the chance to bring real results. Consider:

• The social media channels that are likely to work more effectively for your business.
• What you have tried and tested in the past and how well it worked.
• Your competitors’ activities. Take a look at what they are doing and where they are in the social media environment.
• How your digital marketing plans interlink with your wider marketing strategy and if they fit with your overall business aims.

If you’re going to take your digital marketing seriously, it’s important you’re selective about what will make an impression with your customers and what won’t. Try to combine approaches which complement each other and avoid a scattergun approach as it rarely works.

A solid rule here is to use five consistent methods to promote a single element – for example, good SEO, blogging, social media, an e-shot and a press release.

However, you need to consider which five marketing elements will work for your firm, sector and customers – and this is where you may need some professional advice.

Also crucial in striking the right balance in your digital marketing strategy is to focus on quality over quantity.

For examples, e-shots have developed a reputation of being a waste of time and energy, with the perception that most of them head straight for our online bin. However, this doesn’t have to be the case.

Rather than focusing on new customers, use e-shots in a more targeted way, placing your brand in front of people who already know what you do.

This is one of the reasons that Gravity won’t recommend buying lists of email contacts as this will often put quantity ahead of quality.

Focus instead on a measured approach with the customers you have – past and present – and you will strike a better balance, getting results and not just frustration after your carefully written e-shot is discarded.

If you’re not sure where to start, or how to strike the right balance, then we’re happy to help – call us and we’ll happily sit down with a cuppa and have a no obligation chat to you about your options.

At Gravity we have 60 years’ combined experience in digital marketing and we’re happy to share it.

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Striking the right balance in digital marketing

The chances are that apart from the laptop or tablet on which you are reading this, there are a good few other devices within easy reach.

Think of how you consume information yourself and consider that more than three billion people now use the internet worldwide. The internet, and the way it is now used, has transformed the way we interact – and it has also transformed how we market our businesses.

Digitally marketing has four key advantages over traditional marketing – measurability, affordability, speed and engagement. If you want to know more, or if you’re a digital marketing skeptic, then read on…

Measurability

While responding to market conditions, your business can also gather data related to your clients and potential clients. Who is looking at what on your website? How many people have visited your site? Where are they coming from, natural search, through pay-per-click (PPC) or from social media? You can monitor the change in your figures over time, giving you real information about whether your marketing message is getting through.

Affordability

Digital marketing has opened up the arena of marketing to smaller and medium-sized firms the world over, putting them onto a level playing field with big corporates, through its affordability. Facebook boosts costs a fraction of printing leaflets, with much greater reach for a wider audience. Online banner adverts generally cost less than adverts in more traditional outlets like daily newspapers or magazines.

Speed

You can also get your message out there quicker in the virtual world – it’s a simple click of a mouse button and not a longer process to get materials produced. Twitter posts or website updates take a few minutes compared to days for the development and printing of a flyer. An e-shot can be written in an hour, whereas an advert can take a week to place in a newspaper.

Engagement

Digital marketing brings a dynamic edge to how you promote yourself in a fast-paced world.
One of the biggest reasons digital marketing has become so important is the engagement it brings with clients and potential customers – you can converse with your prospect and current customers, answer questions and resolve issues. You can also interact with a wider stakeholder base, meaning you can do more than just sell. You can seek opinions and carry out market research to better inform your decision making. By getting your audience to share pages you can increase your profile, and receive their endorsement in the process.

Engagement can be achieved via other avenues too, like by running competitions and by informing your audience of company news. As well as actually selling your product and services, you can also share your expertise through blogs, a vital way of displaying the knowledge you have in your field.

Using real time online marketing you can comment on issues and update or inform your customers immediately after significant events such as the Budget or Autumn Statement. You can also quickly match or better competitors’ offers with your own, keeping you at the sharp end of the marketplace.

So, digital marketing is more than important to your business – in 2016 it is indispensable.

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Why is digital marketing important to your business?

Digital marketing is an umbrella term for anything which promotes your company online – and there are lots of tools that you can use to achieve your objectives. The question most businesses have is, where do they start? Is it with social media, pay per click, e-shots or banner adverts? Here are the first three things that we’d suggest.

Website

Digital marketing has to start with your website, which tells the world who you are and what you do. With more than 80% of the UK using the internet on a regular basis to search for goods and services, your website is a window for visitors to look through and decide if they want to become a customer.

Making your website memorable good design and creative copy is one aspect of your website, ensuring the site flows and that the calls to action throughout are productive, is another, but getting people onto your website is the real challenge.

Driving traffic to your website should be supported by SEO (Search Engine Optimisation), although it’s often misunderstood. If your website uses SEO friendly techniques, it will bring more visitors to your site by placing it nearer the top of the list of search results – and ideally this means Google search as more than 90% of the UK’s internet enquiries are via the search engine Google.

Improving SEO is a specific skill, and as developer of more than 500 websites, our SEO expert Debbie and website designer Andy, know this arena better than any. There’s lots of technical changes you can make to improve your site in Google’s eyes (meta tags, tagging images and much more) however, perhaps one of the simplest ways of improving your business’ SEO is by writing relevant and regular content for your website.

Your next digital marketing step will depend on your customers and your digital marketing objectives, however, a popular second stop on the digital journey is to begin a social media programme.

Social media

Third party social media sites will digitally market your company to a wide range of potential customers – driven by the content that you create. Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn are amongst the most popular and can all present a persona of your business to the marketplace.

However, there’s lots more to social media and if you’re not sure what it’s all about, then take a look at one of my previous Business Matters’ columns ‘Using social media for your business?’ and find out a little more about the topic and how social media channels might work for your business.

Email marketing

Now before you switch straight off – stop! Let us explain a few misconceptions to you. Firstly, email marketing communications, fall into two categories – emails which are unsolicited (data that us either purchased or phished) and those which are sent out to a list of recipients who have signed up for a newsletter on your website. Unsolicited emails are the type of communications that gives all e-shots a bad reputation.

If you have people that have signed up to receive information about your company, then that is what they want – and it’s your opportunity to showcase your company, the work you do and your products and/or services. It’s also your chance to provide a warm and loyal base of customers and interested parties with special offers, previews, extra information on relevant topics, for example like legislation, market developments or your expert advice. In short, it’s your chance to develop a positive and productive relationship with your subscribers that will lead to their first, or additional commissions, from your firm.

Secondly there are different types of e-communications – one size does not fit all. These are our definitions of e-communications at Gravity Digital:

• E-briefings: New and important information that’s useful to the person reading it. A more detailed and serious communication than an e-shot or e-bulletin.
• E-bulletins: This is news and stories of interest to its readers, using eye-catching images as well as copy. This differs from an e-shot and e-briefing.
• E-shots: A marketing promotion sent by email, usually including both words and images. E-shots can contain a variety of information, however, it is an email promotion that contains stories/copy/words of a self-promotional nature.

These are just three of the tools that could set you on the road to successful digital marketing and although they are all useful tools, we’d still recommend calling to an expert to talk through your options.

Read more:
Digital marketing: Where to start

Say the word Google to anyone and they’ll probably give you the same response.

“Well, it’s a search engine, right?” Certainly, Google is the world’s biggest tool for searching the internet and it has even become common parlance for browsing the web: “I’ll Google it”, as most of us have said at some point.

However, there’s more to Google than its function as a search tool for websites, pictures, videos and shopping – use Google well and it will reward you.

There is Gmail, YouTube, Google Maps, Google Drive, Google Blog (Blogger), Google Docs, Sheets and Slides, Google Voice, Google Translate, Google Calendar, Google Analytics, Google AdWords and Google+.

So, what are all these functions which are available as part of the world’s leading online brand? And how can you, as a company, benefit from them?

1) GMail

A free email service offered by the company and launched to the public in 2007. Now the biggest web-based email provider. There are both advantages and disadvantages when using GMail for your business. Contrary to popular belief, you can set up GMail with your company name, for example, info@gravitydigital.co.uk, however, many people find GMail far less easy to use than traditional Outlook.

2) YouTube

Video is fast becoming one of the most popular ways of promoting a business of any size. YouTube is Google’s video sharing site which it bought for $1.65 billion in 2006. It now operates as part of the Google brand, allowing users to upload and share videos as well as leave comments and rate content. Never has it been so easy for small businesses to showcase what they do in video format.

3) Google Maps

Google offers a service to businesses which allows them to appear on Google Maps, helping customers find where you are. Contact information, ratings and reviews of your company are also listed as part of the service. Being on Google Maps is vital in 2015 and will help bring customers to you – there’s no reason to miss out.

4) Google Drive

This is Google’s contribution to the cloud, giving users the chance to store and share files on the internet. It includes Google’s own package of office software, Google Docs, Sheets and Slides, which allows companies and individuals to collaborate on the production of content. This means you can share files with specific suppliers – or indeed store all of your company information on there if you choose.

5) Google Blog

Blogger, as it is now known, is Google’s blog publishing service. A free tool, it provides a platform for sharing text, photos and videos with the world. Want to showcase your knowledge? Then publishing on Blogger is a Google friendly route to take.

6) Google Docs, Sheets and Slides

Closely integrated with Google Drive, this is Google’s office software package. The difference with more traditional software is Google’s solution is web-based and free as part of Google Drive. It allows users to create and share documents, spreadsheets and presentations quickly and smoothly online. Files are also compatible with Microsoft Office. The advantage of the software is its availability – for free – at any time, anywhere in the world.

7) Google Voice

More relevant for those in the United States, Google Voice is the company’s voicemail service. It allows users to receive calls and messages across multiple phones from one inbound number which is provided free of charge by Google.

8) Google Translate

Now supporting 90 languages, Google Translate offers a functional service to more than 200 million people a day. The function can even pronounce text and decipher what language text is in – although users should be wary, using this service instead of a human specialist translate for your marketing materials destined for different languages or cultures, may not end well!

9) Google Calendar

Even available as a mobile application, Google Calendar stores information in the cloud and is therefore a reliable interface for a company and its appointments. Compatible and versatile, Google Calendar is integrated with GMail and iGoogle.

10) Google Analytics

Google’s analytics service is the most popular on the internet, giving data on site visits, bounce rates, page views and unique visitor numbers among other statistics in relation to your website. It really is an excellent tool and one of several free resources that you can use to measure your digital marketing.

11) Google AdWords

The main source of income for Google, AdWords enables advertisers – companies like you – to market their goods and services in its search engine. This “pay per click” advertising system displays your advert as a sponsored link when a searcher enters a phrase which matches what you offer. With a well-placed advert, your company can be at the fingertips of the world – although make sure you never put your company name as an AdWord, people searching for you already will naturally click on the first link – and that’s money out of your budget!

The whole Google package contains elements which can be vital for small businesses and their marketing campaigns. Remember, 90 per cent of people who use the web use Google to browse for products and services. That’s more than two billion people across the globe. Some Google tools are dispensable while some are almost compulsory. For example, having your company listed on Google Maps is vital, while using the Google Calendar is not.

So, you need to ask yourself the question: am I getting the most out of Google and all tools it offers?

Read more:
There’s more to Google than searching the web

So, your SME has grand plans to launch a glitzy and clever digital marketing strategy. Surely nothing can go wrong? But where do you start? Getting your online operation enticing new enquiries – and sales – is the tricky bit, and not everyone has quite got it right yet.

Avoid getting into a digital daze and take a look at ten fast facts you should know to ensure you avoid digital marketing’s most common pitfalls.

1) If you use a marketing agency, make sure it’s a good one!

There are countless specialist companies in the marketplace offering to help you out along the way, many of them making exciting plans which they can struggle to deliver. In the digital age, a lot of marketing agencies have jumped on the bandwagon to keep themselves going in a very competitive marketplace.

Before you engage a company’s services, make sure you get references, preferably from other SMEs, to make sure you’re employing the right people to get your business growing digitally. And don’t forget, measuring your digital marketing success is easy so get them to show you the statistics that illustrate their success.

2) Market your website

It’s no good having an all singing, all dancing website which has cost a small fortune if there’s no one looking at it. You have to make sure you take your website to the people, and not wait for them to come to you.

Getting your website out there takes some effort, but your hard work will be rewarded down the line with a growing audience and number of paying customers. To market your website, social media is crucial. Keep linking to your site from Twitter and Facebook and also make sure your search engine optimisation (SEO) is spot-on. Get to the top of the list on Google and you’ll notice a big difference.

PPC (pay-per-click) campaigns such as Google AdWords is also an effective way to promote your website, as are regular expert and advice articles and blogs about your company and the industry in which it operates.

3) Speak to your audience

In the age of social media, it is important to engage with your audience – they expect it and, let’s face it, it isn’t that difficult to do – but it does take a little time. Sometimes we all get so focused on keeping on message with our brand that we forget to talk to our customers who are interested in our products and services. Being responsive to customer enquiries, commenting on current issues in the media and knowing what’s important to your prospect customers is a ‘must have’ in your social media planning.

4) Don’t commit to doing too much

When entering the world of digital marketing, be realistic about what it is you need to do. If you set your stall out to conquer the world with an all-encompassing website that needs updating regularly, an intense email marketing campaign that needs new data and social media interaction that needs to be engaging, you can easily overstretch yourself.

Make sure you focus on what your potential customer needs, find them and follow them – and make sure you are taking notice of topics trending in your followers’ social media chatter.

Plus, don’t EVER buy your own brand name as a Google AdWords! Customers entering your exact name into a search engine will more likely than not click on the sponsored link and not the natural search below. Each hit will cost you and it will get expensive over time.

5) Don’t do too little

Conversely, don’t start a digital marketing campaign with too little an effort. If you’re going to launch a marketing drive, be selective. Think, what will make an impact and combine several elements to produce a balanced approach.

Ideally it’s most productive to start a PPC campaign, along with a press release, social media interaction, blogging, an email newsletter/e-shot/s-briefing and quality SEO on your website.

A good rule is to make sure every positive action you take should have five things to promote it.

6) Social media commitment

Never leave your social media channels, like Twitter and Facebook, unmanned for too long. Yes, you can use automated messages to interact with your followers, but they are not a replacement for a real human interacting in real time.

Social media is a golden opportunity for you to connect with your customers, so it’s vital to show them a human face in return and make them feel valued.

7) Be consistent across all channels

Make sure the message you send out in your digital marketing is the same across all channels you are using. It’s no good saying one thing in a press release and in your email marketing material and another on Twitter. You can tailor your message for different audiences, but make sure the essence of what you are saying is the same.

8) Quality over quantity – don’t be afraid of targeted email marketing

People often say that e-shots are a waste of time, with the recipient likely sending your carefully prepared marketing material straight into the trash. But the point of email marketing is not just to attract new customers, it’s there to put your brand in front of people who already know you and what you do.

Of course, if you’ve never heard of a company sending out a newsletter, or if it appears irrelevant, the chance are you will delete it straight away. That’s why you should never buy lists or data, no matter how good the prices may be.

A list of past and present contacts and customers are far more likely to be receptive to your marketing campaign. Quality over quantity is the message here – a few dozen customers from a few hundred emails is better than none from a few thousand.

Having a ‘subscribe to newsletter’ button on your website is helpful – people subscribing are far more likely to engage with emails sent out to them.

9) Be mobile focused

The number of people accessing the internet using mobiles or tablets is growing rapidly. Make sure your website is fully functional on all devices to make the most of your online presence. It is more important in certain sectors, such as shopping, and less so in other areas like manufacturing, but ensuring compatibility is an important step.

10) Don’t be afraid to spend money

Putting your company’s hard-earned cash into digital marketing may seem like a big step to take – but it is now more effective than traditional marketing and is proven to get results. Don’t waste money, either, on elements of marketing which may not be right for your company and also don’t see digital marketing as a cost-saving exercise.

Getting the most from your campaign means choosing the right channels and the correct messages you want to get over to your potential customers. That takes planning and careful tactical delivery.

Again, if you outsource your digital marketing, make sure you choose the right partner with the right experience to get the job done.

Read more:
10 top tips to improve your digital marketing

The phrase “build it and they will come” doesn’t apply to websites and, depending on your niche, you may need to engage in Internet Marketing activities to promote it. The great thing about the internet is that smaller businesses can compete effectively against bigger ones, so it’s almost a level playing field, but like any other form of marketing you need to have a plan and a budget to support it.

I’m sure you don’t need me to tell you that there are thousands of search results for almost any search term you choose to type in the Google search box. Just try typing “internet marketing derby” for example and you’ll see there are over 11 million results!

So, bearing in mind that people usually only look at one or two pages of the search results, how can you get your business featured there? Or are there other methods you could employ to market your business online?

Here are four of the most popular techniques used by SMEs.

Search Engine Optimisation
Simply put, the aim of Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is to improve your organic (natural) rankings for specific searches made in Google (or any other) search engine. Google’s stated aim is to return the most appropriate results for any search term, and it uses complex algorithms to determine this – which it changes on a regular basis. Despite the algorithm changes which have kept a lot of Search Marketers on their toes over the last couple of years and influence some of the finer points of SEO, the basic principles which Google uses are the same, i.e. is this a reputable website and does it have useful content that relates to the search? Google will factor in the user’s location and often other personal information, so different people may see different results for the same search – nevertheless there are some a couple of general principles to follow in order to improve your rankings:

Keep your content up to date – and add new, useful, content on a regular basis. Try to create content that appeals to what your potential customers might search for. There may be some obvious “keywords” that you want to target that represent your business, but think about these in terms of the questions customers ask you, pre and post-sale and try to incorporate these questions (and the answers to them) in your content. These days, people tend to type much longer phrases and questions into the search box to try and narrow down the results, so if you can anticipate these and write about them, you’ll be doing yourself a favour. A blog is often the easiest way to add new content regularly and the more conversational style of blogs also lends itself to the longer search phrases too. You could blog about recent work experiences, new developments in your industry – anything really as long as it’s interesting and helps you to present yourself and your business as knowledgeable and professional in your field.

Coming back to reputation, one of the key factors Google uses to judge this is the quality of other websites which link to you. This is a thorny area as over the years many online directories and article sites have been developed as a way to easily create incoming links for SEO purposes but these are now frowned upon, so whilst links are important, they should only be from high quality, relevant websites. As a start point you could think about associations you belong to, good local directories and businesses you work with, either as a supplier or customer. If you are in a position to create useful content for your website, e.g. tips sheets, glossaries and “how to” articles, you may find that other websites will link to these naturally if they believe their customers would find them useful – that’s a big tick for your credibility rating!

Pay-per-click
Search Engine Optimisation takes time and ongoing effort to achieve results. Pay-per-click (PPC) on the other hand can bring instant results and is being used by more and more SMEs.
Google Adwords (Google’s version of PPC) and Bing Ads (which controls ads appearing on the Bing and Yahoo search engines) involve the creation of specific adverts which appear at the top of and on the right side of a typical search screen (on mobiles they’re at the top and the bottom).

In this example, you can see three paid ads at the top on the left of the screen above the first organic listing and more on the right.

Once you’ve set up an account, you can decide which search phrases you want to trigger your ads, and you can write specific ads for different groups of phrases. Once you’ve published them, they are live almost immediately.

Sounds great, so where’s the catch? Well as the name implies, you pay a fee to Google every time someone clicks on your ad. So you do have to manage this carefully to make sure that you don’t pay too much for your clicks. Some quick tips:
• Improve your quality score by writing appealing ads that will encourage people to click on them, then route the clicks through to relevant web pages which relate closely to the search term used and appeal to potential customers. A high quality score results in cheaper clicks.
• Manage your bids – the ads at the top will typically get the most clicks but the ads on the right will be cheaper, so find a position that works for you
• Make it easy for people to make an enquiry from your website and if possible, put measures in place so that you can track clicks through to sales

There is a cost to using PPC, but with careful management many business find that it brings a good return on investment – that’s why so many business use it. In our experience business that manage their own PPC campaigns often don’t have the time to manage it effectively, so can end up losing money – so it may be worth considering using a PPC specialist to manage your campaigns for you.

Email Marketing
After falling out of favour in recent years – email marketing is now back with a bang and can be very effective for many businesses. By collecting email addresses for your past and present customers (and you can also buy email lists) you can take the opportunity to email them periodically to provide helpful information and to let them know about new products and services and special offers.

As long as you don’t bombard customers with too many emails, this is a great way to remind people about your business on a regular basis and by making your emails informative and helpful, you’ll be helping to strengthen your relationships as well as creating opportunities for repeat sales.

There are some easy to use tools which enable you to manage your contact database and create smart looking templates for your mails – these tools also provide information on open rates, click throughs etc so you can evaluate the level of engagement from your email marketing efforts. And of course there are agencies to manage all of this for you if you prefer.

Social Media
There are numerous social media channels, some of the most popular being Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter and of course Youtube. Depending on the type of business you are in, one or more of these is likely to be useful for you – it’s a case of understanding your target market, the social media channels they are most likely to use and what type of content will appeal to people when using social media.

Social Media offers an opportunity to “spread the word” about your products and services to people you know and the people they know, and good social media campaigns can have an extraordinary reach. For B2B, Linkedin and Twitter are good ways to demonstrate your expertise by posting useful information and contributing to group discussions. B2C businesses often use Facebook to connect with existing customers and get new followers. And don’t forget Youtube – apart from being a social media channel, it’s also a highly used search engine in its own right and videos are a great way to show your products in action or demonstrate “how to” tips. You can also embed Youtube videos on your web pages, so you’re adding value to your website too.

There are several different aspects to Internet Marketing and we’ve touched on the four most popular methods used by SMEs here, but there are others. If you want to get more traffic to your website and ultimately generate more enquiries and sales, you need to promote your website – don’t just sit and wait – spread the word about your businesses.

Read more:
What is Internet Marketing and do you need it?

If you’re thinking about investing in a new website for your business, there’s more to pay for than just its design.

Read on if you don’t want to get surprised by ‘hidden’ website costs and if you want to find out how you can make sure your website remains an asset to your business for as long as possible.

Here’s a quick checklist of the elements you should factor into your website budget:

Domain name

Every website needs a domain name, e.g. “yourbusinessname.co.uk”. Owning your domain name is the first step and this is separate from your website hosting or your website itself. Your domain name needs to be directed to the place where your website files are hosted, in order to display your website under your chosen name.

Buying a domain name is quite inexpensive and there are various domain registrars to go to, but bear in mind that there is some technical work to do in managing the domain record and if you’re not comfortable with doing this, your web develop may also offer a domain management service where they will take care of everything for you.

We have had numerous queries from businesses who’s websites have disappeared because the domain name wasn’t renewed on time – obviously if your website isn’t available to view, that’s not good for business and if you have a good domain name, you don’t want to open the door for someone else to take it.

Hosting

The collection of files which make up your website need to be hosted – essentially what this means is that they are stored and configured on a server which enables them to be accessed on the web.

Hosting costs can vary enormously and there are some very low cost packages available on shared servers, depending on the type of website you have.

Typically, the more complex your website is the more your hosting will cost as large, complex sites take up more space on the hosting server and require more setting up to make sure they run well.

Reliability is important here, as you want to make sure that your website is available and doesn’t suffer too much “downtime”. External technology changes can lead to occasional periods of downtime with any hosting services due to maintenance and upgrades but what would happen in the event of an extended outage?

It’s important to have a clear means of communication in the event of any problems.

You can arrange your website hosting directly, but it usually makes sense to arrange hosting through your web developers – it will cost you a little more but will ensure that the hosting service is managed for you and any problems will be managed on your behalf.

Email

Email accounts will often be provided as part of a web hosting package although there are other services e.g. gmail, that you can use. In our experience, managing email accounts is becoming more difficult as people send and receive more and more mails, send photos and other attachments more often, and want to manage their emails on multiple devices (PC or lap-top, phone, ipad etc).

If you aren’t particularly technical – or perhaps you’re just too busy! You may need help with setting up your email accounts, managing them so that your mailbox doesn’t run out of space and configuring your mail programme (e.g. outlook) to send and receive your mails.

A managed hosting and email service may be a worthwhile investment as everything can be taken care of for you by one supplier.

Keeping your website up to date

When you initially created your website, you probably spent a lot of time thinking about how you wanted to describe your products or services and if you used the services of a professional web developer, they will have helped you to present the information well on your web pages.

But nothing stays the same for ever and your website needs to evolve with your business – which means making sure that the information is up to date and that new products and services are added as you introduce them.

Case studies, testimonials and articles or blogs are all good ways to include fresh content on your website, so you should factor in some time to do that.

If you have a content management system for your website, you may be happy to make changes yourself – if you don’t, or are short of time, you might need to use the services of your web developer or a marketing agency to write your web copy and make the changes for you.

Technical maintenance

Like many other business assets, websites have a limited life span. Internet technologies are changing at a rapid pace – just think about how you view websites now compared to just 2 or 3 years ago. Whereas in the past people typically viewed websites on a desk top or lap top PC, now they can use a range of devices including mobile phones – how good does your website look on a mobile device?

There are other external changes such as browser changes (Internet Explorer, Firefox and Chrome for example) and upgrades to the technologies used in building your website, all of which could affect the way the site displays or functions. Fashions change too and this applies to websites – what looked cool and contemporary a few years ago may look dated now and could give the wriong impression of your business. So some technical updating may be needed from time to time and you should budget for a possible rebuild every 3 or 4 years or so.

Marketing your website

Having a website built, hosted and maintained may not be the end of the story as, depending on how competitive your market is, you will probably need to think about marketing it so that you can attract visitors to and enquiries from your website.

There are several strategies you could employ, including Search Engine Optimisation, Pay-per-click, Email Marketing and Social Media marketing – there isn’t space to cover that in this article but suffice to say, it’s something you should take advice on, and factor into your budget.

How to sum this all up? Well it is quite possible to run a website very cheaply – but to maintain it as a valuable business asset will involve ongoing costs and the ability to react to external pressures.

It all comes down to return on investment and the potential gains to your businesses from managing and promoting your website effectively. A good web marketing agency should be able to help you to assess what’s needed for your business based on your market and your business goals so that you can set a realistic budget and increase your business.

Read more:
The hidden costs of websites