Jul 24

Increasing conversion rates

By Internet marketing, SEO, Success, Websites No Comments

Digital marketing definition of conversion rate

The percentage of website visitors that reach a given goal, i.e. reaching a specific web page; filling in a contact form; making an e-commerce purchase; registering as a user; subscribing to your newsletter; downloading a free trial; or asking you for more information.

The big question is: do you know what your conversion rate is for specific areas of your digital marketing process?

To increase conversion rates:

  • Increase the amount of website traffic that you receive by using more of the 300 promotional techniques that are available to you
  • Have a website that loads as quickly as possible
  • Write in the language of benefits, not the language of features
  • Pay more attention to your headlines; if they don’t like the headline the rest of the content is a waste of time
  • Pay more attention to the structure of your webcopy; I have spent 30 years studying this and I offer webcopywriting training – how much experience does your website writer (or writers) have?
  • Include social proof i.e testimonial statements, case studies etc
  • Include a guarantee that you will deliver whatever is promised
  • Consider the design of your page: does it work in relation to the conversion that you are trying to achieve? For example, is there too much clutter and too many distractions?
  • Ensure that optin boxes, forms etc are highly visible; ideally they should be visible when the screen loads; if this is not possible include signposting
  • Include more calls to action and make them stronger
  • Minimise the number of fields within enquiry forms
  • Did you know that green is the most effective colour for Buy Now buttons?
  • Test different approaches and variants
  • Continually measure what is working and what isn’t and adjust accordingly
  • You can measure sales, sales enquiries, contact forms filled in, registered users, number of downloads, number of unique visitors, number of pages read and many other things.

If you need help with conversation by all means get in touch – click here.

Jul 24

Promotional mix categories

By Internet marketing, Marketing strategy, Promotional techniques No Comments

36 Promotional categories
There are 300 ways to promote your business. They are divided into promotional mix categories. An example of a promotional category is Advertising which includes adverts in newspapers, magazines and online, i.e. via Google AdWords.

Choose your promotional mix carefully, as it is a good idea to stick with it (stop / start marketing doesn’t really work).

Many of the techniques available to you are free, some are low cost and others require a budget.

Here is a list of the 36 categories (which we discuss within The Marketing Compass community: www.marketingcompass.co.uk):

  1. Advertising
  2. Alliance Marketing Partners AMP
  3. Articles
  4. Audio recording
  5. Authorship
  6. Celebrity endorsements
  7. Channel marketing
  8. Corporate clothing
  9. Corporate identity
  10. Corporate hospitality
  11. Customers
  12. Direct mail
  13. Email marketing
  14. Events
  15. Internet marketing
  16. Location marketing
  17. Media relations
  18. Mobile marketing
  19. Networking
  20. Packaging
  21. Point of sale
  22. Printed matter
  23. Professional selling
  24. Promotional gifts
  25. Referrals
  26. Retail
  27. Sales promotion
  28. Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
  29. Social media
  30. Sponsorship
  31. Telemarketing
  32. Vehicle livery
  33. Videos
  34. Website
  35. Word of mouth
  36. Writing

With regards to the last category, copywriting used to be a specific skill, used within the advertising industry. With the advent of internet marketing, the ability to write clearly, combined with an explosion in innovative software means that writing is a promotional device in its own right.

Written by marketing consultant, trainer, speaker and author Nigel Temple.

Jul 22

Internal website links are important

By Internet marketing, SEO No Comments

Links (sometimes called backlinks) coming into your website are still a good idea. However, from an SEO perspective, they are not as important as they used to be.

On the other hand, links within your own website are definitely important.

Anchor text should be part of your SEO link building strategy.

Anchor text is the text contained within a hyperlink. The search engines analyse this. For example www.marketingcompass.co.uk …or… The Marketing Compass impartial marketing advice.

Search engines examine anchor text in order to figure out what the destination web page is about.

They are doing their best to help the searcher. Think of it this way, Google would like to know as much as possible about the subject of the page to which the link points.

Therefore, inserting keywords into anchor text helps search engines such as Google, Bing and Yahoo to do a better job.

Have you noticed how Wikipedia uses anchor text? One topic leads to another and yet another. It is tempting to keep clicking there, isn’t it?

Wikipedia is at the top of page 1 for millions of items and I have no doubt that its extensive use of anchor text has helped it to get there.

If you are interested in SEO, here are 12 SEO tips. I use these tips regularly.

Here is a tip for you: having written a web page or a blog, go back through it and think about other relevant pages or blogs within your own site that you could link to.

If you have an easy-to-use CMS (Content Management System), such as WordPress, you will be able to do this without getting involved in the HTML code.

This blog is based on an entry within The Marketing Compass Encyclopedia.

Jun 13

What is inbound marketing?

By Internet marketing, Marketing professional services, Marketing strategy, Psychology No Comments

The vast majority of your market is not looking to buy your product or service today.

Or tomorrow, for that matter.

A small percentage is actively looking.

Inbound marketing brings these people to you.

The result is more sales enquires and sales.

Inbound marketers share information with prospective customers via digital marketing, in creative, interesting ways.

The information needs to be helpful and informative.

The problem is that many enterprises do not wish to share their knowledge.

“We have never done this before!” they exclaim.

“Why should we give away what we know for free?” they ask.

The counter-argument is that their competitors are already out there doing it.

Sharing knowledge sure beats asking strangers if they would like to buy from you (I know, as I used to do this for Rank Xerox when I was a young salesperson).

Besides, I have found that the more I share, the more I have to learn.

Here is an entry within The Marketing Compass Encyclopedia regarding inbound marketing.

Here is a blog regarding Push versus Pull marketing.

Jun 07

Are you using the word ‘you’ sufficiently within your copywriting?

By Copywriting, Writing No Comments

When it comes to marketing copywriting, don’t write about yourself, your product, your service, your enterprise or your brand the whole time.

Replace the words ‘we’ and ‘our’ with ‘you’ and ‘your’.

Your copy will become more engaging for the reader.

Use the word ‘You’ as much as possible.

It is difficult to overuse this powerful word.

A good test is to go through your copy and count the number of times that you have used the ‘we’ words.

Use ‘You’ four times as often as you use ‘I’, ‘Our’ or ‘We’

When people read your copy, it will come across as more personal and engaging.

Reference: Copywriting – using the word ‘you’ ….within The Marketing Compass Encyclopedia

May 30

How to structure your knowledge

By Internet marketing, Marketing strategy, SEO, Writing No Comments

If you are a subject expert, you may have written a single book, several books or a series of blogs. You may have slide decks, course handouts or articles that you have written. You have probably answered questions via email and during meetings.

The information surrounding any given subject is continually expanding and you may have considered creating a knowledgebase, wiki or encyclopedia.

For some time, I have been in this position and I have looked at a number of ways of achieving this. Finally, I opted for a premium WordPress plugin called Enclyopedia Pro.

Here is the project so far:  The Marketing Compass Encyclopedia

There is a long way to go, as I have several thousand entries to add.

I am finding that this project is making me think about my subject area (marketing) in new ways and how everything fits together.

There is an SEO benefit from publishing your knowledge.

Personally, I do not have any problems with sharing my knowledge. I wonder whether you feel the same?

May 10

The customer journey

By Customers, Marketing strategy No Comments

When people buy from you, they go through 5 stages:

1. Awareness 
Awareness building is a central aspect of marketing activity. What are you doing to raise brand awareness?

2. Prospect
Someone who is going through the sales qualification process. As all Sales Managers know, enterprises must have a pipeline of potential customers that they have identified, talked to and qualified.

3. Customer
Someone who has bought from you once. Money has changed hands on a single occasion. Therefore, this is transactionally based. This means that there isn’t a deep relationship. If you have been in business for some time, you may well have a significant number of dormant customers. Go back and start communicating with them again. It is typically five times less expensive to sell to a customer, as it is to a stranger.

4. Client
The next stage is to turn customers into clients, through repeat business. This may include up-selling (i.e. increasing the size of the sale) and cross-selling (i.e. selling them something else).

5. Advocate
A handful of customers, a larger percentage of clients and some of your (non-client) friends will become Advocates. These are the people who recommend you. Everyone loves referrals. The question is: do you have a referral system in place?

Apr 30

How to get started with podcasting

By Podcasting, Promotional techniques No Comments

The Marketing Compass member Margi Ross (of Conscious Feminine fame) and I were talking about Podcasting during our monthly conversation. Podcasts have become popular, partly because since 2014, the Podcast app comes pre-installed on iPhones and other iOS devices.

One of the benefits of audio podcasts is that they are similar to radio broadcasts: you can listen whilst you are doing something else. This suits many of us, as we are leading such busy lives.

If you are wondering how to get started with podcasting, here the steps:

1.  Decide on a theme for your podcasts.to

2.  Mind Map or list topics that you can talk about for 7 to 10 minutes (you can record for much longer, however, 7 to 10 minutes is a good starting point).

3.  Decide whether you are going to get someone to record, edit and upload for you or whether you are going to record and edit yourself.

4.  If you want to have a go yourself, search for ‘Anchor podcast’ in the App store on your smartphone (it may show up as the 2nd or 3rd item). Anchor can be used to create, distribute, host and monetise your podcast and it is free. (As always with content sharing platforms, I advise you to read their Terms and Conditions).

Alternatively…..

5.  You will need a microphone that you can plugin to your computer.

6.  Download Audacity which is a free, cross-platform audio editor.

7.  Mind Map your first podcast. Yes, I know that you could type it out; however, reading a script so that it sounds natural is challenging, whereas a Mind Map will guide you through the podcast and you won’t have to shuffle papers.

8.  Have a few trial run-throughs, before you start recording.

9.  If you are using Audacity, export the audio file as an mp3 and upload it a platform such as Spreaker or Anchor (many others are available). From there, you can share your podcast.

There is a vast global audience out there waiting to hear from, why not start podcasting?

I am currently working on my inaugural podcast, by the way.

This item first appeared in my Compass Points newsletter which you can subscribe to here.

Margi Ross is a NavigatorPlus member of The Marketing Compass.

Apr 15

Website Press Room

By PR - media relations, Promotional techniques No Comments

If media coverage is part of your promotional mix, add a Press Room web page to your website. This is a professional touch and will help journalists. Therefore, it will help you to get more media / press coverage.

Be media friendly

Include ‘Press room’ within your navigation bar, as this demonstrates that you are media friendly. It should contain useful, relevant material for editors and journalists, written in a factual way (i.e. no sales pitches).

‘Press Room’ can appear in your principle website navigation bar, or it can be an off-shoot of ‘About’.

Here are the section headings for a Press Room website page:

Enterprise name

A brief (two or three paragraph) overview, including when the enterprise started trading; principle activities; markets served; points of differentiation.

Spokesperson(s) profile

Brief background – topics of expertise – contact details.

Press releases

A chronological list of press releases (most recent at the top). Include title of release + release date. Hyperlink to a separate page, containing the full text of the release.

Photographs

Display a selection of low resolution images for websites and describe how to request hi-resolution images for print.

Media contact

If someone else besides the Spokesperson (i.e a PR consultancy / PR Officer) liaises with the media, include their contact details.

Today, there is an overlap between PR and digital marketing as backlinks from media websites can help your search engine rankings.

I ran a PR consultancy for nine years – so Press Relations is a subject close to my heart. I have taken startups and ‘invisible brands’ and created massive awareness for them. I show my clients how they can achieve extensive PR coverage. You can ask about PR via The Marketing Compass community or contact me directly, here.

Apr 05

Stepping out of the shadows

By Customers, Internet marketing, Social media No Comments

If you want to generate better results on social media, engage with people. You can do this via Likes, Comments, Shares and Messages.

When you do this…

Be interesting. Be positive. Be inquisitive. Be yourself.

I have noticed that many enterprises don’t engage, they only broadcast. For example by continually sharing their blog posts.

Think of it this way. Do you prefer to be shouted at or to have conversations with interesting people?

Many people don’t want to draw attention to themselves.

I quite understand this, however, when it comes to promotion you have to step out of the shadows and start interacting with customers.