scmarketing

Recently, we ordered a new stabiliser for our Nikon DSLR to start shooting videos for our clients in Croydon. We’ve already started providing animated video and we’re excited to venture into film making.

You may have noticed a lot more video appearing across the web over the last couple of years, this is mainly due to the rise and the popularity of social media sites such as Facebook and Instagram allowing us to view video content whenever we want, wherever we want. As a marketer, video as a tool enables you to engage with your customers on an entirely new level, more than any other media has allowed you in the past. The rest of this article is going to cover in more depth, why video is such an important tool in online marketing.

Video is more persuasive

The main reason video is more persuasive as a tool than other types of content is your brain requires emotional input to make decisions. Currently there is no better method of conveying emotion than video.

Video caters to the brain’s visual and auditory systems, picking up on clues like body language, facial expressions, imagery and music. These will influence a person’s choices and actions.

Studies have shown that over 80% of people say they are more likely to buy a product or service after watching a video.

Video builds trust & credibility more effectively

Seeing another person on our screens connects you with them on a human level. It is the basis on which we build trust. Video enables you to engage with your audience, allowing you to reinforce your message using eye ‘contact’ and phrasing that lets you clarify your intention. They can see you, share your emotions and develop a relationship with you.

Search engines love video content

Search engines are a maze of intelligent algorithms trying to determine which content is best to rank in which position, they work out which websites have the most engaging content and rank this above the competitors, and nothing boosts engagement like video.

In fact, research has found that including video on a web page makes it 53x more likely to appear on the first page of Google. While those statistics are always changing, the principle remains consistent – Video increases the searchability of your content.

Video pages send strong ‘indicators to relevance’ to search engines like Google, which boosts the search rank of your content. Some of those tangible benefits for SEO include:
• Doubled time-on-page
• 3x more natural external links
• 200-300% more unique monthly sales
• 41% higher click-through rates from search

Video vastly improves email marketing campaigns

Email marketing remains one of the most effective marketing tactics out there. Marketers consistently rank email as having a higher return on investment (ROI) than any other marketing strategy, followed closely by SEO.

But what if you could double, or even triple the results of your email marketing campaign?

That’s what video does. It can increase email click-through rates by 200-300%, ensuring that your email campaigns get the highest ROI possible.

Content marketing agency

As a digital marketing agency in Croydon, Smart Cow Marketing can help your business grow with a content marketing strategy tailored to your requirements. If you need support in creating content for your business, get in touch with Smart Cow Marketing to discuss your needs further.

What is inbound marketing?

To put it simply, inbound marketing is about less interruptive methods of marketing like buying ads, buying email lists or cold calling. Inbound marketing focuses on earning trust using great quality, educational content that draws consumers towards your website where they can choose to learn more about your products/services on their own terms, without having marketing jargon stuffed down their throats.

For inbound marketing to work, you need to use these two fundamental concepts in order to attract new business.
1. Content: Create online content (blog posts, web pages, social media messages etc.) optimised for search engines and social media to get found by potential buyers.
2. Context: Understand why content draws your customers through the sales funnel using analytics, then utilise this data to your advantage to personalise what messages and promotions visitors see.

Why inbound works

There are three major reasons why consumers are sceptical about new brands, and why interruptive advertising isn’t nearly as effective as it used to be.

1. The proliferation of media: Over the past five Years, the media has blown up. There’s pretty much a magazine, tv channel, radio show and a gazillion websites for every common interest out there, and each of those channels have been stuffed full of ads.
2. A history of deceptive advertising: Consumers have become so used to hearing false claims that all ads – even the clever ones – are considered false.
3. Consumers empowered by technology: Through a long painful journey through dealing with annoying, in-your-face adverts, consumers have gained access to tools and information to dodge interruptive brand messages and instead seek information they want to see. Tools such as Caller ID, AdBLock, spam filtering software all evade the information they don’t want to see, making inbound marketing techniques all the more important.

Inbound marketing agency in Surrey

If you’re looking for qualified leads become a lead generation magnet with the help of Smart Cow. Take a closer look at our marketing services or book a consultation and we can discuss digital marketing strategy that is best to achieve your business goals.

We specialise in digital marketing for accountants as well as providing digital marketing services and web design for local businesses within Croydon. If you’re looking to grow your business, get in touch.

Although WordPress isn’t a tool we commonly use for building websites, we feel that a lot of its users would benefit from understanding how to effectively optimise their websites for SEO.

A quick overview
• Permalinks – WordPress’ tool for customising blog links
• Meta descriptions – the description of your website/post that appears in the search engine results page
• Optimise your images – allow search engines to index your images
• Keywords – These are select words or phrases that describe what the page/post is about
• Use heading – the correct heading structure will greatly improve your SEO

How to use permalinks to optimise your WordPress website

WordPress allows you to set your links however you want them to look. You can do this by going to the administrative area in WordPress and then go to Settings –> Permalinks. On this page you can choose from several predefined options or use a custom structure for your links.

How to optimise your meta descriptions

Your meta descriptions should always contain relevant information to the page/post you’re describing. The search engines will use this as a factor in ranking you depending on how relevant the description is to the information in the post. So, if your page is about website design, don’t write a meta description about the football results. Also, include relevant keywords in your meta description.

How to optimise your images

It is very important to have the title and alt tags specified for every image you use across your entire website. By doing this, the search engine knows what the image is supposed to be. You should use a description with keywords if possible, but if not don’t worry.

How to use headings in WordPress

You should only use the <h1> tag for titles in your site, any sub headings should use <h2> and the rest of your heading should use <h3>. This allows the search engines to understand what the important information on the site is. You should never have a page that uses only <h2> or <h3> tags.

Making the case for mobile

It’s easy to see how pervasive mobile technology has become. Take a look around and you’ll see people with their faces buried in their mobile phones. Mobile is everywhere…in our hands, on our nightstands and desks, on the news…everywhere. Mobile is at the intersection of all the most important aspects of our lives – family, work, socialisation, fun, and business.

If you need more convincing, here are a few statistics that will make the case. eMarketer estimates the number of U.S. consumers with a smartphone will more than double from 93.1 million at the end of 2011 to 192.4 million by 2016, when 58.5 percent of the total U.S. population will have a smart phone.

55 percent of adult phone owners now use their phones to go online, and 17 percent do most of their online browsing on their phone rather than on a computer or other device. Most do so for convenience, but for some, their phone is their only option for online access. (Source: Pew Internet).
Research has also shown that more people have mobile phones than toothbrushes worldwide (Source: The 60 Second Marketer).

What does this use of mobile mean for your small business?

The way consumers find and choose restaurants, contractors, spas, stores, and entertainment has evolved dramatically.

In addition to search engines like Google or Bing, consumers use city guides like Citysearch, review websites like Yelp, and other mobile apps to discover new businesses.

They use websites and apps like these to help them make decisions in the moment while their purchase intent is incredibly high.

Consider the following:
• 75 percent used a mobile device to get real-time location-based information. (Pew Internet)
• 90 percent of mobile searches lead to an action. (Source: searchengineland.com)
• 70 percent who ran a local search via mobile acted within an hour (Source: CMO Council)

We live in a mobile society. Potential customers are making decisions based on their mobile behavior. If you don’t capitalise on this behavior, you may lose business to your competitors who have embraced this new reality.

Digital marketing expert Croydon

We are a digital marketing agency based in South London working with small businesses, as well as those in accountancy and the construction sector to help get them noticed online. Drop us an email at Saymoo@smart-cow.com or give us a call on 020 3137 1826.