Name: Smart Cow Marketing
Price range: $$$

Why every small business owner should be doing video marketing

06/28/2023 by scmarketing

As a small business owner, it’s important to stay ahead of the curve when it comes to marketing. Video marketing has exploded in recent years, and it’s not hard to see why. With platforms like YouTube, Vimeo, and TikTok gaining massive audiences, video has become an essential part of any marketing strategy. Here are a few reasons why every small business owners should be doing video marketing now.

Boosts brand awareness

Video marketing is a powerful tool for building brand awareness. A well-crafted video can communicate your brand’s unique selling points and engage your target audience. By leveraging platforms like YouTube and social media channels, you can reach a wider audience with your video content and increase brand visibility.

Helps to increase conversion rates

Video marketing can play a key role in converting leads into paying customers. A study by Hubspot found that including video on a landing page can increase conversion rates by up to 80%. By incorporating compelling video content throughout your sales funnel, you can capture your audience’s attention and guide them towards making a purchase or booking an appointment.

Improves SEO

Google owns YouTube, which means that video can have a significant impact on your search engine rankings. By publishing video content on YouTube and embedding it on your website, you can improve your SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) and drive more traffic to your website. Keyword-rich video descriptions and titles can also help you rank higher in search engine results pages.

Demonstrates expertise

Video is an effective medium for demonstrating your expertise and building trust with your audience. By creating educational or ‘how-to’ videos that address your audience’s pain points and offer solutions, you position yourself as a thought leader in your industry. This can lead to increased trust and loyalty, which can ultimately translate into more business.

Engages mobile audiences

With more than half of all online traffic coming from mobile devices, it’s important to optimise your marketing efforts for mobile. Video is the ideal medium for engaging mobile audiences and keeping them on your website longer. Mobile users are more likely to watch videos than read text, so incorporating video into your marketing strategy can help you retain mobile users and potentially grow your customer base.

Cost-effective

Contrary to popular belief, video marketing doesn’t have to be expensive. With advancements in technology and video editing software, there are many cost-effective options for producing high-quality video content. Whether it’s using your smartphone to shoot DIY-style videos or hiring a freelance videographer, there are options for every budget.

Video marketing agency

Video marketing is a powerful tool for small businesses looking to increase brand awareness, drive conversions, improve SEO, demonstrate expertise, engage mobile audiences, and do it all in a cost-effective way.

Don’t miss out on the opportunity to leverage video in your marketing strategy – the time to start is now!

Contact our team here at Smart Cow Marketing to discuss your video and digital marketing requirements.

From interview style and client testimonials through to explainer videos, read more about the different types of video marketing we can help you with.

Tips to creating a high-converting landing page

06/09/2023 by scmarketing

When it comes to creating a high-converting landing page, it’s important to ensure that your content is concise, well-designed, and easy to read.

Your landing page should provide all the necessary information your potential customers need to know in a clear and concise way.

In this article, we’ll walk you through how to create a landing page that achieves your Pay Per Click advertising campaign’s goals and, most importantly, converts visitors into paying customers.

Keep your content concise and to the point

When it comes to creating high-converting landing pages for a Pay Per Click campaign (PPC), less is more. Your content should be concise and provide all the necessary information your potential customers need to know about your product or service.

Avoid long paragraphs and break your content into shorter sections to improve readability. Simple language that’s easy to understand whilst trying to avoid using jargon or technical terms is recommended.

Avoid getting distracted

When you’re writing your content don’t get distracted! Have one call to action and limit any reason for your web visitor to click away from that page. Remember, what the goal of your landing page is.

Your Pay-Per-Click (PPC) campaign depends on visitors taking action – be it signing up for an event or downloading an eBook. To achieve your goal, it is a must to communicate persuasively and make it clear to the web visitor why your offer is worth their while.

Prioritise readability

Your landing page’s readability is crucial to its success. Your content should be easy for your visitors to understand your message. Use readable fonts, bullet points, and subheadings to make your content easier to scan and limit how much they have to scroll.

Remember that most users will be viewing on their mobile devices. This means that they will be scanning content so your message needs to be clear as high up the page as possible.

Design for user experience (UX)

Your landing page’s design should be visually appealing and complement your content, but it should never overshadow your page’s usability.

A poorly designed page with high user engagement is more valuable than a beautifully designed page with low user engagement. Ensure that your page’s speed and usability take priority over the design to attract more conversions.

Consider accessibility

Accessibility should always be a top priority when creating a landing page. Make sure you use website accessibility tools that ensure everyone can access.

A/B test your landing page

It’s essential to A/B test your landing page to see what works best. A/B testing allows you to test variations of your landing page to determine which one generates the most conversions. The results of these tests will help you improve your landing page and achieve higher conversion rates.

Creating a great landing page

Ensure that your content is concise, readable, and designed with user experience in mind. This can help you optimise your landing page for better conversions and generate more leads for your PPC campaign.

Remember that testing and learning are essential to optimise your landing page. So, never stop testing and improving your landing pages to achieve your goals.

PPC advertising services

We’re PPC specialists and a Google partner helping businesses in Croydon get more traffic to their website to increase leads. A Google Ads campaign helps give businesses a boost in search engine results pages. As a digital marketing agency, we can help set up and manage your PPC accounts. We’ll conduct keyword research that enhances your paid search campaign.

We have a PPC Pricing Calculator to help you estimate how much it will cost. We also offer a Google ads PPC review service to help you optimise any campaigns you curretnly have running.

Red Paper Plane Flying in the Opposite Direction to the other white plane - Smart Cow Marketing Email Marketing Agency

What is PPC?

05/03/202406/09/2023 by scmarketing

PPC is probably a term you’re all familiar with, it’s a bit of a buzz word, but what does it actually mean and how can it help your business attract customers?

PPC stands for pay per click. PPC is advertising online usually via search channels such as Google or social media platforms such as LinkedIn or Facebook. The reason it’s called ‘pay per click’ is that as an advertiser, you pay these channels direct each time someone clicks on the ad.

Why conduct a PPC campaign?

If your website is not being viewed in the natural search engine results pages (SERPs) you can give it a little nudge with a paid campaign. For example, if you set up a Google ads campaign your ad will appear on the first page of the search results with the little Ad icon beside it. So, when a prospect searches for a certain term the results delivered include the Ads as the top results.

In terms of budget needed to conduct a campaign, the higher the search volume, this will impact on you as an advertiser as you will need to pay more. However, Google Ads will give you the chance to be seen amongst your competition on the first page of Google.

Is PPC right for my business?

There’s no one size fits all solution. As with any digital marketing activity, you firstly need to understand your goals and your target audience. Then you can ascertain what mix of digital marketing is right to achieve the results you want. Understanding your goals will ensure the best return on investment for successful PPC campaign.

Whether that’s gaining more enquires and leads, or encouraging downloads of a new industry report, design your PPC campaign with the end goal in mind. This will affect how and where you place your ads.

It’s worth bearing in mind that the top three paid advertising spots get 46% of the clicks on the page. While, PPC Ads can boost awareness by 80%.

Top tips for
implementing your PPC campaign

1. Be specific

Most PPC campaigns have a limited word count, so be clear and get to the point. Use keywords for a quality score. Advertising campaigns that are very specific to the product and price are much more successful than general product and service ads.

2. Test your ads

Perform AvB testing. Sometimes the same advert has different results in different geographic areas, so keep testing and refining the ads for the best results.

3. Landing pages

Placing thought into the landing page where visitors will click through to is essential to avoid people leaving your website quickly which will affect your website bounce rate. Make sure the content is specific to the ad and your target audience. It can also be worthwhile creating a specific landing page for a PPC campaign.

A PPC campaign is a great way to enhance your search engine optimisation (SEO) and overall inbound marketing strategy. This digital marketing tactic can give your website a boost and is certainly something you should add into the mix when discussing your marketing strategy.

PPC marketing, Croydon

We are specialist digital marketing agency in Croydon, providing PPC marketing, website design and SEO services. If you’re currently account managing a PPC campaign and would like some help to make this successful or would like to discuss a new paid search campaign then get in touch and let us help you navigate the digital marketing world.

Just like Marcus Sheridan: Boost Sales with Transparency

06/05/202305/30/2023 by scmarketing

Here, Smart Cow owner, Simon Cripps, gives his insight into one of his favourite business development books. Watch the video below and read on.

I love the saying ‘standing on the shoulders of giants’, in the way that you can take what other people have experienced and learn from their mistakes and discoveries. To that extent, I constantly read highly recommended business development books.

One of my favourite business books with regards to marketing techniques is from ex-swimming pool salesman Marcus Sheridan with his book ‘They ask you answer’.

In his book, Marcus Sheridan explains how 80% of the buyer’s journey is now being completed before people contact companies. As well as how 27% of all Google searches are questions.

Answer your customers questions

Over the past 20 years, sales have transformed and it’s more important than ever for businesses to understand their customers and provide them with the information they need.

As businesses, we exist to solve people’s problems. But, how do people know you can solve their problems if you haven’t answered their key questions.

This book offers a revolutionary approach to inbound sales, content marketing, and today’s digital consumer. It helps address common fears such as not knowing what to say or how to price services by providing detailed explanations on how to tackle these issues.

A key tactic to differentiate your business

The key takeaway from this book is that transparency is essential when it comes to creating online content. Being upfront with details about products and services, providing comparisons, and offering reviews can help differentiate your business from the competition.

There is a great example of having a best of comparison on your website which actually highlights your competition and even some of their strengths or differences. Marcus had a web page on his website that listed the top 10 swimming pool manufacturers in California, they were all his competitors.

His competitors loved this as the page was really popular and they were being mentioned as one of the top 10, however in reality what was happening was that people online were searching for ‘top 10 swimming pool manufacturers in California’ and they were all going to Marcus’s website. Through his honest review, sometimes complementing his competition, his company was seen as the leading provider and made a huge amount of sales off the back of it.

They ask, you answer,

‘They Ask, You Answer’ has so many other great examples like this, that you can implement for your own business growth and success.

So, if you’re looking for an invaluable resource that will help you better understand your customers’ needs and create meaningful content that resonates with them, then ‘They Ask You Answer’ by Marcus Sheridan is a must-read!

You can buy it from Amazon and if you have already read it, please share your favourite insights.