Using social media for inbound marketing

LinkedIn introduces new product pages

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The networking social media platform has launched LinkedIn Product Pages for companies to showcase their products to LinkedIn’s audience of over 722million professionals.

This specific tab is available on a company LinkedIn page to help businesses highlight key products to followers with the aim of helping to build brand awareness. This in turn will help to generate leads for your business.

The function also allows for videos, images as well as the ability to highlight user testimonials and include a bold call to action to request a demo.

A clever aspect of the Product Pages is the capability to drill down to your target audience by specifying job roles so that your product is relevant to those viewing.

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Grow your business with LinkedIn

LinkedIn is a business2business (B2B) social channel with networking at its core. It enables you to connect with other professionals, clients, colleagues, prospects and employers. It provides another marketing touchpoint to promote who you are and your business. This all helps your social media manager to build trust and brand awareness.

If your business is not on LinkedIn, then perhaps now is the time to explore it for your business. Do some research to check if it is relevant for your business. If your competitors are on the social media platform then maybe you should set up a company page too.

Our blog on how LinkedIn can help you grow your business has some tips on how to set up your company page.

Social media agency

If you need support from a digital marketing agency in getting your social media channels set up and to run social media campaigns, then get in touch with us for a free consultation.

As part of your marketing strategy, a social media marketing agency such as Smart Cow can assist with your social media strategy optimise your website in the long term to help it be seen in search engine results pages. Based in London, Smart Cow can create a tone of voice for your organic social posts as well as managing paid social campaigns.

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Word in dictionary illustrating keywords

Get your website seen with a blog page

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If there’s one thing you do differently in 2021, we recommend you add a blog page to your website. For those that have a blog webpage already, then make sure you regularly update what you got.

The reason being is that your website is the centre of your digital world – all external links, such as from your social media channels, point potential leads back to your website. So, having a blog is a great page for you to add fresh content too. And, it’s this content which holds the secret to optimising your website in search engines results pages.

A blog provides a place to add timely news items about new products or services but most importantly a place to offer advice to answer the challenges faced by your potential customers. This is what your leads are really interested in. As you add this content to your website think about what people will be searching for in search engines, such as Google, as this will form the basis of your keywords research and what you will look to include moving forward. Read more about keywords here.

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Engaging blog content

You have less than 15 seconds to engage visitors and give them the information they want before they will bounce right off your website. So, make sure that the topics you choose are of interest to your target audience. Offering a free template to download or an ebook is another attractive offer.

Remember that a blog is about being informative and about your brand becoming a thought leader in its field.

Cover topics which highlight your expertise. A case study is a great way to illustrate this.

Keep content clear and concise. 

The aim is to add value to help people solve a very specific problem. 

Write blogs that answer their questions. The goal is to optimise that post to appear in related searches by including keywords.  

Without regular, new and relevant content your website is less engaging. Your target audience is less likely to stay on your website or revisit in the future.

There’s also some backend tactics to get used to when you upload a blog. Make sure you add a meta description, image alt tag and H1 headings for starters. Get into that routine and you’re really helping with ongoing search engine optimisation. Read more about SEO and why you should consider it here.

Once you have posted your blog live then repurpose the content to create loads of social media posts. Remember to add the link to the blog or a relevant page on your website as this helps guide leads back to your website and it’s also highly regarded by search engines.

Free website review

Why not take advantage of our FREE website review so you can kick start the new year with the goal of updating your website to get it truly optimised. Then you can simply concentrate on adding regular blogs to your website to keep it engaging and help to generate leads.  

SEO agency Croydon

If you would like to discuss SEO services incorporating content marketing as part of a wider long term digital marketing strategy for your business then book a consultation with us.

Email marketing keyboard

Why consider email marketing in 2021

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Perhaps thought a little old school, email marketing is not to be underestimated. How we search for products and services has certainly shifted over the years and even more so in 2020. We’re not strolling to the shops like we were. More people have discovered online shopping and searching for the services they need. And, we’re becoming reliant on advertising that we choose to see rather than being forced upon us.  

Stop and think for a moment about all the digital marketing options at your fingertips to reach potential customers. There’s a long list including social media, website, pay per click advertising through to blogs. With this in mind it makes sense to add email marketing to the mix of tactics to help widen your reach.

Looking ahead to 2021, with renewed hope, now is a great time to get your marketing strategy in order and look for a cohesive approach to getting your message out there. Here’s some tips to help you along.

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Repurpose your content

If you’re only just embarking on email marketing, don’t think that this means you have to write more content than you have time for. Be clever with what you have.

We would always recommend a client has a blog or news page on their website as this provides a great way to add fresh content and regularly. This is perfect for a Search Engine Optimisation strategy – read more about SEO here.

You need to optimise your website to help it be seen in search rankings so with a blog already on the go, just repurpose what you have already written for email marketing. In fact, repurpose for all your marketing where you can. For example, you can breakdown content from your blogs into loads of social media posts and schedule in advance via a social media platform such as Hubspot.

The purpose of your email marketing, as with all digital marketing, is to attract people to your website. So, write a short intro based on the blog and add a bold call to action button saying ‘read more’. This entices the reader to get more information by reading the rest of the blog. What’s key is that it must be interesting to get a prospect to read on. Read our blog on content marketing to help you write engaging content.

So, think about what your target audience is interested in learning more about. Then write about it.

Email design

We’ve jumped ahead slightly, as before you can add your content you need an email template design.

All you need to do is design the initial template, you can then just add the content and relevant images every other time you distribute an email. You can either brief a digital marketing agency to create the template for you and manage the distribution. Or, you can create a template yourself using the many email distribution platforms available such as Mailchimp and Hubspot.

Frequency

Set yourself a goal of an email once a month to send to your opted in database (read more about being GDPR compliant here). What’s most important is that you keep up the regular emails so that people can learn to appreciate and trust your brand with its consistent and insightful messaging. Remember that people have to opt in to receive your emails so they are warm leads and have chosen to hear from you.

Email marketing Consultant Croydon  

As a digital marketing agency in Croydon, we’re able to offer businesses across London with inbound marketing support for improved lead generation. We use a range of tactics including web design and development, email marketing, SEO, Pay Per Click (PPC), social media management through to CRM and marketing automation.

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Digital Marketing

Part 2: Digital marketing trends 2021

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Here we look ahead to 2021 and the marketing trends to consider to help with your business growth strategy to attract quality leads.  We’ve already discussed agile marketing, personalisation and video in our previous Digital Marketing Trends 2021 instalment. Here we have a few further thoughts that you should look to consider in your marketing plan.

Webinar growth

There is no doubt that the way we work and live our daily lives has changed. Exhibitions and events were non existent in 2020 but everyone adapted with a significant boom in online conferences and regular webinars. This has opened doors to many businesses across sectors to reach out to their target audience in a way that would have been unimaginable before. Therefore, factoring in a webinar into your marketing plan could be a great way to reach potential new clients.   

Partnering with another local business that complements your services could be a great way to reach more people. What’s key is getting the right theme for your event, make sure you are giving advice that will encourage people to sign up.

If you don’t feel confident in running your own webinar then tap into local networking groups as many have started up monthly webinars. You can then pitch yourself forward as a panellist or provide an idea for a webinar.

Content marketing plan

So, this is not quite a trend as such but it’s a big tip to help you create a marketing strategy. The goal is to be consistent with messaging and to reach people at the right time. It’s really important to have insightful content as this is not just about brand awareness it’s about building trust with your target audience. What we mean by this is people don’t want to be sold to. They want to trust that what they hear from you will help them with their own challenges. They want to read insightful blogs that mean that time and again they click on your social media posts or open your emails over any other business. The potential customer knows that they are going to read or download something useful for them.

So, with this in mind, create a calendar for the year and month on month plot out what messages you will push out there. Plan what blogs you will write and time these with product launches, events, relevant awareness days and any other occasion relevant to your business and message at that time. This will help form structure and avoid a scatter gun approach.

SEO spotlight

SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) is at the core of a successful digital marketing strategy. Again, not a trend as such, however the reason we have a spotlight on SEO is that digital transformation has accelerated this year, therefore understanding how you can get the best from your website is vital as it’s your shop front to the world.

If you already have a website then start to think how can you make it better or optimise it in other words!

SEO will tie into your content marketing plan too. Every blog you write will need to be engaging and include keywords or rather long-tail keywords. Keywords refer to those phrases that you type into a search engine. Think about what a customer might type in to discover your services or products? Think like that and you are a step towards developing keywords for your content.

How to improve onsite SEO with keywords has some useful tips for keyword development.

Free digital marketing resources  

We’re a digital marketing agency in Croydon and we have the following resources you can tap into.

Free website review: Find out how to improve your website’s performance.  

Free digital marketing consultation: Our free consultation should be between 15 and 30 minutes. The goal is to provide you with thoughts on how to start an effective marketing campaign and for us both to see if it would benefit your firm. No obligation at all, we just want the best for you. 

Get in touch with us today to talk through your digital marketing campaign requirements whether email marketing, SEO, Social media marketing, video content or Pay Per Click.

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