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Is Zoom the new office?

03/26/202003/24/2020 by scmarketing

As we wake each day to new curbs and change in our everyday routine as a result of the coronavirus, many of us will now be working from home and getting used to social distancing. Yet somehow, are you finding that you’re more social than ever?

Working from an office base, communication on email still seems to be de rigueur. With a favour towards regular face to face meetings. Now, as many people adjust to remote working from home, here’s some tips on video conferencing.

Video conferencing apps

Well, video conferencing is not new, and it has been used by many businesses well before now. It’s allowed firms to be global when perhaps they may be based in Croydon in the UK.

Smart Cow had already started holding video meetings where distance between clients was an issue and as a great way to share screens and talk through work. But for many businesses, they will be starting to use this method for the first time. Not just for their work, but also for catching up with friends and family.

Zoom seems to be coming up top of the list for video apps. From business meetings to family drinks through to bands continuing to gig, the use of Zoom seems to be ticking all these boxes. Visit https://zoom.us/ – it offers a free sign up option.

If you’re finding it a bit daunting then Techtrader has a step by step guide on how to set up your Zoom video conferencing.

Microsoft teams is also a popular choice for businesses. Part of the Office 365 suite which includes Outlook, Cloud based Sharepoint and your Office stalwarts – Word, PowerPoint and Excel. It allows work collaboration in real-time but also offers mobile audio and video.

Check out this comprehensive list from PC Magazine featuring the best video conferencing software to find out what may be right for your business.

With the change in your daily routine, now is a good time to explore options for your business. Using video conferencing with colleagues is a great way to share ideas and thoughts for the business and how you can continue to maintain presence in a digital world.

Further resources

Why should my business consider Pay Per Click?

11/22/202103/19/2020 by scmarketing

A Pay Per Click campaign is a great way to enhance your search engine optimisation (SEO) strategy and may result in you landing higher up in the search engine results page. It’s a great tactic to have in your digital marketing toolbox. While offering a way to measure Return on Investment (ROI), there’s a few more tips to consider to set up and manage a successful Pay Per Click (PPC) campaign, improve your search marketing and increase your ad rank

Review your website

Once you’ve decided the focus of your ad campaign, look at your website. What landing page will you send people to when they click on your ad? Does it have all the relevant information needed in answer to what is in your ad? If not, you may need to update content and even create a separate landing page.

Targeted messaging

A PPC campaign can be incredibly targeted allowing you to reach your relevant audience. This can be achieved through Google AdWords, Bing Ads right through to social media ads.

What’s different about PPC compared to other forms of advertising is that you can make sure that just your target audience see your ads. Just think of all the information you may have shared online about your age, gender, interests and location, all this and more can be used to market to certain people.

Be specific

Most PPC campaigns have a limited wordcount, so be clear and to the point. Campaigns that are very specific to the product or service are by far much more successful than general ads.

Analyse results

A PPC campaign gives you great insight to what works and what doesn’t so you can really hone the details of your campaign.

A Click Through Rate (CTR) will let you know the numbers of people clicking your ad. It gives really good insight into whether the ad is answering what the searcher is looking for.

Whilst the Conversion Rate is all about who has completed the action. Whether that’s to download a document, sign up for a free trial or book a consultation.

You can then understand the cost per conversion. Are you paying more to gain a new client than the amount they pay you?

You want to make your ads work for you so constantly reviewing and tailoring is necessary as well as using negative keywords which can help reduce wasted spend. This means your ad won’t appear in search for that negative keyword. We are able to categorise your ad campaigns and key words into various ad groups.

PPC Expert Croydon

We are specialist marketing agency, who work on PPC marketing in London, if you’re currently managing a PPC campaign and would like some help to make this successful or would like to discuss a new campaign in more detail then get in touch and let us help you navigate the digital marketing world.

Tips for using images for digital marketing

03/30/202003/18/2020 by scmarketing

With 70% of YouTube viewers watching videos for “help with a problem” whether for their hobby, studies, or job, there’s not getting away from the fact that visual content is key for a digital marketing campaign.

And, with 62% of B2B marketers rating video as an effective content marketing tactic, here’s some top tips for using visual content on your website and part of your digital marketing strategy.

Website imagery

Imagery is engaging for a website visitor, it breaks up a page, helps maintain interest and importantly keeps people on a website for longer. So make sure you’ve incorporating imagery into your website design. For a good website design having a consistent look and feel for images or video you produce provides the perfect solution for a digital marketing campaign. You can repurpose imagery across channels from website through to social media channels and eshot campaigns. It helps to build your brand identity and therefore awareness and importantly trust.

Social media

IMaintain consistency with your website for all of your online marketing activity. For successful social media marketing create a header image to be used across all social media platforms, this is certainly relevant for Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin. However, resize them for the respective channel. Here’s a summary of image sizes for the popular social channels:

Facebook
- Profile picture – 180 x 180 pixels
- Cover photo image – 820 x 312 pixels
- Social post image – 1,200 x 630 pixels
Twitter
- Profile picture – 400 x 400 pixels
- Header image – 1,500 x 500 pixels
- Social post image – 440 x 220 pixels
LinkedIn
- Company logo – 300 x 300 pixels
- Cover image – 1536 x 768 pixels
- Shared image – 1104 x 736 pixels
Instagram
- Profile picture – 110×110 pixels
- Photos – 1,080 x 1,080 pixels

Best to use either jpeg or PNG file format.

Video

Smart phones today are amazing. The technology allows you to create short and snappy videos that are ideal for sharing on social.

We find that doing face to camera at events is a nice informal way to chat to your audience. You don’t have to be clever about it with special effects, it’s what you’re saying that’s important. If you attend a regular networking event and feel your audience would benefit from joining themselves, then tell them why they should attend. Give stats on the number of people who attend, how many businesses are signed up to the group and give an overview of what to expect from the event. All this done in a short face to camera video that can be easily uploaded to social media.

Use images as your content marketing

If you have blogs, case studies create unique images or use email marketing. You could utilise quotes from a case study to help create stand out on social media but also to entice people to click the link and read the full story. Ultimately the goal is to attract people to your website and images help create standout.

Be aware of copyright

A word of warning though, do not use images from Google for any campaign. Images come with copyright and you will not have permission to use them if you take them from anywhere online. Either take pictures or video yourself, phone cameras are so good these days. Or, use a reputable stock library to source these from such as Adobe, Shutterstock or Envato.

Digital marketing strategy for Croydon businesess

If you need a hand with images and how these can work within your overall marketing strategy then get in touch. We can help you create a holistic digital marketing campaign including eye-catching images and video. This along with other digital marketing services we offer will improve your search engine optimisation and more traffic heading towards your website.

If you’re looking for a market leading digital marketing agency in London, we’re specialists in online marketing providing services for digital marketing in Croydon businesses and beyond.

8 website tips specific for Accountants in London

03/30/202003/17/2020 by scmarketing

With the top 15 accounting firms in the UK based in London having a strong online presence is key, this means having a website that focuses on the USPs of your practice. This is not only important to attract new clients but also to retain your current client base.

So, we’ve gathered a few top tips on what accountants should consider for their website. Whether you’re looking to refresh what you have or wanting a brand-new website, here’s some thoughts for accountants to factor into their digital marketing strategy.

SEO

Search engine marketing is critical; you want to be found online when clients search for your business. Therefore, a well optimised website is the first trick of the trade. Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) takes time but some essentials to cover off with your web developer will be:

Make sure images are the right size and you have completed the alt tag on the backend
Complete your H1, H2 headers etc., this helps search engines work out the theme of the page to return the right answers to the searcher.
Complete your meta descriptions – this neat little paragraph is what is read when you search online.

Easy navigation

Review your current site map and if you’re starting from scratch make sure that it’s clear and call to actions are bold. Be obvious about what you’re asking a visitor to your site to do. Is it easy for them to find your list of accounting services? Help them move around your website with ease. On top of being clear and concise it shows good customer service for anyone visiting your site.

Blog

As an accountancy firm, you probably think that a blog isn’t relevant to you. Think again! If you don’t have a blog or news page, now’s the time to introduce one.

If you already have a Content Management System (CMS) this should be relatively easy to add to your menu. The importance of this page is that it’s a great place to keep content fresh on a website and search engines like new content.

Content marketing

You need to be thinking about content that will be useful to your potential customers that they start to use you as a go to site for information. Go into detail about the services so people understand whether this is something they should have and this also has a great effect on search results too. Talk about key accounting deadlines in the year, remind people of them too. Also keep them up to date with latest changes to legislation and tax rules. Content can be published in the form of blogs, email campaigns, website pages, or social media marketing (for accountancy marketing LinkedIn would be a appropriate platform to you.).

Be image led

Business owners may think this isnot relevant for an accountancy firm. But images are a key part in any digital marketing campaign. Why? They not only create stand out, but they provide consistency to create a holistic marketing campaign. A good mix of images and video placed on your landing pages alongside your content and relevant keywords really brings a webpage to life. Plus, you can repurpose your images to share on social media to really help your posts stand out.

And, if you follow our tips about optimising your images then it helps with search engines finding your site.

Understand what your website visitor wants

Downloadable information such as ebooks or forms to complete to be added to an email database are great ways to know what your visitor is interested in for when you next engage with them. This helps to build rapport and to move them through your pipeline from lead to client.

We’re a hubspot partner firm and would be able to guide you through the benefits of a lead generation Customer Relationship Management (CRM) solution for your marketing services so your firm can prevent data silos allowing different teams the ability to see what’s in the pipeline to work effectively on leads and to grow existing clients.

Be safe

Most CMS provide modules to allow you to back up and to make safe against hackers. Unfortunately, with web robots (automated programs) checking thousands of websites a second for weaknesses to exploit the owner it’s important to do as much as you can to make it safe. Talk through the options with your web developer such as the SSL certificate and captcha forms for your website

Free website review

Smart Cow is a digital agency for accountants. This is just a small overview of digital marketing for accountants in London. If you have questions about online marketing or would like a free website review which will highlight any areas that may need work on, get in touch.

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