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NetWORKing it baby!

03/12/2020 by scmarketing

Networking is a great tool to meet, learn and collaborate. It’s about growing your business, making new contacts, winning new clients and selling your wares.

We’re advocates of local networking groups (the business card is still key at such events) but it’s not just about turning up to a breakfast meeting or attending a lunchtime network session. Use the digital marketing tools at your disposal to network your socks off and generate quality leads.

Are you on LinkedIn? If not, get yourself on there as soon you can.

Just like attending a networking session, LinkedIn is about growing your network of contacts to help grow your business.

As a business2business (B2B) social channel with networking at its core this social media platform allows you to connect with other professionals, clients, colleagues, prospects and employers.

Pre event LinkedIn activity

Whether you’re attending an actual networking event or going to a trade exhibition or conference, the organisers usually share a list of attendees before the event. If you don’t receive one, it’s worth asking the organiser just in case.

Check what companies you’d be interested to do business with or collaborate with. Then send a message to them via LinkedIn to say that you’re also attending the same event and whether they would like to connect. It’s all about building your network.

Our blog – How LinkedIn can Grow your Business – has key points for you to consider.

Post event check list

Remember to log your new contacts into your CRM (Customer Relationship Management) system.

Follow up with contacts you’ve met at the event expressing how good it was to meet.

You could send an email with information pertinent to your lead. If you discussed a specific topic, continue the conversation.

Connect with them on LinkedIn!

Research local networking groups

As part of your business development strategy and ongoing networking on LinkedIn, take a little time to research the local networking groups near you. With flexible working on the rise and more people setting up their own business, new style networking hubs are cropping up more and more. Whether it’s speed networking, breakfast briefings or socials, get searching for what’s near you.

Social Media for your business

If you feel you need a kick start on using social media for your business, get in touch today and we can talk about the best digital marketing approach to generate leads.

Why websites are essential for your firm?

06/16/202103/10/2020 by scmarketing

We may have become a little complacent in how we view websites these days, as they’ve just become part of life. However, we wanted to take a little step back just to remind you why websites are an essential part of your business and how they can generate quality leads and how Smart Cow can design and build you a strong online presence.

Website is your shop front

Your website is your sales pitch to potential clients, it must be appealing to the audience you’re looking to attract, providing visitors with the confidence that you will provide a good service or have a great product.

Just like a bricks and mortar shop front for your business, a website is just the same in the online world. Ultimately, it’s your shop. So, along with your shop name – or domain name in the online world – it’s worth remembering that this is something you own.

Like so many businesses today running their company on a Facebook page or Instagram account, this is a reminder that you don’t own those social channels! That’s why it’s always an idea to invest in your own website design to direct traffic to.

Website design and development

If you’re embarking on a new website or looking to refresh it, make sure you work with your website developer to design a site that will attract, engage and convert potential clients.

Make sure you have a good mix of images and video alongside your content. But also ensure that your site map is clear and call to actions are bold. You want to reduce bounce rate and encourage visitors to move around your website with ease.

We always talk about content being king. It tells the world who you are and what you do. But make sure what you write is succinct and to the point. Search engines will be looking for those key phrases you use to understand what each page on your website is about. It is important to also have links to all your social media platforms.

At Smart Cow we will work closely with you, from start to finish, and understand your needs, client base, and company goals in order to develop a bespoke website tailored to your needs.

Be seen online

Having a website is like your shopfront. And, like any shopfront, you have to get your shopfront seen to encourage footfall. In the online world there’s a few tactics that can help give you a little boost, if you’ve not already explored them.

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO): From backend tech to ensure that your images are the right size and completing Alt Tags, Meta descriptions and Titles, right down to the H1 and H2 headings. These can all help your website be seen by search engines as it helps to guide search engines about what the page is about.
Pay Per Click (PPC): A PPC ad campaign can give your website a nudge in the search pages as you pay for an ad that will appear on the front page of Google. However, a word of note, make sure that the landing page you pick for your ad is what people expect to see when they click on the ad. If you’ve sent a visitor to a page with incomplete or outdated information, you’re likely to lose the lead very quickly.
Google My Business: Complete your listing on this directory – it’s free after all. It gives you options to add updates such as blogs, events and imagery. As well as the basic information about your company’s services and contact details.
Blog: Add a blog or news page to your website in the main menu. It helps keep content fresh and is a great way to position you as a thought leader in your field.
In web development make sure you factor in the smaller screens; think about creating a mobile friendly website too!

Websites for accountants

Smart cow is a web design company in Croydon, creating and designing websites for accountants and local businesses. If you think it’s time you took your website to the next level as a lead generation magnet, get in touch with us to chat through your requirements and what professional web design services you are after.

What is an inbound marketing agency?

05/29/202003/05/2020 by scmarketing

An inbound marketing agency is focused on lead generation to attract quality clients from qualified leads interested in your products and services.

Ultimately you want this traffic to lead to sales. However, as you probably already know the sales journey is rarely a smooth one stop shop as there will be many touch points required to help build brand awareness and trust.

So, thinking about how you can add context to your marketing activity that’s relevant to your audience is key to success.

Creating your inbound strategy

The sales landscape today is all about supporting the buyers’ journey in making the right purchase. They don’t want their time wasted, as much as you.

We recommend that you take time to understand who you are selling to. Think of your target audience and create an imaginary persona of your ideal customer.

Then, hone your messaging in line with answering the challenges that your target audience is facing. Empathise with their requirements and personalise your content.

It’s all about appealing to your relevant prospects to reach those quality leads interested in your services.

Armed with this knowledge and research into your target audience, your tone of voice should be consistent.

Download The Beginner’s Guide to Inbound Marketing to help you create your marketing strategy.

What does inbound marketing include?

There’s a number of inbound marketing tactics that an agency will draw on to create a strategy to generate traffic for your business. Here’s an overview digital marketing tools what can be covered.

Start your inbound marketing strategy

Your website is at the core of your business, it’s your shop window. So, a review of your current site and applying marketing methodology would be the first step to take.

Take us up on our FREE website review offer to give you insight into any possible updates you may need to make to help with Search Engine Optimisation.

Have you completed your Google My Business page? It’s free to do and is the ultimate directory to be on providing quality links back to your website.

Content marketing is also key as you need to be positioned as a thought leader in your field. So, think of adding a blog to your website or more up to date posts as this provides great new content for a website. This is another tactic to help search engines find you.

As a digital marketing agency we would look at your business, understand your objectives to then tailor an inbound marketing campaign for your firm encompassing the tactics that are right for your goals.

Why not contact us for a FREE consultation? Talk us through your current position, where you would like to be, your target audience and objectives and we can work on a proposal for you.

Ebook resources

Download The Beginner’s Guide to Inbound Marketing

9 tips to create email campaigns that convert

06/14/202103/04/2020 by scmarketing

With active email accounts expected to hit 5.6 billion (Source: Statista 2019 via Hubspot), email marketing offers a great inbound marketing option. Here’s our top tips for creating a successful email marketing campaign.

Good quality data

Make sure you have good quality data. Segment your list, clean it and don’t be upset when people unsubscribe. You don’t want to be sending someone emails that they feel are spam. You want to make every email count which means that those left on your subscriber list are relevant. Segmenting a list makes it targeted. Recipients are 75% more likely to click on emails from segmented campaigns than non-segmented campaigns (Source: MailChimp, 2017 via Hubspot)

Be compliant

You must always have an unsubscribe option in your email as well as a link to your privacy policy. If people are not interested, then by making it easy to unsubscribe, you’ve cleared someone from your list that wasn’t going to engage further. Remember, you need to be GDPR compliant, so transparency is important.

Make content snappy

Don’t forget the point of your email. With hundreds or emails received by people daily – what’s the purpose of yours and why should the recipient read it, how will you make yours an effective email? Knowing the key challenges of your target audience will not only help you create content that answers their questions but also will help you to personalise your email.

Call to action

Make it obvious what you want the recipient to do. Download a case study or report? Answer a short poll? Follow you on social media? Have a link to your blog posts? What the call to action is will vary from the types of email you send out. There are many actions that you can add but make it easy for your reader to know what to do.

Website landing page

Make sure links in your email work and are going to the correct page on your website to avoid bounces. You may need to create a specific landing page or update content to be relevant to your email campaign.

Images

Make sure your email template is easy to navigate but most of all you have enough pictures or video to make it eye-catching and attractive to look at.

Be mobile responsive

With 46% of emails opened on a mobile, it makes sense to ensure your emails are responsive for all devices.

AvB test

Always test the subject line of your email. Test some of the distribution list initially with a split of subject lines and then with the most successful open rates, send out the remainder using that title.

Analyse your results

Make a note of what works and what doesn’t. Campaign monitoring is important so avoid copying old formats which don’t get clicks, be innovative and creative.

We hope this provides you with the help you need to embark on your email marketing campaign. If you need support on this, then do contact us, a email marketing agency and digital marketing agency in London, and we can chat through your marketing requirements.