People using Smartphones to get their businesses on Facebook

Get your business on Facebook

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With over 2.3 billion monthly active Facebook users, this social media platform is still one of the most popular out there. It’s therefore a good idea to have a Facebook page for your business. Depending on your type of business, this may dictate the level of activity, but suffice to say that a presence is a wise choice. People take comfort in seeing consistency of brand across different platforms, ads and literature.

Your basic page set up

With a Facebook page for your business you can get basic details showing straight away including website address, contact details, opening times. Also make sure you have a banner image and profile image uploaded. You page is now set and you can simply start posting. But before you do, you may want to continue reading to get some of our tips on what content you should posting.

Know your target audience

If you’ve been following our series of blogs, we think you’ll have got the message by know that before you start any digital marketing campaign that you know your target audience. For example, Smart cow’s audience could be businesses searching for digital marketers in Croydon. But if you’re not aware, in short make sure you define your target audience and their personality and then you’ll understand the way in which you should talk to them and what they’re interested to hear about. Read our blog on target audiences for more information.

What should you say?

Don’t forget the ‘social’ side when using Facebook or any social media channel. Avoid blatantly shouting about products or services over and over again, it’s about being respectful to others, speaking in the right language and tone of voice and chatting to them – or engaging! 

Use images

Remember to be visual. After all a picture says a thousand words. To stand out on a news feed having eye-catching imagery will really help. If you’re taking your own pictures, make sure they aren’t blurry and crop them if necessary before posting. There are also stock photo services you can try but these generally come with a fee attached.

But a word of caution, do not use images that you do not have permission to use – that means anything you find online – everything generally comes with a copyright. But, with technology as it is on your phone today you can create great photos with filters and videos.

Book a Practice Growth Session

If you feel you need of some support from a social media consultant in getting your social media channels set up then get in touch with us today.

We also run Practice Growth Sessions which are tailored for businesses keen to grow and ready to invest in a digital marketing campaign to achieve their goals. You can book a session with us for £95.

Keyboard shopping cart for remarketing

Understanding how remarketing can grow your business

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Have you ever seen those ads that follow you around the internet? A few days ago you searched for something online and then an ad for it shows up on a completely different website a few days later. This is remarketing and a very useful tool it is too.

Sales very rarely result from a smooth journey from ‘A’ to ‘B’. It normally takes a few side roads to get to the end goal and remarketing helps you guide people along the journey.

We’ve talked before about ease of navigation on your own website and in a similar way remarketing is another way of helping to reconnect visitors back to your website. As people scroll through Google the remarketing ads appear in a strategic position on the page.

It’s helping to increase brand awareness and trust for your product and services.

Benefits of remarketing

Here’s some of the benefits of remarketing to help drive sales and awareness of your brand:

  • You can really target your audience. When someone has added items to a shopping cart on your website but then disappears without completing a transaction, you can create a remarketing list specifically focussing on these people.
  • Be found. Remarketing is another way of getting you found online. Ads can show when clients are searching for your business on Google which really reinforces your brand message.
  • Be creative. It’s easy to create ads via the Google Ad gallery layouts which helps you to create an eye-catching campaign.
  • Increase sales. Conversion rates are more likely to increase overtime. The more users see an ad, the more brand awareness and trust is built. Although you’ll find that the CTR (click through rate) declines over time, the people who do click are more likely to convert to a sale

While cost for a remarketing ad can be a lot lower than a standard Pay Per Click ad campaign, both can work in tandem with each other to really reinforce the message of who you are.

Running remarketing ads on Google and Facebook is a great combination.

Book a Practice Growth Session

If you feel you need some support in getting your website optimised with a paid for digital marketing campaign, then get in touch with us today.

We also run Practice Growth Sessions which are tailored for businesses keen to grow and ready to invest in a digital marketing campaign to achieve their goals. You can book a session with us for £95.

PPC Agency

Where organic misses pay per click can hit

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Pay Per Click (PPC) campaigns create adverts online so when your business is not being viewed in the natural results you can give it a little nudge with a paid campaign. While it can be somewhat complicated, as Google certified, we at Smart Cow can help small businesses navigate the terminology with a tailored campaign.

In this blog, we’ll run through AdWords management and the types of PPC campaigns you can implement.

Google AdWords

With a whopping 1 billion+ using Google search every month, it makes sense that your website is seen in search. While appearing on the first of a search engine results page in organic search is the goal, if your website is new you need to give it a bit of time before your keywords and phrases start to take effect. So, this is where a paid campaign can give your website a boost in search as a paid for ad will pop up towards the top of the first page of search.

Essentially AdWords Accounts are structured starting with a Campaign level, you can set up a number of Campaigns within this. Each Campaign then has AdGroups, so you can focus on really targeting your messaging. For example, you may want to focus on promoting CRM software so that would form one AdGroup within the Campaign. But then, in time, you may decide to push another product so therefore you can create another AdGroup. Each AdGroup can then have a number of Ads so you can have a range of messaging per AdGroup. You can then ‘throttle up’ or ‘down’ individual ads depending on how they are preforming. Then be specific with your keywords and the geographic area you’re targeting.

Social Media
Marketing

For the purpose of this blog we’re looking at paid for campaigns and a PPC campaign also applies to social media too. Although it’s worth noting that with all the social channels available at your fingertips, one size does not fit all. You need to carefully consider which channel is best for your business. If you’ve not already set up your channels, take a look at how we help our customers with their social media.

If you’re underway
with your social channels and are looking for a boost in followers or click
through to a special offer, then a PPC campaign can help. Our blogs on how to
boost posts for Instagram, Facebook and Twitter will give you an
idea of what you can do and how to do it from selecting a budget, attracting
more profile visits, increasing website traffic and choosing your
audience. 

Keep your
messages simple

Remember who your target audience is when you tailor your messaging. Most PPC campaigns have a limited number of words you can use, so be clear and concise, this will also improve your quality score (where Google ranks the relevancy and originality in your PPC ads) . Campaigns that are very specific to the service, product and price are much more successful than a generic advert.

PPC Expert Croydon

If you feel you need some support in setting up a PPC campaign and all things PPC Marketing then get in touch with us today.

We also run Practice Growth Sessions which are tailored for businesses keen to grow and ready to invest in a digital marketing campaign to achieve their goals. You can book a session with us for £95.

Sources: Business Insider via Search Engine Journal

What to consider when embarking on your social media strategy

What to consider when embarking on your social media strategy

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With 3.48 billion people now using social media*, if you’re not yet using it for your business, there’s a potential market out there to build into your inbound marketing strategy.

Social media management

Whether you’re new to social media marketing or have let your business account lapse, now is a good time to review your social accounts and the channels appropriate to your business. With Q4 fast approaching, it’s a great time to get your business strategy and goals set for 2020 and work out how social media may fit into your business plan.

To help you, here’s a few points to consider about building your social media presence for your business, to help you decide if it’s the way forward for your marketing strategy.

  • Brand awareness: More than 40% of digital consumers use social networks to research new brands or products**. Coupled with a website and completion of your Google My Business page, having a social media platform is another way to be seen by other local businesses and customers, and by a wider audience.
  • Be a thought leader: Provide tips, advice and interesting comments that your target audience will be interested to hear about and would want to share themselves, linking this with your product and services.
  • Content is king: When you post a blog to your website, if you have social channels you have the opportunity to share this news to your social audience with a link back to your website. This extends reach further and helps with SERPs (Search Engine Results Page) and improving your SEO (Search Engine Optimisation). But remember – think quality over quantity.
  • Get targeted: While you tailor your content for your audience to encourage organic leads, you may also want to invest in some paid for social ads. Here you can really drill down to a niche audience.

We help small businesses connect with potential clients and creating long term relationships using lead generation from social meda.

If you are looking to get started, then consider working with a social media consultant for either a one-off campaign or on a monthly retainer. A Croydon based digital marketing agency, you can get in touch with us today and we can talk you through our social media and digital marketing packages.

We also work closely within the Accountancy Market. Find out how we help accountancy firms grow their client base through social media for accountants.

Sources: *blog.hootsuite.com ; **globalwebindex

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