THree christmas trees

Attract and retain customers with seasonal promotions

As the festive season is fast approaching, now is the time to start thinking about what special offers you can provide your customers. From vouchers to competitions, we’ve got some ideas to get you thinking creatively to attract and retain customers. We’ve also got top tips on what digital marketing techniques to use to help you get your message out there.

Top tips for seasonal greetings

1. Vouchers – add a voucher to an email to redeem in your shop or online.
2. Host an event – invite customers to a launch event for your new seasonal coffee or host a music night. It’s a great way to engage with your customers.
3. Competitions – offer a prize that you know will go down a storm. Encourage entries by getting customers to give an email address. An ideal way to gather contacts for your next newsletter.
4. Added value – a voucher or offer may not be suitable for all businesses, so think what could add value to your customer? Tips that add value to your target audience is a good place to start. Even a simple thank you email and salutations for the year ahead, will go along way.

Email marketing

Email marketing is 40 times more effective at acquiring new customers than Facebook or Twitter*, so it’s a great tool to utilise alongside your social media channels to get news of your seasonal promotions to your target audience. If you need help with your email marketing, we’re offering a 60-day free trial with Constant Contact.

Social media letters

Why social media is important for small businesses

With 2.8 billion social media users*, we take a closer look at a successful business that has utilised social media to gain a loyal following and consider why it is so important for small businesses to get social.

Marketing Week recently interviewed entrepreneur Ella Mills about the role that marketing has played in the success of her business. She has built up a massive online following with her brand Deliciously Ella which has an audience of about 28 million. She started her blog in 2012 following an illness which affected her mentally and physically. Her business stemmed from her learning about diet and lifestyle and how it could have an impact on her illness. She subsequently recorded what she was eating in her blog. She gained a loyal base of followers interested in her recipes and progress. Fast forward to today, and Ella is regularly engaging and reaching out to her audience directly via social media and built on her business model by introducing bricks and mortar delis. For Ella, she sees social media as ‘accessible, authentic and approachable’ and ‘the most important way of keeping in touch’.

With Ella’s success of social media marketing in mind, we consider how small businesses can utilise and benefit social media for themselves

Content is king

One of the key things to remember about any communication with your audience is the need for good quality content. By creating interesting and relevant blogs and videos you can share these via social media. So, providing tips, advice and commentary on trends, can help you attract and retain customers.

Think strategically

Understanding why you are on social media will help you achieve your goals. The channels are not just there for engagement and a #ThrowbackThursday comment, they are about customer retention, brand awareness, sales and quality leads. So, spend a little time initially working out what you want to get from social media and devise your strategy.

Understand your audience

Conduct a straw poll with your customers to find out what channels are most popular and research which social media channels your competitors use. This way you will have some indication of where to focus your efforts if you are starting out or doing a review of relevant channels you’re signed up to. For example, a local café may find Facebook and Instagram popular for spreading their message. But, it is not necessarily the same approach that is best for an accountancy firm, where Twitter and LinkedIn may provide the best approach.

Let’s face it, if your competitors are using a particular channel then it’s worth sharing the same space as them.

Marketing plan

Remember, to see social media as just another marketing tool. It is providing a way to reach out to your target audience, so working out what you want to say to them and how is all part of the process. For a small business, it is sometimes difficult to manage or perhaps the last thing on your mind with everything else you have to juggle. So, look at tools such as Hootsuite which can help you manage when you send messages out and at what time.

Social media Croydon

If you’re looking for some initial help, the Smart Cow team can help you formulate a social media strategy and create content for a few months to set you on your way.

Drop us a line if you have any questions about social media for your small business and we can help guide you through.

Source: *We are Social: Digital in 2017 Global Overview

How important is the customer user experience to sales?

Recent research has revealed that 50% of consumers are happy to buy products from a brand they’ve never heard of before if they don’t have a good customer experience elsewhere*. So, for small businesses, the functionality of your website is vital to reap the benefits of consumers exploring alternative brands.

Conducting an internal review of your current website and how easy it is to navigate will help shed light on whether you need to refresh it or make small changes.

If you’re starting out, then collaborate with a digital agency that not only understands what you want from your website but gets your company ethos. They will work with you to create the best website for your business rather than taking a template and fitting a square peg into a round hole.

How to review your website

If you’re reviewing your current website, then here’s a few things to check to work out if it is time for a website refresh to enhance the customer experience:

1. Does your homepage really sell who and what you are? Does it say what’s in the tin? It is all very well having a flashy website but if your customers can’t immediately see what you do and what products or services you’re selling then your potential customers may leave quickly. Make sure the content fits with who you are.

2. How many times do you have to click to find what you want? Limiting the amount of clicks your customer makes will help to reduce bounce rate and makes for a pleasant user experience.

3. Do you have a newsletter sign up option? With 53% of consumers being happy when brands use their data to offer a personalised experience*, adding a newsletter function to capture email addresses will see your database grow and allow you to reach out to a target audience in the future via email marketing. With email marketing being one of the most successful ways of acquiring new customers, then it makes sense to add this functionality to your website.

Give us a call today on 020 3137 1826 to discuss your website needs.

Source: *Adobe/Goldsmiths University

Light bulb futuristic

Tomorrow’s world – new innovations

Washing machine technology of the future

Here at Smart Cow, we do love a bit of technology and when we saw this latest innovation from Panasonic we felt it needed to be shared.

At this year’s IFA in Berlin, the world’s leading trade show for consumer electronics and home appliances, Panasonic unveiled a prototype concept for a washing machine that not only washes clothes, but dries and folds them. Its technology is so intuitive that you don’t have to spend time sorting through the washing as a robotic arm scans the label on each item and decides how it needs to be washed.

So, while the ‘Sustainable Maintainer’ might take some time yet before we see it in shops, it is a great example of how companies are working to create products that encompass artificial intelligence, robotics and the internet of things (IoT). It also gives us a little glimpse into the future.

Source: Dezeen.com