Name: Smart Cow Digital Marketing and Website Design
Price range: $$$

BNI Sutton Featured Presentation

08/19/202201/22/2021 by scmarketing

Growing your business in the 4th industrial revolution

Business Networking International (BNI) meetings each week have a featured presentation, where one business showcases its services in a 10 minute presentation with a Q&A.

Smart Cow presented the two core points to grow your business as we hit the 4th Industrial revolution of digital integration.

We focused on looking at getting cost efficient high quality leads and also how to attract, engage and convert those leads into clients.

10 minutes January 2021 BNI Sutton from Smart cow marketing

BNI Sutton

BNI Sutton meets every Thursday morning at 6:30 am. Currently online via Zoom, but normally at Oaks Park Golf Club in Sutton.

If you are interested in joining a networking group that shared over £4,000,000 of business last year then please get in touch: simon@smart-cow.com

Why consider email marketing in 2021

08/19/202212/15/2020 by scmarketing

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.

Book a FREE consultation

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.

Book a FREE consultation

Marketing tips for November 2020

11/04/2020 by scmarketing

With lockdown version 2.0 on the horizon, here’s some top digital marketing tips to help keep up awareness of your business going through this period.

Social media

Keep up that solid work you’ve done to build your social media followers. Now is the time to ramp up your presence further with your chosen social networks.

Keep your clients and prospects updated. If you need to change contact details, opening times and whether your services have changed, get your profile updated and share in social posts.

Update your social banner images to let people know you are still open for business even if that is remotely.

Don’t forget to add hashtags in your social posts or add other account handles. This helps to extend reach further.

Website updates

If you have a website, make sure that all your contact details, services and products are up to date. People will still be shopping and searching for services during lockdown.

On the homepage make an update to say that you are still open for business.

Content marketing

If you have a blog, make sure you add content to it and do so regularly. This really helps with search engine optimisation (SEO) and your business being found in search engines. Relevant content is great for ongoing organic rankings.

If you don’t have a blog, we would recommend that you get this added asap to your website. We can help you with that and we can also provide a website audit which will highlight any changes that can help with SEO.

Google My Business

Do you have a Google My Business page? If not, get one set up – it’s free! If you do have a page already then make sure all details are up to date with the correct contact details.

Add blog posts, offers, images to this page. It all helps with SEO and getting your website seen online.

Our blog, ‘have you told search engines you exist’ has tips about setting up your Google My Business page. Also take a look at our marketing minute videos we have a selection on Google My Business.

Pay Per Click advertising

You may be thinking why would you do advertising at this time. Now really is the time not to disappear. So, Pay Per Click or PPC can help give your website a boost in search engine results pages (SERPs). If people can find you they will discover your services.

Email marketing

If you have an email distribution list, then perhaps think about starting an email marketing campaign.

Distribute to potential and existing customers and existing on your database. Remember to be clear in your message, include a call to action and ensure you have contact details visible.

Look at our blog on what to check before you send your next email marketing campaign – we’ve created a checklist of what to run through before you send your email including a visible unsubscribe link. You must make sure you are GDPR compliant.

Digital marketing Croydon

We’re a digital marketing agency in Croydon and the team are all from Croydon so we have a real passion for the area to be successful, inspirational and attract new business and customers for us all to grow and support each other.

We’ve got some additional marketing resources you might want to take a look at which cover the different types of digital platforms and online advertising to help you form a digital marketing plan.

Man working on laptop using marketing automation

4 Email marketing tactics for effective campaigns

01/31/202209/15/2020 by scmarketing

With 3.9 billion daily email users and 59% saying marketing emails influence their purchase decisions, email marketing is a digital marketing tactic not to be dismissed. So, we thought we’d give you a snapshot of four key points to consider when embarking on an email marketing strategy to help make it truly effective.

Personalise emails

Analysing your insights from email marketing campaigns can really help you to customise your emails to answer the needs or your potential customers. Learn when the best time of day to send emails to your target audience is. Know when they open their emails.

Make sure your tone of voice resonates with your target audience. And, understand what articles are proving most popular with your audience by looking at the click through rate.

We appreciate that this may take a little time to hone, especially if you are starting out, but if you have a GDPR compliant list of email addresses that have subscribed to hear from you then use your contacts.

Subject lines

This is what is really going to entice a subscriber to open your email. What keywords will encourage an open rate? Don’t be clever, sometimes keeping it simple and factual will be more beneficial. Emojis have also proven popular for open rates.

Remember that you have a warm lead as people will have subscribed to your email list. So, make sure that the title is something that your audience will want to learn more about, people are less likely to open something that they are unsure about.

Be insightful

We often talk about the importance of content marketing as part of your inbound marketing strategy to position you as a thought leader in your field.

Use email as your news feed. Bring the latest industry insights to your email subscribers. It’s not just about sharing posts on social media, repurpose your content for emails too. Therefore, add snippets of your blogs with bold call to actions in your email with links back to your articles on your website. Remember an email campaign forms part of your overall lead generation strategy to drive people back to your website.

Create an email template when you start out as this will help you to easily populate it with future content. The format will become familiar to your avid readers which helps with retention.

AVB testing

Conducting a split test of your email campaign will allow you to get your messaging spot on for your target audience. Experiment with topics, types of downloads or offers so you can understand what works and what doesn’t.

Email marketing agency resources

Email marketing Croydon

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