Name: Smart Cow Digital Marketing and Website Design
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Why include subtitles & captions in video

08/19/202209/21/2021 by scmarketing

You may be forgiven for thinking that with video content if you record someone speaking to the camera then the jobs done. Let’s face it, as a digital marketing agency, we constantly go on about the benefits of imagery especially video as part of your marketing strategy and how it helps improve engagement on your website and reach on social media. In fact, 87% of marketers say that video has increased website traffic.

So, surely recording yourself talking to the camera or interviewing someone is enough as we can all listen to what’s being said? Well…sort of.

This is where you have to think of your target audience.

For starters how do they like to receive their information. Will people be viewing videos on their mobile? In which case, they are likely to be out and about and therefore the sound may be off as they commute to work or sit in a coffee shop. And, you should cater for everyone so those that are hard of hearing can also enjoy the content you are producing.

Boost your rankings in search

We recently wrote a blog about whether video can help with SEO – and this is another key reason that you should be considering subtitles and captions.

SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) is about helping to improve your website ranking in search engine results pages. We recommend writing scripts before you record so that you can incorporate your keywords which are important for SEO. Even the name of the video file is useful for SEO so think about this when you upload to the video channels as it should contain keywords.

We also recommend having accounts on channels such as Vidyard, Vimeo and YouTube. This all helps with your rankings in search.

On YouTube you can add an SRT file to enable you to add subtitles and closed captions rather than burn them onto the video file.

Digital marketing agency

We are a Croydon based digital marketing agency offering SEO services including video creation, blog content writing, keyword research, local SEO, Google Ad campaigns to help improve your online presence and visibility online as your SEO experts.

Complete our business growth scorecard for personalised results

08/19/202209/15/2021 by scmarketing

Are you looking to grow your business? We know that the top priority for marketing is generating leads using activity such as ads and audience targeting as one of the top ways to drive demand, but before you get to this stage of implementing or refreshing your marketing plan, perhaps it is time to review your future goals and get a plan in place that will attract your target audience.

Being focused with the tactics you use and being targeted to the audience you want to reach is key to business growth.

Attracting and retaining business

Attracting leads and retaining clients is imperative to your business growth plan. So, how do you obtain leads in the first instance?

Essentially there are 4 stages to win new clients. In a nutshell, here’s the path to gaining leads and ongoing client retention:

Attract people who are unaware of your business but have the attributes you suspect will be interested in your product or services.
Engage with these leads to see if they are a good prospect that you can help and do business with.
Convert these leads to clients.
Deliver a good service on an ongoing basis by providing regular insights that will help your clients. Not only is this about sharing regular emails, social media or blogs, it’s also about regular calls to impart knowledge and help your client overcome any business challenges.

Gaining a clearer understanding of where your business is right now in terms of lead generation will help you to create a tailored marketing plan that’s right for your business.

Complete our Business Growth Scorecard for your personalised results.

Book a free consultation

Once you’ve taken a moment to review the results of the scorecard you may be keen to understand how inbound marketing can help to grow your business. Get in touch as we can provide feedback and we can advise on the types of digital marketing tactics suited to your goals and business.

Our Free consultation should be between 15 and 30 minutes. The goal is to provide you with thoughts on how to start an effective marketing campaign and for us both to see if it would benefit your firm. No obligation at all, we just want the best for you.

5 tips for an inbound marketing strategy

08/19/202209/07/2021 by scmarketing

With the acceleration of digital transformation and so much information available online, you need to stand out from the crowd.

Your website is key to your online strategy. What’s important is generating traffic and enticing leads to your website. Then, once you have web visitors it’s about finding ways to be that thought leader in your field of expertise so that you are the business that prospects want to talk to and therefore return to your website again and again. This is vital to lead nurturing.

Here’s our tips for what you need to consider as part of your digital marketing strategy:

1. Online Persona

Make sure you know who your target audience is. Create a persona that is very specific to them. This is a fictitious character that enables you to understand their challenges, goals and how your products and services can help them. You can then review your current website content and marketing collateral to check that your offering is appealing and relevant to your prospects and clients.

2. Tone of voice

Ensure that you have a consistent tone of voice and key messages, so that you are really targeting the audience you want to reach. This will also help inform your keywords that you want to be found for in search engine results pages (SERPs).

3. Content Marketing

Your tone of voice and online persona will then help you create relevant content for ongoing marketing. It means your social media posts and blogs through to Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising campaigns will be incredibly targeted to your audience.

When you write content, think about the challenges your target audience faces and provide a solution. Be a thought leader rather than a salesperson with the information you share.

4. Calls to action

Once you have visitors to your website, remember to encourage action. Include bold calls-to-action to remind people to sign up to your newsletter, download a brochure or take advantage of a free consultation. This helps you gather contact details for your database for future email communication.

5. Customer Relationship Management

Generating website traffic is all about gaining quality leads. With options for website visitors to sign up to receive regular news or to get in touch about your services, you have now gained quality leads. So, ensuring that you engage with your leads and clients is essential and a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) solution can help with this. 

Instead of working in silos, a good CRM system can enable teams to work together effectively on leads and clients. Integration with marketing automation ensures that clients and leads get the best level of service.

Marketing Croydon

Are you looking to grow your business? We specialise in helping firms attract more leads, gain more conversions and improve return on investment (ROI). 

It’s important to remember that a sales journey is very rarely a one-stop shop. You customers will have visited your competition, researched your services and looked at online reviews long before they start speaking to you.

Talk to us about developing a tailored inbound marketing strategy for your business.

5 tips for your website

08/19/202207/12/2021 by scmarketing

Your website should be the focus of your digital marketing strategy. It is where links from your social media channels, email campaigns, and Pay per Click (PPC) advertising should lead to. Therefore, it is critical that your web design is easy to navigate, engaging, informative and attractive. Here, Smart Cow Marketing offers some tips for your website.

1. Relevant content

Be creative in what you have to say yet keep it simple. Work out the main message on each page and focus on the best way to get this across to your target audience. Keep it clear, concise, and interesting.

2. Keep in mind your target audience

You should design your website with a target audience in mind. Are you building a business for young professionals? Or experts in a specific industry? We recommend creating an online persona, an example of your stereotypical customer. This will help you create content for your website so that you have the right tone of voice for your audience and keywords that will help with search engine optimisation (SEO).

3. Ease of use and navigation

Before making your website public make sure it is easy to navigate and works across different devices. Perhaps get friends and colleagues to test it out and get their feedback. It’s also a great exercise to do if you’ve had a website for a number of years. You might be familiar with it, but overtime perhaps things aren’t as slick as they once were. So always keep an eye on webpage navigation and get those bold call-to-action buttons in a prominent place.

4. Use images

Images help tell a story across your website, it is often the first thing the visitor will notice. Images and the overall visual design can be the difference between someone reading your webpage or your visitor quickly moving away from your website. Images can also help to boost SEO so make sure things like your alt descriptions are completed on the backend.

5. Website backup

The most important thing is to keep a backup. Hackers and robots scour the internet for websites with weaknesses.

Web design Croydon

At Smart Cow Marketing we offer a free website review. We can analyse your website’s performance and develop a plan to boost your website’s potential. We also focus on other aspect of digital marketing such as social media, SEO, PPC, and email marketing.

We are a marketing agency based in South London and work with small businesses, as well as those in accountancy and the construction sector. Drop us an email at Saymoo@smart-cow.com or give us a call on 020 3137 1826.