Social Media

Explore expert insights into social media trends with Croydon’s leading web design and digital marketing company. Tailored for SME business owners in South London and Surrey, our category page is the go-to resource for enhancing your digital presence and engagement

Network using social media

NetWORKing it baby!

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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.

LinkedIn

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.

Inbound marketing strategy

What is an inbound marketing agency?

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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.

  1. Search Engine Optimised website 
  2. Blogs
  3. Social Media Marketing
  4. Pay Per Click (PPC)
  5. Remarketing / Banner advertising
  6. Email Marketing
  7. Video
  8. CRM and marketing automation

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

Man working on laptop using marketing automation

Why Smart Cow became a HubSpot agency

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We know that a sales journey is very rarely a one-stop shop. Your customers and prospects will have visited your competition’s website, researched your services and looked at online reviews long before they start speaking to you. As a result, you need to stand out from the competition and become a lead generation magnet.  

This is why we became a HubSpot agency in London. We understand that the day to day running of your business will take up your time. So, we partnered with HubSpot so that we could provide our clients with the latest in Automated Marketing Software to help with your marketing strategy and help free up time.

What does HubSpot software offer?

HubSpot software allows you to track activity and leads from your inbound marketing such as social media, website or email marketing campaigns, and other forms of content marketing you use.

You can organise and nurture relationships to help you convert a prospect to a client in a timely manner, that’s suitable for them, this can lead to more client success.

Think about when you look at a website and you get a friendly chat bot appearing or what about the email you receive once you’ve downloaded a report from a website?

HubSpot provides the capability to automate these repetitive tasks to help you concentrate on managing your client relationships and target audiences.

All these automated touchpoints are vital for nurturing leads and can help up your marketing game against your competition. This is data driven and can show you the result of your inbound sales, and where your new customer acquisition originates from.

Discover the benefits of automation

As a professional digital marketing and inbound marketing agency in London, we’re offering you a chance to discover the benefits of the HubSpot software and how it can help your business. We’d be delighted to arrange a free test of this great sales and marketing platform.

Go ahead, book a free consultation. As well as this we discover what we can do for your business with our digital marketing services, inbound marketing strategies, social media marketing and much more.

Using social media for inbound marketing

8 social media tips to drive inbound sales

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With an estimated 2.65 billion people using social media around the world (source: Statista), it makes sense to be part of the conversation when marketing your business.

Now, one size does not fit all. So, we’ve gathered a few top tips on what to consider when embarking on improving your social media presence for your inbound marketing strategy.

  1. What social media platforms should you use? There’s no clear answer to this but what’s certain is that one size does not fit all. Review what social networks are right for your business, brand and the client base you want to reach out to. Don’t waste your time speaking to everyone. So, if you’re an accounting firm for small businesses or business owners of local businesses then using social media channels such as LinkedIn and Twitter are ideal for lead generation. But don’t dismiss Facebook. While you may think that it’s all about what you’re eating or doing at the weekend, having presence on this social media channel provides a link to help domain authority but also people use Facebook as a search engine so it means your business will be found.
  2. Who do you want to speak to? It’s important to be targeted. You need to know and understand your audience. Define your audience and create a persona for them, read more about setting this up. This will help you build trust with your audience as they come to understand that you understand their challenges and you are helping them to overcome them.
  3. Content is king: Once you’ve uploaded a blog to your website, share it on social media with a link back to your website. But, don’t just post without thought of what you’re writing. Tailor posts to the social platform, its users and your target audience. Regularly follow industry specific contacts and thought leaders, engage and share posts relevant to your audience. When you share another article, add comments to the post to move the story on or show your appreciation of what an article was about.
  4. Imagery: Content is also about imagery. With people watching nearly 2 billion videos on Twitter per day, it makes sense to include pictures or video to help standout.
  5. Be a thought leader: Provide your product services in the form of tips, advice and comments that your target audience will be interested to hear about and would want to share themselves. But all the time, be genuine and engaging while remaining respectful.
  6. Be chatty yet professional: Get the right tone for the social platform you are using and make sure it’s right for building your brand awareness, your target audience and potential clients.
  7. Remember it’s social: With social media marketing don’t lose sight that this is meant to be a social environment and people are generally not there to be sold to. 
  8. Part of the inbound sales marketing strategy: When it comes to Return on Investment, it may be one of the lowest returns in an inbound digital marketing strategy, but that by no means implies ignore it. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts, therefore incorporating social media into your digital marketing plan means you have added another touch point to reach your audience, engage with them and learn about your offering. This is a vital part of your overall inbound marketing strategy to help build awareness and trust.

Free marketing consultation

If you need help, from a social media agency, with setting up your social media channels or your entire inbound marketing strategy, contact us today for a free consultation. We also work with on social media for accountancy marketing.

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