Content marketing strategy

Magnet symbolising inbound marketing

6 reasons why you should use inbound marketing

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To know why you should use inbound marketing, firstly let’s just touch on what inbound marketing means. It’s about content marketing, social media marketing, email marketing, Pay Per Click advertising and Search Engine Optimisation (SEO). It’s the digital marketing tactics we employ to help attract prospects to our services and products.

Here’s an overview of the reasons why you should be using inbound marketing for your business.

  1. Building brand awareness and trust: Marketing is all about building awareness of your products and services. There’s approximately 7 touch points needed for there to be an inbound sale or a clients success on boarding, therefore for you to get your message out there you need to continuously be talking about it in a variety of ways. That’s where digital marketing fits in. From blog page to social media platforms or email marketing, there’s a plethora of ways to get your business out there – you just need to be targeted.
  2. Reach the potential customers that you want to: Once you know the audience you want to reach you can get really targeted with your inbound digital marketing campaigns. Create a persona of the audience you want to reach. Think of their goals, challenges and how your service and product can help them solve their issues which will improve customer acquisition.
  3. Engage with your audience through social media marketing: With the raft of social media platforms and content being consumed in our daily lives, it’s worth remembering that this is yet another avenue for a company to reach potential new business. Importantly, it puts you in direct contact with your audience, allows you to engage directly which helps build awareness and trust. A successful digital marketing campaign will engage with people searching for your products or services. 
  4. Developing insightful content to build your brand as a thought leader: A blog or news pages on a website are not only key for keeping content fresh on a website which in turn helps SEO, but also helps build you as a thought leader in your industry. Being an authority in your field of business, offering relevant information to website visitors, helps build domain authority in search engines. It also helps you rise in the organic search rankings.
  5. Create additional touch points for your business to be seen: SEO, Social Media Marketing, Email Marketing, Content Marketing, these are all digital marketing tools to take advantage of which increases your chances of being seen by your target audiences. Creating a bespoke campaign using relevant channels for the messages you want to get out there will create an effective outcome through engagement, awareness, interest. It’s key to have these touch points to move your prospect through the lead generation funnel.
  6. Be focussed: 79% of top-performing companies have been using marketing automation for three or more years (Source: Venture Harbour, 2017 via Hubspot). Marketing automation frees up time by automating repetitive tasks, it also allows tailored automated responses, tracking of prospects activity on a website as well as chat bot automation.

If you’re looking for more quality clients, become a lead generation magnet with a targeted inbound marketing strategy. Get in touch with us at Smart Cow an inbound marketing agency in London, or see below and find out more in our handy resources and other marketing services from web design to video marketing.   

Digital marketing resources:

Here’s some further information on inbound marketing for your business.

Digital Marketing written in pen

What is digital marketing?

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Digital Marketing is all about marketing communication that we consume via digital devices, that is, laptop, PC or smart phone and of course through the internet.

This means that beyond the adverts you may see in print or in leaflets, brands can reach their target audience using a wide range of tactics through digital marketing services including website Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) e.g. using Google Ads, search engines, social media, email marketing, video, advertising campaigns etc. With the analytics and insights available as a result of using digital marketing, you can really keep track on what resonates with your audience by monitoring what works and what doesn’t.  

Digital marketing encompasses

  1. Website design & Development
  2. Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
  3. Social Media Marketing
  4. Pay Per Click (PPC)
  5. Remarketing / Banner advertising
  6. Email Marketing
  7. Inbound Marketing
  8. Content Marketing
  9. Marketing Automation  

The evolution of marketing automation

With digital marketing continuously evolving, changing beyond recognition in just the last 10 years alone, the possibilities for communicating with a potential audience are endless. With access to a raft of channels in our daily lives and different ways to seek out the brands we want to know about, digital marketing also includes marketing automation.

Perhaps deemed the new kid on the block, marketing automation is not to be overlooked. It not only frees up time by automating repetitive tasks, it also allows tailored automated responses, tracking of prospects activity on a website as well as chat bot automation…you get the picture. In short it offers more marketing opportunities. Align this with a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system and the data and analytics at your fingertips to help you grow your business are sometimes beyond comprehension.

Using digital marketing to its full potential for your business

It’s highly likely that at some point in your daily routine you’re using some sort of digital marketing activity in your business. Whether that be through social media, an email to customers or writing a blog for your website. However, by pulling these tactics together you can start to formulate your digital marketing strategy to target the right audience for your business which will enable growth.

Smart Cow is a digital marketing agency in Croydon, we work across a range of industries including the accounting sector. We look at the products and services on an accounting firm and see best how to put them high up on the landing page for the accounting market.

Get a Free Consultation here.

Further reading to help you develop your digital marketing strategy

Wooden dice with email symbol for digital marketing communications

6 Email marketing tips to grow your business

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How email marketing can grow your business

You may think that incorporating email distribution into your digital marketing plan as a bit old hat, but let us paint a picture on this cost effective marketing service for you. Think how you feel when you receive a letter at your home. You check your post every day and open letters addressed personally to you. You follow a similar process with your emails. Your phone is always at arm’s reach and when you get that notification you look to see what you’ve received – if anything to get rid of those red bubbles! But in doing so, you’ve clocked the brand – that’s helping with awareness. It’s then your choice as to whether you open and read, file or delete. But ultimately some impression on you will be made. But what makes an email campaign effective that can help to grow your business?

Newsletter sign up

First and foremost, you need a list of email addresses to distribute your content to. If you’ve already got your database sorted and it’s GDPR compliant then you’re all set.

But, if you do not have a list, one of the best ways is to make sure you have a newsletter pop up box on your website for visitors to sign-up to receive emails. But be very clear about what you’re capturing someone’s details for, as you need to be GDPR compliant (read about the ICO regulations).

You can also work with digital marketing agencies to help you with creating the pop-up box on your website or helping you to purchase a list.  Create a CRM system too this will help you engage effectively with customers knowing their needs and and how bet to contact them.

Get to the point

So, with your GDPR compliant list you’re set to send an email. But wait, what are you going to tell your potential customers? Your content needs to be fresh, engaging and most of all worthy of someone opening the email and reading it. Really think about the news you are sending and question – “is it relevant to my target audience?”

The subject line is crucial. It needs to entice, engage, have meaning and stand out. Phrases such as “3 days left to save on your personal tax accounting fees” – it provides a hook to open the email.

Also, steer clear of keywords that will be caught by spam filters such as ‘free’ or ‘buy’.

Set the tone

By now you should have set up your target persona (check out creating an online persona to help with this). Therefore you’ll know the keywords and phrases you should be using, the tone should be a reflection on your accountancy firm.

Call to action

So, you’ve sent an email, so what. Make sure that the recipient knows what to do next. Make it clear and obvious what the ‘Call to Action’ is so they benefit from your email. Include trackable links to give you a picture of what’s popular and where leads have come from, e.g. links to blog posts, web pages, social media platforms.

Unsubscribe

You must always have an unsubscribe option in your email as well as a link to your privacy policy. While it’s sad that people may unsubscribe, see this as a positive. If people are not interested, then by making it easy to unsubscribe, you’ve cleared someone from your list that wasn’t going to engage anymore than that.  Don’t alienate people by making it difficult, if they are not interested in what you have to say then that is their loss. Just focus on those who are interested. Remember, you need to be GDPR compliant, so transparency is important.

Images

Make sure your email template is easy to navigate but most of all you have enough pictures to make it interesting to look at.

Book a Practice Growth Session

To make a leading marketing campaign it makes sense to contact the experts; we are a email marketing agency in London. Get in touch to receive support in getting an email marketing campaign set up to help with your inbound marketing, then get in touch with us today.

We have expertise offering digital and email marketing for accountants and offer Practice Growth Sessions which are tailored for firms 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.

Word dictionary search SEO

Quality website content that improves business

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To help you make the most of your online presence, here we take a look at content and how it can improve your online visibility in search. This in turn will help your business grow as more and more potential clients find you and engage with you. Looking to ramp up your website design in London? Get in touch here for a Free Consultation.

Who are you targeting?

Before you embark on any fresh content for your website or if you’re updating your current website, make sure you have a target persona created. You need to understand your audience and their challenges, wants and needs before you can know how to write relevant content that will make them listen and engage with you. Take a look at our blog about setting up the identity of your target audience to help you create a persona for your business.

Content is and will always be king 

We’ve said it once and we’ll say it a thousand times, content is king. Relevant content for your target audience that is succinct, to the point and carries good call to actions will not only help with engagement and ease of navigation, it will also help you rise in the rankings in search. Why? With a well-tailored Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) campaign you can help your business be seen by ensuring you are using the right keywords and phrases.

Read our blog on SEO to help you improve your content and impact on where you appear on a search engine results page (SERP). Remember that 51% of all website traffic comes from organic search* so it’s important to ensure you have great content that helps you move up the rankings and support your goal to appear on the first page of search.

Watch your tone

We would also advise that you draw up a list of how you would like your content to sound and come across to your audience. This means that you have consistency across your website as well as other marketing channels such as social media and email marketing. It also means that if you have a number of contributors they can write in a similar manner so you can maintain consistency of brand.

Book a Practice Growth Session

If you feel you need some support in getting your website Search Engine Optimised 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: *Search Engine Journal

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