Digital marketing tips

Digital Marketing Agency In Croydon

Digital marketing must-haves for 2022

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Now is a great time to take a look at some of the digital marketing trends that you can tap into to help your business be seen online.

Create and manage your database to greatness

So, a database may not be a marketing trend as such, but it is a key asset for your marketing strategy. If you haven’t already got a database, consider this vital for ongoing personalised communication.  

There’s a number of tools that can help with gathering data in an organised way that allows you to manage creating your email marketing database moving forward.

A Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system can help such as Hubspot. However, you need to capture people’s details in the first place so it’s important to have tools such as a pop-up box on your website so that you can ask for web visitors email address in return for receiving something such as a regular newsletter.

Think about what may entice people to part with their email address such as creating some interesting one-off campaigns for quality content such as an ebook with sector insight relevant to your target audience, or industry specific templates or discount codes.

Video

We’ve said it before, and we’ll most certainly say it again – make sure you incorporate video as part of your marketing plan. The pandemic made sure that video was vital for communication. But even more so for stand out when you are marketing to cut through the noise and be visible on social media.

Once you have web visitors, videos are known to increase engagement which keeps people on your website for longer.

The importance of video content

Word of mouth

Let your customers become part of your marketing. Whilst the traditional view of the marketing funnel sees the customer at the end, if you change mindset and envisage a circle with the customer at the centre, then this becomes a very exciting proposition.

Keeping the customer central to all that you do will help them become brand advocates and help to promote your service through word of mouth sharing to their networks on social media. 

Improving content

Fresh and regular quality content is so important for search engine optimisation (SEO), but you may sometimes feel overwhelmed at the thought of having to write blogs each week and constant social media or monthly e-newsletters. So, firstly think quality rather than quantity.

Then look back at all the content you have produced over the years. You’ll find that on your website you can look back at historic blogs and repurpose them with up-to-date statistics, new keywords or links to articles.

Not only that but taking existing content and repurposing it for a new podcast, webinar, or blog post can be an efficient way to keep your website relevant in search engines.

Digital marketing Croydon

As a digital marketing agency in Croydon, we’re well placed to offer local businesses digital marketing services and online marketing advice relating to local SEO services and content marketing to help increase presence in search engine results pages (SERPs).

Get in touch to chat about your business goals for the year ahead.

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Blog content

8 tips to maximise the content of one blog

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With many businesses bearing the brunt of lockdown such as hospitality, leisure and retail closures, any additional cost is a major consideration. Whilst businesses are aware of the importance of marketing to stay front of mind, there’s a few things you can do to be efficient with your marketing and therefore be as cost-effective as possible.

So, you’ve written your blog and uploaded it to your website. Then what? Be efficient with the marketing content you already have.

Here’s a simple process to follow so that you maximise one blog once you have uploaded it to your website.

  1. Write a social media post. Add a link back to the blog post and share on social media with an image (your own image or purchase a stock image – do not use google images as these carry copyright).
  2. Don’t just leave it at writing one social post. Review the content of your blog and break that down into bite size chunks. You’ll find that you can schedule a number of different social posts simply by lifting a few sentences from the same blog and sharing them on social. You may have to tailor them slightly for the different social channels you use, but it will take you a lot less time.
  3. Get your employees and colleagues to also re-share what you post on social media to spread the news through your social network.
  4. Conduct a poll question relating to your blog. This is particularly good on LinkedIn as it engages well with your network and allows them to comment.
  5. If your business is on Instagram or Facebook, share the social post to your Stories to highlight that you have a new blog post. The gifs on Instagram are great for stand out.
  6. Add a summary of the blog as an update to your Google My Business page with a ‘learn more’ button with a link back to your blog. And, if you are on any other listing directories such as associations or event websites, check if they have the option of adding regular updates from you as this all helps with link building.
  7. Send an email to your marketing database. If you have an email database then start to utilise that. Create a template for an email. Platforms like Hubspot allow you to create great looking email templates. Then use the content from your blog in your email. Only use a small part of it to entice recipients to click to read more.
  8. If you want to build on your creative skills, why not create a short video with information taken from your blog? You can chat further with us about video creation if you want to know more about what you could do.

Well, we hope this gives you a few ideas to take advantage of for the next blog you write.
Remember that all this activity will help with search engine optimisation (SEO). With the blog itself ensure you have keywords included (the words and phrases that you want to be found for in search engines).

For social posts, email marketing and business directory uploads always ensure that you have included a link back to your blog. Link building with quality links also helps show search engines that you are a thought leader as well as improves brand awareness and lead generation.

Get in touch with Smart Cow, we provide digital marketing for accountants and a helping hand with content marketing for websites, alongside kick starting your SEO strategy.

Business man doing online marketing

Bounce back to business

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We’ve all been hit hard by coronavirus and now is the time to bounce back into business. UK government small business grants and loans have made it possible for firms to get back on their feet as quick as possible. Smart Cow is a digital marketing agency and we’re here to support businesses to help get them back on their feet and grow in these difficult times. 

If you haven’t already invested in online marketing for your business, or had to put activity on hold, it’s worth noting that research has shown that those businesses that invest in marketing during a recession grow significantly more than those who don’t. For example, insight from McGraw and Hill showed that firms who invested had 256% higher sales than those who did not invest in marketing during tough times. 

Here’s our four core steps to bouncing back to business. 

1. Strategy  

Your first step is to create a marketing strategy. Think about what you want to achieve and what are your business goals? If you had a plan in place for the beginning of the year, then it will need a review as we head into a new way of working and conducting business.  

Part of the strategy is to build a picture of your ideal target audience and start to build a campaign around them. 

2. Attract quality leads 

The next step is to create a digital marketing strategy based around your target audience that will truly attract quality leads for your business.  

Key to remember is that one size does not fit all. While there’s a host of digital marketing tactics to draw on such as Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), PPC or Pay Per Click advertising, social media marketing, video or blogs, this is where it’s important to think of your target audience and what digital channels are best for them. This can then help your form the right mix of digital marketing for your target audience.  

The core of your digital marketing campaign is about connecting with the right audience at the right time via the right platform. That’s where a content marketing strategy will help.  

You want to be answering your prospects and existing clients questions in your communication. So, when you write a blog, share messages on social media or send out email marketing it’s about offering advice. You want to position yourself as a thought leader in your field and provide insight that will help your customers with their business. The type of content you communicate is about building rapport and trust that you become the go to company for your services or products.  

By having a plan in place, you can schedule your content strategically and in a timely manner.  

3. Engage  

Once you attract leads, how do you convert them to become a client?  

Using marketing automation, you can build the trust and follow leads through the sales lifecycle. 

You can monitor leads through Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tools to keep track and engage at the appropriate time to increase the likelihood of conversion. 

4. Delight  

By ensuring you solve your customer’s problems in your marketing communication, by being helpful, enthusiastic and part of a community will help increase engagement and client satisfaction.  

Marketing to current contacts and customers is far more cost effective than finding new customers. 

Make sure your customers are your biggest fans. Continue to keep them engaged and delighted with your service and content. 

Smart Cow digital agency can help you bounce back to business

We understand that all businesses need a unique approach to their inbound digital marketing which is why we offer a mix and match of digital marketing services to generating quality leads for your business.

We’ll research the keywords and conduct an SEO audit to focus on to give you a boost in search engine results. We’ll identify hurdles and competition that may impact the success and then assign accountability to reach these goals and metrics to measure. 

We’re a digital marketing agency in Croydon as well as a base in London. Talk to us about your business goals and let us propel your forward. Book a consultation.

Robot creating video content for digital marketing

6 digital marketing video tips

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With studies showing that people have the ability to recall 65% of the visual content they see almost three days later (HubSpot, 2017), we highly recommend business owners everywhere take the time to get to grips with the visual side of content marketing.

Consumers watching a branded video are 28% more likely to buy (Hootsuite), so video content will really enhance your inbound marketing strategy.

6 tips for great video

Here’s a few tips to help you create great video and ways of sharing video that helps increase views and helps Search Engine Optimisation (SEO).

  1. A simple way to record a video is through a social media app and share from that for your social media marketing. You can also live-stream via Twitter and other channels such as Facebook and Instagram, which have a story function for live feeds. With 100 million hours of video content watched on Facebook daily (Facebook, 2016), using video makes sense.
  2. To make sure you utilise video across social media channels or on your website, use the video function on your phone for simple and effective images. You’ll find recording on your phone easy for short soundbites to offer your target audience tips and advice. This can even include email marketing campaigns.
  3. Remember that content is king. It’s not about posting any video, it’s important that your video content is also targeted to your audience, with a relevant script, tagline and a clear call to action for more lead generation.
  4. If you have a blog on your website with a relevant video, post it at the top of the page as it helps to keep the visitor on your website for longer. This reduces bounce rate and helps SEO.
  5. Host your video content on YouTube. With over 1.8 billion users on YouTube every month, the business opportunities for using this channel shouldn’t be overlooked.
  6. Be authentic so that your brand resonates with your target audience.

Get in touch

Talk to us about your digital marketing needs. Our marketing team will help grow your business through online marketing, web design, social media management and more.

We will advise of the best combination of channels and tactics to utilise to make you stand out from the crowd. A digital marketing agency in Croydon, Smart Cow will be glad to answer any questions on the inbound marketing strategy best for you.

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