Social Media for the Busy Entrepreneur

As an entrepreneur, social media is one of your best friends (it expands your brand presence and reaches on a huge scale), however it can be overwhelming with so much to learn. In my experience as a digital strategist, I have found that business owners want to learn social media but find it daunting.

Last weekend I was invited to speak at a conference of entrepreneurs in Sydney. It was a 3-day retreat where entrepreneurs worked on their business. I talked on social media – the essentials for the busy entrepreneur on what to do in social media when you don’t want to do social media.

Tapping into Unlimited Potential in a Smart way

It was clear that many business owners struggle with how social media applies to their particular business. Many in fact believe that their target audience isn’t on social media.

Consider though that there are 25 million people in Australia and 19 million are on Facebook. Clearly then there is a huge unlimited potential here that you should be tapping into.

Remember whether you are a B2B business, or a business to consumers it’s all about the human to human connection. And as they say success in business has a strong correlation to success in human relations. Social media takes this human connection to a whole new scale.

Your more traditional platforms like email, print material and now even phone calls simply can’t compete with it. It’s easier to get attention on Facebook messenger than on an email or phone call.

My Four Step Framework

At the conference I shared my four step process for entrepreneurs to help them with making headway in social media. This includes:

·         Attraction – this is all about seducing your viewer at first sight through claiming, creating/updating all your profiles. It’s about utilising cover photos, profile photos, bio/about section in a clear, concise manner in a way that tells what problems you solve rather than what you do.

·         Attention – grab your viewer’s attention through platforms like LinkedIn Showcase Pages and sponsored updates. You can grab your viewer’s attention not only by way of content you post and share but also by comments and reactions on content shared by whoever you would like to seek attention of.

·         Amplification – it’s about of magnifying the impact and going beyond your own network/followers and extending the reach to targeted demographics based on demographics/interest/behaviour by way of paid ads/sponsored content.

·         Action – this is the end goal of inspiring action be it a download or sending direct message on Instagram. Consider using Facebook bots for use with Messenger. They will enhance your marketing through things like recommending products based on internet searches and past purchases.

 

You Can’t Win (G) It Alone

It seems like every week there is a new social media update/release. 

 ·         As someone who is responsible for running a business, it’s just not possible to keep up with all of that. Rely on people whose day job it is to follow all the latest social media trends and put them to test. Like most things in life, for success in social media you need to be consistent and persistent. Once off measures don’t work. Work with Jasmine Batra who can help you to put together a social media strategy. If you need a review of your social media strategy, get the experts to help you. Read More…

All About Google Ads Quality Score – and How to Improve It Fast

If you have been constantly increasing your budget for your ads and it doesn’t seem to do the job – try to look at your Ads Quality score. Google Ads Quality Score has a major impact on your campaign’s success and profitability. The Quality Score is a measurement of your ad’s relevance to what users expect. It’s defined as a number from 1 to 10, with 10 being the best. Google Ads uses that score to determine where your ad gets placed. For example, if your Quality Score is 7 and your competitor’s Quality Score is 8, then your competitor’s ad will appear higher in the search engine results page than yours.

There are a number of uncontrollable variables in Google Ads Search but luckily, you ultimately have control over your Quality Score and can take steps to improve it fast. At Arrow Digital, we focus on 3 main factors in determining your quality score – The Ads itself, the keywords being used and its relevance to your ad and the Landing pages. These three factors are all analyzed for relevance, and a score is then generated. According to a study by Analysis, the top two factors of the quality score are your landing page experience and expected click through rate (CTR). So does it mean you need to spend more? Not entirely. The higher your relevance/quality score, the better your click-through rate and the cheaper your cost per click. Meaning you will get more traffic and pay less for that traffic if you can produce a better relevance/quality score. So read more to know how exactly you can improve your quality score fast?

What makes a Successful Digital Marketing Campaign?

There are a lot of digital marketing channels available and it has become really hard to keep up with the trends and the complexity in the buyer behavior. The lack of alignment with the business goals and lack of technology has contributed greatly to the frustration of digital marketers in an already complicated industry. However, information is key and we gathered some crucial points to note for a seamless digital marketing campaign.

Have a clear goal in mind

Set up specific goals for your campaign. You want to increase sales? Make it more specific like increasing your sales for the holidays coming ahead by doing a flash sale on your website for 3 days. By making your goals specific you can then determine the next steps. Create a realistic framework. Identify Appropriate KPIs. Narrow it down to the ones that most closely represent your key target areas and will help you to stay on track and understand which of your marketing actions are actually working.

Identify your market

Collecting data to build your buyer personas has never been easier. Free analytics tool are available online and can be integrated to your campaigns. Thanks to this, we can now get insights to the buying behaviour of our customers through historical and real-time data. We can also see which devices they are on the most and what age group are they from and many more. Once we have correctly set up a buyer persona, we are now ready to make an outline of each phase of the buyer’s journey and find out which marketing channel would be ideal for our campaign.

Choose your digital marketing channel(s)

After researching our market, it is now time to choose our messenger. This is very important as this will be our medium to communicate with our customers.  There are a lot of Digital Marketing channel available – Email/Newsletter, PPC, SEO, Display, Video, Content Marketing, Social Media, Online PR and many more. Finding the right channel isn’t as hard as you might think especially once you thought of your goal. Going back to our previous example, the goal was to increase the sales for the coming holidays by doing a flash sale on the website. Since the duration of this goal is set to 3 days we can do a combination of PPC, Display, Social Media and Email Marketing. By doing a Shopping Campaign on PPC/Display you can now attract consumers who are looking for similar products on those 3 days while using Social Media and Email Marketing can help you build up the excitement by doing consistent ads on the days leading to the sale. Read More…

Coronavirus / Covid-19 | Top 10 Marketing Dos and Don’ts

In this time of fear and panic, the impact on businesses cannot be understated. Keeping yourself safe and healthy should be your number one priority, but for many entrepreneurs keeping your business running smoothly and afloat is a close second. To help guide you through these tumultuous times, we’ve compiled a list of 10 Dos and Don’ts for Marketing during the Coronavirus pandemic:

1. Don’t

Just Continue As Business As Usual.

It may seem obvious, but this needs to be said. Currently, countries are restricting flights, factories are closing, universities are moving fully online – this crisis is going to impact your business in one way or another. This is not the time to believe that your particular business is immune to it. It is also not the time to believe that the impact would be the worst for you, unless of course you continue business as usual.

2. Do

Rethink and Prepare

It is predicted that 40-70% of the world’s population will be infected with the Coronavirus by the end of the year; and some scientists are suggesting it may take over a year to create a vaccine and administer it for public use. Essentially, it will most likely get worse before it gets better. Part of being proactive is attempting to prepare you for any potential issues. Asking you some of these questions:

– What measure do I need to enact to make sure my customers feel safe?

– How will this change consumer demands?

– Will government intervention affect my business?

While you will still face obstacles, having a pre-emptive approach will put you in good stead and will get you more accustomed to the emergent approach to business strategy.

3. Don’t

Blatantly Self-Promote

Think timeliness. For most people, worrying about their food, health, and job and income is their primary concern, and self-promotion efforts will not stick. It is better to redirect those efforts to other marketing strategies that reflect your understanding of the issues that most are facing. Ask yourself this question:

“What can I offer my clients or the wider public that will help my business but will also be useful to them?” 

Depending on your business this could be anything from online seminars to financial planning. The point here is, at the moment, less can be more. Use this opportunity to restructure your plans. Read More...