Issue No. 5 / April 2017
where to start with digital marketing THIS MONTH’S FEATURE
By Creative Revolution
WHAT WE GOT COVERED
How Much Does A Customer Cost? Scared of Digital Marketing? Try this... Which Social Media Channel Should I Use? 10 Reasons You’re Not at the Top of Google
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Insights Issue One
Colophon Editorial
Design & Cover
ChĂŠ Stevenson
Norman Barnett
Contributing Writers
Publisher
Alisha Conlin-Hurd
Creative Revolution
Tyla Feltwell ChĂŠ Stevenson
Contact Details
Disclaimer and Copyright
5444 0030
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2/586 Hargreaves St
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Bendigo, Victoria 3550
All work produced in Insights is subject to copyright and remains property of the
digital@creativerevolution.com.au
respective creators and owners. All written context expressed within Insights is not
www.creativerevolution.com.au
necessarily the views or opinions of the publisher.
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Contents
Contents EDITORIAL
How Much Does A Customer Cost? ARTICLE
Scared of Digital Marketing? Try this... ARTICLE
Which Social Media Channel Should I Use? FEATURE
Where to Start with Digital Marketing CASE STUDY
10 Reasons You’re Not at the Top of Google
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EDITORIAL
How Much Does A Customer Cost? Maybe a better way to say it is: how much does YOUR customer cost? Have you ever asked yourself this question? The answer... your answer has the potential to transform your business.
he boffins call it Cost Per Acquisition (CPA) but I prefer to call it simply cost per customer. Put it another way: Do you know how much it costs to ‘buy’ a customer with your marketing efforts? It’s a powerfully simple way of thinking about your marketing: how much am I willing to spend to buy a customer? How many customers do I want? If you can answer these questions the sky is the limit. The problem is that traditionally cost per customer has been notoriously difficult to measure. It would often boil down to simply: how much did we spend on marketing this year divided by the number of new customers acquired (bought). But in 2017 we don’t have to throw up our hands and say ‘oh well, all’s well that ends well’ – stuff that! With the right digital marketing strategy, the right measures, and regular reporting you can directly measure and optimise your cost per customer.
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Editorial
Don’t Believe Me? Here’s an Example... 1 Customer It all starts with a customer. One customer. Your customer might be buying one low cost item, many high cost items, or anything inbetween: the amount you are willing to spend on buying a customer will vary greatly depending on the ultimate value of the customer.
4 Quotes In this example we need to send the customer a quote before they purchase and 25% of quotes convert to orders/customers. So to get one customer we need 4 quotes. You may or may not quote your customers, it doesn’t really matter, the point is that we look at the step before becoming a customer and work out the conversion rate to customer. In this case it is a quote, and we’ve used a very common quote conversion rate.
8 Leads This example is a business-to-business product where we have a sales team works with leads to move them through to quote and order. For this business 50% of leads progress to quote, meaning we need 8 leads to get 4 quotes to get 1 customer. From my experience 50% lead to quote rate is not uncommon, but this does vary quite considerably from business to business. For example if your quotes are very time-consuming to produce, you might be very selective about quoting and have a much lower conversion rate. Builders are an example of this. Again, leads and quotes are the stages for this business (and many businesses in the B2B space), but your process may vary.
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160 Visitors This example generates their leads through their website and they have a good website with strong lead generation features. They are achieving a 5% conversion rate from visitor to lead, which means they need to attain 160 website visitors to get those 8 leads. Believe it or not 5% is actually a pretty high lead conversion rate. In businessto-business markets the rule-of-thumb is 3-5%, in business to consumer you can expect to achieve around 1%. Anything above 5% is practically unheard of (though I do have one customer who is achieving close to 10%!). In reality most businesses haven’t put much effort into website-based lead generation and will be achieving maybe half of the benchmarks. The impact that visitor to lead conversion rate has on the profitability of your marketing efforts is immense.
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Editorial
8000 Visitors 8000 views! Say what? Bear with me, it will all make sense... This example is using a long-running and well refined Facebook advertising campaign and they are achieving a 2% response rate on their advertising, meaning they need 8000 views to get 160 visitors. Statistically the response rate is more likely to be 0.5-1% but it is not unheard of to refine and optimise your campaign to achieve greater response rates. Besides, it would have been a massive pain in the neck to add another 8000 dots in this image! The takeaway here is that a huge amount of effort goes into attracting your visitors, it had better be worth it to your business once they arrive.
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$6
Insights Issue One
$48
Facebook Average CPM in Australia
Total Cost of this Customer
The current Australian average cost per 1000 impressions (CPM) in Facebook advertising is $6. Its possible to achieve a lower CPM, but for this example we’re using the average.
So the final answer to this question is $48 – eight times $6 CPM in Facebook advertising. This example has done the work to prepare themselves to capitalise on the potential of online advertising: they’ve got a well-refined online lead funnel and an effective sales process.
Facebook is actually a very low-cost advertising channel. For comparison, a full page ad in the Saturday edition of a particular regional Newspaper will cost you around $5,000 for an estimated readership of 48,000 – or $104 CPM. That’s 17 times the cost of Facebook advertising! The comparison doesn’t stop there: Facebook advertising allows you to hone in on a defined target audience and is directly actionable – you can’t control who reads the paper and you can’t click on a newspaper ad! Why the heck aren’t you using Facebook advertising?
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Editorial
Same Principles, Results Will Differ The stages of your sales process will vary, your conversion rates will vary, your promotional channels will vary, and as a result your ultimate answer will be unique to your business. But I hope I have inspired you to think about cost per customer and how this approach to thinking about your marketing can be extremely valuable. Taking this a step further, I’d encourage you to consider setting up your channels and measures so that you can measure the cost per customer for each channel. Once you know this you will probably find that some of your marketing channels are doing most of the work while others are just riding on the coat-tails of your heavy lifters. Once you know cost per customer and refine your campaign to the point that your cost per customer is adequately profitable, then you can simply say “How many customers do I want?”. Multiply this by your cost per customer and you know how much to spend to get that. This exact logic lead one of our customers to increase their Google AdWords spend from $600 to $2,000 per month and now they have a steady stream of around 70 sales leads per month – giving them the exact number of customers they want.
Insights Issue One
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Scared of
Digital Marketing Try this...
So we’ve well and truly established that digital marketing is scary and we sort of need to pretend that it kind of doesn’t exist. But business is still business and we need to find effective ways to get the word out about our products or services, so we’ve put together this list of awesome tips for you. Who needs digital anyway, when you could be using these 100% effective marketing strategies instead?
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Advertise on the back of a bus in a font size that can’t be seen from a car When well-loved Australian airline Qantas announced that they were going to re-brand their distinctive “flying kangaroo” branding, hearts started to flutter. Would they truly dare change such a distinctive logo!? Well the answer, it would seem, is…. “no”. The iconic kangaroo remained, with some mostly minor tweaks.
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Article
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Launch a cringeworthy TV commercial
Cringeworthy television commercials are the best. The great thing about them is that they are expensive to produce, cost a small fortune to broadcast and are completely untargeted to your actual target audience – who are probably in the kitchen making a cup of tea or taking a toilet break whenever your commercial goes to air anyway. Or they’re streaming Netflix. TVCs are so 1996.
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Nothing says “classy advertising campaign” quite like someone standing by the side of the road in an oversized animal costume, waving a screenprinted sign around as they attempt an awkward version of the Macarena (either that or they’re just about to pass out from heat stroke). The upshot is that onlookers will mostly react to all of this with bemused indifference. Or pity.
I don’t know about you, but I’m struggling to recall any high-profile marketing campaigns that came through my mailbox in the form of photocopied flyer. It’s not exactly how successful companies advertise their wares. Apple, Nike, Coke, McDonalds: all big players who use Word documents for their intended purpose. Internal memos and performance reviews. Not direct marketing material.
Put a mascot costume on a trainee to wave a sign around
Black and white photocopied flyer designed in Word and dropped randomly into suburban letter boxes
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Do a radio ad with a zany ethnic voice over Not-so-breaking news: it’s 2017, guys... No one should be doing radio ads with fake ethnic voice overs, period! Not only is it a highly cringeworthy form of cultural appropriation, they don’t work anyway because your message gets lost in all that forced hilarity, and no one takes you or your business seriously. Leave the wacky voices to sketch comics and breakfast radio presenters.
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Rock up at the door of your target audience to interrupt their day and tell them about something they don’t care about Studies from the esteemed “Institute of Common Sense” have revealed that unsolicited door knockers are up there with mosquitoes, late trains and burnt toast in terms of how much they annoy people. There is no better way to irritate your customer base than to send smiling sales people to their front door when they are trying to eat dinner or are attempting to get the kids to do their homework.
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Do an unaddressed mail campaign to 50,000 recipients Australia wide There’s nothing more exciting than receiving letters addressed “To The Householder”. Imagine the opportunities! I could be the lucky instant winner of a million dollars from Readers Digest, or it could be another scintillating newsletter from my local member of parliament. The sad thing is that I’ll never know, because they go straight into the recycling bin. Unopened.
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Get an endorsement from someone that doesn’t use your product and has no relevance to your industry Nothing warms my 40 year-old heart quite like the sight of a photoshopped 16 year-old supermodel being used to sell overpriced anti-ageing cream. For maximum loss of credibility you need to choose a product spokesperson that defies all logic and common sense - like hiring to Vin Diesel to spruik the merits of anti-dandruff shampoo. Or procuring Hulk Hogan to sell women’s shapewear.
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Article
Eleven
Run a poorly designed ad in the sports section of the local newspaper Wait, what - you mean they still print newspapers? More importantly, do people still risk fingertips full of grotty black ink to actually read them? No better way to find out than to whack together a poorly designed display ad that will sit somewhere between the under-12 soccer results and the final scorecard for Smalltown’s annual seniors golf tournament. Problem solved.
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First impressions are incredibly important, which is why you should always man your helplines with the snarkiest and most poorly-trained employees. If customers have a good experience with your call centre they will tell maybe one or two other people. If they have a bad experience they will tell all 500 of their closest Facebook friends and possibly pen a funny complaint letter that goes viral.
Trying to rustle up new business from popup kiosks in busy shopping centres can be next to impossible, because people will go to great lengths to avoid talking to you. Parents bribe their kids to throw strategically-timed tantrums, young adults fake conversations on their phones and others will wave madly at you to go away, like they are trying to conjure the “Expelliarmus” spell from Harry Potter.
Employ snarky untrained call centre employees to be the first point of contact with your business
Rent a pop-up store in the middle of the shopping centre and watch as people avoid eye contact with you
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Hello
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Insights Issue One
Which Social Media Channel Should I Use?
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The social media landscape is dynamic and ever-changing – some might even say fickle. When this week’s Snapchat could be next year’s MySpace, how do you know which social media channel to choose? The good news is that you don’t have to choose them all, because when it comes to social media it’s best to go for quality over quantity. Your brand will benefit more from a small number of thoughtfullycurated platforms than a scattershot approach that falls short. We take a look at nine of the biggest social media platforms, to help you decide which are the most compatible with your business.
Article
Insights Issue One
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Snapchat If you want to engage with teenagers and young adults. If you are good at making quirky photos and videos. If you want to bring a sense of fun and spontaneity to your brand.
Description
Three fun facts
Who it isn’t for
Snapchat is an increasingly popular mobile app that lets
1.
As of May 2014 Snapchat users
If your target demographic is older
you send videos and pictures. It has one very interesting
were sending 700 million snaps
(35+), they probably aren’t primarily
twist – the files are programmed to self-destruct
a day.
on Snapchat.
within seconds of being viewed. Not just a messaging app, it also allows you to capture an image and add a
2. Snapchat started life as a
number of funny or quirky filters. It’s no great surprise
product design university
that Snapchat’s unique self-destruct function makes it
project called “Picaboo”.
appealing to teenagers and young adults, because didn’t we all want that function in real life as we were going
3. Facebook reportedly tried – and
through the impulsive throes of youth? Its appeal to
failed - to buy Snapchat for $3
young people is exactly what mystifies old people. What’s
billion.
the point of this? How does this work? I. Do. Not. Get. It.
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Article
Google Plus If you want to enhance your brand’s SEO on Google. If you are targeting a more professional audience. If you have customers working in tech or creative industries.
Description
Three fun facts
Who it isn’t for
Google + is the interest-based social media offshoot
1.
Mark Zuckerberg scrambled to
Every business should have a
of the most widely used search engine on the internet.
update Facebook when Google+
Google+ presence for the SEO
Launched in 2011, by the end of 2013 they already had
launched.
optimisation alone.
300 million active users per month. Google + is unique because you can organise your contacts into circles,
2. Their user base was roughly
and it is relatively easy for people to separate their
60% male and 25% female as of
professional and personal lives on the one platform.
November 2013.
It’s great for one-way following, photography, videos, long-form text content, selective sharing, and animated
3. Within days of launching it
GIFs. Though a relative newcomer to the field, they have
was blocked by the People’s
established a successful niche within the crowded social
Republic of China.
media scene.
Insights Issue One
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Facebook If you want to use a tried and tested platform with wide reach. If you want a lot of control over your brand page and its content. If you want to do targeted advertising via organic and paid posts.
Description
Three fun facts
Who it isn’t for
Facebook is not just the Goliath of the social media
1.
Statistics show that 93% of
Facebook has broad appeal but if
world – it’s David and Goliath and all 1.55 billion of their
all adult users online have a
your brand is edgy or pioneering you
combined friends and relatives. It is easily the biggest
Facebook account.
might think it old fashioned.
and most active online social media community, and Facebook have been very proactive at incorporating
2. Posts containing photos make-
new technologies like video and live streaming as they
up 93% of the most engaging
emerge. This ability to stay relevant is a major part of their
posts.
wide appeal and lasting success, and brands have been quick to clamber aboard the Facebook juggernaut for the
3. Facebook Asia Pacific is the
incredible potential it offers to connect with customers.
largest sub set of Facebook, at
Facebook is still one of the most powerful social media
449 million users.
channels and at this stage remains pretty rock solid in the popularity stakes.
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Article
Instagram If you are involved in the food, fashion, luxury or lifestyle industries. If your brand, products or services are highly visual or design-focused. If your brand is aspirational and appeals to both men and women.
Description
Three fun facts
Who it isn’t for
Instagram is an image and video based platform that
1.
Beyonce broke the record
Instagram can be used by everyone
has amassed an impressive 200 million active users,
with her recent pregnancy
but if your product or service isn’t
who between them share over 60 million images per
announcement - over 7 million
aesthetically appealing this might
day. Being a heavily image based platform it has found
likes.
pose a challenge.
great appeal among the lifestyle, luxury, food and beauty industries, and can be an excellent showcase for brands
2. There is an even distribution of
who are working in these fields. Instagram allows brands
male-female users on Instagram
to lighten up and show a less formal side, with photos
(51% male)
and videos that can offer behnd-the-scene sneak peeks into your business. It’s a forum that creates unique and
3. Instagram made the much-
genuine two way conversations between brands and
overlooked hashtag key popular
their customers, continuing to grow in popularity.
again.
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Youtube If you have lots of product demonstration videos you wish to showcase. If your product or service lends itself to video promotion. If you want to start vlogging (a form of video blogging).
Description
Three fun facts
Who it isn’t for
YouTube is the leading website for hosting video
1.
Over 1 billion users visit
YouTube could be challenging for
YouTube every month.
the less tech-savvy, but film editing
content online. Whether it’s branded commercials, product demos or vlogging content, all of your unique
software is increasingly accessible
video content can be brought together under your own
2. Over 6 billion hours of video
channel. YouTube allows your audience to view content
are watched each month on
on mobile devices, tablets and desktop computers, and
YouTube.
it has rapidly become one of the most viewed websites online. If you have advice or information to share
3. YouTube reaches more US
about your products or services, video is a useful and
adults ages 18-34 than any
accessible way to get your message out. Trailers and
cable network.
behind-the-scenes footage are also very popular with users.
and easy to use.
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Article
Twitter If you have a great sense of humour and a nifty way with words. If you are looking for genuine real-time enagement with your customers. If you are in a news-sensitive industry and need to stay up-to-date.
Description
Three fun facts
Who it isn’t for
Twitter seems to be one of those platforms that people
1.
Twitter was almost called
If you are wary of the potential for
“Friendstalker” .
controversy or trolling, Twitter might
either love or hate. The 140-word character microblogging site has 190 million unique site visitors every month, and is great for real time conversations and
be one to avoid. A good sense of 2. Twitter’s iconic bird logo is
spirited interaction with your target audience. Many
named after basketball legend
people love Twitter for it’s renowned sense of humour
Larry Bird.
and its spontaneous ability to kick start viral campaigns or unite activists around social issues. These are the same factors that can make some brands wary of Twitter, as it can be a bit ramshackle and unpredictable at times.
3. Pop star Katy Perry has the most Twitter followers.
humour is mandatory.
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LinkedIn If you are primarily do B2B marketing. If you want to develop new network connections in your field. If you are looking to position your brand as a leading authority in your industry.
Description
Three fun facts
Who it isn’t for
LinkedIn was built as the business social media channel,
1.
The worst time to post on
If your business is primarily B2C you
giving it a unique point of difference to other social
LinkedIn is Monday and Friday,
won’t find much use for LinkedIn.
media platforms. People go to LinkedIn specifically to
9:00am-5:00pm.
do business, and it is the leading virtual networking site online. With over 380 million members, it is an essential tool for B2B businesses, because establishing
2. LinkedIn’s annual revenue is almost $3 billion.
connections is the most important aspect of this platform. It is a place where professionals can share
3. It’s available in over 24
advice, exhange ideas and gain industry insights.
languages in more than 200
Composed of mature, career-oriented individuals,
countries.
LinkedIn is not as casual as platforms like Facebook.
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Article
Pinterest If you like linking to useful and engaging content. If your brand is high on visual and aesthetic appeal. If you are in food, beauty, design, interiors, DIY or fitness.
Description
Three fun facts
Who it isn’t for
With similarities to Instagram, Pinterest is a highly
1.
Women make up 80% of
If your target market skews heavily
Pinterest users.
male you might want to give
visual platform that is effective for those in the food, fashion, travel, design, interior decorating and DIY industries. The site enables the user to “pin” – or bookmark – links to web pages that they wish to return
Pinterest a miss as it has a very large 2. Almost 90% of users purchase a product they have pinned.
to for future reference. Pinterest has around 70 million users, but they like to spend! Studies have shown that they spend nearly double what Facebook users do, and three times as much as Twitter users. Pinterest allows brands to create customised boards in order to organise their links in ways that are relevant and searchable for customers. Interaction is mainly based on repins, likes, and comments that tend to be shorter than other social networks.
3. Pinners are massively into DIY arts and crafts.
female audience.
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Insights Issue One
where t with d marke
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Feature
to start digital eting? Not sure where or how to start when it comes to digital marketing? It’s not quite as difficult as it sounds - all you need to do to get the ball rolling is to start thinking about what you are trying to achieve with your business. It’s that easy. Let us walk you through the entire process right here; our simple guide contains all the solutions you need.
I want... 28
Insights Issue One
More leads for my sales team
Quick fix option: Lead generation campaign
Long term solution: Implement thorough inbound marketing program
Is your cold calling not as effective as it used to be? Do you need to boost lead generation during quieter times of the year?
A proven way to generate leads involves creating an offer and a landing page on your website with a form. This can be promoted via your existing marketing channels and be completely up and running within two weeks. This type of campaign works wonders when the offer is well thought out and appealing, and they are cost-effective to set up and implement.
This strategy includes content creation, social media and website optimisation: all of which are designed to attract people to your website and convert them to leads. This approach is best-practice digital marketing and can achieve some truly spectacular results, but like all long-term strategies it will require a dedicated investment of time and money to produce results.
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Feature
More orders
Quick fix option: Do Google Adwords
Long Term solution: Search engine optimisation
Have your sales, orders or bookings been a bit slow lately? Are you looking to leverage the power of digital to give them a boost?
With Adwords you can set up a campaign in a couple of days, using the targeted keywords that customers are searching to find your products or services. This will result in qualified visitors almost immediately, but you need to allow a bit of time to tweak any flaws. Viability will depend on how competive your market is, and can drive up the cost of keywords. Your site also needs to be ready to convert any visitors.
SEO is the holy grail because it enables customers to find you organically, and with a bit of concerted effort you can push your site higher in the Google rankings. SEO attracts people to your website who are looking with the intent to buy or are searching for an answer to a problem. It sounds simple, but this is one area of digital marketing that it does not pay to DIY. SEO is complicated, taking into account over 180 major factors and 10,000 minor factors in Google. It’s best left to the professionals.
I also wa 30
Insights Issue One
More Facebook Followers
Quick fix option: Page like campaigns or promotions
Long term solution: Post better content, more often
Are you frustrated with the amount of Facebook followers you have? Do you want to generate more page likes and followers?
Page like advertising campaigns are special promotions aimed at encouraging people to “like” your Facebook page. They can be a good way to drive likes and attract new followers, but they need to be supported with an advertising budget otherwise they will only get seen by your existing followers. In overall terms the time and money invested in implementing this type of promotion is relatively high compared with the return in the form of new followers.
The majority of businesses don’t post as much as they should - or post the type of material they should. You’ll need to post at least once daily, and you need to increase the quality. Use interesting, engaging content that your target persona will enjoy and make good use of images, videos and memes. Having better content more often will increase page likes organically, and increase BC (??) because ultimately FB followers isn’t the final goal we want to convert leads.
ant... 31
Feature
To get on Google
Quick fix option: Google Adwords
Long term solution: Search engine optimisation
Can’t find your website when you search on Google? Or are you stuck down in the doldrums somewhere on the third page?
This isn’t technically a quick fix option. Your best option is to run a Google Adwords campaign because there is no way to organically get you to the top of Google in a very short space of time and you have to pay for every visitor. Your best bet is to invest in SEO over the long term, because you’re up against a lot of large, cashed up businesses who spend serious amounts of money to optimise their SEO and their Google ranking.
As mentioned earlier, SEO is the best long-term strategy to bring people to your site by making your business easier to search and find. It involves a multi-faceted strategy that combines relevant published content with back-end improvements in the form of metadata and alt tags. All of this needs to be Googlefriendly, so your best bet is to leave it in the hands of digital professionals who intimately understand all the different factors required to make this work.
and also 32
Insights Issue One
To promote our message
Quick fix option: Facebook advertising
Long term solution: Dedicated social media presence
Do you have a burning desire to communicate your message across social channels? Where will you get the most traction?
Facebook has become a poweful advertising platform allowing businesses to insert their messages within people’s newsfeeds. The beauty of Facebook is that it has demographics down to a fine art, allowing you to easily identify your audience based on their social grouping and unique interests. This is quick and easy to set up but can be relatively expensive – and it tends to promote surface level rather than deep engagement with the message.
Having a dedicated social media presence is your best long-term strategy for promoting your message in a consistent and engaging manner. Having a dedicated social media presence not only gives you a platform to promote your message, it also enables you to engage directly with your target audience, creating the opportunity to develop a genuine twoway communication. A thoughtfully-cultivated social media presence offers immense value to a brand.
want... 33
Feature
To kick start my start up
Quick fix solution: Basic website
Long term solution: Strong and ongoing commitment to social media
Do you have a new business or enterprise that you want to get the word out about? Do you need ways for people to find you?
No one would argue with the fact that every serious business needs a website, and there are a number of ways that this can be achieved quickly and simply – gone are the days when basic websites were long and laborious to build. People are increasingly web savvy, so your best bet is to have this professionally created from the start in order to be able to add to it, building from a solid online foundation as your business grows.
A strong social media presence is central to any strategy when launching a start up business. Being solid across your social channels allows you to connect with your target audience, allowing them to share your content with their social networks and helping you to get the word out. Another great benefit of having a strong social media presence is that it allows your customers to give you that invaluable early feedback, allowing you to learn from your audience.
and... 34
Insights Issue One
More website visitors
Quick fix option: Email your existing contacts/ customers/leads
Long term solution: Google Adwords
Do you want to get more people coming to your website? Do you want more people to know where your home base is online?
Sometimes it’s not all about finding new leads – sometimes it’s about reminding your current customers that you still exist! People are busy, distracted and time poor, so a simple act like emailing your existing contacts can trigger renewed interest or repeat business. The most likely people to buy from you in the future are the ones who have bought from you in the past, as they are more likely to engage and take action. It’s quick, simple and surprisingly effective.
At the risk of sounding like a broken record (remember those?), Google Adwords is a brilliant resource for businesses. Again, it is something that you can set up quickly, with the added bonus that you can refine it over time. With good optimisation you can typically expect to increase traffic by up to 50% in a period of just six months. Google Adwords requires very little maintenance and optimisation to create significant returns in website traffic.
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Feature
More brand awareness
Quick fix option: Display advertising
Long term solution: Social media
Do you have a great brand that you are really proud of and want to show off? Do you need to generate more awareness with your target audience?
Display advertising is something of an oldfashioned concept, but digital marketing has it in the form of the banner ads and sidebar ads that appear on websites. They are cost effective at 1/10th of a cent per impression, but are fairly poor for direct response because the click through is typically low. Display advertising on websites is often be perceived by the consumer as cheap, intrusive or annoying, so this suggestion comes with a caveat.
Creating a solid social media presence is integral to ongoing awareness advertising, and also allows for direct enagement with your brand. Due to the sophisticated targeting options it creates the opportunity for building brand awareness with the specific niches or subniches that will be most receptive to your message. Thanks to these options brand awareness campaigns no longer require a broad approach with a hit and miss result – they do need to be supported with advertising though, to be truly effective.
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Insights Issue One
To promote a campaign
Quick fix option: Email marketing
Long term solution: Build a strong social media following
Have you got a major promotion going that needs fresh eyeballs? Are you plugging a new product release or seasonal campaign?
Those most likely to engage with you are those who are already familiar with your brand - or pursue similar interests - because people need some degree of definable interest or intent to purchase. Effective email marketing can direct people to a landing page that contains the action you want them to undertake, whether that be to fill on a form, obtain a code or make a purchase. It can be a quick and simple way to work your existing database of leads.
Your best bet for successful promotions is to settle in for the long haul and really try to build your social media following. You can engage customers or audience members who are already interested in your product or brand, and you can also reach non-followers via the social media feed of your existing followers. By developing and optimising your online following you can create an engaged audience who are receptive to your promotions.
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To start somewhere with digital marketing Do you have a great brand that you are really proud of and want to show off? Do you need to generate more awareness with your target audience? Your best solution to this dilemma is to pick up the phone and call us for a free one-hour consultation. We know you’re busy so you are also able to contact us via email on 5444 0030 or contact us via email at digital@ creative revolution.com.au if that suits better. The team at Creative Revolution is proud of our passion and flair for digital marketing, and we’d love the chance to shoot the breeze with you. No obligation, just a meeting of the minds.
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Insights Issue One
10 Reasons You’re Not at the Top of Google
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Article
Introduction Google is the Summer Olympics of search engines: a highly competitive environment with plenty of contenders vying for the number one spot on the podium. Sometimes it can feel overwhelming if you’re a smaller player, but it’s still possible to improve your performance by being smart and strategic. Here are ten reasons why you’re not at the top of the Google rankings just yet (and some clever ways to climb the ladder):
One: You don’t have the best content Ouch. We know this one hurts. The sad truth is that only one website can hit the number one ranking for any given keyword on Google, and your site is up against a whole lot of competition – even within relatively obscure niches. Google wants to direct people towards the best content, and their reputation as a quality search engine is on the line. If Google has decided that someone else is number one, it might be time to review your content for ways to optimise it.
Two: Your keyword selection is poor Ouch. We know this one hurts. The sad truth is that only one website can hit the number one ranking for any given keyword on Google, and your site is up against a whole lot of competition – even within relatively obscure niches. Google wants to direct people towards the best content, and their reputation as a quality search engine is on the line. If Google has decided that someone else is number one, it might be time to review your content for ways to optimise it.
Three: You’re not using enough internal and external links This sounds counter-intuitive (why should I link to other URLs in case the reader leaves my website?) but there are benefits to this. One way to create an ultimate resource for particular keywords is to include links to other resources within your content - this makes your post more valuable and makes other content on the subject easier for Google to find. It also helps you get backlinks from other sites, and this is useful because pages with lots of backlinks rank higher.
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Four: Your site is new Remember that old saying – patience is a virtue? If your website is relatively new it’s a bit rich to expect to rocket straight to the top of the Google rankings. Rank authority is built gradually over time, and getting ranked for specific keywords can often take months. It takes at least two or three weeks for your site to even be indexed with Google, which is what allows your site to appear in search results. It’s possible to manually index your site, but that tends to be unnecessary.
Insights Issue One
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Your on-site SEO is sub-optimal
You have too much duplicate content
You think that social media is an optional extra
SEO is absolutely vital to ensuring that you are optimising your page rankings on Google, and if you are not doing this then you might as well give up all together. First on the list is to focus on your site architecture, because building a strategic internal linking structure will enhance the authority throughout your website and make your links more effective. The upshot of this is that you’ll need fewer links to rank and therefore less investment.
If there is one thing Google hates, it’s duplicate content. Google wants to know that all of your pages contain unique content because they don’t want to annoy people by sending them to a site that says basically the same thing over and over again. It might seem like a trivial thing but Google takes duplicate content very seriously and will punish your site in the rankings if you keep creating duplicate product descriptions or service descriptions across multiple pages.
Social media is time consuming and can be a little bit overwhelming to manage if you are short on time, but it’s no longer OK to consider it an optional extra because it can impact on your Google ranking. Social media is a big factor in SEO nowadays – it has even been proven that you can rank pages with social signalling. Google cross references your social media activity and can give your ranking an instant boost once you have introduced social signals.
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You’re not optimising your images
Your site isn’t optimal for mobile devices
Your site isn’t user friendly
Wait. What? You mean to say that the images on my website can enhance or harm my Google ranking? It’s definitely true, and optimising your images can improve your ranking in a number of ways: it can help you can get traffic through image searches and it’s another way to tell Google what your primary keyword is. Saving your images with keywords in the file name as well as adding alt text and title tags - will give your ranking that extra boost it needs.
If your website has been established for a number of years now it’s a good idea to make sure that it has been updated for maximum compatibility with mobile devices. Mobile-usability has been a big deal since April 2015, becoming a significant ranking factor with the release of Googles algorithm update. To check if your site is mobile friendly try using Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test to ensure your site is optimised for mobile and is accessible on all devices.
The user experience on your site is another factor that impacts on your Google ranking, because the world’s most trusted search engine is reluctant to send their querents to websites that aren’t highly valuable. If users aren’t spending much time on your site it’s time to try to find out why. Key performance indicators you should be looking at include bounce rate, average time spent on site and pageviews per visit. If users don’t value your site, neither will Google.
For general or project enquries, please don’t hesitate to contact us on: 5444 0030 digital@creativerevolution.com.au www.creativerevolution.com.au 2/586 Hargreaves St Bendigo, Victoria 3550