The Marketing Issue!
How to Create Successful Marketing Goals and Objectives How Marketing Impacts Your Rankings
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Your News in One Place with our Apps Round Up
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Marketing goals and objectives. I’m asking if you use them? To be able to attract customers to any business, compete with the competition, and drive your company forwards you need to be creating successful marketing goals and objectives. But come on, own up, who really bothers with them?! If you want growth this is your answer and YES you should invest time in them. Provided in this magazine is an explanation of the essential perspectives needed when creating the correct goals for your business. After all how do you know if your previous campaign was successful if you can’t measure the results against your expected outcomes? Lastly, dare I mention it, but we are soon entering the festive season. Lots of events, campaigns and activities taking place from you and your competitors. Staying focused and not getting too side tracked is key during mad party season. Take the pressure off by spending some time on your marketing strategy. It will offer you a sense of direction and reassurance that you are heading the right way. If not you have your first New Years Resolution! :-) Thanks for reading and feel free to tweet us with any questions @KJDesignLtd.
Kim ENGAGE...for success magazine is published by:
Kimberley-Jane Design Ltd 36/37 George St Birmingham, B3 1QA Tel: 0121 448 4776 Publisher & Editor Kimberley Leary kj@kimberley-janedesign.co.uk
Marketing Nicola Davis nicola@kimberley-janedesign.co.uk
Design and Typesetting Rachana Sansoa rachana@kimberley-janedesign.co.uk
INSIDE THIS ISSUE Introduction
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Marketing goals & objectives
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Business Insights - Marketing impacts rankings
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Apps - The best for all round news
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Website showcase
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Social Media: Which sites should I be on?
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Why should you care about your website?
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How to Create Successful Marketing Goals & Objectives The key to a successful marketing plan is to set yourself marketing objectives or goals. They can help you focus your work, motivate your staff and offer you a glimpse of what you could or should attain. When completed, you should be able to explain exactly what you’ve done, how you have achieved this and when it was completed. Completing any goal should bring with it job satisfaction and a sense of achievement How to write one: The SMART method is the easiest way to approach writing marketing objectives. Your objectives should be: Specific: easily identifiable and able to be understood in a month or years time. Measurable: able to be measured and it is obvious when they are completed. Achievable: attainable, realistic goals that you and your employees can reach. Relevant: linked to your sector and the services you offer. Time specific: set a time frame within which they must be completed.
to complete and can be left to tick over for much longer. All goals should be relevant and in keeping with your company’s priorities and current situation.
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Remember: Your business plan and marketing plan should always compliment each other and run side by side.
Top tip: Sitting down and
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brainstorming new objectives from time to time with others from your business helps your company continue to grow and improve.
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For example: ‘increase
contact list’ is a common objective, but does not include enough information to be a useful goal. However ‘increase contact list by 25% in 1 month’ is a specific goal with a set time frame and is easily measured. It’s important you have both short term and long term goals for your company. The example above is a short term goal that will need to be renewed and reviewed constantly. Other goals will take longer
Do I really need to?
By writing these objectives you can streamline your marketing and have a target to aim towards. This is useful as you will know how well you are doing and when to step up your plan or ease off in certain areas. It also shows you how well your employees are performing and gives them something to work towards and once completed, a sense of job satisfaction. If you are using an outside marketing company you will be able to see how well they are performing as well.
Any business goals can help to motivate a company, so get writing!
HOW CONTENT MARKETING IMPACTS RANKINGS
Websites with blogs have 434% more index pages on average
Long tail searches are up to 60% since 2004. Easiest way to rank for long tail keyworkds is through content marketing.
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The average page that ranks on the first page of Google has between 2032 words ro 2494 words. Content rich sites generate 97% sites more links.
Content that is greater than 1,500 words on average receives 68.1% more tweets and 22.6% more Facebook likes.
3 CONTENT MARKETING TIPS
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Bring the customers insideSpeakin a conversational tone.Speak ib “You and I” rather than “Me vs You”
Focus on solving specific problems
Get emotional Content sgould go beyond just being useful. It should be unforgettable
Best Apps For A Round Up Of All News You’re busy all day long and don’t have time to trawl the internet for each and every news story. You want your news in one place, condensing the funny, serious, shocking and breaking news from that day into one. As well as sneakily adding in some recipes, celebrity news and a sneaky peek at social media. These apps seek to do just that, but which are the best? I have reviewed what I believe to be the five best apps for aggregating news and presenting multiple sites in one app.
App: Feedly Price: Free
What does it do?
Is it any good?
Feedly lets you browse your favourite news sites, blogs, feeds and social media sites. It integrates them all using RSS and delivers them to you in one easy to use app. It automatically syncs between your devices, so if you like one page on your iPad it will update the content it thinks you’ll enjoy on your iPhone too. You can choose which sites you want to follow, add them to a group eg. Marketing, news, blogs… It will then give you one top story and a list of all other top stories per category.
You can view the app before signing up and have a go at creating an invoice to check it is what you are looking for, a great addition! The graphics are simple and it is easy to use, always necessary for a business app being used on the go. It’s only free if you have 3 clients or less, any more and you will have to pay. But this is great for a small company or someone self-employed who doesn’t want to pay too much for a great invoicing service.
App: Flipboard Price: Free
What does it do?
Is it any good?
This app was created specifically for iOS devices. It has a simple grid layout with pictures that continually flip and change. You can see top new sites and add sites to the list from categories or by searching for specific sites. You can also like a site or a page and add it to a category or list of your own creation It brings together everything that is being shared with you as well as news stories, so you have everything in one place. It learns what you like and lets you add practically any site to the list. Again it uses RSS feeds to grab the information and connect to social media.
You can save articles to read later, even whilst offline, a great addition to a news app such as this. The layout is like a magazine, sleek and elegant with large pictures for each category or site. You swipe to read an article or view a different category, just like you were reading a magazine! If you want to get through multiple pages and sites quickly and see the main stories in one glance then this is not the app for you. It does bring a lot of information together in one place but it is not the most concise app out there.
App: Pulse Price: Free
What does it do?
Is it any good?
Pulse is linked to your LinkedIn page. Any news sites or business links you may have liked on there are added. Then any sites you like in Pulse are added to your LinkedIn account. Then, through this it suggests pages or news sites to like or follow. You can swipe through each site and their top stories, all of which are displayed on one page in a list. It is, again, linked to your RSS feeds and the interface is simple but well designed and easy to use.
It is available on Android and iOS and some web browsers. Being connected to LinkedIn means you start with a basis of sites and it has an idea of what to offer you. You can see what your LinkedIn contacts are reading and share sites with them, making it interactive and interesting. There are plenty of sites, always useful when it comes to this type of app! Again it has night mode, which is great for your eyes and something no one of the next apps offer.
App: News 360 Price: Free
What does it do?
Is it any good?
News360 also links to your social media sites, giving you suggested sites and topics to add to your app from your likes on Facebook and other sites. This is a great addition and an easy way of starting your app going! You can also link it to Evernote and sites or links you may have added on there. It is easy to use, with swipes letting you move through categories and news stories within them.
Any story that may have been on more than one site is shown once on the top story screen, then when you click onto it, all sites are shown and you can choose where to read about it. The display is clear and easy to use, you can view one main story and then other stories in a list below or view all in one long list display. The more you use the app the more personalised it becomes.
App: Skygrid Price: Free
What does it do?
Is it any good?
You can view main news sites or add your own sites to the home page. Again it shows you various news sources for one story, this time with an added time stamp so you can read the most recent or the first to break the news. It also has categories, from Science to Technology and general News groups. Each has a logo and when a story from that category is on the top stories page you can identify the category it comes from by the logo.
Available on iOS and Android. The layout is not customisable, but it is simple and well designed so you should not need to change anything. The stories are shown in a grid display with thumbnails for each story. There is more tapping and less swiping than with the others apps, but it is still easy to use. It also lets you see topics that are trending and read or follow them, something other apps do not do! Also, you can save a story and read it whilst offline later. A great addition!
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Which sites should I be on?
With so many social media sites available, it can be hard to work out which sites you should be looking at joining. I am looking at three of the main sites and will give you a brief description of what each site is best for.
Great for: Photos, fun posts and seeing what your friends like. Facebook is used for businesses and personal accounts alike. It is great for attracting the attention of the general public and getting your product seen by people during their leisure time. Your posts will be seen by friends of friends and should hang around for a while, meaning less posts are necessary. Its great for photos and fun posts. If you are only posting serious comments then you probably won’t grow a huge following. But if you want to add photos and post occasionally it is the site for you!
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Linked In
Great for: short, snappy posts. Product placement. Twitter is a lot shorter and more succinct that Facebook. More businesses use it but it depends on what the user is looking for as to what they will see. Twitter is great if you are interested in posting continually throughout the day but if you don’t have the time for continuous posting then this probably isn’t the site for you. Tweets disappear after a few minutes so users won’t see your 9am tweet by 11am. It is great for any business to be on twitter, but if you don’t use your account then no one will take any notice of you. Use it well and you can get great feedback and conversations going with your customers and contacts.
Great for: finding a job or having a peek at other businesses Inked in is purely business. Many companies post job opportunities on their linked in pages and some job applications now let you sync with your linked in profile. If you are looking to take a peek at other companies in your sector or find new employees then this is a great site to be part of. You do not need to post very often, but serious posts are probably more likely to be read. It lets you sync with other contacts so you can quickly find your business contacts and then add yourself to business groups that apply to your company. Other potential sites: Tumblr- photographs. You could add a link to this from your website, to give customers a feel for your brand and products. More for product based companies. Pinterest- photographs. Again mainly for product based companies. This is used mainly by girls and for fashion, photography, baking and jewellery. Add a few boards and photographs for people to repost and link to your site. Google +- not a big site, but may be useful for business. Repost twitter or linked in posts here.
Why should
you care for your website?
As with a house, websites need a bit of maintenance now and then to stop them looking shabby and unkept. More and more businesses have an online presence, the competition between sites is tough and if your website is not kept up to date and looking smart, many searchers will be put off.
Why it makes sense to ask the experts... We will build a content plan and schedule blog posts, updates, offers and more, to fit in with your industry, your market position, your strategic objectives and your sales patterns. • • • •
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Generate fresh ideas that will keep your content unique and exciting Manage and implement your content plan, taking the pressure off you and maintaining an up to date and engaging online presence for you Design new artwork and graphics such as banners announcing offers and events, and load them onto your website. Take weekly back-ups of your complete website so that if disaster strikes and you lose your data, you’ll be up and running again within hours with little or no data loss Provide monthly reports so that you can see how your website is performing against target and make ongoing adjustments to your online strategy
Those benefits include: 1. 2. 3. 4.
Saving you time and hassle Building your brand and your market position Improving your search engine rankings Giving you peace of mind
5. Making you more successful!!
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