Blogs
Now that we have the poll results, and it not surprising that on LinkedIn, it was the most popular pick for business marketing. The platform's professional tone and ability to connect with other businesses and industry professionals were identified as important factors for its choice by many users. LinkedIn's algorithm also encourages instructional and informative content, making it an excellent platform for thought leadership and sharing industry insights.
Facebook, on the other hand, was the least favourite choice, with many users noting the platform's falling organic reach and content oversaturation as reasons for its diminished effectiveness. Some users, however, continue to find success on Facebook by using paid advertising and targeting certain populations. Instagram was also the second choice for potentially similar reasons.
Overall, before selecting a social media platform for your marketing strategy, evaluate your target audience and the type of material you want to promote. Each platform has its own set of advantages and disadvantages, so it's worth trying to see what works best for your company. And as always test and measure so you have data to analyse! Please leave a comment and let me know what you think.
LinkedIn is a great platform for businesses to connect with other potential businesses and clients using social media marketing. We recommend the following steps which we use ourselves:
Optimise your profile: Your profile picture, headline, and summary should accurately reflect your skills, experience, and expertise. Include industry-related keywords for better searchability. There are lots of little tweaks you can do to stand out and use all the features available.
Build your network: Connect with people in your industry, and participate in discussions to establish yourself as an expert in your field. One easy way to find for potential connections is to look at the 1 st level connections of the people in your existing network. Don’t send more that 20 requests per day and be selective about who you contact. A short intro message helps as well. Also check the profile of any connection requests you get, to make sure they look worthwhile accepting (be careful of overseas requests or ones from profiles that have less than 500 in their network).
Share valuable content: Create high-quality, relevant content that your audience will find useful, including industry news, how-to guides, and thought-provoking articles, posts and videos.
Use messages to increase engagement: Once people accept your connection you can try and find out more about them or ask if they have a particular problem or issue that you can potentially solve. Don’t try and sell or push your products – try and engage and see if there is a way you can help or work with them.
Measure your results: Use LinkedIn Analytics to track engagement and other metrics to see what’s working and what’s not. This will help you see what topics or issues get the most engagement and comments etc.
By following these tips and staying active on LinkedIn, you can build your brand, connect with potential customers, and grow your business through social media marketing.
The latest issue of the Boost Your Business Magazine included some great tips on social sharing of competitions and other content. The idea is to build engagement and new followers to your social media pages getting existing followers to promote your message/offer. The process is also to encourage these contacts to have a closer look at your business and products/services you offer with some follow up and nurturing.
One thing we always do is make sure whatever the competition prize winner gets is also an offer that can be made to all contestants after the draw is completed and the winner is announced. Also make sure you grab an image of the winner with their prize or offer.
You can read the full article in the magazine. Click the link in the comment section below, or sign up to the BYB magazine and see all of the previous issues at bybmagazine.com
Tired of hearing the same old advice on how to use social media?
You can learn about some unconventional strategies to help you stand out from the crowd in the March issue of BYB Magazine.
One that we really like is User-Generated Content. You can encourage your customers and followers to create and share brand-related content, such as photos, videos, and reviews. They can then repost this content on your social media channels.
The other one we use all the time is social sharing of competitions. Again this is unique to your business and who does not like to win cool prizes. You know if someone enters they are at least a bit interested in what you do.
If you want to see an examples of User-Generated Content, and Social Sharing just read the full article. Click the link in the comment section below, or sign up to the BYB magazine and see all of the previous issues at bybmagazine.com
Digital marketing is certainly an exciting journey through a dynamic world of change. The February edition of the BYB magazine reveals some secrets from the past and glimpses into the future. From the rapid rise of social media and many outdated tactics people are still pushing today. The rise of AI looks like a new digital evolution, but the danger is that even though it might make it easier for you to create content, its the same for your competitors and there will now be so much more content for your audience to sort through.
Are you looking for a way to make the most of your marketing budget and time to get tangible, measurable, ongoing results?
Then don’t spend all your money on a flashy new website and expect to get what you want. All the other elements of a successful system like, Social Media (more than one channel), SEO, Content Creation, Google Business Profile, Paid Ads, Data Collection (CRM), and an implemented Marketing Calendar are all needed to get the best outcomes.
This short YouTube video covers more detail and gives you the options to find out more for your business. Check it out now;
https://lnkd.in/gCYYYDhM
PS You can skip any ads that come up after 5 secs
Our team at Your Business Optimised have worked together with Boost Your Business to create a Complete 2023 Australia Marketing Calendar & Retail Dates for you to utilise for your business. We apologise for only getting it to you in February, but it is here now and ready to be used in your marketing strategy for the rest of the year!
February and March 2023 features many dates that provide some excellent marketing opportunities.
The calendar below contains a complete list, but we have identified some key dates you may want to consider for your marketing strategy for said months:
- February 14th - Tuesday: Valentines Day
- February 17th - Friday: Random Acts of Kindness Day
- February 22nd - Wednesday: World Thinking Day
- March 5th - Sunday: Clean up Australia Day
- March 8th - Wednesday: International Women's Day
- March 17th - Friday: St. Patricks Day
- March 18th - Saturday: Red Nose Day
You can download the Calendar here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/tvkpws71qu1rbqc/YBO%20%26%20BYB%20marketing%20calendar%202023.%20FINV.pdf?dl=0&fbclid=IwAR2OJUjpACaXSo3Z3JRcZp-UXeauFr1BZuSF6LrW5l12HH-2PEF5GN1pBcE
As a business owner, you are probably well aware of the importance of having a plan and being organized. The same goes for your marketing. Having a system in place will help ensure that your marketing efforts are targeted, relevant and achieving desired results.
One way to do this is to use marketing calendars. These can be incredibly helpful in organizing your content and making sure you are maximizing key dates and opportunities.
If you haven't already set up a marketing calendar for the year, now is the time! We'll share a marketing calendar template you can use, check it out below.
Don't miss out on important opportunities to connect with your audience and drive results. Use a marketing calendar to stay on track and make the most of your marketing efforts.
One of my roles is a volunteer - President of the Brisbane Inner West Chamber of Commerce. We had our regular hookup with the CCIQ team in Brisbane today and I thought you might like to know that as of 1st February all businesses with 15 or more people (by head count not FTE) need to provide 10 days of paid Family and DV leave to all of these employees (even casuals). And this requirement will be extended to all small businesses on 1st August this year. Could have a big impact on some businesses and here is a fact sheet that summarises the requirements (a few of them are quite different to the way other leave is applied);
Just finished reading “Building a Story Brand” by Donald Miller and the 7 steps in their Story framework can be used for both large and small businesses. Bigger businesses are just going to have several different stories to tell.
Being able to get what your business does into one line is a real challenge for most people – and that is part of the process to use fewer words to get the message across. For example;
– “We will make you an expert in the kitchen” – for a Cooking School
– “A plan for your retirement” – Financial Advisor
– “Discover your unique voice” – Singing Training
– “We help you create marketing that sells” – Marketing Agency
Yes, the last one could very well be for our business… What is your businesses one liner?
The next challenge is an obvious and clear call to action. We see it all the time when marketing does not tell readers what they should do next, after reading a story or message on any, or all channels.
There have been lots of posts lately on AI and how it can assist marketing. This will be the last one for a while and it is about using AI to create unique and engaging content for your target audience.
- Use it for language processing to analyse your target audience's language and preferred writing style, and then use this data to create tailored content
- AI tools can also process data about your target audience's interests, demographics, and behaviour, and then use this information to create content that is likely to be of interest
- AI generation tools (such as GPT-3 which was the subject of the last post) to automatically generate unique and engaging text, images, videos, and other types of content
- You can also use AI-powered chatbots to interact with your target audience online and gather data on their preferences, questions, time of use etc.
The main thing to remember with AI-generated content is that it should always be reviewed and edited by humans to ensure that it is accurate, appropriate, and engaging.
We have been using Artificial Intelligence for Marketing content for almost 2 years now. There’s are several great ways to use AI, but to get the best results for your business, you still need to work on the outputs. And you can’t just take what the Ai produces and post or publish it without doing some editing. And the main shortfall of AI is that it can only give you a collation of information already available - It is not going to produce any original ideas (not yet anyway)! In this YouTube video you’ll see a couple of tips on how to use it to make things easier for you.
Link to YouTube Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztUvftnXKjI&t=5s
OMNI or MULTI CHANNEL MARKETING BENEFITS
Having a multi-channel marketing strategy allows you to reach more customers, engage with them in meaningful ways, and increase your overall sales. There are many benefits to adopting a multi-channel approach to digital marketing. Here are some of them:
• Reach a Wider Audience – With a multi-channel approach, you can reach more potential customers than if you were just using one or two channels. You can also target different types of audiences with each individual channel and cater your messaging specifically to each one.
• Each platform has its own strengths and weaknesses, so by using multiple channels, you can capitalize on each one’s unique strengths while avoiding their weaknesses. For example, Facebook Ads are great for targeting a specific demographic while email campaigns are better for engaging existing customers directly.
• Get Better Insights – As customers interact with your brand through different channels, you’ll get better insights into their behaviors and preferences which will allow you to tailor your products and services accordingly for maximum effectiveness. This type of data is invaluable when making decisions about future campaigns or product launches.
If you're interested in learning more about how multi-channel marketing could benefit your business or need help getting started with it, we'd love to help!New Paragraph
One way to increase the number of clients you can provide solutions for is to create an additional website to cater for another segment of the market you are already in.
An example is if you provide premium products but have potential clients who cannot afford your existing products/services. Rather than letting them go to a competitor you can create an OUTLET or
DIRECT online store that has a different line of products or services. Usually this is for cheaper items, traded in or returned items, or products you want to test before releasing them on your main website or store. It works really well because you can duplicate what already works for your business and you have another segment to work with, without spending a lot of money.
We have done this successfully a number of times now for existing clients, and it can be a great way to grow or introduce new brands or products. Also you get to see how the market and your existing
channels react to them – without affecting your main website or business.
You have probably heard of using an Omni-channel or multi-channel approach to your marketing. It is more important now than ever with the big platforms like Facebook and Google constantly changing the rules and the way they work with small businesses.
We don’t usually work with TikTok or Pinterest, but some businesses in certain niches are getting good engagement on those platforms. The one space most businesses could do more with is YouTube, and there are plenty of reasons why you might want to increase you focus on video content and paid ads on this platform in 2023.
It can work in very well with your existing processes on your website, Google and Facebook. Let us know if you want to look at this in more detail for your business.
One trend we saw increasing last year was suppliers (who traditionally work with a B2B model) were moving in to the direct to customer space. It makes it more difficult for existing B2C distributors, but you can still be successful – you just need to make sure you are not competing directly with them. This is especially the case with any paid ads or marketing campaigns. You need to be prepared to change quickly as they will typically not be able to do that.
We have helped our clients develop several strategies to combat this trend, and there are lots of ways you can still have a competitive advantage.
Another way is to strengthen the relationship with other suppliers, so you have more than one source of products or services. This might mean a big change if you have been an exclusive distributor, or only focussed on a small number of brands – but it will be worth it to retain your customers and stay in the game.
The start of the year is a great time to look at where you want to be at the end of 2023.
Supply seems to have caught up with demand in a lot of areas of online and domestic sales, so prices should start to come down if suppliers have any room to move.
Having a solid online strategy that caters for both immediate demand, but also works for every step of your clients buying cycle, is more important now than ever. You want to catch people when they are doing their research, without having to pay too much for the initial click. Once they find your business you then need to keep them in your nurturing and education sequences and systems - until they are ready to make a buying decision.
That is certainly our focus for this coming year – helping more clients build a pipeline of future business with longer term strategies, that we know will work for their particular niche.
What is your growth plan for 2023?
It's nearly the end of what has been a challenging year. We'd like to extend our warmest wishes to you and your family for a Happy New Year!
There are some good signs for next year, and at least many of the supply shortfalls we were seeing over the past 12 months seem to be disappearing.
All the Best from us here at Your Business Optimised – see you in 2023.
Ready to help your business thrive online in 2023?
Check out the top ten digital tools that will keep ahead of your competitors and boost your online presence, and most of them are free:
Google Analytics
Google Search Console
Hotjar
Maropost
ClickFunnels
OptiMonk
SocialBee
Writesonic
Buffer
Calendly
You can find out more about how these tools (and some alternatives) can help you streamline your digital marketing activities. They will provide better customer service to your clients, and the full article is in the latest BYB Magazine.
The team at Your Business Optimised wish you and your business a very happy holiday season and a prosperous new year!
We are grateful that all of our eCommerce clients have made it successfully through this challenging year. And we are looking forward to an even more interesting and exciting year ahead.
Enjoy some quality me time if you can, and hopefully you will get to see lots of friends and family over the next few weeks.
Here are some promotional ideas to help you with your holiday and new year marketing for your business. The first couple are about the omni-channel approach we have talked about before.
There are 14 suggestions below;
1. Set up a Tiktok account and post a short video. You could use and idea below for the content
2. Create a Pinterest account and include a few images about your latest products or offers
3. Load your latest contacts into your CRM and clean up your existing database by removing anyone
who has unsubscribed or not engaged for over a year.
4. Send a thank you email to your existing clients/customers.
5. Send a Christmas/Happy holidays message to prospects and contacts who have not purchased
6. Don’t forget to use SMS if you only have a mobile number or people don’t want you to send
emails
7. Organize a “12 Days of Christmas” giveaway (may be a bit late now unless you combine the first
few days in the initial step)
8. Offer complimentary gift wrapping
9. Offer pre-booking or pre sign up discounts. This helps with cash flow and getting jobs ready for
the new year.
10. Offering gift certificates so people can choose the products they want
11. Offer discounts to customers who buy in bulk.
12. Turn your referral program into a contest for the holidays.
13. Host an in-house holiday event.
14. Partner up with another local business to offer a group promo
Even though next year’s outlook is a bit uncertain, we can still plan for success by looking at trends and making some predictions. Here are some ideas for business strategies in 2023:
1. Businesses will still rely heavily on the online world
The trend towards more online shopping in most product areas looks set to continue. This means having a strong website, active social media platforms, a good CRM, and well-optimised content is still as important as ever.
2. Sustainability will be a key priority
As consumers become more aware of the importance of sustainability, they will start to demand that businesses adopt sustainable practices as well. This could include anything from using eco-friendly packaging, to only using suppliers who are taking positive action on environmental issues.
3. Personalisation is very important
In a world where there are so many choices available, businesses will need to stand out by offering a personalised experience. This could be anything from customizing products or services to providing a unique customer service experience. This applies to both online and in person interactions.
4. Becoming or being a trusted authority
With so much information available which is very focussed on sales – having a more informative approach is a better way to engage with prospects. Answering questions about problems, price, doing comparisons, and talking about issues you have solved - are all great ways to build engagement and trust.
Most businesses close down for Christmas and through to the New Year. So, this might be a really good time to increase your sales and exposure by being active instead. While everyone else is resting and enjoying the holiday season, you can be out there making the most of it. And you can schedule a lot of the activity and content now so there is only minimal work required during the break.
Think about it – people are in a festive mood, they’re spending money and looking for gifts. This is the perfect time to get your products and services in front of them especially if they are thinking about changing something for 2023.
So how do you do it? Here are a few ideas:
- Offer special Christmas deals and discounts
- Set up Boxing Day and New Year offers
- January or a summer promo if you don’t have one already
- Create festive content that talks about your products or services (e.g. Themed images, blog posts, videos, graphics)
It doesn’t have to be a lot of work, and it’s absolutely worth it.
Retail sales figures just released for October by the ABS show a 0.2% drop for the month (even with inflated prices). This reflects what we have been hearing from other businesses over the last month – consumers are starting to feel the pinch, and it is the first fall in 2022.
It will be very interesting to see how the Black Friday sales results look. Preliminary data from our clients is that sales are Ok but not as good as last year (but there was a 7% increase last November).
One way you can use AI in your business is for gathering Market Intelligence.
Using AI to gather market data allows you to target the right people. It's pretty important as you can have a great campaign, stunning visuals, engaging copy, and the best call to action - but if the right people aren't seeing it - it won't work.
Al tools can optimise your target audience by recording the demographics of your current audience, as well as anyone who interacts with your company online, and then processing this data in real time. You can create customer profiles and generate marketing that is customised to each individual. Better targeting means a greater chance of creating compelling engagement and ultimately increasing sales.
We’re Running two Black Friday Marketing offers!
They are over 60% off normal price. One is a CRM audit for $397 - looking at your segmentation, messaging and tagging etc. The other is a Full Marketing and Sales System audit for $997. this includes a review of your website, ecommerce, SEO, Paid Ads, Social Media, CRM, Funnels, Content, Strategy and more.
If you would like to hear about them just watch the Youtube video below or send us a message or give me a call.
How can you leverage AI?
Every day, artificial intelligence gets smarter and easier to work with. The power of Al lies in its ability to gather and interpret large amounts of data very quickly. Using Al, you can automate and personalize your marketing. You can save time and money spent analyzing data and creating strategies, giving you time to focus on what's most important to you. Exciting advances in Al are shaping and reshaping marketing operations. In fact, more than 60% of marketers not only use Al, they say it's the most important aspect of their data strategy.
And in our coming posts, we'll show you six simple ways to use Al in your business that may help you run your business more efficiently and profitably with the help of Al and simple solutions like these.
1. Market Intelligence
2. Customer Service
3. Bookings
4. Talent Acquisition
5. Strategic Ads
6. Email marketing
There are 21 Effective Free Ways to Promote Your Business!
When asked what they could use more of right now, most business owners will say more customers. In fact, 61% of marketers say generating traffic and leads is their most difficult challenge.
However, there are numerous ways to attract traffic to your website today, and the November issue of BYB magazine will cover a whopping 21 free effective ways to promote your business and attract customers.
Here are a few methods mentioned in the article that may be of interest to you:
•Use of of Content to Drive Traffic
•Use of of SEO to Increase Website Traffic
•Increase Website Traffic with Social Media
If you want to know the factors to a Successful Local Marketing Strategy : the latest edition of the Boost Your Business Magazine covers these 5 Factors or steps you can take to promote your business locally online!
1.Set up a Google My Business Page
2.Setup Your Local Listings
3.Ask Customers for Reviews and Add in the Social Proof
4.Use Social Media Marketing
5.Consider hiring a Local SEO Agency
To learn more of these steps and get the free copy of the full article click the link on the comment section below.
November can be a big month for your business, especially if you have some great Black Friday and/or Cyber Monday offers ready to promote.
So now is the time to prepare at least one offer! And we have some ideas that will undoubtedly work. Black Friday used to be only on the last Friday, or over the American Thanksgiving Weekend (This year it's on the 25th November). But now it is accepted that it can be a whole week from the 21st, and some businesses are now promoting their offers over a whole month.
There are vastly different offers you can create, but it really needs to be at least 20% or more off the normal price. Ideally you should have multiple offers and one should be at a massive discount, like 70% or more.
Most of our clients put a really big discount on a product where there are only a few left, or on slow moving stock, or a new trial service or product. Something where the volume will not be high.
Promote your offer(s) in an email campaign to your database, on your social media channels, on your website, and any in store or onsite locations. Drive the traffic to a separate landing page (if you have more than 1, so they can easily see the specials).
If you want to have maximum impact - include a competition or a free download or coupon. So even if they don't buy - they may be tempted to try and win something (in exchange for a first name and email address).
To achieve the best results, your Marketing and Sales System should include several different elements that all work together.
We’ve done a Scoreapp survey that will show you where you are doing well and where opportunities might well occur. It only takes 2 minutes, and your results are available straight away.
Check the ScoreApp in the comment section below.
More details are available in this YouTube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?fbclid=IwAR0WHs2mQ24tgpMVaW6NWlwdeQpkHKhpk_VEBeEXamb4SnLkhr99FcH5dac&v=XZFRERDvSh0&feature=youtu.be
Every Year Black Friday falls on the last Friday of November. Most people run their specials all week and through to Cyber Monday (which is the 28th Nov this year).
So...that means is time to start getting a few deals ready to promote.
All the best from Your Business Optimised.
To see the full video and ideas click the Youtube video link:
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/8RU0Uz69BQY
Want to learn some ideas for the best content to use in your business?
I shared a short YouTube video about the three best types of content to use in your marketing:
•The good things your existing clients say about you or your business
•Answer the key questions that might your potential clients might be asking
•Address the common problems with the sort of solutions you provide
To see the full video and ideas click the Youtube video link : https://youtu.be/PK3aNPNSzPQ
Having your social media content indexed by Google will greatly improve your rankings and get more eyes on your posts. And as Google changes its algorithm to include more social media in search results, it will be important to make sure your social media posts are also SEO-friendly as well as interesting and useful.
If you're looking for content ideas for your business - the October edition of the Boost Your Business Magazine covers 5 fresh content ideas that your audience is guaranteed to engage with. They are summarised below:
1. The Mistakes you make
2. Things going on around you locally
3. Make use of Instagram
4. Share secrets and confessions
5. Use “Lists” for activities
In the September issue of Boost Your Business Magazine, one of the articles describes the 11 signs that it's time to work with a Digital Marketing Agency - to take your business to the next level.
They are...
1. Your Marketing process is broken
2. You’re Overcommitted
3. You’re out of Your league
4. You couldn't care less
5. The Return on Investment is underwhelming
6. You’re on a tight budget
7. You need More targeted traffic
8. The competition is winning
9. Your website requires an overhaul
10. You can’t create enough content
11. You aren’t measuring results
Trying new digital marketing strategies can lead to mistakes, and here are 5 of the most common fails...
1. The User Experience is Focused on You Rather Than What's In It for Them
2. Reluctance to Experiment With different Marketing Channels
3. You Haven't Claimed Your Social Media Pages
4. You Are Not Managing Your Reviews.
5. You Are Not Being Consistent With Your Brand
Are you looking for more online business? Leads, Engagement and Sales? This 2 minute survey will help you identify where the quickest gains will come from, and will give you the option of going the next step and creating a Plan of Action that is tailored to your business.
Just click the link below to complete the 2 minute scorecard...
The Sales Growth Scorecard:
We recently hosted a webinar on the "5 Key Steps to Get the Most from Your Paid Ads," and we'd like to share the steps we covered in the webinar.
The first step is to ensure that all of your channels and platforms are set correctly
Your business should be on Google My Business, your website needs Google Analytics, your online store needs the key features like at least a lead magnet and abandon cart process, all your social media channels should be set correctly with all elements completed. Make sure you use a local number and show your physical location on all of these platforms.
Check that both your social media content and your website/store content do not violate any policy or guidelines including privacy, security, harm, hate, race, banned items, or other restrictions. This is very important as even a page or post that is not being promoted will be picked up by the social channels and Google's scanning tools.
Make sure your ad and any promoted items do not include any restricted words or images, as per step above, and treat the process as one that will take several iterations to get right.
The 9 Elements of the Marketing and Sales System for Online Stores includes ongoing Management, Reporting and Implementation.
Unfortunately, it is not just set and forget when it comes to your continued success. Your team will need to manage your content and ads at least monthly (weekly is preferable), using analytics from your website, shop, CRM, social media, chat, phone calls, and any other source you are tracking.
If the results are not as you expected, you can always make one change at a time - and test and measure the performance. One of they key issues that costs sales in most businesses is that people get busy or distracted, and the implementation of the agreed strategy does not happen. It often takes a few weeks for the problems to show up, and then it will take longer to get things back on track. This is where your marketing calendar and weekly reporting will really help.
Boost Your Business and Your Business Optimised ran a Webinar last week covering the "5 Key Steps to get the most from your Paid Ads".
- First, make sure your Website, Online Store, Google My Business, Facebook pages, and other platforms are properly configured, and free from any restricted content (and that means anywhere).
- Second, you must properly set up your Paid Ads accounts with all of the details populated. It really helps if you use an ad account with some good analytics.
- Third, optimise your Ads for maximum performance. This is really important in the first days and weeks an Ad is running. If yours is working you can bet your competitors will make changes to combat it.
- Fourth, monitor and manage the ongoing performance. There are lots of things you can split test to improve your results. Test and measure and when you have things working well - increase the ad budget.
- Lastly use an omni-channel approach. Paid ads work much better when combined with an SEO content strategy, using all your channels and a CRM with automation and follow-up marketing.
If you want to learn more about getting the most out of your paid ads, leave a comment below and we will respond with an approach you can try.
Review – Approved – Rejected – Restricted - Banned
The process of setting up Paid Ads has become more complicated in the last few months. Approved ads are being rejected in greater numbers after the fact…because the platforms now have much
better scanning tools that can pick up any content on your website, online store, previous ads, blogs…basically anything on your ad account or target URL. Your ad could be fine by itself.
Even content that was OK last year can now get you pinged. Paused or unpublished ads and content anywhere on your site are now being reviewed and used to validate your account. The last thing you
want is to get your account restricted or banned as it can be quite hard to get your access back.
One of the most important elements of the 9 step Marketing and Sales System is - to drive new Traffic into the system once everything is set up to capture as many sales as possible, as well as leads for future sales.
You should target your ads to very specific audience segments, especially if you already have a customer list you can use as a lookalike audience. You can also do this if you have a very good profile on your ideal client’s digital parameters, and where they are located. We recommend Facebook/Instagram and Google as the first channels to try paid ads. You can always add other channels later.
Start with a small budget and test and measure once your ads are approved. There are a few key things to look out for, especially if you sell in any of the categories that the platforms are sensitive to like health, wealth, medical, weapons etc. One problem product, keyword or piece of content can get you disapproved or even banned.
Monitoring and managing your paid ads is vital, once they are working. Things can change very quickly if you are in a really competitive niche, and you don’t want to spend money on promotions that are not working. You can use your marketing calendar to change promotions on a regular basis and closely manage comments or any feedback you get from customers or prospects, including answering questions quickly.
And of course, once things are working well, you can increase the spend and drive those results.
The August edition of the Boost Your Business Magazine from our partners in the UK is packed full of great articles like;
Email Marketing vs SMS Marketing - What's best for your business?
5 expert strategies to help your business survive the recession.
Identifying the 10 most common digital marketing mistakes and how to fix them.
Why is page speed so important?
Check it out here...
Will Email Marketing still work for your business?
The answer is YES, but you need to follow a few key steps.
The first one is when someone signs ups or contacts you. Make sure you tell them you're going to send an email. Let them know the email address you're going to use, and that it might end up in the spam or junk folder. If they mark you as a safe sender, then your future emails will be delivered.
The second tip is to send great content (including offers) at least every 30 days. Don’t use some of the words or headlines that will mark you as a spammer. The easiest way to see what does not work is to look at the subject lines of emails that ends up in your own spam folder!
There are lots of other simple things you can do to make sure email is one of the best channels for your business to reach people.
Let me know if you want to see what else we do with the hundreds of thousands of emails we send for clients each month.
We're looking to team up with one or two businesses that wants to scale over the next 6 to 12 months.
Ideally delivering products and/or services that can be sold online, without restrictions on the ability to promote with paid ads or with the supply of the goods sold. Could be with a bigger business that
has an internal team, or at the other end of the scale we have worked with start-ups or existing bricks and mortar businesses that want to outsource the whole online marketing and sales process.
We always start with strategies that could work in your niche, then work out how to deliver a fully implemented system to make the sales happen. There are also many different ways to fund this, including taking a stake in the business. Our goal is to create a win-win proposition that benefits all parties in the quickest possible timeframe.
Just get in touch if you or someone you know might have an interest in finding out more.
Generating relevant content is vital to help grow your businesses online profile.
Relevant content helps establishes you as an authoritative figure (and your business as the one to work with), by making people want to do business with you as an expert in your field. It should be SEO-friendly, include video with captions, posts and images, articles, news, polls, checklists, scorecards and there are many other content options. One of the best sources is to use your existing clients images, reviews, stories, feedback and questions as part of the overall process.
A marketing calendar is a great way to keep your messages on track – especially if you are working towards some key offers at different times of the year. Repurposing your content and messages across all relevant platforms and even reworking topics used in the past can make the whole process a lot easier.
What do you find works best in your business or niche?
Using Social media effectively is a big part of the 9 Elements of the Marketing and Sales System for Online stores.
Some agencies will tell you to post something every day, but the reality is that it’s pretty hard to find great content to drive this. The information needs to be relevant to your business unless the dog is the office mascot, you probably should not post about it.
Using a mix of FAQ’s and answers, customer driven content like images, comments and feedback, interesting facts about products or results, and promos or offers, events etc can give you enough content to post something a few times a week - which is probably more than enough for most businesses. And if you leave spare days in your calendar and something new pops up – you have a day you can post it without impacting the schedule!
Stick to your plan and avoid bombarding your audience with pointless content. Keep their attention on achieving particular objectives, and design your messaging accordingly. Use social media to its full potential by posting content that you can link to your website or CRM, and manage comments and questions promptly. This may include blogging any stupid, negative or spam content or comments.
We tend to use 4 social media platforms - Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and LinkedIn for our business clients, as they tend to cover most channels and audiences we work with.
What is your favourite social media platform?
I was part of a CCIQ initiative yesterday where several Chamber of Commerce representatives met with QLD Govt minister Di Farmer and some of her team. There was lots of great discussion about the Worker and Skills shortage and other issues a lot of businesses are facing.
One point myself and a few others raised was that while one solution to the staffing issue might be recruiting and training new staff, that is an expensive and potentially risky process. And there is something a lot of businesses should be looking at before adding extra people (I know some just do need more people..). The option we were pushing was optimising the utilisation and effectiveness of existing resources.
Four things I see in many businesses that we visit and/or hear about are;
1. Not utilising technology effectively to reduce time taken and tasks required. For example double keying data, manually filling in forms, having to follow up customers for more details (they did not ask for initially), effective rostering, geographically based job allocation. You could add to this list I am sure…
2. Existing systems and procedures are not documented properly so staff can easily replicate a process that works. And any new people coming into the business or existing staff having to do this as a new task – don’t have to reinvent the wheel…
3. Highly skilled staff doing tasks that someone with a much lower level of skill could easily do. It means an entry level person may not be recruited to help the business, when they could and the highly skilled person probably hates doing the menial task. It could also mean that extra skilled people may not be required just yet.
4. Staff actually don’t really need a degree or qualification to do the work. Yes, there are roles where you must be qualified and/or certified – but there are many times business owners demand a role needs a degree or qualification when the role does not really need it, or maybe not everyone in the team needs the quals. Some of the other points above are relevant here to simplify the roles and tasks needed as well.
Would really like to know your thoughts on any of these ideas, especially what you are doing or have done in your business to better utilise the people you already employ.
The fourth part of the 9 Elements of Marketing and Sales System for Online Store is where everything is tied together
TOOLS, PLUGINS & INTEGRATIONS
Using Tools, Plugins and integrations allows you to link actions from your website, eCommerce platform, social media, CRM and other business systems (payments, delivery, stock etc). And they all make managing your business so much easier. We recommend and use Optimonk, Elementor, Gravity Forms, Hotjar, Google Analytics, but there are many more great systems out there. We also prefer to do custom API's rather than using Zaps or other ways of transferring data - as we find they are way more reliable and cheaper in the long run.
The idea is to make the most of all digital traffic, to capture information, and automate processes. Ideally we implement opt-in forms, auto responses, cart abandonment options (using things like one-time offers, coupons, and bonuses), as well as site entry and exit pop ups (not all together though). Some of these tools will also help recommend additional products, up sells and cross sells. We also use LiveChat to answer questions, use Heatmapping, tracking and analytics to record what people are doing. Social Media links can also be set up so contact data ends up in your CRM, and these can allow you to follow up almost every interaction. If you are not using at least some of these processes online - you are definitely missing out on getting the best results.
The third aspect of the 9 Elements of Marketing and Sales System for Online Stores
DATABASE and CRM
Having a way to capture, update and manage contact and customer information for your business gives you a real competitive advantage. And it also lets you get full value for any marketing activities that don’t result in a sale where you can capture customer information.
If you can record what someone bought, what they said and what triggered the purchase you have some really useful data to manage your business with.
We use Keap (Infusionsoft) if we need to record sales data and Groundhogg if we don’t. They both work well with WordPress and allowing tagging, segmentation as well as recording all activity by each contact. And the three things they both do really well is managing duplicate contact entries (merging them), associated status updates, and automated campaign activities based on both of those and link clicks etc – these are key requirements that a system like Mailchimp cannot do easily (if at all).
Selling products online successfully means having an eCommerce platform with a shopping cart and an electronic payment gateway.
This is the second part of the 9 ELEMENT MARKETING AND SALES SYSTEM FOR ONLINE STORES. And because we specialise in WordPress websites we prefer WooCommerce integrated with website and your delivery and payment systems. Woo can also provide stock management, shipping options, order control and reporting as well as communicating progress with your customers. It also allows Coupons and discounts, One-Time Offers, Upsells and Cross Sells, has a whole suite of plugins and many other options to help with increasing conversions and capturing contact details for those visitors that are not ready to buy. We also use the APIs and built in system integrations that allow you to connect easily to almost any other digital platform you need in your business. Just comment or reply to this message and we can send you more information.
We've created successful marketing and sales systems for a number of online/eCommerce businesses in Australia over the past few years. The full system has 𝟗 𝐄𝐥𝐞𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐬 that need to be implemented to achieve the best results.
The first element is of course 𝐘𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐖𝐞𝐛𝐬𝐢𝐭𝐞 and we really like WORDPRESS. It is the most widely used website platform for businesses, and it is supported by thousands of developers with a vast array of plug-ins and tools, and it easily integrates with almost all digital marketing platforms. You can use it with confidence because it is extremely secure when kept fully updated, and it is very simple to use.
It’s important to be able to reach potential and existing clients and engage them online with an easy to use website. Even if you don't have an online business and just serve local customers in your brick and mortar location, a website is still important for people who are searching online for your products and services and locations.
We'll go through the remaining eight elements in future posts. However, you can leave a comment or direct message us if you want a copy of the “9 Element Marketing and Sales System for Online Stores” right now.
Do’s & Don’ts – Next Steps
Once you have connected with a potential business partner or prospect, the next step is to stay connected. Ideally you should try and gain a better understanding of their problems and needs, so you can see if there is a way to work together successfully.
You could start with useful information and an aim of educating potential buyers about the sort of problems you have solved for other clients – case studies or testimonials can help with this.
Another angle is to ask what they have tried in the past, and what worked or did not work. And why they did or didn’t. This information is extremely valuable background data to help you discover what they might need next.
Many people jump into just promoting their products or services without trying to
understand if they could help or not.
Don’t just sell, unless you are happy with lots of rejection, unsubscribes or complaints.
If you start connecting with the intention of trying to close a sale, you'll likely be doing more harm than good – unless of course the customer is ready to buy, and your product, service or solution is a perfect match for what they really need (yes this could happen, but not very often).
Instead, deliver value and try to establish yourself as a trusted advisor. This includes asking relevant questions, so you can send your best content or advice as the next step. You should include a request for a response, which could be simple as asking for a reply or making a phone call, or some other simple action.
NURTURING YOUR CONTACTS
When people sign up for your lead magnet or enter an online competition, you need to Thank them, and tell them what will happen next. Normally if you use a CRM or form builder you can configure a “Thank You” message to let them know you will be sending an email (give them the “from” address to look out for), text or message (could even be a posted letter). And make sure you send this follow up!
If you send a plain text message, messenger, LinkedIn message or a short SMS immediately, you have a great chance of becoming properly connected.
Then the next step is to add value or nurture this new connection with a relationship building message a short time later.
Once this initial connection is made successfully you have a much better chance of staying in touch and getting your messages or content read in the future.
As long as you follow a few simple do’s and don’ts.
To really stand out online, one option is to provide great value to any person who might be interested in what your business does. Now lots of business owners have a problem with providing free advice, or helping prospects to start work on a solution - but this is a great way to attract and then pre-qualify these potential clients.
This is where the power of a lead magnet comes in. Your lead magnet is a snapshot of the problems you solve, or what you might recommend, or some useful information that adds value or saves time - in exchange for their contact information. You’ve probably seen these used in a variety of places online and even downloaded one or two.
The key is it needs to be free, but high value. And you can provide the same information on all of your channels to see what works with each audience or platform.
Once you have one working then it is a great idea to develop several of them. Each one can be aimed at a potential problem you help them solve, or a niche service you can provide.
And there is also a bit of an art in nurturing anyone who signs up along the sales path you have set up in your business - more on that later…
We are looking to connect with business owners who specialise in manufacturing in Australia. In particular businesses that make products that can be sold online. Innovative or unique non-perishable items we can potentially build a marketing and sales system for.
The idea is to set up a win-win model that benefits all parties.
Know anyone who might be interested?
Happy New Year and hope that 2022 will be good for your business!
This year, I am looking for at least one new eCommerce business to partner with in each Quarter.
Probably a company that does not have a Marketing Manager, but wants to grow significantly over the next few years. Does this sound like your business?
Ideally we find clients get the best results when we can work with them and manage their website, ecommerce platform, CRM, Social Media, SEO and paid Ads. We have a team that allows us to do this, and the results have been fantastic for the handful of businesses we work with.
If your business is looking to grow or you know someone else who might be interested, just comment below or send me a direct message, and I'll send you one of the resources that gives some more insight into the process you can use.