Remember Creative

The digital environment is HUGE…with so many options to successfully reach your customers and promote your business – but many businesses think of Digital as some sort of abstract THING that sits over in the corner on its own – they have someone “look after the website” once or twice a year and they spend a little bit on AdWords but aren’t really sure if it does anything.

In the same vein, I don’t know how many times I have heard someone say to me “we’re doing some stuff in social – we’ve got a Facebook page”.

How many of you are like this?

If you are – don’t worry you are not alone but if you are it is time to change up your thinking – its time for a truly integrated and strategic approach to your digital marketing needs.

We have a wide variety of customers across a wide variety of industries and each face there own unique set of marketing challenges. So today I am going to take you through three examples of how your digital approach should be both inclusive and complementary to your REAL WORLD product and marketing initiatives and how doing  so will dramatically improve your business.

Your Database

We had a client that had a very nice website. They had got good traction with it and have over 3000 customer email addresses for interested customers who had previously enquired about their products.

When we began working with them on their new website – we asked them how they utilised their database.

“We don’t” they replied.

When we re-lunched their site, we also worked with them to develop a strategic approach to utilising their database to engage these already interested customers.

In a very short space of time – they have begun reaching out regularly to their database with a variety of content we have helped them generate. The upshot is they are regularly seeing 35%+ of that database reacting to their communications. They have improved there enquiry rate and generated sales they had not budgeted for.

We tied this approach directly to their traditional print offering – making the online offering for products that they wanted to move more quickly and thus differentiated the offers across print and digital – giving us real world feedback on the specific interest in the digital product offering but also using the instantaneous nature of digital to strategically promote products that had a shorter sales lead time.

Why?

Because they thought they were doing enough by having a website. If you have a database make sure you are using it. You are 60% more likely to sell to existing clients or clients that have been engaged by your brand previously, and like this client, you can use digital to compliment your existing initiatives and delver a different sales channel for your business.

Your Social Approach

We met with a client the other day. A well established business and they asked for some advice.

They were a logistical service business looking to communicate with their audience in the big bold world of social media.

So they began to tell me their “Facebook strategy”….. it involved finding some fun videos and images she felt were related to their business/audience  posting weekly. After a good ten minutes I stopped said client and asked – “so who are you talking too?”

Her response was “business owners looking for logistical services with a turnover of $20 million plus”.

I said – “Do you think these clients are searching for you on Facebook”?

Her response was simply – “but everyone is on Facebook right?”

There is some level of truth to this no doubt with almost everyone having a Facebook account, but just because everyone has one, doesn’t necessarily mean this is the most ideal way for your business to find its customers.

Whilst, I wouldn’t discredit having a Facebook presence in this particular example my recommendation would have been to look at some alternate social channels that perhaps better suited her business and her customers. And besides the channel selection – the other key consideration is content. Leveraging content from around the web is great, but in the case of this client they needed to truly showcase their skills and expertise – something that found content wasn’t likely to achieve

So embarking on a social path isn’t as easy as a few posts here and there – so consider investing in quality content – in the case of this client my recommendation was to create a YouTube channel and set aside some budget for some quality video content that showcased their capabilities and offered insights and advice (often what people are looking for).

Having worked with Taubman’s in the past – I can testify to the success of their approach using You Tube – https://www.youtube.com/user/TaubmansAustralia

What social channel you select is vital to the success of your approach. So consider who your customers are and where they are likely to be looking for your types of services online. Really consider the content – your content selection should show off your brand, your capabilities and it doesn’t have to be done with a massive budget – Here is a great example of a similar approach taken from a fantastic Aussie business: SORTED EVENTS

https://www.facebook.com/sortedprojectsandevents/videos/1171049916265447/

Now, Hailey’s audience is considerably different to the example I gave above and when you look at her demographic it makes total sense to be showcasing her content on facebook, but the principle remains the same –insightful content that is targeted!

Once you have created great content, however, don’t leave it in the digital space. Tie it back to your other activities and marketing initiatives.

In the case of Taubman’s, they brought there content to life at large housing expos and got the likes of Shaynna Blaze to work the crowd; SORTED are offering a range of paid short courses in event management building a paid product offering around a broader marketing objective.

The content will generate interest across her broader service offering but importantly she has considered how to build an integrated approach to using digital in this way and leveraging her experience.

Search

Search and cost per click can be expensive if they are not carefully considered. Some of the keywords we would want to target for our business for example are upward of $15 click if we wanted to bid eagerly for them.

Adwords and search is a genuine science. But so often businesses, much like social,  think if they throw a few bucks at it and they are “doing search”.

I was talking to two distinct clients recently, I asked both how they were using adwords. And both basically said we throw a few dollars a month at it.

I asked how it performed? And both couldn’t tell me if “doing search” had delivered one single client to business.

Now a few bucks was between $750 and $1400/month – which, whilst not a fortune, is hardly small change.

So there are a few things to consider to make search work more effectively for your business.

• First try and understand your customer and what they are wanting to find. Try and put yourself in a potential customers place and even develop some “personas” that emulate particular clients.
• Utilise the tools within the adwords platform to help select the best set of keywords for your business.
• You can also use these to identify what people are searching for, which can both help better select your keywords and understand what your potential customers are searching for will also help develop your content, which in turn will complement search.

The other key aspect to search, from our perspective, comes down to taking an integrated approach, as in the other two examples. For example, consider how the content of your newsletter grows from the content you are generating in other channels and how does your search strategy helps define the content you are producing. Moreover, think, how does your website complement each?

The key takeaways

If you read our blog, you may recall I recently talked about a range of things you may not know your website could do  – One area you should be particularly thinking about in terms of “what your website does” is how it integrates with your search and social/content strategy. – Think about how all these things play together.

The phenomenal thing about the digital environment is you don’t always need to be “selling” your product to “sell your product”.

We believe your content should reflect your skills and expert knowledge, your strategy should be to engage your customers in your brand personality and guide them on how and why your brand, your products and your service are their best choice. And the wonderful thing is in the digital environment you have an opportunity to do all of this 24 hours day

It takes work and careful consideration – but digital can engage your clients far more often and for far longer helping grow your business like few other media.

Give us a call or drop us an email to discuss your strategy. Do it now… seriously we won’t bite… except for Tim* but we don’t let him meet with clients.

*Tim is fictional – none of the Remember Creative staff have ever bitten a client… yet.