The best SEO advice you’ll ever receive

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The best SEO advice you’ll ever receive

The best SEO advice you’ll ever receive

‘What should I do to get better SEO,’ people often ask us?

Their reasoning is usually that Google and other search engines keep changing the rules, so what they do today should be different to what they were doing yesterday.

We tell them that the best advice on search engine optimisation (SEO): give users the content they’re looking for and your site will rise to the top.

It’s such simple advice – yet so difficult to stick to when there are thousands of SEO companies out there promising a quick fix. Before you shell out for a ‘guaranteed’ boost in rankings, consider whether you’ve got these basics covered.

What do search engines want?  

Search engines vary in the methods they use to crawl and rank sites, but they’re all essentially hunting for content that is:

  • It’s not enough for your site to focus solely on the hard sell. To outrank the competition, it’s important to offer content that helps those looking for information, along with products and services. Ideally, your content will also be the kind visitors want to share with their network and other sites will want to link to.
  • Search engines look at the usability of your site as a whole when they serve up results. This means that everything from your site’s URL structure to mobile optimisation and internal links need to support a streamlined, logical user journey. If not, a more user-friendly option will outrank you.
  • Sites that are search engine friendly are those that meet key accessibility guidelines. All text content should be marked-up to reflect its importance in a given page hierarchy (not just for style). Meanwhile, essential non-text elements like images, banners and even embedded files need to have text equivalents that search engines can actually read.

What makes your SEO ranking drop?

  • Landing pages stuffed with keywords. We still hear stories of keyword stuffing and even find sites hiding keywords against a background of the same colour. This is a huge mistake that could get your site penalised.
  • Pretty, unreadable images. A full bleed, full colour landing page is lovely, but can a search engine read it? Everything you want your users to see needs to be readable by a search engine too. This goes for every element, from banners to buttons.
  • Black hat tactics. There are still so many SEO services out there promising huge, instant improvements for a fee. If it sounds too good to be true, it is. Search engines know about these companies and being connected with them risks a ban that could take months to lift.

Track and tweak to improve your SEO

Like any other aspect of good website management, SEO requires vigilance. Once you have an SEO strategy in place, it’s important to keep tracking your performance so you can find any drop in rankings early and take steps to counter this.

We know how important it is that your site ranks first and how frustrating it is to be outranked by competitors.

For expert advice on reaching your SEO goals, get in touch with our team today.

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Why strategy is key to digital growth

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WHY STRATEGY IS KEY TO HOW YOU USE DIGITAL  TO ENHANCE THE GROWTH OF YOUR BUSINESS

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.

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What can a personal website do for you?

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What can a personal website do for you?

Most of us know the benefits of a company website. They’ve become our first port of call for checking out what that organisation offers; we use it to find out what they do and how they do it differently. We compare that business with its competitors and see whether we want to buy from them or not.

From the business’s point of view this is fantastic – not least because their website lets them control the message you’re getting about them. Sure, you can google them and find out reviews and try to track down people who’ve had a positive or negative experience. But if they do it well, give you the right experience and make it easy to buy, they may be able to convince you that they’re the one to go with – then and there.

Guess what, all these same benefits apply to a personal website too. If you’re in the market for a job, if you’re looking to grow your profile, or even if you’re after a promotion or pay rise, a personal website can be gold. After all….

You are not a company

Consider this… the average length of time that someone stays in a job in the United States is now just 4.6 years. In Australia, it’s probably not much different. That means, statistically, you’re unlikely to be with your current employer for that much longer.

So, if you’re hitching your mast to your employer’s, hiding your skills behind their branding and letting their website and positioning in the marketplace sell your skills and expertise, you’re doing yourself a disservice.

If you’re in any kind of services industry – such as real estate, law, financial advice, accounting – that’s probably obvious enough. That’s because you, as the professional, really are what brings value to the business, Everyone already knows that. Without your knowledge, experience and networks the business wouldn’t be able to survive. So the need to position yourself properly if you’re ever going to build a career is obvious.

Another group for whom a personal website is a no-brainer is franchisees. Often the franchisor will only do so much for your marketing and branding. A more personal touch that speaks directly to your clients or customers and speaks to your individual market can work wonders.

But it’s broader than that

Because, while professional services and franchises are the most obvious examples of where this problem lies, I don’t think they’re the only ones who could do with a personal website. No matter what line of work you’re in, a personal website will let you speak to future employers, clients and others in a way that’s just not possible through other means.
In the creative industries, designers, art directors and copywriters have been doing this for years: having their own room to show a portfolio of their work: ad campaigns they’ve worked on or ideas they’ve developed.

When it comes time for a pay rise, when they’re considering moving on, when a business is out there looking to headhunt, this is what they can point to and what states their case.

Why shouldn’t people in other industries take a leaf from our book and build their own online portfolio of work too, in the form of a website?

Isn’t that what LinkedIn is for?

I can hear the response already… I already do that, it’s called LinkedIn.

Well, yes and no.

Sure, Linkedin is great if you want to display what you can offer in a format that’s built around a CV. But really, can a CV show off all your talents and achievements and position you the right way? I don’t think so.

It’s also built around words, and while there’s now the ability to stick up a video to support what your content, even that’s a bit limiting and one-dimensional. There’s not really much scope for story-telling or narrative.

But there’s even more to it than that…

We’re not rational

Like it or not, we don’t always connect with things rationally, and LinkedIn provides little scope to do anything but that. It’s formulaic. There’s little scope to ‘show’ rather than ‘tell’ and there’s very little room to engage people with anything other than a brief summary of who we are and the projects we’ve worked on.

I think it’s pretty hard to get a full sense of who someone is and what they do just through a LinkedIn profile.

Besides, most of us aren’t solely word-based people. We like visuals, we like colour and we connect with information on many levels. Unlike LinkedIn, a personal website lets you:

  • Use visuals to reinforce your message
  • Give people a three-dimensional experience
  • Show off your projects in a way LinkedIn simply can’t
  • Use SEO keywords to drive people to your site
  • Connect with people emotionally, not just rationally
  • Be as creative as you want to be without having to worry about templates
  • Become a publisher and drive people to your site with high-quality content
  • Emphasise whatever you want and provide whatever experience you want.

You’ve taken time to build your relationships

And it’s often your skills that your business’s clients or customers are benefiting from. A personal website can let you take advantage of that, giving you repository for all your experience that’s transportable, rebrandable and lets you maintain a relationship with your clients regardless of where you end up.

It also lets you position yourself the way you want, not the way a social media platform tells you to. Who could resist that?

Get in touch if you’d like to discuss how a personal website can help you.

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Why $5,000 is all you should ever pay for a website

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Why $5,000 is all you should ever pay for a website

When I ask SME owners how much they want to spend on a website they usually tell me the same thing: five thousand dollars.

I don’t know how they’ve come up with this figure, whether there’s some club all SME owners are all part of that sets this benchmark and tells them that’s what they should be paying. (If there is I haven’t been invited.) But it’s more likely that $5,000 is just one of those numbers that doesn’t sound cheap but doesn’t sound too unreasonable either.

The interesting thing is that $5,000 is probably at the high end of what you should pay. That is, so long as you see your website as some kind of basic online brochure. For that amount of money you should be able to get a nice enough looking wordpress or squarespace template, a front-end developer and a project manager to help you put together something you’d be happy to show your friends.

Sure, it couldn’t pay for the services of a decent copywriter or designer. But if all you’re after is web presence and you’re paying anymore than $5,000, you’re a fool.

 

So why then would you pay more…? [So why then would you try to sell more?]

The Remember team recently went to a seminar for SMEs. We looked at the websites of the businesses attending and more than 80% were just like the ones described above.

I asked the group who was happy with their site. Almost 100% of hands went up.

This was despite Remember’s analysis revealing that more than 60% hadn’t updated their content for over a year. For more than a third of the group it was two years.

These were business owners who were hoping to win business through their web presence and they were missing any chance to make their sites a living, breathing embodiment of their brands.

The quality of your website, the relevance of its content and the amount of thought you give to how your visitors will interact with it, all go a long way to converting browsers into customers or clients. There’s a place for the $5,000 site but it’s usually not going to be very effective at doing this.

However, if you consider a slightly bigger investment, then you’d start moving into a different looking space.

You could then start with copy that actually sells your business the right way helping convert customers and increasing your sales. You could inspire your customers with quality design and original photography and you could spend some time thinking strategically about how to position and properly differentiate your business from your competitors.

Even a budget of $10,000 will often give you a more engaging and tailored solution that actually starts working for you. You may still want to view your site as a brochure – but you give yourself the chance of having a far more sophisticated brochure: one that has clarity around your brand, and your messaging.

 

 

Your site can be so much more

It is, however, only when you sit back and ask what your website can do – and how it could link to and reinforce your business objectives – that things really start to get interesting.

That’s why before you start building your site or briefing a designer or web developer you should sit back and ask yourself what is it that you want your website to achieve?

Sure, for some, the answer may just be that you only need a simple web presence. That’s especially the case if business comes through word of mouth and there’s no inclination to use the power of the web to grow. Having a prominent phone number, your address and your opening hours displayed is probably enough.

But if you do want to utilise the power of the web to drive more sales, you should start thinking vary carefully about things like user experience – or UX: part of which is the art of guiding potential customers or clients through the buying process from curiosity to conversion.

If you need a real world example of what I’m thinking about, consider the way supermarkets place key items like milk at the very back of the store, so that you’re always tempted to buy at least some of their other stock, Or the way that what they really want you to buy (the stuff with the highest markup) is at eyeline.

Getting this right will almost certainly cost upwards of $10,000. But if you’re heading down this path you can also stop seeing your site as a cost and start seeing it as an investment. Quality web design applies both strategic and logical insights to your site’s structure. And this alone can provide a solid return on investment by boosting in your sales volume, increasing the value of the average transaction and even improving your business efficiency.

 

Then there’s getting found…

And because your site isn’t worth building at all unless people come to it, you should also probably consider how people will find you in the first place. Will it be through social media campaigns (if you’d better take these into consideration), Google adwords or good old-fashioned SEO? Will you be building a mailing list and hitting that list with regular articles and promotions?

What about when people arrive at your site, will they hang around for a while and get a good sense of who you are and what you’re brand is about through quality content, such as articles showing off your expertise, videos, quizzes, calculators or other tools?

However, if is you decide you’re going to talk to your audiences, you’re going to have to play a long game that requires ongoing maintenance. After all, Google rewards constant updates with higher search engine rankings. And customers reward quality social media and blogging with deeper brand engagement and often more sales.

The net effect should be extra money in your pocket and a website that’s turned into a lead generation machine.

 

It depends on you…

So I guess what I’m saying is that $5,000 is more than enough to cover the costs of a basic website but whether it’s enough for your needs depends on how you want to grow your business and whether or not you want to use digital, great design and & online strategy as part of that equation.

Only you can answer that.

Have your say – Is the $5000 website a myth. Tell us your experiences. The good, the bad and the ugly!

Read more:

http://onstaging.com.au/remembertest/index.php/2016/03/21/look-and-feel-of-a-website/
http://onstaging.com.au/remembertest/index.php/2016/03/22/why-hiring-a-web-writer-makes-good-business-sense/

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Why Apple’s removal of the headphone jack is GENIUS!

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Why Apple’s removal of the headphone jack is GENIUS!

There are two aspects I find fascinating about Apple’s decision to remove the 3.5mm headphone port….

The first is – Apple has always touted its user experience credentials. I wonder if this move truly considers the users experience. I mean we can look at at their historically bold moves such as removing floppy disks and CD drives and in doing so we can say they have done this before and got it right! But is this the same? After all, those technologies were on the way out when Apple made those decisions. The same can’t be said for Wireless headphones, which have some serious drawbacks from charging to reduced sound quality; so, while wired headphones can be frustrating getting all tangled up – they are still a great solution within the realms of our existing technology.

Will Apples move push the technology to improve rapidly? Time will tell. But for now we are going to see some people frustrated by having to buy a dongle to charge their phone and listen to music should they chose to do the two things at the same time! Which for me at least given my iPhone 6 battery lasts about 3 minutes these days is virtually a ritual.

So from that perspective, as a client, I question Apples decision and the cynic in me thinks it is really about me going out and having to buy dongles, new head phones and the likes of all the little purchases that no doubt make Apple a fortune.

But there is another side to this story that has little to do with user experience aside.

I once again credit Apple with being the PR powerhouse it is. Seriously since iPhone 4 virtually nothing of significance has changed and yet in the media this morning you would swear that the pope had died – there is that much coverage over iPhone7 and the death of the headphone jack! What blows my mind even more is that despite this phone having just been released its lack of revolution (headphone jacks aside) means the world has already begun speculation about the next iPhone… “Will Apple wow us on the 10th Anniversary of the original?” the media is touting!

What a strategy!

When you think beyond the iPhone, Apple has really played this strategy out across almost all their products successfully for a long long time. After wowing us with the original of “said Apple product” the rest is a steady evolution – filled with mass speculation and then not unexpected restraint and the occasional controversial exclusion. Its genius that offers longevity to their primary investment and the great lesson here for business, large and small alike, is you don’t need to wow the market every time.

You do, however, need to invest heavily in your brand – ensuring that it stands for something. Make sure that from time to time you step it up with innovation – it doesn’t have to be at an Apple level but do something that gets your tribe talking. Be planned in how and when you do that and in the mean time both your competition and your customers will be eager to see what comes next. After all that anticipation = engagement and when your audience is engaged – your brand, not your competition, are front of mind – Exactly where you want it to be.

 

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7 things SMEs/small businesses need to know about social media

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7 things SMEs/small businesses need to know about social media

For small and medium-sized businesses, social media has the potential to bring so many benefits. Done well, it can build deeper relationships, keeps you front of mind with potential buyers and shows off your products and services in a way that no other medium can match.

Done very well, it can even build a community of enthusiastic brand advocates who will willingly spread the word about what you’ re doing – an army of salespeople willing to spruik on your behalf. But if you’re hoping social media will take your business to these dizzy marketing heights, there’ s a few things you should know first.

SMEs must use social media as part of something bigger

Small business owners are usually doers. So, true to form, when it dawns on them that they should ‘ be doing social media’ , they take the expression at face value and just do it. They open a twitter account, start a Facebook page and then begin posting about whatever comes into their heads. It’s the wrong approach entirely.

To work effectively, your business’s social media needs a strategy behind it. And that social media strategy must be tied to your business strategy. If it’s not, your social media efforts will be scattered and inconsistent. You’ ll be sending out the wrong signals or sending people down the wrong path and, ultimately, your social media will do your business more harm than good.

We can show you some pretty good examples of where this happens. Then again, we probably don’t need to. You’ve no doubt quite a few yourselves. And yet, many business owners still think that just by turning up they’re “doing social media”.

SMEs need to know that social media is a regular thing

Some small business owners will do one mailout or post one article to social media, then sit back and expect the world to change. It won’ t.

Very rarely something you do on social media might ‘ go viral’ , moving well beyond your immediate circle of followers and customers to get shared and talked about by people you never dreamed of reaching. But more often than not, building this kind of audience takes time, application and trial and error. Social media is marathon – or at least a middle distance race – not a sprint.

SMEs need to be comfortable with ambiguity

The way television, radio or print advertising works is reasonably immediate. A business pays for the ad, the ad goes out, and then hopes this is followed by an immediate spike in enquiries or sales. Social media is a little more ambiguous. It can take time to see a return on investment, at least several months. And, when a sale comes in, it can also be hard to know exactly what role social media played in it all. That’ s why….

SMEs need to keep doing other things

Social media is not enough on its own. Although some rare businesses may have achieved all their business goals with nothing more than a facebook account, that’ s very much the exception, not the rule.

Most businesses still need to invest in other marketing tactics, such as a web presence, seminars, advertising, good old fashioned networking and PR. In fact, the final one of these methods and the traditional media coverage it can being can be the best of all complements to effective social media.

Regardless, what social media can do is to amplify each of these old school marketing tactics, giving you the chance to give people the full story in a slow and more interactive way. That means, when they do come to you through another touch point they are likely to know a lot about what you do and how you do it. And that knowledge builds a level of familiarity and trust, that makes them much more likely to buy.

SMEs need to put themselves out there on social media

Social media, by its very nature, is uncontrollable and somewhat anarchic. That alone is enough to put many SME owners off investing too much into it. What happens if you get a bad comment? Or if you put forward a point of view that doesn’t’ t go down well? What happens if people start complaining on your social media pages?

It’s true that social media gives someone who has an issue with your business a ready forum in which to air their grievances. But, while negative social media can and does happen, it’s probably not as common as you might think.

And, even if someone does complain there can often be a positive side to using social media. For starters, you get to better understand the grievances of your customer and make sure it doesn’t happen again. In that sense, it can offer a unique forum for listening. Better still, social media gives you the opportunity to respond.

In other words, people get to see two sides of an argument – they don’ t just have to take the dissatisfied customer’ s word for it.

SMEs need to demonstrate personality through social media

While we’ re on the subject of risk management, it can be tempting to play social media safe so that you avoid stirring the pot too much. But, if you do, you’ ll run a much greater risk: the risk of failing to cut through and therefore talking to no one but yourself. Doing social media in a way that attracts followers and builds an audience, means doing it with personality. It means being strong and confident and unafraid to speak your mind. Only then can you hope to give people a glimpse into who you are, what you do, and how you do it differently to anyone else.

This is your chance for your BRAND to express itself and define its unique position in a loud and busy marketplace

SMEs need to be prepared to invest in social media

Finally, social media can be a very cost-effective form of marketing, but there’ s a difference between being cost-effective and being free. And, like any form of marketing or advertising, those willing to invest in quality will almost always see better returns. So be prepared to invest in quality. Don’t try to cut corners. And don’ get one of the manager’s 17 year old to do it on the cheap – especially if you’ re not targeting 17 year olds.

And finally…

We’ve been around this space for some time. And can confirm that social media doesn’t just give small businesses anxiety. Even the biggest companies debate endlessly about the risks and return of an environment that opens them up to criticism and isn’t necessarily a forum for direct sales.

But what we can say for sure is that social media genuinely has the power to transform both your marketing efforts and your business and bring an almost unique opportunity to broaden the reach of your brand.

That’s why we love to talk to business owners exploring this space and doing it properly. After all, to do social is easy – to do it well and get the most out of it you really do need to be strategic, considered and bold.

Remember Creative can help you be all three.

Get in touch to find out more.

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A digital creative’s shocking admission about social media

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A digital creative’s shocking admission about social media

Why I hate social media

The problem with social media

For a digital creative I’m about to admit something quite shocking…

I don’t like social media. In fact, I hate it.

Sure, I have a social media account on every single platform under the Sun. And I check in with them all the time. (Just ask my wife how much.) But no matter what platform I’m on – Facebook, LinkedIn, Pintrest, snapchat or Insta – I find the same thing keeps on happening.

All day long boring content bombards me that I simply don’t want to read.

I get no relief when I turn to my email inbox. In fact, it’s exactly the same thing. Business email after business email that fails to engage me and just sits there, clogging up dark, unread lines on my screen until I do the honourable thing and send it straight to trash.

I rarely, if ever, bother opening, let alone reading anything I receive from any business these days. Instead, I’m more inclined to euthanase a day en masse, checking the box beside each message before clicking ‘Delete all’.

So why do I bother?

But despite my hatred, I can’t bring myself to unsubscribe, to unfollow, to unlike, to un-engage. And the reason for this is simple.

I have a real fear of missing out.

I’m hoping, praying, that the brands I’m connected with will give me what I want. And sometimes – some rare times – I’m rewarded.

Every now and then, in amongst the hate and the blandness and the irrelevance, there’s an occasional piece of gold. Once in a blue moon I get an email, or I find a tweet, or I read a post that changes everything.

I don’t want to miss that next gem if, and when, it ever happens. So my FOMO keeps me hanging on.

Aren’t you a little bit like me?

I suspect many of you are just like me. You’re hoping that the businesses you want to engage with will engage with you – either that or you simply can’t be bothered casting them from your life by clicking unsubscribe. (I know that apathy plays a part in low unsubscribe rates but doesn’t can’t explain everything. )

The problem is that most businesses – and pretty much all SMEs – just aren’t capable of giving us the attention we crave.

But that’s not social media’s fault

You see, the reason I hate social media is not social media’s fault. It’s the fault of the businesses using it.

They’ve taken to their platform only because they think they should. They have no strategy, no plan, no idea of what they’re doing. They just post whatever comes into their heads.

They’ve treated it as a one way transaction. They’ve taken no time to think of what I want to see or read, just what they wanted to tell me.

But social media isn’t about broadcasting. It’s about building a community and involving it in your brand’s point of view. The challenge is not in talking about your products – anyone can do that. It’s about building a content experience that draws in users and gets them to fall in love with your brand.

It’s about moving beyond a simple product message and creating an experience.

 

What makes a business good at social media?

The rare bits of social media I don’t hate – the brands and businesses I’m happy to hear from – share some things in common.

They’re consistent but not pushy.

They’ve taken time to know who I am.

They’re happy to be spoken to, as well as spoken about.

They’ve got personality.

They’ve got flair.

But getting these things right means having a strategy and developing in proper content (both design and words).

It means watching what you’re doing and refining it as you go. It means making sure all parts of your marketing are working properly and everything’s working together to enhance your brand.

It means making a proper investment both in time and money.

Stop now if you don’t want to be one of them

Now here’s a test…

Imagine for one second that you didn’t work for your company and the social message you just sent out appeared in your feed. Would you read it?

The answer could well be no. For instance, it might well be irrelevant or unoriginal. It might lack personality. It might not be very interesting or valuable

If that’s the case with your social media efforts, stop now. Don’t go any further. Your efforts will be half-baked. You’ll make me hate social media even more.

But get it right and you’ll make a difference – not just to me but to your bottom line.

Because the reason I hate social media so much is your greatest reason to use it. What’s out there is usually not very good.

 

In other words, the market is open for you to get into the space and own it, stifling your competitors’ voices and gathering new followers, new customers and new clients as you do.

What kind of business could resist investing in that?

Just make sure you do it properly, or don’t do it at all.

 

And finally?

If you liked this or hated it, get in touch

After all, this is my very point. I posted this because I am keen to know how you feel. How my thoughts made you feel….

This is a conversation, Remember!

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“What any business can learn from Domino’s”

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“What any business can learn from Domino’s”

Think back to the 90’s when Domino’s Pizza was (in Australia at least) that “other pizza place”… the fall back option if there wasn’t a Pizza Hut near by.

Today, some might wonder what happened to their once dominant adversary, with Domino’s share price soaring to over $70 per share it is fascinating to look at the steps Domino’s took to dominance.

Their recipe for success has been innovation, and not just with their pizzas, they have turned to technology to grow their business and this is exactly what I love about their story.

…I meet so many business leaders who have a million reasons why they don’t want to invest in innovation from SME’s right up to the big guys… they’re unsure if it will be successful…

Waiting to see what your competition does is one approach but if you want to stand out, then why not take a leaf out of Domino’s book invest in innovation the benefits can affect multiple facets of your business including improving customer experience, reducing labour costs and it can even be a great PR opportunity for your business.

If you look at what Domino’s have done they have used technology to improve their service quality from ordering efficiency through to production and delivery, not only overtaking their key competitor but also becoming a world leader in the food tech space at the same time.

I love these types of stories, I want to see and hear more of them. So think innovation to help grow your business. Budget for it, make it part of your mission. It may seem like an expensive gamble but if innovation becomes part of your culture and your purpose as a business then, like Domino’s, you may end up with a much larger slice of the… pizza then you ever thought possible.

Read More about Domino’s approach here
Forget Pizza, Domino’s is a Tech Company from the AFR – August 11 2015

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7 things you didn’t know your website could do

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7 things you didn’t know your website could do

7 things you didn’t know your website could do

A lot of businesses still use their website as though it’s nothing more than a 21st-century version of the white pages: a place where potential customers or clients can go to find their address or phone number – and perhaps learn a little about what they do.

But if you still think that way, you’re really missing out. Because these days your website can – and should – be about so much more.

So here are 7 things that you may not know your website can do…

1. Be the centre of your marketing efforts

As a former Creative Director in the big wide world of advertising agency land, it pains me to say this, but I will anyway…. Advertising, at least the way so many business owners once knew it, is in its death throes.

What’s replacing it is all these new whizz bang digital forms of marketing, you hear about – content marketing, social media marketing, CPC and SEO marketing.

But the way they work is by sending people to your website.

So what do people see when they find you? Is it something that Something that positions you properly, giving them the message you want them to hear and the experience you want them to take away.

And how about the people who visit your site off their own bat or based on a recommendation? (After all, virtually no one picks up the phone anymore without first checking you out digitally.)

Forget how you dress in the office or your pretty packaging, your website is your digital first impression. And, it’s also where all your marketing efforts begin. That means every campaign you launch, every email you send, every social media post you make, should always take account of your website.

2. Capture data

Speaking of which, one of the most effective ways to use your website as a marketing platform is by using it to build long-term relationships. And the first step in doing that is to capture the details of people visiting your website.

Get enough names, email address or phone numbers and you’ll give yourself a ready-made market of warm leads to launch new products and deals to, to send your eNewsletters to and to otherwise nurture until they become buyers.

But, again, you have to do it right.

People want a value exchange, so if you’re asking for an email address be prepared to give away something – such as a whitepaper or detailed article – in return. This can be a powerful way to build rapport and remain in the customer’s mind while they assess their options.

But, remember, this of itself going to make you unique.

You also need to make sure whatever you’re providing is memorable, relevant and useful. And, most importantly, it needs to be based on your own insights into how a customer will benefit from your knowledge, your products and your services.

3. Pre-qualify your leads

In my experience, a lot of businesses waste a lot of time trying to sort the wheat from the chaff when it comes to enquiries. But a good website does that job for you. With the right content and user experience (UX) strategy, a website will help you filter customers before you invest time in them.

By using clever site design you can help make sure that, by the time someone gets around to making their buying decision, they already know they want from you. And, by combining that design with analytics and data that shows how people behave on your site, it can also give you a much clearer idea of how to best service their needs.

4. Provide better customer service

Any purchase has two distinct journeys: one before the sale is made and one after. A great website is there for both.

We’ve already mentioned how a great web experience can streamline your pre-sales (or even sales) delivery. When it comes to the after-sales experience your site has a role to play too.

For instance, your website should be set up to deal with the most common types of queries, issues or complaints you receive. By including practical help in a help or support section, you’ll avoid having to spend money and labour answering routine calls.

But the best websites go further, providing a portal to customer service or support that makes the process more efficient and gives them everything they need quickly. This could be a simple FAQ section, a download section for supporting documents or even a live chat capability.

Again, it’s about improving efficiency when you deal with your customers so that you save time, money and a lot of headaches.

5. Give you another staff member

When you really get your website helping your business it can become another staff member – one who works 24 hours a day/7 days a week and has an almost unlimited capacity to get the job done. To put this into perspective, how much would you pay a year to have someone do your admin, follow up customers and answer most queries that come through the door? How about things like analysing data and alerting you to changes in buyer behaviour or interacting with your brand – tasks which you’d usually have to pay a reasonably senior employee to do?

Well, after your initial investment your website will start to do all of these things and more, virtually for free.

6. Make your business more efficient

If you think of your website as something that only offers external visitors an experience, think again. Your website can play a central role in streamlining your business processes, linking disparate parts of your organisation together and getting your organisation collaborating. Currently use different systems for ordering or booking system, CRM, customer service software and dispatching? Your website can replace the lot.

Contact me if you want a real life example of how we did just this for one client. Their new website didn’t just improve sales, it improved the exponentially.

It did this by freeing up staff to focus on product planning, giving them time to refine their offering and release new products.

7. Become your best referrer

When all of these things come together, your website will position you well, show people how you help, provide great customer service and give you a more efficient business. And when that happens, guess what? People will start telling others about it too.

You’ll get more people visiting your site more regularly, more people signing up to your mailing lists, more people reading what you have to say or watching the videos you’re producing.

That ultimately, should also lead to more business….and that’s the point.

After all, a website isn’t a static thing you have simply because everyone has one. Done properly, it’s both a strategic asset and living, breathing member of your team.

So… how many of these things does your website currently do?

And, if you’d like it to do more of them, get in touch.

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Why hiring a web writer makes good business sense

 
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Why hiring a web writer makes good business sense

Why hiring a web writer makes good business sense

Building a website may not be brain surgery, but it can still be a difficult process. That’s especially the case for clients tackling it for the first time, or those who are particularly time poor.

Clients often begin a website build focused primarily on look and feel and they tend to see producing the words that will populate the site as a secondary task. Some even believe that, because the web is so fluid, there’s little point spending too much time on written content, taking the view that if they don’t like it, they can change it later.

While this is true to an extent, our experience has taught us that there are important reasons to hire an experienced web writer to create your website content. After all, a good web writer will:

  • Create clear, convincing written content.
  • Articulate your message in a way that builds towards a strong call to action.
  • Spend the time required on your web copy to truly reflect the strengths of your business.
  • Give you a strong baseline from which to revise content at a later date (a task that often ends up in the ‘too hard’ basket).

Why using a web writer means a better site overall

By using a good web writer to create quality content, you also support the work of the people building your website.

We can design the most beautiful site possible, knowing exactly how much space is required for copy and then present this copy in the most appealing way.

On the other hand, we can say from experience that websites written solely by clients are uniformly delivered late. This is not due to lack of enthusiasm or good intention – it’s simply the reality of a busy company.

How a web writer creates a better user experience

Using a web writer also enhances the performance of your site from the consumer’s perspective. Why? Because they will approach your content without any previous knowledge, allowing them to communicate your message in a way ‘Joe average’ can immediately understand.

Small cost, big result

We can’t stress enough how much a web writer can improve your website build experience. For just a small proportion of your budget, taking this step will improve almost every aspect of the project – from design and development through to timing and delivery. The end result will be a website that enhances the way your customers perceive you.

Get in touch if you’d like to find how using quality copywriting will help your new website.

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