Archives for February 2018

Dacia and Facebook

Dacia is one of Europe’s fastest growing car brands.
The Goal: Their aim was to grow their brand and to generate more leads.
The Result: 60,000 extra cars sold in the last three years. That’s a huge success!

How did they do it?

1. They decided to use social media.
2. They chose Facebook to get their message across.
3. They targeted desktop-using customers and customers who primarily used their smartphones.
4. The tool they used was Facebook’s boosted posts. This allowed them to test the market and find out where their potential customers were and the best time to place an ad in front of them.

The Girl Scouts and Twitter
The Girl Scouts are well-known for making and selling their own cookies to raise funds for the local community.
The Goal: To increase downloads of their mobile app.

The Result: Nearly 20k extra downloads as a direct result of their Twitter campaign!

How did they do it?
1. They decided to use social media.
2. They chose Twitter to do their promotion.
3. They added images to the app to show how delicious and inviting their cookies were.
4. They used the Twitter App Card so customers seeing their Tweet could access the app directly from their Tweet. Simple!

LinkedIn has 467 million users. That’s a huge audience. Facebook has an astonishing 2 billion daily users. There are 974 million Twitter accounts. The list goes on, and the audiences continue to grow. It’s obvious that if you want to succeed you should be interested in this huge pool of potential clients.

Ninety-one percent of retail brands use 2 or more social media channels. Having control over your social media is essential if you are to become a successful brand. Controlling the messages you send out to your customers is a key factor. Contact us and we’ll let you know how to get it right.

Here are 10 questions to ask when thinking about a Social Media campaign for your business:

Have you ever searched for anything on Google? Of course, you have!

Think about how often you click on one of the first few links that are shown, see what you were looking for, and then move onto something else. Now think about how often you keep going all the way to the sixth or seventh page of search results (if you ever did) and then decide to make a purchase there.

You do NOT want your website to be on one of those high numbered pages when your potential customers are searching Google for the services that you offer!

You have spent many hours making sure that your website looks perfect, the conversion process is streamlined, and all of the information that your customers could ever want is right there waiting for them. So how do you get your awesome website onto that first page of results so that searchers will actually see it?

Become Google-Friendly!

Every website that exists is crawled by Google so that they can check out the content, the structure, and the intent. They take that information and index it so that when someone conducts a search they can offer the most relevant site. SEO ensures that your website is ready for Google to do it’s crawl so that your site will be visible when potential customers are searching. Finally letting the world see your great website and your great business.

For more information, or help setting up your SEO, contact Johnny Murray at johnny@johnnymurray.com

There has been a lot of testing and research done over the past couple of years, and it’s no surprise that more people are using mobile devices to find products or services. The one thing that may or may not come as a surprise is that many businesses haven’t adapted to these changes, or even tested their website. Prioritizing user experience should be the first thing you or your website designer should do.

Any website needs to have design elements that make the website easily seen, and also make it easy to navigate should be on the top of this list. Many websites are starting to get rid of images because they take too long for mobile devices to load, if too many are used. However, if you do use images, they should be scaled down, and the images should use text, such as a card menu seen on Microsoft homepage. This one easy design element shows people what they are looking for quickly, and describes it easily.

And if you’re doing to use video or animation, then fast-loading cinemagraphs are the way to go for mobile devices. These small half-photo, half-animated clips, are quite popular, and load quickly. Make sure that your copy is relevant to the visitor quickly depending on their query, and what got them to your website in the first place. Give a quick big picture of what your site is all about, and what you offer the minute the customer gets there. Realize they may be on a mobile device, and test it, or have your website designer continually test and improve the experience.

Make your site easy to navigate, create different designs for the different sections, but use a consistent theme. Use eye-catching transitions from section to section to keep the user interested. And make sure the font for your copy can be easily seen. Visitors still do the quick scan, so if they quickly scan, make sure you grab their attention quickly. Use custom visual and iconography, or images and symbols, that tells your brand story and shows some personality of who and what your business is about.

All of these design trends are based on statistics. And with the statistics comes the realization that effective website design that makes life easier for users when they visit your site, should be the main goal of you and your website designer. Your competitors are optimizing their websites, if you don’t optimize your site, then you will be left behind.

If you would like to learn more about optimizing and using the latest design trends to improve customer experience, then email us today at johnny@johnnymurray.com, and we will be happy to help you deliver a great user experience.

Johnny Murray

So you are a new business gone online, or you are a business that has decided to step up your marketing campaign by having a new website built, and you have created some pages on social network sites like Facebook or Instagram.

Maybe you have a blog out there as well, and you have started creating content for all of your online sites.

But if you are a new to online business, and digital marketing, and you are just getting started, you might be wondering where all your customers are.

You may be seeing little to no traffic at all for your efforts. It’s not that you are doing anything wrong. And unless you are a business with an entirely new product or service that has never been offered before, you are likely to have some tough competition who have already been marketing for years.

So how do you compete?

The answer is Pay-per-click Advertising using PPC platforms such as Google AdWords or Facebook Ads.

But getting into Pay-per-click Advertising or ‘PPC’ needs a solid strategy.

There are many things you need to have knowledge of. This include but not limited to having a starting PPC budget, a good traffic conversion tracking system for your ads, and having different landing pages that can be cycled to allow for split-testing. You should also have good ad copy with solid calls-to-action that get your targeted audience to go to your website and buy the service or product you are selling.

Any business that wants to get started in Pay-per-click Advertising should have expert knowledge on getting started, including proficiency on the tools you need to create and track successful PPC advertising campaigns.

If you want to get started in Pay-per-click Advertising which can bring you instant traffic, clients, and customers, then contact us now and we will help you get started with the right arsenal of tools and show you how to create profitable campaigns from day one.

johnny@johnnymurray.com
Johnny Murray

If your company or business website hasn’t been updated, or there are no plans to update it, you should change that strategy.

User behavior is continuously evolving, and one of the most significant changes is that more people are using their smartphone devices every day.

If you have ever used your phone to browse websites online, you may have noticed that some websites are nearly impossible to read or navigate. The reason for this is because most websites are built from a perspective that someone on a computer will visit the site. The way users access a website has already changed drastically.

But design evolution isn’t only about having your website viewable on a mobile device. User optimization encompasses a lot of different factors. Some changes that have happened over the past couple of years include websites having fewer menu options, getting rid of the menu grid or ‘hamburger’ as it’s come to be known, getting rid of bad stock images, and moving the website to a more minimalistic design.

The majority of these changes came from designers and developers constantly redesigning and changing UX (user experience) elements to see how those new designs and changes worked. Big companies such as IKEA have moved to a more minimal design with fewer menu options making it easier for their visitors to quickly find what they need. But this optimization shouldn’t end there.

The future will likely bring more design trends making it easier for visitors to get what they are looking for quickly. After all, a good user experience drives conversions.

Want us to take a look at your website to see if it’s optimized for a great user experience no matter what device your visitors are using?

Contact us now for an evaluation, and get your website fully optimized.

johnny@johnnymurray.com
Johnny Murray

Have you ran a digital marketing campaign for your business before? What tactics and channels did you use?

Here are 7 digital marketing trends you should know:

– Content marketing is still the dominant technique.
– Top 3 B2C content priorities: a) providing engaging content, b) utilizing visual content, c) measuring content results.
– Facebook posts with images still perform better than posts without images.
– Tweets with images still get more engagement than tweets without images.
– Infographics perform better than any other type of content.
– Visual UGC (user-generated content) is more engaging than brand-produced photos.
– The demand for interactive content is increasing.

Do you agree with these points?

Do you think these tactics will impact your business?

Let us know what you think.

Nearly half of businesses (44%) don’t have a clearly defined marketing strategy. For firms that are active in digital marketing, nearly half do not have a defined digital plan or strategy (47%).

No wonder many small businesses are struggling to understand why their online marketing campaigns aren’t delivering an ROI.

Successful businesses that are running online marketing campaigns that impact their bottom line are NOT doing it merely because their competitors are doing it too, but because they have drawn a clear path to how online marketing can help achieve their business goals.

A Marketing Audit has to be performed for you if you have a digital marketing campaign currently running or had one in the past. The next step is to consult with an expert to identify your goals, budget, benchmarks, implementation plan, and targets — producing an online Marketing Blueprint in the process.

Can a building be constructed without a blueprint? Can a building stand without a foundation? No. These principles hold true for your marketing.

Here are some variables that will shape your Marketing Blueprint:

Marketing Audit
Business Goals
Budget
Benchmarks
Consulting Services
– Strategy Recommendations
Marketing Services
Backup Plan
Targets

Your marketing needs a foundation to stand on — your business goals. You need a plan for your marketing with all of the parts working together to reach new heights in line with your goals.

Your goals could be a mix in any of these categories:

Brand Exposure
Social Media Engagement
Website Traffic
Sales Targets
Target ROI

If you are willing to spend $1,000 to $3,000 a month – or $12,000 to $36,000 a year – then it makes sense to spend at least $500 on a Marketing Blueprint to ensure a spot-on marketing campaign.

Contact us at johnny@johnnymurray.com to learn more about creating a Marketing Blueprint.

A Social Media Marketing Industry Report by Social Media Examiner revealed that Facebook is the most popular channel used by 94% of the survey respondents.

Twitter follows with 68%, LinkedIn at 56%, and Instagram at 54%.

72% of B2C marketers project an increased Facebook usage more than their B2B counterparts at 63%.

Are you actively promoting your business on Facebook?

Make your business visible online, and you will get a larger share of customers.

Operating a small and local business doesn’t mean you cannot increase your customers and scale.

Get a Website. Don’t you have a website yet? Where have you been all this time? From plumbers to dentists, the local handyman to big engineering firms – they have websites. Your website will be your 24/7 storefront.

Make sure that your website is mobile-friendly. You are increasingly using your mobile phone when searching for a product or service, right?

Get some Traffic with SEO. Many of your potential customers probably do not know that your business exists. However, when they go to Google searching for a product or service they need, which you offer, and finds you because you’re doing SEO — then bingo!

Make sure that your SEO is well-planned with a comprehensive blueprint to ensure ROI.

Get on Social Media. Many more of your potential customers may find you in social media. When a recent customer following you in social media likes or shares an article, a photo, or a video you posted, then that post will be visible to their friends – who might as well try out your product or service.

Become active on at least 4 social media channels. Your potential customers are actively using more than one.

Capture and Nurture. Capture your leads through an opt-in form on your website and nurture them through email marketing.

Be on top of mind all the time to your potential customers by constantly communicating with them through email. Once they need something you offer, boom, you got a customer.

There you have it. 4 simple steps.

Follow me, and we’ll guide you along the way. Contact Johnny Murray at johnny@johnnymurray.com.