Marketing

Not all digital campaigns yield successful results. Even the most experienced digital marketers can be wrong sometimes. Some mistakes are minor and can even help you patch up weaknesses on your campaign to improve it. However, some mistakes are immensely crucial and can be costly.

Here are digital marketing mistakes you should avoid:

1. Building a site you like

A website is your number one digital weapon. It’s your online persona. It’s what your target clients see even before meeting or calling you. When you first explore the digital world, building your website is one of the first (and crucial) steps in creating a successful digital marketing. What happens is business owners become too giddy about the idea of creating a website, they often forget the goal of creating one. The goal is to communicate your business through website design and functionality to your target audience.

Your website is not built for you; it’s built for your customers. Here are some helpful questions to ask yourself when building your site:

What will your target audience want to do on your site? Get a quote or pricing? Schedule an appointment? Then these functionalities should be easily navigated and available on your home page.
What is your target audience demographics? Millennials? Baby boomers? You should create a site that speaks to your audience’s behavior and interests.

2. Forgetting mobile

So your website looks divine and functions how it is meant to be… on desktop, but how about on mobile? Just last year, Google rolled out a worldwide mobile-friendly algorithm update. You can quickly check your site if it passes Google’s mobile-friendly test here. Basically, Google favors websites that are mobile-friendly on their mobile search rankings. For the last 12 months, 52% of all searches for the broad keyword “car dealer” is made through mobile devices. Make sure your website is mobile responsive so you don’t miss the party.

3. Overlooking Social Media

How can you engage social media users in an auto related business? More ways than you can think of. If your website is your online persona, social media is your online personality. It is here where you can create a community of users that share the same interests and behavior — real people.

Take a look at Computerized AutoPro’s Facebook campaign. It garnered more than 200 likes, 50 shares and 47 comments, and counting. Their calls and quote requests increased significantly. One important thing to remember when doing social media campaigns is engaging back. Reply to comments, thank users for their support, use emoticons and the ‘@’ tag.

4. Not making it easy for your customers

In relation to building a site for your target audience, another important aspect is customer experience. Do your customers leave the second they click on your site? Aren’t you getting enough subscribers or form submissions? We are in the era of customers. A great digital campaign understands the customer’s needs and how they think.

If you are an ecommerce site, you can improve customer experience by allowing guest checkout. Most people like to do online transactions quickly and securely, and filling out several boxes is just a hassle. If you’re doing leads generation using a form, you may want to shorten the required fields to only the necessary information like email address and name.

5. Frequent promotions

Customers love promotions — well, it depends. It is proven that people desire things that are “limited.” That is called the psychology of scarcity. If you give out promotions or discounts frequently, you create a perception of availability. With that kind of perception, customers tend to be less motivated because they know, based from your past marketing, that you’ll have another promotion soon. It doesn’t create a sense of urgency, and without urgency there’s no immediate action from the customers. If they don’t call, buy, or submit a form that instant, then they’ll be likely not to do so in the future.

Instead of frequent promotions, offer time-limited deals. In this way you will get your customers interests and motivate them to act quickly.

Jane Dizon is a business, lifestyle, health, fitness, and nutrition enthusiast and blogger. She is a nurse by profession and a writer by passion. She has a soft spot for macadamia chocolate and green tea. She’s an internet savvy who loves Excel sheets, organizing files, and sticky notes.

Take any major company you know, and you’re bound to discover that it has a mission statement. A mission statement, in its most basic form, is nothing more than a summary of an organisation’s goals and values.

Google, for example, operates under a very simple premise: “to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.” This informs everything that Google creates and provides to its consumers. Sir Richard Brandon’s company Virgin Airlines also boasts a very simple mission statement: “to embrace the human spirit and let it fly.” Toward this end, everything they do is meant to “make flying good again.”

With the dawn of a new year now upon us, many companies will perhaps be reevaluating their mission statements to determine if they still are relevant to the company’s present goals, aims, and directions. If not, then it will be time to return to the drawing board and design a new mission statement that is more compatible with the way the company has since evolved.

If your team finds itself in such a camp, not to worry. Below are 4 questions to ask yourself during this process that will make developing a new mission statement an easier task.

1) What is your why?

Simon Sinek’s popular book Start with Why, he discusses how movements become contagious not necessarily because of their leaders but because of what those leaders represent: their purpose, their cause, their belief. Understanding this is essential to creating a mission statement that your employees and consumers can enthusiastically get behind.

Let’s take the example once more of Virgin Airlines. Despite being new on the scene within the airline industry, Virgin Airlines had already flown 1 million passengers in less than a decade of being in service. They were also the first airline to offer individual TVs to their business class passengers. Their why of “making flying good again” rallied a dedicated fan base, and it wasn’t long before they became famous for the world-class service they offer to all their passengers (from first-class to coach).

So, what is your company’s ‘why’? What pains do you seek to remedy? What problems do you seek to solve? And why is that important? How does it improve life for your clients and/or consumers?

2) What does success look like?

Clarity is fundamental when it comes to laying down the foundations for your company’s growth. Your mission statement serves the purpose of giving your company a goal. Tim Cook, the current CEO of Apple, Inc., offers these words to potential new employees: “Apple has always been different…It’s a special place where we have the opportunity to create the best products on earth – products that change lives and help shape the future…”

It’s no surprise then that Apple has come to be a company that is known for constantly focusing on innovating. Some of the greatest advances in technology have come out of Apple, and few would argue that they’re a leader in consumer technology. This can certainly be a way for Apple to measure their success.

How will your company measures its own success? Is it when you’re the leader in your own industry? Is it when you’ve reached a certain milestone in sales or customer acquisitions? Knowing this now will help you work harder and in a more focused way toward reaching your company goals.

3) What resources do you need to make it happen?

Sir Richard Branson needed licenses, aircrafts, and staff members in order to get his airline off the ground. Steve Jobs needed the partnership of engineer Steve Wozniak (and his parents’ garage) to found Apple, Inc.

What additional resources might your company need in order to get to the next level in the New Year? These additional resources can take the form of new employees, new management, new projects, new consultants, new contracts, and so on. Think outside the box and consider ways that your company might be stagnant in its growth at present. What can push it to a new stage of evolution? What will it need to grow in a new direction?

4) Who does the mission statement affect?

One of the most important aspects of architecting a mission statement, and the one aspect that’s unfortunately most overlooked, is to consider who your mission statement will ultimately affect. One of Steve Jobs’ rookie mistakes during Apple’s initial growth was designing a computer for the every-day person (the famous Macintosh)…but then sticking a price tag on it ($2,495 back in the eighties) that the average consumer could in no way afford.

But knowing who your mission statement affects goes beyond the client and/or consumer. It’s also equally important to consider your company’s employees. They will be brand ambassadors for your company, after all, and so they need to believe that the work they do somehow contributes to the overall big picture. That said, where possible, involve your teams in the creation of the company’s mission statement. Get their input and their involvement. When you do this, staff members begin to take ownership of the mission statement and feel as if it’s their own, which means they’re more apt to go the extra mile in helping the company reach its accomplishments.

Developing mission statements can be a challenging business, but with the guidance of the 4 questions above, you’ll gain the clarity and knowledge you need to press forward with confidence and ease. As a result, you’ll design a fitting mission statement that will help your company evolve in the New Year and achieve its goals like never before.

Nataša Bajić

Our interview begins, on this unusually warm September morning, with the bold clacking sound of a pair of black stilettos. We are about to meet Milica Dobrenov and Nataša Bajić, the co-founders of Four Dots, a multinational inbound marketing company, who walk into their office premises at 8 o’clock on the dot.

At the very first glance, they seem like an unlikely pair: one of them the epitome of sporty elegance, the other opting for a dress code straight from the pages of Vogue. Nevertheless, both have the same determined look in their eyes and a great big smile on their face, motivated to tackle a new workday. Without a moment to spare, we dive straight into the question and answer portion of our program.

You both look very fresh and awake, could you tell us your secret? Do you have an established pre-work morning routine?

Nataša: I have a one-year-old boy at home, who runs like a Swiss watch – he is up every morning at 6 a.m. sharp! He takes after me in that sense, as I, too, am an early riser. We never skip breakfast in our home, and since my husband somehow manages to get up even before I do, I have a meal waiting on the table. The three of us always get the chance to eat together in the morning and go through our schedules. The babysitting timetable, work, playtime – everything needs to run smoothly. I am happy to say that we function like a well-oiled machine.

Milica Dobrenov

Milica: As I always say to my son, the early bird catches the worm. My family also gets up pretty early, one of the reasons being that I love helping my son get ready for kindergarten. My husband and I have a rule, we never let him leave the house before he finishes his breakfast. Even though I love preparing one for him, for me, that first cup of coffee is what gets me going. I sip it slowly, while picking out my clothes, ironing and helping my son pack. I always drive him to kindergarten since it is on my way to work. There’s an amazing little bakery next door, which sells the most amazing bagels, so I make it a point to stop by. That way I arrive at the office a little before 8 and have my breakfast in the office while I go through my to-do list.

Was it challenging so far being a successful woman in the digital marketing industry?

Nataša: It’s interesting that you ask that. We haven’t really paid much attention to it, but when you come to think of it, it seems that a lot of new and emerging IT-related industries are in fact founded by men. Digital marketing is no different. Most influencers in our line of work are men, but we hope to see this change in the future.

Milica: …and we hope to be a big part of that change! Digital marketing is all about creativity and finding solutions to seemingly unsolvable problems – I don’t see why women wouldn’t be involved in the process. It’s no longer a man’s world out there, just look around – the CEOs of some of the most successful startups are women. And I think that I speak for both of us when I say that we love our job, and strive towards finding a good team of people who will be equally driven to contribute to our company’s stellar success.

Nataša: What we’re trying to say is that there aren’t any industry-specific challenges. It is something people encounter across all fields of business. We did have quite a few obstacles to overcome, but luckily, that’s all in the past. Our company has experienced a significant growth, so significant that we kept employing new teams of people at such short intervals that we were unable to predict the size of the office space we needed. As a result, we had to move a couple of times, which wasn’t an ideal situation, but the key is to stay calm and take it one day at a time. Every problem has a solution, you just have to be crafty enough to get there.

Was it difficult building such a successful startup in a country where digital marketing has not yet taken off?

Milica: Yes and no. On the plus side, it has enabled us to literally start our business from scratch. Also, there is one more fact many often forget to take into consideration – hard-working people!

Nataša: Definitely, I couldn’t be more proud of our team. But when it comes to attracting our first clients, we were focused on the the international market, as at the time, doing local SEO would have been quite risky and maybe we wouldn’t have had such a great success. For this reason, we decided to open offices around the world that would help us attract more international clients.

Milica: We are also doing our best to educate local companies on the importance of inbound marketing, hoping that in the future we can help more local businesses grow and achieve international success. That’s what we love about SEO – we’re able to help aspiring entrepreneurs from a wide range of industries. Serbia is still a developing country and is fairly unfamiliar with the concept of startups, but as we have already mentioned, we are hoping to see a change for the better.

We understand that your company is multinational – how do you cope with clients from different cultural backgrounds?

Milica: In business, the client comes first. That was our motto from the beginning and like in any other line of business, working with people has its challenges, but I would say that in our niche it’s definitely a bit more difficult to handle the variety of demands.

Nataša: I agree! We devise individual strategies for every new client, taking into consideration a number of things: the industry they operate in, the audience they are targeting, their country of origin and all of their specific requests.

Milica: Research is key. In order to achieve global success, it is important to acquire… Well, global knowledge. Familiarize yourself with different cultures, their customs, paying special attention to different markets and customer profiles. For example, a campaign that is hugely successful in the U.S. would not necessarily achieve the same level of success in Australia, or anywhere in Europe.

Nataša: Exactly, that’s why we always concentrate on accommodating our client’s individual needs. The fact is, we learn as we go and do our best to always be prepared for anything our clients throw our way. That is one of the secrets of our success we are happy to share.

Is it possible to find balance between your personal and professional life? When do you draw the line and say that you’ve done enough for the day and it is time to focus on your family?

Milica: That’s a tough one. When you are at the head of a startup, it can at times be quite hard to find the ideal work/personal life balance. However, going into this venture, I made the decision that no matter what – family comes first.

Nataša: I couldn’t agree more. We were really young when our careers began and we knew from the start what it takes to succeed, but at the same time I am not willing to sacrifice being a mother in the process. I knew I could do both and… well, I was right!

Milica: Luckily, we founded our company with two colleagues, Radomir Basta and Goran Bogunović, who have not only proven to be highly supportive of our plans for the future, but have always been fully dedicated to making all of our plans a reality. Hence the name Four Dots. Thanks to the strong relationships we have and a huge amount of understanding on all sides, we were able to take some time off when we had our boys, without having to worry whether our company will continue to thrive. You know, at the end of the day, it feels good to just get out of these heels and under the blanket, to spend an entire evening watching The Lion King for the 42nd time.

Any tips for women who are embarking on a startup journey? What were some of the major obstacles that you had to tackle?

Nataša: Don’t overthink it and don’t doubt yourself – just have faith in your idea and go for it. If you start all negative and think about all the possible obstacles, there’s never going to be “the right time”.

Milica: Trust us, there’s no right time! It’s only natural to be afraid of how it’s going to affect your family life, because, let’s face it, it is more difficult for women to incorporate a family into their career path than it is for men to do the same.

Nataša: Finances are always one of the most common challenges. But no matter how often we hear it raised as an excuse, people keep forgetting that success doesn’t happen overnight! You wouldn’t believe the size of the apartment we started our company in (both laugh). I believe it was smaller than the office we are in right now!

As 9 o’clock approaches, the offices are filled with the sound of clanking coffee mugs and subtle keyboard tapping – another successful day at Four Dots has begun.

Sarah.Green is a tech journalist and blogger covering the latest trends in the world of technology and business. Interested in startups, business innovation and entrepreneurial ideas, Sarah looks for the writing inspiration in the great work of tech industry professionals.

As someone who produces videos for a living, it still surprises me how often I come across people who are afraid of using video to help promote their business.

It surprises me for several reasons:

1. Video connects with people online

Given how effective video is for engaging an audience, retaining customers and generating leads, it just makes sense to be using it. Video enables you to build rapport and cut through the noise in our information intense environment in which we now live.

Businesses who use video are seen to be more engaged with their community. Buying decisions are easier and people feel more supported by your business. If in doubt of the effectiveness of video, check your Facebook feed. Video is dominating how people are connecting and communicating online.

2. Your competitors are using it

At some point you have to address the fact that even if you are trying to avoid using it, you will either work with it or walk away. Video is now the predominant way to engage with your customers. You can try to bury your head in the sand, but when everyone around you is using it you’ll just get trampled by those heading over to your competitors.

You are no longer ahead of the pack if you are using video, you are simply in the game.

3. Everyone can do it

Now I know that some people are saying “I look terrible on camera” or “I freeze when a lens is pointed in my direction”. Well that’s okay. You don’t have to be the focus of the video. In fact your customers should be the focus of the video. Any marketing you do should be about them.

Often to put first timers at ease I tell them, “Don’t worry if you do a terrible job, we won’t use it.” Surprisingly my little joke actually works. They realise you don’t have to nail it. It’s only video. If it’s not great, no one has to see it. They also relax and generally perform quite well.

4. Fear is not real (it just seems that way)

Trying to rationalise fear is like trying to say why I like blue. It’s not about logic, it’s emotional. But generally at the root of all fear is a lack of exposure and a lack of understanding. 95 % of things we worry about never happen.

But like anything, the more exposure you have to it, the more comfortable you become with it and the better you become at performing. So the only thing you should be afraid of in regards to video is not using it.

Dip your toe in the water. Accept that you will improve over time. Putting yourself outside your comfort zone is where real success occurs.

5. There’s plenty of options

There are dozens of different types of videos you can be using to promote your business, engage with your customers, answer frequently asked questions and generally support your business community. Standing in front of the camera is just one of them. So if that’s not your thing, relax. There are plenty of powerful ways to use video that’s not about you.

There’s animations, there’s case study videos (when you film your customers), there’s products overviews, you can use a voice over or an actor to speak on behalf of your organisation and many more ways to use video effectively without having to be in front of the camera.

6. Lots of ways to learn

There are plenty of courses online and live workshops that can help you master the skills in video production. It has never been more important to use this readily available technology on a regular basis. Thinking I don’t know what to do or how to do it, is no longer an excuse. You might be surprised once you look into it, that’s its actually not that hard.

In fact, I’ve written a book “Shoot Me Now -making videos to boost business” which takes you through what you need to know to make impressive videos. Feel free to get in touch and I’ll send you a free copy.

Follow Geoff Anderson on Twitter @geoffsonic for more tips on how to use video to improve engagement with your customers.

Running your own business can feel like trying to change a tyre on a moving car at times. When you’re swept up in the chaos of the average working week, working out a path to reliable long-term growth and profitability can seem like a horrifyingly big ask.

It’s a mountain that can very much be scaled, however! Regardless of what business you’re in, there are five consistently effective levers you can pull to increase the amount of money flowing into your coffers and lock in long-term profitability.

Get more leads in the door

Assuming you’re not paying a crazy amount to acquire them, more leads nearly always means more money. That can be a big assumption to make, though. Particularly in the context of small businesses, many firms have a worryingly vague idea of how much it actually costs them to attract the attention of a lead in the first place.

Start by making sure you’ve got a documented procedure (however imperfect) for attracting leads, and a clear view of both your outlay and the amount of new prospects you’re attracting monthly. Even taking this seemingly earth-shatteringly obvious step will put you out ahead of the surprisingly large amount of small businesses who don’t track these numbers.

With that in place, focus on rigorously qualifying them and getting more of the right types through the door. Once you start digging into details here, you may well realise you’ve been spending a lot of time and energy attracting the wrong type of prospects to date. A little discipline here in terms of defining and focusing on your perfect potential clients is guaranteed to boost profits down the line.

Optimise your conversion rate

Leads are the lifeblood of most businesses, but one point has to be crystal clear from the outset – they mean nothing until they’re converted. And the rate at which you convert them goes a long way towards determining your overall growth trajectory. Little hinges swing big doors here. A one or two percent improvement in your existing conversion rate could be the difference between a good year and a great one.

Start by making sure this a metric you’re actually tracking to begin with, then move on to relentlessly improving it over time. How you do this will naturally vary from business to business, but one general technique helps in every scenario – explicitly identify and document the series of steps that take place between that first contact with a customer and the eventual sale. Once you’ve got them defined, it’s simply a question of improving every part of the funnel and your conversion rate will naturally rise.

Boost your average number of transactions per customer

Once you’ve actually acquired a customer, the next key area you can look at is how often they actually buy from you. Raise this number and you’ll naturally be looking at a healthier bottom line.

The paths towards achieving this goal are legion so your mileage will naturally vary.

Start having a serious think about how you can either get your customers to buy more of what they’re already purchasing, or offer additional items they might be interested in.

Remember, the person who’s most likely to buy more from you is the person who’s already bought from you. Don’t be afraid to reach out to current and previous customers in order to identify where else they’d be prepared to do business with you. You can also look to lock in an increased number of transactions by offering package prices on goods or services.

Raise the value of the average dollar sale

No matter what business you’re in, there’s always a segment of the market that’s prepared to pay top-dollar for a version of what you’re offering. They won’t just be interested in a premium offering, they’ll demand it.

Make sure you’re addressing this potential part of your customer base and you’ll see rising average dollar sale values naturally driving continued growth. Again, a brief customer survey of people you’re already doing business with can drive outsize returns here.

Increase your profit margins

By the time you’ve had a good think about the first four points we’ve covered, you’ll almost certainly have identified a solid set of potential buttons you can push to quickly grow the bottom line.

As you go about implementing your newly identified tactics, take the extra time to clamp down on costs and expenses (while making sure to maintain overall quality). As long as standards aren’t slipping, a penny saved is very much a penny earned here.

Business growth is never easy but the paths you can pursue to achieve are actually refreshingly simple. Use our five proven options to cut through mental clutter and identify specific solutions that can drive growth in the context of your own business.

About

Tracey Daniel and Jane Challinor are the founders of the Real Business Group, an organisation which assist entrepreneurs and business owners to reach the next level in their business. To double your sales and profits in the next 90 days , sign up for their free Path to Profit event at http://www.realbusinessgroup.com.au/free-event

Is Your Small Business Making These Marketing Mistakes?

Most small businesses don’t have extra resources to throw around in a bid to get more customers. However, many decisions that are made don’t result in the best use of the limited resources they do have.

Check out the following 7 marketing mistakes that your business might be making, and see if you can make improvements in the way you’re marketing your business.

1. Mixed Messages = Confused Customers

A lack of cohesive branding sends confusing messages to your customers which dilutes what you’re saying, and leaves them unclear about what solutions you can help them with. This is often due to a haphazard approach to marketing and lack of an overall strategic plan.

Solution: Take some time to plan out what you want to achieve and how you’re going to get there.

2. Stopping, starting & not getting any traction

This type of uncertainty comes about because there is little understanding of what marketing options are available, what will work best for your business and how to implement them so they work together to get you more business.

Solution: Consider getting help to put together your plan and to manage the implementation if that is a weak spot for your business.

3. No way of accurately measuring your Return on Investment

Without information on your key marketing metrics, you could be wasting money on activities that aren’t bringing in new customers or encouraging repeat business from your existing customers. Gut feel is important but not always accurate.

Solution: Put in place achievable goals and tracking so you can easily see what needs to be improved.

4. Unclear product benefits

A visitor to your website, a customer stepping into your business or someone looking at your brochure, should be able to tell within a few seconds what your business can offer them and the key way that you can solve their problem. Many small businesses feel that the benefits of their product are obvious and don’t need explaining.

Solution: Be clear about how your product or service can help your target market.

5. Following others & getting distracted

What works for one business in one market doesn’t necessarily work for other businesses. Just because everyone is doing social media training or jumping on to Instagram doesn’t mean you automatically need to do that too.

Solution: Training & mentoring to help you and your staff implement your plan and be a sounding board for any deviations.

6. No information that explains your expertise

Right after a potential customer has worked out what your product can do and whether it can help them solve their problem, they want to know how you can support that claim. What credibility can you offer?

Solution: Demonstrate your expertise through examples, case studies, testimonials and weave it into your product or service descriptions.

7. Making it hard for customers

There are a number of things that need to come together to make it easy for customers to order from you. Relying on your customers to be committed and seek out the information they need is not a good strategy for success.

Solution: Review where you’re getting it right and what areas can be improved.

Taking a more strategic and considered approach to marketing may seem tedious if you just want to get on and sell more as soon as possible but a little bit of planning upfront will provide benefits that you can build on for many years to come.

Featured image via Pixabay under Creative Commons CC0

JIll-Brennan-Leaders-in-Heels-img Jill Brennan

Jill Brennan is a marketing consultant, mentor and the founder of Harbren Marketing. With around 20 years in the small business trenches, she takes the headache out of marketing by working with small business owners to build their own marketing engine. Get a more detailed guide to the 7 Small Business Marketing Mistakes at harbren.com.