6 Things, Other Than Marketing, You Need to Spend on in 2018

6 Things, Other Than Marketing, You Need to Spend on in 2018

by | Mar 1, 2018 | Business

Being a marketer means constantly being in tune with the latest industry trends ? but it can be easy to forget that marketing your business is not done in a vacuum.? Have you given your business a thorough audit this year? Are there elements of your business, other than marketing, that need some concentrated attention?After all, marketing only really works when you have a compelling brand and message to put out there in the first place? or an effective business framework that means campaigns are meeting commercial targets.Here is how you can take an integrated approach with your company strategy this year, ensuring that your marketing budget will go towards conversions, sales, and tangible business goals.

Improve your brand, improve your value proposition

First and foremost, let?s talk about branding. Now, for the uninitiated, branding may not seem much more than trying to get the snazziest, simplest, most memorable logo since Apple?s quarter eaten? apple. Spending on a reliable and innovative designer purely for your logo may seem like a good idea, but a good foundation is still just a foundation.You need to ensure that everything from your website copy to your e-shots, from your Facebook cover photo to your Instagram profile, are alight with brand messaging. Otherwise, you run the risk of wasting marketing budget on a brand that simply isn?t a reflection of what you can actually do.It?s easy to become ?brand blind?, so it?s advisable to open up the conversation with your network to see how they feel about your brand. Be ready to have some difficult conversations.
  1. If you?re not a proficient writer, it?s important to hire people that are. Bad brand copywriting is not something you want to become famous for.
  2. Another great way to get your brand out there is by forming connections with influencers. They have a wide range of influence with the public, aiding with your PR targets? as well. Choosing the relevant one(s) for you is all about knowing your target audience and customer demographic. So, make sure that you choose wisely and don?t risk wasted time. Be true to your brand!
  3. Make sure that your brand has an inherent value proposition, so that your audience can quickly and easily form an accurate picture of what you?re offering them.

Strategy & data planning

A strategy is key for anyone wanting to get ahead. It?ll guide your thought processes for the year(s) to come; laying out clear steps for you and your team to follow.? It?s at the core of a healthy marketing plan, but should also take into account elements that fall outside the remit of marketing.Data processing should be a big part of your strategy ? as it?s largely insights based on facts and figures that should go into a business strategy. By all means, theorize and hypothesize, but don?t lose sight of the actual customer and market data that?s pouring in.

Writers & content creators

Generating traffic to your website is probably one of, if not the most important factor to think about when allocating your business funds. Traffic leads to the essential inquiries and sales that keep your business running.In order to generate quality web traffic, you need a stack of high-quality, relevant online content. Not only do you want quality content that?s representative of your brand, you want it to be consistent across all your business channels (including any printed literature).Hiring people that are both reliable and good at copywriting is the secret behind compelling content creation. Don?t try to fob it off to a junior team member, or squeeze it in yourself between dealing with customer orders. You need to invest in good writers if you want to see a return from your content efforts.Luckily there are loads of high quality writers and content creators out there that you can contract on a freelance basis.

Outsourcing your business

Don?t be afraid to delegate! Source photographers, HR professionals, designers, developers SEOs etc who are professional and timely.There is always going to be somebody who can do a job better than you can, so don?t shy away from leaning on expertise when it?s clearly needed.Hiring those with more experience than yourself can benefit you two-fold. Firstly, they will undoubtedly give your business a necessary boost in quality. Secondly, you can use their expertise to expand your own knowledge whilst also saving time.And outsourcing doesn?t stop at people. You can also outsource things like logistics via dropshipping or customer service via chatbots. Use the latest tech to help you scale your operations and, ultimately, improve your margins.

Financial services

The importance of a great financial structure is sometimes underestimated in the small business world.Having your finances handled properly is the crux of any good business. While you use your time to focus on directorial things, your accountant can deal with the monetary side of your work. This can save you both valuable time and money.? A knowledgeable accountant or part-time financial director can be deep wells of high-quality advice.You should also look into whether financial cloud apps like Receipt Bank or Quickbooks could help you save processing time. The better financial data you have, the better decisions you?ll be able to make for your business.

Travel & networking

Traveling it is a great way to increase the size of your network. Going further afield to meet a client and/or would-be business partner can help solidify rapport ? showing how far you?re willing to go to connect.Ultimately, you can?t put a price on human interaction. While emailing is efficient (and free), it?s nothing compared to the experience of physical interaction; especially if you?re planning to work together long term. Instead of your words being misconstrued, time being wasted and not being able to properly gauge your relationship ? take a trip, and see how much further you get? together.Don?t be afraid to show your face at local networking events, meetups, and conferences either. There are plenty of offline opportunities out there waiting for you.Marketing works best when it?s part of the wider conversation concerning your business. Look to outsourcing and financial management as ways to run a more efficient business, and branding and content as ways to supercharge your sales. Don?t fall into the trap of running after vanity metrics or running your business in restrictive silos.
5 Strategies That Will Increase Conversions

5 Strategies That Will Increase Conversions

by | Feb 26, 2018 | Business, Marketing

A conversion rate is simply the percentage of visitors that land on your website and perform the desired action. Unfortunately, many business owners foolishly believe an aesthetically-pleasing website is enough to encourage sales. If you want your visitors to convert to customers, you will need to optimize your website. Read the five strategies that?ll increase conversions.
  • Promote a Product with High-Quality Images
It?s impossible for a visitor to touch a product on your website. The best way to highlight the detail of a product is to incorporate high-quality images onto a web page, which will allow your visitors to make an informed decision. You should also allow a prospective customer to zoom in on an image, which could encourage them to add the product to the online shopping cart.
  • Improve Understanding with Video
97% of marketers stated video helped them increase their users? understanding of their products and services. It could, therefore, be an effective strategy to turn a lead into a conversion. Not only can it improve a visitor?s knowledge regarding a product, but the integration of video can also improve a site?s rank in the search engines, which can also drive considerable traffic to a website, which could increase online sales. Consult Working Beautifully to learn more about creating a professional video for your website.
  • Provide Free Shipping to Increase Sales
Customers will view shipping fees as a hidden cost, which can lead to an abandoned cart. If you want to encourage conversions, you should seriously consider offering free shipping to your customers. It?s a psychological strategy, as it will make users believe they are obtaining a great deal even when they are not. You can offer free shipping by simply increasing your prices, so you can improve your conversion rate without having to compromise your finances.
  • Tweak the Checkout Process
Long checkout processes can frustrate or bore your customers, as they may not have the time or the patience to endure complex steps to buy a product or service. As a result, you could lose customers who were originally happy to buy from your business. It might be helpful to perform split testing to tweak the checkout process, so you can prevent abandoned carts and increase sales. If possible, try to provide your customers with a single page checkout experience, which features a few dropdowns and a view of their purchases.
  • Prove a Website is Safe to Increase Trust
With many unscrupulous websites online, consumers might be wary about who they buy their products or services from, especially if they are purchasing goods from an unknown brand for the first time. If you want to increase your conversion rate, you must indicate on your website that a visitor can trust your company, so they are willing to enter their financial information. For example, you should incorporate small images of credit card payment options, PayPal, and other payment gateways. This will provide a visual indication that you provide trusted third-party payment options, so there will be no risk to their finances when they purchase a product from your website.
Instagram Stories Ads And Other Insta Marketing Secrets For 2018

Instagram Stories Ads And Other Insta Marketing Secrets For 2018

by | Feb 13, 2018 | Social Media

instagram tips for 2018In the last 5 years, Instagram has turned into a go-to social network for businesses looking to put their names on the map. Companies love to use Instagram because it gives them a chance to connect with their targeted audience. And with more than?500 million daily active users?it seems like an easy enough task...or is it?If you plan to use Instagram to promote your business it?s important to stay on top of things. Knowing all the latest trends and statistics, using the right hashtags or when to post are some of the tricks you need to master in order to make this platform your money-making machine.Here, we?ll give you some useful insights and help you uncover the secrets of Instagram marketing that will take your business to a whole new level.

1. The story behind Instagram stories

In 2017 only 8% of businesses used Instagram story ads as an attempt to engage more customers. Yet, the stats are about to change since 2018 is shaping up to be the year of the Stories. According to statistics whopping?88% of businesses?are changing their strategies and focusing more on posting through stories.Using Instagram stories quickly became a huge marketing trend. This relatively new feature released in March 2017 gives you a chance to experiment and see what works best for your business.Still, the most important thing is to create quality content based on clearly established goals and KPI?s. After that, all you need to do is track your success rate through?Instagram Stories analytics. Together with impressions and reach you?ll be able to see your Instagram Stories? exits and replies from the last two weeks. And if you?re interested in generating traffic, try using a third-party tool for counting clicks.

2. Start boosting your posts

Getting familiar with Instagram advertising is something you?ll have to work on if you want to maintain or acquire high engagement. Luckily for you, it?s not that difficult. All you have to do is boost your posts to your followers. That way you can avoid using Instagram ads and special targeting. ?Just take a regular Instagram post and promote it in order to get more likes, impressions and visits. Your post will look like a regular one accept it will have the ?sponsored? sign and a call to action button.

3. Will Instagram profiles become the new home pages?

More and more people are looking for brands on Instagram rather than Google. Instagram profiles are becoming the home pages of the future so it?s really important to focus your attention on Instagram aesthetics as a crucial part of your Instagram marketing strategy.Having a consistent aesthetic flow and a nicely organized color pallet could do wonders for your profile and attract new followers.Aesthetic is essential for companies which base their business on visual appeal. For example, focusing on this type of?social media marketing for real estate?could make a huge difference when it comes to outshining the competition. There are many available visual Instagram planners which will help your profile really come together resulting in aesthetically pleasing appearance.

4. Everyone will shop on Instagram

Instagram decided to join forces with Shopify in a form of a?new shopping feature integration.This new feature will allow Shopify users to tag their product in a photo along with the name and the price of the product. Customers will be able to do their shopping through Instagram without having to switch to another app.People from Shopify explain that partnering up with Instagram was the next logical step because staying on the same platform will only result in increased number of additional sales. So, if you?re not using Shopify yet, this might be the best time to start.

5. It?s all about Instagram analytics

If you want to run a successful Instagram campaign you?ll have to get familiar with?Instagram analytics. Mastering analytics tools is really important because it will help with constantly changing the Instagram algorithm.Also, frequently optimizing your content is another crucial factor in generating a high number of impressions and engagement.And since 2018 seems to be all about Instagram analytics, you can look forward to more advanced versions of the tool not only limited to mobile apps.If you want to be a successful marketer you need to stay on top of your game. This year is huge for Instagram, especially Instagram Stories so make sure you?re amongst the first who?ll use all its potential and put it to good use.
WordPress Trends You Need to Look Out for in 2018

WordPress Trends You Need to Look Out for in 2018

by | Jan 30, 2018 | WordPress

WordPress remains the single most popular website development platform accounting for almost 6 out of every 10 websites on the internet. From small businesses to global brands, WordPress comes with enough features and power to serve all their needs. This, however, doesn?t mean that if the majority of websites on the internet use the same platform, they are alike. There is a huge diversity in WordPress development and the tag of ?open-source? means that it is consistently updated with cool new features that further propel its popularity.This means that while WordPress remains the natural choice for businesses, WordPress development companies have to constantly reinvent themselves with new capabilities and features to deliver websites that match the latest trends. Now, given that this platform spans across the Internet, the trends of WordPress are actually a precursor to the overall web development trends to follow. So, let?s take a look at what?s in the store for this year:

1. Single-page Websites

The problem with most of the online services today is not that they fall short of doing any particular thing, but that they do too much! When users visit any website, they are virtually bombarded with tabs and links that lead to another page with other similar links and tabs with information scattered all over. This, instead of making them informed, makes them confused. One of the key trends we are now witnessing is simplicity- simplicity without subduction.As the name suggests, single-page websites arrange all the information on a single page

2. Parallax Scrolling

It was initially used in 2D games but is now a popular choice for website design to help create a more immersive user experience. The basic concept is that when the users scroll, the background moves slower than the content on the front. This creates an illusion of depth thus giving the website a unique feel and inciting higher user interactions.

3. Microinteractions

Microinteractions are a pretty effective tool for improving the usability of websites while ensuring that it remains fun for the users as well. These are snippets of animations, gifs, or other components that make websites more vibrant and engaging.

4. Mobile First Websites

The term mobile-first has been tossed around for quite a while now. But more often than not, the implementation has been towards a responsive design- that adjusts according to the type of device it is accessed from. While this has enabled businesses to deliver a uniform experience across all platforms, the focus is now shifting to exploit the prominence of mobile devices with the explicit mobile-first approach. This prioritizes interface and features for small devices and later, tailoring them for desktop use.

5. E-commerce Themes

The immense success of eCommerce businesses in the last few years has also transformed how eCommerce applications are developed. While there are a plenty of frameworks and tools dedicated to building virtual stores, possibly none of them come with the simplicity of WordPress. Keeping that in mind, WordPress also offers an array of eCommerce themes and other tools, to create virtual stores by using only WordPress. This is one of the trends that are guaranteed to take off in days to come.Overall, it is the combination of simplicity and powerful components that has made WordPress the favorite among all web developers. And as the community grows and the technology is empowered with more capabilities, it is to expand its footprint to the extent that the only natural choice for building websites would be to hire WordPress developers.
What Does Your Business Need to Spend Money On?

What Does Your Business Need to Spend Money On?

by | Jan 22, 2018 | Business, Marketing

When you start a business, you will probably hear all sorts of advice about how you need to save money in any way that you can to avoid going under. However, there are plenty of things that you will need to invest in to ensure the successful running of your company. It is these that we will be discussing in more detail in this article.DesignThe design of your small business really makes a big difference to the overall public perception of it. A typical customer actually pays a great deal of attention to things like your logo, and this is what is likely to make them trust you over your competitors. And the branding of your company will also be highly visible throughout everything that you do from your business cards to the signage outside your offices, so it is an important decision. MarketingUnless you have a clear marketing background, you should consider outsourcing your marketing needs to a professional agency. This involves clearly knowing the target audience of your product, targeting them in the most effective way possible, and being consistent throughout all your activity. Strong marketing helps to maximise your business sales, so it is extremely important.TechnologyStrong technology can really help to streamline your business and remove tasks which would otherwise be complicated and expensive. Remember, if you are looking for funds for your company, you can always utilize a small business loan online. Obviously, technology encompasses a wide variety of areas including instant messaging systems, website design and an integrated phone system.Accounting ServicesOne of the first and most valuable services that you can look to outsource is your accounting. A professional accountancy firm can help you to optimise your business, as well as reducing waste and inefficiencies. If you try to do everything yourself and you don?t have a great deal of experience in this area, you may well find that you are spending more money than you are saving.InsuranceProtecting your business from all the threats that exist out there is one of the most valuable things that you can do. You never really know when disaster could strike, and if you aren?t prepared to deal with it, your business could end up being affected massively. Legal AdviceJust as accountancy is an area of expertise that is worth spending money on, so too is legal advice. There are a myriad of legal issues that can affect businesses of all kind, so if you are not experienced in this area, you can easily get into all kinds of trouble. You may only need this on a temporary basis or it may be something that is ongoing. Either way, it can be invaluable.So, these are just a few of the things that your business needs to spend money on when you are first starting out. Obviously, you need to create and maintain a clear budget to ensure that everything is properly accounted for. ?