The Blog

4 Common Mistakes When Implementing a Company

By On June 12, 2013 In Blogging, Digital Marketing, Marketing Mix, Marketing Tips With No Comments Permanent Link to 4 Common Mistakes When Implementing a CompanyPermalink

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As a part of my core business, I consult on a number of blogging implementations and manage a number of corporate blogs on a weekly or daily basis. Indeed, I should put out there that we won’t take on a social media client if you won’t consider adding a blog to your marketing mix. Why? Because you just won’t get the results you come to us for without one.

I want to share the four major hurdles companies face when introducing the concept of a blog to their organisation.

1.  The business doesn’t see the value in blogging—yet.

Our backend data demonstrates time and time again, that blogging is the most important part of a website. It is a very powerful tool used to accomplish two specific marketing goals. First, it has the greatest opportunity to engage web visitors (that’s potential clients) and, second, it directly impacts your rank in search engine results for your product or service. You should view blogging as a systematic task that communicates the value proposition of your business.

2.  Their web developer is great at building a website, but…

Too many companies rely on non-marketing trained web developers to guide them on their site creation and end up with a raw deal for a variety of reasons. I touched upon this point of website woes, last time.  Either the developer hasn’t given them right advice on adding a blog, CMS coding doesn’t have a decent blogging module that ticks all the boxes as far as search engine optimisation (SEO), author profiles, share buttons and ever important call to actions, or, and this is the worst kind…. the developer simply refused to imbed the blog in the website at all. If your web developer isn’t flexible enough to add this vital hub of marketing activity into your site – get a new one fast!   I do want to say that we work with a number of outstanding web designers/developers and they are very important to my business – and yours!

3.  No Brand Strategy

Brand strategy is a key component in any marketing mix because it establishes your brand as more than just a name or logo; it’s also an experience. A blog is your opportunity to communicate with your target market and establish that experience directly in a non-sales-related way. It is also a terrific opportunity to position your brand how you want to be seen. How long have you been in the industry? What knowledge do you have to offer? Showcase the valuable insight your clients get for free if they use your services.

If you don’t want to call it a blog, use terms like news feed, learning centre, or knowledge bank. But be careful, no matter what you call it, not updating with regularly new content also falls under not complying with a brand strategy.

4.  Confidence

I personally love to blog! At first I was overrun with the thought – ‘what do you know Natalie? Who is going to care what you think? – Nobody’. I’m also somebody who still feels that writing English is like a second language. It has taken me time to develop my voice and I had to realign to my target audience. At first, I was writing for other marketing agencies without even realising it. But ultimately – a blog post has to be resonant with the types of trials and questions marks your target audience are trying to answer.

Are you looking for online business marketing services to boost your bottom line? Brief Us and tell us about your business goals..

2 Things to Watch Out for When Starting with Digital Marketing

By On June 6, 2013 In Digital Marketing, email marketing, Marketing Tips With No Comments Permanent Link to 2 Things to Watch Out for When Starting with Digital MarketingPermalink

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Many companies struggle to get started in the digital marketing sphere. We go into many organisations to ‘turn up’ their marketing practices and often introduce new elements of digital marketing. I never take for granted that some of the more technical aspects of digital marketing are hard for most people to get their heads around, particularly at first. Many find it very overwhelming. But there are two re-occurring blunders and I thought I would give some insight to below. I see both occurrences more often than not. 

1.  Website Woes:

Businesses often get trapped into complex websites that are not flexible enough for their day-to-day marketing tactics. Your website must be able to accommodate specialised landing pages, incremental changes to optimise conversions, and weekly news items. To accomplish this, numerous members of your marketing team need access to and control over the site. This will also save time spent going back to the designer for every little update.  When you are looking for a website provider, the most important element is control over your own website and a decent content management system to do it. The website must be owned by the marketing department and not IT. Many brand has been held back on this factor alone. Can I get an Amen?

2.  Lack of Marketing Action Plan:

Most of your profitable demand generation activities, such as email marketing, SEM, and social media, need to be ‘fed’ by an overarching month-by-month plan.  Marketing is a process. We create a prescribed catalogue of activities for every digital marketing strategy, basically a new take on the old marketing action plan.  We call it a Strategic Marketing Plan or Editorial Calendar, but now including items like social media updates, blog posts, and online PR. Without one, great ideas never go live and grand opportunities go amiss. We also track a number of returns on investment and website milestones all in this one place. It acts as a virtual dashboard where a number of channels converge.

Have you ever worked with online marketing agencies before? With more and more businesses using the internet to source products and services, it’s imperative you get digital marketing right! Contact us now to get
started!

 

What is a Strategic Marketing Plan?

By On May 24, 2013 In Digital Marketing, email marketing, Marketing Services, Marketing Tips With No Comments Permanent Link to What is a Strategic Marketing Plan?Permalink

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I’ll let you in on a secret: Marketing is 20% strategy and concept creation and 80% implementation. The inability to properly follow through with a marketing strategy is money wasted. Think about it. Have you ever gone live with advertising, an event, or some other marketing program and realised you missed a number of opportunities to leverage your efforts across another channel? Or, did you fail to cover all of your bases when telling your customers about the program? You may have mentioned it on the blog, but, really, wouldn’t a journalist want to know about it too? These scenarios are all often the result of not having a thorough enough strategic marketing plan.

The point of strategic marketing and a strategic marketing plan is to take a long term view of your actions as a means to maximise ROI. For digital marketing, this includes considering the massive investment in time and money spent on blogs, white papers, videos, and other content-related projects and identifying each opportunity to promote them. You want to lay out each of those opportunities in a formal plan to ensure each touch point is addressed at the right time(s). Working as a virtual dashboard or checklist, the strategic marketing plan is a way to organise your marketing efforts each day, week, month, and year

Without such an action plan there is risk of missing promotional opportunities; your marketing may even fail altogether! Worse still, neglecting to take a strategic approach to marketing can cause you to have a major budget blow out. Oftentimes, resources are wasted because of poor planning as companies rush to create new materials for each effort rather than leveraging the items they already have. Organisation through a strategic marketing plan is designed directly to avoid such a scenario

The point is to create a long-term outlook on a company’s goals and objectives, along with the tactics and strategies that will be used to accomplish them. To accomplish this, strategic marketing plans contain several elements meant to provide a macro overview of your marketing efforts. Depending on the customer, plans may include email marketing, content marketing, blog posts, case studies, video marketing, social media updates, targeted keywords, and supporting advertising—which will be conveniently located all in the one place.

When your company decides to undertake a formal marketing strategy with Pollen or anyone else, the formulation of a strategic marketing plan is absolutely essential for success, and to make sure of this every single one of our clients receives a strategic marketing calendar. 

Are you looking for online business marketing services to boost your bottom line? Brief Us and tell us about your business goals..

Need more sales? Organise your customer Database

By On May 10, 2013 In CRM, Customer Relationship Software, email marketing With No Comments Permanent Link to Need more sales? Organise your customer DatabasePermalink

You may have heard that acquiring a new customer can cost you up to 10 times more than the cost of retaining an existing one, but an unorganized customer database can lead to poorly allocated advertising dollars. I know databases aren’t the sexy end of marketing, but I’m a second-generation database marketing geek — and all the strategic decision making and analytics that comes out these babies gets me excited.

An accurate, detailed database, or customer relationship management software (CRM), allows businesses to target advertisements to a specific demographic within their existing customer base. The more details that are captured, the more specifically targeted and relevant the offers will be, increasing the chance of people opening and actually reading an advertisement!

Collecting emails, phone numbers and addresses of all current and potential customers will keep an active and well-researched line of communication available for marketing initiatives.

Possibly my favourite part about of being a strategist, though, is examining the traits shared by loyal customers and instructing sales teams, adjusting services, and planning email campaigns to meet their specific needs. I told you I was a geek!

Finding all of the customers who purchased a certain product is as simple as a few clicks, and ensures that a marketing campaign for a new version or accessory is reaching pre-motivated buyers. Searching for specific customer traits before committing to a certain tone or highlighted sale will ultimately make campaigns more personalised and relevant.

 

See full article – Natalie Giddings (MYOB)

Feeling Overwhelmed with the amount of Online Marketing Technology?

By On May 9, 2013 In Digital Marketing With No Comments Permanent Link to Feeling Overwhelmed with the amount of Online Marketing Technology?Permalink

You are not alone…

A solid online marketing strategy requires regularly interacting with various online platforms to increase website enquiries and sales ready traffic.

it can be hard to get your head around all of this…

4 great sites to start networking

By On May 8, 2013 In Business Strategy, Networking With No Comments Permanent Link to 4 great sites to start networkingPermalink

Networking is an integral part of our professional lives. It’s really important to build strategic alliances for your business. Doing this used to have awkward connotations for me.

But soon I learned that the opportunity to meet like-minded people and peers on a similar career path as myself was a prized gift. If it brings in additional referral business, then that is just a bonus! Just replace the word ‘networking’ with ‘relationship building’ if it makes you feel better.

Networking can also introduce us to new ideas and help us appreciate unique thinking processes different from our own. My networking circles have also helped me in times of need, especially when beginning a new venture. Maybe it’s just me, but when I was a bit younger (and perhaps because I am a woman), trying to float a strategic project before a board of directors used to be quite frightening. Some of my fondest networking pals often came to the rescue with powerful encouragement. There are multiple ways in which we can build our network, but here are four of my favourite:

1. Meetup.com

The simplest and easiest way to build your network is to find similar-minded people and mingle. Sign up to the website meetup.com. You can find groups or ‘meet-ups’ based around a certain activity or passion. There may even be a think-tank around best practices in your industry. If there isn’t already something applicable to you, then start something!

See full article – Natalie Giddings (MYOB)

If marketing isn’t working, you’re asking the wrong questions

By On May 7, 2013 In Marketing, Marketing Consulting, Marketing Services, Marketing Tips, Target Market With No Comments Permanent Link to If marketing isn’t working, you’re asking the wrong questionsPermalink

Often I get asked, how do I know who and where to market to for the biggest bang for my buck?

Firstly, you need to understand the characteristics of the people who are most suitable for your product or service. They are typically referred to as your target market. Coming to appreciate them and their uniqueness produces a number of advantages, including higher response rates for advertising, as well as a lower marketing budget.

Knowing who is buying or who would benefit most from using your product or service also helps you decide how and where to promote your business. Traditionally, organisations overlook this part of the marketing plan or, at minimum, barely scratch the surface of its potential. Here are some important points to consider if you want to avoid this pitfall.

Who Are Your Target Market…and What Matters Most to Them?

Define who your target customers are and how they behave. You can include age, gender, social status, education, and attitudes. Consider their lifestyles, activities, values, needs, interests or opinions.  But if you really want to make this work, you have to find out the thoughts that consume their time. You can start by finding out what gives them pain or distress or what they aspire to be.

See full article – Natalie Giddings (MYOB)

 

30 Reasons to Use a Digital Marketing Agency

By On April 29, 2013 In Digital Marketing With No Comments Permanent Link to 30 Reasons to Use a Digital Marketing AgencyPermalink

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Turning to a digital marketing agency that understands your business for support is a great option because suddenly you have access to a host of marketing expertise in the one place. The dollars you spend on marketing go further and reap greater results. Digital marketing agencies are also continually adapting and evolving our practice based on the latest findings from testing and measuring the results on our live campaigns.

So I thought I would write you a list of benefits why I think using a digital marketing agency can benefit your business. I’m not sure I have covered them all. Don’t overlook number 27 & 28. I see these two ALL the time and they might be something you haven’t addressed in your business yet.

  1. You struggle to bring a consistent number of new sales enquiries to your business.
  2. You are not converting your enough perspective clients to new business.
  3. The sales leads you do generate are not the right ones for you.
  4. Not enough people are coming to your website or calling you
  5. People are coming to your website, but not getting in touch.
  6. You have no idea what marketing is working and you are unable to track ROI.
  7. Your sales are SOLELY dependent on a direct sales team – BIG ONE!!!
  8. You know you need a number of programs to not only capture new clients but also retain or reinvigorate your current client database – you just dont have the time or know exactly where to start.
  9. You get overwhelmed with the fast pace of online marketing and it takes you four times as long to put a campaign together as anyone else.
  10. Your previous efforts haven’t had the outcome you were expecting.
  11. Your business has grown quickly and you aren’t able to maintain the level of marketing activity you need to keep growing because other parts of the business now take more of your time.
  12. Marketing projects keep running over time and budget!
  13. Access to specialist marketing skills as needed on each project, rather than just what is available in-house eg. persuasive writing, offer orchestration, new web pages or sign up forms.
  14. The cost of having an entire marketing department is too high BUT you need access to varied range of skills.
  15. You my not need full scale marketing programs every month of the year, so want to avoid hiring a marketing person in-house yet.
  16. You struggle to differentiate your business from your competitors and therefore you are always competing solely on price and it is killing your business.
  17. You’re not reaching your target market effectively or you dont know how to find them.
  18. Prospects are seeing the value in your services and but they always seem to go with somebody else.
  19. Your marketing team have general marketing skills or are specialists in only a couple of styles of marketing and you need to bolster their skills.
  20. You know you want to publish regular news about your business or develop case studies, but it never seems to actually get done.
  21. Because of the complexity, you have no idea if your online advertising and Search Engine Marketing (SEM) providers have set your campaigns correctly or if they correctly reflects your business objectives. (PS You could be bleeding big money).
  22. You have never done an audit on your website, email marketing and search engine to see if they can convert better.
  23. Getting fresh information live on your website is an ongoing nightmare!!
  24. You have started using social media, but not sure you are actually achieving a thing.
  25. You have a CRM, but nobody really knows how to use it, or if its set up correctly for your business.
  26. Creating media releases, email marketing campaigns or a new item is inconsistent.
  27. Your in-house marketing person is at a junior/entry level and just need strategy and direction.
  28. Your in-house marketing person doesn’t also have a business development background and needs strategy an direction.
  29. You don’t have a lead follow up procedure in place.
  30. You are not sure how to make your website a valuable sales tool.

Which social media can’t you ignore in 2013?

By On January 23, 2013 In Blogging, Branding, Facebook, Social Media With No Comments Permanent Link to Which social media can’t you ignore in 2013?Permalink

With the announcement of Microsoft’s Socl social network, you might be getting a little overwhelmed with social media. You could be wondering how to keep up with all of these different platforms, especially if you are already drowning in social media. Indeed, many people are wondering if any of them are worth the investment and time.

I often hear people talk online about how social media is not just about clicks, but about brand equity as well. Well, I am in the camp that believes if you are measuring your social media activity by either of those two metrics alone, you are missing the point.

For the past 12 months, we have been monitoring 1300 numbers on websites to see where their visitors are coming from. They could be from Twitter, pay-per-click, keywords, Facebook and others. And the result might shock you.

See full article – Natalie Giddings (MYOB)

Innovating your Business Model

By On January 14, 2013 In Business Strategy With No Comments Permanent Link to Innovating your Business ModelPermalink

I’ve recently stumbled upon a great and imaginative business model. Naked Wines  helps winemakers sell their products online. But they’re not just retailers, Naked Wines also invests in independent winemakers to make exclusive wines for their customers.

Now is the perfect time to re-think your business model. You can innovate your business model simply by tweaking how you provide your product or services.

Think about your customers. What are their pain points? If you manage to solve these for them, then it’s really just about execution and keeping your costs low to succeed.

See full article – Natalie Giddings (MYOB)

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