Digital Marketing Archives - Page 10 of 14

CiT Monthly Roundup of Marketing News/Updates

by Fred Warner | Dec 2, 2021 | Digital Marketing

Do you want the good news or the bad news? Bad news…you now need 3 layers to go outside without feeling like Frosty the Snowman. Good news…festivities are in full swing!

Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, the world of marketing might pause long enough for you to scoff a mince pie but make sure to check out our latest monthly roundup of marketing news and updates whilst they’re hot and fresh. If you missed out our October monthly roundup of marketing news and want to catch up just click here.

There is always something changing, whether it is social media or Google, and you need to stay on top of it! When you’re trying to feel festive you may not want to keep up to date with news but if you are offering a product or service, Christmas is your time to shine!

Let’s get started;

Fendi’s Time Square Takeover: Is Creativity Dead?

Last week famous fashion brand Fendi took over New York’s Times Square by covering it in their signature yellow.

Venturini Fendi said: “Times Square is something futuristic, something so different from Rome and peculiar of New York. It’s a landmark of the city – the lights, projection. It’s a window to the future.”

In a futuristic environment, was their takeover too lacklustre with a lack of imagination? Most brand ‘city attacks’ have heaps of creative flair and make use of the magnitude of the area and displays.

Fendi’s display was not well received with little to no traction in the fashion industry leaving many people wondering who the target audience was and what reaction was intended. A mass of bright yellow with their logo would likely be memorable, however with people attributing the work to ‘Fenty’, ‘Fenti’ and ‘Fendi’ it is unclear if people even remembered the brand name!

CREATIVE in TiME say: Marketing is essential for all businesses and creative marketing is ideal. What are your competitors doing? What do your customers want to see? Don’t be afraid to change.

Are you struggling with your marketing? If you are looking through this post and want to up your game, then click here to read about our services and what we can do for you.

Google Maps adds 3 NEW Features for Local Shopping

In the midst of the pandemic, more and more people are wanting to support local businesses and Google are introducing 3 NEW Google Maps features worldwide to help. Local businesses, it’s your time to shine! “Busyness” (yes, that is how you spell it) is one of the new features, who else didn’t know this was a word?

Area Busyess: When using Google Maps you can see how busy an area or business is currently and the estimation of busyness throughout the day.

Directory Tab: The Directory tab is most useful in shopping centres as it will display a list of all businesses, whether they are open, what floor they are on and what their star rating is.

Restaurant Information: Google Maps is now able to display more information when customers look up local restaurants. Information such as price ranges, delivery and other amenities will now be visible to customers if provided.

Is your information on Google up to date? If not, make sure that your information is detailed, succinct and useful. Including information such as disabled access, catering for dietary requirements, and COVID-19 measures can encourage customers and bring in people who otherwise may not come in.

Google Maps isn’t the only thing to keep up to date with, want to know how to use Google My Business to grow? Check it out here.

CREATIVE in TiME say: Google is KING! Whether you are a brick-and-mortar business or an online business, keeping up to date with all of Google’s updates is vital!

O2 creates Snapchat AR store for Black Friday Samsung deals

Black Friday is the biggest shopping event in the early calendar with total spending in the UK expected to have hit 9.42 BILLION pounds!

O2 has got involved with Black Friday and adopted the use of Snapchat’s augmented reality (AR) feature to create an “AR store of the future” to promote Samsung Black Friday deals.

This inventive sales idea allows prospective customers to save money without leaving their home or putting down their current phone! It transforms the four walls around them into a virtual sales area used to present 3 Samsung products and a “buy now” button.

The 3 products shown are the Samsung Galaxy S21 5G, Samsung Galaxy Z Flip3, and Samsung Galaxy Watch4.

This is a unique and engaging shopping experience for customers and may point to a new way to shop. It is unlikely to become common place but, would you use an AR shop on your phone?

CREATIVE in TiME say: This is very unique, but is Snapchat a dying platform? We’re not sure on this one but one thing is for sure – AR is not going away anytime soon.

Instagram Launches Live Test of Longer Videos in Stories

Instagram has launched a live test of 60-second videos in stories, this was first spotted in testing last month. This change means that longer videos in stories will not be split into 15 second segments and will reduce interruptions in stories.

The feature is currently being tested by a small user group in hopes it will improve creative freedom and streamline video uploads.

This test is likely influenced by TikTok, who have risen in popularity as the best place to be for video, and do not limit the length of your videos.

CREATIVE in TiME say: We likey this one! We were expecting this feature sooner or later. After all, they do like to copy EVERYTHING TikTok does.

Google Review Snippets will not show if the reviews are republished from another source!

Customers love reviews and therefore businesses want them to be as visible as possible but for Google to display a review as a snippet, the review must be directly submitted to the website.

For most businesses, you likely take reviews for your business from other places on the internet, such as Facebook, and then publish them on your website. This is effective at having reviews seen on your website but it will disqualify the page from being eligible for rich results.

Google defines reviews from other sources as “testimonials” instead of reviews. Here is what Google’s John Mueller had to say about it:

“We probably wouldn’t show that as reviews in the search results because it’s more like a testimonial. Reviews would essentially need to be something which is based on a specific product on that page and the reviews need to be things that users leave directly on that page.

So if you’re kind of like archiving reviews from other sources and you’re posting them then we wouldn’t pick those up as reviews for the structured data side. You can keep them on the page we just wouldn’t use the review markup for that.”

If you currently don’t accept reviews on your website but want to start, the easiest way to do so is to add a review submission form on every product/service page on your site.

CREATIVE in TiME say: Reviews are so important for your business! Customers love them, Google loves them, everyone loves them!

Roundup Complete!

We hope you enjoyed our monthly roundup of marketing news, check back in next month for our December monthly roundup of marketing news! You can even have it delivered straight to your inbox by signing up for our newsletter! Just send your email over to [email protected].

Whilst you do that, does your business need a hand staying up to date? Maybe you’re struggling to keep on track with all of the new marketing changes? There’s a lot after all!

We’ve got your back!

Book in now for a discovery call and our marketing business can help you with all the latest strategies and changes.

SEO and How to Optimise it for your Business

by Fred Warner | Nov 25, 2021 | Digital Marketing

Let me guess, you want your website to be easily found by customers and don’t want to spend time creating a stunning website if no one can see it, we get it! Have you heard of SEO and how to optimise it for your business?

With the seemingly infinite amount of content on the internet, it can be overwhelming knowing how to start. I mean, what is SEO anyway?

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is the way you can help customers to find your site through search engines. By improving and optimising your SEO you can drive more traffic to your website and therefore generate more sales.

1. Use the right keywords

Firstly, you need to know what your customers are searching for. Are your customers more likely to use formal or informal word/phrases? You need your website to use the same language as your potential searchers.

Use keyword search tools to research what keywords to use for your business (check out our favourite here). If you input one keyword, keyword tools can show you the amount the term is searched, its SEO difficulty and a list of other similar keywords.

The information you find can be used to create keywords lists. If you are promoting different products and services, then you can create a list for each to optimise each page most effectively.

Common mistakes:

Only doing keyword research once
Targeting keywords that are too competitive
Forgetting to update and expand your keyword list.

Once you have found your keywords, you need to know where to use them:

Title
URL
Throughout the page text
Image alt text

2. Link building

Link building is when you acquire hyperlinks to your website from other websites. A hyperlink is a word, image or phrase that you click on to travel to a different section of the current document or to a new document.

Increasing your link building between websites is a great way to build web authority and increase your chances of ranking higher.

Gaining links organically is ideal, you can encourage this by making your website link-worthy with useful information and interesting products/services which could be featured in a blog.

You can also build links to your site by asking website owners to carry your link on their site in exchange for you to do the same. Remember, quality over quantity. Links from reputable directories, website and educational websites will be more useful than links from untrustworthy blogs and sketchy websites.

3. Ensure your website is user-friendly

Making your website user-friendly will, of course, help your users have the best experience possible but it will also improve your SEO and Google Rankings.

Site speed is confirmed to affect your SEO, just imagine the impact it could have on your user’s experience! With the majority of websites available with no load time, if your website is slow then it can cause users to bounce out. User behaviour on your site sends signals to search engines which then can impact your ranking.

Google wants its users to be happy and understand that load speed can have a major impact on user satisfaction. Google’s method to ranking includes using Core Web Vitals; these assess your websites loading time, visual stability and interactivity and the results of this influence your ranking.

The faster your site speed, the higher your ranking. Simple.

4. Look at your content length

How long your content is can affect your SEO and your ranking. Blog posts should contain at least 300 words in order to rank well on search engines but research shows that the ideal length for a blog post is 1,600 words.

You may be wondering; how do I know how long MY content should be? An easy way to do this is to Google your main keyword and look at the top 10 results on Google. Do these contain more than 1,600 words? If they do then yours should too, if not then look at the average length of other similar high-ranking content.

Don’t forget, quality over quantity!

5. Optimise your on-page SEO

On-page SEO is the way in which you optimise your website content for search engines. Some examples of on-page SEO are headings, slugs, meta descriptions and internal links.

Here are some top tips to get you started with optimising your on-page SEO:

Meta descriptions: A meta description is the small chunk of text that appears below your page title on a search result. Make sure these are concise, accurate and relevant to your content.
Headings: DON’T use misleading titles. Click-bait titles may give you more initial clicks but will lead to a high bounce-rate when your content is not what is expected. Use H1 headings for your main title to help Google understand your content.
Slugs: No not those slimy things in your garden! A slug is part of your URL that identifies a particular page on your website. Try to include your keywords in your slug and keep it short and sweet! People check to slug to ensure the content is what they are looking for.

Off-page SEO and technical SEO are also important to consider on your website…luckily for you, we have our very own guide to all things SEO! Check it out here.

If you want your SEO optimised but you are still unsure how, or maybe you simply don’t have the time, get in touch now! Here at Creative in Time we have a team of SEO experts just waiting to help you. Click here to book a discovery call now.

Black Friday Marketing Strategies to Maximise 2023 Sales

by Fred Warner | Nov 18, 2021 | Digital Marketing

Do you sell a product online? If you do, then this one’s for you. Black Friday is the busiest shopping day of the year, and with the aftermath of a global pandemic, more and more shoppers are queuing in virtual stores instead of in brick-and-mortar shops.

With potential Black Friday shoppers browsing the internet, you want to ensure you are prepared for the craziness and that you can maximise your traffic!

The expected total spending over Black Friday weekend in the UK is 9.42 BILLION pounds. Crazy right?!

We’ve put together a few simple marketing strategies you could consider in order to maximise your 2023 sales this Black Friday.

1. Create your Black Friday Email List

Our first tip is to create a Black Friday email list. Have you noticed an influx of Black Friday emails in your inbox? We bet you have. Create an email marketing list SPECIFICALLY for people who would be interested in your Black Friday deals.

Did you know that 25.1% of sales during the Black Friday promotion season has originated from email marketing? If you aren’t utilising email marketing this Black Friday then what’s even the point!?!

Tip: Create a pop-up on your website asking people to sign up for your newsletter and use an incentive such as early access to the sale. Use a punchy call-to-action to draw people in!

Once you have created your marketing list, you need to create an enticing email campaign. Use a catchy subject line to intrigue people, include clear CTA’s (call to actions), and try to send out more than one email to remind people about your sale. Don’t worry you’ve still got time!

Need some inspiration? Check out our EXAMPLE email campaign below!

2. Get creative with timing

Black Friday is capitalised by businesses big and small; this can get overwhelming for consumers who are receiving the same marketing messages constantly. Try to offset this and grab your customers attention by changing your timing.

Tip: Try starting your sale early, have you noticed anyone doing ‘Black Thursday’?

Typically, you will have less business competition for your consumers attention and a head start on sales. Many people use Black Friday to buy Christmas presents at a good value, catching people early ensures they haven’t bought anything yet therefore more chance for you to make a sale.

3. Extra offers

Pop-ups draw in consumers attention and even better if they offer an extra discount. Virtual ‘scratch cards’, spin the wheel games (see image below!) and other interactive pop-ups are sure to be an attention grabber.

Keeping customers on your site longer can help to prevent an abandoned cart and help push sales for people on the fence.

Tip: Bonus offers do NOT need to be extreme. For example, offer an extra 10% off or next day delivery for £2.

4. Loyalty programme

Do you have a loyalty programme or a VIP club for loyal customers? These people are already happy customers and have familiarity with your brand.

Target existing customers by offering an exclusive discount, existing customers are more likely to buy from your brand than new customers. This also builds a good reputation and encourages customers to continue to purchase from your business. People like to feel appreciated!

Tip: Create a campaign dedicated to loyal customers. A common offer is early access to Black Friday deals. This can also encourage users to tell their friends about your AMAZING deals!

Don’t underestimate the power of social media! Utilise all your social media platforms to get the word out about your involvement in Black Friday. Facebook, Instagram and Twitter are firm favourites but don’t fear branching out into TikTok. TikTok was the fastest growing app of 2020 and is no doubt the place to be in 2023!

Tip: Different social media platforms appeal to different demographics. TikTok and Instagram will appeal to a younger demographic whereas Facebook can appeal to an older audience. Who will your product appeal to? Who do you want to target? We recommend you finding this out in order to get the most from your marketing strategy.

We hope this information has helped you and that our tips will help make this Black Friday the most successful for your business!

Black Friday is one day a year, but you need effective marketing all year long…that’s where we come in! Get in touch with CREATIVE in TiME to get a free audit!

How to use Google My Business to Grow

by Fred Warner | Nov 4, 2021 | Digital Marketing

Wouldn’t it be amazing to know you are getting customers from Google just by following a few steps? Who are we kidding, of course it would be!

With some guidance, using Google My Business is a simple and effective way to reach potential customers and show off the best parts of your business. Brick and mortar businesses and online businesses can both benefit from the effects of Google My Business.

Below we have collated our top 5 steps to help you grow using Google My Business.

PEOPLE buy PEOPLE (cliché but true), not businesses or corporations. Prospective customers love behind-the-scenes shots of what’s going on at your business. Humans are nosey people!

Make the most of your images by choosing the right size to fit its purpose:

Profile picture: Your profile picture is what your customers will recognise your company by on Google. Ensure it is memorable, recognisable and high quality. For a profile picture, your image should be 250×250 pixels.

Cover photo: Your cover photo is also set as your listings preferred image to show first, ideally this is where you can showcase your companies personality, this is not a guarantee that it will show first however. An image of 1080×608 pixels should be used.

Other images: Customers like images, it gives an insight into your business and the people who work there. Use images in Google My Business posts to improve your posts and increase chances of a purchase or booking. Use an image of 720×540 pixels for any additional images.

Videos are rapidly increasing in popularity and effectiveness. With the amount of choice available to consumers, people are doing a quick internet search to find the best product to fit their needs. Videos are exemplary at giving people an up-close in depth look at what you are offering.

Did you know that 81 % of businesses are now using video for marketing?

A video can improve trust in your product and encourage people to make a purchase. After all, 90% of consumers claim a video will help them make a purchasing decision.

A great feature on Google My Business is the ability to add products to your listing. If you have a retail business, adding your best-selling products to your Google listing can boost sales and shows prospective customers your products without even going to your website.

Use this feature to add best sellers and products that you want to push. Use eye catching pictures to draw attention, ensure your product description is succinct but includes enough information about your product to entice a purchase and make sure your price is correct!

No one likes going to checkout and noticing a price has gone up unexpectedly, if anything changes regarding your products promptly update your Google listing for it, your customers will appreciate it.

3. Generate reviews

Don’t underestimate the power of online reviews, 93% of consumers say that online reviews have influenced their purchase decisions!

Google My Business reviews are a gold mine for new customers. Don’t be shy to ask for reviews from former and current customers, when prompted most customers are happy to leave a review.

Did you know that Facebook reviews also show up on Google My Business? Now you do!

Online reviews allow for your customers to share their experiences with your business and can bring credibility to your product or service. Negative reviews can have a bad effect on your business, but Google My Business reviews are interactable which means if someone did, hypothetically, leave a bad review you could respond and resolve the issue.

You should RESPOND to all reviews whether they are good or bad by using personalised responses and customer names. Show care and appreciation towards customers as consumers will also be looking for this.

Whether it is a sale, workshop, price reduction or open house, you should share it! Posting events to your Google My Business page will make it known to more people and can allow for more attendance/engagement. Present your event in a fun and engaging manner, no one wants to sign up for an event that sounds boring or uninformative.

When posting an event, include a link for people to sign up for said event or a link to a product page if there is a sale. Make it simple for customers to get involved, the less steps they need to take the more likely they are to participate.

5. Monitor your analytics

Google My Business insights is a great tool to see how people interact with your listing. If you are implementing our previous tips then you need to monitor their analytics too.

You can view how many people have viewed your photos, how often your business is searched and what actions your customers take such as going to your website amongst many other visibility and engagement statistics.

Keeping track of your analytics can show you what to continue doing and what needs to be improved. If you notice certain Google My Business posts get significant interaction whilst others do not then be FLEXIBLE and consider changing your plan accordingly. As humans we don’t always like change but it is necessary to improve and thrive.

Google My Business is a tool that all businesses should be using, whether small or large, to engage with customers and promote their business.

We hope these tips can allow you to revamp your listing and set your business on the trajectory to success. If you need help getting your marketing on track, just get in touch! Marketing is where we shine.

Click here to book a discovery call with us now and see what we can do for your business.

How to Create a Project Plan Cost Budget

by Fred Warner | Oct 19, 2021 | Digital Marketing

If you are running or thinking about running a project, and you need a project plan, one of the fundamental questions to answer is normally: HOW MUCH will this project cost?

This means different things to different people. If all the people who work on the project don’t have their hours counted (which you really should by the way), then you may need to just cost up spend outside your business (for example materials, sub-contractors, subscriptions, etc). If you are including hours of the staff worked, and using a day rate to cost this up, you’ll need an estimation of how much effort the project will take in order to create a project budget.

So, deciding from the above which path to take, you can set about building a project plan, and then you can cost it up.

Cost can be thought of as either price per day or week for time taken, plus fixed costs (e.g. if the design agency quote a fixed price for a website, or quote a price per day that they spend, you may have very different outcomes). A new laptop will have a fixed cost, a subscription to Adobe Photoshop will be dependent on how long you use it for.

Producing a cost estimate

In order to produce a cost estimate, you need to summarise the following (representing 7Q – the seven questions to a project plan in this specific order):

WHY are you doing this project – having a focus on this helps decide what needs doing and what is a nice to have for costing purposes
WHAT is it that needs to be achieved (this is the project scope)
WHERE is all this going to be done (location of preparation and delivery can be different places, can affect costs)
HOW are we going to achieve it (this is essentially the plan of work broken down into smaller sections).

WHO is going to do it – different people or companies have different prices. You’ll need to consider availability of people or companies needed.
WHEN is it going to be done? You may think this is the date that your client or boss is asking for, but it is important to work through WHAT, WHERE, HOW & WHO to be able to calculate WHEN (TIME), and see if your answer aligns with the wish list from your boss or client
HOW MUCH (COST) can really only be estimated when the above are known.

Let me be totally frank here (or even Fred), most project planning and execution failures come down to one of three things:

You don’t deliver WHAT is required
You don’t deliver WHEN it is required
You don’t deliver the WHAT for HOW MUCH it was meant to cost

What could be going wrong

I have worked and mentored many many project and programme managers on often extremely technical and complex items with many high-risk unknowns and potential hiccups but let me make it simple.

If you produce a plan that contains the following:

WHAT we need to do (Scope)

WHEN we need to do it (time scales)

HOW MUCH it will cost (budget)

You are missing key fundamental questions that need answers.

For example: I am going to:

WHAT: Build a rocket

WHEN: Next week

HOW MUCH: Budget $1000

What value does this have to anyone? Can it be done? Will it fail? Many project managers feed their clients or boss’ the answers that they’ve been given. Your job as a project manager is to take these inputs, work out the specification for the rocket, then proceed along the 7Q.

For example, do you understand WHY you need a rocket? If it is to go on display in a museum, this is very different from a manned mission to Mars!

When you understand WHY you are undertaking the project, you can provide greater detail to WHAT, work out WHERE you will design and build it (for cost planning), then work out HOW you will deliver the project. You need this to then decide WHO is needed for the project, this will have great cost implications. One person may earn 3 x another worker, so going for the highest paid worker may impact your project spend unnecessarily.

Assuming you have all these nailed, you can calculate WHEN or how long it will take. Remember, you can’t say how long something will take without knowing these, otherwise its a pure guess, not a plan.

Get costing!

Now, you have 6 of the 7 questions captured, you are ready to start costing. Don’t start costing before you have estimated or planned the first 6!!

You are now in a position to simply add all the items up with a cost against each item, and hey presto you have a budget or HOW MUCH the project will cost.

You can now compare your costs with the client or boss’ request, and see if it lines up with peoples expectations, or see if they are miles apart.

Next, you iterate, i.e. Go round the loop of 7Q or the seven questions a couple more times to refine your previous estimates.

Revisit the WHY – challenge all of the assumptions you’ve been given, maybe the WHY for the rocket turns out to be to launch a new GPS satellite, that changes the whole project plan!

So, you can have a project cost estimate by answering seven questions!!

Want to learn some more about Fred? Check out his LinkedIn here!

Or check out another one of our blogs, our most recent: 5 Ways to Increase Conversions on Your Site.

5 Ways to Increase Conversions on Your Site

by Fred Warner | Oct 13, 2021 | Digital Marketing

Website conversions are when someone completes a predetermined desired action on your website such as buying a product or signing up to your newsletter.

The percentage of people who complete this action is your conversion rate, hence the bigger the better!!

Did you know that the average conversion rate is ONLY 2% and most sites only have a 0.1-0.2% conversion rate?

That means that you could need 1000 website visitors to create one website conversion, no one is over joyed at the reality of that statistic, are they?

Improving the conversion rate on your site is crucial to grow your business and turn more of your current visitors into customers. Keep reading to find out 5 ways to increase conversions on your site .

Minimise your forms

Have you ever started filling out a form online but given up due to the amount of required fields? Using unnecessary fields is a sure-fire way to decrease your conversion rate. If all you need is an email and a first name then leave it at that.

Don’t skip important information though, ensure that you have any needed information but skip fields which will not be of any use. Ask yourself if a field plays a key role, if the answer is no then get rid!

The less a user has to fill in, the more likely they are to complete the form.

Add a pop-up

Pop-ups, when done right, can reach a 9% conversion rate and on average the conversion rate for all pop-ups is 3.09%.

We have a few tips for creating pop-ups that will increase conversions and not annoy your customers!

Put a delay timer on the pop-up. A 30 second delay between opening the website and receiving the pop-up can avoid it becoming annoying.

Make it easy to close. Not everyone wants to interact with a pop-up so ensure that it is easy to close and will remain closed.

Following that, ensure that the pop-up only appears once per user to make sure that people are not constantly receiving the pop-up as it can become annoying and even cause people to leave the website.

Try out offers! The first offer you try might not be quite right, try a variety of products, premium content, newsletters, free stuff and PDFs until you find one this really fits in.

Boost your CTAs

Let me guess, your calls to action (CTAs) sound a bit like this “Start free trial” and “Sign up now”. Now there is nothing necessarily wrong with these but to get the BEST conversion rates you should look at what people psychologically want to click.

Starting a CTA with ‘yes’ makes the customer see it in a positive way and creates a psychological desire to click. For example, which would you rather click on: “Claim discount” or “Yes, I want a discount!”.

Making your CTA look ‘click-able’ and stand out is vital to making people want to click. Try a movement or colour change when the mouse moves over it or a different shape to the rest of the page to make you know it should be CLICKED.

Add live chat

Most people need to be completely sure about a purchase before making it, especially if the product/service you are offering is expensive. For some customers this may be a single question that they need answering.

Live chats are perfect for these situations, by installing a live chat onto your website it can allow customers to have more security with their purchase and quell any worries they may have. It is easy to add to the site and is well worth it for the potential website conversions.

Create abandoned cart email campaigns

Do you ever go onto a website, add a product to your cart and either decide not to checkout or just forget to? Everyone does it and that means its sure to be happening on your website too.

Creating an email campaign to follow up on these abandoned carts ensures you are maximising your chances of website conversions.

These emails should include a reminder about the products in their carts, and potentially a discount or offer as an incentive to continue their purchase.

A simple reminder is all it takes for some customers to continue their purchase so don’t miss out on these potential conversions!

Now that you know 5 ways to increase conversions on your site, it’s time to put this knowledge into practice. Implementing even just one of these can have a positive impact on your conversions, and using multiple is even better.

If you want to boost your website conversions but still aren’t sure how to or what would be best for your business, click down below to see how we can help.

Yes, I want to speak to CiT about my conversions (check that out for a CTA!)