All posts by Dave B

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Why You Shouldn’t Ignore Facebook Marketing in Your Digital Marketing Strategy

Why You Shouldn’t Ignore Facebook Marketing in Your Digital Marketing Strategy

There’s this little website that’s up and coming. You may have heard of it. Its even bigger than FriendFace and Jitter combined </sarc>

friendface

Alright, there a good chance you know of Facebook already and there also a good chance you doing a bit already with a business page, maybe some live chat or something low like that, but let’s be honest how many marketers out there feel like they are really nailing their facebook marketing strategy and getting the most out of it.

Lets take a quick look at the latest stats regarding Facebooks growth.

With stats like that you can understand why some people see Facebook as an ‘internet within the internet’ so why it it then that there are some many businesses languishing when it comes to fully leveraging paid Facebook ads?

Buyer Intent

A common argument is that businesses favour paid search because the buyer is actively searching for your lovely keywords in order to presented with your jaw dropping offer. I would have to agree that buyers are in a different frame of mind on facebook but they are also very receptive to being advertised to after a number of years developing the platform.

Facebook marketing requires a different approach and a need to develop and nurture buyers through the funnel. Depending on the product or service you may find facebook users in a more receptive headspace for your offer as they let their guard down to chat with friend and people that they (mostly) know.

We also mustn’t lose sight of the fact many search buyers won’t buy first time so it really becomes a matter of ‘Search + Display Network Retargetting’ OR ‘Search + Facebook Retargetting’.

Specific Audiences

If we know how popular facebook is then why wouldn’t we want to meet our customer and prospects there? Facebook marketing audiences can be  built around a specific group of people. A tool such as Facebook Custom Audience allows you to upload contact details of your target audience and reach them with specific ads.

If we know our target market well you can target by similar interests and reach an entirely new group of customers.

 

Maximum Visibility but only if you pay.

You may have heard that your facebook posts only reach a handful of the people that like or share your page (15% on a good day)

While this is unpopular with people who have take time and budget to build like for their page, we have to remember that you are effectively building an empire on rented land. Facebook is a business and has to make money for its survival.

Facebook Marketing is still very affordable compared with some other channels so why not pay to reach your potential customers. Its only fair.

Facebook Live

This is a video platform that helps you to record and share live videos with your target market. As a business owner, you can use the opportunity to promote events, show previews, and answer questions.

 

Why Hire An Agency to Manage your Adwords Campaigns?

Many small business owners don’t see the need to hire an agency to manage their Adwords campaigns – after all, how hard can it be to pay Google to put up ads for a business? The fact that they choose to do their Adwords management is the very reason that they fail. While it may eat into your profits to hire a digital marketing agency, it comes with several benefits that you cannot afford to overlook:

•    They are familiar with Adwords campaigns. Assuming that the agency that you hire has experience in your niche they will look at your campaign from a bird’s eye view, and they will be able to examine your campaign honestly.

•    They know what works and what does not. If you hire a good agency they will be familiar with things like conversion rates, CPC ranges, good offers and so on. This means that they don’t waste time looking for what works and what doesn’t – they get straight to it which means you will see results sooner.

•    You have access for beta testing – because agencies have a relationship with Google they are offered opportunities to test strategies and products that your competition may not have access to.

•    An agency brings together a collection of experience. The team that will work on your account comes to the table with different kinds of experience, all of which can help with your Adwords campaign.

•    A marketing agency will dedicate time to your account. If you decide to do Adwords in-house you will not be able to dedicate much time to your campaign – you have other areas that you must focus on. An agency will get you results faster because they are dedicated.

Don’t take any risks with in-house Adwords management. Hire a digital marketing company instead.

Why you need Google Analytics on your website

We live and breath digital marketing and for us analytics is at the centre of all the decisions we make. But if digital analytics is not your main job then you can be excused for not having a full appreciation for why analytics is important.

Put simply, owning a website without analytics is like flying a light aircraft in the fog with no instruments. You have no idea how well your doing!

There is a wealth of data available about the way that users interact with your website. Some people would argue there is too much data available but what’s great is that you can use analytics to answer all manner of questions about the performance of your website.

Many website owners just want to know how many visitors come to their website and we can certainly answer that but you may also want to know about the quality of these visitors. What are their main interests? What search terms brought them to your website?

Would you like to know which of your website pages makes people want to stay and which pages want to leave. All that information is available too and more. 

Your Website Needs Goals

This is all just scratching the surface of what possible. Every website should have a goal, usually several. This can be a phone call, an enquiry form or eCommerce purchase. If set up correctly we can determine which of your marketing channels performs the best and give the best return on investment. Its worth spending few minutes setting this up.

Another way of thinking about Analytics is as a diagnostic tool. By connecting it to your website, you have the opportunity to determine why your website is not performing. A website needs to attract traffic but it also needs to convert traffic into leads or purchases.

Finally,  there’s really no reason not to install analytics. Its free to create an account and it can be set up very quickly and easily.

Take a look at analytics.google.com to get started and if you get stuck, you know where to find help.

 

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