Uncategorized | Social Media Management

From Newcomer to Trusted Expert: 10 Ways to Boost Business Credibility

When starting a new business, establishing credibility is essential for gaining the trust and confidence of potential customers. Building a strong reputation takes time and effort, but with the right strategies, you can accelerate the process.

In this article, we will explore ten effective ways to boost credibility for your new business, focusing on messaging and copywriting, brand image and branding, website optimisation, SEO, professional content, social media engagement, networking, and other key recommendations.

We will also discuss the importance of word choice, making a great first impression, and understanding the sales funnel. Let’s dive in!

1. Craft a Compelling Brand Message

Develop a clear and concise brand message that communicates your unique value proposition. Focus on how your business solves customers’ problems or fulfils their needs. Use persuasive and engaging language that resonates with your target audience. With us, a marketing agency in Bristol, we develop messaging that connects with independent entrepreneurs, not consumers for e-scooters for example!

A compelling brand message sets your business apart from competitors. It communicates your unique value proposition, highlighting what makes your offerings distinctive. By clearly articulating your business’s core essence, you establish a memorable and recognisable identity, gaining credibility as a distinct and trusted brand.

2. Consistent Branding

Establish a consistent brand image across all touchpoints, including your logo, colour palette, and typography. Consistency creates a professional and cohesive brand identity that builds trust and recognition.

Consistent branding helps shape how your business is perceived by customers. When all brand elements align consistently, it conveys professionalism, stability, and a strong attention to detail.

3. Optimise Your Website

Ensure your website is visually appealing, easy to navigate, and mobile-friendly. Optimise the loading speed to provide a seamless user experience. Include testimonials, case studies, and client logos to showcase social proof. As an agency that’s focused on digital marketing in Bristol, our goal is to create the best experience for entrepreneurs.

An optimised website allows you to showcase your expertise and establish credibility in your industry. By organising content effectively, highlighting case studies and testimonials, and offering informative blog articles or resources, you demonstrate your knowledge and authority. This builds trust with visitors, positioning your business as a reliable source of information and solutions.

4. Implement SEO Best Practices

Conduct keyword research and optimise your website’s content with relevant keywords. Focus on creating high-quality, informative content that demonstrates your expertise and helps your target audience. This will improve your search engine rankings and drive organic traffic to your site.

Implementing effective SEO strategies gives your business a competitive edge. When you rank higher in search results than your competitors, it signals to potential customers that your business is more relevant, trustworthy, and credible.

By targeting keywords and optimising your content, you can attract qualified traffic and establish a stronger online presence. Outranking competitors in search results enhances your credibility and increases the likelihood of capturing leads and converting them into loyal customers.

5. Create Professional Content

Develop informative and well-researched content such as blog articles, whitepapers, and guides. Position yourself as an industry thought leader by sharing valuable insights and actionable advice. This establishes credibility and attracts potential customers seeking expertise. For us, as a marketing agency in Bristol, we develop content that’s centred around marketing and we also look for events to participate in that’s in the Bristol area.

Professional content showcases your industry knowledge and expertise. By offering informative, well-researched, and engaging content, you position your business as a trusted authority. This builds credibility among your audience, who will see you as a reliable source of information and solutions. Professional content helps you stand out from competitors and fosters trust, leading to stronger customer relationships.

6. Engage on Social Media

Maintain an active presence on social media platforms relevant to your target audience. Share valuable content, engage with your followers, and respond to comments and messages promptly. Showcasing your expertise and building relationships through social media enhances your credibility.

Engaging on social media encourages user-generated content and provides social proof. When customers share positive experiences, testimonials, or reviews about your products or services, it boosts credibility.

7. Network and Collaborate

Attend industry events, join professional associations, and actively network with other businesses and influencers in your field. Collaborating with reputable partners can boost your credibility and open doors to new opportunities.

Collaborating with others in your industry brings together collective expertise and knowledge. By partnering with complementary businesses or industry experts, you can leverage their skills and resources to deliver more comprehensive solutions to customers.

Collaborative projects showcase your ability to work with others and tap into diverse perspectives, enhancing credibility. Customers value businesses that can demonstrate a collaborative mindset and access to a broader pool of expertise, leading to increased trust and confidence. As we’re a Marketing Agency in Bristol, we network with local, national, and international businesses that are also our target audience.

8. Leverage Testimonials and Reviews

Request feedback from satisfied customers and showcase their testimonials on your website and social media platforms. Positive reviews and testimonials serve as social proof, assuring potential customers of the quality and reliability of your products or services.

Testimonials and reviews showcase the real experiences of customers, offering genuine insights into their interactions with your business. They highlight your business’s commitment to transparency and authenticity.

9. Pay Attention to Word Choice

Precise word choice helps eliminate ambiguity and ensures clear communication. When your messaging is clear and unambiguous, it leaves no room for misinterpretation or confusion. Ambiguity can create doubt and erode credibility, as customers may question the reliability and accuracy of your information.

By using precise language, you convey professionalism and demonstrate that you pay attention to details, enhancing your business’s credibility. For us, using words like “Digital Marketing Bristol” tells our audience we are a digital marketing business in Bristol! There’s definitely no room for misinterpretation or confusion.

10. Leverage Testimonials and Reviews

Remember that first impressions matter. Ensure your business emails, social media profiles, and website have a polished and professional appearance. Proofread your content meticulously to avoid grammatical errors or typos that can erode credibility. For us, as we are a Marketing Agency in Bristol, it’s important for us to proofread our content before it goes live on our website as we support professional entrepreneurs.

The first impression sets the tone for how potential customers perceive your business. Within seconds, they form initial judgments based on visual presentation, professionalism, and overall impression. A positive first impression instils trust and confidence, making customers more likely to view your business as credible and reliable. Attention to detail, a well-designed website, and professional branding create a favourable perception that enhances credibility.

Plus, Don’t Forget the Sales Funnel!

Understanding the Sales Funnel: Recognise that customers go through a journey from awareness to purchase. Tailor your messaging and content to address their needs at each stage of the sales funnel. Provide educational content to build trust, then offer compelling calls-to-action to guide them towards making a purchase. In business, first impressions count and so do all the details you provide to your customers before they make a purchase.

Lastly

Remember, building credibility for your new business requires a holistic approach that encompasses messaging and copywriting, brand image and branding, website optimisation, SEO, professional content, social media engagement, networking, and other strategic recommendations. Pay attention to word choice, make a positive first impression, and understand the sales funnel to maximise your efforts. By implementing these strategies consistently, you will establish a strong foundation of credibility that will inspire confidence in your target audience.

As always, if you have any questions, or if I can be of help in any way, drop me an email on eve@fantheflames.co.uk or if you’d like to talk more about how I can help your business grow, feel free to book in a quick virtual coffee with me HERE.

Best,
Eve Scragg
Fan The Flames Marketing & Design
https://fantheflames.co.uk

6 Ways ChatGPT Can Become Your Marketing Assistant

Businesses are continuously looking for creative methods to streamline their marketing efforts and effectively communicate with their target audience in today’s fast-paced digital world.

ChatGPT has become a versatile tool that may help business owners in a variety of ways as artificial intelligence (AI) has progressed. This OpenAI-created AI-powered language model has the potential to become your marketing assistant, assisting you in increasing productivity and achieving your marketing objectives for your business.

Let’s look at six ways that ChatGPT can change your marketing approach.

1. Content Generation

ChatGPT can be your go-to tool for generating compelling and relevant content. From blog posts to social media captions, you can rely on ChatGPT to provide you with well-crafted pieces of writing. Just prompt ChatGPT with a topic or a few keywords like “Marketing Agency Bristol”, and it will generate creative and engaging content ideas for you to develop further.

2. Customer Support

Excellent customer service is crucial for any business’s success. ChatGPT can assist you in providing prompt and accurate responses to customer enquiries and support tickets. With its natural language processing capabilities, ChatGPT can understand customer queries and provide appropriate solutions or direct them to the relevant resources on your website.

3. Market Research

Staying ahead of the competition requires thorough market research. ChatGPT can help you collect and analyse data, identify trends, and gain insights into consumer behaviour. By prompting ChatGPT with specific questions about your target market, you can obtain valuable information to refine your marketing strategies.

4. Social Media Management

Maintaining an active and engaging presence on social media platforms is essential for businesses today. ChatGPT can assist you in managing your social media accounts effectively. From suggesting content ideas – e.g. Marketing Agency Bristol – to scheduling posts, ChatGPT can streamline your social media marketing efforts and help you build a strong online presence.

5. Ad Campaign Optimisation

Maximising the return on your advertising investment is crucial for every marketer. ChatGPT can help you optimise your ad campaigns by providing insights into target audience demographics, keyword selection, and ad copy. By prompting ChatGPT with campaign-specific questions, you can make data-driven decisions to improve your ad performance. A great prompt for optimisation for us is: “List 10 keywords similar to Digital Marketing Bristol” and you’ll receive a list of keywords you can use.

6. Email Marketing

Crafting personalised and impactful email campaigns can significantly enhance customer engagement and boost sales. ChatGPT can serve as your virtual assistant, suggesting subject lines – e.g. Digital Marketing Bristol, email templates, and personalised content based on customer preferences and behaviour. By leveraging ChatGPT’s language generation capabilities, you can create compelling email marketing campaigns that resonate with your audience.

Remember, ChatGPT can’t run your business

Think of ChatGPT like your marketing assistant, not your marketing manager for your business. The AI tool can be a helpful marketing assistant, but it should not replace the critical role of human judgement and expertise.

ChatGPT lacks factual accuracy, emotional intelligence, specialist knowledge, and ethical considerations. It also has an inability to understand context and the ‘know-how’ to develop marketing strategies, because that’s based on marketing needs and challenges that comes from research, knowledge, and unique conditions!

The truth is, it is important to acknowledge its limitations and potential drawbacks of using ChatGPT as it can’t be used for all your tasks. There’s a time and a place to use ChatGPT and in business, it’s a little helping hand. Combining the power of AI with human insights and oversight can lead to more accurate, contextually appropriate, and innovative marketing strategies for your business.

It’s Worth It

ChatGPT can become an invaluable marketing assistant, empowering you to achieve your marketing goals more efficiently. From generating content ideas to enhancing customer support and optimising ad campaigns, ChatGPT offers a range of functionalities that can transform your marketing strategy. However, it’s important to acknowledge the general concerns associated with relying solely on an AI system.

ChatGPT, like any AI, has limitations and may not always produce perfect or contextually accurate results. It’s crucial to review and validate the outputs generated by ChatGPT, and to use human judgement and expertise in decision-making. By combining the power of AI with human insight, marketers can leverage ChatGPT as a valuable tool to augment their skills and achieve remarkable results in the ever-evolving landscape of marketing.

Lastly

Understanding ChatGPT can significantly impact the results the AI tool can provide for you. There are more reasons for ChatGPT to become your personal marketing assistant for your business as your understanding of it grows.

Remember that AI has its limitations and that some technologies, like ChatGPT, are still in the early stages of product development, so we shouldn’t totally rely on the outcomes we get from it. There is no denying that it saves time and money, therefore make sure that your business is using this AI technology or something similar. It’s worth it, believe me!

Best,
Eve Scragg
Fan The Flames Marketing & Design
https://fantheflames.co.uk

How to Create Call to Actions That Convert (Including Real Life Examples)

A call to action (CTA) is a vital element of your content that directs visitors towards taking a specific action, such as signing up for a newsletter or purchasing a product. A unique CTA can differentiate a website from its competitors, increase engagement, and drive more sales. Here are some tips on how to create unique CTAs and why they are important to sales funnels, along with three examples.

Know Your Audience

A unique CTA should appeal to your target audience’s wants and needs. Consider what problem your product or service solves and how it can benefit your customers. Use language and design that resonates with them. For example, a skincare brand could use a CTA like “Get glowing skin today” to appeal to those looking to improve their skin’s appearance.

Make Your Call to Action Visually Appealing

The design of your CTA can make a significant impact on its effectiveness. Use colours and typography that stand out and grab attention. Consider using buttons instead of hyperlinks to make it more obvious that the visitor should click. For example, a travel website could use a CTA with a bright yellow button that says “Book your dream vacation now.”

Use Action-oriented Language

The language you use in your CTA should be action-oriented and specific. Use verbs that clearly communicate what action the visitor should take, such as “Buy now” or “Sign up for free.” For example, a fitness app could use a CTA like “Start your free trial today” to encourage visitors to sign up and try the app.

Why a Unique Call to Action Are Important to Sales Funnels

Unique CTAs are essential to guiding visitors through the sales funnel. They help visitors move from one stage to the next and ultimately convert them into customers. A well-designed and compelling CTA can increase engagement and encourage visitors to take action. When a visitor takes action, they become more invested in the brand and more likely to make a purchase. Here are five examples of unique CTAS:

Examples of Call to Actions

Slack: “Get Started for Free” – This CTA is simple, action-oriented, and visually appealing. The bright green button stands out on the white background, and the language is clear and specific. It appeals to those who want to try the product without committing to a paid plan.

Dropbox: “Sign up for free” – This CTA uses action-oriented language and a bright blue button that stands out on the page. The language is straightforward, and the use of the word “free” encourages visitors to sign up and try the product.

Update: Dropbox currently has a huge offer on their website which means they have updated their call to action to “Get 50% off” to focus their marketing efforts on their premium features.

HelloFresh: “Get started” – This CTA uses a unique design that stands out from traditional button shapes. The language is action-oriented, and the use of the word “started” implies that there is a process to follow, making the visitor feel more invested in the brand. It also appeals to those who want to try the product without committing to a subscription.

Update: HelloFresh has optimised their call to action to “View our boxes” which emphasises the variety and selections customers have – it’s very likely they changed this due to results were higher for this call to action on their homepage. Pretty cool, right?

Skype: “Go Premium” – This CTA is a straightforward, clear design that aims to focus on just the call to action. With their minimalist branding, the use of the word “paid” encourages visitors to explore what premium is all about and try the premium version of a free product they are familiar with.

Update: Skype’s homepage now features the “Download Skype” call to action. It could be that Microsoft feedback from customers that the main pain point was locating the link to download Skype, therefore the best course of action is to improve the customer experience and one element of that is reworking their call to actions on the homepage!

Sony: “Step Closer to Reality” – This CTA is powerful and paired with visual imagery that gives this call to action language more meaning. The placement of the CTA is placed above the folder, which means it’s highly visible and attracts visitors more than any other placement. More importantly, it redirects the visitor to a purchase page with a brighter, more targeted CTA that says “Buy”.

Update: Sony have stripped it down to the basics to a “Learn More” CTA featuring a new vlog camera. Just like the previous call to action, it’s all about the visual content for Sony. The standard CTA can work very well if the other elements are high quality, relevant, and tell a story without the need for too many words.

Call to Actions Are Always Changing, for the Better

Remember, businesses change their call-to-actions (CTAs) on their websites for several reasons. Firstly, they may want to optimise their CTAs to improve conversion rates and drive specific actions from their website visitors. By testing different CTAs and analysing the data, businesses can refine their messaging and design to better align with their audience’s preferences and motivations. In fact, by the time I finished writing this article, most of their CTAs had changed!

Secondly, businesses often adapt their CTAs to match their evolving marketing objectives and campaigns. As their business goals change, they may need to shift the focus of their CTAs to promote new products or services, highlight limited-time offers, or drive engagement with specific content or promotions. By adjusting their CTAs accordingly, businesses can better align their website messaging with their current marketing strategies, increasing the effectiveness of their calls to action and maximising their desired outcomes.

In a nutshell…

Creating unique CTAs can differentiate a website, increase engagement, and drive more sales. By knowing your audience, making it visually appealing, and using action-oriented language, you can create CTAs that guide visitors through the sales funnel and convert them into customers.

Best,
Eve Scragg
Fan The Flames Marketing & Design
https://fantheflames.co.uk

Increase Your Website Traffic with These 10 SEO Tips

Search engine optimisation (SEO) is critical for small businesses that want to stand out in a crowded online marketplace. SEO techniques can help improve your website’s search engine rankings, increase visibility, and drive more traffic to your site.

In this article, we’ll explore 10 different SEO techniques that small businesses can use to boost their search engine rankings and get more customers.

1. Conduct Keyword Research to Increase Search Engine Results

Keyword research is the process of identifying the keywords and phrases that people use to search for products or services in your industry, such as “Marketing Agency Bristol”. By including these keywords in your website’s content, you can increase your chances of ranking higher in search engine results pages (SERPs). There are several keyword research tools available online, such as Google’s Keyword Planner and SEMrush, which can help you identify relevant keywords for your business.

2. Optimise Website Content for Better SEO

Once you have identified your target keywords, such as “digital Marketing Bristol”, the next step is to optimise your website’s content. This includes creating high-quality, engaging content that incorporates your target keywords naturally. Additionally, you should optimise your website’s meta titles and descriptions, headings, and images to ensure they include your target keywords. By doing so, you can increase your website’s visibility and improve your chances of ranking higher in search engine results pages (SERPs).

3. Improve Your Website Speed

Website speed is an essential ranking factor, and slow-loading websites can negatively impact your search engine rankings, especially for competitive keywords like “Digital Marketing Bristol”. To improve your website’s speed and ensure it is optimised for such keywords, you can compress images, use a content delivery network (CDN), and minify your website’s code. By doing so, you can improve the user experience of your website visitors, reduce bounce rates, and increase the chances of your website ranking higher in search engine results pages (SERPs) for “Digital Marketing Bristol” and related terms.

Just remember, if you’re not a digital marketing agency in Bristol, you probably don’t want to be using those keywords on your website – you’d have a specific list of keywords that’s related to YOUR business!

4. Build High Quality Backlinks

Backlinks are links from other websites to your site, and they are a critical ranking factor for search engines, especially when it comes to competitive keywords like “Marketing Agency Bristol”. Building high-quality backlinks from authoritative websites in your industry, such as a leading marketing publication that covers the Bristol region, can help improve your search engine rankings for this keyword. You can build backlinks by creating high-quality content, guest posting on other websites, and participating in industry forums. By regularly building high-quality backlinks, you can establish your website as a trusted authority in your industry and increase its chances of ranking higher in search engine results pages (SERPs) for “Marketing Agency Bristol” and related terms.

Before I move on to the next SEO tip, building links is all about authority so you want as many backlinks as possible to be from high traffic websites that are related to your business. If the website that you use for a backlink doesn’t offer you a backlink in return, that’s what we call a nofollow backlink… It’s not a bad thing, but follow backlinks are much better for full SEO benefits and as a marketing agency, that’s what we’re all about!

5. Use Social Media Marketing

Social media can help drive traffic to your website and improve your search engine rankings. By sharing your website’s content on social media, you can increase your website’s visibility and attract more visitors. Additionally, social media signals are a ranking factor for search engines, so having an active social media presence can help improve your rankings.

For example, one of our keywords is Digital Marketing Bristol – which means our content is all about digital marketing! We make sure we use location hashtags, join local groups in Bristol, and other things so we’re changing the algorithm to show our content in the Bristol area. Pretty cool, right?

6. Use Location SEO Techniques

If you’re a local business in Bristol like us, using local SEO techniques that use the word “Bristol” can help improve your search engine rankings, especially for competitive keywords like “Marketing Agency Bristol” – if you’re a marketing agency that is! This includes optimising your Google My Business listing by adding accurate business information, photos, and customer reviews, as well as creating local content that includes location-specific keywords and topics, such as “Top Marketing Agencies in Bristol” and “Marketing Trends in Bristol”.

Additionally, building local citations from directories and local websites, such as Bristol City Council’s business directory and Visit Bristol’s tourism website, can also help establish your business’s credibility and relevance in the local area. By implementing these local SEO techniques, you can increase your website’s visibility and improve its chances of ranking higher in search engine results pages (SERPs) for “Marketing Agency Bristol” and other relevant keywords.

7. Optimise for Mobile Devices

Mobile optimisation is essential for any website, as more than 60% of searches are now conducted on mobile devices. This could be more or less depending on your industry and audience demographics! So this means that if your website is not optimised for mobile devices, you could be missing out on a significant amount of traffic and potential customers. To ensure that your website is optimised for mobile devices, there are several steps you can take.

First and foremost, you should ensure that your website is responsive. A responsive website is designed to adapt to different screen sizes and resolutions, so that it looks and works great on any device, whether it’s a desktop computer, tablet, or smartphone. This means that your website’s layout, content, and images should all be optimised for smaller screens, and should be easy to navigate using touch-based gestures.

In addition to being responsive, your website should also use large fonts and buttons, as well as clear and concise messaging. This is especially important on mobile devices, where users may be browsing your website on a small screen and may have less patience for scrolling and zooming in and out. By using larger fonts and buttons, you can make it easier for users to read and interact with your website, and by using clear and concise messaging, you can ensure that your message is communicated effectively.

8. Create Video Content

Video content is becoming increasingly popular, and incorporating video content into your website can help improve your search engine rankings. By creating high-quality, engaging video content, you can increase your website’s visibility and attract more visitors. In fact, studies have shown that websites with video content are more likely to appear on the first page of search engine results pages (SERPs) than websites without video content.

When creating video content, it’s important to keep your target audience in mind. Your videos should be relevant, informative, and engaging, and should provide value to your audience. You can create a variety of different types of video content, such as product demos, how-to videos, customer testimonials, and more.

To make sure that your video content is optimised for search engines, you should include relevant keywords in your video titles, descriptions, and tags. You should also optimise your video file names and use video sitemaps to help search engines discover and index your video content.

In addition to optimising your video content for search engines, you should also make sure that your videos are optimised for viewing on different devices and platforms. This means making sure that your videos are compatible with different browsers, operating systems, and devices, and that they load quickly and smoothly.

9. Use Analytics to Measure Results

In addition to tracking your website’s traffic and user behaviour, analytics tools can also help you identify the keywords and phrases that are driving traffic to your site. This information can be used to refine your SEO strategy and target keywords that are more likely to drive conversions and revenue. For example, if you notice that “Digital Marketing Bristol” is driving a significant amount of traffic to your site, you may want to focus your SEO efforts on optimising your content and website for this keyword. By using analytics tools to track your website’s performance and measure the effectiveness of your SEO efforts, you can stay ahead of the competition and achieve better results over time.

10. Hire a Marketing Agency

SEO can be complex and time-consuming, and small business owners may not have the expertise or resources to manage their SEO strategy effectively. Hiring a marketing agency can help small businesses in Bristol improve their search engine rankings and attract more customers. A marketing agency can provide a range of services, including keyword research, content creation, link building, and analytics tracking, helping small businesses achieve their SEO goals.

By partnering with a marketing agency that specialises in digital marketing in Bristol, small businesses can take advantage of the latest SEO trends and techniques, and stay ahead of the competition in the digital landscape.

In a nutshell…

SEO is a critical aspect of digital marketing for small businesses. By implementing these 10 SEO techniques, small businesses can improve their search engine rankings, attract more visitors, and increase sales.

Best,
Eve Scragg
Fan The Flames Marketing & Design
https://fantheflames.co.uk

Getting the Most Out of Outsourcing Social Media – Avoid These Red Flags

As a small business owner, staying on top of your social media presence can be an overwhelming task. Turning to outsourcing as a solution can seem like the perfect way to save time and money, but that’s only if you take the right approach and find the right partner to help!

In this article, we’ll provide some red flags to look out for when considering finding help with your social media strategy, so you can make sure you’re getting the best value, and most importantly, results..

Whether you’re just starting out or have an existing digital presence, there are a few red flags everyone should pay attention to when it comes to outsourced social media management. Don’t miss out on opportunities just because of mistakes from vetted partners; read on for our insider tips!

1. What to Look for in a Potential Outsourcing Partner

Let’s speak about communication.

Communication is critical when outsourcing social media management. You need to be able to communicate frequently and efficiently with your partner to ensure that your social media campaigns are aligned with your goals and objectives. They should be easy to reach and respond promptly to your enquiries and concerns.

When choosing an outsourcing partner for social media management, it is essential to assess the degree of communication they can provide. A successful relationship between you and an outsourced provider depends on effective communication. You should look for a potential partner that provides clear, frequent, and honest communication with them throughout the entirety of the project.

They also need to be available when you need to communicate with them, which is a problem we often hear of when hiring overseas VAs to work on projects (though other social media VAs are excellent in this respect).

The ability to have open conversations about any potential issues is key to any successful outsourcing partnership. This means that you should look for a potential partner in social media management that is willing to listen to your needs and feedback, as well as being open and transparent about any problems or concerns that arise during the course of the project.

By maintaining open dialogue with your outsourced social media partner from the start, clients can ensure that issues are addressed quickly and efficiently, leading to a more successful outcome.

2. What to Avoid When Choosing an Outsourcing Partner

Let’s talk about pricing and what to avoid.

You need to consider the pricing and services that your outsourcing partner offers. If there’s hidden or surprising ‘add-ons’ you weren’t aware of early on, then my advice would be to run the other way. They should provide a range of services that fit your budget, such as content creation, account management, and paid advertising. They should be flexible in their pricing and provide transparent pricing models.

Some outsourcing partners charge a high fee for setup or onboarding services. These fees can quickly add up and should be avoided if possible by agreeing upon a flat fee before any work commences. Furthermore, make sure you understand what exactly is included in the onboarding process as well as any additional charges that may arise throughout the project.

Another common hidden cost involves software licences or subscription fees. Some outsourcing partners require their clients to purchase specific tools or software in order to access certain features or capabilities offered by their service. Always ask about any such fees upfront and ensure you understand all of the associated costs with them before signing on the dotted line.

Finally, many outsourcing partners don’t provide a clear breakdown of their pricing structure and may not offer details on exactly how much certain tasks will cost until after they have been completed. To avoid this issue it’s best to ask for an itemised list of all associated costs up front so you know exactly how much each task will cost before any work begins.

3. Red Flags That Indicate You Should Pass on a Service Provider

Let’s touch on the importance of experience and expertise, and why you want your outsourcing partner to have plenty of both!

Your social media outsourcing partner should be knowledgeable about different social media platforms and have experience in implementing social media strategies. They should have a proven track record of helping other small businesses grow their social media presence. Additionally, they should be familiar with the latest trends and developments in social media, such as algorithm changes, new features, and best practices.

When teaming up with an outsourced social media partner, business owners should look for a few red flags that could indicate that the service provider is not the best fit. One of the most important signs that trouble is ahead is when a social media agency doesn’t offer any kind of track record or case studies. Experience and expertise are paramount when it comes to social media, as there are many nuances associated with platforms such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram and Twitter.

Working with an inexperienced service provider could lead to costly mistakes and improper execution of your strategy. Additionally, be wary of any provider who promises unrealistic results without providing a comprehensive plan on how they will achieve them.

It’s also important to pay attention to customer reviews and feedback. A good outsourced partner will have solid references from reputable organisations and individuals in their field, along with positive customer experiences shared online. If a company does not have any customer feedback or reviews available, this could be a warning sign that they are either too new or lack credibility to take on your project.

If a social media agency does not understand your product or target audience, it’s likely that they are not well-versed enough to provide value through their services.

Look for social media agencies that specialise in working with businesses similar to yours, as this could indicate their ability to better understand your needs and develop effective solutions accordingly!

4. Typical Social Media Mistakes to Avoid When Outsourcing

Let’s discuss content and quality!

The quality of the content that your social media outsourcing partner produces is crucial. The content should be well-written, engaging, and consistent across all platforms. You should be able to review and approve every piece of content that they produce, and they should be open to feedback and suggestions.

When outsourcing social media management, it is important for business owners to focus on the quality of the content produced by their partner. Poor quality content can lead to damaging the reputation of a brand, limiting its reach and losing potential customers

Posting outdated or inaccurate information: It’s important that your outsourced social media manager keeps up with industry trends and news in order to post current and relevant content. Inaccuracies can make your business look unprofessional and out of touch, potentially turning away customers.

Over-promoting products or services: Too much promotion can be turn off for followers and could result in an influx of unfollows or negative comments. Keep promotional posts limited and use other types of content such as educational posts, fun facts, or engaging questions to keep followers engaged.

Ignoring customer enquiries: If a customer leaves a comment or direct message on any one of your company’s platforms, it is important that it gets answered in a timely fashion – ideally within 24 hours – even if it’s just an acknowledgement that the issue will be looked into further later on. Ignoring customer enquiries reflects badly on your business as it suggests lack of attention to detail and not valuing customer feedback.

Poorly written copy: Grammatical errors have been known to ruin a businesses online presence in an instant, giving potential customers a bad perception of the brand before they even interact with them properly. Make sure you review all copy before it goes live on any platform – automating posts should also be done carefully so that sentences read correctly and without any typos or errors in punctuation or spelling.

Rehashing existing content: Reposting the same thing over and over again makes your social media feeds look stale and risks annoying followers who may feel they are getting bombarded with the same stuff day in and day out. Your outsourced social media partner should come up with creative fresh ideas regularly to keep things interesting for your audience while still staying true to the core messages you want to send out about your brand.

5. How to Measure the Effectiveness of Your Outsourced Marketing Campaigns

Let’s focus on reporting and insights.

Your outsourcing partner should provide you with regular reports and analytics on your social media campaigns. This will allow you to track your progress, identify areas for improvement, and adjust your strategies as needed. They should be transparent about their methods, results, and outcomes.

Measuring the effectiveness of social media campaigns can be a complicated task, but it is essential for business owners who rely on social media to build relationships with customers and promote their brand. It’s important to have a clear understanding of how successful your campaigns are, even when you’re outsourcing social media, so you can improve your social media marketing efforts and maximise return on investment. Here are some tips to measure the effectiveness of your outsourced campaigns:

Track Engagement: Keeping track of how many engagements (likes, comments, shares etc.) each post receives is a great way to measure the success of your campaigns. This will allow you to compare posts and see which ones are garnering the most attention from users. If something isn’t resonating with your audience, you can adjust and try something else until you find what works best for them.

Monitor Reach: Another key metric when analysing the success of any campaign is reach – that is, how many people are seeing each post? Monitoring your reach will give you an idea of who is interacting with your content and if it’s being seen by the right audience. You can also use this data to inform future targeting efforts so that you’re reaching an even broader or more defined group depending on what makes sense for your campaign objectives.

Analyse Conversions: Finally, it’s important to track conversions from social media campaigns – whether that’s leads generated, products purchased or website traffic driven directly from a post or ad – so that you can better understand which tactics and messages drive results for your business. If something isn’t resulting in conversions, consider pivoting and trying something new – or dig into analytics insights to better understand why it isn’t performing as well as expected compared to other variations tested.

6. Tips and Tricks for Working with Your Outsource Team Effectively

Let’s talk about flexibility and adaptability.

Social media is an ever-evolving landscape, and your outsourcing partner should be able to adapt to changes in trends and algorithms quickly. Look for partners who offer flexible contracts and are willing to tweak their strategy as needed for your business’s success. You want your outsourcing partner to be flexible to your business needs and excited to take your ideas on if there’s merit to them!

Establish clear objectives from the outset: Prior to beginning any collaboration, it’s important to ensure that all parties involved understand what the goals of the social media campaign are. Doing so will help ensure everyone is on the same page, and that expectations are realistic and achievable.

You’ll want to make sure there is a timeline for delivery and a good social media agency will facilitate you with timelines, if you don’t have one! A timeline should be created that outlines when important milestones must be completed throughout the course of the project. This helps to keep everyone accountable and ensures progress can be monitored along the way.

We touched on this previously, but it’s an important one! Open communication between your team and the outsourced social media partner in order to ensure everything is running smoothly and meeting expectations. Regular check-ins should take place in order to make sure no details fall through the cracks and deadlines are being met effectively.

Most importantly, both you and the agency you’ve chosen to outsource your social media business accounts should show flexibility toward changes. These could be social media trends that change quickly, so it’s important for both sides to remain flexible as new strategies or changes arise during or after a campaign begins. A successful campaign requires constant adaptation, so having an outsourced partner who is willing and able to adjust their approach if needed can be invaluable for your business.

In a nutshell…

Outsourcing your social media management can be a wise decision for small business owners who don’t have the time or expertise to handle it themselves. However, selecting the right outsourcing partner is crucial for success. Your outsourcing partner should have experience, expertise, and a proven track record in social media management.

They should produce high-quality and engaging content, communicate efficiently, provide regular reports and analytics, and offer flexible pricing and services. By evaluating potential outsourcing partners based on these qualities, you’ll be well on your way to achieving a successful social media presence.

Best,
Eve Scragg
Fan The Flames Marketing & Design
https://fantheflames.co.uk

Our Top Three Free Social Media Management Tools for Small Businesses

As a small business owner, you understand the importance that social media plays in your overall strategy. You know it can be an invaluable tool for connecting with new customers and growing your business – but managing multiple accounts on different platforms from one place isn’t always easy.

That’s why we’ve compiled the ultimate list of free social media management tools to help you strategically manage all of your social media channels in one spot. So whether you’re just beginning to dip into the world of professional social media management or already have a large-scale operation underway going on in your small business, these powerful and intuitive resources are here to support you every step of the way.

Read on to discover the best social media management tools for your business. In this article, we’ll focus on social media schedulers!

1. Meta Business Suite

Facebook can be a great way to reach potential customers and showcase the best that your business has to offer. So if you are an ambitious small business owner looking to make the most of your presence on social media, then using Meta Business Suite on Facebook could make a huge difference when it comes to maximising engagement with customers and growing your brand.

With this powerful suite of tools, you’ll be able to create targeted campaigns, access analytics and insights, schedule posts in advance, promote content across platforms – all in one place! And you guessed it, it’s completely free to use and these features run across both Facebook and Instagram platforms.

So considering the upcoming changes happening to Meta Business Suite’s planner, it’s a no-brainer to start using Meta Business Suite to boost your social media strategy!

2. Postly

If you’re looking for a scheduler that covers more than Facebook and Instagram platforms, then Postly might be your best social media management tool. It lets you schedule to YouTube, Telegram, and Reddit (other schedulers don’t always allow for this).

This free social media management software allows you to post to Instagram, Facebook (including groups), LinkedIn, TikTok, and other platforms. Plus the Ai Writer and hashtag generator speeds up the content creation process with catchy captions and descriptions.

We consider this social media management tool a ‘freemium’ option as Postly has a free account that will cover most of your social media management needs, you might benefit from one of their low cost options. Either way, we think Postly is a great alternative and you’ll be able to connect up to 10 social accounts and schedule 20 posts per month! Not bad, right?

You can also check out Later, Buffer, and Hootsuite if you’re looking to weigh up a long term solution for managing social media.

3. SocialPilot

If you’ve put some budget aside for social media management, then one of the best management tools you can invest in is SocialPilot. Why? It’s probably the best value tool that includes as many platforms as socially possible and it includes insights that’s all in one place, saving you a lot of time on your social insights.

Right now it covers Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Google My Business, Tumblr, and TikTok – but they’re planning on adding more platforms in the future.

What else? You can manage both organic content and paid media management, give role-based user permissions and privileges (let’s say if you’re using an agency or have a team), real-time tracking, and there’s a mobile app so you can create and schedule on the go. We’ve used SocialPilot before, and their app is one of the best social media management tools on the market right now.

Lastly

If you are not quite there yet with your social media management, let me advise and support you in this part of your marketing. With my 7 Day Social Package, a popular package that my clients love, allows the social media management process to become stress-free for busy entrepreneurs looking to streamline and grow on social media. We can create a strategy for your business on social media and schedule your posts on ANY social media platform.

Best,
Eve Scragg
Fan The Flames Marketing & Design
https://fantheflames.co.uk

How You Can Re-engage Customers with Email Newsletters

Not every single customer, or potential customer, will open every email newsletter that you send them. It might be a bad time for them, but the reality is, more often than not, it’s down to the clarity and engagement of your subject line, body text snippet, and other factors. But, if a customer that used to open the majority of your email newsletters has stopped – there might be a more complex reason why that’s happened. It’s time to get creative to reactivate the interest you once had from that person.

So, how can you do that?

1. Automation

2. Contact list

3. Content

1. Automation

First things first. If you haven’t already, you’ll need to automate your email newsletters. Automation is essential for saving time, but it’s also about tracking and understanding your contact’s actions, and creating content based on their actions. Here’s an example:

You send an email newsletter out to all of your contacts. 40% of your contacts opened your email newsletter, but the majority didn’t. You now have two different types of contacts – engaged contacts and non-engaged contacts. But to best test this, you send three more newsletters to the same contacts. The opened and unopened rates of your newsletters are different to your first email newsletter results with only 32% of your contacts that opened your last email. To remedy the process, you can set up conditions and actions in your automation process to group inactive contacts. This could be after eight emails, if a contact hasn’t opened one email, they are removed from your contact list. By doing this, this will improve your results for your email newsletter campaigns.

That’s just one example, there’s tons of benefits of using automation for your business. If you want to winback a group of contacts that are no longer opening your email newsletter before removing them from your contact list, you can setup an automation sequence that is tailored for those contacts and create a special offer, request feedback, or something else to re-engagement them. If you’re segmenting your contacts (we’ll speak about this next), you’ll be able to personalise your emails, and create more powerful automations.

2. Contact list

You probably have a ‘master’ contact list where you send all your email newsletters to, but do you have multiple contact lists? When you segment your audience, you can build campaigns specifically for that type of audience. This is especially true if you have different types of customer avatars. But it’s not just the segmenting your contacts into groups, you should consider defining your ‘master’ contact list with personal traits about that contact. You might have their email address, but do you have their phone number? This could also open the doors for different marketing activities in the future, such as SMS campaigns. You might decide on incorporating a birthday deal for customers, why you would need that data to leverage that deal… you don’t want to be guessing when someone’s birthday is, that’s never a good idea anyway!

If you’re stuck on ideas on how to get the missing details of your contacts you already have, you can implement a feedback form or competition that includes the missing data you need from your contacts. Just be careful doing this. If you’re missing a lot of information about your contacts, you don’t want to include too much personal information. Instead, creating a strategy to get that information over a period of time. Think smart, not fast.

3. Content

Truth be told, it might be that you’re sending out too many emails that have no value or are too similar in format, images, copy, or all three. Let’s put it like this, if your contacts receive three emails from you and the majority of the content is the same… would you remortgage your home to place a bet that your contacts would open the fourth email? You wouldn’t, because there’s a high chance they wouldn’t open the email from you again, as they already know what you’re offering them.

Take a different approach with your content. If you’ve been sending the same old email newsletter for months, it might be time for a change. Try adding new topics, or switch up the style of your writing. You can improve the content for your email newsletters to make sure that you are always providing valuable and interesting information to your contacts. This could include anything from the latest news and trends in your industry, to helpful tips and advice, to interesting facts and insights. Remember, if you’re making a change to your email newsletters, whether that’s changing the images or information you use, test and measure your results so you can continue to improve your campaigns.

Lastly

Think about the value you offer your customers and potential customers in your contact list. What can your contacts gain from reading your email newsletter? Which contacts in your list are loyal, active or inactive? Think about your contacts as individuals, so you can create more defined groups and proactive campaigns that’s tailored to them – not everyone! If your contacts are no longer opening your emails, it’s time to rethink your approach to email newsletters sooner rather than later.

Best,
Eve Scragg
Fan The Flames Marketing & Design
https://fantheflames.co.uk

Want To Use TikTok To Grow Your Business? Here’s How!

Right now, everyone’s talking about TikTok. But it’s not just silly dances – it can be a powerful tool for promoting your company too. If you’re thinking about putting content on TikTok as an entrepreneur or business, or perhaps you have reservations because you have a bad impression of TikTok, read on to learn more about how you can grow your business with TikTok.

Before we get started on the best strategies to deploy, let’s step back a little and talk about TikTok’s algorithm.

TikTok’s algorithm

You might not have thought TikTok would be good for business, but there’s much more to TikTok than funny cat videos. Your niece, nephew, son, or daughter is probably already hooked and consuming content at an alarming rate. But while you might often see young people laughing at funny TikTok videos, it’s important to remember that while young people are also consumers, they generally don’t look for the same things that adult consumers want and need. Adult consumers are also increasingly using TikTok though, you just have to find them with the right TikTok strategy!

If you created a TikTok account today, you would be recommended content that’s relevant to you. Let’s say you’re an entrepreneur – you like artisan food because your business is baking and that’s your passion, and you also like to keep fit and healthy. After less than 24 hours, you will start seeing content related to your interests without even searching for it.

That’s because TikTok’s algorithm is learning about you from the minute you sign up to TikTok. TikTok’s algorithm pays close attention to content that you watch and interact with. The more you use TikTok, the better the algorithm gets at knowing what you like and don’t like. So you’ll hardly ever look for content – it’ll be shown to you on your feed, which is your For You Page #fyp on TikTok.

TikTok strategies

There are a few different strategies businesses can use to benefit from TikTok. Here are some of the best:

1. Run paid ads on the platform.

2. Create sponsored content with influencers.

3. Partner with TikTok to create branded content or contests.

4. Use TikTok to drive traffic to your website or online store.

5. Host live events and promote them on TikTok.

6. Create a TikTok trend.

1. Run paid ads on the platform

You can run ads on TikTok and reach new audiences, even without a TikTok account. But first things first: let’s talk about demographics. On TikTok, the majority of users are under 30, but other age groups are rapidly increasing on TikTok too. The largest age demographic on TikTok is 20-29 year olds, with 35% of the platform, but age demographics above 30 still make up 61.3% of the platform.

So there’s great potential to connect with older audiences, and not that many people are exploiting it yet, which makes it much less competitive than Facebook or Instagram in some ways. The best part about running ads on TikTok’s platform is the ad placement. When you run ads on the platform, similar to ‘top of the page’ for PPC, your ad will be shown as soon as the user opens the app or between organic videos.

You want to make your ad stand out within the first 3 seconds, and make the content of your ad similar to the content your audience likes to usually see on the platform. If it looks too much like an ad, they are less likely to interact with it, and you won’t get good results.

2. Create sponsored content with influencers

You’re probably familiar with the concept of sponsored content, as you’re likely to have seen this on Instagram. You can also create sponsored content with influencers on TikTok.

For the most part, you want it to look organic, so your approach to sponsored content should be tactical and not completely obvious. But when it comes to working with influencers/creators, the one size fits all approach doesn’t work. You’ll need to source the right influencers to work with, based on your business identity and business goals.

You should be aiming to work with influencers who have the right audience to help you succeed with your TikTok strategy and objectives, whether that’s reach or brand awareness! The trick is to make your sponsored content that looks and feels natural and like an organic post rather than an advert, and to aim for influencer with audiences similar to your ideal customers.

3. Partner with TikTok to create branded content or contests

Did you know you can actually partner with TikTok to create branded content or contests? This gives influencers/creators the chance to partner with your brand, which is not too dissimilar to brand ambassadors for your business! This benefits both the influencer and business alike, because it enables influencers to monetise their platform and explore different types of content, while also helping businesses to attract potential customers.

And this is done by leveraging the influencer’s followers and audience, which the business didn’t have access to before opting for branded content. You can discover which influencers are available in the TikTok Creator Marketplace.

Remember, branded content must be shown as an advertisement! With sponsored content, you can get away with not placing #ad in the hashtags, but branded content must clearly show the partnership between you (the business) and them (the influencer).

4. Use TikTok to drive traffic to your website or online store

In this section, you’ll begin to understand how you can drive traffic to your website. When you sign up for TikTok, the content you will see is either from a personal account or a business account. Influencers usually have business accounts, if they are monetising their platform, and businesses must be on a business account – that’s completely free! The downside to having a business account is you must reach 1,000 followers before links can be added to your bio/description.

So you must get over the hurdle quickly to ensure you’re not not missing opportunities and ROI on TikTok. You can do this by creating a TikTok content strategy, which should include benchmarking against your competitors, and by having a good understanding of the content that’s popular on TikTok. Remember, it’s ok to learn from your competitors, so check out what’s working best for them!

Your TikTok content could be shown to hundreds of thousands of people, and potentially millions. People are more likely to stay connected with you if your content has an emotional reaction. If too many people are swiping your content, it means you need to revisit your TikTok content strategy. The better your content is, the more likely you will get page views that can turn into ‘clicks’ to your website!

5. Host live events and promote them on TikTok

My personal favourite promotional strategy is hosting live events or going live on TikTok. Remember there’s two different types of accounts – personal and business. There’s also two different types of content – pre-recorded content and live events. With live events, you’ll be featured in the live section of TikTok, and have the opportunity to be featured. You can also promote your live events too.

In this space, you can send and receive TikTok Gifts during a live video. As a Host, you can turn comments on and off, filter comments and block comments that contain your chosen keywords/phases. One of the best parts of going live is TikTok’s LIVE Replay, which allows you to download your live once it’s ended. All you need to do is go to your settings and privacy and find LIVE Replay.

Ideally, you want to promote your live event beforehand and plan your live content. You’ll need a CTA to make your live event valuable for your business. And don’t forget to look at the analytics to monitor the ROI of hosting live events on TikTok! You might find that posting less recorded content is better as you have higher results in your Analytics for live events.

6. Create a TikTok trend

Trends come and go on TikTok, but the really good trends will be plastered across the platform for weeks, if not months. Most trends are easy to learn, but it will require knowledge of the TikTok platform and insight into how to use the trend properly. If your video editing skills are nonexistent, you have two options: learn by yourself or hire someone else to do it for you. Do you have a team member that can support you with content creation on TikTok?

If you’re not ready to invest time in this and don’t have other team members to help, your best bet may be to hire an experienced marketing agency to help. It’s great to put yourself out there, but if you don’t quite understand the trend or how to create content that’s compelling for your audience, you run the risk of missing out on an opportunity or doing more damage than good for your brand’s reputation.

Lastly…

TikTok has almost 2 billion users on its platform with 1.2 billion monthly active users (Q4 2022), which indicates the engagement rate of its platform and the potential audience you can reach for your business.

If you haven’t used TikTok before, just like most social media accounts – it’s free to create a TikTok account, so why not get started today? Explore the TikTok app, discover which of your competitors are using TikTok, and more importantly, how they are using TikTok. Because of TikTok’s algorithm, your TikTok account has the potential to gain a lot of engagement from the platform. But how will you use that engagement to turn your page views, likes, comments, and followers, into promising leads and sales for your business?

How you approach TikTok will have a significant impact on your strategy, and it’s important to remember it will require a different strategy to succeed on it to Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or LinkedIn… after all, it’s a different social media platform, with a different audience and algorithm, and that’s 100% video-based.

As always, if you have any questions, or if I can be of help in any way, drop me an email on eve@fantheflames.co.uk. And if you’d like to get some expert help or talk more about how I can help your business grow, feel free to book in for a quick virtual coffee with me HERE.

Best,
Eve Scragg
Fan The Flames Marketing & Design
https://fantheflames.co.uk

Why Small Businesses Without Paid Ads Are Missing Out

No matter what your level of experience with paid ads is, you can start today and utilise ad platforms to reach a wider audience online and promote your business. But without expertise in paid ads, you may find you are targeting the wrong people, paying more than you budgeted, and perhaps still not get the qualified leads you want. Behind successful paid ads campaigns, there is creative and technical knowledge, and understanding of marketing strategy.

These are the six key reasons why small businesses without paid ads or poor paid ads don’t reach their potential online:

1. They’re not using the right keywords

2. They’re not bidding on the right keywords

3. They have poor ad copy

4. They have a poor website design or user experience

5. They’re not using retargeting

6. They don’t have a solid overall marketing strategy

If you can avoid these pitfalls, you’ll be well on your way to success with your paid advertising campaigns! Let’s take a closer look at each one.

1. They’re Not Using The Right Keywords

One of the most important aspects of any effective pay-per-click campaign is keyword research. You need to target the right keywords in order to attract the right kind of leads – those that are actually interested in what you have to offer and are more likely to convert into customers or clients. Without proper keyword research, you’ll be wasting your time and money on ads that no one will ever see!

2. They’re not bidding on the right keywords

In addition to targeting the right keywords, you also need to make sure you’re bidding on them correctly. If you’re not familiar with how pay-per-click bidding works, it’s essentially an auction where you compete against other advertisers for placement on the search engine results page (SERP). The higher your bid, the more likely it is that your ad will be displayed when someone searches for one of your targeted keywords – but that doesn’t mean you should just go with the highest possible bid! You also need to consider your quality score, which is a measure of how relevant and useful your ad is considered to be by Google (or whichever search engine you’re using). A higher quality score means a lower cost-per-click (CPC), so it’s important to focus on creating high-quality ads as well as bidding strategically.

3. They have poor ad copy

An effective pay-per-click ad is more than just a few sentences cobbled together – it needs to be well-written, persuasive, and relevant to the keyword it’s targeting. Your ad copy is what’s going to convince searchers to click through to your website, so it needs to be compelling! If you’re not sure how to write effective PPC ad copy, there are plenty of resources out there to help you learn (including this blog post).

4. They have a poor website design or user experience

Once someone clicks on your ad, they’ll be taken to your website – so it needs to be up to scratch! A poorly designed website or bad user experience will quickly turn searchers away, resulting in a high rate of ‘bounce backs’ (people who leave your site almost immediately after arriving). Make sure your website is easy to navigate and contains relevant, targeted content that furthers whatever goal you’re hoping to achieve with your PPC campaign – whether that’s selling products/services or generating leads.

5. They’re not using retargeting

Retargeting (also known as remarketing) is a powerful tool that allows you to keep your brand front and centre for people who have already visited your website but didn’t convert into customers or clients. With retargeting methods, you can show them targeted ads featuring products/services they viewed on your site or lead capture forms they didn’t fill out – essentially giving them another chance at conversion. If you’re not using retargeting as part of your PPC campaigns, you’re missing out on a great opportunity!

6. They don’t have a solid overall marketing strategy

Finally, it’s important to remember that paid advertising should never exist in a vacuum – it should always be part of a larger marketing strategy that includes other elements like SEO, content marketing, social media marketing, etc.

Working all of these channels together in a joined-up campaign will help amplify your message and reach more people than any one channel could do on its own – but only if they’re working together cohesively as part of an overarching strategy.

If you’re not sure how all these pieces fit together, we can help! Just contact us today for a free consultation.

In a nutshell…

Paid advertising can be an extremely effective way to reach more people online and promote your small business – but only if it’s done correctly! Avoid these six common errors and set yourself up for success. If you need our expertise in paid ads, whether you’re a beginner looking at trying ads for the first time, or already running ads but not getting the conversion rates you need, we can help you maximise your paid ads!

Best,
Eve Scragg
Fan The Flames Marketing & Design
https://fantheflames.co.uk

3 Compelling Reasons to Use Email Marketing Now

Entrepreneurs and small business owners often wear many hats and have to be strategic with their time. Marketing efforts can sometimes take a backseat to more pressing tasks, like keeping the lights on and ensuring there is product to sell. Although it may be tempting to cut corners in your marketing budget, there are certain marketing efforts that are worth the time and investment – email marketing is one of them.

Email marketing can provide a major boost to your marketing efforts and help you connect with your customers in a way that is personal and relevant. Here are three compelling reasons why you should start using email marketing today:

1. You can incentivise your audience into giving you their email addresses

2. Relevance is key

3. Email marketing provides an opportunity for personalisation

1. You can incentivise your audience into giving you their email addresses

One of the most common objections to starting an email marketing campaign is collecting email addresses. However, this does not have to be a difficult task. There are many ways you can incentivise your users into giving you their email addresses, such as offering a discount on their first purchase or providing access to exclusive content.

2. Relevance is key

Another objection to email marketing is that it can be perceived as spammy. This is only the case if you are sending irrelevant emails to your users. Keep your emails contextual by only sending messages that will be of interest to your audience. segmenting your list so you can send targeted messages that address specific concerns will also help ensure relevance.

3. Email marketing provides an opportunity for personalisation

When done correctly, email marketing provides an opportunity for you to connect with your customers on a personal level. You can address them by name, include relevant data points about their past interactions with your company, and even customise the message based on their individual needs and interests. Taking the time to personalise your emails will show your customers that you value them as individuals and not just another number on your list.

So what should I use email marketing for?

To interact with your audience and promote your brand and boost sales, take advantage of email marketing in your marketing strategy. Why? Emails can be used for a variety of purposes, including selling products, sharing news, lowering cart abandonment rates. But, they also tell a story and can be part of your automation journey for your customers. This delivers personalised emails to engage your contact list about your goods or services, without hard selling, over a period of time. You can introduce loyal programmes and advertise your promotions, but you can also share inspiring news and create engaging content that’s educational or fun. Additionally, it may be leveraged for lead nurturing and lead generation, which are effective ways to strengthen connections and improve your long-term marketing plan. So if you value the relationship with your customers and want to tell your story, email marketing is the perfect option.

In summary

Email marketing provides a major boost to your marketing efforts by helping you connect with customers in a personal and relevant way. When done correctly, it can be an incredibly effective tool for driving sales, growing your customer base, and fostering loyalty among your existing customers. If you’re not using email marketing yet, now is the time to start!

Best,
Eve Scragg
Fan The Flames Marketing & Design
https://fantheflames.co.uk