Why Email Marketing is a no brainer!!

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We love email marketing because it is a brilliant way to contact potential or existing customers in a targeted and measurable way.  It can often feel with social media that you are putting content out there with no real knowledge of it’s impact but email marketing can often feel like less of a shot in the dark!

We love email marketing because

Love email

It’s easily accessible

email mobileEmail marketing is one of the most effective ways of getting to customers who are always on the move. In our experience over 50% of messages are opened from a mobile device.  It gives the opportunity to interact with customers in real time.

It allows you to retain and cross sell to existing customers

Email marketing is a great way to keep in touch with existing or previous customers.  Once someone has used your products and services you don’t want to lose contact with them.  Hopefully you have made a great impression and you want them to buy from you again.  Email marketing is a way of letting customers know what deals you have on, what is new with your company and any new products or services you have.  With previous customers you have done the hard work of making them buy from you, don’t lose them now!  Make sure you take email addresses from your customers as part of your selling process.  Think about the ways customers who bought one product may benefit from another you offer.

Email marketing can be highly targeted

womens-groupPeople on your mailing list can be categorised in a number of ways meaning you can have one list that covers a lot of different groups, with people falling into more than one category.  This means you could send one mail to people who bought a particular product for example. Or target another email to people who have not used you for a certain amount of time or a particular demographic.  It doesn’t have to be a one size fits all mailshot.  By being targeted in your approach you can feed the right type of content to the right people, thus improving the chances of getting a positive outcome.

It’s measurable

analyticsUsing a mailing system such as Mailchimp or Freshmail allows you to monitor who opens each campaign you send and see how many times someone opens your email.  You may find that someone opens it a number of times and therefore could be interested in your product of service.  It might be wise to send a follow up email to that person giving them more information.    You will also be able to see what links they have clicked within the email, so for example, if someone has clicked a link about ‘Ideas for Mother’s Day’ you can follow up with an email about a special offer for Mother’s Day. It will also tell you which emails have bounced so you can keep an up to date mailing list rather than having email addresses that are no longer valid.  You will be able to monitor who has contacted you as a result of the email and also how many people visited your website as a result of the mailshot.  This is all vital information to plan further communications.

It’s inexpensive

Compared to traditional marketing the costs are low.  The main time and cost is in the set up of the system, this involves template design and the creation of your mailing list.  You may want to create different segments of people who will be targeted by different mailings and this will take some time.  The on going costs depend on how much help you need to create the ongoing emails.  Copy needs to be written for each mailing and the mailing list organised.  Also reporting on the campaign needs to be monitored and analysed to inform you of where to go next.

Despite all it’s benefits many small businesses do not have the time to implement mailing campaigns.  This is a wasted opportunity.  Mailings can not only increase sales but also increase awareness of your brand and increase the engagement of your customer base.  Newsletters could point people in the direction of your social media and website outputs and increase your visibility across all your communication strands.

If you think your business would benefit from email marketing but don’t know how to get started, get in contact.

Contact us

5 Quick Fixes to Improve your Website

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Your website should always be an ongoing project.  Once your website is out there you need to review it often to check that all details are up to date and correct, thus ensuring your users have the best experience possible.  Everyone wants to increase their website reach so here are some tips on how to improve your website in terms of user experience and SEO.

Check your spelling and grammarspelling-998350_1920
It goes without saying that a website with poor spelling and grammar will reflect badly on your business.  A study by Global Lingo found that 59% of those surveyed would be put off buying from a website with poor spelling and grammar.  The majority claimed that they ‘would not trust the company to provide a good service’.  This makes sense.  If a company doesn’t take the time to ensure it’s own website is correct what message does that give about their attention to detail.  We recommend that you always ask someone to proof read your website or why not use a professional copywriter?  Often when writing yourself you stop seeing the text because you know it so well.  A different pair of eyes is always a good idea to ensure quality.
Check for broken links
chain-297842_1280It may not seem much on the surface, but broken links can do serious damage to your website.  Broken links can stop the search engines crawling your website and as a result lead to pages not being indexed.  In addition, a website with broken links isn’t going to provide a great user experience.  When ranking a site Google is more likely to rate a site with no broken links higher than one with them.  If your competitor’s website provides a better user experience it is likely they will outrank you.  We can help you by giving your website a health check to identify links that need to be fixed.
Check that all your images have ALT tags
The ALT tag adds a text description to an image on a web page, and should be used for all images, graphical bullets, and graphical horizontal rules.  The most important function of an ALT tag is to explain to a blind user what an image is displaying. Search engine crawlers also use ALT tags to decipher what an image is or what it is representing.  By using ALT tags your website will be accessible to more people and search engines will understand your website better.  If you have a wordpress site these can be added easily in the CMS system.  Having a website you can easily update yourself helps with issues like this as you have control and can add tags easily to help your search ranking.
Add social media linksmobile-phone-426559_1920
Social media is alive and kicking, and if you want to capitalize on these channels as marketing tools you should include links on your website, preferably on every page.  When sending social media messages contain a link back to your website to draw people in.
Compress and scale your images

Research shows that mobile users will only wait a maximum of four seconds for a website to upload.   Therefore it is important your website loads quickly.  The time it takes a webpage to load depends on the size data. A quick fix is to compress and scale your images before loading them to your site.  When you blog make sure you have scaled your image before uploading it to your site.  You don’t need fancy software to do this, we love pixlr.com which is free and easy to use.

Your website should always be evolving.  Most people searching for a product or service will go to Google first.  As a reflection of your business it is vital your website reflects your core values and gives the user the best experience.  Don’t let your website stand still, keep it relevant and useful.

If you would like further advice or help with your website needs Contact Us now.  We are always happy to help.

Why a good copywriter is vital to website design

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When you decide to build a new website for your company or refresh an existing site it is often easy to get carried away with the design of the site. Of course this is a vital part of website design but the content of the site, the words that will hopefully draw people to you are sometimes neglected. If the copy on your website is riddled with errors and doesn’t read well this will immediately turn people away from your website, even more so than poor website design. In addition Google algorithms such as Phantom penalise sites that contain spelling errors and broken links.

Why a copywriter is a worthwhile investment 

Writing effectively is not a skill we all possess. You may be an expert in your field but the skill of actually writing about it is often tricky, however accomplished you are at running a business. But every website needs good copy. I rather like the analogy of a well designed website with bad content being like going on a date dressed to impress and then having nothing to say when you get there!!!web-947271_1920

Having your content written by a professional copywriter is a smart long term investment for your website both in terms of SEO and visitor retention. How can anyone expect a high quality product or service from a website with content that is badly written and strewn with errors. If the user doesn’t find the information they are looking for they will just move on to the next site. The best type of online copy is usually straight to the point and easy to understand.

As a copywriter I can get to know your business and write great copy to help your business convey the right message to potential clients.  Don’t neglect this vital part of web design, Contact Us now.