Last week I was attending a two-day conference and I was really looking forward to seeing two of the big-name speakers. Let’s just say that one really didn’t disappoint and I have learned so much whilst the other…they didn’t turn up.
This event was over 2-years in the planning with the pandemic and my heart went out to the organisers as this speaker was a big name draw – over 1200 business owners from across the country who had all paid money and committed time to be there!
But do you know what…
The organisers quickly stepped in and delivered an extra learning slot that to me had 100% more content I could adopt and made me even more motivated. Our new weekly email giving you hints and tips was crafted and this blog was drafted.
So what else did I learn?
Planning, planning and then more planning is needed in all aspects of business and your marketing is just the same to step in when things go wrong. It shouldn’t just happen on a whim but is part of a rhythmic process to help you avoid the peaks and troughs.
My top tips for you today:
1. Add marketing into your diary this week – if it is in your diary as an appointment is more likely to get done!
2. Set up a Trello account (or equivalent) and plan out your weekly activity in the run-up to Christmas. (Christmas cards need to be printed and ready to post by the 1st December). I am happy to share our Trello Board Template if it helps, just send us an email and I will send it over – claire@creationzmarketing.co.uk.
3. Tell your staff, team, family, friends or Creationz Marketing what your one priority is this week to get the accountability you need. My priority is to get 1 video created for a free training programme we are running and to work on our Hubspot process and I will share it in our Marketing for Success Facebook Group if we achieve this or not as I need accountability too.
4. Look at how you can monitor the return on investment from your Marketing – visits to website, social media growth, new enquiries. One thing I learnt at the conference is that we often monitor too much and it becomes too complicated. Try and stick to a maximum of 10 things to really get a flavour of how your marketing is performing.
Looking back, I’m so glad that the speaker didn’t show as it made me take action.
What can you achieve this week to move your marketing forward?
If there is anything in particular you would like some handy hints and tips on then just reply to this email. We are happy to help!
Remarketing (also known as retargeting) is a means to re-connect with consumers who have previously visited your website or mobile app. Remarketing allows you to present your online adverts to this audience as they browse throughout other websites and social media platforms, this helps you increase brand awareness or prompt these consumers to convert.
Improves brand recall – Remarketing is a fantastic tool for reminding potential customers of your business and its product or service offering.
Improved conversion rates – It can act as a tool to convert customers who previously dropped off part way down the sales funnel by re-engaging them.
Better return on investment (ROI) compared to generic advertising – As it allows you to engage with those who have already shown an interest in you and your products, rather than being a completely cold lead.
It allows you create specific and targeted ads – Remarketing allows you to directly target those who have already shown an interest in a particular product or service you offer. You can create various remarketing lists that will apply to specific prospects, such as those who have lapsed at the checkout stage of an ecommerce website.
Tips for running a successful remarketing campaign:
Ensure your tagging is appropriate.
Make sure your adverts have a clear message and suitable call to action.
Constantly refine your campaign, set time aside to analyse your campaigns results and make amendments when necessary to achieve the best possible return on investment.
Include a special offer such as a discount code in your adverts when targeting lapsed customers. Not only is this likely to entice them to act fast and buy now, but it is an easy way to see which customers have converted from your ads.
Get in touch to learn how Creationz Marketing can help with your remarketing needs – call us on 01158 376 260 or email info@creationzmarketing.co.uk
I set up Creationz Marketing in 2013 to allow me to work with a range of businesses with a vast array of budgets and requirements. I had already at this point worked in-house for companies for 14 years and felt the time was right to branch out and steer my own ship as it were.
Was it that easy? Not really…when you first go from working in-house to running your own business there is a very steep learning curve to go through:
How do you run a business
How do you win and retain clients
What extra services do I need to be able to do – accounting, IT, insurances, etc
What support do I need when income is tight
Will clients want the services I offer?
Today, as I celebrate 8 years with the team, I am reflecting back over this time and can honestly say that it was a good decision and I have been very fortunate to work with amazing clients across the UK that have been able to see the transition and go on their journey with them. Some of our highlights include:
Moving into our new office in Beeston
Taking on my first employee in 2018 – now a team of 4!
Setting up an Internship Programme with Nottingham Trent University – we are 2 years into this programme
Running events in London, Dublin, Dubai, India & Germany, Vienna and more events planned.
Helping businesses to pivot in-person events to fully online during the pandemic
Speaking at client events on the power of marketing – in-person and online
Creating a network of people that support our business as we grow.
But you may be reading this and thinking that’s great but so what?
And you would be right! 8 years might not seem like a milestone birthday like 10, 15 or 20. To us, it is, especially after the year we have just experienced with Covid and the restrictions both we and our clients have faced and felt it is important that we all stop, take stock and celebrate the fact we are here helping our clients.
So, how has marketing changed over the past 8 years.
Marketing never truly sits still but the pace at which these changes are happening is helping us to shape our services to clients to ensure they are supporting their businesses in the right way and include:
Not Just Social Over the past 8 years, there has been a reliance on social media as the only marketing a business needs as it is free. Whilst this was the main benefit in the beginning, now businesses need more time, bigger budgets for ad spend, and much more to make social media their only source of marketing. We help businesses to systemize their marketing so that social media is a marketing pillar but NOT the only pillar.
Time to remove the invisibility cloak Over the past few years, it has become very apparent that businesses can no longer hide and rely on loyalty from existing clients. The speed of the internet, social media and choice had made that loyalty disappear. If we want something and cannot get it from our usual supplier, we look elsewhere. Just look at how many more orders were placed on Amazon over the past year when shops were closed. By helping businesses to be visible, but in the right way, it keeps that awareness and loyalty alive – even as circumstances change.
Direct Mail Has a Place As inboxes get fully, direct mail is becoming popular again – have a think about the post you receive, how much is now from your suppliers and clients. It is a great way of letting your customers know that you are thinking of them. It doesn’t have to be costly – a simple postcard or letter can make all the difference.In a world where we are connected online, could you give your clients something to take stock and think of you? We have lots of ideas and happy to have a chat.
Power of CRM One of the biggest areas for marketing at the minute is the power of your own database. Again with many businesses relying on social media, contacts are not taken online and into CRM system or even a simple excel spreadsheet. We help clients understand that putting all their eggs into social media channels can be dangerous as you don’t own the foundations you are building on. Could you still contact your vlients and contacts if social media shut down your account for a period of time? There are many cases in the news recently about Instagram Influencers who have had their accounts shut down overnight and have lost 100,000 followers etc. Do you have a plan to build a database?
Consistency – Not spreading yourself too thin With over 20 years of experience in marketing, one of the biggest changes is businesses no longer having a written marketing plan that helps shape the marketing efforts. Marketing is more ad-hoc, inconsistent, and following a scattergun approach. This can really impact where marketing time, effort, and budgets are spent. We are passionate about helping our clients to have a plan – it doesn’t have to be lengthy but by having a plan, you can see what works and what doesn’t and be a lot more consistent.
No Marketing Magpies Here Hands up, who has been swayed by the latest marketing tool or gadget? To be honest, most of us have. I can hold my hand up to this when I first set up the business, Chatbots were all the rage and I spent an afternoon setting it up to realise it was not right for us at that time. We help clients get really clear on what they want to achieve and put a plan in place so that it is harder to get swayed by something else. Over the last year, a lot of businesses had to pivot or they would have lost business and by being clear, we were able to help them pivot successfully by being clear and getting being marketing magpies.
Understanding and knowing your numbers We help businesses to understand their numbers, whether it is social media traffic, website traffic, budget spend it can all help. We were able to help a business fund a new website project by reviewing their marketing budget, reviewing where they were getting clients from, and showing them where they could make savings. They have always advertised in directories that didn’t generate any traffic or bring leads into the business – by understanding the numbers, they were able to get the new website they needed to make the business reflect current online conditions. Do you know your numbers? If not, let’s have coffee?
Get the help and support We have noticed over the past 8 years that businesses are seeing the benefit of outsourced marketing teams at their disposal. Sometimes someone outside the business can offer a different perspective. Having a team of experts on-call can actually save the business money than training and employing someone full-time. We have seen first-hand the power of how we can help clients, from as little as sending a monthly newsletter, right through to running full marketing campaigns. We become an extension to the businesses we work with, part of the team!
What does the future hold?
Whilst we are looking back over the past 8 years, we also have eyes on the future and we are so looking forward to what that future may bring. We are constantly reviewing and adapting our services, we have some big plans to support more businesses across the country to get the marketing support they need. Watch this space.
Our thanks go to Steve Edwards – Steve Edwards Photography for the fabulous images on this blog.
Winter has gone and Spring is here, with everyone dreaming about having some drinks in the garden with a BBQ. However, before any of that can happen there is that old tradition…Spring Cleaning. It’s time to do all those tedious tasks that you have been putting off all winter and get everything organised for the Summer ahead.
This goes the same for your marketing, you need to complete a whole review of your marketing strategy to check everything is spic and span before the summer arrives. Creationz Marketing is going to share a few things for you to go away and check before summer comes.
Check your Marketing Audit: This should be done across the whole board – Web and Print. Is your branding consistent across all platforms? Are you actively and regularly using social media? Is your printed marketing still in good condition? These are the sort of questions you need to begin to ask yourself to ensure that your business is ready for a strong summer.
Is social taking up your time? Having social media in your marketing strategy can often feel like you are juggling too many balls at once, and it becomes very hard to stay consistent across the board. If this is the case, there are scheduling tools that are available to you which allow you to schedule a week’s worth of content in just under an hour. Leaving you with plenty of free time to be social, liking, commenting and joining in the conversation.
Take the rubbish out: When building a business, it is common that you will come up with a number of different ideas of how to expand and grow. This often leads to a lot of great things; however, it can also lead to things that really don’t end up working. Start to look at these things and ask yourself is it working? Is it having the desired outcome that you had hoped? If not get rid of it, this can be hard to do as you have spent time on things, but it may be the case that your time could be better spent elsewhere.
Go Shopping: If your marketing strategy is outdated, incomplete or just lacking something intriguing then think about shopping around for some new designers or marketing specialists. Getting new marketing material made on a regular basis is crucial in an effective strategy as you need to stay fresh and new in the eyes of your audience. A marketing specialist can help with integrating a social media strategy, building a new website, creating a business blog, or doing a complete brand rework.
Tidy-up your website: It is no secret that sometimes we often neglect our websites, leaving it at the back of the queue of jobs to do. But if you let much-needed changes fall through the cracks, your website can easily collect dust and damage your brand. With all that has happened in the last year the chances are a lot of things that have changed within your business. It may be something has small as opening hours being different or a complete rebrand. Either way these changes need to be obvious throughout your website.
Organise your inbox: When you are a busy business owner things like emails, paperwork and other documents pile up. It is easy to become disorganised, emails stack up, and before you know if your inbox is a disaster. Use the Spring clean as an opportunity to purge into your inbox. Yes, it is a brain-numbing job and very time-consuming, but you’ll feel a lot more organised once the job is done.
Spring cleaning your marketing and workspace can make you feel refreshed and organized. Not only will your workplace look better, but you might also feel better, too. Creationz are always here to help with any questions or issues you may have! Please don’t hesitate to get in touch with our team.
It’s no surprise to see why video marketing is so popular these days – Firstly, it’s an extremely easy-to-digest format that gives our eyes a rest from the overabundance of textual posts we see on social media. This would explain why we reportedly watch a billion hours of YouTube a day (https://blog.youtube/press/). In 2020, 92% of marketers say that video is an important part of their marketing strategy. This has grown from 78% in 2015 (Smartinsights.com), showing that the importance of video is only growing and is therefore crucial in any effective marketing plan.
Here we will offer some tips and tricks for marketeers to create and share video, highlighting 5 reasons why video is so crucial.
Why Video?
Video format is much loved by the
majority of audiences as It is engaging and easy to digest, giving a real-life
idea of what is going on. With Marketeers loving it because you can portray
emotion leading to a higher level of interaction and in turn ROI – With
text/image posts it is often extremely hard to trigger any emotion in your
audience, which is why video marketing is fantastic. Video is also very
accessible to anyone with internet access, both to watch and to produce. While
there is certainly a trend towards higher quality video on a professional
level, anyone can hop onto their laptop and create their own video in under an
hour.
5 Stats that prove Marketeers
need Video
Search Engine Optimization
Search engines love video content due to the fact that they view them as high-quality content, using video content through various webpages can do wonders for your visibility on search engines – as long as the video is being optimised properly. This would mean incorporating the correct keywords and a good Meta description.
People
will spend 100 minutes a day watching online videos in 2021
As well as more
brands looking to utilize videos, consumers are now watching more videos than
ever before. It is estimated that the average person will spend 100
minutes every day watching online videos in 2021. This is a 19% increase compared to daily
viewing minutes in 2019, which stood at 84.
Informing and
Educating
97% of Marketeers say that video
content helps to educate customers on products/services
There is so much available choice now for products that customers no longer want to be bombarded with details and facts about the product. They want to know how it will benefit them, and video marketing allows an easy way of providing this to your audience. You can show the product being used by a number of different people. A great example of this was Spotify’s recent video advertisement, it doesn’t detail everything about Spotify and bore their audience. It explains exactly how Spotify personalizes your account for you, showing only the benefits to their audience:
Staying
competitive and relevant
81% of businesses now use video content (HubSpot). Videos are amazing for getting all sorts of messages out there, and if we think in terms of practicality, a short, unique explainer video can do a world of difference when it comes to educating people on the ins and outs of your particular product. By carefully planning out what your video will include you can easily catch and hold the attention of your audience.
Examples of Videos created by Creationz Marketing:
Boosted Engagement
Video generates 1200% more shares than both images and text – You can’t argue with stats like this, if you want engagement, Use video content! I personally feel this is the case, the majority of my time on social media is spent watching videos, especially since the revolution of short videos (Tik Tok, Instagram Reels). Whether that be people cooking, sport, or pretty much anything else, if it can catch my attention in the first 5 seconds then I am hooked.
Tips for creating your video…
There are a few reasons as to why you need to incorporate video content into your marketing plan, however, how do you begin to go about making your video? First of all, you need to figure out what is the correct video length for your platform:
Instagram: 30 seconds
Twitter: 45 seconds
Facebook: 1 minute
YouTube: 2 minutes
From here you need to begin to plan out exactly what it is you want your video to tell and create a storyboard explaining the flow your video will follow. A great piece of software to start with would be Canva, making it extremely easy to create high-quality professional videos, providing you with a number of templates.
Are you marketing your business but not sure of the results you are getting? Are you spending a lot of money but not concentrating on basics? Do you want to get to grips with your marketing but unsure where to start?
If so, we have just the thing to help you. Starting on the 4th February 2021, we are running a 7-Day Marketing Tune-Up Challenge to help businesses get to grips with their marketing efforts. Helping you to get clarity and get results you need. Together, we go through 7 effective ways designed for your business.
Over 7 days, you will receive 7 specific emails that look at different aspects of marketing with tips you can implement easily into your business without breaking the bank.
Join us over 7 days where we will be giving you 7 simple, easy to implement marketing tips that won’t break the bank. Our 7 easy to adopt tips:
* Are simple to implement * Will sharpen your brand * Will help you learn new strategies * Help you step put of our comfort zone – come on join us!
Register Today to start your 7-Day Marketing Tune-up Starting – 4th February 2021
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