Email Marketing: Quick Tips For Business Growth

by Karen Petrauskas | Oct 25, 2023

Email marketing – are you using email to reach your customers, audience, potential clients and everyone in between and beyond?

Email is an amazing tool if used correctly.
Email is a fantastic way to interact with a set of people.
Email is a great way to communicate with value.

As you’ve probably heard before, “it’s all in the list” – “you grow a business through the email list” – and that’s great if you’ve got a list, but how do you get to that in the first place?

The most important question you need to ask before starting this is who is your email list for? Establishing who you want to be communicating with and how you can relate to them is the foundation of a growing list, and then offering a product or service that will benefit their needs.

Think about how you can attract those exact people to your list. You need to make it easy, you need to make it straight forward and most of all, you need them to want to sign up.

The best place to start is your website. A simple sign up box on your website allows a reader to subscribe to your list – but what would make them want to join?

Can you offer something of value in return? – For example, we particularly like our social media awareness days calendar as it contains 12 months’ worth of usable content, plus a monthly email to remind you about each one nearer to the time. The best thing – it’s all FREE!

add value at every opportunity through email marketing

Tip: Create a HOOK which will attract your ideal customer to connect with you.

When someone signs up to receive an email, they are giving you valuable information – their email address – which they are trusting you with.
This is not a time to start spamming them with lots of junk messages or selling at every opportunity. They have trusted you with their personal details, so respect them and gain their respect in return. Give them something that will help their pain point or will benefit them in some form.

How else can you get started:

Create Valuable Content

Produce high-quality content, such as blog posts or articles, ebooks, webinars, and offer them as incentives for people to subscribe to your email list. Always ensure that the content is relevant and addresses the interests of your ideal target audience.

Offer Exclusive Discounts or Promotions

Provide special offers, discounts, or early access to subscribers. People are more likely to subscribe if they perceive something to be a benefit.

Run a Contest or Giveaway

Have you thought about hosting contests or giveaways on social media or your website, where a reader enters with their email addresses? Ensure that the prizes are relevant to your niche to attract genuinely interested subscribers – or your email list will be populated with people are not interested in your business at all – they just want the freebie!

Utilise Social Media

Promote your list on all your social media profiles. Share snippets of your content and mention that subscribers get exclusive access to more of they join.

Regularly Email Your List

Keep your existing subscribers engaged and interested by sending them valuable content on a consistent schedule. Engaged subscribers are more likely to refer others and will organically help you to grow your list!

Online marketing can be a minefield and I totally get that, it’s not always easy to navigate what’s essential, what’s necessary and what can wait. But growing an email list will definitely make a difference to the results that you see in terms of business growth. Attract the right audience, gain the right results.

If you’ve not yet started to create an email list, or need help incorporating one into your marketing strategy, why not get in touch and let’s chat – it all starts with a conversation, so simply hit the CONTACT button and let’s arrange a [virtual] coffee!

5 Steps To Engaging on Social Media as a Business

by Karen Petrauskas | Jun 11, 2020

With social media being the most popular way for people to communicate with a business, it is a given that businesses need to be responsive and interact on social media to keep their customers and audience engaged. A place where consumers can discover more about a brand, learn more about a product or service and get to know and trust a business before making a purchase.

The growing popularity of social media makes it an essential place for businesses to be and to reach their audience right where they are. It provides a faster and more personal touch to any conversation and allows the follower to feel cared for and part of a community. However, there are some rules and things that you can adhere to, to ensure that you’re covering the right basis and interacting in a positive way.

Post valuable content

Whatever social media content you produce needs to (and should always) produce value. Personal profiles are the place where other non-business things can be shared and talked about, but when it comes to your business profile, your customers want to see that they can rely on you giving value and being supportive when they need it. Whether you’re giving an inspirational quote or sharing a tip or advice, make sure that your followers can benefit from it.

It doesn’t always have to be something that you have written, this is called curated content. If another business or industry expert has written a relevant and valuable blog post, why not share this to your audience? Tip: You can use other people’s content to grow your own brand awareness!

Show some personality with your voice

You are your brand, yes, but the voice that you portray across social media content should reflect the right tone for your business. People will see through split personalities and conflicts of interests – be true to your brand, the core values that you believe in and the way you want your business to be seen and heard.

Create a voice across social media where you can be yourself and give a good impression of every aspect of your business. Your unique voice is your authenticity and is essential in speaking to the right people, engaging with the right people and reaching the people that are going to want to grow with you and the brand.

Creating your unique voice will make you stand out in a crowded digital space, make you stand apart from the other businesses and competition, and increase your chances of being heard and appreciated, trusted and loved. Become known in a digital world that is fighting for attention by being authentic.

Keep your social media simple

There’s nothing worse than trying to jump on every social channel, keep up with the large organisations and compete with everyone out there – it’s not going to work! Keep your social media marketing simple, make it as easy as possible with the best possible results. Learning to be effective and efficient in your online marketing will make life a lot easier and will help control stress levels which can increase when someone tries to everything all at once.

If you establish that you need to be doing more and keeping up with bigger competition, or even that you’re not the right person to be doing the marketing (everyone has their strengths and weaknesses) then why not think about outsourcing your social media to a VA (virtual assistant) or a digital agency that has the resources and expertise to be productive and reach your business objectives.

When it comes to simply, start with sticking to the point in everything that you post – captions, images, text & copy – keep it simple and easy to manage. Once you start making it complicated and adding in extras, your audience will expect that every time and it is obviously harder to keep up with. Start small and increase as you have the time and skills to do so.

Monitor your social channels

There’s one thing to create a great social media plan and schedule every post for a month in advance, but it’s something else to monitor the reactions and engagements that come from those posts. Be reactive and responsive on the content; when someone comments, respond. When someone shares, thank them. When someone recommends, engage. At all times monitor your social media profiles along with other people’s content that mentions you – this is called social listening and is a very valuable tool.

Make the most of User Generated Content

Your followers and consumers are the people who drive your business forward, who are an influence to others seeking out your business and are the people that will help you build trust and confidence with new customers.

UGC not something that is essential in your social media strategy but always an action that will help.

When someone shouts out about your business – engage with them and share their posts on your social channels. Their reviews, experiences, journey with your business can be shown to other people looking in – utilise User Generated Content wherever possible. Not only will it help with finding a variation in your content, but it will provide insight and reassurance to others.

Above all when it comes to your online marketing efforts, be consistent and on the ball with everything. Diffuse controversy, especially when it’s something that effects your business or nature. When you say you’re going to post, post. When you get into a routine, be sure to keep it up – people expect what they are used to and can get despondent or bored if they feel let down. Be true to your brand and let your personality shine through in your content. Organise, plan and prepare everything – there’s always room to add in extras, but ensure you have your basis covered first.

How do you manage your interaction and engagement on social media? Are you finding that you’re not effective or productive? Do you love social media and have some success stories to share with your audience? Are you looking to outsource your online marketing so you can focus on other parts of your business? Do you need a marketing strategy to work towards? Whatever your situation, we’d love to listen or help you engage and interact with your online audience, feel free to get in touch and let’s talk!

In the meantime, our Social Media Checklist can help, you’re welcome to download our FREE resource to give you the first step up. Click the link below.

Top Tips on How To Grow Your Small Business With Online Marketing

by Karen Petrauskas | Oct 31, 2018

If you’re a small business, you probably have a small marketing department, (if it’s not just you on your own trying to fill all the roles yourself) and it can be rather confusing or overwhelming at times. Not only does it require time and effort, but it can be frustrating if you’re not seeing results or growing your online presence.

Even though it can be a frustrating, it is a necessity in today’s digital world and the need for your business to be out there and seen is ever more important.

Many businesses are seeing a shift away from the conventional way of marketing and offline material and heading towards a variety of online marketing means. This gives way to much competition and the need to promote your brand as best as you can. Social media is the main marketing tool for most businesses and brands are seeing great results from well-managed marketing strategies and plans.

If you’re a small business trying to catch up with the larger organisations, you’re not alone and there are many things you can do to give your online marketing the best outcome possible, if you follow the best tips of how to get going on social media.

Build a commendable reputation

This isn’t as difficult as it sounds. Learning to connect with the RIGHT people will help your business get noticed in a better light, rather than just connecting with anyone for the sake of it. This starts with brand awareness. And this is best done by creating an online presence that represents your whole brand and who you are both online and offline. This powers down from every little thing you use to market your business, from your logo and tagline to your visuals, social media posts, blog posts and website. The design and feel must match your persona and core values.

If you’re not good at the design side for your business, don’t be afraid to outsource this to someone that it. Having a logo designed professionally or your social media profile started with professionalism will set the standard of what your brand stands for and that you mean business.

Be where your audience is

When we mention that you need to connect with the RIGHT people, that means to be where your audience is, and to focus on their needs and not a generalised version. Who are your ideal clients? Which social platform can they be found mostly on and can you reach out to them? What solutions are they looking for?

If you generalise in your marketing, you’ll find things very wishy-washy and hard to build a solid business. If you focus down and discover your niche and the audience within that, even though the amount of people you are reaching is probably a smaller percentage, they will be more dedicated to your cause and open to what you have to say.

Online marketing for small businesses. Don't struggle with social media marketing - you can grow your brand with these top tips

Don’t spread too thin

The worst thing you can do when running a small business (or big one, in fact!) is to spread yourself too thin. Everything has its place and everything has its priority. Marketing should be high in those priorities but there are other things too that have a place in the to-do list. Therefore working out the best place to spend your time on social media or online that will benefit your business, is where you need to market. It can come with some trial and error and yes that can take a bit of time, but establishing the best place for social media marketing rather than splashing posts all over the place that have no relevance will be better in the long run.

You could put the same post up across all your social channels and fill a slot for that day, but does that speak to your audience or does it show laziness and not much thought process? Of course if it’s something that is relevant for all channels then that is fine, but be sure to tweak your posts to engage with the audience on that platform, along with creating images that fit correctly. It looks unprofessional for the same text and image size to be slapped on all platforms.

We suggest thinking about brand awareness, relationship building / networking, value, sales. Which social platform gives you better opportunity to reach your target audience in these categories? This may be Facebook, it may be Instagram, it may be LinkedIn – or it could be a combination of a couple of social channels. But if you’re managing this yourself, try not to spread yourself too thin by doing all of them at once. Not only will you burnout, your marketing efforts will be less effective and you’ll miss out on potential opportunities trying to keep up with it all. Establish a solid presence on one platform, then move up to two if you feel you need to, and gradually build from there. If you’re listening to your audience correctly, you’ll know where they are and where you need to be focusing your marketing.

Follow your plan

As with anything, it’s good to start with a plan – and to stick to it! When you started your business, (hopefully) you put together a business strategy/plan to build your targets and objectives into. This is the same for your marketing. You need a social media marketing strategy to keep focused and on track to ensure that you’re meeting goals and heading in the right direction. When you fall away from plans, you lose sight of what you’re actually doing. It can be very easy to digress or go off on a tangent, but if you have a marketing plan to bring you back in line, you’ll be ok!

Another reason for following a plan is that you are able to physically see when something does not work. This is a good thing! It can help you be more productive and efficient by allowing you to tailor your social strategy to what does work! All your ideas and thought can go into the brainstorming part of the plan and be incorporated as the plan progresses. Always be open to trying something new, if you don’t take risks, you’ll find yourself in the same place years down the line.

Have you got a plan for your Online marketing for your small businesses? Don't struggle with social media marketing - you can grow your brand with these top tips

Be engaging – get social

Social media is all about being social and engaging with your audience. You need to really relate and get to the heart of what your followers are looking for and speak their language! Understand them with as much research as possible and start engaging with them in the places that they love and in the way that they communicate. This is where your ideal social platform comes into play – you need to be engaging where your audience is.

Facebook’s algorithm likes engagement. If you create a post and no one engages, it will not push it onto other people news feeds. However, if you create something that is really engaging and people start to comment or interact, Facebook will see this as a ‘good’ post and will show it to more people’s news feeds. Facebook favours friends over pages and businesses, so it can be worth asking your friends to like your posts to get some interaction started.

The key is to ask questions or create a post that engages the user and for them to want to comment or share. An eye-catching image with a question in the status above can grab the attention of your audience and boost your marketing efforts.

Give your small business a chance to grow with social media marketing - a must have tool for small businesses

Be appreciative

Many large businesses can get carried away with the sales that they actually forget to thank people and be personable. This is your chance to stand out from the crows and appreciate everyone that engages. Even if you just like their comments or give a quick reply, they are aware that you’ve taken the time to read what they have written and it makes them feel appreciated.

Social media is not all about selling. In fact selling should only be about 20% of your content, the rest should be made up of other types of content to add value to your audience.

If people see ‘sell, sell, sell’, they are going to get bored very quickly. They will know that you’re not really interested in what they want, just about what you want to get. Therefore use your social channels to give value, as we mentioned before, and build relationships with the followers you have. They will notice!

Have a clear goal

The most important aspect to your online marketing as a small business owner, is to ensure you have a clear goal in mind. Having a goal gives you direction. Direction gives you a path. And following that path allows you to reach success.

However you manage your business is down to personal preference but always have your goals in mind in everything that you do.

Here at KJP Creative we work with small and medium sized businesses to provide online marketing services in the form of ‘virtual assistance’. You don’t need to hire a marketing assistant to be in the office with you throughout the week – just pay for the service you need. By working with specialists in social media, you can have peace of mind that you’re in good hands and keeping up with latest trends and requirements. Give your business a boost and get serious about your social media marketing – it’s not an add-on to your business, it is the future of your business.

If you’d like to talk about your marketing strategy or need advice on how to manage as a small business, please get in touch, we’d love to chat with you.

Give your small business a chance to grow with social media marketing - a must have tool for small businesses

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Grow Your Business With Digital Marketing

by Karen Petrauskas | Aug 16, 2018

As technology develops and time goes on, the use of digital marketing is increasing and it’s becoming more apparent that it’s something that businesses, both big and small need to embrace to see longevity.

Internet marketing / digital marketing is the way that people are choosing to communicate with their favourite brands and businesses and the way that people are making purchases, decisions and listening to influence – all via the internet. The increasing number of users on social media and the desire for everything to be made mobile is making it easier for people to have constant access to brands and social media networks. This gives way for users to influence what their family, friends and wider circle of friends are doing and purchasing. Word of mouth has become even more influential, via the means of social media.

Business owners are in a place where they need to be using digital marketing to have an influence and a greater chance of reaching their audience. If you’re not on social media as a business, you’re missing out on large volumes of traffic that could be potential customers.

So, what benefits does digital marketing have on a business and how can each business use it to see longevity and successful marketing results?

Cost

The cost of digital marketing is a fraction of the cost of offline marketing or physical retail stores. There are no constant outlays, property rentals or maintenance, or even the need to purchase and store stock prior to a user making a purchase. Using digital marketing and working online has provided a way for smaller business to reach potential customers that would not have been possible in the past and to target a wider audience in order to grow their business.

Research

People are researching all the time, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. There are no limits to when a customer could be searching for your business and without the restrictions of offline cut-offs and retail outlets, this allows an online business can be ‘open’ 365 days a year. If your business is on Google and the other large search engines, if your business is on the social media channels that your specific audience is spending their time, then you’re going to have opportunity to reach more and more people as others’ discover your brand and share your products and content.

Always available

Using social media channels to display what your brand represents and who you are as a business allows users to find you at ANY time. You may only work 16 hours a week, but your social channels are working 24 hours a day for you, being the face of your business for any potential customer that comes along.

Realise the potential

That’s a powerful thought, and something that should be highlighted when thinking about digital marketing. What does your online presence say about you? Do your business profiles match up with your company core values and does the presence that comes across give a true reflection of what your business represents? It may be time to re-evaluate what your Facebook page is discussing. It may be time to stop sharing tweets that are not relevant to your business. It may be time to connect with business contacts who will help boost your business on LinkedIn. Every aspect of your online presence is your company reputation, whether that be a business profile or a personal profile. If a user likes your product, they will no doubt look you up too – what will they find?

Use social apps correctly

By successfully using online marketing to target your business, you will be in a better place to engage with customers and provide excellent customer service. Your reputation depends on your customer service! With all things digital, people expect a response instantly and apps like Messenger and WhatsApp allow customers to have that personal contact with a business. If you’re using these functions, ensure that you use them well and provide a customer service that people will want to recommend. Again, word of mouth is powerful – if someone likes your service, they will recommend you.

Measure results

The great thing about digital marketing is that everything is measurable, and everything can be accounted for. Whether that be the traffic to your website or the link clicks from your Facebook page, using the tools available, you can measure everything that you are doing within your marketing campaign. Try to get into a routine of looking at your results regularly, monthly or weekly reports are good (if you have the time) to ensure that you stay on track and in line with your targets. If something is not working, you’re able to investigate why and make changes. Similarly, you will be able to see when something is good and is providing great results.

Growing your business using online marketing is a great tool for any business and will give you the upper hand over businesses that are not using it. Everyone is searching for something online and if you’re noticeable and present online, you’ll win new clients.

Be persistent and don’t give up. Building a good customer base from social media can take time but using a marketing strategy will enable you to plan and prepare each step.

If you’d like help getting your online marketing strategy off the ground or if you’re been using social media for a while and are not seeing results, get in touch today, we want to help!

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Online Marketing Trends For 2018

by Karen Petrauskas | Dec 29, 2017

Can you imagine life now without social media? For a trend that people thought would likely never take off or at least stick for only a short while… businesses and organisations have marvelled in its influence and have grown further than they ever thought possible by utilising the power of social media.

People spend so much time on their mobile devices now, whether that be a smart phone, tablet, iPad or laptop – digital marketing is here to stay and to stay on top of the marketing game, social media must be incorporated within a marketing strategy for a business to succeed.

So as we approach the end of the year and look forward to 2018, what should we look out for within online marketing to achieve success?

Video marketing

Video marketing is expanding rapidly and so many people are jumping on board with this trend that it is definitely something not to be missed.

With Facebook Live, Instagram Stories and Snapchat – to name the most popular – incorporate these into your marketing plans and you will see an noticeable increase in your social media engagement. People love watching live video. In fact, 80% of users said they’d rather watch a live video than read a blog post – and according to Facebook, a live video will get 3x more views.

Why live video?

Can show behind the scenes footage
Can introduce team members
Promotion of events
Portrays a real-life brand

Everyone loves to know the truth behind what they are buying into, and using video in your marketing will provide trust and uniqueness as well as a better customer experience.

Content Marketing

With so much competition and everything being so widely available via digital channels, it is more important than ever to be authentic and original. Content marketing is vital to build brand awareness and demonstrate industry knowledge.

Customers would much rather read about an organisation and learn about them from an article, than be confronted with an advert. Adverts have their place, of course, but content marketing is in a league of it’s own.

Content marketing can be shown in different forms; blog posts, articles, videos and infographics but all contain meaningful information that increases awareness of a brand or product.

Anyone that runs a business will also know that content marketing can become time consuming which is why it often gets left behind but don’t stress – a Virtual Assistant can provide a great service to write content for your business so you don’t need to let this part of your marketing plan fall down.

Marketing Strategies

Planning your marketing is just as important as implementing your marketing. It can be easy to jump on every trend and social media platform that you come across, but it is essential to evaluate and work out what is best for your business to provide the best success rates.

Writing a marketing strategy will all enable you to look at your brand competition, see what you already have in place and what works / and doesn’t work which then leads to creating a plan to implement and move your business forward – being focused on your business goals and objectives. If this is something that you’re not sure on, look to a professional marketing agency that can provide this service for you (KJP Creative can help!). If you are serious about growing your business, the initial cost of having a strategy created for you will easily be recouped in the results of successful marketing.

Images

Just like live video, imagery is extremely effective in your online marketing. People love to see images which is why networks like Instagram and Pinterest are a huge success. Images allow a brand to be creative and show uniqueness. Images can be portrayed in many ways to show different aspects of a business and can also be accompanied be other mediums to tell stories and create brand awareness.

And you don’t have to be a graphic designer to produce great images. Using free graphic platforms like Canva, you can produce industry standard creatives.

There are many trends that will be become essential in online marketing success in 2018 but above all else, customer experience is the most important thing to remember in order to satisfy the customer as well as the growing competition.

Ensuring that your customers have a great experience from start to finish will be the ingredient that keeps a client coming back for more. Being involved and interested in what a customer is looking for and how their journey progresses throughout their time with you is important in business growth and product development.

Make the most of your digital marketing throughout 2018 and look to implement strategies that best fit your business objectives.

If you’d like help in moving forward with your online marketing, get in touch, we’d love to help!