How To Revamp Your Marketing Strategy

by Karen Petrauskas | Dec 11, 2018

As we approach the end of the year, it’s a good a time as any to think about what has worked and what hasn’t this year in your business marketing strategy. This can give you an opportunity to revamp your marketing strategy ready for the new year ahead.

Every business wants to see leads coming in, but if those leads aren’t seeking what your business is offering, there is no point to them and your efforts have been wasted.

It’s always good to look at what’s around the corner and what’s coming up as new trends, innovations and competitors all play a part in how well your marketing works with your audience.

Take a look back through all your data this year – what can it tell you? As a small business owner, it can be hard to stay on top of marketing objectives but if you’ve played your cards right this year, you’ll see your results clearly and be able to take from it the things that have worked well to be able to replicate and do even better in the future. On the flip side, you can take out the things that have not worked so well and make changes to those processes.

Don’t get stuck into just looking at the data in a single vision tunnel. Use more than one analytical tool to measure your marketing – and don’t just trust Google Analytics! If you’re using third party social tools, many come with analytics or insights. Check these regularly and record the data, or save the reports so you’ve got comparisons throughout the year.

Tip: It doesn’t matter how successful you’ve been this year, it’s always good to tweak processes to ensure success again next year.

Things change year on year. If you have something in your marketing strategy that was good last year, it may not be applicable next year and this is where a revamp comes in.

Revamp your marketing strategy this year and drive your business forward

Goals: Be specific

Ask questions to realise what is important to you and what is / is not working in your marketing so far.

Are you reaching out to the right audience on the right platform?
Are you meeting the needs of your audience?
Who are you competitors and how can you use their business to benefit yours?
What’s worked best / worst for you this year?

Goals: Put your specifics into targets

Use the specifics in your questions and answers to create goals that you can work towards and are attainable. Setting goals too high can lead to disappointment. Be realistic in your thoughts and plans.

Increase website traffic by X%
Reach X% of customers more than last year
Hit a £XX target by first quarter
Achieve X% higher engagement rate on social media

These goals need to be monitored on a regular basis, set goals for different periods of the year: Q1, Q2, and check if you are reaching those goals each time. If you’re doing well and over achieving, there’s a window to re assess the marketing plan and set your sights even higher. If things are not working as well as you first thought or assumed, you can revamp to more achievable targets.

What can you look out for within your marketing strategy?

Trends

Everyone wants to be on top of what’s to come. This means staying on top new trends. You can achieve this by social listening, connecting manually with businesses and industry leaders on social media and keeping a general watchful eye on the social media channels. They shift very quickly, and all are moving at a pace that can be unexpected in marketing spheres.

Expand your reach with social media

You’ve dabbled in social media marketing this year or in the past and know what it’s capable of which now gives way to you digging deeper into your social media and utilising everything that you’ve learned to reach even further. There is power when it comes to social media marketing and the horizons are bright when it’s used correctly. Create different ways to engage with your audience, that will showcase what you have to offer and what value your business will provide.

Here are some ways to get engagement:

Seasonal or promotional campaigns
Surveys / polls
Ask for topics people would like to read about
Get website feedback
Competitions
Create shareable content
Use quotes and inspiration content

Inbound

Attracting customers from an inbound way may sound hard work but actually it’s not if you have everything in place ready and waiting.

Say for example a business is looking for a company to provide delivered lunches to the office, they discuss it within their management meeting and give the task of finding a provider to the office administrator. The first thing they will probably do is Google “delivered lunches to offices in XX town”. If you’ve done everything correctly within your marketing strategy, you should hopefully appear somewhere near the top of that search list.

The website that looks the most attractive with good and detailed information, that are easily contactable, perhaps have a good social media following and can show customer testimonials etc. will probably be the one that will contacted first. All these components together portray a good online image and with no extra effort from yourselves, you have attracted an inbound client.

Therefore, everything needs to be within your marketing strategy from start to finish, not leaving any options out. Website / social media / SEO / content marketing – the whole lot comes together to form your business.

SEO

This means ‘search engine optimisation’ and is the optimising of your content so that it appears higher in search engine results. So, if someone is searching for ‘social media agency’, for example, you’d hope that your company lists high up in Google for your business to appeal to those searching. Therefore, your SEO strategy plays a part in your overall marketing plan. Take some time to ensure that all the keywords that people would be searching for when it comes to your business industry or service area, are within your content. This is important on your website, but it’s also important in your social media content too. All content is searchable, and you want to aim for the highest search results possible. This can be maximised by your content marketing.

Content marketing

Content is key! Recent surveys show that businesses who invest in their content marketing have a conversion rate of six times higher of those that don’t. Content marketing relates to blogs, articles, podcasts, video and social media as a vehicle for driving traffic and raising brand awareness.

The Content Marketing Institutes states this: Content marketing is a marketing technique of creating and distributing valuable, relevant and consistent content to attract and acquire a clearly defined audience – with the objective of driving profitable customer action.

The key word in this definition is ‘valuable’. This is what attracts and retains a reader and is what turns them into a customer and a long-term client that is sustained. Anyone can post content but is that content worth reading and is it worth looking at the business behind the content? If you can grab the attention of the audience by using key words that trigger emotions, you will create a hook for that person to keep reading.

Give a call to action with your content, once a person has read the value you have, they need somewhere to go next. Can you give that to them or will they hop onto something else?

Conclusion

There is much that can be done to revamp your marketing strategy but it needs to start with good brainstorming and research and come from a passion to really want something to happen. If you do not give your marketing plan 100% focus, you’ll not stay on the right track and will be distracted easily. Take time to perform as much research as you can and to watch competitors as they handle their marketing. What gaps can you see that your competitors are missing that you can use and provide value in? Where do you see your business heading and what do you want to achieve by this time next year?

Need a little help in putting a marketing plan together? Do not fear, you’ve come to the right place! We’d love to help you get organised and with a plan ready to implement. Download our social media marketing calendar first off and then get in touch for an initial chat… start the year as you mean to go on! Are you looking to see better results in your marketing? Perhaps it's time to revamp your marketing strategy

WORK WITH KJP CREATIVE

If you’re looking to get a clear business focus in 2020 and to put together a social media strategy to lead your business forward, ask us about our WORKSHOPS.

How To Create Great Social Media Content That Converts

by Karen Petrauskas | Nov 30, 2018

Are you wondering how to write social media content that creates conversions? Do you want to create copy that people can’t wait to share? There is a knack to writing sales copy but to achieve that you’ll need to follow some basic steps. Your efforts in social media want to maximise the ROI for your posts and create content that speaks directly to your readers in order to see results.

Be your brand

You are the voice behind your brand. Every business has their own tone of voice and their own way of communicating with their audiences. When users scroll through their social media feeds, they should be able to recognise your brand immediately.

When you understand and know your audience, you can write your copy tailored to them. Know what tone of voice they like and respond to, grasp the words and call to actions that they engage with, and run with this throughout your content.

Ad copy length is important

Whilst writing a blog can be hundreds of words, a Twitter post cannot. Each post needs to reflect the platform that it is being posted on and content tweaked to reflect the audience that will be seeing the posts.

Sometimes 5-10 words can say much more than a string of sentences that may make people switch off.

There are different trains of thoughts on whether short copy or long copy is best but at the end of the day, if you test both, your audience will help you decide what works best for your business. Split test your posts and ads to try different methods.

The most important thing is that you want your audience to respond and engage with your copy, so listening to them will give you the upper hand.

Split testing can be expensive if you’re a smaller business with a small budget (and competing against larger organisation), but it’s still worth trying a few examples to see what works best – every business is different.

Mix content

No one can argue that great visuals convert but having great copy to go with visuals pushes you to another level.

If your visuals are great but your grammar or spelling is awful, your business will look unprofessional and shoppers will pass you by. If you’re not great at the written word, ask someone to check over your copy. There’s absolutely no harm in doing this, in fact, we encourage it to ensure that ad copy is professional and correct. You wouldn’t send off a job application without checking for mistakes, so why send out social media content that is incorrect?

If you create a social media calendar and schedule all posts in that calendar, another pair of eyes can look over that calendar prior to posts being created. A simple Excel spreadsheet is a cheap and easy way to achieve it.

Also, an image shows what you’re talking about, but the copy or text will give the call to action and tells the user what to do next. This is an important part of the sales funnel. Create great content but don’t give a call to action and users will find somewhere else to go after they’ve finished with your content.

Sell but don’t sell

You don’t want to come across too pushy in your content or posts. You’re there to offer value to your readers by giving them something they can take away and utilise. You can incorporate your sales into the way you speak. Remember to keep this within your tone of voice and branding, so that your readers who already know and love your style will listen.

If you’ve already built up a relationship with your audience, they will be used to the way that you write, the way that you approach subjects, and the way that you come across when you have something to offer. They’re loyal customers because they like your style. Stick to that in all your copy, allow your personality to come through with whatever it is you are promoting.

Be mindful of ‘how’ you speak

If your content is full of lots of CAPITAL letters and exclamation marks, you sound and look like you are shouting. Does this way of speaking portray your brand correctly? Is this how you would speak to someone you were talking to face to face?

Be mindful of how you come across in your social media content, whether that be sales copy or everyday posts, your manner is important to your audience.

Be mindful of ‘who’ you’re speaking to

Understand your audience. We say this in so many of our posts but that’s because it is so important. You wouldn’t speak to your family in a way they didn’t like or relate to. So why do it with your audience? And each audience is different. If you’re creating content for your Facebook followers, the tone of voice and relationships are going to be different to those you connect with on SnapChat for example. Just bear in mind who you’re trying to reach and create beautiful content that they will love.

Trigger emotions to get an effect

Research has shown that posts and content that trigger emotions have a higher reaction rate. Use headlines that outline positive outcomes or create curiosity and you will gain more traction than other posts. Being able to make a reader say WOW after they’ve read a post is a great achievement and will usually result in reactions or shares. Our emotions drive us to share with others, we want our friends to experience the same feelings as we do and by sharing content that heightens these emotions, we feel a sense of satisfaction and clarity and is a dominating factor when it comes to sharing social content.

Make your headlines count

If you’ve not got a great headline, you won’t get the interaction you desire. People read a headline before they see the content below, so if your headline does not grab the attention of your reader at first glance, there will find more opportunity further down their news feed for something that will.

Headlines are a vital part of your sales copy. You need to make an impression, you need to add value, you need to offer something they are interested in. Does your headline tell the reader why they should continue reading? Are they compelled to take action or to engage? Ask questions that will get their attention. If you’re not happy with the headline that you’ve come up with, try again, and again. It doesn’t matter how long it takes you to create the perfect headline, it matters what the headline says when it’s published and how it’s going to impact a reader.

Cut out what you don’t need

People are busy and the increasing use of mobile devices and wifi spots at every corner facilitate society being able to grab snippets of information and then move on. Waffle within your content will not sell. Truth and fact, to the point, will. Therefore, within your headline and content, you need to be precise and deliver what your audience wants to hear, not everything that surrounds it and engaging them in a journey that will allow them to learn more about you and your business and to discover what they can get from you or your content.

Tell a great story

Readers love a great story and will engage better with a story that is worth something than a post that’s created just to fill a gap for that day’s content. But stories don’t have to be long and boring, they can be mixed up with video and images, they can be portrayed by keywords rather than sentences. Remember you are trying to dig into emotions and your story doesn’t have to be a stand-alone piece of content, you can make stories into so much more by creating regular content, content blocks and using your imagination to interact with your audience.

There are many ways to create the perfect social media content for your business and the above are just a few to consider. Always use your analytics tools to steer you in the right direction and to know your audience better. Understanding your audience is key to engagement and conversions on social media. By utilising analytical tools, you can see what works and what doesn’t, saving time, money and resource.

Get your copy correct and you’re flying!

Great content and social media is our thing here at KJP Creative – if you’d like help putting together content that will convert for your business, get in touch and let’s see your social media energised.

WORK WITH KJP CREATIVE!

How To Use Video Marketing To Grow Your Business

by Karen Petrauskas | Nov 20, 2018

Social media video marketing can benefit your business – did you know that? It’s an essential part of any online marketing plan in today’s society.

There is no doubt that video plays a huge part in social media marketing at the moment. This is part of a long-term content marketing strategy and is what is driving the online world today.

More and more people are utilising video marketing and incorporating it into their online marketing strategies, with great success. Video is being used to connect with a target audiences whilst building relationships and increasing engagement. It’s much easier to achieve this through video than it has been through traditional ways of marketing.

People are hungry for video, which makes it the perfect medium to speak to an audience who are already looking for content.

Video marketing is available everywhere, social media platforms are embracing video more than ever before and it can be discovered wherever you look. Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and of course YouTube. Video is in demand and a business needs to get on board if they want their online marketing to catch the wave.

Social media needs to be incorporated into a wider marketing strategy to grow a business. What goals are businesses looking for in their marketing? What does a business hope to get out of their social media efforts? Most goals or targets can be met through video in these 3 ways:

Engagement

Posts and articles that encourage engagement and that achieve this, are more likely to be seen and shared by other people who have similar interests. These posts spread and become viral because people are engaging.

Video allows a follower to feel part of what is happening, to see more than just an image and become part of the story. A video can be interactive and help brands connect with a different variety of audiences.

Video marketing is a powerful way to grow a business and increase brand awareness. Check out our top tips

Brand awareness

A video will make a follower sit up and notice a brand. Small businesses now have an opportunity to compete with larger organisations by getting their name, face, brand out there and noticed by more and more people. Brand awareness grows a business. When people know who a business is, they will start to engage and relate to it. If someone likes what they see, they are more likely to share and recommend.

Brand awareness can be hard to measure when it comes to marketing goals but the grow of a business will help determine this fact. Social listening can be a great tool when it comes to recognising results from brand awareness to see the impact it is making.

Increase website traffic

An ultimate goal with many social media plans is to increase web traffic. To divert a potential customer away from social media and onto their website. What better way of jumping on board with video marketing and showcasing what’s behind a business and why a follower should purchase from them. Video can be the bridge between social and website for any brand. People may not be looking for specific products or services in their search engines, however by capturing attention on social media allows the watcher to be influenced by what a brand has to say and why they may need a certain product. Sales tactics can be clever and extremely effective when performed correctly, video content is no different and can be added to the mix.

How can a business use video marketing effectively?

Make the first 10 seconds count

If the beginning of a video is not engaging or eye-catching, a follower will switch off. There is plenty of video content out there, skipping one video makes no difference to people. However, if a video grasps a follower in those first split seconds, there is more chance of them finishing the video. Presentation counts. Sound counts. Visual counts. How can you catch the eye of the watcher?

Choose the right type of video

According to research, there are 4 types of video:

Explainers
How-tos
Product Demos
Testimonials

You don’t need to focus on just one of these but for each purpose of using video marketing, determine which type of video would be best to achieve your goals.

Use the right type of video for your video marketing - social media marketing for business growth

Choose the right time to broadcast video

If you’ve gone to trouble of creating a video, you want to do your best to make your audience see it! Therefore, make sure you have already worked out what times of day your audience engage more. Each industry is different and you’ll need to spend some time looking at the analytics behind your social media platforms, but for each channel, there will be an ideal time of day to post. You want to be publishing at the peak time of day when your audience are online and being interactive.

Customer Service

Once a follower has started to make contact or engage with a business, it’s vital to retain that communication and follow it through. That first observation of the video is the start of a whole new customer journey – it needs to be given priority. By providing great customer service, a potential customer will be more inclined to come back for more.

The overall goal of your video marketing can come down to 4 main points:

Catch the attention of your target audience
Connect with them using valuable content
Pitch them a relevant offer by the end
Convert them into a lead or sale

Are you ready to drive your business forward and to see successful results? Be creative and get videoing!

Need help establishing a social media strategy for your business? Get in touch, we can help. Video marketing is a powerful way to grow a business and increase brand awareness. Check out our top tips

WORK WITH KJP CREATIVE

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How To Get Followers On Pinterest

by Karen Petrauskas | Nov 9, 2018

Looking for more followers on Pinterest? Are you wanting to get discovered by the many thousands of people are using Pinterest every day to search for their next product buy?

Yes? Read on.

What are the benefits of Pinterest?

Pinterest can:

Rapidly grow your website traffic
Increase email subscribers, through increased traffic
Provide free marketing for your business
Build credibility and authority
Influence potential buyers

The more followers you have on Pinterest, the more repins, likes and engagement you will get, boosting your brand awareness which will help drive traffic to your website.

Gaining likes, comments and impressions builds engagement rates, which gives you opportunity to build relationships and provide great customer service. A win win situation!

In a recent post we looked at how to use Pinterest for business, now you’re using Pinterst, it’s time to get more followers. Here’s our top 9 tips to get you started…

Add Pinterest to your website

An important first step is to add the Pinterest button to your website as this will divert website visitors to your Pinterest page, which attracts followers. If you have a high volume of traffic on your website, this can be extremely effective.

You can add the button throughout your website, it doesn’t have to just be in one place. You can achieve this easily by using the Pinterest widget builder function. These widgets can be weaved throughout your site to make it easy for visitors to get to your Pinterest page.

Post original content

Did you realise that 80% of posts on Pinterest are repins? This means that posting eye-catching original content is a great way to stand out. Create your own branded posts that are attractive to your audience and will gain engagement due to the fact that they are exactly what the users are looking for. Infographics are a great way to create this, they stand out and are unique to your brand.

If you don’t think you’d be able to create an infographic for Pinterest, Canva is a great place to start, they have some great templates ready for you to use.

Follow other people

Another way to get noticed is to follow other people. This is a simple fact, the more people you follow, the more people will follow you back. Just a small number of followers can make a huge different to the engagement on your posts – try it, it works!

As we mentioned in a previous post, you can look at your domain on Pinterest to find people who might be interested in following you. And then you can r

eplace the URL with competitors’ and follow users who are following their boards!

https://www.pinterest.co.uk/source/YOURDOMAIN.com/

When you discover a pin that fits with your brand and is a popular / viral pin, look to see who has already posted it and the followers associated with them.

Share – a lot!

The more you share, the more your posts have a chance of being seen. If you post one post, it may gain attraction. If you post thirty posts, they stand a much better chance of being seen. Those pins will bring people back to your page where they can see your business details below the pin.

Share other people’s posts. When you share a lot of pins, Pinterest will suggest people for you to follow who share similar posts to you. This is your chance to find high-engaging posts. Share these posts as they are already gaining engagement, by adding your name to the list, you gain a chance for people to be drawn back to your page or your boards, and often then will follow you if they like what they see.

Use Tailwind Tool

You need a lot of content when it comes to Pinterest and it’s near-on impossible to keep up to date with it by manually posting on a daily basis. So why not use a scheduling tool! But there’s a difference between a scheduling tool and Tailwind! Tailwind is THE tool to increase your engagement, raise your profile and get people to share your content. The more shares you have, the more followers you’ll gain and the more chance you’ll have of traffic directing to your website = increased sales.

Use hashtags

You’re aware of keywords in your pin and board description but are you using hashtags as well? The use of hashtags is important as it will help you reach out to a bigger audience. The hashtags you use will appear in searches, allowing your content to get in front of your ideal audience.

Comment on pins

When you find posts that have high engagement, a great tip is to comment on them. Don’t just go for two word comments like “great post”, offer something that is of value which will make people want to click your profile to see more about you.

Tip: Don’t over comment, as you may get classed as a spammer, so worth doing this a couple of times a day; little but regular.

Join collaborative boards

You can collaborate with other people and popular audiences by getting involved with group boards that have a large number of following. This will allow other members of the boards to view your pins too. You will need to be invited to join a group board, so use your social skills to build a little rapport with the owner of the groups and once that has been established, ask to join.

Revive older pins

Often we get so focused on creating new pins that our old content gets forgotten. It’s vital to keep content alive and recycled on Pinterest.

How can you revive older pins?

Try re-pinning them to group boards or even your own boards. Especially if you have a lot of content on your boards, re-pinning them will bring that back to the forefront.

Another way is to create many pin for the same post.

Always keep putting your best content in front of people, you never know when your pins are going to go viral – so the more you put out there, the more chance you have of getting noticed and increasing your followers.

Pin for your target audience

This goes with any social media channel and is no different for Pinterest. Create your pins with your audience in mind. Try not to go off on a tangent, you can create a personal account for that! Or you could create secret boards, which is a great way to keep hold of all the pins you like or want to take note of, but your followers will not see them. All your pins need to be relevant to your audience.

To split your content up, create different boards, all of course with great keyword descriptions, and allow the colours of your creativity to flow through each of those boards.

Fill the boards up with a mixture of your content and other people’s content too. That way, if you’ve re-pinned a popular pin to your board, other people will discover your pins too – with your content on.

Remember that everything you produce needs to be in line with your brand, so that goes for your pins, boards, board description and your profile bio. Keywords are important if you want to be discovered.

Do you want to take your Pinterest marketing to the next level? Follow these simple tips to get started and make an impact on your Pinterest community. If you’re looking for a little help or guidance on getting started, we’d love to help.

WORK WITH KJP CREATIVE

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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.

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It’s Never Too Early to Promote Christmas with Social Media

by Karen Petrauskas | Oct 19, 2018

It may only be October, but many people have already started their Christmas shopping hoping to get complete before the festive rush. So you’re not crazy by thinking it’s too early to start your online marketing campaigns.

Many businesses make the mistake of not preparing and jump straight in closer to the date, often at a detriment to the business. Marketing your products for Christmas can start or be prepared at any time of the year but the earlier the better to get the best results out of the campaigns. 40% of retailers’ revenue comes from Christmas spending. By preparing early, it will be less stressful and more enjoyable.

Many marketers start their festive seasonal marketing in the summer, ready to roll it out as the summer holidays draw to a close, but if you’re not quite there just yet, that’s fine – you’ve still got time.

How can your social teams prepare for the Christmas season?

Brainstorm

Get started on the right foot by brainstorming everything to do with Christmas, everything that you think it may entail – and anything that may or may not be relevant, it might be necessary later on!

Think about resources, the team (if there’s more than one of you), and what you may need in order to be prepared for the run up to Christmas. Think about inventory and the stock you will need – have you got enough?

Who is your audience and what do you need to do to attract them?

Goal setting

What do you hope to achieve throughout the period? What objectives do you have in mind when it comes to sales and profit? Look back at previous years and the results that you achieved. What do you need to do this year to compare and see better results?

Listen to your networks

When you start posting across your social channels, listen to the responses that are given. Your audience are your customers and you want to be providing a solution to their needs, not providing something that’s not relevant to them.

Social listening is a great way to understand your audience and to discover what it is they are really looking for. You can also tap into competitors and find out what they have on the horizon. Listen to your social channels daily and record results, this can feed into your marketing strategy as you move through the season.

Start posting

By sending out snippets of information to your audience now, you can get them ready for what is to come. Seeds need to be sown in order for customers to want to buy and to be enticed into what you have to offer. Start posting across your social media networks or send out email campaigns with targeted messages about what you are offering.

As the weeks move forward, you can give more away and show a bigger picture of everything you are providing. Create images that are attractive and eye-catching and that stand out from the crowd. You want your posts and campaigns to be noticed, not just run-of-the-mill. You want them to be jazzy and memorable and most of all you want your customers to feel valued and appreciated. More often than not, people prefer to buy from people rather than a company, it’s the personal touch that’s loved so now is the time to give them a good experience of your business. Be careful in what memories you give your customers, if they don’t like what they see, they will remember a bad experience! If you find customers that love your product, you have a client for life. They’ll recommend and refer your business to their circle of friends and family and the span of your marketing efforts are doubled. For every customer that does that, your marketing expands. Nail your posts and campaigns right and you’re set up not only for Christmas but the new year ahead.

Brainstorm again

Once you’ve started your campaigns, and where possible split test what works best, as time moves forward, go back to the drawing board and brainstorm some more. What is working / what’s not? What can you do better / what needs improving? Is your ideal audience hearing you? How can you relate to them more?

Answer these questions as a team and discover how you can improve your marketing strategy to meet these needs.

The sooner you can test your messages, campaigns and strategies, the sooner you can make the necessary adjustments to make them even better and improve results. This will involve being honest about what your customers want and not what you want. Often this is two different things and it can be a hard barrier to get past if you steer a marketing campaign to how you think it should be according to your own agenda rather than listening to what the audience wants – think about them. They are the ones buying from you – they are the ones that will make or break your business. If you’ve got an audience that loves your products, you’ll be successful.

brainstorm your ideas ready for your Christmas social media marketing campaigns

Go market some more

Having been back to the brainstorm it’s time to put into practice the changes you’ve made. This time your marketing campaigns and your social media posts should be spot on with what your audience is looking for. You should be creating eye catching material that speaks directly to the buyer’s ears. Record all your results, tweak where necessary and be confident in your approach. Add a personal touch and showcase everything about the business so people can feel a part of your brand.

What can you do to be heard on social?

There are many ways to talk to your customers on social media any many ways to attract new clients. Different strategies will have a different impact on different people, (usually) there is not a one-way-fits-all solution. Therefore, you need to be creative in how you reach out to your audience. People like to see value and to know that they are receiving something that’s of worth. Try to bring value into every post or email and bring your brand alive in the way that you’re speaking to people. Allow your audience to gain your trust, knowing that you are reputable and reliable. Promote your customer service policies and be completely transparent in all your work.

Here are some ways you can reach out to your audience:

Competitions
Giveaways
Videos – behind the scenes, products, team & company culture
Emails
Ecards
Online meetup
Hashtags
Share user-generated content
Countdown to Christmas
Christmas events
Shout-outs
User sponsors / influeners

Are you prepared for the Christmas shopping rush? Plan your social media marketing campaigns ready for Christmas

Being prepared is the most important step in marketing campaigns for Christmas, whether that be online or offline material. Having made the mistake of not preparing early this year, you’ll have a head start ready for the next! If you’re good at planning and administration, you’re on the right path. If it’s not your strong point – and it’s not everyone’s cup of tea – think about outsourcing your marketing to specialists who are ready and willing to do it for you.

If you’re a small business owner, you can’t do everything yourself and sometime things have to give. That may be your marketing, that may be your administration, or that may be your finances, but whatever that may be, it does not mean that you are failing in your business, it means that you are being efficient.

Outsourcing is a great way to manage a small and growing business. You have priorities, you have aspects that you are good at and focusing on these things will get the most out of your business.

Christmas marketing is just a small example of the bigger picture. You have a whole year of seasonal campaigns to work through and different aspects of the business that need your attention. What do you enjoy the most? What do you love to do that gave you the edge to start your business in the beginning? These are the reasons you get up every day and want to see be successful. Don’t feel held back by drowning in ‘there’s too much to do’. Learn to delegate and to find ways in making your business work in the best way that suits your lifestyle.

If you’d like to speak to us about how to manage your business in a more productive and efficient way, we’d love to help. Feel free to get in touch for an initial informal chat.

HELP! I need Christmas marketing

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