Digital

Blogs, Digital

Trying To Get Your Head Around Facebook Ads?

It might appear to smaller brands that Facebook Ads are the preserve of the larger, international brands with the massive marketing budgets needed for that kind of advertising. However, that is not the case, as Facebook Ads can be a huge benefit to any business looking to increase sales and grow its profitability.

We wanted to have a look at the lessons, tips, and tricks of the trade we’ve gained over the years, and tell you just what Facebook Ads might just be the thing your marketing efforts could be lacking.

The Importance Of Facebooks Ads

Simply put, Facebook Ads can transform your sales pipeline and boost your profits, if implemented properly. The global reach, power, and intelligence of the behemoth that is Facebook and Meta means that the Facebook Ads tool could be the most important asset in your marketing toolbox.

Consider this: The average Facebook user spends around 20 per cent of their Facebook screen time looking at various Facebook Ads, and regardless of whether your business is B2B or B2C, they will be an overwhelming success for the majority of businesses.
But this is dependent on one thing, and that is ensuring that Facebook Ads is set up correctly and optimised so that your brand can achieve the best possible ROI.

A lot of businesses claim that Facebook Ads is not appropriate because they don’t believe their target audience will see their posts, but this isn’t the case.

Let’s have a look at a few Facebook user demographics

In the UK, there are 44.8 million Facebook users, and 44 per cent of the population use Facebook on a daily basis with the average user spending 23 minutes a day browsing Facebook. The most active is the 25 to 34 age group, with 11.2 million users and 52 per cent of all users in the UK are women.

Globally, 18.1 per cent of Facebook users are aged between 18 to 24, 25.7 per cent between 25 to 34, 18.1 per cent between 35 to 44, 13.6 per cent between 45-54, and 11 per cent between 55-64.

For B2B brands and businesses, Facebook Ads can be very successful, and data has demonstrated that running Facebook Ads for B2B businesses can result in an ROI of three times the investment. This is because the key decision-makers for the majority of businesses are also consumers, and also use Facebook in their free time.

How Can You Make Facebook Ads Successful?

It might seem daunting initially, as initial costs may appear steep, and there is no guarantee of an instant ROI, but as with all marketing, it should be viewed as an investment and something that will take time to find traction and generate leads.

One common mistake made frequently by businesses when looking to boost their Facebook presence is to use the ‘Boost Post’ button to increase the visibility of their organic content, but this is largely an inefficient choice as it almost always only amplifies your content to people who have already seen it. Facebook Ads allows you to target your audience for a greater reach.

Sometimes, a negative experience with Facebook Ads can deter businesses from spending more money with Facebook Ads, but when done properly, an ad should consistently deliver a great ROI. But the key to achieving this is knowing how to get it done correctly, and what to consider when building a Facebook Ad.

Determine What You Want To Achieve With Facebook Ads

You will be presented with a range of campaign objectives when creating a Facebook Ad: Awareness, Consideration, and Conversation, each of which has its own options.

Knowing what you want to get out of Facebook Ads will help you determine which campaign is best suited for you, and how to best spend your money.

If you are a smaller business looking to establish your brand and find an audience that will be more receptive to your organic content, then you should look at the Awareness campaign options. Larger businesses that are already established might be better off skipping this step.

However, larger businesses and brands might want to take a look at the Lead Generation option included in the Consideration campaign objective. This would be a beneficial option as it can help develop the sales pipeline and boost the flow of incoming leads from Facebook.

Selecting the Conversion option within the Conversion campaign objective can achieve the same results, but this is a little more of a risk because of the lack of pre-existing data that helps inform the Facebook Ad.

Getting The Most Out Of Facebook Ads

It is not overly difficult to get Facebook Ads up and running, but it does need time and patience to make it a success by optimising it. The key is choosing your audience and making sure you have the targeting done correctly. No matter how beautifully crafted your Facebook Ad is, if the targeting is off, it will result in a very poor ROI as it will not reach the right audience.

When Meta users are scrolling through their apps, the algorithm constantly makes notes of what the user is doing and the content that they engage with the most. This means you can optimise your Facebook Ad to target users that fall into three categories: Demographics, Interests, and Behaviour.

Using all three categories in your targeting means that you ensure your Facebook Ad is reaching the users who are more likely to care about your advertised product or service.

For example, if you are selling a video game then you would want to target men aged between 18 to 24, who have demonstrated an interest in video gaming, as well as a pattern of previously clicking on a Facebook Ad and making a purchase, combining all three targeting options. The options for targeting are advanced and very in-depth, and if you wanted, you could target users based on their birth year, or even if they have a child of a certain age. The sheer amount of data that users willingly share online means that there is the potential for businesses to target very specific users who are likely to engage with your Facebook Ad.

Facebook also offers a more advanced feature for businesses where they can upload customer email addresses so that it can make a search for any connected accounts and generate a recommended Facebook Ad tailored to target the common Demographic, Interest, and Behavioural patterns – called a ‘Lookalike Audience’.

Formatting The Perfect Facebook Ad

Knowing what your Facebook Ad will look like once posted is the key to developing an ad that will encourage users to engage with it. All Facebook Ads contain:

Primary Text – Attention-grabbing copy with an intriguing hook
Creative – A scroll-stopping image or video
Headline – Copy that highlights your USP and encourages action
Description – Extra content that helps reinforce your headline
Call To Action – A button to drive clicks and conversions with a strong CTA

Fine-tune the copy

The primary text is the core body of text that users will first read, and typically contains the key message and value proposition, demonstrating to the user why they will benefit from clicking on the Facebook Ad and their next action. This advertising copy needs to be snappy and concise.

Selecting the perfect creative

Without a doubt, the image or video used is the most important part of the Facebook Ad, being what the user sees first. Getting this right is important, and you should choose an image that isn’t generic and doesn’t immediately look like just another Facebook Ad. Take time to choose an image that looks natural and organic.

Snappy headline

This is likely the last thing the user sees before clicking on the CTA. It needs to be crafted to grab the attention of the user and appeal to the audience the ad has been targeted towards.

Resources

Your greatest resource is your own Facebook Ad history. Once you have run several Facebook Ads you will be able to analyse what has worked and what hasn’t so you can fine-tune and optimise your Facebook Ads moving forward. Even ads that did not perform well at all should be taken as a learning opportunity.

There will be Facebook Ads that do work well and some that won’t perform as intended, which is why you need to include testing as part of your Facebook Ad strategy. Testing might not provide the result you expect, and it does sometimes return results that do not always make sense!

If you’re looking for help and advice with getting started with your marketing, growing your brand, and advertising, come and talk to the experts at Tonic, where we have years of experience with clients large and small.

Phone with TikTok logo
Blogs, Digital

Why You Should Consider Advertising On TikTok

It might be more well-known as the procrastination tool of teens, taking up viral dancing and lip-synching challenges, but if you’re considering leveraging the exceptionally popular video creation and sharing app TikTok for your business or organisation, you’re certainly not alone!

Since the launch of TikTok in 2016, the app has been downloaded 3.5 billion times worldwide, and was the most downloaded app of 2021, beating rivals Instagram, Facebook, and Snapchat.

We have a look at why you should be taking a closer look at the TikTok revolution, which has made a profound impact on culture in the modern world, and why savvy businesses are looking to get a piece of the action! But first…

What is TikTok Marketing?

TikTok marketing is a form of social media marketing that uses the popular app to promote your brand, product or service, incorporating a variety of tactics, for example, influencer marketing, TikTok advertising, and creating organic viral content.

TikTok marketing can help build brand awareness, develop and build engaged communities, advertise and sell your products and/or services to targeted audiences, and generate feedback from audiences and customers.

Let’s have a closer look at the three main types of marketing used by brands on TikTok.

TikTok Influencer Marketing

TikTok influencer marketing has become a major part of the app, with mega-stars such as former competitive dancer Charli D’Amelio and her viral dance videos, actress and social media personality Addison Rae , and Zach King with his videos of magic tricks, all making a huge impact on the success of businesses with their tens of millions of viewers.

However, you don’t need a high-profile and highly-paid influencer for a successful marketing campaign. There are always rising stars and influencers who better fit your niche.

Some of the biggest viral successes have been accidental, such as when TikTok user Nathan Apodaca aka @420doggface208 posted a video of himself riding his longboard, sipping Ocean Spray cran-raspberry juice to a soundtrack of Fleetwood Mac’s Dreams, kick-starting the #Dreamschallenge hashtag, and significantly boosting sales of Ocean Spray and streams of Fleetwood Mac.

Creating Your Own TikToks

Creating your own TikTok videos can give you the most freedom. Simply create your own Business TikTok account and profile, and start creating and posting your own organic content, whether it’s demonstrating your products, day-to-day life in the office, or taking up the many dance challenges.

You can always find a wealth of inspiration on the app by browsing the For You section. Just remember you’re supposed to be working and looking for inspiration, not getting lost in procrastination! Well, maybe a little, for research!

TikTok Advertising

TikTok advertising is typically promoted, full-screen video content that a brand pays to show to a targeted audience. TikTok ads are another form of social media marketing used to help increase awareness about the advertiser, or to help sell a product or service.
TikTok advertising can potentially put your brand, service, or product in front of almost 900 million people over the age of 18, a whopping 18 per cent of all adult internet users.

The average TikTok user spends around 20 hours per month browsing the app, opening it an average of 19 times per day, and 64.4 per cent of users are aged between 20 and 49, according to the latest TikTok user demographics and statistics.

It can be an incredibly lucrative platform to leverage, particularly if you are marketing to females, who make up 57 per cent of all users.

TikTok for Business

The app launched its TikTok for Business hub in 2020, and business users can add more information to their profiles and access real-time metrics and audience insights.

Once you have created an account, it can be switched to a business account in the settings (Settings and Privacy > Manage Account > Account Control > Switch To Business Account), then choose the category that best describes your business, and then add your website and business email address to your profile.

Advertising on TikTok

Paying for advertising on TikTok is a great way to get your brand, product or service in front of a growing audience, without taking any risks with an influencer that may or may not provide a good ROI.

There are various types of ads available on the app:
In-feed ads: Adverts created by the user, including image ads, video ads, and spark ads, which boost the content you already have. There are also pangle ads and carousel ads, which are only available through the app’s Audience Network and News Feed Apps respectively.
Ads for managed brands: similar to in-feed ads, but with additional formatting after consulting with a TikTok sales representative.
Top View ads: unskippable ads that appear when the app is opened, similar to YouTube.
Branded Hashtag Challenges: actionable hashtags connected to your brand.
Branded effects: stickers and filters connected to your brand.

If you plan on advertising on TikTok, you will need an ad account for TikTok Ads Manager by visiting ads.tiktok.com and clicking Create Now and filling in the necessary information.

Top Tips for TikTok Marketing

Trends on TikTok can often appear random, with some never taking off at all, while others seem to run and run. Sadly, there’s no guaranteed marketing strategy to aim for, but there are some legitimate tips that can help your brand make an impact on the app.

Familiarise yourself with TikTok

TikTok is a different social network with unique trends, behaviours and features than Instagram or Facebook, so it would be wrong to approach marking on the platform as you would with others.

Do allow yourself to fall down the rabbit hole of TikTok videos to help explore all the different features available, make note of the currently trending filters, effects, and songs, and keep an eye out for the Branded hashtag Challenges, usually involving a song, a dance, or a task that users are challenged to recreate.

Study up on the TikTok algorithm, as understanding how the app ranks and displays videos can help inform your content, hashtag, and engagement strategies. You can learn all about this and more at the TikTok Business Learning Center.

Define your target audience

Before you begin creating and posting content, you need to determine who you are hoping to reach. Take some time to research the TikTok demographics to help to identify who would be interested in learning more about your brand.

The app is very popular with teens, but it’s far from a teens-only app, as they only make up a quarter of all users. The 20-29 age group are not far behind them, and the 30-39 and 40-49 age groups make up a significant percentage of users too.

Once you have found your potential audience, it’s time to research what content they are more likely to engage with and start developing content ideas for your brand.

Check out the competition

Whether or not you have competitors on TikTok, seek out four or five similar brands to see what they are up to. Learn from what works and what doesn’t work for them, and it might be helpful to use the SWOT framework to determine their Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats.

Keep in mind that TikTok is first and foremost a creator-led platform, so don’t forget to include the app’s stars and influencers in this exercise, especially any who fit your niche.

Set goals

It’s perfectly fine to create content for TikTok that’s purely for fun, but it would be beneficial to set goals that can be aligned with your overall business objectives. This could include reaching a new audience, boosting brand or product awareness, and developing stronger bonds with customers.

It may be helpful to use the SMART goal framework, and set goals that are Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Timely. You can access the analytics on TikTok via the Creator Tools to find the metrics to help measure your goals and track your progress.

Post regularly

Develop a content posting calendar and stick to it for a successful social media marketing strategy.

Feel free to experiment

There’s no magic formula for creating content that will go viral, but make sure you have space to have fun, go with the flow and be experimental with your creativity.

If something doesn’t work, learn from it and move on to the next, but if something goes viral by accident, whether you’re riding a skateboard, singing, and enjoying a refreshing beverage or not, roll with it, get in on the joke, and make the most of it.

TikTok is not a platform to take yourself seriously, so have fun!

Looking for help with TikTok marketing?

If you’re looking for help with your social media marketing, content creation, or strategy, then reach out to Tonic today for help, advice, and tips!

Blogs, Digital, Technology

Rise Of The Machines! Will AI Replace Human Marketers?

There has been a lot of buzz around the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in marketing recently and in many other industries. There’s talk about how AI bots such as ChatGPT will revolutionise marketing and sales, and even how AI could replace digital marketers.

But while the use of AI in marketing has been increasing, there is not a lot of information or data about how it could impact digital marketing in the coming years, as well as tech industry leaders calling for a slowing down in the development of AI.

So Why Is AI Looking Attractive To The Marketing Industry?

Marketing can involve collecting and analysing massive amounts of data, and AI can mine this data and better apply it to advertising and marketing. As many organisations gather more specialists in data science, the concept of using AI for marketing automation becomes increasingly appealing.

But will AI replace human marketers? Before any marketers begin throwing their virtual clogs into the machinery of AI like the 15th-century Dutch textile workers fearing automated looms would cost them their jobs, let’s take a closer look.

What Is Marketing Automation?

One of the immediate benefits of using AI is its ability to automate certain tasks, thus streamlining certain processes and more effectively measuring the outcomes faster and with less effort.

AI can identify patterns faster, leading to more accurate predictions to help with marketing strategy planning, better use of marketing staff, and saving time and resources.

But as to whether AI will replace real human marketers? The short answer is no. Certainly not yet, and it maybe never will.

AI certainly will prove to be useful, but marketing will always rely on creativeness, inventiveness, and originality when it comes to finding ways to better connect with audiences and customers.

Digital marketing will always need that human touch. Marketing requires storytelling and emotion, which AI will never be able to master or emulate. But despite a reliance on the human element, it may be a fact that we will all have to accept that roles in digital marketing will change over time, just as marketing roles changed with the digital revolution.

AI will lead to an evolution in marketing roles as we begin to understand it better and how to better utilise it to provide better digital experiences.

What Can AI Currently Do?

AI can be used to enhance and simplify aspects of marketing campaigns, as well as help reduce mistakes and promote productivity. Some of the tasks that AI can currently do include:

Automate routine and repetitive tasks – AI can be used to partially replace humans in some everyday repetitive tasks and processes, such as content curation (not creation), PPC as management, and replying to certain emails.

Compilation and analysis of large data sets – AI can be programmed to learn from experience and then more easily tackle large data sets which is typically a laborious task for humans. AI can recognise patterns quickly across data sets, provide predictions based on detected patterns, provide valuable insights about your customer base, and even predict future customer behaviour.

Create digital assistants – Many websites now use digital assistants, such as chatbots which can help give 24/7 customer service, albeit with limited capabilities.

Save time and increase productivity – The implementation of AI can save marketing departments valuable time and resources, which then leads to higher productivity, as marketers have more time to spend on creative tasks and more difficult tasks that need a human touch.

Allow for experimental pilot schemes – some marketing companies have been experimenting with AI by letting it write advertisement copy, banner ads, and email subject lines, conduct digital ad buying, and create buyer personas.

It shows that there is a lot of potential for AI in digital marketing, as long as it is seen as a beneficial tool and not the T-800 Terminator sent back from the future by Skynet to take your job.

What Can’t AI Currently Do?

However, it will be a relief to know that there is still so much that AI cannot do, particularly when it comes to marketing and the human touch. Let’s have a look at what AI is incapable of doing:

Operate individually – AI is a machine, and it requires programming by humans, as well as needing to be continuously updated, and just like the everyday tech in your office, AI systems will need to be replaced when they become obsolete or the needs of the industry change and evolve.

Be creative – No technology can replace the human capacity for creativity or creative problem-solving. AI will always be limited to the data with which it is provided, and only able to draw conclusions from that data. It can’t properly edit photos, write original music, invent anything, or come up with fresh ideas.

Have emotions – AI cannot perform, show, or transmit emotions, meaning it can’t turn emotions into meaningful content that your customers can relate to along their buyer’s journey.

Make human connections – without emotions, AI cannot form genuine human connections. AI cannot be programmed to show empathy or be able to understand cultural and moral concerns.

Critical thinking – AI can excel in gathering and analysing data, but when it comes to developing strategies, it lacks the critical thinking that all humans possess.

How Can Marketers Evolve With The Introduction Of AI?

There is much that marketers can do to grow and evolve alongside the introduction of AI and make sure they keep one step ahead of the impending robot threat know how to utilise AI to their advantage.

Keep up-to-date with AI news and trends – keeping abreast of the latest development in AI in digital marketing will mean you will best know how to leverage it to your advantage. Knowledge is power, and power is knowledge.

Recognise the replaceable skill sets – Identify the skill sets that could be replaced in the future by AI, such as those routine and repetitive tasks and processes that are inevitably time-consuming and boring.

Determine which skill sets will never be replaced – Recognise which skill sets AI will not take over, such as non-repetitive, creative, and critical thinking skills. If you have experience in these, then turn your focus towards them.

Be prepared to adapt – You won’t be able to stop the impending wave of changes due to AI, but you can determine how they may affect you and how to adapt.

Be versatile – Ensure you keep your skill set up to date, and train on new technology and the latest strategies as they become available to remain versatile.

In Conclusion

AI isn’t coming for your job, but even without AI, industries and jobs evolve and change, and it’s important to remain aware and involved. Ensure you create value in yourself and your marketing skills.

At Tonic, we know the importance of the human element in marketing, so if you’re looking for the personal touch, outstanding client services, and a passion for results, talk to us today.

Man reading touchscreen tablet
Blogs, Digital

What is Content Marketing?

In recent years, you may have heard more and more people talking about Content Marketing, and how it has become a game-changer for marketing for businesses.

But what exactly is content marketing, and how is it different from other tried and tested marketing methods? Let’s have a look at both what content marketing is, and what it isn’t, and how you can leverage it for your business.

What are the benefits of content marketing?

First, let’s have a look at how content marketing can benefit your business.

Attract a new audience and grow your website traffic – helping potential customers find your brand can be a big challenge, but content marketing can help you become more discoverable to search engines, and help attract attention on social media

Create value for your audience – Content provided to your audience is not only useful, it can provide a message to the right people at a time when they need it most, which will make you an authority on that subject and create value for your audience.

Engage with your audience – Content that your audience finds relevant and useful will likely be shared with their friends and followers, and help develop further interactions such as comments and reactions.

Generate positive brand perception – Increased engagement with your content will help boost the awareness and perception of your brand, and people are more likely to make business with a brand they know than one they don’t.

Educate the market about your products and services – People are likely unaware they have a problem that can be solved by your product or service, and content marketing can help show them that such a solution exists and how it works.

Generate new leads – Visitors to your blog may be encouraged to leave some information about themselves, such as an email address, which can be a potential lead. The more you invest in content marketing, the more likely you will generate potential leads, and increase the chances to sell.

Increase the customer’s lifetime value – The lifetime value is the total value spent by your customer on your business. The more they buy and the longer they remain a customer, the bigger their lifetime value. By providing relevant and useful content, you can encourage a customer to remain a loyal customer for longer.

Content marketing is not a strategy

There are two main aspects of content marketing: To provide valuable content, and to persuade your audience to take a certain course of action, determined in advance by the marketer. Of course, there are various ways of measuring whether the content is ‘valuable’, and actions could range from signing up for an email subscription to buying a product or service, or much more.

But content marketing is not in itself a viable strategy. It would impossible to produce effective content marketing without first having a marketing strategy in place. You should only be producing content that is relevant to your business, that will interest your audience, and that you can write about from a position of experience and authority.

This means you need to know what your brand is, its values, who your audience is and what they want. Content marketing is used to further your marketing and business objectives, and is not a strategy.

How does content marketing fit in?

Content marketing is an essential component of any business’s marketing efforts, as it is key to maintaining contact with the target audience and generating the right results.

It is typically a set of multi-platform techniques that encompasses blogs, email, social media, and video, and is a key component of digital marketing.

How content marketing is used will vary from business to business. If your company has a focus on B2B, then some social media, for example, Facebook or Instagram, may not be suitable. But for other businesses, it might be where they can find their audience.

There will always be some platforms and channels that are right, and some that are not.

You will also need to consider your objectives. Are you trying to grow your audience, or use your existing audience better? In either case, content marketing can provide the solution, but how it is applied will differ.

Content marketing can make it possible to create an immersive environment in which potential customers can learn all about your brand, its values, your products, your services and how they will help solve their problems.

It can also create a similar environment where you can build your reputation and engage with your existing audience.

While it might not always be the case, content marketing is best suited to the ‘inbound’ approach.

What is content marketing for?

Content marketing is for more than increasing your SEO rankings, attracting new customers, or boosting your conversion rates, it’s also about developing a lasting relationship with an audience who will consume and look forward to your content.

It can be used for a variety of purposes, depending on what would be best for your company and your business objectives, such as building initial awareness and augmenting your brand’s reputation, or for more specific objectives such as driving and growing traffic to your website. What sets content marketing apart from other forms of communication is that it is generally longer- term, multi-channel, and involves two-way communication. It can encourage the reader to submit their contact details, sign up for something, or become more engaged with your brand regularly.

What is it not for?

Content marketing should not be used for sales messages, and it’s important to avoid blogging about special offers and such, as this can destroy the trust you have been fostering with your audience.

It isn’t necessarily about selling content. Most content will be free, while some may be for subscribers only, and some might be paid for. It’s important to know when to utilise each type and how to monetise it if you decide to do so, which will depend on your business model and your current situation in terms of brand awareness and engagement.

It’s not really about SEO and keywords. There is a lot of value in having SEO-friendly digital content, but it’s important to avoid pushing the boundaries. One of the key parts of content marketing is building trust, and you cannot write for robots and expect humans to be excited about it.

Never underestimate your audience, they will know when an article or web page is there simply to game the system.

It’s not for converting every single lead. It might be debated that each sign-up you achieve through your content is a potential lead, and while it is true that they have shown they are interested in your content, it does not necessarily mean they are interested in your other services or products.

If you start trying to close each contact immediately, then your inbound marketing approach becomes outbound, and once again, can erode the trust you have been developing.

Where to start with content marketing?

If you’re looking to develop a well-planned and considered content marketing programme for your business, then talk to the team at Tonic today!

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Blogs, Digital, Marketing Plan, Out of home

A Guide To Marketing Terms For Beginners

Whether you’re getting your start-up venture off the ground or seeking to grow your established company, marketing is an essential part of every business. But if you’re not a marketing professional, there can be an awful lot of acronyms and terms flying around, and trying to keep up can make your head spin!

But don’t worry, if you don’t know your CTA from your CMS or your buyer persona from your brand awareness, we’re here to help! The number of terms and acronyms seems to grow every day, but we have compiled some of the most common terms, abbreviations, and concepts into a handy glossary for you.

Basic marketing terms

Lead

A lead is a potential buyer who has engaged with a brand previously and has a likelihood of making a purchase in the near future.

Content
Content refers to any piece of information that has been created to be seen by an audience, and typically includes blog posts, email newsletters, social media posts, videos, and direct mail.

Infographic

Infographics are a type of content (see above) that presents statistics, data, and other information
in an easy-to-understand and well-designed image.

Analytics

Analytics in marketing is the process of analysing data so that the ROI (return on investment – see below) of a specific marketing activity or campaign can be determined. Marketers also use the term analytics when referring to the dashboard or system they use to track and review this data.

Brand

A brand is how a company is perceived and experienced by an audience and customers. Branding – the elements of a brand – include its logo, design elements, and the tone of voice used when interacting with customers and its target audience.

Buyer persona

A buyer persona is an imaginary customer that marketers target when they are developing ads, campaigns, and content. Buyer personas are not actual people but are built from the data of real customers. Marketers use these buyer personas to help inform the audience, tactics, and tone of the message they are wanting to convey.

CTA (Call To Action)

A CTA is a prompt that aims to encourage website visitors to perform a certain action, whether that’s to subscribe to a newsletter, submit a contact form, or make a purchase. A CTA is typically used to help guide a customer to the next step in the sales funnel (see below).

Customer journey

Rather than it describing the bus ride into town to your retail outlet, in marketing, a customer journey is a phrase used to describe the process from when a customer first shows interest in a product or service to the point at which any interaction is completed.

B2B

B2B is marketing shorthand for business-to-business. A B2B company markets its products or services to other businesses.

B2C

B2C is marketing shorthand for business-to-customer. A B2C company markets its products or services directly to the end consumer.

Engagement

The relationship developed between marketers and customers is referred to as engagement. In digital marketing, engagement can be measured as actions a visitor makes online, for example, clicking on a link or posting a comment on a blog or social media post.

Qualified lead

This is the name given to an individual that marketers have decided is a viable prospect when it comes to marketing a product or service. This is determined when marketing efforts have found that this individual has shown interest in the product or service.

ROI (Return On Investment)

Marketing campaigns require an initial investment of time and/or money, and the ROI is the metric that measures whether marketing efforts have earned enough money to be worth the initial investment.

Sales Funnel

A sales funnel refers to the buying journey that potential customers take before they make a purchase. The sales funnel includes multiple steps, from the initial discovery of a brand right through to becoming a loyal repeat customer.


USP (Unique Selling Proposition)

Your USP refers to what exactly it is that makes your product or service stand out from the competition. This could be a unique feature of your brand or product, its superior quality, pricing, or more.

On-site content

This refers to all of the content that a company has produced and shared on its website. It is designed to provide a potential customer to your website with the best experience possible while visiting your website.

Off-site content

Conversely, off-site content is all the content that is shared away from a company’s home website and designed to be eye-catching and help draw a potential customer to the company’s website, product, or service.

Campaign

A campaign is a set of marketing activities that have been designed to achieve a specific goal, for example, increasing sales for a particular product or increasing awareness of a product or service.

Brand awareness

This refers to the extent to which a potential customer is familiar with your company, and the distinct images and qualities – the branding – that are associated with your company, products, and services.

Types of marketing

Inbound marketing

Inbound marketing makes use of content and social media marketing to help attract new customers. This is the opposite of pursuing customers with the ‘hard sell’ or outbound marketing (see below), as inbound marketers develop relationships with an audience by meeting them where they are already in the purchase process, ideally, drawing them in to learn more about the brand.

Outbound marketing

This is the more traditional ‘hard sell’ type of marketing that tries to get the attention of potential customers by interrupting their daily lives with cold calling or direct mail campaigns.

Social media marketing

This is a digital marketing method that leverages various social media channels to help create brand awareness (see above) to help develop a relationship via regular interaction.

Email marketing

Content sent via email to current or potential customers who have subscribed to a marketing email list is email marketing. You’ll likely have received half a dozen of these by the time you’ve finished reading this article!

Content marketing

This is a marketing method that is centred on creating interesting, relevant, and consistent content to help attract new leads and convert them into becoming customers. See ‘content’ above for examples of what is used in content marketing.

Omnichannel marketing

Omnichannel marketing is the process of integrating all the different forms of marketing used by a company to make sure that a customer receives a consistent brand experience across all the various channels.

WOM (Word-of-mouth marketing)

Widely considered to be the most effective form of marketing, WOM is the oral or written testimony of a product or service from a satisfied customer to a potential customer.

Digital marketing terms
Landing page

A landing page is is a webpage optimised for lead generation. It is a stand-alone website page that will typically include a strong CTA (see above) or a lead magnet (see below) as part of a marketing campaign, such as offering a discount in return for providing customer information such as an email address.

Chatbot

Chatbots are automated tools now found on more and more websites and are usually used to address common customer questions. By scanning chat messages from customers, chatbots can identify potential keywords (see below) and topics of interest to be able to provide pre-populated messages. If needed, chatbots can escalate enquiries to a human representative.

Keyword

Keywords are words or short phrases that are entered by users into search engines to help find
relevant information. Digital marketers can then incorporate these keywords into web pages and
content to help boost their website’s visibility in search engines – see SEO below.

Bounce rate

This is a metric that shows the percentage of visitors who left the website after viewing only one
page. A high bounce rate isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it can be a sign for marketers to adjust
their websites so that visitors are enticed to stay longer and see more of the site.

CTR (Click-through rate)

The CTR is a metric that measures how many people click on an ad when they see it.

CMS (Content Management System)

A CMS is a type of web publishing tool that is designed to manage the content that marketers have created for their websites.

UX (User Experience)
UX is the design process of making a website or app easier for visitors to understand and navigate.

Lead Magnet

A lead magnet is an incentive for potential customers to provide their information, such as a discount code or a free eBook download.

Clickbait

We’ve all seen clickbait on social media, where content creators try to manipulate individuals to get them to click a link. It typically uses provocative titles to pique the interest of viewers. Marketers Use This One Weird Trick That Will Instantly Boost Your Engagement!

Social proof

This is a psychological phenomenon in which people are more likely to trust a brand or make purchases if they have seen positive reviews or news from their peers on social media.

SEO (Search Engine Optimisation)

SEO is the process of using keywords and other strategies to help boost the visibility of a website to search engines and increase the likelihood of a website or specific web page being among the first shown in a list of each engine results.

An ever-growing list

As mentioned, the number of terms and acronyms in marketing continues to grow, and like many trends, some will stick around, while others may simply vanish before they gain any traction. But we hope we have helped clear up some of the most common forms of marketing lingo for you here.

If you’re looking for no-nonsense marketing and don’t want to feel left out of the loop when growing your business, then come and talk to Tonic today!

Audience research, Blogs, Digital, Marketing Plan

Why You Should Use LinkedIn As A B2B Marketer

When marketers are considering which social media platforms to use for their businesses, many will automatically head for Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. But when it comes to generating B2B leads, then the most powerful social media platform has to be LinkedIn.

LinkedIn is possibly the most important social network for marketers to be able to reach business buyers and connect with professionals and has become one of the major social media platforms for B2B media and content marketing.

When looking at the Monthly Active Users (MAU) of the popular social networks, LinkedIn, with 310 million MAU may not be the biggest platform available, compared to 330 million MAU on Twitter, one billion MAU on Instagram, or a massive 2.7 billion on Facebook.

But the LinkedIn audience is one of the most lucrative ones for B2B marketing.

Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram can become noisy and crowded, and while LinkedIn was once much quieter, it has become busier. However, unlike Facebook, where people go to connect with friends and family, watch funny videos, or post irreverent content, LinkedIn is the place where people go to network with like-minded people within their industry.
If you are looking to drive qualitative B2B traffic to your website or blog, then LinkedIn is the platform for you. The social network allows users to build relationships, establish thought leadership, generate B2B leads, gain insights, improve a brand’s reputation, conduct market research and help to build online communities.

LinkedIn now has over 875 million members, from 200 countries all around the world, and members can interact with each other, share their views, and boost their professional profiles.

It is a powerful social media platform that allows professionals and businesses to easily connect, boost brand identity, and engage in B2B marketing, and it should be part of any comprehensive social media strategy.

Using LinkedIn for marketing can be an effective way of raising for brand or business’s profile, if it’s done right. Overly ‘salesy’ marketing methods are typically not well received, and businesses that achieve success on the platform tend to leverage their industry expertise and knowledge to set themselves up as thought leaders in their field.

What is LinkedIn marketing?

LinkedIn Marketing is the process of using the social media platform to promote businesses or individuals and draw attention to their profiles. Not only can individuals create their own profiles, but business can also establish their own company pages, and subpages for specific departments or products, on the platform, which they can use to:
Build brand awareness
Drive traffic to websites or blogs by sharing content
Create new connections or continue to develop existing business relationships.

Let’s have a look at six reasons why you should be using LinkedIn in your marketing efforts.

  1. Create awareness and improve reputation

It has been estimated that more than two professionals sign up to LinkedIn every second, meaning that businesses have an increased opportunity to be able to network with an increasing number of diverse interesting contacts. It means that LinkedIn is the ideal platform to help boost your online presence.
By making use of the different personal and group features on the platform, businesses and the people representing them can improve their visibility and credibility.

The status update functionality is an underutilised feature that should not be forgotten about, however, the latest design means that updates are more prominent on the homepage.

  1. Thought leadership and influencer marketing

Several features on LinkedIn allow users to position themselves as thought leaders. As well as providing high-quality content, you can improve your personal profile and participate in LinkedIn communities to answer questions.

The platform is ripe for thought leaders and can lead to businesses and individuals becoming trusted advisors. Leadership and reputation go hand in hand with influence, and with the main purpose of the platform being networking, it can help you to identify and engage with other influencers.

  1. Generating leads

Of all the social networking platforms, LinkedIn is probably the best for lead generation. As well as traditional marketing techniques such as providing content that potential customers can download or driving traffic to blogs and websites, LinkedIn offers personal ways of helping to identify leads, engaging with them, and converting them into customers.

This can be achieved through a combination of listening, analysing, participation, sharing information and content, networking, and responding. Finding potential customers on the platform and networking and marketing to them indirectly through LinkedIn will boost the opportunity to make sales and increase revenue.

Potential and existing customers are likely to post questions and needs. Group-related posts and questions allow B2B marketers to identify new leads, while shared and liked content will give marketers insight into what LinkedIn users find interesting.

By providing answers to questions on the platform, it is possible to demonstrate your expertise and knowledge. If your answer to a question is what a potential customer is looking for, then they will likely initiate contact.

  1. Social CRM

In a CRM (customer relations management) context, LinkedIn is ideal; it allows for a better view of prospective customers and other contacts and can be done by using Social CRM applications and other connectors such as Outlook.

While most Social CRM applications provide integration with LinkedIn, you can also set up a basic integration of your contacts as LinkedIn has support for Google Contacts.

The main benefit of using a social CRM tool is that you are then able to see what your contacts are doing on LinkedIn in real-time, which provides valuable insights and information on their behaviour and preferences.

  1. Traffic building

One of LinkedIn’s strengths, which can often be forgotten about, is its power in link building and traffic driving.

Just as with most of the other social networks, LinkedIn has a social sharing button so you are able to share content in your status updates, which are visible on the homepage, and in LinkedIn Groups – the communities of which you are a member.

This can prove particularly useful for business-related content and can lead to viral content status. Business-related content is far more likely to be shared on LinkedIn than on Facebook, for example.

  1. Listening and gaining insights

LinkedIn is the ideal place to listen, ask questions, and gain insights, which is the case for all social media marketing. Take time to engage with your contacts, ask questions as well as answer them, and pay attention to what people are saying, posting, and asking.

Need help with your LinkedIn B2B marketing?

Here at Tonic, we know the ins and outs of marketing on LinkedIn, from helping set up your business profiles to developing engaging and interesting content to helping identify leads and new customers.

If you’d like to know more about how we can help grow your business, then get in touch today.

Marketing Plan
Blogs, Digital, Marketing Plan, Out of home

How to Develop a Marketing Plan

No matter whether you’re dipping your toe into the world of marketing for the first time, or you’re a seasoned professional, trying to keep up with the ever-changing landscape of marketing trends can be overwhelming.

Even during this year alone, there has been a shift to short-form videos, new platforms arise, while others fall out of favour, and the COVID-19 pandemic has continued to impact the world. In most cases, what was a tried and tested marketing strategy yesterday simply might not be working for you by tomorrow.

To ensure that your marketing efforts continue to be successful, and to maintain a sense of relevance with your increasingly picky audience, you must stay ahead of the curve, and one means of accomplishing that is to develop a marketing strategy that covers all the bases.

We wanted to have a look at how to develop your marketing strategy in 2022 and beyond, and how to put it into practice with a marketing plan.

The Importance of a Customer-Driven Marketing Strategy
A robust marketing strategy will help you gain traction with your target audience, which includes those who are unaware of your brand as well as your most loyal repeat customers.

By neglecting to create a defined marketing strategy, you’ll be taking potshots in the dark, and keeping your fingers crossed that you manage to hit your target, which ultimately costs time, money, and precious resources.

A marketing strategy needs to:
Align your marketing team to specific goals
Help align your marketing efforts with the brand’s business objectives
Allow you to identify and test your marketing efforts to see what gets the best response from your target audience

In developing a successful marketing plan, there are seven steps to take into account. Develop your marketing plan, create buyer personas, identify your goals, choose the right tools, review existing recourses, audit and plan campaigns, and implement your strategy.

  1. Develop a marketing plan

While a marketing strategy will determine why your marketing team needs certain resources, take certain actions, and set certain goals, a marketing plan lists the set of actions you need to take to achieve it.

Your marketing plan is your roadmap to help organise, execute, and track your marketing strategy over a given period. It will help you deliver your strategy, as well as determine what works and what doesn’t, as well as tie in with your business goals.

  1. Create buyer personas

Defining your target audience can be tricky, and if you discover that you are unable to pin it down in a simple sentence, then creating buyer personas is a way to develop a snapshot of your ideal customer.

For example, clothing retailer H&M, despite an extensive product portfolio, primarily targets women aged between 20 and 34, who are looking for fashionable, up-to-date, and trendy apparel at a low price. They could define a buyer persona as Budget Brenda, a stylish working-class urbanite in her late 20s, who wants to have a wardrobe full of designer clothing at low prices.
Keeping Budget Brenda in mind, the brand’s marketing team have a clear definition of whom they want to target. Buyer personas include psychographic and demographic information, such as age, income, location, and interests, which Brenda has listed in her description.

Of course, while Brenda might be H&M’s primary focus in this fictional example, other buyer personas can be developed for young male shoppers, families with children, and even homeowners for their homeware ranges.

Buyer personas should be at the core of your marketing strategy.

  1. Identify goals

Your marketing strategy goals need to reflect the brand’s business goals. For example, if one of the business goals is to have 200 people attend a conference you are holding in the next quarter, then one of the marketing goals should be to boost online registration of the conference by 10 per cent by the end of the month to ensure you stay on track.

Other goals could include increasing brand awareness, generating high-quality leads, or growing thought leadership within your industry.

You need to identify what your goals need to be as well as how your marketing department can work to achieve them.

  1. Choose the right tools

Once you have defined your goals, then you need to use the right tools to measure their success.

There are many different software suites such as social media schedulers that can provide analytics that will help you keep track of what works and what doesn’t. Tools such as Google Analytics can measure blog and web page performance.

  1. Review media

To help develop your strategy, assess what resources you have that can help. You can streamline this review by considering your assets as belonging to three different categories – paid, owned, and earned media.

Paid media is any channel on which you spend money to help attract your target audience, including offline channels such as TV and radio advertising, direct mail, and billboards, to online channels such as social media platforms, websites, and search engines.

Owned media is anything that your marketing team creates, for instance, photos, videos, podcasts, infographics, blogs, etc

Earned media refers to user-generated content, such as shares on social media, tweets or Instagram posts mentioning your brand or products.

Collate these materials in each media category into a central location to allow you to gain a clear picture of what you have and how you can use them in your strategy.

For example, if you produce a weekly blog – owned media – you may promote the blog on Twitter – paid media – which customers may then retweet – earned media. This can help you develop a more well-rounded marketing strategy.

It can also provide you with the opportunity to spring-clean your resources and get rid of any that don’t easily fit into any of the three categories, as well as help you determine any gaps in your resources.

  1. Audit and plan marketing campaigns

Now you have gathered all your resources, you need to decide which content will help you. Focus initially on your owned media and marketing goals. For example, updating your call-to-action at the end of blogs or newsletters can help boost online registration for the conference in the above example.

Follow this by taking a close look at your buyer personas. For example, consider a business that creates podcast creation software. If one of the buyer personas is looking for a way to add sound effects to the audio, but you have no content that shows how to do that with your product, make a short-form video for Instagram that demonstrates how effective your product is at solving this problem.

Lastly, develop a content creation plan, which needs to include topic clusters, goals, format, and the appropriate channels for each piece of content, and don’t forget to consider the challenges faced by your buyer personas that it will help solve.

  1. Implement your strategy

Your market research and planning should now present you with a clear vision of how to execute your strategy, and by whom. The final step is to now bring all that together and assign actions to your plans.

Define your strategy in a document that maps out the steps necessary to implement your campaign. It is important to think long-term when creating this document and keep in mind that the standard strategy document will be for the next 12 months. This document should become the main guide for your marketing efforts.

This document needs to outline all the details that have been outlined in the above sections and will ensure you are all set for the coming year.

What happens next?

Developing a robust marketing strategy takes time and hard work, and dedication the ensure you reach your target audience whenever and wherever they are and want to be reached.

Stick with your plan, use all the resources at your disposal, and use customer feedback and research to help you refine your strategy and maximise your time on the marketing channels on which your audience spends most of their time.

If you need help developing your marketing strategy for your business, then come and talk to us at Tonic, and we can help set you on the right track to success!

Blogs, Digital, Technology

10 Types Of Digital Marketing For Your Business

Marketing has always been key to achieving success in your business, and in this day and age, developing a digital marketing strategy is more important than ever. But you must understand what this means, how to use it, and the different types of digital marketing that you can use.

We wanted to have a look at different types of digital marketing to help you gain an understanding of how they can help boost traffic to your website, grow your customer base and brand awareness, and engage with your audience.

  1. Content Marketing

Consumers are hungry for information, whether it’s to increase their knowledge base, fulfil their desires, or save a problem. By providing your customers with high-quality and useful content, you will gain their trust and confidence.

Quality content will place your business in a position of authority in your market, and help cement your brand at the front of their mind when they are making purchasing decisions.

Content marketing is about providing your audience with answers to questions by publishing useful content, whether that’s in blogs, on social media, emails, or other channels, such as in apps or push notifications for mobile devices.

Content can take on many different formats, depending on the channel it is optimised for, and there are many different types of content, for instance, blog posts, infographics, videos, data sheets and more.

Content marketing can be orientated by a ‘funnel’, influencing the type of content used. At the top of this funnel, content is more general, for example, evergreen posts like relevant industry news or guides, and then will get more specific as the funnel narrows, such as testimonials, demonstrations, product news or releases.

  1. SEO (Search Engine Optimisation)

If you want your business to be a success, then consumers must be able to find it. SEO, or Search Engine Optimisation, will help your website and content to rank highly in search engine searches, meaning that your website can be easily found by consumers actively searching for what you provide.

To leverage SEO, you need to know the keywords that the consumers you want to reach are searching for, and then develop your content around these.

According to statistics from the Search Engine Journal, 91.5 per cent of web traffic is shared by the websites listed on the first page of results on Google, the first Google organic search accounts for 32.5 per cent of traffic, and 51 per cent of all website traffic comes from organic searches.

Organic traffic can be leveraged by producing high-quality content that is found in searches on Google or other search engines, demonstrating that SEO simply cannot be ignored.

  1. Social Media Marketing

As the name suggests, Social Media Marketing is a method of promoting your brand, products, or content through social media. It can be done organically, by paying for ads and posts on social media, or by using both simultaneously.

You can publish your content on social media for your followers and audience, or pay for ads to be placed in front of a specific social media audience or demographic. Either way, it is vital that you choose the right social network for your brand, product, or content. For example, Tik Tok is better for the younger generations, while Facebook may be more appropriate for older ones.

The advantages of social media marketing are that it is possible to get closer to your desired audience and improve your engagement and interaction with them. There is also the benefit of gaining extra validation of your brand, if or when your audience shares your content.

Social media also provides your brand with means of direct communication with your audience, which is why it is important to continually and consistently update and monitor your social media channels.

  1. Email marketing

Many people may claim that email marketing is dead or dying, due to the sheer number of email messages sent every day. But it is actually one of the more effective types of digital marketing and, used strategically, can provide significant results.

The way to accomplish this is to ensure that email subscribers are provided with useful, informative, and engaging content or interesting product or service promotions, but it is important that you always respect your audience’s privacy and refrain from sending spam. Email also provides a means of direct communication with your customers.

  1. Instant Message Marketing

Worldwide, the use of instant messaging has significantly increased, and almost all social media platforms have integrated direct messaging systems, while more and more brands are using platforms such as WhatsApp, providing a great opportunity for your marketing strategies.

If your customers need support, they can use these channels to get a quick reply, which in turn leads to positive associations with your brand, building on the relationships forged between brand and customer.

According to Statista, WhatsApp has 2 billion users in 2022, easily demonstrating the power and reach of this specific messaging channel and showing that this type of digital marketing cannot be neglected.

  1. Influencer Marketing

An influencer is a specialist in a specific subject with a considerable audience who is interested in their opinions and voice. A digital influencer may be enticed to produce specific content for your business if it fits well with their tone of voice.

For example, they can produce content such as product tests for their audience, reviews, or make affiliate content. However, there are risks, as influencers may also post about any negative experiences, which could be detrimental to your brand.

Despite these risks, more and more brands are using influencer marketing in their strategies and getting very good results, spreading the word to their loyal followers, and helping your brand find a new audience.

  1. Mobile Marketing

To reach your audience in this day and age, mobile marketing is almost mandatory. We all rely on our smartphones 24/7, for everything from communication, social media, health, shopping, and much more.

Mobile marketing is not just a trend, it now needs to be a reality for brands so they can ensure they are immediately available for their customers whenever they are needed.

This can be achieved by creating an app that allows for push notifications and instant messaging for direct marketing and communications with your customers, as well as exclusive mobile content such as engaging videos that they can consume anywhere.

  1. Video Marketing

Over 2 billion people per month look for videos on YouTube, according to Google, whether it’s for entertainment, the latest news, study content, or more. It is a huge opportunity for brands to reach new customers.

By integrating video marketing into your digital marketing strategy, you will be able to drive results through your marketing funnel.

People tend to search for videos for a variety of reasons, such as product reviews, or to find out more about specific products or services, and how others have used them. Over half of consumers will search for these videos before making a purchasing decision.

Developing engaging, informative videos as part of your marketing is an opportunity to boost sales and find new customers.

  1. Audio Marketing

Audio marketing has taken a different turn from the days of radio advertising with the prominence of podcasts, as more and more people listen while undertaking everyday tasks.

It may be an opportunity to develop audio marketing that targets the habits and podcast preferences of consumers, by inserting your product or service contextually into podcast advertising opportunities and making audio marketing a huge sales opportunity.

  1. Virtual/Augmented Reality Marketing

VR (Virtual Reality) and AR (Augmented Reality) are becoming more commonplace in our lives and can be leveraged by marketers to provide your audience with a more immersive experience with your brand product or service.

It is a rather unique marketing experience that will be almost unforgettable for consumers who try it out and will help differentiate your brand from the competition.

VR and AR are innovative and can help associate you with more modern concepts, helping to position your brand as an innovator and ahead of your time.

Are you making good use of digital marketing?

Digital marketing is simply marketing but leverages modern technology, such as smartphones, email, and the devices and online services we all use every day.

To get ahead and build your brand, you must make the best use of the opportunities available. Digital will only continue to grow, and who knows what innovation in technology and marketing we will all be using in the future!

If you want to know more about how digital marketing can help your business become and success, then come and talk to us at Tonic today!

Blogs, Digital

Why does my business need a blog?

Why does my business need a blog?

Do you want to find new customers and build better relationships with your existing ones? Do you want to create readymade content for your social media posts and position yourself as an industry leader – all for virtually no outlay? Then your business needs a blog.

Find new customers

… or even better, let them find you! A blog will help you to do this in several ways.

Firstly, it will allow you to create content for your website that answers questions that your potential customers may have – such as “Why does my business need a blog?” – so when they search online, your website pops up. You can maximise this by researching keywords, categories and topics which your potential customers are most likely to search for, but even without doing this, regular blogging will naturally help you to increase your reach. Every post is another opportunity to appear in a web search and thus to drive traffic to your site.

Secondly, regularly adding pages to your blog will send a message to search engines such as Google that your website is active and regularly being updated and that they should include it in their search results. Without a blog, it’s difficult to do this unless you’re constantly updating or adding to the rest of your website.

Thirdly, if other people find your blog posts interesting and useful, they will share them, which will again help you to find a new audience.

Once potential customers have arrived on your blog, you can direct them towards other relevant pages of your website using internal links; turn them into leads by offering some sort of free content, such as a fact sheet, webinar or trial, in exchange for their details; and/or invite them to sign up for your emails, which they’re much more likely to do if they’ve already enjoyed your blog.

Build better relationships with existing customers

Writing a blog allows you to share far more of your own and your business’s personality than sales pages alone do – it’s a chance to show your customers who you are, not just what you do. Allowing your customers to get to know you better can deepen your relationship and mean that they’re far more likely to buy from you than a company they don’t know at all.

Customers also like to feel informed. By sharing your knowledge, you’re giving them something of value and they’re benefiting from the education that you provide.

Plus if you allow comments on your blog posts (and take the time to respond to them!), you can create a two-way conversation with your audience, which not only improves your connection with them, but is also readable by other visitors to your site and generally searchable by search engines. Not only just this build trust as your audience learns more about you, but it can also let you learn more about your audience and what they need, and thus hone and improve your business. (Want some help getting to know your audience? Click here.)

Create readymade content for your social media posts

It can be difficult continually to think of interesting, engaging content for your social media posts, but blog posts provide readymade content, and can be used several times using different quotations, figures or visuals. And, as mentioned above, if people like your blog, they will even share it themselves, thus increasing your reach.

And in addition to this, you will often find that you can reshare the same blog post several times months or even years apart, meaning that you have a solid library of content to fall back on.

Position yourself as an industry leader

Blog posts allow you to share more indepth information about your products and services than your sales pages alone, whether you’re writing a review, a how to guide, a case study or sharing your knowledge about a specific area.

Demonstrating your expertise in this way can help to establish yourself as an authority in your industry and enhance your professional image, and this in turn will build your customers’ trust that you have the necessary knowledge and can deliver what they need.

Becoming known as an authority in a specific area will also help you become more well-known, which means that your potential customer base will grow, and people are more likely to buy from you: if potential clients are already familiar with you and your brand then they are already warmed up for sales.

All this for almost zero outlay – it’s win-win! If you’re wondering where to start, you could even ask your existing audience what they’d like to hear more about: perhaps meeting the team, a before and after case study (who doesn’t love a makeover?), or a Q&A. It’ll get easier the more you do it (or you can always outsource) so take the leap and get stuck in – your business will thank you for it.

Stuck for time? Our team our experts at creating engaging copy or helping you to re-purpose copy you already have. Get in touch on hello@tonicconsultancy.co.uk

Digital

Social media marketing for business Q&A with Chloe

Can social media marketing really help my business?

Social media can absolutely help your business and we have seen it happen! No matter the size of your business, social media is now an essential piece of your core marketing strategy. Social media helps you to connect with potential customers, increase your brand awareness and build trust and community through engagement with your followers. With more than half of the world now using social media. 4.57 billion people around the world now use the internet, of those users, 346 million new users have come online within the last 12 months! Avid social media users are known to login to their favourite network multiple times a day, so It is an extremely powerful marketing tool! If you are not yet utilising it, your competitors will be dominating that market share.  

What are the benefits of social media marketing for my company?

Some of the main benefits of social media are:

  • Increases brand awareness- each piece of content you publish increases your reach and audience.
  • Allows your business to give a positive impression and connection to your audience by humanising your brand. As a business if you take the time to engage by sharing content, commenting, and replying to customers or followers, it personifies your brand. And as the saying goes ‘people buy people’.
  • Social media marketing is one of the most cost-effective marketing strategies, even paid promotions can be successful for a relatively low cost in comparison to traditional marketing methods. Therefore, as a business you see a greater return on investment!
  • Greater Insight opportunities into the wants and desires of your customers. By monitoring your profile, you can see customer interests and opinions which is great to use for a ‘social listening exercise’.
  • Posting insightful and well-written content on your social media that adds value to your following by informing, educating, entertaining, and engaging is a great way to become an expert in your field.
  • Everything you do on social media can be measured which is essential for any marketing strategy. This allows you to measure what is successful and what isn’t in your strategy so you can constantly improve your efforts.

How should companies measure their social media marketing success?

It is important to measure your social media success for a multitude of reasons, but most importantly so that you can learn what is successful, what is not, and how you can improve your efforts.

The first step in your measurement plan should be to generate a list of what you are trying to achieve from using social media for your business and setting SMART Goals.

The next step is to match your goals to the relevant metrics and behaviours you can measure. For example, if you are trying to measure engagement, then looking at the form of engagement you want to track such as the sharing of a post, replies, comments, and clicks. Depending on your goals here is a few social media behaviours you could measure, based on the most common social media goals:

  • If you want to measure awareness, then use metrics like volume and reach.
  • If you want to measure engagement, then look for metrics on shares, comments, and replies.
  • If your goal is to drive traffic to your website, then track URL shares, clicks through rate and conversions.

If your goal is to increase your brand’s market share, then track the volume in relation to your competitors. How much of the overall conversation around your specific product and/or service is about your brand?

How much does social media marketing cost?

There are many options as a business to make use of social media marketing. If you have the time and inclination to learn, research and are skilled enough to create effective content, publish and manage all interaction, then you can do social marketing yourself for free! However, to do it effectively, it can be very time consuming, especially when spinning all the plates of running a business. If you want to really make an impact, you are always best outsourcing to a professional who has this specific expertise.  The cost of social media marketing varies based on your requirements. Some things to think about before you look to hire an expert is: what social channels you need to be on, how often you want to post, the type of content you want to share and how much time will need to be invested specifically for engagement time to nurture and grow your audience.

What is the ROI?

Social media ROI is a measure of all social media actions that create value, divided by the investment you have made in your social media. After all the time, money, and resources put in you can calculate the return.

Here is a simple formula for how to calculate ROI for social media:

Value / investment (people hours, ad budget, etc.) X 100 = social media ROI (as a percentage) Exactly how you work out the ROI in your business depends on your organisation’s objectives (brand awareness, revenue, customer satisfaction, etc.

Which social media platforms should my business have a presence on?

Simply put the ones where your target audience are! One of the most important things you can do before commencing any marketing activity including social media is to spend time really getting to know your target audience. You can do this by using a buyer persona which is based on age, demographics, interests etc. We can then match this to the best platform(s) we feel would suit your brand and business.

Does my company really need a blog for social media marketing?

Blogging is an amazing way to increase your visibility and drive organic traffic to your site through the search engines with keywords. Social Media is a perfect platform to share your blog content and gain more visibility as well as positioning yourself as an expert in your field.

How much time should social media marketing take each week?

The time you spend on social media is relative to each business. The most important thing is that you remain consistent, so set aside time you know is achievable for you. Batch creating content is also a great way to save time rather than coming up with posts on the fly!

How long does it take before I’ll start seeing results from social media marketing?

Social media is not an overnight fix, it is important to look at this as part of your long-term marketing strategy. To build trust, awareness and community around your brand takes time. All customers have a different purchasing approach, and it may take someone to see you posting consistently over a certain period to nurture them enough to buy your product or service. This is simply because it takes some people longer to ‘warm’ up’ and build that connection and trust.

What are some common social media marketing mistakes businesses make?

  • Incomplete profiles- there is nothing more frustrating than visiting a profile to get information such as opening times, or an email address, to find it is not available.
  • Not having professional branding- branding is as important as the content you put out and will leave a lasting impression on your target audience.
  • Spelling mistakes and poor grammar – this loses trust and credibility.

What are some general tips for social media success?

  • Be social on social media, engage with your audience, and respond to comments.
  • Retargeting ads from your social media to your website is a great way to attract traffic to your business as these people have already shown an interest in your brand.
  • Share a variety of enticing and on brand visuals including graphics and video.
  • Ensure you are putting out a range of content, do not just sell, think of ways to provide value, educate, and engage your audience.
  • Remain consistent in your efforts.