Digital Marketing News Posts
7 Things to Include Before Building a New Website
If you’re sitting in front of your website and thinking that it’s probably about time to give your website a much needed redesign, then you’re not alone. There are plenty of businesses that designed their website initially without putting too much thought into the customer experience and the design. Just like updating your brand, you should also consider updating your online presence as it will benefit your business by providing trust, improving your credibility and strengthening your online brand awareness.
Here are our top tips to consider before building a New Website.
1. Newsletter Signup
Adding a sign-up form to your website is a great way to increase your customer database. Customers that love your brand and your products and services will want to be in the know for the special promotions, new releases and special events. Also developing your customer database, means that you have direct access to your target audience to advertise promotions to.
2. Clear & Beautiful Images
Always use high quality and professional images for your website to show off your products. It’s a fine line where you want make sure that your website images will download quickly and won’t impact your website speed, but you also don’t want images that are pixelated. Using photoshop, you can easily set the pixel size for your website and also amend the resolution of the image. Still not sure, then get in contact with a graphic designer to help you.
3. Testimonials
Get in contact with your customers to find out if they will provide a testimonial from you. The best time to grab their testimonial is straight after they have used your product or service. It doesn’t need to be long, but try to get them to mention the name of the product and service they purchased and their experience. You can also use testimonials from Facebook or from Google Reviews for your website. Testimonials are an extremely powerful way to add credibility and build trust for your brand, products and or services and will often be a driving force to converting customers when they’re sitting on the fence about a product or service.
4. Your business’s contact details
If you have business, that involves a fair amount of customer contact, for example a medical clinic, restaurant or hotel then it’s fairly important that your contact details particularly email and phone number are easy to find and clear to read. For example you may want to consider placing the contact number of your business in the navigation header design of your website. Adding a Google map plugin with a location marker on your contact us page, will help customers in finding your business. Along with this, if you’re business is located in a shopping centre, make sure that you give clear instructions on where they can find you. You can also upload images of your storefront to Google My Business, so they know what your business looks like from the outside.
5. Blogs and News to Improve Website SEO
Take your SEO up a notch by regularly writing a news article or blog about one of your products or services. Blogs are a form of inbound marketing, which means it’s content that draws people to your website. Writing more on products or services add credibility and trust to your brand and also positions your business or yourself as an authority on that topic which leads to more people trusting your products and more likely to purchase your products and or services. In terms of SEO, make sure that your articles are long form articles and also include keywords or terms that your customers would be searching for.
6. Check mobile friendliness on your website
Mobile optimisation is about ensuring that visitors that access your website have an optimised experience while using that device. Every year, an increasing amount of people are using their mobile devices more often to access information. So it’s no surprise here that mobile optimisation is a the top of the list when it comes to designing and building a new website.
Site design for a mobile is important, particularly for websites that have page banners, customers need to be able to clearly read the information no matter what device they are using. Our top tips for mobile site design, include not using flash, no pop ups and design for a fat finger for a better touch screen experience.
7. Use Colour Psychology
Using the colour red on your website is a powerful way to draw the eyes attention to a price or a sale. Red is synonymous for being associated with a sale, which in turn to most consumers means value. So why not create attention to products by changing the price to red or increasing the font size so that its clear to the site visitor. Some websites use green for their add to cart buttons, as green is associated as being safe and ready to go. Depending on your site design, colour can play a special part in the customer experience.
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The advance of the internet has strongly impacted the way how property developers reach potential home buyers. Home buyers nowadays use the internet as the medium to research and compare for their home or investment. Therefore, it is vital for property developers to integrate digital marketing strategies into their property marketing campaigns to effectively capture home buyers attention and trigger their most inspired emotions to engage with you.
Here are 4 digital marketing tips for your property marketing strategies.
#1 Search Engine Optimization (SEO) – Make your property website stand out
The property industry is an extremely competitive market, your property website must be attractive and easy to find. Just like a display house with the best design and layout. Showing beneath competitors in a search result is a huge disadvantage for advertising your property development project. Identify the most commonly searched keywords to integrate into your property website. With a few tweaks to your property website, you could skyrocket your website traffic and substantially improve lead generation. The higher you rank on the search result, the more credibility you communicate to your home buyers.
We can also generate quality content to attract potential home buyers to your property website. For example, posting intriguing blog topics such as “Promising Investment Areas in Brisbane” or “What are the Invisible Traps of Purchasing Property” regularly can grab home buyers’ attention and keep them engaged. Search engines will acknowledge the traffic and grant your property website a higher rank on their search results.
Want to learn more about how to utilize SEO for your property website? Talk to a property marketing agency like Desketing to safeguard your competitive edge!
#2 Search Engine Marketing (SEM) – Expand the visibility of your property website
Besides SEO, Search Engine Marketing is put simply paid advertising on search engines and it is also a way to reach more potential home buyers.
Utilize your property website as the landing page, and you can create search or display Google AdWords campaign to promote certain property projects. The advantage of SEM is that it is highly flexible. You can decide the budget you wish to spend, you can decide when to start or pause the campaign, you can even allocate your budget strategically on different platforms to maximize your click-through-rate and conversion rate. SEM reports also provides insights into customer behaviour, giving you almost anything you wish to know about home buyers. The beauty of this is that it allows you to adjust your campaign according to the information you gathered. For example, if you identify that most of the clicks came from mobile devices, you might want to increase the bet on mobile so that your ad has a higher chance of standing out.
With years of experiences in helping property developers, we have a specific set of skills in identifying some popular keywords for property AdWords campaigns, as well as the technique to efficiently develop an AdWords campaign that produces significant results and conversion.
#3 Smart property website design – capture customer data
Say you did a good job at SEO / SEM and you appeared at the top of the search result, what is the next step to get your customers to engage with your brand and leave their information? The answer is simple, you need an engaging property website design. Besides providing information about your property projects, your property website design should also focus on another important element – Encourage home buyers to leave their contact details.
Provide information in a smart way
Home buyers who enter your property webpage desire for information about your projects. Make sure you give it to them in a smart way. Create a section in your property website design that requires viewers to enter their contact details for the exchange of information. The information can be a brochure for your new property project.
Besides offering information about your new project, you can also add value to your property website by giving home buyers something they are interested in. This can be an e-book regarding property trends, or even a beautifully designed brochure that highlights your project portfolio.
Check out the property website design for Ormi Terrace.
Avoid text heavy property website design
Property website design is all about capturing home buyers’ eyes with attractive images. Make sure the copy is succinct and relevant to the home buyers. The headline should grab the home buyers’ attention the moment they enter your property website. The body should be simple and to the point. If you are promoting a sale, make sure the copy communicates a sense of urgency. Also, remember to put a Call-to-Action (CTA) in your property website design to encourage conversion.
Simple, but attracting across different platforms
Amazing property photos are eye-catching to home buyers. However, make sure the images are not oversized, as it will slow down the loading speed of your property website. Also, as 89 percent of new home buyers are using mobile devices during the home buying process, remember to develop a mobile-friendly property landing page so you won’t lose these leads.
#4 Email marketing – Engage your potential home buyers
What is the first thing your potential home buyers do when they go to work every morning? The answer is simple, open their emails. Electronic direct mail (EDM) is vital in property marketing, as the average open rate for real-estate based emails is more than 20%. The high conversion rate comes with only a minor cost compared to other property marketing channels. Also, it allows you to send out EDM to the customer database that you acquired from the property website.
EDM is also an ideal way to promote your content, such as blogs or your new property projects. However, avoid making your EDMs too much about sales. You have to ask yourself how do the emails benefit your home buyers. Make it engaging and personal, use subject lines that are less spammy and address home buyers personally.
Once you build a sizeable email database, you can start several automated email campaigns regarding different information about your new project development. The trick of sending out automated EDM is to send out multiple emails featuring different topics at different times. As people nowadays spend only limited time on one email, this avoids cramming your EDM with too much information in one single email. In addition, this reminds home buyers about your project from time to time and further keeps them engaged.
The first EDM could include the design and layout of the project. Once home buyers have a bit of picture about the project, you can then send out your second EDM that features lifestyle and shops around your project, let them imagine what it will be like to live in the area and enjoy all the benefits around their new dream home. You can make your project more desirable by sending out your third EDM, which emphasises the convenient transportation around the area, such as the nearby train/bus stations or the accessibility to Gold Coast or Sunshine Coast highways. Finally, send out EDM that talks about investment numbers such as annual growth or rental yield to further convince home buyers that purchasing your project is one of the smartest decisions they ever made.
Never underestimate these emails, as they have high open and click-through rates because home buyers are interested in your project and want to learn more about it.
Want to build your customer database and send out results-driven EDMs? Engage with an experienced digital property marketing agency like Desketing to help you with property marketing! Contact us today.
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A solid marketing strategy is critical when attracting new customers, loyalty, and branding for any industry. The hospitality industry is no exception. Desketing knows it is important to keep up with the latest digital marketing trends to help drive results by using clever design and strategic marketing tactics so we’ve decided to give you some trends in hospitality marketing.
Trend 1 – Social Media
A top trend that you can find in hospitality marketing is the effective use of social media. When used efficiently social media can be a great tool to gain insight from consumers whilst also allowing you to target specific people. In recent research, it has been shown that 97% of millennials share travel pictures and videos on social media and that 89% plan travel activities based on the content shared (The Drum, 2018). It has been suggested that people are inspired by the opinions of others, with 70% of Americans say they look at reviews before making a purchase (The Drum, 2018). It is important that the hospitality industry uses this to their advantage. An example would be by sharing user-generated content, monitoring comments and hashtags and pinpointing locations through user check-ins. The information gathered can help gain insights on what customers want to see and the experience they want. This also creates brand awareness as well as connects the consumer to the content.
Trend 2 – Videos
If you haven’t already guessed, content is key. Content must be relevant, interesting and relatable. In recent times, it has become apparent that photo content is decreasing and short video interactions are increasing, it has been estimated that 80% of internet traffic will be video content in 2019 (thatagency.com, 2018). This, however, is an amazing opportunity as videos can be an effective way to interact with customers whilst. 52% of marketers say video develop and push brand awareness (Campaignmonitor.com, 2018).
Trend 3 – SEO Driven
As technology is changing, so is the way that consumers are searching for things. It is important to have an appropriate approach to the content that is being released. A current trend is to include long tail keywords or phrases (3 or more words) in your SEO strategy (Net Affinity, 2018). This is a cost-effective way to direct quality traffic to your website. SEO should also have voice search capabilities where possible. Voice search is becoming popular with 40% of adults now using this feature at least once a day (Net Affinity, 2018).
Trend 4 – Mobile Is A Must
Having a mobile-friendly website is a must for any industry, not just the hospitality industry. With society always on the run, it is important to have information at your disposal whenever you need it. Research shows that mobiles contributed 94% of year on year growth in e-commerce traffic in 2017(thatagency.com, 2018). The hospitality industry has such a potential when it comes to mobile-friendly use. Some of these include booking online, check in and itinerary updates which could also be developed into a loyalty app.
Trend 5 – Websites
When in the Hospitality Industry, it is vital to have a strong website and booking systems available. Ideally, a website with a booking agent that is easy to navigate contains correct information and is regularly updated is essential. Direct traffic is a result of a working system, however, correct hospitality marketing and promotions must be completed to drive direct traffic to your website.
Trend 6 – Personalisation
Personalisation is a key trend found in hospitality marketing. Simple things such as Personalising emails or geo-targeting allowing the business to send relevant offers based on location can make a huge impact. Personalisation does not need to be obvious and can remain valuable even when the consumer is unaware of its presence (Econsultancy, 2018). It is important to remain true to your brand. There’s nothing worse than blending in with the competition. Guests appreciate when a company is authentic and often this reels the guests in by the experiences you offer.
We hope you have enjoyed our insights on trends that are happening in the hospitality marketing. If you would know to know more, Desketing offers a range of Hospitality marketing. We can help you combat online booking agencies and discover how to attract more visitors and increase direct bookings for your hotel or restaurant through clever design and strategic marketing tactics. Contact us now!
You can speak to a Desketing design and marketing specialist by
calling 07 3220 3962 or request a callback.
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References
Blog.thatagency.com. (2018). 8 Hotel Marketing Trends for 2018. [online] Available at: https://blog.thatagency.com/hotel-marketing-trends-2018 [Accessed 27 Apr. 2018].
Campaignmonitor.com. (2018). 7 Travel & Hospitality Marketing Trends You Need to Know. [online] Available at: https://www.campaignmonitor.com/blog/email-marketing/2017/07/7-travel-hospitality-marketing-trends-you-need-to-know/ [Accessed 27 Apr. 2018].
Econsultancy. (2018). How six travel & hospitality brands use personalisation to enhance the customer experience. [online] Available at: https://econsultancy.com/blog/69207-how-six-travel-hospitality-brands-use-personalisation-to-enhance-the-customer-experience [Accessed 27 Apr. 2018].
Net Affinity Blog. (2018). 18 Hotel Marketing Trends For 2018 – Net Affinity Blog. [online] Available at: https://blog.netaffinity.com/infographic-18-hotel-marketing-trends-2018/ [Accessed 27 Apr. 2018].
The Drum. (2018). Why social media matters more than ever to hospitality marketing. [online] Available at: http://www.thedrum.com/opinion/2017/08/04/why-social-media-matters-more-ever-hospitality-marketing [Accessed 27 Apr. 2018].
Social media is present in everyone’s day to day life whether it be a personal account or a company’s platform to communicate with their clients. The team here at Desketing would like to know is, are you using these platforms correctly? Do you understand how your posts reflect on your business?
The problem with social media is that everyone has it but not everybody knows how to use it effectively. These problems are common when little thought goes into the social media posts and can negatively impact the perception of your company’s brand or confuse your customers.
Now you’re probably thinking “wait, am I posting engaging content or am I communicating the wrong brand messages?” Don’t worry! We have three hot tips to help create a successful social media post.
Tip #1 Keep your posts relevant to your branding and key messages!
One of the most important parts of having an online presence is to communicate effectively and create an appropriate image of your company. Branding is a vital part of your company and this should be present in every post uploaded. Posts online are an easy way of connecting with the target market and as a result, building your company image. Check out The Brilliant Brand Checklist to give you some tips on how to set the tone of creating a valuable and memorable brand.
Tip: If your company is ‘young, fun and hip’, then it’s vital that you’re using the same tone of language on your social media.
Tip #2 Plan your Social Media posts
Know exactly what you want to say, before typing away at your keys. Having a social media plan of what the company wants to communicate is always a must. It helps you stick to a relevant brand message, guides your branding and ensures that you’re providing value to your social media followers.
Tip: Plan your Social Media Marketing plan, schedule posts before time and be prepared.
Tip #3 Treat all your Social Media Platforms Equally!
A mistake businesses often make is favoring one platform over another or having too many social media accounts. Choose a few social platforms that work best for your business and ensure that you’re actively posting on each platform. Communicate in the same tone and manner to stand with your branding.
Tip: Know the target audience and keep the branding of your posts in sync overall social media platforms.
Good and Bad Social Media Examples
Below are some examples of how you can make a positive change on your Social Media Platforms.
What not to do:
Spam is not anyone’s friend so when posting on social media you do not want to sound like a robot trying to sell something with every post.
What to do:
Break your content up, engage with the consumer rather than continuously send them advertisements. Example of this would be when an online shop re-posts a consumers photo when tagged by the consumer. This breaks up the advertisement, engages with the customer and allows the social media posts to become relatable.
What not to do:
Becoming an inactive account by not posting frequently. Your followers and consumers will eventually stop being interested and this will result in less page activity and customer engagement…
What to do:
Publish what is happening within the company. Get people involved and stay active in your accounts. Having an event? Promote it. Decided to dress up for Halloween? Tell everyone and post pictures. New products? Show sneak peaks! Get your consumers interested.
Now that you have some ideas of how to create a successful social media plan, but you’re looking for a good social media strategy, please contact us here at Desketing for a free quote.
You can speak to a Desketing design and marketing specialist by calling 07 3220 3962 or request a callback.
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Paying attention to new trends and emerging channels are always critical for effective marketing. Although you might feel confident in your small business’s current techniques and marketing strategies, you should always be aware of what’s coming next so you can stay ahead of the competition.
To keep your small business successful, here are three digital marketing tips to get you started.
#1. Content marketing – Attract your customers with useful information
One powerful method to get your small business noticed is by creating meaningful content for your potential customers. Blogging is a great way for content marketing. Since people rely on search engines to solve their daily problems or find the information they need, why not provide content that meets their needs and drags them to your website?
By optimizing your webpage for search engines with quality blog posts, your business will appear at the top of search results for topics related to the products or services you offer. This provides not only a great amount of traffic but also makes your brand more trustworthy, which all leads to potential business growth.
Some businesses, however, focus on the frequency and neglect the importance of quality, which is not a good way to do content marketing. You can post a keyword-driven blog every week, but if the content doesn’t provide value, you will lose the interest of your readers. Try to create exciting, shareable and informative content to keep your readers engaged.
For example, say you are the owner of a restaurant, you can have blogs with topics such as “5 popular drinks for your next outdoor barbecue” or “10 recipes for a perfect Christmas dinner”. Try to understand what topics interest your customers, conduct market research if you need to.
Also, always integrate the latest trend into your topics. In the example of a restaurant business, as there is a growing concern of healthy eating habits, you can have blogs with titles such as “Top 10 healthy ways to cook fruit and vegetables”.
#2 Build a social media community – Increase loyal customers
In order to gain a higher customer loyalty, you need to have a good social media plan and establish a strong social media community, which includes having engaging conversations and being responsive to customers.
Conversation
Try to start a conversation with your customers through different posts, this will strengthen the bond between your brand and the customers. A conversation can be started as simple as “What was the first meal you ever cooked? How did it turn out?”
Not only can your brand be perceived as a “humanized friend”, but you can also get some insights from your customers. For example, if “steak” appears several times in the reply, you can have a blog or video post about how to cook a perfect steak.
Listen to the conversation with your customers to gain ideas to put into your social media plan.
Responsive
Customers expect to receive a personalized response rather than an automated message when they post comments on your social media. Being able to acknowledge each comment demonstrates that you are aware of your customers’ needs and dedicated to offering the best service experience. Always remember to start a reply with the name of the customer, this brings them closer to you.
Although customers might leave a complaint on social media, this is still an opportunity to publicly show your compassion for your customers. By taking time to respond the matter authentically and professionally, your brand will be perceived positively as a company devoted to customer satisfaction.
One successful example of a business being responsive to social media is Beginning Boutique. Managing and answering social media channels is the first and last thing of the day for the founder Sarah Timmerman. The dedication of treating customers as their best friends and the immediate response to customer comments on social media have made Beginning Boutique grow from a small online fashion site to a seven-figure business.
#3 Social media marketing – Target the customers you want
Small business should make the most use of social media marketing, as it can target specific customers effectively.
So, how exactly does this work?
Social media sites like Facebook has been used by at least 90% across all gender, age and location segments, it provides outstanding ways of identifying different target segments based on different attributes. Therefore, Facebook advertising can be used to promote your small business to untapped targets. For example, advertising your latest blog post through Facebook advertising not only enables the selection of demographic and location that your business wishes to reach but also targets those who had shown interest in similar topics.
Moreover, Facebook advertising is relatively affordable compared to some traditional advertising. The freedom of controlling your budget and the flexibility of when to stop a campaign are ideal for small businesses which have limited resources.
