00:00:03:11 - 00:00:15:06
Elnerine
Hello everybody, and welcome to this course on the Digital Skills for SMEs marketing. I’m Elnerine Greeff and with me I have Tracy Powell. Thanks.
00:00:15:07 - 00:00:38:10
Tracy
So today we are going to look at strategies and plans, for compliant digital campaigns. So think about the planning side of things first and then so discuss that impact of mobile. What's that done. And there'll be some tips and tricks within that in terms of what you can do in order to maximize use of mobile. And then we have the social media and digital customer engagements.
00:00:38:10 - 00:01:03:10
Tracy
We'll talk a little bit about that, maybe some SEO and keyword mapping. I think countering would be perfect in any scenario. And then the digital metrics and measurement, we'll touch on that a little bit as well. So hopefully that will be lots for you to think about and to use as you go forward in your digital, skills journey.
00:01:03:10 - 00:01:05:07
Tracy
I guess.
00:01:05:09 - 00:01:53:00
Elnerine
Perfect. So I'll kick us off with the idea of strategies and plan so as I said earlier, I have been involved in industry, for many years, and a lot of that time was spent on consultancy work. And I can say without a doubt that every time that I was brought in to consult on, organizations marketing, whether that be digital or traditional or a combination, every single time that there has been a problem where a business try to do marketing, but they weren't seeing the return on investment, or every time that they tried to go for a specific kind or a specific goal in marketing, and they didn't see it come to fruition,
00:01:53:02 - 00:02:31:08
Elnerine
was because there wasn't a sound and feasible plan and strategy in place before they went into their marketing. We have almost inherent, way of having a slapdash approach to marketing, and marketing should be natural, and it should be authentic. But if we are a business that is really, really serious on making sure that our marketing means something for us and that we can report on it in a business sense of contributing to our bottom line and to our organizations future and successes.
00:02:31:11 - 00:02:55:10
Elnerine
We must be able to be strategic about it, and being strategic about it is having that long term 3 or 5 year plan for our marketing, and they're in for our digital marketing and then constructing a plan around how we would like to get there. Now there's various elements in the strategic marketing plan kind of arena that we would need to address.
00:02:55:11 - 00:03:32:13
Elnerine
First and foremost, we would need to think a little bit about our brand. And when you start to grapple with the elements of your brand and your branding, think beyond the baseline elements of branding. Think beyond your corporate colors and beyond your logo. Think about who you will show up on social media as. So if your brand had a personality and it had values and it had a tone of voice and manner of speaking and engage in, what would that sound like and what would that look like?
00:03:32:14 - 00:04:05:13
Elnerine
And every time that you engage on social media, show up as that quote unquote person, show up as that brand personality, that's also a way for us to create, congruency or coherence. Doesn't matter who post. Does it matter who's at the helm of social media? We have that level of engagement and that same personality coming through that people can engage with on the other side that they can build relationships with and that they can recognize in each one of our posts, in each one of our communications.
00:04:05:15 - 00:04:39:04
Elnerine
So the slapdash approach is good for authenticity. But every every time that we engage on social media, it should refer back to that brand personality and of course, the strategy, strategic objectives that we want to reach. So the second thing, after we look at branding is articulating those strategic objectives. Why on why are we on social media not why do we exist as a brand, but why are we engaging on social and digital media?
00:04:39:04 - 00:05:03:00
Elnerine
Why are we on the internet? Who is meeting us there? And what do they need us to show up as in order to have their needs met? Who should we be in those instances on social media in order to build that relationship with our consumers, that they eventually will want to do business with us, whatever that may look like?
00:05:03:01 - 00:05:33:05
Elnerine
So the very first question that you ask yourself is who I am? And then the next question that you ask yourself is, why am I here? And answering those questions will help you formulate objectives for your digital marketing in the short, medium and long term and those should be clearly articulated. And every time that you post and create marketing collateral, you should be doing it to forward those specific objectives that you have set.
00:05:33:06 - 00:06:01:04
Elnerine
And if we don't have those objectives and we don't have a clear idea of who we are, where we are on social media, we re not pulling in the same direction as our business objectives, because obviously those objectives that you articulated must hark back to your business objectives. So if your primary business objective for 2025 is, for example, that you want more feed through the door, then your social media will need to focus on that place.
00:06:01:04 - 00:06:24:11
Elnerine
Marketing. So coming and coming through the doors of our business, if it is more about we're a new brand, let's say, and we want to raise awareness, then your goals need to align with that. In a few moments. Tracy's going to talk through the Ada model, and bear in mind what I just spoke about in terms of objectives, when she speaks through the Ada objective as well.
00:06:24:12 - 00:06:32:04
Elnerine
Now I have a little video here. It is the most irritating video on earth, but it's purposefully.
00:06:32:06 - 00:06:32:09
Tracy
The.
00:06:32:09 - 00:06:54:03
Elnerine
Most irritating video on Earth. And this is what it is.
00:06:54:04 - 00:07:18:11
Elnerine
And not even not even one of those little balls goes into the into the cup. It's horrible. But that really is what marketing without a strategy is. It is about ensuring that you've got the goals set up and that you're aiming towards those goals as opposed to shooting off everywhere and then drawing a target around where you happened to have shot at.
00:07:18:12 - 00:07:42:14
Elnerine
I used to have an industry mentor who always used to say marketing without a strategy is like driving past an into lot and chucking out bricks, hoping that eventually it will build a house and we are so good at, being strategic and having clear objectives and clear goals when it comes to our businesses. But in marketing, we oftentimes fall behind on that.
00:07:42:14 - 00:08:13:14
Elnerine
In fact, one of our colleagues here at the university, professor Mark Gillman, who does a lot of work with SMEs in the Derbyshire area, and I would definitely encourage you to look him up because he has a good range of toolkits that help smaller businesses. But he, in his research, found that within the Derbyshire area, around only 7% of small and medium enterprises actually have strategies that encompass their business objectives, and even less have that for their digital marketing.
00:08:13:15 - 00:08:29:14
Elnerine
So that, in a nutshell, is how important that is for us. That's also, by the way, why we asked you to do a Swot analysis to get a lay of the land before you started here. Tracy.
00:08:29:15 - 00:08:50:05
Tracy
Yes. So, you'll see the, the, the Swot analysis here, which has, nothing of any use on this wasn't this, as you can see with the yellow is a gold color of gold button. Right. Lemons there. And that's on purpose because when we put things in there, everyone's looking to see what the threat might be and what the weakness might be.
00:08:50:05 - 00:09:13:09
Tracy
And I think what's important about when you do a Swot analysis, especially in this, in this scenario, is that you really examine your own business and it's also a good idea to think about, what others might think about your business. So if you have a trusted client or if you have a trusted friend or a supplier, something like that.
00:09:13:09 - 00:09:36:07
Tracy
Ask them what your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. Then nine times out of ten, they will tell you because everybody thinks they can run their business with your business better than you can quite a lot. So the spotlight is important and, people sometimes get really hung up on, well, what's the strength and is that a strength or is it an opportunity?
00:09:36:08 - 00:10:01:13
Tracy
I didn't think to worry about that overly. Yes. You know, examine it and think about it. But, you know, this is a model that's being being used time and time again and it's shown to work, but it's the actual doing it. The actual thinking about it, which is the key thing, is the actual you putting down a piece of paper on your phone or however you want to be.
00:10:01:15 - 00:10:25:11
Tracy
What are your strengths and opportunities? Okay, there might be a mix there between the opportunities and the strengths, but don't worry about that. Worry about what they actually are and what worry about actually. How does that mean, you know, how does that weakness in our, in our business, how is that, sort of negated by our strength?
00:10:25:11 - 00:10:37:09
Tracy
Or how could we, solve that weakness? Or maybe it's a weakness we don't need to solve, or maybe there is a threat, but actually, that threat is as big as maybe we thought. So, hope, I don't know.
00:10:37:10 - 00:10:40:06
Elnerine
Hopefully it makes.
00:10:40:08 - 00:11:03:10
Tracy
Sense to you that you've seen this sort of Swot analysis before and just keep doing it. Just keep doing. This isn't a tool that's used and then forgotten about. It's a tool that we look at. We reflect on whether that be weekly, monthly, yearly, by yearly. I hope it would be more than yearly. But something that just grounds you.
00:11:03:10 - 00:11:24:11
Tracy
And, you know, when you look at your Swot analysis from a year ago, you might see that, oh, that was a big weakness. But we've solved that weakness in these as a, as a tool to help you see the progression. And it's a as I say, it's a very well-known tool and it's a real key tool for marketing because it really helps you to see where you are in terms of the business.
00:11:24:12 - 00:11:49:14
Elnerine
Absolutely. And from there will naturally your objectives for your marketing arise as as Tracy said. So we switch, we switch gears slightly now, and we talk a little bit about the impact of mobile on your digital marketing. So the first step in ensuring that you are going where you want to be is ensuring that you have a strategy.
00:11:49:15 - 00:12:32:11
Elnerine
The second step really is in understanding how people are consuming your marketing communication. And when you are projecting outwards, how and in what manner is it received? And the impact of mobile comes from the concept of mobile. First. And it really started about in about 20 years ago. Now, if you can believe it. And around 2005, when people started to grapple with the idea of if we have mobile phones and we are engaging with our communication mostly through mobile, what does that mean for marketers?
00:12:32:11 - 00:13:02:12
Elnerine
So the Mobile Marketing Association defined mobile marketing as a set of practices that enable organizations to communicate and engage with their audience in and an interactive and relevant manner through any mobile device or network. Then Rouse, a sort of seminal author in this arena, says mobile is not a channel like social media, outdoor advertising or search. It is something that impacts all of the other marketing channels, both online and offline.
00:13:02:13 - 00:13:36:13
Elnerine
It is a fundamental shift in human behavior that we understand and that we need to adjust to. So when you think about your digital marketing, don't think of digital marketing as just one other channel that sits on the same level and within the same wheelhouse as traditional marketing and auto marketing and everything else. When you think about digital marketing and you think about it in terms of the strategy that you are going to create, think about it as an entity that exists and is ubiquitous for all of your other marketing.
00:13:36:14 - 00:13:59:04
Elnerine
The mobile first mindset says that we should think about our digital marketing as the first port of call, as the first engagement point, because nine times out of ten it will be the first one, and we shouldn't think about it as a marketing form. We should think about it almost as a culture that exists, and that we have been made privy to.
00:13:59:04 - 00:14:19:15
Elnerine
What I mean by that is, in today's society, people's mobile phones, especially for younger generations, are an extension of themselves. We think about our mobile phones just as much as we think about an arm or a leg. Some theorists even say, now I'm not quite there yet, but I am Gen X, so I'm not a Gen Zers or.
00:14:19:15 - 00:14:20:14
Tracy
You know, a millennial.
00:14:20:14 - 00:14:43:06
Elnerine
So I'm not quite there when I think about my mobile as an arm, but I certainly will turn around if I've 15 minutes down the road to go and collect my mobile. If I've not taken it with me. But we should understand that apart from thinking about mobiles as an extension of ourselves, we think about it as at the very least an extension of our inner world.
00:14:43:08 - 00:14:46:08
Elnerine
So we interact with our mobile almost like.
00:14:46:08 - 00:14:47:05
Tracy
We.
00:14:47:06 - 00:15:19:14
Elnerine
Feel in psychology. People interacted in the past with their own intrinsic thought systems. So you have been given the opportunity of featuring into people's lived conversations with themselves. So when you think about mobile, think about making it that extra step personal. Think about making it that extra step interactional because it's supposed to be that it's not supposed to be a blank piece of marketing behind glass as we think about digital sometimes.
00:15:19:15 - 00:16:05:02
Elnerine
So as I've said, the concept is a few years old, and it really started to gain momentum when, in 2010, at the Mobile World Conference, Google announced they did development. All of the development going forward will have a mobile first focus because they found that everybody starts on mobile and progresses further, if at all. So this became a philosophy for them and a way of doing business, which of course, mobile marketers, piggybacked onto and understood that this is something that we need to investigate, not as an extra form of marketing, but as the primary form of marketing.
00:16:05:04 - 00:16:44:04
Elnerine
Now, this does not mean that everything else goes out the window. If you still do have other forms of digital marketing or traditional marketing happening, it's about integration, and it's about ensuring that if not a hierarchy of digital of marketing happening, then at least a cross-functional, coherence is happening across sites. So just one more, one quote of two that I want to share with you to really hone in on the element of mobile first, when we talk about digital marketing, is that the agency Saatchi Saatchi, which is a very big agency, there are international.
00:16:44:04 - 00:17:15:14
Elnerine
This is from their American office. Saatchi and Saatchi's worldwide creative director director says, I can tell you that mobile is at the top of every brand's mind. While mobile marketing has been around for over a decade, we are still in the early phase, constantly evangelizing the use of mobile in our marketing efforts, figuring out how to create really intimate personal work that reaches people, and always interrogating the work to determine which ideas are truly great and truly mobile.
00:17:16:01 - 00:17:51:08
Elnerine
So it brings forward that element of personal, intimate relationships with your customers through the communication that you create. So we are not starting conversations with digital marketing. We are joining conversations that are already happening for people because they are engaging with their mobile. So top five things to focus on now to give a little bit more of a practical, side to this, when you are thinking of institute a mobile first mindset in your digital marketing, first of all, start off by listening to your audience.
00:17:51:10 - 00:18:26:02
Elnerine
So have those social listening, conversational listening, outcomes in mind when you engage yourself with social media as well. So follow follow other accounts that are doing what you are doing. See what they are doing. See when people interact with their posts and when they don't. And they usually don't interact with dead posts that don't really bring anything lively to conversations, but more exciting posts that have personally and that showcases that to, users.
00:18:26:03 - 00:18:55:13
Elnerine
So create an, an atmosphere where you listen on social media to people interacting with brands like yours. It is like any other culture. You have to be immersed into the culture to really know what is done and what is not done here. So what is done and not done and what is successful and not successful for brands doing the same thing that you want to be doing, have ideas that are truly mobile.
00:18:55:13 - 00:19:38:08
Elnerine
And what we mean by that is that uses the full scope or the full arsenal. That mobile enables us with. So instead of only focusing on having a poster and putting that up and saying that that is a social media post, think about how your post can work with the other apps that people have on their phones, how your website is enabled to use Google Maps instead of a static map, how, people can do fun and exciting things around the crescent, or in your business with the tools that they have to their disposal on social and on mobiles.
00:19:38:10 - 00:20:07:00
Elnerine
Associated marketing aspects should also have that mobile first mindset. So it should still, be, understanding or at least, Taking the lead from mobile and, and from the idea that we always engage first with a brand mobile mobility before we walk through people's doors. Your content must be personal, it must be portable, and it must be potent.
00:20:07:02 - 00:20:44:01
Elnerine
Otherwise it just gets lost in the fray. And if at all possible, keep it simple and keep it straightforward as you start to build momentum that is mobile. The second of the two, quotes that I want to talk about, and this is from Marketo, the other big, digital agency. This speaks to not only social media, because I know that we have a very strong social focus when we think about digital and we think about mobile, but this also talks about the importance of mobile for other elements like email campaigns.
00:20:44:02 - 00:21:11:12
Elnerine
So Marketo says that 57% of emails are opened on mobile platforms and 69% of mobile users delete emails that aren't optimized for mobile. Also not a mobile friendly landing page from social media. Well, customers are most likely to click away, so everything must always be mobile first, everything else second.
00:21:11:14 - 00:21:38:03
Tracy
Okay, so thank you Noreen. So social media and digital customer engagement because that's where we are aiming. And we want to know that the customer is engaging with us. And it's very easy to to concentrate on the fact that people have liked us. Well, we've got a lot of followers or things like that. But, we will talk a little bit more as we go through.
00:21:38:03 - 00:22:08:05
Tracy
But what is really important is the customers actually engaging with this, and they are seeing what we want to see, what what they want to see and what we want them to see. So we don't want to have lots of customers or lots of social medias, but followers, but no customers. What we want is for us social media followers, but ones are interested in us because if we have too many followers that aren't really interested in us, that will skew, algorithm.
00:22:08:06 - 00:22:32:14
Tracy
And they will be more concentrating on when we post a video of the little cat, then they are of the goods that we are actually wanting to sell, or the services that we want to provide them. So we have a variety of platforms we for digital media, which and our social media, which is our web page, press.
00:22:32:15 - 00:22:53:00
Tracy
And then we have our social media. We have things like LinkedIn X, Facebook, YouTube, TikTok, Instagram. There's so many. And there'll be another one next week and there'll be another one in the next few months. So I shy away from saying, this is what you have to do on Instagram, or this is what you have to do on Facebook.
00:22:53:02 - 00:23:11:00
Tracy
As we know, new innovations come out all the time and people say, what about I? Should I do my post? Should I, should I not do my post that I have? What should I do? And I think what's important is to shy away from from that. The research is telling us that actually I just likes what a human likes.
00:23:11:01 - 00:23:40:00
Tracy
And so as long as the human likes it, then I will like it. And so what's important is that you're actually developing content which is consumable for human beings, and that goes for your web page and your press and everything else. Long gone are the days where we produce content which is there for SEO, robots to, be excited about what we want is content that humans are excited about.
00:23:40:00 - 00:23:57:15
Tracy
And that intent of robots are a lot more sophisticated now. Now, crawlers are a lot more sophisticated that they will like that, too. They've learned from us as AI does, which is what it does is any bot is it learns from us. So what I like to concentrate on, is do you think about making it easy for ourselves?
00:23:57:15 - 00:24:35:02
Tracy
So there's a nice little, diagram, called poem, which we call the paid, owned and earned media. And this just gives you a diagram to think about the content that you have and how you could repurpose your content and how it can be spread across the different platforms and the different areas that you have. So to give you an example, you will own your website and you will create on your website, maybe blogs, maybe information about your products or go services or the, attraction that you have in your, organization.
00:24:35:03 - 00:24:58:12
Tracy
Now, those words don't need to just appear on the website. And that is the beauty of the AI. Now, we can put those words from, from some thing that you've got. So if you've got an article that you've, you've, that you're trying to sell or a product that you're trying to sell and you've got some information about that product, you can take that product's, information from your website.
00:24:58:12 - 00:25:28:12
Tracy
You can pop it into Gemini and say, please rewrite this for, for a social media post. For example, you have a look at that social media post that the AI has written. You then make your own adjustments to it. We don't just leave it with the in the hands of AI, but we make those adjustments. We write it, make sure that it's, consumable, make sure that a person would would enjoy reading that, and then we can put it on our social media so we can repurpose that.
00:25:28:12 - 00:26:02:14
Tracy
And that again stages our own media. But what we can do is also give that media to newspapers. Other influencers may be in the in the social social media area. So we could sort of if we put that social media post out, any earned media would be word of mouth. So if you have, influencers or anybody that likes your product and they then repost that, that is your earned media.
00:26:02:14 - 00:26:20:09
Tracy
So people are looking at that, that post and going, oh yeah, that's really interesting. That's really useful. So especially if you've got useful things on your website, we like to give to our consumers and not just take from our consumers. So we like to give them information. We like to give them tips and things that help them use our product.
00:26:20:10 - 00:26:48:01
Tracy
Or maybe if, you have a service or something surrounding that service, we also obviously highlight what we can also provide to them, but essentially we're giving them something so that they will then give that to other people. So that's our earned media, for our paid media for those when we have our ads and things. Again, it's about taking that content that we have in our paid media and our advertising.
00:26:48:01 - 00:27:12:04
Tracy
It's that we might use we might have it as, a article in a, in a, in a newspaper, like an advert in a, in a in a newspaper or other, in a free magazine that's delivered to doors, especially for local organizations. I know that quite a lot of the businesses I work with, they often take out a quarter of the spread of the sort of a five, sort of month.
00:27:12:04 - 00:27:36:13
Tracy
They I think it is the clip that gets, give advance. So they take, take a little thing out of take a other out on that and then that paid media again, you use the words from your own media, that paid media can go into earned media again if people repurpose it. So I think it's important to think about your media and not just think about, oh yeah, I've got this here and I need to write differently here.
00:27:36:14 - 00:28:19:10
Tracy
No, we can, use these, these thoughts elsewhere. One one journalist said to me, he said that because of the way that newspapers are now funded, there isn't, limited time journalists get to write new articles and things. If you can send something into the paper about maybe a new product or service that you are offering, maybe that's linked to a charity day, maybe that's linked to a, a topic that's hot in your area at that moment in time to the local, you know, the local paper, if you can link that, if you can send photos and send that to the paper, they are likely to publish it, especially online, when they
00:28:19:10 - 00:28:37:08
Tracy
want to constantly fill their, their their pages with new content. They are likely to publish it with a few editorial. And then what's great about that is you can then point to that from your own social media post, so you can point to it from your social media and say, look, this is the article in the paper about us.
00:28:37:09 - 00:29:12:15
Tracy
And equally you can on your website. I can point to that article. So you see how we can constantly repurpose our content and make sure that we are hitting all those areas and and reaching different people that might be interested in us. So we kind of talk about this in terms of a funnel. And lots of people will have seen this funnel before I was before because it's a well-known sales funnel, the the sales funnel, as we say, and how we're trying to take people on a journey down into the into the, the loyalties, what we really want our customers to be.
00:29:13:00 - 00:29:51:04
Tracy
And this, harks back to the fact I talked about the the fact that we want customers are interested in us, not lots of lots of people viewing our content. So we want lots. We do want the impressions on social media and SEO, but we want impressions in front of people that are interested in us. And if we have a lot of people that aren't really interested in us with just interested in that cat video that you showed once in 2020 when it was locked down and all of us were bored then their impressions are only going to be, well, they're going to be diluted for those.
00:29:51:05 - 00:30:23:15
Tracy
So those that are not necessarily your consumers, but other consumers that like a cat video. So actually if we lose some of those consumers, that's okay. Because actually we've got more consumers that are interested in what we like. So never, never be too disheartened if we do find that we've lost some social media followers. That's great because they weren't interested in this and we don't want their algorithms spoiling the spoiling us getting into in front of people that might actually buy from us.
00:30:24:00 - 00:30:47:12
Tracy
So obviously that awareness will then take you to the landing page. That's and it means that people have taken action. That's a really key step. We want people to come onto our landing page and take action. We want them to find out more. Again, this aspect of the fact that we want people to be interested in who we are, what we're doing no good if they're not interested in what we are, we want them to watch a video.
00:30:47:12 - 00:31:15:00
Tracy
We want them to put an item in the basket. We want them to sign up to emails, because ultimately, what we want them to do is to purchase something, and then we want them to join our social media page, not just because, we just want to know that they there and there exist, but also because they are going to be your best advocates, because they are the people that are going to stand up on that page and say, I used this product, I had this service, or I know this person and they are fantastic.
00:31:15:00 - 00:31:31:00
Tracy
And that's what we really want to get people to do. So that's where we are headed with this funnel. So another way of it, and I have a few sort of, of ways of thinking about this here. So I will, skip through the next one in a bit, but I want to talk a little bit about Ada now.
00:31:31:00 - 00:31:40:14
Tracy
Ada, she is a fantastic lady, as you can see there. And she brings the party to here, to this, to this funnel.
00:31:40:15 - 00:31:42:13
Elnerine
And it's about this.
00:31:42:14 - 00:32:06:12
Tracy
Attention, interest, desire and action. So we have to get their attention. We want to spark their interest. That desire is key. From that interest. And then we get that action. And that's, as I said, what we are asking for another action is that purchase is that, sale. But it's also that action of yes, these guys are brilliant telling other people.
00:32:06:12 - 00:32:33:13
Tracy
So this action takes two forms. Yes, I want to buy it and yes, I will recommend it to somebody else. And the reason is since my consumer behavior a bit here, but it is really important, is that when we buy something, especially if it's value, but even if it's a if it's not significant value, we want to reinforce the fact that we make the right decision.
00:32:33:14 - 00:33:05:12
Tracy
So if we are willing to stand up and tell somebody else and say, I made the right decision, I bought this car, for example, and it was brilliant. We want to tell other people about it. And if and we would say, yes, go to this dealer guy, this car, this car was amazing. And then when that person that you value and and, and you and you like and you respect then goes and buys that car and equally enjoys that car as much as you that's, that's that's the epitome because they have taken your recommendation.
00:33:05:12 - 00:33:27:15
Tracy
They respect you so much. They've taken your recommendation and said, this is why this action is so important. Because we want people that believe in your product so much. They're willing to tell other people because that's what we really had it for. So getting that attention, interest, desire, action. And that's the reason I use Ada, because the funnel can get like, oh, is it this first?
00:33:27:15 - 00:33:45:12
Tracy
Is it wait, which one is it first? Is it am I supposed to be am I supposed to be evaluating it? Are they doing this yet? Or they do they intent. Whereas age is really easy to remember. Basically, when you're posting something on social media or anywhere in terms of your website, is it getting their attention? Will it spark interest?
00:33:45:12 - 00:34:11:00
Tracy
Does it correct their desire? And sometimes you will post something that actually is just about making people desire it, or just about making people take action. Sometimes we will be posting things that are just sparking people's interest. Sometimes we're just doing things to get the attention. So you see, this reverts back to where I said, we're giving people some information in some of our posts and in some of our posts, but asking them to take action.
00:34:11:00 - 00:34:32:08
Tracy
So have a look at your posts, or have a look at your website, and make sure there's an equal balance of all of those things. Don't just be saying by now. By now, you know that that's not the way forward. So, this is the social marketing sales funnel, which it was, gives it a little bit more in terms of numbers and things.
00:34:32:09 - 00:34:58:08
Tracy
And so we can sort of plot that a little bit further, for you, in terms of this is the way that you can measure those sorts of things. It's a useful slide for you in the, in the future. But again, at this stage, think about that idea first and then think about, okay, how I can measure and analogy is going to look a little bit more about how we measure it, in the future.
00:34:58:08 - 00:35:19:12
Tracy
So I'm not going to spend too much time on this. I'm going to move on to the customer journey a little bit more. So a simple way really, of that sales funnel without those KPIs is the pre-purchase purchase post-purchase. So it's again, it's that way of thinking about the Ada model in terms of, okay, what do people need to do in terms of pre-purchase?
00:35:19:12 - 00:35:45:05
Tracy
What do they need to find out in terms of before they purchase something? What what will they be interested in hearing pre-purchase? What about when they purchase? What do they need to do when they purchase? How do I make that easier for them? How do I sort of eliminate some of those worries or problems that they have? And then post-purchase, how can we encourage people to, to, to tell others about us?
00:35:45:05 - 00:36:12:02
Tracy
How can we actually encourage them to say, I've done this and this was brilliant, and we can do this in, different ways, so we can do this in terms of getting people to share their pictures. We can get people to, make comments about what they've found great about our products. Our advocates will absolutely be shouting from the rooftops to help you so those are the sorts of things that we can do in the customer journey.
00:36:12:02 - 00:36:25:08
Tracy
So think about our customer journeys and, and our Ada and that works in tandem. So a few tips and tricks for social media to get people to engage, as I said, is that we can do.
00:36:25:09 - 00:36:29:04
Elnerine
Polls, pictures.
00:36:29:05 - 00:36:56:13
Tracy
As I said previously, importantly, be authentic. When you are posting, be truthful, be authentic, be who you are. As, Noreen said in the beginning, have your personality always turn up as you don't try and be somebody different to you. You've just got to be you have the behind the scenes. That's people's love. See what's going on behind the scenes.
00:36:56:13 - 00:37:14:08
Tracy
They love a little bit more about you. They love to see about. This is why all these reality TV shows worked so well, because everyone likes a bit of behind the scenes. They like bit of stuff when it's going wrong a little bit and they like that. That helps them to form that personality about you. Frequently asked questions.
00:37:14:09 - 00:37:37:15
Tracy
Another one, you know, posting a frequently asked question. I often get asked how I, how I, I make my product tours. I often get asked, what my day looks like, or I often get asked, you know, how the service has helped or the people, whatever it might be. It gives a little bit of, an edge to the, the things that you're asking.
00:37:37:15 - 00:38:03:11
Tracy
It's also helps with algorithms in terms if you put that on your website because it phrases the question. And people often in Google don't just write, they, they often write, rooftops. They don't just write rooftops, they, they will write who can my who can do my roofing? Okay. So they won't just write with they will sort of say, who could do my roofing?
00:38:03:12 - 00:38:32:00
Tracy
So that's, a way in which we can also get those algorithms to work for us. And as I say, it is more personable for that. So a little bit more, asking a little bit more back into my consumer behavior. Aspect of things within digital marketing. But we have, two sides to our brain, and that's our rational side and our emotional side.
00:38:32:01 - 00:39:10:01
Tracy
And when we have studied this, this was done with sort of Facebook, and basically they wanted to boost the, virality of the posts and there was limited difference between the rational and the emotional side to things. But what they did find is that when post when posting emotional content, we that using the video format format will stimulate that active engagement from users.
00:39:10:01 - 00:39:40:03
Tracy
So when we use video, it's important that we have an emotional side to it rather than a rational side to it. So having that personality shine through is really important. And that leads to the comments, which we want, because the comments are very good and it shows that engagement, when we have rational things like photos, they're fantastic to give people ideas and some information that generally leads to likes.
00:39:40:05 - 00:39:54:09
Tracy
The reason we wrote comments is because number of comments increases comments and then increases the like. So that's why we like the emotional side of things.
00:39:54:11 - 00:39:57:07
Elnerine
The purpose then.
00:39:57:07 - 00:40:26:00
Tracy
Here is that we have this conceptual framework for relations between post cat triptychs and online engagement. So we think about this in terms of content type. Is it informative? Is it entertaining. Is there some remuneration in terms of the remuneration aspect of this is the fact that we might have a giveaway. So we this often means that we can get some positive reaction, mainly in terms of commenting.
00:40:26:00 - 00:40:51:05
Tracy
It's not necessarily engagement. But if you think about those posts where people say, comments on this with your friends, tag and you could be in the draw to receive a free set of saucepans, for example, this is a, a way of remuneration. So we can give away, we can get more, more followers. It's positive.
00:40:51:05 - 00:41:20:04
Tracy
It does build us a little bit so it can be used and people will generally comment with somebody that would be interested in that remuneration in that free giveaway. Because again, if they posted someone that wasn't interested in that, they're going to be fed up with their friend posting them in these, these comments that they're not interested. So again, you're going to get people that are genuinely going to be interested and in what you've got to say.
00:41:20:05 - 00:41:45:13
Tracy
Your media, as I said, is your whether it's photos, videos, our photos videos had the longest interaction, i.e. people are watching videos for longer, but they have a lower interactivity in terms of the fact that it's more passive. They're not having to think about it, so it's more passive. So there's going to be less in terms of, the, the interaction there.
00:41:45:13 - 00:42:18:05
Tracy
But these are interactivity. They're and the posting time we have work day, or not, during peak hours. This is from 2013. Again this is changed. So I think the engagement likes comment, share shares, interaction duration is just something to be aware of within you. When you are posting your your ideas. Okay. So.
00:42:18:07 - 00:42:53:02
Tracy
This is a nice little diagram because this allows you to think about different ways in which you can mix up your content. So we have the diagram there where it says emotional and rational. And obviously the more emotional post there, at the top. And in the end, the more rational things like the guides, trend reports at the bottom and then what you're trying to do, I trying to entertain them, in which case creating that awareness and being emotional and entertaining is in that one corner.
00:42:53:04 - 00:43:14:15
Tracy
Or are you trying to get them to purchase something in turn? So we might be having a rational purchase, which is a data sheet and price guide. So obviously that's very aimed at the sort of business, the business aspect of things there, or maybe something that's a bigger purchase. We will be trying to convince them. So we will provide rational, purchase and a purchase post there.
00:43:15:00 - 00:43:41:01
Tracy
So this little diagram is really, really useful for you to think about what you are doing and where you are moving people within that pre-purchase to purchase a transact. Buy your where you're where they are and how you're moving them gives you some ideas about what you might like to post. And you do. And we can do this with evergreen content.
00:43:41:03 - 00:44:06:14
Tracy
So this is the content that we think of as always relevant, which is what we were talking about in terms of what's on your website and what you can repurpose. We have the topical content. So that's the stuff that's breaking. As I said, you can put that to newspapers or put that out as a social media post. So if there's something topical, something breaking, we can we can use that within our post to highlight our services.
00:44:06:15 - 00:44:44:00
Tracy
We might have some planned or scheduled events. If you've got a big event coming up, if you've got a big launch coming up, that's that would be, different types of content. There are user generated content. I love user generated content. If we can repost somebody's comment about this, if we can have a testimonial about this and we can do that on LinkedIn, we can do that on Instagram, we can do that on our website, that having that user generated content, I don't know about you, but if I ever want to go to a restaurant or a hotel, the first thing I do is go on TripAdvisor and the first thing I do is
00:44:44:00 - 00:45:09:06
Tracy
go to the one star reviews. That's the first thing I do. I'm so bad. I'm saying party and that is the first thing I do, and that is user generated content. So if we can post the good comments on our website about what people have said about us, that helps, to reinforce the fact that people are making a good decision.
00:45:09:06 - 00:45:32:05
Tracy
They want to know that other people have made the same decision as us. We like to be in a park. We want to know that we have made the same decision as us. So responding to those questions, then, is another key thing. So if people have asked questions, another key thing about developer code is make sure we respond to people within our social media, even if it's negative.
00:45:32:05 - 00:45:57:13
Tracy
Let's try and make that positive. So if people do post unfortunately negative comments on any of our posts or anything like that, make sure we respond to it and try and spin it with it with a positive that I know that when, I do go on to these TripAdvisor reviews, that if the hotel or the restaurant has responded and said something along the lines of what we did offer you your money back at the time, this was an unforeseeable circumstance.
00:45:58:00 - 00:46:17:06
Tracy
Isn't or yes, that member of staff was disciplined for that sort of behavior or anything like that. That reassures me that they take these things seriously. And actually this was an isolated event, and it wasn't actually a, a no go thing where they just ignore it and you see review after review after review saying similar things. This is the issue.
00:46:17:06 - 00:46:41:09
Tracy
But, where you actually see it and that they responded to, you know, that they're making, some good, some good decisions that. So how do we create that great content? Well, there's quite a lot of help out there that can help us to give us ideas because I know that, it's difficult to think of those ideas.
00:46:41:10 - 00:47:11:12
Tracy
We can think about the algorithms, as I said, previously in the fact that social media have algorithms, prioritized content relevance over time. So making it crucial to create engaging and relevant content. So always make it interesting for others that isn't Ubersuggest tool. If you go to Ubersuggest, you can put your keyword in and that helps generate content because basically it analyzes the popular keywords related to that content and just gives you lots of ideas.
00:47:11:12 - 00:47:32:08
Tracy
And you don't need to pay for it. I think you get a few searches for free, and it's really interesting because you might put in cheese and then all this content that comes up, these keywords, searches that have come up, you go, oh, I've not thought of thought of that. So that helps. Content ideas report. So that's a tool that provides insight into popular blog posts.
00:47:32:09 - 00:48:00:05
Tracy
Based on share as backlinks and traffic. So again, that helps you create content which would which would help with that, it is suggest might help you to avoid those pieces of content that aren't performing that well either. Now, if your product or service is very, very niche, you won't be bothered about the fact that is not performing that well, because actually you're only appearing to a very small percentage of the population anyway.
00:48:00:07 - 00:48:26:02
Tracy
And actually because your product is so niche and it's possibly high value, then it's more business. Business, then you don't necessarily want it performing really well. You want it performing well in this phase. It needs to, it needs to perform. And so depending on what you're, selling or what you are providing, you need to think about the the poor content.
00:48:26:02 - 00:48:51:08
Tracy
Don't just think about performing. And oh it's got this many views. Also think about actually it's got only that many views. But they were clearly people that really wanted to see that content. And that's who we are after. And as I said before, repurposing content in terms of we can make, carousel posts and we can make these into videos, or we can create articles based on our social media posts from previously.
00:48:51:09 - 00:48:57:01
Tracy
So an activity.
00:48:57:02 - 00:49:24:04
Tracy
Is that you can, look at, your own pages, what type of content is missing? And you can use that and square and graph, to think about, what's, what's missing and what you could do in the future in order to increase your variety of posts and think about what's basically getting through that funnel, and think about that idea and what you are missing within those posts.
00:49:24:04 - 00:49:59:00
Tracy
So have a look at your own pages in your social media page, on your web page, and think about what's missing. Another key. Thing to use is a URL shortener, and I'm only going to touch on this briefly. Basically, URL shortener means that you can post your full, website, link, into only a few characters so it doesn't take up this whole line of text on your, social media post.
00:49:59:01 - 00:50:26:01
Tracy
And so this also means that you can track what is going on so you can track, actually, how many people have gone through your social media post, how many those have gone from there and gone on to your website. And that's what's the important thing there. So you can see how well your posts are doing. So if you put if you use a URL shortener, there's also one called cut Li, which I think you see, you see like and that works equally as well.
00:50:26:01 - 00:50:56:06
Tracy
And I think that has a few more options without paying. So, that's what's quite nice about cut like so the URL shortener as say why use that. It just helps to brand your links. Ideally so that when it's not just a random thing, you can actually brand your links, especially if you, pay for it. So it will say, whatever your, your, organization is, you can change it so that it's not just a random URL.
00:50:56:06 - 00:51:07:04
Tracy
You can track the performance you get the most out of your carrots limits. And as I say, there's a few alternatives there.
00:51:07:06 - 00:51:39:12
Elnerine
Right. Tracy, thank you so much. So I'm going to chat next a little bit about SEO and hashtags. So obviously when we talk about SEO, we talk about search engine optimization. And when we talk about SEM, we talk about search engine marketing. These are two related but distinct areas of focus within marketing. SEO is thinking about all of the ways in which we can make our website attractive and, acceptable to crawlers and algorithms.
00:51:39:13 - 00:52:13:06
Elnerine
And SEM is more or less always a paid for marketing endeavor. So ACM is, for example, using Google's AdWords to, boost your website to people within a specific geographic area. And whereas SEO is more about how your webpage and to some extent your social media is set up so that crawlers and algorithms will be able to find it and put it in front of the people that we wanted to, to come in front of.
00:52:13:07 - 00:52:50:12
Elnerine
Now there is a whole specialization area in marketing for SEO. It is a highly specialized field and many agencies focus only on SEO and PPC. Play paid for click advertisements. But when we think about what we can do as SEOs, as is SMEs for our SEO, there are a few things that we can do that are free and that really just links back to good, solid marketing, Tracy said earlier.
00:52:50:12 - 00:53:28:12
Elnerine
We shouldn't steer ourselves blind against against algorithms, eyes and crawlers, and I can't agree with that more. All of these mechanisms crawlers, AI, etc. is there to set up an experience that would be beneficial and, enjoyable to humans. So if you, in a manner of speaking, cut out the middleman and focus just on what will be the best for the people that I want to engage with this content, then you are pulling in the same direction as the crawlers and I would be pulling.
00:53:28:12 - 00:53:29:15
Tracy
In any way.
00:53:30:00 - 00:54:02:03
Elnerine
Both crawlers as well as I prioritize those things that we know consumers want to see from us. So that is what we should be focusing on. And perhaps the very first step in practical terms of what you should be doing for your SEO. HCM is having a look at your website. So what you have on your screen, there is a little exercise tick box.
00:54:02:04 - 00:54:29:07
Elnerine
Prompting model about if you go back now and look at your website, how does it fare on all of these components. That's the very first thing to do with SEO, because even if we've got the best keywords, if we've got the best content, if we don't have a website that is easy and enjoyable for people to be on, it wouldn't matter.
00:54:29:08 - 00:54:59:10
Elnerine
So you start right on the left hand side and you ask yourself, you do an audit on your website about learnability, how easy is it for first time users to accomplish basic tasks? So how easy is it for somebody who knows nothing about your website to go exactly where they need to be in three or less clicks? If I have to click 7 or 8 times to get to content as a user, I need you to think I am lost.
00:54:59:12 - 00:55:28:12
Elnerine
It shouldn't be a design function to make people think they're lost before they happen upon correct or interesting content. Secondly, think about the efficiency of your website for frequent users, how quickly can they perform their tasks? So if I have already engaged with your website, how quickly can I go again to where I need to be or skip a few steps if I already know the layout, memorability.
00:55:28:14 - 00:56:04:12
Elnerine
When users have been away for a while, how quickly can they regain their proficiency? How quickly can I know intuitively where to go again, errors, not errors, are the absolute guillotine of guillotine of SEO. How many errors do users make? How often and how easy is it to recover? So for example, if I am on a website and I've made one error and most users will excuse one error and one error only, can I quickly go back or does it give me a blank page that says resubmit form?
00:56:04:14 - 00:56:24:13
Elnerine
Nothing makes me click on faster. It's so for most users as well. If I click back, do I go very quickly back to the Google search that I did to get to your website, or do I stay on your site and can I engage further satisfaction? How pleasing! Pleasant is it for me to engage with your website?
00:56:24:13 - 00:56:50:10
Elnerine
Does your website give me lost box a sense of who you are and is that a pleasurable interaction? You have to infuse your website with the kind of personality that you want to uphold. When people come and visit you or engage with your products and services again, that brand personality has to run right throughout and it has to be a pleasurable brand personality.
00:56:50:11 - 00:57:19:01
Elnerine
Sometimes banks, for example, have a very strong personality, but it's almost unpleasantly and stoic because they want to have that utterly professional, facade that makes us trust them with their money. But it must still be pleasurable. It must still show some personality infused in that in everything that we do. So let's talk more specifically in more practical terms about SEO.
00:57:19:05 - 00:57:46:14
Elnerine
What should you be doing with your digital marketing to make sure that the SEO is absolutely where it should be? Now I call, the list my top ten on a shoestring budget because as SMEs, we we certainly don't have the budgets to get in agencies to do our SEO in a way that, really speaks to all of those nuanced aspects that I referred to earlier.
00:57:47:02 - 00:58:13:13
Elnerine
So what are the first ten things that I should be doing to get my SEO up to scratch? The first thing is using and registering your URL. So think a little bit about the URL that you are using, and think a little bit about what does it mean for your SEO. So we've got a few options when it comes to, the URLs for our organizations.
00:58:14:01 - 00:58:43:00
Elnerine
We've got exact match domains, partial match domains, and branded domains. So these domains are categorized on the basis of whether or not they make use of the keywords that we know people will search for when they try to engage with us, when they want to get to our content, our services, our organization, our product. So let's say I made a URL for today's session.
00:58:43:00 - 00:59:10:14
Elnerine
And today's session is all about applied marketing. If I use an exact match domain, I use only the keywords, the most important keywords that our consumers use. So I would have applied marketing.com. If I have a partial match domain, I would say something like my applied marketing or applying your marketing. It depends once again on the search phrase, not just the keywords.
00:59:10:15 - 00:59:46:12
Elnerine
As Tracy said, that people utilize when they search, or alternatively a branded domain. If you are an organization that people will search for by name or in your name is the whole clue about what you do as a business, then a branded domain certainly is also an option, but the first thing that callers look for is how much the key words phrases that people input into a search engine or input into a I program matches my URL.
00:59:46:13 - 01:00:22:02
Elnerine
It's almost the first level that is combed. Now, you can obviously register your domain name with any service provider that you are comfortable with. The most used one is GoDaddy, but please do take note and if needed, and I hate to say it, change if you have to. Your extension, make sure that you realize what the extensions of your URL means, because that gives clues to, crawlers and to I about what your business is all about.
01:00:22:02 - 01:00:47:10
Elnerine
A.com or echo.uk says that we are a commercial entity. Dot org says that we are an organization mostly not for profit. Dot net is a slightly older, extension that we are seeing coming back a little bit with insurgence now because we've got so many different things going on that a dot net indicates that it is a website and a website only.
01:00:47:10 - 01:01:19:00
Elnerine
And then of course, other more niche extensions like.across.uk. In that AC there stands for an academic institution. So think about that and think about how well they represent who you have as a client. Now we also have people like we cut lawns, which is fair enough. Amazing, amazing URL an amazing search ability there. But think about how your consumers would phrase terms.
01:01:19:00 - 01:01:48:09
Elnerine
They wouldn't say we cut lawns. They would say, who can cut my lawns? So it's about making sure that the content that you create has, of course, your consumers in mind need to. Descriptors and headings include primary keywords. So those keywords that you know people are looking for tourism Buxton or Bakery Buxton, whatever it may be, includes those primary keywords your headers and your subheadings, so your headings and your subheadings.
01:01:48:10 - 01:02:20:07
Elnerine
So let's say I work to create a landing page about landing pages. I would have the main heading as well as the subheading include that. This just makes it easier for crawlers. And now these days for the AI synopsis to really grab those don't forget synonyms. Google and I programs are geared towards this as well, so knowing what keywords to engage with is good old fashioned customer insights.
01:02:20:07 - 01:02:38:11
Elnerine
So talk to your customers. Do that little bit of research when they're through your door. And those customers that you know are very loyal and that you can ask these kinds of questions to what do they search? Or perhaps ask them what were the first things that they associated your brand with? When when do you, plan this?
01:02:38:13 - 01:03:06:15
Elnerine
Give yourself the edge with some tools that are available. For example, Google's Keyword Planner. That's a direct link that you can, click on if you have a look at the accompanying slides that we have. And Google's Keyword Planner, if you click on that, will give you an idea of the kinds of keywords that people search for when they engage with brands such as yourself, then, of course, map those keywords to content that you have in your on your website.
01:03:07:02 - 01:03:24:05
Elnerine
So don't just know what the keywords are so that people get to your page, but also know what the keywords are so that you can create content that corresponds to those keywords, not just so that crawlers pick them up, but so that people get the content that they wanted when they search for the thing that they searched for.
01:03:24:07 - 01:03:59:09
Elnerine
So here's a basic example of what that would look like. You would have a main keyword and then a secondary keyword, and then you would have those areas on your web page that speaks to that, and that mentions those keywords, so that you can keep up to date with them. Now, very importantly, please do remember that the algorithms, as well as crawlers and AI programs, increasingly prioritize those web pages that have both static and dynamic content, which means you page should not be perfectly designed and then just left.
01:03:59:11 - 01:04:36:08
Elnerine
Google then sees that as an outdated page that no one interacts with, even if you've got a lot of visitors to that page. So you need to renew the information on there continuously. That can be through, for example, blogs, which is a wonderful tool, but it can also be through videos to new images, etc. and of course you can recycle information as as Tracy said, get that evergreen content ready, get that planned content ready, executed at the appropriate time, and recycle it if if, it is appropriate to do so.
01:04:36:09 - 01:05:16:00
Elnerine
But make sure that your content does not stay static. They can be a proportion of static content of course they can be. Your contact page, for example, will always stay static unless you move. But there has to be new, enticing information going up as well. Always, always, always. Please make sure that you optimize your images slower. Loading times is a surefire way to ensure that your competitor, whose web page loads just that millisecond faster than yours, gets picked up by the algorithm, by, AI and by Google's crawlers above your own, or gets prioritized in that.
01:05:16:00 - 01:05:45:13
Elnerine
So the URL that I personally use and have been using for years with problem is tiny jpeg.com. You simply drag your images in there. It compresses your image exponentially without touching by any discerned margin your quality of that picture. But also, while we're on the point of optimized images for all of your images, please do make sure that you've got alternative text.
01:05:45:13 - 01:06:16:04
Elnerine
So here's me in my beautiful red gown. I would then have an alternative, text to that, because if I have Google's crawlers as well as I do the alt text on that itself, it would say lady in red robe, whereas I might want to have an alternative text of graduation robe. And that graduate version is again seen as content on my website that corresponds or potentially so to a keyword that people might search.
01:06:16:04 - 01:06:41:02
Elnerine
People won't search for Red robe, they'll search for graduation robe. So again, make sure that your images are detailed in their alternative text. It also means that we include more people, which is always what we want to do. By being a little bit more inclusive. For those with visual, we need a little bit more help with the visual, areas of our website.
01:06:41:03 - 01:07:09:01
Elnerine
Once you have mapped the keywords that are important and the content that you have for those keywords also continuously, not just once, but at least every quarter, do a content gap analysis, rethink your Swot analysis, rethink what people want from your web page. Rethink what people want from your digital marketing and see what gaps exist. Continuously create the mechanism by which you can fill those gaps.
01:07:09:04 - 01:07:43:02
Elnerine
It also brings that dynamic content to your web page, but also make sure that your, content that you are creating people for does not, misaligned with what they want in the here and now. Keep an eye on your metrics. We're going to, speak a little bit about that next. So I'm not going to go into too much detail, but please do make sure that you use, Google's metrics or make sure that you keep an eye on those as well.
01:07:43:04 - 01:07:51:02
Elnerine
YouTube maps and Wikipedia. These are the unsung heroes as far as I am concerned when it comes to.
01:07:51:02 - 01:07:52:03
Tracy
01:07:52:04 - 01:08:20:11
Elnerine
SEO, because Google's crawlers first and foremost are our number one way of getting up in SEO. We need to make sure in everything that we do that we include Google services and Google products on our websites, because Google quite simply prioritizes those higher. So if you have a contact page, make sure that that contact page has a Google map embedded into it.
01:08:20:13 - 01:08:49:10
Elnerine
Just that alone gives you a few points with the crawlers. Also, if you have a video not just for faster loading, but also for integration with crawlers, identification, upload that video to YouTube and embed that YouTube video onto your website. Don't include it. We call it don't do a naked embed, i.e. a embedding just off the video. Embed it through YouTube so that it streams.
01:08:49:10 - 01:09:10:06
Elnerine
It does not have to load, and so that YouTube gives you that little bit of a boost on SEO. And everybody who searches for your company on YouTube, of course, would then be able to direct to your webpage as well anyway. And if fit anything interesting about your organization, it's maybe his in a historical building.
01:09:10:08 - 01:09:12:09
Tracy
Or, you know.
01:09:12:09 - 01:09:52:00
Elnerine
Anything interesting that accompanies with it. Have a Wikipedia page dedicated to your, organization and make sure that that Wikipedia pages very first link that links back to your organization's web page. Because Google's crawlers and I sees Wikipedia as a independent web page that is highly ranked that backlinks to your page. So the moment that you can create those backlinks back to your page, Google's crawlers will say, well, there's important web pages that feel that this web page is important.
01:09:52:01 - 01:10:26:01
Elnerine
So it's almost a SEO by proxy. You, are ranked higher because you are affiliated with, in the eyes of the crawlers pages that are important. Now, it's very important for desktop, but it's even more important for mobile because obviously that is how most people will, get onto our web webpage is if they are in the area and if they type something in, Google will prioritize a maps view for them, and then they can search for our website by simply clicking on there.
01:10:26:01 - 01:10:55:00
Elnerine
And if you have not claimed your specific, Google Maps, and then you won't be able to claim the website. Also play nice with Google and include your operational hours, your telephone number and everything else, all of the contact information. Because if you play nice with Google, Google tends to play nice back. The last thing in terms of SEO that I want to talk about is CRM.
01:10:55:00 - 01:11:26:08
Elnerine
So search engine marketing now we've got both organic and paid search strategies. And SEO obviously deals with that organic people getting to our website because of the keywords that they input, because of the interest that they have. But ACM is just as important, and it has to do with paid search strategies. So according to the most recent HubSpot data, over 70% of people click on organic search results, and only 30% are likely to click on page search results.
01:11:26:08 - 01:11:50:04
Elnerine
And I am a culprit of this myself. If I google something, I don't click on the first three sponsored links. I click on the organic search. But even so, make if you are one of the web pages that usually features on page two or page three of Google, getting yourself sponsored and up there might still be important because 30% is much better than 0%, right?
01:11:50:05 - 01:12:14:00
Elnerine
So how to as it stands, Google AdWords website that is once again a live link that you can click on set your budget. This is the only thing that I really want to focus on because I personally burned my fingers with this. Please note that the budget is per day. That's not your monthly budget. I spent my whole credit card.
01:12:14:00 - 01:12:16:02
Tracy
Savings in one day once.
01:12:16:03 - 01:12:48:04
Elnerine
Right specified the geographic location. Choose a network. Choose your keywords, and set your bids so i.e. how much you can pay for specific keywords. So oftentimes keywords we want to go for the A1 premier keyword that Google's AdWords suggests for us it's important to rather focus on 3 or 4 good keywords. Then to blow our whole budget in trying to get the number one singular keyword.
01:12:48:04 - 01:13:10:03
Elnerine
If it is very expensive. It is also more important for us on AdWords to, to have our budget among the 3 or 4 that we know most people will utilize, rather than having 12 or 13 keywords that people never utilize. Then write your ad and quickly. A quick word about using AI to write your ads for you.
01:13:10:03 - 01:13:49:08
Elnerine
I would not recommend this at this time. Google does not like that very much. It does not see it as organic. It very quickly suss out that content which was written by AI, both for your ad as well as for your web page. And it seems to we don't have very, strong evidence at the moment, but a bit of an anecdotal evidence coming through that Google likes to see when people wrote something as opposed to when I wrote something so very closely, obviously linked to SEO and SEM is our final thing that we would like to get through today, which is web analytics.
01:13:49:09 - 01:14:24:14
Elnerine
So there's that old adage in, in marketing, if you can't measure it, you can't manage it. So we started off today session by talking about the importance of strategy, and we'll end off with the importance of measuring that strategy. So we bookended with those two important elements, if you will. If you know what your objectives are, create KPIs for your marketing, your digital marketing that measures how well you are reaching those objectives.
01:14:24:15 - 01:15:11:00
Elnerine
So the first thing is set KPIs. Inherently important in that is to create objectives that are measurable. So things like include website increase, website traffic or foot traffic by 20% by 2026, 26, 26. So obviously if we know we want a 20% increase by 2026, we know where we should be by the halfway point. Build in those KPIs and keep an eye on your analytics pages in social media, as well as in, on your web page to ensure that you truly are doing what you should be doing.
01:15:11:01 - 01:15:42:01
Elnerine
And I always say to my clients that at the beginning when we set our objectives, we also already set our KPIs for our analytics. And then we built in what I call handbrake points. So emergency brake points in that and emergency brake points are those points that we say, listen, what we are doing is obviously not working. It's not landing with the customers we wanted to land with and or it's not doing for us what we want it to do for us.
01:15:42:02 - 01:16:04:06
Elnerine
So then there's nothing wrong with pivoting your strategy after you've given it a good amount of time. It's quite a few months and it's still is not bringing any traffic to your website. It still is not showing any engagement on socials. It's still not getting people through the door so that I can sell my sandwiches or what it might be.
01:16:04:07 - 01:16:32:05
Elnerine
So keep an eye on your analytics. It is the most important thing to do as you review how well your strategy is working at monthly, six, monthly and yearly intervals. Now there are various, analytics that you would keep in mind for digital marketing and a little plug for the university, but also a little plug for our friends at the East Midlands Chamber.
01:16:32:06 - 01:16:57:10
Elnerine
There are, a whole session specifically dedicated to, measuring success within your digital marketing campaigns. And I would highly recommend having a look at those. The, chamber, for example, Tracy and I were there just a few weeks ago. Was it Tracy? Might be months go by now. It does something on, Google Analytics specifically geared towards that.
01:16:57:10 - 01:17:19:12
Elnerine
As I say, that's a whole day. So we wouldn't presume to do that for you today. But I did think to highlight just a few of the usual suspects with you so that you have a contextual sense of what you should be looking for when you think about your metrics. So the very first thing there is to think about your page views.
01:17:19:13 - 01:17:42:03
Elnerine
Now, page views is not just a number page views you should always think about. Yes, as I as is mentioned at the top left hand corner, the total number of page views per visit. But you should also interpret that with the idea of how attractive is my site for my customers. Our earlier graphic on this would come in handy there.
01:17:42:04 - 01:18:13:06
Elnerine
Also, look at how long people stay on the site and if they return. Now the element of attractiveness is not just how esthetically pleasing your site is, and it is about that first and foremost, of course, and it is also about how much personality you infused. But when you think about page views, also look at whether or not your customers see mainly or doing what they what you want them to do on your page.
01:18:13:07 - 01:18:45:13
Elnerine
So I'll give you an example. I used to consult for an organization that, sold front end loader. So big machinery, big plant and their site had a decent amount of page views, but people did not stay on the site as long as it would have taken them to read through the specs for the machinery that immediately told us people don't need to see the specs right at the beginning of their interaction on our website.
01:18:45:13 - 01:19:10:03
Elnerine
They obviously went staying long enough so long that it would take them to read through it. So it's not something that they're interested in. So we had the specifications for that, machine 3 or 4 clicks away and we prioritize closer to the first click. Those things that they did click on and those elements that they did return to later on.
01:19:10:05 - 01:19:32:12
Elnerine
Then click through rate just as important. So this can be judged how well your keywords and ads are working. How many people are clicking through to your web page from social media and from search engines? And it's a very basic percentage. It's not just the number of people clicking on your ads and the number of impressions that you have.
01:19:32:14 - 01:19:53:09
Elnerine
But very importantly, look at the cost per that clicks. So I said earlier, search engine marketing through Google AdWords, etc. is, a very good idea if you want to feature a little bit higher than you have in the past, but make sure that budget wise, what you are spending is bringing you in what you want it to bring in.
01:19:53:12 - 01:20:22:02
Elnerine
So what does it cost me? Basic return on investment metric as opposed to what am I getting out of this now? Many programs are really, really good in that you don't click and you don't pay until they've clicked through. But you can also burn your fingers a little bit by paying for very high ranking ad, and keywords when people are clicking through just as well on lower ranked keywords, the next thing to take a look at is bounce rate.
01:20:22:02 - 01:20:52:14
Elnerine
And our bounce rate is when people did not engage with your content, they were only on your website for three seconds or less, and or they did not click through to any other pages or any other content. See how fast people are bouncing off of your website and if they are bouncing really, really quickly, that means that they're first impression of what they see on your website is telling them, this is not the place where I want to be, so then change it.
01:20:52:15 - 01:21:34:07
Elnerine
Change the page where people always bounce off of, even if they do click through to other pages. So on screen you will see some general sort of, bounce rates. Landing pages always have the highest bounce rates, obviously, because they are the ones we click on first. But the more sure you can be that the page that they land on, whether that be your traditional landing page or a secondary page, is giving your consumer exactly what they need from you in order to do the thing that you want them to do, the better your bounce rate will be in, the better your engagement will be and the better it will be in terms of
01:21:34:07 - 01:22:01:14
Elnerine
interaction with your brand. So it's a basic percentage metric. Take a look at it. Make sure that it is not below industry standard as outlined likes. Of course, you always have to keep an eye on just to make sure that, you don't stay yourself blind against likes likes is what we call a vanity metric. So it is a good thing to take note of to make sure that you are putting out content that quite simply, people like.
01:22:01:15 - 01:22:30:04
Elnerine
But don't confuse it with engagement and don't necessarily confuse it with feed through the door and people doing what they should be doing. Ideally, then you would also have a holistic view of your dashboard. So this is not a real dashboard. It's a fictional dashboard. But you could get something in line of this when you, have a look at, at your, metrics from whatever service provider you use or even just Google.
01:22:30:05 - 01:22:55:09
Elnerine
But looking at your metrics holistically will give you the idea of the big picture of people engaging on your website. So, for example, you can see that this website that I have over here has a very high bounce rate. It has almost 68% of a bounce rate. Now, if I just looked at that on its own in isolation, I might say, oh, you know what?
01:22:55:09 - 01:23:22:08
Elnerine
It might be that my web landing pages aren't really esthetically pleasing or on showing people what they want to see, but actually looking at it in conjunction with the fact that and on average, each page takes five seconds to load compared. That might tell me why there is such a high bounce rate. And even more so I would see that in specific areas.
01:23:22:10 - 01:23:49:13
Elnerine
This example comes from Northern Africa. So Chad, the Africa and the country in Africa has the longest loading time. So people are in that region are interested in our, content. But unfortunately our content just takes so long to load that they absolutely can't engage with us. And then they bounce off. But good news for this organization comes in this little box.
01:23:49:14 - 01:24:20:05
Elnerine
So the top three average times on page is just over two minutes. Just about two minutes and just under two minutes. And these are all four blog posts. So I would go and look at that blog post that I have to see. How long does it take people to read? And if it takes people a roughly two minutes to read through that, I know that they are actually engaging with that blog and staying on the page long enough to read through it.
01:24:20:06 - 01:25:07:05
Elnerine
Now, if the, average time was for another, page that is not my blogs, then it might be that people aren't that interested in the blogs and they're not staying long enough to read through it. So those are my elements in terms of metrics. Just a quick word of thanks from both Tracy and myself for, sticking with us right to the end here, right before we make way for saying goodbye and all of the other elements, I'll hand over to Tracy to chat to us really quickly about the exciting opportunities at the University of Derby of, engaging with our students and with all of the other support mechanisms that we have for
01:25:07:05 - 01:25:08:07
Elnerine
SMEs in the Derbyshire.
01:25:08:07 - 01:25:37:15
Tracy
Area, thanks out in the rain. So we have a number of opportunities for organizations to engage with this. And we'll start with, you can engage directly with myself and Noreen and other members of our team. In terms of we often for modules that we run at the University of Derby, we run live briefs, so for their assignments, they actually run a live brief.
01:25:37:15 - 01:26:04:12
Tracy
Now, this can be creating a actual social media campaign for an organization. This can be creating a street tech plan for your organization. This can be, thinking about bringing a brand to, a brand's USP or an extension of the brand. So extending the brand, we have a number of things. The number of those live briefs going on at the moment, actually.
01:26:04:13 - 01:26:30:09
Tracy
So we are always welcome to work with new organizations. It gives the students such fantastic opportunity. And the organization gained some ideas, some content, some useful, full insights from us as well. So it's a two way thing, and we're very grateful for the opportunity to work for organizations because we are an applied university, which means that we want to shape our graduates.
01:26:30:09 - 01:27:09:12
Tracy
So that they go out into the industry ready for work. So that's one way in which you can engage, directly with us. The other way is through our internship and placement scheme. So we run internships each year. These are for 100 hours, and there is sometimes funding available for these internships. So this year they launched, I think it was 100 internships where there was funding available so that you didn't have to pay very much if, if anything, for the intern to work with you.
01:27:09:12 - 01:27:35:00
Tracy
The intern is obviously paid. It's for 100 hours. We help you with recruitment. So we organize and we launch them. We interview the students, and then we give them to you to interview, to decide which ones are most appropriate for you to use. We like for them to have an actual, project within that internship that they're not just there to, feed the photocopier or DSM finding.
01:27:35:00 - 01:28:00:10
Tracy
So they have an actual project because they are students that are ready to go into the world of industry. So there are students that are ready to work already. So that's why, we, we sort of insist on creating a project for them. So that's the internship aspect. And then we have placements where you will have a second year students between their second and third year, where they will work for you for the year.
01:28:00:10 - 01:28:20:12
Tracy
They get paid a wage, they do a whole year working with you, and then they return back to university. That part as part of that, they do the professional diploma, so they learn this Dylan skills, through the CMI and reflect on the skills that they are learning in terms of in the workplace organization and, being in, in business.
01:28:20:13 - 01:28:45:06
Tracy
But also they learn on the job, but also they bring their skills that they have learned previously and the knowledge that that previously and that sort of findings I've had. So that's another, way in which that we engage with employers. We also have good old fashioned, employment agency where if you, have a job that you're thinking of, advertising, we can do that for you.
01:28:45:07 - 01:29:03:13
Tracy
The Careers and Employment agency, they will help advise you and, helped create the advert for you. And we can then push that out to the students as well. We also have, things like Help to Grow, which is a government funded, initiative where some.
01:29:03:14 - 01:29:06:07
Elnerine
Of your.
01:29:06:08 - 01:29:32:03
Tracy
Employees or yourself, can go on a course. It's got a number of modules you can do. I think it's about one every couple of weeks. You come for, some of it's online, or you might come to a center for a half day and you will learn different parts of the business. So there'll be some on marketing, some on branding, some on, finance, some on the artistic side of things.
01:29:32:03 - 01:29:53:03
Tracy
So it's a, it's a course that helps you develop your business as well. Hence the title Help to Grow. It's a government initiative. And there is, support funding available for that as well. We also have quite a lot of other initiatives that go on throughout the year and, different times in the year as well, I think.
01:29:53:04 - 01:29:56:12
Tracy
Can you remember any more on the range? Have I missed any?
01:29:56:13 - 01:30:14:08
Elnerine
I think you've covered it all. But just also to say we don't drop off the face of the earth, when this presentation ends. So any time that you want to get in touch or you want to talk through your Swot analysis or any of the tasks that we've been talking about throughout today, please just get in touch.
01:30:14:09 - 01:30:41:14
Tracy
Since, as I hope you've enjoyed the presentation. So something that you can do after this presentation is you can definitely do the activity. Have a look at your pages, have a look at what else that you could develop. Have a look at it. See is there any other content that you can create. What are you missing within what you, deliver to your consumer in your web page and on your social media pages?
01:30:41:15 - 01:31:02:01
Tracy
And also, as I the main points that we have those analytics as well, that you can look at and start gathering information from them to create your own dashboard, even if that's just a mental dashboard. But if you, just start creating those, that will also help as to any other activities on the mean that we know.
01:31:02:01 - 01:31:03:14
Elnerine
None. So sort of formally.
01:31:04:00 - 01:31:29:14
Tracy
Yeah. So thank you very much for joining us today. I hope that you have found some useful information within, slides and presentation today. If you do have any further questions or want to contact us further, then please feel free to email us. At any point in time, we will be only too happy to receive any questions or queries from you in the future.
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