Blog
Blog to increase your sales
26th Jun 2015
For some, blogging is a way to jot down thoughts, for others it’s a way of engaging with an online community of like minded people, but for small and medium sized businesses a blog can mean the difference between cold leads and successful sales. It’s reported that businesses that own, maintain, and update a company blog regularly with fresh, relevant content boast 55 percent more website visitors on average, compared to businesses who don’t engage in content marketing. The big question is - how does blogging make such a significant difference?
Improved Visibility
Content marketing is closely related to brand awareness and online visibility, and this occurs through two means. The first is SEO, and ensuring that content is thought out and researched thoroughly to incorporate keywords and phrases that improve Google ranking. The second is indexing. Research shows that businesses with a blog have 434 percent more indexed pages than companies who don’t blog and, as you’ll know, the more indexed pages, the greater visibility and the more website traffic and leads you can expect.
Keep Them Coming Back for More
When businesses first started to budget specifically for marketing campaigns, there was one ultimate aim - to get customers in the door. Today, however, the concept of marketing has changed somewhat. Successful businesses today should be less concerned with getting customers in the door, and more focused on keeping them there. Known as ‘new marketing’, this concept is starting to be used by more and more small and medium sized businesses, and blogging is an excellent platform for doing so. By posting regularly, customers will keep coming back for more.
Insider Information & Insight
Your blog is a chance for you to show off your products and services in ways that a traditional product description doesn’t allow. It allows you to elaborate, to demonstrate benefits, and to get away from the technical side of specifications. It’s a chance for you to show customers why they can’t afford to miss out on a product or service, and to promote your company. According to the Custom Content Council, two thirds of customers cite a business blog as an aid in making purchase decisions.
Sense of Trust
Although buying online today is relatively safe, especially with the introduction of 3-D Secure technology which removes the need for businesses to store client data, there is still somewhat of a stigma attached to online shopping, to a point where customers are always looking for the most trustworthy businesses to deal with. Reports show that 82 percent of customers feel more positive about a company if they maintain an up-to-date blog, while 70 percent feel closer and more loyal to that company.
Business blogging is simple, but it’s important to get it right. Be sure to research keywords and phrases thoroughly to maximise visibility, and incorporate these into content so that the article flows and is readable, rather than forced. Ensure you post regularly and produce fresh, relevant content, and try to engage readers by encouraging feedback or discussion. For small and medium sized businesses, blogging could be what sets you apart from the competition.
Yazoomer.com is a leading online directory offering global promotion for small to medium sized businesses looking to strengthen their online presence. Sign up to Yazoomer today and take advantage of our introductory offer - get 3 months advertising for just £1. Our worldwide customers will be charged the same amount in their local currency, with no extra fees.
We would also welcome any feedback or comments that will help us improve our website. Please send to info@yazoomer.com. Your email address will not be disclosed to any third party or used for marketing purposes.
Search & Buy: New Twitter Features for Small Business
19th Jun 2015
2015 has seen Twitter introduce many changes that focus upon expanding their services for business users and highlighting the network as an essential online resource for business growth and development. Placing greater priority on searching, marketing, and buying, here are three new Twitter features that could prove to be advantageous for small businesses:
Simplified Searching
Twitter’s #discover tab has long been a source of frustration for small businesses who found their app clogged with follower activities, making it difficult to locate content beneficial to the industry. The good news for small to medium sized businesses is that the old #discover tab has now been replaced with tailored trends - a brand new feature that makes searching for relevant content easier than ever before. Displaying the hottest trends relevant to the industry, businesses can now effortlessly keep up-to-date with the latest happenings, allowing you remain current, consistent, and on the button.
Spotlight on Services
120 fps slow motion video was a major draw of the iPhone 5s, yet sharing these videos online was not only tricky to do, but also seen as a bit tacky. However, for businesses, ‘slow-mo’ can actually be one of the most beneficial marketing tools, allowing you to easily place a spotlight on the products or services you want to explicitly highlight and market to your customers. Twitter recently announced that it would be introducing a new feature than would enable businesses to upload slow motion videos at the correct playback speed, bringing this technique to the forefront of many campaigns.
In-Tweet Purchasing
At the end of 2014, Twitter started to test a new ‘click to buy’ feature that would make it quick, easy, and hassle-free for consumers to complete in-tweet purchases. We’re slowly beginning to see how this feature could benefit small businesses, with music and sporting event tickets becoming available ‘exclusively through Twitter’. While the buy button hasn’t yet been launched this side of the pond, it’s only a matter of time before British businesses will have access to this exciting new feature that’s expected to increase sales and profits, improve customer satisfaction, and boost online reputation.
Yazoomer.com is a leading online directory offering global promotion for small to medium sized businesses looking to strengthen their online presence. Sign up to Yazoomer today and take advantage of our introductory offer - get 3 months advertising for just £1. Our worldwide customers will be charged the same amount in their local currency, with no extra fees.
We would also welcome any feedback or comments that will help us improve our website. Please send to info@yazoomer.com. Your email address will not be disclosed to any third party or used for marketing purposes.
Facebook Skills For Small Businesses: Staying in Touch with Changing Rules
12th Jun 2015
Facebook is one of the most beneficial promotional tools for small to medium sized businesses, yet many businesses are using it in ways that don’t enable them to see the full benefits. Facebook imposes strict guidelines for businesses in order to protect users from unwanted content, and these guidelines are constantly changing in response to user feedback and marketing trends. It’s important to stay in touch with these changing rules, and learn vital Facebook skills to ensure your content is seen by the right demographic.
Don’t Over Sell
In November 2014, Facebook asked their users what they liked about their news feed, and what they didn’t. Not surprisingly, most users enjoyed posts from businesses they had ‘liked’, but hated ‘random’ promotional content. What Facebook discovered, however, was that much of this content wasn’t random at all. In fact, it had come from ‘liked’ businesses.
Quite simply, the content was too direct, too promotional, to (a) engage with users, and (b) be recognised as being shared by a ‘liked’ business. A major gripe was ‘posts that solely push people to buy a product’. As a result, in January 2015, Facebook introduced higher levels of content control to penalise businesses that post overly promotional content. According to Facebook, these businesses can ‘expect their organic distribution to fall significantly’.
Rethink Business Account Habits
Earlier in 2014, Facebook introduced changes to the news feed which meant that post distribution was either positively or negatively affected by user engagement. If a post was deemed to be successful, it would ultimately be distributed within wider circles. On the other hand, if a post failed to engage with users, it would disappear from news feeds. What was left unaffected by these changes, however, was sponsored advertising.
A common issue seen with business Facebook accounts is that too many businesses are using the social network in the same way they’d use it for their personal accounts. Facebook’s Vice President of Small Business, Dan Levy, states that businesses should view the platform as a ‘tool to help them grow their businesses, not a niche social solution to getting more reach’. Digital marketing, and social media marketing (SMM) in particular should be made a priority in any small business marketing strategy, and budgets should be reconsidered to allow for businesses to make the most of social media promotional tools such as paid advertising.
Yazoomer.com is a leading online directory offering global promotion for small to medium sized businesses looking to strengthen their online presence. Sign up to Yazoomer today and take advantage of our introductory offer - get 3 months advertising for just £1. Our worldwide customers will be charged the same amount in their local currency, with no extra fees.
We would also welcome any feedback or comments that will help us improve our website. Please send to info@yazoomer.com. Your email address will not be disclosed to any third party or used for marketing purposes.
How Well Do You Know Your Social Media Followers? Quality, Not Quantity!
10th Jun 2015
In terms of marketing, we tend to automatically value quantity over quality. After all, marketing is about promoting a business so that it’s visible to every target demographic, ultimately boosting sales and increasing profits - that’s what it all comes down to. However, is this really the right way to think about social media marketing, or is SMM a case where we should be placing greater importance on the quality of our followers, rather than the quantity?
‘Likes’ are Overrated
An interesting question we should be asking ourselves is whether a social media marketing campaign can be classified as successful or unsuccessful, based on the number of ‘likes’ it receives. Speaking from a logical standpoint, it would stand to reason that the more ‘likes’ a post receives, the more successful it has been - ultimately, it’s encouraged readers to take action. However, it’s not enough. Unless these readers share content with their friends or click through and convert, these ‘likes’ are largely pointless from a business perspective. Statistics show that 62 percent of social media users claim that social media does not influence purchasing decisions, suggesting that more than half of those ‘likes’ will come from users that have little or no intention of taking any further action.
Assessing Value
It’s important to remember that the number of followers your business has on social media has absolutely no association with any sort of measurable value, and that while you can’t necessarily connect quantity to revenue, you should be able to reasonably link sales to quality. Businesses should be specifically engaging with ‘influencers’ - those who are part of and regularly contribute to large, active online networks. Get to know who these influencers are, write engaging content aimed at this group specifically, and analyse the success of these posts.
Is social media marketing purely a numbers game? No, but that doesn’t mean that the numbers are completely useless. Greater follower counts can actually be persuasive in their own way, encouraging users to join what is already a community - most of us want to be ‘in the loop’ and a part of the crowd. Quantity isn’t something to be ignored but, it the case of SMM, quality continues to be a much more important factor for growing a successful business.
Yazoomer.com is a leading online directory offering global promotion for small to medium sized businesses looking to strengthen their online presence. Sign up to Yazoomer today and take advantage of our introductory offer - get 3 months advertising for just £1. Our worldwide customers will be charged the same amount in their local currency, with no extra fees.
We would also welcome any feedback or comments that will help us improve our website. Please send to info@yazoomer.com. Your email address will not be disclosed to any third party or used for marketing purposes.