by Marianna Muscat | Dec 28, 2016 | Online Marketing
Small and large businesses alike want to harness the true potential of their online marketing opportunities. All too often, mobile marketing is forgotten about. Advertising online can produce phenomenal results but even better results can be obtained if they’re optimized for mobile use. If you think about it, the clear majority of the population uses a smartphone to browse the internet – it is obvious you need to cater to this very type of customer.
Below are a few top tips to ensure that you don’t lose out on leads and conversions just because your online campaign hasn’t been optimized for mobile users:
- Ensure that you have a responsive website design. This isn’t as complicated as it sounds! You just need to ensure that someone on a smartphone can view your website correctly and complete a sale quickly and easily without running into glitches.
- If emails form part of your mobile marketing campaign, make sure that they’re quick and easy to read. Remember that your mobile consumer is using their data to download emails and content: images and videos are great but try to ensure that they won’t be too heavy or cost a fortune to view or download. Cater to the customer without it costing them too much.
- Include a mobile friendly checkout process. Nothing can be more frustrating than adding items to your online cart and finding it difficult to pay. Ensure that there is a mobile version of your payment system and make it obvious and available to all smartphone users.
- Offer your mobile users incentives for completing purchases on their mobile phones. Whether it’s a loyalty / rewards program or discounts for new mobile users / registrants, it works. Customers that feel rewarded will shop more and share more socially with others.
Of course, a mobile marketing campaign is not something that can be done once off. It’s something that requires time, attention and ongoing input. If you don’t have the know-how or the time, you can cost-effectively entrust the service to a professional online marketing firm.
Professional and effective mobile marketing services offered by WSI OMS
At WSI OMS we are dedicated to ensuring that every mobile marketing campaign we work on is well thought out to target the specific audience catered to. We have been involved in many successful mobile-friendly campaigns and look forward to assisting you further. For more information and advice, simply contact us via email or telephone at WSI OMS today.
by Marelise da Silva | Dec 1, 2016 | Online Marketing
When last did you refer to the telephone book? Online marketing has taken over. Recent statistics show that by the end of 2015, South Africa had just under 25 million internet users. This increase in internet use also means an upsurge in both online marketing and e-commerce.
Whether your online marketing is aimed at expanding brand awareness, developing leads, or increasing sales, there are various parts of the whole that need to be addressed for a successful online marketing strategy:
Website
Website design is a critical element of online marketing. Your site needs to be attractive and appealing, easy to navigate, representative of your brans, quick to download, and mobile friendly.
Paid Advertising
Incorporating pay-per-click advertising into your online marketing strategy is a good way to target people actively searching for what you offer. Together with the other aspects of your campaign, it also leads to an improved organic presence.
Nit-pick
Insight into your marketing campaigns as well as your target audience is invaluable. Using data analysis tools to measure performance and track customers leads to optimised campaigns. From analysing your website’s performance to the different social media posts, monitor with the numbers.
Search Engine Optimization
SEO is the best way to get noticed online. Strategic inclusion of relevant keywords on your website pages is one of the ways to improve your website optimisation. Not only does this help to get your website ranked higher by search engines, but it can also bring down the cost of your paid advertising through a better quality score.
Content
More than just written copy, content marketing in the online arena includes sharing compelling information with you audience through infographics, infomercials, videos, and podcasts too.
For more information on how we can assist you with all of the above, get in touch with leading global Internet marketing franchise.
by Marelise da Silva | Nov 10, 2016 | Online Marketing
Don’t be fooled into thinking that this social platform is just a bunch of silly kids putting goofy filters onto photographs. Snapchat has over 100 million daily users who use that app for an average of 30 minutes per day. 9000 snaps are shared per second on this app and 8 billion videos are viewed daily. What an opportunity to expand your brand with Snapchat.
The beauty of this platform is that it is more targeted than the other platforms with this many users: 70% of Snapchat users are female. This creates many opportunities for marketing niche products that interest women without wasting ad-spend on a disinterested audience.
Interestingly, the top country for Snapchat usage is Ireland. This is based on percentage of use by online adults in each market.
So how can we use Snapchat to promote our business?
- Access Live Events: Get your audience excited by sharing live product launches, trade shows, exciting events and competitions. Your audience across the globe will feel like they are part of it because of the authentic view you’re providing.
- Deliver Bespoke Content: Engage the audience by creating unique content for Snapchat users that they won’t see anywhere else.
- Snapchat only competitions: Keep your followers enthralled with promotions, discount vouchers, competitions, etc. specifically for Snapchat users.
- Behind-the-scenes: Take your audience where access is usually denied. Perhaps show them a part of a production process or take them to a VIP launch or even company outings. Show off your company and your people having fun and your audience will feel involved. Think reality television.
- Team-up with Snapchat Influencers. By partnering with digital influencers who already have a big following and are skilled with the platform, you can tap into their following and enhance yours.
So, put your Snapchat username in your bio on other social platforms and get started.
In the dynamic space of the online marketing, change is the only constant. For assistance on how to expand your brand with Snapchat and more, get in touch with leading global Internet marketing franchise.
by Francois Muscat | Sep 12, 2016 | Online Marketing
One of the problems with running a successful paid online advertising campaign is that there are so many things to do and so many things to focus on. We’ve narrowed down the 5 most common AdWords mistakes that can be avoided so that you have a better chance of running a profitable PPC campaign:
Not checking your keyword search terms
When you start choosing the keywords that you will be bidding on, make sure that you also check which keyword phrases that will lead to your ads showing up. You might be surprised how many people disregard these lists, leading their ads to be displayed for irrelevant search queries.
Not using negative keywords
Negative keywords are used to tell Google that your ads shouldn’t be displayed if certain unrelated or irrelevant keywords are typed into the search engine. This is very important because it can help you prevent wasted ad spend.
Not sending people to a high quality landing page
The landing page that you send people to needs to have relevant keywords, content and a clear call to action. You should never be sending people to the home page of your website. People who click on your ads should either be going to a customized landing page or a specific product, category or services page in order to increase your conversion rate.
Not testing your ad copy
This is one of the most important mistakes to avoid because the PPC ad copy is what’s going to entice search engine users to click on your ad. You need good ad copy to draw people to your landing page as well as to filter out people who aren’t your ideal customer.
Knowing which strategies work well for you
Not every business is suited for Google AdWords. There are many paid online platforms and while the most popular ones are Google AdWords and Facebook, there are many other niche platforms that might be better suited for your brand.
The abovementioned mistakes won’t suddenly make you thousands of Rands, but it can help you save quite a bit of money in the long run. If you need help with your paid online advertising campaign, contact WSI OMS today.
by Marianna Muscat | Jul 12, 2016 | Content Marketing, Copywriting, Online Marketing
There’s a wealth of information out there for small businesses and marketers on how to optimise their landing pages to improve conversion rates. Sadly, you can’t trust everything you read online, so bad information could lead to bad decisions which ultimately are to the detriment of your business.
Here are three of the most common misconceptions about landing pages:
- Low conversion rates = problems with your landing page
You can improve your conversion rates without touching your landing page – looking at your target audience is a good place to start. If you are targeting the wrong people, nothing will make them convert. Look at your keywords and focus on high commercial intent keywords that have strong buying signals. Refine your location targeting options, by using geotargeting, but be careful not to set too large an area. For businesses handling a lot of mobile traffic, try using Call-Only ads – a format where the visitor clicks a single button and calls your business directly from an advertisement. Skipping the landing page stage altogether can have a big impact on your conversion rate.
- A/B testing on your landing site is the ultimate optimisation
It’s easy to become obsessed with tiny details in the quest to perfect your landing page, but you could just be wasting a lot of valuable time. Typically, in a conversion rates A/B test, the performance of the control and the variant level out over time. Rather than focusing on small design detail, try doing something bold, giving your prospects something they want, like a special offer or discount. At the same time, consider your sign-up flow – asking for user data early in the buying process can be off-putting, so ask users to sign up at the end, or offer a more flexible sign-up process.
- The landing page is the last opportunity to get visitors to convert
In today’s always-on, multi-device environment, people rarely go through a funnel from your landing page. To capture more conversions, you need to think about remarketing – where your message ‘follows’ a prospect around the web, keeping your brand or product top of mind, allowing the user to convert when they’re ready. Social media is perfect for remarketing, as the visual nature of ads on Facebook are very effective.
There’s a lot more to conversion rates than a landing page. Although your landing page optimisation is important, it could be the rest of your process that needs adjusting. For more on social selling and optimisation of your site, contact us today!
by Francois Muscat | Jul 11, 2016 | Digital Media Marketing, Online Marketing, Online Reputation Management
Knowledge is power
To benchmark is to “evaluate (something) by comparison with a standard”. It does not mean to copy or plagiarize or pirate. So rest assured that when our experts suggest you look to your competitors as part of your digital marketing strategy, we are not suggesting you do any such thing.
However, there is no one who understands the ins and outs of your industry quite like your competitors. They may be your rivals, but they can also be your allies. Knowing how you compare with them assists you to evolve your digital marketing campaigns and to outline your medium to long term strategy.
Through the looking glass
When potential customers are doing their online research, they often look at you and your competition side by side. Putting yourself in your customers’ shoes provides awareness on where you can improve.
Innovation
Having a thorough look at the digital marketing efforts of your competitors can encourage you to try new methods related to content, design, or the brand communications used.
Today, 80% of online content is user-generated, which means that consumers are now collaborators in the marketing mix. And there is no reason to limit this alliance to only your clients and prospects. Conversations in which your competitors’ clients are engaged are equally applicable to your business, and can give you insights which you may not have gleaned from your own exchanges.
Questions frequently asked of your opposition are a valuable source of content and engagement when combined with your unique slant on the issues.
At the end of the day, your fiercest rivals have an integral role in holding you to a higher standard and pushing you to your limits. When the rivalry is mutual, your entire industry benefits and profits.
To find out more about how WSI OMS can inspire you, please contact us today.
