April 9

Customer Acquisition Strategies

In this blog, I will be talking about creating a successful online customer acquisition strategy.

Customer acquisition strategy is a mix of media and engagement tools to gain a new customer through targeting them and reaching through online and offline journeys (Insight, 2017). This strategy is never ending circular loop which is aimed at getting a customer, keeping them and growing them simultaneously. Digital technology is changing and evolving at phenomenal speed and with that growing speed, customers taste, interest and preferences are changing at the same speed and so are ways of attracting and retaining them. so, what strategies are good for customer acquisition? let’s find out.

The first measure of success is to drive traffic to your website, which is still the ultimate goal. However, you also need to keep in mind that there are other forms of interactive marketing. Most common mistakes made by everyone is using tons of measure to generate traffic, this leads to a substantial number of data which has very little meaning on its own. Don’t get me wrong, traffic coming to your website is good, it’s the step after that. Let’s say you’ve landed on a webpage, what’s next? The next step is conversion, also known as a marketing method. “conversion marketing refers to tactics that encourage customers to take a specific action, “converting” a person browsing your website into a purchaser of your product or service” (Kirkpatrick, 2012). However, conversion is not just about converting a person into a purchaser, although it is the ultimate conversion, getting a person to open an email is a conversion. Getting a person to register on your landing page is a conversion. In another word, anyone that acts upon a marketing message. So, to ensure this works, your website needs to be more than just an online brochure with lots of information. Rather it needs to understand what your prospects are looking for and help them get it quickly, easily and in a remarkable way (Liberman, 2016 ).

We live in an amazing time where there is data available on virtually anything you can think about. However, these data on its own has very little meaning. So, to form a picture from these data, it needs to be applied into a context. Business and organisation collect a huge amount of data on a daily basis but fail to utilise the data towards their advantage. First thing every business needs to do is get to know themselves, such as their USP, target audience, business value, marketplace, and competitors. Once you have established this, data that you have gathered can be converted to make customer profile. And over time this information will reveal more about your customer i.e. their behaviour, demographics, preferences, traits etc. This allows you to understand your customer and will be able to communicate with them more effectively. Whilst this step may not be the perfect way of acquiring the customers, it certainly speaks volume for your brand. As Steve Jobs once said, don’t advertise your products and compare it with others, instead advertise what your company stands for and its core value. Nike is one of the best examples, they sell shoe! And yet when you think about the company, it’s more than just a shoe company. Hence the reason they don’t advertise the product, they advertise the athletes and the athletic. This is because that’s who they are.

Lastly, we come to social media, the global platform for market influencers. Since more than half of world’s population use social media, it would be foolish to not use it, especially when its free of cost. While businesses and organisation understand the importance of social media, very few know how to combine aspects of social media to get the maximum output. It’s all about right content in right channels. Depending on your target audience, you should create a specific ad campaign that is tailored to your specific audience. Once this is done, you should publish that ad campaign on a specific social media channel where your target audience is active on through paid promotion and general posts. Ontario’s Highlands Tourism Organisation was one of the organisations who were able to use the technique which resulted in 168% increase in their Instagram followers and 18% on their Facebook (Thach, 2016). The huge increase in Instagram was due to their content being targeted towards millennial who are usually active on Instagram more than Facebook.

Depending on your business and target audience, social media channels for you can be completely different. And in those channels, customers use different keywords to describe your product and service. So, it’s essential to be aware of these keywords and train your social media team to look out for these terms. If your business sells a video editing software, customer use question such as “anyone who knows a good video editing software” or “what’s the best video editing software” whilst these questions do not directly use the band name but someone from your social media team needs to be aware of this kind of conversation on social media where lots of people don’t usually mention brand names.

 

References

Chaffey, D. (2018, February 20). Which is the best online acquisition channel? Retrieved from Smartinsights: https://www.smartinsights.com/digital-marketing-strategy/customer-acquisition-strategy/retail-acquisition-channel/

Insight, S. (2017). Customer acquisition strategy. Retrieved from Smart Insight: https://www.smartinsights.com/digital-marketing-strategy/customer-acquisition-strategy/

Kirkpatrick, D. (2012, Match 15). Marketing 101: What is a conversion? Retrieved from Marketing Sherpa: https://sherpablog.marketingsherpa.com/marketing/conversion-defined/

Liberman, M. (2016, October 11). HOW TO INCREASE CONVERSION RATES BY APPLYING INBOUND MARKETING OFFERS ON YOUR WEBSITE. Retrieved from Square2Marketing: https://www.square2marketing.com/blog/how-to-increase-conversion-rates-by-applying-inbound-marketing-offers-on-your-website

Michael G. Allen, A. R. (1990). The Key to Successful Acquisitions. Strategic Management Journal, 14-24.

Quigley, A. (2016). A simple guide to creating a successful online customer acquisition strategy. Retrieved from digitalmarketinginstitue: https://digitalmarketinginstitute.com/the-insider/2016-08-03-a-simple-guide-to-creating-a-successful-customer-acquisition-str

 

 

 

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January 7

Effective Instagram Marketing.

Since the dawn of the internet, marketing techniques used by business has evolved with time. We live in the era where you can buy anything from anywhere in the world with a click of the finger. So, it is fair to say that internet has changed the way of digital marketing from the conventional method of one-way communication to the consumer via TV and Radio. Since the rise of social media, we are seeing a revolution in how brands are engaging with their consumer via different social media platform to gather data on likes, preferences, age, location, popular trends etc for them to run an effective marketing campaign for their product or service. 
With monthly active users of over 700 million people on Instagram and rising and among them, there are more than 25 million business profiles. As of March 2017, 80 percent of Instagram’s users followed a business and 200 million Instagrammers visited a business profile every day in November (Statista, 2017). With astounding figures like that business needs to be up to date on latest trends to have the advantage over its competitors.

So, here are few tips on how to use Instagram effectively

  • Using the right Hashtag and Trends
    Instagram’s explore page shows contents that’s trending and popular. So, as a business, exploring this page gives you information on latest hashtag which can be free traffic for your brand depending on its relevance to your post.
  • Making effective use of the Bio
    One of the unique aspects of the Instagram is 150 words bio that allows you to express your brand where you can have 1 web link which can be linked to your blog, landing page, sales etc. Instead of writing a long bio, separate your text using bullet points and emoji.
  • Combination of Pictures and Video
    As a marketer, you can use videos for visual storytelling which can be used to improve their online reputation and increase consumer engagement.  After all, according to Instagram, videos are 3-5x more likely to be shared than an actual picture. So, having some creative videos can gain more followers for the business by simply sharing with their audience.
  • Sponsored post and Product Review
    To make a significant impact, you need to post your product picture to other lager accounts with more follower’s than yours so you can expose your brand to a larger audience. This can be done by searching them with keyword closely relating to your post. By doing so you will discover top Instagram account with those keywords and if they have an email account in the profile they are open to sponsoring for a small amount of fee.  Another method can be a review of a product where they can send their product to get reviewed by the account owners like tech companies do when they send their product to get reviewed before it’s launched.
  • Consumer Engagement
    As a business trying to reach out to many consumers as possible, engaging with a consumer via comments, like, follow and direct message is key to growing your followers. This also can be done by engaging with your closest competitor’s followers by liking their picture or even leaving a comment resulting in you gaining more followers.
  • Live Video Feed
    Business can use this live streaming tool which promotes and gets consumers engagement, especially with new features, which sends notification about your live feed to your followers. Due to ease of technology, this can be done from anywhere in the world by using your mobile phone. Business can use this tool while launching a new product or service to give their audience first-hand view of the products whilst building a trustworthy relationship with its consumers.

As shown in the figure, the number of business and independent advertisers on Instagram is growing at an astounding amount. So, failing to use these platforms can be disadvantageous to the business organizations.

 

Disadvantages

Like every other platform, Instagram has its pros and cons as well. As stated by (BURKE, 2016)With Instagram’s new algorithm, which supposedly has more advantage and benefits towards large brands and companies who can invest more money into their digital campaigning to get more seen on Instagram. This puts small and local business, who don’t post often or recently started using the platform puts them in a struggle with new integration of business accounts.

“Although this is a profitable move at a good time for the app, anyone looking to make a splash on Instagram with just talent, a good product, and a developed image will have a hard time without fully adopting paid social” (BURKE, 2016)

 

 

Bibliography

BURKE, K. (2016, August 31). Instagram for Business: Pros and Cons of Instagram’s Changing Platform. Retrieved December 25, 2017, from https://cypressnorth.com: https://cypressnorth.com/social-media-advertising/instagram-for-business/

Gerber, R. (2016, May 4). Rise Of Social Media Takes Toll On Traditional Advertising. Retrieved December 25, 2017, from https://www.forbes.com/: https://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspeculations/2016/05/04/rise-of-social-media-takes-toll-on-traditional-advertising/#a11a75f6a4a8

Marketer, R. (Director). (2016). 10 Instagram Marketing Tips To Use For Business! [Motion Picture].

Osman, M. (2017, August 02). 18 Instagram Stats Every Marketer Should Know for 2017. Retrieved December 25, 2017, from https://sproutsocial.com: https://sproutsocial.com/insights/instagram-stats/

Shopify (Director). (2014). How to use Instagram for Business: How to Build an Audience of Followers for Your Business [Motion Picture].

Statista. (2017, December 5). Brands Are Flocking to Instagram. Retrieved January 5, 2018, from https://www.statista.com: https://www.statista.com/chart/12129/business-profiles-and-advertisers-on-instagram/

 

 

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December 1

SEO, Audit and Social Media Marketing Explained!!

Over the recent years, technology has changed the way we do our daily chores on day to day basis. Soon as you wake up, whether it be half sleep, one eye open or whatever state we wake up from, the first thing that pops into your head is, where’s my phone? So, its very clear that our lives circle around technology whether it be banking, shopping and many more. However, these online services are always aiming for more costumer and traffic into their website by using various online tools. I will briefly go over few of them.

So, let’s just get straight into it.

Search Engine Optimisation

So, what is SEO – it stands for Search Engine Optimisation, “SEO is the simple activity of ensuring a website can be found in search engines for words and phrases relevant to what the site is offering”. (Fishkin, 2015) SEO is a marketing strategy focused on growing visibility in search engine results. SEO incorporates both the technical and creative foundations required to improve rankings, drive traffic, and increase awareness in search engines.

Who uses SEO – SEO is used by every business and organisation in order raise awareness and increase traffic to their website. This helps your website rank higher than millions of other websites by focusing on the keywords that are typed into the search engine. Whilst SEO is not Internet Marketing, but it can be your arsenal in your overall Internet Marketing Campaign by using things like social media marketing and promoting.

“But I also believe that SEO is not the only game in town! SEO alone cannot help you reach your highest marketing potential. Social media, branding and other marketing strategies segue into and complement SEO, the combination strengthening and reinforcing each element to grow your business exponentially faster” (Chris, 2016)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tqg3F-8jBec

Social Media Marketing

What is Social Media Marketing- Social media marketing (SMM) is a form of Internet marketing that utilizes social networking websites as a marketing tool. The goal of SMM is to produce content that users will share with their social network to help a company increase brand exposure and broaden customer reach. (Target, 2011)

This is one of the best ways majority of the business do their marketing, with growing technology advancement and its consumption in the current market, it is fair to say that over 90% people use social media as a form of interaction. Through this platform, business and organisation can target their audience by advertising about their business or organisation as well as get direct feedback from customers and potential customers. some of the more common website such as Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and YouTube.(AMA, 2016)

Some of the brands that were very successful by utilising these forms of marketing are online fashion retails brand such as Asos, Boohoo, and Misguided etc. who don’t have highstreets shops and purely operate via a virtual store. This is also a business strategy of reducing cost by not having multiple stores and instead just having a massive warehouse where they operate from.

Here’s an example of Asos using Instagram for brand exposure.

Asos Instagram Page

Asos, 2017

 Digital Marketing Audit

Audit a study of your brand’s digital presence whether it be on its own and in relation to your competitor set across six key areas: Reach, Architecture, Content, Conversion, Integration, and Measurement.( Mark Smiciklas, 2011)

©Mark Smiciklas, 2011

6 Component of Successful Audit

  • Reach – utilising tools that enable you to measure your branding in comparison to other brands/competitors. This is done by showing your presence in social media which is relevant to your organisation and measure potential reach via likes, followers, and subscribers etc.
  • Architecture- This is all to do with your functionality, structure and channel design etc. Making sure information, tags, description are correctly presented to make the user interface very friendly and simple to navigate.
  • Content- This is where you choose carefully what types of content you would want in your website or channel such as text, video, pictures, audio etc.
  • Conversion- this is where your digital channels are designed with conversion in mind. These include feedback form or a review etc.
  • Integration- This is where you make your social media sites accessible form your websites and crosslink it with all the other social media.
  • Measurement- This is where you look back at your objectives and analyse the performance, influence, and engagement it had.  (Mark Smiciklas, 2011)

Whilst what I have written may be vague and generic, I have tried my best to simplify these technological terms so, anyone that is looking to open a new business, or even reach out to more customers are able to utilise tools such as SEO, Auditing, and Social Media Marketing to create brand exposure. These are some of the basic tools that most organisation use on day to day basis to compete with its competitors. By doing so you will be able to raise awareness whether it be a cause for an organisation or new product from a business.

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October 18

Argos using analytics to understand new digital concept

To understand public’s perception, Argos has been using analytics to improve and understand their new digital concept. This enables them recognise consumers behaviour by analysing data received from various social media sites based on the demographics and location. By doing so they are able to assess the performance of each store and identify rooms for improvement. Since the launch of the digital stores, social media has played a crucial roles in providing real time feed on the customer’s satisfaction and their digital experience. All of these are possible due to brandwatch analytics which segments data then categorises them for each of its 53 digital stores incorporating location data with other criteria, such as the names of shopping centres and streets.

This study was conducted to understand how customer would react to the changing look and feel of the familiar Argos store surroundings and whether they would embrace it or oppose it?

Argos wanted to embrace and act on this, so they’d turn to their social media sites to embrace and act on the valuable feedback provided by individuals based on their sex, demographic, region, location of the shop and personal interest. By using Brandwatch analytics platform they were able to answer all of these questions, providing invaluable information for Argos to start to better understand who their customers were, what they were saying and why.

 

Key Findings

  • Understood consumer sentiment toward new digital stores and which stores were perceived more favourably and in which areas
  • Got closer to the individuals behind the discussion by uncovering insightful demographics
  • Quickly identified issues in-store, actioned feedback and found resolutions to increase customer satisfaction
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