May 2018 | MarketingFile

Keep Your Brand Consistent on Social Media

Whether you’re a fan of it or not, truth is, you can’t cast social media aside in 2018. As its role increases in homes and offices across the country, many prospects will search for your business on social platforms first. If you don’t appear, there’s a good chance you just lost a sale.

Whilst splashing it out here there and everywhere may seem like a valid solution, it’s not. Remember how we showed you what your brand says about you? Well social media is no different. Whilst it’s great to get the word out, keep it simple and stick within your companies means. We look at some of the best ways to keep brand continuity online;

Design & Graphics

Let’s be honest we all take in the visuals. We are naturally drawn to pages that appeal to us aesthetically. Although each social media channel is different and your message should vary, you should aim to use your brand logos, style and overall layout for continuity. Whether it’s your profile photo, cover image, branded videos or colour and layout – all of these elements should be coupled to tell the same story.

Think of it as your brand personality. It can be a great way to engage prospects and get them excited to be involved. Cohesion is the key word here.

Your Message

Conflicting messages will only achieve confusion and harm your brand. Look to use a similar writing style and message. At the same time, don’t bombard readers with the same message over and over. Look to keep the pace varied; Facebook and Twitter users are two very different entities.

Whether it be a formal format or a loose and fun approach, this should be visible across all streams. Focus on tone of voice and keep your language consistent. If you’re going to bamboozle people with your jargon, make sure you do that everywhere and match it on your website.

Remember, followers do not like being advertised to constantly. Get creative, social media is much more than a promotional stream.

Share

No one like a show off. Whilst it’s great to demonstrate what you can do, only doing so becomes laborious and boring for your followers. Mix it up by sharing posts from people you follow. Be it funny, interesting or informative content, share away to lighten your page and show you’re more about engagement than sales (even if that’s your ultimate goal).

Don’t go sharing willy nilly. Remember your brand goals? Any posts you share should also tie into them. For example, as a personal trainer sharing links to other fitness videos or workout plans can really spike your interest. Sharing cute pictures of dogs… Probably not as much.

Consistent Signals

There are lots of platforms available to help you keep your brand consistent. Why not try Hootsuite? You can further strengthen your brand message by linking your presence across multiple channels.

This is a great way to utilise high reviews on a related platform as well as building your reputation.

Barracudas choose Everything DM to create acquisition campaigns for 40+ summer childcare camps

Marketing agency Everything DM is working with leading children’s activity provider, Barracudas, to create data driven marketing ahead of their 2018 summer day camps.

Dotted around the south east, the 43 camps offer families high quality, action packed, fun holiday childcare.

Barracudas chose to work with EDM in an acquisition and social media targeting capacity. Instead of supplying prospect data, EDM is profile-matching Barracudas’ customer demographic to identify a large pool of prospects for monthly direct marketing campaigns. Targeted social media advertising is also helping drive website enquiries and sales.

Barracudas says “The summer term is a crucial time for holiday childcare providers to reach out to families with compelling offers and we think EDM have the data capabilities to maximise our marketing ROI.”

“Barracudas already has a great website and engaged social media following which will help convert enquirers and prospects” says Laura Moore of EDM.

How To Design A Great Landing Page

Looking to get the most from your digital marketing in 2018? Be it social media, Google ads, email marketing or even the occasional print piece. Landing pages are a must for any agenda.

Before now you probably directed all your PPC and other marketing material to your homepage, but this can be a huge mistake. By tailoring pages to individual campaigns we can create a more unique visitor experience which in turn drives conversions.

There are a number of things you can do and we’ll talk about them shortly. Firstly, there are a number of questions you need to ask yourself, before plunging in the deep end;

What is your goal? Are you looking for data collection, newsletter sign ups or sales? Knowing this helps us establish a design and content to drive the desired results.
Who are you competing with? What are they doing to succeed and how can you emulate their success?
Who is your audience and what can you do to spark their interest?
How do your prospects arrive at your landing page?

Once you have the answer to these, you’re one stage closer to processing new leads. Now let’s look at the design elements;

K.I.S.S

Keep It Simple Stupid. A landing page should provide all the necessary content in a clear and simple format. Avoiding waffle or overwhelming the viewer with information. Remember this person has already seen enough to get them to this page, now drive home the sale.

High-Quality Content

In keeping with our first point, the art of great copy is best left to the professionals. If you need to hire a copywriter then do so. Information should be short, to the point and engaging. Nobody has time to sit and read a novel.

All Roads Lead to Rome

Make sure you’re fully aware of all entry and exit points to your page. Make sure you limit links away from the page and potentially increase in roads. We use landing pages to help funnel our prospects down a desired pathway. Making them feel that their still in control as they reach our desired goals.

Make it Easy

Always remember that the purpose of our landing page is to convert leads. By providing as few barriers between points A and B as possible helps this. The next step on the journey should always be obvious. Obviously this depends on your eventual outcomes, but make it appealing and easy to distinguish. Form submissions should be as short and simple as possible and download buttons should be as irresistible as your favourite sweet.

CTA

Call to Actions don’t always mean buttons. Headline text encouraging users to “download your free marketing guide” can be just as effective. Don’t overcomplicate it. Tell your visitor exactly what you want them to do.

Use Headlines

The best landing pages use their main headline to confirm their offer. This is often accompanied by a sub-heading to provide more details. An example of this being a heading of “Get Your Free Facebook Marketing EBook”, followed by “Learn how to grow your followers, likes and engagement with help from some of the worlds top marketing guru’s”.

Use Video

A picture paints a thousand words, so who knows how many a video portrays. If your product is overly complex or your system long winded, consider a video to shed some light.

Grab A Deal

The easiest way to rake in those conversions is with an offer too good to refuse. Create an offer that’s engaging and desirable, then let everyone know just how great it is. It’s as easy as that.

Remember Your Origins

Prospects arrived at your web page from a specific advert or marketing piece, so make sure you tie into that. There’s nothing worse than clicking a link and arriving at a web page that bears no resemblance to the link you selected. It’s an instant turn off and deal killer. The key to landing pages is to be specific, no more sending people to your homepage, remember?

Be Mobile Friendly

By creating a responsive page, you can as much as double your conversion rate. With mobile traffic ever increasing can you afford to risk missing out?

Speed is Essential

When it comes to bounce rates, load times play a huge part. You can improve yours by keeping images to minimum sizes, using cache tools or upgrading to a super-fast web server.

Keep on Track

Conversion tracking should never be underestimated. For best practice, make sure you set up tracking correctly to see how your pages are performing. It all helps when keeping control of your finances (unless they’re bottomless of course!).

Drop us an email on [email protected] and we will be more than happy to talk over your requirements.

GDPR – it’s not all about consent

MarketingFile - What is GDPR & will it affect me?

It’s the final countdown to GDPR. It becomes law this week and the general consensus from a lot of marketers, business owners and even legal experts is that they are still not quite sure if and how they can legitimately process personal data for their various operational purposes.

“Consent” seems to have become the default, or utopia, for satisfying GDPR, when in fact there are six legal bases for processing personal data. Consent is just one of these, and even the ICO admits “the GDPR sets a high standard for consent. But you often won’t need consent.” Even if you obtain it, the data subject may withdraw it at any time. To the consumer it also sounds like a slightly sinister committment to an eternity of marketing emails.

The “please opt in to continue hearing from us” requests have been landing left, right and centre with tones of sadness, desperation and urgency. Recipients are not really turned on by GDPR emails, partly because they don’t fully understand, don’t take the consequences seriously, or are simply not motivated to click or read a privacy policy. The more compelling communications give great reasons to update preferences and stay on the mailing list, and this can be presented effectively across other channels such as web and social, without even mentioning the G-word or C-word (consent).

The many organisations chasing consent like headless chickens may be taking unnecessary and laborious action, especially if they are B2B, as we explained in our blog about legitimate interest, which is likely to be the sound legal basis for many marketers. There are employers scratching their heads wondering if their own employees need to consent to opting-in to the storing and processing of their bank details so they can be paid every month. In this situation there are other more relevant bases, like the contract between the employee and his/her workplace.

So what are these four other bases? Besides consent and LI, the remaining options are Contract, Legal obligation, Vital interests and Public task. There is not much talk of these – granted they are not as relevant as consent and legitimate interest for marketers, but the world of marcomms encompasses all genres of communication that are now subject to GDPR. For professionals with responsibility for marketing and communications as well as areas like HR and data audits/strategy, these other legal bases are worth exploring and understanding.

Let’s take a look at these other bases in more detail.

Contract

There doesn’t have to be an actual contract in place between two parties here. This basis refers to processing someone’s personal data to fulfil your contractual obligations to them (e.g. process and deliver an online purchase or an employment contract), or because they have asked you to do something before entering into a contract (e.g. provide a quote):

“The processing must be necessary to deliver your side of the contract with this particular person. If the processing is only necessary to maintain your business model more generally, this lawful basis will not apply and you should consider another lawful basis, such as legitimate interests.” The ICO

One of the GDPR rumours is that businesses will flounder because they won’t be able to respond to customer enquiries without a database of fully-consenting opted-in clients. But if a prospect or customer wants a quote or service, then processing their data is likely to be legitimate under the Contract basis. Of course, what you do with their data thereafter is important. You can’t just add it to a marketing pot or even use it to profile an individual’s interests, if it is not necessary to perform the contract itself. Your privacy notice should be updated to make it clear what happens to that data and how long it’s kept for, with justification.

Legal obligation

Sounding similar to contract obligations, legal obligation is a basis you can rely on to comply with a common (UK/EU) law or statutory obligation. It isn’t something new, it hails from the 1998 Data Protection Act, so if you are looking at this using this basis and satisfy current law then you should not need to make huge changes.

“The point is that your overall purpose must be to comply with a legal obligation which has a sufficiently clear basis in either common law or statute.” The ICO

This takes us back to the employer/employee scenario, and the misunderstanding of consent. For example, you can rely on the Contract basis to hold an employee’s bank details and rely on Legal obligation to legitimately disclose employees’ salary information when requested to do so by HMRC. Other examples from the ICO include a court order, Act or regulatory requirement that request certain personal data you hold.

It’s important to note under this basis, the individual has no right to erasure, right to data portability, or right to object.

Vital interests

This basis is one you’re unlikely to encounter (hopefully), particularly in a business context. It really is there for matters of life and death, such as disclosing a data subject’s details in a medical emergency or protecting a child.

You cannot rely on vital interests for health data or other special category data if the individual is capable of giving consent, and planned medical treatment is unlikely to fall into this category.

Public task

Any organisation exercising official authority or carrying out a specific task in the public interest can rely on this basis. The focus is on the nature of the function, not the nature of the organisation. It is similar to ‘processing for functions of a public nature’ within the Data Protection Act 1998 so is not really anything new.

You’ll have a lawful basis for processing if you’re:

carrying out a specific task in the public interest which is laid down by law; or
exercising official authority which is laid down by law.

Private companies may fall into this remit if the nature of the function in question is in public interest, e.g. water companies carrying out a public service.

Conclusion

Marketers will likely be deciding between consent and legitimate interest but the other legal bases should not be discounted, depending on the nature of the organisation and the purposes it sets out to achieve. Anyone tasked with data strategy, internal and external communications, HR or writing a privacy policy will need to be aware of all six bases. Don’t forget, the essence of GDPR is respecting the rights and freedoms of the individual, and demonstrating accountability and transparency…not finding loopholes to send unwanted marketing.

For all of the bases, you should consider:

what updates need to be made to your privacy policy
how to keep a record and justification for each basis you’re relying on
an alternative basis if you’re not confident it’s right – it’s difficult to swap to a different one later on
individuals’ rights to erasure, data portability and right to object (this differs between the legal basis, but an individual always has the right to object to processing for the purposes of direct marketing, whatever lawful basis applies)
the need to document your decision that the processing is necessary
if there is another reasonable way to achieve your purpose without processing the data.

The ICO has a user-friendly lawful basis interactive guidance tool which you can explore here.

Pitch Perfect in 10 Easy Steps

MarketingFile - Small business marketing

We know what it’s like. You spend weeks preparing, analysing and re-reading your presentation. You nail it every time. Then you step into the boardroom… At this point anything from self-confidence to nerves kick in and your mind goes blank. All those weeks of preparation disappear in an instance and your left looking for words.

Whilst we’re not here to help boost your confidence (directly at least), or to manage your nerves, we can provide you with some great tips to ensure you’re in the best possible position when you step into the room;

Prepare, Prepare, Prepare

OK, so we already covered that you’ve no doubt been doing this for weeks. If you haven’t, you should have been! You know your business/product better than anyone but this can also be your downfall. You don’t need to let investors know every inner detail. Instead, try to step out from the inner workings and only give your listeners the information that they really need to know.

On top of this take a moment to step back and consider the questions anyone listening may have. From “Why should I give you £15 million when the company hasn’t even made £15?” to “Why are you trying to produce, market and distribute 10 products at the same time before you see if a single one sells at all?”. Taking time to cover all the basis may feel long winded now but you’ll thank us down the line.

Practice Makes Perfect

Practicing in front of the mirror isn’t going to cut it. You need to practice to an audience (of real people). Whether it’s family and friends, networking events or local stores. Practicing in front of a live audience is the only way you can experience a share of the nerves on the big day. The more you get used to the pressure, the easier you’ll find it on the big day.

Take a leaf from a comedian’s book. Yes, we find them hilarious but that’s not the case for all their jokes. They spend years trying new material to live audiences, if it works they keep it, if not it’s out the window. At least that way you can judge how your presentation engages and alter it accordingly.

Know Your Figures

Need we say much more? People may think your product is useless, but if you can back it up with numbers that’s all investors care about. After all, it’s all about them seeing return on their investments. If you can show them that’s what they’ll get you already have them hooked.

It’s also worth having multiple projections (best case, moderate case and worst case) to show you really have a grip and understanding of your financial workings.

Less is More so Get to the Point

You may have heard of the term elevator pitch. If you haven’t it may lead to trouble. When it comes to keeping attention, lengthy explanations will only turn investors off. If you can’t get them to believe and understand your concept in under 3 minutes, you can almost guarantee your customers won’t either.

If you’re using presentation slides, the same goes here. Keep your number of slides to a minimum and use them to highlight key points. At no point should you be reading off them like a book!

Breathe

It’s a nerve racking experience. Don’t forget to breathe. We know you have passion and a will to succeed, but taking deep breathes will help control your heart. With this in check, you can deliver your information without the babble that goes with nerves.

When the questions start the same process applies. Taking deep breathes not only helps you manage the barrage of aggressive comments but also provides you valuable time to think and win investors over with your response and calm head under pressure. Don’t forget, they will often do it just to test you as much as your product.

Showcase Your Personality

Even if they don’t believe in your product, investors may believe in you. Don’t be afraid to show a little personality. It’s more engaging and helps dragons see the person behind the business. Doing so could be the difference between success and failure. As good as your product is, if they feel they couldn’t work with you, you may as well pack your bags and go now.

Tell A Story

While the bulk of presentations are formal and rigid in structure, pitches tend to have more fluidity. This in turn allows you to break away from the facts and present your ideas in a more compelling manner.

A great example of this comes from Johnny Georges, founder of Tree T-Pee, who appeared on the American show; Shark Tank.

Keep it Visual and Don’t be Scared of Interaction

Research shows that the longer we hold or touch an object – the more ownership we feel we have of it (and the more we want it). This then grows, as the more we feel we own something, the higher the value we place on it. All proving that visual presentations and physical interaction have a positive psychological impact on your audience.

If you still can’t keep away from the old fashioned slides, why not prepare a second version of your presentation. This can be sent on later to provide key facts and information as a reminder to any potential investors.

Have A Negotiation Strategy

Don’t Beg. Begging for investment shows desperation. If you really believe in your business, you know you’ll be able to get money elsewhere so don’t sell yourself short. Confidence in these situations can be the difference so believe in yourself.

You go in pitching for a certain value, but have a back-up in mind. Chances are their will be negotiations ahead. If you have a bottom line price you’ll know exactly where you stand and won’t be led into any rash decisions.

Don’t Even Try to be the Smartest Person in the Room

Knowing what you know is great but you don’t know what you don’t know. Whether you believe it or not, don’t be the smartest person in the room. As well as money, investors have a wealth of resources, contacts and knowledge. Knowing your weaknesses can be more valuable than your strengths as you build a team to take care of all aspects.

Here at Everything DM we can help you prepare for any speech or presentation you need to give. Be it with handout’s, follow up emails or slide design. Call 01462 437 555 and speak to one of our team to discuss your requirements.

Month: May 2018