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Selectabase Acquires Intellectual Property Assets of Everything-DM

We are pleased to announce that Selectabase has acquired intellectual property assets of Everything-DM. The acquisition included the corporate brands “Everything-DM” and “MarketingFile”, along with the respective domain names and websites everythingdm.com and marketingfile.com.

The “MarketingFile” brand is well known to many for being a data broker and supplier of marketing lists to clients in a variety of industries across the UK.

Everything DM Ltd entered into voluntary liquidation 3rd March 2019.

Contact details:

Selectabase
Tel – 01304 383820
Email – [email protected]
Web – www.selectabase.co.uk

Marketing to businesses

Where it all began...

B2B marketing established itself in the late 1970’s when B2B companies started to realise they can replicate the marketing material produced by consumer facing businesses – and hey presto a new era of marketing emerged! However, it wasn’t until the early 80’s when competition really hit home for large corporations who were beginning to notice smaller businesses attempting to take their market share. It was at this time mass direct mail began and marketing agencies such as Ogilvy & Mather and Saatchi & Saatchi became the go-to guys for large budget campaigns.

What happened next...

Direct mail became the next “big thing” for B2B marketing with the help of market intelligence and data collection. B2B businesses soon found that by analysing their existing customer data they could determine prospects based on similar data patterns, such as sector, size of business, turnover, number of employees etc. Today the B2B marketing environment encompasses a whole range of marketing services, from direct marketing, social, mobile, video and email marketing.

Although B2B marketing is classed as a discipline of its own, business markets are derived from consumer demand. This derived demand has to be considered when formulating B2B marketing strategy in order to target business markets with strong consumer connections. For example one of MarketingFile’s largest sectors is the automotive industry. Our marketing to dealerships, manufacturers and their agencies is B2B focused keeping in mind their target market, consumers.

5 differences between B2C and B2B marketing:

Complex decision making – the purchasing process a business will go through for any number of business products is a far more complex and will combine numerous decision makers. The complexity of the products are also much higher, with the customer needing to know technical specification and often bespoke products a qualified expert may be needed to assist. As the B2B marketer you will need to determine your clients’ needs and expectations from the product or service they are purchasing.

Few customers – with around 5 million trading entities in the UK the audience for B2B products and services is very small compared to B2C (60+ million) meaning fewer customers to target. Because of this managing your database is crucial in identifying prospects.

Rational purchasing – unlike consumer purchasing which can be to fulfil a need or want based on behavioural desires, B2B purchasing patterns are based on a rational need for a particular product or service. A B2B customer will often base their purchasing on price, service, quality, brand or business relationships. Recognising which market segments best suit your products or services and how to appeal to them is not an easy task, but the work will pay off as mentioned below!

Larger and longer sales – B2B purchases are (on average) more expensive, they tend to be for products or services that will benefit the company to improve performance and therefore are complex products, as mentioned above. The sales process also can take anywhere from a month to 3 years to finalise, an important factor when allocating marketing budgets!

Personal relationships – All the points above lead to the need for personal relationships to be formed with key accounts. Any B2B customer will expect to deal with the same point of contact for multiple purchases. Forming a strong relationship with your clients will establish a level of loyalty between you and your customers ensuring repeat business.

For business or consumer data MarketingFile are the UK’s largest supplier with access to over 60 million consumer records and 5 million businesses across the UK. If you want to find prospects in your area or that require your businesses needs get in touch with the team today on 01462 437 733 or email [email protected] with your request.

Tips when purchasing B2B data

MarketingFile - Data Protection: are you in the clear?

Using a relevant, clean and well targeted marketing list is an asset for any company undertaking direct marketing activity for prospect customers. Ensuring you are using the right list for you, we have put some pointers together for B2B businesses to follow to know you are heading in the right direction.

Who do you want to target?

The very first point is crucial; any business requiring successful direct marketing needs to have an understanding of their target market and who in that market is the best person to speak to. There are a couple of aspects to take into consideration, which sector, what size company, their location and most importantly, who is the decision maker. Are you looking for the IT Manager, Managing Director or HR department? Will the decision need more than one person to sign off? Contacting the most relevant person may give you a better conversion rate.

Choose the right provider or owner

Deciding on where to buy your data can be difficult, there are many list owners in the market but some of these do come with limitations such as minimum order values or a limited supply of data. This is where list providers are useful, with access to multiple lists these may be the best option for a SME. However, ensure the lists they provide will be relevant and always check their reputation in the market and the DMA.

Stick to your budget and buy the amount you need

Keep in mind your workforce, how many prospects can be contacted in a day or week? Purchasing thousands of records means they will only go unused for weeks until you can get round to using them, By this time they are out of date… re: the above point. There is no use in buying more data than what you need, a trustworthy list owner or provider will advise on how many records you should be purchasing.

Ask to try before buying

If you are new to purchasing marketing lists ask if you are able to try a sample of the list, however you have to bear in mind this is only a SAMPLE and you might not get any sales, but it is a good opportunity to test that you get in touch with the right person etc. Is the data clean and up to date?

You want to make sure the data you buy has the most up to date contacts, so ask how often the lists are refreshed and updated. This averages every 1-3 months, any older than this and the information will be out of date and therefore useless to you. Once you purchase the list ensure you keep it clean as data changes at an astonishing rate, keep in touch with the most relevant prospects.

What are the license terms?

Ask for the different options available for how you can use the data and what the licence terms are. Do you want the records for single or multiple use, and if multiple check the licence period, can you use the data for 6 or 12 months? To ensure you do not break the terms of the licence data owners or list brokers can seed the data, so they can see if you breach the licence terms.

Be prepared for the results

Before you send out 500,000 emails and expect 400,000 people to open, click and then purchase from the email broadcast, please be realistic on the outcome from using the marketing list. When using cold data anything above a 10-15% open rate is great, remember you are emailing a company for the first time, they may never had heard of your business before so having any engagement in your marketing activity will be a plus.

Keep it above board

There are many legal requirements to be aware of when buying and using data and you have to be conscious of these obligations. When using the data ensure the lists are clean and are run past the TPS, FPS, MPS and CTPS (Corporate Telephone Preference Service) so all businesses who have opted out are not called. This is something you should ask your list provider before purchasing, if they do not carry this out there are many online tools to help and it is a service MarketingFile provides to prospect or client marketing lists. Another key factor when it comes to staying legal is to check the company you are purchasing data from is registered with a regulatory body such as the DMA.

Overall cost – any hidden charges?

Depending on the data you need, the fields you require and the volume needed the price will vary. Starting costs for basic records (name and phone number) can start from as little as 10p a record for single use. Again this is another factor to be considered, the licence agreement as this will also change the cost of the data. Before making the purchase ensure there are no hidden costs, such as delivery or minimum orders.

We hope you find these points useful when it comes to purchasing your B2B data. Please get in touch with our team today for a free quote on 01462 437 733!

Depend on your append

MarketingFile - Marketing strategy week 2: Market Analysis

We are all working and living in a rapidly changing environment, it’s a fact, and a very important fact to consider when carrying out customer or prospect marketing. The business environment is a volatile place and gaining competitive advantage is key to success, the question you need to ask is how to gain this advantage? We highly recommend through the use of data!

Data is essential, whether it is your own customer data or a prospect list, ensuring you contact the right person with the right message at the right time leads to valuable competitive advantage. Using up to date data and appending your customer data can help broaden your contact channels ensuring you communicate effectively to your target market.

Did you know every year on average between 10-15% of the population in the UK move house? Plus taking into account anomalies such as floods that effected the country last year, local changes can be significantly greater. As a business keeping up to date with these changes in your data is essential in ensuring you continue to contact the right person at the correct address looking for the products or services you are offering.

Don’t assume existing lists will be current, you could be missing out on loyal, interested customers who have changed their contact details. Increase their value and responsiveness by appending additional intelligence on customers and prospects. For example, you can append up to date telephone numbers, email address, postal addresses or lifestyle information to consumer data. Or with B2B data adding the most recent senior contact name, email address and phone number.

Appending new contact channels to your existing data opens up the opportunity to communicate with your clients via multiple channels. We’ve listed 5 reasons why your business should append additional information to your list:

Clean lists mean reliable mailing lists.
Reliable mailing lists mean targeted information and offers.
Targeted information and offers mean higher response rates.
Higher response rates mean maximised customer relationships.
Maximised customer relationships mean improved profitability.

These will all have a positive impact on your direct marketing and improve your campaign results. Don’t forget you can append lists through demographics such as occupation, home value & marital status, making your message more targeted for higher response rates and a better return on investment from direct marketing campaigns.

For more information on Marketing File’s data services call 01462 437 733 or find out more about what we do with data.

Designing Direct Mail

When it comes to designing your direct mail piece it can be broken down into three sections; copy, layout and images/colours. Getting to grips with all three can be a challenge, especially if you don’t have a design team on hand. We’ve put together the below tips on how to approach all three areas;

The Layout

A very important element of your mail piece is to deliver the “what’s in it for me?” to your prospects or customers, they need a clear reason why they should read it and this needs to be visible as soon as they open your mail piece.
Here are a few ideas to help you start putting your mail piece together:

Gather ideas on what you and your colleagues or friends and family like, this will give different perspectives to start with.
Think about the practicality of your mail piece, this relates to the cost of producing the item and if can it be posted through a mail box.
How are you going to grab their attention, use of colours or images? Remember not to make them too distracting from what you want them to read or act on.
Your offering should compel your readers to take action, this has a bearing on your targeting and segmentation of your customers i.e. not offering something they already have or don’t want.
Call to actions need to be clear for what you want the reader to do next, making the process after this as easy as possible will help with conversions.

The Colour/Images

The classic saying of “a picture says a thousand words” really is true, this is why using the right imagery in your mail piece to illustrate what you are saying plays an important role in grabbing the readers’ attention. These are a couple of ideas on how to choose the right image and colour:

Use images which convey your message, be a creative here and think outside the box.
Try not to use just an image of your product, have images of your product being used so your reader can relate to it.
Your colours and images should not conflict, it will only make your mail piece look ugly.
Colours portray different messages i.e. Red indicates emergency and commands attention, Blue relates to confidence and trust, White is associated with innocence and can have a calming effect.
Keep an essence of “white space” you don’t want to overcrowd your mail piece, give it flow and direction by carefully placing your copy and images on the page.

The Copy

At this point you should have grabbed your readers attention, now you need to give them information they are going to find interesting – this again relates to your segmentation, your copy should reflect your readers interests. These are a few ideas on how to produce copy your targets are going to read:

Always keep it short and sweet, time is of the essence here. Your mail piece needs to capture their attention, give them the information they want and give them a clear call to action to respond to all in a matter of a couple of minutes.
People skim read so organise your copy into small bite-size sections with clear titles, if the title grabs their attention, they might just read it.
Only include relevant content in your mail piece, do not include superficial copy – your readers will not appreciate it and therefore will not read it. Include facts and figures to back up your offering.
Add a personal touch, address the letter or mail piece to them directly and sign it off with your name, rather than a company name. People respond better when they are written to personally.
Give them options to contact you, let them check you out on social networks or take a look at your website, but make sure your content and messages are uniformed across all these channels be sure not to send mixed messages.

We hope all of these tips will help you with your next mail piece, keep it fresh and interesting for your readers and always remember to follow up each recipient, don’t presume they will call you!

#hashtags

Nearly 12 years ago one man, Chris Messina, changed the Internet by asking a very simple question and he ended up creating one of the most ubiquitous things about Twitter.

how do you feel about using # (pound) for groups. As in #barcamp [msg]?

— 𝙲𝚑𝚛𝚒𝚜 𝙼𝚎𝚜𝚜𝚒𝚗𝚊 (@chrismessina) August 23, 2007

The simple hashtag is now used almost everywhere on social media as a way to group things together, track an event or even as branding. It’s even permeated our speech, #justsayin.

But how important are these little words and phrases really and where should you be using them (and where shouldn’t you)? With social media now one of the cheapest ways of marketing your brand it’s essential to get your message seen, which can be difficult seeing as there are 500 million tweets per day.

Twitter

Let’s begin where the idea started. At the time, Twitter was a new beast, micro-blogging was seen as a bit odd, how could you ever get a message across in only 140 characters? Yet it very quickly caught on, helped along with the fact you could text a tweet on the go (yep, before smartphones that was a thing).

The trouble was, if you weren’t used to the site and how to browse it effectively, it was difficult to find content about things you wanted to hear about. Chris’s idea quickly took off a few months later when people were using Twitter to talk about the San Diego fires and grouping them together with the hashtag #sandiegofire.

Yet it wasn’t until two years later that Twitter fully integrated the hashtag into their site by automatically adding a hyperlink to a hashtag, like they are today.

Lee, we don’t care about the history just tell us how to use these weird characters!

Fine, fine, fine. One of the best ways of using them is to create your own brand hashtag, which can be as simple as your company name. It’s a great way of tracking what people are saying about you, but also an easy way to talk back to your customers. If they tweet something nice about you, respond, they tweet a complaint, respond! Having a hashtag makes it much simpler to keep an eye on these things.

You must also remember the character limit (240 characters, including spaces) so keep a good balance between text and hashtags.

Next, always do a bit of research on the topic and see which hashtags are used most often. You want your tweet to appear in that feed and people to interact with it, retweet it, like it, reply etc. #FF is a great one to use, it means Follow Friday, the idea is you tag some people you follow and think others should be as well. It’s cross promotion at it’s simplest. You’re more likely to get tagged in future #FF posts and be followed by people discovering you on the feed.

Oh, and one last thing. Read your hashtag! I repeat, read your hashtag! There have been numerous disasters in the past, as hashtags don’t contain spaces, so read, reread and get someone else to read it before putting it on the Internet where the embarrassment will never leave you. On that note, this is my favourite from 2012 #susanalbumparty.

Susan Boyle’s PR team will forever regret #susanalbumparty so please remember to capitalise your hashtags and read them!

Facebook

Yep, you can use a hashtag on Facebook posts and have been able to since 2013. Now, you may be thinking you don’t really see them as your browse your feed and you would be right. They are used rarely by users and even by businesses, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t use them at all.

They are used in the same way as Twitter, to aggregate chat around a certain topic and Facebook had hoped it would encourage more engagement around the buzz of large events and moments. Such as when we all gasp and scream in unison at the latest Game of Thrones twist/death/awful moment. Yet, we don’t ever hashtag that event on Facebook.

But as a business this quiet little area of the Internet is a good opportunity. However, just as before, you really need to research carefully the hashtags that are relevant to your brand and ensure they are being used on Facebook. You must also ensure you don’t use too many hashtags, in fact only one or two will yield the most engagement. Oh, and don’t use them on every post either, only use them when relevant, like part of a conversation or your own hashtag around your brand or a special event. Less is more with hashtags on Facebook!

Instagram

Owned by Facebook, but a different beast entirely. Hashtags on Instagram are absolutely key to increasing engagement! I cannot emphasise that enough! The way they are used on this platform is also completely different to the others, but don’t sweat it, let me walk you through it.

On Twitter and Facebook, using a #hashtag within a sentence isn’t that off putting, but in Instagram it’s all about the aesthetic, and you don’t want an ugly link in your well thought out caption (which is a topic for another day)! There are a couple of ways you can divide your caption from your hashtags though.

Dots. If you do a return on Instagram it isn’t recognised, which means dots are used to break it up. Three is the general number used as it then hides your hashtags behind the more link, keeping it all separate for you.

Post them in the comments. Instead of having the hashtags in the caption itself, some people choose to put them in a separate comment on the picture. There isn’t much difference in terms of engagement, just personal preference. Once you’ve created and posted your image, you then go to its comments and pop in all your hashtags there.

The amount of hashtags you use is also considerably more than you would within any other platform, around nine or ten is seen as the optimal number for engagement. You can use up to 30 hashtags on your posts though and ten within Instagram stories. Yep you can hashtag your story in Instagram, which opens up a whole new way of people to discover your brand.

Once again you need to be researching the most relevant hashtags to use on your post, the most popular (but not too popular, you don’t want your message to get lost) and absolutely do not use trending hashtags that aren’t relevant. Users can flag when a hashtag is being used in the wrong way and choose to remove your post from their feed, which in turn helps update the algorithm on Instagram and looks bad on your brand.

Pinterest

You didn’t know? Yes, Pinterest officially lets you use hashtags and has done since 2017. There was this weird time where they told users to not use them, and suddenly hashtags were clickable and then they weren’t… They finally embraced the hashtag though just over a year ago and people are searching and using them to discover new content. When you create a pin description and start typing a hashtag, a list appears with suggestions and tells you the number of pins associated with it, and some are in the tens of thousands!

Pinterest users though are still not entirely sure about them, some see them as spammy and turn away from pins with too many attached. Only four hashtags are ever displayed at a time when looking at a board or stream, so more than that and they won’t be seen. You can add more though to try and boost your pin appearing, but always make sure your top four are the first ones, and that you only include them at the end of your description (a bit like Instagram). You want hashtags to help people find your content, but they also want to know what your pin is about and not a list of links.

There you have it! The major social media platforms and how to use hashtags on each! Even though they’ve been around for 12 years now, it’s still early days for them on Pinterest and they will most likely find their way on many more platforms to come! Keep experimenting and find your perfect balance for top engagement and let us know your top tips! Tweet us or comment!

GDPR and Postal Marketing

MarketingFile - Four basic direct mail tips

8 months ago, GDPR came into effect changing the way businesses all over the world handle and process our data. It has caused headaches for many people, and lots more are now scared about data and using it. Yet it has opened a new opportunity for businesses to utilise an ‘old school’ favourite of marketers. Direct marketing through the post.

Yep, mail is still subject to fewer regulations, which may mean that you may only be able to reach some customers via mail. Royal Mail has conducted some market research into how post is received by consumers and the impact it has.

49% more memorable

Mail has a more powerful impact on long-term memory than email

59% prefer mail

People appreciate being sent mail compared to 41% for email

94% take action

Most advertising mail leads to multiple actions

30% share more

Mail is often shared with at least 1 other person

87% believe in mail

People describe mail as believable, compared to 48% for email

70% go online

People who responded digitally to mail over 12 months

The numbers say it all, why not give it a try? MarketingFile can help you from start to finish with your direct marketing campaign, from selecting the data to the design, printing and sending of the finished artwork! Couldn’t be any simpler!

Web optimisation for 2019

MarketingFile - How to get your content just right

It’s been a crazy year during 2018, Instagram launched IGTV, changing the way we watch video, GDPR came into effect and Thanos snapped half the universe out of existence. So let’s look into 2019 and all the things you should be considering when developing for the web.

1. Mobile First – It’s something that has been said for years, but in March Google officially rolled out the mobile-first index.

On requirements: Neither mobile-friendliness nor a mobile-responsive layout are requirements for mobile-first indexing. Pages without mobile versions still work on mobile, and are usable for indexing. That said, it’s about time to move from desktop-only and embrace mobile 🙂

— Google Webmasters (@googlewmc) June 14, 2018

There are some simple ways to make sure your website meets these requirements.

Make your site adaptive to any device
Always scale your images, especially for mobile users
Avoid pop-ups that cover your content

UXPin has a great guide to get you started with mobile first design.

2. Technical SEO – It isn’t as difficult as it sounds, there are countless tools and checklists available to help you at the end of a Google search. But here are some quick pointers to get you started.

We’re saying it again, make sure your site is mobile friendly
Check your site indexing via Google Search Console, and fix any issues
Fix duplicate title tags and meta descriptions
Fix broken links
Submit your sitemap to Google

3. Website Speed – Look, you know how annoying it is when you click on a site and it doesn’t load quickly. Your customers expect the same from your website, in fact they expect a site to load in less than three seconds. And that’s on mobile! So make sure you double check the following.

Minimise HTTP requests, like scripts, images and CSS
Compress your files to reduce their size and combine common files to reduce requests
Have both CSS and JavaScript load simultaneously
Leverage browser caching
Minimise image sizes
Use a CDN
Keep website plugins to a minimum

4. User intent – The Internet is getting smarter, machine learning and artificial intelligence continue to be developed and evolve and continue to carry more weight in Google’s algorithm. The idea is to understand the context behind a search and then serve results based on searcher intent. It’s very clever stuff and is becoming much more important in ranking, especially with voice search now equating to 20% of the searches made on mobile and is set to grow to 50% by 2020. It’s certainly something to start to consider when doing your next SEO audit.

5. Content marketing – The buzzword that doesn’t go away. Content marketing is more relevant than ever, but it is becoming increasingly difficult to break through the clutter that is on the World Wide Web. Here are some top tips that will help.

Create a content hub, whether that’s a resource centre, knowledge pool, or whatever you want to call it
Fill it with useful, informative and entertaining content
Spread the word and promote your content on social channels
Include images, content with a video or image typically convert better than text alone

6. Schema – It sounds technical, but it isn’t that difficult to implement and it will help contextualise your webpage, improving the search experience. If you have a WordPress site it’s even easier, as there are a number of plugins that will do it for you!

7. User Experience – User Experience takes into account every interaction your customers, or users, have with your website. There are seven factors that influence UX and in helping your customers use your site, you help Google and other search engines too.

8. Link Building – If you’re unsure what this is, it’s the process of acquiring hyperlinks from other websites to your own. Search engines use links to crawl the web and will crawl between sites, which allows search engines to find you, putting you ahead.

There you have it! The top tips for 2019! It may seem exhasuting, but it will be absolutely worth it! Of course, the easiest and quickest way for you to get this done is to talk to us today about refreshing your website.

Direct Route to Market

Following the digital explosion, direct mail suddenly seemed a bit ‘old school’ and marketers jumped ship to explore a whole new world of social media, email, clicks and impressions. Digital is exciting, and changing all the time, but it’s also got a tough job to grab your customer’s attention in a hectic online world.

Email is a great medium for many reasons – cheap, quick to design and deploy, measurable, perfect for personalisation but it can be too easy to create and send a meaningless email campaign for these very reasons. There are thousands of emails landing in inboxes every day and it’s not unusual for someone to have piles of unread emails that they plan to revisit one day – but they never will. Even the more engaging campaigns are quickly swiped away if another notification comes in which is more interesting. We are hounded day and night by updates from apps and platforms, resulting in short attention spans.

It’s what’s inside that counts. So when an envelope lands on the doormat, it’s light relief from a screen and somewhat a mystery to what is within. A mailpiece evokes emotions – whether that’s curiosity, excitement, fear (why are they writing to me?) which leads to it being opened. Let’s be honest, a Christmas or birthday e-card is really no substitute for an actual card – perhaps this reminds us of our childhood (cards with cheques or vouchers were always the best ones). Would you send a sympathy e-card? Probably not, because it doesn’t convey enough sentiment. It’s a bit quick and dirty.

For businesses

Any entity that handles personal data, whether it belongs to customers OR staff, will be subject to the GDPR. Realistically, anyone currently subject to the DPA will also be subject to the GDPR.

Remember that your audience might not even be on email frequently, might not find it engaging or might not even trust it. The tangibility of mail (whether that’s an envelope, self-mailer or postcard) gives the impression it is worth reading, sharing or holding onto. As a marketer, you also have more ‘real estate’ to play with. Whereas email has just seconds to catch attention and works best with shorter copy, longer copy can be very effective for a letter – you have time and space to tell a story and include testimonials or extra inserts, glossy images and a choice of stock to match your brand and messaging. You can even include scented stock like suntan lotion for a holiday brochure – smells also induce emotions, nostalgia and action. Within the envelope itself you can include coupons, vouchers, a free sample or gift or quirky insert that’s relevant to the messaging. An invitation or event ticket, for example, feels much more special than a barcode you can print off at home. That’s the power of direct mail.

It’s been proven that direct mail is effective and well-received. An in-depth study by Royal Mail revealed that print pieces stay in the house for an average of 17 days, are passed around the house, displayed and re-read up to seven times. 66% of respondents revealed that they keep mail that they considered ‘useful’. This figure rises for sectors like finance and tourism. Conversely, 51% of emails are deleted within two seconds. The DMA has found that direct mail response rates can be 10 to 30 times higher than response rates for digital.

Part of the marketing mix

Direct mail can and should be part of the whole marketing mix, as it doesn’t have to work alone to get a desired action. The mailpiece is the gateway to further engagement and gaining interest. It could achieve part or all of AIDCA (Awareness, Interest, Desire, Conviction, Action) by encouraging recipients to go online, scan a QR code or engage with social media (uploading a selfie or taking part in a competition for example). Or, it can be sent out after your digital marketing campaigns have identified your warmer prospects. Of course, it can work well on its own too, so testing is the best way to find out what works for your audiences and yields results.

At Everything DM we can design and fulfil your next direct mail campaign from concept to doormat – everything from sourcing data to saving on postage using OCR design and working within postal size regulations. Get in touch with us today.

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.

Category: Blog