Working from home and remotely from the office has been trending for a few years now. Enter the coronavirus pandemic. The need for remote work is now not a trend, but a safety issue for many people and businesses today. The traditional workplace has now shifted, almost overnight, to an overwhelming trend of working remotely as a precaution and stay safe. Most people, who can, are now working from home. It is time to consider a few practices which may help build strong client relationships during such critical times.
Establish Trust from the Outset
Ethical behaviour in face-to-face sales and marketing begins with establishing trust and this is no different in a remote working environment. Without meeting in person, both the client and the marketing firm are at a disadvantage. So how can trust be developed? The key here is to ensure that your client feels part of the communication process and kept informed and updated as and when needed. Therefore, a solid and sincere approach towards the client from the start will enable two-way communication, on the one hand, allowing you to introduce and manage expectations and, on the other, allow the client to get involved in key discussions. Where you are demonstrating honesty, expertise and competency, you are in effect validating a foundation for a secure relationship.
A Communication Plan with Clients is Essential
The inability to meet clients in person makes it necessary to organise regular communication. This is where project management comes in. Both parties will have to mutually agree on a plan in which you can communicate with your client. It is this communication which is vital in developing trust and strength in this relationship. Your client will be content in the knowledge that they can keep in contact with you.
A plan can be devised which details when you intend to communicate via a schedule plus how you intend to communicate, e.g. email, telephone or video call or online chat tools. Whichever communication channel is used, it should be one that your client is happy in using to avoid any potential complications or frustration. It is important for you as a business to listen to your clients and learn about their expectations so that you then be responsive and create value for them.
Boundaries and Deadlines Must be Clarified
You can only guarantee that you are on the right path by ensuring from the outset that clear expectations in terms of communication, requirements and responsibilities, and time frames have been set. Both you and your client can have a better understanding of how you can work together without going above and beyond set limits. Setting and enforcing deadlines serves to motivate clients and helps keep your project going forward.
Whether you wish to build a formal or informal relationship or treat each client individually, how you set boundaries and deadlines while working remotely is your decision. But it is good business to be respectful and mindful of your clients as time is not always on their side. Sticking to schedules where possible and staying focused helps both you and your client.
Facilitate Communication Utilising Technology
Real time communication in a remote working relationship is not possible without technology. Being equipped with the right digital tools and software enables two-way communication between yourself and your client, especially long-distance clients. Tools can comprise accessible cloud-based document storage solutions and virtual meeting software, allowing both parties to keep up to date with developments. Collaborative tools help simplify the sharing of information and scheduling of meetings.
The provision of multiple contact methods and communication channels will enable constructive project management for a strong and successful business relationship. You should not underestimate the power of communication when working remotely. Although remote work presents many challenges, these can be overcome by ensuring you have a plan in place and strategies in line for regular communication. You are then all set to develop a successful long-term relationship with your client.
Here at Anchor Digital, we’re an agency renowned for our holistic approach to marketing and offer high-quality SEO services to businesses across Australia. If you want to find out about the best online SEO tools to optimise the viewership of your business, contact us for a consultation. We’d love to hear from you.
There are three reasons why a small business should want to rebrand. One reason is that current branding is not working for the small business. Another reason is the small business has taken on more products or services to require the change in business branding. The third reason for rebranding for small business would be changes in the market or competitive advantage. There are six very good techniques a small business should employ in rebranding their business. They are: understanding your mission and values; evaluation of existing branding; considering competition and the market; team collaboration in business branding; managing the rebrand; and, launching the rebrand.
Understand Your Mission and Values
You first and foremost must understand your mission and values. Any rebranding strategy cannot be undertaken unless you know who you are and why you exist. If a rebrand is going to either cast you in a different light or impact who you are in a negative manner it should be avoided. Rebranding does not necessarily have to be negative. An incongruent image of your product or services will be just as bad.
Your Existing Brand Should have a Complete Strategy
If your small business exists, then you already have some type of business branding strategy in place. Examine that strategy to ensure that the strategy is complete. Look for the advantages and disadvantages of existing branding. Ask yourself if there are any gaps that haven’t been addressed. Has your existing business branding been successful?
Consider Your Competition and the Market
You should consider both the market that you are in and your competition. Key questions you need to answer are whether or not the market has really changed, or just the competition. Also, analyse in-depth whether or not your competition’s rebranding is actually working better than the business branding you already have in place.
Team Collaboration is Essential
Rebranding a small business rarely works unless you incorporate a team collaboration approach. Even the most brilliant idea may fall way short of your desired goal unless you have complete buy-in by everyone connected with your small business.
Manage the Rebrand
Managing the rebrand is basically telling you not to “throw out the baby with the bath water.” Keep as much of your present business branding in place as possible. Make additions wisely and complimentary. Rebranding should be an embellishment and not a complete remake. If you totally remake yourself, you lose all the credibility that you have established while in existence and will look like a newcomer in your field.
Launch the Rebrand
Launching a rebrand of a small business should be an opportunity to tell all your potential customers, if not the whole world, that you are up to something new or additional. Get the word out in as many outlets as possible. The greater coverage you can obtain the better the result will be for your rebranding.
Here at Anchor Digital, we’re an agency renowned for our holistic approach to marketing and offer high-quality SEO services to businesses across Australia. If you want to find out about the best online SEO tools to optimise the viewership of your business, contact us for a consultation. We’d love to hear from you.
Is your website’s performance lacking? When you Google search your web page, does it appear the first spot on the list? If your website is reaching out to gain organic traffic, you may need to review the website's performance through a little analysis and initiate a series of changes to your SEO’s and key phrases.
Usually a highly skilled marketing agency can do all this analysis for you and can even assist you with repurposing your content. In the world of search engines, position 0 is the best position to gain in order for your website to receive organic traffic.
What is position 0?
Position 0 is defined as a title or position given to the first website at the top of the list as a result from a simple Google search. How this initiated is through a series of reviewing stages and changes of a website through Google Analytics.
Google Analytics
If you’re not sure how to operate or even understand how Google Analytics works, don’t worry there are plenty of easy ways to use it. Once you’ve grasped the basics, you’ll be able to step up to the more advanced stages where you can even customise how your website is viewed. Customising modes such as SEO’s, key words and phrases, and your backlinks can help create and develop a better user friendly experience.
Use Keyword Platforms
Understanding where your site’s position is one thing and understanding its potential is another. Using subscription platforms such SEM Fresh, will help you grasp what position your site is located and where it’s heading. From there, you can seek out your competition by utilising the tools available to aim for position 0. This will also be able to help you understand your audience and in time draw in more organic traffic searches.
Improve The Content.
We couldn’t finish without asking you to review your original content and see what’s missing. Are the facts and links up to date? Are the pictures more optimised? Does the content make sense or does it apply to your audience? Also, make sure your keywords are up to date as well as this will accelerate your SEO. If your content is great and engaging and has the keywords to suit, chances are the content will gain momentum and earn the top position.
The Bottom Line…
However, if you still need a hand with positioning your content, Anchor Digital can offer you creative marketing solutions for your small business. A local marketing agency with an holistic approach can help you in more ways than one.
Why are EDMs, or email marketing, so popular for getting your message across? It’s because as consumers, we are more and more time-poor. We hardly have time to sit around and read an email full of tips, tricks and methods that are proven to increase your ROI or see any results through marketing techniques. The reason why EDMs are so successful is that they are incredibly visual and when sending out your next EDM, it’s important that you nail a few things so increase the number of clicks and opens you receive.
Design
Ensuring on-brand and simple design is imperative for your email marketing strategy. Because a lot of people tend to view their emails on the go, it’s important to ensure that the text not only big enough for mobile devices but large enough to read. The design of your EDM should not be overlooked. It’s imperative that the typography, layout and colours are all cohesively on-brand and are visually aesthetic. Make sure to also include engaging and high-resolution images so your EDM looks interesting and high-quality. If you are struggling with how to design or manage email marketing, it’s always best to consult a professional when it comes to communicating with your audience on a regular basis.
Content
The visual and design aspects of an EDM are important, but the actual content should be equally focused on. If the design is great but the message of your EDM is lacking, it is hard for your audience to convert because a poorly delivered message isn’t convincing. Make sure you are using the right tone and correct messaging. Consider your audience but also your brand. Do you want to come across as high-end, friendly or easy-going?
Using the right software
It would be counter-productive sending a mass email from your standard email account and individually curating each and every EDM. Luckily for us, there are plenty of email marketing software and templates available online that you can use and customise to fit your brand. Mailchimp is one of the most popular email marketing software available online. There is a range of memberships available so you can pay depending on the size of your audience.
At Anchor Digital, we specialise in all things marketing. If you’re looking to amp up your marketing strategy, whether it be email marketing, brand strategy, SEO, social media or content creation, we can help guide you and get the results you’re looking for. Contact us today on 07 3036 0994!
SEO and SEM are often confused with each other. People consider them to be the same thing. While they have lots in common, they aren’t interchangeable terms. In fact, SEO is just a set of tactics that falls under the umbrella of SEM. On the other hand, SEM is a broad term which encompasses various marketing methods used for Search Engines. These marketing methods include SEO, PPC campaigns and Advertising. Thus, SEO is one of the marketing tools used for doing SEM. Still unclear? Let’s discuss both terminologies in detail to understand the difference between them.
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
SEO or Search Engine Optimisation mainly deals with optimising a website so that it can be easily indexed by web crawlers. The primary goal of SEO is to make a website more visible and attract people to it via search engines. To do this, SEO requires the website to rank highly on the SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages). Any website that ranks highly on the SERPs can easily attract web traffic. To get a high ranking, a website must fulfil certain requirements. This is where SEO comes into play. It helps the website fulfil the requirements by making improvements to its design and content.
SEO is largely an organic way of getting web traffic. This is because you don’t have to pay any money for it unless of course, you need an expert to help you edit your website. All the SEO tactics require hard work, though. You need to find keywords that are often searched by users when looking for your products. These keywords need to be incorporated into the text of the website seamlessly. This includes the title tags, alt text, heading tags, and meta descriptions. SEO also calls for the continuous addition of high-quality new content to the website. This new content can be in the form of blog posts or improvements to the existing page copy.
Search Engine Marketing (SEM)
SEM or Search Engine Marketing deals with how the website needs to be marketed on search engines. The goal is to not only increase the visibility of the website on the SERPs but also to make sales. Thus, SEM doesn’t just rely on organic traffic. It incorporates the use of paid promotional material like PPC (Pay-Per-Click) campaigns. In these campaigns, you pay the search engine to have your website displayed on top of the SERPs for when your chosen keyword is searched. Each time your website is clicked, you pay a little to the search engine.
PPC is an effective method used in SEM. However, it is only for companies and businesses that have just launched their websites and want to get immediate visibility. The ideal SEM strategy for a business is usually a mix of both SEO and PPC.
Anchor Digital is an established name in the SEO field in Australia. Get in touch with us today if you want to improve your website’s search engine visibility.
You’re probably sitting at your desk thinking, how do I increase more traffic to my website or Facebook page? Well, we’re here to tell you that it’s easier than you think! Firstly, you need to understand what type of ads work for you and what types don’t. What draws your customers in and what turns them off?
The Campaign
Now you’ve got your business needs set up and need to draw in a crowd, a simple competitor search goes a long way. But for those of you who have a specialised area or niche, it pays to do a little research on what the customers are looking for. For example if your product or service are unique, think about how you’re going to pursue your customers. If you find this too complicated, you can always contact a marketing specialist to help you.
You’ll find that Facebook for Business can do most of this for you and is simple to use.
Here are a few steps to follow to make it easier for you to monitor your traffic.
The Results
Well, they may surprise you. Once your ads are created and running, be sure to conduct A/B testing to see how many people are interested. However, if this strategy doesn’t appeal to you, don’t worry there are plenty of others to choose from to suit your needs.
The Bottom Line
At the end of the day, your business is your business. But if you’re looking to share your business strategy and want to create a more holistic approach, contact Anchor Digital and ask about how their solutions can improve your website via Facebook Marketing.
If you are already thinking about how to optimise your content marketing strategy, then there is no need to go in-depth as to why content marketing is important. What you will find here is seven ways that you can optimise your content marketing strategy for better success.
Make a Commitment
Simply realising content marketing is important is not enough to generate successful content marketing strategies. Your strategies will move forward by leaps and bounds if you move from realisation to commitment. Commitment is much stronger than simple realisation. Commit to doing content marketing right.
Understand Your Audience
Producing content just for the sake of having content will not optimise any content marketing strategy. You must understand your audience and what they want and need before any content whatsoever is produced. Understanding your audience will allow you to direct informative and useful content to your audience.
Research the Best Keywords
To craft useful content, you must first know what topics your target audience is searching for in day-to-day searches. Simple keywords and long-tail keywords will lead you to subject matter that is being searched. Using the proper and best keywords in your content will bring your audience to you via their own searches.
Optimize Engagement with Pictures and Visuals
Word after word on a computer screen for a mobile phone gets old and boring quickly no matter how well the content is produced. Where possible, include pictures, graphs, infographics to generate even greater interest in your content. While these embellishments are more labour intensive to create in the beginning, you will reap more and more readership and action because of their inclusion in your content.
Produce Calls-to-Action
Content marketing strategies are founded upon one principle. Increase interest and sales. It makes no difference whether you are selling products or services. You must, at some point, encourage your audience to act. At the very least, you want your audience to recognize and reward your content with recognition such as comments or “likes.” Better still, you know you have a successful content marketing strategy when people decide to buy whatever you are selling.
Promote Your Content in the Right Channels
Your content marketing strategy should ensure you are getting the content out to your audience in as many ways as possible. Don’t just rely on posting content on your website. Utilise other communication channels such as YouTube, Facebook, Twitter (links), Pinterest and Vimeo just to name a few extra channels. The more places your content is found – the more likely you will hit more of your target audience.
Measure and Track Your Progress
Finally, measure and track the progress of your content marketing strategy. Find out how much of your target audience you are reaching. Measure audience engagement. Track number of views and sales you make. Do A/B testing to see what content works the best. The more you know about what is working will ensure the success of your content marketing strategy.
Anchor Digital is a marketing agency in Brisbane that specialises in improving your online content strategy. If you want to get in touch, head to the Anchor Digital website or give them a call today!
Websites need to be designed to attract potential customers - not to turn them away. However, there are some factors that can cause customers to drop off from a website soon after visiting it. You need to make sure that any potential customer coming to your website gets what they want and you can easily provide your services. If the process for making a purchase is convenient, there is a high chance that potential customers will turn into paying customers. Ensuring this requires you to eliminate all the hurdles in the way of the potential customer and their purchase. Let’s find out what these hurdles might be that can turn potential customers from a website.
Complex Text
The textual part of your website’s content is very crucial for engaging any potential customer and giving them the reason to explore the website further. If this text is hard-to-read and makes use of complex terms that are specific to your industry then the visitor would get discouraged and promptly leave. Your goal with your website’s text should be to captivate the attention of potential customers. Thus, it is paramount that this text is written in a simple language that everyone can understand. It is also important that you don’t have long paragraphs of text on the landing page. No one has the time to read it all. The text should be concise and crisp that can be easily understood even at a glance.
Longer Loading Times
Having to wait for a website to load is one of the biggest turn-offs for an internet user. People don’t like waiting in general and if you make them wait to view your website for even a few seconds, they won’t hesitate in leaving. If you want potential customers to stay back and explore the website further, you need to reduce its loading time. There are many ways to do this. For instance, you can minimize the size and the number of images on your website. If there is any unnecessary flash content or video on the website then removing it would work too.
Too Many Ads
Ads are a good source of income for a website but they can be one of the reasons why potential customers won’t stay on your website long enough to make a purchase. Having a few ads on the website doesn’t hurt and the visitors won’t mind seeing them. However, if there are too many of them then they can be irritating for the visitor. Moreover, you also don’t want the ads to lead the potential customers away from your website. So, it is best that you keep the ads tally to a minimum and only feature those ads that are relevant to your business.
Avoid Playing Videos on Auto
Videos can help capture the attention of potential customers. However, having the video play automatically when the website loads can irritate the visitors and cause them to turn away immediately. So, make sure that give the visitors the chance to decide whether they want to play them or not.
Anchor Digital is a market leader in the SEO industry in Australia. Feel free to give us a call if you want to stop potential customers from bouncing away from your website.
Cohesive and beautiful web design is very important for the success of a website. Companies pay web designers a lot of money to get an ideal design for their websites. The designers use a lot of web design elements to ensure that the website’s look is in line with the company’s image. Like all other fields, web designing has also seen a lot of change in the last decade or so. Numerous trends that were considered essential for the success of a website’s design have now become obsolete. In this article, we will have a look at the design trends that are quickly going out of style in the web design world.
Pop-Up Messages
Pop-up messages were never an ideal design element, to begin with. They are annoying and seem intrusive to the user. However, they were considered necessary because they provided the business with the chance to get the email address and contact details of the visitors. It was seen by marketers as a way to get leads. In this day and age, when people get easily frustrated, pop-up messages can cause most users to move away from your website. They won’t even bother to remain on the website and thus won’t fill out the form suddenly appearing on the screen. Nowadays, live chat is seen as a viable alternative for pop-up messages as it seems less intrusive and can still get the visitors to leave their email IDs.
Carousels and Image Sliders
Image carousels and sliders are still being used by some websites. They were a popular design trend back in the day when people used to view websites mostly on desktops. However, nowadays, people view websites on their phones. This shift towards mobile devices has meant that image sliders aren’t as attractive as they were before. One main reason is that the slides move too quickly for mobile users to read the content written on them. While on desktops, the viewing area was large, there isn’t enough space on the mobile platform to view the entire contents of a slide at a glance. Thus, web designers nowadays prefer having a video or an engaging image on the homepage rather than sliders.
Animation
Web designers love animation. It is a great way of garnering the user’s attention. You can wow the audience with it quite easily. However, too much animation can be a distraction. Moreover, it makes it very hard to load the website quickly. Due to these reasons, web designers are now moving away from using too much animation and are instead focusing on engaging content.
Text Overload
In the past, when users mostly used desktops for viewing websites, reading large blocks of text was not a big deal. Even if a website had too much text on it, the users didn’t complain. However, now that people view websites on mobile phones with limited screen space, large paragraphs of text can quickly bore the users. They like content which can be easily scanned in a glance or two. This is why website designers are moving much of the content to the blog instead of keeping it on the website’s landing pages.
Anchor Digital is a provider of high-quality SEO services. If you are looking for a website designer for your business website then we can help you out.
Web traffic is important for gauging the performance of a website. However, if you are not making conversions then this web traffic, it’s no use to you. The aim of a business website isn’t just simply to expose its products. You want to turn the people visiting the website into buying customers as this helps generate revenue. Admittedly, this process of converting web traffic into sales isn’t easy. You need to do a lot of quality assurance and continuous improvement to get the desired results. However, there are ways through which you can expedite this process. If you’re finding it hard to generate conversions for your business, we’ll walk you through the process and show you how it’s done.
Offer Discounts or Free Trials
Everyone loves free stuff. Whether it is an e-book or a free trial, people would be eager to get it. When people are visiting your website, they might be doing so for a variety of reasons. Some of them might be interested in your products while others might just be browsing for something similar to your products. If you want to convert them into a sale, you will need to make sure that they stay on the website long enough to make the purchase. The idea of a free trial or a discount is to keep the visitors on the websites longer than they would have without it. Make sure that the discounts or free trials are tailored to prompt the visitors into becoming customers.
Optimise Your Landing Pages
One of the reasons why your web traffic might not be converting into sales is the lack of optimisation of your landing pages. The landing pages are crucial for making conversions and thus, they need to be designed in such a way that appeals to your target audience. If the landing pages aren’t optimised, they can’t encourage visitors to make a purchase. When optimising a landing page, you need to keep various factors in mind. The demographic you’re trying to target is the most important of these factors. Your landing page needs to be built for that demographic and must appeal to them. Moreover, it should also be convincing enough for them to take the step from being a visitor to a customer.
Display Testimonials
Nothing convinces a potential customer more about buying a product than the positive verdict from another customer. It’s human nature that we look for recommendations and approval of others before making any new purchase. This is why people consult reviews of products before purchasing them. You can use this to your advantage and have customer testimonials displayed prominently on your website or landing pages. Once the visitors see that other people have found your products useful, they will be more inclined to purchase them. Make sure that no negative testimonial is displayed, though. Also, it is best to have the name of the customer displayed along with the testimonial. It would add a human touch to the testimonial and it won’t feel like a ‘planted’ testimonial.
Anchor Digital offers high-quality SEO services to both small and large business in Australia. If you want to turn web traffic into conversions, contact Anchor Digital for more information about the best marketing solutions for your business.