If there’s one thing Irish Mammies are good at, it’s handing out pearls of wisdom to all who’ll listen. After all, who else but the Irish Mammy could say “if you fall off out of that tree and break your two legs, don’t come running to me!” with a straight face?
The Irish Mammy is particularly skilled at spotting all the areas where you’re living your life wrong; you’re NOT drinking enough water, you’re NOT going to mass, and you’re certainly NOT calling home nearly as often as you should be. So, what if we turned that critical eye onto our digital marketing plans? What would our digitally savvy Irish Mammy have to say then?
Why aren’t you blogging? You have a blog, it’s been there since 2013, and it’s had about one week of action ever since. Getting one week of action in two years just isn’t going to fly, no matter what way you look at it. A recent HubSpot report revealed that 82% of marketers who blogged daily won a new customer through their blog. It also showed that businesses with more content on their websites get six times more leads than those with fewer web pages. That’s because they can use a wider range of keywords to generate real leads through a blog. So even if you’re already blogging regularly, you’re probably not blogging enough. You need to start populating your blog with quality content if you want to start making money from your business. Unless it’s a labour of love, in which case you still need to profit from it – to, you know, survive.
But you don’t want to create just any old content. The internet is jam packed with information these days, so you have to give the people what they want. Here are a few questions to get you started:
Once you’ve answered these, you’ll have identified exactly the kind of content you need to create – and you’ll be set up for SEO purposes too.
You’re getting TONS of traffic, but no one is buying anything. Why? You’re probably not using your lead capture elements properly. The good news is, you can fix that. Think about it like fishing, or dating – even, it’s all about using the right bait to get their attention and reel them in. Once you’ve done that, you can get them interested in what you have to offer.
Most websites have a ‘Contact Now’ button, but only 4% of businesses are ready to buy when they land on your site. That’s why you need a better call to action (CTA). You can’t just slap a blanket statement on your site, such as ‘Request a Brochure Here’, and expect anyone to listen. You have to use bold, action verbs to coax people into doing what you want. As your Mammy might say, “speak up for yourself!”
You do this with the language you use. What do you want the customer to do? Download an ebook? Sign up for your newsletter? You need to create a sense of urgency around your desired action. For example, if you want your customer to purchase, you simply need a ‘Shop Now’ CTA. If you want them to sign up to an event, ‘Sign Up Today’ will work. And that’s it.
We’re talking a max of five words here, so you’re going to have to leave your mad literary skills at the door for this one. For an effective call to action, just include the basics.
Creating a call to action box is a handy way of doing this. It should be visual and easy to read, but it should also use a contrasting colour scheme to your landing page.
Most businesses will use a social media scheduling tool such as Buffer or Hootsuite to automate their posts. And that’s cool, it’s not the problem. The problem arises when you’re simply logging in to schedule more posts and logging out again. This kind of auto-posting has been shown to decrease likes and comments by 70% and that’s not really good enough for your customers or your business. It’s essential to create a balance between your scheduled posts and your actual engagement with followers.
Customer loyalty doesn’t grow on trees and lot of companies just don’t invest enough time and creativity into their social media accounts. Social media tools are designed to free up your time so that you can invest more of it into building real customer relationships, and you won’t do that by checking in once in a blue moon. When a customer follows your business on social media, they want to feel like they’re a part of your community. They want to get involved in conversations about your product or service; they want to learn more about what you offer; and they want to get to know your business from the ‘inside’. That’s the thing about social media, it makes you available – so you have to be available. What your new followers don’t want is to be bombarded with generic bot tweets every hour of the day. Sure, you’re posting, but if you’re not engaging then what’s the point in having a social media presence at all?
Email marketing is one the most effective digital marketing channels out there, but many businesses shy away from it because they don’t understand how it works. I get it, you never read marketing emails and the bulk of them get filtered out on your email account anyway. So you probably think that no-one else reads them either. WRONG. If you’re not clicking on those mails then you’re just not that interested, and you were never really a ‘lead’ in the first place. Check out the results from the Email Marketing Industry Census 2015, conducted by eConsultancy. The survey revealed that many businesses actually blame a lack of quality leads for the failure of their email marketing efforts.
So if you want to get started with email marketing, make sure you get your act together with your lead capturing first. After that, it’s all about a click-worthy headline, compelling content, a strong CTA – and timing.
Irish people are the highest users of mobile internet in the Western World according to Statcounter, a Dublin-based research company. In fact, our mobile web usage is over a third higher than the European average. So if you’re not mobile focused in your digital marketing strategy – well, Mammy won’t be happy, let’s just say that.
A recent survey by Marketingland also revealed that 45% of US and UK small to medium businesses still don’t have a website – let alone a mobile optimised site. What is going on? If your site isn’t optimised for mobile, you need to sort that out. Pronto.
Here’s why:
Landing pages are one of the most effective ways to maximise the number of visitors you get to your site. Your landing page is an offer, it’s something that speaks to your ideal customer and allows you to put a contact form right in front of them. So it’s a great way to cultivate your visitors into becoming future customers.
A key thing to remember is that your landing page also needs to offer the customer something to entice them back. Think of the biscuits that your Mammy never allowed you to have because they were for the visitors. It’s like that.
Here are some of the metaphorical biscuits you should be offering your visitors to keep them coming back for more:
At the end of the day, just like an Irish Mammy might tell you, avoiding these pitfalls comes down to using common sense in your digital marketing strategy. Your business will thrive by doing these simple things well. You have to look at what your unique business objectives are and work towards those, rather than just copying what everyone else is doing and hightailing it on to the next big trend. After all, if that company jumped off a cliff, would you want to do it too?
Remember, your Mammy just wants the best for you. Don’t ignore what she tells you, because as all Irish children know – she brought you into this world, and she can take you out just as quickly!