Get Targeted Traffic – The Key to Digital Marketing

There’s no point in investing time and money in digital marketing and content creation, whether it’s social media. blogging, video, podcasting or digital information products, unless the traffic you drive to your website is targeted.

Time and time again clients push for us to help with SEO to get them onto the front page of Google, create podcasts, videos or written content all with the specific aim of “getting more traffic”.

Whenever we sit down to talk data all the questions are about “hits” or “page views” instead of looking at the most important data: conversion rates. [Read more...]

The 4 Best Digital Marketing Platforms for a Consulting Business

It’s easy to drown in the different forms of digital marketing out there if you’re running a consulting business. Because time is precious, particularly if you work as a consult, juggling every aspect of your business, you need to focus on doing what’s imperative – not just helpful.

To help keep things simple but effective, here are the content marketing platforms I think you need to include in 2013 as part of your strategic online marketing plan.

1. Blog.

Do not ignore the power of a blog. They help get you found in Google and other search engines, generate leads and give prospects an insight to your core skills. What’s more, a blog is full of personality. If you write in a tone of voice that reflects just who you are instead of “corporate speak” you’ll show customers a personal side of who you are. This is important because we do business with people, not businesses.

Get a blog right and it will bring new customers to your door. If you’re thinking of starting a business blog or have let yours go on hiatus too long, check out this post on what makes a great business blog.
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What David Bowie Can Teach You About Online Marketing

2013-1-7-david_bowie_thin_white_duke-533x363I was excited by the news last Wednesday that the Thin White Duke, David Bowie, had decided to strut his stuff all the way back to planet earth in a rock & roll rocket ship, powered with a hefty dollop of stardust.

The news of a new Bowie single and album was massive.

Everywhere I looked there was Bowie. All the Swedish press were covering it. It was all over Twitter. I saw it was in the British, American and Norwegian press too. Fans were quick to celebrate and even the reviews were positive.

Not bad for a musician who hasn’t released anything in ten years.
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7 Ways to Measure Digital Marketing Success

New to business blogging or just struggling to make key strategic decisions? This podcast looks at the kind of metrics you could or should be tracking to give yourself the best chance of succeeding with your digital marketing.

Listen to the show here:

[Right click to download]

Mentioned in this week’s show

And before you go!

If you like this podcast, please leave a review on iTunes.

Or why not Subscribe to the Podcast RSS feed or subscribe via iTunes. You’ll get every episode of the show absolutely free. [Read more...]

Is Facebook’s Wall Necessary?

Facebook kill list 300x300

Ssomething came up today that stopped me dead in my tracks. A company I know has decided to kill the Wall on its fledgling Facebook page.

They’ve decided to go instead with piping the latest news from their website into the FB Page via RSS.

Is This Unsocial?

I can understand the reluctance of the company to keep the Wall silent given the nature of the business – I can’t go into specifics here – but surely they’re missing the point of Facebook; that it’s a social media channel for engagement, and not (just) broadcasting.

Sure, I can buy the line that some people will simply find them on Facebook first and choose to follow their RSS-piped news there because it’s convenient and all in one place with their other “friends”. After all, people spend more time on Facebook than anything else other than Google.

Still, isn’t there a risk though that by playing by old school rules on a new school platform you risk alienating your audience? Or at the very least turning them off because you’re not doing what you’re supposed to be doing on Facebook? [Read more...]

All the Smart Consultants Get it, Why Don’t You?

Tips for small business success

The “it” I’m referring to here is blogging. Yes, old school, good old-fashioned business blogging.

I decided to write about this after listening to this week’s edition of InsidePR where the gang were lamenting the decline of blogging amongst the C-suite.

I don’t think it’s just the C-suite or business managers that aren’t blogging as much as, say, they were three years ago; the number of consultants I’ve worked with in the last few months that aren’t blogging genuinely concerns me.

I don’t use the word concern lightly here because obviously I want my customers to succeed. However, of the last three consultants I’ve worked with only one had a blog, which he didn’t update more than once a week.

The other two consultants relied on pay-per click adverts driving traffic to their website.

Surprisingly all three consultants were active on Twitter, whilst only one had a Facebook Page.

Auditing Online Marketing

I looked at the Google Analytics of two of the customers – the third had no analytics set-up – and could see fairly quickly that the consultant who was blogging was getting much more organic traffic.

“The consultant who was blogging was getting much more organic traffic”

Blogging isn’t just about getting traffic; it’s a perfect communications channel for showing a more rounded, nuanced side of who you are and what your company is doing. In many ways a blog is the textual personification of a consultant’s know-how and special skills.

Social media channels like Twitter are great for networking, connecting and crisis management in the B2B sector, but they don’t really do enough to demonstrate a consultant’s skills. [Read more...]