News + Views

Types of Giveaways to use in your Marketing

Tue, 26 Nov 2019 23:03:10 GMT

Giveaways are perfect lead magnets, especially if done well.

They can help build your database and sell more products, or make more money from individual purchases. When coupled with 'value-added' marketing, giveaways are an affordable way to capture and hold a customer's attention over time.

Use giveaways to lay the foundation of loyal, lasting relationships, rather than being transactional.

Common Giveaways

Giveaways come in many forms. Here are a few of the most common:

Long-Form Educational Content e.g Ebooks or Whitepapers
Gated Video Content e.g webinars
Samples
Gift with Purchase

E-book

Great for packaging knowledge in an engaging way.
Offer the E-book in an exchange for users' email addresses.
Ideal length between 7-15 pages.

Video

Most engaging content type!
Show the webinars or tutorials in an exchange for users’ email addresses.
Perfect for educating customers or to build a community especially if you have a forum or place for people to post comments about the videos.

Samples

Builds trust as customers can get a preview to what they're about to buy.
Give to customers that have purchased to cross-sell products

Gift with Purchase

Who doesn’t love free items?

Gifts with purchases:

Need to relate to the business and add actual value to the original offering
Boost conversions
Upsell (especially if there’s a threshold the customer has to meet before they get the giveaway)
Are an easy way to move the slower-moving items

What’s not a giveaway - discounts!

It's fine to do discounts every once in a while however if you do it all the time or cave to every "Holiday" then it's likely your customers won't end up buying from you unless it's at the discounted price. You end up becoming a transactional brand. For example: Briscoes.

An Attractive giveaway can be that little push people need to turn into a customer. This is especially true if you build a sense of urgency around your giveaways as it will make people want them more.

What kind of giveaways are you using to attract leads?

Facebook Ad Types

Mon, 18 Nov 2019 21:04:43 GMT

People spend more time than ever on their phones, and 20% of that time is spent either on Facebook or Instagram. Naturally, this is how people discover new things, learn information, and make buying decisions.

To determine the best type of Facebook ad for your business, make sure you think about your objectives.

5 Facebook Marketing Ad Types

Single Image
Video
Messenger
Carousel
Collection

Single Image

Perfect for promotions or one off imagery especially for service based businesses or companies that don’t have a lot of products. It’s great at driving unique traffic to your website (new people to your website). Includes one simple call to action e.g learn more.

Video

Tell your story with motion. We can create this using photos and text (Slideshow), or have an in-stream video ad that plays mid-roll in Facebook original content. This is the closest Facebook Ad type to TV ads.

Messenger

The easiest way to take advantage of an inbox is through Facebook Messenger - unlike potential customer’s emails they are more likely to open and read the ad. People will see these ads in the messenger app - when they tap on an ad, they’ll be sent to the destination of your choice. It’s great for interacting with customers personally in order to get leads and answer any questions.

Even better messenger integrates with PayPal. The fewer steps they have to take, the better.

Carousel

You can show up to 10 images, or videos in a single ad, each with its own link.

Perfect for businesses who have several items/products/services that relate to each other. Or you may want to showcase one product or service with several attributes.

Collection  (Instant Storefront/Instant Storytelling)

Expansion of the single photo or video ad. Perfect when you have a catalogue of products, have a main video or image and want to organise products most related to the potential customer. It’s a great way show a brand story as it shows off the style of products you stock.

Showcase your services or products to a highly targeted audience. It's one of the best channels to build awareness, community and gain customers. We know the little tricks for an effective ad, want more sales? Get in touch!

Customer Reviews

Mon, 18 Nov 2019 20:50:50 GMT

A post-purchase review email or text can help to reinforce customer satisfaction with your brand and build trust and loyalty. This will lead to higher levels of customer retention.

Why it's important...

Trust

Positive customer reviews can increase lead conversions by 270%
65% of consumers check Google reviews before visiting a website

The big word here is Trust

Sources:

https://discover.getsidecar.com/how-customer-reviews-spur-270-increase-conversions/

https://www.reviewtrackers.com/reports/online-reviews-survey/

https://www.brandwatch.com/blog/ways-to-improve-post-purchase-customer-experience/

Too soon and they haven’t experienced the product/service properly. Too late and they’ve likely forgotten about the initial excitement. Think about what you’re selling and how people interact with your service or product.

Immediate review requests are perfect for a one off service e.g restaurant or salon visit.
Same day at peak social media traffic times are good, such as 6-7pm when people are starting to relax after work.
7 Days: Lifestyle products/services e.g heat pump service - they want to see results first.
14 days + : A subscription service, supplements, beauty care, gym membership - again they need time to see if the product is working.

Shift the message away from sales and focus on being helpful. Make sure you personalise the communication by using their name and even mentioning the specific product or service they used.

“Hey, customer.. leave a review so I can sell more stuff”

A different way to ask would be: “Hi Rach, thanks for coming in to see us. We care about your opinion, help us help you.”

You’re already asking them for a review, so don’t make them read a novel. Keep it short, simple and to the point.
If you ask too many questions, your customers will get impatient and move on.

If you’re asking questions rather than leaving it to a customer to review, we recommend asking 2-3 questions.

For example Biscuiteers
What they did right…

Biscuiteers made their review request email instantly recognisable to customers, and continued to make their brand top of mind.

They personalised the message and made it about John’s experience, rather than asking for a review to help sell more in the future.

The email was simple and short. When John clicked on the review page itself, there was just one simple open ended question.

Building brand loyalty and trust can be achieved easily through good customer service and reviews of your service or product. It's easy to build up through your Google My Business and display across your marketing material. If you need any help, get in touch.

Holiday Marketing

Thu, 24 Oct 2019 03:29:43 GMT

Are you ready for the holiday season?

Every year it seems to sneak up on us. You may have noticed some of the bigger chains are already starting to sneak holiday decorations into their displays, and Ballantynes have already auditioned for their Santa.

You won’t want to miss seasonal promotional opportunities, or holiday sales - especially as people are more likely to spend over the Christmas period than any other specific time of the year.

Here’s 5 campaigns/techniques you can use over the holiday period.

Partner Up
Create Holiday Bundles
Offer Gift Cards
Remarket to “Lost” Customers
Interactive Campaigns

Partner Up

A really interesting way to leverage the holidays is for businesses to partner up with a business who has a complimentary product/service and offer a combined package, discount or other joint promotion. It's an excellent way to boost revenues, expand your potential customer reach by tapping into each other’s database, and drive sales when consumers are likely to spend more.

Example: Uber with their #DesignatedRider campaign. They teamed up with Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD), and urged drunken holiday partygoers not to drive.

Fix’d property maintenance teamed up with a local electrical company and cleaning company to offer a Christmas bundle last year. As a group, they would sort out any last minute odd jobs, have your house tidy and organise Christmas lights all in time for the extended family to stay - how handy is that?!

Create Holiday Bundles

Bundle different services together that will help reduce holiday stress, have more impact, or simply make sense to buy together.

For example if you're a salon you could include hair, makeup and free champagne when getting ready for new years. Or if you're a storage facility, you could bundle a month's storage fee with trailer hire.

Offer Gift Cards

People are always hungry for gift cards, especially in the holiday season. It's a great way to engage existing customers and encourage new ones.

One extremely effective strategy is to use gift cards as a carrot to up-sell your customers. If you offer a free $20 gift card after people spend a certain amount, they're more likely to grab a few extra items to meet that threshold. And if they end up giving the card to someone else, that's a new customer for you.

Remarket to the “lost” Customer

Many people shop around at Christmas time, especially online shopping. Do you normally purchase the first thing you see for a family member or friend? Generally not.

Do you save lots of items in different wishlists on online shopping? Capture those opportunities.

Capture “lost” traffic to your website by remarketing to them; you’ll stay top of mind and more likely to convert the “lost” customer. There’s a couple ways you can do this:

Send a follow-up email for their abandon cart items
Follow them with advertising on Facebook and/or Google (remarketing campaigns)

Interactive Campaigns

User-generated content is nearly always a big win if it's done well. The key is a common thread that ties all your users' posts together to each other and your brand.

Use an app or visual prop. Invite people to share their pictures and stories of where, when and how they use your product.
Invite clients to post photos enjoying the service that you offer. If you're a consultant, you could have a photo-worthy prop that could become a holiday symbol for your company like a giant candy cane paper clip.

Office Depot has done this pretty well over the last few years with their Elf Yourself campaign ps. The Elf Yourself will be back in 9 days time!

Google Ads

Mon, 21 Oct 2019 04:11:32 GMT

Why use Google Ads

Reach - Google has over 2+ trillion searches a year (5 billion per day)

Targeting Capabilities - Target specific audiences based on their demographics, behaviours, interests, how they have interacted with your site before and more!

Harness Your Target Audience’s Intent

Budget Control - Set flexible budgets from $5 a day that you can increase, decrease, or stop instantly.

Boost SEO Results - Be in front of customers that may not have heard of your brand before.

Brand Awareness - Be on page one of Google that may take years to achieve with organic search optimisation especially for broad competitive words e.g builder christchurch

Types

Google Search
Google Shopping
Display Network
Video Advertising
Mobile/App Advertising

Search Ads

People generally use Google with a specific intent or question in mind. They search for answers to their questions, or find specific products or services.

You can create text ads, these generally appear at the top and bottom of each page of Google. If it’s relating to a local service you’ll find 4 ads above the map and always above any organic results. The searches you show up for is highly related to the keywords behind the ad and in the ad copy.

Shopping

This type of ad is perfect for when a potential customer will be specifically shopping for products/product categories (ecommerce companies).

It shows the images, prices and reviews of items Google thinks is relevant to the search enquiry.

There’s even a tab along the top of Google, related to shopping now.

Display

The majority of a user’s time online is spent consuming and engaging with content, not searching on Google. Because of that, getting in front of users as they engage with content relevant to your product or service is a great way to build brand/product/service awareness.

As the consumer is not actively searching for a solution this type of ad is best for awareness rather than immediate conversions.

Video

This is technically still a display ad but with a video format - usually on YouTube.

YouTube, owned by Google is the second biggest search engine, and the third most-visited site on the web (after Google and Facebook).

The right targeting and keywords will place the video ad in front of the right audience disrupting their behaviour and grab their attention.

Mobile/App

The time spent on apps is increasing year on year, with users now spending an average of five hours per day on their smartphones.

Ads on apps allow you to reach users at times when other marketing channels can’t, for example as soon as people wake up, the commute to work or during meal-times.

What Digital Marketing Channels Should You Focus On?

Sun, 06 Oct 2019 21:45:20 GMT

Choosing the Right Channel

Audience
Budget
Message

The best marketing channels for your business will depend on your audience, budget and the message you want to get across.
Once you have reviewed this, then you can define which platforms to use for marketing your business.

Most Effective Marketing Channels

Here are some of our recommendations for the best digital marketing channels. They are not firm requirements and may not work for every business, but they are our top picks for most companies.

Website

Some businesses don’t think of their website as a marketing channel, but in reality, it may be the most important one.

This is where users will come when they’re interested in learning more about your business, and if they can’t find answers to their questions quickly, they won’t stick around long enough to find out.

Your site should offer a good first impression, and it should clearly represent your business, brand, products and services in the way you want.

SEO & Content

Keyword Research
Onsite Factors (content, meta title, meta description)
Offsite Factors (links back to the website e.g Google My Business)
Updating Content Regularly (blogs, testimonials, images etc)

Most of your website traffic should come from organic searches.

People use search engines to look for information about a brand, product or services, and up to 59% of search engine users each month find a local business to satisfy a particular need. SEO involves several activities like keyword research, making use of both on-page and off-page optimisation, blogs/articles (content), a Google My Business account, organic link building and other related activities.

Content marketing is a critical ongoing SEO technique you can use. It's kind of like a savings account. As time goes on, you get compounding interest, making it even more valuable. Your evergreen posts can offer SEO benefits for a very long time to come as people continue to search them out, and all of your content can provide valuable relationship building and lead generation capabilities.

Social Media

Customers are actively seeking out brands they like or are interested in, and increasing numbers of users are taking to social media to research or make buying decisions.

The social media you choose to go on depends on your target audience and your resources available. Selecting a small number of networks will produce better results than trying to maintain a presence on every platform.

Facebook
Instagram
LinkedIn
Google My Business
Reddit

Email Marketing

Email marketing is one of the best methods of direct response marketing there is. Users have opted into hearing from you, so they're more willing to open those messages to learn about the latest products, sales and how to benefit from them. According to Campaign Monitor, email marketing typically drives ROI between 3,800 and 4,400%, when done effectively.

PPC (Pay Per Click)

Organic traffic is great for building an audience. However, paid advertising works well for driving highly targeted traffic of potential customers within a short period. The effectiveness of PPC ads relies on how well you choose your keywords for targeting potential customers as well as optimising the visual and contextual information in your ads.

Common PPC ads include:

Google Search Ad
Google Display Ad
Google Remarketing
Facebook/Instagram Image/Video Ads
Facebook/Instagram Retargeting

YouTube

YouTube is considered the world's second-largest search engine.
Many people find it easier to watch a video to learn how to perform a task, then to read content on the same topic.
According to Google, "how-to" searches on YouTube have been increasing by 70% year on year. If you can create clear how-to content, it's important to add these to a branded YouTube account.

If you need any help with choosing what channels to go on, or you want to know how to fit in a new channel with your overall marketing strategy get in touch.

Customer Retention

Tue, 10 Sep 2019 22:09:55 GMT

After we purchase something, there are a number of emotions that we experience. It could be the excitement of something new, or potentially anxiety or concern for whether we’ve made the right decision.

Post-purchase communication is an essential part of a customer retention strategy. Don’t miss your opportunity to turn one-time customers into loyal, repeat customers.

It can cost 5-25% more to acquire a new customer than retain one.

Increasing retention rates by just 5% could help increase profits by anything from 25% to 95%.

The probability of converting an existing customer is 60-70% compared to 5-20% for a new customer.

Show You Care

Show your customer that you value their custom by saying thank you.

This can easily be done a number of ways eg through a phone call in conjunction with the review request email, or on physical card when they unbox their new product.

Offer "How To" Guides and Advice

You want to ensure your customer enjoys their purchase. A simple guide can reduce the risk of a frustrated customer. By giving them advice, you can also help them prevent their purchase from wearing out too quickly.

For example:

Aarn Body Packs. The set up of their body packs can be confusing for a first time user. To help their customers, Aarn has a video tutorial on their YouTube to help customers personalise the Body Pack, making the pack more comfortable and work the way they should.

Reminders

It can be as basic as an automated email or postcard sent to customers when their product is about to run out, or their product needs maintenance. This simple attention to detail can really improve the customer experience - customers will view you as dependable and trustworthy.

For example: A heat pump should be serviced yearly, so a simple reminder to customers that their service is due, instantly increases customer retention. These sorts of things can be automated through email systems to reduce time and cost.

Complimentary Products or Services

Playing on the power of convenience.

Recommending a product or service that’s relevant to a customer is a simple way of showing that you understand their needs.

It also increases the order value by instigating an addition to their purchase.

Loyalty Programs

There are so many variations of loyalty programs out there, but the best ones understand, reward, engage, and retain customers.

Loyalty programs can be as simple as a “buy 9 get the 10th free”, or a more complex one like Air New Zealand’s with a range of membership levels.

How many of you have Airports or Flybuys?

All retention comes down to one thing: happiness. If people are happy they will become repeat customers. If people are unhappy then you won’t retain them.

If you need any help with the above suggestions, or you want to know how to fit in with your overall marketing strategy get in touch.

Survey - Loyalty & Retention: Net Promoters Score

Tue, 16 Jul 2019 21:38:55 GMT

A Net Promoter Score is a powerful tool used to track customer loyalty and gauge customer lifetime value.

A Net Promoter Score (NPS) is a powerful tool used to track customer loyalty and gauge customer lifetime value. A simple survey asking customers to rate your business, product or service on a scale of 0-10.

- It gives you a simple answer to find out what customers think of your brand, what you’re doing well and/or whether you need to make some changes to your product/service.

You can compare how different teams or departments are tracking compared to each other.
Easy way to benchmark against competitors. Have a look at our website for a link to industry benchmarks within New Zealand. ( https://www.customermonitor.com/net-promoter-score-benchmarks-new-zealand )

In a snapshot, the real benefit of the NPS shows you how you can strategically engage with your customers.

Source: Zapier

Understanding Your Net Promoter Score

It’s a great channel for open communication between you and customers. If you have customers who are passives or detractors, you’re able to find out straight away and iron out any kinks. This demonstrates a clear dedication to customer satisfaction , and after following respondents up, you'll understand exactly what your customers want from your business, product or service.

Promoters

Rate you between 9 & 10
Are loyal and likely to repurchase
Fuel growth through word of mouth (best form of marketing)

Passives

Rate you between 7 & 8
May choose a competitor from time to time
Are left out of the NPS calculation

Detractors

Rate you between 0-6
Requires proactive outreach to mitigate any damage or negative word of mouth
Are not satisfied by your product/service and are likely to go to a competitor

Calculate your Net Promoter Score

Net Promoters Score =  % of promoters - % of detractors.

1. Calculate the total number of respondents who replied

2. Calculate the total number of respondents who gave you a 9-10 (Promoters)

3. Calculate the total number of respondents who have you a 0-6

Best Practices

Feedback Loop: The true power in NPS is following up and closing the loop by communicating further with each customer who replies to the survey. It’s a great opportunity to build relationships. If they are a promoter, you can ask for a review or give them specific ways to promote your product or service. If they’re a detractor, you can understand how their needs aren’t being met and what you can do in the future.

Best practice for tracking trends over time is to send individual customers four Net Promoter Score surveys per year. Customer sentiment changes constantly and it’s important to see whether your Net Promoter Score is improving, staying consistent or decreasing. It gives you enough data to see trends, while still leaving enough time for the changes you make to take effect.

You can segment and categorise the respondents. It will allow you to demonstrate evidence of where key drivers in your business are, or help you to prioritise challenge areas so you can take meaningful action to remedy the situation. By segmenting the respondents you can prioritise improvements to boost the NPS among user groups that drive the most revenue.

Survey - Obstacles in the Journey: Exit Intent Surveys

Wed, 10 Jul 2019 02:12:10 GMT

Exit Intent Surveys are a great way of understanding why a website visitor is leaving before signing up, making a purchase, or booking a session.

Having the survey on your website, you can catch people while they’re still “warm leads”, where people tend to give their most honest and relevant feedback. You’re more likely to get a response quickly as you’re not asking for personal details e.g email address.

If you can understand why website visitors are not converting at different stages of the customer journey, you can start to address these issues and build a better experience for your visitors. This leads to increased sales and conversions for your business!

eg not ordering a product because they didn’t know how long it would take to deliver. Solution - more info on the product page.

These surveys can also help you understand your brand’s position in the market through the questions you ask. Surveys can help you gain insight into what your brand’s pro’s and con’s are for the end user.

Target Specific Visitors: The survey can be set up to appear because of different triggers eg how they came to your website (Google, social media, referral from another site); particular page visits; whether they’re new or returning; their location and/or their device (mobile, desktop, tablet).

Your survey should only appear on relevant pages to the relevant audience. The worst thing you can do is display something that has nothing to do with what a person is looking at. For example, asking them why they wouldn’t use the service for their business, when they are looking for personal use. The visitor is already leaving the website, so you need to make it relate to what they were looking at to interest them.

Have a Goal: Most goals for exit intent surveys include reducing cart abandonment, reducing bounce rates, understanding why people purchased from you, or getting feature ideas from current customers.

Limited Questions: Visitors that are leaving your site don’t have the patience to answer a lot of questions. The ideal amount is 1 or 2 questions. Having pre-populated or multi choice answers can make it even easier to get a response from visitors.

Clear Design: The exit pop-up survey should fit the style and theme of the website. The best ways to achieve this are colours, fonts and images as well as the tone of voice.

Survey - Post Purchase Follow Up: Customer Experience

Wed, 03 Jul 2019 00:08:16 GMT

Discover what your customers think. Improve your product. Repeat.

Regardless of where in the customer journey the survey is, there are common factors that make a good or bad survey.

What makes this survey good?

Easy: The questions do not take a long time to answer, and for most questions you don’t have to type anything.

Clear: Concise questions. The questions are not vague, they have one topic and are easy to respond to (they’re not double barrelled) If any of these questions asked about both customer support and delivery time within the same question, it would be hard to answer. You might rate the delivery time at a 5 but customer support at a 2, so the answer doesn’t reflect what the customer actually believed.

Quick: It follows the general rule that surveys should have no more than 8-10 questions, and each question is 1-2 lines.

Having an online form makes it easy for customers to fill out. It also means that it can link to your email database or CRM.

Feedbackly for example links to the email platform Campaign Monitor, and Typeform links to Mailchimp. These programs make it easier to segment your customers within a platform you already use, and give you information you can run with rather than having to use an Excel Spreadsheet to analyse the results.

Surveys - Pre Purchase Phase: Qualifying Leads

Tue, 25 Jun 2019 23:22:31 GMT

Even If you’re in B2B, you’re still selling to individuals within a company. Qualifying leads and selling to them are similar across industries. By qualifying a lead you can tailor the prospect’s experience with your company and whether you need to nurture them or change the solution to match their specific needs.

If you don’t qualify your leads you can waste a lot of time following up and attempting to sell to prospects that aren’t a good fit for your company.

You might even miss the opportunity to identify a hot lead (one that’s really ready to purchase). 25% of the leads that come in statistically are sales-ready and should be capitalised on while they’re still interested. Even the hottest leads can cool off in a hurry without contact.

Example of a good Lead Qualifying Survey: https://surveyanyplace.com/eneco-lead-generation-survey/

Your prospect may go to your website. They can then show intent of purchase, to some degree by filling in a lead form on your website. The lead form might be what the prospect fills in to download an ebook from your site or a contact us form. Sending a survey now, can help you find out who is ready to buy and who may need a little more nurturing before they’re willing to commit.

Establishing a relationship is the most important part of closing a sale. People only purchase from those they trust.

By making each of them feel special and relating the conversation to them specifically can help you in closing the deal.

For example if you find out the reason why they are holding back you could put them into an automated email sequence that highlights how your offering caters to their needs.

This might be a simple area, especially if it’s a fast moving consumer good or if it doesn’t require a lot of consideration before purchasing. If it’s a B2B transaction or the prospect is still working out what the solution could be, here’s the perfect place to uncover what their problem really is.

Finding out their budget, might not necessarily mean no sale if you’re too expensive, it might mean that you need to work in bite sized chunks (stages) so that they can afford it, or offering them solutions to help e.g AfterPay.

You ultimately need to make sure that you’re talking to the person that will make the decision. If you’re trying to convince a new lead to find out they then have to convince the decision maker - it’s harder to get the sale. Some of your benefits may get lost in translation, or the decision maker might have different pain points that they need a solution for.

By determining what the timeframe is for the prospect, you have a better idea of where they are in the buyer’s journey. It can help put a stop to any timing errors or miscommunication, before there’s any issues.

You might not get an exact time, but how you deal with someone wanting to start in a year compared to next week will determine how you interact with them.

The Value of Surveys

Wed, 19 Jun 2019 22:30:34 GMT

Businesses need valid and reliable data to make good decisions.

Surveys helps us to understand the why behind what people are doing . You can find out what their problems are, solutions for those problems and the ideal ways to to present the solution to them.

Surveys can help drive new products or services, ways you can help clients more effectively or improve your communication with them at vital stages in the customer journey.

For example, when a potential customer discovers your service, the first contact with your company is a great time to find out how they found you and what their need is.

Sometimes by asking them these questions personally is a better way than relying on your website’s analytics as it can give you more insight.

After browsing your site a few times, the potential customer may be struggling to get through the customer journey. E.g an abandon cart or an ebook download and then nothing.

Collecting feedback by asking potential customers directly is the best way to identify reasons for the non-purchase.
By looking at the data on your analytics you’re able to see that they have abandoned their cart but not why they have. By asking them directly you can potentially improve the customer experience and react quickly to any issues.

This is where you could question your customers on all previous stages of their experience with you. You could collect ‘live’ feedback, which if good is great, but if they mention any negative feedback you can act on it faster, and turn them from a dissatisfied customer into a happy one without delay.

Every client deserves a long-term follow up.
The timeframe for this depends on whether your product can be consumed quickly or if the product/service’s benefits are best known over time.

By surveying at this stage you can find out if the customer enjoyed using your product/or experiencing your service and where you may be able to optimise your offering for future customers.

After the purchase has passed, the customer journey can still continue.

If you’re not sure if your customer will shift brands, a customer retention survey can help you gauge how loyal your customer is towards your brand and their experience with you.

A customer retention survey may assist in keeping customers by understanding their expectations and needs directly from them.

Customer Touchpoints & Customer Journey Mapping

Wed, 12 Jun 2019 23:23:57 GMT

Creating a customer journey map so that you can create loyal customers.

Every time a customer 'touches' or interacts with your business, they are forming an opinion of your business and brand. Simplifying customer experiences and making each touchpoint positive translates into faster sale cycles, and more satisfied, loyal customers who are more likely to make follow-on purchases and referrals.

It’s easy to see how the touch points relate to each other, and that you don’t miss any out when you put them into the order of how customers interact with your business.

When does the awareness start? At which stage do your customers find you? Are you on the right mediums where a potential customer is looking to find a solution? You can lose customers at every step if you're not where they're looking, your website is out of date or difficult to navigate, or if you don't give them the answers they're looking for.

Take that journey step by step and create a map of how people interact with your business. Make sure that all touch points with your brand and business are positive so that the potential customer chooses you above your competitors.

It is also essential to ensure all your communication, messages, and images are consistent throughout the journey so you create a cohesive brand and give the right impression. Without a cohesive look, the mismatched touch points can indirectly portray the business as disorganised.

Zendesk is a customer service software system that uses a buddha as their brand icon.

This icon is used consistently on marketing assets like their website and billboards, plus in their office. The brand’s signature green and orange is also consistently used across channels.

Choosing the Right Medium

Mon, 10 Jun 2019 01:02:13 GMT

Choosing the right medium for your target market.

Choosing the right medium usually boils down to these three factors.

Audience
Budget
Message

Audience

Research and learn everything from the first social site your audience visits, to the hashtags they use.

From the customer personas you created, research and learn everything from the first social site your audience visits, to the hashtags they use.

If your target is comprised of tech-savvy early adopters working two jobs while in uni, the traditional print medium may never reach their eyes.

Budget

What is your marketing spend?

Think about your marketing spend. Just because your marketing budget is small, your placements don’t have to be.

Instead of blowing your budget on a single billboard spot, aim for continuous remarketing banners online. Doing this will do wonders for your long-term results.

Message

What exactly do you want to say to your target audience?

Create a mission, purpose, and goals for your brand’s message, and then decide where that message will best fit.

The medium is something your audience chooses for you. Don’t let your message miss its audience.

Why and How to Define your Target Market

Wed, 29 May 2019 22:21:25 GMT

Your audience is not “everyone”

A target market is the specific group of people you want to reach with your marketing message. They are the people who are most likely to buy your products or services, and they are united by some common characteristics, like demographics and behaviours.

Why should you care?

Targeted Approach = Lower Costs + More Conversions

Marketing to everyone costs more money.

Attempting to appeal to everyone through one creative piece is a bad idea.

Increase conversions and sales.

Once you know exactly who your target market is, you can understand how and where to reach your best prospects. This way you’re not spending money on marketing platforms that will not achieve conversions.

One specific message won’t resonate effectively with different demographic groups. For example teenagers and grandparents or even millennials have different buying principles. These groups would not interpret the need for the product or service in the same way, and they decide to convert for different reasons. By defining the audience you want to target, your messaging will resonate with them, and lead to conversions.

How do I know who my target market is?

If you’ve already been selling your work for a while, you can figure this out by looking back at your past sales. Are your customers mostly men or women? Where do they live? Have they dropped any hints about their lifestyles via customer comments? What are their problems that you have solutions for?

Surveys are also another great way to find out who the majority of your customers are.

Focus your target market

To help focus your target market, create buyer personas. It will help you understand your customers better, and guide consistent marketing decisions. For example; you might think your target market are millennials - that is still quite broad. Dig deeper and you’ll find that there are different segments within your target market. Here’s where buyer personas can help.

Creating a buyer persona

When creating a buyer persona include things like:

Their personal info (age, gender, stage in life, education, job, marital status, location and children).
How they get information, the social media channels they use, any hobbies, where they spend their days.
What their typical day is like, the challenges they face and how they make decisions, what their goals are.
How do you solve their problems or frustrations? How do you help them achieve their goals?
What motivates them?

The more you can define your target market, the easier and cheaper it is to sell to them.

It’s especially helpful when setting up your target audiences in Facebook for your ads.

Optimising your Google My Business Listing

Tue, 14 May 2019 21:33:43 GMT

Simple Optimisation Tricks

Publish Google Posts
Encourage and Respond to Reviews
Utilise the Questions and Answers Section
Update Photos/Videos Regularly
Ensure your services are listed

Publishing Google Posts

Google My Business lets you publish your events, products and services directly on your listing.

You can make announcements, create events, highlight products, and run promotions. In addition, each post type has a call to action button, making the experience from discovery to engagement seamless.

To create a post, visit Google My Business.

Click on create posts, or you can select posts from the menu. Once you have created your post and you’re happy with it, click publish.

Posts stay ‘live’ for 7 days. The old posts still appear in your Google listing - they’re just pushed down by the new posts and don’t show on your overview tab. If you’re forgetful, Google reminds you when it’s time to create a new post.

Encouraging Reviews

Create a templated email to ask for reviews.
Use a tool to automate your review request process.
Ask for a review at the right time in the customer journey.
Put a link to leave a Google review in your email signature, or on point of sale items and invoices.

Google encourages business owners to ask customers for online reviews. These reviews appear next to your listing in Google maps and can help your business stand out in a sea of search results.

When making a purchase decision, people look to others for their opinions. We all do it. And we do it often. We want to learn from the experiences of those who have purchased before us.

88% of consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations

92% of buyers regularly or occasionally rely on reviews when making a local buying decision.

Create a link for customers to write reviews

To create a link from Google Search:

On your computer, search for your business on Google.

Find your business listing and click "Write a review".

Copy and paste the URL you see in your address bar.

Simple Optimisation Tricks

Publish Google Posts
Encourage and Respond to Reviews
Utilise the Questions and Answers Section
Update Photos/Videos Regularly
Ensure your services are listed

Responding to reviews can also help your local SEO. Getting new reviews is only part of the process. Responding to reviews builds trust with your customers, and also with Google. The response acts as a credibility indicator to Google, which makes Google want to recommend you.

To find out you received a new review on Google you may notice it on your Google My Business listing, but you would also receive an email letting you know you received a review.

If you go to your Google My Business page, click on reviews.

From here click on the specific review - underneath it would have a spot to leave the review, then push submit.

If you found out you received a new Google review via email, click on “READ REVIEW”.

This will take you directly to where you can respond to them.

If you have the Google My Business app on your phone, click on the notification “New review from …”.

Starting in 2016, Google started ranking businesses based on the quality and frequency of your photo updates in your Google My Business Listing. Companies who update their Google My Business photos more often, and who are uploading high quality images will see their businesses rank better in local search results. Businesses who haven’t updated their photos in years and/or have pixelated, irrelevant images will suffer.

To update your photos go to your Google My Business page.

Click on photos and then click on the big blue +.

Drag and drop any photos or videos from your computer. It then will be added automatically.

Adding services to your Google My Business listing is especially important if you have pre-priced services e.g a hair salon or optometrist.

This enables you to add specific keywords especially around different services you offer. Essentially because your category is so broad, it’s a way to encapsulate everything you do.

Go to your Google My Business page, and click on info.

On that page scroll to the bottom and click on services.

Once you click on the “Add or edit items” it opens up to an area where you can add “sections” for your services.

It gives you the ability to enter the service name, the price and description. Sometimes it can take a few days for the services to be approved by Google.

Why Google My Business is important & where to go to set it up

Wed, 08 May 2019 22:32:44 GMT

A Google My Business listing is a free directory listing that appears when people search for a local product or service (ie. xyz service Christchurch). It usually appears with the Google Map on the first page, under the Google Ads.

This is one of the many amazing benefits of having one of these listings. You’re getting FREE ad on the first page of Google.

The example below shows a search for a cat sitter in Christchurch. The top results are Google Ads, and then in a box with the Google Map are the Google My Business listings showing reviews and key contact information in actionable formats (meaning you can click through to the website, or on a mobile click to call the business instantly).

Why should you have a Google My Business account:

Be found easily on Google.
Show up on Google Map Searches.
Can collect online reviews (Trust Factor).
Learn about your business without having to go to your website.
FREE advertising.

Case Study - Smartflow Plumbing & Gas

A potential customer didn’t hear back from his usual plumber, and so he searched for someone else local.

The same day, Smartflow Plumbing & Gas had their Google My Business listing go live. As a result, Smartflow won the bathroom job worth $5k (reno and gas conversion).

He also gathered 2 reviews, using a custom email we set up for him for inviting clients, which sends people directly to the review form on his Google My Business Page. Reviews will help him build a great reputation online and compete in the market.

Aaron got another enquiry for a gas fire later that week.

How to get your Google My Business account

Go to Google My Business .
When you’re on the Google My Business website click Start Now in the green button top right.
Follow the directions.

Before you start make sure you have the following organised.

Whether you want people to know your address or if you want your home/office address to be hidden. A Google My Business listing is a location based product, and therefore an address needs to be aligned with it. You will be sent a postcard to verify your address as part of the set up process. For people who don’t want their address publicly shown, for example if they work from home, there is an option to display a service area on the map instead.

Have your logo ready to upload. This needs to fit in a square profile template. The ideal file types are jpg or png. Make sure there is enough background colour around your logo in the file, for the entire logo to be visible when cropping to a square.

Have images that relate to your products/services ready to upload. Make sure you name each image with the service types or what products they are. Naming your images with services, product and company names can help search engine optimisation too. Example: a picture of nice tap ware in a bathroom could be named “stainless_steel_premium_tapware_Smartflow_Plumbing.jpg"

Have appropriate images of your staff/team ready to upload.

Cross Posting: What is it and should I be doing it?

Tue, 07 May 2019 21:27:37 GMT

What is cross posting?

Cross positing is sharing the exact same post across different social media platforms. It's a divided debate over whether to do it or not.

What is cross promoting?

The recommended alternative is "cross promoting". You're still using similar content - it's just tweaked to suit the platform and it’s audience.

Not every bit of content works on all mediums.

Facebook is a mix of visual with more text
Instagram is more visual
Linkedin is more business-based with owner generated content (not really pushing other people's blogs so much.)

Adapted Content

Where it is appropriate to use similar content on different channels, why not make the content work as hard as it can?

For example; an article or case study on your website: you might have a discussion and a shared preview of the article in Facebook, an image of the client using your product/service on Instagram and have 'shoppable' tags on the item, and on Linked In, a specific angle that appeals to businesses with the link to the case study on your website.

The text for each platform is slightly different. For example Instagram has hashtags and you can't put a link in the post text, but the description could cover similar stuff.

Another example; a product promotion would be suitable on Facebook, supported by an artistic preview for “the making of” on an Instagram story, but not be so suitable for Linked In as it’s more sales directed.

Likewise, if you’re doing a fun, behind the scenes post of your team’s lunch spread, it might not make sense to post a picture to your company's LinkedIn page - but it could be great content for Facebook, or even your brand's Instagram Story.

Is Instagram Worth It?

Thu, 18 Apr 2019 01:40:59 GMT

Definitely.

But just like any other marketing channel, it might not be the perfect fit for your brand.

If you're wanting to target a younger demographic 25-35, Instagram has a better engagement rate for that age group than Facebook, which generally results in higher quality leads to a website. If you're a product based company, you can also create shoppable images which a person can purchase directly from on Instagram :- making it even easier for the end user.

For Instagram to be worth it...

It requires a consistent stream of quality images, videos, the right hashtags, and reaching out to influencers. Having someone who isn't camera shy is also important for doing stories on Instagram.

You need to think strategy and the right angle for your target market: How you're going to promote your brand story visually, not only for each specific post, but also as a collection. You'll want to post more frequently on Instagram than any other platform - 3/4 times a week at a minimum. The best way to get engagement and traffic is a daily post.

Basically if you want to tell your story in a visual way, you have a younger target market, and you have the resources to post frequently, then go for Instagram. If you're better at writing content and find it hard to do images or videos around your brand for every post, then I would stick to Facebook.

Best option - do both. But adjust your content for each platform. Don’t use the same content on the same day on both platforms.

Is Instagram worth it?

Yes, definitely if:

Your target market includes 25-35 year-olds.

You sell a product online (not a necessity but there’s more functions available e.g shoppable posts).

Time and resources available to devote to Instagram posts, stories and replying to comments.

You have a strategy around why and how you’re going to use Instagram.

You have appealing visual imagery available (or happy to get) around your brand, product or service.

Download the presentation here.

When is the best time to post on Facebook?

Tue, 16 Apr 2019 20:37:51 GMT

As well as thinking about the time to post, a couple of key things to consider are CONSISTENCY and RELEVANCY. It doesn't matter what time you post if your target audience aren't engaging with the content because it's not relevant to them. And if you did 2 posts a day for 3 weeks, and then didn't post anything for the 2 weeks following, your posts might struggle to appear on people's feeds because of Facebook's algorithms.

If you think about when you browse social media, you'll get a general idea of when good times might be to post. Do you look at Facebook as soon as you wake up, or have breakfast, or have your first coffee break at work? All of the above? Are you a serial browser? Sporadic? Minimal?

Thinking about your target audience, you might be able to map out key times of the day they too might browse social media. This would be a good start if you haven't got much of a following yet.

Ideally, adding content 2 times a day is ideal. It could be a post plus a story. Obviously, this is quite a lot of time and effort, or money, so not everyone can do this. Please remember; quality not quantity.

Once you're up and running, here's how you find actual numbers on people interacting with your Facebook content:

If you're on your personal page, click on the menu at the top right of your page. You'll see your business page profile under Your Pages. Click on that to get to your business' Page

Click on Insights from the top menu bar. You'll land on an overview page. This is a good page to use for benchmarking your success. You want the percentages to show up as green. So reference this as you trial and adjust your content efforts.

Don't be afraid to experiment.

As more time, action, and engagement happens, you'll get more information and be able to make more informed decisions.

To see WHEN people are seeing your content on Facebook, click on Posts in the left menu.

You'll see a row of Days. The numbers above each block are the number of people seeing your content. eg Monday 413 people.

Below this is a graph showing the times people are seeing your content.

In this example, the audience is evenly spread over all days of the week, with the highest volume at 8pm each day on average. So time is the main determining factor as to WHEN this business would post.

If you click on one of the days, the graph will then show a line which represents the audience specifically on that day. (The solid block colour is the average over the entire week.)

This is useful if you were going to choose specific days of the week (the days with the highest volume of people) to post, as opposed to all of them. You can decide what times to post on those specific days.

You want to post content as the audience is on the rise to the peak volume so you have the best chance of engagement.

In this example, Monday and Friday at 7am and 6pm would be the best times to post, giving each post 1-2 hours of prime opportunity.

As you build up your audience, these numbers will evolve and you'll adjust as necessary.

Main take away - Consistent and Relevant

In short - Use the analytics tools to see when people are on social media and viewing your content. Regularly check these and make adjustments.

Make sure your content is relevant to your audience. Engagement is the goal.

However often you decide to post content, make sure you keep it regular so you can consistently build up your audience.

Download the Keynote Presentation here

To DIY or not to DIY, that is the marketing question...

Fri, 12 Apr 2019 05:19:18 GMT

Marketing…you know you should do it, but how?

If you go on Facebook, you might notice stories of DIYers that have managed to 'hack' marketing and build their business successfully. That's not what happens to the majority of us.

If you're a start-up it can be a complex mine field; often because of limited assets and resources whether it's time, money or expertise. If your business is already growing, you can always improve, make tweaks or grow faster. There are certain aspects of small business marketing, like blogging and social media that you can save money on and do yourself. New Zealanders like to think DIY is in their DNA, but should you always DIY your marketing? Or should you outsource, even just the more technical aspects?

The first question you should ask yourself is; what are your assets? Here we'll cover your assets in terms of expertise, time and money.

1. Expertise

Does marketing come naturally to you? If it does, perfect.

Or do you get overwhelmed thinking about advertising, content and social media? If you still want to go it alone, you'll need to figure out what percentage of your time and budget will go to learning the basics.

2. Time

The big one.

Here are a few questions to think about;

- Do you have the time to execute your marketing? This includes writing content, social media posts, creating online campaigns, sending newsletters... the list goes on.

- How much time out of your workday can you spend researching marketing and staying up to date on marketing techniques?

- Can you spend some of your free time to research marketing?

- Do you have the time to build a marketing plan or strategy? This is important as you don't want to be ad hoc in your approach.

3. Money

Don't take your worth for granted. Every minute you spend on a task has a dollar equivalent. The time you take on your own marketing could take away from your profits. Outside help, especially for areas that you need upskilling in, or that take a bit of time, could increase your return on investment.

So what will it be?

It really is down to your expertise, time and money. Once you've worked out your resources, check it against what your business needs in terms of marketing. Do they match up?

If you do go down the total DIY route, don't forget to choose your marketing focus based on your customer, not what you like to do. You also need to keep yourself accountable when you say you're going to do things. We often see small businesses know they need to do parts of their marketing and have the skills to do it, but instead are busy doing their work and push marketing to the side.

Remember, it's ok to reach out. Agencies can be brought in for the more technical stuff you're not familiar with, or the marketing you don't like to do yourself. It doesn't have to be an all or nothing situation. We find the best outcomes are when it's a collaborative relationship. Your agency should be an extension of your team, saving you from hours of guesswork and getting you the results you need.

Ready to go that next step from DIY Marketing? Let's talk.

Use your online reviews in your marketing

Fri, 12 Apr 2019 05:18:30 GMT

Online reviews provide valuable content that you shouldn't ignore. Integrating reviews and ratings into your overall marketing is essential, for any business, any size.

Why? Well, by sharing user reviews in your marketing efforts, you’re using word of mouth as a persuasion tool for potential customers to pick you. Make great reviews work as hard as they can for you. Here are some ideas on how you can leverage your online reviews:

1. Share reviews in promotional emails

According to Campaign Monitor, the average office worker receives over 121 emails a day!

That’s unarguably a lot of emails. So, it’s vital that your customers love your emails, and are encouraged to do more than read and delete them. Reviews in these emails are little seals of approval for the promoted products and services from like minded people in their in-boxes.

2. Share reviews on social media

Social media creates opportunities to expand your network, grow your audience and ultimately your customer base. Not only will current and potential customers see a great review for your brand or business; it can also encourage others to share a similar experience.

3. Weave reviews tactfully in blogs, articles or ebooks

Content marketers often use reviews to subtly, shape opinions. By weaving them tactfully in articles you write, they’ll look like natural plugs. If you’re writing sales copy on a specific product or service, boost your conversions by including the voice of your customers in it.

"Boost your conversions by including the voice of your customers in it."

4. Use reviews in printed point of sale

From sales flyers, table talkers, banners or posters, there are hundreds of different ways you can incorporate reviews in print media. Google sees the benefit in it and has launched “Small Thanks”. Small Thanks with Google is a platform that allows you to create posters, online adverts, and social media posts. You can showcase your best reviews effortlessly. It’s available for most businesses. There are limited styles available on ‘Small Thanks’ that may not fit in with your brand, but you can always get us, to create something completely customised.

5. Using reviews in online advertising

Content from users can be the most compelling aspect of an advert for building trust, instilling social proof and encouraging new visitors. Reviews that have authentic experiences have the best impact. You can’t make people search for reviews on your company, but by doing this, they don’t have to.

Using your online reviews in your marketing is easy! Hopefully, these suggestions above help you with ideas for leveraging your customer reviews. If you’re interested in building up your online reviews, get in touch, and we can talk you through how our review systems can work for you.

Negative Reviews can be Positive for your Business

Fri, 12 Apr 2019 05:17:30 GMT

Bad reviews aren’t all bad.

Let’s face it negative reviews are scary!

It doesn’t matter how long you’ve been in the game - a negative online review for your business can sting at first, but ultimately, it’s a good thing for your business and reputation. Those writing the bad reviews aren’t out to get you. They complain when they feel frustrated - the result of an action doesn’t meet their expectations. However, negative feedback isn’t always bad news, believe it or not, there can be positive side effects to negative reviews.

It gives you a chance to build a better relationship with your customers.
Everyone screws up, but that shouldn’t define you. A negative review is a great opportunity to not only show the affected customer but everyone else, that you’re a responsible company who values what every customer has to say the good - with the bad. “Brands with perfect reviews look inauthentic” Consumers trust reviews more when they see a mix of good and bad feedback.

Negative reviews really are constructive criticism.
Remember how I mentioned customers writing the bad reviews aren’t out to get you? They’re not. If a customer is having a problem with your business, then it means that something is broken and there’s room for improvement. It’s a valuable learning experience, with your customers advice, you can find out what went wrong and how to avoid it in the future.

Insight and advice for your potential customers.
It gives consumers a real picture of what they can expect from your products and/or services. If a clothing store for example gets negative reviews saying that the fit on the top was too small, the consumers that read the negative feedback know they need to order a larger size. They use this knowledge to make smarter purchase decisions.

They can create top of mind awareness.
Research suggests that negative buzz around your brand can increase sales. It can put you at the forefront of the consumers mind. Remember that customer who hasn’t interacted with you for a while? This gives them a reminder of who you are.

Can actually create loyal customers, or even brand advocates.
If the negative review is handled well, customers are more likely to stick by your brand and keep coming back. By accepting responsibility and taking action to fix the situation, you’ll win customers’ respect and solidify a more positive reputation for yourself. Every interaction is an opportunity to delight and impress - even negative reviews.

Negative reviews are still negative reviews so be sure to keep an eye on your social media profiles and review sites. You need to get in front of problems before they spiral out of control. Regularly monitoring reviews and comments will help you minimise any damage, but also help you keep your fingers on the pulse of your audience.

Having a review process can help you change that bad review into a loyal customer. Time is of the essence. We can help you set up the best review system for you. So what are you waiting for? Let's chat!

Building an Online Review Strategy

Sun, 24 Mar 2019 20:07:49 GMT

Reviews influence over 90% of customers' purchasing behaviour. Do you have a review acquisition strategy in place?

If you don't have some kind of review strategy in place, I can imagine you’ll scratch your head and think ‘dang, I better get on to this. An online review strategy is critical to your SEO, consumers purchase decisions and what search results actually gets clicked on. Reviews at the time of purchase, are what tips the customer in your favour (or a competitors favour if you have none or very little).

There are 5 very definite points that need to be remembered when looking at building a review strategy.

Quantity - This is the easiest to build. If you’re looking for a hairdresser and see that one has 100s of reviews and a 4 star average, while another has a single 5 star review, Which would you choose?
Quality - Great reviews and ratings will help improve the status of your business, everyone knows that. Although if you have 100s and all of them are 5 stars it may be a little suspicious. Sometimes letting that negative review through can be helpful for other customers to see. For example if a online dress shop has some negative reviews about the size being small, it lets other customers to buy a larger size than they normally would.
Range - It will be hard for a potential customer to find reviews about you, or even know that they should be looking for reviews about you if they’re only in one or two places. It’s best to have a wide-range approach to online reviews. Try to spread your good reputation across as many review sites as possible.
Real - All reviews need to be done by a real person. I know it can be hard to wait for more reviews to come in, especially at the start and it’s tempting to create your own reviews. However it’s not the best practice and you’ll probably be discovered, which wouldn’t be the best way to build trust.
Recent - For your reviews to help with your SEO, they need to be recent. Basically, you need to be able to ask for reviews and get them on a regular basis. If asking for reviews in person isn’t your strong point, look for an automatic review request that can ask for you.

If you’re interested in a review intelligence tool that covers all of these points, get in touch. Review Edge , makes it easy for you to have a review strategy in place without having to think about it or do much at all - you do what you’re best at (running your business) and Review Edge will take care of your online reputation.

Attraction Studio Rebrand

Thu, 21 Feb 2019 04:18:41 GMT

Somehow Attraction is over 4 years old (young) already!⠀

From a home office with 2 people & a dog, to the big move into a commercial space and a family of 6 & 3 dogs.⠀

It’s been an amazing ride, and we’ve developed so much, we’re quite proud of what we’ve achieved.

Just like that second-round of adulthood, where you’ve had the ‘finding myself’ stage and realised a few things as to what you’re about; we’re at that stage in Attraction-life. Same brand essence, purpose, mission and values, just further clarified. More capability and experience. Flat out, better everything.

So, as you do, we looked in the mirror and thought “We’ve changed. We need a new look. This just isn’t really us anymore.”

Our new branding reflects us working in the background, a partnering shadow, pushing client’s brands into the limelight.
The identity called out for dark, quiet graphics, representing the 'shadow' at work.⠀

Graphic elements using stripes and shapes are used as representations of themes or messages relating to content. For example, two circles coming together represent relationships between Attraction and our clients, or a business and their clients, whereas vertical bars are used with reports, like a bar chart.

In a balancing contrast, the customer experience of Attraction Studio is where the fun and relatability comes into play. Our tone of voice and photos of our team and clients are more lighthearted and energetic. Relationships are key. We’re all in this together.⠀

Why you should respond to positive customer reviews

Wed, 20 Feb 2019 21:41:01 GMT

Your customer's experience with your brand doesn’t finish once they leave the restaurant or get their nails done. Replying to customer reviews is becoming an increasingly important piece of the customer service picture. Just as you wouldn’t walk away from a customer who has just given you good feedback to your face, you shouldn’t online either. So while you don’t HAVE to reply to every review here’s a few more reasons why you should.

It costs a lot more to attract a new customer than to keep an existing one.

If your customer has taken the time to write a positive review about your business, it doesn’t take long to acknowledge you care back. If you only address the negative reviews, you appear defensive without showing you’re invested in what your clients have to say. By communicating you value what customers have to say - good or bad - you’re increasing the chance of them becoming loyal lifetime customers.

Your response rate is monitored by ALL major review sites and is rewarded.

Review sites such as Google and Trip Advisor are now monitoring your response rate to reviews, it even has the metric front and centre when you log in to your public profiles. Why do they monitor it? Well for Google, it shows that the page is actively managed. That activity then is rewarded with better online exposure for that listing. With a lot of companies trying to get reviews, this is yet another way you can ensure your business is put in front of potential customers.

Responding to reviews leads to improved sales and revenue.

A new study by Cornell University found that revenue levels increase as the number of review responses increase. This is similar to TripAdvisor who found that responding to more than 50% of reviews correlated with a 7% increase in hotel occupancy. These findings are echoed across other studies and industries and the takeaway is clear.

Customers prefer to go with companies that respond to reviews.

Taking the time to respond to a client’s review is a great way to give something back. Apart from replying to a review with something totally unprofessional, there’s no downside. If you’re worried about the time it takes to monitor new reviews, automate it. Our review system can track your new incoming reviews on nearly any review site and email you when it happens. Then, you only need to take a minute or two to respond back to them. Given that reviews can directly impact your traffic and bottom line it makes sense to do whatever you can to increase the number of reviews.

If you have any questions about how to respond to reviews, or building up the amount of reviews you have, get in touch!

3 Reasons why brand consistency is essential for your business.

Wed, 20 Feb 2019 21:33:51 GMT

Consistently presented brands are 3 to 4 times more likely to enjoy brand visibility than those who are inconsistent.

1. Increase Trust

Customers need a consistent experience with your brand to build a relationship. Customers know what they can expect from you, what you’re about, and that it will be the same every time. For example if your social media voice is whimsical and fun but your website is factual and sterile, you’re sending mixed signals that will confuse consumers, leaving them feeling like they can’t trust you.

2. Improves Recognition and Awareness

Consistency plays a massive role in building awareness and recognition for your business. Every time a consumer sees your logo, graph elements, or even typography it gets registered in their memory. The stronger the memory - and therefore connection to a brand, the more likely they are to buy from that brand. The brand creates a familiarity with the consumer that they’re top of mind when the need arises.

3. Builds Authority

We all aim to be the best in our industry. Your brand exudes authority. When consumers are familiar with you and what your brand story is, it gives you the opportunity to develop and tell the story in a powerful way. For example we all know Chipotle is the authority on guacamole (who cares if it costs extra!)

Ultimately branding has a great emotional impact on consumers purchasing decisions and is often the reason why people decide to buy something. To maintain brand consistency, have someone in the team in charge of managing the brand, have a set guide of brand guidelines. If you need any help with creating clear brand guidelines or making your current advertising consistent get in touch.

Using Online Reviews as Social Proof

Thu, 07 Feb 2019 00:00:00 GMT

It’s a cold evening in a new town, and you’re looking for a place to eat. You’re looking for a place to eat. You come across two restaurants – one is close to full and the other is almost empty.

Which one do you choose?

Chances are that you’ll go to the one that’s close to full.

This is social proof. Science describes it as a psychological phenomenon where we look to the opinions of others and additional “signals” to help us make decisions. It’s a powerful persuasion tool you can use, to influence potential customers who are trying to make a buying decision. That’s where an online review comes in.

Today, instead of walking around a new town especially on a cold evening, customers would rarely go to a restaurant without checking the online reviews of local restaurants first.

Social proof builds trust

People trust other people more than they trust your marketing team. No matter how amazing your content creator is, or what arguments you’re using on your landing page, your potential customers will still believe others more. In fact, 75% of consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations.

Social proof simplifies decision making

Let’s go back to the restaurant example, have you ran out of time to read reviews so you just looked at the star rating and amount of reviews instead to make your decision? Star ratings are particularly important as they’re easy to see at a glance. And, if the restaurant had hundreds of reviews while its competitors only have a handful, which one would you choose? Chances are you’ll go for the one with the most good reviews.

Social proof ads credibility

It’s hard to convince others to try your product or service without any proof of how it’s helped others. Enter in the online review that states how your product or service has helped them and this instantly adds credibility to what your marketing is saying.

It’s easy to use social proof in your marketing you just need your customers to write reviews. Our review system makes it easy to ask for and build up the amount of reviews you have through the automated review system. You can ask them to share their experiences through an email, SMS or even a review request card.

Overall, it’s extremely important for your business to appear trustworthy with today’s purchasing behaviour. Implementing social proof especially through online reviews is the quickest and easiest way of building your reputation.

Social Media ROI

Wed, 23 Jan 2019 23:00:12 GMT

Your post on Facebook or Instagram received super high engagement, impressions and reach but you’re not sure what dollar value that brought to the company?

You’re not alone. If you’ve had difficulty measuring ROI on your social media marketing, know that it’s a common problem.

Most businesses measure engagement which includes the metrics Views, Likes, and Shares instead of conversions. These are valuable especially if your social media strategy includes increased exposure, more website traffic, developing fan bases, and generating leads. Looking at these alone however is not enough, as they don’t always connect with your overall business outcomes.

So how do you measure ROI from social media?

Leverage Google Analytics and Social Pixels

If you have a website, you should already have Google Analytics set up. From here, make sure you're using UTM parameters. These are custom URL's that enable you to track the activity of users from a specific post or advert. You can be as broad or detailed as you want, but it's a great start to assigning a value to your social media efforts.

You'll also want to make sure you have goals set up in Google Analytics. There's a whole host of goals or actions to track. For E-commerce it's a little more straight forward. You can link up platforms like Shopify with Google Analytics to see both the number of sales and the revenue. For a service based website your goals might be newsletter signups, phone calls, ebook downloads, people filling in your contact form, or bookings through your website.

Make sure that you install the Facebook Pixel. This snippet of code tracks Facebook users that visit your site, and those that converted after viewing your Facebook Ad (including those that didn't click on it).

Track your goal and assign a monetary value to this.

Again for E-commerce, it's relatively simple. If you have Shopify linked to Google Analytics, it will show through reports.

If you don't have them linked up to show the revenue, then you can always track the number of people going to the cart page and assigning an average sales value to that.

Here’s an example of tracking E-commerce revenue attributed to social media.

For services, you might be measuring the number of calls or people filling in the contact form. An easy way to put a monetary value against this is by looking at the lifetime value of your customer, divided by the conversion rate. Once they contact you online, how many of them do you convert to a customer? For example, if your average customer lifetime value is $300 and you know 1 in 5 people who contact you becomes a customer, then the value of someone filling in the form is $60 ($300/5)

Then calculate your investment

Here's some of the social media inputs to consider when looking at your investment.

- Your time (labour cost x hours per week/month/post/campaign attributed to social media).

- Your social media tools.

- Advertising spend. The amount you spend on boosting Facebook posts, split tests, ads etc.

- Analyse results and improve.

From the above steps, you should be able to work out the ROI per channel/campaign/promotion.

ROI = ((Benefits-costs) x 100) /costs

For example; you pay your staff $25 per hour to create the post, it takes 4 hours for the month and they use a scheduling program that costs you $20 a month. Your costs would then be ($25 x 4)+20= 120
You might only get one sale a month because of your social media worth $300.

ROI = ((300-120)x100)/costs = 150%

But remember

Avoid measuring your social media results in a silo. Social media is only part of your marketing mix and works more effectively when used in conjunction with other media.

Only looking at your financial ROI does not show the holistic, long-term effects of having social media. Social media marketing offers value beyond just looking at the financial return. Direct engagement with customers can also build and reinforce credibility, create brand awareness, and help consumers to find aligned values with your brand.

Why Consistency in Graphic Design is Important For Your Social Media Presence

Wed, 23 Jan 2019 22:46:52 GMT

For any business, maintaining an informative, engaging and on trend social media presence can be difficult, let alone coming up with content to accurately promote your brand. By using the help of a graphic designer, you can enhance the key aspects of your business branding through visual elements such as colour, image styles and the typography you use on your social media updates. This will make your brand recognisable and help build a strong brand relationship with your followers and potential customers. With social media platforms becoming the best way for businesses to connect with their customers, you want to make sure that your channels accurately represent your brand, be it on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter or Pinterest. It’s important to listen and learn from your target audience, continually improving your updates and finding new ways to catch your audience’s eye. The key to building a strong and engaging social media presence is quality design and consistency.

From your website, to your business cards and to your social media, you want your brand to have a strong set of visual elements that represent who you are. If you aren’t happy with your business branding, chances are, that your audience won’t be happy with it either, quickly losing interest and creating a missed opportunity for you. It is best if you get in touch with a graphic designer to help pinpoint your ideal business branding. This will also make it much easier for you when it comes to social media, as you’ll have a specific style of visual assets that you can revert to when you need to post an update. Let’s go through some of the key things you need to keep consistent in your graphic design, to help your social media remain at the top.

Colours and Patterns

If you already have a logo or website, you mostly likely have a few colours that appear throughout your branding materials. Your graphic designer will often use these colours in your designs, so make sure you are happy with how these characterise your brand. Pinpoint which colours you choose to represent your business, as these will inspire how your target audience evaluates your style. Once you’ve decided on this, make sure that you stick to these colours, as these will become recognisable. Think about how Cadbury ’s iconic purple colour has been used in their packaging and throughout their business history. This brand has applied their unique colour throughout their social media channels, meaning that when users are scrolling through their feeds, they’ll immediately recognise an update from Cadbury, even before seeing their username. This also applies to the patterns that your graphic designer incorporates into your designs. Whether this is simple line art or 90’s era geometric shapes, you’ll want this to remain consistent from your website to your social media channels. These aspects of graphic design help represent the vibe of your brand and can be highly engaging for return viewers due to the cohesive and memorable nature of your content.

Imagery Style

Images are of course, one of the best ways your audience can visualise your product or service. Similar to the aspect of colour, you’ll want your images to remain consistent across all the touch points of your brand. A lot of top social media profiles have managed to incorporate consistent imagery throughout their social media and websites. Using a filter on all your social media images will create a visually appealing overall appearance for your social media profile, whether that’s increasing the shadows of each image or highlighting the whites of your photos to make them seem more pristine.

Typography

Typography is how the text content of your visual material appears. This can range from all sorts of computer-generated fonts to brush stroke, calligraphy, and other design options. It’s a good idea to only use one or two fonts for your brand and keep these consistent through your social media, as it will become the recognisable voice of your brand. Australian brand, Frank Body , uses a classic typewriter style font in their logo, packaging text and content produced for their social media profiles. Scroll through their profile and you’ll recognise their content created specifically for their audience. This is also easy to pick due to their peachy colour and simple line patterns used in a consistent manner.

Maintaining consistency will emphasise the personality of your brand. This continuity will help you build an audience that should be able to immediately recognise your branding. Consistency is also a huge factor in the growth of social media as regular, quality updates on social media will keep your brand top of mind to your customers and help to foster positive purchasing decisions.

If you need help with promoting your business consistently on social media, don’t hesitate to get in touch with Claire Stevens at Crunchy Social for ways we can improve your business social media .

Brand Trust: Why It's Important

Wed, 30 May 2018 03:50:13 GMT

"A Brand is Simply Trust" - Steve Jobs

It’s the seventh year in a row that the popular chocolate maker Whittaker’s has seized the Readers Digest title of New Zealand’s most trusted brand.

Whittaker’s Head of International Markets Matt Whittaker credits it to “We think it is a combination of our 122-year history, reliability for quality, and our innovation in creating tempting new products over recent years - sometimes in collaboration with other iconic Kiwi brands, or in support of important causes. All this has helped us maintain that trusted status," As New Zealand Herald comments, those that were surveyed mentioned “Whittaker's quality ingredients, business integrity, local manufacturing, prices, advertising, and care for the environment”.

Why is this important? For starters most brands, stripped of all marketing and advertising, deliver something functional. Consumers don’t buy the brand function, they buy the brand promise. With the brand promise comes with an emotional connection, which builds trust. Just have a look at the numbers...

Today’s consumer can easily swap between competing brands and without trust in your brand they will easily do this. You can’t expect a consumer to buy your products or services, stay loyal to your brand or to be an advocate if they don’t trust your brand and your brand promise. By having a trusted brand, you’ll consistently have a solid base of customers who will always go to your brand over competitors even if the functionality is the same.

Think about a friend or acquaintance you trust and talk to often for advice. You know that their advice is generally good and it's worked for you in the past. You're more likely to go back to them in the future for more advice because you know what they're like and you trust them. The same can be said for brands. You're more likely to go back to a brand that you can trust will do what they say they're going to do and give you the same (or better) experience every time.

How to build trust for your brand.

In the simplest form it needs to start at the foundation of brand building - consistency and aligned values are key. Inconsistency in brand message, image and/or experience leads to customer confusion and therefore rejection. Consumers emotionally connect with the brand promise from shared values. When they select the brand over another they are making a statement to the world about what they stand for and who they are. Whittaker’s rise to most trusted brand received a boost when the giant competitor Cadbury used palm oil in it’s products. Not only does it go against the values of consumers (environmentally unfriendly) but it also goes against the consistent experience with the brand (the taste changed). The result was their consumers no longer trusted Cadbury, translating to a massive drop in market share.

At Attraction Studio we understand how to build and deliver brands that are consistent with a strong brand promise. Ultimately we create an identity for our clients that people connect with.

Google's Online Review 'Game'- Local Guides

tania@attractionstudio.co.nz (Attraction Studio) — Tue, 17 Oct 2017 03:06:32 GMT

In true Google fashion, Google is changing the way we write reviews by turning it into a game.

We’re all familiar with how fun Google can be especially on their homepage. From small tweaks to the logo to full blown illustrations, animations and even interactive games, Google has shown time and time again, how playful they can be.

Google is looking to be the most dominant in the review arena, competing with sites like Trip Advisor and Facebook. They’re also looking to improve the accuracy and level of contribution towards Google Maps. In true Google fashion, they’re doing this by turning consumer contribution into a game. This new program or game is Local guides.

‘Local guides’ allows users to review, post pictures and update information about businesses. It works using a point system – adding gamification. As humans are inherently competitive, creating a game to engage consumers in something we wouldn’t normally give much attention to is intelligent.

“As a Local Guide, you’ll help others explore the world and get great benefits in return. It’s a win-win. Every place you improve on Google Maps earns you points towards unlocking something new.”

You can receive points when you upload photos, share reviews, add new places, update information about a business or answer questions, it all depends on your level of contribution. The more points you earn the more perks you receive. Benefits as a local guide include early access to new products and features, 1 terabyte of free storage for your Google Drive, a free three-month Google Play Music subscription and more.

How can a small business benefit from local guides?

Beyond the ability to review and publish photos for your own business, there are a number of reasons why you should sign up for Local Guides. First, you will be able to review businesses you benefit from in your area. Whatever your industry, you likely collaborate with several businesses to bring better services to your customers. Show your appreciation with a thoughtful review – the businesses may even return the favour.

Becoming a guide also gives you a chance to network, and by giving a face to your business you create a lasting impression on the people you meet. And finally, early access to Google tools and services can enhance your marketing efforts.

It can be tricky! If you have any difficulties with how to set one up or where to start contact Attraction Studio on 035501443 or send us an email and we can help you out.

Lost Marketing Opportunity

tania@attractionstudio.co.nz (Attraction Studio) — Wed, 16 Nov 2016 22:14:57 GMT

News + Views

Types of Giveaways to use in your Marketing

Common Giveaways

E-book

Video

Samples

Gift with Purchase

What’s not a giveaway - discounts!

What kind of giveaways are you using to attract leads?

Facebook Ad Types

Single Image

Video

Messenger

Carousel

Collection (Instant Storefront/Instant Storytelling)

Customer Reviews

A post-purchase review email or text can help to reinforce customer satisfaction with your brand and build trust and loyalty. This will lead to higher levels of customer retention.

Why it's important...

Trust

The big word here is Trust

Holiday Marketing

Are you ready for the holiday season?

Partner Up

Create Holiday Bundles

Offer Gift Cards

Remarket to the “lost” Customer

Interactive Campaigns

Google Ads

Why use Google Ads

Types

Search Ads

Shopping

Display

Video

Mobile/App

What Digital Marketing Channels Should You Focus On?

Choosing the Right Channel

Most Effective Marketing Channels

Website

SEO & Content

Social Media

Email Marketing

PPC (Pay Per Click)

YouTube

Customer Retention

After we purchase something, there are a number of emotions that we experience. It could be the excitement of something new, or potentially anxiety or concern for whether we’ve made the right decision.

Show You Care

Offer "How To" Guides and Advice

Reminders

Complimentary Products or Services

Loyalty Programs

Survey - Loyalty & Retention: Net Promoters Score

A Net Promoter Score is a powerful tool used to track customer loyalty and gauge customer lifetime value.

Understanding Your Net Promoter Score

Calculate your Net Promoter Score

Net Promoters Score = % of promoters - % of detractors.

Best Practices

Survey - Obstacles in the Journey: Exit Intent Surveys

Exit Intent Surveys are a great way of understanding why a website visitor is leaving before signing up, making a purchase, or booking a session.

Survey - Post Purchase Follow Up: Customer Experience

Discover what your customers think. Improve your product. Repeat.

Surveys - Pre Purchase Phase: Qualifying Leads

The Value of Surveys

Businesses need valid and reliable data to make good decisions.

Customer Touchpoints & Customer Journey Mapping

Creating a customer journey map so that you can create loyal customers.

Choosing the Right Medium

Choosing the right medium for your target market.

Audience

Budget

Message

Why and How to Define your Target Market

Your audience is not “everyone”

Why should you care?

How do I know who my target market is?

Focus your target market

Creating a buyer persona

Optimising your Google My Business Listing

Simple Optimisation Tricks

Publishing Google Posts

Collection  (Instant Storefront/Instant Storytelling)

Net Promoters Score =  % of promoters - % of detractors.