Moving your Small Business online - Part 4: Paid Advertising Online

Welcome to the 4th and final part of this blog series on tips for moving your business into the online and digital space.  This post discusses paid advertising across the digital space.

Google Adwords

You will have noticed sponsored links to websites appear on a Google Search. These usually occur at the top or the right hand side of the Google search page. (I focus here on Google, as in Australia it is the most widely used search engine, accounting for 97% of search terms). These posts appear because businesses have paid for their websites to appear there, based on the key words you have searched for on Google. Marketers refer to this as search engine optimisation - pay per click.

Search engine optimisation can be very effective for businesses who have a strong website but need broader reach. Google has an application you can manage for your paid advertising called Google Adwords. Money spent on Google Adwords to promote your business for key search words on Google is only cost effective if your website is optimised to convert any web leads into a sale. If you don’t have a strong call to action such as an online shop, an online quote engine, or make it easy for prospects to contact you, it is wasted money.  You can sign-up for Google AdWords

Businesses who should invest in SEO pay-per-click advertising: online retailers, businesses with quotes or click to call functionality, businesses who market events or in the tourism sector.

Regardless of if your business invests in paid SEO advertising or not, it is imperitive that any website is optimised for search engines using key words relevant to search terms in your website. Read our post here about SEO for beginners.

Web Banners 

I've read a lot of information about Web Banners and about advertising your business on other businesses sites. You get conflicting reports of how successful it is, but based on my experience, I tend to notice that it is  good for building brand awareness, but not so much for users clicking through to your website unless it is event specific.  Many web users avoid clicking on anything flashy or gimicky for fear of trojan horses and viruses infecting their computers. As a result, web banners have become less effective. If you do go down this route, well-branded banners are key for success - to build credibility with the viewer. 

It is also important that you arm yourself with as much return-on-investment forecasting that you can before agreeing to advertise on a third parties website. For example, a good advertiser will have analytics on their site and therefore be able to give you the following information:

• Number of page views (daily)
• Average bounce rate (users who go to their site, then bounce off again, you want to consider this bounce rate when you are assessing the page views.
• Average click thru rate for web banners on their page - this should help you estimate how many will be engaged with your advertisment and therefore how much web traffic you could expect to receive from it, multiply this by your own web traffic to lead ratio and then you have a return on investment estimate.
• Demographic/Target market of their website

Businesses who should invest in web-banners: Businesses who's target market matches that of the advertiser and who can prove a successful return on investment from their spend.

Facebook Advertising

Facebook paid advertising can be successful if it is planned well and there is a clear objective. Typically I wouldn't recommend using Facebook paid advertising until you have your Facebook company page set-up correctly and have a dedicated resource to monitor it. Once all of your company information is included on the page, an appropriate cover photo, profile picture, and any custom tabs are built, paid posts can be of use.

There are options to target your posts by demographic which can be very useful to ensure you don't post your brand too broadly and waste your advertising spend. It is also important you declare if the post is visible to any current friends or their connections. 

You can schedule posts to be used as sponsored ads or Facebook can automatically take a recent post and use that as the sponsored post. The latter can be risky if your posts aren't always broadly relevant. If you are going to take the time and money to invest, I would recommend choosing your specific posts to promote.

Through paid advertising on Facebook you can gain more users of your Facebook application, new engagement or higher likes on your page. Make sure your objective is clear and devise your campaigns around that.

Businesses who should use Facebook paid advertising: New businesses to build brand awareness, Businesses who are B2C and have regular specials, businesses who need to increase their reach in particular demographic areas.

Well that's it for this series, if you have any questions about this post, other posts or any comments or feedback, you can leave it in the comments section of this post, or else please email me at enquire@piggieback.com.au 

I hope this series gave you some clarity into taking your business into the digital world.

Have a terrific rest of the week,

Caitlin Davey

Director of Communications

Piggieback

Moving your Small Business online - Part 3: LinkedIn, Meet-Up, Email Marketing

Continuing with our tips for moving your business into the online space, let's look at what businesses should consider having a Company LinkedIn page, network through Meet-Up or use regular Email Marketing. 

LinkedIn 

LinkedIn is a great way to leverage your own professional network, and great for HR and recruitment purposes.

LinkedIn in a nutshell:

• Create your professional profile (online CV), and connect with those in your professional network. 
• Recommend or endorse your connections for skills you have seen them prove. 
• Use LinkedIn to share updates in your career or news related to your business, you can also use it to share articles with connections or to let them know of new skills or career changes. 
• Create a business or company page to share updates and information about your business including business services, promoting job vacancies and connecting your business with your employees for greater brand awareness and reach about your products and services. 

Businesses who should use LinkedIn: B2B or businesses who rely on their professional network for their business.

Meet-Up

Meet-up is an online profile where you can upload information about yourself and create and organise to attend networking events in your area with other users.

A broad reach with localisation means that entrepreneurs can connect with each other in an online space, as can people of different interest groups. You also have the ability to connect with other people in the Meet-Up network.

Businesses who should be on Meet-Up: start-ups, entrepreneurs, small businesses who can offer their services to other business startups, businesses who want to grow their network.

Email Marketing

Email marketing is a great tool to build customer loyalty and retention. When used correctly, email marketing can generate healthy web traffic and sales. We've written a lot about Email marketing including Best Practice do's and don'ts, how to create a database and importance of clean data, tips for the functionality and design of a marketing email and a post on execution and reporting of an email campaign

Businesses who should use email marketing: any green or eco-friendly business (instead of direct postal mail-outs) sole traders or small businesses for sharing news about their company to regular customers, retailers, B2C businesses who offer sales and discounts or whose range of products varies by season, businesses who want to capitalise on word of mouth referrals and for customer retention. Season specific businesses, Accountants and those which may go for months without speaking to customers, to optimise top of mind brand recognition and therefore retention.

Part 4, our final collection of tips for assisting businesses in moving to the online and digital space looks at paid advertising across search engines, social media and other websites.

Sincerely,

Caitlin Davey

Director of Communications

Piggieback

Moving your Small Business online - Part 2: Twitter, Pinterest and Instagram

Continuing with our tips for moving your business into the online space, let's look at what businesses should consider having a Twitter, Pinterest or Instagram account. 

Twitter

Twitter has been heavily adopted by users across the globe. It is a great tool to obtain global reach for your messages, so long as you know how to market your tweets successfully.

There are roughly 1.6 million Twitter accounts in Australian and 45-54 year olds are the biggest segment.

Twitter in a nutshell:

• Update posts frequently, of no more than 140 characters or 117 if you include a link. 
• Follow other users, other users follow you. 
• Tap into a live newsfeed of posts of those you follow, or search key words collated by #hashtags to find posts which have used that post. 
• Using #hashtags will give your tweets broader reach and therefore more visibility in the twittersphere which encourages a growth in followers. For more information on #hashtags see our post here.
• You can brand your Twitter page. 
• Largely used to get news, fast. 

Businesses who should use Twitter: News sources, tabloids, journalists or bloggers, businesses wanting global reach.

Pinterest

There are 630,000 activeAustralian Pinterest users at last count. The demographic skew is 57% female, 43% male who are affluent or have high disposable income. It is an aspirational social media platform.

Pinterest in a nutshell:

• An online pinboard collection, where users pin images to different pin boards they collate on different subjects. 
• Like, comment and repin others posts. 
• Visual medium, heavy in beautiful photography, retail items, aspirational quotes, links to blog articles and DIY tutorials. 

Businesses who should use Pinterest: Retailers, bloggers, visual businesses such as photography studios, event planners, any businesses who are able to generate great imagery, often.

Instagram

Instagram is fantastic for businesses that are on the go, travelling, at events or involve process. Use Instagram to unite employees with outcomes, to share insider information about new products, events, photography shoots etc.

Instagram in a nutshell:

• A smart phone application recently purchased by Facebook. 
• Integrates with Facebook in that you can auto-push posts to your Facebook page. 
• Take pictures with your smartphone, upload them to Instagram which allows you to sharpen or blur, adjust colours through various “filters”, tag other Instagram users or tie the photographs to keyword newsfeeds based on #hashtags. 
• Follow other users. 
• Other users can follow you. 

Businesses who should use Instagram: Retailers, businesses who travel a lot or are “onsite” a lot, any business who works in the community, who creates structures or visual outcomes. These businesses should always be able to take photographs which are meaningful to their business easily, and frequently.

Stay-tuned for Part 3 which covers Meet-up, LinkedIn, and Email Marketing.

Caitlin Davey

Director of Communications

Piggieback 

Moving your Small Business online - Part 1: Websites and Facebook

Over the next few blog posts we will be outlining the ways in which small businesses can move their businesses into the online space. 

Today let's look at what businesses should have a website or Facebook Page.

Should I create a website?
Do you need a website? A serious question! Firstly, put yourself into the mind of your customer… what would they want to find out about your business online? Is it contact details? Is it a product brochure? Is it more information about your business? Websites can be used for many different reasons in today's digital world.

Before you design your website, make sure you sit down and consider what the purpose of this site is for your business and what function you want your website to play in your marketing mix.

Businesses who should have a website Businesses who want to display an online brochure or collect lead information, any business who give quotes online, any online retailers, any B2B businesses for a corporate presence, businesses who can convert people browsing the web into a sale.

If you decide you need a website, make sure you read our article on website best practices, then on how to choose a web agency, and make sure you add an analytics and web traffic platform such as google analytics.

Should I create a Facebook Page?
Do you want to get your brand onto Facebook? There are almost 12 million Facebook users in Australia… that’s roughly 50% of our population. If Facebook was a country, it would be the worlds third largest. Facebook in Australia has a slight female skew (54%), the largest segment is 23-34 year olds but the fastest growing segment to adopt Facebook are 45-55 year olds. Facebook has been very successful for many Australian brands, both big and small, but before you jump on board, I urge you to again consider, what is the purpose of Facebook for your business? There are squillions of Facebook pages which lay idle and aren’t used effectively by the companies that own them. Facebook is fantastic for leveraging word of mouth referrals and boosting brand awareness. It can also be used as a customer service platform to engage with customers and prospects in relation to your products and services.

Facebook is most effectively used when it is both a push and pull medium. By that I mean, that it should be used to push messages out, but also pull or attract messages from customers to comment, message, engage with the page. Facebook should be a customer engagement platform first and foremost, an area to share information, and then secondly to promote your business. Don’t fall into the trap of constantly asking your fans for business, or you will lose your fans very quickly. 

Facebook is a very visual social media platform, which continues to evolve as more and more timeline composition designs are released, it does, however, require some custom work to make full use of Facebooks functionality. A note of caution – do be careful to read the rules and restrictions of using your Facebook brand page correctly, for example: you are allowed to use your Facebook page for competitions, so long as any data collected is collected by a third party application on your page and that competition entrants aren’t required to use any Facebook functionality for their submissions, or for any notifications of winners. See the latest terms and conditions here http://www.facebook.com/page_guidelines.php

Businesses who should use a Facebook Page: Any businesses who rely on word of mouth referral traffic, retailers, sole traders, online businesses, B2C businesses who run promotions or sales.

If you do decide your business needs a Facebook Page, make sure you set it up as a branded Facebook Page, and not a Personal Page. It is easy for some sole traders to use their personal pages, but to look professional and ensure you get the best functionality available to you, ensure you set your business up on a Company Page.

Stay tuned for Part 2 on Twitter, Pinterest and Instagram for Small Businesses.

Caitlin Davey
Director of Communications
Piggieback Pty Ltd.

#Hashtags: Why are they everywhere?

Hashtags are very 2012.

Infact, "hashtag" was the word of the year in 2012 according to the American Dialect Society.

So what are they, why do people use them and when is it appropriate to use them?

Firstly, a hashtag looks like this: #insertword

Hashtags first came to public prevalence during the birth of Twitter, although had been used to group articles together in the coding world prior to this.

On Twitter, users, affectionately known as 'tweeters' post updates using a maximum of 140 characters. They often include a # followed by a "key-word" or "topic" to group their tweet into "said key-word" topic across the Twittersphere. (Have I lost you yet?)

Let me give you an example of a tweet before Hashtags:
"Can't wait to see Federer play at the Australian Open in Melbourne tonight!"

Now including Hashtags:
"Can't wait to see #Federer play at the #AustralianOpen in #Melbourne tonight!"

Any Twitter user now searching for content on the topic "Federer", "Australian Open" or "Melbourne" will now see this tweet.

Key word topics are completely customisable. You can create a topic that is only likely to be used by you such as #piggiebackmelbourne2013 or you could add to another popular topic such as #google.

Creating your own hashtag is ideal for reading fan feedback from branded events! Adding a common key word topic is great to make your tweet more visible.

All tweets are public, but only findable via search terms which match either your account name, twitter handle (which is an @ sign before your twitter name), twitter page URL or a hashtag. Therefore, using hashtags on your tweets increases your social media reach.

Now that the hashtag origins and their most common use have been established, let's go into more detail about the social media landscape in the past year especially.

Social Media has exploded, there are thousands of social media sites attracting users around the globe. The big players are Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and LinkedIn but in Australia, Instagram and Pinterest have risen up the ranks and now have a sizeable following. Instagram and Pinterest also use the hashtag functionality to group images to particular topics.

With this plethora of social platforms now available, the different sites realised that users are lazy.

Users won't want to maintain multiple social media pages with similar updates about their lives and therefore might consolidate their social presence over time and eventually opt-out of their site! So these platforms created integrations between the sites that allowed a post on one site to then push a post to another.

For example, post a tweet to Twitter, and it will update Facebook with the same tweet but as a status update. Although this has been used successfully by many users, some users just haven't noted the subtle differences between the networks and as such, auto-syncing their networks has meant Hashtags have started appearing EVERYWHERE!


Question: Where can you use a hashtag for grouping posts/images on particular topics?
Answer: Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram & Pinterest.

Question: Where does a hashtag have no function but will alert your following that you are lazily integrating another social network and only optimizing your post for hashtag friendly social media?
Answer: Facebook.


What's worse is, often people haven't considered how their post affects the different communities reading the post. Here is a need to remember run-down of the purposes of each of these platforms:

• Twitter - great for spreading news, generating public reach, get information, fast.
• Facebook - fabulous for keeping up-to-date with friends and family
• LinkedIn - professional updates, keeping track of your professional network
• Instagram - stalk celebrity lives through images, take photos like a professional using your smart phone and share them with your friends and the public.
• Pinterest - keep an online scrapbook of your dream life, great ideas, recipes, products you want to purchase.

So, does that explain the hashtag phenomenon for you?

Are you an inappropriate Hashtag user?

Have you seen other people overuse Hashtags?

What is your hashtag pet hate?

Sincerely,

Caitlin Davey

Director of Communications

Piggieback

Creating a Logo

Hi Friends,

A strong brand identity is crucial for building brand awareness and brand recall. It is easy to get caught up with what colour a logo is, what typeface is used and keeping costs low. Investing in memorable branding will pay off in the long term, so resist the urge to create a logo yourself or use a standard cursive script!

What are the non negotiables?

• An easy to spell name.
• An easy to read logotype (that's designer speak for your brand written using text) which doesn't use stock-standard Microsoft Word generated text. WordArt, fun for school projects but unprofessional for branding. Don't go there.

Some examples of strong logotypes:

 

 

 

• A logo. You have three choices, either, a logotype which works like a pictorial logo would, adding a logo to work alongside your logotype or as a combined version. This will help make your brand memorable and gives you options when you roll out your brand across different sorts of collateral.

Pictorial Logos - Chanel and Warner Bros:

 

Combined logo and logotype - Nike and Walt Disney:

 

 

 

Logotypes which work as logos - IBM and Ray Ban:

• A square version of your logo. This could be a square version of your logotype, your logo, or a combined version of both. This will be used as an icon for social media, for power points, for your book mark icon or "favicon" on your website. It will come in very handy!

Square versions- MTV and Microsoft:

 

 

• Think about longevity. Will this logo date? Will the font date? Have a few outsiders have a look and ask them what ideas it conjures up for them. Make sure the logo can't be interpreted in a way which doesn't suit your brand. We've all seen logos that look like something they aren't meant to such as... well, I will leave your imagination to complete the end of that sentence.
• A black and white version
• A coloured version
• A style guide to how your logo should be applied. This should include what dimensions the logo is, where it should be placed on a page, how it should be incorporated when using a coloured image or background, what corporate colours you can use, what fonts you can use. I will be sure to cover off more about this style guide in a blog post to come.
• A COPY OF THE ORIGINAL FILES. Sorry for shouting, but I really have to put that in capitals. If you don't have copies of the original vector image files, you won't be able to change the scale (the size) of the logo in the future. It also makes printing your logo difficult, chances are you will end up with a fuzzy logo. It doesn't matter if you can't open these files (for example, they might end in .ai .indd .psd), store them somewhere safe so that when it comes to using your logo, you have them ready for the designer.

Your brand identity needs to feel right, if it's over designed, confusing, doesn't sit with your brand values or brand personality, then it's not right for you. Costs for branding vary from $500 for a small business with 1 or 2 logo variations to $1Million for an organisation that needs brand research to discover which direction is best for them. Make sure you brief your designer on everything you need, and also what styles best suit you. Consider giving them your vision, your values, a background story about your business, a few links to designs you like, anything you really don't like, what colours you were visualising, and if you can, a moodboard with images, words and colours which match your brand. Effectively briefing the designer is the key to a quick turn around with the design, eliminates frustration and makes sure they present you with concepts which are right on-brand for you. If you are confused about your brand, they will be too!

What are your thoughts on branding identity? Have you experienced any pain-points? Do you have any tips for making the most from your branding identity?

Stay relevant!

Caitlin

Caitlin Davey
Director of Communications at Piggieback

What makes a good brand?

What is a good brand? A good brand is always the customers’ preferred choice. It stays “top-of-mind” whenever the customer is presented with a choice of either your brand’s product/service, or another company’s. For a brand to be successful you need a few key elements to work together.

1. The right customer: you need to focus all your energy and attention on the right target market. Determine what they value and focus your brand offerings around them. The biggest mistake you can make is trying to be all things to all people. Stay focused!

2. A brand position: if you don’t lose sight of your target market when defining your brand, your chances of successfully positioning your brand drastically improve. The position your brand makes must be compelling, unique and attractive to your target market compared to your competitors. There has to be a clear reason your target market will have their needs fulfilled with your promise, as opposed to your competitors. Do you deliver a high volume and low cost solution? Is it a regular service, or do you deliver luxury? What is attractive to your target market?

3. A supportive team: a good brand delivers a consistently good experience for the customer. From the senior executives, all the way through to customer service, after-care and support, the positioning needs to be clear. To get all aspects of your operations to work “on brand” you need to ensure that you have a committed team behind you. Customers need to have a great brand experience when they interact with you, whether that’s your brand products/services, or the people in your company. As your brand is what your customers think of it, there’s only so much you can control to ensure your customers have a great brand experience. An airline might for example have a great brand strategy, however, if a customer has a bad experience with the airline they will have a different idea of the brand. Having a good, supportive team behind you makes it easier to succeed when your brand interacts with your customers.

Once this is decided you can move on to creating a brand identity!

A strong brand strategy can create brand awareness which in turn can lead to customers keeping you top-of-mind! If you need assistance with your branding we offer branding strategy, branding frameworks, brand generation, brand development, brand identity, design and implementation across all digital, offline and point of sale platforms as required. Don’t hesitate to contact us: enquire@piggieback.com.au

Have a great week!

Piggieback