5 ways online marketing is changing underneath our noses, translating the jargon.

I saw a tweet from gigya.com linking to a white paper on five predictions they believe will shape digital marketing in the years to come.

It was a hook to sign up and read more, I didn’t, but it got me thinking about things I have noticed lately in online marketing...and this is my take on their five points.

1. Massive data collection across multiple touch points becomes standard (Bear with me, I’ll explain.)

Last night I was trying to find out my Google+ address to link it to my website. I knew my Facebook one is /LucyLavers, as is my Twitter address, but what was my Google+ address? If I wanted www.google.com/+LucyLavers they wanted my mobile number, and then to verify it.

Google now know what I do on the Internet; what I search for, what social media I use, they have my email address, my mailing address through Google places and a connected and verified mobile number; they have verified multiple touch points to gather data on all I do, research, share and spend on.


2. Marketers get a firmer grip on data they manage

I am working with a client and starting the process of moving years of invoices onto a simple Excel database so they can access data about their clients easily, to communicate with them more effectively; names, dates, addresses, email address, customers that live in Oxford, Witney and so on.

Looking at this data I am working with, it would be great to really use it, get a grip on it, and get a grip on collecting it. If you're a pub you don't want to promote your steak night to your vegetarian clients; if you clean your carpets, why don't you make a note of your customers with dogs?

The age of social media means customers want relationships with brands and companies, they want to know you better and to feel special. The only way companies can do that is to take a really good look at the data they collect on clients, and how that data can be utilised for more effective messaging.

3. Social media grows into big data

'Big Data' has been a buzz word for a while; big business using quantitative data and analysis to predict customers’ behaviour and attitudes, doing what small business have always been able to do, and that is personalise their service.

But now you can take 'data' from your social media channels to see what is working, who is sharing and to get to know your fans/customers better. Who is following you, liking you, retweeting, sharing, commenting? What else are they interested in, how can you engage with them? Using Facebook insights, Followerwonk, Google Analytics and other social media data tools, social media is now offering up 'big data' to anyone who wants to use it, small and big business alike.

4. Permission marketing becomes the norm

Permission marketing is the opposite to interruption marketing, so Wikipedia says, but this doesn't actually mean that companies are going to always expressly ask for permission to add you to email lists, but more and more they are asking for customers to opt in and sign up. They will also take 'implied' permission from a person searching the Internet for the product or service they provide.

To me this is the obvious evolution of personal/targeted marketing to people further along the buying decision, who have possibly expressed an interest in hearing more, rather than a general online campaign to thousands who may not be interested.



5. Programmatic marketing ends the age of generalisations

Programmatic marketing is already happening and is more than likely already happening to you.

 ..customers who liked this also liked......you still have two items waiting in your shopping cart....

You are on your computer and ads keeping popping up for items you were searching on Google for yesterday!! Programmatic marketing.

So yes, it will end generalisation. As cookies and algorithms track everything we search for, read, click through to, tweet, retweet, like, share, watch and write about, the marketing/advertising we will receive will be tailored exactly to our expressed interests.

A bad thing, or a good thing? I am not sure.

One thing I am sure of is marketing is getting smarter, and any business that wants to be successful with online marketing has to work out a way to really to get to know their customers.

5 quick ways to improve your LinkedIn Profile

When was the last time you looked at your LinkedIn profile?

Perhaps you set it up to just have a presence on LinkedIn, but have done little with it since.

LinkedIn is constantly changing, adding new elements, visual opportunities and engaging ways to connect with other professionals. Here are my 5 quick ways to improve your LinkedIn profile and make it more engaging.

1. Photo

Make sure your photo is as professional as it can be. Holiday or wedding shots, whilst they may make you

look nice, do not give the right first impression.
A well-lit head-shot with a plain background is perfect. Nothing too dark or too dated. There is nothing worse than having to squint at an image on LinkedIn to see if that's the right Dave Smith.

2. Headline - Let them know exactly what you do/offer

This should be what you actually do or can offer rather than your job description (which is just below your headline anyway).
Head of all things at Push Start Marketing means nothing. But...
Edit
Freelance marketing for organisations with a limited/non-existent budget, helping them achieve their goals themselves

... will get my message across instantly

3. Summary - Make it engaging

Again, use your summary to let people know why they should connect with you, what you can do to help them, and why you are on LinkedIn.
Avoid going through your education and employment history and really tell people why you are the best at what you do or what is unique about you.
Anyone can be an accountant, marketeer or recruitment consultant, but there is a reason they should connect and work with you, so let them know about it.

4. Use images and video

You can now insert images, videos and links, along with previews to the links, into your summary and experience. If you have a job that is very visual, this is the perfect opportunity to add examples of your work, but if not, take this opportunity to add websites, images or videos to liven up your background. 

5. Recommendations

Unlike endorsements that anyone (whether you know them or not, or whether you possess those skills or not) can 'endorse', recommendations are personal testimonials. Recommendations now appear underneath the relevant position with an accompanying image. 

It is easy and prudent to ask your connections for recommendations (in edit profile, edit recommendations, ask for a recommendation on the right).

Be sure to make all recommendation requests personal, and if there is a particular point you want covered, don't be afraid to mention it. Some even write the recommendations themselves for their connections to approve, to save time and be sure everything they want mentioned is there. Be careful though, that all your recommendations do not read like you wrote them yourself.

In summary

LinkedIn will help and encourage you to complete your profile. Take a look at what you are telling visitors about yourself, your experience and what you have to offer. Consider what you say at networking meetings for your 60-second pitch, or how you introduce your business to new customers, and then apply that to LinkedIn. 

How we got organic traffic to equal pay-per-click traffic in just 8 weeks. A mini case study.

Do you have a website that is not ranking?
Not getting visitors?
Not converting to sales or leads?

Are you paying for Adwords to get traffic?

Designed to Sparkle: How a few small changes made a huge difference

I have a client, Fiona, who makes beautiful jewellery and sells it online but the website was struggling with no organic traffic; all her visitors were coming from her paid for AdWords campaign.

Fiona was very active on social media, but with no strategy to make the most of the time she was spending sharing her jewellery.

She has a Facebook page and is very active on Pinterest.

I spent 2 hours talking to Fiona about her website and what she was doing with her social media.

She didn't have a strategy for her social media and was using a more 'scatter gun' approach. By looking at what she was hoping to achieve, the images, and messages she was using and exploring the idea of 'content curation'  for her customers we were able to establish a strategic and cohesive social media plan.

Search Engine Optimisation

We looked at her current organic SEO and ran a ranking report to see where she was ranking for her keywords.

The results weren't so good.

So I wrote Fiona a new sitemap to help her give all the search engines the basic messages they need to rank the different pages of the website, whether it's bridal gifts, wedding jewellery or bridesmaids bracelets.

Only three weeks to see a change

3 weeks after implementing the changes I recommended Fiona wrote:

...I'm busy working on making the changes to my website and can already see some great changes via my Google Analytics account and the ranking of keywords in search.

Still more work to do but it's gratifying to see them already making a big difference, so thank you :)

8 weeks later she was flying up the search engine rankings. 

Proven return on investment

Fiona's organic traffic is now equal to her AdWords traffic, and the organic visitors have placed orders. 

Although her Adword spend is not massive, as soon as she stops paying, those visitors will stop. But her organic rankings will continue to rise, as will her number of visitors and hopefully paying customers, so her return on the small investment she made in some time with me and her hard work will continue to increase. 

Well done Fiona, and thanks. 

Sound like something you need?

If you need some help with your website, give me a call. There is always something we can do to help you achieve your goals. 

10 minutes to set up Google+ basics for your business

Why you need to take 10 minutes to set up a Google+ account, business page and Google places page.
I gave this 10-minute presentation for Juice Networking and am now sharing it with the world. 

Are you more of a do-er than a reader?
I am running 2hr seminars on Google+ for local business 9.30 -11.30 am at The Fleece, Witney in October, November and December. 
I can't offer them for free, but I can offer incredible value for money, and 10% off if you book now with promo code PSM10

Google+ was launched in the summer of 2011 and tens of millions of people signed up for an account but it was quickly slammed by critics for not being social, having no good content or exchanges.

How Google+ works

Google+ works with circles. You create Circles of friends, colleagues, networks, whatever you want to call them and decide who goes in which circle. You can then share content privately with your Circles or publicly with the Google+ community. Similarly, you see content shared by people whose Circles you are in, you see all public content and even follow those you are interested in. 

I didn't really bother
No one I knew was using it, I explored it briefly, set up a profile found a few colleagues, experimented with Circles, set up a business page and played about with setting up a community. 

But Google has infiltrated my life and my working life more and more, and without realising it I use Google Search, Chrome, Gmail, Keyword Tool, YouTube, Blogger, Maps, Analytics and Webmaster Tools daily. 

It hit me when I had to use my Google+ sign in to get onto Blogger that Google+ had got me. 

Outstripping the competition

 Looking at some research I discovered that Google+ is growing fast and being adopted fast by millions of people as it is the social layer that combines a very powerful and popular set of apps, so those like myself using lots of Google products are forced into an account and those in SEO have to accept that content on a Google app and Google+ is going to be weighted much heavier in terms of ranking.

1. Set up a Google+ account
It is easy to do. Follow the instructions and Google will help you build your profile. You can add an image of yourself and a nice big header image and see your posts just like on Facebook. Explore the side bar for all your options like, Home, What's hot, Circles etc...

2. Set up Google+ Business Page

Setting up a Business Page is easy. Simply click 'create page' once you're in your Google+ account, or start from scratch at http://www.google.com/+/business/

3. Claim your Google Places page
43% of all searches are local or location-based
50% of mobile searches are local or location-based
In some industries (such as restaurants) this conversion percentage has been found (for smartphone users) to equal 30% immediate conversions and 60% conversions within an hour, and 80% go on to eventually make a conversion. 
[source: David Kutcher]

4. Add a +1 button to your website

On Google+
When you +1 a post on Google+, the creator of that post and the people the post was shared with can see your +1. The creator of the post will receive a notification that you +1'd their post.To remove your +1, just click on the +1 button again.

Outside of Google+
When you +1 something on a website, your +1 will be added to the total number of +1's shown in the count. When someone who has you in their Circles views content that you've +1'd, your +1 may be highlighted next to the +1 count. +1's are public, so a good rule of thumb is to only +1 pages when you're comfortable sharing your recommendation with the world.

Once you've +1'd something on the web, you can share the content with your Circles on Google+.

[source Google+ help]

Measuring +1's

Use the +1 Metrics in Google Webmaster Tools to see how +1 affects your search traffic. 
You can measure/evaluate

Activity:  Total number of +1's received by pages on your site.
Search impact: See the pages on your site that received the most +1, and see how +1 affected CTR (click through rate).
Audience: See aggregated info on the people who have +1'd your pages, including unique users,  location, age and gender.

Always make sure that you have taken benchmark readings of rankings and traffic before you implement any changes so you can see the effectiveness of 1+. 

In Conclusion
No one quite knows yet the exact impact Google+ and Google +1 will have on SEO, but if you take those 4 steps and have some kind of strategy for Google+ and Google +1 you can only be helping your organic SEO especially if you are a local based business with premises. 

A simple 12 week plan to keep you on track with blogs and emails

I have my GOALS, STRATEGIES and TACTICS for my commitment to social media and an online marketing campaign. (if you missed that read it here)

Next step - actually working out what I am going to write

Plan is:

Write weekly blog and then give related top tip in short email that links to the blog. 

Tweet about blog and tweet top tip and related info/other people’s blogs

And so I don't loose focus, interest or motivation, I have planned it out. 

Plans might change but if not I have it all here to help me.

12 week simple plan for emails and blogs

Weekly emails – blog and quick tip	Blog topic
3 things to get started on Google	Google+ from Juice presentation
Rank checker – Organic SEO	SEO. Designed to Sparkle Case study
LinkedIn Headline	LinkedIn profiles
Schedule Tweets	Using Hootsuite
Top ten email titles	Getting your emails read
Twitter Bios	Top tips on Twitter accounts
Followers on Facebook	Managing your facebook account Add followers see selected things
Research – Analytics	How are you doing? What can you learn
Help clients share ideas/Images	Pinterest
Google local	Google local
Presentations	Prezzi
Is it you or them?	Writing a creative brief
Me and You - changing tone of voice	Effective copy writing

Surely you can plan just 12 or even just 6 topics to talk to your clients, customers, contacts about and then you are half way there. 

If you are interested in any of these topics then sign up to the blog, and if you want the tips too then sign up for my emails. 

Your 3 steps to a successful social media campaign. The proof is in the pudding!

10 weeks ago I quit my job and went solo. 

Luckily I have been busy. I have done a lot of social media training and marketing one-to-ones talking about the importance of social media and marketing strategies.

BUT...I have not practised what I preached. 

You know running a small business means you do everything, from networking, to invoicing, prospecting, accounts and marketing; not to mention the actual work.

Its never to late for 3 simple steps to turn your marketing around. GOALS, STRATEGY and TACTICS

So, I am making a 3 month commitment (or there abouts, to Friday 15th November) to put a content and social media strategy to the test and practise what I preach.

3 steps to get started

Goals:
1. Double followers on Twitter, Likes on Facebook and connections on LinkedIn
2. Start using Google+
3. Generate new business leads
3. Prove a return on investment of 3hrs per week for 12 weeks (£105 x 12 = £1260)

Strategy:
1. Make a fuss about it publicly so I have accountability
2. Plan blogs, emails, tweets and Facebook content (week 1)
3. Write Twitter strategy to increase following/followers
4. Share all of the above on my website/emails

Tactics:
1. Keep LinkedIn and email database up-to-date with clients, prospects and networking connections
2. Write and send useful weekly blogs on social media, copy writing and marketing issues
3. Daily tweets (using Hootsuite.com to schedule stuff)
4. Weekly emails with 'one small change' to make marketing more effective
5. Ask for feedback

Can you join me? 
Start with some goals, strategies and tactics.
Follow me on Twitter, find me on Facebook, LinkedIn and Google+ for starters, check I am actually doing it!

Have you got a networking strategy, other than talk and eat?

Today I went back to networking after and absence of a couple of months.

Mostly I was just pleased to be going to a lunch that had chips; but on the drive over I thought I better just re-think my strategy and set myself some goals to make sure I was making the most of my time:

1. Arrive on time or a little early if you can. It is easier to speak to people in a less crowded room, less daunting and you are more likely to get to meet and chat to new people who have arrived early on their first visit.

2. Think about how you can be memorable. Today I relaunched myself as Push Start Marketing, as opposed to an employee of Urban Element, so I took presents for everyone with my new cards.

3. Have a clear idea of who your perfect client/customer/connection would be so you'll recognise them easier when you meet them, or the questions you need to ask to qualify them.

4. ALWAYS sit next to someone you don't know or haven't had a decent conversation with before.

5. Think about what you are promoting, your blog, website, event or just ask for Twitter followers. Make sure you mention it and invite people to come and speak to you in your 60 seconds.

6. Make 60 seconds, 60 seconds. Some of these turn into mini presentations. Let the group know who you want to speak to/work with " ...anyone who has no money to spend on marketing...". and what you're promoting my workshops and leave it at that.

7. Take the cards of the new people you met. Write a note on them where you got them and if there is any synegy or you need to contact them/follow them up

8. Ask the group/individuals if they would be happy for you to contact them if you have an event to promote

9. Go follow them all on Twitter. Even if you have not talked to them, a follow on twitter is a very light touch.

10. This one is just for a round number... practise your 60 seconds in the car on the way, make it friendly interesting, and too the point - give the room a reason to come a speak to you.
" ..is this driving you nuts? I can fix this... ...come speak to me if you're fed up with....."

20 things to consider when building your own website

Creating your own website?

It's few pictures and words on pages right?

When you break it down there is an awful lot of work involved in creating a website. I have just created my first one from scratch (well a ) template. It's very daunting, sometimes frightening, always hard work, incredibly frustrating but so rewarding once it's done.

The best thing is as I built it I know what's there, how to make changes, and constantly thinking how to improve it and working on it now no longer seems to be a chore.

Now I have created my all new website here are 20 things to consider when you think about building your website:

1. Domain hosting, buying your www.mynewwebsite.co.uk
2. Email address lucy@mynewwebsite.co.uk, gmail, office365, outlook?
3. Creating your site: template or not to template
4. Which template site 
5. Site hosting
6. How do I make it look good and not amateurish
7. How can I make it different and stand out
8. What pages do I need
9. What keywords for each page (search engine optimisation)
10. What to write on each page
11. How to write what I want on each page, tone of voice.
12. What pictures to use
13. Where do I get these pictures from
14. Linking to my email address
15. Linking to my social media, setting up social media
16. Getting content checked for spelling errors
17. Creating and connecting a blog
18. Pointing your domain to your new site 
19. How to promote it
20. Populating you blog with the first one

So much to consider. But I have done it, number 20 also now complete. And how did I do it? Minimum budget, a great plan, a detailed vision of what I wanted, who I wanted to talk to, what I wanted to say and how I was going to say it. 

Want help creating a website like mine on a shoestring budget as part of your marketing plan? I did it and so can you. Just give me a call and we will do it together for a price you set. 
07813 846569 
lucy@pushstartmarketing.co.uk