LinkedIn – how do we use it?

There are 8 million business managers in the UK who are registered with LinkedIn. 82% of users use it to keep up with business news and research companies. The profile of the users tends to be decision makers, – senior managers/ business owners.

The above information comes from audience statistics. However, I would hazard a guess that most of us do not use the medium effectively yet as a business tool – so the opportunity is there for someone.

Key points –

  • You need to spend the time building your links (think through who you might accept) and of course this never stops.
  • Your own details need to be kept current and up to date. It will get you seen by your group
  • If you are doing new things, your connections will see it
  • It can be used to identify key targets in key companies.
  • You can link with key customers and contacts in target companies
  • You can join groups and be involved in 2 way discussions.

The true power, we think, has still to be unleashed. As always with social, you only get out of it what you put in. So if you can allocate and manage your time to update your social sites on a regular basis, this will help.

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YCGBSOYA You can’t get business sitting on you’re a—e!!

This is an old adage that came up at an export seminar last week from the MD of Strategem. When working in an international environment, it is still undoubtedly true, especially when your competition may be a local company in the target country.

For the company who are buying and actually placing orders, they often like to see the whites of your eyes.  The implication here is that your MD needs to know how to sell and to negotiate.

In today’s markets, to help it along, we have all sorts of good communication material to inform and support before and after the visit. Skype, web conferencing, website written in the culture and the language of each target market, exhibitions, e mail, PR etc. all of which can provide another hit of your brand in the eyes and the minds of your customers.  However, nothing succeeds more than a visit.

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Review it, understand it, tweak it, link it, measure it

Google Analytics is very much like other research tools. Basically, it makes commercial sense to understand who is using your website. Key data on customers may be the following:

  • How long they stay on your site?
  • Do they abandon their visit?
  • Do they come back?
  • What can you do to make them stay?
  • What can you do to get yourself up the search engines?

The analytics gives you great clues as to the behaviour of your customers on the site and help you make relevant changes to your pages and formats.  This may be new and different wording, linking between key pages, improving the user journey, blogging, and some technical aspects.

The alternative is to sail along, assuming that your site is attracting traffic and that customers are visiting, when in actual fact they may not. A website has to be used and manipulated to work properly for you. It is a major tool in the armoury.

For long enough, marketing activity has been difficult to measure. This is no longer the case. Measurement and activity on sites are crucial to making them work for you.

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Manning your stand – exhibition selling skills – technology sector

If your company ever go to exhibitions and fairs to sell product and services, this is the programme you need to be on.  It provides a step by step guide to maximising the effect of attending exhibitions.  This particular event is geared to organisations large and small that have a link with technology.  Other events in the 2013 calendar will cover tourism, food and drink, creative.  The courses are FREE, courtesy of Scottish Enterprise who see exhibitions as a major way forward to more successful Scottish companies.

To book online click here

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Mobile strategy – Moving and moving fast!

All the stats and the research would suggest that consumers are moving more to mobile for researching product reviews, recommendations, loyalty coupons etc in the pursuit of value in their purchasing.  Certainly in the consumer sector, mobile now leads the way in current marketing strategy.  The simplest and easiest way to look at it?—- Just in the way that different groups of consumers read different types and styles of online newspapers and magazines. Now, different consumers search for information from desktop, laptop, tablets, iPhone, Blackberry etc. With newspapers, there was a lifestyle profile that could tell you who reads what.  However, lifestyle groupings are not established for mobile users, if they ever will!

In order to be seen, and to have the chance of interacting with those customers out there, mobile strategy needs to now lead your ecommerce presence.  This requires a change in thinking and to embrace the technology changes, costs and resources involved in developing different platforms and screen stages. Some ideas to think through:

Understand your markets – who uses what, how and when to access products? – good analytics and interpretation of data.

Awareness – are we there, are we visible, are we maximised for mobile and for the customer in transit, and does the page load quickly enough for the mobile user?

Content – words, photography, music – the strength of the download is so great now that we are seeing demand for more content on a month by month basis! QR codes provide another access point.

Call to action and sales – – can the customer interact easily?

Payment – is it truly simple, safe, trustworthy in the mind of the consumer.

Repeat purchase – do we collect data to ensure we have initiated future interactions?

The above questions are a taster, but the topic really puts strategic marketing thinking at the centre of the business.  RFM have a downloadable checklist which is fairly comprehensive covering all the options we think have to be covered.  As part of our marketing mentoring programme, we provide this to clients.

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Presentation skills – Make it easy for your customers to say yes

‘Under the skin’ knowledge of a sector and a customer’s buying patterns allows companies to align themselves with the needs of the customers and to have more opportunity to sell product.  Great sales presentations present the customer with an unbelievable offering that is a ‘no brainer’ making it an easy decision to buy.

The key to all of this is of course to illustrate an understanding of the customer’s business and show how your products or services will save them money, make them money, make their life easier etc.

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Online marketing – making your website work for you

In the age of ‘Big Data’, businesses must make sure their analytical online tools are sharp, that there is a company wide commitment to measured marketing. Most organisations need to make sure their website works for them and is connected to every part of the customer journey.

Analytics and the correct interpretation is the start point and the key –

  • Who goes to your site?
  • How do they get there?
  • How long do they spend there?
  • What do they do when on the site?

Only once this is visible can you make informed site adjustments based on the data.

The Google analytics tool is free and available but just like any skill, you have to learn how to do it yourself or get someone to help you. A bit like ‘d-i-y’ at home or getting someone in that has the tools, the skills and is miles ahead of you.

This can inform on navigational improvements, to help the customer to find more specifically what they want. With the increasing volume of web savvy smart phone users accessing the web, it’s also important to use analytics to ensure website compatibility with mobile devices.

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Fancy it – the next social high street

Riding on the back of Pinterest, ‘The Fancy’ is a shopping site that allows the customer to look at images of a range of merchandise ‘on line’ in visual format on a social networking platform. It allows the customer to browse and make purchases on a trusted site away from the main ecommerce store. The Fancy are tapping into Facebook and Twitter as they are mediums trusted and used constantly by a global consumer audience. All the big names are trying this. It provides a platform for their merchandise and adds other routes to their markets.

It allows numbers of people who ‘fancy it’, to bookmark the products they like, and put them on a wish list. For the retailer or the manufacturer it allows them to provide an offer etc or not on certain product lines to ‘seal the deal’.

The lesson for all companies here is that to use a variety of routes and e shop windows for your products makes them visible to the customer groups. In business to business the techniques may not be the same but the same result is desired – more contact, more sales.

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Do you know the value of your social customer?

This year has seen an increasing trend of ‘ubiquitous’ users accessing social networks through mobile devices (24 hours a day, 7 days a week). This leaves a trail of ‘big data’ just waiting to be mined, which can allow a customer to be targeted with personalised marketing on the company website and email campaign.

Most companies don’t take the time to understand what the data is reporting. With the advancements in tracking capabilities this should no longer be ignored and unlike offline activity, it is all measurable!

The RFM Measured Marketing package is an incredibly useful way to track new and existing audiences:

  • Introduction to Analytics – segmented traffic reports, visitor demographics, search traffic, social engagement levels
  • Overview of tagging – ensuring the majority of a customer’s online journey is tracked
  • Mobile visitor tracking – setting up automated reports, delivered to your inbox with daily, weekly, monthly mobile visitor volume
  • Website goals – identify interactions with website tracking specific to your business needs, newsletter sign-ups (enquiries-in), order tracking etc.
  • Sales funnel tracking – link the audience into a buying situation, improve your conversion rate

 

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Do they stay or do they go? Customers on your site

What do customers do on your website? Do you use the analytics tools at your disposal to find this out? In the digital era, business websites can no longer simply be live on the world wide web, in the blind expectation of turning visits into conversions.

Here are some simple questions to consider about your customers:

• What do they do when they arrive on your site? – What pages do they look at?
• What are the bounce rates?
• What are the conversion rates?
• Do you use goal tracking? (email, sign up, completed order etc.)
• How do customers interact with social?
• Do they ever get here in the first place?

Previous finds – those light bulb moments!
• One customer found that 30% of their traffic was coming from iPhone users but the website was not optimised for iPhone technology!! – Recent research by IAB found that mobile – optimised websites keep visitors on the site for an average of 5 minutes! ( 33% up on sites that are not mobile friendly!!)
• One customer found they had a stunningly informative site but were missing business opportunities as they were not listed under the right search terms. All the competition were forging ahead!!

Not measuring user interaction with your website, is the equivalent to having a revolving door in your high street store.

For more information on good in depth analysis using the required data provided, visit RFM measured marketing section.

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