Moving to Digital
It’s time to get online.
Maybe you’ve been meaning to do it for a while, or maybe your customers never imagined not coming into your bricks and mortar store. But if you’re not online, today is the day.
There are three key spaces to get right online:
Google
Social Media
Your website
The easiest people to sell products to are the ones who have heard about you from mates, are seeking you out, and know what they want. That’s why you need to be on Google.
Google My Business.
It’s free, it’s easy, you can update your hours and you can jam in a phone number for people to call you. Before anything else, get on Google.
What’s great is it shows you how many people are looking for your business each week/month, and lets people review straight to google. It also means you can control the first blurb people see when they look you up.
Social Media.
Social Media is still the cheapest form of advertising and gives you a voice for your brand. Before you start creating Facebook content or sharing Tik Toks, you need to first know two things:
Who am I trying to talk with (not to)
What do I want to achieve
Every piece of marketing should have a goal (even events), what do you want to achieve? Before you post anything you need a social media strategy to help structure and guide effective content, and connect with your community, or reach potential new customers. Luckily it’s pretty easy because no one knows your business like you.
Goals - see above
Tone of Voice - Think of social media as a coffee shop. What would your brand say to a friend if they saw them in the queue? It’s social. Be social.
Pillars - A content pillar is a theme or category of content. When posting on your social media, all content should fit within one of your pillars.
Measures of success - how will you know you’re achieving your goals? Don’t confuse vanity numbers (likes/fans) with the actual impact you’re making. Engagements (comments and offshoot conversations plus shares) and reach are much more important.
If you can put aside 30 minutes at the beginning of the week to decide what needs to be posted this week, do so. It’ll make it easier. You can schedule posts in advance, so when you have some time put in all the easy wins. Try not to use Buffer or Hootsuite - the algorithms don’t like them.
Top tip: If you’re posting Monday to Friday, only one of those can be about your business. The other four days need to be adding value for your audience – entertaining, or educational.
If it’s not working, change it or pull it
Remember: Safe = boring = unnoticed.
Finally, the website.
You want your website to do the heavy lifting. It needs to be answering every question a customer could ask of you, so you can work on getting their orders out rather than spending time on the phone.
The easier you make it for the customer to buy, the more likely they will.
Again. Start at the beginning.
Why are your customers on your site? What are they looking for? What is the goal. For some businesses, websites are simply credentials. They show a potential client or boss that your brand is one worth having a conversation with. Retail stores online have a single goal of selling product. What do your customers want? What do they need for a successful trip to the (online) store?
Then you set up your website to make it as easy as possible to get from the first click to that call to action. This is called User Experience (UX). The key is to take out any barriers. If your website already exists you’ll be able to see in your analytics where those barriers are. Read more about Google Analytics here.
You can get someone to build your website for you, or you can do it yourself. Either way, YOU need to decide the goals of the site, and what it is trying to achieve. Don’t outsource that task.
Options for building your own website if you don’t have coding experience:
Squarespace - easy to use, looks beautiful. Not great if you want to add a whole lot of products.
Wix - free, but easier to mess up
Webflow - no coding, very simple, looks beautiful
Swiftly - brand new from #hackthecrisisnz, free, simple, takes 5 minutes, no customisation
Your website is the one place you can tell your full story from your point of view. It’s the hub for all online marketing efforts, so it needs to be right. Above all else check the following:
More people look at websites on their phones than on desktop. It HAS to be mobile-friendly.
Your call to action should be above the fold. Before you start scrolling the website should tell you what to do: Buy now. Read this. Call me. Make it strong.
People read from top left to top right to bottom right. Make it easy to find contact information (top right)
Simple language. Bullet points work.
Installation of Google analytics
Optimised content for search engines – this means you need to be writing about the things your customer wants to know.
Get someone (me, if you like) to look over it.
Content is king.
What is content? Blog posts, social media posts, articles, videos, infographics, surveys, webinars and podcasts are all content. Anything you click online is content, unless it’s a purchase.
Adds value to your service
Great for search engines
Offers more background, and knowledge to your customers
Allows you to control part of the conversation rather than relying on PR
Entertains your audience, keeping them coming back for more
A wealth of content positions you as the expert in your field
SEO is the most important part of your site. SEO stands for Search Engine Optimisation. It’s how Google knows what your site is about, and makes sure you a listed in the right searches. It’s measured on the words in your articles, the names of your URLs the headings in your pages. The more relevant all these are to the search in Google, the higher your page will rank (be on the first page of Google).
Create consistent, relevant content.
Have no broken links.
Ensure your URLs (webpage addresses) are people friendly.
Don’t copy content from elsewhere.
Label your images.
Top tip: type “site:websitename.co.nz” into Google to gives you a default view of SEO.