LinkedIn's New Showcase Pages Will Improve The Ability To Sell On LinkedIn

Newly Arrived

Most if not all businesses are perennially searching for better ways to promote their products and services via the world's preeminent, professional  networking site LinkedIn. The release of the new LinkedIn showcase pages is providing exactly that possibility.

Precise Targeting

These new LinkedIn showcase pages enable you to promote certain products or services to specific customer segments.

How Do Showcase Pages Differ From Company Pages

Showcase pages are an advance on the better known Linked company pages that many of you will already have in place and they now make it possible for a business to focus on a specific product or service that they would like to feature.

Starting with a traditional company page, you can now build a Showcase Page which is a separate entity with its own unique criteria, followers, updates and functions.  The way it works is that all your showcase pages are listed in the right column of your company page.

How To Set Up A Showcase Page

1.  Choose a Page Name

Select your page name. At this point you will want to take full advantage of SEO and include any keywords into that page name. For example for Deep Earth Gemstones you may want a page on diamonds so the URL would be: https://www.linkedIn.com/DeepEarthGemstones/Diamonds.

2. Build a Showcase Page

To build a showcase page, go to your company page and simply click on the down-pointing arrow next to Edit and press Create a Showcase Page from the drop-down menu.

Each LinkedIn company page can have as many as ten Showcase pages linked to that company page. claim up to ten showcase pages for your company.

3. Optimize the Page for Search

As is the case with everything on the internet it is vital to optimise the page for SEO purposes to help Google rank your page as high as possible on their search engine.
Apart from the page title there is an allocation of up to two hundred characters where again you can use the appropriate key words that will help position the page for your target audience.

AS well you should always include live back links to the on the website portion of your page and ensure to upload a logo and header imagewhich can be either a PNG, JPEG or GIF format. The maximum file size for the image is 2MB, and it must be 974 x 330 pixels or larger.

As always LinkedIn are coming up with new and exciting ways to provide additional value and functionality for businesses to better position, promote and commercialise their products to the right audience and in Showcases pages we see another way that smart businesses will do just that.

So until next time, good luck and good marketing.
Regards,
Daniele.

Bounce Rate and How To Reduce It For Your Website

Getting To The Restaurant And Deciding To Eat Elsewhere

The best description I have ever heard to describe bounce rate is that its like doing all the hard work to attract someone to a restaurant and once they arrive and see the place they walk straight out and decide to eat elsewhere.  Harsh but true and by implication all the effort, resources, time and money to achieve this visitor is wasted.  So put simply the bounce rate is the rate of website visitors that after arriving at the home page of your website regardless of how long they stay,  exit without any other interaction with any other page on the site. So for example with one thousand website visitors land on your website and seven hundred leave without going any deeper into the site you will have a bounce rate of seventy (70) percent.

What Constitutes An Acceptable Bounce Rate

Now although I have heard many arguments over the years about what constitutes a good or a bad bounce rate, I think I can safely say that anything over thirty (30) percent as demonstrated by a typical Google Analytics metrics report, is genuinely unacceptable based on everything we know about what causes it and by definition, what remedies will improve it.

Sadly some of the websites I have seen and worked on through 2014-15 with the Digital Enterprise Program have shown me sites that have had bounce rates of up to a staggering ninety percent.

So what can we do ten to minimise this website business killer?


Proven remedies for High Bounce Rates

1. Fast loading home (or otherwise designated landing) pages. Typically most website visitors will only wait a few seconds for a page to fully load and if it doesnt in say three to four seconds, they will be gone. Therefor it is vital that you ensure that your landing page is quick to load on an browser and with any type of device.  To test your website's loading speed you can test it using:http://www.webpagetest.org



2. The page is attractive, functional and intuitive to navigate. Assume from the start that your visitor isn't an IT luminary with a multimedia degree and requires an intuitive interface to stay.


3. Your webpage is responsive and thanks to the wonders of CSS formats perfectly to any device. This has always been a nice thing to have but since April 21,  2015 is now a Google imposed imperative. Enough said.


4. Your content is clear, concise, relevant and well written in a way that will resonate with your target market. If you feel it doesn't, rewrite it now.


5. The content provides true value in that it meets the needs of the visitors and in the process is timely, educational, humorous and written to solve problems.


6. The images on the page are  relevant to the topic and do not distract from the content on the page.


7. Appropriate calls to action are clearly visible and provide a clear cut action step to drive behaviour beyond this first landing page.


8. The headings on the landing page are aligned with the call to action or advertisement title, so that the website visitor is  comfortable with where they have landed.


9.  In trying to develop prospect and customer information such as email lists, you do not over reach by asking  for excessive information too early.


10. The key functionality of the page is above the fold and therefore does not require the visitor to scroll excessively below the natural fold of the page.


By ensuring that your website or blog landing page adheres to these key landing page principles you will be able to maximise the attractiveness of your landing page and minimise the dreaded bounce rate.


If you'd like more information on website design or any other aspect of digital strategy, join us at any of the seven digital enterprise workshops as outlined on:

http://www.vecci.org.au/business-solutions/digital-enterprise-program/workshops



And so until next time, good luck and good marketing.


Regards,

Daniele.

Why Should I Go To The Trouble Of Having A Blog

The Need For A Corporate Blog

Of all the various social media platforms there is no doubt that Blogs have a unique and vitally important role for all digital media marketers to include a s part of a blended and proactively designed social media structure where every cog supports and synergies with the others.  Specifically blogging is the number one source of information for many markets and for women in particular is often the unquestioned number one source of  gaining information about required areas of need.

The Key Options

Naturally for such a popular and universally used social media option, there are many available options for bloggers to use. At the top of the list are Google's Blogger and Word Press. Now there are pros and cons for both but essentially you can boil it down to this.Word Press have a slightly more functional platform while Blogger is a Google product. In the end they are both great options and together make up probably around three quarters of the worlds blogs.

Feebly, Ghost, Tumblr and Live Journal are other excellent options that provide some other tactical variations that again should be explored and considered in making a decision on what the best option for you may be.

What Makes A Good Blog Post

There are some key aspects required to make your blog a great read that people will embrace and support over time.  Amongst the key aspects are:

• Regularity:  Readers expect your blog to be delivered on a regular basis e.g. weekly
• Consistency: If you blog around 500 to 700 words each post don't throw in 200 word posts
• Informative: Provide relevant information that gives readers additional knowledge and insight
• Relevance:  Regardless of what your topic is provide content that directly feeds into that
  

 Strategically Different and Aligned

Each of the different platforms each perform an important task and the role of blogs is to inform. Blogs are by and large not necessarily visual or are they generally set up as a discussion forum. Their main function is as a provider of new, important and sought after information. As such blogging is a vital link in virtually all social media networks and needs to be planned, resourced and prioritised as highly or more highly than any other element of the social media mix.

Digital Enterprise Program

To learn more about blogs, the different types and all aspects of content creation please fell free to join us at any of the Digital Enterprise Program (DEP) workshops and gain access to a free four hour coaching session for your business.

So until next time, good luck and good marketing.

Regards,
Daniele.

Facebook Introducing Topic Data To Help With More Targeted And Personalised Communication

A More Complete Fit

In recent days Facebook has announced through its news pages that it will be introducing a new communication product called Topic Data that will allow Facebook marketers the ability to gain a deeper understanding of their audiences' psychographic aspects such as attitudes, opinions and beliefs around the key issues and aspects that pertain to their business, with the view of being able to formulate ever more precisely matching products and services that more fully and completely meet those customer needs.

 

 

 

Historical Approach

Typically up until now by observation an online marketer could deduce by the activity about what was being shared, commented on and generally spoken about, what the respective care factor was for any given issue, topic or challenge. Certainly behaviorally based and useful but at best this represented an incomplete picture about what people thought.

Subsequently Facebook have now communicated that the new Topic Data product will be available to a specified group of pre-selected Facebook partners which one would assume would be a first phase in a plan to eventually roll it out universally to the full 1.35billion globally users at a future time when the trial phase has concluded.

How Does Topic Data Work

Essentially Topic Data will provide greater clarity and therefore insight into what your target audiences are talking about online with respect to you, your product, competitors, upcoming and launch events, matters of importance and other general activities that may all provide your marketing team with addition information on what is needed, how it should be couched to best resonate with that group of potential customers.

 

Deidentified

Perhaps most pleasing is the fact that this information will be provided in a deidentified way where the identity and personal information of the person making the comments is kept secret thereby protecting their privacy and anonymity. Of course as marketers the key for our market research regardless of whether its online or using more traditional offline methodologies of focus groups and surveys, needs to rely on the accuracy of the data but not necessarily on who is saying it.

 

Decision Making

The end result of this being that product and brand managers will again have access to another useful data source that will help them to formulate better positioning, strategy and tactical implementation.

 

As a provided example fro the news source with Topic Data:

• A business selling a hair de-frizzing product can see demographics on the people talking about humidity’s effects on their hair to better understand their target audience.
• A fashion retailer can see the clothing items its target audience is talking about to decide which products to stock.
• A brand can see how people are talking about their brand or industry to measure brand sentiment.

Ref: https://www.facebook.com/business/news/topic-data

 

Although such data has of course been available before, it may have been in numbers that were not statistically significant enough to  make meaningful business decisions.  Now utilising Topic Data, Facebook have amalgamated raw and unidentified data  from Facebook activity to provide insights on all the activity around any given topic or discussion area, which in turn provides a much more quantified perspective of what the target market is thinking. Facebook have made it clear also that the topic data provides guidance for marketers but it cannot be used to target ads directly as personal information is at no stage available.

In Partnership With Datasift

Facebook has announced also that it will partner with the Datasift organisation who operate within the data industry and will leverage their experience and technology to further develop and refine the Topic Data model and data accuracy and reliablity. 

Access

Facebook have also declared that for the time being at least, The Topic Data will only be available to a small number of Datasift’s partners in the USA and the United Kingdom. As well the resulting data will be limited to those countries as well. In time it is reasonable to expect a more refined product be made universally available to all.

If you would like to know more about any aspect of Facebook or social media, don't forget to register for any of the seven free, two hour Digital Enterprise Program workshops by signing up at this link:  http://www.vecci.org.au/business-solutions/digital-enterprise-program/workshops

By attending any of these workshops, all Australian SME's will qualify for a free four hour coaching session for their own business at a time and location of their choice.

So until next time, good luck and good marketing.

Regards,

Daniele.

 

 

Blackberry and AT&T Form An Interesting Strategic Alliance

Alliance Of Two

Blackberry has made an interesting strategic decision to make its model BlackBerry Passport as well as the Blackberry Classic, will be available exclusively available only through AT&T within the USA.

These two new market entrants are in fact the first models Blackberry has released since the company's Q10 and Z10 phone models.

This release is clearly a crucial period in Blackberry's history coming off the back of poor financial results for both its Q10 and Z10 models. Since its halcyon days where it dominated the mobile space, it has become a mere shadow of its former market leading glory with a miniscule market share of less that one percent along with a rapidly declining sales top line against the continued growth of key rivals Apple and Android supremo Samsung.

Differentiated

Like all other aspiring brands Blackberry want to stand out from the proverbial crowd and have come up with a unique square shape that to date at least will not be mistaken for any other currently available model in the smartphone market. The key question of course is that being unproven, the American manufactures will  need to wait and see how well or otherwise the market responds to the shape.

Specifications

Structurally the new handset has a 4.5-inch, 1440x1440 full HD square touchscreen along with a  manual keyboard with a full QWERTY layout. The model operates on a quad-core 2.26-GHz processor and is equipped with 3 GB of RAM memory and 32 GB of disk storage, along with a micro SD slot for additional space, an impressive 13-megapixel camera and the BlackBerry 10.3.1
operating system.
Benefits to AT&T

From AT&T's point of view the alliance makes a lot of sense where by they can offer the complimentary handset, based on taking out new subscriptions to mobile plans starting at under $22 per month. Alternatively the users can also get the smartphone for $199.99 with a two-year agreement, or buy it outright without a contract for $649.99.Safety First

The Market knows that the Blackberry is a safe phone which was one of the key drivers for its success and the company is hoping that its long standing market position as a secure option, will help return it to a meaningful position within the commercial and business segment once again.

The O In SWOT

No doubt Blackberry's SWOT analysis would highlight malicious attacks on both Android and Apple phones as an unresolved need in the market space, and an intuitive positioning with a credible URL  becomes clear and logical.

The BlackBerry Passport is ideal for the mobile professional who wants an innovative wireless device focused on security and productivity," said Jeff Bradley, Senior Vice President of Device Marketing and Developer Services at AT&T.

So from a marketing point of view I believe Blackberry should be given a lot of credit for this creative and i believe logical approach to target likely users and provide value add through a strategic Alliance.  As always time will be the ultimate judge as to its success, but from a design point of view, Blackberry have released some very smart and sexy phones that will again put a third viable contender into the mobile ring.

So unitil next time, ggod luck and good marjketing
Regards,
Daniele.

Blogging And Why It Should Be A Key Component Of Your Digital Marketing Strategy

Overview

In our last podcast we looked at a dozen of the most popular and sought after content types on the internet and described each in some detail.

Following on from that discussion we will today as promised give special attention to the uniquely powerful area of blogging.

Blogging of course has been around for over twenty years and is essentially an electronic journal that we write (post) to on a periodic basis about what ever topic we are interested in.

Advantages to blogging

1. For a start there are an estimated two billion blogs on the net on every conceivable topic. this means that they are incredibly popular and sought after by all different target markets globally.

2. Importantly people see blogging strategically as their number one source of information and not Facebook or other individual sites, which are more widely seen as discussion forums where people then go to share what they know and discuss with others within their networks.

3. Blogs are easy to set up and essentially free to run.  Widely used platforms such as Blogger, WordPress and Tumblr are just three examples of the excellent brands available to anyone that is looking to add blogging to their digital repertoire.

4. Most times you will only need to post your blogs weekly, where the average blog post is somewhere around five to seven hundred words long making it a relatively easy matter to put together on a consistent basis.

5. With the advent of user friendly scheduling tools such as Hootsuite have made it simple to plan, produce and schedule future blog posts today providing total control of what gets published and when.

Some general guidelines to live by for all bloggers

The same tenants of sound SEO can be equally applied to drive organic ranking for blogs as for conventional websites and include:

1. Effective use of Key words

2. Introduction of inbound links

3. Mechanisms for reader engagement

4. Quality content

Ten Great ideas for posting blogs

There are literally hundreds of viable ideas from which you are able to generate great blog content but ten tried and tested ideas include:

1. Write about an upcoming event for your business:  A new store opening, a new manufacturing plant, a new consulting suite, etc.

2. Write about a standout employee of the business: someone with a special talent, winner of an award or skill.

3. Write about a new product launch: Something that is new, innovative and different.

4. Write about a meaningful anniversary that you are celebrating. Ten years in business, etc.

5. Write about a new upcoming book, CD or DVD series you are about to launch.  Dan and Matt Marketing series will be on sale from: July 2015 at DanandMatt.com

6. Write about a new social media platform your business is now using for the first time such as You Tube, Yammer, Twitter or LinkedIn.

7. Write about a well-known client (with their approval of course) and what you were able to do and how this helped them.

8. Write about the latest trends, market changes and legislative changes that are most directly effecting your market and the customers within it.  E.g. Changes to Family Law Act.

9. Write about reader feedback and great questions that come up each week through the blog.  Comment on the comments.

10. Write about your business and products and why the target market should take note of them.  This is OK given that it happens occasionally say once every five or six weeks.

At the end of the day you can literally write about anything as long as it has some value to the audience you are trying to attract, interest and ultimately engage.

So get to it. Set up your own blog and starting putting out quality posts that will position you as a thought leader in your market place.

And for the entire Dan and Matt marketing package just go now to:

https://www.danandmatt.com/product/the-package

to order online for a free 30 day unconditional trial period.

So until next time, good luck and good marketing.

Regards,

Daniele.