Category Archives: Digital Marketing

Apr 07
0
AI in Marketing

How will AI Change the Future of Marketing?

By | AI, Digital Marketing, Marketing Trends | No Comments

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is not just transforming the future; it’s reshaping the present, especially in the realm of marketing. As we delve deeper into 2024, let’s explore how AI is set to change the marketing world.

Enhanced Personalisation
AI enables hyper-personalization in marketing. By analysing consumer data, AI can predict customer preferences and behaviours, allowing businesses to tailor their marketing efforts to individual needs.

Predictive Analytics

AI’s ability to analyse vast amounts of data means it can forecast trends and consumer behaviours. This predictive power allows businesses to be proactive rather than reactive in their marketing strategies.

Chatbots and Virtual Assistants
AI-powered chatbots and virtual assistants provide 24/7 customer service, improving customer experience and gathering valuable data to inform marketing strategies.

Efficient Content Creation
AI can generate content quickly and efficiently, from email marketing campaigns to blog posts, freeing up human marketers to focus on more strategic tasks.

Better ROI Measurement
AI tools can track and analyse the effectiveness of marketing campaigns in real-time, providing insights for more accurate ROI measurement and strategy adjustments.

As AI continues to evolve, embracing its potential is essential for staying competitive. Not sure how to integrate AI into your marketing strategy? Contact us for expert advice and tailored AI marketing solutions.

Mar 05
0
Marketing Trends 2024

What are the Key Marketing Trends for 2024?

By | Digital Marketing, Marketing Trends, Marketing Trends | No Comments

As we move towards the end of the first quarter of 2024, the marketing landscape continues to evolve at a rapid pace. We have been asked by clients, what are the latest trends, and how do we stay ahead of the curve? This is crucial for business owners looking to maintain a competitive edge. Therefore, we have put together some key marketing trends you should be aware of this year.

  1. Personalisation at Scale

Consumers now expect a personalised experience. Advances in AI and data analytics allow businesses to tailor their marketing messages to individual preferences, even on a large scale.

  1. Voice and Visual Search

With the rise of smart speakers and visual search technologies, optimising for voice and image search is becoming increasingly important. This means adapting your SEO strategies to be more conversational and image-friendly.

  1. Interactive Content

Interactive content, such as quizzes, polls, and augmented reality experiences, is becoming more popular. These formats not only engage customers but also provide valuable data and insights.

  1. Sustainability and Social Responsibility

Consumers are more environmentally conscious and prefer brands that prioritise sustainability and social responsibility. Transparent and ethical marketing will become even more important.

  1. Video Marketing

Video remains a dominant force in digital marketing. Short-form videos, live streaming, and interactive video content will continue to engage audiences effectively.

6. AI-Driven Marketing:

AI is not just a buzzword; it’s a tool that can automate and optimise many marketing tasks, from content creation to customer service.

As a business owner, adapting to these trends is vital for success. Not sure where to start? Contact us for tailored marketing solutions that keep your business ahead of the curve.

Jan 30
0
Lawn Care

Jigsaw supports UK lawn care companies

By | Digital Marketing, Events | No Comments

We were delighted to be asked to presented at the Lawn Service “Spring Get Ready Meeting” hosted by Greener Gardens last week, to a group of independent lawn care companies from all around the UK on the Power of Social Media and Digital Marketing.

Our presentation them through our value first strategy, and the importance for fulling understanding your target audience to ensure that the information you are giving is adding value to you customers. Obviously, the lawn care industry is seasonal and effected by the weather – especially with the climate changes we are experiencing. This can make planning your marketing difficult, but that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t have a rough plan in place that you can tweak accordingly.

We understand the challenges that the lawn care industry is facing across the board; and are honoured to be able to advise on targeted marketing to support the industry. We will also be presenting on the Power of Social Media at the UKLCN Conference on the 9th February 2017 in Marlow.

Aug 02
1
Benefits-of-Instagram-Marketing

The Benefits of Instagram Marketing

By | Digital Marketing, Social Media | No Comments

Let’s get behind the scenes of your business!

Instagram is a hotbed of activity and a great place to market your business, but are you taking full advantage of this incredible social media opportunity?

Amazingly, Instagram is being vastly underused by businesses despite having 400 million active monthly users as of April 2016! Believe it or not, that’s more than Twitter (320 million) and 4 times that of LinkedIn (100 million) and Pinterest (100 million)*. 

So you’ve got a huge audience that’s instantly accessible, your message is easily deliverable to a vast potential customer base through the use of hashtags, and it’s completely free to use, but yet you still haven’t taken advantage of it? Why is that?

Don’t be scared, it’s just pictures!

Possibly the most common reason for businesses not using Instagram to its full potential is due to the fact it’s essentially a picture based platform, rather than word. Now this can seem scary, but it needn’t be. It doesn’t matter whether you make curtains, create delicious recipes, offer freelance PA services or a Lawn care or sports company, every business has something to offer when it comes to Instagram!

By showcasing up and coming products, offering behind-the-scenes sneak peaks or simply introducing members of your team, new contracts or even where you’re travelling for the day, Instagram allows your audience to interact with your business on a more personal level, where they gain insight into how your business runs and how great your staff really are.

That personal touch

If you’re willing to fully utilise Instagram, you will create a more personable and approachable method of interaction with your customer base, where they can follow you on your day-to-day successes. Regular interesting and relevant (and even not so relevant!) posts on Instagram show your followers that your business is forward thinking and proactive, whilst promoting your core values, ethics and practices for your customers to see.

It’s not uncommon to find that potential clients become more likely to purchase from you if they see that your company’s ethics and beliefs align with their own morals; Instagram is the perfect platform to easily portray how happy and enthusiastic you and your workforce truly are.

Free research and feedback! 

It can cost hundreds if not thousands of pounds to have focus groups and individual testers review your product or service, but Instagram can offer you a range of valuable information for FREE! Simply by spending a little bit of time researching certain tags you may well be able to find posts regarding your company, your product or service. It doesn’t matter whether they’re positive or negative, these little parcels of information are nuggets of gold that give you an insight into your customer profile and help you constantly improve your business – plus it’s absolutely free!

Untapped market 

As we mentioned in the beginning of this post, Instagram is vastly underused by businesses. If you’re not currently using this powerful platform, are your competitors? If they’re not, you can easily gain a huge advantage over them simply by tapping into one of the largest social media platforms currently available!

If you’d like more information on how Instagram could help your business, on training on how to use Instagram don’t hesitate to contact us by clicking here.

 

*Source: http://www.statista.com/statistics/272014/global-social-networks-ranked-by-number-of-users/

Jun 30
0
Content Flow Model

Content Marketing Strategy

By | Content Marketing, Digital Marketing, Marketing Strategy | No Comments

Content Flow Model

Building a successful marketing campaign is great fun and it can take your customers through a structured journey that ultimately leads to a sale of some kind. The flip side is that creating your content calendar takes a lot more than merely deciding what you’d like to talk about each month and putting pen to paper (or rather fingers to keyboard).

A successful marketing campaign needs to specifically target multiple audiences in order to broaden your customer base and ultimately build your profile. Creating a comprehensive Content Flow Model will enable you to tap into different audiences and markets by creating relatable content that they’ll find interesting.

You have multiple audiences

A great way to think of this is similar to how you would go about marketing a pair of headphones; runners will be interested to know how well they stay on your head whilst moving about, musicians will be interested to find out how well the speaker performs, and teenagers will be interested to find out if they’re waterproof, easy to pack into a backpack or if they’re endorsed by a celebrity. This is obviously highly stereotypical and a runner may also be interested in the performance of the speaker (for instance), but for the most part, each specific audience group will have certain criteria they are interested in.

Now, you could attempt to create each piece of marketing content into a ‘one size fits all’ where you endeavour to cram in as much information as possible in order to reach out to each audience group, but you’ll likely find that this will end up alienating your target market and very few people will actually relate to your content. Instead, the key is to segregate your audiences and target them individually. 

Effectively target each audience

This is where the Content Flow Model comes into play. Once you’ve narrowed down your key target audiences and researched what they’re interested in, how they prefer to digest marketing content and their typical online habits, you’ll be able to map out how to effectively target each audience. From here, you can follow where each audience is within the ‘customer lifecycle’ in order to provide them with the next step in their journey to bring them one step closer to a sale.

Utilising a Content Flow Model also allows you to monitor the use of different media (blogs, articles, newsletters, infographics, etc.) at a glance so that you’re not relying heavily on one type of media, but instead making the most of each media’s individual merits and strengths.

Keep connected

A further (and very important) benefit of creating a Content Flow Model is keeping existing customers up-to-date and interested in your latest innovations. Whilst gaining new customers is imperative for growing your business, creating a loyal following and enjoying repeat custom can go a long way to boosting public perception of your business and growing its standing within your chosen market.

For more information on how a Content Flow Model could help your business thrive and break into new markets or attract new key demographics, click here to enquire how we can help or give us a call on 01480 459087 and talk to a member of our friendly team.

Apr 25
0
Digital-Marketing-Strategy

Digital Marketing Strategy

By | Digital Marketing, Marketing Strategy | No Comments

5 Simple Steps To A Digital Marketing Strategy

The digital world can often seem scary, full of potholes to dodge and protocols to learn, but by following our 5 simple steps you’ll be on your way to a successful and profitable digital marketing strategy in no time!

  1. Set a goal

    What do you want to achieve? By setting ambitious, achievable and measurable goals, you’ll give the campaign momentum and inspire yourself and your team to smash through the targets you set.

  2. Design a clear path for customers to follow

    Take them on a journey of discovery and exploration. If customers can’t find what they were looking for, or don’t stumble upon something interesting and useful, the chances are they’ll find somewhere else to go instead. Just like a road network, the path you design for your customers to follow needs to be easy to understand; it needs to make navigation easy and ideally needs to throw in a few welcome surprises along the way. Not only does your path need to be super easy to follow, it also needs to be compelling, interesting and informative, otherwise your potential customers will likely take a wrong turn and take themselves to your competitor!

  3. Drive traffic to your website

    Your website is the hub of your online marketing strategy. Whilst social media sites are both a quick port of call for consumers to see what you’re up to and how you operate, they’re really only a precursor to a website visit. By driving traffic to your website from social media platforms, as well as SEO, and Google Ads, you’re not only opening up the library of media they can access (blog posts, articles, videos, photos, newsletter sign-ups), but you’ve already invited them along your path to purchase!

  4. Create a compelling call to action

    Get them excited about your business and give them a reason to find out more! If a business states ‘We’ve got a new sports drink.’ are you likely to instantly go and find out more? Probably not. But what if they said ‘We’ve already helped 1 million athletes improve their recovery times with our new thirst-quenching sports drink. Click here to find out how you could improve your recovery.’ – you’d probably be more intrigued, wouldn’t you?

  5. Pop in an effective enquiry bait

    Everyone loves a freebie, and by giving someone something that’s really helpful and useful it’ll add value to your paid-for services. Now remember, even though it’s free it still needs to contain lots of juicy, valuable information. Whilst testimonials are great, people don’t necessarily want to solely read about how you’ve helped others; they want step-by-step instructions for one of the exercises from your new video, a recipe from your new cookbook or a really cool alternative use for your new product. This is your time to be creative – let your imagination run wild!

So now you’ve got your 5 simple steps, it’s time to think about tone and content. These are both highly important when it comes to enticing people in, and plays a part in your overall marketing strategy.

Think logically about what content your target audience will be interested in and what tone they will associate with best; someone looking to buy flea treatment for their pet will likely be alienated by a host of medical mumbo-jumbo, and it’s implausible that a pharmaceutical company will instantly be compelled to buy from you simply because you’re offering free theme park tickets for the whole family.

Keep your content and tone relevant to your audience and you’ll find that your marketing efforts are far more effective.

For more information on creating your own digital marketing strategy, get in contact with us today, alternatively check out our FREE Bi Monthly Digital Marketing Seminars to learn more.

Feb 26
0
2016-Facebook-Updates

2016 Facebook Updates

By | Digital Marketing, Social Media | No Comments

Facebook changes that are getting businesses excited!

This year Facebook is set to carry out some major updates. The way we interact with the posts in our Newsfeed is about to change. Those of you who were in favour of a sparkly new ‘Dislike’ button will be pleased to know that your wish has been somewhat granted, to a certain extent…

Now don’t get too excited, there’s isn’t a Dislike button as Facebook have said this would have too much of a negative effect on interaction, but they have opted for something a little more visual and emotional with their range of new smilies.

Happy, Sad, Love, Angry, Wow

This week all us Facebook users have the option to express our feelings on the posts in our Newsfeeds. This means that instead of ‘Liking’ that post about Geraldine’s big Lottery win, you’ll be able to love it instead, by clicking on the little love heart. Similarly, if you’re sad about James’ beloved car failing its MOT, you’ll be able to select the sad face so that James knows you share his emotion. You’ll be able to do this with the happy, angry and wow faces, too.

This new feature is called Facebook ‘Reactions’ and for some users, these changes have already happened; you may have noticed the little emojis popping up above the like button already. To jump on the Reaction’s party bus you just need to press and hold the like button on your hand-held device (mobile phone or tablet) or hover over the like button on your laptop and the expressive little emojis will pop up ready for you to select the most relevant face.

Wait, there’s more!

It’s all about quality, not quantity these days. Facebook are continuing to make changes to their algorithms which affect the way in which your posts are shared with the wider world. Facebook is aiming to make the Newsfeed experience as relevant as possible through customer feedback and research, which could affect your engagement in either a positive or a negative way.

Essentially, Facebook have collected data and feedback from a cross section of people and used it to organise users’ Newsfeeds by what they’re likely to be interested in. So what does this mean for businesses struggling to be noticed in the big wide world of Facebook? From now on, the quality of what you post, the content it possesses and even the consistency of your posts can affect how highly you feature in your audience’s Newsfeed.

Ask yourself: is it compelling?

The aim of these changes is to ensure that Facebook users are surrounded by things they’re interested in and that might be of use to them, rather than the typical ‘Buy me’ or ‘Like and share’ posts. You now need to consider what impact the media you’re posting out will have on your intended audience; whether they will be compelled to engage with you (by liking, commenting or sharing your post) or if they will be inclined to click through to your page and either view other posts or ultimately purchase from you.

By carefully considering what, when and how you post on social media, you can take great advantage of these new changes and help your business to continue to grow. To find out how Jigsaw Communications could help you and your business flourish on social media and beyond, contact us today.

Oct 16
0
Social Media helps website ranking

How social media supports your SEO

By | Digital Marketing, SEO, Social Media | No Comments

These days, social media sites are no longer an exclusive place to virtually hang out with your friends. Sites such as Twitter, Facebook, Google+, YouTube, Instagram and Pinterest have become both business and consumer friendly and the result has been incredibly beneficial to businesses around the world. Savvy business owners are realising the substantial potential to generate extra traffic to their website through successful social media marketing. Let’s take a closer look…

Did you know that it’s not just the big search engines such as Google, Yahoo and Bing that people use to find what they’re looking for? With more and more people turning to social media sites for their business needs (advertising etc.), increasing numbers of consumers are using these platforms to search for local businesses and services. Due to the ease of interaction and the ability to keep up-to-date with regular posts and updates, social media is a highly effective way of engaging with new and current customers with very little effort, time and outlay.

As a business owner, it’s important to boost your brand authority with your social media influence. You can do this by sharing relevant and interesting content, which provides the reader with valuable information. A regularly updated social media account will encourage and nurture your customer links – social shares are the new link building and it’s a quick, easy and effective way to build your online profile. Great content will get shared and reach a wider audience whilst you sleep, meaning your customers will actually help you with your marketing! The flipside of this of course is that if you allow your posts to dwindle from month to month then people may become disengaged from your brand and you could find yourself back at square one.

Remember, Google now includes recent and relevant tweets in search results, meaning that regular and valuable updates are now more important than ever. If you’re regularly tweeting insightful information and useful links, you can smile throughout the day knowing that not only will your tweets reach your followers (and possibly their followers, too, if they decide to retweet), but also anyone who searches on Google for something similar and relevant!

Don’t limit yourself to just Twitter though, Google also (rather unsurprisingly!) loves Google+! Not only does Google+ work wonders for your SEO by appearing high in Google searches with results containing links to your website (via your Google+ page), but Google+ ‘Authorship’ allows you to publish content to the web, with tags showing that you created it and links to your website. Want to know the best bit? Authorship automatically lets Google know that your article has been published and thus it will almost instantly appear in Google searches!

The key thing with the way Google (and other major search engines for that matter) ranks websites is that it is no longer all about keywords. SEO is becoming more human-friendly and thus is based more on the content you share with others and how relevant, informative and well written your content is. This means that now, more so than ever, content is King. Well-formed and interesting articles and blog posts are fast rising up the search engine rankings, whilst keyword heavy, uninspiring ‘sales style’ posts could leave you right down at the bottom of page 27!

Remember, the goal is to create super valuable content that people will love and understand. Once you’ve created it, share it across every platform you can get your hands on! People need to love your content so much that they’re inclined to share it through their own accounts, so get writing!

Jun 26
0
Social Media logos

Choosing the right Social Media platform

By | Digital Marketing, Social Media | No Comments

Social media is one of the most useful tools available to your business but also one of the largest minefields around! Used correctly it can easily become your best ally and a great asset to your business, but used incorrectly it can do more harm than good. So where do you start and which platform is best for you and your business? We’ve compiled a little list to demystify the most popular social platforms out there and mixed in a few top tips and tricks to help you on your way to a successful social media experience

Facebook

With 1.19 billion users, Facebook is one of the most popular social media sites (and also one of the oldest too), Facebook is a hive of interaction and social engagement. This platform is particularly great for consumers due to the accessibility and ease of participation that Facebook pages offer, making it great for businesses that sell products. Facebook has several different features, such as ‘Insights’ that enable you to see how many people are viewing your updates and posts whilst Facebook ads are a great way to cost effectively promote your business to a wider audience in a quick time scale. This platform provides a fun way to build brand loyalty and awareness and drive traffic to your website with a clever use of links.

Twitter

Twitter is great for consumers and is also an effective way to network and connect with leading people in your business’ sector. Twitter says that ‘people are more likely (72%) to make a future purchase from an SME after they follow or interact with them on Twitter’. Another thing to take advantage of is Twitter Ads; these ads can help broaden the reach of your tweets beyond your followers, increasing your customer base and brand awareness.

LinkedIn

Launched in 2002, LinkedIn is a well established platform for professionals to connect and do business, specifically if you sell a B2B service. LinkedIn features a host of different groups based around industries, sectors and even regions, full of entrepreneurs and executives who are looking for business opportunities. LinkedIn even offers ‘Pulse’, a great publishing service for you to create and promote articles in order to increase your brand awareness and credibility by providing free and highly valuable insights, tips and tricks. LinkedIn is also a great place to advertise any job vacancies that you may have.

Google+

Only launched in 2011, Google+ is one of the most recent platforms, but is still packed full of opportunity! Based around ‘circles’ of people, you are able to share your thoughts and connect with other professionals easily and quickly, making connections and networking from your desk! Google+ sits nicely in between Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn when it comes to consumer/professional users, giving you a wide audience to connect with. This platform is also a little gem for helping your SEO, certainly one to include in your mix.

Instagram

Instagram is a must have platform if you have a very visual business or sell products, but not such a high priority if you’re an accountancy firm (but don’t rule it out!). Unlike other platforms, Instagram is about sharing images to grab the attention of your audience rather than text. Your pictures are shared to a wider audience via your chosen hashtags, rather than just your current connections. Packed full of consumers, Instagram is great for product-based businesses.

YouTube

Created in 2005 and bought by Google in 2006, YouTube has long been the go-to place for consumers looking for reviews, adverts and explainer videos. Because video is a very visual way to captivate your audience and get across a lot of information in a short time frame, along with being a highly ‘shareable’ media, it is set to make up 84% of all internet traffic by 2018, so get yourself on YouTube! YouTube is a great platform for all businesses, from product demonstration videos and how-to-tutorials to ‘Meet the Team’ introductions and customer testimonials.

 

So, hopefully we’ve given you a bit of an insight into the big wide world of social media! Don’t forget, if you want to find out more, just drop us an email at info@jigsawcommunications.co.uk to see how Jigsaw Communications can help you. Don’t forget we also run Social Media training courses to help businesses get to grips with Social Media. Find out more on our training page.

Feb 25
0

Content marketing increases leads

By | Digital Marketing, Social Media | No Comments

How Content Marketing can generate sale leads

As a business owner, you’ll probably know that the internet is a loud place. It’s a market place full of the hustle and bustle of buyers and sellers. Sellers are vying for the attention of buyers who know exactly what they want but don’t know which to choose from the thousands of services and products just like yours, and the buyers themselves are trying to make sense of all the promises and oodles of information to ensure they make the correct purchase.

But how can you ensure your business and your products stand out from the crowds? The goal is to get people to know, like, and trust your brand. To do this, your content must be interesting and engaging and should aim to create a common interest between you and your followers.

The concept is pretty easy – you create content and then market it. In layman’s terms, you write a blog article relevant to your business, publish it and then share it through social channels such as Facebook, Twitter and Google+ in order to acquire and retain an audience. The tricky part is coming up with a killer strategy and sticking to it, religiously and consistently.

Content Marketing

Content Marketing is a fundamental part of your digital marketing plan

But first, the content you create needs to be valuable and relevant in order to attract the attention of your target audience. Interesting and engaging content will drive traffic and strengthen the relationship between you and your audience. The type of content you write and where you market it is all part of your online strategy.

A punchy, informative and concise article or blog post has the capacity to attract and convert your audience into buyers and buyers into loyal customers and followers. By creating and sharing content you are essentially creating a portal into your business – a snapshot of what your business is about and what it does/provides. This engagement is vital in building a trustworthy and likeable business, which is what generates sales leads.

So, you’ve created your content, shared it across your social media channels and now what? Create new content, repeat. Old and repetitive information that you’ve already shared will not engage your followers because they are doing just that – following you. This means they’re looking for new and fresh content, something they’ve not read before from you. You really don’t want to be known as the business that nags and repeats the same old boring stuff every week because this will result in disengagement, a low reach and poor visibility; eventually people will unfollow you, meaning your hard efforts will be worthless. You need to market new content regularly, preferably daily.

Yes, content marketing is an ongoing and regular activity that needs updating, but it’s necessary to bring in and hold onto potential customers and ultimately generate sales. Good content will not only get people talking and sharing, which does wonders for word-of-mouth exposure, but your business will have a greater chance of ranking well in Google search results, perfect to help people find your business amidst the crowds of the ever-growing internet!

This may all sound very time consuming and might leave you thinking ‘all very well if I had an extra ‘x’ hours in the day’. If this is the case, you’ll find our articles on outsourcing very beneficial and you could shave hours off your ‘to-do’ list in no time at all!