2019 promises to be an interesting year with the introduction of new technologies being used as part of the Marketing Mix. 

Here are three key trends to keep an eye on in the upcoming year:

Chatbots: There are no such thing as opening hours online, customers have access to your business, its website and Social Media 24/7. Chatbots are becoming more and more important to deal with your customers queries on demand. 

Frequently used on Facebook to help customers communicate with your business Chatbot usage is expected to rapidly grow. 

Chatbots can be integrated in a website, app or on your business’s social media accounts, they can act quicker than humans in dealing with customer requests and can provide a more personalised service by gathering user information that can later be used to tailor your businesses Marketing campaigns.

VR/AR: Virtual Reality & Augmented Reality are seen by many as a Sci-Fi like future, but they are very much here and slowly creeping their way into businesses Marketing activity. This is still at very early stages and for the foreseeable future will begin to grow exponentially but it’s a great time for businesses to invest and explore the options. 

VR/AR gives your customers the chance to be both engaging with your products/services and actively participating in your Marketing activity in ‘another reality’ putting them at the heart of your business.

Voice Search: 2019 is widely expected to see a significant growth in voice searches & queries - almost 1/3 of the 3.5 billion searches performed in 2018 were carried out by voice assistant devices such as Apple Siri, Google Home & Amazon Alexa leading the way.

This is expected to grow to almost 50% of searches in 2019. Your online presence needs to consider optimising content specifically for Voice Searches, focusing on ‘Position Zero’, Local SEO and creating content around questions your customers may ask.

• Increased Sales: Using online reviews is a Marketing activity, it helps your customers in their decision making. With over 75% new customers happier to purchase online with recommendations and positive reviews from previous existing customers.
• Gain Customer Insight: Online reviews will be able to give you an insight into what your business is or is not doing right. This will allow you to address any internal issues, create a more positive shopping experience for your customers and increase sales.
• Improve SEO Rankings: The more quality content that is write about your website, the higher it ranks. It also shows Google your business is authentic, getting clicked on and actively engaging with customers.

Get it right online…

From a practical point of view, make sure you give your customers multiple opportunities to review your business. Whether it is a pop-up box, fixed bar or dedicated page on-site give them more than one opportunity to review.

Leading sites such as Trustpilot and Yelp offer several tools to embed on-site in a range of styles, just pick which suits your business more and make this available on your businesses site.

But it is all well and good having these on-site, but the next challenge is getting your customers to use them. Encourage your customers to leave reviews offering special offers, bonuses and discounts in return for their feedback.

One last thought, managing reviews…

Not all the reviews will be 100% positive, there will be the odd negative review and it is important how you deal with these.

There are 100s of online and in-store training courses specifically aimed at how to deal with online reviews. But the solution is simple - manage reviews like how you deal with customers in-store, be polite, professional, balanced and offer a solution for that customer, quality customer service goes a long way in-store and online.

To get the most from these promotions here are a few simple pointers to get you started:

Start planning now: Plan your promotions in advance, build up suspense with your customer base and let them know of any upcoming offers and savings in advance whether its in-store, on Social Media or via an Email Campaign.

Create specific page copy: Plan the products or services you are going to offer savings on. Ensure your website is optimised with product pages for these specific items. Point customers in the right direction and ensure your user experience is customer focused, they are not afraid to shop around when it comes to huge savings!

Create eye catching content: Whether it is for your businesses website, Social Media or to be distributed to your list of customer contacts creating eye catching content significantly increases click through rates.

Plan for an upsurge: Ensure your website can deal with increased volumes of traffic, too many page requests can slow the site down or crash the site itself. Test your website using tools like Loadimpact.com to ensure the server that your hosts your businesses website can take the strain.

Test, test, test: Before any of your promotions, artwork and copy goes live test your processes and ensure your site is fully prepared, functioning and operating as you would expect with the new pages, copy etc. Get another set of eyes from a team member and gain feedback.

Some businesses go as far as offering loyal customers a first glance ‘Exclusive’ access to a flash sale. This is used to gain customer feedback, fine tune and tweak their offering to make sure everything runs as smoothly as possible in time for the main event.

Whether you love it or hate it, Black Friday and Cyber Monday are here to stay for the foreseeable future. The chances are if you are not taking part, your competitors are. If you think it would be something that would add value to your business dip your toes in, start planning and prepare a campaign using these few simple pointers.

Test your equipment: Prior to going live, before any trial run ensure that all your equipment is in full working order. Ensure your laptop/desktop/smart device is running at full capacity. Having a slow device or a device with a chance of break may affect how well your video is produced. You want to produce a quality professional video not one that may end at any given moment.

Have a trial run: Before going live have a run-through, it should be both scripted and un-scripted. You want to know what you are going to talk about, but you also want to mix this with more personable chat with viewers, this leads to higher levels of engagement. Test the equipment, have a few run throughs and once you are 100% confident flick the switch and go live.

Engage with customers: Quite a simple but important one, engage with people live. Use their names, interact, ask questions, thoughts and try get their feedback. A Facebook Live video and any webinar should be a two-way experience.

Invest in a microphone: Invest in a good-quality microphone to deliver your customers a crystal-clear message, you don’t want your video to be muffled, voice distorted or break up. Investing in decent quality recording equipment will improve your recording experience, the streams quality for both you and your viewers.

Schedule your broadcast: People working won’t have time for webinars. Ensure that your broadcast takes place outside of working hours, viewing figures are likelier to be higher outside of the hours of 9-5, an early evening slot gives you the chance to expand your audience and its potential reach compared to doing it during the day.

Don't forget to promote: Running a successful webinar is one thing but don’t forget to promote it for a few weeks, build up hype through Social Media, Email Campaigns, Blogging or whatever other advertising medium you use.

One last thing to consider, something very-obvious but after watching numerous webinars test out your internet connection. Test that the signal strength is all okay and ensure that there are no disruptions to your live video. 

We have put together some tips and pointers to get you on your way to Youtube success:

• Invest in equipment & software: A simple one to consider before you get started creating video content – equipment. You want your video and sound to be audible with professional quality. Invest in editing software and quality equipment, this does not have to be costly with sites selling pre-owned goods. Just do your research!

• Create consistent content: Viewers like familiarity and routine. Create a format which works best for both you and your customers. Keep the branding and format of the video consistent, along with the duration, when it is posted and how often. This will help your viewers get to know you better, your offerings and your brand. Keep it simple, map out a plan and strategy in blocks.

• Encourage action: Get your viewers to engage with your video, not just in terms of interacting and starting a conversation. Pre-programmed notifications can be created to drive your viewers to certain products, pages online. Tie these in relevantly with any video you create.

• Build a following: Enhance your video and channel with your very own ‘community’. Grow a following, engage with them and encourage debate. Reach out to potential influencers, suppliers, offer product reviews and maximise your visibility and audience.

• Optimise for search engines: Search engines will naturally pick up Youtube videos associated with your business as its quality, consistent content. To get it ranking highly each video needs optimising – include keywords in the title, create tags using your businesses keywords and provide a detailed description of your video and what it is offering.

• Think mobile friendly: According to Google, 75% of adults watch Youtube at home on a mobile device. The number of users watching content on smart devices is growing year on year. With mobile users more likely to be watching content concentrating compared to watching on a Smart TV/PC adopt a mobile first strategy to deliver quality content to your viewers. 

This allows users to organise work as well as generate ideas. Simple to use, visually pleasing and ideal for growing ideas Trello is an easy to manage and maintain project management tool for SMEs.

Slack

One of the most recognised communication programmes Slack makes communicating to your team simple. Slack integrates with Dropbox, Salesforce and many more pieces of software and allows users to share files, ideas and conversations all in one place.

Join.me

Like GoToMeeting this allows users to set up meetings remotely wherever they are working and on any device. But Join.me also allows users to collaborate and share ideas with a whiteboard feature which can be used communally.

Asana

An all in one project management tool Asana is ideal tool to streamline your business. The software allows users to track, organise and manage work in one place. Focusing on productivity, Asana also can set up to do lists, targets, summaries and set reminders for any ongoing projects plus offering handy integrations with the previously mentioned Slack, Dropbox and many other integrations.

Ryver

This web-based app is identical to Slack in that it provides an easy way for your team to communicate and share files. Different teams with different viewing permissions can also be set up so users only see what is relevant to their project or role but what makes it stand out is it is in fact FREE of charge to sign up and use. Of course, it’s a Lite version and has it limitations but offers customers a cos- effective way to increase productivity.

ProWorkflow

Available both on the web and through a smartphone/tablet ProWorkflow offers flexibility and versatility in its software which makes it popular across many industries. Task management, time sheets, alerts are available alongside sharing and communicating tools for colleagues. What separates this from others is the interface is that it offers resource management as well as managing the workflows users plus it offers a GANT chart type display looking at project progress to ensure users hit any deadlines.

In Summary...

While there are lots of pieces of software out there, the majority offer free trials and live demonstrations which outline how they can be used alongside your business. 

Before you make any decisions, do your research, take your time and arrange for some of these to see which collaboration programme works best for your budget, its requirement and its specification.

How to capture an email address?

There are a few basic methods to grow your businesses mailing list and capture your businesses data. 

Data capture bars

Data capture bars are simple to place on your businesses site, it requires a single snippet of HTML to be embedded in the page source.

There are 100s of data capture providers out there with the main one being Hellobar, which is free of charge. These can also be created within CRM packages (Salesforce, Zoho, Hubspot etc) to grow your data list and help your leads/sales. Within Hellobar, whatever CRM package plus whatever email campaign software you use you can monitor, manage and maintain your businesses mailing list accordingly with each one offering differing levels of detail.

A data capture bar feeds contacts straight in to your mailing list. Different pieces of software will be able to feed the data into different programmes, but the popular email software like Mailchimp, Zoho etc are available on most capture bar providers.

The bars in several forms – fixed bars (a static or moving bar that appears at the top of the page), pop ups (a sign-up forming appearing after a few seconds on-site often found in the centre of the page) or page takeovers (a sign-up form that appears after a few seconds taking over the full screen itself).

The most common method is a simple static bar at the top as this is not obstructing customers trying to navigate the website whereas pop-ups and takeovers appear after a certain amount of time and be deemed annoying by a website visitor.

Visually the pop-up and takeover creating more of a lasting impact, but users have a love-hate relationship with these whereas the simple static bar lacks the striking impact. However, it proves more successful as customers are happier, more trusting and comfortable with a simple less obtrusive method.

Landing pages

A landing page is a standalone web page created specifically for Marketing a certain product or service. Landing pages are specifically designed to generate interest and have a CTA (call to action on-site).

Incentivise your customers

You may have customer who visit in-store or follow you on Social Media, but you do not have their physical information to target them. Run competitions & offers in-store and on Social Media channels incentivising existing customers to sign up to your mailing list in exchange for a reward or discount.

On-site architecture

You can build opt in options into your business’s website seamlessly. Wherever you capture any customer information on-site (contact us forms, checkout etc) ask customers to tick the box if they would like to sign up and opt in to your businesses mailing list.

Lastly & IMPORTANTLY, GDPR

The four letters everyone loves to hate. New regulations that came into play last year to look at how your business uses customer information. Ensure any method you use is GDPR friendly and any customer that signs up gives you their full consent. 

There are several software packages designed for garment decorators that allow you to measure not only the basics, such as names and addresses, but also what customers have bought, what items they’ve clicked, where they saw your business advertised and so on.

The obvious way to use this data is to keep in touch with your customers through marketing campaigns. By having extra data at your fingertips about their clicks and buying habits, you’ll be able to further tailor your campaigns, which should improve engagement rates (again, data collection here is invaluable – want to know which one of two email subject lines will lead to a higher open rate? Test one subject line on 20 customers then the other subject line on another 20 customers. Whichever one scores the highest open rate can then be used for the remaining mail out. Simple).

Check how your website is functioning by looking beyond the visitor numbers: when are customers visiting, what pages are they looking at, what ones are they ignoring, where are they coming from, how long are they staying? All this can be used to check your site is working for your business.

You can also take a close look at what’s happening on the purchasing side: when are customers are ordering, what they are ordering and how frequently they are ordering? Use the information to work out when best to hold promotions that will get people visiting during the quiet times – plug the gaps and maximise your sales.

Remember, however, to play by the rules. There is a whole host of data guidelines and regulations out there, with the obvious one being the data protection act.

You must give your customers all the options available for opting in/opting out/unsubscribing, along with mentioning they may be contacted in the future for marketing purposes. Most customers won’t mind you using their data to contact them to promote your business or products, but playing by the rules will protect your business.

One last thought

Managing your data is vital. First and foremost, make sure all the data you’ve collected is secure. It also has to be accurate, relevant and up to date to be of any significant value to your business – ongoing data collection is an essential part of any business strategy.

1. Create/claim a Google my Business listing: Creating a listing for your business helps your business get found for local searches with minimum fuss. Google my Business provides customers a whole host of information including opening times, customer reviews, products and services you provide.

2. Add your business to credible online directories: Adding your business to relevant online directories such as Yell, Yelp etc is a straightforward way to ensure your business gets found online locally. Ensure these are kept, valid and up to date.

3. Ensure your website is indexed: Use Google Search Console to index your sitemap and ensure that Google bots scan your website. To check how many pages are indexed type site:yourwebsite.co.uk into Google.

4. Test your mobile site speed: There is a growing importance on  how websites perform on mobiles/smart devices. Speed is playing a larger part in determining how your site ranks, use Google Test My Site to check how your site performs, it will identify performance, areas to improve etc.

5. Make sure these is a page title in place: Ensure all your webpages have page titles in place describing what you do, these are the first thing Google bots scan on your page.

6. Use long tailed keywords: It would take a lot of time/effort to get found for terms like workwear, shirts, polo shirts etc so use longer keywords in your on-site content. For example, branded polo shirts, personalised workwear London etc.

7. Build content for people, not robots: You are garment decorators, print and embroidery enthusiasts. Write about your passion, your business, its products and services then hopefully it will naturally get picked up for many key terms. Often people write ‘out of shape’ content focusing on keywords which is not entirely customer friendly.

8. Create quality links: Inbound links are another thing to consider helping your page rank in search engines. Collaborate with customers, local schools, sports clubs, businesses and link back and forth to each other, creating an online shop/testimonials page is always a common method employed by garment decorators.

9. Start a blog: Create a blog for your customers sake, not for SEO purposes. Content Marketing at its finest, produce quality, relevant content frequently and Google will reward you. This can include things like latest news, case studies, latest news etc.

10. Encourage reviews: Ask customers to use Google reviews, this will help give your results more prominence in the search results.

The industry leading software for email campaigns, Mailchimp is recognised worldwide. Ideal for small businesses, it offers a forever free package (up to 2000 customers/12000 emails) which includes basic features, easy to use drag and drop templates. The choice for small businesses, the free version also allows segmenting, so you can tailor your message for different types of customers and their behaviours.

Like Mailchimp their forever free package offers up to 12000 emails to 2000 customers and 100s of templates to customise. Where Zoho stands out is the A/B testing that is included in the free plan, test different subject lines for each campaign and monitor them with Zoho’s more concise and in -depth analytics. Recommended for users looking for a more analytical and scientific approach to email campaigns.

An interesting option Email Octupus offers a free of charge ‘Shrimp’ plan where you can send unlimited emails to up to 2500 customers. This offers plenty of templates and great value for customers looking to produce a larger amount of email campaigns. However, there is a compromise the functionality is basic and there is no automation (paid customers only), prepare to be more ad-hoc and produce emails as and when you need to send out a campaign.

Benchmark is visually the most pleasing of all the email templates. They have 100s of simple, elegant designs that are easy to customise. Benchmarks functionality is limited with only very basic features but just tops Mailchimp and Zoho’s useage with 14000 emails to 2000 subscribers. Benchmark is the ideal software to make a striking impression and communicate to your customers in a contemporary way.

Freshmail on the surface does not match the heights of other providers with free plans only available for up to 500 subscribers. But where it differs from the others that emails can be customised and designed using several templates using their mobile/tablet app. Customise on the go and create aesthetically pleasing campaigns anytime, anyplace.

Mailerlite offers easy to use drag and drop templates for up to 1000 customers free of charge. As well as unlimited sends the tools provided in Mailerlite is comprehensive compared to the others mentioned in the list, personalising, segmenting and A/B testing and some automation features are all readily available in the free plan.

Do your research and checks: Carry out your due diligence when researching influencers, research their personal brand, persona and personality and see if its value align alongside yours. Research fees do not bow to paying over the odds just because someone has a huge number of followers – there’s always knowingly or unknowingly fake followers inflating their crowd.

It is out of your hands: The second you get involved with an influencer; things are essentially being taken out of your control. Regardless of what you pay you have no control over what they think. Credible influencers want to provide their customers an authentic experience, work alongside them and deliver a quality product and customer experience.

Be patient: The results from using Influencer Marketing is very rarely instant. Trust must be built between both yourself and the influencer but also between that person and its audience. It is more so a brand awareness building campaign rather than a direct sales campaign.

Build relationships: You are more than likely to achieve success using this type of Marketing when a lasting relationship is created. Working alongside someone long term is likely to build a trusting working relationship and help you tap into an influencers influence. Manage the costs by starting with small personalities who may be of value and establish a manageable cost-effective working relationship.

Think outside sponsored: Influencer Marketing is not all about sponsored posts and plugging your business and its product. It gives you the chance to collaborate and curate some content and tailor it as they understand their audience better than anyone. It may be competitions, them designing their own promotional products or anything but it will help you establish a deeper more meaningful long-term relationship.

• Create separate lists for your target audience – a list for existing clients, prospects, accounts of interest and so on
• Create a list dedicated to your competition – keep a track on what your competitors are offering in their Social Media campaigns and keep a private list to see what is working and what is not similar businesses
• Grow your followers – as well as creating your own list it may be likely your account itself will be added to one by someone else. You can see all lists you are a member of, this will also display all their followers who may also be a target audience for you
• Find existing lists online – there are tools out there to find existing lists based on whatever your search might be, use this and identify existing lists to potentially replicate

With that in mind, here are five tips to help declutter your businesses website:

• Streamline Your Home/Navigation Bar: This is the spine of your site and holds it all together in terms of accessibility. Make the bar a simple to use, informative tool and do not overload it with options and information. Organise it and make it concise for your customer.
• Less is More: Content is a main fundamental element of SEO, but sometimes less is more. Customers are after quality not quantity, do not bombard them huge chunks of content and information. Be clear, keep the readers attention and focus on what information is crucial to them when purchasing or enquiring through your website.
• Continuously Remove Out of Date Items: Often one that is overlooked. Simply take a few moments to remove any out of date seasonal content and campaigns. Keep on top of your website and ensure that your site looks like it is both managed & professional.
• Manage Loading Times: Customers are an impatient bunch and often happy to shop around over the littlest error. Ensure your website does not take forever to load, work with your developer or provider to make sure customers can navigate your website quickly.
• Clear Call to Acton (CTA)/Contact Details: Ensure all action buttons and contact details are visually easy for customers to find. Even if they are struggling a tiny bit to navigate your website or are stuck for choice on what to order these will improve your chances of winning the order and not frustrating a potential customer.

To find out more view the rest of our website or alternatively book an online demo by getting in touch on 029 2074 1663 or email info@etraderwebsites.co.uk.

The biggest drawback however is the customers effectively become Instagram’s as consumers are using their checkout and not the brands checkout. Problematic for businesses looking to manage their sales funnel and manage their conversions the brands currently using the checkout will not be able to identify users, their behaviours or any complex information, they will only receive the basic order details.

While this is only at very early development stages working with big brands, who is to say it won’t be introduced to businesses using Instagram for their Marketing & Advertising?

The garment decoration industry is a highly visual one, companies using Social Media to sell their print and embroidery rely on imagery of previous work and case studies to push their business and their quality. The checkout itself if introduced for small businesses would be an ideal fit for the industry.

With UK businesses already spending millions of pounds on engaging with influencers and Sponsored Online Advertising on Instagram there will be some that will see this as a step in the right direction where you can measure Return On Investment (ROI) can be measured in a more quantifiable way.