You don’t have to be an expert marketeer to know that social media platforms are a little piece of heaven swarming with potential new customers. Businesses, both small and large, will begin their social media journey connecting with their target audience and investing in promotions and advertisements to generate more sales.

Despite what many may think, there is more to handling a social media account than the tingle of pride one feels when a Tweet gets more than 10 retweets or a status gets 20 likes and a few comments. Just take a look on LinkedIn and you will see thousands of ‘Social Media Executives’. So why are businesses investing so heavily in this job role?

If you are posting generic updates like ‘good morning’ or blabbing on about how great your company is, the chances are nobody is listening… This is where social calendars come into play. Planning content to post on social media on a weekly or monthly basis is a must. This way upcoming events, topics, dates and company news can be carefully incorporated without the unnecessary 20 minutes staring at the computer screen wondering what to post. Posts can also be scheduled for optimum times to ensure the right content is getting to the right people at the right time. Don’t forget you can also use Twitter tools such as Hootsuite to help you with this.

Another mistake that many businesses make is ignoring bad publicity and hoping it goes away. Long gone are the days where companies were allowed to delete their Facebook reviews and besides, imagine if you had received bad customer service and then found your complaint had mysteriously vanished… would you be even angrier? A big part of handling a business social media account is reputation management. Resolving issues as they arise publicly and effectively. This is also why regular monitoring is crucial, by the time you respond to a bad review left 3 weeks ago chances are 100 potential customers have noticed this and your lack of response only makes you look guilty. We’ve all seen the Tesco banana with a spider inside clog up our news feed!

Finally, it is common sense to most that social media is amazing for communicating effectively with your target audience and promoting the brand. What many fail to realise is that social media is literally a lead generation and conversion machine! New features such as Twitter’s ‘conversion tracking’ allow you to measure your return on investment by tracking what your potential new customers to after interacting with your ads! Also, a simple social media promotion can literally result in thousands of new email addresses to market yourself to!

Social media is the future of marketing and by investing more time in this, the return on investment can be phenomenal. If you need help managing your company’s social media accounts or want to discuss our social media packages, give one of our social gurus a call on 0161 884 0112.

There is a reason businesses now have to spend a hefty proportion of their marketing budgets on engaging potential customers (or acquisition marketing)…..and despite what the adverts may say it’s not because they love you so much. The key reason engaging with your potential audience is so crucial is simple… consumer choice. As a society, we now have so much choice and purchasing power that businesses must do all they can to capture their audience. In the heady marketing world every consumer unknowingly finds themselves as part of a ‘sales funnel’, this is made up of the stages a consumer reaches before purchasing a product or service… awareness, interest, consideration, intent, evaluation and then finally the purchase.

Engagement should lead to sales, consumers are much more skeptical about cold callers and being spammed from brands they don’t recognise, so typically a company will make contact with an individual via 6 channels before leading to a sale. By actively engaging with your potential audience you can increase brand awareness and become positioned in your target audience’s mind.

Once people recognise your brand, they are more likely to listen to what you have to say as you gradually become more familiar and trustworthy. Even maintaining strong engagement with your current customers is important, it is much easier to sell to someone who has already purchased your product. Keeping them engaged and happy with your services is an easy way to improve their purchasing experience and increase brand loyalty. As the world becomes more and more digital, it is easier than ever to see reviews and testimonials from customers and gone are the days when false reviews were allowed, the easiest way to create a good reputation for your business is to keep your customers happy. Engagement itself is a powerful lead generation tool.

We can help you keep your audience engaged, contact us at hello@22group.co.uk or call 0161 672 7822.

When it comes to digital marketing, many business owners are extremely skeptical. It can seem like a huge and risky investment. We try and keep both our more traditional content-driven inbound marketing separate from more digital channels such as Google Advertising. Why? because our marketing retainers consist of hours. It is relatively easy to break down traditional marketing into hours; social media time, eshot time, design time for adverts etc… Digital marketing is a little more complex. The cost of many digital marketing techniques such as Adwords, Google Shopping, remarketing etc. are paid directly to the supplier, such as Google. This means that costs are completely transparent and it is only the admin fees that are paid to the agency (in our case the time would come out of the retainer).

So why are people so skeptical about digital marketing? Firstly, initial outlay can appear a little steep, in addition, administration time could lead to an increase in retainer hours. Let’s be honest, nobody likes increasing their spends, but as the world becomes more digital, companies must adapt. Secondly it is likely their competition is already invested in digital marketing which means bidding can be competitive and without the correct localisation and tailored approaches potential costs can be extortionate - don’t worry, budgets are set so your spends will never spiral out of control, you just may not get the most out of your efforts.

Despite the initial risks with digital marketing, it is absolutely worth the investment. Though the initial outlay may seem a little high sometimes, it is actually more cost-effective than advertising through traditional means. You can accurately calculate the return on investment and see which techniques are working for you and which need to be adapted, you can physically assign credits to each stage of the conversion. Digital marketing allows you to interact with your audience, rather than talk at them and you with the specialised techniques you are much more likely to reach the audience who are actually interested in purchasing your products or services.
Both digital and traditional marketing attract your potential customers and build brand awareness. When used simultaneously they can work together to power extremely successful results for your business.

For any help with your digital marketing contact us at hello@22group.co.uk or call 0161 672 7822.

Are you advertising your services on mobile? If not, you really should be.

There are as many mobile phone subscriptions in the world as there are people, and it has been predicted that over 2 billion people will have a smartphone by the end of 2016 as people are changing to stay connected and replacing desktops.

For the first time ever, spending on mobile phone advertising is over £1bn and mobile advertising budgeting has risen 51%, these are figures that you can’t afford to ignore for your business.

Social media has become a solid foundation for businesses to market their services, but on average 63% of their budget is mobile-targeted. This should be of little surprise when you consider how often you check your mobile in a day, compared with desktop.

The internet in general is the fastest-growing platform for advertisement and the spend for this is expected to rise above television by the end of the decade, this could be due to the advance in technologies that allows consumers to fast-forward through commercials, or that they can simply just have a scroll on their smartphone until their favourite program commences.

Mobile phones are rapidly taking over the world, and businesses need to adapt in order to stay ahead in the market place. If you need help with your digital marketing, give one of our team a call on 0161 672 7820

We are happy to help.

It's Back to the Future day!

21^st October 2015? Just an ordinary date to some, but to many it’s ‘Back to the Future day’.

In the famous time-travel movie Back to the Future Part 11, released 26 years ago, today is the day that Marty McFly travelled to in order to save his future son.

Social media has blown up over the past few days and even some of the leading brands have jumped on board to celebrate ‘Back to the Future day’ in their marketing campaigns.

Although we may not be there in terms of the flying cars and hover-boards, leading brands who used some product placement in the film are certainly making the most of this once in a lifetime opportunity.

Marty McFly blew us away when he put on his Nike trainers and they laced up themselves, recently Nike have created a trainer based on the model seen in Back to the Future (unfortunately they are still working on the technology behind self-lacing laces)

Pepsi are releasing a limited edition run of a few thousand bottles of Pepsi Perfect, just like in the film, these of course will still be made with sugar, rather than vitamins as in the film.

Universal Studies joined in the fun, by releasing a trailer for the 3D film ‘Jaws 19’ as seen on an advert in the film.

If you’re struggling coming up with campaign ideas for your business, give our expert team a quick call on 0161 6727822.

Google’s algorithm is not as complicated as it may first appear to the average business owner. Google Panda 4.2 which will be phase-rolled out over the next few months is leaving many business owners feeling anxious as to how their sites will be affected, as a slight manipulation to search rankings can leave them with substantial amounts worth of custom lost or gained.

Google Panda 4.2 targets poor quality content, meaning sites with thin or substandard content will be ranked lower than those who provide regular and useful content, driving towards providing the end user with a better experience.

These changes should be seen as a positive as it increases the pressure to provide rich content, which should be something every business strives towards.

Daily Mail has suffered a 15pc print advertising drop as supermarkets have cut back their spend.

A significant deterioration has been seen in the traditional print advertising market which has resulted in a 15pc drop at the Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday. Despite this significant loss, their total circulation increased as competitors readership dropped at an even faster rate.

With more and more consumers going online the costs associated with print compared to digital advertisement are making the industry less attractive. The Daily Mail website enjoyed a 25pc increase in its global audience on last year, but revenue was up only 8pc which suggests a decline in advertising yields.

It is results like this that must make businesses consider whether their marketing spends for print advertisement are ineffective and would be better spent on digital means such as retargeting, where cookie-based technology that uses simple Javascript code anonymously “follows” the targeted audience all over the internet.

Google Shopping Ads are an online shopping advertisement that comes to the top of the screen whenever you search a product on Google. To be successful in the Google Shopping Ads it is recommended that your product comes up in the first 5 product ads.

Taking full advantage of Google Shopping can be a very powerful marketing tool, it is straightforward to do this but unfortunately very few people understand how exactly to use it. The channel is rapidly growing and perfect for ecommerce merchants who are looking to increase sales.

3 major factors should be considered when listing on Google Shopping:

• Your product data
• Your ‘buying’ keywords
• How much you are willing to budget for targeted traffic.

Google is in charge of determining which Product Listing Ads appear in a search depending on CPC and product information from your data feed, to match products as closely with the customer search as possible. Therefore the product information on your website (which you feed comprises of) should focus jointly on customer experience and on consumer search relevance.

Product descriptions in this are vital and should be targeted at what consumers are likely to be searching i.e. brand, product, purpose, category, price etc.

Once you have determined which terms to include in your product title and description, your shopping feed should then be organised into groups within Google Merchant centre in order for each category or product to be targeted correctly.

Still struggling to understand? Contact one of our experts, we’re happy to help.