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Ad-hoc one-off advertising seldom bears fruit

Posted on April 9, 2019August 6, 2024 by John Tatu

Advertising in isolation is unlikely to lead to results

Putting all of your advertising budget into a single campaign on one platform is a lot like playing the stock market. If you put everything into a single stock, there’s a chance that it will boom and you’ll have huge returns. But there’s a larger chance that you’ll have small gains or even losses. Instead, most financial experts suggest diversifying and putting smaller amounts of money into several places or choosing a stable mutual fund.

Advertising works in the same way. There are tons of places you can put your ad these days. You can put it on Google and target a specific audience. You can sponsor a social media post for better exposure. You can buy a short spot on the radio. Make a video ad on YouTube. Reserve a small column in a newspaper. Take a page in a local magazine. You can even have a large billboard with your company name on the side of a building or on the wall of a gym. But no matter the case, one-off advertising rarely works. With so many options, how do you know where to invest your limited budget to maximise you return?

I tried ______ advertising once; it didn’t work

Ads have a lot of power, especially when done right. They’re the reason we buy diamond engagement rings, use mouthwash, and shower every day, sometimes more than once. And the campaigns that made these cultural norms weren’t just one and done; they were hammered down far and wide until people accepted them as normal and expected.

Because of this, you can’t measure the effectiveness of advertising from a single one-off experiment. “I tried a radio ad once. I spent $300 and got nothing back.” It’s something that we hear a lot. And we don’t disagree that your experience is true. But there are a lot of variables that could have made it ineffective, such as:

Does your target audience typically listen to the radio?
- And if they do, are they listening at the times your ad ran?
  - What about the specific station?
- Did you run your ad by people outside of your company before it went live?
- Was there an offer or promotion included?
- Did you make it clear how your product would benefit the listener?

There are a lot more factors that could explain why the ad could have failed. And that’s just for radio ads. What about all the other mediums out there?

Exposure is a key element for effective marketing

A recent study by Nielsen suggests that it takes a person 5-9 exposures to a brand to resonate. At this point, most people become aware of your brand and what you offer. An ad campaign that launches on multiple platforms is more effective, but be careful—Too much exposure is bad too and can make people sick to death of hearing about you and swear off doing business with you for good.

A strategic, targeted approach is best

So, if one-off advertising is likely to fail, how do you succeed? Choosing the right platforms for your ad campaign is crucial, as well as appropriate distribution of your budget. But which platforms specifically?

The hard truth is that there isn’t a one-size-fits-all model. Just like your business is unique, you advertising should be customised just for you as well. Maybe your audience doesn’t listen to the radio because you sell shoes to teenagers who prefer a music subscription service, people who think AM somehow stands for breakfast. Or maybe Snapchat is ineffective because you offer mould inspections to homeowners. Focusing on the right platforms is much more efficient than the shotgun approach where you try to hit everything with a small piece of spending.

What if I don’t know my market for sure?

When you have a specialised product—something like men’s fireproof overalls—you already know who your market is; men who at risk of being on fire often (so most men). But knowing your target audience isn’t always so straightforward. Your target market and your target audience may not even be the same. Sometimes, who you think buys your products and services and who actually uses them aren’t the same group. And focusing on the wrong group might mean you’re missing out on a good amount of potential revenue.

Failure to find the right audience is a major reason why a lot of new, smaller businesses fail. Connected to that, Investopedia and many other financial outlets agree that not investigating the market is the number one reason why businesses fail. But that doesn’t mean going into a competitive industry means you’re destined for failure, not when you have something special that the competition doesn’t. Letting people know that you have something different and better is the hard part. And how can you do that? Through proper advertising.

Proper advertising can make all the difference

If you’re thinking of concentrating all of your advertising money into a single channel or have tried it before and think it’s pointless, you may want to reconsider. Especially if you have local competition, the difference between success and failure can come down to simply letting them know you exist and have something good to offer.

Proper advertising is a lot more complicated than talking into a microphone for a few minutes and sending the slightly edited product to the local radio station to put on when they please. And it’s possible even with a small budget. It’s about having your money work smarter and harder, like building a website to be a productive employee instead of napping half the day away.

What makes an effective ad campaign then? Know who your audience is and how they make purchase decisions. Focus on the right part of The Buyer’s Journey. Create relevant ads that provide useful information—and discounts don’t hurt either!

What if I don’t have time for all this advertising?

If you’re a business owner, you probably don’t have much time for sleep, let alone taking the time to learn about the right way to advertise on all of the different platforms that can help you. If that’s the case, we’re happy to help.

We believe that even small businesses should have the opportunity to do big marketing and can take over your advertising efforts to maximise your budget usage. That way, you can focus on what your business—what you do best—while we do what we do best, helping businesses like yours grow and expand.

If Your Website Sucks, It Won’t Convert

Posted on April 8, 2019July 18, 2024 by Phil

Where’s that bacon my site promised?

Get a website, they said. It will bring customers, they said. But it’s not. Why? Put simply: if your website sucks, it won’t convert.

There could be a lot of reasons to explain why a website isn’t pulling the pork. It could be that you have poor or even no content besides a home page. It could be an “artistic” design choice. Or it could be difficult to navigate with a complicated or confusing site structure. But they all come down to the same thing; if your website isn’t converting, it’s because it sucks.

Content is King

Content is the stuff on your site. Typically videos, images, and words. And the more useful and relevant it is to your audience, the more likely your site will perform well. Sure, a video of a monkey riding a lamb and kicking a football into a goal is cute, but it probably doesn’t have much relevance to what you do. Unless you make it relate. “Hop on the lamb and score at our unexpected sale, one-day only!”

The original is always the best

At least that’s what stubborn old people like to say. But unlike Batman and Ocean’s Eleven—that we can all agree got better later on—original content is unequivocally the best content for your website. Original content simply means that it’s not copied from somewhere else. It’s pictures that you take, videos that you star in, and articles written specifically for you.

That doesn’t mean you can’t use information from other sources. Linking out to an article with similar information can even be helpful, but it’s important to extract information and rewrite it for your audience using original wording. Think of it like writing essays in school; plagiarism, citing sources = good!

Customise, don’t compromise!

Your site design gives an immediate impression about your business. A tacky, homemade site with weird colour combinations and misaligned elements you made for your first assignment in an Intro Web Development class shouldn’t be used for your professional business. A bad design will kill your site—unless it’s so bad that it gains legendary status, like Arngren or LingsCars.

You might be thinking that maybe you should try that route and throw design principles out the window… But think of how many others with weird designs failed along the way. Yeah, not worth it.

Design is about aesthetics and usability

Good design isn’t all about appearance. A pretty site filled with broken links and no good way to get to other pages won’t perform well, because big brother (a.k.a. Google) is watching. You can’t neglect the appearance either. Ugly-looking sites are an immediate bye-bye for nearly two-thirds of consumers.

A lot of templates on web-building sites look nice at first glance, but use one and you’ll quickly find the limitations. You’re limited to certain colours. You can’t change picture locations. Or sizes. The ugly font choice is locked in. And so on. These template sites aren’t bad for a personal blog or a tiny, single-person side hustle, but as a site for your main business, getting a custom design is the much better option, especially if you want to grow and expand.

Is your site structure natural and intuitive?

Over the years, we’ve gotten used to expecting certain elements on a page. Like clicking on the logo to go back to the home page. Or that little down arrow that will expand content without taking you to a new page. Or highlighting menu elements on hover and showing a preview of the drop-down list. And plenty, plenty more usability features that are nearly ubiquitous these days. Forgetting one is annoying. Two, irritating. But a bunch? Might as well tape a picture to a cardboard box with a computer screen drawn on it for all the good your site will do.

Content + Design + Usability = Unsucky Site

So if your website isn’t converting, the solution is straightforward; make it less bad. And more good. Sure, it’s straightforward, but not necessarily easy—it requires an investment of time, effort, and usually some dollars as well. How do you do it? Create original, useful, relevant content (Or have a writer create it for you). Fashion an attractive, pretty, well-designed website (Or better yet, have a designer fashion one for you). Build an intuitive, friendly, navigable website (Or have a web developer build it for you).

Or of course, you can always leave it all to the experts.

Does YOUR website suck? Click below to get a free website audit and find out!

Customer Reviews: The Positives and Negatives

Posted on April 2, 2019January 6, 2023 by Phil

You are what (Reviews Say) You Do

Until the internet gained popularity, it was difficult to accurately research the quality of products. Some publications had professional reviewers, but besides that and word of mouth, there wasn’t much to go off of. But now, anyone and everyone can be a reviewer. That means anyone can accidentally harm businesses they love through online ratings too. And not just for deciding which ice cream scoop gets the roundest, most consistent scoop. Customers can review businesses too—and what they say can make all the difference. This means customer reviews should definitely be a part of your Marketing Strategy

Positive reviews are a crucial metric

According to recent data, over 90% of customers people check reviews before making a purchase or deciding which business to use. And while scores typically fall on a five-star scale, there’s really only two regions; 1-3 stars are bad, 4-5 are good. Fall under 4 stars, and most people start to get nervous and look towards competitors. Get under 3, and you’d better be an essential service with no competitors or a franchise of a major corporation that already has brand recognition. Yes, they can be that important.

But as a smaller or local business, you likely won’t get such luxuries. Upset or angry customers are also three times more likely to write a review than someone who had a positive experience. So, if you have a small business that could greatly benefit from positive reviews, how do you help them come in while reducing the effect of negative experiences?

Method 1: Respond quickly

Despite your best efforts, there’s always going to be someone who gets upset with you for some reason. And if they’re emotional and upset, there’s a good chance they’re exaggerating—or even posting for the wrong company with a similar name. Responding quickly and offering to make the situation right can mitigate these reviews and might even make the reviewer reconsider updating the rating.

Turning on notifications when a new review is posted is probably the easiest method of preparation. Once you get the notification, plan your response and act calm and professional. And remember, you negative reviews often show you where you can improve! Your response can be a chance to address any wrongdoing on your part, or if there’s nothing that can be fixed, show others that you are friendly and reasonable.

Method 2: Ask for reviews

Asking for reviews can be effective, even though it might seem a bit pushy. If you use a database like a CRM, with a little foresight you can keep track of people who had positive experiences. Sending an email them, asking them to share their experience means you have low risk of getting a negative review. In fact, it provides an opportunity to earn some positive ones.

If you prefer old-school methods, you can try asking in person. Or giving a business card or a handout that has a link to your review page. Keep in mind that without any kind of follow up, people forget. The easier you can make it for them, the more likely it will work.

Keep your reviews on your site!

By putting a widget that pulls reviews onto your site, you immediately establish credibility. Even if you don’t have a 5-start overall rating, that’s okay; some marketing experts even claim having some negative reviews is better than all positive because it makes you seem more authentic. So embrace the negatives and turn them into a positive using them to your advantage—but don’t go out looking for them!

Websites Are Like Staff

Posted on April 1, 2019January 21, 2025 by Phil

Websites are like staff: An investment, not a cost!

Imagine if as a business owner, that you could hire and train the ideal, staff member for your business, a perfect customer service rep, marketer and salesperson. All rolled in to one! They would comprehend everything about your products and understand just what prospective customers need to know so that they’ll decide to choose you over a competitor. Over time, this employee would become an incredible asset to your company, and one you couldn’t live without, wouldn’t they?

Now imagine that you’re going to hire this person. How would you do it? Would you hire the first person who walked through the door that mentioned the word “sales” on their resume without checking into their experience, work ethic, or skills? Or would find someone who has a stellar record with glowing references and proven experience?

Probably the second one. Right?

The same should go for your website. Simply choosing the first free website builder you come across or the cheapest company that can stitch one together for you without considering its long-term function and workability is like hiring that first person who comes through your door. Sure, it’s possible that they’ll become that ace salesperson you dreamed of, but that’s unlikely. Plus, wouldn’t you interview other candidates first to make sure?

When done properly, your website can be your hardest-working salesperson, one that works around the clock to generate new leads and point customers to the right department. It can provide them with the information they need to buy from you directly, or collect their details for someone to give you a call back during business hours. And it can bring customers to you from all over town—or even around the world.

But aren’t professionally designed websites expensive?

Not when you consider the return. And if you think of your website as another employee, you’ll come to find that it’s a pretty amazing deal. It’s like paying a signing bonus for that perfect salesperson, but then practically no salary afterwards; besides the very small occasional maintenance and upkeep costs, they work for free!

A well-designed website, like your star sales team, is an investment, not a cost. By knowing what you’re looking for and how you want it to work for you, it can become a part of your staff. And you’ll wonder how you ever survived without them.

So I should replace my staff?

No, not at all. Your website can’t and shouldn’t replace real staff. Instead, it’s a tool that the team can use to help qualify leads and give a potential client the right information. It’s something people access from the comfort of their home and they can research as deep as they need to in order to make a decision. But like your staff, it will only work well if you’re willing to invest time, effort, and cash into making it perfect.

The Buyer’s Journey, Simplified

Posted on March 22, 2019November 29, 2022 by John Tatu

Being a customer is simple. You need something, so you go and buy it. Job done! Okay, it’s usually not so simple, is it? Especially not for big purchases. When you’re spending a few week’s worth of pay on a product, you make sure that it’s exactly what you want. It’s a good price, it’s highly reviewed, it looks cool, whatever it is you care about. In this case, the destination is the destination, or making a purchase. The path to making a purchase is complex. We cover it more in our article What is the Buyer’s Journey, but we’ve simplified the process here.

The simplified buyer’s journey

What are the steps a buyer takes, and what do they need to make that decision? Well, they need some dollars of course. But everyone goes through a series of steps when they’re considering a major purchase. To keep it easy, we’ll call them 1, 2, 3, because most of us can at least count that high. And to make sure everyone can understand the steps, we’ll use a product we all use, know, and love. Pizza. Again.

Step 1: Awareness

The first step is admitting you have a problem. And that problem is that it’s been far too long since you’ve had pizza. It might have even been a full week! You’ve identified the problem, and you know that it’s an emergency that needs to be solved as soon as possible. But where do you get it from? Bring on step 2!

Step 2: Consideration

Meat Lovers with BBQ swirl vs Meat Lovers without BBQ swirl. Meat Lovers with extra bacon vs Meat Lovers with double extra bacon. There’s so many choices, which one do you pick? At this point, you’re doing research to decide what pizza is the best option.

Do you choose one of the pre-made specialities, or do you add extra sauce so you can classify it as a vegetable like the American school lunch program does? (It’s true!) By this point, you know you’re eating pizza and narrow down the choices to which Meat Lovers is best for tonight.

Step 3: Decision

For the final step, you’re looking over your cart to make sure you have the maximum number of free toppings and are about to choose delivery or take away. All you need to do now is check to see if you have a promo code for free delivery and you’re good to go. And then finally, you can put that pizza in your oven. Your mouth oven that is.

Why do these steps matter?

Any sales process should recognise the buyer’s journey and salespeople especially should understand it too! When you build a website – your website should be your best salesperson, after all it is working 24/7. That being said, it’s important that you have the buyer’s journey in mind right from the initial design, which is why you should build custom. Not doing this can be confusing or off-putting and can make your customers look elsewhere. For example, when you first go to the site to order your pizza, you don’t want a popup that asks if you want to go to your cart, because you haven’t put anything in there yet. Likewise, you don’t want an ad that asks “Have you thought about pizza for dinner?” right before you push the button to confirm your purchase. And you don’t want them to go when they’re so close!

A well-designed website employing an inbound strategy guides buyers through these steps so that they can make the decision you want. That might mean calling you and setting up an appointment or coming into your store or buying a product directly from the website. This means that your site needs do more than have pretty pictures. Careful consideration needs to go into design, word choice, usability and more in order to be effective. Sound like a lot to do? Then let us do it for you! Get in touch or give us a call and we’ll be happy to make you an awesome custom website where the buyer’s journey ends in adding funds to your wallet – so you can buy more pizza!

What Ranking Factors is Google Looking for in 2022?

Posted on March 4, 2019June 21, 2022 by Phil

*Updated June 2022 for 2022 Ranking factors

With literally billions of searches done each day, Google is doing pretty well for itself. And with approximately 85% of the search engine market, other search engines are dwarves against the GIANT. It’s no surprise that the slang for finding information online is to Google it (Yahoo It! Nope, sorry Yahoo). In fact, Google has become such a big deal that there are Search Engine Optimisation companies dedicated solely to getting you to rank well on the search engine, some of which use… Unscrupulous means to force results–that almost always turn out to be short-term.

As full-service marketers, we understand that digital and other forms of marketing should work together in order to cover as much ground as possible. A lot of people understand the importance of traditional marketing–a good logo, proper signage, print advertising, that sort of thing–and also understand that being found on the 1st page of Google for competitive search terms is the Holy Grail of Digital Marketing. However, getting that coveted spot takes more work than simply putting up a quick page with a few blurbs and maybe a picture. There are actually around 200 different factors Google looks at to determine who goes at which place! With so many factors, and literally billions of websites, how can you possibly push your way to the top?

Core Web Vitals

The newest change to happen in 2021 that’s currently in the works is Core Web Vitals. This is taking website design and usability to the next level by rewarding good designs and user experience. It’s not just about having a workable site anymore; now, your site needs to be good in order to score high for Core Web Vitals.

This is where those “Get top spot on Google” companies that manipulate the algorithm will start to hurt. Sites that don’t have a solid structure, easy usability, and informative, useful content will start to drop in the rankings. Google says you should start expecting these to be a factor starting May 2021. Find out more about Core Web Vitals in our article, Google’s May Algorithm Update is a Game Changer!

High-quality content

Google’s ultimate goal is to send people to the most relevant results. As the algorithm gets more advanced, (One Google engineer thinks its chatbot is already sentient) the AI will be better at parsing content for indicators that it answers the query the person asks. Over time, better, higher-quality content has started to the top of the search results, and that trend is only going to continue.

What is good content?

Good content is information that is useful and relevant to the user. But what exactly is “good content”? Thankfully, we don’t have to guess. Google has guidelines on how to quantify “quality” content. Some basic things to include are making sure your page has a clear purpose, the information is accurate, and it should be unique to anything else on the internet. With billions of pages online, having something completely unique can be tricky.

If you’re concerned, a good way to check is a plagiarism tool that compares your text to the web (that thing professors use to make sure you don’t cheat). There are several paid versions out there, but Small SEO tools have a free plagiarism checker for texts up to 1000 words you can use if you don’t mind ads.

Knowing is half the battle

Google is notorious for being secretive about how its algorithm works. Over time, people have run tests to understand some of the factors they look for and came up with that 200 number, with various degrees of confidence for specific variables. Of course, some factors are more important than others, and it’s these elements that we address first as an experienced digital marketing team.

Website Architecture

Getting your website architecture set up the right way is important for more reasons than being found in the search results. Websites should follow a clear and easy-to-understand hierarchy that’s intuitive to anyone visiting the site. An example is to have a navigation bar with your Home page, About Page, Contact Page, and Services, with Services having its own set of subdirectories. This makes it so that once you’re successful having individual pages found in search results, users can navigate to other parts of your website that catch their interest with ease.

Topic Authority

Topics are the things you post about on your website. And the more you post about a specific topic, the more Google gets the hint that you know about that topic… Or at least, that you talk about it often. So if you have a site talking about Pizza Styles of the World and talk about Chicago-style Deep Dish pizza in 50 different articles, Google will start to recognise you as an authority on the topic and you’ll likely see rankings increases.

On the contrary, you won’t get that boost if your Pizza Styles of the World site talks about Xbox Series X vs PS5, Little known facts of the All Blacks, and How to Run your Car on Milk Instead of Petrol with one or two pizza articles mixed in. Try to stick to specific topics and you’re more likely to see positive results in Google.

Keywords

In 2021, keywords are still among the most important ranking factors that Google searches for. As the algorithm has gotten more advanced, keyword match is much broader than it used to be even a few years ago, unless people “use quotes” for an exact keyword match. Keywords range from broad–Pizza, for instance–to very specific and local–Best Giant Pizza Invercargill–and one or the other might be better for you depending on the type and scale of your business. Now, Google can understand prepositions too. So the results for “Move to New Zealand” and “Move from New Zealand” will be more accurate instead of mixing in some showing the opposite of what you want.

Keywords are still the way that people search on Google, so it’s very unlikely that the day will come when they aren’t crucial to getting your site to rank. Using a combination of your target keyword–Best Giant Pizza Invercargill–and LSI terms which are other variations of your keyword–XXL Pizza Invercargill–naturally throughout the page shows that you’ve done your research and gives you the opportunity to rank for multiple related terms at once.

Google My Business

Another newcomer for the year that holds a lot of weight is Google My Business. If your company doesn’t have a Google Business Listing, you should get one right away. Not only do hundreds of people be exposed to your business every month, your connected website will also get a boost in Google’s rankings. It’s worth the time to set up your profile properly! Since this is a Google product, it’s not surprising they want to push it more. You can learn more about these listings and how to optimise them in our article, Why should you have a Google My Business Listing?

Page Load Speed

Loading speed seems to get more important to Google with each major change. In these days when the average internet speed of the Top 50 countries with the fastest internet exceeds 10 Mbps, people don’t want to wait long for pages to load anymore. In fact, now that the majority of internet users prefer to use mobile devices over desktops, over half of users claim that they will leave a site if it takes over 3 seconds to load. Optimising your site for mobile and prioritising fast page load times is essential for a good user experience, and can impact search results as well.

Links to your page

If a lot of other sites are linking to your site, Google takes that as a sign that you wrote something interesting and useful to other people. These inbound links or “backlinks” are links from other sites to your website. Sometimes, these links come naturally, other times, you have to work for them, such as writing a guest post on someone else’s blog so you can link back to your own site. If you’re able to get a backlink from an authority site such as a government agency, you may even get a massive boost to your rankings!

What about the other 190+ factors?

While the five factors above are critical to your SEO rankings, they also incorporate some of the other 190-some-odd elements that Google looks for to decide search result rankings. Other factors include things like Age of your Site, Content Rank, Keyword Density, Page Tags, Duplicate Content, Site Usability and many, many more. If you want to take a look at the list, check out this Backlinko article for a deep dive. For something a bit more digestible that goes over the general SEO categories, have a read of our ebook All About SEO.

I got an email claiming a company can guarantee me the top spot on Google

Since Google itself is coy and never openly confirms how it ranks sites, be careful of any company that can guarantee a top spot in Google. No reputable agency can make such a guarantee, but will simply do their best to adhere to as many ranking factors as possible for your website.

Some companies use what’s known as black hat techniques to try and trick Google for short term gains. Sometimes, these are successful, but inevitably, Google will find out, leaving you with a penalty and dropping you off the first page deep into the abyss where you’ll have to work hard and long to find your way back up again.

How can I ever make a site worrying about 200 different things?

Fortunately, few, if any of the billions of websites are perfectly optimised for ALL of the things Google is looking for. Even major corporations who have been around for decades have elements they can improve on; it’s the reason websites need updates so often.

So then what should you focus on for your site? Have an intuitive site structure that’s easy to navigate. Write useful, relevant content about specific topics. Make sure to optimise your site for mobile devices and that it loads quickly. And get quality backlinks when possible. Sound like a lot of work? It is, and is the reason why an effective new website can’t be built in a day. Learning to build and maintain a quality website can be a full-time job itself, which is why many businesses work with marketing teams with proven success, so everyone can focus on what they do best.