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Seven must-haves of a marketing communication strategy

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StrategyDriven Marketing and Sales Article|Marketing|Seven must-haves of a marketing communication strategyAs an owner of your business, your first and foremost goal is to attract maximum revenues and sales. Unless you master this skill, your business will always go through uncertain scenarios and yearn for stability. Do you know why some of the brands are particularly good at this job? it’s because they have crafted an impeccable marketing communication strategy.

Marketing communication strategy is a broad term that covers so many small aspects. However, you should not miss out on the following must-haves while designing a marketing communication plan for your company.

Identify Your Target Audience

If you don’t have in-depth information about your audience, you can’t expect any of your marketing campaigns to be successful or even come close to the desired results. The same stands true here. The more information you have about your customers, the better it is.

You can develop buyer personas around questions like:

  • Who currently buying your products?
  • Which geographical location is adding most to your bottom line?
  • Which pain points are pushing people to purchase from your brand?
  • Which age group and gender are more inclined towards your products?

Answers of these questions will give you a complete picture of your target audience. You can find out more about your online customers through Google Analytics and other tools.

However, in case your brand is fresh and lacks the necessary details to build buyer personas, you should invest in surveys and researches. Once you have identified the target market, you don’t have to be an exceptional salesman to deal with customers. When people are getting what they are looking for, why you would have to influence them?

Come up with an effective branding message and Be Consistent

Every famous brand has done and achieved this. Brand messaging is something that can be dubbed as the philosophy of your brand. The brand message is what appeals to the audience, makes them curious and eventually pushes them to buy your product.

Begin with the tagline. It should be woven into words in such a way that people do not have to put any effort to remember it. Apart from that, you should craft a single paragraph conveying your brand values and the mission you want to accomplish. You can even assess the effectiveness of the message with a certain group of people before finally settling for it.

Remember, people will forget your tagline if you don’t repeat it everywhere. So being consistent is very important. Be it your social media accounts, website or application, your tagline should be all over the place to represent your business.

Uncover your business objectives

Increasing sales, expanding reach, and building brand awareness: all of them are the key objectives for any business. Some owners would like to take one thing at a time. They would pick one objective first and then the others will follow. So if you happen to be one of those businessmen, it is obligatory for you to outline the particular objective you want to achieve first and then move on to the second one and so on.

At times when you are trying to incorporate too many things in your marketing campaign, people don’t get a clear message and walk away out of sheer confusion. How can you be successful when people don’t know what you are trying to convey to them?

Focus on the unique selling proposition

A unique selling proposition (USP) means emphasizing one factor that makes you “unique” from the rest of the competition. Here, you need not mention the features which people readily find in the other products. In other words, USP is a problem that nobody can solve better than you.

When you want people to change their old brand and shift to yours, the first thing they ask is “what makes your brand different than the others?” That’s where USP swings into action. People won’t come to you unless you address their pain points better than others. To sum up, a compelling USP separates you from “noise” and gives you “voice”.

Pick the right marketing mix

Today, we have too many podcast hosting sites to market a brand. We are no more limited to billboards, print media or TV advertisements. There are options like email marketing, content writing, social media and much more. However, the drawback of having too many alternatives is that you could pick the wrong medium where you may or may not find your targeted audience and end up wasting your resources.

For example, if you choose to market your brand on social media then you have to realize all social media channels are not the same. What appeals to a Facebook user might not charm an Instagram user. That’s where you have to pick and choose very smartly. Make sure you don’t throw all your eggs in one basket. Always market on a variety of platforms for good results.

In order to be on top of your media campaign, you need to have a calendar by your side and schedule your posts at optimal times. if you feel confusion, SEO service in Singapore can help you to design the best digital marketing strategy that will make a clear strategy for you to woo your online customers.

Determine success metrics

As they say “what can be measured, can be improved”. You must measure your performance to know where you are heading so that if the performance is not up to the mark, you can improve it. The list of various key performance indicators (KPI) is given below:

  • Social media shares
  • Number of website visits
  • Number of leads generated
  • Mentions on social media
  • Backlinks acquired from quality websites
  • Retention rate on your website
  • Number of followers on social media channels

As you can see, every platform has different criteria for performance. There are so many other metrics that we have not mentioned here, for example, likes and retweets. It is because relying on these metrics will not do any good for you.

Communicate your success to people

Once you are done with measuring your success, make sure you share it with your audience. It is a way to thank your consumers and make them feel important for being part of your success journey. Of course, nobody would like to be a part of a failing business. That way, not only old customers will show more faith in you but new ones will also start to engage.

The final verdict

As mentioned above, a marketing communication strategy is a blend of a variety of things. You can’t take any of them lightly. From the first to the last step, all of them need to be undertaken with thorough planning. We have sketched out the must-haves of an ideal marketing communication strategy, you just have to implement them and wait to be awed by the results.

Do You Need Help With Your Marketing?

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StrategyDriven Online Marketing and Website Development Article, Do You Need Help With Your Marketing?

Marketing is one of the central processes in the running of any business. If the marketing is done in the right way, then the business itself is going to be a success. However, if it is not right, you never know what fate might befall the company. But perfecting interactive marketing is a real challenge. There could be many times when you find you need help with it. It’s helpful to know for sure when you need that help, so that you can seek it out in time and make the most of it. In this post, we’ll look at a few of the clearest signs that you might need some help with your marketing.

Your Sales Are Low

One of the surest signs that you might need to consult a marketing agency is that you just aren’t shifting any products. Most businesses experience the occasional dip in sales, and that can be the result of a number of different things. But sometimes marketing is the problem, and it’s good to be aware of when that is so. Even if that is not the reason, you will find that improving your marketing is going to make a huge difference to how many products you sell, and for that reason it is absolutely worth looking into anyway. If you feel that you could be selling more, take a look at your marketing and see whether you might need any help with it. That alone could well be enough.

A Weak Brand

As a business, you need to have a strong brand which people can immediately recognize and relate to. This is central to keeping your business in line with what you want to achieve, and it is one of the things that you are going to want to keep an eye on throughout your business. However, if you have come to realize that your brand is actually relatively unclear, then you might find that it is necessary to step back and allow some marketing experts to take a look at it. If they can improve your brand in any way, you are bound to find that this will improve your marketing generally, and the performance of your business.

You Don’t Have The Time

Marketing well takes time, and if you just know that you don’t have the time, then that is one of the things that you are going to need to think about. That means that you will benefit greatly from giving your marketing over to the professionals. It is a good idea to make sure that you bear that in mind when the issue of time management crops up and becomes hard to bear. By giving the work to someone else, you can keep your eyes on the prize in other places, and hopefully it will all come together in a business that is functioning much more accurately and expertly.

With an awareness of when you need to get help, you will be able to keep the business operating much more efficiently. Consider this early on if you want to make a big difference in your company.

The “Four P’s” of Marketing a Law Firm Online

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StrategyDriven Online Marketing and Website Development Article|Online Marketing|The “Four P’s” of Marketing a Law Firm OnlineIn the course of my years partnering with web developer and SEO specialist Sagapixel, I’ve learned a lot about how to market my firm. I am a busy Philadelphia appeals attorney and had to learn the hard way that running and marketing a law practice has nothing to do with the practice of law. They don’t teach you this in law school!

Hopefully this synopsis of what I’ve learned will help anyone starting their own law practice, or anyone who has trouble marketing their law firm and needs more clients. The Four P’s work!

What Are the “Four P’s” of Marketing?

First, I learned about the 4 P’s of Marketing—Product, Price, Place, and Promotion. This is a fundamental marketing model that worked 80 years ago and will work 80 years from now, regardless of what new technology arises that changes the way we shop for and purchase goods or services.

If you keep the four P’s in mind, you will have a clear, defined marketing strategy that supports your client acquisition goals.

The First P of Marketing a Law Firm – “the Product”

A lot goes into choosing an area of practice to focus on. Often, an attorney will get a job out of law school, become highly skilled in one area of law, then go out on her own to open a solo practice without looking first to see if the local market is saturated.

Not ideal.

Before you commit to paying for advertising services in a market that you may or may not be able to compete in, consider the following:

1. Is there a big player that already dominates the market?

If there is, be prepared to languish as a very small player for a very long time.

For example, in the Philadelphia area market there is a law firm that does TV ads, places billboards all over the region, and spends a few million dollars on Adwords a year. Yes – a few MILLION dollars.

This firm has made a name for itself as “THE workers’ compensation firm” and it is now incredibly difficult (and expensive) to get workers’ comp clients through advertising. Keywords related to workers’ comp are about 50%-100% more expensive to bid on than keywords from other areas of practice.

The upshot is, it will be difficult and expensive to penetrate a market with a dominant player.

2. Can You Create a Niche?

Frank at Sagapixel told me about a conversation he had with Eric Diaz, a prominent real estate attorney in Philadelphia. He was telling Frank about some of what he does for his clients. During the conversation, he mentioned something his firm must do for all clients that involves tedious paperwork that many attorneys do not like doing.

Frank told me how he interpreted this as an opportunity and suggested to Eric, why not offer this service to other firms? He could train a young associate to do that tedious paperwork, then own it.

I thought this was great. I was lucky in that early in my career I gained experience in a fairly narrow area of practice in government service, then was able to parlay that experience into my own appellate law firm.

By creating or taking over a niche, an attorney will have both a strong value proposition and differentiator that will allow him or her to stand out in a market. Think of it in your own case—would you prefer to hire an SEO agency that specializes in law firms or a firm that works with just anyone that walks in the door? Prospective clients feel the same.

The Second P of Marketing a Law Firm – “the Price”

I’m not going to get too much into pricing here though I will recommend that you take a hard look at your pricing model. The hourly model that many attorneys use could be inferior to a value-based model such as those promoted by consultant Alan Weiss. I have seen that using flat fees that are standard in the region works for many types of law practices.

The Third P of Marketing a Law Firm – “the Place”

This is another area into which I will not go into much detail because this is most often specific to an attorney’s area of practice.

If you have your own law firm, you’ve probably already decided about the “place” of your firm without realizing that that decision is a crucial part of your marketing plan.

Different areas of law have different “place” requirements. A medical malpractice attorney might choose a pricey office right across the street from a hospital. But an attorney whose practice is primarily electronic, like bankruptcy, might relocate to an area with lower costs of living and work remotely.

If you can work from home, do it – for any new firm keeping costs down is vital. Of course, consult your jurisdiction’s rules as some states do require a physical office.

The Fourth P – “Promotion”

Your Law Firm’s Website

The days of people searching the phone book yellow pages are over. People go online to search for goods and services, legal services included. Even if you have a big billboard that someone happens to notice, you know that someone finds you online and checks out your website.

I’ve seen that creating an effective website is as much art as it is science – please choose your web developer wisely. Your website developer will help you:

  • Develop your personal brand – what differentiates you from other attorneys practicing your area of law?
  • Generate relevant content that establishes your knowledge and experience in your practice area
  • Generate content that starts clients on their Buyer’s Journey to retaining you
  • Optimize that content to help convert leads into clients by creating a “call to action”
  • Get your website seen by people who need your service, through SEO
  • Create a positive user experience by organizing the site logically with fast loading pages and a prominent
  • Contact form
  • Optimize the site for mobile users

Google Ads – Adwords for Law Firms

But what are Google Adwords? I certainly had no idea until I started working with Frank at Sagapixel.

Google Adwords (now called Google Ads) are an “online advertising platform developed by Google, where advertisers pay to display brief advertisements, service offerings, product listings, video content, and generate mobile application installs within the Google ad network to web users”, according to Wikipedia.

How Do Google Ads Work? Advertisers bid on certain keywords in order for their clickable ads to appear in Google’s search results. Since advertisers have to pay for these clicks, this is how Google makes money from search. This is also called Pay Per Click, or PPC.

If this sounds like it takes too much time away from your law practice – you’re right. This is why you should consider hiring Google AdWords advertising agencies that handle law firm SEO and PPC to do it for you.

Google Reviews

It is important to touch base with clients after you’ve represented them to ask about their experience. If they respond that they had a positive experience, you should ask them for a review.

There is software that automates this process so that it is hands-off for you. Use it.

Tracking the Performance of Your Online Marketing Efforts

Google Analytics tracks viewer’s behavior and shows you which of your online marketing activities are working and which need some tweaking. Again, this is something your SEO firm handles for you.

As you can see, there are many moving parts to marketing a law firm online. When you establish your own firm, you are taking a big leap of faith that you are going to make it. Educating yourself, then choosing the right web design and SEO firm, will help you create the online marketing strategy that brings you the business you need not only to survive, but to thrive.

About the Author

StrategyDriven Expert Contributor | Todd MosserTodd Mosser, Esq. is a Pennsylvania appeals attorney admitted to the bar in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, the U.S. Courts of Appeal for the Third, Sixth, and Ninth Circuits, and the United States Supreme Court. Mr. Mosser attended Shippensburg University and the University of Pittsburgh School of Law, graduating with honors.

Mr. Mosser worked for eight years as an Assistant District Attorney in the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office Appeals Unit prior to opening Moser Legal in July 2013. Since then his firm has litigated over 900 civil and criminal appeals. Mr. Mosser is a leading legal authority in his field, having been quoted in The Legal Intelligencer and having served as a television legal commentator.

5 Instantly Positive Highlights You Can Easily Publish On Your Landing Page

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StrategyDriven Online Marketing and Website Development Article |Landing Pages|5 Instantly Positive Highlights You Can Easily Publish On Your Landing PageYour business’ landing pages are the first point of contact for any new customers visiting your website, so it’s important that you’re making a solid first impression. If you’re struggling to find inspiration for your landing page and wondering what sort of information and tone to take on your website, then this article will provide you will all those answers – and crucially how each one can benefit your business or brand. Take a read below to find out more.

Client Testimonials

Client testimonials are a superb way of highlighting to new customers just exactly what you’re about and some other projects you’ve worked on in the past. Obviously, if you have any negative testimonials it’s a good idea to keep them away from the landing page, but positive reviews from reputable clients are a solid way to show off your skills and draw in new customers interested in using your services.

Contact Information

Obviously one of the most important pieces of information to place on your landing pages is your contact information. You may be wondering why we’ve even included this point because it seems like we’re stating the obvious, but you’d be surprised. Always ensure that the contact information you want your customers to approach you by is clear and easily located to ensure you’re getting the most business as possible. This is particularly important if you’re looking to highlight the fact that you’re using an 0800 number. In that respect, planet-numbers.co.uk can provide 0800 numbers for an extremely cost-effective price.

New products or services

Another obvious piece of information to include on your landing page is any information surrounding new products or services that you’re releasing. Highlighting your latest products and services is a great way of testing the waters and working out what sort of things your customers like. After all, there’s no point releasing something that you’re not going to promote. As well as new products you should always ensure you’re clear about the products and services you offer. Clarity really is the key to attracting new customers and ensuring they purchase from you rather than your competitors.

Latest News

Publishing regular updates surrounding the latest news in your industry is a great way to add fresh and relevant content to your landing page while simultaneously improving your SEO rankings. We’re not talking reams and reams of text; just little snippets of digestible material you can use to highlight things you find interesting that promote your content. Landing pages and blog content are perfect for promoting your business on social media, too.

Information about your brand

I think by now we’ve covered all the main points surrounding what to include on your company landing page. But once you’ve got the important things out the way, take the time to integrate them into your brand tone of voice in a way that appeals to your customer. Information is important, but the way you deliver that information is what’s going to transcribe your words into revenue.

Five Innovative Approaches To Improve Your Website in 2019

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StrategyDriven Online Marketing and Website Development Article |Website Design|Five Innovative Approaches To Improve Your Website in 2019Is your website taking too long to grow and reach the numbers you envision? You’re not alone. Millions of others like you are competing for the vast resources the internet offers and this means only the fittest survives and thrives here.

One of the shortest routes to internet success is to be innovative in all the critical facets of web management – from the backend to the frontend where your audience interacts with your online business. With this in mind, we share five street-smart approaches that will transform your website’s fortunes fast and sustainably.

Be customer-oriented

Regardless of the niche you’re in, there will always be that ideal audience you intend to attract to your business. With this knowledge, your goal is to maintain a style that vibes on all levels with these people. Some of the key areas to take into consideration include the content you offer them, the design used for your site, and even the site’s speed which has to be quick enough to ensure your visitors are not bouncing back.

So, how do you go about that?

For starters, ensure your first impression is superb. Use colors, themes, font types, and layouts that your ideal users find appealing to their eyes. In addition, the content should be just as good as your visuals. In essence, impress your customers by offering exactly what they expect. Give incentives if that’s what your visitors are hunting, create genuine products if you’re in such an industry, or capture the attention of your readers with rich information. In short, strive to deliver and surpass client expectations.

Optimize all web elements

Let’s face it, one of your biggest goals as an online business owner is to be able to attract a decent amount of traffic to your site. To grow your organic traffic, you will want to learn how search engines work especially the factors they take into considerations when ranking sites. For example, you might have the best designs, phenomenal content, and the fastest web host to your disposal, but if the search engine is unable to index your web elements, your visibility will suffer. So, what’s the solution?

Use web elements that major search engines like Google support and optimize them. If you heavily use videos and images on your site, be sure to add relevant SEO titles and meta descriptions to them. Besides, you need to use a speedy web host to effectively serve content to visitors and reduce your site’s bounce-back rate. Mangomatter is a good place to begin your search for a reputable host provider if you’re in the market for one. Finally, make sure your web elements are accessible within the shortest time by any browser.

Focus on providing value

Nearly every visitor that lands on your website is curious about your brand and eager to identify the value it has in it for them. To convert a big number of these visitors, how about you outline the benefits your business offers them as quickly as they reach your site?

While it can be tempting to include all the amazing things you are, avoid making the mistake of cluttering your pages as this will only end up taking away their attention from the important parts like buy buttons.
Try to focus more on the solution you have for the audience and be strategic with your calls-to-action to boost conversions.

Choose your partners wisely

Your website may have groundbreaking solutions for your prospects but without the right partners, all your efforts could prove futile. By partners, we mean your hosting provider, content creators, web programmers, and anyone else who is part of your website. These parties determine the perception that your visitors develop of your business while visiting it.

A good approach is to have these parties working harmoniously together. For example, help your content creators optimize content that your hosting provider can serve quickly on demand. Similarly, direct your programmers to use coding languages that your host supports by default.

Plan and communicate before making a move

As has been our primary theme throughout this post, your website must be valuable, informative, and flexible to the needs of its visitors. To effectively achieve this, you must make calculated moves including planning and reviewing each of your strategies before implementing it. While at it, explore how different strategies affect your existing users and ensure they don’t put them off. But above all, make sure to communicate the changes beforehand.

For example, if it’s a brand redesign, let your customers be part of the rebranding process as this proves that you value their opinions. Remember, they need to feel respected, and communicating such major changes to them is something they’d appreciate highly.

Which other approach are you using to boost results on your site and to improve user experience? Share with us in the comments below.