Here’s how:

• It is a great way to solidify your online presence – something which is all too important in this age of technology. Current and potential customers can access your video/s anywhere and anytime! Whether a customer is in store or shopping online at home, no matter if it is 10am or 10pm, they can find a video about your company or product. Most importantly YouTube is the second most used search engine. Something to keep in mind!
• Similar to marketing via podcasting, some of your customers will naturally prefer to see and listen rather than read about a product – either they learn better this way or simply don’t have the time to sit down and read. Video marketing will grant you access to this group of current and potential customers.
• Video can be used to explain the features of a complicated/technical product or service. Packaging or written user guides can only convey so much information, so having a video explanation online can help a customer!

Video marketing is an engaging and fun way to explain your company and its products. It can be easily placed on your website and shared across your social media platforms for maximum exposure. If you have an Instagram account you will easily be able to make short 10 second videos to share. Or set up a professional camera and make longer videos – the possibilities are endless! And, saving the best for last, video marketing is free (unless of course you choose to employ a production house)! Remember your audience, what they want to know and what you want them to know. Keep it short as the consumer’s attention span is short! Lights, Camera, Action!

I like to think of remarketing as digitally stalking your potential customers… in the nicest possible way! It allows you to position targeted ads in front of an audience that has previously visited your website – as they browse elsewhere around the Internet.

Remarketing ads can be displayed as either text ads, static images or animated image series ads. These ads will appear to your selected remarketing lists as they browse other sites that are part of the Google Display Network or as they search for terms related to your products or services on Google.

Google remarketing is an ideal digital tool to use, especially when the sales process is long and/or competitive. Executed in the right way it can be a powerful tool to improve sales conversions and to raise your brand profile.

To be successful with remarketing it’s important to:

1. Make sure your ad is relevant to what you know visitors are looking for and
2. Contains some form of incentive to encourage them back to your website. For example you could display a special discounted offer on that item.

If your aim is raise brand awareness then you can create ads that achieve exactly that by displaying your brand to visitors over a period of days, weeks or months. And as remarketing is part of Google AdWords you will be able to track outcomes through normal conversion tracking.

If you’re going to use content to market yourself or your company, then there are these quick pointers to keep in mind.

Get Rid of Sales Focused Content 

Generating quality content is not about selling; it’s about educating and providing information the consumer is looking for. Remove any mention of selling services/products, otherwise all your hard work in writing and creating engaging content with be perceived as an attempt just to sell. This could alienate your readers and push away those who would, at the end of the day, come to their own conclusions to buy from you/seek your services.

Get a Helping Hand

Many people worry that they don’t have the skills, or the time to continuously produce interesting and worthwhile content. If you have staff, or even a fabulously supportive family, engage these people to write short content or even just take some interesting photographs to share with your audience. Make sure these are relevant though!

Don’t Copy and Paste 

Some sites copy and paste product descriptions or blog articles given to them from manufacturers. While this might save time and money, search engines want to see unique content and reward those sites that create unique content – not to mention that customers want to see new advice or tips that are relevant to them. If you are just spitting out content they could have received direct from the manufacturer, then you aren’t adding value as the middleman. Create a reason for customers to come to you, over someone else – you give exceptional advice!

Give the People What They Want!

They come to read your content for a reason, so it’s important to give them what they want. Make sure your content marketing plan helps to deliver relevant material to those who have already signed up/followed you, and don’t just push your products/brand onto them to try to convert readers into customers.

So remember, give your readers educational information they would want to read, and utilise your staff, colleagues or family to help with the extra load. Oh and note I didn’t mention that Signature Strategies can help you with your content strategy, management, development and implementation… well until now!

By taking into account the content of a website, not just the links to and from other sites (these in the past could just be fake directories), Google is trying to make sure you are being shown what you are searching for, not a whole website dedicated to cat photography… unless that’s what you’re into…

And by content, we mean having social media sites, electronic mail campaign, a blog and continuously updated website copy.

So what do you need to do?

1. Audit your current website copy and update
2. Set up your Social Media sites – please have a strategy for this, don’t just set up and leave.
3. Set up a blog on your website
4. Think about what search terms you would like to be found on – what would your customers/clients be searching for when they are looking for you. Then make a blog schedule that achieves this.
5. Rinse and Repeat: Look at your content and update regularly!

Some fun content facts:

• 50% of consumers say content marketing has a positive impact on purchasing decisions.
• Interesting content is one of the top 3 reasons people follow brands on social media.
• Companies with active blogs receive 97% more leads.

Source: Neil Patel (Quicksprout), How Content Marketing Affects Search Engine Rankings.

Blogger outreach, better known as the PR side of social media, involves creating, building and maintaining relationships with the most influential bloggers within your industry. These valuable interactions can help you expand your reach and build brand awareness amongst your target market. With over 1.5 million new blog posts every day and 77% of active Internet users reading blogs, coverage in the blogosphere can greatly increase your potential brand exposure and drive interest for you product or service. Getting coverage with one of the key influential bloggers in your industry is worth more than any Google campaign! Your product or service can achieve instant credibility that greatly contributes to brand equity. What’s even more interesting is that 66% of journalists use blogs and 48% use Twitter to assist them with research and reporting (a trend that is ever increasing).

To successfully use blogger outreach in your public relations strategy, you will first need to find the bloggers who cover your space and topics. Free tools such as Social Callout or straight Google search, can help you build and research your list.

The rules to successful blogger outreach:

• Never Spam. Sending spam is the best way to get your email address blocked by a blogger.
• Personalise. Always address the person you’re pitching to by name, and let them know you’ve done your homework by mentioning a previous blog post they wrote. A little acknowledgement of their hard work goes a long way.
• Socialise. If you really want to get the writer or blogger’s attention, simply leave a comment on their last blog article, or retweet their article on Twitter.
• Build Relationships. PR professionals work hard over the years to cultivate relationships with the media… bloggers are no different. Build relationships with various bloggers, make comments on relevant articles and like their posts.
• Be Professional. Professionalism goes a long way in any industry; address the person by name, show you respect their time by being concise and to the point, and never demand anything.
• Be Responsive. Nothing can kill a pitch more than being unresponsive to their requests. When a blogger requests an info pack, you get them one right away. Always acknowledge the request and communicate every step of the way with them.

The success of your blogger relations program also depends upon how well you translate PR and marketing messages into stories that will resonate with your target bloggers on some personal level. Unlike the news media, bloggers don’t necessarily require the story to be new; relevancy is often more important.

Finally, make a commitment to be in this for the long haul because blogger relations are very personal and an ongoing program is more effective than a one off campaign approach.

Your customers, both current and potential are on the go, they are mobile. They want information about your company and its products/services available to them wherever they may be – and you need to provide it! If you don’t offer a mobile optimised website, your competitors will. And what’s even more alarming is that users are five times more likely to abandon the task they are trying to complete if the site isn’t optimised for mobile use; that means lost eyeball, lost sales and lost consumer advocacy! This is a big deal!

Consumers are using their mobile devices to search for products, reviews and prices, information gathering but also to shop. If your website isn’t mobile optimised, chances are you are missing out on a rather large customer base. Ever tried to read information, let alone BUY something on an un-optimised website while viewing on your iPhone? It’s not fun and I bet you gave up pretty quickly!

Not only is the layout and design for mobile important, but also the content you display to mobile viewers is paramount to their user experience! The content itself must always be directed at what a user will be looking for whilst out and about. Ask yourself what elements of your site would people be looking for when away from their computers? But never shortchange them! Make sure your mobile site displays information that is on your normal website, just cut down to the main points. And continue to display any rich media such as video.

Here are some tips to get you mobile optimised:

• Your website needs to look good on any sized device. Make sure you test it out on a number of phones and tablets.
• Think larger than life! The text, images and buttons all need to be larger than on your regular website for readers to be able to read and navigate easily without pinching and zooming.
• Leave out any Flash animations. iPad and iPhone are not Flash enabled, and these users will not be able to view this information.
• Customers are going onto your mobile optimised website because they want instant information. Make it easy to read, putting the most relevant information such as prices, opening hours, locations, etc. in easy to find places.

People are arguably more connected to the little screen in their pocket than just about any other device so it’s time to give the consumer what they want! Make sure your site is mobile-friendly, not just in its layout but also the copy that is displayed. Be short, sharp and to the point. No one wants to stream through pages of endless (yet I’m sure exceptionally written) prose when they’re on the go! Websites that aren’t mobile-friendly annoy users and that’s just bad business.

Smart-phones, tablets and laptops have put consumers ahead of the game and it’s up to retailers and other small and medium businesses (SMEs) to catch up and to try to understand how their customers are behaving. Before customers have even seen the product in the store, they have developed an impression of the product. Due to increased access to technology, the moment a consumer sees an ad, they can instantly jump online, scan a barcode, search for a review, talk to their online friends about it…the list goes on. These days a perspective consumer researches a product to decide if they will make a purchase.

The stimulus for a consumer to buy a product is no longer just an ad on TV, a poster on the wall, or fancy packaging. Businesses now need to be one step ahead of the consumer. They need to use online and digital resources to steer this new form of brand interaction in their favour and engaged with their potential customers.

Online consumers are, on average, spending more time on social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn than on email, despite the former only becoming mainstream in many markets over the last few years. The use of social media is very high and it is utilised by customers to research and learn about products or services, however, interactions through social media do not necessarily translate into sales. It is therefore a good idea to think about how social media fits into their overall communications strategy, but not to rely on it as your only method of communication or for click-through sales.

Ways to influence online consumer behaviour:

• Learn how consumers search for your business or product and think about all the relative searches. Do a web search for your product or service to see what the most popular searches are, and create relative search terms for your company.
• Once you understand how people are searching for you, you need to get creative! Advertise; listen to reviews and ratings and think of more ways to get your business or product promoted.
• Research where your target market is spending their time on the internet and how they currently interact with your brand. Are they having a good experience or a bad one? Then figure out what your company can do to make the experience more favourable.
• Get into VIDEO! The second most-used search box in the world is YouTube. Whether you use it to showcase your product or to show consumers what’s going on at the head office, start up your camera and get recording!
• Stay up to date! You need to constantly be ahead of new consumer searches, questions and reviews. You also need to stay fresh with your advertising and video posts.

The objective for companies should be to build a seamless multi-channel experience that connects retailers with consumers and provides relevant and factual information in the search process. Online consumer behaviour is constantly changing and as more channels of interaction open up, businesses must find ways to interact and meet the needs of the online customer.