Google the biggest most popular search engine has added a new feature called ‘Google Posts’. When a post is published with this new feature the post will then be displayed on the map search results in Google further enhancing your exposure and your call to actions. This is how you can add a post.
To do this you need to log into your Google account that is linked to your Google My Business account
Click on the Google+ icon on the top right menu
Select your Brand account from the drop down in the top right where you are logged in
Go to the top right again and click on ‘manage account‘
You will then see the Brand Account Details page come up click the blue ‘Google My Business’ icon
On the left hand send click the ‘Posts‘ option second from the top
Now you can create your post or event. You can add start and end dates and times plus add call to actions in the form of ‘reserve’, ‘sign up’, ‘buy’, and ‘get offer’.
You can preview your post prior to publishing
Once it’s published you can then see it on the map search in Google under your Google My Business Listing, it’s as easy as that. Below is a screenshot of what you would see on your listing.
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Are you using Email Marketing as a part of your strategy?
There are so many different programs and apps out there it can be difficult to know what you need when you first start your business. Perhaps you are reviewing your strategy and you’re at the stage where you know you need to focus on your marketing so you can gain better exposure for your business and generate some leads.
From e-commerce shops to big online retailers MailChimp is used worldwide by approximately 15 million people.
MailChimp helps you automate your emails to your subscribers, from re-engaging with your customers, allowing you to connect to your store and so much more.
This is just an overview of some of the features of MailChimp.
Create Email & Facebook Ad Campaigns based on your audience when you connect to your store.
With an easy to navigate interface MailChimp works off the drag and drop concept, however you can personalize a template if you have a knowledge of coding.
MailChimp offers some basic pre-built templates for you to use.
You can set up automations for different stages of the buying process.
View your businesses analytics. MailChimp allows you to view sales, website activity with revenue reports allowing you to optimize your campaigns.
Download the app for your smartphone so you can view your results from anywhere.
Hundreds of integrations with popular programs you may already use.
Basic features are free to sign up.
One of the more popular ways that business owners use MailChimp is to gain subscribers. This can be done a couple of ways by either integrating a sign up form to your website so you can send out promotional or informative newsletters or perhaps you have an online shop you can have MailChimp send automated emails when someone makes a purchase. There are so many ways it can be used.
An example of a popular integration is Facebook. With 15 million active Facebook users this is also a great avenue to add to your list of subscribers by adding the sign up form to your Facebook Business page.
I hope this has given you a better understanding of MailChimp and for those business newbies don’t forget to add MailChimp as a part of your marketing strategy. If you would like more information about MailChimp you can visit their website here, alternatively feel free to contact us for that extra special template.
Google My Business is where you can add a free business listing on Google. When talking to other people about social media and how to increase your businesses exposure, I’ve mentioned Google My Business and nine times out of ten the person I’m speaking with doesn’t know what that is. Basically by creating a listing it increases your brand awareness and gives you another free avenue to advertise your business and be found, especially because Google is such a large and popular search engine.
A Google My Business Listing looks like the screenshot below. As you can see it shows;
Any reviews left on Google+
Address/Map
Phone Number
Business Hours
Reviews from the web including Facebook
The benefits of having a listing
Whether people are searching for your listing on Google search or Maps your listing will appear first.
Your customers can find you easily and have your contact information like phone number, website and directions on hand.
Add pictures to give your customers a better idea of what you do.
Customers can leave you google reviews which will show your star rating.
You get insights straight from Google which will tell you how many views, clicks and new followers on Google+.
You can monitor how many clicks have been made on your businesses phone number, directions or website visits.
You can also see how many times someone has found your business on Google!
So how do we set it up?
Because there are a couple of parts to setting up your listing I have provided the links below to step by step instructions direct from Google.
Hopefully these guides and instructions will give you a better understanding and help you create your listing on Google so you can increase your brand awareness. You can also download the app for IOS and Android and view your analytics on your phone making it easier to keep track.
You must sign up either on the 28th or the 29th of January 2017.
A 10% deposit is required however you have up to 3 months to use this offer to have a video created.
Analytics play a large part in your marketing strategy because without these insights you can’t identify what’s working and what’s not, and therefore can’t amend your strategy. I know it can be overwhelming when looking at Google Analytics and you might not know what to look for, even I get confused sometimes. You may just want to get a quick view of how many visitors have gone to your website or what pages are the most visited.
If you don’t have a way of checking your website traffic how will you know what’s working?
So you can better understand your customers and optimize their experience when visiting your website I recommend using Statcounter to help you out. I’ve been using Statcounter for a couple of years now and it’s been perfect for my needs. It’s easy to use and interpret the data, free and it’s also available on mobile devices making it great to check on the go.
What you can expect from Statcounter
Statcounter has various features allowing you to view;
Recent activity
Recent visitors
Where they came from
Popular pages visited
What browsers were used
What operating systems
What search engines
Countries where people are from
Entry Pages/Exit pages
Exit links/link activity
Visit lengths
Returning visits
Platforms/devices
Keyword Analysis (link your Google Adwords)
With Statcounter it has a nice flow when viewing your visitor stats you can see what sequence of the pages that were viewed, how much time was spent on each page, and it also shows you the IP and location which you can label.
You can set up multiple projects enabling you to watch all your websites in one place. On top of that you can schedule for email notifications to be sent to you every week/month to outline your stats. It’s really easy if you want to implement it onto your website as they give you the code and instructions on how to do it without being a website developer.
It supports multiple website builders from WordPress, Wix, GoDaddy, Shopify and many more.
I hope this helps you to build your marketing strategy and increase your ROI.
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