Are you ready to make 2024 your most successful business year yet? As the New Year approaches, create your 2024 marketing plan and set new business goals. 

ROAR is here to help your business generate a marketing strategy full of ideas to elevate your business in 2024.

SEO

SEO

It would be criminal for a search engine marketing agency to leave SEO off of this list. Search engine optimisation helps your business’s website organically rank for search terms related to your company and used by your audience. A well-curated SEO strategy will be crucial in 2024.

SEO Fact: 53.3% of all website traffic comes from organic search.

Internal Linking

Internal linking is a handy tool most commonly used within an SEO strategy. It involves hyperlinking blog content and webpages on your website together to help search engines better understand your content. By helping search engines find, index and understand your webpages, you can strategically use internal linking to boost page authority and see your organic rankings increase. 

Internal Linking Fact: 24% of businesses spend more time building internal links than external links.

Optimise for Voice Search

Optimising for voice search will aid your business through the rise of vocal searches. Your website and its content should be written with voice search in mind, ensuring all written copy is clear concise and can provide search engines with correct answers. This will increase your chances of appearing for featured snippets on search engines – which 50% of voice search results rely on. 

Voice Search Fact: 77% of adults aged 18 to 34 years use voice search on their smartphones.

Build Backlinks 

Focussing on backlinks in your 2024 marketing plan will help you enhance your organic rankings. Backlinks are links from other websites that point back to your site. Backlinks, if they come from healthy websites with good authority, can affect online rankings. Suppose healthy websites are linking back to your content or website. In that case, it can signal to search engines like Google that your website is valuable and provides helpful content and information, presenting you as an industry thought leader. 

Backlink Fact: Around 67.5% of SEO experts believe backlinks impact search engine rankings.

Paid Advertising

PPC

PPC or pay-per-click advertising involves securing ad space on search results, third-party sites, and the web. It requires a budget, well-researched targeting and knowledge about your audience to ensure your ads bid on the right search terms to secure ad space. 

PPC Fact: Over 50% of ad clicks happen on mobile devices.

Paid Social

Paid social media is similar to PPC but focuses solely on ad appearance on social media channels. Paid social allows you to advertise directly to your audience on social media using infographics, carousels, resources and imagery to secure clicks and information about leads.

Paid Social Fact: By the end of 2022, social media ad impressions volume was more than 30% higher than the previous year.

Social Media

Giveaways

Giveaways are light, fun, yet effective ways to increase engagement, particularly on your social media channels. Giveaway something relevant to what your business offers or sells and some general gifts people will love.

We recently held a giveaway for a free 2-hour digital marketing consultancy session and a free SEO Bomb®. Entrants were required to tag their business in the comments, which received a large amount of engagement, more than usual.

Giveaway Fact: Giveaways have a conversion rate of nearly 34%.

Influencer Marketing

The rise of influencer marketing has been staggering, as over 80% of marketers now have a dedicated influencer marketing budget. Influencer marketing activities use content creators and influencers to speak about and use a product or service and recommend this to their audience to drive engagement.

Influencer Marketing Fact: 17% of marketers plan to invest in influencer marketing for the first time in 2023.

Infographics

Infographics are used primarily on social media to showcase your knowledge and provide insight and education to your audience. They are a great way to drive social media engagement and establish your brand/business as a thought leader. 

Infographic Fact: Infographics are 30 times more likely to be read than a written article.

Find New Social Channels

Social media is ever-evolving, and often there’s a new social media platform or marketing channel out before you can even catch up on current trends. Research the platforms your buyer persona or target market uses the most. This can help you determine the social media channels and platforms that you should be utilising.

Social Media Fact: 84% of marketers recognize multichannel campaigns are more effective than single-channel ones.

Website

Blog Writing

Blog writing is a crucial part of the strategic marketing plan at ROAR; we even offer it as part of our digital marketing services. Blog writing helps businesses showcase their knowledge and expertise through writing informative, helpful content designed to speak directly to your audience’s queries and pain points. By optimising them for SEO, these blog articles can increase your online visibility on SERPs (search engine results pages).

Blog Writing Fact: 77% of Internet users read blogs.

White Papers and Resources

White papers and resources are a great way to provide in-depth insight to your audience while increasing your lead generation in 2024. Resources are long-form, downloadable content generally covering a focus topic. You can make these resources paid for or simply free with the user’s requirement to provide their email address. This can help increase your email marketing contacts list and also showcase your expertise.

Resources Fact: 60% of B2B marketers have used white papers in the last 12 months, and 43% say they’ve produced the best results in the previous 12 months.

Popups

Popups are a great way of keeping website visitors engaged on your site and enticing them with new offers and launches. We use popups to ensure that website visitors are targeted with offers and unique things that would provide value to them. A few examples of this are free website audits and free Google Ads review sessions. 

Popup Fact: Mobile popups convert an average of 6.57% of visitors, while desktop popups convert only 3.77%.

Events

Event Sponsoring

Sponsoring an event can be great marketing for businesses. The key here is to pick specific events relevant to your sector or that your audience is likely to attend. An example is ROAR Digital Marketing sponsoring a ‘National Small Business Awards’. This would put us directly in front of businesses needing support with their search engine marketing.

In most scenarios, sponsoring an event means you feature on the advertisements for such events, on event banners and are invited to the event. 

Event Sponsoring Statistics: 80% recommend brands that sponsor a live music experience to their networks.

Webinars

Webinars are fantastic sessions that allow you to connect with an audience in real-time and build relationships. Webinars are online sessions where you present something valuable to an audience. An example of a webinar would be ROAR hosting a 30-minute session on ‘How to Accurately Track Online Performance Using GA4’. 

Webinar Fact: 46% is the average conversion rate of all types of webinars as of 2023.

Seminars

Seminars are very similar to webinars – but they’re held in person. The plus side to hosting an in-person webinar is that you are in the room with those interested in what you have to say – and your business. This can open the door to more conversation post-webinar and allow attendees to get a feel for you and your business. 

Seminar facts: Corporate events and seminars hold the majority share of 27.7% of the events industry.

Expos

We strongly recommend fitting some expos and conferences into your 2024 marketing plan! Expos and conferences are new for ROAR in 2023, but we’ve found them to be a great hit. Expos are essentially large buildings filled with businesses, and attendees are encouraged to visit stands to learn more about what each business does. These allow you to present your brand to potential customers in person and will allow you to begin conversations that you may not have had over a DM.

Expo Fact: An eye-catching stand is the most effective method for attracting attendees, according to 48% of exhibitors surveyed.

Networking

No networking is not just heading out to an event for a mooch and a cappuccino. Effective networking means getting out, getting involved and opening conversations with potential customers and clients. You can use Eventbrite to find networking events occurring in your local area. 

A tip from ROAR would be to head into these events with a tagline-style description of what exactly your business does and what value you offer to customers. 

Networking Fact: Around 40% of people network more online than in person.

Media

Podcasts

Podcasts are usually sit-down talks between you, a member of your team and a guest where you discuss ongoings related to your industry or business. They are fantastic ways of connecting with your audience as they are often unscripted and raw, providing your listeners with real insight into your values, opinions and behind-the-scenes content.

Podcast Fact: Podcast listenership in the United Kingdom (UK) has increased yearly, reaching an estimated 21.2 million listeners in 2022.

Video Content

Videos are a great way of engaging your audience and allowing them to absorb information more easily. Some content can be turned into video content, including blogs, infographics and news. Piece-to-camera videos featuring your marketing team can also increase recognisability and engagement.

Video Content Fact: 86% of businesses use video as a marketing tool.

Email Marketing

Email marketing is a new marketing tactic we are adopting at ROAR in 2024. We have been working on a strategy to provide our subscribers with educational and informational value while building our relationships and encouraging them to be confident in ROAR and our services to support them. 

Email Marketing Fact: In 2022 alone, 333.2 billion emails were expected to be sent and received daily. 

Other

Google Trends

Google Trends is a great way to find out what is trending right now online, and use this to your advantage by creating a strategy including the trends. For example, if a weather warning is released ongoing within January, use this to talk about and relate to your business and industry or products. This is an opportunity to jump on content creation and target current pain points or topics of interest for your audience. 

Community Engagement 

Community engagement and local initiatives are great ways to support your 2024 marketing plan and boost your presence locally. For example, ROAR has recently sponsored Gateshead FC for the 2023.24 season to support a local football team and project our business to a new audience. 

Community Engagement Fact: 80% of FSB (Federation of Small Business) members stated they have volunteered and/or contributed to a local community organisation or charitable cause in the last three years.

OOH Marketing

OOH marketing isn’t just us being wowed by marketing. It stands for ‘out of home marketing’, consisting of traditional marketing methods such as buses, billboards and telephone boxes – everything outside a consumer’s home. 

OOH Marketing Fact: 26% of people visited a store as a result of seeing an OOH ad.

Ready to maximise your 2024 marketing plan? Contact ROAR and discover how our team of specialists can help you uncover hidden opportunities and drive growth for your business.

The post 24 Ideas for A Successful 2024 Marketing Plan appeared first on ROAR Digital Marketing.

In this blog, we eradicate bad email marketing optimisation practices to strengthen B2C (business-to-consumer) relationships.

What Is Email Marketing?

Email marketing is a high-powered marketing channel where your business uses email communication to promote your brands and services. Email marketing is a prime opportunity to promote your latest offerings, new products, and services or, most commonly, promote offers and discounts.

By having and implementing an email marketing strategy, it can support your business with lead generation, increasing brand awareness, building B2C relationships and keeping your customers further engaged in your brand through different types of content.

Check out our post, for more on the do’s and don’ts of email marketing!

How to Achieve Fool Proof Email Marketing Optimisation:

Subject lines

The subject line of any email is the first thing (other than your brand contact name), and its goal is to hook your audience. It needs to grab attention and persuade a user to open your email and read on.

Well-optimised subject lines must be relevant to your audience’s needs or desires. It must provide some pain point relief and offer them something worthwhile. You should mould your subject lines with the recipient’s name and offer them something they cannot refuse. On average, 33% of emails are opened based on the content within the email subject line.

There are various ways you can target your audience via subject lines:

• ‘Laura, Open for 20% off Summer Dresses Today!
• Struggling with SEO, Paul? We can help!
• Need a Digital Agency Immediately, Brian?
• Amy, Let’s Track Your Analytics Together!

Something to consider is creating a sense of urgency within your subject line. Using words like ‘Today’, ‘Immediately’ ‘Now’ can create a sense of urgency in the human brain. Nobody likes to miss out on an offer, so use this to your advantage.

Personalise Your Sender Information

It’s important to pay close attention to who your audience is receiving emails from. Similarly to a subject line, the ‘from’ name can have a significant impact on whether a contact opens your emails or not.

If you appear as a stranger in somebodies inbox, your email will (in most cases) end up straight in the bin. Similarly, you could think your brand or business is recognisable enough to use a name only your audience would be familiar with – avoid this when targeting new customers.

Emails from a recognisable source should include a name in the ‘From’ field on an email, but in many cases, it’s most effective to use your company or campaign name. Part of being recognisable via email doesn’t just include the ‘sender’ option; it means being consistent is key. Ensure you are consistent across your email contact information, including the email address, to avoid confusion.

Include Great Content and Links

After you’ve persuaded someone to open your email with everything we have discussed above, the next step is to keep them there and interested. Email can be used to promote all sorts of content, blogs, new products, services, news and company updates. This information should be kept clear, concise, easy to read and accessible. Don’t bother waffling; tell them why you’re emailing them, how it benefits them and what steps to now take.

Then, make sharing the content the most simple thing about your email marketing optimisation strategy. Allow your emails to be forwarded, but for a more personal, brand-awareness approach, include links to social media networks in each email. This allows you to show off your other social media channels and allow the reader to investigate them.

Provide Clear Direction

A CTA (call to action) is a marketer’s golden ticket to securing leads, increased conversion rates and sales. By this point, you’ve managed to get your emails opened, thanks to your impressive subject line and personalisation. You’ve also managed to get them read thanks to the informative, helpful and interesting content included in the email.

Now, you need to tell your audience where to go next, what action to take and what they can get from reading your email.

Example: You sell watches and are implementing an email marketing campaign to showcase your new futuristic-style watch. When you reach the end of your content or advertisement information about the watch within your email, include a CTA such as ‘Don’t get stuck in the past – get the Future35 whilst stocks last’.

Not only are you providing a button which should take them to a new location, but you are also driving urgency by saying ‘whilst stocks last’ and ultimately encouraging them to purchase. Research has shown that button-based CTAs improved click-through rates by 127%!

Personalise to Your Audience

HEY *insert name* YES YOU. Doesn’t it feel nice and warm getting an email directly for you? Well, it does for us.

Make your email receivers feel as though you are talking directly to them. ‘Ellie, here’s your discount’ or ‘Callum, have a drink on us’ are a few examples for your inspiration.

The human brain is more inclined to open and become curious about content that is specifically targeted towards us as human beings. This is solidified by research into the open rates of personalised emails shows an average of 26%. 

Be Mobile-Friendly

Email on mobile is huge – nearly 1.7 billion users check emails on their mobile phones, so focussing on mobile within your email marketing optimisation strategy is crucial. Adapt your content and email design to appear on emails with no problems or broken imagery. It’s important to ensure that the content is accessible to any audience, regardless of the type of device they are reading on.

How gutting would it be to miss out on conversions because you didn’t take accessibility into account?

Don’t Force a Relationship

There is nothing more irritating than being poked and prodded by a business that is just refusing to leave you alone. Similarly, it’s infuriating when you can’t see a way to stop it. Allow your customers the choice to receive your marketing communications by including an ‘unsubscribe’ button at the end of an email. Chances are most won’t use it as the overall unsubscription rate is 0.17%, but it’s best to allow the option.

Looking to take your business to the next level? Look no further than ROAR Digital Marketing Digital Consultancy Services. Our team of experts are dedicated to providing top-notch consultancy that will help your business grow and thrive.

The post Email Marketing Optimisation: How To Guide appeared first on ROAR Digital Marketing.

What is email marketing?

Email marketing is an incredibly vital marketing channel businesses can use to promote products, services, blogs and content. It aids in keeping your community up to date on all happenings and the latest news, launches and offers going hand in hand with your marketing efforts.

Email marketing plays a massive role in your overall marketing strategy by inciting lead generation, creating brand awareness, building a relationship with your community or keeping the customers engaged between interactions and conversions through various types of marketing emails. If you’re considering email marketing, ROAR can take a look at your current digital strategy via our digital marketing consultancy.

Let’s get stuck into the do’s and don’ts of email marketing.

The do’s and don’ts of email marketing

The do’s

• Determine who will receive your email marketing campaigns

Simarlily to other campaigns you must be aware of who you are targeting and want to reach. This will include building an email list that includes those who are interested in your business or have signed up to receive marketing communications from you. But how do you achieve this? Well, you can push for email signups to those who visit your website by using pop-ups, an exit site signup prompt or a signup button for example.

• Set your goals for each of your marketing campaigns

Again, like the majority of other campaigns, it is so important to determine what you want to achieve with your emails. Consider what you want to overall achieve and how you are going to achieve it.

Let’s lay out a few examples of goals for an email marketing campaign:

Increase engagement: increase the number of users who are interacting with the content of your website which includes any information regarding your products, services or businesses overall.

Encourage inactive users to get back involved: If you are seeing a decrease in website traffic? Take the time to tailor your email marketing to show subscribers what you and your business have been getting up to and let them know of any new developments you have occurring.

• Consider what type of email you actually want to send 

Before you begin sending out emails left right and centre you must settle on what type of email you would like to send. Consider your goals, are you hoping to promote your business? Would you like to offer new services? Do you want to just update your subscribers on your recent news?

Knowing what email you want to send will assist in the creation of your emails and the content included. It will certainly assist in the wording and language you used in the body and text which in turn will attract new customers and drive leads and conversions.

• Create a subject line that is eye-catching and interesting

The subject line of any email is the first thing a subscriber will see as your message lands in their inbox so you need to make it count.

The subject line is what attracts users to open and continue reading the content inside your email so think about it thoroughly before sending it. A few of ROAR’s tips would be to keep it short and straight to the point, avoid including trigger words that could result in your email landing in the spam folder and be mindful of not misleading your subscribers. It is also worth considering that the personalisation of a subject line can make a massive difference as it presents a new level of drawing attention.

• Add a CTA (call to action)

Call to action are instructions to the reader to continue their involvement with your business and take more steps. This could be as simple as ‘Click to read more or ‘Click to buy.’ You could include a bunch of content that is engaging within your email marketing but providing this with nowhere for your subscribers to go provides nothing valuable other than an opened email. Unless your subscribers decided to visit your website on their search engine of choice you’ve pretty much lost them there. A CTA provides somewhere for your subscribers to go after interacting with your email like your website for example.

• Evaluate your campaigns

The only way to fully understand how your email marketing campaigns perform is by collecting data and studying analytics to see what is working and what doesn’t.  This data can inform future email campaigns by allowing you to understand the successes and failures and focusing on using language and content that works.

The dont’s

• DON’T SPAM

There’s nothing worse than a business that spams your email with seven different emails a day all about randing things or worse, the same thing. Sending your subscribers too many emails isn’t keeping them keen it’s resulting in the majority of your email remaining unseen. Sending out too much content will turn your viewers off and potentially leave some of your mail landings in spam.

• Don’t overdo it with graphics and imagery

81% of emails are opened and interacted with on mobile devices so your emails need to be adapted for this. Taking into account the limitations presented by data usage, a large majority of mobile users will disable images on their mobile. If a large part of your email marketing campaign is relying on images and visuals it may never be read. Not only this, but images take significantly more time to load on devices so try to avoid this to keep your readers interest.

• Don’t send your emails out without a test

Many email newsletter software out there presents you with an opportunity to test your emails or preview them. This is always worth taking advantage of as it allows you to see whether your email is being received correctly. Is the layout working? Does the subject appear correctly? Make sure you do this to show a level of professionalism and ensure a great user experience for those reading.

• Don’t just send out emails for fun

Have you ever clicked on your inbox to find an influx of 75 irrelevant emails? Yeah us too, and how painfully annoying is it having to scroll through them all to find ones that are actually relevant? This is why it is vital to not saturate your subscriber’s inboxes with multiple emails and to ensure that what you are sending is relevant and valuable to a reader. Email marketing can take a substantial amount of time and money but if your content isn’t any good you won’t see the results you were hoping for.

Remember to check out our digital marketing consultancy to evaluate your current strategy.

Alternatively, Get in touch with a member of our team now and see how we can help your business.

The post 10 Do’s and Don’ts of Email Marketing appeared first on ROAR Digital Marketing.

What is email marketing?

Email marketing is a digital marketing technique which allows businesses to connect with their audiences. Businesses are able to promote their products, services, news and content via email.

As email marketing becomes more modern, it has slipped away from basic mass email sending to a more personalised, unique approach.

There are lots of benefits, including increased return on investment, more lead generation, increased website traffic etc.

Email marketing is an incredibly vital marketing channel businesses can use to promote products, services, blogs and content. It aids in keeping your community up to date on all happenings and the latest news, launches and offers going hand in hand with your marketing efforts.

Email marketing plays a crucial role in your marketing strategy; check the do’s and dont’s of email marketing to make sure you get started on the right foot.

Increase Customer Satisfaction and Brand Loyalty With Email Marketing

Treat your audience with special offers

Increasing brand loyalty is one of the main reasons businesses use an email marketing campaign. Definitely treat your audience to some offers and discounts on your products every now and then, everyone loves a bargain😉

Those customers who follow your brand and business as it grows to expect some special discounts and offers here and there. This is down to giving them with an incentive to remain loyal to you. Consider birthday promotions and loyalty programmes.

Personalise your content

Studies show that over 90% of consumers love and appreciate personalised content from businesses. It makes the reader feel as though the email was specifically made for them and tailored to their interests. It will result in your customer feeling more valued by your brand and a part of the community. Personalising content will form an emotional bond between you and the customer which increases loyalty.

Remain consistent

There is a fine line between too much and too little email content. Create a schedule that works for you and stick to this to remain consistent in sending out your emails. Don’t assume consistency relies on constant contact with your mailing list. You never want to appear spammy or annoying but appear consistent and informative.

Consider segmenting your email list

Popular sportswear brands such as Adidas and Nike segment their email lists into various categories. These segments can be footwear preference, gender, age etc. This helps them target the right people when sending out their marketing campaigns.

They make sure they promote the right shoes or clothing to the right segment area. This shows a commitment to promoting relevant products to the right people who will be interested.

Build emotional connections through value and experience

Many marketers believe that email marketing is solely responsible for driving more conversions, it can and it is certainly a factor. However, when considering how email marketing can increase brand loyalty remember the customer experience makes a massive difference. You have an opportunity to take your customer journey and experience to new levels. You can do this by including a variety of different content in your email marketing campaigns.

Incorporate interesting content.

Consider using snippets from recent blog posts to draw attention whether it be in the subject or as a teaser to link to the full blog. UGC (user-generated content) such as social media posts or testimonials from happy clients or customers would work well. People love to see people as it allows them to visualise themselves within the content. Consider entertaining content in your emails like videos involving your company and employees or even customers but remember to consider data usage and loading times!

If you’re considering email marketing to improve your customer satisfaction and brand loyalty, or need a second opinion on your current strategy, check out our Digital Marketing Consultancy services. 

The post Customer Satisfaction and Brand Loyalty (Maximise With Email Marketing) appeared first on ROAR Digital Marketing.