Category Archive for "digital marketing"

5 Top Tips for Brand Communications in Uncertain Times

Posted on Sunday, June 14th, 2020 at 5:33 pm.

How do businesses navigate this new landscape of professional and personal challenges due to COVID-19, which begs the question:“What’s next for marketers trying to create successful marketing and social media campaigns after a crisis?”

1. Communicate

The most important factor for any business is to simply keep up regular communication - whether it’s via social media, email or the website. Let your customers know what you’re doing to help them, not add to their stress. If appropriate let them know of any increased safety and cleanliness measures you’re taking in whatever way makes the most sense for your brand.

RELEVANT - Focus on what is relevant to the audience and do so with empathy and understanding.
BE CONCISE People are receiving a lot of communication right now, so be sure you get right to the heart of what you have to share.
SHARE POSITIVITY Feel-good stories are especially appreciated in trying times. If it feels appropriate, share positive or inspiring stories that give your audience hope and reassurance.

2. Leverage Your Social Media Channels

Develop genuine relationships with less focus on selling. Social media is where you want to engage with your audience - talk with them, not at them. It’s time to review your content strategy and refocus to the new norm.

3. Exceptional Customer Service - Online and Offline

Whether you are interacting on social media, email newsletters, online chat, on the phone or in person at your bricks and mortar premises - all of these interactions must be continually about providing exceptional customer service.

4. Be Intentional and Have a Clear Strategy

Marketing during a crisis is about showing your customers who you are as a brand. Developing a clear plan is even more critical to being a responsive and focused brand.
Digital Marketing is critical during times of uncertainty to help your business or organisation continue to connect and ultimately generate revenue.

5. Adapt for Now, Plan for the Future

Currently, there is still much uncertainty regarding the COVID-19 pandemic - how far it will reach or what the final impact will be. Regardless of what the uncertainty surrounds - whether a virus, earthquake or other impact that occurs beyond our control, for marketers and business leaders, it’s important to be flexible and adapt for now, but to continue to plan for the future.

What is the Facebook Pixel?

Posted on Sunday, June 7th, 2020 at 3:22 pm.

Written by Philippa Crick

Are You Considering Advertising on Facebook?

Then you need to know about the Facebook Pixel

If you’re using Facebook ads or you plan to use them in the future - this is the one key tool you should start using right away.

The Facebook pixel is code that you place on your website that helps you measure the effectiveness of your Facebook marketing campaigns by understanding what users do on your site. The Facebook tracking pixel data helps ensure your ads are seen by the people who are most likely to take your desired action.

The Facebook Pixel is generated within your Facebook Ads Manager account. The default pixel will help you in three main areas:

Conversion Tracking: identifies conversions to Facebook traffic (e.g. conversions could be a download of a PDF, a video watched, email link clicked or a sale on ecommerce website).
Optimisation: After installation, you can set up automatic bidding to target people who are more likely to convert.
Remarketing: Create custom audiences based on groups of users who came from certain ads or, for example, added a product to the cart but didn’t purchase or those that watched a video. Then you can show your ads to such audiences. It also gives you the option to create lookalike audiences

Facebook Pixel - Option to Create Lookalike Audiences

Facebook can use its targeting data to help you build a lookalike audience of people who have similar likes, interests, and demographics to people who are already interacting with your website. This can help expand your potential customer base.

Even if you’re not using Facebook ads yet, you should install the Facebook pixel now. It will start collecting data right away so that you don’t have to start from scratch when you’re ready to create your first Facebook ad.

You Can Use the Facebook Pixel to Collect Data on an "Event"

An “event” is simply a specified action that a visitor takes on your website, like making a purchase. Facebook has 17 predefined standard events and can be used to log conversions, optimise for conversions and build audiences

Facebook has predefined a set of 17 standard events.
You can set up custom events yourself.

Facebook Pixel Standard Events

The standard Facebook pixel events for which you can simply copy and paste standard Facebook event code are:

Website action	Description	Standard event code
Add payment info	Customer payment information during a checkout process. For example, a person clicks on a button to save their billing information.	fbq('track', 'AddPaymentInfo');
Add to cart	The addition of an item to a shopping cart or basket. For example, clicking an Add to Cart button on a website.	fbq('track', 'AddToCart');
Add to wishlist	The addition of items to a wishlist. For example, clicking an Add to Wishlist button on a website.	fbq('track', 'AddToWishlist');
Complete registration	A form completed by a customer in exchange for a service provided by your business. For example, signing up for an email subscription.	fbq('track', 'CompleteRegistration');
Contact	A telephone, SMS, email, chat or other type of contact between a customer and your business.	fbq('track', 'Contact');
Customise product	The customisation of products through a configuration tool or other application your business owns.	fbq('track', 'CustomizeProduct');
Donate	The donation of funds to your organisation or cause.	fbq('track', 'Donate');
Find location	When a person finds one of your locations via web, with an intention to visit. For example, searching for a product and finding it at one of your local stores.	fbq('track', 'FindLocation');
Initiate checkout	The start of a checkout process. For example, clicking a Checkout button.	fbq('track', 'InitiateCheckout');
Lead	A submission of information by a customer with the understanding that they may be contacted at a later date by your business. For example, submitting a form or signing up for a trial.	fbq('track', 'Lead');
Purchase	The completion of a purchase, usually signified by receiving order or purchase confirmation, or a transaction receipt. For example, landing on a Thank You or confirmation page.	fbq('track', 'Purchase', {value: 0.00, currency: 'USD'});
Schedule	The booking of an appointment to visit one of your locations.	fbq('track', 'Schedule');
Search	A search performed on your website, app or other property. For example, product or travel searches.	fbq('track', 'Search');
Start trial	The start of a free trial of a product or service you offer. For example, trial subscription.	fbq('track', 'StartTrial', {value: '0.00', currency: 'USD', predicted_ltv: '0.00'});
Submit application	The submission of an application for a product, service or program you offer. For example, a credit card, educational program or job.	fbq('track', 'SubmitApplication');
Subscribe	The start of a paid subscription for a product or service you offer.	fbq('track', 'Subscribe', {value: '0.00', currency: 'USD', predicted_ltv: '0.00'});
View content	A visit to a web page you care about. For example, a product or landing page. View content tells you if someone visits a web page's URL, but not what they do or see on that web page.	fbq('track', 'ViewContent’);

Facebook Pixel Custom Events

You can use custom events in place of standard events, or to collect more details than Facebook pixel standard events can provide.

For instant, you could use Facebook pixel tracking to record views of a specific category on your website, instead of tracking all views. Perhaps you want to separate kitchen renovation interest from bathroom repairs based on which sections of your building company's website they viewed. Or you could filter all purchases to measure just those of women’s shoes over $40.

Custom events use URL rules based on specific URLS or URL keywords - this extra code is called parameters.

These allow you to customise the standard events based on:

How much a conversion event is worth
Currency
Content type, or ID
Basket contents

You can learn more about custom conversions in this Facebook help article.

Should You Upload Your Video to Facebook or YouTube?

Posted on Friday, December 7th, 2018 at 3:35 pm.

Written by Philippa Crick

The world’s largest social media marketing resource, Social Media Examiner® helps millions of businesses discover how to best use social media to connect with customers, drive traffic, generate awareness, and increase sales. They offer original and comprehensive articles, expert interviews, original research, and the news businesses need to improve their social media marketing.

They received a variety of feedback from their fan base - some were shocked and disappointed as they don’t view YouTube as a social platform. However, most applauded the move because they don't watch videos on Facebook. Instead, YouTube is their preferred place.

Founder Michael Stelzner likes to use this analogy “it’s kind of like putting a TV show on a highway and expecting people to watch it as they go zipping by. And Facebook is a highway"

The Results

They published the behind-the-scenes documentary called "The Journey" exclusively on YouTube. It's their ongoing story about how they market. Each show is about 7 minutes long and offers a peek into the real struggles and discoveries made by their marketing team.Their results showed that on YouTube, about 50% of the people who watch each episode actually make it to the end. That is exceptional compared to Facebook, which is almost always less than 1% for the exact same content.

The misleading part:

It "looks" like a lot more people are watching on Facebook because the view counts are deceptive. Facebook counts what's really a drive-by impression of 3 seconds as a view. On YouTube, a view is 30 seconds or more (although this has recently been changed to 10 seconds.)If you receive 5000 video views on Facebook and 1% make it to the end, that's 50 people. If you get 1000 views on YouTube and 50% make it to the end, that's 500. That's a 10x improvement and the Social Media Examiner team decided they would rather have 500 people make it to the end, not 50.

YouTube is where people prefer to watch videos that are longer than a few minutes. Here’s what a typical video’s retention looks like for Social Media Examiner on Facebook:

This pattern they witnessed over and over.

Despite the fact that Social Media Examiner has a significant fan base of 534,000 on Facebook and a small but growing one on YouTube (23,000), the data is clear. It's YouTube for the the long-form video content from now on for them.

Five Key Tips on How to Optimise for Google’s ‘Local Pack’

Posted on Thursday, September 6th, 2018 at 11:10 am.

Written by Philippa Crick

Is your business in Google’s ‘Local Pack’? This refers to the top three listings showcased during a relevant search. Statistics show how valuable this position can be, with the first result receiving 33.55% clicks per search, the second 14.96% per search and finally 9.3% clicks per search. So how do you make it into the top three businesses showcased in Google’s Local Pack?

There are three different criteria to rank the listings and dictate who will appear in the Local Pack.
1.Relevance:how much does a local listing matches what someone is searching for?
2. Distance:how fair is each potential search results from the location term used in a search?
3. Prominence: how well-known is a business?

First of all, you MUST have a Google My Business listing. Complete all of the information fields and most importantly, verify it! This will give your business credibility. Here are the top five tips to optimise your Google My Business Listing to give your business the best chance of showing in the Local Pack.

1. Reviews
Focus on receiving positive reviews. Google highly values the amount of reviews a website gets, if they are positive, and if the company responds.

2. Online Directories
List your business on as many relevant, local directories as possible. The more citations you have on other websites and directories, the more prominent your business will become. Ensure your NAP details (name, address and phone number) are identical as this will create more credibility and weight behind your business in Google’s eyes.

3. Backlinks
Focus on earning local backlinks. Local Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) relies far more on local backlinks than usual SEO, so make a target of getting mentioned and linked in a particular number of other local websites relevant to your own. For example, if you were a cafe in Dunedin, it would be hugely advantageous for your SEO if you could have an inbound link on a Dunedin tourism website, or on the coffee supplier’s website that you use, so visitors will know you are a local stockist of a certain coffee or other product.

4. NAP Details
Make sure all pages of your website, your NAP details are identical to those entered in your Google My Business listing. To further increase your rating, embed a Google Map with a business marker into your landing page. These improvements to your website are important because Google’s new blended algorithm that it introduced in 2015, now takes into account your website’s SEO rating as well as your Google My Business listing.

5. Sync website and Google My Business description
Sync your Google My Business description and your website’s landing page so they both contain relevant keywords and NAP details/Google syncs all these details with the amount of reviews you have and the amount of citations/backlinks you have, and they will start working together to give your website a better chance of ranking higher.

Helpful Tips to get Your Organisation ready for GDPR

Posted on Wednesday, August 8th, 2018 at 11:03 am.

Written by Philippa Crick

Have you heard of the European Union’s (EU) new privacy law, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)? It came into effect on 25 May 2018, and is known as “the most important change in data privacy regulation in 20 years”. While it is an EU law, it applies not only to EU-based entities, but also to any organisation worldwide (including those in New Zealand) that have personal data of EU citizens or residents, even if these residents are not living in the EU. The fine is hefty; up to $20 million euros or 4% of annual worldwide turnover (whichever is higher).

Now is a good time to review your marketing strategies that involve collecting, tracking or using your customers’ personal data. While we recommend you consult with a legal and/or privacy professional to understand the full scope of your obligations under the GDPR, here are some tips that might be helpful for fulfilling your compliance obligations.

Firstly, it’s important to understand what is meant by ‘Personal Data’.
Personal data is broadly defined in the GDPR as any information relating to a person who can be identified either directly or indirectly. These can range from from personal details such as name, address, financial, medical and location details to images and voice recordings. Data Guidance provides a comprehensive list of all the forms of personal data included under GDPR.

What are the New GDPR Regulations?

There are multiple changes as to how a business can use personal data from now on. Three major changes that are most likely to affect New Zealand businesses are:
The customer now has to take clear, affirmation action to give consent for the use of their personal information. Inactivity does not constitute as consent.
The business must give a clear, specific explanation to the individual of what data will be collected and what it will be used for.
The data can only be collected for a specified, explicit and legitimate purpose and may not be used for any alternative purposes.

What Action Should You Take as a Business Owner?

Review these processes below to ensure they comply with GDPR requirements.

1. Update Sign Up or Subscriber Forms

Review consent with existing subscribers, and if it contained a pre-ticked box or any other form of non-action gaining of consent, run a “re-permission” email campaign to gain consent that complies with GDPR legislation.
Review your subscription forms for new subscribers and ensure they have to actively consent to the use of their personal information, such as an ‘opt-in’ box.
Ensure you have an easy “opt-out” option for users to withdraw their consent later on.

2. Update your Privacy Policy

Ensure you are transparent and clearly state what personal data you will be collecting and what purpose you will be using it for.
Explicitly state any third-parties that you will share user’s personal data with, such as analytics and payment processes.
Ensure the policy is written in simple language that is easy to understand to the user.
Explain the subscriber’s right to, at any time, submit a ‘User Access Request'. This means providing the user, free of charge, the following information: what personal information is being processed, why this information is being processed, who has access to it and how this information is being used.

3. Notify Existing Customers

Once you have updated your Privacy Policy, make sure you notify existing customers. See Creative Market’s email as an example:

How Will GDPR Affect Your Social Media Marketing Strategy

The posting of content and engaging fans will not be affected majorly by the new regulations, because it does not usually collect personal data from users who view or engage with it. However, there are still two things you should avoid doing:

Exporting or saving the contact details of your followers
If you are sending traffic from your social media account to your website and using Google Analytics to analyse this, you will need consent to track visitor behaviour
Social advertising (or paid social media marketing) is a different story.

If you are running social media ads, and wish to use your customers’ data or track their behaviour, you must gain their legal consent to do so. This means having clear ‘opt-in’ option, which the customer must actively consent to. While most of this will be covered in the terms and conditions and privacy notices of the majority of social media platforms, it would be wise to check this and ensure you are gaining consent through their policies.

If you are using lead form ads, such as on Facebook, you will need to state what you are using the data for, how it will be processed and gain explicit consent again from the user. Facebook now allows you to add a custom disclaimer to your page, which you can use to include all the additional necessary information to comply with GDPR.

9 Top Tips on Pay-Per-Click Advertising

Posted on Tuesday, July 17th, 2018 at 11:54 am.

Written by Philippa Crick

1. What is pay-per-click advertising?
Pay-per-click, or PPC, is one of the tools you can use to promote a business online, the most well-known is Google Adwords. It is a specific type of search engine marketing designed to drive traffic to your website. When certain keywords are entered into a search engine, your ad appears in the search results. You only pay when a user clicks on your ad.

2. Where do ads appear and what do they look like?
Search engines like Google and Bing allow businesses and individuals to buy listings in their search results (ads). They appear alongside, and increasing above the non-paid organic search results. The ads can have several different looks depending on which search engine you decide to advertise with.

3. What are the benefits of PPC ads?

Speed - PPC ads can be launched quickly, bringing in targeted traffic and leads to your website almost immediately.
Cost - You only pay when an ad is clicked. It’s easy to manage costs, track conversions, and determine your Return On Investment (ROI).
Reach - You can target specific target markets and bring in additional traffic to your website.
Control - You can modify your ads, try new search terms, pause campaigns and restart whenever.
It Can Be Very Effective - When set up correctly, it can really work! That is why many spend millions on paid search.

4. What sites offer PPC advertising?
Google AdWords is the most popular but there are others like Bing and Yahoo who also offer PPC advertising.

5. What are the components of a PPC ad?
Google Adwords PPC ad:

Headline 1 (30 characters). Include keywords and use attention grabbing headlines.
Headline 2 (30 characters). More room to add to your headline or perhaps describe who you are targeting.
Description lines (80 characters). Describe your product or service. It’s good to include a “call to action”
Display URL. Shows your website address.

Google also offers:

Sitelink Extensions
Link Text: 25 Characters
Description Line 1: 35 Characters
Description Line 2: 35 Characters

Callout Extensions
Callout Text: 25 Characters

Structured Snippets
Value 1, 2, 3…: 25 Characters

Bing PPC ad:

Ad title (60 characters). Two 30-character ad titles separated by a hyphen
Ad text (80 characters). Highlighting the details of your product or service.
Display URL. Domain and subdomain automatically generated from your final URL plus two customisable URL paths.

6. How do you find the best keywords to use in an ad?
Keywords are very important. They may make or break your ad so you need to choose wisely. There are tools that help you to select the best keywords. Try the Keyword Tool or check out this list of keyword tools.

7. Keyword Match Types: What’s the difference between broad, phrase, exact and negative match?

Broad match. With this option, customers will see your ad if they enter searches that are “similar” to your keywords. Ads may show on searches that include misspellings, synonyms, related searches, and other relevant variations.
- Example keyword: web design
- Example search: hire web designer
Broad match modifier. Ads may show on searches that contain the modified term (or close variations, but not synonyms), in any order.
- Example keyword: +web +design
- Example search: design for web
Phrase match. Ads may show on searches that are a phrase, and close variations of that phrase.
- Example keyword: "web design”
- Example search: a great web design example
Exact match. With this option, customers will only see your ad if they enter the exact keyword, or keyword phrase that you selected.
- Example keyword: [web design]
- Example search: web design
Negative match. With this option, you can select keywords that you don’t want your ad associated with. If these words are entered into the search bar, your ad won’t show up.

8. How can I target my PPC ad?

Device. Choose which devices you want to target (phone, desktop or tablet).
Location. Target people within a certain geographical area.
Language. Select a specific language to target.

9. Where can I find more resources on PPC advertising?

How Cre8ive More than Doubled a Client’s Revenue in only a Year

Posted on Friday, September 2nd, 2016 at 10:26 am.

Written by Philippa Crick

Client: Airport Parking Provider

Business Type: Short or long term airport parking

Client Brief:
An Airport Parking Provider offering short and long-term airport parking for cars and large vehicles. Prior to Cre8ive’s involvement, the Provider had a template website and no online booking system. They engaged Cre8ive to develop and design their website, expand their customer reach and increase the number of bookings.

Our Solution:

Create a customised website with a 24/7 online booking system and Google Analytics setup for comprehensive monitoring
Develop a Google AdWords campaign targeting searches for “car parking” and “campervan parking” to maximise their capacity
Ensure correct geotargeting to not waste budget on irrelevant audiences
To carefully craft numerous text ads along with 175 selectively chosen keywords and negative keywords
Add ad extensions to increase online traffic on their Booking, Rates and Location pages
Tailor ads to both desktop and mobile formats to target customers on specific devices
Establish goals and e-commerce tracking

Outstanding Results:
The client was very satisfied with their easy-to-manage booking system, requiring less hands-on time for them. Our targeted campaign has reached up to an incredible 12.5% click-through rate. To put this in perspective, Google’s average click-through rate on AdWords paid search ads is only 2%. With an average ad position of 1.4, our Airport Parking Provider Ads are predominantly displayed at the top of search results.

Comparing the year prior to the Google AdWords campaign in place, their total revenue significantly increased by 123%!

If you want Cre8ive to take on the challenge of increasing your business by managing your Google AdWords account - learn more about our Google AdWords management services or get our FREE Google Adwords guide. Get in touch with us today for your free estimate. Call 03 474 1075.

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