business Archives | 2Stallions

Talking Marketing & Business Development with Pei Khoek

In the marketing sector there’s a lot of overlap between roles, from marketing outreach initiatives to active business development strategies. Many marketers find their way into their roles through varying pathways. The thing with marketing is that it takes a certain skillset – communication with one’s audience, clear descriptions of products or services, etc. – that can be developed a variety of ways.

Joining us for this issue of the Marketing Expert Series is one such marketer. Pei Khoek is an experienced marketer and business development specialist. In this issue of the Series, Pei takes us through her journey, starting out as a journalist to her work now as business development consultant and marketer.

Hi, Pei, thank you for joining us in our Marketing Expert Series. Let’s kick off with a little background, can you tell us a bit about yourself? How did you get to where you are now?

I love to tell stories; my first job is a feature journalist in Sin Chew Media Corporation. I was with Sin Chew for 6 years, my last position there as Personal Assistant to Executive Director.

I developed an interest in marketing when I was working alongside the Executive Director, who was managing several departments including Marketing Dept. The marketing activities fascinated me. To me, a marketing campaign is a series of story-telling activities that is creative and innovative. I want to learn more about marketing and its strategy for a successful marketing campaign. Once a day, my boss came to me and showed me a postgraduate students recruitment advertisement, next thing I know is, I was on the flight to Scotland for a marketing postgraduate course.

I didn’t work in marketing after I return from Scotland. When Cense Media (now OOGA X) started Kupikupifm – the first Sabahan community radio station was established, the founders invited me to join the team & be the Marketing Manager for the radio station. That’s officially my first marketing role. One year later they started CITYPlus – the first Chinese Business Radio Station in Malaysia, and my responsibilities expanded.

I spent 3 years with Kupikupifm & CITYPlus, it was challenging, yet fun. We have a bit more freedom to do things unconventionally and get to experiment with some of our ideas. Some works, some failed, but the experience and the teamwork are priceless.

I left the radio stations to explore something else, but now I am back with the radios.

You’ve been involved in marketing and business development roles for many years, what was it that attracted you to these roles?

What I like about marketing and business development are the challenges, and opportunities those challenges bring to you. I am attracted by the creativity I see in many international marketing campaigns, those ideas!

To promote a new product, to enter a new market is challenging, every breakthrough we seek in an existing market with existing products is even more challenging. Those challenges are priceless learning processes for me, they have shaped me to become who I am today. I have to be honest that I am not a very creative person, you need the creativity to design a good marketing strategy, but I have been involved in many ideations processes, strategies meetings, and I must say, teamwork always works the best.

Is there a specific thing you enjoy most about your work?

I enjoy the learning. Marketing and business development is constantly evolving, especially now in the era of digital marketing. I still remember when I learn about marketing 12 years ago, we are still talking about in-store sales events, newspaper advertising etc. Google SEO was new and upcoming. Now, Google is almost in everything we do, social media is more powerful than traditional media, KOLs are more influencing than a country leader.

I enjoy the challenge because every challenge brings new learning. It can really drain your brain to run a successful campaign. So, be innovative to achieve the result you want. That’s probably the reason I always take up a new role in a new industry, for learning and self-improvement.

Currently, you’re the Business Development Consultant at OOGA X. Please tell us about OOGA X and the work you do there.

The OOGA X brand is a holistic and complete communications platform that embodies our aspirations to be the ultimate media ecosystem partner in our (ever-growing) sphere of engagement. The O.O.G.A acronym itself stands for ONLINE, OFFLINE, ON- GROUND and ON-AIR. The “X” serves to remind us that our horizons and potential are limitless. The OOGA X brand represents an ecosystem that is built on multimedia and communications platforms that are beyond just radio or, audio alone.

Currently, I am helping OOGA X in hirings and restructuring the revenue team. We are a small team developing busin

ess opportunities with a different external partner, more than half of the team is new and never have media experience. Although there are challenges, I find that we are able to think out of the ‘media ads’ box because we are from different backgrounds. I enjoy seeing the team grow and bring results to what we are doing.

OOGA X owns Kupikupifm & CITYPlus, our on-air products are quite complete. As we said earlier, OOGA X is designed to be a holistic & complete communications platform, in 2^nd half of 2021 we started to work with external business partners on developing more products and services for online, offline and on-ground, and I can’t wait to introduce the new products in 2022.

In 2020, you also founded Indeed Pilates. What drove you to start up a new company in the middle of the pandemic and why Pilates? How did you overcome the challenges?

I love Pilates. I am a certified Pilates instructor and have been teaching Pilates in my free time for some years. Before the pandemic, I have a Facebook group that I share Pilates videos with my clients, to encourage them to exercise every day, that Facebook group is called ‘Pilates Everyday’.

During the pandemic, fitness centres were operating on and off, many people’s fitness routines is being disrupted. It affects their health, physically and mentally. Hence, besides sharing Pilates videos on Pilates Everyday Facebook group, I started to conduct online classes for some clients, to keep them active.

After the first MCO, Yen Nee, who is also a certified instructor, my now business partner in Indeed Pilates and I met up for a coffee, and we ended up with an idea of creating an online Pilates website for people to practice Pilates whenever they want, wherever they are. A few months after that coffee session, we launched Indeed Pilates.

There were a few challenges, the greatest one is to change people’s habit of wanting physical classes. When we first had this idea of creating a Pilates website with on-demand workout videos and live online classes, I did a quick survey among my clients, only a small percentage of regular gymgoers are open to attending classes online, and most of them are reluctant to pay for on-demand workout videos. Because you can watch many free workout videos on YouTube, why pay?

To overcome that, we package our online classes and video-on-demand service in one subscription plan. Our core idea is to work out whenever and wherever. Before we can get people to change their habits, if we sell the video-on-demand service separately, no one will subscribe. Hence, we package it with online classes to allow clients access to the videos as an added value service.

We ran a social media campaign focusing on the importance of certified instructors and exercise whenever, wherever. The campaign objective was to educate people on knowing the instructor’s qualifications and to own a flexible workout hour. We also ran another campaign that gave free videos and classes access to 100 medical frontliners, to show our appreciation to the frontliners because many of them have back pain due to long working hours during the pandemic.

We received positive results from those campaigns, and some feedback too. When the lockdown continued in 2021, we increased online classes from 4 classes to 8 classes per week while maintaining an upload of 2 new workout videos weekly. I must say that we are lucky, the third lockdown helped the growth of Indeed Pilates because, after 2 MCOs, people are becoming used to attending online classes and workout at home. Even when fitness centres are fully operating now, there are people who have already been converted to online classes because they find it more convenient and time-saving.

We understand that to grow the business, we need to offer more services. When Selangor entered phase 4 of the national recovery plan, we started to conduct a monthly physical Pilates workshop for knowledge sharing and hands-on adjustments during workouts. We received encouraging business growth with that move.

In Jan 2022, we have a certified Yoga Instructor on board, adding 4 yoga classes to the online class schedule. We still upload 2 new Pilates workout videos weekly, but the number of classes increases to 12 online classes per week. Currently, we have more than 90 Pilates workout videos listed on the Indeed Pilates website, all by certified instructors, free access to Indeed Pilates’s members.

Now, aside from your day job and Indeed Pilates, I understand that you’re involved in charity work. Can you share something about PeopleStories and what the charity does exactly?

I started to volunteer in PeopleStories in 2021, contributing my time and skill as a member of PeopleStories marketing & fundraising team.

PeopleStories is a 4 years old charitable organization that helps children in the Bakong district of rural Cambodia to access to schools. Besides scholarships, PeopleStories also give bicycles to students, to provide easier access to school. By 2021, PeopleStories started working on the Smart School Anywhere initiative that aims to bring digital learning to rural Cambodia in 2022.

Why is it so important to have entities like PeopleStories? What role do you see them playing in the future?

PeopleStoies operates fully on international & local volunteers, and 100% of donations go to fund education programs. It is a young charity passionate in creating greater access to education in rural Cambodia.

I am impressed by the result they achieved. The founder Victoria is fully committed to PeopleStories program, and she dreams big for better education for children in rural Cambodia. For the determination and genuine heart that she has, I believe PeopleStories is able to improve education quality, reduce school drop-off rate in Bakong, because I have seen PeopleStories latest initiative – Smart School Anywhere 3 years plan, it is developed and managed by a group of professionals from different countries; I am moved by the new STEM For Girls initiative – it is a scholarship to support girls in pursuing STEM education (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math); I have read inspiring & encouraging stories about the local students, they are hungry for knowledge and they too, dream big.

In 2022, you can help a student to have a bike to ride to school at USD60, or support a student’s education fee at USD25 per month – Pei Khoek • PeopleStories SchoolForLife 2022 (raisely.com)

What about you, personally, when this pandemic is over, what’s next for you?

I want to go on a pub crawl in Munich or a whisky distilleries tour in Scotland. I miss my friends in Europe and I really would like to spend time with them again. I have a 1-year-old niece whom I haven’t met yet, she is the cutest little creature on the planet, I am dying to cuddle her close.

I used to travel a lot before the pandemic, I will definitely travel again when the pandemic is over.

Any advice you’d give to young and aspiring marketers interested?

If you want to be a successful marketer, you need to be creative & innovative, at the same time master in data analytics skills and be result orientated. Be open to new learnings, new concepts, new ideas. Always try something new in everything you do. Be persistent and resilient. Be a team player.

It’s been great to learn more about you and your work, Pei, thank you for sharing. How can people connect with you if they’d like to know more about you?

Thank you too. People are welcome to contact me via Linkedin I am happy to take questions and open to collaboration ideas.

Keep Reading

Digital Marketing

3 Powerful Reasons Why Your Business Should be on Social Media

Social media has progressed from a social networking tool to a strong marketing platform over time. Globally, social media has over 4 billion users. A typical social media user spends around 2 hours and 22 minutes each day on social media sites.

In other words, if used properly, those 2 hours and 22 minutes each day offer a tremendous chance for your company to raise brand awareness, increase traffic, increase sales, and improve overall conversion rates.

But what is it about social media that makes all this possible? Let’s find out.

1. Social Media Helps Grow Your Reach

One of the most significant advantages of using social media is that it allows you to reach a larger audience in a short amount of time. Reportedly, 90% of all marketers believe that social media marketing has enhanced their company’s visibility. In addition, 70% of business-to-consumer (B2C) marketers have used Facebook for successful lead generation. This demonstrates how crucial social media can be for your company.

Here’s how it works:

You have to keep your social media approach constant. This involves actions like sticking to a publishing schedule, connecting with your followers through likes, shares, and comments, and utilising relevant hashtags. This will help your brand become more visible. As a result, people will begin to recognise you and when people identify your brand, they begin to trust you as well.

2. Social Media Helps Attract Traffic to Your Website

If you want people to visit your website, you need to let them know about it first.

People won’t visit your website unless something attracts them – i.e. unless they find it organically. The issue is that organically attracting traffic does take time. So, if your company is new, you’ll need to think of alternative strategies to market and promote it. Fortunately, social media can assist you in this endeavour. The best part is that with a single click of a button, you can reach out to thousands of individuals at once. Not only that, it works for different platforms outside of social media such as, you can create amazing material for your website, blogs, video sites and share it with your audience using social media. This will help you in expanding your reach, for example, the more readers you have, the more visitors your blog will receive.

3. Makes Relationships with your Audience Stronger

Another advantage of using social media is that it allows you to form relationships with your target audience. You can use it to connect with your audience on a more personal level and to establish trust with them.

Most of the time, your audience only gets a sense of your brand through the material you provide- they perceive it through the company’s lens. As a result, your audience has no emotional relationship to your business. You can leverage social media to humanise your brand for your audience. Humanizing your brand can help maintain a positive relationship between company and consumer. This will help customers connect with your company.

Most companies, for example, do not provide their behind-the-scenes experiences for their customers. Offering a behind-the-scenes look at your company might help them better understand your brand. You can use this opportunity to introduce your workers to the audience, offer them a tour of your business, or demonstrate how you work. All of this helps your audience get to know the individuals that work in your company and how things work.

Key Takeaways

Social media is no longer just about social networking. It has evolved into a huge marketing platform that can help your business grow and succeed. Marketers now use social media to generate brand exposure and leads.

Social media marketing should be a substantial part of every marketing strategy. What now? Convinced? Then make a social media plan so you can get out there and start posting! Not sure where to get started? Give us a call today.

Keep Reading

Content Marketing

Digital Customer Experience: Why Is It So Important?

The COVID-19 Pandemic hit us all hard and drove many businesses – and inviduals! – online.

The result is that more people than ever before now use the web to search for products and services, make online purchases, and transact with e-retailers. Since customers have gone digital, companies should create digital customer experiences too.

The new market reality encourages businesses to step up their marketing initiatives and takes advantage of digital media (i.e., websites, Facebook, YouTube, etc.). Otherwise, they would lose their customers and revenues to more digitally savvy competitors.

What Is Digital Customer Experience

As the name suggests, digital customer experience (DCX) refers to the customer touchpoints while interacting with a brand online. It involves a series of actions, including information search, evaluation of alternatives, product inquiry, and most importantly—purchase.

The approach to DCX is different from traditional CX. In brick-and-mortar shops, the store’s ambience, customer service quality, security concerns, product display, and many other factors can influence customer satisfaction.

In the virtual space, there are several factors that affect customers’ experience and buying decisions. These include website aesthetics and speed, mobile responsiveness, ease of navigation, language, information quality, and so on.

Remember, that when people visit stores in-person they are often greeted by a smiling store clerk; that sort of welcome is hard to replicate online. Your website and interface is all you have to ensure that your customers enjoy your products and services, even if they never see a friendly smiling.

Digitized customer experience matters now more than ever before – with more businesses online, it also means that the competition is fiercer than ever.

For these reasons, businesses should build a digital customer experience strategy to foster a satisfied online customer base.

Why Is It Important to Digitize Customers’ Experiences?

1. More Customers Are Going Digital

Customers adapt to and grow with technological advancements and market trends. They learn and embrace such things, not because of the fear of missing out (FOMO) but because they want to satisfy their needs.

Take Internet commerce as an example. Most people now find online shopping more convenient than in-store shopping. The steady rise of mobile apps and eCommerce websites has also made it easier for customers to shop for anything they want without leaving their homes.

Online shoppers use a single device like desktop or laptop, tablet and smartphone, or a combination of each. Consumers prefer time-saving, no sales pressure, and convenience, not to mention discreet shopping method.

Shoppers are also getting smarter with their purchasing decisions, so if businesses fail to meet their expectations, chances are the business will not be able to regain the customer’s trust or loyalty.

If building an eCommerce website is not possible, many other digital platforms can come to the rescue. Instagram’s shopping platform, and other social commerce platforms, offer a great way to promote a brand and interact with customers. Users can also launch ad campaigns across social media to propel their marketing efforts and drive sales.

2. Digital Channels Uncover Customer Insights

In today’s digital era, customers will experience fewer ‘bricks’ and more ‘clicks’. The absence of human touch, however, is not a bad thing—rather the contrary as it happens.

While digital marketing channels lack face-to-face human contact and interaction, they allow companies to interpret sets of customer data easier than other traditional media.

Web performance, for example, can be measured by using analytics tools like Google Analytics (GA). Through this web analytics tool, marketers can examine website activities and understand customers’ behaviours.

Here are a few digital metrics for websites that businesses should take advantage of to create a positive digital customer experience:

Traffic: the total number of site or page visits in a given time.
Page View: the total number of pages viewed; it includes repeated views of a single page.
Unique Page Views: the number of visitors who have viewed a specific page at least once during a visit.
Average time on Page: the average amount of time users spend viewing a specific page or screen or set of pages or screens.
Bounce Rate: the percentage of single-page visits or the number of visits in which people left your website from the same page they visited

Google Analytics provides insights on the above metrics. The tool can tell what path site visitors or users take, how long they stay on a specific web page, what actions they take during the visit, and more.

3. Tailor Products or Services to Individual Users

Digital transformation is not solely about technology. It is about one’s ability to harness technology’s power in creating individualized customer experiences.

When businesses decide to integrate digital technology into their business operations, it becomes easier to address each phase of the customer journey. The advances in data collection and analysis allow marketers to implement personalized approaches tailored to customers’ specific needs.

Personalization is crucial in delivering a meaningful overall digital customer experience. It is the finishing touch to secure sales and generate brand loyalty.

Bonus: Tips for Digitizing Customer Experience

1. Combine Digital and Human Elements

Virtual customer assistants (VCAs) like chatbots are becoming increasingly popular in the digital landscape. These messenger bots can automate customers’ inquiries and enable personalized interactions.

H&M is an excellent example of a company that combined digital and human elements successfully. The multinational clothing-retail company used a chatbot to provide users with a mix of user-focused technology and highly-personalized human connection.

H&M, chatbot, men's clothing, messenger, chat

2. Provide Personalized Content

Thanks to digital analytics, it is easy to create a content plan that addresses customers’ interests and buying habits. By looking at the available data, businesses can share content pieces—be they landing pages, social media posts, blogs, newsletters, and infographics—that speak to them.

3. Optimize Mobile User Experience

Mobile usage statistics vary per study, but one thing is clear—the global mobile population is ever-changing and increasing. People around the world own smartphones and use them for a variety of things, including shopping.

Businesses should make use of this insight and focus on improving customer experiences on mobile. Some of the ways that can help them optimize mobile user experience include:

Keep layouts simple
Use easy-to-read text
Aim for a responsive web design
Use faster-loading image formats
Improve the search feature in the app

Final Thoughts

As the world becomes increasingly digital, the need for pairing digital tech with a solid marketing strategy also increases. Brands should treat customers’ online journey as a critical aspect and find ways to deliver optimum digital customer experience.

If you are thinking about developing a digital transformation strategy, 2Stallions can help lay the foundation so you can make the most out of digitization. We offer the right mix of digital marketing services, including SEO(search engine optimization) services, social media marketing, content marketing, and more.

Get in touch with us today to find out how you can further improve all your digital marketing efforts.

Originally published: 28 January 2021
Updated: 25 November 2022

Keep Reading

Digital Marketing

COVID-19: Speeding Up Digital Transformation & Innovation

Despite being the tragedy of 2020, the COVID-19 crisis has driven a new wave of digital transformation and innovation approaches. Businesses learned to navigate the challenges of the coronavirus while addressing the needs of their employees, customers, and clients.

A study conducted by McKinsey & Company, a management consulting company, found that COVID-19 has forced many companies to accelerate their digital initiatives.

The research also reported that digital adoption rates during COVID-19 have increased compared to the previous surveys conducted in pre-crisis time.

These findings suggest that the coronavirus pandemic awakened businesses to the importance of digital technology. Most organizations have sped up their digital efforts to keep pace with changing consumer behaviour.

Impact of COVID-19 on Businesses

When COVID-19 broke out, businesses all over the world were impacted by a range of challenges: keeping employees and customers safe, maintaining operations, navigating government support schemes, and managing revenue.

Smaller companies, particularly start-ups, faced more devastating effects, including mass employee layoffs. In fact, small businesses had to lay off people just a few weeks after the onset.

According to Startup Genome’s Global Startup Survey, a majority of startups saw a decline in revenue since the beginning of the crisis. The key findings from the survey include:

41% of startups globally are threatened in the “red zone”—they have three months or less of cash runway left.
16% of startups saw their revenue drop by more than 80%
74% of startups have had to terminate full-time employees a few weeks after the onset
39% of all startups had to lay off 20% or more of their staff, and 26% had to let go 60% of employees or more
North America is the place with the biggest share of companies reducing headcount (84%), followed by Europe (67%) and Asia (59%).

Also, micro, small, and medium enterprises’ (MSMEs) struggle to survive the effects of COVID-19 as the crisis lengthens.

In the ILO SCORE Global Covid-19 Enterprise Survey, survey results show that 70% of MSMEs have had to shut down operations. Nearly 9 out of 10 businesses are experiencing a shortage in their cashflow, affecting business continuity.

Another study also found that the sectors with the most business closures globally were the following:

Travel or tourism agencies (54%)
Hospitality and event services (47%)
Education and child care services (45%
Performing arts and entertainment (36%)
Hotels, cafes, and restaurants (32%)

While many start-ups are moving closer to closure and bankruptcy, the pandemic has opened doors to many entrepreneurial businesses.

Entrepreneurs have pivoted to offer goods and services borne out of the crisis, such as face masks, commercial cleaning services, delivery and errand services, and so on.

Moreover, some businesses have managed to stay operational in the midst of COVID-19—and accelerating digital transformation has helped them a lot.

3 Ways Businesses Adopted Digital Technology During COVID-19

1. Reshape Remote Working

A vast majority of businesses across the globe have made an abrupt shift to remote work. Many have normalized the “work from home” model to protect employees, serve customers, and most importantly, establish business continuity.

Remote work and virtual teams also put a spotlight on the importance of technology.

For example, Zoom, a video conferencing application, emerged as one of the most useful tools during COVID-19. Organizations use it to collaborate with their team members, in real-time.

Other online productivity tools and employee-facing technologies have also helped employees to more easily operate at similar levels of productivity, despite working outside the office.

According to a Synergy Research Group study, cloud providers see aggressive growth amidst the coronavirus crisis. It only means that more businesses have moved to the cloud to support a remote workforce.

With COVID-19 making remote work the new normal, companies—small or large —should see cloud-based technologies as a digital transformation priority.

2. Adopt Technology-Driven Systems

The success of remote work setup during the pandemic depends on several factors, including digital technologies.

Small to medium-sized businesses, and most especially, larger corporations must invest in digital tech to manage remote employees and facilitate fast communication and collaboration.

However, the virtual work environment is susceptible to data protection and data privacy risks, requiring businesses to adopt a technology-driven system to allay the fears of security risks.

The latest Exabeam report finds that there has been a significant increase in enterprise adoption of cloud-based security solutions to support a remote workforce.

The data found that 44% of enterprises use cloud-based security products to protect corporate financial information compared to the earlier study, where only 12% were protecting corporate financial information in this way.

Additionally, about 90% of companies said they rolled out cloud-based security products at the right time for the business. Many deployed such software solutions to safeguard customer information while sending emails and sharing files.

Those who incorporated cloud technology have also seen improvements in monitoring and tracking cyber attacks (21%) and accessing the software’s latest features (20%). These findings evidence that digital transformation minimises resources and overheads, allowing security analysts to complete tasks faster and focus on other projects.

3. Digitize Customer Experience

The virus not only changed the way people work but also the way people use the Internet.

With the lockdowns and limitations of activities, people seek out alternative entertainment and socialization. These include the uptake of the use of streaming services, such as Netflix, Amazon, and YouTube. People are also connecting with distant friends on social media apps like Facebook.

Time spent online has increased, and so has how much money people spend online.

COVID-19 has driven changes in consumer behaviour and put e-commerce at the forefront of retail. Pandemic-weary consumers are looking for new normal must-haves online from alcohol to hand sanitisers, face masks, cleaning supplies, skin care products, groceries, and more.

This new consumer behaviour pattern has encouraged many businesses to digitize customer experiences using technological solutions like chatbots.

Short for chatterbot, this Artificial Intelligence (AI) feature helped retailers to bridge the gap in customer communications. The tool lets customers receive quick replies to their queries, eliminating the need for emails and long customer service wait times.

The use of live video streaming also spiked during the pandemic. Amazon, a big player in the e-commerce industry, entered the live streaming space to add a human touch to internet shopping.

Facebook has gotten more involved with live streaming since many online merchants strive to provide personal assistance and in-store experience to their followers.

McKinsey & Company acknowledged the importance of elevating customer experience in the time of COVID-19. Engagement is a crucial aspect of digital transformation that businesses should not neglect to remain economically viable.

Final Thoughts

Businesses that embraced the digital transformation, adding cloud technology and digitized customer experiences to their arsenal, can weather any challenge, even a pandemic. They can innovate employee collaboration, protect sensitive data, and digitize the customer experience, among other benefits.

The role of marketing in this transformation is crucial. Companies should pair digital tech with a solid marketing strategy to create, drive, and deliver a customer-centric experience.

At 2Stallions, we provide digital marketing services (i.e. social media marketing, search engine optimization, content marketing, etc.) that will help businesses understand and connect with their customers in today’s digital era.

Check out our complete list of services at https://2stallions.com/service/digital-marketing/.

Keep Reading

Content Marketing

5 Reasons Your Company Needs SEO To Prosper

Articles sensationalizing the “death” of SEO are clickbait. Google commands over 90% of worldwide search traffic today. In short, SEO is never going to die. If your company wants to prosper online, you need SEO.

However, Google continuously updates its search algorithm – more than 1 update a day at last count. What this means is that SEO and how it is achieved is in a state of constant evolution.

An example would be the featured snippet algorithm update in Jan 2020. Featured snippets (short texts that answer a search query) now count as one of the ten web page listings on the search results page (SERP).

This means that when you focus on SEO for your company, you need to also try and appear in featured snippets – something that wasn’t part of the SEO scope just a year ago.

Before we dive into the five reasons your company must optimize for search engines or become obsolete online, let’s explore what SEO is.

What Is Search Engine Optimization

Short for search engine optimization, SEO is the process of optimizing a website and its content to be discovered through non-paid (also known as “organic”) search engine results.

The practice involves understanding what people would search for on a search engine to find businesses in your industry —including the words they use, type of content they prefer, and answers they seek.

As a business, it becomes easier to connect with these people by developing content that adds value to your audience by solving their needs, optimizing it so it ranks on Google’s 1^st page and driving organic traffic back to your website to convert into more sales for you.

Why Your Business Needs SEO To Prosper

Let’s go through some key reasons your company needs to invest in SEO to do well in the digital space.

1. The Best Place To Hide A Dead Body Is On Page 2 of Google

This section’s title is apt because only 0.78% of Google searchers click on something from the second page. This means 99% of clicks happen on page 1 of Google. Think about that.

Image by: Backlinko

Couple the data above with a 2018 Clutch survey that found that 56% of businesses do not invest in SEO. As a company in this category, you run the real risk of becoming irrelevant online.

SEO may be a less popular digital marketing channel to invest in due to a longer time frame for returns. However, take this “downside” with a pinch of salt by looking at success stories of companies that fully embrace SEO like AQ Services.

The mystery shopping services provider worked with 2Stallions to improve its website traffic for a niche audience on the Internet.

Over a two-year span, our agency worked with them to conduct thorough relevant keyword research, on-site and off-site SEO, and coupled it with strong, fully-optimized content marketing efforts.

These initiatives yielded excellent results. In a niche industry, AQ Services grew their organic clicks to 1,949 from 22,333 impressions and were ranking for 26 keywords on the first page of Google, previously having ranked for none.

Every converted lead from these clicks potentially generates tens of thousands in revenue for them. They can rest easy that due to their SEO efforts, they are the first name that potential leads click on when searching within their niche industry.

Over the long-term, their investment and the investment of the many other companies that invest in SEO pays off with multiple returns on their initial investment.

This reason alone should convince most readers, but if you’re not, carry on reading.

2. Focusing on SEO Will Improve Your Bounce Rate

Are you guilty of clicking the “Refresh” or “Back” buttons when you land on a website from a search result that doesn’t load quickly enough for you or if the content isn’t relevant? Of course, it is your choice whether to stay on or leave any website.

What if the same thing is happening on your website though? What if potential leads are leaving without interacting with your brand because your webpage design took too long to load or your content isn’t compelling enough?

Google Analytics defines bounce rate as the percentage of single-page visits (i.e. visits in which the person left your site from the entrance page).

A high bounce rate indicates that your content (i.e. webpage, article, etc.) didn’t match the user’s intent (i.e. what they were looking for) or that your website is loading too slow and they got impatient.

A big part of search engine optimisation is technical and on-site optimization. This is achieved with a laser focus on a fast-loading website and performing keyword research followed by optimizing your website content to be high-quality and relevant so that it would rank on Google.

This, in turn, lowers your bounce rate and helps you to rank higher and generate a lot more leads over the long term.

In short, investing in SEO leads to better user experience on your website and the creation of better quality of content that is optimized to be found on Google.

Image by: Conversion XL

3. Mobile is the De-Facto Search

Consumers nowadays tend to finalize their transaction on mobile phones. In addition to that, searches made from mobile phones have increased from 65.1% to 80% across Asia.

Since 2015, Google has made it official that over 50% of searches now happen on mobile and in 2019, they started rolling out mobile-first indexing, showing the significance of mobile to digital.

So why does this mean YOUR business needs to invest in SEO?

Think about how people use their smartphones. Whether on Android or iOS, when they need to find ANYTHING, they turn to Google as their de-facto.

Looking for a place? Open Google Maps and type in a search. Looking for information? Open their browser and type in the search term to get results from Google Search or use Siri or Google Assistant to do a voice search.

A major part of SEO these days is Mobile SEO and Local SEO. These strategies help to ensure your website is mobile-friendly and is indexed or found on search via mobile devices and Maps.

Failing to do this means the only traffic your brick-and-mortar business will likely see is opportunistic foot traffic.

4. Have an App? Your Apps Are Discovered Via Search Too

The mobile era has also ushered in a deluge in mobile apps. In fact, more than 90 percent of all smartphone users have various apps installed on their phones including a social app, utility app, entertainment app, search app, and shopping app, among others.

These apps can be found in app stores like Google Play or the Apple App Store. Unlike Apple, Google incorporates its app store in its search engine results.

According to a Google report, about 27% of users find applications through a search engine and growing. While the number using Google Play directly to search and download apps is still higher, the future trends show optimizing an app for search engines still makes great sense.

App search could be an important driver of app installs in the very near future. That’s why businesses with a mobile app should implement an SEO strategy to rank their apps on search engines.

5. Content Marketing and SEO Are Partners In Crime

Oftentimes, companies do not want to invest in SEO because they are already investing in content marketing and fail to see the connection to SEO.

An article from The Guardian states: “It looks like Google has tired of its old friend SEO and is instead cosying-up to the new kid on the block, content marketing.”

This certainly makes it sound like there is no need for SEO if you’re investing in content marketing.

The evolution of the search algorithm has led to success via the original SEO fire dwindling over time. Content marketing is the gasoline that can ignite the wildfire digital success for your business. However, it is just the fuel. Without SEO, there is no fire to begin with.

Content marketing relies on SEO to get audiences to your website. Producing high-quality content if nobody reads it is useless.

SEO, on the other hand, doesn’t rely on content marketing for success – it can also be applied to business websites without a blog or a content marketing strategy. However, success will take much longer.

Content marketing pieces such as blogs, videos, eBooks, or even your website itself needs keyword optimization, quality backlinks and technical SEO requirements to rank on search.

In short, do not discount SEO just because you have invested in content marketing. This, in fact, is more reason to invest in SEO.

Parting Tip – Befriend Search Engines (or Google)

Search is the first stop on the Internet for most people in most cases. If you don’t befriend the search engines, you will miss out on a lot of opportunities and the chance to grow your business even more.

If you’re looking at SEO but unsure where to start, 2stallions can be your SEO partner and help you with your digital success, as it has done with many other clients.

If you’re still unconvinced, drop us a message through the comments and we’ll help you answer your concerns and queries to make the right decision for your company.

Keep Reading

Social Media Marketing

How Businesses Can Create A Social Media Strategy From Scratch

The number of global social media users continues to rise. No matter your business’ size, you need a strong social media strategy to build and grow an online presence, boost sales, and improve your bottom line.

Setting up your business accounts on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and other social media platforms is only the first step. You must develop a detailed plan of action so social media activity you invest in achieves its goals.

What Is A Social Media Strategy

A social media strategy is a plan that documents how your business will execute and measure all its social media marketing efforts. It outlines all necessary actions needed to achieve social media objectives.

These can be targets like increasing customer engagement, improving customer satisfaction, generating more leads, or driving traffic to your website.

A documented strategy lets you increase your social media leverage. It helps align your social media activity with business goals, and can also check each social channel, or measure specific social media campaigns.

How To Create A Social Media Strategy From Scratch

Creating a social media strategy can be intimidating, especially if you are a small business owner with stretched resources. By taking it one step at a time, you can create a strategic social media plan that benefits your business.

Get started with our eight-step plan outlined below.

1. Set S.M.A.R.T. Goals

Every great plan needs goals and your social media strategy is no exception. Without goals, it would be hard to set action plans and measure success or your return on investment (ROI).

When setting goals, make sure they follow the S.M.A.R.T. goal framework:

Specific. Be specific about what you want to achieve. Provide answers to questions ‘who’, ‘what’, ‘when’, ‘where’, ‘which’, ‘why’, and ‘how’. Identify your target audiences, social media channels you should use, and how to engage them, among others.

Measurable. Make sure there is a way for you to measure your goals. For example, if you are aiming to increase brand awareness, the metrics you could use are followers count, mentions, and shares.

Attainable. Your goals should be achievable with your resources. The more specific your goals are, the easier it will be to meet them. For instance, you want to engage 1000 people per post, this is both measurable and attainable.

Relevant. A goal should also contribute toward your long-term goals. One example of a relevant social media goal is to drive more traffic to your website. This goal benefits your audience engagement, lead generation, and website conversion.

Time-bound. All goals should be time-bound. It should follow a timeframe, whether it is one week, one month, or a year. Allocating a finite time to goals will help you complete them on time.

2. Perform A Social Media Audit

Once you have defined your social media goals, the next step is to perform a social media audit.

Your audit will give you a clear picture of your business’ current social media health. It will also help test how well each social channel is performing for your brand, and enable you to spot the gaps in your existing social media strategy.

While “audit” sounds a bit intimidating, the process itself takes 30 minutes or less. Here is a walkthrough to social media audit:

Identify and list your social media profiles. Include official and unofficial profiles and any accounts outside Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram (the big four).

Create a spreadsheet and input the following elements: URL, profile name, numbers of followers, and date of your last activity.

Examine the details of each profile. After listing your social media profiles, go through each one. Check if branding is consistent, focusing on things like images, avatars, backgrounds, descriptions, etc. Update your spreadsheet with this information.

Evaluate each profile’s performance. Revisit your past goals and compare them against your social media profiles performance. Each social media platform has different metrics that you can measure. You can use Facebook’s page insights and Twitter’s Followerwonk, for example, to see how your audience has grown.

Once you have filled the sheet with these details, ask yourself these questions:

Is my target audience here?
Why are we using this social account?
Can this account help my business achieve its goals?
What are my business goals for this social media platform?

If any of your accounts fail to provide the needed answers to the above, cross them out in your checklist and focus your effort on other social media profiles that attract profitable actions.

3. Choose The Right Channels

Choosing the right channels is an integral part of any social media strategy. Do not waste time and effort across all platforms, choose only the ones that support the achievement of your strategic goals.

Let us take a look at the BIG FOUR social media channels and the business goals they support.

Facebook. This social media giant works for both B2C and B2B businesses. With nearly 1.7 users worldwide, Facebook is the perfect platform for increasing brand awareness.

It is also a great place to share video content, letting you generate high levels of engagement. Additionally, Facebook can help you monitor your competitors’ social media output using built-in analytics.

Twitter. Twitter is effective in drawing brand engagement. Its recent increase from a 140-character limit to 280 makes it easier for companies to create branded content in a single tweet.

This platform can also generate leads. Brands should take advantage of Twitter Ads campaign types to build their following and conversion.

Instagram. There is no doubt that this platform is most popular among the millennials. It is a “must-have” social channel, especially for brands investing in influencer marketing.

In fact, a survey found that 99.3% of influencers use Instagram, making it the top social network for influencers in 2018.

LinkedIn. Renowned for being a champion in lead generation, this channel can help businesses grow their networks. It has more than 500 million professionals and boasts 2x the buying power of an average web audience.

Furthermore, LinkedIn serves as the social media platform of choice for B2B marketers. Businesses can engage potential customers through sponsored content, sponsored InMail, and text ads.

4. Plan Your Budget

Social media is often used only as a free advertising tool. Paid social media advertising will increase your chances of reaching your target audience.

If you are thinking of fueling your paid social efforts this 2020, consider the following:

72% of B2B marketers who use paid channels online use paid social. – Content Marketing Institute
27% of internet users say they find new products and brands through paid social ads. – Hootsuite
The average organic reach for a Facebook post is 5.17% of a Page’s likes, while the average paid reach is 28.1% of total reach. – Hootsuite

Your social media marketing cost depends on your business goals; a common rule of thumb for B2B companies is to allocate 2-5% of revenue and B2C companies should spend between 5-10%.

Before deciding on your social spending, research your customers and check your analytics. Be realistic about your budget so you can tweak your campaign to get the best return on investment (ROI).

5. Create Audience Personas

Social media channels are the best venue for sharing content. Before you plan and create content, know first who your audience is.

This is why you need to create audience customer personas. A customer persona is the profile of your ideal customer. Personas help you craft the most impactful messaging and brand voice for your audience in all forms of online communication.

The questions ‘who,’ ‘what,’ ‘why,’ and ‘how’ can guide you in creating customer personas.

Who. Who are your existing customers? Look through your current database to define the background and demographics of your typical customer.

What. Find out what their goals and challenges are. Conduct surveys or interviews to get this information from your customers.

Why. Understand the motivations behind your customer’s goals and challenges, as well as the common issues they face.

How. How can your company and your products or services best address their challenges? Craft your content around it.

6. Plan and Create Your Content

When creating a social media strategy, it is crucial to remain focused on content creation. Sharing blogs, videos, infographics, and other content is a perfect way to maximize your social media profiles. It increases brand awareness and drives things like website traffic, leads, and sales.

A social media content calendar helps keep track of past and future social media posts and ensure content consistency. Here are the things that your content calendar should contain:

Content categories. Remember your social media audit? You know what worked and what failed, helping you identify the gaps in your current strategy. Align your goals with what your audience wants, and plan and create your content around that.

Some content categories might be blog posts, product promotions, case studies, and upcoming events.

Date and time. Input the day, date, and time to schedule or publish your post.

Visuals. Will this post include a photo or video? List all the assets needed in your calendar to save time and stress.

Links. Add the link to the published post as well as the other resources linked in your post.

Bonus Tip:

Think of the formats that work best on the social channel you are using. Video is a fast-growing trend on all channels, especially Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. Entertaining and informative videos between 3-90 seconds drive engagement, so learn to use them to your advantage.

Research the various features unique to each social platform to best leverage it. For example, as a business, Facebook check-ins and reviews are a great way to establish your brand because people trust them.

7. Encourage Social Media Engagement

If you are starting out, it is common to see little or no engagement on your social pages. This is where your employees come in. Chances are, your employees have one or more social media accounts. If they do not have one, encourage them to sign up on LinkedIn at least.

Encourage them to link their social media profiles to your company’s main social media brand accounts. Make it simple for your employees to share social posts. You can even incentivize them if necessary.

The more your employees share, the greater your reach as you tap into their networks of friends and family. The more people that see your content, the more likely they interact with it, and the higher the engagement.

Using your employees as first advocates of your brand is part of trust-building. Their network trusts them so referrals hold more weight, thus helping others form a positive impression of your brand.

Do not overwhelm your employees: getting them to share too many company messages may seem forced. By creating meaningful, quality content people will share it more willingly.

8. Re-evaluate And Adjust Your Strategy

After implementing your social media strategy, data starts coming in. It is important to evaluate your social media campaigns and keep track of what is working for you.

Here are the main metrics to look out for:

Volume. Page likes, page views, and website traffic show how interested people are in your brand.

Reach. Reach helps you measure how far your social content is spreading. It is not only about big numbers! You need to check this metric against others to see if you are reaching the right target audience.

Engagement. Engagement measures how people are interacting with your content. The number of likes, retweets, shares, etc., shows how people engage with your profile. Engagement metrics like “reactions” on Facebook also gives insight into a post sentiment—negative or positive.

After looking at the performance metrics, adjust your strategy as needed. Make sure to inform everyone in your team about the updated strategy to make the most of your accounts.

The Bottom Line

The social web is growing, your business should make the most out of your social media profiles to skyrocket your online presence.

Create a social media strategy to make all your social networking plans and actions work parallel to your business goals.

As a full-service digital marketing agency, 2Stallions can assist you throughout the social media marketing process. We can do social media audits to optimize profiles, help with content strategy, execution, quarterly reviews, and digital maintenance.

Keep Reading

Digital Marketing

4 Benefits of Marketing Automation That You Shouldn’t Ignore

Many businesses are using marketing automation to improve their processes and support their marketing efforts. In fact, 75% of companies already use at least one kind of automation software.

According to Invespcro, not only are companies investing in marking automation, but marketers are also increasing their marketing budgets.

These statistics suggest that organisations have realised the value of automation in today’s digital world. Most of them now rely on automation tools to do some of the marketing heavy lifting.

But what is with all the hype? What do businesses get from this technology and why you should jump on the bandwagon?

To answer these questions, we need to cover the fundamentals first.

What Is Marketing Automation

Marketing automation is an umbrella term for any platform, solution, or tool used for automating marketing activities. Tasks such as streamlining, managing, and online and offline workflow measurement, are good examples of marketing automation processes.

Using this technology, businesses can implement a digital marketing strategy without needing to perform each task manually. It lets users send emails, publish campaigns, and even analyse results automatically.

How Automation Drives Business Success

1. Improve Work Efficiency

Did you know that an average marketer spends almost a third of their time completing repetitive tasks? According to Hubspot, sending emails and collecting, organizing and analysing marketing data are the two major culprits.

Crafting new emails and sending responses eat up an average of 3.48 hours a week. Data-related tasks, on the other hand, take an average of 3.55 hours a week.

While manually sending emails, posting on social media, and publishing content are an integral part of every digital marketing strategy, automating them can increase efficiency.

This means that marketing teams can focus on strategic projects, making them more productive and allowing for reallocation of budgets and resources into something that can generate better returns.

2. Understand Your Customers

Marketing automation also helps businesses understand their customer’s needs and interests.

Good automation tools can collect data about customer behaviour and intent. They can follow the footprints customers leave on your website, showing you what pages or content they have accessed.

Such a software solution can also keep track of purchasing data and customer support issues. This functionality enables companies to create solutions for any customer complaints.

One of the companies that reaped benefits from marketing automation is WGSN, a world-leading authority on consumer and design trends. WGSN integrated automation technology into its digital products to grow meaningful relationships with customers.

Now, when a customer buys a WGSN product, the software triggers pieces of content that are suited to the customer’s behaviour. This has helped WGSN increase their sales and deepen bonds with their customers.

3. Deliver Personalised Campaigns

Your business can also use marketing automation to deliver personalized marketing campaigns using customer data.

Since most consumers want more interaction with brands, the automation tools can help your company create personalised experiences and build customer trust and loyalty naturally.

Here are some ways to successfully balance automation and personalisation:

Improve customer support. Research shows that 83% of online shoppers need support to complete a purchase. Working to eliminate any waiting time will improve shopper relations and their loyalty.

Chatbots are a techy alternative to human agents. Software applications like chatbots can emulate human language, making them a great option for automated marketing and customer care.

Offer timely, valuable content. Sending email blasts with the same content may bore customers. Create specific and fresh content for each customer segment (i.e. demographic, geographic, technographic, etc.) to form better customer relationships.

As a general rule of thumb, when sending out content, check whether it satisfies your customers’ interests and needs.

Do not take personalisation too far. Anything that is over-personalised can make customers feel creeped out rather than impressed—and these five examples of creepy marketing are living proof.

Below are some ways to interact with your customers without going overboard:

Send a simple reminder based on their actions on your website.
Offer incentives after a certain number of online purchases.
Send an automated email confirmation related to their purchase.
Send an email reminder to finish the purchase and other items that may complement their order(s).

4. Identify Qualified Leads for Sales

Marketing automation goes beyond mundane tasks and tracking customer data, it can also be used for identifying qualified sales leads.

Most automation platforms can qualify leads. They provide a set of mechanisms that allows users to take control of lead generation, from converting website visitors into leads, to nurturing them and increasing their sales qualification.

To delve deeper:

Convert a visitor to lead. Marketing automation platforms can be used to automate some aspects of your lead generation process. The process is typically broken down into the following:
- Sending content to capture email addresses from your customers
- Offering extra content to identify interested prospects
- Sending content as promised together with the online form
- Turning over the list of identified leads to your sales team
Nurture leads. Marketing automation software makes lead nurturing easier. Through automated campaigns and clearly defined content, you can educate leads on how your brand solves their challenges.
Close the sale. Only leads that meet a threshold score get passed onto the sales team. You can pass over sales-ready leads using lead scoring, and automated strategy that adds or subtracts points from each lead based on actions they take or not.

Final Thoughts

With plenty of marketing software solutions available, there is no reason for you not to jump on the bandwagon.

Marketing automation can provide your business with opportunities for cost reduction, increased engagement, and high conversion rates.

The automation tool can enhance customer experiences, which are essential in converting leads to sales.

At 2Stallions, we recognize the need for automating marketing and sales processes. By helping you implement marketing automation for your brand, our team can optimize your business functions and improve your efficiency, letting you focus on your bottom line.

To learn more about our digital marketing services, visit www.2stallions.com/service/digital-marketing.

Keep Reading

Online Business

6 Reasons You Need a Professional Business Website

In today’s digital age, it’s interesting that some business owners still pose questions such as “Why do I need a business website” and “Do I need a website”. These questions explicate why many are still on the fence about creating a website for their business.

According to Clutch, 38% of small businesses choose not to invest in a professional website. The B2B research firm surveyed small business owners and found that cost, irrelevance to industry, and social media are the key reasons behind their decision.

In contrast, 64% of them built a website with the primary purpose of establishing brand identity and growing a wide customer base online.

These varying research findings show that not everyone realizes the pivotal role that websites play for business success and are missing out on the opportunities that a business website offers them.

How about you? Which category of business owner do you fall under? If you’re not convinced for the need of a website, read on to learn the 6 rewards that you can reap from a well-designed website.

1. Your Website Helps Build Credibility

Most customers look for information online to be informed about their purchasing decisions. They usually research a company on the web before deciding to buy a product or acquire services.

In fact, a Verisign 2015 research reported that 84% of consumers find a business with a website more credible than those with only a social media page. That means people are more likely to make purchasing decisions through a company’s website, not social media.

However, a professional website can only increase your chances of building credibility if you make use of that digital space wisely. That’s why your website, while focused on content such as your certifications and award-winning products or services to build trust, should also be modern, aesthetically pleasing and user-friendly.

People are visually wired; they focus on elements such as colours, fonts and images. If your website uses visuals effectively, it would be easier to establish trust with visitors.

Also, your business website needs to be user-friendly. There are several factors of a user-friendly website—mobile compatibility, ease of navigation, loading time, information architecture and so on.

For example, visitors should be able to navigate your website via their mobile phones and PCs and have a similar, if not the same, user experience. This intuitive and comfortable overall experience will make your website more appealing for potential customers, thus boosting your online credibility.

2. Your Website Saves You Time and Money

Many business owners tend to take the “penny wise, pound foolish” approach when it comes to setting up a website. While a business website builder can be an option, it’s better to hire the services of web design and development company.

This lets you focus on your business growth while leaving your website creation to professionals. Of course, your content and branding direction will ensure that your ideal customers are still able to find the right information about your business, products, and services and resonate with your brand. Your investment will pay for itself as you start generating new leads or sales through your website.

Once your professional website is up and running, it will promote your business 24/7, with the potential to reach a global audience. You can also edit information on your website immediately. Contrast this with traditional flyers and brochures, which you mostly distribute locally and where a product update means re-printing material to contain the latest information. Over time, a business website leads to monetary savings.

Additionally, your business website can also save you time by answering repeated questions via an FAQ (‘Frequently Asked Questions’) section on your website. By directing customers and visitors to your FAQ to find answers, you free yourself to tasks that help your business grow.

Finally, your website can also facilitate instant customer feedback. A contact form or chatbox allows your prospects or customers to engage you—whether it’s a complaint, compliment or just general feedback – allowing you a quick avenue to correct issues, thereby saving you lost revenue and time.

3. Your Website is an Incredible Marketing Tool

TV, radio, newspapers, magazines and billboards are expensive traditional marketing options to promote your business. Today’s digital age provides new channels to spread the word about your brand at a fraction of the cost!

Your website should be central to your digital marketing efforts. Whether you engage in social media advertising, search ads, email marketing or generating organic search traffic, your audience should eventually end up on your website to look at your product information or to leave you their details or to make a purchase.

For example, if your website content is optimized for SEO, your business can become more visible on search engines, allowing potential customers looking for products or services you offer to find you.

4. Your Website Exposes You to a Global Audience

Retail businesses do quirky things to drive foot traffic to their physical store. Brick-and-mortar store owners put out unique window displays, decorate window walls, and use prominent or vibrant decors to increase walk-ins and attract in-store sales.

With the booming trend for online shopping, these strategies no longer guarantee retail stores results. Customers shop online for various reasons including convenience, competitive prices and more variety, amongst others.

According to a 2018 Statista research, there’s an estimate of 1.8 billion people worldwide who purchased goods online. This highlights that consumers have experienced a dramatic shift from visiting stores physically to visiting them digitally.

The smartphone has enabled people to research products online, send product inquiries, and make purchases without getting off their couch.

Nearly 90% of shoppers begin their hunt in digital channels and 57% of online shoppers have made a purchase from an overseas retailer. These statistics suggest that if your business has an online presence, especially a website, you will have higher chances of getting new customers from across the globe, only limited by your ability to deliver to them.

Put simply, a professional website opens up the entire world to your business. It helps you to reach users and be found by anyone looking for products or services that you offer through a simple search.

6. A Website Lets You Measure Results

Your marketing doesn’t end once your campaign is launched. Analytics installed on your business website can give you micro insights into how your campaign is performing, and what sort of results it is driving.

We’re not just talking about online results either. There are ways to measure results from traditional marketing channels such as flyer distribution by tracking visitors who scan a QR code from your flyer to visit your website.

Of course, if you use digital marketing channels, you can see the performance of these via your analytics and tweak your campaigns accordingly. Proper analytics set up on your website lets you measure your return on investment (ROI). You can start out with Google Analytics, a free tool that is the most widely adopted analytics tool around the world.

You can measure and get insights into social and visitor behavior data, amongst others, through analytics.

Social insights

Visitor behavior insights

6. A Website is Your Extended Business Card

A business website is an excellent networking tool that helps broaden your client base regardless of the time of day.

These days, an immediate reaction when sifting through business cards you collect is to look up the person and company online to see if there is a potential synergy to work together.

A business card fits only basic details (i.e. phone number, email, website address etc.) on it. Your website then becomes the source of the additional information – product data, customer stories, testimonials – that is needed to bring a conversation further.

A satisfied customer may share your website when recommending your services to family, friend or colleague.

If the reasons shared have you convinced, then carry on reading, otherwise let us know your doubts in the comments section.

How to Create a Professional Website

As discussed, having a business website offers several advantages. However, you can’t expect to achieve all of them if you fail at making your website work for your brand.

Here’s a quick guide to creating a professional website:

Determine your goals. You can’t start with web creation without a fundamental goal. Be sure to set goals that are SMART— specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound.
Devise a branding strategy. Identify your target market (the individuals whom you want to reach and turn into paying customers). Then, research your competitors to get a feel for what the competition is doing. You also need to define your brand identity, which includes a logo, brand colours, style and writing tone.
Plan web design and pages. Use your branding elements consistently on your site. Decide on how you want your website to look and how many pages will your website have.
Prioritize user experience. Your website should provide a positive user experience. Ensure visitors to keep browsing by looking into these factors: navigation flow, website layout, content readability, and mobile-friendly design.
Optimize for search engines. Build your website with search engine optimization (SEO) in mind. Perform keyword research, write every content piece following SEO practices, and pay attention to other elements such as meta tags, and alt text.
Test website before launch. Test your website on all major browsers before it goes live. Run compatibility testing to ensure plugins work well, double-check if all the URLs are correct, proofread the content, and check for any tiny errors.

All of the above are areas that a good website design & development company would help you with, so if you’re looking for one, reach out to us. Visit our web and development page to learn more about our services and development process.

The Takeaway

The increasingly digital business landscape means you cannot ignore establishing a solid online presence for your brand. You must give your business every chance to be successful and your digital presence begins with building a professional website.

Keep Reading

business

1. Social Media Helps Grow Your Reach

2. Social Media Helps Attract Traffic to Your Website

3. Makes Relationships with your Audience Stronger

Key Takeaways

What Is Digital Customer Experience

Why Is It Important to Digitize Customers’ Experiences?

1. More Customers Are Going Digital

2. Digital Channels Uncover Customer Insights

3. Tailor Products or Services to Individual Users

Bonus: Tips for Digitizing Customer Experience

1. Combine Digital and Human Elements

2. Provide Personalized Content

3. Optimize Mobile User Experience

Final Thoughts

Impact of COVID-19 on Businesses

3 Ways Businesses Adopted Digital Technology During COVID-19

1. Reshape Remote Working

2. Adopt Technology-Driven Systems

3. Digitize Customer Experience

Final Thoughts

What Is Search Engine Optimization

Why Your Business Needs SEO To Prosper

1. The Best Place To Hide A Dead Body Is On Page 2 of Google

2. Focusing on SEO Will Improve Your Bounce Rate

3. Mobile is the De-Facto Search

4. Have an App? Your Apps Are Discovered Via Search Too

5. Content Marketing and SEO Are Partners In Crime

Parting Tip – Befriend Search Engines (or Google)

What Is A Social Media Strategy

How To Create A Social Media Strategy From Scratch

1. Set S.M.A.R.T. Goals

2. Perform A Social Media Audit

3. Choose The Right Channels

4. Plan Your Budget

5. Create Audience Personas

6. Plan and Create Your Content

Bonus Tip:

7. Encourage Social Media Engagement

8. Re-evaluate And Adjust Your Strategy

The Bottom Line

What Is Marketing Automation

How Automation Drives Business Success

1. Improve Work Efficiency

2. Understand Your Customers

3. Deliver Personalised Campaigns

4. Identify Qualified Leads for Sales

Final Thoughts

1. Your Website Helps Build Credibility

2. Your Website Saves You Time and Money

3. Your Website is an Incredible Marketing Tool

4. Your Website Exposes You to a Global Audience

6. A Website Lets You Measure Results

6. A Website is Your Extended Business Card

How to Create a Professional Website

The Takeaway

REQUEST A QUOTE