While both options can be quite beneficial,  you should weigh both sides before making a decision.

Let’s face it, a successful digital marketing campaign is a financial investment in your business,  resources, and abilities to effectively use your time well.

Quality V Quantity

You might wonder why you should pay someone outside your business when you can use an  in-house team and spend  a certain amount of hours each week for your marketing strategy.  By all rights, this makes perfect sense, but step back and consider what a digital marketing plan consists of:

There are many factors involved in digital marketing including, social media, SEO, PR, content management, channel management, PPC, and web development to name only a few.  An agency, on the other hand, is not made up of just one person working on all avenues of a digital marketing plan.  The agency is made up of a team of highly qualified, talented people who work as a team and come up with excellent ideas to develop the perfect solution that will benefit your campaign.

When there is an entire team in place, solutions can be found much more quickly than just a few people spreading themselves way too thin in order to cover all aspects of your marketing plan.  You should stick with what you are good at and have others deal with things you are not good at.  Keep in mind, it is not easy to find and hire the perfect candidate to head your digital marketing department.  This person must have a commitment to push your campaign forward creatively, and must have the experience to analyse the collected data.  This person must have good writing skills to cover all aspects of your copy, such as your blog content, SEO content, social content, outreach content, web content, etc..  Overall, they must have the talent and ability to manage every single digital marketing issue that will arise on a daily basis.

There are many other questions your head of marketing must be able to address as well.  Do they know how to set up a merchant center data feed?  Do they know how to implement a UA code on the backend of your website in order for Google Analytics to track properly and at full volume?  This person will also need to have the skills to find the correct targeted audience and engage them on a daily basis through social media.  Adding to this list, they must have the experience to get the right webmasters and negotiate the price and terms for outreach content placement.

You must ask yourself if you have the resources to get all of the above done correctly and successfully in order to justify your investment.  When you use an agency for your digital marketing plan, you can assess how their service has worked for you and decide whether to continue with them at the end of their contract or not.  Keep in mind, with an in-house staff, you have a responsibility to them which means if changes must be made, you will have to provide further training which is another investment.  Also, this training and support is probably going to be outsourced to an agency anyway!  Therefore, unless this was in your plan to begin with, it could take a very long time before you see the results of you are looking for.

Diversity Of Skills

Online marketers, as a general rule, have specific skills  that they excel with.  Some are excellent for paid research while another is skilled in social media, content marketing or conversion rate optimization.  The bottom line, someone might be perfect in one area of digital advertising, but an online market plan is too complex for one person to do on their own because no one is an expert in all fields. You could hire someone in a specific field but realize your competition is getting greater results in another field, so now you have to hire someone with those skills.  The problem is, most companies do not have endless money to throw around for their campaigns.

Keeping your marketing diversified is very hard to do.  You must find the perfect team of in-house marketers for your campaign challenges.  Investing in any new marketing avenue can be risky and what if you hire someone whose skills don’t fit what you need?  This leads to getting bogged down with only one marketing avenue and will probably not be the right strategy you should be using.

By narrowing your marketing to one area, such as web designing, might give you fantastic pages, but your ads are not getting the results you are looking for.  You’re bringing in the wrong traffic which means you are not going to get the results you need.  Your web designer probably does not have the specific skills to turn that around.  A good designer probably does not have the proper skills on their staff to get the online marketing results you are looking for.

In-House vs An Agency

Your company probably does not have the resources to hire a web designer, a PPC expert, a testing genius, etc.  This is where a good marketing agency comes into play.  It really is important and makes perfect sense to hire a team with highly diversified skills for your online marketing.  We organize our account managers into marketing teams with a wide range of specialties.  This includes, site testing, designing, Facebook, Adwords, etc.  Each member of our team has the specific skills that are required for each avenue and area of marketing.  These specialists are able to adapt to the various needs of each client they are working and thereby provides a higher value than any one person is not capable of doing.

Each team member is actively working on a number of accounts allowing them the depth and breadth of experience to apply to a new campaign quickly and easily.  So, you might ask yourself if diversity comes with a high price tag?  Let’s face it, if you cannot hire more people, in-house, for diversity, can you afford to pay an agency to do it for you?  In order to answer this question, you need to take a closer look at the situation.  Most companies do not need a full-time designer, Facebook manager or AdWords expert, but they benefit from these services.

For in-house, hiring experts in any of these fields who are willing to work only a few hours a week is going to be very tough to do.  On the other hand, agencies have experts to take care of multiple accounts, providing them with enough work to justify their full-time status.  In turn, their given skills will provide you with a variety of high-level experts without having them on your payroll  full-time.  Not only does this make common sense but is a great deal more economical for you and your business.  In the long run, it’s a question of an agency vs in-house and which is the better choice for your business?  Large companies have the resources to hire in-house teams for diversity in their marketing plans.  Therefore, the question is, do you have the resources to hire in-house?

If you have the resources and your marketing needs are significant to justify hiring your own team of experts that will give you great results on a  full-time basis then go for it.  However, if your company doesn’t have the financial ability to make this happen, you will get a great deal more diversity, for less, by hiring an agency.

Keep in mind, online marketers are extremely creative but this trait makes them terrified of boredom!  At some point, you must take the side of the marketers!  Can you possibly image looking at the same keywords over and over, day after day and being expected to make them interesting?  How boring does that get?  This is why many mid-level to junior  marketers change jobs every few years.  Even though this is not a good outcome for a business, the marketers are looking to move on to more creative avenues!

At EDOT3 web design Newcastle we have experienced clients leaving to form their own in-house team, only to turn around and come back because their marketers are leaving. That said, the turnover of online marketers within an agency isn’t that bad.  Our online marketers are working on a variety of projects that keep them challenged and allows them to increase their creativity. With a good agency, even if your direct contact does leave, you will still have a number of people involved with your account.  The bottom line, your online marketing plan will not feel the effects of waiting for someone else to come on board and replace your contact.

With an agency vs an in-house team, you do not have to worry about the turnover of online marketers or even spending countless hours trying to hire a team of markets.  Large businesses also experience this kind of turnover and face many challenges but they provide opportunities for employees to stick around.   Smaller businesses do not have that luxury and therefore experience higher levels of employees leaving.  In some cases, employees are looking for better compensation and various benefits that smaller businesses cannot provide.  Oldest story in the book, do not put all your eggs into one basket it’s just not good business sense.  In all reality, you are better off hiring an agency to ensure your online marketing plan goes forward without a glitch.

The majority of businesses don’t spend enough money on advertising in order to gain attention

Even businesses that spend over £200,000 a year on AdWords might not show up on Google’s radar!  Ad agencies manage millions of dollars on a monthly basis from ads spent on Goggle AdWords, LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Bing Ads, and the list goes on.  That said, these advertising avenues (such as Facebook)  have a vested interest in the success of an agency and are more than willing to help agencies deliver the very best results to clients.  Let’s face it, if we decided that AdWords was a waste of time and money, we would advise our clients to stop doing it.  Google would have a great deal to lose and obviously does not want our clients to walk away.

This is why ad agencies will often get many great perks that businesses are not offered but the agency can pass these perks on to their clients.  Here are some of the perks you will get working with an agency:

Great support and faster response.  You know if you have ever attempted to talk with someone at Google or Facebook, it’s like talking to a wall.  An agency can immediately get people on the phone to help with problems with an account, policy concerns, and any number of support requirements.

Agencies also provide higher levels of account supervision.

Again, all these ad platforms (Google, Facebook) want agencies to succeed. To make this happen, they will provide their own top people to watch over an agency managing accounts to ensure the accounts are getting the correct amount of attention.  Also, these representatives will provide their own insight and ideas they get from internal data that is not available to the general public.

These perks are barely scratching the surface as good agencies have many advantages that the general public will not get.  In turn, these perks can give you a leg up on your competition.  Adding to these perks, online marketing agencies often have partnerships with other marketing companies, allowing them to provide additional premium services and discounts to their clients that otherwise they may not have access to.

Unless you are Amazon, you probably will not get the same level of attention that ad agencies receive from the various platforms.  That is not to say you won’t be successful, it just won’t be easy.  What it comes down to is how really important these perks can be to your company and the competitive edge they can bring you.

If you are a marketing manager within your business, you must be a specialists within your industry and have a great deal of knowledge regarding your products and services.  Agencies have a great deal of experience across a wide range of industries and have excellent exposure to the latest techniques in marketing.  This extensive knowledge and experience allows them to challenge you strategically at the beginning of your project. Agencies have the ability to advise you what has or has not worked for their clients.  This is very valuable when there are major changes or when bringing in a new kind of campaign.

The Cost For A Marketing Campaign

The average salary for a graphic designer or web developer is approximately £25,000-35,000 per year, depending on where you live in the UK.  This might seem reasonable to you for a full-time employee, but you could spend a great deal less with an agency.  You would not have to find a replacement during the holidays or if your employee has called in sick. You would be able to scale up or down without worrying about internal implications.  An agency will give you the flexibility to invest in what you need, when you need it.  One critical aspect you should never overlook is the specialist’s knowledge!

When hiring in-house, it’s better to hire someone year round, especially if you have a small team.  The problem is, it’s virtually impossible to get someone who has all the skills you will need throughout the entire marketing year.  Using an agency will give you access to specialists with years of experience in graphic designing, web designers, copywriters, web developers, SEO experts, and strategists to name only a few.

Also, using an agency, you will have reduced lead time compared to an in-house approach.  You will have the scale and quality of resources that only agencies have available to them.  Agencies also are able to think outside the box and push many boundaries that will not happen in-house.  They come prepared with fresh eyes and bring in a level of creativity that might not be possible otherwise.  It will be a great deal less expensive than developing and maintaining an in-house team to create a strategic and purposeful marketing campaign.  You will have access to a huge range of specialists who will give you creative, outside the box thinking.

In Conclusion

There are literally thousands of small aspects and details involved in digital marketing.  Without the training or experience needed, it can be very difficult to comprehend and foresee what must be done.  That’s not to say that hiring an in-house team is a bad idea if your business is doing well and you wish to have an assistant in a specific area and could also work with an agency serving as the middle guy.  For a SME, this could be expensive and time consuming with less than great results, lacking in creativity and the knowledge needed to implement various ideas from beginning to end.  All aspects will be reflected in the end result of the digital marketing plan and the ongoing ROI.

If you have a large marketing team, you might wish to keep your strategic planning in-house  while using the creative services of an agency.  On the other hand, if you are a managing director of a small company or start up, you might want to use an agency for all aspects of your marketing plan from the beginning.  At some point, as your business grows, you might want to hire an in-house team.

One aspect you must consider is your time.  How much time will have to be committed to work with a marketing agency on a day by day basis for approving documents and collaborating with the agency.  Then ask how much time it will take to hire, train, and manage an in-house team or individual?  There are agencies available for all types and sizes of businesses if you wish to use them for all or a portion of your marketing.  It is not difficult to find an agency that will be a perfect match for your business and marketing plan.

There are many reasons for either choosing an agency to work with or implementing an in-house team.  Whichever avenue you choose will depend on what your priorities are.  If you are looking for high-end skills, diversity, dependability, and partner perks, you should use an agency to help your business grow.

Now it’s time for you to ask yourself important questions:

Do you prefer to use an agency or do it yourself in-house?
What are your main reasons for your decision?
Are there advantages and disadvantages for using an agency?

Just like all major business decisions, you should explore all avenues then weigh the good and the bad before making your final decision.

The post Should You Hire An Agency or do DIY Marketing in 2026? appeared first on Web Design Newcastle, Digital Design Agency Newcastle upon Tyne. NE1 1SG. UK.

When spending on a website, spend because you see it as a medium to get more business back, not because it’s just an expense you cannot avoid.

Treating your website like an expense makes it difficult to get the best out of it and it drains you with little to show for it.

Conversely, treating your website as an investment helps you measure the returns. When you compare the returns to the costs, it tells you how much of a sound business move you have made.

Why do you need a website?

Perhaps, we should talk about the importance of a website to help see why it is an investment. A website is not just a necessity – which is what many business owners see it as. Instead, they are essential tools in attracting more customers and leads in from further afield. Websites take your brand message and offer closer to these people in the comfort of their homes. They see you, what you do, and how you can help them.

In simple words, we can call your website a mix of a shop window, marketing platform, customer service outlet, and your PR medium. Yes, your website is that important. Let’s discuss some specific uses of a website.

It helps to generate leads and sales.

If you are wondering why you need a website, consider it a proven means of generating inquiries, leads, and sales. How? Below are proven ways your website can deliver these for your business:

• The live chat feature on your website is an avenue to engage site visitors or customers.
• Your website is an avenue to offer great content for free or in exchange for the details of your site visitors.
• Visitors and potential customers can make inquiries directly from your website.
• Visitors and potential customers can place an order for your products or services from your website.

You can push these leads and sales into your CRM system to create excellent sales funnels.

New or existing customers can easily access and purchase your products or services from your website. This is why you should build a simple and user-friendly website that gets the job done with no fuss. For best results, create an online checkout, or introduce a contact form. Whichever method you prefer, ensure that it helps clients to complete transactions conveniently whenever and wherever.

The ideal business website must have a good user interface (UI), easy-to-read and comprehend copy, and straightforward navigation that makes it easy for visitors to use your website. Note that visitors are easily discouraged by a complicated website, which may push them to your competitors.

It helps to reach a wider audience.

There is a limit to how far you can reach through traditional advertisement methods, including print and local adverts and media. But with a business website, you can reach a wider audience faster and easier.

You can leverage the global reach of search engines, social media, emails, and online paid advertisements to get your brand messages and offers to the face of the right people. With more people learning about your business and how it can help them, you are positioned to attract more clients.

Note that this does not come easily or automatically; you may need to put in some work.

It helps to serve people exactly what they need.

Often, the purchasing decision of customers is made after researching briefly or extensively on the products or services. What better way to provide your potential clients with this vital information than your business website?

You can convince them they are making an informed decision by helping them learn more about what you offer and how it can help them. Rather than just push them through a sales funnel, help them understand why they need your services and provide answers to all questions they might have, even before they ask them.

Customers are easily swayed by a brand’s efforts at helping them find what they are looking for.

It helps to build your brand.

Another way your website helps is in brand building. Your website provides you with a great opportunity to talk more about yourself and what to do. You can leverage this complete freedom of expression to build your brand.

A responsive, content-rich, and easy-to-use website will reflect greatly on your brand and business. It portrays your brand as one that cares for its customers. The compelling copy echoes your brand ideals and helps your clients see you the way you want to be seen.

Building a brand website is a continuous process.

Building a good website is half the job – the other half is putting in the time, effort, and money to get the best out of it. You cannot continue to reduce the cost of your website and expect it to bring in more businesses. Your website is an important segment of your business, helping you reach a wider audience than your physical office or store does.

So, you must respect your website and always work hard to keep it in the best shape. You will always find things you can improve on to improve the returns and make your investment more worthwhile in the long run. Remember, like any other investment, what you put into your website determines what you get out of it.

Finally…

There is a lot you can do with your website. The multifaceted nature of this important business platform makes it a crucial part of everything – marketing, branding, customer service, sales, and more. Therefore, you should treat your website as an investment in money and time, and then work hard to see maximum outputs in terms of increased leads, sales, and more loyal customers.

Put your all into it – it’s the only way to get unlimited rewards.

–

Check out; automotive marketing strategy : 12 Ways to Highlight Your Car Selling Offerings

The post Your Website – An Investment Or An Expense? appeared first on Web Design Newcastle, Digital Design Agency Newcastle upon Tyne. NE1 1SG. UK.

But achieving this feat is increasingly difficult, considering everyone wants the same spot. While everyone cannot be at the top, getting the basics right will improve your chances of landing the prize.

So, in this piece, we will be discussing the pitfalls you should avoid in your quest to rise through the ranks.

Having no sitemap.

Let’s describe what a sitemap is – it is an XML file that feeds data to search engines. What type of data? The sitemap provides data about the most important pages of the website. These may include the date of the last update and what a page has over the others.

With this information, the spider is better positioned to crawl the site more efficiently and accurately. Note that having a sitemap does not automatically translate to search engine success; it is one of those little moves that can better your chances.

Unsuccessful canonical domain check.

Your domain may fail a canonical check if your homepage can be accessed via multiple URLs. As harmless as it may appear, different URLs loading the same content is an issue. This leads to the division of inbound like equity, which depletes the SEO value of the website.

When this happens, configure the 301 redirects to redirect the duplicate pages to a single location or fix the canonical tags.

Slow load times.

When Google announced its decision to consider the loading times of a website as part of its algorithm in 2010, it forces websites to work on reducing their loading times both on desktop and mobile.

Not sure what your site’s load time is? Use the PageSpeed Insights tool from Google or any other page analysis tool to estimate your site’s load time. If the analysis confirms that your website has a slow process speed, you should make some changes.

First, remove render-blocking JavaScript and CSS above-the-fold. You should also implement browser caching and optimize images. You should also enable compression and minifying HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.

Not having header tags.

The importance of header tags cannot be overemphasized. The structure it brings into the mix makes it easier for search engines to understand the important parts. The header tags also help in prioritizing the content on a page for correct and effective uses.

When using header tags, adopt a unique main tag that clearly states the page’s purpose using the main keywords. Consider using tags where applicable in your subheadings.

Having no image description.

Using the right image is half the job; the other half is adding the proper image description. Your image description should be a descriptive and relevant text. You can have it as an Alt attribute.

Image descriptions help search engines to understand your images. When adding descriptions to your images, make them clear, concise, relevant, and keyword-rich.

Having inadequate metadata.

Your SEO success still largely depends on your metadata, especially title tags. Your title tag is the first line of text a user sees about your website on the search result page.

For best results, keep your title tags brief – not more than 70 characters – and use the relevant keywords. Alongside title tags, you should also focus on meta descriptions. It is your best chance of convincing the user to click through to your page.

Your meta descriptions should appear like a copy. You can easily add and edit your meta descriptions if you are using a CMS system.

Keyword spamming.

It is not enough to research and identify the right keywords. You must also use them correctly. Copywriters must understand the need to balance the use of target keywords naturally in a page’s body.

Using the keywords excessively and unnaturally will put your SEO score at risk. The search engine will struggle to identify what to rank for. Instead, use selected variations of the keywords of the page. While using keywords to impress Google, do not confuse your readers.

You must satisfy your readers and Google spiders.

Duplicating content.

It is common to see duplicate pages within the same website, especially on larger eCommerce websites. This can be counterproductive. For instance, applying filters to product listings on eCommerce websites may lead to duplication. Likewise, having several slight variations on a product on the same website can lead to duplication.

To fix this, use a canonical tag. Canonical tags help to identify duplicate pages by linking them with the corresponding main pages so that a single page gets all the SEO values.

Not naming links correctly.

When you add links to your page, you do so via anchor texts – the text’s clickable part. Now, when the search engine spider crawls your website, one of the reasons is to assess the relevance of any associated page.

It is easier to use random anchor texts like ‘follow this link’ when linking external pages. But this will not do any good for your SEO efforts. Instead, use anchor texts containing relevant keywords that you want your page to rank for.

More importantly, avoid over-optimizing your anchor texts – it can be counterproductive.

In Conclusion

The mistakes we have discussed above, if fixed, will definitely help your online marketing efforts and improve your overall results. But more importantly, it will contribute more to your revenue.

Understandably, it may seem like a lot of work. However, start with one or two and add more gradually until you have ticked the boxes. If you ever encounter a hitch while at it, feel free to contact professionals for help.

You can reach us via (insert email), we will be delighted to help you get the best out of your digital marketing efforts.

–

Article by EDOT3 SEO Agency Newcastle

The post Onsite SEO: Mistakes to Avoid! appeared first on Web Design Newcastle, Digital Design Agency Newcastle upon Tyne. NE1 1SG. UK.

They were expecting much more and are extremely disappointed.  Take an honest look at how you are promoting your product or service.  Is your marketing exciting and satisfying, or do your potential customers walk away unimpressed?

Spices offer a creative way to view marketing.  The new trend in nutrition is to add more spices to foods–for example, adding chipotle to chocolate–not just for the taste, but for increased health and improved well-being. Did you know that chipotle, a smoke-dried jalapeno pepper, is proving  to be a weapon against certain cancers, diabetes and heart disease?

If this makes you seriously consider adding spices to your diet, then you should also explore how spicing up your marketing could change the way customers you are targeting respond to your advertising. There is a three-fold parallel that marketers should act upon. Just as spices add Heat, Health and Happiness to eating pleasure, smart marketing can do the same for your business.

• Heat:  This is the pleasurable “kick” that your taste buds experience when just the right spices are blended into your food.  You come away from that meal with memories that linger and, most likely, you will want that meal again.  Marketing that has a pleasurable “kick” will make your prospects enthusiastic about what you are selling.  It will prep them to buy, and could have them coming back for more.
• Health:  Spices produce amazing health benefits, such as lowering blood pressure, reducing the risk of heart attack and improving digestion.  If your product or service can make people’s lives better, more comfortable or more productive, then your marketing needs to express that boldly and clearly.  Once customers realise that what you are offering can make a positive difference in their lives, they will get excited and respond to your calls to action.
• Happiness:  A meal prepared with tantalising spices leaves diners not only full but satisfied.  Moreover, they are happy with their experience.  When your marketing meets a specific need that your prospect is trying to fill, you not only satisfy him in the short run, but pave the way for that prospect to become a happy and loyal customer.

How can you “Spice Up” your Marketing?

Too often, businesses attempt to copy advertising that is already out there.  You might want to take this strategy with a grain of salt–no pun intended.  Copying the methods of other companies often results in bland, ineffectual marketing.  Customers grow weary from being approached the same way over and over again.  They tend to tune out these ads.  Hence, the expense that you invest in imitating what everyone else is doing will probably not get you the ROI you were anticipating.

Instead, brainstorm with your team to see how you can “spice up” your marketing.  This does not mean having “in your face” hard sell ads or trashing competitors.  It does mean keeping the “Three H’s” in mind.

Heat.

Start by integrating compelling action verbs, creative imagery and memorable phrases into your marketing to describe what your company’s product or service can do for your customers.  Highly visual and interactive web marketing “heats up” their senses.  YouTube videos and mini webinars are great venues for your marketing arsenal.  Use them to demonstrate how one of your products works or simply to provide free helpful information to potential customers.  By doing so, you immediately activate their thinking on multiple levels;

1. You demonstrate that you care about their particular situation.
2. You prove that you can solve a problem that they might have.
3. You introduce your company/product/service in an intriguing and engaging way.
4. You start building their trust by being straightforward and honest about your services.

The more senses and emotions that you trigger with your marketing, the more likely prospects will make the decision to buy.  One caution, however:  The purpose of marketing with “heat” is far more than simply trying to grab customer attention.  Rather, like spices, your marketing should create an irresistible joy in your prospects that prompts them to respond enthusiastically to what you are offering.

Health.

It is critical that you focus on knowing your potential customer’s needs and explain through your marketing how you can meet those needs.  In order to accomplish this, you must first find a way to get them to talk about the problem they need solved.  If your marketing is interactive, you can probe with key questions and get honest feedback from your prospects.  Assuming that you have isolated the demographics of your target customers, start reaching out to them personally with online questionnaires, email queries or phone and post card surveys.  Encourage their cooperation by offering a sample or coupon upon submission of their responses.  Your investment of time and money into this is well worth it because the answers you receive will enable you to fine-tune your marketing to meet the specific needs that they have expressed.

Businesses that pay close attention this way to the “health” of their prospects are rewarded with repeat customers and positive referrals.

Happiness.

Happiness is a state of mind that stems  from reduced anxiety and increased self-esteem.  It is a sign of contentment and well-being. How do you reduce prospect anxiety about trying your product or service?  Offer both emotional and logical reasons to trust your company.  Reduce purchasing anxiety by providing stellar customer service from your very first contact with your target customers.  Create marketing that opens your prospects’ eyes to your top-quality merchandise and personalised service, share testimonies from satisfied clients, give your prospects iron-clad money-back guarantees, and, through specials and coupons, allow them to experience what you are offering.  As prospects interact with your marketing and your company, at some point they will realize that they have enough information to  make an informed decision.  The more control they feel they have, the higher their self-esteem, and the more likely they will buy. They experience happiness when they purchase your product and discover that it is exactly what they were looking for.

By spicing up your marketing with these “Three H’s,” you will get the attention of your prospective buyers by immediately involving them through their senses.  This makes them more receptive as you demonstrate how you are the “go to” company to solve their problem.  Best of all, “spiced up” marketing tends to motivate prospects to buy, resulting in a base of happy customers who keep coming back for more.

References:
organicfacts.net/health-benefits/herbs-and-spices/health-benefits-of-chipotle.html
nutrition-and-you.com/healthy_spices.html

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Internet Marketing Graphics by SEOBook

The post 2016: How Search Works appeared first on Web Design Newcastle, Digital Design Agency Newcastle upon Tyne. NE1 1SG. UK.

This handy infographic  was created by Branching Out Europe to help you understand the power of LinkedIn in 2015 and how you can drive your business’s success with it.

The post Infographic – How to use LinkedIn for lead generation. appeared first on Web Design Newcastle, Digital Design Agency Newcastle upon Tyne. NE1 1SG. UK.

Some find it difficult engage it or justify the time required to do it properly. That’s why we’ve partnered with a team of professional social media writers and created a platform to help out.

Today we launch RETORT3 – You can get a free access to a demo and  find out more about it here!

The post Our Own Social Media Marketing Platform, LIVE! appeared first on Web Design Newcastle, Digital Design Agency Newcastle upon Tyne. NE1 1SG. UK.

signalplasticcomponents.co.uk

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We recently send live a small brochure site with some nice parallax effect photography for Signal Plastic Components in Washington. The site is optimised for specific local search terms and scales to fit all size browsers including mobile. The work included product photography which has certainly enhanced the site somewhat.

“We’re very pleased with the design, looking decidedly more professional now than the local competition which is a bonus!”
– Julian Jameson, Director.

VISIT SITE

The post Responsive Website Design for North East Plastic Components Manufacturers appeared first on Web Design Newcastle, Digital Design Agency Newcastle upon Tyne. NE1 1SG. UK.

In order to continually create brand awareness and both increase and strengthen your customer base, you need to focus on making your company mobile-friendly. The following 5 reasons why you should being focusing your marketing strategy on mobile phone use.

Mobile phone penetration is incredibly high

It is estimated that around 22 percent of the world’s population will own smart phones. That’s more than the amount of PCs that will be owned by people worldwide. This is an incredibly huge user base to ignore, which means you can’t ignore it!

More consumers use their phones to shop

Roughly 80 percent of all consumers make use of their smart phones in order to shop. They are doing this by doing searches for products and services, doing searches for the best prices that are available and looking online for discounts and coupons all while in the store. Many retailers realize this and are offering consumers in-store coupons and discounts that are aimed at mobile users. For example, you could offer a free product or a coupon to consumers in return for checking into sites such as Foursquare or Facebook while they are in your store.

Most web traffic will originate from mobile phones this year

Experts believe that the majority of web traffic will originate from mobile phones – more than desktops and laptops combined! Part of this is due to the fact that many developing countries now have greater access to more affordable smart phones and data plans. These developing countries also have poor infrastructure, which leads to at home connections being much more expensive and less effective. You would be foolish not to take advantage of the increasing amount of people using the Internet from their phones!

Location based marketing is becoming increasingly more effective

Many companies are finding location based marketing to be an incredibly effective tool. This allows them to target consumers in the area of their physical store location using incentives such as coupons and discounts, thereby drawing in customers in the area who may not have been planning to stop by.

Everyone else is! An estimated 78 percent of retailers planned to invest in a mobile marketing strategy last year

This number is only going to increase in 2014. When so many retailers are jumping on the mobile marketing bandwagon, it would be insane to stay off of it. In fact, not investing in a mobile marketing strategy will result in your company most likely losing business to your competitors.

These are the main 5 reasons why you should make mobile marketing a main element in your company’s marketing strategy for this year. This means making your webpage mobile friendly or changing your site to be responsive so that it is easy for consumers to navigate, as well as focusing marketing efforts on mobile users, whether they are in store, nearby or at home.

The post 5 Reasons to Focus on Mobile Marketing this Year appeared first on Web Design Newcastle, Digital Design Agency Newcastle upon Tyne. NE1 1SG. UK.

By being savvy and selective with how and when you Tweet, you can avoid some of these pitfalls and see your follower count soar.

Shorten your URLs using a service such as bit.ly, ow.ly, or Buffer.

The URLs included in your Tweets make a big difference in the character count of your messages, and by cutting them down you have more room to convey your message to your customers

Use a service such as Hootsuite to track what people are saying about you.

You can have the service track hashtags, mentions of your brand, or any other number of search terms. By keeping your ear to the ground for social customer service, you can avoid potential PR nightmares before they happen.

Don’t be afraid to create a dialogue with your customers – even your negative ones!

Many people are afraid of their Twitter critics, but by creating a dialogue and attempting to address their concerns forthrightly, you may find that some of your harshest critics change their tune about you and your services.

Experiment with Tweeting at different times of day.

Tools such as Hootsuite and Buffer both offer analytic services that you can use to see which Tweets are popular, and at what time. You can use this data to begin to target your messages to different audiences at different times of the day. Another benefit of using services like these is the ability to schedule Tweets in advance. Hootsuite even offers an auto-scheduling feature, which schedules your Tweets to go out at optimal times for traffic during the day.

Come up with a custom hashtag for your business and promote it everywhere!

Put it on your business cards, your merchandise, the bumper of your company cars and all over your website. If you’re a larger brand, you can also come up with hashtags to advertise specific promotions or campaigns in addition to your main company hashtag.

Create a dialogue with brands that are complementary to yours and let your customers see you talking.

If you’re a florist, reach out to the local wedding catering company on Twitter to say hello. RT their Tweets and keep an eye out for the opportunity to cross-promote and offer deals.
If you want a lot of new followers very quickly, you could offer a giveaway of goods or services. Encourage people to Re-Tweet your posts and have their friends follow you, then pick a random follower to win.

Keep an eye on the hot “trending topics” in your area, as well as in your larger geographic region.

If you can find an in for your product, use the momentum and popularity of the trends to get more eyeballs on your content. A word of warning, however, is to be sure you understand exactly what trend you are jumping on. Be careful not to seem glib or try and jump on a trend you don’t fully understand. Social media users, especially on Twitter, are savvy to over the top marketing tactics.

If you follow this advice, you should see your follower count and engagement leap. It’s important not to treat Twitter as an afterthought in your business. Social media is an invaluable tool for hearing directly from your customers, and it is something that needs to be checked and responded to every day.

There should be someone on your team that is dedicated to maintaining a social presence and growing a community. If you’re a large company, you may have the luxury of appointing an existing employee as a social media manager. If you’re a small business, you might find yourself spending a few late nights on Twitter, but you can always get the mobile app so you can tweet anytime.

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