Understanding customer journey and key touchpoints

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customer journeyYou may have heard about the customer journey, now before a purchase happens, each interaction with a brand during a customer journey is called a touchpoint. Customer Touchpoints are important to monitor because they reveal the kinds of decisions customers are making during their customer journey to purchase your product or service. Touchpoints occur when a customer engages with your website or mobile app. But they also include customer interactions on all media channels before a customer discovers your website. This reading explains how to classify touchpoints for media channels, and how to use these touchpoints to learn more about your customers. customer journey

Touchpoints relate to a specific context or need

When you identify touchpoints, you may be tempted to list social media or display ads. These channels may be the mediums in which touchpoints occur, but actual touchpoints provide much more information. When you identify a touchpoint, think about how the interaction might satisfy a customer’s need. For example, instead of classifying social media as a touchpoint, classify a customer’s response to a flash sale announcement on Twitter as a touchpoint. When they click the link, they are interested in knowing what they can purchase at a discounted price. From the example, notice how much contextual information is lost if you simply lump every social media interaction under a single touchpoint called social media. Touchpoints have context and reflect customer needs. In the example, the context was curiosity, and the need was saving money.

Touchpoints are customer-centric

Touchpoints should also be customer-centric. Going back to the previous example, imagine if you viewed touchpoints from the perspective of the business instead of from the customer experience. If increasing sales is a business goal, touchpoints can easily become part of a rolling calculation, like a ratio of touchpoints to purchases. While a ratio of touchpoints to purchases is still informative, notice how a customer-centric versus a business-centric analysis can provide more insights about buyer motivations.

Key takeaways

Use touchpoints to your advantage. To get the most from touchpoints, carefully define them for all media channels. Touchpoints that are customer-centric and relate back to their needs will yield the most useful data about customer motivations, preferences, and behaviors

Tips To Receiving Enough Facebook Business Page Likes

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Succeeding on your Facebook business page

In order to achieve success on your Facebook business page, you need an engaged community. Without it, no one will see or read your content, making it difficult to build brand awareness and deliver ROI. New social networks crop up all the time, generating buzz and excitement among businesses and tech media, but Facebook remains the giant, with has 2.80 billion monthly active users. To keep up with changing needs and trends, Facebook continues to evolve, introducing new features and functionality for users and advertisers. If you are unable to keep up, you could miss out on potential customers. However, it’s not just about the quantity of Facebook Likes, it’s about the quality. You need to attract the right audience and engage them in ways that align with your business goals. Here is the latest checklist to ensure you have enough quality likes and following on your Facebook business page.
  1. Optimize your Facebook Page Information

First things first! Most of the time, the only thing people see from your company’s Facebook Page is the profile picture, cover image, and short description. Make sure your brand’s images and description are engaging, encapsulate what your company does, and encourages people to like your page. Don’t stop there, make sure you fill out as much of your Page Info as you can. Select the categories and subcategories that best describe your company, include your website URL, list your address, phone number, and hours of operation (if applicable). All of this information will help your page appear in Facebook & Google searches when people are looking for companies like yours, which can increase your Facebook likes even more!
  1. Post engaging content

It’s important to post engaging, entertaining, and compelling content on your business Page. Facebook constantly updates its Edgerank algorithm and rewards posts that receive engagement (likes, comments, shares) with increased reach. Facebook will reward your content by letting your engaged users’ friends know on their newsfeed that they’ve engaged with your content.  Recently Facebook announced that it will update its algorithm to track how long users spend reading posts. Videos are the best type of content to post on Facebook for capturing attention and driving engagement. But make sure the videos are at an optimal length to grab your followers’ attention and keep it long enough to digest the content.
  1. Page URL

Take a quick look at your Facebook business page now – what does the URL in the browser bar look like? If it’s something like this: https://www.facebook.com/kente-house-ghana -162166373456878/ (see all the numbers at the end?) then you’re missing an opportunity. In less than a minute you can easily change the web address of your Facebook page to something a bit more memorable, like www.facebook.com/kente-house-ghana. Click the ‘About’ tab below your Facebook cover photo, then click the Facebook Web Address option and type whatever you’d like to appear after the Facebook.com URL.
  1. Make your Facebook business page easy to find

People looking for your brand on Facebook will be searching for your brand name. Keep things simple and make it easy for them to find you by using your brand name as your Page name. Don’t add unnecessary keywords—these will just make your Page look spammy rather than like a legitimate business presence for your brand. Your username should be consistent with your handle on other social channels will make it easier for people who already follow you elsewhere to track you down on Facebook. Like your Page name, your username should be closely related to the name of your business. Someone who has just discovered a valuable tip or strategy on your website or blog is primed to want to hear more from you. Make it easy for them to connect with you on Facebook by adding Facebook follow and Like buttons to your site.
  1. Know when to post content on your Facebook page

Think about how often you post on Facebook. Is it once per day? Once a week? Only once a month? You also need to analyze the time of day you’re posting on Facebook. All of this matters when it comes to increasing engagement and getting more likes. Research shows that higher engagements happen later in the week and on the weekends. If you think about it, this makes sense. People have jobs and are usually busier during the week. But as the weekend nears, they may be getting a little bit antsy and slack off if they are ahead of schedule. So they can spend more time on Facebook. People are also happier on the weekends so they are more inclined to like, share, and comment on your posts. You also need to consider who likes your Facebook page. For example, if 90% of your followers are from Ghanaian, posting at 3 AM EST isn’t going to yield high engagement rates. Use automation tools to schedule your Facebook posts at the most optimal times so you won’t have to do it manually each day. Your posting schedule also needs to remain consistent. Stick to your strategy. Don’t post regularly for a month or so and then go silent. But you don’t want to spam your followers and post too frequently either.
  1. Posts on your Facebook page should be kept short and concise

Nobody is going to read massive blocks of text on social media. There is just too much for them to see from their friends and family. Reading long posts from brand pages won’t be at the top of their priority lists. Social media platforms such as Facebook are designed for users to scroll through content quickly. You also need to consider how many Facebook users are accessing content from their mobile devices: Paragraphs on your computer screen will appear even longer on mobile devices. Plus, long blocks of text are difficult to read. If you’re currently posting long content, it may be the reason why you’re not getting enough likes. A good rule of thumb is that shorter is always better. If people see your posts aren’t long, they will be less hesitant to like your page.
  1. Invite your existing community

You have a community that’s easily within reach: employees, friends, current customers, business & industry partners. They are likely to be your first advocates and find your content interesting and shareable. Why not send a friendly personal invitation to ask them to like your company’s Facebook Page if they haven’t already? One way to do this is by simply adding a call-to-action in a personal e-mail (i.e. “P.S. Like us on Facebook”). Add a slide at the end of your presentations or webinars to encourage customers and business partners to remind them to like your Facebook Page, if they haven’t already. As for your industry ‘buddies,’ find their Facebook Pages and Like them as your brand. To do this log into Business Manager > click the Use Page button > click the Use Facebook As Your Page link (top right, in a skinny grey bar). It’s a great way to Like your industry partners, colleagues, & other influencer brands. Plus you’ll be able to view your News Feed as your brand and keep watch on what’s happening in your industry on Facebook.
  1. Use Facebook Ads to reach more people

Facebook offers very detailed ad targeting, so you can laser-focus your advertising efforts and make the most of your ad spend. Putting your brand in front of your ideal audience is a great way to pick up more Facebook Likes. By boosting a post, you can extend the audience beyond people who already like your Page. This can be a great option for a post that’s already proved to be compelling. It can bring in a large number of Facebook likes from people who already follow your Page. Facebook also offers campaign objectives relevant to every type of business. Since this post is about how to get Facebook Likes, we’ll focus on the Engagement objective, which is designed to expose your ad to a wide audience to increase the number of posts or Page Likes. Go to your business manager page for options on running a campaign or boosting posts.
  1. Run competitions, or promotions on your Facebook page

Your business can run competitions or promotions on its Facebook to build an audience and get more likes. Even better, liking a post is a popular form of contest entry and one that’s allowed under Facebook’s contest rules  If you decide to do so, make sure your competition follows Facebook’s Promotion Guidelines. Also ensure your competition is fun, easy, relevant to your audience, and encourages users to share their participation with friends. Don’t forget to utilize Facebook Ads to promote your contest. And If you use an app to run your contest, make sure it’s mobile-optimized.
  1. Use social media monitoring to measure, analyze, and learn

Use Facebook Insights or other automated apps to find useful metrics on your Page performance. You can view metrics like reach, the number of engaged users, engagement rate, and new Page likes. These metrics will help you understand what’s driving your likes and engagement so that you can adjust your posts accordingly.   Did I forget anything? Have a question about any of the suggestions above? Please add a comment and, if you like the post, feel free to share it with your friends. Now that you know how to get more likes for your Facebook Page, it’s time to increase your Facebook reach content. Contact us today! Please Don’t forget to Like us on Facebook if you haven’t already.          

Digital Marketing, What Your Business Must Know

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What is Digital Marketing?

    Digital marketing, also known as online marketing or internet advertising is a big deal these days. Internet usage has doubled over the past decade. This shift has massively affected how people purchase products, services and interact with businesses. So, what is digital marketing? It is simply the use of the internet, emails, mobile devices, social media, search engines, and other channels to reach the right consumers. All these forms of marketing help introduce people to your company and convince them to buy your products. One key element of digital marketing is that, it requires the use of innovative approaches to attract and understand your potential customers as compared to traditional marketing.

Digital Marketing Assets and Strategies That Can Boost Your Brand

  Digital Marketing Assets Digital assets and strategies are vital in today’s market and if you don’t keep up, you will be left behind. Let’s take a look at what your business needs to maximise its marketing plan and start reaping profits.

Digital Marketing Assets

Assets are values owned by a group or company. Marketing items used to project your business and get potential clients attracted to buy your products are termed Digital Assets. Are you using the available digital assets you have at your disposal to boost your marketing? If you’re unsure, don’t worry, here are few examples:

Digital Marketing Strategies

Strategies for digital marketing is also constantly evolving. Some strategies businesses use are:

1. Pay-Per-Click Advertising

PPC advertising is any type of digital marketing where you pay for every user who clicks on an ad like Google AdWords and Facebook Ads.

2. Paid Search Advertising

Google, Bing and Yahoo allow you to run text ads on their Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) to target potential clients who are actively searching for a product or service like yours.

3. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

With SEO, you can rank pages or blog posts on your site organically and not have to pay directly for every click, but this usually takes quite a bit of time and effort.

4. Paid Social Media Advertising

Social media platforms like Twitter allow you to run ads on their site to increase your business’s visibility with audiences.

5. Social Media Marketing

This is free and organic however, organically marketing your business on social media takes a lot more time and effort but in the long run, can deliver much cheaper results.

6. Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO)

CRO is the art and science of improving your online user experience. Most of the time, businesses use CRO to get more conversions (leads, chats, calls, sales, etc.) out of their existing website traffic.

7. Content Marketing

This is another fairly broad digital marketing term. Content marketing covers any digital marketing effort that uses content assets (blog posts, infographics, eBooks, videos, etc.) to build brand visibility, drive clicks or sales.

8. Native Advertising

Ever get to the bottom of an article and see a list of suggested articles? That’s native advertising and mostly fall under content marketing because it uses content to attract clicks.

9. Email Marketing

This form of online marketing is the oldest and it’s still going strong. Most digital marketers use email marketing to advertise special deals, highlight content (often as part of content marketing) or promote an event.

10. Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing is essentially paying someone else (a person or a business) to promote your products and services on their website.

How Powerful is Digital Marketing Now?

    With technology continually evolving, so do the behaviours of consumers. As a result, we have seen how traditional forms of advertising has continued to decline. We have also watched how digital advertising have grown from strength to strength. Some reasons for this include, an increase in the way we access information, news and an increased activity on digital devices. In addition, digital marketing is affordable, which allows any sized business with any size budget to target specific markets effectively. Today, just having a website is no longer enough to engage your audience and convert them to new customers. It is now important to consider implementing a complete digital plan that works across multiple channels. With this in mind, here are 7 reasons why you need digital marketing for your business:

1. Increase reach

    Competitor analysis   With the growth of the internet, more people are spending their time online. Over 7.7 billion people use the internet across the globe. It has become an integral part of everyday life to conduct searches, check social media, and purchase products online. Your customers are online, which highlights the importance of digital marketing. They’re browsing the web looking for your products or services. If they can’t find your services/products because you’re not online, you risk losing those leads to your competitors. To drive the best results for your business, you need to build your online presence. This will help you reach more audience that want your products or services.

2. More Advanced Analytics

  Advanced analytics   With digital marketing you know the following about your ads and audience:
  • Whether they actually saw it. With traditional marketing like TV and radio ads, you don’t even know that much.
  • What they interacted with
  • If they liked it
  • If they lingered on it
  • What they viewed
  • If they shared it with a friend
  • Did it prompt another action
  • If it led to a sale
You also learn much more about the people interacting with your ad:
  • Who’s most interested in your ads
  • What are they like
  • What makes them more likely to take an action
  • Who is easiest to convert
  • Who spends more
  • What do they do online
  • Gives you their demographics
  • What terms do they use to find you online
  • Which websites do they visit that lead them to yours
All of this easy to with free analytics software like Google Analytics. You can gain even more insight with paid tools. In addition, you can use what you learn to cut costs where you aren’t seeing an ROI and increase efforts where you get the best results.

3. Keep up with your competitors

  Competitor analysis   Online marketing is highly competitive and your competitors have already taken advantage of it. They’ve created social profiles, adapted their website for SEO, and run paid advertisements to reach new leads. This reason in itself is one of the reasons why you should use digital marketing. If you want your business to compete with others, you have to do what your competitors are doing and even more. By neglecting digital marketing, you’re already falling behind your competition. Your competitors are gaining traffic that could be yours if you’re also investing in digital marketing. Customers online won’t know that your business is an option and will automatically choose a competitor. You must invest in digital marketing to get leads to consider your business as an option.

4. Target the right audience

  Increase target   The ability to target the right audience is one of the most obvious reasons why digital marketing is important. Imagine being able to market directly to people who have an interest in your products or services. You have the capability to directly reach leads interested in your business. With digital marketing, you can target your audience more precisely than traditional methods. You can input important information about your audience and use that information to shape your marketing campaigns. It makes it easy for you to reach the right people. When you better target your audience, you drive better results with your campaign and reach more leads.

5. You can monitor and optimise your campaigns for better results

  Monitor online campaigns   The importance of digital marketing is that you can easily track and monitor your campaigns. When you invest time and money into your campaigns, you want to know that they are working. Internet marketing makes it easy for you to track your campaigns, which allows you to adapt and drive better results. It can be challenging using traditional methods to know the results of your campaign. If you run a TV ad, you may have to ask every person that comes into the store about what brought them to your business. It would be a very time-consuming effort that could annoy people who visit your business. You don’t need to worry about bothering your audience with online ads. Every campaign you run is easily trackable to see if it is driving valuable results for your business. In addition, metrics such as impressions, clicks, views, comments, conversions, and more can be analysed. When you track your campaign’s performance, it’s easier to fix it and adapt to changes. With traditional advertising campaign, you typically can’t make changes until the campaign is over. It only benefits the next campaign you run, which can feel like you wasted money on the previous campaign. Whereas with online ads, you can see if they are successful or need improvement. If they need improvement, you can make immediate changes and implement them at any point during your campaign. In addition, online marketing helps you spend your budget more wisely to get more out of your campaigns.

6. Best return on your investment (ROI)

  Return on Investment (RO1)   If you want to know the importance of digital media, look at the results it drives for businesses. Marketing strategies online have awesome return on investment (ROI). When you invest in these methods, you’ll get more out of them. For example, email marketing has the highest ROI of any marketing method. Every $1 spent, you have the potential to earn a whopping 4400% in return. This is a great opportunity for you to grow and earn a profit from your marketing efforts. Internet marketing is also cost-effective and hence, leaves room for a great ROI. It doesn’t cost much to run a social media ad campaign, compared to certain traditional methods, and this gives businesses an opportunity to grow.

7. Easy to Scale & Adapt

  Scale up digitally   For small businesses, it becomes very clear when you see how easy it is to scale and adapt as your business grows. Example, with social media campaigns, you can choose a daily budget and know how much it will cost without having to renegotiate an ad spot on TV. As you continue to convert that traffic, you just increase your daily spend and revenues with it. If you got a massive order from a customer and need to scale back to avoid getting backlogged, it’s just as easy. The power of digital marketing lies in the fact that, you can get instant results and analyze data fast to reduce wasted ad spend.

Digital Marketing Strategy

  Digital Strategy At SEO Digital, we recommend a professional online plan to raise awareness of your business and engage with prospective customers. Hence, strong digital marketing strategy should consist of the following elements:

1. Website

Build a functional, professional and easy to navigate website. Include a blog on your site to update and inform your customers of any news in your industry. Also, consider inbuilt functionality to streamline office processes and make the customer experience better.

2. Search Engine Optimisation – (SEO)

Your website needs to include high quality, relevant content about your business and services. A number of SEO techniques such as high quality content, and keyword research can all help with your online presence. Keep this up to date and integrate it with a website measurement tool such as Google Analytics to improve your chances of being found online. Additionally, using strong quality content and relevant keywords on your website can improve your organic search results and make you visible to people.

4. Mobile responsiveness

If your website is difficult to read, the chances are prospective customers won’t make an enquiry. Make sure your website is optimised for mobile devices and creates a pleasant user experience.

5. Social media

The development of social media platforms will grow your online audience, and assist with online marketing. Social Media allows you to speak directly with your customer base to provide valuable information and build trust digitally to to increase your audience.

6. Online Advertising

Consider using various online advertising streams to increase your brand awareness. Common online advertising strategies such as Google AdWords allow you to target specific demographics and set your budget to suit your business. Online advertising is a highly effective way to add impact to your business and brand.

7. Nurturing your leads

Your digital strategies need to engage your customers to get them to take the next step and make a purchase. You need to have clear ‘call to action’ strategies built in to your digital platforms and make it easy for the customer to take that next step.

CONTACT US NOW FOR A DIGITAL MARKETING STRATEGY

  Contact digital marketing expects in Ghana   Digital marketing is becoming more complex, as we develop new ways of effectively reaching clients and driving revenues online. Your digital marketing strategy and assets are essential in driving business success. Contact SEO Digital today on info@seoghana.com or +233 50 664 3847 if you would like to review your business’ online marketing to increase your client base and profits.

How to Increase Sales of Your Brand in 8 Clever Ways

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The only way to make your business successful is to increase sales. Don’t overwhelm yourself even if the sales are increasing. Make sure your customers have an amazing experience when they buy your products. Create effective marketing strategies and work on improving your sales every week. You don’t want to lose your loyal customers in any way.  SEOGHANA shares the top 8 ways to enhance your business sales today.

1. Remove Sliders from Your Homepage

You may think about including a slider image if you read web designing tips. It has a few benefits. A slider allows you to add different features with the content you create. Remove the slider if you intend to boost your sales. There is no hard evidence that you need a slider for your website to increase sales.

2. Point out Which Plan Is More Popular

Use psychology to your advantage and create slogans that resonate with the customers. Most of the marketers use statements such as America’s Number 1 to appear like experts. These statements can influence you to buy a product even if you have no solid information about it.

3. Include Your Contact Information

Customers become angry when they are unable to find the contact information. Consider adding your contact details even if you are a B2B company. This might turn out to be the best tactic for your company to boost sales. Many vendor websites fail to mention their contact information.

4. Use an Inspiring Plan Name to Encourage Upgrades

Try to mention brilliant clues on your website to change the decision of your customer. Increase the conversion rates by creating an inspiring name for your brand. One that sticks with the customers after he or she hears it first. Try to offer different plans for the customers to select.

5. Remove References to Buying above the Fold

Often companies persuade people to try their product before speaking about the price. Instead of bashing about prices make sure the customer likes your product. Get rid of every reference that leads customers to buy your products. Don’t mention the price anywhere on your front page.

6. Make Your Landing Page Match Your Ad

There’s a simple way to boost sales if you are using paid ads. Make the ads correlate with your landing page as the perfect sales strategy. This may encourage customers to sign in and buy your products. Match the layout and color theme of your web pages and ads.

7. Show Trust Icons on the Checkout Page

Trust and loyalty are the two major things you need to strengthen to boost sales. Studies show that many online customers don’t buy a product if they don’t trust the website. Mention a short description defining your security measures. Customers don’t share basic information if they worry about their online safety. A certified seal can help you become a trusted friend of many new customers.

8. Include Images with Your Testimonials

Share a few stories to connect with your customers. Testimonials are very important, like reviews to increase conversions. Take a step further. Show pictures of your customers who have enjoyed your services or products. Quotes with images on it are one of the effective ways. People can relate to your customers and it is an amazing way of social proof.

Link Between Your Web Design And Customer Engagement

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There is more to creating a good web design than just putting things in the right place. Rules matter like the use of white space and the rule of quarters, but even surgical precision can fall flat if there is no depth and context to the design. Some tips that may help you find the ‘X’ factor to wow your visitors are given below: • Remember, you are designing for a human It would indeed be a great world where robots did all the menial work, but for now, it is humans who use the net and humans who visit your site. Designing for members of the species Homo sapiens translates to an easy to use interface that focuses on people’s actions. Your website design needs to meld with the expectations of your customers. You cannot keep your user guessing about what he is supposed to do next.
Make sure the ‘call to action’ buttons are right up front and users can see these buttons. Keep your design layout consistent so that users know where they are and where they need to go next. If this doesn’t happen, the user is most likely to find the exit and leave your site never to come back. • Have heart Surgical precision will only take your design so far. For a popular website, it is important that the design has a soul and an emotional depth. Use specific fonts, shapes, icons, and even images and photographs to convey the crux of your messages. If you are able to excite your user’s imagination and connect on an emotional level with the consumer then you have a greater chance of retaining your visitors. Let’s look at Apple for a second. The company spends a lot of time on their website making it look sleek and sexy – exactly the kind of attributes we associate with an Apple product. Even before the customer has bought a product he knows that he is making the right choice by opting for the coolest gadget there is. That is how factoring in emotions can work for your website design and influence your customer’s mindset. The idea behind website designing should never be just to create something that looks good, but also to create a brand connection. So, forget the design nazis and think like a user – it is easily the best way to design a winning website.
It is true that not all the visitors to your site would be well versed in the nuances of web designing to be able to tell how good or bad your site is from a technical viewpoint. But intuitively, even a layman knows a website that allows him ease of access and navigation from a site that is just too clunky and where nothing works. Your customer may not be able to tell serif from sans- but that is no excuse to not match your fonts! In fact, a huge percentage of your repeat traffic depends on how well you design your site.