Blog

Building Visibility on LinkedIn

July 25, 2016 By Concept

Did you know, that there are more than 400 million users on LinkedIn and about two new members sign up every second? LinkedIn is a great tool to build your online personal and business reputation. How do you go about increasing your LinkedIn profile visibility amongst the millions?

Profile Optimisation

Previously, we’ve talked about optimising your LinkedIn Profile. This is the place to start if you haven’t already done so. It is important to have a complete profile, or fill in as much detail as you can in the sections. Then an eye-catching summary with a punchy headline will certainly turn heads to your profile. Don’t forget a head shot (square profile photo) that looks friendly and professional. For more details on optimising your profile, read our blog.

Background Picture

Now let’s talk about more ways to get attention on LinkedIn. Apart from the profile photo, you can also make use of your LinkedIn background picture to tell others more about you- visually. This picture appears above your name and headline, and is a great way to make a statement about your business or brand. You’ll be surprised how many users leave that space blank. If you’re stuck on ideas, browse around other network profiles to see what works for others that you can incorporate. It could even just be a simple logo arranged to fit with the layout.

LinkedIn URL

Your LinkedIn URL can be customised and shared to all your online and social mediums. Include it in your blogs, email signature, Facebook and the like. As LinkedIn is a major website, it will naturally have a high page rank on search engines. By customising your LinkedIn URL (linkedin.com/in/yourfullname), you can rank high when being searched too!

Publishing Content

Having content on the LinkedIn publisher platform will increase your profile views. It is also a great way to build your brand, showcase your expertise and thought leadership, and reach out to your audience. It is important to update content regularly, the more you publish, the more credibility you’ll gain, leading to a stronger profile and higher views.

Now over to you to take these few tips to make your profile more visible! If however, you’re needing some extra assistance, Concept Designs and Marketing can help. We offer LinkedIn profile optimisation services, and can help you design graphics for the visual elements. We can even help you formulate a content strategy to build your professionalism.

Get in touch to find out more today!

Design and Brand Identity

July 13, 2016 By Concept

No matter what your business is, a well-defined and solid brand identity is crucial in order to stand out in the marketplace and differentiate your business from your competitors.

When it comes to your brand identity, it’s more than just your business name and a logo. All imagery and graphics including fonts, colours, slogans and designs make up your visual branding! To have a memorable, effective visual brand, you must apply this identity on everything; website, social media, printed materials, business cards and so on.

So how do you come up with a successful visual brand identity?

Target Audience:

We all know that good marketing entails having a well-defined target market. Who is your demographic, your ideal customer? Tailor your visual branding towards them. For example, if your target market is children, then aim for bright fonts, colours, graphics and photography that appeals to that age group. Your aim is to make a connection with them, so think like your audience and come up with designs that are appropriate.

Originality of Designs:

It might be tempting to imitate other successful business brands and logos. After all, they’re recognisable and popular, so it’ll help your business, right? While there’s certainly a possibility that something similar to your brand might exist given the millions of businesses in the world, it’s never a good idea to copy someone else’s branding. Original branding conveys an authentic and trustworthy message to your market, and most importantly, is the key to stand out and set yourself apart from your competitors.

Design Consistency:

After you’ve come up with what appeals to your target audience, apply these towards all your imagery and graphics, whether it be on your website, on printed materials, or on social media. It is important to stay consistent with your brand style, by following a style guide, as to not confuse your audience. This portrays a reliable and dependable image for your business, and when creating your logo, think about how it can be rendered and applied across different mediums.

By having a recognisable and consistent visual brand, your business can effectively connect and communicate with your audience, bringing you out on the spotlight away from your competitors. Success is achieved when people can easily associate your business when they see a certain colour scheme, shape, font or logo.

When it comes to branding design, it can be rather a challenging feat. Here at Concept Designs and Marketing, we have a team of highly skilled and experienced graphic designers who can bring your business to life via visual branding. Contact us for more information today!

What’s in a Marketing Plan?

June 29, 2016 By Concept

We all know it’s important to have a plan for marketing. Just as you would never go exploring without a map, you should never go into business without a marketing plan. This strategic document not only helps you create services and products to meet your customer’s needs, it is also integral to the success of your business.

So what should you include in your marketing plan?

Objectives to Achieve

Before you start, you should have clear marketing objectives so you can set out to achieve them. Your marketing plan should get you from where you are to where your goals and objectives are. Set specific, timely, and financially achievable objectives for your plan to accomplish. For example; increase % in sales, brand building / awareness of certain location, increase your customer base by %.

Current Market Research

Research the current market of your business, list the opportunities and challenges that your business has been facing. Who are your competitors and what are they doing? Look at what other businesses in your market is doing well. This will also help you identify possible opportunities and how you can meet your customers’ needs.

Marketing Strategy and Direction

What is the overall direction of your marketing? Your marketing strategy should reflect how you’re going to market your products and services in ways that meet the needs of your target customers. This should include your product uniqueness, branding, pricing, position in the market, promotion, and presentation.

Budget and Action Plan

Now you need to have a detailed plan of action to implement the above strategy and steer you in the right direction. This includes timelines, specific actions and campaigns, and the marketing tools to be used (such as social media, print, or direct marketing). To complement such campaigns and tasks, you’ll need to set a budget that is realistic and attainable.

Marketing plans play a key role to the success of every business. However, we understand that preparing a marketing plan can be rather daunting and overwhelming. Here at Concept Designs and Marketing we can help you develop this essential document, and our team can help you implement each step of it as well. As part of this service, we also provide you with a 12-month banner print-out of your plan, so you can remind yourself of your targets and activities any time. Contact us for more information today.

Search Engine Marketing with Google AdWords

June 23, 2016 By Concept

So your business has a website, and you might have done SEO on it. Now you can sit back and wait for your customers to find you, right? Well, SEO is certainly important, but let’s not forget SEM, or Search Engine Marketing. Increasingly businesses are turning to Google AdWords for SEM, on top of SEO. Why you may wonder? Have you heard of AdWords but not sure if it’s for your business? Read on…

How it works:

AdWords are paid searches that position your Ad in Google search results, Google products (eg. YouTube), and thousands of websites in Google Adsense. By matching keywords with the Ads you create, your Ad shows when someone searches for similar terms, or visits a website with related content. AdWords is designed to be shown on multiple devices; including desktop, laptop, tablet or mobile device, making it highly flexible with great potential for reach.

Pay only for clicks:

With cost-per-click (CPC) bidding, you’re charged only when someone clicks on your Ad and go to your website. You have control over your AdWords budget that suits your campaign. You tell AdWords the most you’re willing to pay for a click on your Ad and you decide the average amount you want to spend each day.

Targeted & more immediate results:

SEO can take time to build organic traffic, so if your business is quite new in the market and want to gain exposure quickly, or if you just want a boost on your existing business, then AdWords can help you achieve more immediate visibility. Your Ad appears when someone searches for terms related to your product or service, and the advertising is targeted to your specific demographic audience at the time you want.

AdWords is actually a very cost-effective way to complement SEO for any business, and it’s no wonder that AdWords has evolved into Google’s main source of revenue at close to $50 billion per year. When you advertise with AdWords, you’re making a financial investment in your business. However it takes more than just money to see success. It is important that your AdWords campaign is implemented wisely and that you regularly examine the analytics, performance, and make adjustments to bring you a successful ROI.

Concept Designs and Marketing has SEM specialists who can guide you with your AdWords campaign to get you the best results with your marketing dollar. Get in touch to see how we can help you get your Ad up on Google today!

The Importance of a Marketing Review

June 15, 2016 By Concept

The EFOY is fast approaching, and as we start preparing for taxes and crunching numbers, this is also an ideal time to do a Marketing Review; a Health Check, to see how your marketing activities have been performing.

Whilst it’s important to look at key figures, such as growth in profit, or new customer numbers, to see how well your business is doing, often we overlook marketing to determine whether it’s getting good ROIs for your marketing dollar. Do you have a target audience, and are you reaching them? Do you know if you’re throwing marketing money away unnecessarily?

This is where a Marketing Review can help. When assessing your marketing, ask the following:

Being reactive or proactive:

Are you being reactive with your marketing, or do you proactively plan ahead? Do you have a clearly defined Marketing strategy that extends to the long term? Your business needs to have a course and direction in marketing to deliver your message. Being proactive allows you to set the pace and even be the trendsetter amongst your competitors.

How you value your marketing:

Do you have much faith in your marketing activities? Marketing has the potential for great impact and reach, however not all businesses take it seriously, and would rather direct their funds to other areas. In today’s world of information overload, your business needs to stand out from the crowd. How much value are you putting into your marketing?

Identifying your ideal client:

Who is your ideal client? Can you describe what they like, how they dress, where they live? The key to a solid marketing strategy is the development of an ideal customer profile. Your entire business, message, product or services, sales, and support should be built on this ideal client group.

How social media fits with your business:

Although Social media has gained popularity in the recent years, some businesses have yet to discover its benefits. Are you unsure how social media fits with your business or not sure if it’s worth spending time on? Social media is an effective way to target your audiences and to understand your customers better. No matter what kind of business you have, there is always a place for social media.

A Marketing Review can assess your current marketing activities, identify weaknesses and strengths, and tell you whether you’re spending your marketing dollar effectively. If you answered ‘yes’ to any of the above questions, then we can help you! Here at Concept Designs and Marketing, we conduct comprehensive marketing assessments for businesses. Our Marketing Reviews give you a detailed look at the 30 Key Components to ensure you are getting a great return on investment for your marketing dollar.

Get in touch today!

3 Ways to Organise Your Social Media Marketing

June 8, 2016 By Concept

Let’s face it. Keeping up a solid social media presence for your business can be time consuming, with so many platforms out there, it feels as though there’s no end to status updates and composing images. You might feel that you’re falling behind, losing track, or even discouraged. But don’t despair! Let us show you how to save time and better organise your social media marketing.

1. Decide where to spend your time:

With so many social media platforms available, you have to be wise when it comes to deciding where to spend your time and energy. While it’s nice to maintain a profile in as many sites as possible, some sites might just not worth your while. To find out, look at the ROI and how your business is performing across the different platforms. If Facebook is where most of your leads are coming from, then spend more time focusing on it. Look at the conversion rates and compare that with your advertising expenditure. If a particular platform is not performing well, it’s OK, just move on and better use your time towards the ones that count.

2. Plan your content and tasks

Part of good social media marketing is providing interesting, relevant, and value-adding content, and it’s always a good idea to plan ahead. This is especially true for small business owners, who already have plenty of other tasks to do throughout the day. You may feel overwhelmed and wonder how you’re going to get everything done?

A good way is to allocate regular time (even if it’s just an hour a day) for tasks of a similar kind, such as, collecting sharable articles on Mondays, composing post/ blog ideas on Tuesdays, creating images on Wednesdays, and so on. You’ll be better focused and be more productive, thus saving time, not to mention feeling good about always having something ready to post.

3. Save time with Social Media Management Tools

Nowadays there are many affordable Social Media Management Tools that allow you to organise and plan your social media marketing. This include Hootsuite, Socialoomph, SproutSocial, and many more. Some allow users to create a free account (although limited usage), or you can pay a small fee which, when you consider the time you save and being able to manage multiple sites in one place, is quite worth your investment. Instead of logging into each social media account and repeat the same task, using a Management Tool will allow you to post to several sites at once.

Of course, if you still find yourself needing an extra hand, our marketing team here at Concept Designs have a range of social media packages available to assist with your needs. Contact us today to find out more!

Blog

Being reactive or proactive:

How you value your marketing:

Identifying your ideal client:

How social media fits with your business:

The digital marketing landscape is changing rapidly, but some fundamental elements remain the same. Discover the 5 Marketing Must Do’s for your business today

The digital marketing landscape is changing rapidly, but some fundamental elements remain the same.
Discover the 5 Marketing Must Do’s for your business today