Category: Online Marketing
Online Surveys: 5 Benefits of Knowing Your Audience
When was the last time you actually asked your customers what they really wanted? If you’re running a business, knowing what your customers want is very important. Conducting surveys with your target audience is often overlooked, but it is clear that surveys are something every business should be doing because having a vague picture of your audience can definitely break your business and your brand.
Basically, online surveys let you find out the interests of your prospects, what your customers really want, and acquire unique market insights that you need to run your business smarter and eventually ensure success.
#1 Establish Business Focus
Surveys allow you to get a better understanding of what your audience needs and wants. This will let you focus more of your efforts on improving your products or services that your audience prefers the most. Knowing your audience through feedback and comments towards your offerings can not only save you time and resources but also give you some clues on the direction you want to take and feel more confident about the services you offer.
#2 Create Stronger Customer Relationships
Letting your customers know that their opinions matter to you makes them feel empowered and important. This gives them a sense of your business philosophy and dedication to providing excellent products and services. This process makes them more interested and eager to work with you. This is how “loyal following” begins.
#3 Real-Time Data Results
Compared to traditional surveys, online surveys allow you to achieve real-time results. This instant data gathering gives marketers the information they need, when they need it. Old data can become irrelevant in today’s fast paced world where people’s needs and wants evolve quickly. Timely information on the other hand is KEY to a relevant and successful marketing campaign.
#4 Automated reporting
Gone are the days of waiting hours to summarize critical survey feedback. Another major benefit of online survey is automated reporting. Same as with real-time data, this helps with real-time statistics accompanied by detailed reporting that can be accessed anywhere, anytime. Marketers that are on-the-go can greatly benefit from this because this leads to improved work efficiency.
#5 Accurate and reliable data
The risk for human error is minimized by online surveys. Automatically generated feedback reports ensure more reliable results and more specific information for use in marketing campaigns. No need for manual insertions. With online surveys, you can achieve more accurate and dependable data that helps you work on your business core and do away with the clutter.
The Northern Office – Innovative Marketing is an independent marketing consultancy firm that helps businesses generates more profit by leveraging their marketing efforts to a whole new level. TNO utilizes online surveys to get a clear picture of your target audience and their needs. We can create effective online surveys to help create better or improve existing marketing campaigns. Call us today at 045 499 1082 for a free consultation. Visit www.thenorthernoffice.com for more information.
More From The Northern Office
12 Ways to Build Trust Online
Low conversion rates means you’re not closing on your leads. That’s bad for business. Maybe, the reason why your visitors refuse to buy your products is because they don’t trust you yet.
Proving your website as a trustworthy source is critical for any online business. Without trust, it’s hard to convert potential customers to positive leads. Visitors will just leave your site and not make a purchase if they feel like your products and your site is unreliable.
Not to worry, there are proven ways to resolve these trust issues. Though, others may require a little more work, below are effective ways to help you build trust with your visitors.
1. Make your website attractive and engaging. Your website should display professionalism and detailed. If it looks like your website is rushed, then will view your site as amateurish and careless.
2. Create flawless navigation. Navigation should be simple. Avoid too many links or your visitors might get overwhelmed. Use drop down lists, scroll bars and so on. Choose whatever is appropriate for your website. Don’t make it any harder for your visitors to see your products.
3. Add a bit of personality. Web visitors feel more comfortable with sites that have a human element to them. Add your own pictures, writing styles to add a personal touch.
4. Add new content regularly. Don’t make your readers find sources elsewhere. Update your website regularly with relevant, timely and informative content.
5. Build a community. Building your own community of loyal readers is the heart and core of your website. Your community helps you build trust and authority in your niche.
6. Add an About Us Page. Let your visitors know that you are a real human with real goals and philosophies. This will make them trust you more. Your About Us page does not need to be very detailed. You can tell a short a story of how you started and what you have achieved so far.
7. Create a Contact Us Page. Not only it is easy to create, a contact page allows you to receive feedback and promotional ideas.
8. Be honest. Lying is probably the worst thing you can do to your site. It’s an instant kill. Readers are smart enough to research your claims or ask people about you.
9. Include Creditable Certificates. This is critical for e-commerce websites. If you own one, adding BBB or McAfee hacker Safe will help your buyers feel more secure in purchasing.
10. Connect using social networking profiles. Let your visitors know more about you. Add social media buttons on your website and let users interact with you. This is also helpful in gaining more readers and retaining regular readers.
11. Comment on readers’ comments. Readers like to feel appreciated. Do this by commenting on their comments. Start fun and meaningful conversations to keep them engaged and wanting for more.
12. Include testimonials, case studies or reviews. Readers won’t trust you at first glance. Back your claims with customer testimonials or reviews to help potential customers decide to purchase your products or services.
Is your website trustworthy enough? This comparison chart/checklist below will help you evaluate you trust scale.
Source: SEOmoz Daily SEO Blog (www.seomoz.org)
The Northern Office Innovative Marketing is an independent sales and marketing consultancy firm in the Philippines with clients based worldwide. TNO’s dynamic web development team can help improve your website trust by implementing appropriate and effective strategies. Services include sales support, online marketing, content design, social media management, content development, back office support, e-mail campaigns, and marketing consultancy. For inquiries, email us at inquiry@thenorthernoffice.com.
More From The Northern Office
6 Ways to Get the Most Out of LinkedIn
Having recently reached its 50 million user milestone, LinkedIn proved itself as the new social networking site for professionals. Everyone who is in business is already expected to have a profile there.
But with the presence of more interactive sites such as Twitter and Facebook, some professionals are neglecting their LinkedIn profiles. Though not as dynamic as other social media platforms, LinkedIn still proves to be a source of value if used correctly. Below is a 6-point list enumerating ways on how to improve your LinkedIn profile. Follow it and you may double your profile views overnight!
1. Include Professional Profile Photo
They say that a picture is worth a thousand words. But, which words? That depends on what people see. LinkedIn’s profile photo feature is not only helpful in spotting colleagues, but also beneficial in projecting a professional bearing in your LinkedIn resume. Just think about it. Which candidate an employer would prefer? Candidate A with a profile pic doing a head stand or Candidate B showing a good head shot?
2. Build Network Connections
Although the number of your connections may define your capabilities, it could be possible that the number says something about you. According to statistics, if you have less than 500 connections on LinkedIn, you can be found by approximately 3% of the LinkedIn Community. On the other hand, if you have 500+ connections on LinkedIn, you can be found by approximately 90% of the LinkedIn Community. Building your network dramatically improves your ability to be found on LinkedIn, apart from being seen as a thought leader and player in your industry.
3. Use Status Updates
LinkedIn is not as interactive as Facebook or Twitter. The only space to keep your connections informed is through the status updates bar. Make use of this communication section and let users learn what you have in mind, things or events you are involved with or in.
4. Gather Meaningful Recommendations
One of the most loved LinkedIn feature is the recommendations feature. LinkedIn gives you the chance to get useful recommendations from your connections. It is important to get solid recommendations because the world will see what people say about you. You can get recommendations from a previous client or customer for whom you just did an incredible job or project. Remember to be polite and thank the person who recommended you!
5. Optimize Your Profile
Although LinkedIn is a good place to search for jobs, it shouldn’t just look like an online version of your resume. Optimizing it by incorporating relevant keywords is important for search engine optimization purposes. Note that your LinkedIn profile should depend on whether you are presently employed and whether or not you are seeking new career opportunities.
6. Join Groups to Expand Your Reach
In today’s economy, employers are looking for the best possible candidates. Now, it’s more than looking at Facebook statuses, photos, and tweets. The groups you are associated with in LinkedIn can either have a negative and positive impact on you. Choose relevant groups and make smart comments. Start meaningful conversations. Be proactive and share new information on groups to help position yourself as a thought leader.
Following above suggestions can dramatically increase your search engine hits and profile views.
The Northern Office – Innovative Marketing also provides social media management and monitoring services that include setting up a professional LinkedIn profile to broaden your network. TNO focuses on online marketing support for corporate websites and e-commerce websites. For further details and inquiries, email us at inquiry@thenorthernoffice.com.
More From The Northern Office
Death of an internet marketer
Thanks to Ian at Portent (http://www.conversationmarketing.com) for this great post:
A very short play. The setting:
A dinner party about 1 year ago.
The cast: Them: An advertising exec from a traditional agency. 15+ years’ experience.
Me: You know.
Curtain
Them: “So, Ian, what do you do?”
Me: “I run an internet marketing agency.”
Them: “Oh. What’s that?”
Me: “We help companies get more leads, sales, whatever through marketing on the internet.”
Them: “What’s marketing on the internet? Buying banner ads? We tried that a few years back. We made a sweet percentage on it.”
Me: “We focus more on the stuff that drives conversions or builds audience in a measurable way: Search engines, social media, site optimization, that kind of thing.”
Them: “So, you build websites! Hey, my friend is starting a new business and needs some help with their site. They don’t have much money, but I’m sure they could send more business your way. Can I have them give you a call?”
Me: “Um, we don’t really build many sites. We help folks improve existing sites, by making them more visible in search results, growing their audience and fixing issues that might prevent visitors from becoming customers.”
Them: “…”
Me: “I help people show up higher on Google.”
Them: “Ohhhhhhhh. They were talking about that on Dexter last week.”
Me: (head explodes)
More From The Northern Office
3 On Page Optimization Techniques That Work
On page optimization is a crucial aspect of SEO, yet usually overlooked. A well-optimized page can bring a significant increase in traffic. Search engines rank websites mainly dependent on two factors: search terms relevance and web authority. On page optimization helps you empower these two critical factors.
Aaron Wall, founder of SEO Book states, on-page optimization is primarily concerned with:
- Choosing the best keywords available to base your pages.
- Convincing search engines that your page is related to your chosen keywords.
Traditional on page optimization techniques don’t work anymore (e.g. stuffing keywords anywhere possible) and it is time to consider new strategies that are applicable today or suffer the consequences.
1. Unique and accurate page titles
Webmasters often ignore the value of page title. This is something you shouldn’t take for granted for it is the most important aspect of on-page SEO. Every page must have unique and accurate page titles as Google lists identical titles as “duplicates”. Google will then index the duplicates as “supplemental results.”
2. “Description” meta tag
Second to page titles, this SEO component also helps get traffic onto your site after you are appearing in the results. Google, for example, uses description Meta tag as a snipped for your page in the search results. Descriptions must summarize the content of the page accurately. Same as with writing titles, make sure that descriptions must speak of the content, but most of all make sure they sell the page to the viewer.
3. Search Friendly URLs
For better crawling, search-friendly URLs are recommended. URLs must appear friendlier so that users who want to link to it won’t have hard time memorizing the link. As much as possible, use words instead of numbers. URL’s with session IDs and overly long URLs are not desirable.
The Northern Office helps you get ahead of the competition by utilizing up-to-date online marketing techniques that will help you get on Google’s first page in a timely fashion. TNO focuses on online marketing support which involves website hosting target particularly for corporate websites and e-commerce websites. For further details and inquiries, email us at info@thenorthernoffice.com.
