The Business Marketing Show with Ed Keay Smith and Brendan Tully

In this episode we have Charles McKay from Synx.com.au talking with us about Inbound Marketing and how Hubspot fits into the picture.

Charles is an Inbound Marketing specialist and his company helps businesses sell more and grow their businesses using Inbound Marketing.

Some of the topics we discuss include:

Links:

Click here to listen on iTunes or click the Play button below to play from your web browser.

The post E61 – Inbound Marketing & Hubspot with Charles McKay appeared first on The Business Marketing Show.

In this episode we have Kiri Masters from BobSledMarketing.com back again with what’s effectively part 2 of our discussion on the Amazon Marketplace, Amazon FBA and selling on Amazon.

If you’re new to selling on Amazon or looking to get started on Amazon it’s probably wise to listen to Episode 59 – Amazon FBA & Getting Started On The Amazon Marketplace first before listening to this one.

Kiri’s new book The Amazon Expansion Plan – Learn how to skyrocket your sales, sell globally and make your brand an international success, digs deep into the Amazon eco system and explains how you can leverage Amazon in your product or ecommerce business.

In this episode we cover a whole range of topics and is applicable for any business that is just about to or has just gotten into the Amazon Marketplace. Some of the topics we discuss include:

Kiri’s book is a fantastic resource for anyone selling in Amazon and you can find out more about the book, read sample chapters and get some specials bonuses at TheAmazonExpansionPlan.com

Click here to listen on iTunes or click the Play button below to play from your web browser.

The post E60 – The Amazon Expansion Plan with Kiri Masters appeared first on The Business Marketing Show.

In this episode we speak with Kiri Masters from BobsledMarketing.com, a web agency that specialises in helping businesses launch their brand and products on Amazon and helps existing Amazon sellers get more out of their Amazon presence.

This is a good episode to listen to if you have an established ecommerce business and you’re thinking about selling on Amazon or if you are a wholesaler or product manufacturer looking at expanding your marketing reach and growing your business.

We talk about a whole range of topics including pros and cons of selling on Amazon, some of the common Amazon seller mistakes, the types of products that do and don’t work on Amazon, 3rd party tools for getting the most out of Amazon plus a whole bunch more.

Click here to listen on iTunes or click the Play button below to play from your web browser.

The post E59 – Amazon FBA & Getting Started on the Amazon Marketplace appeared first on The Business Marketing Show.

This week we talk about accounting and financial tools which is surprisingly something we get asked about a lot.

We share the tools we use along with insights that relate to finances and accounting that we’ve learned along the way.

This episode is a good one to listen to if you’re spending a lot of time each week managing your books and are looking for a better solution.

Click here to listen on iTunes or click the Play button below to play from your web browser.

The post E58 – Counting the Money – Finance & Accounting Tools appeared first on The Business Marketing Show.

In this episode we talk about keyword, keyword targeting and keyword research. We share some simple strategies and tactics around keywords that will eliminate a lot of confusion small business owners feel around keywords and search engines.

This is a good episode to listen to if you’re looking to rank higher in the search engines and be more proactive around Adwords and search engine marketing. A lot of costly mistakes can be easily avoided by following some of the advice we share in this episode.

Click here to listen on iTunes or click the Play button below to play from your web browser.

The post E57 – Keywords, Keyword Targeting & Keyword Research appeared first on The Business Marketing Show.

In this episode we talk about online marketing tactics and strategies as they relate to bigger businesses and businesses with an internal marketing department.

These businesses can be quite different to your typical small business as they’re often dealing with bigger budgets, more people and more moving parts.

Click here to listen on iTunes or click the Play button below to play from your web browser.

The post E56 – Online Marketing Strategies for Corporate Marketing Departments appeared first on The Business Marketing Show.

In this episode we share the online marketing strategy we use with our medical and dental practice clients.

This episode is designed to be a broad strokes guide for businesses in this space and is similar to what we’d present in one of our online marketing workshops.

A warning upfront: the strategy outlined here could easily be a 12 month project so important that you take this into consideration while you’re listening and not get overwhelmed.

The episode is split into two sections, quick wins and low hanging fruit and then the more broad higher level business strategy.

While you may not be actively chasing new patients you really still need to be online even if it’s just a single page website with your contact details.

With a large proportion of people walking around with smartphones and internet in their pocket today the easiest way for them to find your phone number and your contact details is to Google you and get it from your website.

Having an email address and contact form on the site that’s answered daily will also reduce the amount of inbound calls your practice gets and ultimately the workload of front office staff too.

An up to date listing that has your full contact details, your address and correct opening hours is critical. As a medical practitioner people are visiting you every day so your online maps listings are getting a workout!

True online booking capability ideally linked directly to your practice management software. By “true online booking” we mean someone can visit your website, make an appointment online and have a fully confirmed appointment the same as if they had called and made it over the phone.

Even if you’re not actively chasing new patients, existing patients benefit because they may be looking to book an appointment after hours, and as a practice you benefit through increased bookings and less workload.

It’s inevitable that you’ll get a bad review online at some point in your business life – it’s almost unavoidable and a part of doing business in today’s world.

Given this is the case it’s important that you have a least something in place to check to ensure negative reviews are handled appropriately. At the entry level this can be as simple as Googling the business name once a month and looking at the search results.

In many medical fields actively encouraging reviews is against the law or governing body regulations however if you’re operating in a field that can solicit online reviews, using a tool like getfivestars.com can be very worthwhile.

Having website content that matches the market expectations is critical, pages you’ll commonly need:

One simple technique for building content is to brainstorm all the products and services you sell or want to promote and make sure there is a page for each of them. The page needs to be at least 1.5 scrolls long with images and video. Fattening out the page with say the top 3 most commonly asked questions about that particular product or service is an easy way to make the page bigger.

There’s no excuse for email problems with today’s technology. Our email hosting providers of choice are Google Apps and Microsoft Office 365. Office 365 is the better one if you’re used to using Microsoft Outlook. Google Apps is the business version of Gmail.

Many businesses try to get the cheapest web hosting possible which is a terrible idea. You know yourself, if a website is slow to load or unreliable you quickly lose patience and click away. Visitors to your website behave in exactly the same way. Slow and unreliable websites also hurt your Google ranking!

Brendan’s company has built a high performance, search engine friendly hosting product specifically for this reason: https://www.thesearchengineshop.com/website-hosting/

For more detailed information on hosting check out our hosting episode:

Google Analytics is the defacto standard for measuring website performance, it’s also free too! You might already have Google Analytics installed but are just missing the logon for it – definitely one to ask your existing web developer or whoever built your website about it.

This goes without staying that you need the best possible quality photos on your site but so many businesses have horrible photos on their website so there’s still a first mover advantage in a sense for businesses with high quality photos.

Our episode with Matt Reed is a fantastic one if you need to up-level your photography or are simply not sold on the power of photos, here’s the link:

https://www.businessmarketingshow.com/episode-16-commercial-website-photography/

Click play on the video below and here from Matt directly about why photos are so important:

Video can also be an extreme powerful online marketing tool, a brief about us or “tour” style video can really up-level your sales and marketing game (if the video is done well!)

Here’s a great example from a DidgeridooBreath.com, a didgeridoo shop and popular tourist destination in Fremantle, Western Australia.

SEO & Adwords (aka a search engine strategy)

If you’re planning on getting traffic from the search engines then you’re going to need an SEO and Adwords strategy.

Adwords and SEO are great for problem solution products and services where a prospective customer/patient is Googling a solution to a problem or looking for a service provider.

Google Display Network, Social Media and Email Marketing

The Google Display Network and Social Media (eg Facebook ads) are a great way to promote non-problem/solution types of products and services, for example a smile makeover service or cosmetic procedures. They can also been good for advertising new products to existing patients or reminding existing patients it’s time for a checkup or clean.

Click here to listen on iTunes or click the Play button below to play from your web browser.

The post E55 – Marketing for Medical & Dental Practices appeared first on The Business Marketing Show.

In this episode we share the online marketing strategy we use with clients in the hotel, tourism and hospitality space.

This episode is designed to be a broad strokes guide for businesses of this type an is similar to what we’d present in one of our online marketing workshops.

A warning upfront: the strategy outlined here could easily be a 12 month project so important that you take this into consideration while you’re listening and not get overwhelmed.

The episode is split into two sections, quick wins, must haves and low hanging fruit and then the more broad higher level business strategy.

This goes without staying that you need the best possible quality photos on your site but so many businesses have horrible photos on their website.

You know yourself when you’re booking at hotel or looking a booking a trip or making some sort of reservation one of the first things you probably look at one a website are the photos.

Especially in the tourism and hospitality space, high quality, professionally taken photos are an extremely important part of your overall marketing strategy.

Our episode with Matt Reed is a fantastic one if you need to up-level your photography or are simply not sold on the power of photos, here’s the link:

https://www.businessmarketingshow.com/episode-16-commercial-website-photography/

Click play on the video below and here from Matt directly about why photos are so important:

Video can also be an extreme powerful online marketing tool, a brief about us or “tour” style video can really up-level your sales and marketing game (if the video is done well!)

Here’s a great example from a DidgeridooBreath.com, a didgeridoo shop and popular tourist destination in Fremantle, Western Australia.

People expect to be able to book flights, hotels, trips and make reservations online. They want to be able to make a true booking with a credit card and not just submit a request through a form.

In today’s world this is not optional, customers need to be able to buy, book or reserve AND pay directly on your website.

Little Hotellier and and Rezdy.com are two great apps to get this functionality up and running.

This is simple. You need online reviews. After looking at the photos the next thing website visitors do is check the reviews so it’s critical that you have a strategy in place to get reviews on an ongoing basis.

This can easily be automated with a tool like getfivestars.com

It’s also important you are monitoring reviews on an ongoing basis and respond to negative reviews in a timely manner

Airbnb.com can be a goldmine for small hotels and accommodation providers and is definitely worth testing as a marketing channel.

A profile on Tripadvisor.com is pretty much mandatory these days as it’s generally the goto place for most people when they’re looking for reviews or travel suggestions.

Many business owners have the wrong mindset when it comes to online marketing strategies.

Fixing your mindset, particularly around time and cost investment, is a key part of making your online marketing strategy work effectively.

Unfortunately most small businesses owners choose services based on price instead of features, benefits and expected performance. Looking at the expected return on a service first, and then working backwards to determine what you can afford or an appropriate budget is a much better approach.

Other common mistakes in thinking and mindset:

Having website content that matches the market expectations is critical, pages you’ll commonly need:

There’s no excuse for email problems with today’s technology. Our email hosting providers of choice are Google Apps and Microsoft Office 365. Office 365 is the better one if you’re used to using Microsoft Outlook. Google Apps is the business version of Gmail.

Many businesses try to get the cheapest web hosting possible which is a terrible idea. You know yourself, if a website is slow to load or unreliable you quickly lose patience and click away. Visitors to your website behave in exactly the same way. Slow and unreliable websites also hurt your Google ranking!

Brendan’s company has built a high performance, search engine friendly hosting product specifically for this reason: https://www.thesearchengineshop.com/website-hosting/

For more detailed information on hosting check out our hosting episode:

If you’re planning on getting traffic from the search engines then you’re going to need an SEO and Adwords strategy.

At a very minimum you should have an Adwords campaign running against your brand name as aggregator sites and booking agents like Agoda and Tripadvisor will absolutely be advertising and ranking their sites for your brand/business name.

Email marketing is generally underdone in the hospitality space or done extremely poorly.

In episode 8 we talked in more detail about email marketing: https://www.businessmarketingshow.com/episode-8-email-marketing/

Click here to listen on iTunes or click the Play button below to play from your web browser.

The post E54 – Hotel, Tourism & Hospitality Marketing Strategy & Blueprint for 2016 appeared first on The Business Marketing Show.

In this episode we provide an ecommerce marketing blueprint and broadly outline the strategy we’re using right now with our ecommerce and online retail clients. This episode is designed to be a broad strokes high level strategy and is similar to what we’d present in one of our ecommerce marketing workshops.

Similar to the Small Business Online Marketing Blueprint in episode 49, we’ve presented the steps in the same order as we’d work through them with you if we were working one on one.

Be clear, is your business a problem/solution type of business or do you need to actively generate awareness and demand for your products/services. In other words, is there active demand in the search engines for what you’re selling.

If there is activate demand then the strategy is likely more straightforward.

Frank Body is a great example of a business with a creative marketing strategy.

Are you shipping worldwide or just within your country? This will determine the channels you can use to market the business.

Do you need to educate the buyer before purchasing, what is the complexity of the sale? More complex sales are going to require more information on the website and a multi-step sales and marketing approach

Understanding your sales and marketing funnel is key to making your online marketing work effectively.

eCommerce businesses that are pure box shippers are going to be able to leverage a more simple marketing strategy. If your products are complex, are high priced or have a longer sales cycle then you’re marketing strategy is likely going to be more complex.

Your choice of CMS (content management system) can determine whether the business will be successful or fail for two reasons:

Shopify is our preferred platform right now, it’s cloud hosted, cheap, has plenty of themes/templates and third party apps that can plug into it BUT that doesn’t mean it’s necessarily right for everyone. This is especially true if you’re doing something more complex than simply shipping boxes.

Other important pieces of technology:

Search Engines – there are many elements to getting traffic from search and if your search strategy can be summed up as “I want to be number” then you have a problem. There are multiple search engines to take into account in the ecommerce world:

Email marketing – this is a special case because it’s so versatile and so powerful when actually done properly. Email can boost both traffic AND conversion rates.

Other channels:

Use 2 payment methods, Stripe and Paypal are the low barrier entry points

Adding payment and shipping info on the product pages gives customers all the info they need in order to make a purchase without having to dig through your site to find it.

Make the cart as simple as possible, remove unnecessary steps and don’t ask for the info you don’t need.

Abandoned cart emails work like magic, here’s a basic template you can use: https://www.thesearchengineshop.com/abandoned-cart-email-template/

Live chat with proactive chat, this is an awesome way to uncover gaps in your site. Even if you just use it for 30 days it’s worthwhile. We talked about this in episode 25

Google Display Network remarketing and dynamic remarketing

A buyers guide with videos – especially where the product is complex, has lots of options or is something people don’t buy often, a buyers guide can help significantly boost your conversion rate AND it will help with traffic and SEO. Here’s a great buyers guide example the guys at Didgeridoo Breath have created: http://www.didgeridoobreath.com/didgeridoo-buyers-guide-s/271.htm and https://www.didgeridoodojo.com/didgeridoo-buyers-guide

Photography and video – we can’t overstate how powerful photography and video is in the ecommerce space. Our episodes with commercial photographer Matt Reed are a fantastic guide to leveraging photography in your marketing:

This is a bit more of an intangible. Your brand is the perception of you and your business in the customer’s mind.

Customers will pay more for brand names so long term it’s important to cultivate and grow your brand.

Online, a large part of your brand is built through what you say, the tools you use and the way you market to customers. Some important brand building tools are email marketing, social networks and just generally caring about customers.

High quality design and imagery across all your marketing is also an essential part of brand building.

Click here to listen on iTunes or click the Play button below to play from your web browser.

The post E53 – eCommerce Marketing & Optimisation Blueprint for 2016 appeared first on The Business Marketing Show.

Veeroll.com is an online platform that allows you to create Facebook and Youtube video ads in minutes without needing any video editing skills.

Veeroll.com

Click here to listen on iTunes or click the Play button below to play from your web browser.

The post E52 – Video Advertising on Youtube & Facebook using Veeroll with Gideon Shalwick appeared first on The Business Marketing Show.