Attracting customers to your product is a challenge that all businesses must face, and social media is one of the most powerful tools for the job. Consumers are 87% more likely to check out a brand’s products if they already follow them on social media. But, winning followers on your platforms, and ultimately customers comes down to having a strong social media marketing strategy. This requires a lot of knowledge and skills. To add to this, expanding your strategy across a franchise with multiple locations means expanding your knowledge and skills whilst maintaining brand consistency – tough stuff right? 

Don’t worry. We’ve got some valuable tips for you, so stick around and keep reading.

We know building a successful social media marketing strategy is hard work even for the smallest of businesses, that’s why we created this useful guide. Today though, we’ve got some tips to help you with marketing your franchise on social media. 

Communicate with your franchises

Make sure all local teams are fully informed when it comes to your brand image. Give them examples of wording, style, and colours, and keep communication flowing to keep everyone aligned. Set out benchmarks for campaigns to ensure everyone is organised, and at the same time maintain brand consistency. 

Utilise templates

A great way to control content quality is to create templates that can be sent out to different locations. Then, each team can personalise the content to suit their location. This ensures branding is consistent and prevents certain locations from lagging behind others. 

Stick to a posting schedule

All of your content should be scheduled in advance so stick to a posting schedule and always plan ahead. When there’s a holiday coming up you can create content themed around that holiday. Remember to take local time zones into consideration. 

Monitor performance

Track the performance for each location to make sure all social media efforts are contributing to the success of your business. You can analyse statistics for all your pages, and check the metrics for each post to see what’s working and what isn’t. Data will help you provide personalised feedback for all your locations so they know what to work on. 

Educate your franchises

Your local teams will benefit from lessons from the head office. As you grow, educate your franchisees so they can grow with you. Showing them the best strategies will keep everyone motivated and ready to take the next step. 

Social media tool for franchise marketing

Social media management tools are one of the greatest solutions for franchise marketing. Staying on top of content creation and delivery, posting schedules and performance analysis is a tough job for any business, but for a franchise, it’s next level of stress. Thankfully though, you can take the stress away by utilising our all in one digital marketing solution: Byter Studio. You can create new content, choose from thousands of templates and analyse the data across all of your channels. Social Media Marketing is a tool for any business this day and age and should be a fundamental part of your business.

Good luck!

Strong communication is essential to a successful business. Better communication can lead to increased morale, productivity and commitment amongst your employees. Spend time and energy creating a more open and communicative work environment and you will be rewarded with trusting employees, who’re able to communicate effectively with their colleagues, managers and customers. 

The importance of communication in the workplace

Let’s have a look at the many reasons why organisations can benefit from prioritising communication in the workplace. 

Goal alignment

Many organisations report that their employees’ goals do not align with corporate purposes which is a result of poor communication. Leaders and managers who have everyone singing from the same hymn sheet have more success in the workplace.

Increased productivity and engagement

Keeping employees in the know with company news and updates leads to a more productive workforce.

Improve workplace safety

Better communication in the workplace will equip your employees with better crisis management and improve workplace safety. 

Reduced turnover 

Encouraging bottom-up feedback can lead employees to stay longer because they feel involved in company progression.

Better interdepartmental collaboration

Good communication leads to better interdepartmental collaboration. Companies see great results when their departments work together like a well-oiled machine.

More efficient remote working 

Remote work has become the new norm for many industries over the last year. Good communication among remote employees helps to keep everyone motivated and included. 

Promote a culture of open communications

Now that we’ve covered some of the benefits of improving workplace communication, we’re going to show you some ways to facilitate it. The important thing to remember here is that open communications need to become part of your company culture if you want the benefits to last.

Regularly check in with employees

This is an effective way to promote strong communication. Make your employees feel like they have a voice by scheduling one-on-one meetings where you ask them for feedback and suggestions, and also ask about their current projects. If your staff feel like they’re being listened to, they’ll be more likely to talk. 

Start an “open door” policy

Many employees don’t feel comfortable speaking up to their boss, or sugarcoat it when they do. Instead of waiting for them to come to you, reach out to your employees and invite them to come and talk to you whenever they have something on their mind. An open-door policy will motivate your employees to communicate with you and result in better connections and meaningful conversations. 

Utilise social media 

Encourage your employees to engage with the company’s social media, and as a result, engaging with each other. Ask them to like, comment and share posts about the organisation, this will spark conversations and create a sense of togetherness. 

Rearrange the office

Communication in the office is often stunted by an inefficient layout. Open up your floor plan, get rid of cubicles and partitions and make sure everyone can see each other. Not only will this encourage communication between employees, but it will also create a more enjoyable and relaxed atmosphere – it’s a sure-fire way to boost morale! 

These are four great ways to open up communication channels amongst your workforce. The aim is to give all of your employees a voice, so that every employee feels comfortable communicating freely with their peers, colleagues and superiors. 

Good luck!

A successful business needs great employees. That’s why employer branding is so important. An amazing candidate might have to choose between you and another business, and your reputation as an employer is going to influence their decision. That’s where an employer branding strategy comes in. 

The war for talent is getting bigger and bigger as candidates are taking an increasing interest in the culture and values of their potential employers. Because of this, businesses need to invest more in their employer branding strategies. Wondering where to start? We’ve got you covered. We’re going to explain the basics of employer branding and show you how to build a successful employer branding strategy.

What is employer branding?

Employer branding is everything an organisation does to promote their employer values. Here’s some examples:

• Sharing employee testimonials 
• Creating compelling job descriptions
• Building an attractive career site
• Using employer review sites
• Attending career fairs and events

Why is employer branding important?

If you’re not convinced so far that employer branding is crucial to a great business, we’ve put together a list of reasons why it’s so important:

• Increase in high-quality job applicants

84% of job seekers state that a company’s reputation is important to them.

• Lower hiring costs

 Attracting more, better quality candidates means you won’t have to spend as much on your recruiting efforts.

• Business growth

High-quality employees will benefit your business. A better rep means access to the best talent, and your employees are the key to your success.

• Increased diversity and inclusion

Companies with strong employer reputations do better at attracting diverse talent. A diverse workforce equips your business with a variety of experience and skills. 

How to build a successful employer branding strategy

You can’t build a brilliant employer rep overnight. Your reputation is something you must continuously manage. But, there are some essential steps you can take to help you get there:

Define your EVP

An employee value proposition is what your company stands for. It’s comprised of:

• Core values
• Mission
• Vision
• Culture

The point of an EVP is to define your company’s essence, and what makes it unique from the rest.

Understand your challenges

Recognising your company’s recruitment challenges will help you identify its future needs so you know where to focus your efforts.

Define your company’s goals

It’s important that you’re able to measure the success of your employer branding efforts, to do this you’ll need to identify the goals you’re aiming to achieve. Examples of these are:

• Increase number of high-quality applicants
• Improve offer acceptance rate
• Decrease hiring costs
• Improve candidate experience

Create candidate personas

If you can get inside the mind of your dream candidate, you’ll be able to tailor your employer branding efforts to them. 

A candidate persona is a fictional representation of the perfect candidates. To define your candidate persona, think about:

• The generation they belong to
• Where they search for jobs
• The content they respond to
• The values that are important to them

Engage your current employees

Who better to promote your company than your existing employees? Ask them to share their own stories on social media, for example they could create a ‘day in the life’ style post on LinkedIn. 

Involve the leadership team

A company’s culture and brand message will be much more believable coming from the C-suite executives. Involve them as much as you can in your social media strategies. 

Measure and optimise 

If you want to keep improving your employer branding activities it’s essential that you measure your efforts. Refer back to your initial goals so you can work out how much you’ve achieved so far, and where to focus your future efforts. 

Every business has its own employer brand, naturally, but if you want to compete for the best talent you’ll need to establish a strong branding strategy. It’s the way that successful businesses engage, recruit and retain the best candidates. Following these 7 steps will put you on the right track for recruitment success. 

Good luck!

You’ve spoken to your potential client and gotten to grips with their needs, you feel confident that you are a great fit and at this point, are ready to woo them into selecting you as a marketing partner. To seal the deal and win that perfect partnership, craft a seductive and compelling proposal that they’ll find impossible to turn down. 

To ensure your proposal is concrete, these are the elements you MUST include:

• An explanation of how social media marketing can benefit their business
• A list of the strategies and steps you will take to achieve their goals
• Proof that you are qualified and evidence of your previous successes
• A breakdown of the important details e.g. deadlines and costs

Include all of these in your proposal and you’ll be on your way to success. Your potential client will have all the evidence they need to make that final decision. Before you begin writing your proposal, keep reading as we’ve put together a step by step guide on how to do it best.

Determine the client’s goals

A great place to start is by finding out what their business and social media goals are. Once you know what they’re working towards, you can start to figure out how social media will help them get there. 

Suss out the client’s audience

Don’t make assumptions about their audience when writing your proposal. Collect as much data as you can about the client’s audience and use it to help you plan your strategy. If you have a relationship with the client at this point, ask them to provide you with any data or analytics they may have. 

Research their competition

Identify at least five of their main competitors and monitor their activity. Gaining an insight into their social media activities will help you identify any gaps, then you can put together a plan for how you’re going to fill it with your social media strategy. You should also ask the following questions when researching their competitors:

• How often do they post content?
• Is their content entertaining enough?
• Is their content useful?
• Which types of content do better than others?

Having answers to these questions will give you clear direction for your social media strategy. 

Run a social media audit

Investigate which social media channels your client is already using, identify which ones are most successful, and assess the metrics. Having a good grasp on what they’ve been doing, what’s been working and what hasn’t will help you identify growth opportunities. 

Create a content strategy

At this point you should be in a good position to begin planning your content strategy. Decide what content you’d like to produce on which channels, considering design, style and voice. Make sure you identify the strongest elements of your client’s brand image and capitalise on these. 

Remember, communicate with your client whilst you’re planning the content strategy, at the end of the day it’s their needs you’re trying to address so use them as a source of information. 

If you’re having difficulties putting together a great social media content strategy, check out this article we wrote. 

Write your proposal

If you’ve completed the last 5 steps, it’s time to put everything together into one great winning proposal. Remember to include:

• The client’s needs and goals
• Social media goals and objectives
• An outline of your tactics 

We hope you found this post helpful if there’s anything we can help you with, get in touch. 

Good luck!

You’ve created some quality content for your website and you start to see an increase in traffic. Unfortunately, though, the results aren’t quite as positive as you expected. Don’t panic, there’s more you can do to optimise your inbound marketing strategies! We’re going to walk you through another great SEO method that you might not have tried yet. 

Inbound vs Outbound Links

Today’s article is all about inbound links (or backlinks). These are different from outbound links (links from your website to another). Instead, backlinks are a type of ‘off-page’ SEO where you drive other websites to link your website and attract readers to your site this way. 

Backlinks can increase traffic to your website in two ways:

1. When someone else posts a link to your website on their website or blog, their readers might click on it.
2. Search engines rank you higher in result pages because backlinks tell them that your website is an authority on a certain subject. 

Sounds good right? Backlinks are a great way to get organic traffic to your sight. The more authoritative the websites are that link to you, the better your rankings will be and the more traffic you will generate. So, how do you build backlinks? Well, you have to earn them, and there’s plenty of ways to do this. We’ve created an extensive list of effective link-building strategies for you to have a go at. 

1. Produce consistent blog content 

If you’re producing regular blog content then you might already be well on your way to earning some quality backlinks. By maintaining the quality and frequency of your blog articles, you’ll naturally build authority on your chosen niche which will drive people to link to your blog. 

2. Link to other blogs

A really simple way to earn backlinks is by simply linking to other people’s blogs in your writing. If you do this enough, someone is bound to return the favour. 

Make sure you don’t go overboard with this though by linking to every Tom, Dick and Harry. Only link to another blog if the opportunity arises naturally in your writing. 

3. Write guest posts

This one might feel a little strange, but trust us it works a treat! Write a really good blog post and reach out to other bloggers to see if they’d be interested in publishing it on their blog. If someone bites, ask if they’d be willing to add a link to your blog. The result is that they get some quality content for their blog and you’ve earned yourself a backlink. It’s a win-win situation.

4. Produce handy resource lists

This strategy is the gift that keeps on giving. Put together a really useful resource list that’s relevant to your niche, for example if you’re a digital marketing agency you could put together a list of the best social media scheduling tools and post it on your blog. This will not only be helpful content for your readers, but great link bait too. Other bloggers can easily link to it instead of having to write out their own. 

5. Write newsjack articles 

You have to be on your toes for this one. By being the first blogger to comment on a news event, you’ll not only be favoured in Google’s algorithm for your freshness, but you’ll also be the blog post that everyone wants to link to when they publish their own version of the story. 

6. Write case studies and rave about your clients

Sing your clients praises in a case study about their business and they’re bound to link to you on their website. Showcase their great results and you’ll leave them no choice but to backlink you. 

Or, get on the other side of this strategy by volunteering for case studies. Offer up your time to be the subject of someone else’s case study so that they link you in their post. 

7. Offer free tools and templates

Going back to the resource lists we mentioned earlier, you can reap the benefits of being included in one of these lists by creating a free handy tool that other bloggers can include in their resource lists. 

Templates are another useful service that people will want to link to. Spend some time thinking about the kind of templates that make people’s jobs easier, for example prospecting email templates, and create shareable ones. Again, other bloggers might link to it in their posts. 

8. Write book / product reviews

Write an extensive (positive) review of someone else’s book or product and they’ll definitely want to link it on their own website. 

9. Design high-quality infographics and visual content

People love infographics. Create your own aesthetically pleasing and informative infographics for people to share and use in their own posts – they’ll link it back to you as the original source. If you’re not a designer, don’t worry, there’s lots of simple tools you can use to create your own compelling infographics. 

10. Make slideshare presentations

Similar to the last point – people love to share visually pleasing content. Pull apart your infographic and spread it across a slideshare presentation. Or maybe you’ve got some old ones you can repurpose. Either way, publish these on your blog or website so people can get sharing. 

11. Use comedy

Every marketer’s dream is to produce content that goes viral, and humour spreads like wildfire. Even the most ordinary business can find the private jokes in their industry. The Dollar Shave Club produced a perfect example of this, have a look at this viral video they created that worked wonders for their business. If you want people linking to your site, this is an extremely effective way to do it. 

12. Reach out when you post something great

If your company has big news to share, or you’ve put together an amazing bit of content, do some outreach to gain attention from the press. Getting published in industry publications will put your business in front of a huge audience, massively improve your credibility, and hopefully gain you those all important backlinks.

13. Team up with other companies

Partner with companies in complementary organisations to yours and work together to build each other up. They’ll want to talk about your business because they have a vested interest in your success. The bigger your company is, the more traffic you drive to their website, and vice versa. 

14. Get people to review your products

Obtaining positive reviews of your business is a surefire way to earn backlinks and attract new customers. Ask industry experts who’ve got credibility to review your products. There’s also product review websites you can utilise such as Trustpilot and Yelp.

15. Network

Building relationships with other webmasters will open doors for your business. If you can make real friendships with the people behind organisations, you’ll have a better shot at working with them when future opportunities arise. A company is much more likely to give your business a shout out if you’ve got pals behind the scenes. Networking is a crucial skill to have in the marketing world. 

16. Look for brand mentions

Monitor what other webmasters are saying about your business. There’ll be times when something they’ve said warrants an inbound link. For example, if someone quotes some data from your site, you’re well within your rights to ask them to include a link to your site.

17. Search for broken links

Utilise site crawling tools to identify outdated or broken links to your site. It’s natural that over time your website will change and elements of it will get updated, this can lead to the expiration of inbound links within existing brand mentions as they become outdated. Again, you’re well within your right to reach out and politely ask if the webmaster can correct the link. 

18. Track your competitors’ backlinks

Carry out frequent competitor research, weekly or monthly, to monitor your competitors’ backlinks. This way you’ll identify any new ways your competitors are gaining backlinks, and you’ll have the opportunity to hop on board and get in on some of the action. For example, if one of your main competitors has been recently reviewed, the chances are the review site will be interested in reviewing your product too. 

19. Encourage sharing on socials

A big part of off-site SEO is getting your content out there. If you can get people sharing your content regularly, you’ll rank higher on search engines and social feeds. This will result in even more opportunity for your content to be cited and referenced, along with those all important backlinks. Everytime you create content worth sharing, whether it’s infographics, white papers, blog posts or that humorous viral video we suggested earlier, include social sharing widgets so people can spread the love. 

20. Sponsor or speak at an event

If you sponsor or speak at an event, you’re guaranteed to get some publicity. The event host will value having you on board so don’t be scared to negotiate inbound links into your terms. 

Also, If you’re speaking at an event, you can use this opportunity to get some great content in front of an audience. Create an amazing slideshow presentation that people will want to share and talk about later – and hopefully link to you!

And there we have it, 20 tried and tested ways to build up your backlinks.

Good luck!

Let’s be honest, the primary goal of marketing is to sell stuff. Today’s folk have adapted to the traditional marketing methods though, and nobody wants to feel like they’re being pushed to buy something. So how do you sell a product or service without acting like you’re trying to sell something? Enter content marketing. 

What is content marketing?

All marketing activities focused on producing and sharing relevant, valuable, consistent information to a clearly defined audience are classed as content marketing. 

Instead of blatantly pitching your product or service, content marketing enables you to express your expertise in a certain field and build an audience that is genuinely interested in the solution you are offering. 

Examples of content marketing

There are so many types of content marketing out there, here’s a list we created of the main ones:

• Blogs
• Videos
• Social media posts
• Podcasts
• Ebooks
• Whitepapers
• Infographics
• Webinars
• Slideshare presentations

We could go on, but we think you get the picture.

The importance of content marketing

Content marketing is giving away valuable information for free. Yes, that’s right, for free. You might be thinking that sounds a little counterintuitive when the ultimate goal is to make money, but here’s why it works.

Back in the day customers were less likely to question the expertise of a company, but today we have the internet. An endless stream of information and home to countless businesses offering the same products or services. You can judge companies by reading reviews, and you don’t have to stay local. If you want to buy a new coat you can have it delivered from across the globe, if you need a new car insurance deal you can find and compare hundreds in the click of a mouse. With so many options to choose from, customers are becoming increasingly critical in their decision making before they decide to buy something. Online researching before you commit to purchase is standard practise these days.

This is where content marketing comes in. A thorough content marketing strategy can help businesses compete by sharing their expertise and building trust in potential customers.

Here’s how it works

Say you’re currently redecorating your house. You’re trying to decide which tile to buy for your new bathroom, and so you hit Pinterest in the hope that by browsing hundreds of images of bathrooms you’ll stumble on the perfect bathroom inspo. As you’re browsing, you click on an image that takes your fancy. You’ve found it, the perfect tile. A white rectangular porcelain number. And what’s that link attached to the image? A link to a shop that sells these exact tiles…handy right? Well, that’s content marketing. This hypothetical bathroom tile business has used Pinterest as a platform to post free content of their products. 

The same company might also have a blog where they post weekly home DIY articles, an Instagram page full of beautiful eye-catching images and a Facebook page showcasing their customer testimonials. 

There are endless options when it comes to content marketing. If you’re struggling to figure out which kind of content will work best for targeting your perfect customer, check out our guide on how to create a top tier marketing plan.

Good luck!

Why is social media the best place to advertise your brand? Well, around 4 billion people worldwide use it, that’s why. And since the Covid-19 pandemic, this number is growing rapidly. 

Social media platforms are the perfect tools to tap into a huge audience and get your brand the kind of exposure that is guaranteed to grow your business. 

So, without further ado, let’s look at how to create the perfect social media marketing strategy. 

Define your audience 

Before you do anything, you need to decide who your target audience is. To do this, create a buyer persona. This is a fictional representation of your ideal customer. If you already have existing customers you can compile data from them, if not, you’ll need to decide for yourself what kind of person will want to buy from you. Consider things like:

• Age
• Location
• Language
• Interests
• Pain Points
• Stage of life

If you’re finding this stage a little tricky, have a read of this guide we wrote on how to find your audience on social media. 

Set your goals

Next, you should think about what aims you’re trying to achieve with your marketing strategy. This way you’ll be able to track your successes and figure out if your investments have been worth it. It will also help to guide your activities in the right direction if you have a clear plan of what you’re hoping to achieve. 

Here’s some examples of the kind of goals you might want to consider:

• Build brand awareness
• Grow and manage an engaged audience
• Increase sales
• Obtain customer insights
• Identify and nurture leads
• Deliver customer service

Create great content

Now that you’ve established your target audience and your goals, it will be easier to decide what kind of content you’re going to produce. 

For example, let’s say your company sells recruitment software. You know that you’re targeting B2B customers, so your best bet is to publish content on Linkedin. Your content should be things like:

• Issues that are relevant to recruitment professionals
• Best practices that are useful to recruitment professionals
• Research within the recruitment industry

Check out your competitors

Keep a tab on what your biggest competitors are doing on social media. You can learn from what they’re doing, and compare your content against theirs.

If they’re publishing more content than you are… up your game. 

If they’re publishing content on more platforms than you are… up your game. 

If they’re creating more interesting content than you are, yep that’s right, up your game! 

Engage with your audience

Creating and publishing content is not your only job, you also need to engage with your followers. Encourage them to interact with your posts by using hashtags and CTA’s. Ask for their responses, and reply to them when they do. This will make them feel cared about, and help to build your online community and brand awareness. 

Follow these key points and you’ll be on your way to a flawless social media marketing strategy. If you need some extra help with your social media marketing, we’d love to help. 

Good luck!

New to blogging and wondering how to get some traffic to your site? Or, maybe you’ve been blogging for a while but your audience is as empty as it was on day one. Queue the tumbleweed. 

Do not fear! Growing your blog’s traffic is easy once you know how to properly utilise your social media platforms. In today’s post we’re going to talk you through the wonders of Instagram, and how it can be used to deliver a regular stream of traffic to your blog. 

Why Instagram is great for bloggers

First off, Instagram attracts over 1 billion users each day. That’s a lot of potential readers for your blog. When used properly, Instagram can serve as a great way to grow both your followers and your readers. Here’s how:

• It allows you to grow a community around your blog
• It’s a platform where you can promote your latest blog
• It enables you to connect with your readers

 Now that we’ve covered the benefits, let’s walk you through the best ways to create and operate a successful Instagram for your blog.

Choose a good username 

A good username will grab attention and draw people to your brand. If you already have a blog name, stick with that so you’re consistent across platforms. 

Pick a niche

If your content is all over the place, you’ll struggle to build a decent following. At the start of your Insta journey, you need to decide what your niche is going to be. This will be the topic or theme of your content.

If you’ve been blogging for a while you might already have a niche, for example if you write about food and publish recipes on your blog then you’re in a great position to build an Instagram page full of food related content. You could post video reels of the dishes being created, and photos of your final products. This will attract an audience who’re interested in food, and are likely to want to read your blogs.  

Master your Instagram bio

Think of your Insta bio as your elevator pitch. In 150 characters you need to persuade your audience to stick around and follow you. You can make use of emojis, hashtags and mentions to make it as interesting as possible. This is the only place you can insert a link too, so make sure you add a link to your blog here. 

Post frequently

It’s no good posting once in a blue moon if you want to build a substantial audience. Consistency is key. Everytime you publish a blog, create an Instagram post letting your followers know. Use high-quality images, attention grabbing captions, and of course, relevant hashtags. 

To optimise your growth rate, aim to post on Instagram 1-6 times per week. So, if you’re only publishing 1 blog per week, you’ll need to try and fill the gaps in between with photos and videos relevant to your chosen niche. It might seem like a lot of effort, but trust us, you’ll thank us later. 

Use relevant hashtags

Hashtags act as a discovery tool that allows anyone interested in your niche to find you. If you’re blogging about upcycling furniture… use hashtags like #upcycle #recycle #repurposed #homeinspo.

Top Tip: don’t use spaces in hashtags, anything after the space won’t be included in the tag. 

Include CTA’s in your posts

Everything we’ve said up to now will help you grow your account and gain followers. But how do you get those all important followers to take the next step and actually read your blog posts? 

This is where CTA’s come in. CTA stands for ‘call to action’, they’re words or phrases used to persuade your audience to perform a specific action. So if you want your followers to open a link to your recent blog post..tell them to. You could say something like the following: I went meat-free for an entire week, read about how I got on here, [insert link]. 

Engage with other bloggers

Within your chosen niche there is bound to be an entire blogging community. Interacting with others’ content will make you more visible in the community, and fellow bloggers might ask you to collaborate which is a great way to expose your brand to a tonne of new potential followers interested in your niche. 

Now you know how to properly utilise Instagram to grow your blog’s audience, there should be no stopping you! Go on, give it a try. 

If you need more advice on how to identify your audience, take a look at this blog we wrote on how to find your social media audience. 

Good luck!

Once a year your team should be sitting down and producing a marketing strategy for the following year. Why? Because without one your team is going to lack direction, and without direction it can be hard to push forward and stay on track. Plus, it will be almost impossible to put a number on the budget you’re going to need for all the projects, outsourcing and hiring to come over the next year. To make the ambitions and goals of your team a reality, a great marketing strategy is essential. 

In this post we’re going to talk you through each element of an effective marketing plan. Remember, every industry has different goals so you’ll need to personalise it to your specific company, but you can think of our guide as a template to work from.

What to include in your marketing plan

1. Business Summary

The best starting point for your marketing plan is to produce a summary of the business. It’s as simple as it sounds too – just make a brief summary of the organisation. Include the company name, headquarters, and your mission statement. 

2. Company Initiatives

Next, outline the company initiatives that are specific to the marketing department. This is a great way to map out the goals of your department; for example segment the goals of various upcoming projects and describe how these goals will be measured. 

3. Market Research

It’s likely that your company has already completed a thorough market study so this stage will be easy to complete. Split this step into two sections: customer profile and competitor analysis.

Customer Profile: Create a semi-fictitious picture of the ideal customer for your business and describe them. You should focus on their imagined traits such as age, location, goals, pain points, personal challenges, and triggering events. 

Competitor Analysis: Your customer profile should identify the challenges that your customer wants to solve. With this in mind, you can imagine the companies they might go to for these solutions. These companies are your competitors; identify them and evaluate their strengths and weaknesses and how they compare to your business. This information will help you identify gaps in the market that your company can potentially fill. 

4. SWOT analysis

SWOT is a great framework to use for evaluating your company and developing a strategic plan of action. It stands for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. A lot of this information can be gathered from the sections above, but be patient because it’s worth having if you want to identify your company’s future potential. 

5. Market Strategy

Think of this stage as your plan of action. Using the information you’ve put together so far, it’s time to lay out how your company intends to approach the market. If you’re struggling to figure out a strategy, think about this question: What should your company offer your ideal customer, to solve their solutions, that your competitors aren’t already offering? 

Having identified the product or solution you’re going to be offering, the next part of your plan is to create a list of the marketing channels you’re going to use to educate your buyers, generate leads and spread brand awareness. For example, if you intend to use social media channels, you can use this section of your plan to write down which social media platforms you’re going to use and how you’re going to measure their success. If you’re creating accounts from scratch, take a look at this post we wrote on how to find your social media audience. 

6. Budget

The final stage of your marketing plan is all about money. Dull stuff, we know. This step is essential though if you want to bring your marketing strategy to life. Itemise your budget by stating what you intend to spend on each individual expense, for example:

• Outsourcing 
• Software
• Ads
• Events

Establishing a budget also means you can calculate some financial projections for the year based on your ROI.

Creating a marketing plan is the best way to realise your business’ goals and put them into action. It connects everything together and makes sure that your team knows what to do, when to do it, to which audience and through the right channels. 

Good luck!

Whether you’re a newbie to the field or are an experienced digital marketer in need of a refresher, getting the lingo down can be tough. That’s why we’ve created this handy digital marketing glossary from A-Z of the most useful buzzwords all digital marketers need to know.

Audience

The demographic you are targeting your ads at in order to convert them into customers.

Backlink

A link that connects one website to another. Also called “inbound links” and are very important SEO tools. 

CTA – Call to Action

A word or phrase used in content to persuade the audience to perform a specific action, e.g. “buy now”

Domain Name

Part of a URL that identifies it as belonging to a particular company or organisation. E.g. in www.byter.com, the domain name is ‘byter.com’

Email List

A collection of emails used in email marketing. Each email address may represent a potential customer, business or outreach lead. 

Full-Stack Developer

A web developer or engineer who is capable of producing both client and server software. They work with both the front and back end of a website or application.

Google Analytics

A web analytics service provided by Google that tracks and measures website metrics such as which search engine was used to land on the site, where users are located, how many users have visited the site, how long they stayed on each page, and more. 

Hashtags

A metadata tag that is prefaced by the hash symbol, #. Hashtags are used for widespread content sharing, usually on social media platforms such as Instagram and Twitter. 

Impressions

Impressions measure how often your ad is viewed on-screen by members of your audience.

Java Script

A programming language primarily used for building interaction-based applications on websites or digital devices. 

Keyword

A word or phrase that is entered into a search engine. For the purpose of digital marketing, keywords are popular/ common words or phrases that are used in content to optimise a site’s ranking position. 

Lead

A lead is a potential customer, someone who may potentially or may have already shown interest in your product or services. 

Marketing Automation

Technology used for the purpose of streamlining marketing efforts to make them more effective. 

NoFollow

An identifier tag that tells search engines not to increase the ranking of the webpage it is assigned to.

Organic Listing

A natural or unpaid listing of a website on a search result page. The point of SEO is to optimise organic listings. 

PPC – Pay Per Click

An advertising method where advertisers will only pay for their adverts each time a user clicks on them. 

Quality Score

A metric used by Google, Yahoo and Bing! To measure the quality of ads. 

ROI – Return On Investment 

Measures the return on an investment relative to its cost. In digital marketing, calculating the ROI will tell you whether marketing and campaign efforts are contributing to revenue growth.

SEO – Search Engine Optimisation 

Increasing the quantity and quality of traffic to your website through organic search engine results. For example, practising SEO can increase the visibility of your website on google search results. 

Traffic

Number of visitors to a website. 

URL – Uniform Resource Locator 

A web page address. E.g. www.byter.com is the address for Byter’s website. 

Vlog

A video blog. 

White Paper

An in-depth report or authoritative guide that educates an audience about a particular issue or problem.

XML Sitemap

A list of URL’s for a particular website. It is used by search engine crawlers to easily identify all of a website’s available content. 

Youtube

An online video sharing platform. 

And for Z….well, we’re not sure there is one. Please let us know if you have one!

Good luck!