TOP TIPS TO MASTER YOUR CLUB’S DIGITAL MARKETING IN 2016
Article by Samantha Wardman – CornerPost Consulting
A lot can be accomplished in a year – if that’s something you question, then perhaps look to Taylor Swift for inspiration. She earned $1 million (USD) a day in 2015 – making her a not only a powerhouse entertainer but hugely successful and influential on the commercial side as a brand too.
For your Club to flourish, you’ll need a stellar marketing plan. Here are our top tips on mastering your club’s digital marketing this year.
- BE MOBILE FRIENDLY
It’s official, Google says so – some 70% of search now takes place on mobile devices. So you need to make sure your Club’s website is mobile-friendly or responsive and techy lingo. Is the club’s phone number at the top of each page of the site with a click to call? Did you know you can track conversions that take place on your mobile verse desktop too? Make sure mobile friendliness becomes a focal point for your business in 2016.
- EMAIL MARKETING
Are you sending out at least two emails per month for your business for marketing purposes? It works. Our clients tell us so too. Make an effort to collect more email addresses this year; obtain email addresses from members and potential members visiting your website and make use of them with regular email blasts. Make the effort to build up a sizable list of email recipients and send out memorable and regular emails on what’s coming up at your club or even run a promotion. This will generate more business and for a minimal cost too. We recommend Mail Chimp as a great starting point.
- GOOGLE ANALYTICS
It’s easy to learn about customers and prospects when they walk into your store or place of business but what about those visitors to your digital storefront (website) who are every bit as important? Google Analytics helps you get to know them by tracking unique and returning visitors, pages viewed, time spent on the site and much, much more.
We suggest dedicating at least 20 minutes each week to reviewing your club’s Google Analytics and website performance. The insights you will gain will help you make adjustments to your marketing strategy based on what customers are doing on your website.
- INSTAGRAM ADVERTISING
Instagram is the newest craze and has well over 300 million active users per month worldwide, with Aussies accounting for over 5.7 million of those. Last year, Instagram Australia saw a 30% growth over a 12-month period – making it another important facet for your business advertising.
Consider scheduling a photo shoot for your Club to capture some great images to use on Instagram. There are quick and easy steps online to help you create a cracking Instagram ad. You can pay to advertise on Instagram (thanks to Facebook buying the platform) but if you want to avoid spending, then grow your following organically by asking local businesses to follow you and then reciprocate by following them. It’s all about a creating a collaborative and supportive community.
- BOOSTED FACEBOOK POST – $10 VERY WELL SPENT
We assume you have a Facebook page for your Club?! If not, you’re doing yourself a serious disservice given the 14,000 million active Australian users on the platform. With this volume of users and Facebook’s commercialisation of the platform, a standard post can easily get lost on people’s newsfeeds, swamped by friends’ posts of kids and holidays. Our advice? Pay to boost your post. To be seen in 2016 on the over saturated social media platform, invest money to promote your content or you’ll go unnoticed.
Boosting a post is easy to do and available for any post on your page’s timeline. Just click ‘Boost Post’ in the lower right corner of your post. You don’t need to pay for every boost but choose the best ones. Boosting is affordable and effective.
A social media guru in the US conducted a case study on the $5 boosted Facebook post. The results were outstanding – her post reach soared, the post generated many comments and was also shared too. Not a bad result for roughly the cost of a large flat white.
- GOOGLE ADWORDS
The search behemoth is our first choice for online searching and its results seriously influence our decision making. Google processes more than 3.5 billion searches per day (40,000 searches every second). AdWords is a service from Google for businesses wanting to display ads on Google’s search engine. The ad service is based largely on keywords, which you can search for free using their keyword planner tool. Once you choose the best keywords that you want your ad to display with, you can bid on keywords relating to the product you’re selling or service you’re offering. It’s cost effective to get started and you only pay when people click on your ad. Bidding on keywords targeted toward your demographic and region can instantly drive new business leads.
- VIDEO CONTENT
Online video advertising is starting to really take off with many businesses becoming aware of how effective this approach can be. It doesn’t have to only be big businesses with substantial budgets generating online video advertising, it’s an option for everyone.
Samantha Wardman,
www.cornerpostconsulting.com.au
