marketing Archives

26/10/2021

Haunting marketing mistakes

Don’t wake up screaming in the night because you’ve made a haunting marketing mistake that could cost you.

When you market your business, service or product you want to stand out and be seen. Taking risks is all part of marketing but making sure they’re the right ones can be challenging.

To help you avoid any haunting mistakes, here are 10 marketing mistakes often made by businesses:

1.Not using social media

Whatever industry you are in, you should be using social media. Not necessarily every single platform out there but definitely have an online presence. It’s expected and standard these days.

2. Making it about yourself

You want customers to buy your product or service, right? Then you need to listen to them and sell them what they need, don’t make it all about you and what you can do. This goes for your marketing content too, provide valuable content.

3. Not shouting about your USP

Your USP is what makes you different to your competitors, make sure you’re shouting about this through your marketing.

4. Not willing to invest

With any investment, you put money in to receive more back. It’s the same with your marketing, if you don't put any money into it you can’t always expect high returns.

5. Targeting everyone and anyone

Not defining your target audience could mean your marketing is all over the place and you’re sending mixed messages to your audience.

6. Not publishing blog content

There’s no doubt blogs should be in your marketing plan, blogs are useful in so many ways. From SEO to content for your social media, make sure you’re writing them.

7. Forgetting videos

Video content is on the rise due to popularity. They don’t need to be long, they can be short and snappy but it is important to include videos in your marketing plan.

8. Not utilising email marketing

Email marketing is an incredibly cost-effective method of marketing and to this day is still a valuable marketing tool. Don't underestimate it.

9. No call to action

Your goal is to achieve more sales, if your marketing activity doesn’t have a call to action how will your customers know what to do?

10. Unwilling to adapt

Change is inevitable, if you’re unwilling to adapt or change when something happens you’re going to be left behind and seen as outdated. Take the pandemic, for example, a lot of companies had to reevaluate their online presence.

After reading through that list, we hope you’ve managed to identify that you don’t do any of them or you realise this is somewhere that needs improvement - mistakes happen.

22Group are a team of talented web designers, branding experts and marketers. We offer bespoke solutions and can help you achieve success. We’d love to help and have a chat with you - get in touch.

Published by twentytwo in Marketing & Analytics

Tags: digitalmarketing, halloween, marketing

17/09/2021

Time for a business autumn clean?

The start of September saw the introduction of autumn goods in the shops, children going back to school and people getting back into routines. And, with a change in season coming an autumn clean is just as important as a spring clean. But, we mean a business autumn clean.

Ensure your website, branding and marketing are all up to scratch and look the way you want it to. Keep content up to date, fresh and think about if these three aspects are still aligning with your business goals.

desk with a computer, pot of pens and a mug

Website

Wondering if your website requires an update? Check if everything is still working, this could be the forms on your website, internal or external links or the customer login section.

Once you’ve done that, is there now something you think could be added to your website to make it a better experience for your customers? A feature that allows them to do more or perhaps it’s something that has been suggested by your customers.

Keep this in mind and not only will website updates improve the user experience but they will help with site security and your bounce rate.

Branding

Right this moment, would you describe your branding as fresh? Does it fit in with the 21st century?

From the colours used to the typeface, every aspect of your branding will influence how someone perceives your company.

Rebranding or a brand refresh can make you more relevant and can even help you reach and engage with a new audience. If you’re trying to tap into a new market or target audience, check if your branding is applicable to them as well as your current audience.

Marketing

Are you following trends and managing to keep up with marketing tasks?

Ensure your marketing goals still align with your overall business goals. It’s good to take a step back and look at the wider picture to see if you’re on track.

Also, if you’ve been trying a marketing method for a while and it’s not getting you anywhere or getting you the leads you expected, take time to evaluate and try something different.

When you update your marketing it will not only become more effective but it will also save you costs. It’s time to make wise marketing decisions.

billboard with different colourful words

How can 22Group help?

We’re proud to say we can offer many of your digital needs under one roof. Whether you are thinking about refreshing or creating a new website, brand or marketing we’ve got experts to help.

Want to see what we’ve done before? Our latest case study is on a financial company who came to us for a website refresh, take a look at our work - click here.

We’d be more than happy to have a chat about what you’re looking for or answer any questions you have - get in touch.

Published by twentytwo in Website Design & Build

Tags: autumn, branding, marketing, websitedesign

26/08/2021

How to make social media accessible

Is your social media content accessible?

While social media continues to expand with new features, so do its users. By having inclusive content, that is accessible, you can reach a larger audience.

Especially with the last year and a half, people have been relying on social media and online platforms to interact and keep in touch with people throughout the many lockdowns. For people who are blind, visually impaired, deaf or hard of hearing, these small, easy changes make a huge difference in their social media experience.

It’s good to take note that smartphones already have some built-in tools to make their device more accessible, including text to speech, enlarging the text and in addition, lots of apps that can do all sorts.

Tips to make your social media content more accessible:

Image descriptions

Sometimes known as alternative text (alt text), an image description allows a screen reader to describe an image out loud. A lot of content on social media platforms are visual and the image descriptions really allow them to imagine the post.

Tip: keep it short and concise, the key features will help paint a picture.

Subtitle videos

Where possible for video content, create subtitles for them. There are many apps which can help do this for you or if you are posting on Facebook, it does have the functionality to automatically create subtitles, however, it may not be 100% accurate.

CamelCase hashtags

By capitalising the first word in a hashtag, it makes it easier to read not only for screen readers when they read aloud but also for everyone else.

#MakeSocialMediaAccessible

Emoji usage

If a screen reader is being used they will pick up on the emojis, so if you use a lot in one go it could go something like “Hugging face. Hugging face. Hugging face. Hugging face. Hugging face.”. Now, that’s pretty annoying!

All of these are simple yet effective ways to make social media more accessible.

While technology develops, keep an eye out for new accessibility tools being revealed on platforms.

Need help with your social media?

At 22Group, we can slot right in where you need help whether that’s creating impactful social media assets or doing the leg work and posting on your platforms. Our flexible, experienced marketing team are happy to listen to your needs and work with you to achieve your goals.

Ready to have a chat? Get in touch with us today.

Published by twentytwo in Social media

Tags: content, contentmarketing, Facebook, instagram, marketing, socialmediamarketing

11/08/2021

National Tell a Joke Day

National Tell a Joke Day is coming up on Monday, 16th of August, so we’ve searched far and wide to find the digital related jokes that made us laugh the most.

Jokes about websites

Grandmothers are like websites
- They keep telling you to accept their cookies

I was placed under arrest for downloading the whole Wikipedia website
- I told the officer “Wait! I can explain everything!”

What is the most common job amongst spiders?
- Web design

How do you comfort a JavaScript bug?
- You console it

Jokes about branding

How do you deliver fonts?
- By Courier

Things aren’t always #000000 and #FFFFFF

Two fonts walk into a bar
- The bartender says “we don’t serve your type here”. They called the Serif.

I’m very font of you because you are just my type.

Jokes about marketing

Why are SEO experts always late to work?
- They love traffic

Why did the marketer get fired as a tap dancer?
- They wanted to get paid per click

Why was the SEO guru upset when she found out she was going to have twins?
- Duplicate content

I made a joke about organic reach on Facebook
- … nobody got it

Ok, they might not of all had you laughing your socks off but we hope they put a smile on your face!

Share the laughter and send on some of these jokes.

Great websites, branding and marketing are no joke to us. If you need help in creating or refreshing yours then get in touch with us today.

Published by twentytwo in Brand & Strategy, Marketing & Analytics, Website Design & Build

Tags: branding, digitalagency, jokeday, jokes, marketing, websitedesign

01/07/2021

Social media scheduler

Wimbledon is back this year and it got us thinking, is the ball in your court? Social media marketing can be a handful when you’re on several platforms. Keeping up with social media dates as well as trending topics and conversations is constant. Do you use a social media scheduler?

Planning in advance is a great way to get on top. There are certain dates in the year that don’t change like Christmas and there are also social media calendar dates too like National Siblings Day.

It’s great if you’re able to get ahead with creating assets or even what the caption for a post will be, but where can you put it to ensure you don’t forget when the time comes?

That’s where social media schedulers step in. They’re there to make your life easier, help with planning and even execute the posting so if you’re busy elsewhere or don’t have the time on the day, the post is done for you.

notebook and post-it notes for noting down social media scheduling plans

Why use one?

Manage multiple accounts

Instead of logging in and out of different social media accounts, manage them in one place. Login once and see all your accounts from there.

Save time

As well as logging into one place, if you’re doing the same post across all channels, many will allow you to select those accounts instead of individually posting.

Visually see your schedule

If you’ve been planning ahead and already put posts in your schedule, check and visually see all your posts on a calendar or similar format. You’ll be able to see if you already have posts going out that day or see how many are planned to go out that week or month.

More than scheduling

A lot of the social media schedulers go beyond scheduling. To help with engagement or other parts of your digital marketing there can be other tools like a keyword researcher to help with SEO.

Analyse results

Want to find ways to improve your digital marketing? You’ll be able to monitor and see results and after some time you can then see what might need to change or what is working.

How to choose one?

There are many social media scheduler platforms out there so you’re probably asking yourself “How do I choose one?”.

They’re not all the same so there are some questions to ask yourself to help choose:

What is your budget?
Which social media platforms do you use the most?
How many people will need access to it?

Most of the scheduling tools will have a USP and that might be that they specifically tailor more to one platform than another.

22 group employees discussing social media scheduling

Downsides of schedulers?

Although they sound great, like most things there are downsides:

Instagram

A popular platform that is very app focused. There is restricted functionality outside of the app for scheduling posts on the grid, IGTVs and Instagram stories.

Stories have become increasingly popular with many saying they prefer to watch stories than scroll their home feed. Do thoroughly check when a scheduling tool mentions you can schedule Instagram stories because there might be an asterisk mentioning it doesn’t publish it but reminds you to do so.

Number of users

When looking at the pricing plans for different social media scheduling platforms, you most likely just look at their price per month. If you have a few people that need to use the platform, check the number of users allowed. On a lot of plans, they just allow 1 user on the platform at a time and anymore incurs extra charges.

Full functionality

Social media platforms are advanced and constantly changing making them complex. Unfortunately, the scheduling tools might not be able to do absolutely everything you’re looking for. Whether that be posting videos on some platforms or creating Facebook carousel posts.

Most of the scheduling tools offer free trials or demos, we highly recommend making use of these so you can see what it’s like using the platform.

Limitation with the free option

You may be a small business owner or just need a little help. A few of the scheduling tools offer a free option however, it is very limited in what you can do. This could simply be the number of social media accounts you can have on the platform or how many posts you can schedule.

diary and pencil for writing down social media plan

What can 22Group help with?

If you are struggling with your social media marketing, whether that be keeping on top of it, generating content or creating visuals, we can help!

Our talented and experienced marketing team are passionate and proactive when it comes to social media marketing.

Ready to get started or want to learn more? Get in touch.

Published by twentytwo in Marketing & Analytics

Tags: Facebook, instagram, marketing, Social Media, socialmediamarketing

29/04/2021

Benefits of email marketing

Some people think email marketing is dying out, but how many times do you check your emails? How many times have you clicked on an email that offered a promotion? Or opened an email because it contained some useful information about new store policies due to COVID-19?

With an abundance of devices at our disposal - smartphones, tablets, laptops - we’re checking our emails daily.

A major benefit of email marketing is that it’s an incredibly cost-effective method of marketing. It really is still one of the most valuable and powerful marketing tools a company can have.

bag and man looking at his emails on his iphone

So, what are the benefits of email marketing:

Create targeted content

The content you put in your emails can be very specific and relate to the targeted audience. For example, if you have a promotion for UK Mother’s Day that would not apply to your US customers as their Mother’s Day date is another month.

Nurturing leads

Email marketing allows you to build up a relationship and share information with the customers that are sitting on the fence. By keeping in touch with them you’ll hopefully, one day, turn them into your loyal customers.

Sharing company news

Keep your audience up to date through email marketing or share a new marketing campaign to build interest. Do you have new opening times? Or are you going to be sponsoring a charity that means a lot to your business? Let your audience know.

Build your brand

Email marketing allows you to build your brand image as you’re sharing content. While you share relevant and valuable information, trust increases amongst your audience. This trust is so important for turning them from leads to customers.

Increase traffic to your website

Lead customers from your email marketing to your website by CTAs, this increases traffic and improves SEO. Maybe you ended up reading this blog because you opened one of our emails!

Reaching people at the right time

Your email marketing allows you to reach people at the right time. You’ll be able to learn a lot about your audience through your email marketing, including the optimum time they will open and click on their emails. This is great to know for specific marketing campaigns, like a new product launch.

22 employee drawing our lead nurture journey for email marketing on a whiteboard

Provide valuable content

By providing valuable content to your audience, you’ll keep them coming back. Even those who aren’t actively your customer will see the value and pay attention to you.

Hopefully, you found the above benefits of email marketing useful and understand why it’s important to utilise it as part of your marketing.

If you need help or simply don’t have the time, 22Group can help. We’d love to have a chat with you. We’re a Manchester based web design company that also offers branding and marketing all under one roof.

Get in touch and discuss a project!

Published by twentytwo in Marketing & Analytics

Tags: campaign, digitalmarketing, email, marketing

18/03/2021

Spring clean your website, branding and marketing

Time to give your online presence a fresh look?

With the thought of spring cleaning right around the corner, it might not just be your home that needs freshening up.

Is your website outdated? Branding old fashioned? Do you struggle with planning and creating regular campaigns that suit the season and cyclical trends within your industry? 22Group can help.

Seasonal changes can often bring changes in general. We’ve put together a list of points to think about when you are going for a business change (all applicable whether it’s for a website, brand or your marketing):

Business goals and vision

Any changes made to your business should align with your business goals and visions. It should be part of the process not hinder it.

Budget

What you’ll be able to change may depend on your budget. If what you’re changing is beneficial to your business in the long run, it’s an investment to be taken seriously and the expected return on this should show.

Current functionality

Does your current website, brand or marketing do what you want it to? Does the website have enough CTAs, is the brand able to be easily incorporated into marketing materials, are you able to produce the marketing materials you want?

Current pain points

Are you finding it hard to solve your customers’ problems? Is it directly linked to either your website, branding or marketing? Then it’s about time to do something about that. You don’t want there to be a setback to providing the best service or product to your customers.

Competitors

How are your competitors performing? If they’re better, why? If you’re on par with them, how can you stand out? Your competitors most likely influence your decisions and the way you operate, so you configure out how to differentiate yourself but maybe this can only be achieved with a refreshed approach.

Inspirations

What inspires your business? Look and find those inspirations and explore what you like. Gathering up what appeals to you and what you aspire to be like will help come to a conclusion of what or how changes need to be made.

laptop, phone and pen ready to make notes for making some business changes

Had a thought about all of the above? Ready to crack on with spring cleaning? Get in touch to see how we can help with websites, branding or marketing.

Published by twentytwo in Company updates

Tags: customerengagement, marketing, springcleaning

04/03/2021

Recognising International Women’s Day: Women who influenced branding, marketing and the web.

In recognition of International Women’s Day we’re exploring the women who have influenced and shaped the branding, marketing and web industry.

There’s no doubt future generations will influence and change the way we market products and services, use the web or create brands. Here are only a handful of influential women who have made a major impact:

Ada Lovelace

"Ada Lovelace, 1838" by Nefi is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

Back in the middle of the 1800s Ada invented computer programming when she wrote the algorithm for the first computer machine. Her contribution has made the internet and today’s web possible, thanks Ada!

Carolyn Davidson

What brand do you associate a tick with? Carolyn Davidson, graphic designer, created the all so famous Nike Swoosh logo and originally contracted it for just $35 back then.

Ann Handley

"Ann Handley - Keynote" by TopRankMarketing is licensed under CC BY 2.0

A digital marketing pioneer, she’s an inspiration to create better marketing that delivers results. ClickZ, her previous company, is one of the first sources of digital marketing information in the world and IBM named her as one of the 7 people shaping modern marketing with a mention by Forbes as being a top thought leader.

Susan Kare

Susan Kare is a very influential computer iconographer, she has designed thousands of software icons which are recognisible to anyone who uses a computer. Her most notable icons are Apple, Microsoft and PayPal.

Kim Krause Berg

In 1998 Kim founded Cre8siteForums.org which is a forum for SEO, UX and web design. It’s a great place for advice and talking with other SEOs on different topics. Kim, from the start of SEO, provided guidance on balancing usability with SEO.

Carol H. Williams

Creator of many famous advertising campaigns, Carol has worked with several big companies and one of the most memorable is The Walt Disney Company where she created the groundbreaking “Imagination” campaign.

Here at 22 Group, we’re really pleased to have welcomed a number of women to our team over the last 6 months, and we couldn’t be more proud to have a balanced, talented team.

But let’s be clear, when recruiting we of course search for the best person for the job, irrespective of gender. Running a small to medium-sized agency with a wide range of clients and industries, we find real value in having a balanced team to work on branding, design, web-build and marketing.

Published by twentytwo in Company updates

Tags: branding, inspirational women, marketing, websitebuild