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In previous blogs, we’ve used the metaphor of a brand being like a person. The logo is like your outer appearance and your brand is like your personality. Think about your logo in terms of a visit to a hair salon. You can change the colour and style of your hair, but that doesn’t mean you emerge reinvented. Everything beneath the surface is still the same.

When building your brand you need to consider the whole picture. You don’t just need to change the exterior; your values, your aims and goals, they are all important, too.

If you are building or refreshing your brand you need to ask yourself some important questions:

How do your customers perceive your brand?

Sometimes the most surprising things can go viral. It’s hard to predict and you’re likely to need a crystal ball to foresee the future to be able to tell, but there are a few elements that make up a good share-worthy post.

Promotions

It’s another hot sticky day today-but rather than whinging about it, we have some practical #KeepCool ideas for you pic.twitter.com/IIszOUN7jv

— Waikato CivilDefence (@CivilDefenceWKT) January 19, 2016

First impressions are everything, so once a customer opts in ticks the box saying they are interested in receiving correspondence from you, your marketing material better be out-of-this-world amazing. A generic thanks for your subscription won’t cut the mustard in this competitive world. You need to pull out all the stops, even if it means hiring a professional graphic designer and a copywriter.

There’s more than just making sure your email correspondence looks the part, you need to ensure it’s well-written taking care to avoid words that will activate the spam filter. It also has to have influential copy, which will motivate the customer to take immediate action.

Here are some tips to make sure your first email to your email subscribers hits the mark.

Subject line

It needs to motivate the customer to open the email. For example you could use something along the lines of: “Thanks for subscribing – Here’s a special thank you” Or “Thanks for opting in. July savings for email subscribers” Avoid using capitals and exclamations, as it is likely to miss your customer’s inbox and end up in the junk folder without them even seeing it.

Email content

Include special codes that offer a special discount for email subscribers on their first purchase. A good example of this is Diamond Photos, who produce coffee table photo books. Some of their offers are for discounts up to 77% off the recommended retail price if you have their special code.

Avoid words, caps and symbols that will activate the spam filter

Excessive use of capital letters (like you are shouting), overuse of exclamation marks and words like FREE, BONUS, BUY NOW, SPECIAL OFFER, PRIZE will see your email being tagged as spam.

Personalise the copy

You need to make your recipient feel special. This is achieved by calling them by name; instead of ‘Dear customer’. The use of the word ‘you’ is a way of personalizing the copy. This is particularly important if you are a non-profit company. For example “XYZ happened was able to help because of your donations”.

For more help with making sure your email marketing is achieving the goals you intend, contact XDesigns Advertising. Whether it’s graphic design, marketing strategy or copywriting, they have the know-how.

From April 21st, there will be a major Google update taking place that will affect traffic to your website if it’s not already mobile-friendly.

The objective of Google’s latest change is designed to enhance mobile users experience when browsing the Internet.

Using technically advanced algorithms, Google’s search engine will take into account whether or not a website is mobile friendly to determine where it ranks in mobile device search results.

This means if you do not have a responsive website, you can expect to see a decrease in visitors to your website that use smartphones or tablets to access this Internet. Given that 80% of mobile users access the web via a smartphone this could mean a dramatic drop in users locating your homepage.

Google’s new algorithm ranks webpages separately, which means if all your pages aren’t mobile-responsive your entire website won’t be penalised. This is great news for those of you on a tight budget. You can choose the pages which are the most important for an immediate makeover and upgrade the rest of your website when money allows.

If you are not sure whether your website is mobile-friendly or not, the team at XDesigns Advertising are on stand-by right now. They will be able to inform you if your website meets Google’s new criteria and advise you on the necessary steps you need to take to make sure you are ready for the changeover on April 21, 2015.

Time is of the essence and April 21 is just a couple of weeks away. Book your website review now before XDesigns Advertising are booked out.

With Christmas season just around corner, you should be well underway with planning your email marketing strategies. To make it a much jollier Christmas, we’re sharing eight tried and tested techniques you can utilise.

Get into the festive spirit

Make your emails feel Christmassy. Whether you are marketing goods or services, festive headers and footers, special Christmas bonuses for purchases before December 25 or gift-wrapping services can act as calls to action the customer who usually leaves Christmas shopping until the last minute.

Be prepared for the worst case scenario

Make sure you have pre-made templates in the case of an emergency which explains what’s happening at your end and what you are endeavoring to do about it. For example if your website server goes down or is running slow or goods are delayed due to problems with suppliers, you won’t have to scratch around trying to draft an apology and explanation because you will have already done it. All you have to do is schedule it to be sent out.

Thoughtfully use preview text

Preview text is the quick summary, which appears alongside the subject line with a majority of most main email providers. Think of it like a subheading and target it at last-minute Christmas deals.

Pin it on pinterest

Dedicated Pinterest fans will start collating their want-list for Christmas early in on the year. Using Pinterest is a great way to highlight products or services you have for sale, determine what products are most sought after by people who like your products and use this information to relay it to potential customers. For example: A beauty company might discover a skin care range as the most desired item by women in Australia for Christmas.

Don’t reinvent the wheel

If Christmas 2014 you ran a very successful email marketing strategy, you don’t have to do something completely different. Stick with it and incorporate some of these handy techniques.

Make sure your emails are mobile-responsive

Every year the stats on smartphone use continue to grow, yet many retailers and service providers still haven’t wholly embraced mobile responsiveness as part of their marketing strategy. X Designs can provide you with a complete rundown on what it takes to go mobile-friendly. Your website might be responsive but you need to ensure your email templates are too.

Give your email urgency

No one wants to be working Christmas Eve, so make sure you put in a cut-off deadline for Christmas sales as this will not only make sure you’re not running around like a headless chook trying to get orders out, but it will motivate your buyers to act so they don’t miss out.

Contacts over Christmas

Do you shut down completely over the Christmas/New Year holiday period or is there an emergency number customers contact if they need to speak to you? What constitutes an emergency? Make it clear in your email what happens if someone needs to contact you when you’re out of the office. And if you are taking a break, when you will be available to deal with their queries. Be sure to have your automated email marketing software set up to deal with queries while you are enjoying the seasonal holiday with your family.

If you need any help with email marketing strategies, getting automated software which handles your emails or festive email templates, contact the graphic design professionals XDesigns today.

Sometimes it seems like having a Facebook page for your business is just another item on your to-do list that you just don’t have time for, but what you may not realise is that with more than 250 million people on Facebook, this is your quickest platform to refer people to your website. More traffic to your website could mean more sales or donations.

Make sure your posts are interesting

This is way is guaranteed to get your more followers. If the things you post are awesome, people will share them because they want their friends to think they are posting great stuff. If your Facebook page is consistently interesting you will gain more followers for fear of missing out on one of your amazing updates.

Don’t always try to sell your product or service

If every single post is trying to pressure your followers into buying your goods or service or donating to your non-profit charity, you’ll soon see your Facebook fans disappear into the social media abyss.

A picture of video is worth 1000 words

Keep the text light and ensure you use either a photo, infographic or video with every posts. Long text-heavy posts get skimmed over and are not likely to be shared.

Encourage engagement

This is your opportunity to find out what your customers think. Find out your fans likes and dislikes. Ask pertinent questions, use surveys or polls. You can utilise Facebook fans’ answers to improve or upgrade your products and services.

Let your hair down

Social media doesn’t always have to be serious. Take for example Philips Search and Rescue Trust’s Facebook page (www.facebook.com/rescuehelicoptertrust). They operate New Zealand’s largest pool of rescue helicopters and with the type of missions they attend their content could easily lean towards being quite depressing. Their Facebook posts are interspersed with inspirational quotes relevant to the service they provide and once a week they post Friday funnies.

Utilise your Facebook Insight

By familiarising yourself with your Facebook analytics, you can determine the age, location and times your fans are online. This can allow you to tailor posts to your followers.

Experiment

Don’t be afraid to try different posts. If something doesn’t get a lot of response, that’s okay, you’ll know better for next time. Sometimes the most unexpected posts generate plenty of engagement. If you have a post that is well received, look for similar posts you can schedule for the future.

Use scheduling

If you can’t afford a dedicated social media manager, the scheduling function is your best friend. It doesn’t mean you have to be glued to your computer, you can plan posts in advance.

Ask for help

If you need guidance in social media whether it’s content, attracting followers, Facebook advertising, setting up landing pages or creating graphics for posting, took to the team at XDesigns, they’re waiting for your call.

1. Social media will affect your Google ranking

If you have ever thought there’s no point in your company venturing into the world of Social Media, think again. In 2015 Google will analyse your social media activity and apply this to your search engine ranking. To get around this without doing any extra work, you may want to have a live feed widget which posts to your tweets and status updates directly to your homepage on your website.

2. Content marketing is crucial to Facebook marketing

Facebook are cracking down on business posts which promote downloading apps, buying products or coerce users into entering competitions, instead you will need to be posting content rich information rather than status updates with buy now. Posting regular and relevant content is an important aspect of making sure your Facebook feeds appear in newsfeeds. Targeting your posts to different ages, countries or even genders and including high quality photos can also help ensure more people see your content.

3. Having mobile friendly website is not an option

Last year it was advised to ensure your website is responsive, this year, it’s not an option. According to statistics, over half the world’s population will gain access to the internet via a mobile device. Upgrading your website will make the interact experience a lot simpler. Navigation anywhere on the website can be done with literally one or two swipes.

4. Post well-thought out Tweets

Tweets need to be keyword heavy, include hashtags, images and personalised links to rank higher with Twitters new upgrade to a better search engine similar to Google.Use bit.ly to personalise your links with keywords and use short, relevant hashtags, rather than an obscure attempt to be funny.

5. Utilise your Facebook and Twitter Insights

Analysing your social media insights can assist you in making informed marketing decisions. With these tools you will be able to see what your customers are liking, sharing, what times they’re most active, right down to the average age and whereabouts.

If you’re confused about how to make sure your business is staying on trend for 2015, need help implementing digital marketing strategies or just want a quote for a mobile friendly website, contact the team at XDesigns Advertising. They’ll help you achieve what you always thought was unreachable.

We’re going to cut straight to the chase, if you want new customers fast, you need Google Analytics. If you don’t know what Google Analytics is, just know it’s an essential means to make your marketing more effective and potentially increase the number of new customers.

What is Google Analytics?

Google Analytics allows you to monitor the number of people to your website, how they found your website, how long they spent visiting each page, which pages are the most popular and much more. Before you can start analysing the data, you’ll need to install it.

Taking the next step

This requires you to set up a Google Analytics account and copy and paste a tracking code into the back end of your website. If this sounds too hard already, then you can pick up the phone and contact the team at XDesigns. We can set up an account, install the tracking code and show you how to analyse the Google insights.

Set up a tracking code

Once your tracking code is set up, Google Analytics provides you with in-depth information on your web visitors’ behaviour. How much time are people spending on each page? After the arrival on the landing page where do they go from there? What part of the world are your visitors from? What pages never receive web traffic? How many visitors are returning customers and what is the percentage of first time visitors? How did people find your website in the first place? What sites are generating the most traffic to your website?

Ask the important questions

The information you acquire from analysing your website traffics will only be any good to you if you take action. Ask yourself these questions:

1. Which websites are referring the most traffic to you?
2. Are there advertising opportunities you can utilise on the websites they are being referred from?
3. Which web pages receive the least amount of traffic?
4. What ways could you improve on the least visited web pages or would anyone notice if they were deleted?

Gain a deeper understanding

Once you have a clearer understanding of your website visitors you can use Google Analytics to plan your next big advertising campaign, refine your website and discover new avenues where you can capture more web traffic.

Once you get visitors to your website, you need to ensure they keep coming back. XDesigns can make certain that visitors to your page aren’t just bouncing to another website because yours doesn’t look professional or isn’t user-friendly. Let the team help refine your design.

Don’t be scared to ask for help

If we lost you at the words, Google Analytics, but you still are desperate to gain a better understanding of your website visitors, leave it to the XDesigns team. All you have to do is pick up the phone and ask for our help.

Staying with your finger on the pulse in terms of how to keep your business relevant in 2015 will certainly give you the upper hand on your competitors.

Last year, marketing was all about content marketing, providing detailed information and answering clients’ questions. In 2015, the marketing trend your business needs to embrace is social media.

You might think Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn and Pinterest are a waste of time, but refusing to get on the social media band wagon could be the biggest mistake your company could make.

With over 13 million Australian’s spending an average on 18 hours online a day. Generally, 16 minutes of every hour is spent checking social media accounts. Keeping in mind these startling statistics, it’s no wonder Instagram, Pinterest and Snapchat are following in Facebook’s footsteps with paid advertising being a part of their new strategy for 2015.

These companies are growing their mobile marketing channels to stay relevant, so what can you doing to make sure your business won’t be left behind in the dark ages.

Mobile responsive websites

It’s not enough to have a flash website anymore, it needs to be mobile responsive – easy to navigate on smartphones and tablets with a flick of the finger. If your website needs to be dragged into the present, call the XDesign’s team now and discuss your options.

Social media accounts

You should have a presence on Facebook and Twitter at a minimum, but your company should also be on Pinterest, LinkedIn, Instagram and YouTube, all of which are regularly updated.

Get an app

Get interactive with your customers and provide them with an app that allows them access to your services or to purchase your products with just a few taps. Hoyts offer a great app that allows you to see what’s screening in your local area, times and book tickets, while many food outlets give you the option of ordering online.

Use language your mobile audience understands

In the online community, it’s acceptable to forgo the Queen’s proper English and use works and acronyms that will be easily understood by the tech savvy. Don’t be scared of using hashtags, LOLs and emoticons.

Get image heavy

In this day and age, a picture speaks a thousand words. So, it’s important to use quality images in your websites and apps. It’s simply not enough to use stock images, your company needs their own professional shots to appear authentic.

Create video content

People love to watch videos and the success of YouTube just goes to prove that. If you post content with videos, it’s proven you are likely to gain four times the likes you’d get if you simply posted an image.

If you struggle with simply turning on your mobile or have been avoiding going social because you’re not exactly sure how to go about it, or perhaps you simply don’t have the time to go mobile and need help, talk to the team at XDesigns Advertising , we’re more than just a graphic design studio.