My Digital Marketing Day

On the 20th June Abby Moreton, our membership and website manager attended the Digital Marketing Day, organised by the Sussex Business Bureau. Here are some of the top tips she picked up.

First off, it was great to see so many Chamber members in the room! Digital marketing applies to everyone, no matter what kind of business you run. As Louise Hopkins of Recenseo perfectly put it, it’s simply ‘old rules with new tools’.

As we fuelled up on caffeine I excitedly checked out the programme of fantastic speakers and trainers. That morning I was going to learn the latest on digital marketing strategies, techniques and best practise from the experts.

Keynote Speaker

The day opened with Katy Bourne, Sussex Police and Crime commissioner and social media whizz. Katy has really embraced and pushed the presence of social media in the police force, providing police officers with smart phones and encouraging her local force to engage with the community by tweeting. As a result the Sussex Police have one of the highest followings in the country at 42.5k. In her eyes, policing is all about transparency and availability.

Social media and your online brand

More networking was followed by my first talk of the day – How to develop a social media strategy and manage your brand online. Louise Hopkins has spent 18 years marketing on both business and consumer levels and maintains the pragmatic approach that social media is trying to change the world but ultimately it’s just a small part in the marketing toolbox. Don’t use and rely on social media for selling, use it for communication and engagement; the fact that it is targeted, flexible and instantaneous means that it is great for this.

Louise then went through and touched on the key platforms for delivering your digital strategy; LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, blogging and your website. Her message was ‘listen to what’s going on first and know what you want to achieve’. Whatever platform you choose, your original marketing objectives still apply. Make your content relevant and interesting and ensure that it adds value to your other comms activities.

For Louise, the most effective social media platform for businesses is LinkedIn.  The world’s largest database is invaluable when it comes to checking credibility. You can search for people by name, company, position, keywords, key skills and also interests that you have in common. It is invaluable when it comes to developing and building your reputation. Provide help; become a thought leader.

Coming in at a close second is blogging. Blogging is another phenomenal tool for raising your profile and sharing knowledge. It is also a great tool for content as you can ask questions, engage and then use the answers for new posts.

Your website

Whatever social media strategy you use, make sure it aligns with your website. You need to have consistency with your brand values, messages, timing and channels. Social media doesn’t work on its own. Integrate it with everything and back it up with credible content across the board.

With all online tools, your website is your ultimate credibility checker. It is a bigger depository and point of reference for all sources. Review it regularly, make it interesting, make it relevant and make it quality. Louise stressed that ‘you must have control over your own content; there is some great CMS out there so use it’. We use Drupal at the Chamber but with experience in Wordpress and other bespoke CMS’s feel free to give me a call if you’d like to know more about this.

Email marketing

Next up was email marketing with Karl Stone from dotMailer. Karl’s main message was to always view your emails from the recipient’s perspective.

According to Karl, it is the best tool for customer retention with a huge impact and a massive 2000% ROI. But it’s really easy to do it wrong. Karl highlighted some simple and effective ways to increase engagement and subscribers.

First and foremost, when putting together a newsletter or series of emails, make sure the design is in line with your branding and brand values. Set the tone with strong imagery to capture your reader’s attention but tie it all together with your other marketing, both in theme and in strategy.

• Make it personal - with your greeting and sign-off.
• Make it simple for people to give data
• Always follow up
• Always say thank you
• Make unsubscribing easy

With the importance of imagery, one thing I hadn’t considered for the Chamber emails was the importance of Fall Back or ALT text. When you open an email in Outlook, you often have to right-click to download images. Think about the text that appears before the download takes place.

Be creative when it comes to your email marketing. Think about different subject lines and play around with GIFS and scrolling images. It’s all about attention and engagement.

Something we’re in the process of implementing at the Chamber is a series of welcome emails. It’s easy to forget the many ways businesses can use their membership so we want to send out little reminders. These can also be viewed as our ‘post purchase’ or ‘customer care’ campaign. In a recent survey that we sent out, members commented that emails should be sent as often as necessary and that as long as they are useful and credible we should carry on communicating this way.

A fantastic day

The afternoon included talks on Google+, Facebook marketing and YouTube. I learnt a lot about focusing our online marketing. With such a small team at the Chamber we really need to approach it in a ‘must have – should have – could have’ way. I learnt what works and engages in the world of B2B, in terms of platform and content. And I also had the chance to catch up with some Chamber members along the way!

If you want to contribute to the Chamber blog, contact us on hannah@brightonchamber.co.uk