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Social Media Tips for Business

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Social Media is a great tool for small, medium and large business when used correctly.  So we thought we would take this opportunity to share some of our top tips on how to be successful in social media for all business sizes.

  1. Update your profile – This sounds simple however many businesses don’t even do this.  You should always update your image or business logo. In your profile description it is critical that you list the industry you are in and the services you provide.  People search through these lists when looking for products, and/or services  and this is where your business needs to stand out.  It is also important to list your phone word, if they remember one thing  from the profile it will be the phone word!

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  2. Add your address and Phone Number – It is important that you are consistent with the formatting of your phone number and address when entering in to each of the social channels.  See an example of how to display a phone word on our Facebook page.  Google scans through all of this information and if it doesn’t match up this can send a signal to not trust the information shown.  Google Local listings are a very important way for local businesses to be found so make sure all of your other social platforms have the correct information so you can get some value from your Google Local listing. Visit www.google.com/business/placesforbusiness

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  3. Identify Influencers – For example on Twitter  it can seem like a lot of works involved to identify people to talk to.  With over 100 million accounts it can be difficult to find the people you should engage with.  The trick here is to type in the keywords you want to talk about i.e “Sloping block” for a sloping block builder and then when you find someone talking about it, add them to your list.  Its easy to do and over time you will have a great list of people who talk about your topics.  Every time they reply back to you, your brand is being viewed by all of their followers (hopefully all 100,000 of them!)

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  4. Own a Topic – It is important that you don’t just talk about any old topic.  If you do so you wont stand for anything.  You need to have a content strategy and ensure that the majority of your posts are talking about this topic.  When you listen for keyword mentions about the topic and continually reply to these you will automatically talk about these topics more than “off topic” items.

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  5. 10-4-1 Rule - This is a great rule created by Kipp Bodnar which states that for every 10 posts that you talk about other people’s content (about your relevant topic) you should have 4 posts which talk about your content on the topic and 1 post to a conversion page on your website.  This gets the balance between conversation and broadcast right, and the balance between only talking about yourself and only talking about others right as well.

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  6. Convert Leads – If you are talking to people in Social Media about your product and/or service and they are very interested don’t be afraid to tweet and/or post your Phone Word.  You will have a much higher chance of converting them to a customer on the phone so use your phone word to your advantage.

We hope these 6 social media tips will help you with your business endeavors.

Best staff uniform designs

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Staff uniforms are often viewed by many business owners as an extra cost to business.  They don’t see uniforms as a branding opportunity and often miss out on the potential promotion and advertising opportunities they present.  When you think about it, even a small business in the building industry with a team of 20 staff members would have all their uniforms visible to the public and many other building contractors for over 8 hours per day.  That’s over 160 hours of branding exposure per day, 800 hours per week and 40,000 hours per month!

Below are some of the shots we have accumulated from our clients with their creative uses of uniform advertising.  For such a small cost (which you were probably going to spend anyway) you can get so much more out of your uniform advertising.

 

 

 

 

13 AUTO uniformSome top tips from our clients:

Best Staff Uniform Designs

  • Always have your brand and phone word on the back – this is the most viewed section
  • Always have the brand in a bright bold colour – no blue on pale blue!
  • Silver on highly visible yellow works great

 

How to measure phone calls on your website

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The saying goes ‘half of your advertising is wasted, you just don’t know which half!’ as mentioned by many great marketers including the doyen Gerry Harvey, and that goes for most not knowing exactly what’s working and what’s not. To continually improve the performance of your marketing dollars you need to have a strong measurement plan to work out which half you should keep.

One common issue for online marketers is measuring the many ways a website visitor can convert into a lead.  They may fill out a signup form, they may hit the ‘contact us’ button, or call the phone number displayed.  Measuring all of the online forms and buttons is easily achieved by online data analysis but measuring the phone calls from your website can get tricky.

You could keep the phone number hidden behind a button or something similar, and when the user clicks on it you can measure the amount of times the number was requested.  However this isn’t actually tracking the call, it only measures the fact that the user has seen the number.  This method is obviously not favoured by most.  Marketers have a big problem with results like this, as its creating another barrier to sales enquiries. Marketing should be about removing as many barriers as possible to make a sales enquiry as easy as possible.

To resolve this many marketers use a phone word on a website which is specifically used online and nowhere else.  This allows easy use of call tracking software integrated with your CRM tool like Salesforce to track these calls from your website and attribute them to your online marketing efforts.

If you want to get even more sophisticated you can use ‘source detection’ or ‘campaign detection’ and have the website show a different phone word based on the source or campaign.  You could show a different phone word for;

  • Social Media Activities
  • Adwords Enquiries
  • Brand Vs Non-Brand in Adwords
  • The list is endless…

Now you don’t need to worry about ‘bleeding’ sales enquiries from your online channels.  You can use readily available tools to help you work out which half of your marketing budget is working.  And if you are like me, you won’t just save the other half; you will start spending more on the channels that are working!

Good luck, and if you want tracking for your incoming phone calls on your website please get in touch.

 

Stand Out and Get Noticed

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Everyday consumers are bombarded with advertising messages from all sorts of media channels. The public is constantly exposed to advertising, to the extent that it has become difficult for brands to stand out from the pack and engage with their target audience.

In essence, marketers and business owners now need to be braver than ever before. There are more tools, information and media platforms at their disposal, but at the same time the challenge has never been greater.  However, in spite of this most marketing is forgettable and rarely strays from the norm.

Since the mid 80’s, PhoneWords in countries like the USA, have become the greatest weapon a business can utilise.  As phone word popularity increases in Australia, it’s a must for the brave marketer to stand out from the crowd and challenge that forgettable advertising. It’s about being noticed and remembered.

Gavin Scholes, CEO of Telstra PhoneWords says that some of the best advice he can give to marketers and business owners is “to use phone words as a promotional tool in advertising. Create a marketing strategy that involves innovation and different tactics until you find what works. One of the most efficient ways to manage your advertising and marketing efforts is to integrate your phone word into different media platforms”.

The key is finding the advertising channel that best fits your company or industry and integrate a phone word to get the biggest return on investment. At the end of the day, it’s not about how much you spend or how many eyeballs you reach. It’s about how many customers you can bring in the door while still making a profit. And, while no advertising strategy is fool proof, you’ll get better results and waste less money using a phone word.

Why use Phone Words online?

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Why use phone words online?

Online advertising is the fastest growing advertising medium in Australia. There are now 17 million Australians using the internet. Recent research findings by Infoserv® show it is essential for businesses who invest in a web presence and/or online advertising, to provide consumers with choice as to how they contact a business. The research measured a large group of online users and their recall of phone words vs. web addresses. The data outcome proved that businesses can expect up to 45% higher consumer recall rate for phone words over website addresses when both are featured.

Comparing and measuring the most effective point of contact, phone words came up Number 1 again….

There is a broad perception that the younger population tends to be more internet focused.  However, research shows each age group between 18 to 65 years had a higher recall rate for phone words featured in advertisements than they did for the advertisers’ web address.  To ensure the most effective use of advertising budgets and lead generation tactics, advertisers should use both their phone word and their web address in online advertising.

Final results from the research, conducted by Infoserv® show that as many as 40% of internet users research the competition before making a decision to purchase.  With this in mind, advertisers can gain a competitive advantage by including a memorable phone word within their website and all online advertising.  This will ensure that businesses online are providing a direct link of communication between themselves and potential customers, while also maximising the number of leads.

Source: Infoserv®, Inc.  Compiled by third party. Vanity numbers vs. Website Addresses

Creative uses for phone words

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We love it when we see phone words in creative locations. It’s often these unexpected places that really leave an impression on the customer, potential customer or prospect. You might find fresh ideas on how to promote your phone word!

1300 Jet Boat real life customer examples

Paradise Jet Boating

1300 JET BOAT Holiday Brochure Insert.















1300 OFFICE real life phone word examplesOfficeworks

1300 OFFICE Business Account Card for Members.









1300 NANDOS real life phone word examplesNandos

1300 Nandos Catering Restaurant Menu.





 

 

 

 

 

 

1300 FROZEN real life phone word examplesDaiquiri Group

1300 FROZEN Vehicle Signage.













1300 HomeLoan real life phone word examples1300 HomeLoan

1300 HomeLoan Website Home Page.





1800 Business Cup Phone word advertisingTelstra Business Centre

1800 Business Promotion on a Coffee Cup.















How are other businesses using their phone words? If you have any great ideas or want to show your examples of how you can creatively displayed your phone word, contact us by email and send through your photos!

Phone Words Help Build Your Brand

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Phone words and Branding

A strong phone word can help build your brand in more ways than you can imagine. Think about it for a second… Your business is displayed on many customer touch points. Electricians have vans, Accountants have envelopes, Transit companies have trucks, FMCG companies have packaging, everyone has a website and the list goes on. One of the keys with branding is consistency and having a strong phone word across all of these types of executions has a huge cumulative effect on your brand.

Instead of seeing 0408 617 932 you saw 1300 BUILDER on a building company van, uniforms, drop sheets, tool bags, invoices, envelopes, website, air compressors, and safety boards you would have a much stronger impression of the brand.

There are many other ways in which phone words are helping build brands, let us know how you are using your phone words in a creative way to help brand building.

Find Your Phoneword

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2012 Telstra Business Awards

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Grow your world: The 2012 Telstra Business Awards

Telstra PhoneWords, are proud sponsor of the Telstra Australian Business Awards. It’s been 20 years since the program began, and winning an Award is still one of the most prestigious accolades an Australian business can receive. To see the finalists who have been voted for the 1300 Australia / Telstra PhoneWords People’s choice awards please go to www.telstrabusinessawards.com/peopleschoice/

Congratulations to the National Winner for 2012 www.bikeexchange.com.au