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Using social media to build up the recognition of a brand and market products and services has become a popular strategy among small businesses, in part because it costs nothing except time. But is it effective for your business? Do you get sales from your hard work? Does it take up far too much time? Knowing which social media marketing tools, strategies and tactics work for a small business and which are a waste of time can make the difference between a business succeeding or failing. That is our job. We provide social media marketing support to the smallest of businesses, focusing on only those tactics that will turn into sales and growing the reach of your accounts at the same time. All you need to do is provide us the details about your business and explain us your business goals. We will take care of it from there!  Services you can use include: Social media set-up Collecting your current marketing materials, images and details relevant to your business, we will build great social profiles for you in each relevant social media platform. The profiles will reflect your business values and reinforces your brand. Profiles we build are where your existing and potential customers are. If you would like easy-to-use post templates, we can create you a set of them that makes posting much faster and will look awesome. Many accounts we see don’t use the right hashtags for building up sales. We can provide you with a selection of hashtag sets that you can use to reach your target market. Content creation The simplest detail about your business can be turned into an interesting content with creative writing skills and relevant images, making your current customers read more about your business and help new customers understand why they should buy from you. A set of posts created each month is a common way of us managing your content creation. For example, we can create and post 9 posts per month for you, giving you space to add in your own posts whenever you want while ensuring your profiles build up their reach. Planning ahead Getting your marketing content planned strategically in advance saves a lot of time and energy but most importantly, makes it much more effective. We work with you to build your marketing content around what is happening in your business and what is happening for your potential clients. With tools designed for big businesses but scaled down for us, we can plan, schedule and automatically post your content at any time of day and night. We can even share the system with you so you can add posts too. We will make sure that your marketing content is published to reach the right audience at the right time. Running social media marketing for you If social media marketing is what you need but you don’t have the time, energy or inclination to run it yourself, we are here to run it for you. Full responsibility sits with us and we report back on the progress, including tying in the activity we do with the sales of your products/services. Engagement and follower building *The most effective service we offer:* This is a very unique marketing service that we provide. Many social media marketing ‘experts’ miss this point but if we are running social media marketing for you, we make sure that we build up the number of relevant people seeing and reacting to your content. While you work on growing your business, we work to grow the reach of your messaging. Without this, sales won’t come from social media. Each small business is unique and each small business owner wants and needs different things from their marketing. Talk to us about your business. If you’d like to find out more about running your own social media marketing and/or have some coaching along the way, check out our online courses and coaching options at www.myownmarketingcoach.com Write in Danderyd is a full-service marketing agency that provides all the services the smallest of business needs to grow and thrive. What can we help you with?  We offer:
1. Content marketing  Content marketing works to pull visitors into your website and to reach them there, on social media and by email. It is the best thing for building up awareness of your business and for taking potential clients through their buyer journey to the stage when the book with or buy from you. In practice, this means putting new or updated material on your website, often in the form of blog posts and then spreading the news that the new material is there via the channels. For a small business, it can be the main source of new business. We can help you work out what content to put up, we can produce it for you or use content you have created and help you get it out to your potential and current clients. 2. Social media marketing  Social media marketing covers everything from creating text and graphic posts, keyword research and posting to engagement and follower-building activities. For the smallest businesses, posting when you have very few followers isn't where the focus should be. We can produce and publish your content and grow the number of people looking at it. We can do it as a project or as a regular activity, in as little as two hours a month. 3. Graphic design  People make decisions based on their first impression of a company, a person or a product so good design is crucial for business success. Small businesses need everything from a logo to social media images and they need them from the very beginning. We work with you to create everything from a logo - including versions of your logo for every use, printing stationery and the right sizes and formats for social media sites (each, of course, being different!) - to newsletter design, brochure design, websites, signs, event equipment and everything inbetween. 4. Website design and management  Web design plays a vital role in how your brand is perceived and how your website works can allow or stop people form booking or buying your products and services. Another important factor is how well the website works for you. Can you easily update it, add what you need to be visible and change the content without it taking forever? Does it look good when you make changes? We work with you to find the best system for you and your business and then get it setup and running. We support websites made in all systems and can help you with anything. 5. Search engine optimisation (SEO)  If your website isn’t optimised for search engines, they literally can’t see it and won’t show it to your target market. SEO explains what you site is about and who the targeted audience is based on the information the site provides. We provide SEO services designed especially for the smallest of businesses - so you don't pay for something you don't need (yet...!): WEBSITE REVIEW: A comprehensive review of your website, including user experience (what it is like for a stranger to use your site), design and content, plus all the above SEO elements. Included are specific tips under each section and the information you need to see and work on your on-page SEO. ON-PAGE SEO WORK: Working through each page on your website, we create and put in keywords, titles and descriptions for each one. We'll look at your images and add optimised descriptions for them too. As many or as little hours as you want and need LOCAL SEO: If your target market is right in your neighbourhood, there are specific cost-effective SEO tactics we can use to get you in front of as many locals as possible. OFF-PAGE SEO: Social media marketing and blog outreach are two affordable off-page SEO tactics that we can help you with. 6. Newsletter and email marketing  Potential customers/clients need to ‘meet’ you a good few times before they are likely to buy your products/services. Email is one of the cheapest, most effective and traceable approaches to get them understanding why they need to buy from you. We can get you set up and ready to reach out to your audience and use our experience and your past marketing to establish what your audience likes to receive by email. We can run campaigns for you or help you work out how to do it yourself. 7. PR and media  There are occasions where getting coverage in the media gets your message out to the audience you want and need. We work with local, national, and international journalists and target press for both the public and specific, targeted audiences. PR is perfect for book and research report launches, for example. 8. Events  Under normal circumstances, we help organise and run events around the world. Right now, we help publicise and host events across the internet! We can help with a whole event and we can help with just one element – signs and posters, social media promotion, online course systems and anything else. 9. Advertising  From billboards and posters to pay-per-click online advertising, we can help you with your paid marketing campaigns. We will also advise you to stay away from channels and advertising tactics that don't work for the smallest of businesses - we'll help you spend your budget in the most effective way. 10. Sales support  Most business owners know, to an extent, how potential clients turn into paying ones (and the same for customers in/on a shop). What is harder is working out the point where potential clients/customers drop out of their buying process - where are you losing potential business? We look for the entire journey the buyer takes and spot the gaps, supporting you with ideas, content and tactics to plug them and build up your sales. We can advise on marketing and sales automation too - getting technology to move potential clients through their journey without needing your personal attention. We can also work with you on specific sales campaigns, from filling the sales funnel at the top with new leads to converting prospects into buyers at the final hurdle. All with your small business in mind. Why choose us: Write in Danderyd’s marketing services are specifically designed to build and grow the smallest of businesses. That means the business you run from home, the consulting firm you have, the local business you’ve set up and any business that has less than 10 employees. Or no employees.
We pick and choose the best marketing tactics that work for the smallest of businesses. We don’t recommend or use tactics that take a lot of time, energy and budget to action. We don’t use tactics that need you to have 10,000+ followers on social media or an email list with 10,000+ addresses on it. If you have 10 email addresses, that is where we will start. Learn to market your business yourself Sometimes you need to market your business yourself and we support that too. We run courses and workshops (mostly online at the moment but IRL too!). Check out our selection and let us know if you’d like to learn about something we haven’t got a course for: My Own Marketing Coach. Contact us Every business is different. Get in touch with us to discuss yours. As the real world changes, the online world does too. More than half the entire world population uses social media and its use increased as people started to get stuck at home. This poses a dilemma for small business owners. On the one hand, not 'wasting' money on marketing while businesses are closed, sales can't happen and income is so uncertain seems sensible. On the other hand, others see the value in remaining visible and protecting future sales. There are also those who have, in a positive way, taken advantage of the crisis to reach out to their target market and ask for their support through this period. Market forces usually keep the playing field somewhat level and that's been true in the healthy economic climate we have benefited from for years, up to January this year. Now it has now been shaken to pieces.  While saving money is sensible in a down period, being invisible isn't. Companies that best survive in recessions are those that market through it and therefore get sales as soon as recovery starts. It can be fatal for a company to ignore the competition's activities and lose their market share. If you have been busy surviving and marketing has had to take a back seat (or been left behind), here are some things to think about:
There are various cost-effective areas you can use to reach out to your target market: If this feels overwhelming or you don't have time to do this yourself, reach out to us. We have two ways that we can help you:
A garden services client of ours also sells Christmas trees. We run a social media marketing campaign for them each November and December, building up awareness and sales of the trees and helping fuel bookings coming in at the end of the winter. Whatever size and type of business you have, if you need help marketing it and want to grow your sales, get in touch with us.
Wednesday 20th September - 12:30-2:30pm (5 spaces)
Wednesday 11th October - 12:30-2:30pm (5 spaces) Wednesday 22nd November - 12:30-2:30pm (5 spaces) Wednesday 13th September - 12:30-2:30pm (5 spaces) Wednesday 15th November - 12:30-2:30pm (5 spaces) Wednesday 4th October - 12:30-2:30pm (2 spaces) Wednesday 18th October - 12:30-2:30pm (5 spaces) All the sessions are two hours long and cost 350kr in advance (preferably by SWISH). For more information, click here or get in touch with us. If you want to join us but can't make the dates/times listed, let us know and we'll see what we can do. Having spent the last month running training sessions with you lovely lot, we've planned a whole lot more! You told us that you'd like a few hours working with us on your website, on email marketing, on building great collaborations and on blogging. Someone also asked us for a session on running your own life but that is definitely 'outside our area of expertise' :)
For the topics that we do know about, we've just put together a schedule for the rest of the spring (yes, we decided that spring has actually started). Come and join us at our office in Danderyd if you would like to know lots about the following topics: Wed 10th May - 12:30-2:30pm (4 spaces), Wed 10th May - 8pm-10pm (5 spaces), Thur 18th May - 12:30-2:30pm (5 spaces), Thur 18th May - 8pm-10pm (5 spaces) Thur 20th April - 12:30-2:30pm (5 spaces), Thur 20th April - 8-10pm (3 spaces), Thur 27th April - 8-10pm (4 spaces) Wed 26th April - 8-10pm (4 spaces), Thur 27th April - 12:30-2:30pm (3 spaces), Wed 3rd May - 12:30-2:30pm (4 spaces), Tue 23rd May - 12:30-2:30pm (4 spaces), Tue 23rd May - 8-10pm (4 spaces), Thur 8th June - 12:30-2:30pm (4 spaces), Thur 8th June - 8-10pm (4 spaces) Thur 4th May - 12:30-2:30pm (3 spaces), Thur 4th May - 8pm-10pm (2 spaces), Wed 17th May - 12:30-2:30pm (5 spaces), Wed 17th May - 8pm-10pm (5 spaces) Wed 19th April - 12:30-2:30pm (5 spaces), Wed 19th April - 8pm-10pm (3 spaces) Wed 26th April - 12:30-2:30pm (5 spaces) All the sessions are two hours long and cost 250kr in advance (preferably by SWISH). For more information, click here or get in touch with us. If you want to join us but can't make the dates listed, let us know and we'll see what we can do. I had an amazing opportunity a few weeks ago to work with six small and hobby business owners on getting more clients using social media. Ahead of the next sessions that are tomorrow, I want to share with you some key ideas: 1. How many times does a potential client need to come into contact with your product/business/message before they decide to buy something from you? What do you think of this answer?  As a huge generalisation because, of course, all businesses are different, general marketing theory goes with the rule of seven – your message should be seen seven times before a potential customer will buy. Google apparently says this is now more like ten times because consumers use the internet to search for corroborating evidence that you and your product are as great as you say they are. This means that your message needs to reach the SAME PERSON ten times. That every potential customer needs to see your message ten times. At least. Whichever number you think truly fits your business and your target customers, it takes time and marketing energy to achieve that many contacts with each person. What can you do about this? 2. Cheat! Wait, what? No. Talk. The best way to skip a few of those contact steps is to talk to your potential clients – not AT them mind you but TO them. Pick a few and have a chat. By starting a connection, you build a bridge between your business and your potential customer that hugely increases the likelihood that they make it through the seven, ten or even twenty contacts they need to go through to buy. Yes, I am away that this takes time and energy. I know that, I do it for our businesses. That is how I know for sure that it works! You are in business for the long-haul, right? How does this fit in with all the photos you are putting on Instagram, the blog posts that you are sure you are supposed to be writing, the Facebook page you have but isn’t doing a lot by itself? All of that comes under ‘content marketing’ – a very effective way of using social media BUT for it to work, you have to get people to look at your page/profile/posts… 3. Is there anybody out there?Honestly, no, probably not. At least, not hanging out on your Facebook page waiting for you to post something. You have to go and find them. We cover everything you need to know about ‘content marketing’ in our sessions starting next week (click here for details) – including what, how and when to post. In the meantime, get talking. Or if you are stuck, join us at this session tomorrow! Here is our eBook on the topic too, from our sister company, My Own Marketing Coach: 
Did you see what we added to the title of this blog post to make it come up when someone searches online for local businesses? Yes, we wrote the word 'Danderyd'. We do that a lot. It is also in our name (if you hadn't already noticed that).
If you want to be found online as a local business, create local content.
You have two main choices here:
1. Writing about what you do in the context of your location and/or 2. Your opinion of things going on in your local area. Whichever you choose, be sure to mention the location a couple of times at least, to let the search engines know where you are. Don't overdo it though, more than 5 could be too many and will make your post hard to read by your human readers. If you look hard enough, you'll find a checklist for everything on the web and there are masses of lists of 'dos and don'ts' when it comes to designing a website. Amongst all the great ideas, there are some basic elements necessary for a really good website:
* like they can trust that the food will be good/safe to eat * hungry (seriously!).
A final point that one of our team reminded us all of - if the website can relate the product/service to the visitor's own life, they will probably return time and again. That's what most of us want for our website, right? Traditionally, space mattered. How much advertising space can you afford in a magazine. How many postal addresses you have to post brochures too. How many pages in your brochure. How many sales people can you afford.
The internet is boundless, so space is no longer an issue. Now you have to capture the attention of those potential customers floating around in this endless space. Easy, right? Write great content, promote it and they will come. The question is: is how much time you have to spend creating content on your website that your prospects are going to be interested in. Remarkable content takes time. Give it time. A year or two that is, not a week or two! The best way to make your website and social media content work harder and smarter is to answer your potential clients' questions. What questions to people ask you? How can you help your potential customers understand the benefits of your products/service? Ask them. Or if you are just starting out, ask anyone you know to quiz you about what you do. Then write it down on your website and in your social media, to help those prospective customers understand that they need to become actual customers. |
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