Emma - Elm Marketing

Why Quantitative Research Is Key to Mastering Your Marketing

While the term might seem a little overwhelming at first, there’s no need for it to be. Believe it or not, it’s not rocket science, it’s actually pretty basic. Quantitative research is essentially the process of collecting and analysing numerical data — it’s basically numbers. Once you learn to understand them and the role they play in your marketing, you’ll be well on your way to seeing results!

Marketing Research

In order to get a return on your investment, you need to be able to work with a bit of trial and error around how you market your business. Luckily for us, the way the digital world has evolved means we can track almost anything. Whether it’s your social media engagement, likes or how effective it has been in getting visitors to go to your online shop, or it could even be measuring how on the mark your keywords are in your Google Ads. Being able to review your numbers and how things are performing is the only way to know what is and isn’t working so you can get it just right.

Performance planning

Too often, businesses put so much time and energy into their marketing, from posting regularly on their Instagram account to spending hundreds of dollars on their ad campaigns. When they look back on it after a month and see that it hasn’t got them any new leads or increased their following, they can very easily be left feeling pretty disheartened. On top of that, they’ll be questioning why it didn’t achieve the reaction they were hoping for.

Analysing Insights

This is why it is so important to use quantitative research, to go through our marketing efforts with a fine-toothed comb. This type of research can be experimental — running two slightly different ads alongside each other and seeing which performs best, done through surveys — how many of your customers use a particular product of another, observational — what time of day you make the most sales, and using secondary research — how have trends around your industry changed over the past 10 years.

By looking at the numbers and figures, we’re able to determine how best to market our brand and take a deep dive into the way our customers behave, as well as how they want us to behave.

Are you ready for us to lend you a hand? Contact us here.

Marketing

Marketing: How to Boost Your Return on Investment

There is nothing more frustrating than putting a whole heap of time and energy into your marketing to find that you’re not seeing any results. After all, the whole point of marketing is to sell what you’re offering and see a return on your investment. From establishing your brand, creating content, sharing it with your target audience and then analysing how it has performed in order to see what is and isn’t working, it takes a lot more work than you might expect. However! We don’t say this to scare you, it’s actually the opposite. We want to help you understand that learning about how to market your business and reaching out to a marketing agency are one of the best ways you can ensure that your marketing pays off.

Copywriting

From blogs and articles to advertising copy, website copy, media releases and everything in between, knowing how to write specifically for marketing is something a lot of people don’t know how to do. Words have so much power in terms of hooking your audience, keeping them interested and then convincing them what you have to offer is worth buying. We work with you to determine what type of copywriting is best for your marketing strategy, where it can be utilised most effectively, and teach you exactly how to do just that. And if you don’t know how to write copy for your business marketing, we are more than happy to do it for you.

Content Marketing

First things first, you’re going to want to decide what platforms you’re going to use to market your business. Whether it’s Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or LinkedIn, there has to be a reason behind why you’ve chosen to market this way. This decision is mainly going to be based on who your target audience is. Once you’ve got that sorted, the next step is to consider what type of content you’re going to post, as well as how frequently you need to do it in order for the messages to be effective. Despite the ever-changing online landscape, we’ve had plenty of experience with content marketing and can teach you how to adapt to it.

Advertising

Paid advertising is an optional but potentially hugely beneficial part of marketing your business. Whether it’s Google Ads (search ads and display ads), newspaper ads or social media ads, putting some money into them can have a lot of sway in terms of your return on investment. You can easily monitor how your ads are performing, and it’s also incredibly specific, so you can narrow your target audience down to reach relevant consumers who are interested in your brand, fit the demographic of your buyer persona, and show them in the exact geographic location you’re wanting to target. Plus, paid digital advertising also allows you to retarget consumers that have clicked through your ad, engaged with your business, and visited your page or website — to encourage them to complete the sales process.

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)

SEO is essentially a way to increase your brand visibility in the digital sphere by including keywords, which are commonly searched words relating to your industry, in all of your writing. This can include anything from website copy to ad campaigns, and is an incredibly common technique for gaining traction in your business marketing. Not sure how to incorporate SEO into your marketing strategy? Let us show you how or leave it with us.

Analytics, Business Insights and Reporting

There’s no way to know how your marketing is working if you aren’t able to reflect back on it. Luckily, these days, online technology has become so advanced that we can analyse pretty much any form of marketing you’ve put into place — from social media to websites and Google. With pretty much all of our clients, depending on the work we’re doing with them, we meet monthly to review how their marketing has been performing so that we can see what is and isn’t working, and take that information to improve your results. While there’s inevitably a bit of trial and error involved, we can help you get the most out of your marketing.

Marketing

The Big Idea: Designing Your Dream Brand

They say a picture speaks a thousand words, and when it comes to marketing design, it’s really no different. How you communicate your brand through visuals is everything, which is why it’s so important to have someone with the right design skills to walk alongside you when building your brand image. We start with the basics and work all the way up to an all-encompassing brand package that tells your business’s story and sets you apart from the rest. Want to know how? We’re about to give you a bit of an idea.

Brand Development

In a nutshell, brand development is the process of distinguishing everything from your products or services to your imagery and tone of voice. It’s about figuring out the ways in which you want to come across to your audience, and whether or not this aligns with your business ethos and what you want to achieve. A lot of this also has to do with how you position yourself in the market and how you stack up against your competitors. We work with you to help you through this development stage so that you can walk away with a solid understanding of who you are and what your mission is as a brand.

Website Development

Marketing your business well has a lot to do with how accessible you make your brand to people. One of the best ways to do this is by having a website people can be directed to when they search for your business or keywords relating to what is that you are offering. There is a huge emphasis placed on online presence in digital marketing, and having a website is definitely one of the first things we recommend you do, which of course, we can help with!

Packaging Design

Thought of, designed and created an incredible product but don’t know how to make it marketable? That’s what we’re here for. Having clean, modern and sophisticated product packaging can take a really impressive product from the safety of your home and onto shelves worldwide. Unless you’re design-inclined and have the skills and tools to do it yourself, working with a marketing agency to make your vision for the brand a reality is the best place to start. We can’t stress enough how key it is to get your product or service design right — we can make it happen.

Logo Design

Much like packaging design, your logo absolutely has to hit the nail on the head when it comes to telling your story and selling your brand. When people look at your logo, they’re not just seeing the lines, the colours and the curvature of the letter or icons — they want to know what it means. That’s why we knock all of our heads together and pull on our individual strengths to come up with a logo that not sticks out like a sore thumb in the best way possible.

Promotional Material

From brochures to business cards, branded envelopes, invoice templates, flyers and everything in between, you’re almost always going to need some form of promotional material to market your business. Having your logo stamped on paperwork might seem a little insignificant, but trust us, it doesn’t go unnoticed. The more people see your brand, the more they identify it and the more they begin to build trust with it. We do all types of design for promotional material and will have you armed with everything you need to market your business.

Marketing

Success: Nailing Your Marketing Strategy

When it comes to marketing, the only place to start is with a marketing strategy. Just like anything else, having a plan is the only way to know what you need to do to get where you’re going. Running a business is all about having your ducks in a row, which is why it is so important to lay out your goals, establish your target market, figure out the best way to communicate with them and then put that into action. A marketing strategy also acts as a reminder for those times when you feel like you’ve lost your sense of direction in terms of how you want to market your business, as well as the outcomes you’re hoping to achieve.

Quantitative and Qualitative Research

Putting your marketing strategy together involves carrying out both quantitative research and analysis — numerical measurements of your audience, competitor analysis and what your insights from your existing marketing attempts tell you — and qualitative research and analysis — data obtained through open-ended and conversational communication — to determine where your business sits in the market and how to grow your business effectively.

Communication Strategy

Having a communications strategy is also a big part of this process. Content creation and content marketing are something we hear over and over again, and for good reason. In order to reach your audience and convince them to invest in what you have to offer, you need to be able to understand your target audience, what their pain points are, and how your business can solve their problem. Once you’ve got that sorted, we help you to make use of the content platforms available to you and come up with a plan around what you’re going to post, how often and where.

The Seed Pack

Whether you want marketing for start ups or a total brand refresh, there are a few key steps you need to carry out in order to raise brand awareness and get people to see you as a legitimate business worth investing their time in. To help you do just that, we’ve put together The Seed Pack — an all-encompassing marketing boost to get you up on your feet and hitting the ground running.

The Elm team will work with you to develop your vision and create a logo that highlights exactly who you are as a business and what you’re all about. In addition to this, we’ll build a single-page website that reflects your brand and acts as a launching pad that’ll grow as you do. The pack also includes setting up your Google My Business, as well as Facebook and Instagram accounts to increase your visibility, educate customers on the problem you can solve for them, and encourage them to want to find out more. And to really get you cooking with gas, we’ve included our ebook to help you “Grow Your Business From the Ground Up”. You’ll learn how to build a brand, communicate your message and gain an audience that wants a slice of what you have to offer.

Are you ready for us to lend a hand? Contact us here.

Marketing

Copywriting: Connect With Your Audience Through Words

The art of writing is a bit of a niggly one. If we could describe it simply, you’re either really good at it or it’s just not your thing. That’s not to say you don’t know what you want to communicate, it just means it’s a little harder for people who are more hands-on or technical to put their ideas down on paper. In marketing, copywriting is one of the best tools to have when it comes to gaining interest in your product or service from your target audience, keeping them there, and then convincing them that investing in what you have to offer is worthwhile. Whether you’re a start up business or a seasoned entrepreneur, if you don’t have the right messaging in your marketing, your voice is going to fall on deaf ears.

This is tricky, because so much of business marketing relies on good copy. From the information you write on your website landing page to your social media posts, blogs, email newsletters, brochures and so on, writing is one of those things you’ve just gotta get right. Fortunately, marketing agencies like us exist for that exact reason. We get that running a business is a huge amount of work (trust us, we’ve been there), and finding the time to either teach yourself how to write for marketing or even just conjure something up when it’s needed, is often at the bottom of your list of priorities.

The good news is, we’re here to help. There is no doubt in our minds that you are good at what you do. Whether you’re a clothing designer, an accountant or an all-round handyman, if you’re a business owner, you’re going to know your stuff. We want you to focus on that, so we can focus on how to help you grow your business and get that return on your investment from your marketing efforts.

If you need an ad campaign written, a personal profile for a magazine feature, or a story about your journey as a business, we can do all the writing for you. Our process might involve re-doing something you’ve written and making it more enticing and SEO friendly, or it could be that we start from scratch by talking to you about what it is you’re wanting to say and communicating that for you. Whatever you want written in order to increase your brand awareness and convert that to sales, leave it with us.

Articles & Blogs

There’s no doubt about it, articles and blogs are not only a great way to give your customers a more in-depth look inside your brand, but they’re also a game changer for SEO. When you have the right keywords scattered throughout your website, you’re going to gain way more traction on your products and services because it drives traffic right there. Tell us what you want to write about, and we’ll do the rest for you.

Social Media

Posting consistently on your social media platforms is one of the best methods to get your target audience to turn their attention to you, engage with what you have to say, and give you a bit of control over the algorithm. Knowing how to write social media copy and how to carry out those marketing techniques is a bit of a fine art, and it’s something we’re more than happy to help you with.

Websites

Having a website and something for customers to Google search is a super important one. If your website doesn’t have the right keywords on it, the copy isn’t informative and it doesn’t show your uniqueness as a brand, it’s not going to be effective. We help to boost your website’s SEO and appeal through writing team bios, eye-catching landing page copy and can work with you to tell your story in the most impactful way.

Advertising

Whether it’s an ad campaign, an event poster or a brochure, your advertising needs to make a statement. A huge part of that is the messaging that’s on those marketing materials. We work with you to come up with the best way to communicate your story through words, so you can promote your business on every piece of collateral you have.

Are you ready for us to lend a hand? Contact us here.

Marketing

Marketing: A Little Bit of Everything You Need to Know

Are you a start up? Maybe you’ve got a business you’ve had for 20 years that’s in desperate need of a rebrand to adjust to the digital age. Either way, marketing has become something you quite simply just can’t go without. Unfortunately, gone are the days of being able to have an ultra-successful storefront on a town street with very minimal competition.

With the evolution of the internet, marketing has become a lot less focused on face-to-face interaction, and a lot more about how we can connect with people across a range of different time zones and landscapes. Because of this, we’ve had to adapt. Which can be a big adjustment for many. Even if you know your way around the worldwide web, marketing can feel like a whole other ball game.

From social media to functional websites, marketing campaigns and all-round advertising, the list of things you need to be all over as a business seems to go on forever. That’s why we’re here. As a full-service marketing agency, we can either teach you how to make the most out of your business marketing, or take the pressure off entirely and do it all for you.

Are you ready to take that step and start growing your business?

Marketing Training

Not sure how to use social media? It could be that you’ve had a business account for a while but you don’t know how to use it to the best of its ability when it comes to marketing. We can book a session in for you or your team to spend time with us learning all about the ins and outs of how to promote your business, increase engagement and gain followers and likes. The whole point of this is to build familiarity and trust with your brand, reach your target audience better and convince them that they want what you’ve got to offer.