Beginning a new online marketing strategy or revising current activities?
Before rushing into any concrete plans, jewellers would do well to decipher where their business stands in the digital world.
Below is a list of 10 simple tactics to help retailers stay on track to ensure online efforts are targeted and worth the effort.
Switch on to analytics
Google has a suite of helpful tools for small businesses. One of these tools is Google Analytics, which shows how many people visit your site, where they come from before they get to your site and what they do on your site – it’s all very helpful information for developing any online strategy.
Google yourself
The first thing people do when they hear any name or business name is to “Google it”. We all do it for other businesses but do we know what comes up in the search results when others do it to us? Give it a try. You may be surprised.
Check review sites
There are many review sites out there but the most relevant for jewellers are Google Maps and Yelp. Take a look at those sites to see what people are saying.
Negative reviews are a great way to find areas to improve. Also don’t forget about social media, basically an open playing field for people to leave comments. If someone has left a negative comment, why not contact him or her directly to find out why?
Claim your pages
There is no shortage of rogue Facebook pages living online. These pages may have been created by well-intending staff members then abandoned or they may have been created by customers ”checking-in” to your location – if someone checks in at a business with no page, then Facebook creates a new one under that business name.
Either way, it’s time to claim them as your own. You can merge with your current page if it is a duplicate or to keep the page instead of starting from scratch if you don’t have a page on that platform yet. Check out Facebook’s “Claiming a page for your business” tool on its website’s help section.
Do a related search
It’s always helpful to know what your competitors are (and aren’t) doing. Pull up a Google search page and type “related:yourwebsite” – related:adelaidejewellery.com for example – to see pages similar to your business.
List influencers
Influencers are people who are already in front of your target market. What blogs, websites, thought leaders, brands, local pages and celebrities does your audience follow?
Aim to engage with these influencers on social media to show customers that you’re on the same page.
Do a Source Search
For businesses using Pinterest, knowing what’s already popular can really steer users in a direction that will help to gain more exposure. A favourite tool for this is to see what people are pinning from your site. Just type pinterest.com/source/(your business details).com.
Check Search Queries
Similar to a Source Search on Pinterest, Search Queries can be accessed through Google Analytics to tell a business what people are searching for on its website. If there is a popular search that you don’t have content for, this will present the perfect opportunity to do something about it. Creating content that targets popular searches will also help a website to rank higher on Google search results.
Look at your open rates
Check out what has been popular content from your email marketing efforts. If you use mailing clients like Mailchimp, these have built-in analytical tools that make this easy.
Subscribe to alerts
Google Alerts will send you an email whenever there is an article for any topic you nominate. I like to set Google Alerts for my name, company name and industry trends.
Actioning the above tactics is sure to provide insight into how a business is currently perceived online as well as how to steer future marketing efforts in the right direction.
Which ones will you do to get your ducks all in a row?