Marzipan

Author: Marzipan Media

  • Start up tip: Monitor Your Competition

    Analysing your competitors in the market can be great exercise to help surface opportunities for your brand.

    Keeping an eye on the competition can provide insights and inspiration when planning your 2020 marketing campaigns be it social media marketing, search or display advertising. What resonates with their audiences, what strategies can you see that are in play. Which digital content channels seem to work best for them? 

     

    Sometimes it’s easier to see what other people are doing and use the example to highlight what’s working and what’s not for your ow business or start up. It will help you identify digital marketing strategies that you might not have been aware of but also identify ones that you know won’t work for your own brand. 

    Keeping the balance right is key here. Being unique and authentic to yourself is ultimately a stronger look, especially when working on social media.  

  • New Site Just Launched

    We’re excited to launch our latest web design project for UK based Financial Advisors, Imperial Chartered. 

    The site has been designed to maximise speed and conversion through use of an Elementor Template designed in WordPress. These templates allow the an easy to use front end editor for the client to make simple change to their new website while allowing our web developers the opportunity to expand further with custom CSS and code as needed. 

    As with all websites we create it will be fully responsive on any screen size and optimised for search engine results. We’re also providing ongoing SEO services and SEM to ensure priority leads and sales opportunities are delivered. 

    Imperial Chartered has been providing first class independent financial advice to individuals and businesses for over 10 years. Based in the heart of Wales in the UK, they have been trusted to manage over £350 million for their clients.

    The website was designed to highlight the range of financial services on offer specialising in pension and retirement planning, investment advice and inheritance tax planning. 

    It’s an important step for Marzipan Media to create digital content for more people in more countries and we look forward to many more opportunities to come. 

    Visit the new website here – > imperialchartered.co.uk

     

  • What’s happening at Marzipan Media in August?

    Digital Marketing Campaign

    Sydney Open is Sydney Living Museums’ annual signature event. For one weekend each year, Sydney Open unlocks the doors of the city’s historically significant, architecturally inspiring, contemporary and secret spaces usually off-limits to the general public.
    Since its inception in 1997 Sydney Living Museums has welcomed over 82,000 visitors to more than 420 buildings to explore, discover and learn about the city’s architecture and heritage.

    Our digital marketing & communications campaign in 2018 resulted in over 6,600 Sydneysiders attending the event  and helped trigger over 36,000 visits to participating properties.

    This year will be our fourth consecutive year providing strategic social media marketing, Adwords, and online marketing as part of our pre-qualification for advertising and communications services under the NSW Government. We’re proud to support Sydney’s cultural institutions in meeting their sales targets for events through digital marketing services. More info about marketing campaign here. 

     

    Welcoming Cornerstone Finance

    Excited to welcome Cornerstone Finance to the client roster. We’re advising on UX for their existing site while building and designing a new website for their premium finance brand in the UK. Both sites will then benefit from the Marzipan Media SEO services to ensure they maintain their online visibility and reach top page rankings fro their chosen keywords in the UK.   More details coming soon. 

     

    Enabled4Life NDIS Plan Managers

    We recently joined forces with the amazing team at Enabled4Life. They have launched their hot new website designed by the incredibly savvy legends at RedTally Studios. 

    Enabled4Life is one of Australia’s largest independent Plan Managers registered national for the National Disability Insurance Scheme. The new site boasts a crucial tool for people on the plan to help manage their budgets. The NDIS Calculator is a free tool and we’re using our trusted SEO techniques to ensure it ranks on Google & other search engines.  Our four week SEO Service has lifted the site’s visibility and, by providing our local business listings service, we’re able to create long lasting backlinks to ensure the SEO rank is maintained. 

  • Creativity in the age of Mobile Marketing

    Creativity in the age of Mobile Marketing

    Most marketers are aware of the rise of mobile, you’d be hard pressed not to be. Mobile has not only ushered in a new era of consumption for people, it’s given marketers a new canvas to tell stories. But many companies (or at least some of the people that marketers report into perhaps) are still applying the same rules they learnt in print, and TV placements to help define mobile strategies. 

    To help better define the mobile landscape The Marketing Science and Creative Shop teams at Facebook partnered to examine over two years of internal and commissioned research to better understand how behavioural shifts are impacting marketing and creative strategies. Together they have examined of over 2,000 Facebook and Instagram ads to help build an understanding of why creativity matters more than ever on mobile. 

    We’ve said before that a visual first approach is the only way to go when building a website but this report will help better define the mobile first landscape. Not just for digital marketers, looking to build a stronger digital strategy, but developers and designers alike. 

    As Facebook  say in their report “The opportunity is literally at our fingertips. And it’s time for marketers, strategists and creatives alike to connect with people, get inspired and play more with their creative as we take on the mobile frontier together.” 

    How can we as an industry break conventional norms and redefine storytelling and campaign planning now that the thumb is in charge?

    Download the full report from Facebook here. A must for any digital content creator.

  • How to Write Online Content that Google likes and people love!

    When it comes to writing online content for your website, you aren’t just writing for yourself. Before you put the words on the page, you need to consider things that will ensure Google likes your content, and your audience absolutely loves it!

    These 9 steps to creating search friendly, online content will help:

    1. Write Clickable, Engaging Headlines
    2. Format Your Content Properly
    3. Share Your Expertise
    4. Cut Out The Fluff
    5. Write Longer Form Content
    6. Try Not To Get Too Technical
    7. Use Keywords Naturally Within Your Content
    8. Match Copy To The Buying Cycle
    9. Focus On Value Over Selling

    Remember you’re creating written content for both your audience and the search engines, so keeping this in mind as you write is imperative. Striking the perfect balance is tricky when creating online content, but with this guide you should find it easier – even enjoyable! Let’s get into it…

    1 – Write Clickable, Engaging Headlines
    Your aim should be to grab the attention of your reader and make it difficult for them not to click on the headline. You don’t want to create clickbait headlines that have nothing to do with the actual content, but you should be smart, using powerful, positive words to get the reaction that you want.

    2 – Format Your Written Content Properly
    Formatting your online content properly will break things up and ensure that it’s easily read by your audience. You should format with headings and subheadings, incorporate attractive, original images, use bullet point lists, and so on. Formatting it in small digestible chunks is the game – it should be scannable. It’s rare that a person will read everything you’ve written, word for word without doing at least a little scanning.

    3 – Share Your Expertise
    Aim to share your expertise with your audience when you write. Create online content that is both useful and interesting. What questions do they have? What do they want to learn more about? By sharing your expertise, rather than being precious about it, people will begin to see you as an expert in your industry.

    4 – Cut Out The Fluff
    Content should be concise in order to keep the reader’s attention and make them want to keep on reading. Build value and keep them coming back for more. Don’t flesh out your content with rubbish that nobody really cares about reading. Although longer form content is thought to perform better on the search engines these days, every word should be carefully placed to ensure maximum value.

    5 – Write Longer Form Content
    Compare the results from 2000 word length copy to 500 word length copy, and you should notice a difference in terms of success. Longer form content tends to be more helpful and perform better in the search engines – but it becomes even more imperative to stick to the rest of the advice here. Cut out the fluff, format it properly, and ensure you’re adding value.

    6 – Try Not To Get Too Technical
    Avoid using jargon in your text. If you get too technical, you will be limiting the readers of your content to people who understand this kind of language. Jargon can also bog down your writing. Try to keep things simple, even when it comes to word choice. For example, instead of the term ‘eliminate’ you can just say ‘get rid’. It should improve your writing.

    7 – Use Keywords Naturally Within Your Content
    Search engines are getting smarter all the time, and Google will de-rank content that relies on keywords too much or even stuffs them into content. Your keywords should always be incorporated in the most natural, organic way possible.
    With too many keywords, your text will be clunky to read and not helpful at all to your audience. Aiming to provide value to your reader should be your first concern.

    8 – Match Copy To The Buying Cycle
    Understanding the buying cycle of your customer is essential if you want the best results. If you understand this and you can match your copy to the buying cycle, it will apply directly to whoever is reading it. For instance, consumers who may be in the early stages of the buying cycle will appreciate broad, informative content so that they can learn more and continue making their way through the cycle. Those further down the buying cycle will want more specific content that can help them to make the right purchasing decision, as they are nearly there.

    9 – Focus On Value Over Selling
    Avoid using pushy language and tactics to sell your products and services. Make it your goal to build a relationship with your audience first and focus on the sale second. Although you do want to get sales with your content, the value will always be what helps you to get it – not the hard sell. People don’t like getting an air of desperation, or that pushy salesperson vibe from your content. You can definitely talk about the benefits of your products/services, but again, value should be your top priority.

    If you find that your content generates a lot of traffic but never seems to convert, you’re probably thinking about SEO before your audience. Change this now, use the advice here, and you should notice great results!

    Need a little help? Check out our SEO boosting copywriting Services here.

  • How many hashtags should I use on Instagram?

    Selecting the best hashtags for your Instagram posts can mean the difference between appearing at the top of your feeds or sinking to the bottom without a trace. Get it right and you can enjoy long tail success collecting likes through discovery for days after but getting it wrong can mean your post could be lost in the darkest shadows of your social media community.

    If you make your hashtags too generic like #happy or #Monday – and your post will be drowned out instantly by millions of others. It’s better to use a mix of tags that are trending now and relevant to your industry allowing you to connect with your targeted social media followers.

    The number of hashtags you use per post on Instagram is also critical. While Instagram allows for up to 30 tags, a mass of tags underneath your caption risks looking unprofessional. Save your tags elsewhere so you can group tags under your likely topics of engagement. To help tidy your chosen hashtags bury them under a run of full stops like so:

  • 7 steps to successful digital content creation

    7 steps to successful digital content creation

    Digital Content is a huge part of our day to day life. It’s almost impossible to avoid in our ultra connected society. The daily internet stats around it are mind boggling. As at Dec 2018:

    • Every day around the planet some 4.1 billion of us are logging online to use the internet.
    • Over 95 million photos and videos are shared on Instagram daily.
    • Over 4 million blog posts are published every day.
    • Over 500 million tweets are sent every day.

    Visit the internet’s live stats for a true peak at the numbers involved.

    Digital Content helps keeps us entertained and informed. Content will answer our questions, will spark a debate, will set someone free, make us smile &/or make us weep. Great digital content will make our decisions, facilitate our every habit online from the sweet to the not so savoury and much, much more.

    As a digital marketer, start-up or business owner of any size, creating beautiful content will help you attract, engage, and delight audiences, bringing new customers to your site, and ultimately, generate revenue for your company.

    To be blunt if you own a business or a website and are not creating digital content, then you’re doing it all wrong. That’s why we’ve compiled these 7 steps to successful digital content creation. Although some of these steps may not be applicable to all types of digital content, they will see in on the right path to a meaningful content strategy and creation pathway.

     

    1. Identify your target audience.

    Creating fund and engaging digital content is great but if you don’t know who you’re creating for there’s a chance they won’t like if and when they see it. An essential part of digital content strategy is to first identify who your key audiences are and what makes them tick. Posting cute fluffy kitten images is all well and good but if you’re running a camping store then it’s probably not going to connect with your desired response.

     

    2. Understand why you’re creating the digital content.

    Different types of content work best for different purposes. By determining the purpose at the beginning of the content creation process, you can improve the likelihood that your content will achieve the desired results. Are you looking to boost your site’s SEO? Perhaps long format articles outlining your expertise are a the content of choice here? Want to demonstrate your companies abilities? Perhaps creating case studies of recent projects will be best? 

     

    3. Create useful, quality content. 

    This flows directly from the previous comment. Digital content creation, for sake of content creation will never work. It’s gets super boring, super quick! Every piece of content you create, be it an Instagram post, YouTube video or blog must be both relevant and useful to your target audiences. Creating something they would want to keep, use or share will help build your trust online, extend your natural reach and build a sustainable social media community. 

     

    4.Get Creative. 

    Play around with your content creation and have fun with it. People are 80 percent more likely to read content that has coloured visuals. Infographics are 3 times more likely to be liked and shared compared to any other type of content on social media. According to a study by MDG Advertising, content paired with captivating images gets 94 percent more total views on average than those without. Or to take your content strategy to the next level by utilising video. According to a recent Renderforest survey, 78% of users got more traffic to their website after using videos. It’s the main reason we exist as an agency is because people now see, more than ever, video production is critical to your digital content strategy.

    5. Always consider your SEO keywords

    SEO and content creation linked inseparably SEO and content creation linked inseparably Digital content creation drives SEO Don’t just guess your keywords for your content strategy, let them dictate your digital content strategy. By combining your content and search engine optimisation (SEO) strategy you can be sure the content created is working for you on multiple levels ad helping you achieve greater visibility on your search rankings. An active SEO strategy will help you find the right types of content to create for the right audiences and vice versa. Create keyword rich articles, image tags and meta data to ensure the content your create is seen and attracting the relevant audiences to your site.

    6. Share through your owned channels.

    Once you’ve created your useful digital content don’t just publish it once. Promote content through each of your owned channels such as you social media communities, blogs, and emails. Sharing different content on each of your social networks will expand your brand’s reach and add scale to your digital marketing campaigns. Schedule it for today before repurposing and reposting again and again for as long it remains relevant. Make your content work for you tweaking it to fit relevant social media channels. Tailoring it slightly to adjust for people’s consumption habits on the social media of choice and hooking people back to your original source of content. Regularly creating unique digital content will give your customers and those search bots a reason to return again and again.

    7. Track & Learn.

    Now your newly created digital content is out there for all the world to see it, Track and measure the impact through your analytics. Go beyond the standard page views and begin to evaluate online behaviours of your audiences to better understand who is viewing specific pieces of digital content. Consider tracking your sources of traffic, your keyword positions and search rankings. We use sites like MOZ and Small SEO Tools to track our keyword rankings. This provides transparency for our clients and allows them to watch in real time as we boost their SEO positions online through content creation.

    Marzipan Media are Sydney based, digital content agency focused on one thing; producing engaging online content for our clients in Australia and beyond. If you’d like to talk more about your digital content strategy get in touch today.

  • Three tips to getting the most from your Influencer marketing campaign

    We love working with influencers on campaigns. When used correctly they can quickly help build your brand, grow your social media communities and create trust for your brand not to mentioned help you reach valuable new audiences. But how do you know who to partner with? Always check the three R’s: Resonance, Reach and Relevance. Like social media guru Jay Baer once said: “True influence drives action, not just awareness.”

    How to determine and influencers Resonance?
    Resonance tracks the ripples of that content through the influencers network. Does it get shared outward to other networks, will it be reposted and is it trusted. Some of the influencers we’ve worked with & admire such as We Are Explorers, Little Lobby and Carly Brown absolutely nail it. Seamlessly working branded content into their feed without it seeming phoney or overly pushy.
    This is the type of content that will get shared and resonates with new audiences. It’s a skill, good content creators will own it but not everybody can.

    Be sure to check your influencer’s reach
    Just having the requisite number of followers doesn’t cut it these days. Any days really, it’s always been a poor measure of success but it’s sometimes a good place to start. Many brands have set budgets will help you aim for the right influencers. Knowing your options is always handy. Make sure though that posts are getting good volumes of likes.

    There’s no point paying for an influencer just for their 10,000 likes if only 34 people will engage with a post. Follower counts are easily inflated, it takes a lot to grow and maintain a healthy social media community and people often look for shortcuts. Look for strong engagement rates to support the reach on each and every piece of digital content that’s posted.

    The final check is the most important – Relevance
    There’s no point having a superstar influencer shoutout your brand on Instagram if they’re from a completely different warp of life. This can be the hardest part and as a social media agency we see many good opportunities missed or misplaced because a client is super keen to pair up with an influencer that they love personally… but that who doesn’t work with the brand.

    There are plenty of influencer fish in that see, it’s better to wait than to rush and get it wrong.
    While someone with hundreds of thousands of social media followers certainly could expose your brand to their followers, if they are not a snug contextual fit, their post or tweet would be moot as far as driving leads and customers.

    As the lines between PR and social continue to blur and brands continue to find fresh ways to make their content work for them consider an influencer campaign for your brand in 2018. With a little time and research you could find the perfect pairing to extend your sphere of influence, grow your community and build valuable trust in the market place.

    Let us know how you go in the comments below!

  • Meet Generation Z

    A new report published by Think with Google lifts the lid on Generation Z, the newest generation of tech savvy, mobile wielding, video consuming kids to hit the streets.  The in-depth audience report conducted by Ipsos  delivers revealing insights about the social media habits of the 13 – 17yrs olds outlining what they consider cool and what devices you’ll likely to find them on. It’s a must for social media strategists and digital marketing managers alike. 

    “While millennials were mobile pioneers, teens are mobile natives,” Google writes in the study. Unlike previous generations that learnt how to use new digital, mobile and social products later in life, these teenagers’ have had mobile technology embedded in their lives since birth. 78% of all US teens now have a mobile phone and the age at which they first receive them is getting younger and younger. 
    The report shows that across all races and demographics 12 is now the average age that many kids receive their first mobile phone. Almost four years earlier than their millennial counterparts, bringing with it social status and benefits of cool together with a daunting sense of peer pressure: 
    “Teens are equal parts aware of and wary of their dependence on technology—meaning their online lives are both spontaneous and carefully curated”


    Snapchat, and Instagram are the coolest platforms for these young teens to express themselves. Facebook is still a daily habit for most teens for consumption and stalking, but they rarely post and it’s not seen as “cool”. Generation Z are also shifting from texting to messaging apps to communicate, 52% prefer options like Snapchat and WhatsApp to communicate. 
    The report is a great read for digital marketers and social media managers planning their next campaign strategies.

    You can download the report here.

  • How to create a Facebook Business Manager Account.

    How to create a Facebook Business Manager Account.

    We get asked this question all the time so wanted to explain the best way to set up your Facebook Business Manager Account and take control of your social accounts.

    Facebook Business Manager is a powerful tool for businesses that need multiple people involved in managing Facebook and Instagram, have multiple assets to manage, or want deeper insights into audiences and targeting. This quick guide will help you and your team get up and running quickly.

    1. Go to Facebook Business Suite: Start by visiting the Facebook Business Suite site. You can find this by typing “Facebook Business Suite” into your search engine or going directly to business.facebook.com.

    2. Create an Account: Click on the “Create Account” button. You’ll be asked to log in using your personal Facebook account credentials. Remember, your personal information will not be visible on your Business Manager account.

    3. Enter Your Business Details: After logging in, you will be prompted to enter information about your business. This includes your business name (which should match the name people use to look up your business), your name, and your business email address.

    4. Set Up Your Business Profile: Once your account is created, you’ll need to add all the relevant details about your business. This includes your business’s physical address, website, and phone number.

    5. Add Your Facebook Business Pages: If you already have a business page on Facebook, you can add it to your Business Manager account. If not, you can create a new page directly from the Business Manager setup.

    6. Add People or Partners to Manage Your Account: You can add colleagues or partners to help manage your account. Under the “Users” section, click on “People” and then on “Add.” Enter their email addresses and choose the level of access or permissions you want to grant them. To allow Marzipan to partner with your with your online advertising just add our ID which is: 11054 96059 473516

    7. Link Your Ad Account: If you plan to run ads, link your ad account to your Business Manager. If you don’t have an ad account yet, you can create one in this step. Go to the “Accounts” tab, click on “Ad Accounts,” then either “Add” an existing ad account or “Create a new ad account.”

    8. Add Other Assets: You can also link other assets such as Instagram accounts, product catalogs, and more. This is found under the “Accounts” section as well.

    9. Configure Business Settings: Take some time to explore the business settings. Here, you can configure additional settings like payment methods for advertisements, set up more advanced features like pixel tracking for website analytics, and manage all your linked assets.

    10. Review and Start Using: Review all the information and settings to ensure everything is set up correctly. You can now start using Facebook Business Manager to manage your pages, ad accounts, and other business-related activities on Facebook more efficiently.

    Make sure to keep your Business Manager information up to date and review your security settings regularly to protect your business’s Facebook presence. If you need further assistance with specific features within the Business Manager, Facebook’s help center provides detailed guides and troubleshooting tips.

     

    If you run into trouble or wish we’d gone into more depth on a particular section let us know. Anything to add that might help other?

    We’d love to hear from you in the comments.