B2B Archives - Page 13 of 20 - Creative Agency Secrets

Crossfire Fire Engineers, Auckland, new website copy

Case Study: Website redesign for busy professional firm

17 February, 2016/0 Comments/in B2B, Copywriting /by Rebecca Caroe

Crossfire Engineers are one of the leading practices in Auckland delivering advice for fire engineering in new buildings as well as refurbishments. The team is expert in fire safety advice, but not website marketing.

When they needed to edit their old website it meant paying the developer to upload content and so it was clearly time for a change to a content management system and a new web design.

Business owner, Michael Dixon, was introduced to Creative Agency Secrets by Bruce Ross the business coach, initially to write the words for the new website. Later, we also project managed the web build liaising with the developers and Steven Robinson, the photographer.

Crossfire Fire Engineers new website copy

Save time for the Client

It was clear that delivering a successful project would include keeping the client informed, but minimising the amount of time taken up by management.

And so we did most of the copywriting briefing face to face by ‘interviewing’ the key team players.

Later, testimonials were obtained from clients direct after an introduction by the Crossfire team, saving them time. We asked questions and wrote the testimonial first draft for them to edit and approve.

Key website successes

The Home page has 3 red buttons to shortcut visitors’ enquiries to the pages most relevant to different services. What an architect needs is different from a Building Owner or Manager.

Testimonials on the bottom of the home page by high profile clients and architects who collaborate with the Crossfire team.

Crossfire Fire Engineers testimonials

Team profiles not just photos but also individual contact details and a synopsis of their career and key skills allow direct contact by clients.

Work for us – one of the drivers for the new website was the need to recruit staff this page sets out more detail about how engineers can re-qualify in Fire Engineering as well as explaining how to emigrate to New Zealand.

Happy client

Jeff Parkinson did much of the day to day liaison for the website project and he has this to say at the end.

We can’t recommend Rebecca enough! She helped us through the process of designing our new website and we are really pleased with the end result.

She helped us to stay focused and used her expert knowledge to ensure our site was relevant, connected and simple to use.

We are really happy with the content she provided, her constant support throughout the project helped us complete the website for a new year launch during a time of high pressure from other project workloads.

The Art and Science of Generating Leads

4 February, 2016/0 Comments/in B2B, Lead Generation, Marketing /by Rebecca Caroe

Many business owners tell us that they want more inbound leads and enquiries for new business. We know exactly how to do it AND we’ve been practicing what we preach for years. Here is the proof – our own data month by month of enquiries to buy Creative Agency Secrets’ services.

Leads tracking spreadsheet sample

Today we’re announcing a webinar that shows you exactly HOW we do it, so you can learn to do this for yourself. February 10th 2016.

The art and science of generating leads Event Sign up

The art and science of generating leads results in a new business development plan. That’s a month by month chart of activities, all oriented around starting conversations that lead to paying clients. And on this 90 minute webinar I am going to show you HOW to do it and then how to MAKE IT HAPPEN.

Creative Agency Secrets are experts in proactive execution marketing. This is the technique that builds up your business profile which creates leads which become enquiries which become sales. It’s a continuous cycle.

Sounds simple – but most business owners do not know HOW to do it.

This workshop is for business owners and managers who are responsible for finding new clients and growing revenues. It will show you the practical, tried and tested techniques that the Creative Agency Secrets team uses.

Here’s a sneak preview of what you will learn:

How to create a unique company profile.
A check list of marketing activities.
New business pipeline analysis.
What you need to do to get better known in your industry.
Learn relationship building for getting and keeping long term clients.
How to spot opportunities for new business sales.
The business process that delivers leads.
What to measure to track progress.

Don’t take our word for it…

“I thought it was great, enlightening and thoroughly enjoyed the ideas. I also appreciated all the little things that can be done and those things that don’t take money but have a big impact. It was great and I thoroughly would recommend it to all business owners looking to expand business online.”

Julie Soboil, co-owner, Hushamok

“The business sessions with you were very good – reinforced my thinking but was given expert and very helpful and thoughtful information for me to digest. Although I am very aware of the importance of social media, I also realise that I am behind in using it so need to make time to get up to speed.”

Helen Mitchell, Managing Director, Anti-aging World

Register for the event by clicking any of the links to The Art and Science of Generating Leads

Tickets are Free

And we are offering two different tickets – Attend Live and Watch Later. Both require you to sign up for February 10th 2016 event.

Event timings

10th February 2016 times in different country / locations

New Zealand 10 February 12 pm midday
Australia NSW/VIC 10 February 10 am
Australia QLD10 February 9 am
United States PST 9 February 3 pm
United States EST 9 February 6 pm
United Kingdom 9 February 11 pm

Quality website developers – time to up your game

26 January, 2016/0 Comments/in B2B, B2C, Digital media, Marketing /by Rebecca Caroe

I get really mad when low quality website developers over-specify for marketing websites. Is this

Quality Website Developers

something you have seen?

Part of the expertise of a high quality web developer is to recommend the right tool for the job and I find it ridiculously easy to spot website developers who are not skilful. But it still makes me angry.

Marketing suppliers like Creative Agency Secrets lead the industry because we “decode” marketing for our clients, we find high quality suppliers and engage them for our clients as sub-contractors with us managing the job. Trust is essential to maintain reputation and high quality marketing services delivery.

I cannot hire you if you set out to exploit the ill-informed client.

Which CMS is right for you?

We are handling a small website for a client which needs to become responsive. It’s a brochure-ware site and needs to rank well in local search. That’s it.

So why, oh why does their existing developer recommend a CMS that scores highly for:

Sell E-commerce: The core installation comes with a very nice E-commerce module

Offer Exclusive Content: There is a membership module installed right out of the box

Want Flexibility and Growth: Each website is built from the ground up. Another great feature is the multiple site manager

Care About Security and Stability: there hasn’t been a major security breach in over 10 years.

I did some research comparing two CMS products and found this and Quora answers. Which confirmed my own views of mis-alignment between client need and tools proposed.

Quality website developers don’t do this

It’s lazy and over-engineered for the requirements and will be costly for the client.

Game over for that potential relationship.

I do not see it as my job to specify the website build and design – that is what an expert web developer should be doing. As marketing experts, we specify the functionality and features needed and let the experts propose appropriate solutions.

If you know a good web developer who would like to quote on this job – send them this link to the job description.

How to compare my website with a competitors’

19 January, 2016/0 Comments/in B2B, B2C /by Rebecca Caroe

Sitting with a client, he brought up a competitors website and asked me how much traffic they got in comparison to his site.

Top 3 ways to compare websites

There are several free tools you can use to compare your public website statistics with other websites. Remember things like Google Analytics only work if you are authorised to see them – so they’re no good for competitors.

Alexa

The top non-Google site for appraising the popularity of websites on a worldwide scale. I use the Chrome Alexa extension to get this screen grab for our website showing incoming links, global ranking and local country ranking. We are the 405, 597th most popular website on the planet.

Alexa rank for Creative Agency Secrets

SimilarWeb

A cute comparison for two sites that shows more information than Alexa. This gets different data from Alexa but adds in some nice additional features like traffic volumes (in thousands), bounce rate, time on site, page views, countries, traffic sources (direct, referrals, social, email, display), Audience interests and similar sites. Then you can add in a competitor site URL and get a direct comparison. Very cute.

Similarweb for Creative Agency Secrets

SEMRush

The digital marketers best friend for detailed data comparison, SEM Rush is the big daddy here. It dives deeper than the others into keywords, comparing paid and organic traffic, main competitors, branded search vs non-branded (helpful for marketing). Plus you can choose from 26 country search engines to use (Google.com or your local google.com.au for example).

SEM Rush for Creative Agency Secrets

This article first published in Marketing Online Magazine Issue 4

Doing a comparison of your website with your competitors is a useful exercise. It’s all part of Getting your website working hard for your business [there’s a free ebook telling you how].

That’s what Creative Agency Secrets specialises in. Give us a call or email for an appraisal of your site, your business marketing and how to improve.

Read more blog posts about Analysis and Profile Raising by clicking the icons below. Each is a step in our 8 Step Methodology

The best approach to get leads for a B2B solution

13 January, 2016/0 Comments/in B2B, Lead Generation, Marketing /by Rebecca Caroe

I got this question on Clarity.fm where I’m a registered consultant and so decided to share my answer here as well.

Firstly, get some testimonials and case studies for the product.
Build a website and pay to have it SEOed professionally.
Plan a blog writing year of articles.
Get public speaking opportunities to showcase your expertise and if you can, mention the B2B solution.
Buy a mailing list (or build your own) and use direct mail to educate the audience in your area of expertise. Later mention the B2B solution and build a landing page on the website to capture inbound enquiries.
Seek referrals and word of mouth from happy customers.

In order to do these things you will need the following marketing assets: Website, brochure collateral, marketing automation software, CRM database, SEO and strong copywriting.

Happy to help with more detail if you arrange a 20 minute phone call with me personally. I can either tutor you in how to do it yourself, or my team can do it with/for you.

Business not working effectively? Have you considered a business relaunch?

4 December, 2015/0 Comments/in B2B, Marketing /by Creative Agency Secrets Team

If your business isn’t working as effectively as it once was, a business relaunch might be for you. Relaunching a business is a proactive decision taken to ensure that your business stays relevant and engaging in this new fast-paced, dog eat dog world. If a business is relaunched successfully, it can shed its old, ineffective face – and usher in it’s new, more successful era. Here are our tips for business relaunch, to make sure you nail it.

Our Tips for a Successful Business Relaunch

Do Your Homework

The first step of any major change is to work out what isn’t working. Analyse your business, and work out what was effective, and what wasn’t. Recruit someone to give you a hand with this; preferably someone unbiased who won’t sugar coat the truth. From here, go deeper and work out why your business wasn’t working; have your customers changed? Has your market changed? Is your product still what it once was? This is the defining moment of a relaunch decision – carry it out accordingly! Having extensive knowledge of both your own business and the wider market is key to a successful relaunch.

Learn from your Mistakes

Now that you know what wasn’t working and why, it is time to make some changes. In front of you there are two ‘piles’: the good things and the bad. Keep the good things – be it your software, product, or even your business cards, and take the lessons from the bad things. These lessons are the most important part of a relaunch – learn from, and don’t forget them. Make positive decisions based on what you learned – this is where your business has its grand rebirth – it is a landmark moment. You have an effective business again – go you.

Spread the Good Word

Now you effectively have a new business – but no one knows about it. This is your time to share your business with the world (again). If you can signal the relaunch of your business with an event, and promote it in such way as to get people talking about it, you’ll put yourself in a strong position to start well. Your main aim here is not only to promote your business, but also to differentiate it and shed the image of the old one. If you can express the fact that your business is leaner, meaner, (maybe cleaner and greener), and here to stay – then you might be onto a winner.

Want to read more?

This article focuses on business relaunch options, and introduces the concept of pivoting your business
While slightly older, this article shares some fantastic war stories of businesses that have relaunched.
Look here for a quick relaunching guide from Marketing Donut.

Marketing Online magazine features how to use RSS

23 November, 2015/0 Comments/in B2B, B2C, Content Marketing, Marketing /by Rebecca Caroe

Rebecca’s article ion how marketers can use RSS is in this month’s edition of Marketing Online (p22-23).

Really stoked that we’re getting online!

Unusual Christmas gifts for business

12 November, 2015/1 Comment/in B2B, Marketing ideas /by Rebecca Caroe

A client asked us what they could do to thank their clients for their business that was more original than a christmas card. Here’s a summary of our suggestions:

Charity Gifts

Do a charity donation plus a performance. I know the CEO of StarJam a charity empowering young people wiht disabilities through performance and singing. Pay to sponsor their class for a year (it costs $30 per child per month), invite all your clients to a drinks party (mid-winter) and get a performance from the troupe. I’ve experienced these and they are very powerful, plus it’s local and community building.

Better still, make the donation in the name of your client and get StarJam to send a thank you card direct to the client so they know it was given by you but they get the recognition.

Subscription gifting

Choose something that comes once a month so clients remember you throughout the year. The Ma Cherie cafe makes exquisite French macaroons and pastries (I had breakfast there today) and they could send a box gift from you all. Or FarroFoodKits (Auckland only) or SnackPack the Honest Food Co,

Others include Bacon delivery or beauty products, pet gift boxes or shaving products monthly.

Cafe Direct the ethical coffee and tea business offers “Handpicked” a monthly selection club.

Overall, a good business gift should be memorable, enjoyable and if you can, unusual and over-riding all these it must align with your brand values.

Here are a few other helpful articles which may give you inspiration

Forbes list of gifts to keep you top of mind
Helpful lightbox advising shipping information
The Uncommon Gifts company – helpful lightbox pops up to advise they ship to New Zealand.
The Great Gift company UK – nice categories to select from by recipient.
That Sweet Gift – has a holiday gift guide

Website appraisal – criteria for success

29 September, 2015/0 Comments/in B2B, Digital media, Strategy /by Rebecca Caroe

If you ask Creative Agency Secrets to help improve your website marketing, a good place to

Number 1 business website problem
Credit: Wikipedia

start is with a website appraisal. You get a summary document of issues and recommendations for improvements.

So far, so good.

The number 1 problem with business websites

Let me tell you the one thing that over and over trips up our website appraisal – the site is created without having first answered these 3 questions.

Who is it for?
What is it about?
What do you want visitors to do?

If you create a business website without first doing these 3 answers, the results will be haphazard.

Answering them will inform

writing style
keywords
calls to action
menu structure
ancillary marketing (newsletter / brochures / case studies)
blog categories, themes and post-types

I’ve just been asked to appraise a web page called “Why choose us?”.

Believe me, it was desperately hard, because the page did not answer the question in the title.

I am known for being straight-talking and as a result the report was frank – if the client had first done the thinking, then they would have a much clearer website page and I could have added much more value with more detailed recommendations. Without answers I could only guess the answers and the recommendations weren’t as full and complete as I would have liked.

Do your business website a favour today

Go and answer those 3 questions. NOW!

Signed: In grateful thanks – your marketing team

Want more marketing ideas for your business?

Get in touch for a free 20 minute discussion by clicking the link bottom right on this page.

The blue icons opposite are part of our 8-Step New Business Development Methodology.

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