JDR Group's 'Digital Prosperity' Blog

The Shakin' It Team and TOWIE'S Bobby
JDR’s Kerry had the pleasure of being invited by Shakin’ It Derby to attend the intu Derby Retailer Awards. Our favourite milkshake superstars Shakin’ It won Retailer Of The Year which, up against so many longstanding retailers, was no easy feat! Not only did they show themselves to be the best retailer going, they were also highly commended for Customer Service (Keep Calm And Grab A Milkshake!), and Food and Drink Awards! Props to an amazing team and their fab selection of milkshakes – what a year to be ‘Shakin’ It’!

New generation marketing strategies are the best way to supercharge your business. Whether you’re diversifying into a new market or strengthening your current client base, there isn’t currently a better way of getting the results you need. However, it’s important to take a considered approach to marketing, rather than trying to rush to the finish line. Trying to go from 0 to 100 in six seconds is as likely to leave you with a burnt-out engine or careening off the road as it is to get you to your destination.

What are new generation marketing strategies, and how do they compare to ‘old school’ techniques? Over the past few years, noticeable trends have caused changes to how businesses market themselves – to the extent that some old school strategies are no longer as effective, and can even be counter-productive.

Marketing is only effective if you target the right audience. If you market to the wrong people, your content will fall on deaf ears – for no other reason than they don’t need your services, or aren’t in a position to purchase them. There’s no point trying to appeal to everyone – only people who have a definite interest in what you sell. This is why it’s so important to understand who your ideal customers are, what they’re searching for online, and how you can be found by them.

It sometimes feels as though barely a month goes by without us reading an ‘SEO is dead’ themed article. A lot has changed in SEO over the past decade. However, SEO – or search engine optimisation – is simply the process of improving the visibility of your website on Google when people search for terms relevant to your business.

This client, a successful crane servicing and repair business, approached JDR because they already had their hands full and couldn’t take on any marketing activities even if they wanted to! The owner of the business was considering bringing in extra help so that the company could expand and grow but instead decided to take some of the weight off their shoulders and entrust their digital marketing to JDR.

This decision has led to organic traffic being tripled (see above), and an overall growth in business of 30% (a turnover increase of £300k).

You need leads to generate sales but not all leads convert into customers. Some leads have a better prospect of becoming paying customers than others. As generating each lead costs your company money, an effective lead generation strategy should focus on maximising the number of high-quality leads, while filtering out those that are less relevant. How is this achieved?

Who doesn’t love a word-of-mouth referral? It’s a great endorsement of your business and is definitely something to aim for. Many mature businesses gain a lot of their new clients on the back of client referrals. Word-of-mouth referrals are gold dust for several reasons:

When a marketing agency writes content on your behalf, how do they do this? After all, if people who have worked for your company for X number of years struggle to create content around your business, how will an agency employee who barely knows you? When an agency writes your content a lot of research goes into ensuring it is relevant and effective for their marketing efforts. However, the core point is that your marketing content is written for your customers, rather than for your business. Everything starts by understanding your customer, and this is an area in which marketing agencies shine.

Increasing the flow of traffic to your website is an important first step, but is not the end goal. Many businesses find that, although their total web traffic increases month on month, the number of qualified leads does not. What are the main reasons businesses continue to find it difficult to generate B2B sales leads, despite an increase in web traffic? Let’s have a look: