Tag Archives: Social media marketing

10 Ways to Promote Online Bookings for Your Business

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Businesses today have moved their dependencies from offline sales to online sales. With the growth of online customer base, each business is investing in white label digital marketing services to earn significant popularity in the web world and get direct online bookings/sales. But, they often tend to concentrate on a single marketing channel and aren’t able to leverage the perks of digital marketing up to its full potential. So, here we bring you some smart digital marketing strategies to increase online bookings for your business:

1. Google My Business Sets Booking for You

Your users can set up online bookings from your Google My Business Page if you have added your online booking details on your GMB page. If you are already using any booking provider, then you can use that on Google My Business page, or Google has its own booking integrations from which you can select.

Here is how to add online booking possible for your users on Google My Business page.

Step 1. Go to your Google My Business account.

Step 2. Click the location where you would like to place the booking option.

Step 3. Go to the menu, click Bookings (“Booking” is only visible in some region, so if it is not visible to you, it is not available as of now in your region.)

Step 4. Select and sign up with the provider you want.

Step 5. Within a week you will have your account linked with Google My Business and you can start receiving bookings from there.

In case you are already using any provider. After placing the link, you will automatically able to see all the bookings.

2. Your Website Promotes You 24*7

One of the first steps to creating an online presence and attracting bookings online is to create your business website. Your website should have crisp and clear navigation and engaging design that could help you draw conversions. With this, there are certain factors that you need to keep in mind for growing online bookings through your website, these include –

  • Your website should have a clear call to action button for booking. In this case, a “Book Now” or “Make a Booking” button can be your preferred choice.
  • Your website should be optimized for smartphones and other smart devices. You can keep your booking button sticky across the devices.
  • Adding your phone number as a sticky bar to your web page is a must. This helps you display your phone number along with the entire page scroll.
  • Small ‘Book Now’ forms placed smartly on your web pages can help you capture good conversions.

3. Online Directories Are Worth The Shot

Online directories offer a huge customer base for you to promote your business. Listing on popular business directories can help you draw great traffic and conversions to your website.

Here are some top local Australian Business Directories:

Yellowpages.com.au

Yelp.com.au

Womo.com.au

Superpages.com.au

Truelocal.com.au

Infobel.com

Startlocal.com.au

4. Forums and Discussions Make People Talk about You

* Apart from Quora and Reddit

Solving their queries is the best way to develop trust among your audience and attracting them to your business. Online forums can help you promote your business offerings in a smart manner and increase your online bookings. Popular forums generally attract a huge regular audience base and if you are successful in solving their queries (related to your business) and creating good popularity on the platform, you could attract amazing conversions. Check out the top 50 web forums in Australia.

5. Email Marketing Is Still Working

Email marketing is considered one of the best marketing channels for increasing online sales and bookings for your business. As the statistics say, the average email open rates across all domains are 21.08% and the average click-through rate is 2.78%. Thus, bulk mailing can help you reach a huge customer base.

Types of emails that can help you increase your online bookings:

  • Discount offer emails
  • Emails creating urgency offers
  • Reminder Emails
  • New offerings promotion emails

6. Display, Search and Social Media Ad Campaigns

Paid marketing is another perspective to the story of online promotions. You can use various modes of online advertising like AdWords Display and Search Ads. Based on the nature of your service and your target audience, Google Ad campaigns can help you get a good reach to your potential customers. You can promote your online booking deals and offers to a huge audience online through optimized ad campaigns and earn direct bookings and sales.

Social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn offer you a huge customer base for your product and service offerings. You can create an engaging image and video ads along with setting your targeting right, to earn maximum reach and high return on investments.

7. Social Media Business Page – Secret Weapons

Various social media platforms offer a platform to create and manage your business bookings and promote your business offerings through it. You can list your products and services on these pages, promote your offers, and even add a call to action (Book now, order now, call now, etc.)

Facebook provides you with a whole booking system from where you can manage your booking/appointments, synced with Google calendar.

Twitter can be a useful platform to promote your booking link through twitter bio option.

8. Push notifications Are Indirect Booking Emails

Almost every business today employs push notifications as a remarketing strategy to visitors who have previously visited their website. Push notifications help you promote exclusive offers to retarget your past visitors. With this, you can use them as reminders and offer exclusive insights, along with a call-to-action “Book Now” button to improve the rate of your online bookings.

9. Various Remarketing Channels

Remarketing strategies offer a great success rate. According to the statistics, customers who are retargeted using remarketing display ads are 70% more likely to click on your ad and convert on your website. Various successful remarketing strategies include – social media remarketing ad campaigns, AdWords display, and remarketing campaigns, remarketing email campaigns,  push notifications, on-site offers to previous visitors, etc.

10. Loyalty Programs Are Never Outdated

A successful business ensures to focus on its customer loyalty, which can help them reap great returns from their investments. Some great ways of getting new bookings from your existing customers include –

  • Exclusive discount offers to previous customers through email marketing and push notifications.
  • Discounted deal coupons on the website for previous customers.
  • Point benefits (that can be redeemed in cash) to customers on each purchase or booking.
  • Offering allowances like free delivery and urgent delivery, etc. to previous customers.

Convincing your customers to book or buy your products/services online takes a lot more than marketing. A customer should trust your brand, you need to offer the best deals among your competitors and your services need to meet their specific requirements.

However, marketing helps you create a presence of your brand in their minds and makes your business more accessible to your customers. So, employ the above marketing tips today to increase your online bookings.

If you wish to grow your sales through online booking, you can get in touch with us. See how we increased Kazbah’s phone bookings by 138% in 60 days.

Expert Interview: How Jeff Bullas Built a Blog With Millions of Visitors a Year

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I recently had the privilege of meeting Jeff Bullas.

For those of you who don’t know Jeff, he is the founder of JeffBullas dot com, a website that educates brands and individuals about the art and science of making a splash in today’s digital world.

He is globally recognized as the #1 Content Marketing Influencer and is a Forbes Top 15 Social Media Influencer. He’s also a regular keynote speaker and social media marketing strategist hired by some of the world’s biggest brands.

That all sounds great, but why should you care?

Well, Jeff’s blog attracts over 2 million unique visitors a year, and in this interview, he shares his secrets to all.

ME: Jeff, today you have over 2 million visitors coming to your website a year, but can you tell us a bit more about how it all started?

JEFF: It started way back in 2008. I was newly unemployed at the time and looking for a passion project to spark my curiosity. At the time there were only 70 million people on Facebook and a mere 5 million on Twitter – but social media intrigued me. It was a new and exciting way for individuals to have a voice. With a tiny $10 investment, I decided to buy a domain name and start a blog. That blog is the same one you see today at JeffBullas dot com.

ME: Could you provide a brief summary of your approach to generating web traffic?

JEFF: The core of everything we do is about quality content. Whether it’s blog content, premium content such as eBooks for building my email list, or social media content and video, all of my traffic building efforts revolve around content. Of course, that’s quite a simplified way to look at our strategy. We publish a minimum of four high-quality articles on the blog every week, each of which is underpinned by targeted keyword research and SEO optimization, with the goal of getting organic search traffic from each article. I’ve also built a significant distribution network, which means that every time we publish a new article there are people ready to click and read. This distribution network is made up of social media followers and a large email list.

ME: Where does all of your traffic come from? What’s the breakdown of channels?

JEFF: It’s all about search. Even though I talk a lot about social media and its power to have your own voice, search engines are still by far my biggest traffic driver. For example, last year over 60% of my traffic came from organic search, with direct traffic, social media and referral traffic making up most of the remaining 40% at a fairly even split.

ME: You mentioned a lot of your traffic comes from search engines, what has had the biggest influence on your SEO performance?

JEFF: It’s hard to single out one thing that has had an impact on our SEO performance because there are so many moving parts. Of course, content plays a big part in being able to rank for a number of different keywords, but if the website wasn’t technically optimized and designed for easy user navigation, then that content would be somewhat ineffective. So in summary, there is no one thing – it’s a combination of consistent content backed up by technical optimization and maintenance.

ME: You have a huge social media audience (especially on Twitter), can you provide a brief overview of your approach to social?

JEFF: I’ve broken a lot of rules with Twitter… And when I say that, I’m not talking about Twitter’s official rules and regulations. I’m talking about the “rules” that so-called social media experts preach about how to interact on Twitter. They tell you not to post the same content twice, or not to post too often, or that you need to be ever-present and ready to respond to comments. For me, that’s been the opposite. I’ve automated my Twitter activity as much as possible and repurpose our timeless blog content on a recurring schedule that ends up posting content about every 15 minutes throughout the day. This consistent stream of quality content has been the backbone of my follower growth.

ME: What would you recommend to a small business looking to invest, SEO or SEM?

JEFF: I always lean towards SEO over SEM because it worked for me. With SEO or organic search, you are building an asset that continues to accrue value over time without further investment. For example, you could create a blog article tomorrow that continues to bring traffic to your site a year or two from now. With SEM services, once you turn the tap off and stop spending money, the traffic stops too. Of course, SEO is hard work and it takes a long time to return results, so there is certainly a place for both. Especially as organic search gets more competitive.

ME: What is the number one piece of advice you would give to an individual or business looking to grow their website traffic today?

JEFF: Get started. Be vulnerable. Take a few risks. Turn up every other day with valuable content. And most importantly don’t give up… Sorry, that’s not just one piece of advice!

ME: What can we expect from Jeff Bullas in 2018?

JEFF: This year we’re doubling down on content. That might sound like a strange thing to say for someone who already publishes 4 or more articles a week, but it’s the backbone of everything we do and the results we have achieved. Instead of just publishing regular high-quality articles from guest authors, we have also started publishing a number of more in-depth pillar articles that cover the most important topics our audience cares about. These pillar articles form the structure and direction for the rest of the content on the website. Here is an example of one of these about social media marketing.

Wrapping things up

A big thanks to Jeff Bullas for taking the time to conduct this interview.

Here are my key takeaways:

  • Get started today
  • Build a distribution network across social media and your email database
  • Focus on content and organic search
  • Don’t give up
Digital Market

Digital Marketing Guide To Easter

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Regardless of religious orientation, Easter is one of the most anticipated public holidays on the Australian calendar. Schools and workplaces around the country close their doors for the occasion, giving families a chance to come together, relax and eat a whole lot of chocolate. The time when businesses have a unique opportunity to employ Easter marketing campaigns, connect with potential customers online, capture their imaginations and win them over.

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