Digital marketing can be a complex beast at the best of times. With that in mind, we’ve put together 4 digital marketing trends that you should consider this year to help drive more traffic and leads to your school.
Your online reputation is EVERYTHING
Let’s start with some quick stats:
88% of consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations by word of mouth.
85% of consumers say they will read up to 10 reviews before they commit to a purchase.
(Source: Search Engine Land http://selnd.com/1DlukL8).
Now more than ever, online reviews of your business have never been so important driving more customers to your website and social media pages, especially if you’re in an area with lots of competing schools.
Always remember to ask your students to leave reviews whether it’s on your Facebook page, Google business listing or your own website. There are many other free and paid review websites such as yelp.co.uk, yell.co.uk and reevoo.com where you can ask satisfied customers to leave you a review too.
Make sure your website works on a mobile or tablet
2015 is THE year of the mobile.
We’ve seen evidence from our own websites that mobile usage far outgrew desktop users last year. There’s a good chance that you’re reading this on your phone right now!
If your website doesn’t work well on a mobile device then visitors to your site will leave without placing a booking or making an enquiry.
Even Google have started altering where websites are ranked in mobile results based on how they work on mobile or tablet (source: Search Engine Watch) http://bit.ly/1ANjtYi).
The cost of making your website responsive (mobile friendly) varies depending on how your website is built or coded. If your website isn’t responsive or you’ve been thinking of building a new website then there’s never been a better time than now to do it.
Facebook is now a paid advertising platform
You may have noticed that the number of people that your unpaid Facebook posts reach has dropped significantly over the last few months. This is because Facebook are turning their platform into a paid advertising channel which means if you want your promotional posts to reach a larger audience, you’re going to have use Facebook’s paid advertising options.
Facebook are trying to provide users with a better experience so unpaid promotional posts will be given less significance in newsfeeds.
This means that any content you post must be of value to your audience. Content that will get good engagement such as event photos, motivational banners and stories will get better visibility in the newsfeed. Think about using your Facebook page as an opportunity to show potential students the look and feel of your club and classes.
For promotional posts use Facebook boost or the Facebook Ads to promote promotions to a highly targeted audience, which should yield better results in terms of bookings and enquiries.
Social media ecommerce is coming
Image source: newsledge.com
In 2014 you may have noticed that Facebook and Twitter have been trialling a new feature – ‘‘buy’ buttons.
The strategy behind this is to try make shopping online a part of social media so online shoppers can buy products without leaving their social network.
This type of ‘Social ecommerce’ can give Martial Arts schools the opportunity to sell products from their pro shop to an already engaged audience. Keep a look out on Facebook and Twitter for more news of this new feature in the coming year.
Summary
While Social ecommerce maybe a few months away, the rest of the digital marketing trends above are something for all Martial Arts school owners to consider as part of their online marketing strategy.
