Advertising and Online Marketing
Google Business
A free and easy-to-use tool for businesses to manage their online presence across Google (including searches on Google maps. It will take a few days to register your business as Google sends a postal verification. Once fully registered you are able to access your Google Business account and tools easily via Chrome*. Having Google Business will increase your visibility, as well as offering a review option for clients.
*Chrome is Google’s internet browser tool
Bing Places for Business
A free business listing service similar to Google Business but available to users on Microsoft Edge*. The client reviews are sourced from your Facebook review page.
NB: You are able to replicated your Google Business listing automatically to Bing Places for Business.
*Microsoft Edge is an Internet browser tool
Check out Bing Places for Business
There are a few options on Facebook, your own personal FB page is a starting point to set up any further pages/groups. Facebook for Business (now called ‘Meta Business Suite’) enables you to have a free Facebook page specifically for your business which will expand your internet presence. More than one person (you can set this up via “Page roles”) can help manage your business or social media, enabling them to add or edit content. You can post content such as text, videos, images, events services, and products and it also offers additional options to draft, schedule/plan content, and an inbox to message and respond to questions.
Clients can leave reviews to your business page and you can take advantage of additional functionality such as a shop, or paid advertising through “boosting” posts – the cost will depend on the demographics and geographical area you select but can be as little as £10, Facebook gives you an idea of the number of “engagements” for the price you pay when setting up a boosted post.
NB: Daily FB is used by 44% of the UK online population. The largest age group using FB is 25-34 year olds
Instagram is a photo and video-sharing app and most likely because of the visual aspects of this platform it’s very popular and can serve as a valuable marketing tool for your business.
To get the most out of Instagram, use high-quality photos, engage with other accounts, respond to comments, and use hashtags* wisely, keep your hashtags relevant and specific to a topic to reach the right audience but limit usage to 5-10 per post.
A key aspect for a business on Instagram is for all content to reflect your brand identity, there are many small businesses on Instagram posting content so having a strong and easily identifiable brand will enable you to stand out.
To set up your business account on Instagram, start with a personal account and then convert this to a business account. You can also link your IG account to Facebook, and use the Meta Business Suite to schedule content.
There are different types of content you can publish to your Instagram account, see a simplified summary below:
Reels: video of up to 1 minute, ideally in portrait format (IG algorithm favours portrait!), reels are good for reaching a new audience (non-followers), you will need to add targeted hashtags.
Single photo, carousel photos (multiple photos), and video posts: these are fairly self-explanatory, and bear in mind that it’s beneficial to vary the content format you post on IG. You can add targeted hashtags posts.
Live videos: this is fairly self explanatory and live videos are one of the best ways to build engagement and interaction with your followers. Be mindful that you will need to let people know ahead of time that you are going to be live! You can also reshare the replay for up to 30 days.
Stories: these are specifically for your existing followers, this can be less formal and more ‘in the moment’ type content and are great for driving engagement with your current followers.
A note about security: We innocently followed a link from a friend to ‘vote for them’ and as a result lost our IG account with nearly 2k followers on Christmas Day 2022. This was devastating as it takes hard work to build followers, but after the initial panic (and subsequent attempts to contact IG and get it back) we took a deep breath and started again. Please make sure you set up ‘2 factor authentication’ for your business accounts so this doesn’t happen to you.
*Hashtags – # – prefix a word or short statement (with no spaces and not too many words!). It’s effectively a label on Instagram that makes it easier for people to find and filter information.
Email Marketing
Mailchimp is an all-in-one marketing platform that helps you manage and talk to your clients, customers, and other interested parties. You can manage mailing lists, create custom email templates, and nurture and automate marketing campaigns. Mailchimp have different packages from a free account to a variety of paid monthly options.
We use Mailchimp because it integrates with our patient management systems – Cliniko and Acuity Scheduling. We automatically move a clients’ details from Acuity Scheduling (our appointment booking service) via a Zap* to Mailchimp, where clients are then sent a variety of information and follow-up emails.
*Zap – this is short for a Zapier task. Zapier is a tool (online) that helps you to automate repetitive tasks between two or more applications with no code. https://zapier.com/