But this doesn’t have to be a big grind, or even a big expense. There are a wealth of free tools online that we can make use of.

Here are 6 tools that cover the essentials, and are also free to use. Every Entrepreneur should be making use of them – so let’s run through what they are and how to use them.

All Hashtag

Hashtags have been serious business for years. Although they began life on Twitter, they are the most useful from a business marketing point of view on Instagram. This is simply due to how the platform’s users make use of them.

If an Instagram user wants to look at posts about the latest hair trend, for example, then they will search the hashtag streams for content with the relevant hashtag – i.e. #greyombre.

Hairdressers or ecommerce stores selling hair products will create product and service related posts using that hastag, helping new users and therefore potential new customers to see them. This is why hashtags are so good for marketing on Insta.

To make hashtags work for you on Insta, you firstly need to think about how to display your products and services. Secondly, you need to think about which hashtags go with that, and what people are currently searching for (in other words, what’s trending).

A free tool like All Hashtag can help you to find the right tags, and make your marketing efforts go further.

Ahrefs Domain Authority Checker

Linking to other authoritative sources when you create content for your own site, is a solid SEO tactic that has been around for a while. But how do you know which sites are truly authoritative?

Well, sometimes you can guess. For example, if you are linking to content on the site of a huge company, like Mozilla or Hubspot for example, then you are off to a good start. But wouldn’t it be handy if you could just know the domain authority of any site that is relevant to your industry?

Ahrefs offer a range of tools, some of which are an investment. But their domain authority checker is free, and so useful to boosting your own domain authority through choosing quality sites to link to.

So the next time you are writing content for your website, run the links you chose through the Ahrefs domain authority checker first, and make sure you have selected ones which score over 70 whenever possible.

Google Analytics

When you really get into it, there is a lot of depth to Google Analytics. But to keep things simple, what is most useful to most Entrepreneurs is how the tool allows you to see where people go on your website.

You can see user demographics, which helps you to know if your targeting is working or not. You can also see the route people take; from your homepage to a product for example.

You can set up Conversions in the tool, which helps you to understand how many of your visitors find what they want and make it to the point of sale, and how many trail off before that point.

It takes a little time to learn your way around Analytics, but it truly is worth it to better understand your customers’ experience with your site.

Logo Creator

Branding is one of those areas where you could overspend if you didn’t know there were alternatives. Whether you are rebranding your one business, or an Entrepreneur with multiple businesses, there are ways to save money here.

When it comes to logo creation, you don’t need to hire a designer or pay an agency to create one for you. One option is to do it on your own with a free design tool like Logo Creator.

Either choose from customisable templates, which take a lot of the thinking out of it for you. Or build your own design from scratch using the elements in the app.

Canva

Once you have your logo, head over to another free design tool, Canva, to upload it. Once your logo is in Canva, you can add it to any number of templates for your website, email marketing and social media.

Canva allows you to create still images or even animated graphics with a choice of stock images, or with your own images that you have uploaded. While there is a paid upgrade, you can do plenty with the free version of Canva. Again, this can save you paying for graphic design services.

Facebook’s Publishing Tools

While some business owners are fighting an uphill battle against the Facebook algorithm by paying to boost posts, the rest of us know this trick. How well the algorithm chooses to favour you is dependent on how much interaction your posts get.

In a nutshell, Facebook is aiming to show only relevant posts to people, and it judges relevancy by interaction. So your goal is to get more interaction on your posts in order for them to be shown to more people in the long run.

One way to help gain interaction is to publish your posts at the most optimal time for your audience. In other words, publish when most of your fans are online to give you the best change of those posts being seen and commented on.

Facebook Pages have some handy publishing tools, and amongst them is the ability to schedule your posts for later. Instead of writing your post on your page and hitting publish, try creating your post in the publishing tools Creator and scheduling for an optimal time.

To find that optimal time, simply go to your Insights tab and look at the Posts section. You will see a graph of when your followers are typically logged on.

In summary

As you can see, these tools will give you a bit of a hand with branding, social media and with your website too.

There will always be some things that you need to pay for. But reducing those costs where possible is always a smart move – even more so in a post-pandemic recession. Making use of these free tools is a good way to start.

Author:
Samantha Mcguire

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Consultant role – 25 hours p/ week (approx)

• Marketing qualification (degree)
• 3 to 5 years experience minimum
• Work from home / office split
• Timesheet management, quoting, invoicing and job cost reporting

We are looking for an experienced marketing consultant to manage a variety of clients across many industries, including food and produce, vehicle hire, health, retail and more.

This is a flexible role for an experienced and independent and self-motivated Marketing Manager, with ‘work from office’ and ‘work from home’ split.

Running out of Fremantle, WA we offer a professional marketing service of agency standards for our highly valued clients, large and small.   Some agency experience will be favoured, but not mandatory.

You will execute and implement approved marketing plans, including production, media management, reporting and optimisation across traditional and digital media, social media management, SEO and SEM.

You will be relationship focused, available and committed to clients needs.

You will be required to manage effectively your timesheet management (daily), quote appropriately for jobs (according to each clients unique contract) and complete your own billing from job cost reports (experience in this area is highly desirable on a system such as Accountability Plus, BCC or Job Bag).

You will require your own ABN, and will supply an invoice each month for payment within 14 days.

The hours will vary dependent on client activity, but expected to be around 25 hours p/ week (up to 35 hours p/ week)
An hourly rate will be offered, plus GST if registered.

The post We’re Hiring – Marketing Manager (Consultant role) appeared first on Breadbox Marketing Agency.

Good Girls Wholefoods is a local West Australian muesli company with a rich history and health at its heart. Launched several years ago, the hand-made, nutritious and naturally sweetened muesli stayed true to its local roots for many years by keeping its niche small and its growth manageable.

Understanding the power of strong branding, the owners knew they had to find an affordable and yet effective marketing option for their ambitious start-up. They engaged the help of strategic marketing agency Breadbox Marketing to position Good Girls Wholefoods’ muesli range to stand out amongst the growing and increasingly competitive marketplace and help attract the affluent customer – a discerning target audience that values their health and gourmet tastes.

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To celebrate Waitangi Day (New Zealand’s National Day), Sweetlips is giving away free chips with any purchase of one or more pieces of premium local West Australian fish. So, make sure you get down to your local Sweetlips Fish Bar, located in Leederville, Scarborough and Fremantle to grab some FREE CHUPS on February the 6^th.

To view the video, head over to the Sweetlips Facebook page or follow this link: https://www.facebook.com/SweetlipsWA/videos/10155728371233283/

/edafd3c96fb02967b085777795b48544/2018/02/sweetlips-helps-kiwis-celebrat.html

Credits:

Agency – Breadbox Marketing & PR

Creative Director – Andrew Tinning

Planner – Emma Potter

Sound – BraineStorm

Animation – Zac Creative

Account Manager – Luke Duff

Digital Campaign Manager – Steph Boito

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With small or medium sized business, the marketing decision maker is often the owner or managing director of the company. Without the resources for a marketing manager, these businesses have been lagging in respect to employing the all important digital strategy – it’s a harder media landscape to navigate and to see an ad appear in press or hear it on radio, they feel they are getting a tangible result for their spend. To justify the illusionary CTR statistics and sell a much-needed SEO package for example, it can be a venture that requires a lot of trust between agency and client.

With an abundance of information available to DIY a digital marketing plan, there is also the risk of smaller clients attempting to manage the process themselves and ending up with a poorly performing campaign or even worse, a brand damaging result. The role of a boutique marketing agency is really crucial to filter the abundance of information and provide and manage a clear strategy from the start.

Without sounding too “back in my day”, there did used to be saturation in the market for big businesses to pour money into advertising and then own their market category. While this can arguably still be true today with smaller businesses continuing to fight against being drowned out by large corporate budgets, the digital world is allowing a well positioned brand to have a more meaningful voice – and as creative, business savvy people with innovative ideas, they surely deserve one.

We are seeing a lot of innovative companies; often start ups that are creating products and services that are striving to meet community and environmental needs, rather than the one-dimensional needs of big industry. These smart businesses are of course, also consumers and they are cleverly recognising the desire for thoughtful consumption – not just consumption for consumptions sake. This is where the dissemination of information and authentic engagement can become very powerful. It isn’t about bombarding the customer with a ‘buy more, buy now’ message, it is about offering information and choice.

We all know that consumer attention is continually shifting more and more to the screen; they are more marketing savvy than ever and are now demanding content that is meaningful and engaging. The tried and true strategy of ‘expose a single-minded message x times and the brand will be trusted’ may no longer be the case. Consumers are searching for peer feedback on products and services, expecting two-way communication with an authentic voice that reflects their values, and they are not only allowing, but inviting brands into their personal space. Content in marketing has really come full circle with this shift in consumer behavior and this is where smaller businesses can have an advantage. By providing authentic, even personalised content, they are capitalising on more personal relationships with consumers and respecting their right to choose them.

What this all boils down to, is that digital marketing has allowed smaller businesses to make a real impact on the advertising industry as their audience can be targeted more narrowly and their marketing dollar can be stretched further and can then generate ongoing activity with viral reach. The small budget isn’t a four letter word anymore; we are seeing some really exciting results from starter companies, small unique brands, and niche family-run businesses – their consumers are loyal, they work hard, and now, more than ever, they have their hat in the ring against global companies who used to easily monopolise the space.

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Sohé needed to stand out from other competing local restaurants, and Breadbox was enlisted to undertake a 360 degree brand experience.  From sleek contemporary and interesting interiors, a unique brand identity with customised hand painted font and style elements, website design and development, business cards and menus, and a media launch.

The media launch included guests from The Urban List, Broadsheet, The West Australian plus a wide range of food and lifestyle bloggers – who all shared their experience on social media and traditional media channels, which resulted in the restaurant tripling its turnover overnight (check this with Dav).

Guests were treated to a degustation style menu for guests to taste a broad range of dishes – ranging from seared scallops with coconut and kaffir lime leaf with a sweet sherry sauce (our personal favourite!), through to the trustworthy massaman curry and finishing off with the kulfi ice-cream topped with Persian fairy floss.  Food was paired with wine by sommelier Indi Newall, who not only worked with us to select local wines to match the menu, but also engaged with to guests throughout the evening about the selected wine pairing.

Artist Linzi Carter treated the guests to a visual feast creating a large permanent art mural being painted live throughout the evening.

Sohé, located at 89 Petra St, East Fremantle, is now open Tuesday to Sunday, from 5pm each night – and has definitely become one of our regular dining haunts!

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