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Email marketing is the highly effective digital marketing strategy, which involves sending emails to new prospects and existing customers. So, why is email marketing therefore so important for any business of any size? This is largely because it is a fantastic way to build relationships with new prospects, leads, existing customers, and even old customers because it gives you a chance to speak directly to them, in their inbox, at a time that is convenient for them. 

As I’ve mentioned in previous blog posts, I work on the corporate and industry communications team which means we are responsible for informing our stakeholders and the Irish media about the fantastic work our market colleagues are doing to promote the island of Ireland overseas. Creating email campaigns/ezines about this work via Mail Chimp is an integral part of my job on the team – email marketing with Mail Chimp is a fantastic platform for us to use when telling the story of sales missions that took place overseas, trade workshops or highlighting new marketing campaigns, such as ‘Fill Your Heart With Ireland.’

As I am very familiar with using Mail Chimp, I found the Google Garage Band module on email marketing a great refresher tool. During the five stages of the module, it went through various aspects of email marketing; including how to get people to open your email, A/B testing, the importance of email campaigns and what type of language to use in your campaigns. At the end of each lesson, there was a mini test which was followed by a longer refresher test at the end.

Some of the biggest takeaways and learnings from the online module, which I think would be very useful for Tourism Ireland’s email marketing strategy on the corporate communications included:

How to get people to open your email marketing campaigns: The module gave really insightful tips on how to improve your ‘open rate’ of your email campaigns. The module explained the importance of an effective subject line with is personalised to your audience. On our team, we always ensure that we link our individual email addresses, so that our audience know it’s coming from people rather than a ‘robot’ type figure and that our subject lines are short and very to the point of what’s in the email – so this gave me great reassurance that we are doing all we can to make sure our ‘open rates’ are high.

Language, style and tone: The module always highlighted the importance of branding in the email campaigns we release. This largely revolves around keeping a consistent tone, style of writing and to be slightly persuasive in manner so that our audience click the links in our emails. On our team, we always ensure to have the same font, indent our paragraphs to the left, keep our font the same colour and always ensure our Tourism Ireland logo is at the top of the email. Here is an example of our latest email marketing campaign which we created with Mail Chimp.

Link to view the full ezine: https://mailchi.mp/tourismireland.com/tourism-ireland-leads-sales-mission-to-the-united-states

3. Figuring out what your audience prefers to read: Finding out what an audience prefers to read and the type of style they like receiving information in is imperative to creating successful email marketing campaigns and getting more subscribers on your database. Therefore, I found this section of the module really interesting as it introduced me to A/B testing. It’s very simple in concept but it is definitely something worth accessing further on our team. Essentially, you create two versions of the same email but change certain things within the email such as style, tone, links and so on; then you measure the open rate for each email, this then helps you to figure out what your audience prefers and you can then adjust all of your email campaigns going forward to your audience preferred style and taste. This is definitely something that I will bring up at a future team meeting, so that we can access what styles our audience prefers.

4. Compatibility with different devices: Another key part of email marketing is ensuring that your emails are compatible with different devices – this is really important to check, as everyone is so mobile nowadays and uses so many different devices. Below you can see that one of our emails wasn’t really compatible for mobile device but was great for desktop viewing – this is certainly something that we can improve on going forward. 

I found this module really great for picking up new tips on improving our email marketing strategy and a great refresher on why it’s such an important tool in communication. I was absolutely delighted to pass the test at the end too with flying colours! I hope you found my breakdown of the module helpful too.

References:

https://inboundrocket.co/blog/6-reasons-why-email-marketing-is-important-for-internet-marketing/

Analytics is an area of digital marketing that I have always been intrigued by – largely because I am currently working in corporate PR on the graduate programme, so I wouldn’t necessarily be using the analytics in my day to day work. Having my own blog and having previously worked in social media marketing roles in the past, I am somewhat familiar with analytics but not to the extent that I would know the ‘lingo’ or how to best analyse different forms of data.

As I began the Google Garage module ‘Get start with analytics’, I found myself flying through the content, taking down notes as I went along. It was really informative and engaging as a user. I enjoyed ‘testing my knowledge’ at the end of each video as it gave me an opportunity to look back over my notes and really understand the theory of analytics. There were three different sections which were broken down into giving you a general overview of analytics, how to analyse data and how to improve your business by using Google Analytics. Some sections were longer than others but no section was longer than five videos and mini tests. I found that really helpful, as I was never feeling overwhelmed by the vast amount of information – it was really digestible and enjoyable to follow. Below are screenshots of some of the three section of the module, as well as what it looks like to complete the entire module – as you can see within each section, there were different videos guiding you through different lessons about Google Analytics.

Here are the top pieces of information that I learned from the module overall:

Audience segmentation: When collecting data about the users that are visiting your website or social media platforms, you really need to know who your audience is. By getting to grips with knowing who you audience is, you’ll be able to learn what they want to know and see from you – therefore, helping you to create better content and increasing the traffic to your web pages in the long run. A great way to get to know your audience is by creating segments – you can do this by dividing up your audience per their interests, age, geographical local and so many more. That was you can pin point your audience’s behaviours. Learning about audience segmentation helped me to better understand how Tourism Ireland (my host organisation) segments their target audiences. At Tourism Ireland, we have three different segments which are based upon potential visitor’s/tourist’s age and what they would be interested in. Here is a link to the three segments: https://www.failteireland.ie/International-sales/International-sales.aspx 

SEM (Search Engine Marketing): Using analytics when it comes to SEM is a great way to understand what key words are going to perform best when putting spend behind various marketing campaigns online. By using analytics to understand the best performing key words you can therefore tailor your online ads to make them more effective and how much money to put behind the campaign as you should be able to estimate the return value. Again, Tourism Ireland launched their new marketing campaign ‘Fill Your Heart with Ireland’ in 2018, which used key words of potential visitors passion points – touching on their heart, relaxing and detoxing from busy lifestyles. By having a better understanding on analytics and SEM, it now becomes so much clearer as to why their chose those key words in their paid adverts to get the biggest return on investment (which is visitors to the island of Ireland).

Difference between quantitative and qualitative data: I found this section of the module to be really interesting as it clearly showed how you can use the collected data from analytics to understand your audience and the customer journey. Quantitative data is defined in the module as being anything that can be numerically measured, whereas qualitative data is data that is defined by using descriptive words. You can collect both types of data online and offline – building this then into your data about the customer to create better content and action plans that benefit your business goals and strategy.

Overall, I found the module really beneficial and helpful. I came away from doing the online course feeling a lot more informed about analytics and how it can be used in a practical manner to enhance a business. I think it will also better help me to understand how Tourism Ireland use analytics for its marketing campaigns, as it’s a vital part of how we segment our target audience and feed our audience’s passion points to entice them to come and holiday on the island of Ireland.

References:

https://www.tourismireland.com/Press-Releases/2018/December/Tourism-Ireland-unveils-the-world%E2%80%99s-first-tour-1

https://learndigital.withgoogle.com/digitalgarage/courses

LinkedIn has over 225 million users and is considered the world’s largest professional network – with that said, as young working professionals and college students we can often overlook our professional online profiles, even though they are a fantastic way to build our own personal brands and careers. LinkedIn was founded in 2002 and launched in 2003 in the United States and has since rocketed into the professional world – allowing professionals of all ages and nationalities to find jobs, highlight their successes and career milestones, and inevitably network with people from all over the world online. In this blog post we will look at some top tips on how to create a great professional LinkedIn profile, as well as looking at my own personal LinkedIn account throughout and how I have incorporated these learnings into making a better online profile.

How does your profile look at a first glimpse?:

So, the first thing that I have learned in my research that’s really important for your LinkedIn profile is ensuring that you have a great punchy headline, you’ve a good profile photo (preferably not one of you graduating), you have a strong biography about yourself and that you list all of your work experiences, education, certificates and skills. Below you will see screen shots from own LinkedIn profile.

As you can see, I have a strong headline stating what I am currently doing – I am currently on the IBEC Global Graduate programme, whereby I am working at Tourism Ireland as a PR and media assistant. This is something that I want people to see when they visit my profile, as it is quite a big achievement in my early career since graduating college in 2018. Having a strong punchline that identifies what you are doing is a fantastic way for people to recognise who are maybe from a networking event or for future employers to take note. I’ve also highlighted that I have my own personal website here too, as that’s a big part of my identity.

Moving away from the punchline of your profile – it’s also a good idea to have a strong bio and make sure that you’ve listed all of your work experiences. I think it’s a good idea to keep in mind the type of job you’re potentially after and what you think will benefit you most in your career – I chose not to list experiences from before 2016, as I don’t feel they’re relevant to me anymore and I have more PR experience now than I did back then. I’ve also listed all of my education to date starting from secondary school – I chose not to include primary school, a I didn’t feel it was relevant.

This is a screenshot of my biography/about section:

This is a screenshot of some of my work experiences listed on my profile:

We’ve got the basics down, what next to make winning profile?:

Having read through the guidelines on how to make a great LinkedIn profile, there is so much that we can do besides the basics listed above.

Change your URL name: this is a great way to improve search engine optimisation (SEO) and make it a lot easier for people to find you on the platform. Screen shots below show how I did it and what I changed my URL name to.

Link your website / blog / online portfolio / online professional platforms: that every opportunity to showcase your work and highlight what you’re doing. For example, I have a fashion blog which I’ve linked prominently throughout my LinkedIn profile as it acts as a mini portfolio of my videography, design and photography work.

Network, network, network: LinkedIn is a great way to connect with people, so take every opportunity to connect with people. Engage with other people’s content, share posts, message people privately about collaborations or just congratulating them on a new job. Be super social and try gain more than 500+ connections!

Build your brand: Take the opportunity to share achievements from your career or studies (below you’ll find examples of posts that I have shared with my LinkedIn network). This is a great way for people to get to know you, build your reputation within your professional circle and potentially create new opportunities for yourself in your career. Another useful tool on LinkedIn when building your own personal brand is the ‘who’s view your profile’ as you can see what industries people viewing your profile are in, locations of members viewing you and what keywords are being used when people find your profile – this analytics tool is a great way to fine tune your profile as you become more familiar with the platform.

Recommendations: In my opinion, one of the last and most important parts of your LinkedIn profile is ensuring that you have and give ‘recommendations’ and that you are endorsed for your ‘skills’ by fellow colleagues. These are great ways to really show your personality but from the perspective of other people that you may have gone to university with or, worked with. Below are examples of recommendations that I have received on my profile, which are really great for character building.

Overall, having researched into the general guidelines on how to build your LinkedIn and the notes given by my college lecturer on ‘building your professional profile online’, I feel that I have really improved my LinkedIn profile. These are some of the tips that I have learned from my readings and experiences online, which I hope in term might help you readers out there that are looking to also improve your online profile.

Here is a link to my current LinkedIn profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarah-edel-hayes/

References:

https://www.sba.gov/sites/default/files/techcoalition/assets/professional-branding-playbook-by-linkedin.pdf

Before we begin, I think it’s vitally important that I pose the following question: do you fully understand what content marketing is? Prior to starting this blog post, I thought I did but having completed Google’s Digital Garage module on content marketing, I was surprised at how many layers there truly is to it. 

Below is a little screenshot of what the lesson looks like - it’s super easy to follow with videos talking you through content marketing and then a short test at the end to make sure what you just watched sunk in!

To have a look at the Google Garage module, click here

Content marketing a type of marketing that involves the creation and sharing of online material, which isn’t necessarily there to explicitly promote a brand but rather to stimulate interest in a brands products and/or services. From my research into the topic, it became clear really quickly that content marketing is a really important part of every brand and their growth strategy.

Content marketing is a fantastic and soft marketing approach to creating more awareness about a brand and recognition with a brands target audience.

Now that we’ve touched on how important content marketing is for brands, we are going to shift our focus onto how we as business owners or bloggers (or whoever) get stuck into creating a content marketing strategy.

1. Get to know your audience: This is so important. Take time to get to know your audiences likes and dislikes, understand when they are most likely to consume data, understand things like what age group your audience belongs to and how they spend their time on your website. A super useful tool that I learned about on the Garage Band module was their ‘consumer barometer’ – this is a coloration of loads of information from various surveys that Google conducted to help business owners (or bloggers etc) understand online consumer’s shopping and consumption behaviours. It’s a fantastic way to help you understand how online audiences use the internet in relation to your product and services so that you can create better and more tailor content.

2. How to communicate with your audience: Second top tip is knowing how to actually best communicate with your audience. The internet is so saturated with information, I think it’s vitally important that we as marketers know what form of communication is best to communicate with our target audience – whether that’s a blog post, an eye-catching infographic or a video – we need to know this inside out and upside down. Successful content doesn’t have to go viral or reach millions of people. Focus on the creating content should be tailored to your audience, and design it so that it moves customers towards a specific goal or action. Identify the purpose of your content, and then select the formats best suited to that goal – whether that’ll be a funny GIF or a super informative written post, you decide. Also, another thing to highlight is that language and style of writing you’re using when posting. In your writing style, you should be consistent so that you audience can immediately recognise your brand from your tone and style. Users also have a shorter attention span online, so keeping this in mind is really important. Putting a CTA (Call To Action) within your content is also a great hook at getting people to engage with your content, as well as a really good title to a blog post, social media post or graphic – generating that ‘hook’ to lure people in to read and engage with your content.

3. Be ‘seen’: So, you’ve created really amazing content while understanding your target audience – YAY! Our final step is actually ensuring that your amazing content is seen. Google Garage gave fantastic resources when it came to ensuring your content should be seen – breaking down this strategy into three different ways we should be promoting our content. The first was promoting on owned media (meaning our social media platforms and websites that we own explicitly), secondly by earned media (meaning third parties sharing our content, like friends or fellow people in our industries, earning us credibility and boosting our overall reach) and finally paid media (meaning paid advertisements on online platforms which are going to be released based upon who we will reach in our target audience). All three of these should be staggered throughout each month via a content calendar. That way you are consistently posting content which should boost your views to your web pages and/or social media platforms.