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Marketing industry – damaged unregulated business

Marketing industry

There are many unregulated industries and marketing is one of them. Basically anyone can pay to have a website built or use a drag and drop CMS and have their own marketing or SEO Company up and running.

When I talk about regulated industries I’m referring to industries that require you to be licenced or have formal qualifications to perform certain services. An example of a regulated industry is medical services, you would hate to be taking medical advice from someone pretending to be a qualified GP.

Professional marketing service

DLM Marketing is a professional marketing company both myself and my business partner have formal qualifications.  We share the same qualifications which include Bachelor degrees in Marketing solutionsbusiness, ecommerce, marketing and a Master degree in digital design. Not only have we done the hard yards and gained the appropriate qualifications we have been working in the marketing industry for many years. So we are not cowboys and yes DLM Marketing does provide a true professional marketing service.

People that decide to go into business without obtaining the necessary skills hurt the reputation of the entire industry. We have been told some real horror stories from multiple clients about dealings with rogue marketing companies in particular SEO companies.  Unfortunately it creates a trust barrier which is not good for our industry.

The way DLM Marketing likes to operate is very transparent:

  • You will know exactly what work we are performing for you
  • We will provide you with enough information so you understand the science behind and professional marketing services offered
  • Yes you’ll be talking to the actual people doing the work for you
  • All work gets checked by both myself and my business partner for quality
  • Your initial consultation is FREE!
  • We won’t sell you something we believe you don’t need
  • We won’t lock you into a contract

Basically DLM Marketing is a professional marketing company which is why we are able to provide clients with exactly what they need to make their business grow.  Stay away from marketing companies that only offer standard packages.  Each business is different and so are their marketing requirements.

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business directories

Your potential customers are always searching for local businesses. Google recognizes this and gives a higher ranking to businesses that can show to Google they are both related and local.

There are a number of local SEO (Search engine optimisation) strategies to drive more visitors to your website.
They are all important, but one of the biggest local search boosts comes from local business directory listings.
Australian business directories are not just for motivating search traffic, they can also deliver referral traffic to your website.

How do I find the best Australia Business Directories?SEO package 1

Stay away from directory lists or submission services offering 50, 100 or even 250 Australian business directory websites. The best they will do is waste your time and damage your Google ranking.
The reason for this is:

  • They are often scraped from old outdated lists
  • They contain directories requiring payment, or a reciprocal link
  • They have not actually been tested so many directories have broken forms or are abandoned
  • The websites are just rubbish with no backlink value

What is Alexa Ranking?

Alexa is a website that ranks the top visited websites worldwide. They also provide an estimate of a websites ;popularity in a specific country (using a combination of average daily visitors and pageviews). After filtering the list of business directories according to Australian Alexa Ranking, and removing any not in the top 25,000 Australian websites, we have our list!

The Top 20 Australian Business Directories

Business Directory Alexa Traffic Ranking
www.yellowpages.com.au 124
www.truelocal.com.au 175
www.yelp.com.au 320
www.hotfrog.com.au 802
www.startlocal.com.au 897
www.womo.com.au 1035
www.aussieweb.com.au 1549
www.dlook.com.au 1947
www.localstore.com.au 2724
www.localbusinessguide.com.au 3504
www.yalwa.com.au 4380
www.localbd.com.au 6262
www.superpages.com.au 8108
www.businesslistings.net.au 8325
www.comeonaussie.com 10062
www.local.com.au 11389
www.yellowbook.com.au 14466
www.raveaboutit.com.au 18720
www.shopseek.com.au 20479
www.companylist.com.au 24902

Directory submissions involve entering the same information repeatedly so it is best to be prepared to avoid wasting a lot of time. Gather the following information into one document:

  • 2-3 Business listing titles
  • Submission email address
  • Business contact email address
  • Business phone number
  • Social media links
  • 2-3 unique business descriptions (Typically 200 words max)
  • Square logo image (300px is best viewed on most websites)
  • Some business related images
  • Business ABN

Having this data on hand to copy information will make the process much faster.

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The importance of good customer service

The importance of customer service

Do you know who your customers are and why they choose to purchase from you?

Great customer service is the key to building a good relationship with your customers. Acknowledging your customers and creating a helpful and friendly environment will ensure they leave with a great impression.  A happy shopper will return often and is likely to spend more.

To ensure you provide the best customer service:customer

  • Know what your customers consider to be good customer service
  • Take the time to find out customers’ expectations
  • Follow up on both positive and negative feedback you receive
  • Ensure that you consider customer service in all aspects of your business
  • Continuously look for ways to improve the level of customer service you deliver.

To build good customer relationships you need to:

  • Greet customers and approach them in a way that is natural and fits the individual situation
  • Show people that you understand what their needs are
  • Accept that some people won’t want your products and concentrate on building relationships with those who do
  • Help people – even just letting a person know about an event that you know they’re personally interested in is helpful
  • Continue to keep people aware of what’s in it for them to do business with you.

If you want to provide the best customer service, all of your staff must have good communication and sales skills.
Listen to client complaints; you may learn something about your product or service. Let clients know that you appreciate feedback.
Know your products – where everything is located, brand names, place of manufacture and price. The more you know, the more confidence you can build in the customer.
Recognise product features. Turn these features into benefits for the customer. Ensure your staff can tell client about the product features and benefits.

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Communication strategies in a noisy market

Communication strategies

Let’s face it – communication strategies are not as simple as they once were. The digital marketing revolution has changed the way companies market themselves. Every time you turn on a computer, tablet or mobile phone you are bombarded with marketing messages.  It does not matter what website you are visiting, it is almost impossible to avoid advertising.

So has the digital marketing revolution altered communication strategies?Communication strategies

Without a doubt it has impacted the way marketing professionals need to structure communication strategies.  People are becoming less and less influenced by traditional communication strategies. The reason for this is that there is so many marketing messages being pushed towards people that they have now developed the ability to ignore most of them.

Anyone running their own business can access multiple free tools to market their business online. There are email marketing tools, do it yourself drag and drop websites, social media, Google AdWords and the list of options and tools available is endless. This is one of the reasons the digital marketing revolution has increased the number of digital marketing campaigns.

DIY digital marketing

This is the scary part of all this DIY digital marketing. DLM Marketing employ professional, formally educated marketing professionals.  All work gets checked by both myself and Laura for quality before our customers receive it. Yes it may sound like this is just a sales pitch but the reason I have pointed this out is that a professional has the ability to develop a clear communication strategy that will work without fringing on any acts such as the trade practices act or spamming act.

A poorly designed and executed digital marketing campaign will most likely have little to no affect, or worse, land you in hot water with the law.

If you are still keen on saving some money and doing your own digital marketing campaigns, DLM Marketing suggests that you spend a little bit and get some advice first or allow us to provide you with a good clear communication strategy which you can mould your marketing material around.

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