Your Marketing MOT – A Metaphor For Business Success

Marketing MOT

Marketing MOT

Your Marketing MOT

Is your company marketing safe to drive sales with, what do you need to fix before you cause a near business fatality? How do you beat the competition? Try a marketing MOT.

Your marketing may FAIL, but it could fail with advisories, easy things to put right. When was the last time you looked at this? You may have your car serviced every year and if it’s let’s say, a little older, it will require an MOT yearly to see if its fit for purpose. Without it, your going nowhere, dont forget your passengers/clients need to feel safe too.

You should check the following to stay safe, keep selling, fine tune, increase profit, look good and stay ahead of the traffic.

 

Marketing MOT Checks  – (MOT = Marketing On Target)

• Safety, Brakes & Acceleration

check whether you can keep your business from swerving off the road, provide a consistent strategy to allow you to start and stop sales at will, slow down when you need to, provide the right kind of customers at the right time, strap them in safely and delight them with your grip on customer service.

• Levels

are you marketing enough, does your sales team have the right amount of marketing tools to add value to their targets, is it the right kind of fuel and fluid to oil the cogs of your industry, sector & target audience, to outperform the competition. You should be able keep the rate of sales at a constant level, one that is comfortable for you. Can your customer service team say, they too have the same levels of quality marketing outputs and collateral?

• Emissions

so you’ve got loads of marketing tools and its bringing in masses of customers, but are your emissions slightly toxic. Fine tune your present marketing to get the best out of your proposition, increase business mileage, increase productivity, increase profit, push the %.

• Bodywork

check for signs of rust and internal damage, update your marketing, keep it fresh but on brand, remove unnecessary add-ons that could damage your sales performance, remove the drag factor and streamline your business.

• Vision

make sure you can adapt to the ever-changing landscape and changes in the road, plan for the future, as well as for the present, how do you join this all up to develop your sales and grow your business going forward.

Can all of this be fixed, would you pass a Marketing MOT?

Our team here at The Marketing People can provide a free business ‘Marketing MOT’.

Drive your business to success. Together we will see where you are up to now, look at your business objectives, consult, strategise and then produce real and credible brand marketing outputs and collateral that both you and more importantly, your customers can be proud of – contact@themarketingpeople.com

We are also exhibiting at the Greater Birmingham Chambers of Commerce – Spring Expo 18 @ Aston Villa FC on Friday 23rd of March 2018 10am-3pm tomorrow! You can attend too for free, even if your not a member of the Chamber. Swing by and see us at our stand and do some networking with other businesses, there are approximately 87 exhibitors and possibly over 1000 business people/delegates attending from around the region.

Book Your Free Delegate Ticket Here – come and network with us.

Marketing MOT

3 Stage Marketing Plan

marketing plan 3 boxes

marketing plan

 

Our 3 Stage Marketing Plan

A marketing plan or strategy is vital for your business’ success,  whatever industry you represent. Quite often a marketing plan is drawn up without any regard for the 1st or 3rd step outlined below. This is potentially the difference between your marketing plan being a success or a failure.

  1. Pre-Marketing

Pre-marketing is the foundation stage of any marketing plan to enable business development. Prior to any marketing, SEO and social marketing, this step ensures that you have the right brand, website, stationery, brochure/catalogue and other related sales and marketing tools in place. This step will ensure you capitalise on your ongoing marketing and sales team activity. It helps you to clarify who you are, what you do, your target audience and their requirements. It informs where you want to be and how you are going to get there. Getting this right is vitally important as all other marketing activities are built on this. It helps to determine your direction and your value in the marketplace.

The value proposition you put forward in any marketing or sales material will help you to establish your competitive advantage over other similar companies. It will help prospects to determine if they feel your offering fits their requirements and if they will buy from you.

Key areas for development:
  • Brand development/strategy
  • Marketing strategy
  • Social media strategy
  • Creative direction
  • Stationery/digital stationery
  • Responsive Website design
  • E-Commerce development
  • Brochure/ Catalogue design
  • SEO Scoping
  • On screen/tablet presentations
  • Flyers design
  • Social media planning
  • Signage/liveries/workwear
  1. Marketing

Marketing is the implementation stage, where we help you to go about creating opportunities to sell and create awareness of your brand and offering. This is when we take the pre-marketing materials and use them to drive business by reaching prospects with compelling calls to action. Create persuasive content that you will use to provide a two-way conversation with your audience, through calls, direct or digital marketing. We can also look at ways to improve your rankings in search engines, by using a blended strategy of organic social or paid search marketing. The aim for all of the above is to drive more prospects to contact and engage with you, so that you have the opportunity to convert them into a sale.

Key Features:
  • Direct marketing
  • Email marketing
  • Exhibitions/events seminars
  • Seeding content through networks
  • Google ad-words campaigns
  • Blogging content creation
  • Implement seasonal strategies
  • Manage SEO campaigns
  • Create & develop landing pages
  • Offer/reward campaigns
  1. Re-Marketing

Re-marketing is the ongoing development of your business and brand. This is where you capitalise on the opportunities that we have created through the initial marketing. It gives you the chance to re-engage with customers who have already interacted with your company, to remind them of your products and services, and encourage them to take action. We are driven by conversion and measurement. Re-marketing helps you to convert additional sales as you contact warm prospects again, this helps you to build relationships and stay front of mind while they make their buying decisions.

Key Features:
  • Web tracker analysis
  • Email marketing/data capture
  • Auto email – preference/habits
  • Implementing results based strategies
  • Personalised content development/social

 

Make your marketing work more for you and your business. Download the 3 stage plan here.

Contact us today for a no obligation conversation about what your business goals are, and let’s see where we may be able to help.

Call 01543 387 047 www.themarketingpeople.com

3 Newlands Court Attwood Road Burntwood Staffordshire WS7 1FG

marketing plan

 

5 tips for successful marketing #1-5 Marketing Tips

5-marketing-tips

 marketing tips

5 tips for successful marketing

Marketing Tips 1-5

Please find below, marketing tips 1-5 in our series for successful marketing, plus an expanded description for each in the blog post below.

  1. Think deeply about who you are, what you do, your target audience and your competition, this should set the tone for all creative and marketing outputs from here on in.
  2. Don’t go to market without developing your brand, positioning and ID thoroughly.
  3. What has worked best for you in past could work for you in the future, plan your strategy now, not when you need it.
  4. Be sure you make a plan, stick to it, update it and make a note of what works and what doesn’t.
  5. What do your customers actually ‘want’ from you? Analyse deeply, what do you ‘really’ look like?
marketing tips 1
Marketing Tip 1

Marketing Tips 1

Think deeply about who you are, what you do, your target audience and your competition, this should set the tone for all creative and marketing outputs from here on in.

Who are you, no really, who is your company? Who are the employees, what do you stand for and why? Is it value, is it expertise, style or cool. What are the pillars that underline your company and how do you operate? Why does this matter? Well it matters because you are unique, your business is different to anyone else’s and as such your marketing should shout this from the rooftops, ‘we are different to everyone else!’ Your USP is your ally, use it. You don’t want to look like the competition, another ‘me too!’. You need to establish what your real values are before you can provide any marketing. Who are your customers, who would be your ideal customer? Again, nothing goes out until you are sure of it all and more.

marketing tips 2
Marketing Tip 2

Marketing Tips 2

Don’t go to market without developing your brand, positioning and ID thoroughly.

Like number one, we should take all this fantastic in depth understanding of your business and develop a brand to fully represent it. All this beautiful, unique information about your business is invaluable and you can use it to discover your true position in the market place. Once you understand who you are and what you do, it feeds the development of how you are seen by your customers commercially and visually. It should represent the value you put on your product or service, your tone of voice, it should be effective and appeal to your target audience. Your difference will provide a memory, it will define you.

marketing tips 3
Marketing Tip 3

Marketing Tips 3

What has worked best for you in past could work for you in the future, furthermore, plan your strategy now, not when you need it.

The most important part of this tip is the timing. I’m not just talking about more complex tactical strategies, I am talking about a more basic perspective. Don’t wait for the quiet times, don’t be satisfied with what you have got. Plan for it now, don’t wait for the recession. Maybe you know when the quiet times will come, diversify, consider them early on and don’t keep making the same old mistakes, look back to look forward.

marketing tips 4
Marketing Tip 4

Marketing Tips 4

Be sure you make a plan, stick to it, update it and make a note of what works and what doesn’t.

I know this sounds a little like tip 3 but I believe it requires some more detailed analysis. Its about being consistent but remaining flexible and open to change. When you have developed this well thought out plan, don’t just stop if it doesn’t work, keep going, it may be a question of campaign length for it to work i.e. one newspaper ad may not get you anywhere, a six-month campaign will bring much better results.

Alternatively

You may need to develop the strategy, continue to update the plan, tweak the outputs and your proposition. Everything we do in life usually involves an update and I don’t just mean the apps on your smartphone, although this is a pretty good example. Most software application business’ have a team of people continually improving the functionality of its product. It might mean smoothing the edge of a button or providing a different outcome for a certain logical process, but the development plan is the same as in marketing. Most of all, its goal is to appeal to and delight more and more users based on the target market. Like in marketing its designed to work, but it can always work a little better. Better marketing means better clients.

Continue to update and develop the marketing output to achieve the desired results. Stick to this plan going forward and update it constantly to move one step closer to your goal. Refine your sales, lose the customers you don’t want and keep the kind of clients you value most. Improve your ‘value proposition’ to potential customers and get the ones you want. Your marketing can do this for you, if you stick to, analyse and update your plan.

marketing tips 5
Marketing Tip 5

Marketing Tips 5

What do your customers actually ‘want’ from you. Analyse deeply, what do you ‘really’ look like?

Improve your credibility, your customer, your visibility. A potential customer will judge you harshly and it will only take them a few seconds to do so. Your window of opportunity is short and so this is the reason why I recommend you take your marketing seriously. You hold the answers and you are great at what you do, but are you really a marketing professional? If you are honest with yourself and believe me, you must be brutally honest, you will get results.

If you are serious about your business, you should be able to ask yourself some really challenging questions. For example, is your business card rubbish? Do you look too cheap? Is your website old fashioned, does it look a bit dated? is the logo a slightly different style in several different examples of your marketing? does your business look like it has any credibility?

BE HONEST. Your business is your livelihood, why would you not take it seriously right?

BE HONEST with yourself, don’t ask friends and family, they are more likely to tell you how great you are!

Find a real marketing professional or agency who will challenge you, but don’t be offended. They won’t hold any emotional attachment, they will view you impartially, just like a potential customer or client. Just because Sarah in accounts is great at adding lovely visual filters to her holiday snaps, does not mean she can run your marketing. So many small businesses make this mistake, indeed external agencies can refresh what can usually bog down internal marketing departments.

Your customers can discount your offering in a millisecond and will judge you instantly. They are fickle, they are dazzled, they need reassurance and they will judge a book by its cover. Your marketing isn’t just informational, it should be transformational. Make sure your cover is good and make sure you can live up to it or else you will ultimately fail. So unless you are incredibly fortunate, make your own luck.

Analyse your business in depth either at the beginning or during a business refresh, or what we call in the trade, re-positioning your business. It will help you to understand your brand, positioning and business identity. Ultimately it will define the image you can live up to, keep it consistent in your marketing and honest in your approach. Your customers will look to you for honest answers. The truth is in you, you just need to know where and how to apply it.

Your Call to ‘Marketing Action’

If you want to discuss your business marketing in more detail why not call us here @ The Marketing People on 01543 495752 and ask Richard about our free ‘business focus’ consultation. Alternatively email richard.brooks@themarketingpeople.com

Challenge yourself, challenge your business, create more opportunities to sell.

5 Eggscelent Easter Marketing Campaigns

5 eggscellent easter marketing ideas

Eggscuse the pun, we only get the chance once a year! Here at The Marketing People, we all enjoy watching what’s going on in the world of Marketing. Easter is a great time of year for companies to use their imagination, and after much debate in the office, these are our favourite Easter Marketing campaigns.

Aldi – Lunch for the Price of an Easter Egg

If you can use the Easter holiday to market your home brand Mint Sauce, you’re definitely doing something right. Calculating the price of a decent Easter Egg at £3.80, the German retailer put together a tasty lunch, including dessert and wine, for the same price! Between a family of four, it would cost £3.80 per head for a lamb dinner, with vegetables, mint sauce, hot cross buns for dessert and a white wine to compliment it. This marketing campaign didn’t just show off their value prices, it did it in style:

aldi easter marketing
Honey, could you pass the chocolate?

Aldi employed the work of Jen Lindsey Clark, chocolate artist, to create a full sized table with a roast dinner made entirely of chocolate. Three weeks, and 50kg of Aldi Easter Egg chocolate later, Jen created everything from cutlery, peas, and wine out of chocolate. They even had a chocolate chair! We’d love a chocolate meeting table in the office but we’re worried Sammy of The Marketing Dogs would sniff it out and eat it during a meeting!

The Co-operative Food – The Good Eggs

Social Experiments are always risky business when it comes to television and internet campaigns. Sometimes the message isn’t as intended, causing controversy. When they work, they’re brilliant and go viral. UK retailer The Co-operative came up with a great idea for a social experiment last Easter, in which a gentleman with his arms in casts would sit on a park bench and struggle to eat his food. Many people walked past and left the man to struggle, but some ‘good eggs’ would help the man eat his sandwich. The Good Samaritans were awarded with Easter Eggs for their troubles.

The reason we love this stunt from The Co-op is the genuine sentiment behind it. Good marketing is always interesting, but it’s even better when it warms your heart at the same time.

Happy Egg Co. – Chick Cam

Talk about a long campaign, the Happy Egg Company ran their Easter Marketing Campaign for the entire lifetime of an egg! We absolutely love this one. Through mid- March up until Easter, The Happy Egg Co. live streamed some incubated chicken eggs, with the stream ending with newly born chickens hatching, and learning to walk!

The Happy Egg Co.’s Google Hangout went viral, for good reason, with people from all around the world tuning in to watch the baby chickens peck away from the inside of their eggs and break free. We all agreed that this was a great use of current technology for viral marketing. The Happy Egg Co. boosted their social presence by inviting the public to name the newly born chicks, sending their Twitter Facebook pages skyrocketing with engagement, they even appeared in the UK trending Tweets for a short while.

Whiskas – Earster Cats

We love animals here at The Marketing People, but you can see that by the blog that The Marketing Dogs write! We really enjoyed this next one, Whiskas grappled the huge iPhone and Android app market (2 BILLION PEOPLE!) by releasing an app that gave users an Augmented camera that put giant bunny ears on their cats. We thought it was genius that cat food could be marketed by virtual bunny ears! Unique marketing campaigns are always great, especially when they have such a huge potential audience. This was a truly imaginative way to get the message out there for Whiskas Cat Food.

We wonder if George will sit this still for a selfie
We wonder if George will sit this still for a selfie

This was one of our favourites, but we’re not sure how Sammy, George and Chops would like a giant pair of ears. Leave us a comment below on who you think should get the Whiskas Earster treatment and keep an eye on the blog for an update.

Tesco – Find the Eggs

We’ve spoken about Pokemon Go on this blog before, and as readers out there know, we thought it was marketing genius. But, three years before it existed, Tesco used the same technology in their #FindtheEggs game. Tesco used a Google Maps based app to get people out and about hunting for virtual eggs, the players who went out and found three eggs would win a chocolate bunny from their local Tesco store.

What we love about this one, is that not only was it a massive viral marketing campaign for Tesco, it also gave people a reason to play it. With prizes such as chocolate bunnies and Samsung tablets, being involved in this campaign was genuine, unlike superficial campaigns that you see today.

9 Ways you can use Video Marketing in your business

9 ways you can use video marketing in your business header image

9 ways you can use video marketing in your business header image

It seems this year, you cannot escape video marketing, and the fact you should be using it for your business. You are probably already sick to the back teeth of hearing about it, so why is everyone crazy for video?

Well let’s consider for a moment the fact that YouTube is the second largest search engine in the world. That’s a lot of search for a video based platform. Meaning that you may be focusing mass efforts on gaining rankings for your website in Google, but completely overlooking the next largest search by avoiding video marketing. Not to mention that Google owns YouTube, so making the most of the opportunities on both may jump you above your competitors.

 

But is it really worth it? Let’s take a look at some figures:

 

Are you considering video marketing a little more now? Now where do you begin? What do you even make videos about?

Here are 9 ways you could potentially approach video marketing:

 

Promo Video

Let’s start with the most obvious. A promotional video is where most companies begin their thought trail, and it may be just the thing your business needs.

Think of this as your sales pitch. This is you demo, and your benefits, and your prices and your close. It’s everything your sales guy would be doing, just in video format. This could display on a home page, a landing page or even something you include in packs to potential clients.

Yes, this is probably the most cliche of our suggestions, but for some businesses, it really works. Just for your own business, off the customers you have, if this would be the right method for you. If you do not know why you are doing this style of video, or this isn’t your normal style, go for a different approach.

 

Product or Service Demo

If a sales pitch isn’t quite right, then a product or service demo might be more suitable. Something that displays to the customers the ins and outs of what would happen if they were to purchase from you. Just minus the hard sell.

This could be an example of your product itself in action. If it has multiple uses what would those uses be, and showcasing the benefits of this. If it’s your service, it could be a walk through of what happens on your end, before a customer would actually see the benefit. So for example, if you were an SEO marketing company, it may show clips of the process the marketer goes through. Or the tools they may potentially use, and how they would craft your monthly report.

This allows you to build trust with your potential customer. To show that you do know what you are doing, and that there are standard processes in place.

 

Tutorials/Walk Through

There may be more complex topics that usually require you to explain in detail over the phone, or email, or perhaps it makes a lengthy appearance in your FAQs. This is something that could be transferred to video, making it simple and easy for your customers  to find answer to their problem.

This could be on using software on your site, a particularly awkward product, or just a part of normal process you get asked about a lot. Here you have the opportunity to address does potentially painful moments for your customer before they even happen. Meaning they are on side straight away.

 

Animated versions of your blogs

Videos take a lot of planning. Sometimes the thought of planning and releasing a video, on top of creating all this lovely content for your site can be enough to put you off. But why not put your blogs into video format?

You have already done the research and creating of content, then you just have to decide on the format for your video. This could take the same shape as the previous point, an example how to, where you walk people through difficult topics, or it could be an animated version of educational topics.

 

Behind the scenes

Same as you may occasionally post the odd candid picture of your team at work. Like, perhaps enjoying some cake on a Friday afternoon? These glimpses behind the scenes can make for great content on video.

You may have seen some of the videos we post of The Marketing Dogs running around the office. This is daily life to The Marketing People team, and not always the most interesting part of our day. However, by filming this little routine and posting it, it shows a little insight into who we are as a company.

Perhaps you have a motivational Monday talk, or you gather on a Friday to celebrate the week you have had. Perhaps you have all dressed up for charity, or have all got together for a staff outing. Posting short, candid videos (though completely appropriate please folks!) can speak volumes about the business that you are.

 

Newsjacking

Newsjacking is also a great reason for video. For those of you who aren’t familiar with Newsjacking, it is using a topical or trending topic to advertise or promote your own services. There are good ways to do this, and ways you should avoid, which we have spoken about in our blogs previously.

Video is great for this as you have more opportunities. Such as recreating viral videos yourself, or lip sync to popular songs. Beware of copyrights on this, and always give credit to the originator, but have fun perhaps taking the micky a little bit.

 

User generated content

This is a favoured one by several companies, and for good reason. This not only do you cut your workload down by not having to create all the content yourself. It also engages your customers in a positive way, and reinforces to your prospects just how much it rocks to be one of your customers.

You can entice people to complete a video and submit it by running a competition. Have people take videos of them using your product or service.

 

Video Testimonials

We know testimonials are a good move. In an online age, people like that reassurance of knowing other people have made a purchase here, and were satisfied with the result. Video testimonials further emphasise this, as there is no way to argue their authenticity.

Reassure your potential customers with a video testimonial on your landing page, or perhaps on your product overview page.

You could even start an offer. For example, when someone purchases a product or service, they receive their thank you email. On this email they have the option to upload a video testimonial within 2 weeks of purchase, to receive a 10% off voucher on their next purchase.

 

Recruitment and training

Our finally suggested use can be used on your site and internally. When you are advertising for new staff, why not offer them the option of a walk around your office. Or perhaps an insight into an average day in the life of one of your employees.

This can make it easier to showcase the tone of your office, the expectations you have of your staff, and the duties they will actually be carrying out. This, alongside your usual job description should not only attract more interest, but should attract the right type of candidate by giving them a glimpse into the job.

This could also be used as a tool throughout the interview process, or even once you have offered the job. Videos offer some insight that a job description just can’t.

 

We’d love to hear how you have used video marketing for your own business, and what sort of results you had. Leave us a comment or post to our social media to tell us your story, and you and your video could feature in a future blog.

If you are considering video marketing for your business, but are still a little stuck on where to start, why not take advantage of our free marketing consultation? Just call 01543 387 047 today to see how we could help.

I don’t know how to convert leads through marketing

i don't know how to convert leads through marketing header

i don't know how to convert leads through marketing header

Sales and Marketing should work in harmony. With marketing creating your leads, and sales closing them. However, in smaller companies, sales and marketing can be the same function. Meaning you have to carefully consider and create your marketing, and close the sale too.

So what can you do within your marketing to convert leads earlier? We have 7 points that will help you get more out of your marketing, driving more leads to convert.

 

Understand the buyer

Understand the buyer journey and that not every lead is the same. If you know generally what your buyer journey is, you know when to go for the sale, and when to leave it for another week.

Not every lead is the same. Some will come in red hot, others will take a long time to even become warm. But if you understand where on the journey they are, you can prioritise and personalise your own actions towards them.

 

Gain pleasure, avoid pain

It is said as humans we are driven by two things, to gain pleasure and avoid pain. So when trying to appeal to your target audience, bear this in mind. What will drive people to listen to you, or even contact you themselves, is if you offer something that will give you great pleasure and happiness, or that will let them avoid pain or negativity.

For example, Amazon, the huge retail giant that they are, are still always looking to improve the customer experience. One pain their customers were experiencing was not being home for their deliveries. Or worrying it may not be left in a safe place. Amazon introduced ‘amazon lockers’ in convenient locations. So people could grab their delivery in their lunch break or on their way home. Customers who may not have bought that extra purchase as they couldn’t guarantee the delivery day, now have a safe, and easy alternative. Taking away those second thoughts of whether they should buy.

Or Pantene released an app to combat the ‘bad hair day’. By analysing the weather reports, they were able to advise which products and styles people should go for. By suggesting the products people should use, and allowing them to see what is available in the Pantene range. They increase their brand awareness, as well as gain extra sales from those suffering a bad hair day!

 

Make people feel significant

People like to feel like they matter. When you make a purchase you like to feel like the company is thankful for your custom. When you make a big purchase, you like to feel like the effort and energy in the build up has been appreciated. And let’s face it, if a company can make you feel like you are the only person in the world that they appreciate buying their product. And make a big deal about you, you are more likely to go back to them.

It comes down to basic customer service, and making people feel appreciated. It has been found that 60% of consumers will pay more for a better experience. 89% of consumers will begin doing business with a competitor if they receive poor customer service.

This can start off with the basics. Be polite and don’t ignore people. It is all too easy in the fast paced world of social media to ignore posts, but it also quite rude, and effects that customer’s experience. If there are excited about their experience, join in!

For example, Sainsburys made the headlines for their name change of Tiger Bread to Giraffe Bread, all due to a 3 year olds letter. Spotting the similarities between the Giraffes pattern and the pattern on the bread, Lily Robinson (with a little help from her parents) wrote to Sainsburys. Here, Sainsburys could of ignored this letter, put it to one side, as they have no need to change the name. They have other things to be getting on with. But by changing the name and responding to Lily, they proved they care about the opinions of all their customers. Even the little ones, and they value their opinion. By showing that appreciation, Lily’s mom praised the company online, and the story went viral. Which goes to show even the smallest acts of responding to customers, can come back to you in a big way.

 

Take the time to explain but simplify your solution

Most company’s make 1 of 2 mistakes when talking about their products and services.

They either don’t explain any of what they do, and expect people to understand. Jargon and all, which leaves prospects baffled.

Or they over explain, with a lot of tedious, unnecessary information. Leaving prospects over saturated with information, and looking for the nearest exit.

You need to ensure that your lead knows what you do. But cut the waffle! Keep your solution simple. As the saying goes, if you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it. So if you cannot explain if simply, how do you then expect your prospect to understand it?

 

Qualify people up front

By qualifying leads at the very beginning of the process you save yourself a lot of time. We have all been there. Where someone has shown a vague interest in your product, and you follow up for months with calls and emails, hoping they will become a sale. But this takes time, effort, and may ultimately annoy your prospect in to not responding.

If you know they are not going to convert just yet, but they probably will in the future, focus on marketing to them. If you are not actively pursuing them, you give them chance to soak up your marketing. To learn more about your company and its products. So when the time comes that they require the product or service you sell, they will come to you.

 

Lead generation systems

Lead generation systems are systems that track the visitors to your website. This has it’s pros and its cons, but it’s something that you may want to consider.

The Pros being that you have companies who have actually visited your website, straight to your inbox, a pre-made list for the day. Dependent on the system, you may already have your contact information already provided for you. So no time needed to put together a prospect list.

The Cons? You do not know who in that company has looked at your website, and you may never know. Someone may have just taken a look at your blogs on their break, and so are not actually qualified to progress to a sale.

You can find a number of lead generation systems online, but a few examples are Lead Forensics, OnMonitoring and wow analytics.

 

 

Automation

Email automation can take a lot of marketing time off your hands. Whilst still leading prospects further through the buying cycle.

Email automation works with emails that are triggered by a click, a visit to a certain page or a time limit. For example, you have probably experienced when you buy something online, a few days after your purchase, you receive a thank you email, perhaps with a discount off your next purchase. This is a great use of automation, by making the customer feel valued and enticing them to come back and shop again. You can use this for your company but catered to your own services and products.

So there are a few ways you can use email automation. Here on some examples on using it for money off deals, to thank people for visiting, to get them to share their experience or feedback, to get them to buy their saved basket, and to buy a product again.

The Money Off Deal

A money off deal is great for a number of reasons. Your customers feel valued and appreciated, and you can prompt customers to spend with you again quite quickly.

Here, Achica use automation to send a seasonally relevant promotion, which is clear, easy to remember, and gives you two options of browsing or shopping. Customers feel valued, and you increase your sales with their next order.

example of achica email marketing

 

Saving your basket

Example of homebase email marketing

After being bought to the nation’s attention by a Barclaycard advert, companies can send money off emails to customers who have filled their basket, but left the site, to prompt them to come back and complete the sale. Though money off isn’t always needed, sometimes just the knowledge that they have saved your basket and you can return to it when you wish is all you need, as Homebase do above.

Thank You

These is a great one for continuing a great experience. If someone has used your service, and the moment has now passed, remind them of the great time they had with a thank you email. By leaving a couple of days before sending this, it gives time for the customer to return to normality, before you remind them of the great times they had, and leave a link where they can book or buy again.

Example of dominoes email marketing

A great example of this would be Dominos Pizza. Not that I eat a lot of pizza (cough) but I receive a fair few of these. A day after eating my lovely pizza, I always receive a thank you email, that thanks me for purchasing, hopes that I enjoyed the order, and I am prompted to order again. If you are still full from last nights pizza (as I usually am) they also give you the opportunity to win free pizza for a year by completing their feedback survey. The button’s right there, so why not just fill it in? And if you can’t even summon the energy to type, they’ve included their blog too, so you can go and have a read instead.

Example of harry potter email marketing

Harry Potter World reintroduce the excitement back to the customer, and offer plenty of opportunities to keep on interacting, such as sharing their photos, writing on trip advisor, and even the chance to win a prize.

Share your experience

Sometimes you don’t necessarily want another sale straight away. You know the customer has spent money with you, and it may be a while before they spend money again. But by asking for their feedback or opinion on your product or service, you are still showing them appreciation of their service and gaining good data for yourselves.

Example of New Look email marketing

New Look haven’t done their best here. From a very plain email to a very messy link, it doesn’t really entice customers to fill out the form. If you are sending an email, make the effort, as this devalues the customer rather than hyping them up.

Example of F&F email marketing

F&F does a better job of getting feedback, offering the chance to review every item you bought, with the pictures to remind you and subtly leave the links back to their shopping pages at the top of the email, to encourage customers to shop again.

Buy it again

Example of amazon email marketing

If you offer a product or service that needs to be renewed frequently, you may benefit from the buy it again email, prompting customers to buy products they have already brought. This really would have to be for relevant for products, as you do run the risk of annoying customers by asking them to spend and spend, without really thanking them for their custom.

Amazon do a great job of this here, by offering a prompt rather than a direct sell. However they do link directly back to the products, making it a very easy journey for users.

The best example we’ve seen

Best example of email marketing

With Photojojo, the communication is good, gives the customer all the information they need. They make them feel good about it, and they’ve made it look good as well. Rosie also received a free plastic dinosaur with the order too, which we feel is great customer service as well as automation at it’s best.

You must remember though, automation is not a substitute for actual contact, it is just a useful tool that can provide help. Ensure you keep a good balance of the actual and the automated to keep your customers happy.

 

So there you have it, seven things that will hopefully ensure your marketing efforts converts to sales.

If you are struggling with your marketing, or just need some extra advice on how to get the best for your company, then why not give us a call today on 01543 495752.

 

Where should you begin with Google AdWords?

where should you begin with adwords

where should you begin with adwords

Google AdWords works because it is complex, and because every single part of your campaign is a variable. Which is what makes it work for so many companies, but what confuses a lot more. So we’ve put together some basic stages for you to follow. To get you started and keep you on track during your AdWords campaign.

As it can be hard to follow sometimes, I will be using the example of the ‘Cheese and things café’ to help you visualise what’s been explained. (Apologies to all of you reading this just before your lunch break!)

Before you begin – Define your purpose

Before you even open your google AdWords account, you need to define three things.

  • What your main aim is to get out of a campaign (more sales/more exposure/more leads)
  • How much time you are going to allow to manage this
  • How much budget you are willing to put in to this

If you do not have a clear answer for each of these, it may not be the right time for you to be considering AdWords. Your aim will determine how you structure your campaign and your ads. Who they are targeted towards and what form of bidding you use.

If you haven’t given enough time to AdWords, you will find yourself with a lagging campaign. AdWords works because you have real time results, and can adapt your campaign to be more profitable constantly. This takes a lot of monitoring. So if you can only commit to the time it takes to set an account and your initial campaign up, maybe it’s time to consider an agency. Otherwise you will find yourself throwing a lot of money at a campaign that may not work.

Which leads us nicely to budget. You need to establish the budget of your campaign or campaigns. How much you are willing to go up to, to reach your goal. Some industries are more competitive than others, so you will have to spend more to appear in front of your potential customers at first. Ensure you have done some research so you have an idea of budget to start with. If your budget doesn’t stretch to getting you seen in your industry just yet, then perhaps continue working on your own marketing first, and revisit AdWords later.

So our little café is wanting to push the sales of their toasties for lunchtime delivery. They’re willing to spend £10 a day, which is around £300 a month. Bob who does their lunchtime delivery is going to spend some time after his deliveries has finished looking at their AdWords clicks for that day, and what worked, and making adjustments for tomorrows searches.

Put together your keywords

Keywords you will have heard over and over again when it comes to anything to do with being seen by the right potential customers on the internet.

For your ads, you want to look at 10-20 keywords that are quite specific to that advert. So for examples your aim is to get more toasties ordered through your website. You may look to do ads for ‘toasted sandwiches’ ‘cheese toasties’ ‘lunch delivery’ with each having 10 keywords specific to that advert. All of them will take the user back to your toasties landing page, but you can see which approach works best.

Google’s keyword planner is a great tool for getting an idea of your keywords. It will give you similar suggestions, estimated searches, estimated bid, and an idea of competition. This will not be 100% accurate, so don’t take this as certain. As mentioned, a lot of factors will make up your bid, so prices will change. Certain trends or topics may change search patterns, and new businesses are always starting, so competition will constantly change. But this tool is the closest information you will get without actually running the campaign.

Create or update your landing page

Before you set up your campaign, you will need somewhere for all those lovely new visitors to land. So take time to either improve your current web pages, or create a unique landing page where potential customers will be lead to.

This landing page will need to be relevant. The more relevant, the more google will like your ad. As you are giving your customers a good experience. So let’s take our cheese toastie example. If someone has searched for a ham and cheese toastie delivery, and clicked on to your ad, they would not expect to land on a page about your jacket potatoes. They would expect to come through to a page on various cheese toastie options that are available for delivery.

Ensure your landing page is easy to use. So it has enough information about the topic, there is a clear call to action (‘order here’ ‘call now to order’ etc) and where possible no obvious links to the rest of your site. As you want these potential customers to convert, you don’t want them to go wondering off until after they’ve placed an order.

Set up your account and get organised

Get started on your AdWords account. Set it up and get acquainted with the page, as you will be spending a lot of time here.

Having a structured account is key to keeping organised on AdWords. Once again, google have a best practise for this to keep you on track. It is suggested that you follow the layout of your website, possibly like this:

Account Cheese and Things Café
Campaigns Toasties Jacket potatoes Sandwiches
Adverts Cheese toasties toasted sandwiches lunch delivery Cheese and beans jacket potato Jacket potato delivery office lunch deliveries Sandwich delivery Cheese and pickle sandwiches Lunch time sandwiches

 

You will have your company as your account, your pages as your campaigns, and your offerings on those pages as adverts.

Though you may only run one campaign at first, having this style of layout means you can keep organised for future campaigns.

Create your ads

It is worth doing your research here. Search some of your keywords and see what ads are making it onto the first page. What draws you in, what extra information are they including? How does your company differ? This is where you can really set yourself aside from your competition, so take the time to see what they are saying.

So let’s take a look at what comes up for cheese toastie delivery

example of google adwords ads

Once you have an idea of what’s out there, and what you want to say, you need to make sure you match AdWords best practise for ads. Especially when it comes to character limits. You only have 25 characters for your headline, and 35 characters each for your 2 description lines.

Assign the keywords you picked earlier to the relevant ad, and enter a general bid. From this you will be able to see an estimate of how many clicks you could expect for your daily budget. If you are happy with it, then set your ad live. You are now live.

Track your performance

AdWords is thorough. Very thorough. You can track every part of your campaign to see when people clicked through and why. So you can identify the times and places you are most successful, and replicate that in future campaigns.

So for example, Bob could find that on Thursdays and Friday their clicks go up by 30%. So he can use that information when it comes to adjustments, and spending the budget more wisely.

You can also link your AdWords and analytics accounts to get even more data, which may seem a little much at first, but as you get more experienced, it will help you to really take apart your campaign and see what works and why.

Adjust when necessary

There are so many different ways you can adjust your ads, so keep experimenting until you find which brings you return on your investment.

Adjusting is necessary to make your campaign successful. So even if they are only small changes, make them. If a keyword is performing well, put some more money on the bid to get it shown more times. If a keyword isn’t performing well, scrap it and stop wasting money.  If you want to try adjusting your bids, but don’t want to commit just yet, then try experiments. Which will apply your changes to a small portion of your ads, so you can see if it works well or not before fully committing.

So Bob, who now knows they get more clicks on a Thursday and Friday, may show his ads only on those days. So there is more budget behind it, meaning more clicks-through’s.

You will want to keep making adjustments until your campaign becomes profitable. Then you can put more money behind it to make it more profitable.

 

And that is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to AdWords. There are literally hundreds of resources to guide you through every part of your campaign, especially from Google themselves. So don’t stay stuck, take a look at what information is out there.

If you do find yourself really stuck when it comes to AdWords, or perhaps you just don’t have the time, let us take a look at it for you. Call us on 01543 495752 for more information on how we can get you more leads.

How to avoid wasting money on marketing your small business

how to avoid wasting money on marketing your small business

how to avoid wasting money on marketing your small business

We are often asked how to identify which marketing activities will provide the best ROI, and how to stop wasting money on marketing that doesn’t work.

In a small business, any purchase is a big purchase, so committing to marketing campaigns can be a huge decision. We’ve put together 6 tips on ensuring you get the best value for your money.

 

Know your market

This may seem obvious, but when you are busy trying to build business it can easy to overlook the time you should have spent on getting to understand your market. By completing these 3 simple steps, you will put yourself in a much better position to understand what marketing will help you as a company.

Step 1: You have to start by knowing yourself. Take the time to define your aims, your values and your ethic. You will not truly know your competitors, until you know what you are trying to achieve.

Step 2: Find your competition. Use local directories and web searches to discover who is around you, and what they are doing. Though you may not consider Mr Joe Bloggs Freelancer or Big Corp Corporation a competitor, as they are not the same size as you. If they are offering any of the same services as you, you need to understand their business, and why customers may pick them over you.

Step 3. Know your own audience. To grow your audience, you need to understand the customers you already have. Unless you are in a very niche business, most companies cannot follow a ‘one approach fits all’ method. You need to define your ‘buying personas’ the people who buy from you, why they buy, how they buy, when they buy. Once you know these traits, you will be able to appeal directly to other people with these traits.

Once you have defined these 3 steps you should have a good idea of how you should approach your buying personas, how your competitors are approaching their audience, and why you are different. These will all help to then define your activities.

 

Be up front about budget

Talking about money is always awkward, especially if you are just growing and the money just isn’t there yet.

Even so, you may find yourself swept away by a sweet talking sales rep into taking on the fanciest direct mail campaign you have ever seen. Where every recipient receives their promotional letter with a free mug with your company logo on, delivered by the earliest post so they can use the mug for their morning cuppa etc but if you don’t have the budget, then don’t commit to it just yet.

There is always an element of risk in marketing, as we humans can be quite fickle, and we can change what we like to react to as quickly as the weather. So almost bankrupting yourself for one campaign is usually not worth it, even if it does sound pretty amazing.

If you want to do the big campaigns, prove yourself through the little campaigns first. Use what you have put together from knowing your market, to try some ideas out. Spend a little of your budget to gain knowledge of what works, and hopefully make a profit. You will be in a much better place to start your first big campaign.

 

Dedicate time

It can be a common misconception, as you’ve seen above, that if you throw a large amount of money at a marketing activity or campaign, you are guaranteed good results. This is just not the case.

Marketing works on the psychology of people, and what they will react well too. If you just throw anything out there you cannot predict what the results will be, so taking the time to work through your marketing messages is essential.

Let’s take the example above. You’ve been pitched to about this brilliant direct mail campaign; everyone’s going to get mugs, everyone’s going to have their morning cuppa in them, or take them to work, and your company logo is going to be everywhere, and you will be swarmed with calls. But what if your buying persona is actual fitness focused, does not drink caffeine, and goes out for a morning run before work? The phone may be a little quieter.

If you know your buying personas, you know what type of person they are. You know if they prefer to be contacted by letter, email or phone.

Take the time to consider what you are trying to say, and how your audience will best take that in. Throwing money at marketing is not a substitute for time. Sit down with your colleague, team or agency, and it will produce better results and give you more return in the long run.

 

Be persistent

This is something we say quite frequently, but it is true.

If you have completed the above, you should have a good idea of when your campaign should start paying off. However, it can sometimes take a little longer to work, especially if you are looking at something involving social media.

Not everything is instant. This doesn’t mean the campaign hasn’t worked.

If you follow the below step, you should know when is time to move on to the next campaign. But if you still aren’t sure, wait another day, and look at the results again.

 

Monitor the results of your efforts

You will never know the outcome of your expenditure unless you actually monitor what you are doing.

There are many ways to measure, and it doesn’t necessarily matter which you use, just as long as you are measuring. Once you start, you will learn the best ways or software to monitor, but you just have to get started.

By doing the above you should know what to expect, whether that’s an influx of calls, meetings or actual sales. You can then monitor to conversions, and see how much money you actually made off one campaign. If you don’t do this, you will never truly know if you are wasting your budget or not.

 

Make the most of free marketing consultations which most agencies offer

The majority are no obligation and can pinpoint where your efforts should go for your specific company. If you have done the first few tips, you should be able to get some advice quite quickly. The agency will discuss ideas with you on what they think is best and you can go from there.

And remember, though you can tackle some things on your own, if you are looking at a campaign bigger than what you have done before, or are just not sure what messages to send in your marketing, maybe it’s best to pass it to the professionals.

 

If you want to take advantage of our free marketing consultation, call one of our friendly team now on 01543 495752, and you can have a cuppa, cuddle with the dogs and maybe even a slice of cake.

How the Internet has Changed Marketing

 

How the internet has changed marketing

It’s been 25 years since CERN made the Word Wide Web technology available to everyone royalty free. The internet has come a long way since then, now allowing us to look at photos of other people’s food, watch animals do silly things, keep up with your friends and family, and order things from the comfort of the sofa.

By changing the way people buy, the internet has changed marketing.

As a result, businesses have had to change the way they market themselves and sell to take advantage of the latest technology and consumers shopping habits.

Make your marketing work more for you and your business. Talk to us and let’s see where we can help

Those that failed to do that went out of business, such as HMV (though they have since returned), Jessops, Comet, and Woolworths, who all disappeared from the British high street in the past few years.

Let’s take a more detailed look at how the internet has changed marketing.

How the internet has changed marketing with Websites

Anyone can set up a website now, which has given businesses an easy way to reach their target audience and explain how their products and services can solve their problems.

When someone recognises a want or need, their search for the solution will often begin online.

In 2014, research found that 81% of shoppers conduct online research before making a purchase.

If your company hasn’t got a website, your target audience are unlikely to find out. As consumers we’re quite lazy and want businesses to provide us with all the information for us to peruse at our leisure, rather than us having to go through the yellow pages, or walk up and down the high street trying to find someone who sells what we’re looking for.

In fact, we don’t even want to work that hard to find information when we’re searching for it on the internet from the comfort of our home.

Reviews

The research process often involves reading or watching reviews from professionals and fellow consumers to help us evaluate which product is best for us. A study in 2014 found that 61% of people read product reviews before making a purchase.

There are multiple places we can find reviews for products we’re searching for, including:

  • Websites that sell the product / service – both your actual website, and third-party sites you may sell through like Amazon or Etsy
  • Impartial review sites like TripAdvisor, or Yell
  • Social media
  • Blogs
  • YouTube
  • Search Engines

All of these things allow us to figure out which product will meet our need, and we will probably spend more time watching reviews than actually looking at the product on the seller’s website.

On top of all of this, businesses now need to make sure that they have a responsive website to fit the demands of consumers. In the UK, the smartphone is the most popular device people use to access the internet. Those businesses who don’t keep up and have a responsive website could find themselves falling behind.

E-commerce

Without the internet you couldn’t: order presents online, buy a DVD cheaper than it’s sold for in physical stores, buy a book and begin reading it in seconds, or order takeaway food without having to speak to someone on the other end of the phone.

The internet has allowed business owners to escape the risk and expensive costs of owning a physical shop. A website is cheaper in comparison, and allows businesses to reach more people.

Physical stores are geographically restricted, but on the internet you can reach and sell to people all over the globe. On top of that, you can sell or receive enquiries 24/7.

For business owners, a website is an absolute no brainer. Why wouldn’t you want to be able to receive orders outside of business owners and not be restricted by your location?

Business can reach more people, and customers can shop without leaving the house – everyone’s a winner.

How the internet has changed marketing using advertising

The first advertising banner went live in 1994, and Google AdWords was born in 2000, allowing businesses to advertise and reach their target audience based on the keywords they searched for and the websites they visited.

Online advertising isn’t limited to search engines and websites anymore, adverts are now found on:

  • Social networks
  • In apps
  • Music streaming services, like Spotify
  • On devices – Amazon’s Kindle Fire shows adverts on the lock screen unless you pay to remove them

Businesses can now target and retarget their audience with adverts based on their demographics, websites they’ve visited, things they’ve searched for, and more.

Social media

Social media provides businesses with yet another way to reach, target, and communicate with their audience.

As well as allowing businesses to communicate with their audience, it’s another way of encouraging your audience to visit your website.

Businesses can also use social media as a customer service method, meaning they can quickly address and resolve issues without the customer having to send an email or make a phone call. As well as helping individual customers with their issue, it can also make the company look good if they handle it particularly well.

Social commerce even allows people to buy a product without even visiting the businesses website.

Email marketing

While email was certainly around long before the internet, email marketing as we know it today wouldn’t exist without the internet. Without it, how would businesses collect contact information?

Email marketing has evolved to allow businesses to do a lot, such as:

  • Letting customers know about special offers
  • Introducing new products and services
  • Making personalised recommendations based on previous purchases or searches
  • Share tips to get more out of a product and service
  • Encourage customers to leave reviews and refer others
  • Invite people to events

… and it works!

Analytics

One of the best things about using the internet for marketing is that you can nearly always track your activities and ask yourself ‘so what?’ This means businesses can easily identify what activities are working well, which ones aren’t, which helps them to learn more about their audience and market to them better.

The internet has changed marketing, the way businesses sell, and the way people buy hugely, and it’s still continuing to do so. Successful businesses will be ones who keep up with the way that consumers are buying.

It’s interesting to think about how this blog post might read in another 20 years time? How do you think the internet may change marketing in the future?

You can find more useful posts about marketing in our blogs. 

If you have any marketing needs for your business, why not contact our friendly team to see how we could help you? We offer no obligation initial meetings, so we can have a real talk about your aims, and how we may be able to get you there. 

9 ways to market your business on a budget

9 ways to market your business on a budget

9 ways to market your business on a budget

A question we are asked time and time again is how a small business with a small budget can make the most out of their marketing.

Yes, it’s true that the bigger your marketing budget, the better your marketing can be. Take John Lewis for example, they spent £7 million on just their Christmas campaign, but it worked. (And I bet you still talk about Monty the Penguin today!)

If, like the majority of people, you don’t happen to have £7 million spare for your marketing budget, we have some great tips to get your business booming on a budget. Every business has to start somewhere!

There are a number of “free” marketing activities you can do that can help you to create big opportunities for your business. We use the word “free” loosely here, because it will cost you your time and effort, and your time is valuable.

 

Social Media

I guess you knew this one was coming; social Media is a brilliant tool that allows you to connect with your target audience directly, and you can do it for free!

Don’t believe though that this means instant results, and you must remember you won’t gain a lead for every post you put up. You have to work hard at it for leads to blossom, but it is proven to work.

Social media tips:

  • Find out which social networks your target audience use
  • Read up about best practice
  • Test when is the best time to post
  • Analyse what your audience react well too

If you are struggling, but feel this a marketing activity that will benefit your business, there are many courses around to improve your social media skills for business, though there will be a cost to those.

Want to know more on social media? We recommend 14 common social media mistakes and what to do instead as further reading.

 

Blogging

Blogging is a huge part of inbound marketing that will help to attract your target audience. But it is also a good way of keeping existing customers coming back to your website.

As well as giving you the opportunity to showcase your knowledge and share advice, it gives prospects a chance to learn more about your business and your services / products.

Blogging tip: focus on creating high quality content – think, the best content someone could wish to read around a particular topic.

Once again, you can find courses and sessions that will teach you how to blog, or you can even get someone to write them for you. Of course, there is a cost implication to that.

 

Testimonials and Case studies

The words of others speak wonders; studies have found that 88% of people are influenced by online customer service reviews when making buying decisions.

Testimonials teamed with evidence of the work you have done with them is some of the best advertising you can have. Take the time to write case studies on the projects you have worked on, and don’t be afraid to ask for testimonials from your current customers.

Not sure how to ask for your reviews and testimonials? We recommend Why customer reviews are important and how to get them as further reading

 

Your elevator pitch

When it comes to small businesses, people can be the best marketing tools your company has. By taking the time to perfect an elevator pitch (or two) you give yourself the best change to market to people when opportunities present themselves, and you have nothing else to hand.

 

Content Marketing

This is another method you may have heard a lot about. In fact, 98% of B2B marketers say content marketing is core to their marketing strategy.

For those of you who haven’t heard of it, content marketing is using content (blogs, ebooks, guides, recipes, videos, etc) to provide your target audience with something useful and helpful.

As we mentioned above, you should be creating high quality content that provides the reader with some value. This will help them move through the buyers’ cycle and get them one step closer to buying.

There are a number of methods for making your content more SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) friendly, so if you are considering this route, I would advise committing to a little more research into SEO. Once again, options are available for courses or someone to do this on your behalf, but this would incur costs.

Want to be the best at content marketing? We would recommend How to create the best, most useful, content in search results as further reading

 

Strategic alliances

Creating strategic alliances with non-competitive businesses can work really well for a smaller business.

Find local companies that compliment your services, and you can refer customers between yourselves, create offers for going between your businesses, and even guest blog for each other once you have worked together for a while.

Make sure your find a business that not only do you like, but who believe in providing an excellent service as much as you do, and whose work you trust. It will look bad if you refer your clients to a business who lets them down.

 

Great Customer Service

Nothing can ruin a company quicker than bad customer service. According to a study in 2014 58% of consumers will never use a company again after a negative experience.

And just as good reviews will spread to bring you new customers, bad reviews will spread like wildfire, taking twice as many customers with them.

Interested? We would recommend LEGO’s excellent example of customer service as further reading

 

Free consultations

Many businesses will offer free consultations to see how they can help potential customers, but the mistake they make is not promoting that particularly well.

If you offer free consultations, promote this and let your target audience know. Seeing that you offer a consultation, or a review, where they can find out more about your offering can encourage more people to get in touch.

 

Positivity and Persistence

Regardless of which activity you decide to use, remain positive, and stick with it!

Marketing is not all instant results, some activities take a little longer to produce results.

Good marketing will bring you consistent results over a long period of time; don’t lose faith if things don’t pay off as quickly as you think. However, always make sure you measure your marketing efforts and their results so you can judge when it is perhaps time to move on to the next idea.

If you would like to take advantage of our free marketing consultation to see how marketing could gain you more customers, improve your business position or create more opportunities for you to sell, speak to one of the team on 01543 495752.