The Top Five Reasons Why Office Dogs are Great!

the marketing dogs

Dogs are truly a man’s best friend… and in our case a colleague’s best friend too. At The Marketing People, our famous pooches George, Chops, and Sammy bring a lot of fun, happiness, and productivity to our offices and we want to share with you the top five reasons why you should have office dogs too! George, Chops, and Sammy are not only cute faces, but they also bring fantastic benefits to our business and colleagues too.

1. Build and Strengthen Colleague Relationships

Having the dogs in the office is the perfect opportunity for our colleagues to build and strengthen existing relationships and bond together over their common love for dogs! Having good relationships with colleagues is one of the top factors contributing to job satisfaction according to Jacob Morgan, Forbes writer. Additionally, better relationships amongst colleagues lead to more effective collaborative work within office teams, which is great for the business!

Dogs encourage better employee relationships.

Dogs can help reduce stress and increase productivity

2. Increases Productivity and Improving Office Mood

This point speaks for itself here, having dogs in the office boosts everyone’s mood. From our colleagues to visitors, and even the postman- you can’t not smile at their cute faces. Despite the thought that dogs may be distracting in the workplace, once the initial buzz of the dogs being in the office fades, taking short breaks to pay attention to the dogs is ideal for reflection, focus, and productivity. A scientific study found that temporarily taking your mind off work for short bursts increases energy levels and motivation in the office.

3. Reduces Stress

For some of the stressful situations in work and difficult problem-solving tasks, you might get to the point where you just need something to make you smile. For us, George, Chops, and Sammy all shine their hilarious personalities and in those stressful moments, it’s just what we need. For those temporary moments of writer’s block or if something isn’t making sense- taking 2 minutes away from the computer screen to play with the dogs can be the perfect solution. It is also scientifically proven that caring for and stroking animals has stress-relieving physiological benefits and will directly reduce your stress hormone levels.

Laurie and Sammy

4. Icebreaker for Clients

Having dogs in the office can be a brilliant icebreaker if you have customers come into your offices on a frequent basis. Our dogs are very welcoming and friendly, and the introduction from an office dog can be the perfect start to your business meetings. Not only can the dogs offer a warm welcome, but they can help make you more memorable as a business- which could be the difference between potential clients signing new deals.

5. Great Opportunity for Exercise

Having the dogs in the office is the perfect motivator for taking a break during the day and giving yourself and your pooch a great burst of healthy exercise. Not only is this wonderful for the dog to get out for some fresh air, but it also gives colleagues an opportunity to take a mental break away from the desk at lunchtime. This gives you the opportunity to reflect on the morning's successes and come back to the office ready for a productive afternoon.

Exercise is great for productivity at work

Points to Consider

  • Consider whether all your employees are happy with the idea of an office dog. It is important to ensure everyone’s opinion is considered, valued, and respected.
  • Keep a designated area for the dog(s) to relax during the working day. You have your desk, and they have their basket.
  • Create dog-free zones for any visitors that may be allergic to, or not like dogs. You do not want to upset customers or visitors, and for serious scenarios such as important meetings- a dog’s company may be more distracting than beneficial.
  • Ensure you have office dogs with the right kind of temperament. Untrained, yappy, or aggressive dogs will not set the right tone for the office so look to have calming, friendly, and happy dogs in your office.
  • Is the office space safe for the dogs to stay? Ensure all cables are neatly tucked away and human food is
  •  out of snout reach! It is also important to consider exits and stairs and whether they need dog-proofing to ensure the dogs don’t have an office-wide adventure unsupervised!

Greeting clients at the front door

How Google’s Latest Update will help Retailers

Google have recently announced that they will be supporting a new Schema.org markup that will assist retailers and allow them to add shipping information to their products.

Read on to discover what benefits this will provide to retailers and why every e-commerce business should implement this new feature.

 

What is this new update?

Since June 2020, retailers have been able to list their products across different Google surfaces for free. Google want to ensure that any user looking for a specific product can find it quickly and easily.

Google state that they “are committed to supporting ways for the ecosystem to better connect with users that come to Google to look for the best products, brands, and retailers”.

They are continuously investing in more robust tooling in Google Merchant Centre along with new kinds of schema.org options.

This update allows retailers to add any shipping details to a product listing. These details can include:

  • Shipping costs
  • Estimated delivery timeframes
  • Company shipping policies

Where will the information be shown?

Once you have added the structured data, it will appear in the ‘Overview’ and ‘Stores’ tabs for a specific product result. The image below illustrates how the listing will appear.

Currently, this feature is only available in the US on mobile devices.

 

 

What are the benefits?

When users are looking at your products there is a chance that they are not yet at the purchasing stage. Users will consider many different options before they purchase from you, such as shipping costs and times.

By simply providing the user with these details upfront, you can help influence them to purchase your product from you.

A major issue that retailers face is ‘cart abandonment’. This is when users fill their shopping cart with items from your store but don’t actually purchase anything. In 2018, the worldwide Cart Abandonment Rate was estimated to average 79.17% across industries. A survey found out that in the retail sector 23% of shoppers abandoned carts due to issues with shipping.

This suggests that adding shipping details into your product listings can in fact minimise the number of users that abandon their carts.

If you would like to implement this new feature on your products, then get in touch on 01543 387 047 or book an appointment.

The Charlie Ramsey Research Fund: Help Us Help Them

Here at The Marketing People, we recently met with The Charlie Ramsey Research Fund to see if we could help. Did you know? This very worthwhile local charity raises money for research for complex congenital heart defects, donates defibrillators to schools in the West Midlands and promotes vital organ donation.

Our SEO Manager John Hoey has worked with the charity for 5 years and our Videographer Kerry Hatfield’s brother was born with a congential heart condition, so the work The Charlie Ramsey Research Fund does is very close to our hearts.

2nd November – Meeting with The Charlie Ramsey Research Fund

On 2nd November The Marketing People had the pleasure of meeting with The Charlie Ramsey Research Fund and we are now committed to helping the charity, and raising awareness of the fantastic work they do.

The charity was set up to raise money for research into congenital heart disease in the hope that one day a cure can be found for all babies and children living with this terrible condition.

They also donate defibrillators to schools in the West Midlands, as this vital piece of equipment increases the individual’s chance of survival following the onset of a cardiac arrest.

Another objective of the charity is to promote organ donation; this amazingly generous act saves thousands of lives in the UK every year. To check if you are already on the organ donor list, or to register, click here.

Thank you to all the volunteers who selflessly give up their time to help those less fortunate.

We look forward to supporting The Charlie Ramsey Research Fund and hope that you will consider doing the same for this fantastic charity.

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