- Better than nothing (is harder than you think): http://bit.ly/cFiMEs
Marketing
5 marketing ideas you may not have thought of
This post was last edited by Alex Cohen, on the April 29, 2010 @ 11:01 am
- PURLs A personalised URL is a website which can be personalised for each visitor. It would look something like this: http://john.doe.wow-your-customers.co.uk. Using a URL like this in direct mail campaigns gives a greater incentive for someone to visit a website and also allows you to report on who’s been to the website.
- Retargeting Have you noticed recently you’ve been to a website and you start seeing banner adverts popping up around the web from that website, maybe even with the exact items you were looking at. This is retargeting, a technology that tracks visitors who have been to your website and puts banner adverts up around the web.
- Podcasting Podcasts are a way to get your information across to customers. Blogs, websites, papers and guides are all very useful but people have too much to read. People listen to podcasts at the gym and in cars, you can get your personality across and most of your competitors won’t be doing it.
- Billboards Do you think billboards are just for the big companies? Think again, a well placed billboard at your local train station doesn’t cost as much as you may think. Sharing the billboard with other local companies is also a smart way to save costs.
- Video If you like talking and have the personality for video, do it. Talk, tell you views, get them across in quick, digestible snap bites. Videos could offer how-tos, interviews or your thoughts on an interesting subject. Look at Gary Vaynerchuk for a great example of personal branding or Will It Blend from Blendtec.
Marketing is easy for SMEs
This post was last edited by Alex Cohen, on the April 14, 2010 @ 9:02 am
Is your marketing a struggle? Do you just not know where to start? We believe SMEs have it easy…here’s why.
It’s up to you what goes on your website. You have an online brochure for customers to find you.
You couldn’t do this 20 years ago. 20 years ago you had to pay to send out brochures and letters. Now you can create a website and an unlimited number of customers can find you, not costing you money for each additional customer. You control what goes on your website, how big it is and how customers will interact with you.
If you’re on Google people will find you
If you’re number one on Google for your key search terms people will find you. You don’t need to spend days cold calling; people will come to you. If you can’t rank highly on Google, use Google AdWords and only pay a small amount of money for people to view your website.
You can interact with your customers and find new ones through Twitter
It can be impossible to get through to a director of a large company, it can be impossible to interact with all 500 of your customers. Through Twitter you can interact with those previously un-reachable prospects or communicate to all your customers in one go.
There are more networking events than you have time for
For people who like networking there are hundreds of networking events in the UK. Join some, go along, meet other business people and grow your businesses together.
Email marketing is a cost effective way to target
Before email there was direct mail. Costly, and you only knew if someone had read your direct mail and liked it if they responded. With email marketing there are no costs of paper, ink, postage etc and you also know who has opened and interacted with your email. It’s instant and lands in front of people. A well crafted, targeted email can have quick results.
Knowledge is what is important and there are tools to spread it
You’re an expert on your business, or at least you should be. In the last 10 years tools have been developed to spread this knowledge cheaply and efficiently to a mass market. Blogs, podcasts, YouTube and email newsletters have all helped make this possible. Use this knowledge to position your business as an expert.
There are more marketing companies and freelancers to support you
With shifting work patterns more people have gone freelance or set up their own companies. You have a choice of support, whether you want a one stop shop like Xander Marketing or a freelancer with a specific skill, it is easy to find people to support you with your marketing.
The cost of free marketing
This post was last edited by Alex Cohen, on the March 29, 2010 @ 3:05 pm
Free marketing is every businesses dream right? Building up a following on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and the like increases your brand awareness and is a good way of promoting your products and services.
Updating your website regularly helps with search engines and keeps your customers engaged. Traditional marketing such as direct mail can be quickly designed in house and best of all they all cost virtually nothing to do.
But have you ever taken a moment to work out how much time is spent growing this following; how often are you tweeting? And are these tweets sitting there at the forefront of your mind or do you need to take a minute or two to come up with something relevant that will hopefully encourage your followers to your site?
Is your website updater someone with a bit of techy knowledge and your designer an employee with an art a level?
What about your blog; whether you write it yourself or get a member of your team to do it, how much of your or their day is taken up drafting, proofing and publishing these pearls of wisdom?
And over a year???
Now have a quick think about your hourly rate. If a client needed your services for an hour, a day, a week, what would you charge them? The time spent on free marketing could actually be costing you more than you realise. Do your team’s skills lie in marketing or do they lie in what your business actually does?
By outsourcing your marketing to a company who really knows what they’re doing you can get on with what you do best; running your business and making money, saving money at the same time.
5 cool marketing ideas you can do on a budget
This post was last edited by Alex Cohen, on the March 8, 2010 @ 10:41 am
- Send a gimmick. Direct mail traditionally gets a 1% response rate, what about sending chocolates, fudge or something personalised? More expensive per item but you should dramatically increase the results.
- What can you give for free that has real value? Many businesses offer a free consultation, this is a start but what tangible products/services could potential customers get benefit from? We did a campaign last year offering ‘treats‘. Businesses had a choice of 7 treats ranging from a direct mail letter to an SEO review. They got something tangible whilst sampling our work.
- Use the customer’s front door. If You’re targeting local businesses (or consumers) rather than sending a letter that goes through their letterbox use their front door. Put post-it notes on the doors or hang a flyer on door knobs.
- Business cards in books. A bit cheeky but why don’t you put your business card in relevant books? For example if you’re an accountant put your business card in the finance section of small business books.
- Innovative business cards. Staying on the theme of business cards why not make them more innovative? Use the back to write reasons why customers should choose you. Try them in different shapes and sizes.
Do you have any cool marketing ideas? Post them in the comments below.
10 quick and easy marketing tactics you can start today
This post was last edited by Alex Cohen, on the February 16, 2010 @ 11:32 am
- Set up a Twitter account – just one tweet a day is 365 tweets over a year to your followers
- Start writing on discussion forums – give simple advice for free, show your knowledge and people will come back to you for more complex solutions
- Start an email newsletter – your business is great, you have knowledge to spread; tell people
- Go to a networking event – build new contacts and new ideas
- Update your website – new content on your site increases your page ranking on Google and will help you increase conversion rates
- Update your web-page titles so they’re SEO friendly – how are clients going to find you if You’re not searchable?
- Start a blog and write a post – thought leadership, funny stories, industry news; you name it, people out there will want to read about it
- Pick the phone up and do some tele-marketing – someone, somewhere needs you!
- Set up an AdWords campaign – you can always find free vouchers to get you started
- Call Xander Marketing for a free one hour marketing consultation. Be quick though as this offer is only valid to the 19th February 2010
5 New Year Marketing Resolutions
This post was last edited by Alex Cohen, on the March 8, 2010 @ 10:35 am
In the spirit of New Year here are 5 marketing resolutions to make and stick to:
1. Measure everything
“Half of my marketing works, I just don’t know which half” is no longer valid today. With the shift to digital marketing you can measure just about everything – from how many people open your emails, to where your website traffic comes from, to how many websites link to your website, to how many Twitter followers you have.
Measure everything and then use the results to optimise your marketing.
2. If You’re going to produce content, commit to it
Ever been to a blog which has 3 posts in a week but then the last one was updated over a year ago? It’s very exciting to start a blog and post your knowledge to the world but it’s also time-consuming. What about Twitter – a flurry of tweets and then nothing – have you seen this before?
Social Media is great and it works; but it has to be done consistently over time. A blog that hasn’t been updated for months gives a bad impression. If you don’t have the time, outsource it.
3. Be strategic, not tactical
This week I fancy doing some direct mail, next week a bit of email and why don’t we think about Twitter as well? Sound familiar? Marketing should be a well thought through activity that helps you achieve your business objectives. Define your objectives and develop a way that marketing can support them.
4. Become an expert
You’re probably an expert in your field anyway as that’s why you set up a business. Use this expertise – blog about it, tweet about it, comment on news stories through PR, get on the radio, talk at seminars, write white papers…spread the word and people will find you.
5. Stay up with the trends
Marketing is changing and fast. Whilst pioneering marketers will talk about the end of direct mail, tradeshows and email marketing; these channels still have authority. New marketing like social media is here to stay; here are some trends to look out for in 2010. If you haven’t already, subscribe to our blog to ensure you keep up with the trends as the year progresses.
How much should you spend on marketing in 2010?
This post was last edited by Alex Cohen, on the March 8, 2010 @ 10:40 am
With 2010 just around the corner it’s time to start thinking about what marketing you should be doing next year. Our last blog post highlighted the marketing trends we predict in 2010, this blog focuses on what your budget should be.
Of course the answer is as ambiguous as how long is a piece of string? It depends on your size, industry and money available. Here are 4 things to consider:
1. Start with the end in mind
What are your objectives from marketing? At the end of 2010 what do you want to have achieved from your marketing? More sales, a new website, a refreshed brand, coverage in the media, a product launch? Define your ‘marketing vision’ for the year and this will help define the budget.
2. What have been the most effective strategies to date?
Look back over 2009 and beyond. What marketing has worked? What hasn’t? What aren’t you sure of? It may seem obvious but do more of what worked. Anything that hasn’t worked either stop it or look at taking a fresh approach to it. If something is more effective do more of that.
3. If You’re getting an ROI spend as much as you can
If for every £1 you spend on Google AdWords you get £2 back why give AdWords a budget? You have a licence to print money – if You’re getting an ROI put as much money as you can into it as you will get it back.
4. Remember the time cost
The tools are getting easier and easier. It’s simple and cheap to use email marketing software. It’s free to be on Twitter or network on LinkedIn. But how much is your time worth to you? If you charge £50/£75/£100+ an hour; for every hour you spend writing an email marketing campaign you can’t bill that. Will you get that ROI back? This time cost needs to go into your budget. You may want to outsource it.
So, how much should you spend?
This is all well and good but you want an actual sum…well there’s no hard and fast number but we do have experience which can act as a rough guide:
- The average B2B business that believes in marketing will budget 5% – 10% of turnover on marketing
- B2C professional services may spend a bit more as it needs to reach more people
- A B2C product/website based business will spend up to 100% of turnover on marketing as it needs marketing to get it going and to grow
Whatever you do, remember if you’re marketing with a fairly static annual budget, You’re viewing marketing as an expense. Good businesses realise it is an investment.
7 reasons why you should market your business
This post was last edited by Alex Cohen, on the March 8, 2010 @ 10:43 am
- You may have customers now but where is business coming from tomorrow?
- We’re still in a recession – your competitors aren’t marketing as much. Gain market share when you can and when we’re out of the recession you will thrive
- If you don’t market your business, your competitors will, and they’ll take market share from you
- By doing one thing a day to market your business, for example writing a blog post or sending a letter, will provide you with up to 365 new opportunities a year. These opportunities will help you win new business!
- You don’t need a large budget to get going, you can start small. Start a blog, make some calls, write an email campaign or sign up to Twitter
- How many people can you and your team talk to or meet in a day? How many people can you ‘hit’ from a marketing campaign in a day? Use marketing to spread your reach and build your brand
- You will get a lot more business if someone contacts you rather than you contacting them. Use marketing to get people to come to you and save you time in the sales process
Two graphs which explain why SMEs should do marketing
This post was last edited by Alex Cohen, on the September 11, 2009 @ 12:38 pm
The biggest challenge SMEs face, particularly SMEs that offer a service is getting the balance right between sales and delivery. At first you sell, sell, sell; then you have too much work so spend all your time delivering; as that work comes to an end it’s back to selling again. Revenue will usually follow the work you are delivering. The graph below portrays this cycle:
An SME without marketing
Doing marketing on a consistent month-on-month basis will give you a flow of new leads and sales meetings. In the graph above it’s unlikely anyone would turn down a sales meeting, it’s just getting the sales meetings; time gets focused elsewhere. With marketing constantly delivering leads it can give you a steady flow of business over the long term, ensure you’re always delivering and most importantly you can sustain and grow your revenue. The graph below demonstrates this:
An SME with marketing
Marketing doesn’t work
This post was last edited by Alex Cohen, on the August 30, 2009 @ 7:37 pm
- If you don’t measure
- If you talk about yourself, not what you can do for the customer
- If you give up after your first attempt
- If your branding doesn’t reflect your values, positioning and unique selling points
- If you don’t know who you’re talking to
- If you don’t do it consistently and use different channels
- If you don’t invest enough money or time into it
