Measuring your e-marketing in 2013

This week my guest blog comes from Bristol IT Company - Here they discuss the importance of measuring your marketing and how IT can help.

Measuring your e-marketing in 2013

At Bristol IT Company, we're keen on measuring the performance of our our online marketing activities: our website, email and social media. It's not glamourous but it's important. If you’re not measuring, you will never know what worked and what didn’t. It's easy to waste money: "if you  always do what you always did, you’ll always get what you always got!” This article is a quick overview of what you need to do it too, quickly and cheaply.

Watching your web site

Easily the best tool for small businesses to use is Google Analytics. It's free to use and integrating it into a website is easy. It gives comprehensive information about visitor activity, not just the number of visits but how they reached your site and what they did while they were there.

In fact, Google Analytics shows pretty much every kind of user statistic you might need, apart from exactly who your users are. You can even find out a bit about the geography of where they're from, and the internet service providers they're using.

Did your newspaper advertising campaign drive traffic to your web site? How good is the redesigned home page? Careful use of Google Analytics will give you the answers you seek. Did we mention it's free, too?

Examining Emails

Email marketing is woefully underused by small businesses. It’s easy to set up, really simple to use, and very low cost, almost free, in fact. It's also dangerously easy to make a hash of, and unintentionally to spoil the business relationships you're trying to grow.

So, like your web site, you need to send marketing emails carefully, and measure how well each one performs.  Realistically, you can't  do this with workplace email software such as Outlook. Gmail and  Windows Live Mail. You need a professional emailing platform such as those from MailChimp, AWeber and Constant Contact. It may sound daunting, but it's neither hard nor expensive, and the additional information you gain is very worthwhile.

With these tools, you can immediately see how many messages are opened (and by whom), how many people opened your email more than once (always a good sign), how many clicked on links, and who forwarded the message on to friends and colleagues.

Scoring social media

This is harder to do than the others, but it's worth the effort. The right sort of social media activity should mean direct, positive contacts with your business, more 'followers' on Twitter, etc. and more visits to your web site.

Some measures of success can be observed directly, such as the quantity of your Facebook "friends," and actual new business leads, but for other sorts of outcome you need to be clever about measurement.

To understand which posts and updates generate the best activity for your website, time plays a part. Can you see peaks in traffic that correspond to postings you've made? Were there more hits on the product page you specifically talked about? Google Analytics can help you here, too.

Adding it all up

A really simple philosophy that I follow is, “If you can’t measure it, then don’t do it!”

You may find it easier to run a successful campaign by working "backwards." Start off by thinking about what you want to achieve and how you're going to measure your success. When you have those measures identified and set up (if that's necessary), you can confidently aim for the results you need.

Even if you don't win the first time, you'll be learning, and growing in confidence. And you'll be using the technology to advance, not letting it beat you!

Best of luck,

Andy Poulton

Andy Poulton is the Sales and Marketing Manager for Bristol IT Company,  providing IT support and software development services across the region. You can reach him directly at andy.poulton@bristolitcompany.com, or 0117 370 0777

5 Tips to make sure your marketing is not like the average gym membership in 2013

On a scale of 1-10, 10 being the highest, how would you rate your marketing efforts in 2012?

As we rapidly approach the end of another calendar year, many reflect on the past twelve months in business and start to consider the areas that they must improve in 2013.

For some it’s a good time of year, looking back on a string of successes in 2012.  But  for many the unfortunate reality is that they’re just not where they want, or in some cases need, to be.

Marketing is often the first thing to consider: what needs to change and improve in 2013?  How do we make the most of the new media technologies; social media, blogging, mobile, online and e-mail?

For many this is a yearly occurrence, they create and devise a brilliant new marketing plan to kick off in the New Year, but what begins with a wave of excitement and enthusiasm soon falls by the wayside as the day-to-day running of the business gets in the way. Before they know it, the plan is forgotten and they resort to what they know: advertising, cold calls and mass direct marketing campaigns.

Marketing is often the ‘gym membership’ of the business world. Many people start, few actually stick to it, and most dip a toe  in and out when it suits or when time allows.

Let’s be honest, marketing can be really tough. It's always going to be a challenge.  It’s a task, sometimes arduous, always challenging and never easy.  It requires a consistent focus, month in, month out.

But it doesn’t have to be complicated and/or expensive.  It doesn’t have to involve continually throwing money at advertising, something that most find unsustainable over the long term. It also doesn’t have to take up hours of your time each week.

Marketing is no longer about who shouts the loudest or has the biggest budgets. Size and reputation will only get you so far.  It's about connecting and maintaining relationships with your community of prospects and clients, whatever-sized business you have.

It's about having more to offer than just goods and/or services. It's about having a commitment to making my experience of doing business with you a good one, and not just at the point of sale either.

Finally, it’s about using the tools at your disposal and more importantly, learning how to use them properly.

Here are my top 5 tips for 2013;

1) Try Social Media, properly

Social Media is big, really big, but few are using its full potential for business.

To bring this into your marketing mix, firstly consider your audience.  The posts that you share must be interesting and relevant to your client s and/or prospects.

Updates or posts about having a coffee, being stuck in traffic or on your latest purchases from the weekend should be constrained to your personal on-line profile. They'll soon lose the interest of most business focused connections.  Keep it relevant.

Start to share things:  Links, videos, pictures, news, advice, articles, tips, competitions, promotions—anything! Just keep it interesting.

To retain people’s interest, you have to work at it.  The basic rule for any business-related social media is 85% sharing and 15% selling.

If you aim to post 3 times each week, that’s only 12 pieces of information you have to find each month.  Challenge the staff to recommend, create or find something. This will not only help spread the workload but it will bring new and fresh ideas to the fore. In some cases it will give your profiles another voice, and perhaps a slightly different 'take' on things.

When sharing an article, link, photo or video, add a personal message. Better still, add your own thoughts and comments, if they're relevant.

Look out for what your contacts are posting, and where applicable share these on your profile.  This not only helps keep your own profile fresh and up to date, but it may also encourage others to return the favour.

Whatever you do, give your business social media activity proper focus and do it consistently. Otherwise, what’s the point?

If you’d like a little more guidance on how to develop your business social media, see my recent article ‘The Real Value of Social Media in Business’.

2) Join a business networking group

Do your research and go along to a handful of meetings in your area.  Most groups will allow you to attend one or two meetings before you need to decide on permanent membership.

Consider how often they meet, what is required of the members, and the value of the potential relationships within the group. What will be to the return on your investment of time and money? Remember to include any breakfast, lunch or drinks costs that may accompany the membership as this will also be an ongoing cost.

Join one or two different groups. Why? Two is probably the most you'll be able to manage (unless your actual business is networking), but you'll find the atmosphere varies with the personalities in each group, and the variety of contacts can be more than twice as useful as just one. Also, things you prepare for one group can be used in the other, giving you twice the reach for minimal extra effort.

Just signing up doesn’t mean an instant passport to referral business – you have to work at building those relationships.  You may not be able to do business directly with every person in the room, either. But, as with any circle of friends, they will prove a valuable resource when growing your business and they will have contacts and connections that could be a route to your next client.

Networking does take time, but it’s the foundation for building strong, local, long-lasting and reciprocal business relationships.

3) Build a qualified e-mail database

A qualified database contains those contacts who want to hear from you, who enjoy reading your e-mails and who value in reading what you have to share.

It’s much better to have only twenty qualified contacts who read your e-mails than hundreds who don’t.  It may take time to grow and develop the list, but as long as you are sharing interesting, informative and relevant content you will see it grow.

There is some downside risk to purchased lists and unsolicited emails. People generally don't get upset by adverts they didn't expect to see, but unwanted emails can actually annoy them and have exactly the opposite effect to the one you want!

Generally, the same rules apply as to your social media: what you share will determine the success or failure of your e-mail marketing.

If you’re going to struggle for time, commit to one just e-mail each month. Remember, the content can also be broken up into smaller pieces and "recycled"—used as posts and updates for your social media and blogs.  This will save you time in other areas of your marketing.

The best place to start is with your current clients. Tell them about your plans to develop a regular e-mail campaign and ask if they would be happy to receive it.  I have done this for many of my own clients in the past and almost always there is 100% sign-up.

Start a monthly article/e-mail/newsletter and ask for their feedback. Find out what they find interesting and how they think it could be improved and developed over time. When people like what you write they will soon start to share it with their own contacts and hey presto! Your mailing list will start to grow.

Building a qualified database of prospects and clients is an ongoing and gradual process, but as with anything, if you stick to it you’ll reap the rewards.

4) Work on converting more of the visitors to your website

There’s little point in spending time and money driving more people to your website, "search engine optimization" and the like, if you’re not converting the visitors you get.

Look at your current website statistics. Google Analytics is probably the most common tool, it’s easy to use and it’s free. You will be able to drill down in detail to see where your visitors are coming from, the pages, products and services they're most interested in, and crucially where you're losing them, too.

Use this to adapt and change your site, simplifying it if need be. Try a different landing page, take things out, add things in, and make the content compelling and engaging.

The purpose of most websites is to begin a relationship with the visitor. Ideally this would be an immediate ‘sale,’ but what if they don’t want to buy right now?  Are you giving the visitor a reason to come back, to stay in touch or to sign up to your communications? (E-mail, social media, blogs)?

If your website is business-focused make it easy to navigate. Make sure people can find what they want quickly and easily. Ask your longstanding clients to take a look and give you feedback – take action on what they tell you!

Your website will always change and should be kept fresh and up-to-date. If it doesn’t give people a compelling reason to ‘stay in touch’ or buy, changes need to be made.

See my article ‘Top Tips for Creating an Engaging Website’ for more on how to improve conversions from your website visitors.

5) Keep working at it – don’t give up!

Quite simply, whatever you do and whatever options you choose, stick to them.

As with anything in life, what you put in is what you get out.

Success in marketing takes time; it requires a consistent focus and the ability to try different things.

Best of luck for 2013 and beyond.

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IT plays a key role in effective, easy-to-manage marketing strategies, so next week I am featuring a guest blog from Bristol IT Company on their top tips for ‘IT in Marketing’ in 2013.

IT in Marketing
Publish date: Thursday 27th December

The Real Value of Social Media for Business

A short guide for those struggling with LinkedIn or other social media for business – Let’s start again

Over the past year I’ve noticed more and more businesses are recognising the potential in Linked-In and other social media as part of their marketing mix – but how many actually know how to use them properly?

Whilst there's been a shift in the number of businesses using LinkedIn and other social media, many are still confused as to its actual use and value in generating new business – many hear of success stories, few reap the rewards for themselves.

First let us understand where this shift comes from. When social media first launched we all sat starry-eyed at the ability to connect, on a social level, to anyone anywhere in the world.  Old friendships were re-kindled and our social circle was no longer restricted to those we actually saw and interacted with on a daily basis.

With this excitement came the need, for some, to build the biggest networks possible. The thinking was that the bigger the network the better connected someone would be. It's now become, "look how popular I am!"

When business social networking joined the party the same principles were applied. We just connected with as many people as possible in the hope that, at some point, just being connected might lead to new business one day . Occasionally useful things get posted too, but it's not consistent enough to warrant long-term interest – for most of us.

Let’s be clear: we can only effectively manage a certain number of relationships at any one time, so the value of Linked-In and other social media is not about the size of your network, it is about the quality of that network. It’s about how well you engage with people, and how well you grow and develop the relationships.

Social media is a tool to start relationships, a place to engage business contacts and prospects and to act as a catalyst to a physical business relationship.  It won’t ever replace traditional forms of marketing—the phone call, the 1-2-1 meeting, networking or the sales pitch—but it will compliment them.

We can use social media to actively and passively engage our prospects, by offering them something of value, in effect becoming a virtual resource.

If I was starting out on LinkedIn today, here's what I would do:

Firstly complete your profile—all of it!  An incomplete profile will lose engagement in a second, and you only have one chance to make a first impression.

Once you're properly represented by your profile, make contact. Connect with your suppliers, your clients, your good business contacts and good friends who may be in business but not necessarily in a similar field. These people could be your influencers.

Start to post about your business speciality. That could be interesting or informative articles, discussions, tips, thoughts, pictures, videos or links that relate to what you do or the service you provide.  The balance you’re looking for is 85% telling and sharing and 15% selling.

Many struggle when it comes to what to post, but here lies an opportunity to do something fun, Make it slightly unconventional. Engage and encourage interaction and comment but, above all, make people think.

It doesn’t all have to be serious and direct. Business social media does have a social aspect! Most of us are happy to develop and maintain casual business relationships with the contacts we trust and consider of value to our business… so loosen up a little.

This is however, where it needs a little investment of time; finding a selection of things to post, or creating your own content from scratch, will require focus and planning.

Some people are gifted in the ability to write and craft compelling articles that engage you from the first word. For others, me included, it’s a struggle and something that doesn’t come naturally, so it takes a little longer. But, as with many things in life, practice makes perfect, and it will become easier.

If you’re not a competent writer then that’s fine, you don’t need to be.  You will, however, need to create short and interesting posts or headlines to 'hook' people to read the article itself.

In terms of what you share, it can be anything that is genuinely informative, interesting or useful to your contacts. It doesn't have to be crafted by you either: it's still useful to share a link to an external source.

Once you’ve established your basic profile and you have a number of posts or updates under your belt, it's time to identify and research your top 20 or so prospects.  If you can see their profile, look at the things they have posted, the groups they belong to and if they have shared their own comments, thoughts or problems.

This will give you an insight into them, their business life and perhaps some of the problems they experience - you are looking for an opportunity to help them.

Inviting prospects to connect – How?

Here’s where many fail: they simply invite someone to connect with a standard message that says something like, “Hi, I'd like to add you to my professional network.”  It's not likely to end well…

A normal reaction from the recipient would be to question who they are, especially if you barely know them, and probably ignore the request to connect.  In essence, there’s been no value offered in connecting.

To begin with, see if you are connected through your own network of contacts, if so, simply ask for an introduction and to open the door for an invitation to connect.

If there is no natural connection and the prospect is cold you will need to know their e-mail address, from here you can invite them to connect through LinkedIn or sent them a normal e-mail which would simply link to your profile on the site.

Which works best?  Try them both and see for yourself. Here's how I'd make the approach:

“Hi,

I regularly post interesting articles, tips, advice and discussions that relate to xyz, which I think may be of use/interest to you, now or in the future. I'd like to connect so that you can be kept up-to-date with all the latest and relevant information, as well as any important posts that I share relating to xyz.

You can see some of my recent posts on my profile or click here to link to my profile page.

I hope you find it useful.

Regards,

Paul K

Will it work every time? Perhaps not, but it will improve your chances of starting meaningful business relationships.

Of course, this approach relies on making sure you actually do post interesting and informative information, topics or articles…but that’s the overriding point.

Your social media profile is a tool to engage and develop business relationships. To keep prospects engaged, sometimes over a period of months until they’re ready to buy, you have to be able to add value through the connection you have with them.

Increasingly and sensibly, people are careful, assessing the value of the connection before committing to connect. They ask themselves, "Will this person add value through being connected or simply become a pest or nuisance?"

Social and business networking are both passive ways to encourage discussion and interaction with people, but you can make them active: If someone likes, shares or comments on one of your posts, thank them.  Send them a message and begin a conversation. Who knows where it will lead?

Sure, you may strike-out a few times, but if the quality of what you share is good, interesting and useful, you will soon start to attract and engage the right people, conversations will begin and relationships will develop.

What happens beyond this is down to you.

Social media are tools to engage and start relationships. They will never replace one-to-one real conversations and other traditional methods of connecting with prospects. They do now, however have a big part to play in how these relationships can begin.

Social Media is a journey, when will yours begin?

Good Luck!

The Key to Successful Marketing - Free Bread, Mushrooms and Mini Bruschetta

The Key to Successful Marketing - Free Bread, Mushrooms and Mini Bruschetta
Turning cold marketing into relationship building strategies

In recent articles, ‘The Beating Heart of Local Marketing’ and ‘Top Tips for Creating an Engaging Website’, I have discussed that the key to effective local marketing is about offering something of value to the prospect or the visitor.

I met a business last week that shows the reality of what happens when you don’t address this very real and current marketing trend; this is probably the result for many businesses who after much time and effort spent on their marketing are left wondering…why am I not seeing the returns?

On the surface they looked to be doing everything within their power to market and promote their business.  They had eight different marketing activities in the mix; all of their communications were professional, were scattered with the benefits of doing business with them and all were followed up through a consistent and professional marketing process.

The trouble was they were not seeing the return from what was a significant amount of time, effort and co-ordination; the results were average at best.

It was their e-mail marketing strategy that really highlighted the problem; they were sending tens of thousands of e-mails each month to a cold, bought marketing database.  Each e-mail had a sales-led theme on one of their many products and each listed all of the benefits of doing business with them as a local business.

Because none of these people had agreed to receive their e-mail communications in the first place, the open and click-through rate was low and not surprisingly the list hadn’t grown in almost nine months.

The method of swamping a market with sales-led communications will never generate you a consistent return; many resort to this approach because it is traditional and what they are used to, the same reason people normally resort to advertising as their first choice for trying to drive interest.

Build a warm list of prospects and the results are very different; not only will you see a higher readership of your communications (what you send) but you will see a higher click-through rate to your website and better returns.

The only way to do this is to offer something of value in your communications, stop selling all of the time and give the reader something of use, for free.  Yes this approach takes time like everything else does if you aim to do it properly, but there are very few, if any, quick wins in marketing that will bring extra-ordinary results.

Given that you all operate in very different industries it is impossible for me to give you all an individual idea for your type of business; the best way to approach this is to think about what you or your clients like to receive.

For me personally, I like to receive things that educate me (briefly and in small doses), things that I find interesting or useful in relation to the job that I do or the clients that I work for and things that make me smile, the fun and quirky stuff.

Don’t get me wrong, in all of these communications there are subtle sales messages, but I don’t feel the driving force of them sending me something is to sell to me.  I am being given a chance to sample their experience and expertise, I feel as if they are educating me and I feel kept up to date with the things that effect what I do. 

More importantly, I don’t feel like they have intruded on my time; how often has an unsolicited e-mail popped up in your in-box just at the wrong time?  You feel annoyed as it has distracted you; if you are like me it goes straight into the trash and I avoid them in the future because they have become an annoyance.

This type of approach where you share useful or valuable information is called ‘Content Marketing’.  You may have heard this term being mentioned a lot more lately as it has been the buzzword in marketing for some time now.

The beauty of this type of marketing is that if you do have a number of different marketing channels in place, this one single weekly or monthly message can be replicated across all of your platforms.

For example, you may host these pieces of free information on your website on a dedicated page and all of your other marketing channels simply funnel the recipient through to this part of your website.

Your communications therefore become consistent and with one key theme they are easy to put out across a number of platforms.

Because your communications are not merely sales driven, and as long as what you are sharing is compelling, educating or informative, you will see more of the recipients clicking through to your website and you will see more organic growth in your mailing list.  People will share what you send out.

Once they are on your website you are entitled to be a little more direct in your selling, in fact they would expect you to try and sell to them a bit more.  Granted you can’t then plaster the page with big sales driven messages but you can certainly position some of your products and services around the information you are offering for free.

The simplest example I can think of to demonstrate this type of approach would be when I was on holiday a few years back; the promenade for this particular town was a row of about a dozen restaurants side by side, each offering something similar in terms of cuisine, cost and atmosphere.

All but one of these restaurants had two or three staff outside most of the day literally trying to drag you in; they would grab your arm, force a menu in your face and walk in front of you in a somewhat sheepherding motion trying to steer you towards the entrance, it was like running the gastronomy gauntlet.

The very last restaurant had only one member of staff outside and every evening, between 5:30pm and 6:30pm, they would stand behind a small, neatly laid table covered in a crisp, white tablecloth.  On the table were small samples of their food; it was adorned with freshly baked bread, garlic mushrooms and mini bruschetta and these were being freely offered, not forced, to anyone who approached the table to have a look.

Each time someone sampled some of the food the guy behind the table would mention where the ingredients had come from, in this instance it was from a local source and he took great pride in sharing this interesting information with people.

Guess which restaurant was full all night every night?

It was a pretty new development so I’m sure by now the others have cottoned on, but it’s a great and simple example of how you can re-think the way in which you present your business to prospects.

Sure, I get that this may not be as easy or as interesting for your type of industry or product and the appeal for what you offer may not be as far reaching as food is, but it is possible.

This is where the biggest challenge lies; irrespective of what tools you choose to get the message out there, if you can master the art of becoming a resource to prospects and clients, you will see steady and consistent growth in your marketing efforts.

In my own personal view this way of marketing is the way of the future, irrespective of how the marketing platforms may change, the premise of your marketing having to build relationships is here to stay and the sooner you can come to grips with it, the sooner you will reap the rewards.

Final Thoughts

Get to know your clients and you will get to know your prospects; understand what your clients want and respond to and you will understand what to start sharing in your marketing.

Your thoughts, comments and criticism are always welcome, after all this is a blog and everything is up for discussion and debate.

Next Article: Monday 13th August

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Top Tips for Creating an Engaging Website

Top Tips for Creating an Engaging Website

How to make visitors come back but more importantly, how to begin a ‘relationship’ with the visitor

Creating a great website isn’t about flashy graphics, whacky and cutting-edge design or the need to invest thousands of pounds into the development and build of the website.

For me, simple designs coupled with great content will win over complex, over-designed sites that offer an over-whelming amount of choice from the off.

Your website is probably the place where most of your future clients will begin their relationship with you, or not as the case may be, so how do you ensure that you convert more visitors than you lose?

Here are my ‘Top Ten Tips for Creating an Engaging Website’ that brings the visitor back and helps you begin more relationships with more prospects and potential clients.

Top Ten Tips for Creating Great Websites
In no particular order;

1)      Offer something of value to the visitor – This could be free information relating to your product, service or industry such as articles, tips, advice, resource or guides.  Whatever you choose it should make the visitor feel that they walked (surfed) away with something of value, something they never knew before, something that may help them.

2)      Make your site easy to navigate and easy to use – The desire to want a flashy, cutting-edge website with lots to see, interact with and choose from can often lead to an over-designed, complicated website.  Keep it simple and make sure the visitor can find what they want quickly and easily.  Keep the content to the point but offer more for those that like a little more ‘meat on the bone’. 

Use menus, sub headings and headlines; try and help the visitor find what they want in one or two clicks, if they want to read more from there they will click further.  Talk to your web person about dedicated landing pages, optimised pages, anchor links and CSS as these tools may help you.

3)      Avoid large graphics and slow loading video and audio – Whilst these are all great things to include on your site, make sure they are sized correctly or optimised for quick loading.  Slow loading web pages can be a huge turn off so talk to your web person/people and make sure that your website loads quickly.  Only use what you need or have to use and try and balance the look, functionality and content of the site.

4)      Use headlines and sub-menus – OK so I have already mentioned this but it is important; think of you website as a newspaper front page, use headlines and an appropriate number of sections to guide them from the home page deeper into the site.  Businesses often fall into the trap of trying to tell the visitor everything from the home page and we are left feeling confused and over-whelmed with the amount of information being thrown at us.

5)      Begin a relationship with the visitor – Forget about the statistics on how many visitors that visit your site are actual prospects, the fact remains that your website will get hits from prospects and potential clients.  When they get to your site, do they have an opportunity to engage with you, open or begin a relationship with you?  For most this will be done through some form of ‘Content Marketing’, such as e-mail articles, advice, newsletters, blogs, subscriptions, downloads, etc. 

All of these things are effective at opening the door to your visitors, engaging their interest and opening up a line of communication.  Of course you can’t just jump in and sell but more on this in future articles.

6)      Spelling, grammar, broken links and out of date information – All of these are cardinal sins for websites but are so easily left unattended for long periods of time, normally because of the day to day running of the business that gets in the way.  I myself have been guilty, in fact I am currently guilty, of letting my website go for a long period of time without being updated, managed or worked upon.  Thankfully, Bristol IT Company have offered to take care of sorting it out for me so you can expect my new site very soon.   A website that is well written, up to date and accurate will convert more visitors than an out of date, over or under populated site with bad spelling and grammar.

7)      Give the business a personality – In my last article ‘TheBeating Heart of Local Marketing’ I discussed giving the business a personality and through your content, you can.  If you are a local business, give the business a voice and give it a human touch.  With so many online communities, the opportunities for a business to create a community around their own business are sizeable.  Try and engage with your visitors through your blog, articles or downloads; people still buy from people and so give people a chance to share opinion, views or comments and respond to them.  Don’t hide from the prospects!

8)      Track the performance of your website, change and improve it – Free tools like ‘Google Analytics’ are great to give you an overview of the performance of your site.  Whilst it is not an exact science as there are reasons why not every visit will show, it will give you a good enough overview of how people are interacting with your site. 

From this you will be able to see what people like and don’t like, where they come from, where you lose them on the site, how long they spend on the site, what content is of most interest and a whole lot more.  From this you can change, improve and adapt the content on the site until you reach the point that you are engaging and converting an appropriate amount of visitors.

If you are unsure on how to install and use this tool, or you need some help to interpret and analyse the information, then please feel free to drop me a note or pick up the phone and I can talk you through it.

9)      Bring them back – Make sure you have something to bring them back to you or stay in touch with you; this will normally be though your content marketing in the form of blogs, articles, news, events, guides, downloads, etc.  If, what you are writing is compelling and offers something of value to the visitor, chances are they will come back again in the future.  By using an e-mail sign-up box on your website you can capture the e-mail addresses from people who would like to engage with you, now you can control how often you bring them back to your site!  Clearly and as I have already mentioned, you can’t just jump in and sell but more on this in another article.

10)   Invest time and resource into your website – Your website is your most valuable sales tool, it works for you twenty-four hours a day and engages with prospects even whilst you sleep.  Leaving it unattended will soon give the impression that there is nothing of value to come back for and slowly but surely, your visitor numbers will drop off.  Invest some time each week to keep the content fresh, meaning the parts that you can and should update like; articles, blogs, news, events, gigs, promotions, offers, etc. 

If you simply don’t have the time, look to employ the help of an outside Marketing Consultant or Consultancy, or drop me a line.

Bonus Tips

1)      Once your website is live and ready to show off, share it – We all have a network of contacts that would happily post or share the things that you publish or promote on your website; use them where you can and where it is appropriate.  Share links to the free resource on your site through your blog and social media profiles, on your e-mail signatures, on quotes, proposals and wherever it is appropriate; keep them short and to the point and in some cases, subtle.

2)      Promote your site – Get involved in online discussions and through your social media profiles; start with one or two and see how they develop.  Like anything it will take an investment of time and these online relationships will need to be nurtured.

Linked-In is becoming more and more popular and offers a local business an opportunity to get involved with local discussions; regional, national and global discussions as well if this suits the business.  Once again don’t jump in and start to sell, you will need to share views, thoughts and comments and over time build relationships with the people in these groups and online communities.  This topic warrants an entire article so I’ll cover this in a future edition.

3)      Longevity and room for improvement – Once your site is complete and by that I mean it does everything you need it to do, it looks good and it works well, you will probably keep it for two or three years  before wanting to re-develop it.  That said, you may want to continually improve the site, add new features or functions or update some of the content so make sure you have the scope to do this.

Investing in a site with an adequate Content Management System will be a good investment and will pay for itself from the minute the site is live; they also don’t cost as much as you may think.

 

Final Thoughts

My personal over-riding principles for any website are that it is clean, crisp and easy to use.  Offer something of value, engage with the visitor, share something with them, guide them, explain to them and sell to them.  Bring them back.

Your thoughts, comments and criticism are always welcome, after all this is a blog and everything is up for discussion and debate.

Next Article: Monday 30th July

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The 'Beating Heart' of Local Marketing - How to make the right marketing tools work for your particular business

The ‘Beating Heart’ of Local Marketing

How to make the right marketing tools work for your particular business

The question I’m asked most when I first meet people in business is, “what’s the secret to good marketing?”

The truth is there is no secret to marketing; it’s as simple as that.  Creating a marketing strategy that consistently delivers and that continually grows and adapts to the needs of the business isn’t something that happens overnight; that said, with a bit of patience, a basic understanding of the marketing tools that you have at your disposal and a focused and continual effort you will see the payoff a lot sooner than you may think.

But…and it’s a very big but; before you can begin to consider how you will market your business, you need to have a clear and definitive identity, meaning the business has to convey a clear, simple and definitive message through the marketing.

This identity, message, brand, position in your market, whatever you want to call it is what you are, what you offer and how you offer it.  It will lead you to market yourself in a certain way, to market to a particular market; it will influence the message you send out, how you position that message and most importantly it will determine which marketing tools will serve you best.

Your identity should be the beating heart of the business and of the marketing; after all it’s what you are.

Not getting this part right first is probably one of the biggest causes for marketing efforts to under-perform and here’s why; if you consider that your identity will ultimately decide the message you deliver, it will also guide your strategy or plan on how you are going to market your business.

For example; if your identity is best described by quality and expertise then part of your plan or strategy would be a blog or a platform to share free articles with useful and relevant information, something that would position you as an expert in your field.  Your website would represent a quality business, the information would be up-to-date and accurate, there would be lots of free resource for me as a visitor or prospect and my overall experience of being on there would be an enjoyable one.

The point I’m trying to make is that your identity will ultimately guide your marketing and it will help you map out an achievable, successful strategy.  It will also help you identify which tools and which mix of tools will serve you best but more importantly, to identify and stop the ones that don’t.

So How?

Clear your mind and think about your business; for this part forget about the marketing just think about the business.

What do you sell, offer, provide?

You will have probably settled on the key service that you provide or the product that you sell, for example; Recruitment Consultant, Solicitor, Estate Agent, Car Dealer, Retailer, Restaurant, Gym, Spa, etc.

Now take it one step further and pick which of these, currently, best describes your business;

·         Value

·         Expertise

·         Service

·         Quality

·         Choice

·         Location

·         Heritage

·         You have a genuine USP that can’t be copied and is unique only to you.

There may be other key differentials for your particular business or product so keep them in mind.  I’ve selected these as they are probably the most common criteria for the majority of businesses and best represent the point I’m trying to make, for example, if you were a restaurant then ‘Local Produce’ may be one of your key defining features.

Now think about your marketing; look at your website, your brochures and other marketing collateral, your recent written communications to prospects, recent or past advertising campaigns, your social media profiles, e-mail signatures, branding, logos and anything and everything that is used to try and ‘sell’ your business to your prospects.

Does your marketing honestly convey and reflect your real identity, does your marketing ‘currently’ do you justice?

Surely if these are the key defining features of your business then your marketing and everything that you do to attract new customers must reflect this; if these are the main reasons that people buy from you, they need to be the focus of everything you do to market the business.

Now take a look at your competitor’s sites and try to get hold of some of their marketing communications, adverts or brochures.   How do they position themselves and what brand or identity are they portraying, what are your first impressions?

Is the website easy to use?

Is the information on the site clear and accurate?

How much information is on the site, can you find what you want quickly, easily and without having to ‘jump through hoops’?

Are they running any short-terms offers, promotions, initiatives or events?

Are there photos or pictures to look at?

Is there a sign-up box on the site in return for some useful information?

Is there free information available that a prospect may find useful, valuable?

Is it up to date and are the news sections and feeds recent and regular?

Are there links to other business profiles – Social Media?

Did you enjoy the experience of visiting the website or were you left unimpressed?

Are there testimonials or endorsements on the site?

Have they convinced you to go back and have another look in the future? (near future)

What does their other ‘Marketing Collateral’ tell you? (Brochures, leaflets, adverts, letters)

What’s the one clear message being portrayed throughout – Is there one?

If a prospect visited their website, would they be likely to want to open a business relationship with them, meaning would they go back or perhaps stay in touch – or would the prospect leave and never go back?

How to interpret what you see

Let’s say their website was clear, easy to use, had useful or valuable information to share for free, had a sign-up box, posted regular updates in the news/blog/articles section, the information was clear and informative and offered me everything I could need to make a balanced view of what this company is like to deal with - this would make them a company focused on quality and expertise with (hopefully) service levels to match.

This approach is used to gain trust, position the business as experts (leaders) in their respective field and thus attract those looking for a quality product or service.  The sign up box and free content would show me that they collect e-mail addresses from prospects, perhaps for a unique content rich mailing or article that may convince the prospect that this company will give me an exceptional service, they know their stuff and I feel safe buying from them.

This business has a ‘Beating Heart’.

If, on the other hand, the website was difficult and frustrating to use, the information was inaccurate and out of date, the news items were old, there was no offer of information or expertise for free, the website felt cold and stale, your experience was one to forget – this would tell me their service levels are likely to be poor, their attention to detail is also probably poor and so there is a good chance I won’t be looked after; doing business with them may be a chore so I probably won’t go back.

Only once you have evaluated both your market and your business, and only once you have a clear identity that form this ‘Beating Heart’ of your marketing and of your business, can you begin to plan a strategy that has every chance of success.  Only then will you be able to clearly focus your efforts on the tools and platforms that work best for what you want to achieve and be able to lose or ditch the things that don’t.

There may be many individual things that ultimately combine to deliver a particular message in your marketing but remember the little things all add up. 

In coming articles I will share some of the over-riding principles and rules of what to look out for as well as some ideas and tips on how best to use tools such as; your website, social media, e-mail marketing, direct marketing, briefings, events and seminars, content marketing,. PR and others as part of your local marketing strategies.

Final Thoughts

Any business, irrespective of size, turnover, budget, locality or marketing knowledge has the ability to implement strong Marketing Plans that grow to deliver results, all within the confines of any individual budget or resource constraints.

It doesn’t matter whether you are a local, independent shop or business with a local customer base, or a large regional or multi-national with customers stretching the length and breadth of the country, get the basics right and you will see results.

What may start as a seemingly basic idea or strategy can soon grow into something far more robust, something that ultimately forms the backbone of your marketing.

Most importantly don’t keep re-investing in marketing campaigns or in advertising if you continually fail to see a return from your efforts; if what you’re doing isn’t working stop it and go back to basics, in marketing, simplicity is key.

It’s probably worth mentioning that a good dose of patience, persistence and hard work is also required; if you are short on time, in-house resource and the passion to tackle your marketing properly, it may be worth looking to a Marketing Consultant to help you; I’m always happy to have a chat on the phone should you want to chew things over with someone first.

Remember, any change in tact won’t happen overnight, depending on the resource you have at your disposal it may take a few months to really gain momentum.  That said you will see small returns from your efforts even in the first few weeks and you will start to see the potential to be had from following the right strategy.

Any re-think requires an open mind and the thoughts of a few minds are better than one.  If you employ customer facing or sales professionals, get their views; these people will generally tell it like it is and they will prove valuable allies when you come to implementing any new plan.

 

Next Article: Saturday 14^th July

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