Feb 23

DIY Marketing

By Laura Varey | Marketing Planning, Marketing Strategy, SMEs | No Comments

Marketing is a lot of work. If you’re a small to medium business owner with no marketing team, finding the time to do everything you should be doing to promote your business can be a challenge. Social media, content creation, landing pages, SEO, email marketing, and PR; the opportunities are endless. Whilst all the channels are extremely beneficial to your marketing, have you firstly come up with the objectives for carrying out these activities? Do you know and understand your customers and know how to communicate to them effectively? Thinking of all of this can add up to a lot of work.

That’s why it’s no wonder that 53% of companies outsource their marketing according to Harvard Business Review. Whilst no one knows your brand better than you, sometimes it takes an outsider to really understand your brand from a consumer/customers point of view.

If your thinking of outsourcing your marketing follow the below simple steps and put a value of your spending time against these. If you want your business to grow having the right team around you is of great importance:

Step 1 – Research & Planning

Take time to listen to your market (and keep listening)

Step 2 – Positioning and content approach

Put yourself where you want to be seen

Step 3 – Promotional Plan

Create a clear plan and apply it to boost your business.

Step 4 – Lead qualification & management

Quality leads are the lifeblood of your business, so be prepared to identify and nurture leads to convert them to customers

Step 5 – Technology

Make sure you have the expertise to target your brand and reach the right people

The key to all of this, is the remember that marketing should never sleep. It’s important to analyse the results, be prepared to regroup and realign your marketing strategy and most of all KEEP GOING. Roman wasn’t built in a day, and the marketing of your company isn’t either. It’s important to remain on point for your target audience whilst being authentic to your brand.

Oct 21

Marketing plans for 2015!

By Laura Varey | Marketing Planning | No Comments

It’s a scary time of year, when you start planning 2015, looking at how you want things to pan out of the business. So I thought we would start looking at the predicted marketing trends for 2015 and which strategies should be implemented into your marketing plans for 2015.

We all know that digital marketing is on the increase; however, a recent report by Accenture based on a survey of more than 580 senior marketers globally, found that more than a third believe that digital will account for 75% of their marketing budgets by 2019, while 35% say mobile will account for more than 50%!

Lets have a look at the insight into the digital trend and see what lessons we can learn…

Lesson 1 – Relax the brand controls

The consumption of digital media is on the increase and with this is the amount of content created by customers who love what brands have to offer, and sometimes negative feedback will be included. Embracing this the collaboration with customers can also increase co-creation of new products.

Lesson 2 – Humanise the brand

We talked about this is last months edition of Marketing Magic and according to research by Lippincott “Brands that behave like humans find more favour with customers”. Consumers now buy a lifestyle, and through making your brand more human you are becoming more transparent and moving away from customer cynicism.

Lesson 3 – Maximise converged content

It is believed that content marketing will be taken to the next level promoting it through paid-for social media strategy. Social Media won’t be the only determining factor in this evolution; mobile, smart TV’s and understanding coding will also play a part.

Lesson 4 – Get ahead of technology

With the introduction of Google Glass, Samsung’s Galaxy Gear smart watch and the new Apple iWatch that is coming out in 2015 – media consumption are changing rapidly. The level of consumer uptake or marketing applications is currently not clear, but what is clear is that you can’t be behind the times in your innovations or strategies to reach your customers.

Lesson 5 – Take more risks

Without risk there is no gain! Being versatile and reactive to any brand can be scary but sometimes it’s the big decisions that pay off. Don’t be afraid to look at what is news topical or current and put an opinion out there as long as you can react and rectify any negativity it is one way to raise awareness of your brand.

Brands becoming more reactive can capitalise on 58 million consumer tweets a day, according to Social Media Examiner.

Lesson 6 – Stay ahead of gen Z

Keeping ahead of the next generation is never easy especially now when they are less patient and more difficult to impress. Therefore reaching them requires excellent content on the right media and the right time.

Twitter has changed the way media is consumed, from breaking news to viral content; the tech savvy younger generation no longer see the need for email, all they need is text and social media according to Marketing Week’s Secret Marketer.

Lesson 7 – Merge data with creativity

At its best data and creativity combine and result in the best program possible. Data has been captured for years; marketers saw the introduction of Tesco Club Card combine creative personalised marketing with data. With advancements in technology you can now monitor who is visiting your website which content they are interested in and how long they were there. Thus giving sales teams and marketers the data required personalised marketing and sales messages to convert into a sale.

Jan 14

Spring Clean your marketing…..

By Laura Varey | Digital Marketing, Marketing Planning, Marketing Strategy, Marketing Trends | No Comments

New Marketing Strategies for 2014

Happy New Year to you all, and welcome to my first blog post of 2014, and my first ever blog post.

I hope you all have had a great time with you families over the festive period, whilst managing to rest and rejuvenate yourselves ready for the new business year!! It’s amazing that we have reached 2014 already; I still can’t believe 2013 has gone – it went so quick.

It’s always that first week back to the office, and you realize that you have a whole new year in front of you – I don’t know about you but I always like the first week back. You have a clean slate; and you know that you have some time to breath (even if it is only a week)! If you feel like this it’s always good to take a step back and wonder if there is something you can do different with your marketing this year – almost an early Spring Clean!!

Starting the spring cleaning

So you think you want to do something different but your not really sure where to start…. We have all been there. It sounds obvious but start with your customers! Who are they? What do they want? How do they like to be communicated with? The time you have to communicate with your customers is getting shorter. One of the biggest trends for 2014 is personalisation and relevance of communication to customers’. A one-size-fits all approach to marketing will not win over your customers. Relationship marketing is vital, make your customers feel special and they will become loyal.

I know what the next thing that comes into mind – I don’t have a big marketing budget so how & what can I change?

This is the case for most businesses, but it shouldn’t be a concern. Content marketing will generate leads for your business through simply communicating valuable, engaging content for a specific audience. Content marketing is going to become bigger and bolder in 2014 and with a possible increase of 7.8% in sales with this strategy there is no surprise why.

Content Marketing

Content marketing allows you to communicate constantly with your customers without selling to them! Through creating and distributing content, which makes your customers more knowledgeable, they will reward you with their business and loyalty. This links nice back to the relationship marketing I have just mentioned!! The beauty of content marketing is that it will fit seamlessly into aspects of your digital marketing strategy. Through using social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+ and YouTube; as well as blogging weekly. The more customers that follow you the more they will feel enriched by the value added service you are supplying them.

If you’re a small business, it might be worth reading this article by Adrienne Smith on “How Facebook Marketing for Small Businesses is Dying Fast” She explains how Facebook are changing how the advertising works and the effects this will have on small businesses. It’s certainly worth taking 5 minutes to read it whilst you’re having that second cup of tea! Click here to read more.

Google+ could have an interesting role to play in social media for 2014. Where do your customers look for your services…Google! With that in mind, having a presence on Google+ can only be beneficial in the long run. In addition Google now rank companies with Google+ pages higher in the SEO scoring. So if you already have a Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Pin interest account, it won’t take much just to add Google+ to the list – remember you have to be in it to win it!!

What else is on the horizon for marketing in 2014?

The marketing world is expecting to see the coming together of retail and digital. Retailers will be working harder to connect the customer to the online store and offers. Alongside this they will be developing an in-store mobile connection that will put the fun back into shopping allowing customers to buy in-store or online with free home delivery.

In addition, look out for the further development of 3D printing; location based marketing; and more viral videos. Overall, 2014 is looking set for a fun year!

Time to share

Please don’t forget to share my blog with your friends and family, or share through the various social media links. I would love to hear your thoughts on my post, what you are planning for 2014? Tell me about your experience of content marketing, blogging, social media etc.