Category Archives: Marketing Strategy

Mar 29
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Exhibition strategy!?!

By | Exhibitions, Marketing Strategy | No Comments

Time to schedule your event!

An exhibition is an ideal way of promoting your business, new product or service and of course generating those all-important sales leads.

Before you sign on the dotted line, there are two steps you need to take. The first is setting measurable objectives, write down exactly what you want to achieve by attending the exhibition. This will not only give you a measurement of the success of the exhibition, but it also gives your staff working at the show a target to reach.

The next step is key; making sure you attend the right exhibition for you!!!

It’s easy to sign up for an exhibition because your competitors are there but make sure you investigate the opportunity on offer; are the organiser’s promoting the exhibition and if so ask to see their marketing plan! How many people attend and from which organisations/industries? These questions will help you identify if the exhibition is going to attract your potential customers.

Once you know where you are exhibiting, why your exhibiting and what you want to achieve, make sure that the stand is designed to meet these objectives. You should know what the key marketing message is that you are trying to get across so make sure your stand tells that story. A good stand design will help deliver your exhibition objectives.

Make sure you do not fall into the “one size fit’s all” category – a generic poster or pop up will not inspire people to come and talk to you. Be specific – make your offering relevant to the visitors at this particular exhibition. Don’t forget – the exhibition is your shop window! Make sure you don’t look like your penny pinching –what does that say about how you handle your customers?

Train, Train, Train – Eighty per cent of the success of your stand is down to your staff so train them before attending the exhibition. Make sure they are all in appropriate clothing – branded preferably as it shows you mean business!

Jan 21
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Memory Palaces – every marketers target!

By | Branding, Direct Marketing, Email Marketing, Exhibitions, Food for thought, Marketing Strategy, Public Relations, Social Media | No Comments

I don’t know about you, but I loved the latest series of Shelock from the BBC and was disappointed that is finished last week. The last episode with Sherlock going head to head quite literally against Charles Augustus Magnussen; memory palace to memory palace! It was a fantastic episode with many twists and turns so no wonder there is still such a buzz about it.

The memory palace has been playing on my mind this last week (no pun intended) – how powerful it is, and how as marketers we are trying to tap into the memory palace to influence both consumers and customers with strong logos, branding and corporate images. Using different tactics and ensuring each tactic has a consistent image and message to make sure that we are locked into the memory palace of our customers so we don’t get kicked aside by our competitors.

This has led me to think about the retail environment, how 70% of purchasing decisions are made in front of the fixture and that you have 3 seconds to influence the consumers mind to choose your product over your competitors. This is where the power of the memory palace really comes into play. It’s vital that your product / brand has been securely locked in before they even reach the store.

Knowing your customers

This links back to my blog last week, about knowing your customers, where they go and what they read. This enables you to ensure that all “touch points” that your customer goes through in their every day life has your product or brand there. If your marketing budget can not stretch to TV advertising, then think about page advertising, money off coupons or even advertise on the social media sites they visit. Do they fill their car with fuel at a local garage? Try sponsoring the fuel pumps with your logo. If their son or daughter play’s football or rugby for the local town team, have a advertising board there.

Knowing this level of detail of your customers takes time and commitment so don’t expect it to happen over night. If you consider that Coca-Cola have been in the market for 128 years, no wonder they are securely lodged in all our minds! The one thing they have done very successfully is made sure that the brand has remained the same and consistent over the years. They have even managed to become a tradition at Christmas, many of my friends saying “it’s not Christmas until I see the Coke Lorry advert” – Well done Coca-cola!!! The other thing they have managed successfully are any changes to the brand; they made changes as a evolution otn a revolution so consumers and customers do not have to replace the images in their memory palace.

I know what your thinking – Well that’s great Laura, but I can’t wait 128 years! That’s true for all of us, but let me ask you this…… Do you know how many more customers you need to remember your product in order for you to add an additional 10%, 15%, 20% to your profit or market share? You will be surprised at the difference that some small consistent messages or small changes to your marketing can make year on your to your business.

After all, you don’t want to end up coming back like Moriarty asking your customers – Did you miss me???

Sharing is caring…

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 are your thoughts on the memory palace? Do you think integrated marketing still has a place in this digital marketing age we are in?

I look forward to receiving your comments.
Laura

Jan 14
0

Spring Clean your marketing…..

By | 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.