If being ‘tech savvy’ is not your forte, then it might be wise to start thinking more about ways the internet and digital media can help promote your business, as there is an increasing number of new marketing opportunities out there which are fairly cost efficient – especially if you are willing to be a…
Business cards are a highly effective marketing tool and are the best way of passing on your contact details to new and existing customers. Printed business cards are often the first impression new contacts will have of your business. Business cards add credibility to your business, if you choose not to have them customers may…
There have been reports recently that Facebook’s popularity is waning in the UK, with one report suggesting that “a 9 per cent drop in Facebook usage since April 2012” because users are: “fed up with social marketing promotions” and “nervous their personal info would be handed over to third parties” The report goes on to…
It is just over three weeks until the official start of Summer 2013. The changing of a season is a great excuse to make changes in your business that you have been putting off for awhile. Here are our Top 5 Tips for Summer: 1. Adopt a summer theme to your marketing efforts. Many families…
If you’ve ever wanted to pitch on Dragon’s Den – but can only spare about six seconds – then you are in luck. Former Dragon Doug Richard will be using Twitter and the video app Vine to accept very quick six second pitches as part of his Launch Me competition. If you haven’t used Vine…
Experiential marketing isn’t something reserved for big business with equally big budgets – elements of experiential marketing can feed into campaigns, whatever the size of your company. For many, the aim of experiential marketing is to accelerate the customer’s decision making process, which executed well, can reduce your marketing and ad spend elsewhere. This post…
Recently, a new study on SME marketing conducted by the Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR) – reported here – was released. In the study, they found that the average SME is only achieving 39 per cent of its planned marketing activity. According to the study, whilst 77 per cent of SMEs recognise that…
For a lot of small businesses entering the digital sphere can mean venturing into unfamiliar territory. However, in a world where customers now ordinarily expect to find sign posts for even the smallest brands and firms online, the world of marketing is becoming less about working on and offline and more about taking an integrated…
Hiring a PR firm for the first time can be a tricky task for SMEs but for those who want to grow their business it’s often a necessary step. If you are starting to find that more of your time is being taking up with promoting your business than running it, or you are about…
Some people love them and some people hate them but there is no doubt that the marketing event is a vital necessity for networking, finding new customers and raising brand awareness. The above statement was one of the key messages from the recent ‘Small Business Week’ held in Chicago, USA which ran at the beginning…
I have been thinking about what to write for this post for the last couple of days. Whilst doing my research and thinking about a few ideas I came across the following infographic that I wanted to share with you. What I like about it is that it concentrates on some very simple things that…
Recently I read a read an article from Forrester called: “B2B Marketers Have A Blind Spot: The Buyer Journey”. It was the first paragraph and diagram (below) that caught my eye: “Last month, I was immersed in face-to-face dialogue with senior B2B marketing leaders from well-known companies who were attending Forrester Forums and FLB events,…
The online space is very competitive and businesses can sometimes struggle to be seen. Your business probably can’t afford to buy any physical land, so why not grab yourself some virtual land and start taking over the map one grid at a time? That’s exactly what the people at Landjacker are allowing businesses to do.…
I was talking with a colleague earlier today and we were discussing blogging, marketing and how to engage with your customers and with more customers. I’m a great believer in blogging being a really powerful marketing tool. (I’ve written about blogging and marketing here before in Inbound marketing – it’s new and it’s hard but…
About a month ago I read the following post: The Questions I Would Ask If I Were Marketing Your Business on the MarketingProfs site. It’s a pretty interesting article and worth a read, particularly where it pushes for more data and real examples to be used to back up all the advice and information that…
Your business will only succeed if you have a healthy client base. In that respect any business, big or small, faces two continuing tasks. Winning new clients and keeping existing clients. Both are as important as each other and together they will ensure the success of any business. In the current economic climate, winning new…
Readers of this blog and my own across at www.adrianswinscoe.com know that I write about building better and more valuable relations with your customers and your people as a way of growing your business. Over the festive break I spent quite a lot of time ‘unplugged’ from the digital world thinking about how we can…
Consumer and customer behaviour is changing in front of our eyes. As a result, there is a lot of talk about how our marketplaces are changing, the influence of digital channels, the importance of word of mouth, how social media channels are allowing customers to find and share us with their friends and networks and…
There’s an old adage “Build it and they will come”. I’m not sure where it originates from but it was popularised by James Earl Jones, playing Terence Mann, when speaking to Ray Kinsella, played by Kevin Costner, in the film: Field of Dreams. I’ve heard this seen and heard this idea used in business, particularly…
The weekly top 5 tips post is always full of helpful hints and advice for small, home and micro business owners. 1. Offer your product or service at a lower price if someone tells you that they already have a supplier. Reduced risk is always an attractive proposition. 2. Be tenacious when it comes to…
