Make hay whilst the sun shines - Summer Marketing Tips!

Summer is traditionally a quiet time for most businesses, everyone is away on holiday and trying to get decisions made or projects moved forward can be difficult. In the current climate it can be unnerving and we should take this time to catch up on some of those valuable marketing activities that in busier times have slipped to the bottom of the list: So whilst the sun shines why not:

1. Create a mini-plan: If you don’t already have a marketing plan in place, make one now. We are only a little more than half-way through the year, which is plenty of time to put together a focused, effective plan to guide your efforts for the rest of the year. Include some low-cost or no-cost activities, like e-marketing campaigns or web site updates.
   
   
2. Try social networking: Not on Facebook yet? Not yet tweeting on Twitter? If not, this may be the perfect time to give it a try! Although accounts on sites like Facebook and Twitter are free to set up, they will cost you some time each week to interact with the people in your network, plus the time it takes to integrate your accounts to work well together. If you are not comfortable with setting this up then get some help i.e Twitter workshops. The long-term benefits will outweigh the upfront costs to get going with this new marketing trend.
   
   
3. Send an e-survey: One of the best ways to refresh interest in your business and show customers that you are listening to their needs is to send out an e-survey. You can use one of the many low-cost online services such as Vertical Response or Constant Contact to create an email survey asking for feedback about your products and services. Consider giving respondents a money-saving coupon or free gift as a thank you for participating in the survey.
   
   
4. Write an article: Take advantage of the slower pace of summer and write an article or two. Don’t use any sales-y language or marketing fluff; instead, give readers truly useful information that showcases your expertise and experience. “How-to” articles or “Top-10” lists are good examples of useful articles that are popular with readers. Post the article on your blog, use it as new content on your web site and include it in your monthly newsletter.
   
   
5. Have a summer e-sale: Create a special offer or sale on something you haven’t promoted in a while, or offer something unexpected, and send it as an email campaign. Make sure the offer has a beginning and ending date to create urgency, and be as creative as you can when promoting it.
   

Just because summer may be a slower time for your business doesn’t mean that it is impossible to pick up the pace! By taking steps to boost your marketing this summer, you may discover new ways to get your customers’ attention and improve your revenue all year long!

Need help with any of the above - please contact me: june@tef.me.uk

How to use Twitter better as a Marketing tool?

Everyone is talking about it and businesses are considering if they should be using it. But is Twitter just about following your favorite Radio 1 DJ or about incorporating it into your overall marketing strategy? The answer is both, but for it to be an effective marketing tool you need to consider the follow:

Decide on and find the people you want to communicate with. You should build a group of followers that are interested in your tweets i.e. if you work specifically in the Home Counties then these are the people that should be following you. Therefore you need to recruit them smartly.

• Look at Twitter applications such as Tweepsearch and try to find out via keywords who are other twitterers that could be part of your target group
• Use other online media where you know your target group is and highlight the option of following you on twitter and what type of content you will be tweeting
• If someone looks like they could be part of your network then follow them for a bit – if not you can always un-follow – they will not be offended!
• Check out other peoples followers and Re-Tweets – they may be in the same target market
• Register with Twitter Business Directories like Twibs, Twellow, Twtbiz
  

Be Consistent in what you Tweet and the way you say it. Maintain an Image / Brand

• Decide if it is about strategy, marketing, interesting products or just personal information and fun
• Only Tweet when you have something useful / relevant to say.
• Ensure your target group is not getting the same information from a different source – be inventive and original.
• It is also about the art of listening and responding to other peoples Tweets – it is a form of communication and building a community around your business.

Integrate it with your other online marketing

• You are limited to 140 characters so make sure you have other online media you can use to communicate the rest of the message. Links to blogs / websites / associate organisations.
• Use url shortening services like bit.ly and tiny.url which will help you to integrate long web addresses into your tweets.
• Tweets are public so think beyond the tweet to other forms of communicating once the relationship has been established – Direct Tweets are not public and of course Email.

Monitor the results of your Twittering – it may be free but your time is valuable

• Have you achieved your original goal – reaching your target market
• Have you increased traffic to your website?
• Found new associates / suppliers?
• Had more subscribers? Votes? Bookings
  

If you consider Twitter as part of your overall strategy with the same planning and execution as you would any campaign then you should see it helping to generate a group of interested followers that may recommend you to others or ultimately become a valued client.

Happy Tweeting.

Taken from my Social Media Marketing Workshop I am running on two dates 6th and 13th July.

Do you Twitter, Digg or Stumbleupon to get business?

Much has been written about social media, conversational marketing, buzz marketing, and shared networks. There are some real advantages in understanding this media and how it can be utilised to help you get your name out there and more business. But how does it compare to direct and e-marketing ?

What is Social Media?

Social media websites enable sharing - Youtube for video; FlickR for photos; Blogger for blogs; Facebook, LinkedIn, and MySpace for friends; Digg, Stumbleupon for recommendations; Yelp for reviews; ... the list goes on with hundreds of sites.

Many support fan-bases, friend circles, or other viral marketing tools that become distribution channels for your marketing messages.

Over one billion people access the Internet daily. More time is spent on social media websites than email, search, and other Internet uses combined.

It's hot!

What Businesses Want?

What's the relevancy of social media? How do we integrate social media with business?

Any business wants reach, brand recognition, and mindshare that generates more orders. If you can reach 100,000 customers, and have a recognized product or service - then, each time you reach the customer with a message, they are more likely to respond. These orders can be online or offline through retail.

Reach, recognition, and mindshare lead to results. It's simple.

Traditional Marketing

Traditionally, businesses gather addresses or email addresses and send ; or pay for flyers, coupons, or ads through publishers who have the mailing addresses. These have been high cost, high friction activities.

• A stamp costs .36p and is rising. Total mailing budgets cost £2.00 plus and rising.
• Effectiveness of direct mail is declining. Few open unsolicited mail.
• eMail collection and management is high friction, high decay, and dropping in effectiveness.
• Users are reluctant to register and give you an email address. Registration is high friction.
• eMail addresses decay 20% per year. An unmanaged list decays to uselessness in two years.
• Spam blockers prevent bulk mailings - most bulk email don't arrive.
• eMail formatting is limited and complex. No flash, video, or interactive component.
• Few people read the email - deleting without reading.

Not surprisingly, return on investment (ROI) on a direct mail campaign has dropped.

Social Media - the Low Friction Approach

Effective use of social media replaces the list building, message sending, and mindshare maintenance functions. A blog is your media archive - with multi-media postings and an RSS subscription mechanism. Your presence at social networks like Youtube, Facebook, or LinkedIn are like magazine racks at popular cafes to reach fans, friends, and interested parties.

• Readers discover you or your products by friending or subscribing. Compared to registration or supplying an email address - these actions reduce the friction to join to clicks - no typing, easy decisions, less commitment.
• Lists are decentralized. Each member maintains their own current address. The connections - whether a friend or a subscription - are maintained automatically. The list stays fresh.
• The lists scale - to millions. With addresses, the cost to mail a million is prohibitive - not scalable. With emails, blocking of bulk mail stops scalability. (ed: Obama leveraged his ad budget with social media to impact 4 million voters per month.)

Like traditional media, the likelihood that a member would see/read a social message is low.

However, social media compensates with:

• Scale. Your lists sum to millions of connections.
• Frequency. You can publish 1, 2, ... 10 messages a day - thus increasing the chance that a fan would see your message.
• Format. The message can be video, interactive, musical, or otherwise capture the attention of a fan.
  

Although the creative costs can be the same as traditional marketing, the distribution cost is zero. This means you can send more messages, test messages, and actively manage the message flow with very small investments.

With lower investment and higher returns, social media improves ROI. Most importantly, the solution scales from a few customers to millions.

Conclusion

What is social media? It's an efficient replacement for direct mail marketing.
Every business needs to learn and experiment

See you on twitter,

Champagne ideas on beer money

According to the market research, businesses that invest in marketing during a recession typically see a return on investment of more than 4 per cent in the short term, as well as gaining market share three times faster in the two years following a recession.

Fortunately, effective marketing doesn’t have to break the bank - if it’s done creatively. The following are just some of the ways growing businesses can make the most of the tough times ahead by smart use of direct marketing.

Refresh your marketing materials

Revamping brochures, pamphlets and flyers can be done cheaply in-house using Desktop Publishing software or even Microsoft Word to create professional looking documents that can be printed locally. Even photos can be purchased, royalty free, from sites such as www.istockphoto.com

Ensure your website is up-to-date

• As more and more people move online, it’s vital you don’t get left behind and miss out on their custom. Ensure the content of your website is relevant and up-to-date and all your latest customers and news is posted regularly. Silly things like contact details, email addresses, phone numbers and links are current.
  
• If your website is out of date and does not change neither your customers nor the search engines will visit it. Include a blog or something that can be easily updated with useful information and details for your customers.
  
• Sign up for all the free “relevant” online directories – get your website listed and out there – even Linkedin, or Facebook can add traffic to your site.
  
• Utilise the free Web Optimisation tools that Google now has available or attend a good website workshop that will tell you how to design a good website that the search engines will be able to easily optimise.

Email effectively

Email marketing is an affordable method of reaching out to potential customers and can be targeted very effectively, with the added benefits that recipients can respond immediately. You can send out emails to various mail groups using your in-house address book or database. Another, larger scale and perhaps more efficient option is using an outside email marketing company to assist – but whichever you choose, ensure you are able to measure the emails’ effect on sales.

As an example – I worked with a client before Christmas to send out 4500 emails – 450 of them were opened and 90 of them clicked on the link with 14 looking at his website for more details. After following up the people that were interested he now has already secured one piece of business with another two in the pipeline totalling £30,000 – not bad for an afternoons work.

Press the flesh

• You are always the best ambassador for your business – networking is a proven method of meeting new people and increasing business. Research your local groups and go along for a visit and make sure you make some meaningful contacts whilst you are there.
  
• Dust of your little black book of contacts – friends, family, suppliers, people on Linkedin and see what they are doing and who they may know that could either help you with your business or refer you on.

This year will be hard, but companies who invest wisely in selected marketing initiatives will bolster their position and enable them to emerge surer, stronger and brighter from the economic gloom ahead.

Remember – if you don’t ask you don’t get.

Good Luck