What to say? - Improve your Content Marketing in 2012

We have seen the Social Media revolution explode in 2011.  More and more businesses are embracing Social Media finding it to be an affordable and effect way of marketing their business.  My bite-size Twitter, Linkedin, Facebook and Blogging Social Media workshops have been incredibly successful and are now running monthly.  One of the biggest questions to come out from these workshops is "What do I say?", its all well and good setting up Social Media platforms but unless you have good content this whole area of marketing can seem difficult.

So I have put together 10 useful steps to help you  improve your content marketing in 2012, increase your brand awareness and kick-start your Social Media Marketing

1. What are your business goals for 2012 and how is your marketing plan going to deliver on these goals.  i.e. increase on-line sales by 25% may require a 50% increase in webtraffic.  Make sure each goal is measurable so you can see how your marketing is performing.
2. Who is your target audience?
   
   Research your audience, ask them questions, research website traffic data, who are they? What are they reading? What are they talking about? What are their likes and dislikes? Think about the information they may be looking for.
3. What will be your messages?
   
   What messages will you be aiming to put over with your content? Try and come up with one to three main messages each with one to five sub-messages.  i.e. You as an expert but in three key business areas or Specialist producers with knowledge on unique products.
4. There are three different types of content marketing: Long-form - blog posts, articles and press releases — basically, anything longer than a couple of sentences. Short-form includes tweets, Facebook and LinkedIn status updates and graphics. Conversations and sharing includes participating in and driving conversations through blog commenting, link sharing and comments on videos.
   
   You can stick to one of these forms of content marketing, or you can use all three. They are each effective on their own, but they are also powerful when used together.
5. Have an Editorial Calendar
   
   An Editorial Calendar can help you plan what content you need, when it is required, deadlines and responsibilities.  This is a fairly major undertaking, but you’ll be thankful for your hard work once it’s complete — and you’ll save time in the long-run. Not sure where to begin?  Download my Content Marketing Editorial template.
6. Create a Content Bank.
   
   You need to develop the content you are going to use.  It needs to be unique and different. Go back to your key messages and subtly incorporate them into the content without overtly selling your product. Content marketing is about creating trust through education and information, not using traditional sales tactics.  Look back on content you have created in the past can it be re-used?  If you have difficulty producing content then look for some help from freelance copywriters.
7. Writing for the Web
   
   Ensure you have a good place to put your content on the web i.e. your website or a blog (Wordpress or E-Blogger).  When writing your content ensure it contains your relevant keywords. SEO plays a huge role so make sure you add tags and links to your posts.  Research your keywords to ensure they will generate traffic for you.
8. Social Media - Spread the Word
   
   As part of your editorial calendar, schedule in how you are going to publicise your content:  Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, e-newsletters, guest blogs and associate sites. Remember to pick the platform that is right for the message.  Think of your audience - who are you talking to and tailor the message to them.  If you are unsure how to use any of the platforms then attend one of my Social Media Workshop
   
   Don't forget off-line too - you content maybe of interest to newspapers, journals and magazines.
   
   Eloqua came out with a free ebook, The Grande Guide to B2B Content Marketing, a helpful read when it comes to content marketing. Plus, it’s useful for deciding which platforms you should employ and how to effectively use them.
9. Measuring your results
   
   Always measure the effectiveness of your content, you can determine whether or not your plan needs to be altered, or whether it’s working in the first place. Keep an eye on pageviews, retweets, Likes, shares and so on. Anything your audience can take action on is something, you need to pay attention to. Figure out how well everything is working — or why it’s not working at all.
10. Have an evolving plan
    
    If something isn’t working, change it up. Be sure to pay attention to results, and then use them to your advantage.

Finally, quality content is better than quantity.  Always plan what you are going to say and who you are going to say it to - it will therefore always be well received by your clients and prospects. If you need help then Contact Me

When is the best time to email blast?

Testing is really the only way to know for sure. For example, it used to be the general consensus that Monday was the WORST day to send emails, so as a result the volume of Monday emails went way down.but then someone got the bright idea to send their emails on Monday and suddenly Monday became the BEST day to send theirs.

There are benchmarks out there but its hard to find one that mirrors your product, your offer, your demographic, your timing, etc.

I have used this list of pros and cons in sending email for each day of the week, which originally appeared on the 60-Second Marketer, written by Jenn Abecassis, as a general guide.

Monday -

Pros: Office work has not filled inboxes yet.

Cons: People are in “work mode” and won’t be focused on non-work tasks.

Best Practice: Send emails late Monday morning, after people have cleaned the weekend spam from their inboxes.

Tuesday -

Pros: People have organized their week, and can find personal time for emails.

Cons: Emails poised for a weekend response may be too early.

Best Practice: Use Tuesday for emails that request action during the workweek.

Wednesday/Thursday -

Prose: People are planning their weekends and gearing up for personal time.

Cons: Time during the workweek is running short, and requested action may be pushed back to the following week, or even forgotten about.

Best Practice: Focus leisure and weekend notifications during these key weekend planning days.

Friday -

Pros: Studies indicate fewer total emails sent compared to the rest of the week, increasing visibility among the myriad of other messages.

Cons: People hurry to leave the office early, and may not take time to view non-work related emails.

Best Practice: Send emails early in the day to give consumers more time to take action. An unopened email from Friday will sort to the bottom of an inbox on Monday, and is often discarded.

Weekends -

Pros: People check emails on weekends, too, so weekends may have untapped potential.

Cons: A B2B weekend email may seem overly-intrusive to some people.

Best Practice: By all means test. People tend to be less stressed and tolerant on weekends. Plus with mobile devices outselling laptops, emails are opened and read at all hours after work.

So, The BEST way to move forward is to:

1. Use the guidelines above in making an initial educated guess
2. Test to see whether your guess was right or not
3. Once you've got the best day nailed down, try experimenting with what time of day works best
4. Make sure you maintain accurate reports so you can benchmark your results moving forward.
5. Be careful about general company metrics. We have seen completely different test results within the same company for different business units.

Thinking outside the Inbox

Ten Tips for “Outside of the Inbox” Email Marketing

1. Forget the “batch and blast” technique and consider your email campaigns as part of a conversation. Begin to think of each email campaign you send out as part of an ongoing dialogue with each prospect. The way to keep the conversation going is to listen (how are recipients responding to the campaign), be relevant (what are their projects and interests), and engage them in meaningful ways (if they visit your product page, your next communication should focus on products, not your blog).
   
2. Move beyond open and click-through rates – what else are your prospects and customers doing? The standard email success metrics are great, but explore all the valuable information available to you. After each email campaign, see where prospects went on your Web site, how often they visit, and whether there are new ways to think about how to segment your prospects based on the behaviours they exhibit.
    
3. While we’re on the topic of segmentation… Combine the “standard” segmentation approaches (lead source, industry, etc.) with behavioural data (e.g. who opened up an email, downloaded or, spent more than 30 minutes on your site and visited more than 3 pages) to create more complex segmentation strategies. 
    
4. An email message is called a “message” for a reason. A great way to test what messages about your product or service resonate with your audience is through email. Use campaigns to tailor your messages according to your prospects interests and actions and see what really strikes a chord with certain segments.
    
5. Automate what you can and leave more time for creativity and strategy. Use a marketing automation solution as the extra marketing resource you never had. Set up automated campaigns based on event and behavioural triggers and rest assured that you’re building up relationships with prospects every time. 
    
6. Mix up your campaign styles and methods. Experiment with a variety of email campaign types, some from marketing (HTML), some from sales (Outlook), and even some from you! You’d be surprised how receptive people can be when they know the message is coming from a real person—even a “marketer.”
    
7. Take deliverability seriously. Your creative strategies are no good if your emails can’t even get through to your prospect’s inbox. Use a tool such as Marketo, Pardot, Eloqua to proof how your campaign will look in di¬fferent email readers and identify if the HTML or content will cause trouble with spam filters before you hit “send.”
    
8. If you’re not testing, you’re guessing. Email testing shouldn’t be difficult to execute or understand the results. Testing subject lines should be a standard process to optimize open rates, but try to incorporate A/B testing into your campaigns whenever you can. All you need is two versions of an image, a piece of copy, or a promotion, and you’ll be on your way.
    
9. Dive deeper into your email reports without touching Excel. Use reports and dashboards that are built with the marketing user in mind, letting you publish detailed reports without needing to jump into Excel or creating the much dreaded pivot table. Use all of the details given in the reports to understand each prospect interaction and use this to inform your next campaign and prove marketing ROI!
    
10. Use “check in” emails to continuously build your relationship with each and every prospect over time and gain useful feedback. Prospects and customers will appreciate a “check-in” email from you or a sales rep every once in a while. These are great opportunities for you to ask how you’re doing as a marketer and ensure that your email communications are useful and informative. Ask what they found most useful about your spefic programs and what they’d like to see in the future.

Taken from http://www.marketo.com/library/marketo-email-marketing.pdf

Good Content Sells

Sending a relevant message about your product or service at the right time directly improves results and drives demand. By creating great content, you can create more sales leads, drive website traffic, promote brand, and educate customers and prospects. To ensure you get the most out of your content marketing efforts, follow these six rules:

1. Make sure it is not promotional – promotional materials will neither excite nor inspire, both critical components of content marketing.
2. It is relevant – generic materials that are not highly relevant to a reader will not result in increased success. When writing content you must make sure it will be useful to the reader, regardless of whether it supports your company message.
3. It closes a gap – content marketing should answer a business question or problem. An added benefit of this useful information is its ability to be used in lead nurturing.
4. It is written well – poorly written thought leadership may not only provide poor results, but may also hurt the company’s reputation. Take time to ensure content is presented in a thoughtful manner and is free of errors.
5. It is relevant to your company – if the content you create does not support business objectives in any way, it is a waste of resources to produce. Keep business goals in mind when creating content.
6. It gives proof – since you write to support a business goal, your content may seem biased. Make sure that content you create gives proof either through quotes and testimonials or through actual metrics and statistics.

If in doubt - get some help.  If you would like to know more about content marketing and lead nuturing give me a call 02081 446 222

Building your digital marketing jigsaw

Here are some practical steps you should take when building your digital marketing jigsaw:

1. Get your “Home” in order before you invite visitors in. Make sure your website reflects you and speaks to your target audience. How can you solve their problems? No website is better than a bad one.
   
   
2. Make sure you can be found by Google and its friends – ensure your website has simple, good optimisation – your web developer should talk to you about this. Check out Google Maps – gets you right to the top of the Googles.
   
   
3. To blog or not to blog? Can you provide your clients and prospects with valuable changing content? This is easier for service industries than with products. If you can then a blog can be a good platform – if not don’t create one and leave it empty
   
   
4. Be a content radar. Start to make a list of topics, articles, themes, current market trends that you can talk to you clients and prospects about. How can you grab their attention and see you as a source of help? What campaigns are you planning? Events, workshops, special offers
   
   
5. Choose your on-line soap boxes – which social media sites are best for you and your business?
   Linkedin – BtoB
   Facebook – BtoC – main users 15 – 35 yr olds but 35 – 55 growing users
   Twitter – cross section but mainly service industries
   Youtube – great if you have a visual business
   
   
6. Get a good photo and profile for each of the sites, either as yourself or your business.
   
   
7. Start following and listening to others. Join in the conversation. Start your own conversation – start spreading the word from your website, blog via social media and email.
   
   
8. Integrate with your existing Off-Line Marketing
   
   
9. When in doubt get some advice or help …..  or attend one of our Social Media workshops: 

Get your on-line marketing prepared for 2011 - 4 things to do

The end of one year, the beginning of another.  Lots of lessons learnt and plans for 2011 to make   The Christmas and New Year period can be a quiet time for some and a chance to catch up on some of those tasks that you keep putting off, tasks that are critical to bring you the best results from your on-line marketing activities.

Now is the time to get your on-line marketing ready for 2011.  Here are 4 things you should do this month, if not first thing in January.

1.       Put an On-line Marketing Plan together

Your plan might be in your head but by putting it in writing it makes it more official and available for others to follow and deliver.  A good plan should contain

• Who are your target market?– who are you aiming at and why they should buy from you.
• What are your goals?  - specific figures around sales, market share, growt
• What resources to you need? – people (internal or outsourced), suppliers, hardware, software, social media platforms
• Set out a 12 month plan – what is planned and when.  Think topics, compelling events and activities
• Document your on-line policy if you have other people working with you to ensure everyone is consistent in message and deal with feedback, enquiries in the same way.

2.       Review your Website

Your website is pivotal to your on-line marketing.  As well as ensuring the design is right for your target market, speaking the right language and clearly answering their questions. You should also have the ability to:

• Fully edit / add / manage main pages of the site as well as regularly add content such as news, special offers, events
• Add and edit “Call to Action” buttons on every page if appropriate
• Add unique titles, descriptions, keywords to any new pages, posts and if the content changes. Integrate with social media channels – follow on Facebook, Twitter etc buttons available on the site

3.       Set up Google Analytics

If you do not already have this facility or one with similar features then setting up Google Analytics on your website can give you valuable information about the traffic to your site.  Simple to set up and then add the code to each page of your website or ask your web company to do this for you. If you do have analytics then: 

• Set some goals to reflect the goals you have set in your On-line Marketing Plan so you can see if you are achieving these goals
• Create custom reports to see how specific on-line activities are performing i.e shopping cart, pay per click, social media
• Always review these reports and compare and adjust your on-line plan if needed

4.       Organise your data

Whether you have a dedicated CRM solution or just a simple spreadsheet ensure that all the valuable data your business is using is organised in one place

• Contact Details- customers, prospects, suppliers
•  Customer /Prospects – proposals, sales enquiries, visits
• Social media followers and friends
• Campaigns – who responded
• Referrals – who has been referred and referring others
• Results – where have these come from
• Costs – how much did it cost to make a sale
• Email marketing mailing list

With each of the above steps you will have a plan to execute, a professional and trackable website for people to visit and all the data at your finger tips to run any number of targeted, successful campaigns.

As with all marketing, particularly on-line if there are any elements of the technology or the marketing process that you are not sure about then get some advice.  

The Changing Face of Marketing - are you ready?

Marketing messages bombard us daily. These include spam, text messages, instant messaging, pop-up ads, television commercials, telemarketing and direct mail solicitation – just to name a few.  While this form of marketing has been tried and tested over the years, it is now having the opposite effect   but why?  What has changed?

As the internet and  social web evolves  we have collectively turned off our ears to unidirectional ads and messaging, armed with remote controls, mute buttons, pop-up ad blockers, spam filters, caller ID, and TIVO,  we are using technology to avoid irritating, uninvited marketing messages.  We prefer to “pull” the information we want rather than have it “pushed” at us.  We prefer to search and receive information at the right time and follow trusted advisors who we may contact when we are ready.

The new goal is to provide something of value…. The content that you provide might be an article, a blog post, a video, white paper, etc. It might be funny, proprietary and valuable research, or something else that will resonate with your target audience. The idea is to get something interesting and valuable in front of the eyes of your clients and prospects.  They should look forward to hearing from you.  

How can you get your marketing message heard?

You may already be using e-marketing to distribute you marketing message i.e. website, blog, social media but what sort of message are you sending out?

• Is the message anticipated? Do people expect to receive your message? Are they looking forward to hearing from you again?
• Is the message personal? Do people believe the information was designed for their individual needs?
• Is the message relevant? Will people value the information? Is it important and useful? Who are they?

Next consider what you are sending.  Are you offering tips, advice, helpful articles, useful commentary, offers?  Your content needs to be valuable – you want your audience to keep, bookmark, past it on and recommend your information not delete it.

 Get the right message to the right audience

Choosing the right channels of communications is important,  you should consider:

• Blogging – Do you have a blog to add content to? Guest blogging is also good.
• Social Media  - use Twitter linked to your blog and build a network of followers to share your content with.  Linkedin – Join relevant groups or set one up of your own.
• Send out relevant Emails / Newsletter linking back to your website and blog
• Use online PR help to distribute to wider media outlets
• Keep your website current with all new content 

So even though the face of marketing is changing, the good news is it is getting even more cost effective.  If used correctly, e-marketing can cost you nothing but your time.  However you must ensure that before embarking on any marketing strategy to either take some advice or plan it in line with your other activities.  After all, the internet maybe free but your time isn’t!

If you would like any help implementing any part of your e-marketing or a content driven marketing strategy then please contact us.

Creating your marketing plan for 2010

2010 is upon us and we are all looking forward to a successful year. Bookings, orders and contracts already in place but we are aware that in the current climate we must always be looking and generating new work and clients. Marketing your business will do this. But it is important to plan your marketing so you avoid costly mistakes and also have a strategy to follow, a guidepost/compass to lead your business' day-to-day activities.

Your plan does not have to be elaborate, nor does it have to be set in stone forever. However, it should specifically define key information including your target market and what you have to offer them, as well as tactical ideas and action steps you will take in order to get customers and/or increase sales.

Here are 10 basic components to include in a Marketing Plan:

1. Product and Service: Describe your product or service in simple and easy-to-understand terms. Consider this message to be a version of your 30 to 60-second "elevator speech" - that’s as long as you get in an elevator to tell you key prospect what you do! Include your point of difference – what makes you different to the competition, why should someone buy from you? Also when do they buy – is there a compelling event?

2. Target Audience: Clearly describe your target audience. Be specific as to the demographics and psychographics of your ideal buyer. Who buys from you? Who needs your product / service? These are the groups you are going to focus your marketing tactics to.

3. Identify your Competition: Is your competition small local companies, or is it a group of large national companies with ample resources? Or, is your product/service so unique that the problem is really a lack of awareness? Either way, learn about and understand the competitive landscape. It will enable you to better position and target your message.

4. Pricing: How much to charge? A guidepost for setting price involves estimating the value your product / service gives to your client and understanding your financial goals and objectives. It is obvious to charge more than your costs but make sure you know what your costs are!

5. Establish a Marketing Budget: Marketing expenses can add up quickly, so set aside a specific amount per month or per quarter. Evaluate your marketing decisions based on what they can return for you i.e. A £700 Yellow Pages Advert – what business would you expect from it ? Track each initiative and keep what works.

6. Marketing Activities: Identify your marketing tactics. Brainstorm a range of ideas to reach your target market with your value message. Bring friends / colleagues into your idea generation. Be creative and don't censor wild ideas. Pick at least 5 activities that you feel you can execute within your budget.

7. Action Plan: Each marketing activity comes with its own set of action steps/road map. For example, if you want to mail a brochure, you need to write (or outsource) the copy, design the mailing, print the brochure, create a mailing list.… Take the time to create an action plan for each campaign.

8. Timing: Look at the calendar for 2010 and plan each campaign throughout the year. Give yourself realistic time to carry out each action plan. A number can be run simultaneously but be careful not to overload yourself and therefore not achieve your goals. With any business the sense of satisfaction is in achieving!

9. Measurable Goals: How are you going to measure the results of your activities throughout the year? Will it be on leads / opportunities / sales / bookings? – make sure you have the measurements in place from the beginning.

10. Marketing Assistance.: As part of your budget consider if you need assistance with writing and executing your plan from a Marketing coach. The best laid marketing plans fail when they end up in your bottom drawer, never to be seen again. Marketing may not be your strength so employ the services of an expert if you need to.

Creating and sticking to a marketing plan is the best way to keep you and your business focused, and on track for success in 2010. Writing the plan is the easy part, sticking to it tends to be more difficult for most people. Good Luck.

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

Effective Email Marketing

Businesses looking to spend fewer marketing pounds but still keep a presence in the marketplace should look seriously at e-newsletters and e-blasts.

E-mail marketing helps save money and is a cost-effective way to build customer loyalty and attract new business. However the planning and implementation are as just as important for e-marketing as it is for more traditional activities. "What's the objective? What is the message? What is the strategy?"

Here are some guidelines:

• Always give recipients an opt-out option - Unsubscribe
• It is the subject line of your e-mail that determines whether your e-message gets opened and read or goes straight to the SPAM folder. Spend some time on the subject line words such "Free," "Sale," "Offer" and "Last Chance" are sure tickets to the SPAM box.
• More than half of e-mail recipients view e-mails with images turned off. Unless you have an underlying text message (that describes the missing image), what you have is a nice graphic that no one sees.
• E-newsletters should be at least 85 percent educational, can build "an emotional connection" with customers. An e-blast, on the other hand, is nearly all promotional - think an ad on e-steroids - and is intended to create a sense of act-now urgency.
• When sending E-newsletters its better to embed the link into a simple email rather than have the whole newsletter on the screen – send the reader to the relevant parts of the newsletter rather than scare them with a screen of text.
• If eight percent of recipients open your e-mail, that's good.
• Do-it-yourself providers such as Constant Contact or iContact offer templates and list management support that make it relatively easy for novices to build e-campaigns. Usage reports from Constant Contact, for example, will tell you how many people opened your e-mail; the click-through rate; and which, if any, links that were included in your message they hit. However you can spot a Constant Contact email a mile off – so try and me inventive with the design.
• Sometimes your cool graphics are at the top of a template message, requiring recipients "to scroll halfway down to get to your message – often no one can be bothered to scroll down.
  

E-Marketing still remains the quickest and effective way of getting your message to your target market – but as long as your recipients look forward to your emails rather than deleting them without reading.

Why a blog?

Blogs are hot. You probably have read success stories about them as marketing tools. Whether you are a small business owner or independent professional who works at home, you can tap into its potential and immediately become an expert in your niche.

But, is there any drawback? What should you know before deciding if you are into blogging?

For the uninitiated, there are approximately 175,000 blogs created on a daily basis. The number is increasing -- more than double -- compared to last year.

It cannot possibly maintain the growth at such rate forever. Afterall, there are only so many people on the earth, especially who are online. Everyone can only start and blog about so many things at once.

Still, the rate of which the blogosphere is growing astonishes all of us.

A blog becomes popular as a marketing tool because firstly it represents the human face of what used to be faceless companies and websites. End-users demand more nowadays. They demand interactive communication between themselves and real people from the company they are going to do business with.

E-mail newsletters and traditional websites serve this purpose only partially. Both of them convey information to the consumers, with no way to interactively give feedbacks.

For small business owners and solopreneurs who are just going to build their first web presence, a blog can compliment a traditional website.

So that is why I now have a blog - to put a human face to the elevation factor and to offer regular practical advice to businesses. Welcome to my blog.