I once had a boss whose favourite saying was “Don’t sweat the small stuff” – it irritated me then, and it irritates me now.
I do, of course, get the gist – we all need to priotitise and focus on what’s important. I also completely agree that 80% on-time can be better than perfect, but late. However, I firmly believe that when it comes to building a strong and consistent reputation for your business, paying attention to small details is extremely important. All the little things come together, a bit like a mosaic, to form the overall picture of your business.
This came to mind yesterday when chatting to a client about their email signature. We’re currently supporting a small business through their first real branding exercise. We’re working with an excellent branding agency and last week the client signed off the key bits and pieces that will form their core material and their brand guidelines.
One of the items on their list to look at was their email signature. A suggestion had been made, but they weren’t keen. It wasn’t displaying well on a Blackberry and the client felt it was unprofessional. It got me to thinking about why we’d come to this later in the process. We’ve looked at letterhead, business cards, handouts, etc… but in many ways their email signature is more important than all of this. It’s seen by clients, prospects, employees, potential employees, suppliers – many times a day, every day. So, it really is important that it looks polished and professional.
If you think about your business from the perspective of what most people encounter, most often, then some of the seemingly small and insignificant things become much more important. And, could probably do with a little consideration and possibly some polish. The sorts of things that come to mind are:
Your email signature
The way your telephone is answered
Your on-hold music
The display in your reception area
Your invoices and the covering notes that go with them
Your login / logout screens for online services
Your service emails
The spelling, grammar and formatting on your website, emails and day-to-day documents
I’m sure there are many, many more. Naturally, the list for your business will be specific to you. But, it is definitely worth looking at how all these small things come together to create an impression of your business. Look from the outside… how do people make contact? What do they receive from you? How does it look when it arrives with them?
All the little things come together to create the bigger picture. So, I say… DO sweat the small stuff. Just make sure it’s the small stuff that matters – and that’s the stuff that real people, really encounter when dealing with you and your business day-in, day-out.
Clear Thought Consulting works with small businesses, equipping them with the marketing strategies, suppliers, skills and set-up that they need to become bigger businesses. We do this by planning and delivering 12-month marketing transformation programmes – supporting a small business through a step-by-step process to making marketing pay. We firmly believe that when you can’t out-spend your competition, you have to out-think them.
Social media marketing can seem like a bit of a minefield. It can also seem like there’s a dizzying amount to learn before you can even get started. But, it really breaks down into four activities – which are common across almost all the platforms in some way or another. Master these, and broadly speaking, you’ve mastered social media marketing.
Task One: Connect
There is no point saying anything if there’s no one to hear you. Step one is to build up some connections. All the platforms let you connect with other people. On Facebook it’s Friends and Page Likes. On Linkedin it’s Connections and Group Membership. On Twitter, it’s Followers and Followees. On YouTube it’s Subscribers. And, so on. Every platform will give you a facility to connect with other people. Many also allow you to organise those connections according to the type and depth of your relationship with them.
So, your first social media task is to work out who you want to connect with and start to reach out. As a practical to-do, this could be as simple as following up meetings with a Linkedin invitation instead of a ‘lovely to meet you’ email. As you get more sophisticated, you may want to start organising your connections in some way that helps you to assess the relative depth of that relationship. There are some great tips on this from Heather Townsend, author of the FT Guide to Joined Up Networking, in her post ‘When does a contact become a connection?’.
Task Two: Converse
Your second task is to talk to people. Now, I know there are people who use social media in a more of an observer capacity. But, if you’re going to make powerful use of the networking potential, you’ll need to be more active.
So, imagine you went to a networking event and there was a delegate list of 100 people. Would you consider all 100 to be connections of yours after the event? I doubt it. But, the 5 or 6 people who were at your table for lunch, that you chatted to and exchanged cards with – well yes, they are certainly on their way to being a connection. The difference – a two-way exchange. A conversation.
The same is true in social media. To genuinely connect you need to have a chat with people. Mentioning someone or passing on their materials isn’t a two-way chat. A social media conversation would be something like:
Someone Tweets a post, you read it and reply asking a follow-up question, they answer your question by reply, and the conversation flows from there.
Someone posts a question in a Linkedin group, you answer it, they follow-up saying thank you.
You join a structured social media chat like #watercoolermoment on Twitter, or a forum discussion.
Task Three: Share
So, you’ve connected, you’ve started chatting – what next? Well, it’s sharing. Social media is fast replacing search as the way that people find their online resources. I use my social connections as a bit of a filter on the world. They find, read and share great stuff – which means they’ve saved me time in finding it myself. It’s one of the main reasons I follow certain people. And, you need to be that trusted resource for your connections.
Sharing genuinely useful and interesting material shows the breadth of your knowledge, and assuming that a good proportion of what you share is other people’s material, it shows that you are well connected and generous in the credit you give others. A share in social media is something passed on without immediate expectation of anything in return. You just think people will find it useful. And, it is really important that you do it in this spirit. It’s what I call commercial karma, and in my experience goodwill always pays back in spades. So, in social media sharing looks something like this:
Posting useful hints and tips that people can access without any login or payment.
Posting links to articles you enjoyed or found useful.
Posting details of other people’s events or promotions.
Posting details of other people’s vacancies, etc.
Task Four: Broadcast
Last, and most definitely least, is broadcasting. And, this is talking about yourself. Now, I’ve put posting your own hints and tips as a share – but don’t over do it. Someone who talks about themselves all the time is really very dull. But, what you really must keep to a minimum is banging on about your products, your services, your awards, or anything where people need to log-in or pay you to access. As a rule of thumb I’d keep this sort of stuff to below 20% of your overall activity. If you’re having conversations and sharing good stuff, sales conversations will happen and you won’t need to force them.
And, of course, you must always listen…
Of course, all of this is predicated on being a good listener. To decide whether you want to follow someone, you need to ‘listen’ (i.e. read back through some of their stuff), to what they have to say. To have a valuable conversation, you need to listen. To know what people would be interested in seeing you share, you need to listen. And, for your broadcast messages to be something people respond to, you have to first listen to what they want.
Whatever the platform, whatever you’re marketing, mastering these four tasks – within the context of being a good listener – will always put you on the front foot in terms of mastering social media marketing for your small business.
Clear Thought Consulting works with small businesses, equipping them with the marketing strategies, suppliers, skills and set-up that they need to become bigger businesses. We do this by planning and delivering 12-month marketing transformation programmes – supporting a small business through a step-by-step process to making marketing pay. We firmly believe that when you can’t out-spend your competition, you have to out-think them.
Frequent, high quality content, is great for keeping your company front of mind. You can pop a link on your Linkedin status so that you show up in people’s news streams, add the details to your newsletters, or simply add the link to your email footer.
That’s just the tip of the iceberg on what you do with it… however, it’s often coming up with the stuff that proves a challenge. It can be tough to constantly come up with talking points and conversation starters. So, we put our thinking caps on to come up with at least one topic for every letter in the alphabet to get you started. Here are three more ideas to kick you off…
Guests: Inviting a guest to provide content can be a win, win, win. Let’s say one of your clients offers a complementary product or service. They could write you a guest blog, which appears on your site, giving you SEO phrases, conversation starter and a bit of variety, and they also get a bit of exposure. You can also offer your material as guest content to others. And, it’s not just blogs – could you co-host an event or offer a joint promotion?
Hobbies: Does what you do hook into any key hobbies? Do people who enjoy that hobby hang out somewhere specific online, or attend specific events? Can you attend, provide tips, leave comment or theme a product or service to a specific hobby?
Inspiration: Everyone likes to be inspired. Being inspirational isn’t something easily done to order, but talking about something that’s inspired you, or inviting people to do, so can be really engaging. If you’re a business owner, a post about what inspired you to set up your business is usually a good read. Asking others about their inspiration can help you to understand them better too.
These are just three ideas from amongst 120 that we’ve packed into our 26-page guide, The A-Z of Marketing Thought Starters, available in full to subscribers to our email newsletter.
Clear Thought Consulting works with small businesses, equipping them with the marketing strategies, suppliers, skills and set-up that they need to become bigger businesses. We do this by planning and delivering 12-month marketing transformation programmes – supporting a small business through a step-by-step process to making marketing pay. We firmly believe that when you can’t out-spend your competition, you have to out-think them.
We talk a lot here about maintaining marketing momentum, and about having a fresh stream of interesting and relevant content to use in social media marketing.
But, it can be tough to constantly come up with talking points and conversation starters. So, we put our thinking caps on to come up with at least one topic for every letter in the alphabet to get you started. Here are just three ideas to kick you off…
Ambitions: Sharing your personal and professional ambitions can do a number of things. Public declarations often help people to focus on making things happen. You will often find people willing to help you with your challenges. And, people often share their ambitions with you in return. It might be that what you do professionally (and for a profit) can help them. Or, you might know someone who could help, and vice versa.
Birthdays: Birthdays are great – there’s your company’s Birthday, Birthdays of key people in your organisation. You can also use famous Birthdays as a thought starter. Imagine it’s Marilyn Monroe’s Birthday and you run a fashion or jewellery company… what do you think she would have liked as a gift from your catalogue? Who’s famous or influential in your industry – when’s their Birthday and how could you mark it?
Case studies: We can’t emphasise this one enough. Demonstrating what you do with a real case study is an absolute must. Whether it’s business-to-business, or business-to-consumer, people like to hear about the experiences of people like themselves. The ideal format for case studies these days is a video interview – direct from the horse’s mouth. But don’t forget a version that people can print off and read on the train, or turn into a slide for a sales presentation.
These are just three ideas from amongst 120 that we’ve packed into our 26-page guide, The A-Z of Marketing Thought Starters, available in full to subscribers to our email newsletter.
Clear Thought Consulting works with small businesses, equipping them with the marketing strategies, suppliers, skills and set-up that they need to become bigger businesses. We do this by planning and delivering 12-month marketing transformation programmes – supporting a small business through a step-by-step process to making marketing pay. We firmly believe that when you can’t out-spend your competition, you have to out-think them.
Regular readers of this blog, or anyone who’s seen me speak, will know that I’m a big fan of the six step model for mapping out a buying decision. That is, when a person is deciding to buy something high value, high risk, or high involvement, they go through six different stages. The particular model we’re fans of here at Clear Thought is one from Kotler that maps a person going through a process a bit like this:
Awareness: Knowing who you are and what you do
Interest: Seeing something that’s relevant to a thought or issue they’re having
Evaluation: Working out if you meet their criteria
Trial: Getting a sense of what it’s like to work with you
Adoption: Coming on board as a customer
Loyalty: Buying more and telling the world how great you are
To ensure a watertight process that delivers solid sales results, the marketer needs to provide a tool or a technique that acts as a stepping stone from one stage to the next all the way through that decision. But, what’s really important to bear in mind is that this process is much more like dancing the Quick Step than it is pounding a Power Walk.
What you’ll find a potential buyer doing is taking two steps forward, one step back, going off to the side, back again, etc. Depending on what you’re selling, this process can take six minutes or six months. What you’ll also find is that you’re rarely the only dance partner they’re flirting with.
So, what does this mean to the marketer? It means that you need to be flexible and responsive to where a person is at any given moment, and give them options to step forwards and backwards elegantly at will. To do this, you need a variety of content and tools at your disposal to bring into play at different times. And, if you need to keep someone dancing for six months, there will be a lot of little steps to move them through the whole process.
In practice, this means having a regular stream of activity made up of a mix that spans the whole process, for example:
Awareness: Press coverage, social media reach, referrals, networking
Evaluation: Case studies, lengthier papers, web seminars
Trial: Demonstrations, hosted events, pilot programmes, free trials
Adoption: Hospitality, proposals, contracts, personal selling
Loyalty: All of the above in the context of a relationship
It’s also important to note that you may not know where someone is in their decision. This is particularly true if you have a larger audience, or if people buy online without talking to someone. They may only be a number on your web analytics until they pick up the phone or pop in their credit card details. So, you need to make sure that appropriate fresh material is there when they want it… which might be at any time.
This is just one of the reasons that your small business needs to maintain your marketing momentum. You really don’t want to drop someone half way through a dance. It’s not a great way to win Strictly and it’s certainly not a great way to win a customer.
Clear Thought Consulting works with small businesses, equipping them with the marketing strategies, suppliers, skills and set-up that they need to become bigger businesses. We do this by planning and delivering 12-month marketing transformation programmes – supporting a small business through a step-by-step process to making marketing pay. We firmly believe that when you can’t out-spend your competition, you have to out-think them.
I used to find the news stream in Linkedin really useful and interesting. People posted something new about what they were up to, an article they’d written or something else work related once or twice a week. Then, along came the function to run your Tweets into Linkedin status and bang went much of the relevance I previously found when logging in to Linkedin. It got me thinking, with so many services now allowing you to pre-schedule and merge various streams of activity – where’s the balance between relevance and convenience?
We’re not averse to a little time-saving and pre-planning in your social media marketing. Far from it. We’re big advocates of effective use of the excellent systems that allow you to set-up various social media interactions ahead of time. Perfect if you have half an hour in the week when you can focus on this.
For example:
Scheduling Tweets to go out at intervals throughout the week.
Scheduling a blog post to go live when you’re out of the office.
Setting your emails to go out at times appropriate to the time zone of the recipient.
However, as with so much marketing science and technology – there’s an art to getting it right. We advise all our clients to think carefully about the balance between automated and real interaction.
What’s the problem with social media automation?
It’s not very friendly…
There is a danger in automating all of your activity. The whole point of social media is to be sociable. It’s an excellent medium for expressing a bit of personality and humour. And, it really is true that people buy from people they like, so being friendly and approachable is a key ingredient in effective marketing.
This is precisely why you need to take care with automation… most people don’t find robots very friendly. It’s well worth making sure that you don’t come across as one. If you have too much automated activity, your company risks being seen as a bit cold and mechanical.
You miss the chance to respond…
The other great thing about social media is that you can chat with people. You know, have a conversation. This means being there to pick up on a thread and converse with someone in that moment. If you’re only ever scheduling your activity, you miss this golden opportunity.
Let’s give an example. I often see Tweets as status updates in Linkedin, and I reply to them, also in Linkedin. But, because the sender used Twitter to post the comment, they forget to check the other places they’ve automated it to go out… missing out on the chance to pick up a thread in the other settings. And, of course, if you don’t spot a reply until hours later, you can bet that the responder has moved on from whatever they dropped you a line about earlier. You also miss people asking questions or mulling something over, where you could’ve given a highly relevant response.
You lose track of which audience wants what…
If your Tweets stream into Linkedin and the other way around, then I assume you’re completely happy for both audiences to get exactly the same material?
Personally, I’m not sure about this. My Linkedin connections, who see my status updates, are all professional contacts – who I doubt are interested in some of the lighter banter I put on Twitter. If they are, they can connect with me in both places. I keep them slightly separate. On Linkedin, I’m imagining that people are in a work frame of mind. On Twitter, I imagine that there are those who are at work, but I also know that many people use Twitter as a lighter distraction at lunchtime or in breaks – so I’m in a bit more of a break room mode in that context. The same is true of Facebook and other platforms – people are likely to be in different contexts and mindsets in different settings.
Adapting your material to suit a specific audience is a cornerstone of good marketing practice that shouldn’t be lost in the system.
What to automate and what to personalise
We think that the following things are perfectly reasonable for an automated approach:
Event reminders in the lead up to a specific date.
Opening and closing times.
Service announcements (like maintenance schedule, etc.)
Links to blog articles from your back catalogue.
‘Did you know’ fact-style items.
We’re not so sure the following should be automated:
Anything with a question mark in it… as it’s inviting a response and you should be there to respond.
Jokes, again… they normally get a response and can be the starting point for a conversation.
Replies… automated replies in social media are really irritating.
And of course, you just can’t automate those happy accidents, when you spark up a conversation with someone. A conversation that often becomes a relationship… that in time brings you a fabulous new customer.
So, take a moment to look at your small business’ approach to social media automation to see if you’re coming across as a robot at times, or if your content is inadvertently cropping up in the wrong context.
Clear Thought Consulting works with small businesses, equipping them with the marketing strategies, suppliers, skills and set-up that they need to become bigger businesses. We do this by planning and delivering 12-month marketing transformation programmes – supporting a small business through a step-by-step process to making marketing pay. We firmly believe that when you can’t out-spend your competition, you have to out-think them.
Many of the small businesses we encounter have an adhoc approach to marketing expenditure – simply responding to marketing opportunities as they come along, deciding at that moment whether they have the funds available.
Whether you’re spending £100 or £1m, we firmly believe that having some structure to where you put each penny will help you to:
Make sensible decisions about where to spend your money.
Track whether your spend is worth it in the long term.
Avoid nasty surprises in the form of unexpected costs.
Ensure you don’t run out of cash half way through the year.
We look at marketing spend from three angles when working out a budget. The first is in allocating appropriate spend to each step of the buying decision to make sure you have a watertight set-up. The second is in working out your minimum baseline, and lastly making sure you have flex options.
Budgeting across the buying decision
My previous post ‘What shape is your marketing budget‘ outlined a step by step process for mapping marketing techniques against each step of a buying decision. This is a powerful planning approach gives you a stepping stone that takes someone from initial awareness right through to profitable loyalty. By looking at what task each marketing technique fulfils, and the level of influence it has at each step of the process, you end up with a template for apportioning your marketing money across the whole buying decision. This is the first step to structuring an effective marketing budget for your small business.
Establishing your baseline
Regular readers will know that we bang on about maintaining marketing momentum. If you market yourself in peaks and troughs, your business will have the same stop-start rhythm to it. Not only is this approach exhausting, it’s wasteful and ineffective. You’re much better off to establish a baseline set of marketing activities that you undertake consistently. Things that will happen, come what may. I’d go so far as to say that I’d rather most businesses spent less on marketing, if they only did so consistently. Marketing is like exercise, it pays off most if you take a little and often approach (rather than binge and purge). So, there are three things to consider when establishing your marketing budget baseline:
How much can you afford to spend every month for a year?
Whilst larger businesses might have the luxury of a more strategic approach to budgeting, in a small business setting, working out what you know you can commit to spend every month is a good starting point. As a rule of thumb, across the few hundred businesses I’ve encountered in my marketing career, 3% of revenue is about what companies spend to maintain market share, and 5% of targeted revenue is a sensible marketing budget if you’re going for growth.
What’s the ‘silver’ level spend for each step?
Having undertaken the budget shaping exercise, we typically look at each step in the buying process and work out a Bronze / Silver / Gold pricing level for each one. By which I mean, what’s the minimum, ideal, and luxury version of each technique. Let’s take PR as an example. Bronze is you buying a book on PR and putting aside a day per quarter to generate some press coverage; ideal might be retaining the services of a freelance PR expert one day per month; and, the luxury approach might be upping that time and supplementing with regular original research to generate your own headlines. For case studies, bronze might be a simple write up on your website; silver might be a professional video with your client; and, gold might be a high profile speaking event at which your client shares the stage with you. Once you’ve worked this out for the techniques that make up your watertight marketing operation, we suggest you go for Silver if you can, which gives you a baseline for your marketing activity.
Make allowances for maintenance
Most nasty surprises can be avoided with a little bit of forethought. When it comes to marketing budgets, the key area that people forget is in maintaining things like their brand, website, event material, printed stock, etc. Of these, I’d say brand and websites are the biggest culprits. Often a business feels that they’ve ticked this job off. Let’s say you have a new website built in one financial year, you’d be naive to think you’ll never need to spend money on it again. Foundation pieces in a marketing toolkit (brand, website, database, collateral, etc.) should be treated a bit like an employee (with a salary, training budgets) – you’ll need to nurture and maintain them to keep them well-oiled.
Pre-planning some flexibility
There’s nothing more predictable than the fact that there will be things you can’t anticipate. So, plan for it. There are two key ways of doing this:
Have a contingency budget
Put aside an affordable amount for unplanned expenses or opportunities. Interestingly, it’s the opportunities this really matters for. Most small businesses will find money for an emergency if they really need to. But, having a pot of cash to dip into to maximise on a marketing opportunity is never urgent, so is less likely to actually happen. Things will come up, like an ‘issues jump’ in PR, or a great event you hadn’t spotted. And, if not, you can always put the money towards a really innovative Christmas campaign at the end of the year.
What’s the step up or step down?
You’ve already done the hard part on this by working out Gold / Silver / Bronze options. This means that if you’re above or below target in terms of income you can change tack to the lower or higher level alternative. With our clients, we call this this the A, B, C activity plan. Each quarter, we review our cash position to decide which plan we go with for the quarter ahead. This maintains marketing momentum, whilst flexing the budget. If you don’t have this to hand, you’ll often find that an arbitrary decision is taken to cut something at about the level you need to save – which can leave you with a hole in your sales funnel. Or, conversely, if you find that pot of gold, you can end up doing something frivolous, rather than augmenting what you’re already doing.
So, there it is… our recommended three steps to structuring an effective small business marketing budget. We hope you find it useful.
Clear Thought Consulting works with small businesses, equipping them with the marketing strategies, suppliers, skills and set-up that they need to become bigger businesses. We do this by planning and delivering 12-month marketing transformation programmes – supporting a small business through a step-by-step process to making marketing pay. We firmly believe that when you can’t out-spend your competition, you have to out-think them.
So, we’re a fortnight on from running our first ever ‘pay what you think it’s worth‘ event. And, the burning question is – was it worth it?
We’ve run a handful of public workshops over the last 18 months, with varying success. And, I wanted to test a few things out and make a decision as to whether an open training offer was a good idea for Clear Thought. Our consultancy work is specifically for medium-sized businesses. Typically 20+ employees with a seven figure turnover.
But, we get lots of enquiries and newsletter sign-ups from smaller businesses and sole traders who need the same advice, but don’t have pockets to match. Open workshops is an obvious way of meeting this need, where we can impart more generic advice for them to take back to their businesses.
We’ve tried pricing full-day workshops from £95 to £250. And, we’ve achieved groups of between 5 and 15 people. I wanted to see if we could get more of a crowd, and work out what people are willing to pay.
First off, we teamed up with a complementary expert, Lee Cottier from Think Productive, to add some further value. Having identified that time is often what holds small businesses back from marketing, we felt that combining a workshop with what you should do and how to make time for it would be particularly beneficial. Then, we decided to be bold on the pricing. We went for a £5 booking fee, and then a top-up after the event of their choice. The rationale was that their top-up payments would give us a benchmark on pricing.
Did people like the idea?
Yes! We were aiming for 20 people. We had 26 people register and 24 people turn up on the day. That’s an increase on the numbers that we’ve previously attracted to public workshops. So, I think the low fee definitely reduced a few barriers.
In terms of the day itself, it was the first time we had presented this specific content, so it was a bit experimental. Indeed, I think we felt more able to be experimental because of the fee structure. The majority of attendees gave glowing feedback. The couple who were less effusive felt that they suffered from information overload. All of the people who took the time to feedback gave us really constructive ideas for enhancement too, which is really valuable in itself.
Some of the comments received:
“As a business owner responsible for marketing in a competitive environment, I found the workshop very motivational and easy to grasp. It helped me feel excited again about ‘getting out there’ and whilst I have knowledge of marketing techniques it was great to come away with new ideas and to be reminded of how a simple framework and ‘little and often’ efforts make it all manageable when trying to juggle the to-do list.”
“A very professionally delivered overview of the science, practicalities and etiquette of marketing. With some great practical tips.”
“I thought overall the workshop worked well, but I think there was perhaps too much content for the time allocated. There seemed a constant rush to move onto the next point rather than develop the current one. I appreciate that there is always a balance to be struck between detail and volume, but personally I would have preferred slightly less content but more detail and time spent on each recommendation raised. I thought the handouts were excellent though; very precise and informative.”
Did we make any money?
If we don’t count the time that Lee and I put into preparing the material and presenting on the day, then yes. We made a very small three figure sum. Of the 24 people who came along, 15 have paid a top-up fee to date. So, with a bit of gentle nudging we might get this figure up. If we do count our time, then we made a whopping loss! Providing we re-use the material, then we’re ok with that.
What have we learnt?
Here’s a summary of the learning from this experiment:
Perfect for testing: It’s a great model for testing new workshop ideas. You feel more able to be experimental and people seem more willing to give more detailed feedback, perhaps in lieu of payment.
Great for awareness: The pricing approach made promoting the event much easier. It gave us a hook for a press release which was well covered locally, and it was picked up virally in social media.
Gets the numbers up: As an addition the the awareness point, you will get more people in the room. So, an event like this would work well as a way of marketing your business.
It’s not a money spinner: You won’t make your millions this way. People will use it as a way of getting a freebie.
Get IOUs on the day: We followed up with an email afterwards, I think we would have had more top-ups if we had asked people to complete an ‘I owe you’ on the day. This would also reduce PayPal fees, and follow-up admin.
An add-on purchase: The event would have been perfect for driving people to purchase some online materials as a follow-up, like an eBook or deeper self-serve online training.
Benchmark price: I think it’s around the £100 mark for micro businesses. Between £250 – £500 for larger businesses.
Would we do it again?
Yes. I’m thinking about an event with this pricing structure quarterly. Perhaps with different complementary experts each time. But, before we do I’m going to spend some time working on those add-on purchases to make sure that there’s less of a hole in our bucket. After all, I really should practice what I preach!
Clear Thought Consulting works with small businesses, equipping them with the marketing strategies, suppliers, skills and set-up that they need to become bigger businesses. We do this by planning and delivering 12-month marketing transformation programmes – supporting a small business through a step-by-step process to making marketing pay. We firmly believe that when you can’t out-spend your competition, you have to out-think them.
This is a guest post from Chris Street, aka Bristol Editor. With many of our clients struggling to find time to do the doing on social media marketing for their small business, we asked Chris what he thinks a client should be looking for if they choose to outsource this to a social media consultant.
Chances are, if you’re a marketing agency director, PR agency account director, solo entrepreneur, or marketing director of a small to medium-sized business, you’ll have been dipping into social media platforms and hopefully getting engaged by now.
One of the biggest issues I regularly come across for those involved with, or looking to get involved, with social media for business usage is that of not having enough time to do it thoroughly, or not having enough expertise to get engaged effectively.
Agencies, in particular, are having trouble providing powerful social media services for their demanding clients – as they are so busy doing the daily stuff, many have been left well behind the curve on blogging, social media, and micro-blogging developments.
Solution? Hire a social media consultant. Well, yes, but the starting point should always be from the position of having a full marketing plan in place. Executing a social media campaign without the appropriate marketing strategy in place is tantamount to commercial suicide.
With a solid marketing plan in place, it is often advisable in the early stages of executing social media messages on behalf of your company, your products and your services shouldn’t be a daunting task.
Hiring in the right social media consultant to guide you through, however, can be a fraught experience if you’re unsure what to look for.
Here’s a few tips from me on how to hire well – or, to put it another way, my…
6 P’s of things to look for when hiring your social media consultant
Remember, it’s their job to make you look absolutely brilliant online, and draw attention to your door:
1. Passionate
Is the social media consultant passionate about social media? Are they passionate about getting you results on social media platforms? Can they demonstrate their passion for social media? I give all new clients full access to my social media profiles.
2. Professional
Is the social media consultant professional in their outlook to social media platforms? Have they delivered professionally for other businesses and agencies on a variety of relevant social media platforms? Is their own social media presence professional? My social media presence is consistent across a number of social media platforms.
3. Prompt
Is the social media consultant prompt in the social media presence? Are they blogging, tweeting and adding powerful content promptly, consistently and with a proven track record? Is their social media promptness provable for other existing clients? I’ve been blogging since 2005 and engaging businesses across the social media environment ever since. I tweet daily and blog weekly – without fail.
4. Personable
Is the social media consultant personable? Is it apparent that they have a social and professional personality which will translate well for your business or rosta of agency clients, if you put them in front of them? Is their personality appropriate for social media engagement on your behalf? As an editor of more than a decade, I’ve interviewed and worked with pretty much every personality type you can imagine. And, yes, some of them were a nightmare. The majority, however, were fantastic.
5. Practical
Is the social media consultant a practical deliverer? Can you see a track record of ‘sleeves rolled up’ by them? Are you confident that they will work hard, consistently and diligently on your behalf on social media platforms? I always deliver personally, not via a team abroad. My charges are based on a personal, practical, 1-to-1 working relationship.
6. Price
Now, although we’re all looking for a bargain, is your social media consultant too cheap? After all, if they charge peanuts, what do you think the results will be? Are you looking for a cheap, non-effective social media presence, or have you allocated a workable budget for your social media consultant to deliver on your behalf? I usually charge a (reasonable) set day rate and take it from there. It’s not cheap, but it saves the client time, energy and effort they can then spend more profitably elsewhere.
With a solid marketing strategy in place, hiring an effective social media consultant should be a painless, time-effective and productive addition to your contemporary marketing ix.
But remember – none of this acts in isolation. Nothing beats an integrated, multi-channel approach to modern marketing. Relying on social media mediums only is limiting the success of your potential marketing reach.
Ensure that your products and services are working across multiple marketing channels. Monitor and measure them all, and ensure your social media consultant is working alongside your overall marketing aims and objectives for the campaign or campaigns you have in place.
With the right consultancy, social media should prove to be a powerful weapon in your ongoing marketing arsenal for 2011 and beyond.
Chris Street has more than 12 years’ experience delivering within online and offline media, and worked as a features editor and business editor for Northcliffe Newspaper Group at the Bristol Evening Post offices in his early editorial career. Previous projects have included editing business magazines, Managing Editor for a Bristol-based publishing firm, launching online portals for corporates in the City, managing blogs for businesses since 2005, delivering media relations strategies for companies including Apple and Mitel Networks, copywriting for firms such as NFU Mutual and Calor Gas, as well as launching social media service divisions for digital marketing and PR agencies nationwide. You can find out more about him at www.bristoleditor.co.uk.
Online networking is close to the top of my list of tips for businesses that want their marketing budgets to go further. And, in a business-to-business context LinkedIn is probably top of my list of specific platforms to master. Whether you’re a sole trader or freelancer, a small business stretching a modest marketing budget, or a sales person in a large corporate, time spent on LinkedIn can definitely be a profitable investment.
I see scepticism from many quarters. Many people don’t believe that senior decision-makers can be reached in this way, or that any projects with significant fees attached are ever discussed in these settings. So, here are three specific examples of clients I’ve secured for my marketing consultancy business through leads that originated in LinkedIn. The cumulative fee income across these clients stands at over £170,000. And, here’s how they came our way…
Responding to a group discussion: Clear Thought completed a 12-month marketing transformation for small business ISP, Gradwell in December 2009. They were our very first client. The lead for this major project came from LinkedIn. Managing director, Peter Gradwell, posted a discussion in LinkedIn group for marketers in Bath & Bristol, to which I responded. He then invited three of the respondents to present in person, from which we were appointed. (See full case study)
Showing up in advanced search: Another of our 12-month clients, Connect Assist, also came to us as a lead through LinkedIn. The company CEO picked up the phone to his chairman to talk through their requirement for strategic marketing consultancy. He, in turn, spoke to his public relations consultant. She recognised that to fulfil the requirement she needed some strategic marketing input and used LinkedIn to search for ‘marketing strategy’ within 20 miles of Bath. My profile came up and she dropped me a line via the website that was listed on my profile. We submitted a successful joint proposal, and have subsequently been retained to oversee a marketing transformation programme. (See case study)
Staying in touch with old contacts: Those are both examples of leads from previously unknown contacts. But, don’t discount people you’ve known for a while. One of our smaller strategic marketing projects was a start-up launch for events compliance specialists, Relevant Risk. This project came our way from a contact I’d stayed in touch with – MD, Alison McDougall, since her previous company delivered an event for my team when I was marketing director at Experian. When we made contact on LinkedIn, I wasn’t running Clear Thought, and she wasn’t running Relevant Risk. Following my LinkedIn status updates through the news feed as a connection, Alison had seen our case studies, blogs and service updates, and that one of her ex-employees was now with us – and when the time came to launch her business, she got back in touch. (See case study)
So, how’s your Linkedin profile looking? Is it working hard enough for your business?
Clear Thought Consulting works with small businesses, equipping them with the marketing strategies, suppliers, skills and set-up that they need to become bigger businesses. We do this by planning and delivering 12-month marketing transformation programmes – supporting a small business through a step-by-step process to making marketing pay. We firmly believe that when you can’t out-spend your competition, you have to out-think them.
You buy yourself a £5 entry pass (which doesn’t even cover the cost of the lunch) and after the event we’ll follow-up asking people to pay us what they think the day was worth.
Why are we doing it?
There are a few reasons. Not least that we simply wanted to take money out of the equation. The workshop itself shows people how to invest time, rather than money, in marketing their small business. And so, the ‘pay us what you think it’s worth’ underlines the point, all people need give up is their time.
Secondly, we wanted something interesting to talk about… and putting our heads on the block like this is certainly something to talk about. There are loads of training courses people can go to, and whilst we’re confident that our content stands us apart, the pricing strategy certainly does!
Lastly, the experiment will help us to understand what people are really willing to pay. Granted, a few people will no doubt use the option to get themselves a cheap day’s training. But, we’re hoping that most will give us a genuine view of what they’re happy to pay. This will tell us whether these events are worth putting on again in future, and at what price.
Are we crazy?
Possibly. The workshop is a full day run by two experts in their field – each with hefty day-rates for their consultancy services. We also need to spend time preparing the material, promoting the event, etc. And, of course there are the venue costs. Depending on numbers, if this backfires, we’ll be standing to lose between £200-600 in venue fees… and upwards of £2,000 in opportunity cost.
Would you like to know how it goes?
So, it’s an experiment. We’re going to give it a go. Keep an eye out towards the end of February, when I will write up the results – warts and all.
Clear Thought Consulting works with small businesses, equipping them with the marketing strategies, suppliers, skills and set-up that they need to become bigger businesses. We do this by planning and delivering 12-month marketing transformation programmes – supporting a small business through a step-by-step process to making marketing pay. We firmly believe that when you can’t out-spend your competition, you have to out-think them.
We’re big fans of Linkedin, and using it is high on our list of top tips for effective small business marketing. But, the way that people use it seems to be changing and I’m wondering (out loud) what the criteria should be for connecting with someone.
The system tells me that I first set-up my online presence with Linkedin on 9th August 2004. Since then, I’ve diligently invited people with whom I have a genuine professional connection, i.e. they were a colleague, a client, a supplier or someone I’d met in a professional capacity. Of my 600+ connections, there are fewer than 20 who would not immediately know me if I were to pick up the phone. It really is my ‘little black book’ of people I know and could call on in a professional capacity.
So, along comes Twitter and the social networking frenzy, and up goes the number of pretty random Linkedin invitations. I probably get 5 or more invitations a week, with little more than the auto-generated text by way of introduction, from people I’ve shared a discussion with in one of the groups, or exchanged a few tweets on Twitter. And, I’m not sure what I think about these invitations. I tend to drop them a line back explaining that to keep my social media manageable and authentic I keep Linkedin for people with whom I have a genuine professional relationship. It’s not to say that there aren’t people who I’ve originally met through Twitter, subsequently formed a more solid business relationship, and then added to Linkedin – but surely there has to be a difference between people you chat to on wider social platforms, like Twitter, and people who become a Linkedin connection?
What do you think? How do you decide who to connect with on Linkedin these days? Am I maintaining my professional integrity or missing out on great new connections?
Clear Thought Consulting works with small businesses, equipping them with the marketing strategies, suppliers, skills and set-up that they need to become bigger businesses. We do this by planning and delivering 12-month marketing transformation programmes – supporting a small business through a step-by-step process to making marketing pay. We firmly believe that when you can’t out-spend your competition, you have to out-think them.
In an always-on, socially-connected, world – keeping your marketing content fresh and up-to-date is really important. Whether it’s your latest blog, a timely offer, a themed promotion or competition – having something that is current means that your business looks up-to-date and on-the-ball. And, for social media interaction, always has something to hand to get conversations started.
A bit of pre-planning can help you achieve this. It might sound strange, but you really can get the bones of a content plan in place for the next 12-months right now. Then, closer to the time you won’t be faced with one the scariest things in the world… a blank sheet of paper!
So, for businesses in the UK, here’s a 2011 rundown of marketing thought starters for the next twelve months.
January: Fresh starts, resolutions and planning the year ahead
How about issuing a year-ahead calendar of key dates in your industry, or making some predictions for the year ahead? January can be a great month for offering introductory sessions, or year-ahead planning tools.
February: A month for lovers and relationships
With Valentine’s Day falling in February, many can use the day to offer related merchandise and offers. Even if your business has nothing to do with love… you could use the theme to talk about effective relationships, or commercialism…
March: Tax planning, green shoots, Mother’s Day and official start to Spring
For many businesses the end of the tax year also marks the end of their own financial year. For anyone in a B2B context, this offers an opportunity to start a conversation. What could you offer to help their year-end go more smoothly, or to plan for the next financial year? The Spring theme of green shoots can serve as a conversation starter in any business.
April: New financial year, bank holidays and a royal wedding
April marks the beginning of a new tax year, and often brings in new company rules or taxation – is there something you do that could help people with this? Do you provide services that can help people through the Easter Bank Holidays – like phone answering, or childcare? Easter Egg hunts can be lots of fun. And, of course, if you run out of ideas you can always get in on wedding fever… what with Prince William’s nuptials falling at the end of the month.
May: More holidays and a referendum
May sees more Bank Holidays, issuing tips on productivity to manage the workload around holidays, or technology tips for out of hours services can be really helpful. Alternatively, how about thinking up some fun stuff people could try on their days off. Oh yes, and we’ll be asked to vote on voting… I’m sure there’s a blog in that somewhere.
June: Festival season, Father’s Day and fancy hats
With Glastonbury King amongst them, June is the busiest month for music festivals. You could issue packs of festival merchandise, survival guides or ideas for fun alternatives for those not going, or not interested. There’s also Father’s Day, and Royal Ascot amongst other diary dates.
Will we see a British Champion? Possibly… but either way, there’s always something to comment on, from the price of strawberries to the choice of footwear. It might also be time to think about holiday planning guides, offers, and the ultimate BBQ pack.
August: School holidays, holiday ideas, the last bank holiday of summer
August can be a tough month for anyone trying to hold down a full time job and entertain children on their school holidays. Anything you can do to help them will go down well… activity packs, ideas for cheap days out, etc.
September: Conference season and back to school
September is when things seem to get serious again. Back to school is perennial theme that will have mileage for some businesses. And, with the political parties and trade unions starting their conference season, there’s sure to be something worth talking about.
October: Conferences continue, clocks go back, Autumnal colours, ghosts and ghouls
As the nights draw in helpful reminders on the time shift, or ideas for the extra hour can be useful. Photo competitions as the trees put on their Autumn show can be great, and Halloween provides an opportunity for a bit of fun.
November: Fireworks, warmth, and remembrance
With Winter in full swing, tips on keeping warm and reducing energy bills often gain coverage. And, of course, there’s bonfire night to light up the skies. It’s also a time to remember, with Armistice Day, the Royal Legion Poppy appeal and remembrance Sunday.
December: Retrospectives and festivities
A time for looking back and learning lessons. ‘Best of’ lists can be a real winner, as well thinking about what you’ve learned from the the year just gone. And, of course the festive season provides ample talking points from snow, elves, gifts, family, people less fortunate and so much more.
These are common themes that most businesses could use as a starting point. The idea is not to trot out the same old lines, but to have a think about an original angle on something that is already currently front of mind. It would also make sense to map out any key dates important to your industry – awards dates, key events, etc. and think about how you could use heightened awareness to get a conversation started. Get ahead, plan it now! So, if you’re ever stuck for an idea… start here.
Clear Thought Consulting works with small businesses, equipping them with the marketing strategies, suppliers, skills and set-up that they need to become bigger businesses. We do this by planning and delivering 12-month marketing transformation programmes – supporting a small business through a step-by-step process to making marketing pay. We firmly believe that when you can’t out-spend your competition, you have to out-think them.
So, it’s that time of year again… when we take a look at Google to tell us which of our small business marketing articles have been most enjoyed in the past year.
According to unique page views, the following blog posts from the marketing Clear Thinkers have been the most popular of 2010. It seems that lists of 10 and three are your favourite formats, and that blogs we wrote last year are still going strong giving relevant advice to small business marketers every day.
A post from Bryony looking at typical day rates for marketing providers, what you should expect for your money and top tips for making sure you’re getting sensible advice. The post includes questions to ask to make sure you’re getting value for money.
An ever-popular blog from Cheryl, penned last year, but no less relevant today – giving you a 10 step guide to writing a marketing brief to significantly increase your chances of getting great work from your marketing suppliers.
In this post Cheryl explains how using inclusive language can provide three critical benefits; maintaining team morale, enabling succession planning, and reducing customer churn. She goes on to provide five key tips for a more inclusive brand tone of voice.
Another popular article that has stood the test of time since being written last year. Bryony lists 20 ways to squeeze extra value from a single piece of marketing content. Useful advice for anyone wanting to make their marketing budget, and product messages, go further.
It can be hard to wade through the mass of marketing advice, most of which is highly tactical. This may be useful in day-to-day execution, but it won’t do the trick if you’re trying to fill a strategic gap. Bryony outlines 10 signs that your small business is suffering the effects of a poor (or non existent) marketing strategy.
In our very first blog on 2010, Cheryl outlined 10 areas of focus to getting your small business marketing onto solid foundations. If you didn’t do these this year, why not make them your list for 2011?
It’s amazing the judgements people will make about your business on the basis of a simple typo. Avoid embarrassment and damage to your small business reputation with these 10 proofreading tips from Cheryl.
In a socially-networked business world your professional profile may be the first thing people see, is it up to scratch? Bryony asks key questions and lists the core items that you should include in the professional profiles of all your key people.
The back of your business card is valuable space – what are you using yours for? In this highly practical post, Bryony provides three ideas to turn the back of your business card into a powerful marketing tool.
One of our more technical posts, Bryony takes a moment to explain how incomplete or irrelevant meta data on your small business website can seriously hamper your success in social media marketing.
We’re delighted that you’ve continued to enjoy, use and share our blog posts in 2010, and we look forward to giving you more essential small business marketing tips and advice in 2011.
Please do use the comment function below if there are any specific marketing questions you’d like us to address next year.
Clear Thought Consulting works with small businesses, equipping them with the marketing strategies, suppliers, skills and set-up that they need to become bigger businesses. We do this by planning and delivering 12-month marketing transformation programmes – supporting a small business through a step-by-step process to making marketing pay. We firmly believe that when you can’t out-spend your competition, you have to out-think them.
You never really know where your next new business opportunity will come from. But, what’s certain is that the more conversations you have about what you do, the more opportunities you’ll uncover.
And so… …I recently changed my window cleaner from a traditional ‘ladder-and-sponge’ type of service to a small business offering a ‘hot-filtered-water-up-a-giant-brush-on-a-pole’ service. This was more to do with the fact that it was the only service on offer in my area, but that’s not the point.
The point is that I got chatting the tradesman about the difference in his method and the old ‘flat-cap-Joe’ type. I asked him why he thought his system was better, and whether he was a franchise or not (he had decent kit, a smart uniform and a professionally branded van).
He commented that these weren’t the normal type of questions he gets from his customers, but he explained his set-up anyway, and by return asked what I did for a living.
I told him. We help small businesses with big ambitions to get their marketing sorted.
It was right then, I watched him have a light bulb moment. He told me that the couple that ran the franchise were developing a new business proposition on a national scale, and were currently considering its marketing. Hum! ‘Interesting’ I thought.
To cut a long story short…
The outcome of our chat was that he put me in touch with said business owners. A week later we were having a new business meeting about how Clear Thought could help their business grow with some marketing clear thinking.
This could happen to anyone, whether you are the service provider, or service user. A new business opportunity could materialise at any moment, from any direction, and without warning.
How I was ready
I know that not everyone is naturally chatty (those who’ve met me will know that I am), but in case you find yourself in a similar situation, here’s some tips on being better prepared:
Always have a practiced short summary about your business memorised (an elevator pitch). This means that at a moment’s notice, and without hesitation, you will always be able to talk about exactly what it is that your business does.
Always have a pre-prepared selection of questions that will help you find out more about the kind of things that might be on their mind. Then you can deduce if your product or service can help them. Sometimes just asking the right questions can turn a casual chat into a serious conversation.
Be totally up-to-date with your back-catalogue of literature or online content. Now you can easily point them at a relevant article or case study to substantiate your proposition (I also keep business cards all over the house, my hand bag and my briefcase which point people at our website in particular).
And finally…
Being a small business ourselves, finding leads and turning them into sales is always on a Clear Thinker’s mind. It’s what we preach and it’s what we practice.
I’ve heard sales trainers tell people to “always be selling” – I’m not sure I agree. If someone really isn’t buying then you’ll quickly become a bore and party invites will dry up pretty smartish. I’d say it’s “always be listening” and if there’s a genuine interest and opportunity, be ready to have a conversation. Because from conversations come opportunities, and from opportunities come sales.
Clear Thought Consulting works with small businesses, equipping them with the marketing strategies, suppliers, skills and set-up that they need to become bigger businesses. We do this by planning and delivering 12-month marketing transformation programmes – supporting a small business through a step-by-step process to making marketing pay. We firmly believe that when you can’t out-spend your competition, you have to out-think them.
The three Rs of the green movement can just as easily apply to effective small business marketing. Keeping these three things in mind if you’re a small business with ambitious growth plans can help your precious funds go further.
Reduce: find your key messages and stick to them
Saying less, more often, is the key to being heard. If you are consistently associated with specific things, then your company will be front of mind when that thing pops into someone’s head. If your business says one thing one day, another thing another day, then people are less likely to have a clear idea of what your company actually does.
Groups of three work well:
What are the three things you want to be known for?
What three core subjects is your company the expert for?
Decide what they are and stick to them.
You can talk around the subject, but you need to stay broadly on the topic. To give you an idea our three are: 1) Marketing that supports every step of the sales process, 2) Squeezing every penny from every marketing pound, and, 3) Marketing for business growth.
Re-use: the art of ‘pimping’ your content
Intelligent re-use of marketing content has three key benefits: 1) It helps you get more from your marketing budget, 2) It means that people see your message repeated multiple times so it’s more likely to stick, and, 3) It extends your reach by appealing to people who like to consume different media formats (some people like print, some video, some audio, etc.).
Recycle: if they haven’t seen it, you can use it again, and again
A campaign mindset puts perfectly good ideas out to pasture when they have plenty more life in them. It’s wasteful of the ideas and it’s wasteful of the investment.
Let’s imagine that you run a campaign that includes a great paper written by one of your top experts, you then invite people to a live web seminar with the expert in question. A great lead generation activity. But, just because you’ve done it once, why does that mean you can’t do it again? Why not roll it over every 12 weeks, sending the details to new contacts you’ve made in that time frame? Firstly, they probably don’t even know that you did it before. Secondly, if they do – they almost certainly don’t care. Mailchimp run the same live webinars every week, and it works well for them because they find a new audience each time.
What’s even better these days is that you can set this up to run itself. Using an ‘autoresponder’ or triggered campaign means that you can set-up a whole series of content that is released in a given time period. People sign-up and the system feeds the campaign out to that person from that day. They specify the start time, not you.
So, take a look through your marketing back catalogue… what can you reduce, re-use or recycle?
Clear Thought Consulting works with small businesses, equipping them with the marketing strategies, suppliers, skills and set-up that they need to become bigger businesses. We do this by planning and delivering 12-month marketing transformation programmes – supporting a small business through a step-by-step process to making marketing pay. We firmly believe that when you can’t out-spend your competition, you have to out-think them.
This is a guest post by Neil Denny, lawyer and social media trainer. We’ve noticed that some people seem like social media naturals, whilst others are immediately sceptical, bordering on hostile. Talking it through with Neil, he wondered if personality types could help us understand how people are likely to participate in social media.
Speaking to groups about social media often elicits fairly fixed responses ranging from the curious to the strongly opposed, from the enthusiastic to the cool.
I recently held a facilitated discussion between lawyers, mediators and financial advisers. Exploring the full range of reactions proved to be quite a challenge. The thought occurred to me whether that maybe each profession had different responses or considerations relating to social media.
I was not convinced that was the problem. Some of the financial advisers were very keen, some were not, and it was the same with lawyers and mediators.
I then got to thinking about personality typing, about Myers-Briggs, Insights, Social Styles, Disc profiling or any of the others.
Could responses to social media participation be mapped out in accordance with similar traits?
If we borrowed a grid to map people along an assertiveness axis, say, and an emotional/expressiveness axis then could we better anticipate how people interact with social media and social media training?
Let us assume that someone who is not assertive, and not particularly expressive is likely to be very quiet and reserved. They are going to be slow to put themselves forward or get online. In training it is likely that they will want to access the information being delivered in plenty of time and consider if fully. And very carefully. They are going to be the slow adopters. Give them a Yammer account to acclimatize.
A gung-ho, inspirational piece of motivation wizardry will only arouse suspicion. We need to go slow, show success stories and explain how the success was achieved.
Now what of the non-assertive, but expressive types? Sometimes these might be referred to as green types. Their sensitivity and willingness to share emotions can make them key team players, but their lack of assertiveness means that they are not natural leaders or managers.
Within social media, they are likely to want to keep control of who accesses their profiles. Privacy may well be a concern, and even an objection. As a trainer within social media we need to emphasise the ability to build meaningful online relationships that may well turn into referrals, or enable in-house collaboration.
A closely guarded personal Facebook account, or a company Facebook profile might fit here.
What of the driven assertive types, but those who are emotionally reserved? A lazy stereotype might assume that these are the traditional managers of old. They are strongly focussed on results.
They want the metrics! How are we going to measure the success of social media? What is the return on investment? Give me success stories by all means but tell me in pounds and pence. Maybe LinkedIn suits best with its no-fuss, corporate thrust.
And the assertive expressives? Well they are the easy sells. These will be your key sponsors within the group, driving forward innovation and participation.
Social media can be shown to give them an opportunity to be creative and expressive and to acquire a broad platform upon which to perform. Equip them with a few skills, make sure you raise their awareness about appropriate content and watch them fly. Watch their Twitter follower counts soar and marvel at their Facebook friendships blossom.
So what are your thoughts? Does the theory hold water? What types could we identify and what labels might we give each of the above?
Neil Denny is a consultant lawyer, trainer and author. He writes the Lawyer 1.9 blog and can be found on Twitter as @neildenny
Ok, so obviously we don’t think marketing is a load of rubbish. But, we understand why so many people do. Especially small business owners, sales people, and our colleagues in finance. It’s because marketing people insist on speaking in their own language. Which is ironic, seeing as marketers we are meant to be the masters of communication.
Imagine going into a management team meeting and saying something along the lines of…
“We’ve nailed a really great concept, I’m totally loving the big idea, I reckon this campaign will go viral, generating excellent word-of-mouth amongst our advocates. I’m really looking forward to tracking the buzz metrics.”
Those of you who are up to your eyes in the latest ‘marketing thinking’ day-in, day-out might think that sounds great (and many more will roll your eyes in dismay).
But, what’s for sure is that most business people will have heard something like…
“I’ve just spent a load of money with hand-waving creative types doing something that I think is fun, that will generate little but hot air.”
The problem isn’t confined to marketing. It’s in any expert discipline or established community. Business disciplines, like IT, law, marketing, finance, operations, human resources, etc. all have their own jargon. It’s worth taking a moment to consider whether the people you’re talking to actually understand a word you’re saying. If not, think again. Find someone outside your area to give you some honest feedback – do your words sound like gobbledygook to them?
Now, the keen-eyed amongst you will quickly see that this website has its fair share of marketing jargon. We like to think we make it digestible, but we know that the plain English campaign would take us aside from time to time. The point is to at least consider the language your business is using – because what you mean to say is not always what people hear. We’re not completely anti-jargon, we simply advise handling it with care.
And, if you do need a translation of any marketing rubbish, drop us a line and we’ll decipher it for you!
Clear Thought Consulting works with small businesses, equipping them with the marketing strategies, suppliers, skills and set-up that they need to become bigger businesses. We do this by planning and delivering 12-month marketing transformation programmes – supporting a small business through a step-by-step process to making marketing pay. We firmly believe that when you can’t out-spend your competition, you have to out-think them.
5 reasons to maintain marketing momentum whatever your workload
Many small and medium-sized businesses struggle to maintain a consistent level of marketing activity because energies and resources are diverted to deliver work for paying customers. Indeed, many don’t see the point in spending precious budget, and even more precious time, when they have plenty of work on the go. As a business owner myself I certainly recognise the dilemma and can understand why marketing can slip to the bottom of the to-do list at times. But, if you want to grow your business, you need to maintain your marketing momentum.
Marketing for growth means marketing consistently
Here are five reasons to maintain a steady level of marketing activity for your growing business.
1. Build a steady and predictable sales pipeline
When new business becomes a rollercoaster, it is exhausting. Many small businesses find themselves in ‘feast or famine’ mode - consistent marketing can break this cycle. If you know that the buying process in your business takes six days, six weeks or six months, then you know that you need to be generating those initial enquiries six days, six weeks or six months before you actually do the work or deliver the product. Famine happens when you forget to do your prospecting because you’re too busy feasting.
2. You won’t waste resources repeating yourself
You may have heard talk of changing the education system to reduce the long Summer breaks, because it has been shown that children forget what they’ve learned over the long holidays. The same is true of your market. If you haven’t said anything for a while, you’ll forgive people for not immediately recalling who you are and what you do. If, however, you have a programme of regular communications that continually keeps you front of mind, when you do pick up the phone or bump into a potential buyer at an event, you’re one step further on in the conversation because you’ve not had to introduce yourself from scratch.
3. Generate the right kind of work for your business
Yes, there is a right and a wrong kind of work for your business. The right kind is profitable, enjoyable and builds skills and credibility. The wrong kind simply takes up time and barely turns a profit. Being busy does not always equate to being profitable, or fulfilled. By continually presenting your business as the experts in the right kind of work, you’ll get more of it. But, if you all have your heads down simply fulfilling the wrong kind… when will you get a chance to tell people about what you’re really good at?
4. Maintain those marketing muscles
Marketing is made up of many different skills and techniques. If you only pick them up from time to time, you’re likely to need to re-learn what you once knew. What’s more, with digital marketing techniques moving on at a staggering pace, if you look away for more than a few weeks it is likely that some new technique will have passed you by. Regular, consistent marketing activities undertaken throughout your organisation will embed the skills so that it becomes second nature. And, when that happens, it’s no longer a chore – it’s just a great habit.
5. If you generate enough demand, you can put your prices up
Scarcity builds demand. Take the recent strikes in France and the impact on the availability of fuel. If people had simply bought the same as usual, there would have been no shortage. But, the sense of shortage prompted them to stock-up. Now, I’m not advocating scaring people into buying your products, but you’d be amazed how much more people seem to want what you have (and are willing to pay) if it seems like it’s in high demand. Taking this on board, it makes sense to keep marketing even when you’re full to capacity.
Clear Thought Consulting works with small businesses, equipping them with the marketing strategies, suppliers, skills and set-up that they need to become bigger businesses. We do this by planning and delivering 12-month marketing transformation programmes – supporting a small business through a step-by-step process to making marketing pay. We firmly believe that when you can’t out-spend your competition, you have to out-think them.
This is a guest post by Nikki Pilkington, digital marketing extraordinaire. With many small businesses more than a little baffled by search engine optimisation (SEO), we asked if there were any other techniques that could be implemented more easily to help get a small business up the search engine rankings.
Some say that SEO is a black art, others claim it is a science. If you read all the blogs, ebooks and articles out there, it can seem that SEO is a bit of a minefield There’s META tags and titles, alt tags and content, keyword density and page rank, links and reciprocal links – and that’s just for starters. No wonder the average business is confused when it comes to SEO!
After reading all there is to read, and heeding the warning tales of dire Google penalties if you get it wrong, you could be forgiven for thinking that the only way you’re going to get that coveted front page on Google is by paying an SEO expert hundreds, maybe thousands, of pounds.
Well you’ll be delighted to know that there is another way, and all it needs to take is a little of your time.
What do you have to do?
Start blogging!
OK, it’s not just a case of writing the first thing that comes into your head, but believe me, blogging really can help your search engine positions. Here are 5 simple steps to blogging for search engine positions.
1) Find out what keyphrases your audience are searching for
Use the Google Keywords tool to find out what people are searching for related to your industry. Do you sell a particular range of jewellery or handbag? Look and see what phrases people are looking for regarding those items. A professional service? Find out the issues people are having. Knowing what people are searching for allows you to tailor your blogs to those phrases.
2) Write your blog titles with those phrases in mind
One of the most visited pages on my blog recently is the ‘What size should the new Twitter background be?’ post. With ‘New Twitter’ being launched, I knew that people would be wondering how to redesign their new backgrounds, so I wrote a blog post with that in mind. You can do the same. Solve a problem ‘How to’, ‘How can I’, How do I’ blog posts that answer queries and problems tend to do well in search engines, and bring in visitors.
3) Make sure you use your keyphrase in the body of your post
Don’t just put your phrase in your blog title, make sure it’s used a couple of times in the body of your blog too. That way Google will know that your post is relevant to the phrase being searched for.
4) Update your blog regularly
Google will come back and index content that is updated regularly, so ensure that your blog is updated frequently It doesn’t have to be every day, but a couple of times a week at least is optimal.
5) Link to your blog posts
Tweet them, Facebook them, refer to them from your website – Google follows links, and the more relevant links you have to your post, the more likelihood of it being indexed. Don’t spend hours on this; a few well placed links will do the job.
The simple fact is that Google loves content – and the more keyword strong content you can post, the more chance you have of being indexed and being found by people searching.
Nikki Pilkington is owner of NikkiPilkington.com, an Internet marketing agency based in the UK and France, specialising in helping SMEs promote their websites through SEO and Social Media Marketing. She is also author of ebook 299 Steps to Blogging Heaven.
Today has been a funny old day, we’ve been busy preparing for a hard day’s training workshop that we’re running all day tomorrow, and I’ve been getting a few things in order for a forthcoming holiday (my first proper break in about 2 years). So, when we received a particularly vile piece of feedback via our feedback button, I have to admit that my smile did fall for a moment… well, about the time it takes to eat a chocolate brownie actually.
And, then I saw a Tweet from a lawyer who is doing great things in social media, saying how he had received some vicious feedback in a LinkedIn discussion. It put me in mind of Seth Godin’s excellent advice on dealing with trolls… in which he says:
Lots of things about work are hard. Dealing with trolls is one of them. Trolls are critics who gain perverse pleasure in relentlessly tearing you and your ideas down. Here’s the thing(s):
1. trolls will always be trolling
2. critics rarely create
3. they live in a tiny echo chamber, ignored by everyone except the trolled and the other trolls
4. professionals (that’s you) get paid to ignore them. It’s part of your job.
“Can’t please everyone,” isn’t just an aphorism, it’s the secret of being remarkable.
Separate cruelty from constructive criticism
It is, of course, important to distinguish between trolls and genuine and constructive feedback. We do, occasionally, get negative feedback (I know, I admit it… we’re human). Usually this is really useful, and gratefully received. We can always improve – and that is exactly why we have a feedback button on our website. But, when it is vicious and unhelpful you need to find the strength to hit delete and carry on.
Brace yourself… it will happen
The thing is, that if you put yourself up to scrutiny – which is exactly what you’re doing by having a website or posting a blog – then you will at some point encounter nasty people. Even bullies grow up and get jobs. If you engage heavily in social media, then I’m afraid to say that you’ll find them.
If you’re not expecting it, then an ugly side-swipe can really knock your confidence. Surround yourself with a group of people who you trust, and whose opinion you value. Get them to regularly feedback on whether you’re doing good stuff. And, if you are, then hold your head up high and brace yourself… at some point a mean-spirited individual will try to burst your bubble. It is amazing how much nastier people feel able to be through a remote connection, and even more cruel when hiding behind the mask of anonymity.
When it does happen, tick it off as a social media rite of passage and congratulate yourself at having generated an emotional reaction in someone you don’t even know… that’s an achievement.
Clear Thought Consulting works with small businesses, equipping them with the marketing strategies, suppliers, skills and set-up that they need to become bigger businesses. We do this by planning and delivering 12-month marketing transformation programmes – supporting a small business through a step-by-step process to making marketing pay. We firmly believe that when you can’t out-spend your competition, you have to out-think them.
What do you do to pick yourself up from negative feedback?
Please use the comment function below to share your tips on dusting yourself off when you’re knocked.
With digital print bringing down the cost of business cards, and making it easier to update your cards more regularly – perhaps it’s time that you thought a bit more clearly about what you put on the back of yours. Could it work that little bit harder for you?
Ok, so there are some must-have items for your business card – like your name, your company name, your telephone numbers, your email address, your Twitter handle and your website. Then there’s that bit of personality – like a photo, an image, a funky finish or shape. And, then there’s how to use the reverse. Here are just three ideas for making yours into a mini marketing tool.
1. Tell people what you do
Prepare a short piece of powerful copy that tells people what you do. You don’t have long – so make it count. If you watch someone receive a card, they usually read the front and then flip over… you have about 10-20 seconds to catch their eye with something. So, keep it short and punchy. Bullet points work well. At a networking event, this can be great for structuring a short conversation. Point them to the bullet point, then tell them a little story (ideally a case study based one) about each service or product you have listed.
2. Add a QR code that links to a testimonial video
A QR code is like a bit like bar-code. Readers are readily available for free on most smartphones. This can be used to direct people to a web destination of your choice. How about preparing a short interview with each of your key people, interspersed with testimonials about them, and popping it on You-Tube (as this plays on all smartphones). Add a QR code on the reverse linking to the video for that individual. Now, your business card can act as a little introduction to you, even when you’re not there.
3. Promote your latest offer or download
This is by far our favourite. If you’re running a decent thought leadership programme (What? Why not?!) – then you should have a steady stream of decent content. Typically, this will encourage data capture in return for deeper content. So, why not keep your print runs small, and replace your cards monthly or quarterly with details of your latest material. This makes a great talking point at events, and also gives people a natural next step on having received your card. Even better, why not have a few different reverses with more targeted content (by industry for example) – so that you can reach for the card that is spot on for the person you’re talking to.
Ooh, and before I finish, a wee note of caution on going design crazy… a bit of personality is great. But, think twice about plastic, laminated, or metal cards that have no white space. People, at networking events in particular, often like to make a note on your card as to where they met you and what you talked about. Make it easy for people to do this, it will help them to remember you and stay in touch – which is why you gave them the card, right?
So, imagine that every person in your business is out there equipped with one of these hard working cards. If just 1 in 10 take some action based on what’s on the back… being as you were paying for the print anyway, that’s effectively a freebie!
Clear Thought Consulting works with small businesses, equipping them with the marketing strategies, suppliers, skills and set-up that they need to become bigger businesses. We do this by planning and delivering 12-month marketing transformation programmes – supporting a small business through a step-by-step process to making marketing pay. We firmly believe that when you can’t out-spend your competition, you have to out-think them.
What’s on the back of your business card?
Please use the comment function below to share your tips on making your business card work harder.
“It is better to ask some of the questions than know all the answers.” – James Thurber.
I meet a lot of small businesses who are ‘in between websites’ or ‘just about to make some changes’. At Clear Thought we are always ‘just about to make some changes’… well by adding some new piece of content or other.
No matter what the reason for the change, or perhaps you are only at the beginning of your website journey, here are 6 critical things should consider to boost the effectiveness of your site. There are loads more, but these will get you started:
1. How easy are you to do business with (i.e. have you got a good method of contact or feedback)?
If your customer service is nothing less than brilliant, no matter how great your product is, people will pick you up on it.
I’m sure there is reams of research out there that talks about things that drive people crazy, but I have no doubt that right up there is ‘not being able to find contact details’ (and by law you have to publish ownership details BTW). At the very least you should have an email address or phone number. Maybe a web form straight into a proactive customer services person. Even better, a live chat function.
And, in this day and age time waits for no one, so if a customer is looking for a response, it had better be within a decent time scale.
With all that in mind, there are some fantastic web feedback tools that you can plug directly into your sales & marketing, or customer service teams. Systems that integrate with your website and enable 2-way dialogue and an almost instant response. How cool would your brand look responding almost in real time? Currently we like: Kampyle, and Get Satisfaction. Tip: If you don’t have the time or resource to handle lots of direct contact with your users now, then you should seriously think about putting it in your plans – a virtual assistant or call handling service could help here. Make it easy for people to do business with you and embrace negative feedback as much as positive. If you are not managing people’s niggles about your organisation, service or product, the Internet could magnify the issue to your disadvantage (bad news travels fast – really fast on the web). It’s simply a matter of your online reputation.
2. Have you got a way of keeping your site really current and fresh, and is it highly visible to search engines?
Sorry, that’s two questions, but when I talk about these topics, people either glaze-over, or give me a wink. And, they’re completely interdependent, so worth addressing together.
If you totally ‘get it’ that a pristine, relevant and current online presence can be the making of an organisation, then you’ll understand the importance of good web content. It definitely has impact on engagement.
Companies that just talk about how great they are, or worse, have out-of-date content, are missing a trick. Be relevant. Be engaging. Be about your customers.
From a practical point-of-view, how easy is it to update your content, and can search engines see it? Content managed systems are the way forward… web sites that allow business owners to manage there own content and invite user interaction. This means more control.
Systems that allow you tailor your content to be media-rich and search engine optimised (SEO) are what small businesses are using these days.** At the moment we like ‘open source’ built sites that are easy to handover to another expert should anything happen to the original developer. Drupal and WordPress are amonsgt our favourites… much better than a bedroom built job that hooks you in to a specific individual or agency.
** If the terminology in this section is sending you to sleep, or perhaps exciting you, there’s plenty of detail on the internet, but it’s not that important in this context. If you want to know more, or find out if it is important to your business, drop us a line.
3. Is your site’s navigation the simplest and easiest it can be (i.e. can users actually find there way around without actually having to think about it too much)?
We do a lot of work, using specialists, with our clients to get their site’s information architecture correct, and its usability spotless. If people can’t get around your site quickly and logically they’ll be off (that should make you think about your bounce rate***). Good web designers can do a great job of information architecture (IA) and usability, but if they get the crayons out before mapping it all out, then you have a problem. It’s about supporting the customer journey.
*** Bounce rate: Some more techie jargon that analysis tools like Google Analytics use to identify which pages of your site loses users.
4. Is your site compliant?
If one of the objectives of your site is ‘data capture’ have you considered your users’ privacy? You’ll need to be thinking about the Data Protection Act, the Disability Discrimination Act… and, most importantly, the expectations of your users.
These days users absolutely expect to have to give something to get something. At the very least an email address in return for an account, download or eNews subscription.
But, just because they have given you their email address does not mean they have given their permission for you to contact them again. More importantly, you must ask yourself if your data capture policy is spotlessly compliant. Have you got a privacy policy? Have you got your permission marketing options sorted out? Have you got an unsubscription function? Have you got your website terms & conditions water tight? Are your promotional rules clearly displayed? Don’t make it hard – duping people into permission isn’t a good start to a relationship.
If you can’t answer yes to all these questions above, you could be opening yourself up to some pretty negative interaction, or worse legal disputes.
The trick is to invite users into your community and have them manage their own profile and subscriptions. Just another reason for them to come back.
5. Has your site been fully user tested?
6. Is your site ripe for social media?
OK, so at the risk of this blog turning into a discussion paper, I’m going to keep the detail for these final two questions back. If you want to know more, please email our site, or drop me your email address on twitter (@cherylcrichton) and I will send them to you. Also, please feel free to ask your own questions.
And finally…
Is your website being fully supported by a strategic and integrated marketing effort, and what content do you have that can be re-used else where? (Sorry, that’s actually another two questions).
There are some fantastic websites out there produced by some fantastic thinkers and doers. However, there are many many more that fall a long way short. I can’t count the times I have seen website produced ‘by design’, or where the mechanics or task of the site has not been thought about properly. Getting your online presence wrong can be like slapping people in the face when they walk through your (virtual) shop door.
Clear Thought Consulting works with small businesses, equipping them with the marketing strategies, suppliers, skills and set-up that they need to become bigger businesses. We do this by planning and delivering 12-month marketing transformation programmes – supporting a small business through a step-by-step process to making marketing pay. We firmly believe that when you can’t out-spend your competition, you have to out-think them.
What turns you off on a website?
Please use the comment function below to share your thoughts on what you like or loathe about the websites you visit.
This is a guest blog from Jackie Fast, managing director of Slingshot Sponsorship. With most people thinking of football teams, large sporting events and big budget deals, we asked Jackie how small businesses can make the most of sponsorship opportunities.
How small businesses can use sponsorship effectively as part of their marketing mix
Sponsorship gives the impression that only international brands and high salary footballers can benefit from these strategies, but that couldn’t be farther from the truth.
Sponsorship by its nature is a partnership opportunity for two organisations to create synergy. Synergy creates savings for both businesses and so should really be something every company should undertake – especially in an economic climate such as ours. Small businesses are even better organisations to undertake sponsorship initiatives as they are more flexible providing them the opportunity to leverage their sponsorship activation strategy when and as it is needed with the opportunities that arise.
Small business sponsors supporting the community
Sponsorship works for businesses who understand their target audience. This needs to be the starting point. Once you understand your target audience, you then have to consider where this audience communicates and how you can communicate with them. Community sponsorship programmes are a great starting point, especially in the ways of sport.
Many school and community sporting events/teams are desperate for sponsorship to provide their athletes with new equipment. Sponsoring these teams can be a cost-effective way to build brand awareness to your community. This works especially well if you are a business who deals with customers within your area – such as restaurants, flower shops, etc. If you considered the amount of people who are attending the games (both home and away!) and compare that to an advertisement spend in your local paper, I’m sure you will see the benefits. In addition to providing a Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) programme for your company and its employees.
Getting involved with community sponsorship programmes such as sport can also bring an additional element of staff engagement to your business. If this is your objective, speak with the organisers of the event(s) you are sponsoring and see what opportunities you could create. It might be that your local pizza shop provides pizza for the team when they have won a game or that your staff help out at practice. This will give your staff the opportunity to be a part of something bigger – part of the community and part of your company – through your sponsorship.
Contra agreements to provide your services can make your budget go further
Your business offers a great service or product, which others need. A great way to get involved with sponsorship with little investment would be to provide your services or products for free in return for sponsorship of an event/programme or perhaps your branding within their communications to their clients. The key to choosing the right sponsorship contra agreement is to make sure that the event you are sponsoring has a large enough audience for you to gain the benefit of reaching them.
Another great example of SME sponsorship is from one of our current sponsors Phil Stannard Associates. A small A/V company, but with great potential, they approached the DMA Awards to get involved. Through a contra deal, they are now the Judging Event Sponsors – an event that brings together 200 of the most influential people in the marketing industry. With no financial investment, they are able to showcase their services and their equipment to the people that are most likely to purchase from them in the future providing them significant ROI moving forward.
These are just a couple of the thousand ideas that are out there on how SME’s can integrate sponsorship within their organisation and utilise the benefits that many of the top brands receive, just at a smaller investment level. If you ever need further sponsorship tips, be sure to check out our Top Sponsorship Tips on the Slingshot Sponsorship website.
Jackie Fast is managing director of Slingshot Sponsorship, a specialist sponsorship management and consulting agency. By formulating the right sponsorship and activation strategies, we help secure sponsorship funding for organisations, ensure brand sponsorships are engaging, and help marketing agencies realise your client’s sponsorship objectives. Our current sponsors include professional associations, international agencies, sporting teams, environmental initiatives, and musicians.
A key paragraph introducing your company is a must – but don’t ignore the professional profiles of your key people. Anyone who is out there networking, making calls, or working with clients is representing your business. A well written professional profile is an essential part of your sales and marketing toolkit.
Done well, it can bring your company to life and demonstrate your credentials through your people. Done badly and people either don’t know, or don’t believe, that you have a great team. We advise that people invest time and energy, and possibly a little copywriting assistance, in preparing a template profile (you may hear this referred to as a boilerplate) that can then be used in the following places, amongst many others:
On your LinkedIn profile
In your proposals where you outline the team
On your website
As a footer on press releases
As a speaker profile if you’re hosting or speaking at an event
On directory websites
On trade association websites
Key elements of your professional profile template
To get you started, have a think about answering the following questions:
What do you do and for whom?
How long have you worked in your industry?
What is your particular expertise or specialism?
What were the moves / highlights in your career?
What impressive clients have you worked on?
What examples do you have, with proof, of what you can deliver?
Have you received any awards or accolades?
What qualifications do you have?
What are your values – why do you do what you do?
We would suggest that you start with a 200 word profile and then re-purpose it into the various formats, by cutting in down, to use in the various contexts. We would also recommend that you incorporate key search terms for online profiles. However, in doing so, don’t lose sight of how it reads to a real person.
Here are some examples of my own profile in different settings:
Clear Thought Consulting works with small businesses, equipping them with the marketing strategies, suppliers, skills and set-up that they need to become bigger businesses. We do this by planning and delivering 12-month marketing transformation programmes – supporting a small business through a step-by-step process to making marketing pay. We firmly believe that when you can’t out-spend your competition, you have to out-think them.
Do you have examples of any great professional profiles?
Please do use the comment function to share your own examples of professional profiles that you think tick the box.
One of the things that can really hold a business back from making effective use of social media is a lack of content. We recommend posting a new blog article at least weekly – it gives you stuff to Tweet, updates for your LinkedIn status, fresh content in which to seed SEO phrases, etc. Which is all well and good, if you can think of what to write!
Blogging basics
This seems to go well for the first month or so, as you work through the first batch of ideas… then ideas often start to run dry. So here’s a quick run-down on what you should aim to hit to get a blog post out there that people want to read, and feel inclined to pass on. The bare essentials:
Limit your posts to 500 words maximum, our rule of thumb is about ten minutes to read… about long enough to read with a cuppa.
Break your post up on the page into headings and bullet points to enable quick scanning.
Make it useful – give some advice or insight that is genuinely useful to the reader.
Blog ideas to get you started
We get our best ideas from the questions we’re asked by clients. If you find yourself answering the same question often, then you’ve found a great blog topic. One technique that I find handy is after a networking event, client workshop or coffee meeting, I take five minutes to jot down anything in the conversation I’ve just had that could make a good blog topic. Here are a few thought starters for blog structures that always work well:
As well as the five minute review of interesting conversations, we suggest that our clients have an area on their intranet, or desktop, to jot ideas as they come to them through the week… train journeys always work well for me. And, a bit of teamwork to share and enhance ideas works brilliantly too.
You don’t need to start with a blank sheet of paper
You may not know it, but you already have loads of great blog material. Take a look through your back catalogue for things you’ve previously prepared that could be re-purposed into a blog. This blog is being written using a training handout we often use. Think about:
Presentations you’ve given
Reports you’ve prepared for clients
Proposals you’ve prepared
News coverage you’ve achieved
Case studies you have
Campaign material you’ve prepared – like papers
Training material you’ve created
A business blog is an excellent way of getting the word out, demonstrating your credentials, and of drawing people into conversation with your business. And, from conversations come sales – so, what’s stopping you?
Clear Thought Consulting works with small businesses, equipping them with the marketing strategies, suppliers, skills and set-up that they need to become bigger businesses. We do this by planning and delivering 12-month marketing transformation programmes – supporting a small business through a step-by-step process to making marketing pay. We firmly believe that when you can’t out-spend your competition, you have to out-think them.
What sort of blogs do you like to read?
Please use the comment function below to share your thoughts on what makes a good blog.
This is a guest blog by Andy Fuller, graphic designer and owner of Designbull Ltd. Clear Thought asked Andy, what is the importance of brand guidelines to small businesses?
Have you ever received a business card from someone at a networking event and then viewed their website afterwards only to find it looks different to their card? Not a great first impression for a business and would you be confident referring them on to someone?
Having a strong, consistent visual identity for any small business is essential in today’s marketplace. It reinforces the trust you have with your customers and makes you stand out from your competitors.
Your logo, business cards and stationery, to your website, emails and advertising should all follow a similar style which amplifies your organisations aims. So how do you make sure your brand keeps consistent as your business grows? Well, this is where brand guidelines work. They are essentially a useful set of rules and guides that explain how your brand work. They can include examples and template designs which can be given to web designers, printers, or press publications to help, for example, layout an advertisement, and apply your logo, or colour values for accurate duplication of your brand.
Using the example of a recent project undertaken jointly by Clear Thought and Designbull for a company named Relevant Risk, typical brand guidelines for a small business can include information such as:
Brand message or mission statement. This can also include examples of the ‘tone of voice’ or style of writing.
Logo usage. How and where to use the logo, and what not to do. Minimum sizes and also spacing.
Colours. Showing primary colours (usually two) and secondary colour palettes, with their colour breakdowns; CMYK for print, RGB for screen or TV and HEX (short for Hexadecimal; the six character code for the colour on the web).
Fonts used. If a font has been designed specifically for the company logo, then this follows through to it being used on their company literature. Can include variations of the font family and default fonts for web-use.
Photography/image style. If commissioning a photographer or illustrator, their style will be designed uniquely to fit a companies brand style. More commonly, royalty-free imagery can be purchased for small companies on a budget, which, if chosen correctly, can include a good selection from one source.
Additional information can be included, such as website icons and site accessibility, signage to vehicle livery.
For an idea of what a standard set of brand guidelines can look like for a small business, please download the document produced in the joint project we worked on for Relevant Risk. Download PDF 1MB »
Andy Fuller runs Designbull Ltd, specialising in branding and design for small organisations. For the past ten years he has been passionate about helping small businesses develop their brand through print and the internet. He believes that excellent customer service paves the way to quality customer experience.
Thanks to Alison McDougall, owner of Relevant Risk, for permission to use the Relevant Risk guidelines as an example.
If this blog is of interest to you, you my also like to read:
Bryony will be giving a talk called ‘Squeezing Every Penny from Every Marketing Pound’ at the womenmeanbiz networking lunch on 3rd September 2010 at the Aztec Hotel in Almondsbury.
For every paid marketing activity, there are tens of free activities you can add to make your spend go further. With a bit of discipline and elbow grease you can make every marketing penny go much further for your business.
Here are just a few ideas for ways to augment the impact of some typical marketing activities:
Hosting an event -if you’re planning a seminar, lunch event or other marketing event, here are three things you can do for free to increase the reach of your event:
Add the event to LinkedIn
Add the event details to calendars of organisations you may be a member of (e.g. Bristol Media, Chamber of Commerce)
Tweet the details with links to registration page
For more ideas, please attend Bryony’s talk on September 3rd
Offering a discount – if you’re offering a discount on a product or service, you could:
Prepare a specific code that you use on Twitter
Add a refer-to-a-friend form
Issue a press release
For more ideas, please attend Bryony’s talk on September 3rd
Sending a direct mail piece – if you’re sending a mailing, why not think about also:
Looking up recipients on Twitter and Tweeting them about it
Blog about a related subject in the week the the DM lands
Picking up the phone for a follow-up call
For more ideas, please attend Bryony’s talk on September 3rd
These are just a few ideas for increasing the effectiveness of your paid marketing activities with no cost tactics. There are hundreds more, and once you get into the habit you could be doubling the impact every pound you spend in a matter of weeks.
Part 3 – Key things to do after a networking event:
Ok, so you’ve been to a breakfast meeting, a networking lunch or seminar, and you met some interesting people – what should you do now that you’re back at your desk? These are the things that have worked for me over the years.
Sort through the contacts you made: After an event I sort the people I talked to into four groups:
1) Add to database.
2) Add to database and ask for email permission.
3) Add to database, ask for email permission and connect on LinkedIn.
4) Add to database, ask for email permission, connect and invite for coffee.
Update your contacts database: Add everyone whose details you took to your database, making sure that you note where you met them. Even if you don’t think you’ll get in touch, keep a note of the contact, you never know who people know! There are some great tools out there for this, we use Highrise from 37 signals. When we add a contact, this is the data we look for (most, but not all, you can find on the card they gave you at the event):
A photo – you will find this on LinkedIn, Twitter, their website.
Tag or note when and where you met. Additionally, jot some details about what you discussed.
Appropriate segmentation tags that we have defined in our database – e.g. client-side, supply-side, seniority, industry, geography, etc.
Ask for marketing permission: As we add people to our database, we tag them with an ‘Opt-in’ flag for that month. At the end of the month an email goes out from our emarketing tool (Mailchimp) that asks them to opt-in to receiving email from us. We never assume permission – firstly because it is rude, and secondly because it’s against the law (Data Protection Act).
Connect with key people: Of the people you met, think about which ones you’d like to stay in touch with, and drop them an email – ideally the next day so that they remember you. I combine this with an invitation to connect on LinkedIn. When (if) they accept the connection, I tag them in LinkedIn with details of where we met and see if we know anyone in common.
Set-up one-to-one meetings: For those with whom you had really relevant conversations or some real common ground – set up a coffee. For this I suggest picking up the phone. I set aside one morning per week for networking coffees. This is blocked out in my diary and is precious.
One of the great things about the two tools I’ve mentioned is that they work really well together. Mailchimp imports from Highrise, and Highrise automatically adds a note if a contact opens or clicks an email that has been sent in Highrise. On the profile in Highrise (if you’ve noted their Twitter account) you see their latest tweets. These things are great for making sure that if you pick up the phone to them, you know what they’ve been up to lately.
Networking takes a lot of your time and energy – and yet so many people simply go along and see what happens. Clear Thought’s business over the last two years has been built exclusively through smart integrated online and offline networking. I hope that the tips in this three part article help you to get more from your business networking.
Clear Thought Consulting works with small businesses, equipping them with the marketing strategies, suppliers, skills and set-up that they need to become bigger businesses. We do this by planning and delivering 12-month marketing transformation programmes – supporting a small business through a step-by-step process to making marketing pay. We firmly believe that when you can’t out-spend your competition, you have to out-think them.
How do you follow-up after a networking event?
Please use the comment function below to share your tips on following-up after a networking event.
Part 2 – Making yourself memorable at a networking event:
This is a guest post from Melissa Kidd of Coaching Creatives. Melissa coaches people to develop the right relationships and a memorable message to improve lead generation. Networking, in the real world, should definitely form part of your small business marketing strategy. We asked Melissa, once you are at a networking event, how can you make yourself memorable?
Let’s face it, we meet a lot of new people at networking events and unless key people remember us and the value that we create then it can be a waste of time. So when we get to an event, what can we do to make sure we’re remembered?
Be helpful. Networking is largely about helping others – always be thinking how can I help this person? It’s a simple truth: we do business with those that we know, like and trust.
Attention is the most precious thing. We get it and keep it by being relevant.This means we need to tailor what we say according to whom we are talking to. So ask lots of questions, listen carefully and leave standard “elevator” pitches in the elevator.
Be prepared. That said,people are going to ask you what do. Your first sentence needs to draw people in. We need to have a number of ways of describing how we add value. We want people to ask questions because they’re genuinely interested.
Set out to be clear, not clever. The trouble with being an expert is that we forget what it’s like not to know stuff. Remember people are busy. People are lazy. They just don’t have the time or inclination to work stuff out.
Problems. It’s a good idea to talk about the kinds of problems that we can solve. This is because problems are where people live. They are recognisable. And, if we can show through stories and examples how we solve them, we’ll be more referable.
Be passionate. When we love what we do it shows. It’s memorable. But be careful – if we’re always the one doing the talking we might be having an impact that we didn’t intend. Remember: two ears one mouth – use them in that order!
And here are a few practical tips from Bryony too:
Have an outfit with two easily accessible pockets (large enough for biz cards) – keep the cards you give out in one pocket and put the cards you receive in the other.
Take a pocket-sized notepad and a pencil (pencils don’t leak or run out).
Look like you do in your online profile picture – wear the same colour, have your hair the same if possible.
Don’t get drunk!
If you’d like some advice on how to make yourself memorable – particularly answering the what do you question, then please get in touch with Melissa, who specialises in helping professionals bring in more business by word of mouth. Her workshops and one to one sessions deconstruct a typical networking conversation and show you how to apply the 6 proven principles to make yourself more memorable. For more information check out her website www.coachingcreatives.co.uk or give her a call on 0117 315 85 31
If this blog is of interest to you, you my also like to read:
Part 1 – Six things to do before a networking event:
Networking, in the real world, you know face-to-face, should definitely form part of your small business marketing strategy. But, we’ve all been there, at some evening seminar, networking lunch or other business event – only to find ourselves suddenly struck dumb for anything to say that sounds remotely professional. Or, looking around the room desperately hoping to catch a kind eye. Or faffing around in a pocket or a bag for a business card that is more than bit dog-eared.
To avoid these, and a number of other similarly embarrassing networking faux pas, here are a few things that have worked for me over the years.
Find relevant events: keep a track of events in your industry and make sure that you only attend those that are completely relevant. A handy free way to do this is to run key organisations web feeds into a reader, like Google Reader or Netvibes. For a little money, you could brief a virtual assistant, or get a licence for a service like Year Ahead to alert you to events in your space.
Find out who is going: Ask for a delegate list, look at online bookings (many list attendees online). See if the event is listed on LinkedIn, where people may have marked themselves as attending. Tweet that you’re going and ask if anyone else is.
Find out about them: Look up the attendees’ profiles on LinkedIn, Google them, look at company websites, and see if you can find them on Twitter.
Narrow it down: From this, work out which 5-10 people you would really like to talk to at the event and research them a little further.
Get the detail: If they are on LinkedIn, do you know anyone in common? If yes, perhaps you could pick up the phone to that person to get a little more background. If they’re on Twitter, follow them and look through their old Tweets. Note a few key things to talk to them about at the event. There’s nothing more flattering than being able to compliment someone and ask an insightful question… “Hello {Name}, I recognise your face from Twitter. I was interested in your Tweet last week asking about XYZ. It was a great question, what sort of response did you get?”
See if you can find a photo. On their LinkedIn profile, Twitter profile, web page or on a Google image search. It will be handy for spotting them in a crowd.
Reach out to other attendees: Tweet that you’re attending, pop it on your LinkedIn status, asking if any of your contacts are planning to go. If so, perhaps you could go together – an instant ally. If people you don’t already know respond and you want to hook up with them, set-up a specific time you’ll meet them at the event – say, at the registration stand.
Prepare a call-to-action: If you’re a regular blogger, or have a thought leadership programme in place, you have a ready-made opener. You know that people are going to ask “So, what do you do?” – the ready-made elevator pitch is one thing, even better is something really current and useful – have it prepared in advance. For example,
“I run Clear Thought, we provide marketing support for small businesses – we’re the marketing director that small businesses can’t afford on payroll, but can’t afford not to have on the team. At the moment we’re doing an awful lot on social media, in fact I’ve just published a presentation of top tips on the subject, would you be interested in receiving a copy?”
Now, here’s where you really stand out! They say, “Oh yes, that would be great” and you pull out a business card with a bit more detail and the URL to the download on the reverse… “Do you know anyone else who would be interested? – perhaps you’d like to take a couple. Do you have any useful pointers my business could benefit from?”
This means that need to have prepared a specific business card, with the download details (or blog, or video, or case study, or whatever) in advance. Most online digital print for business cards is about 5-7 days, so you’ll need to think about this ahead of time.
Quick re-cap on those six key points:
Find out who is going
Work out who you want to talk to
Find out about them
Work out an opener for your conversation with them
Pre-arrange a couple of people to hook up with whilst you’re there
Have a call-to-action with hand-out in your pocket
In Part 2, I’ll give you my own top tips for face-to-face networking and we’ve also invited networking expert Melissa Kidd to provide tips on how to stand out whilst you’re there, and in Part 3, we’ll share powerful follow-up techniques.
Clear Thought Consulting works with small businesses, equipping them with the marketing strategies, suppliers, skills and set-up that they need to become bigger businesses. We do this by planning and delivering 12-month marketing transformation programmes – supporting a small business through a step-by-step process to making marketing pay. We firmly believe that when you can’t out-spend your competition, you have to out-think them.
What do you do to prepare for a networking event?
Please use the comments function below to share your own pre-event tips.
Bryony Thomas, Chief Clear Thinker at Clear Thought Consulting will be hosting the ‘Social Media for Marketing’ course as part of this unique event series that aims to help aspiring and early-stage tech entrepreneurs start or grow their own tech businesses.
In particular:
The 6 core events will help you develop your business idea into a viable outline business plan,
While the 5 skills workshops will give you a range of personal skills that are particularly important for early-stage tech entrepreneurs
At each event we will signpost relevant resources and information that you can access to learn more and get further help on that event’s topic.
You will get the greatest help in developing your business idea into a plan if you attend all, or most, of the 6 core events. However you are free to choose to attend whichever events you feel will benefit you most.
Expected pricing is:
Entrepreneurs: £12.50 inc. VAT for each event (or £50 for all 6 core events)
Non-entrepreneurs: £25 (or £100 for all 6 core events)
If you are interested in attending one or more of these events please register for a ticket below. We will contact you in late July or early August when EventBrite pages are ready for each event and you can then buy tickets. Register your interest here »
This event series is jointly run by BCS (British Computer Society) and BEN (Bath & Bristol Enterprise Network).
With the advance of the Internet and digital print – you can practically ‘do-print-yourself’ these days. But, I wouldn’t always compromise your design and print quality for that ever alluring cost saving. A badly designed piece of print, or one of poor production quality, could actually turn your customers off (or worse, damage your reputation).
So with so much online activity around these days, is there still a need for print in SME marketing? We at Clear Thought think so – if the face fits, so to speak.
It’s just a case of getting the balance right
Integrated has always been a buzz word in sales and marketing. And integrating your online and offline material is important. Your online activity should always be complemented by some hard copy collateral – even if just some decent business cards, case studies or press releases. People like a little ‘leave behind’ at the end of a meeting.
Of course, it all depends on your product or service. If you trade online and abroad, all your collateral could very well be digital (website, PDFs, webinars, E-News). You should still be mindful of what it looks like when people press the print button themselves. If, however, you are constantly in front of customers, run training courses or hold face-to-face sales meetings for example, you’ll always need a bit of print.
Here are 7 tips to getting the best from your design and print suppliers.
1. Shop around
My mantra on this one is: get three quotes. But, don’t do that until you’ve asked around your network as to which designers and printers are producing good work at the moment. Getting three quotes will also reassure you that prices are competitive.
Top tip: Printers use different size presses. So, always ask what size they have, and confirm that it’s truly suitable for your job. If you insist on using your favourite printer they might be more expensive than the rest because your job is too small for their press, both in dimensions and quantity.
2. Clarify payment terms
If you haven’t used a particular supplier before, always check their payment terms. Quite often before an account can be set up, printers require the first order to be paid by credit card. Also, you may be asked for credit references, which could hold up an urgent job. So be prepared.
Top tip: Always ask if delivery is included. If you are using a fulfillment house, don’t forget to have them confirm postage costs (discounts usually available). It is also worth checking whether the items you are ordering are zero rated for VAT, or not.
3. Don’t skip the brief
Don’t just pick up the phone and reel of a list of random thoughts as to what you think you’re looking for – spend a little time writing your brief. Don’t make assumptions and try to also include what is ‘out of scope’ to avoid misunderstandings.
The more info in, the better the results out. A miss-brief can be costly and laborious. By the time you’ve amended the same piece of work 15 times you’ll be puling your hair out and so will your suppliers. See: What to include in your marketing brief.
Top tips: Always build-in some contingencies for both time and money. And, always order a few extra copies of things than you think you need. This is especially important for for direct mail in case any get spoiled during fulfillment. Also, don’t forget to ask about sustainable or recyclable stock.
4. Go pro
Even if you think you can do it yourself, spend a little of your money on profession advice. One option is to find a specialist Microsoft designer who can provide you with Word or PowerPoint templates that you can re-use yourself after the original draft is approved. These are also perfect for quality onward digital printing. See: How to create powerful sales tools from your desk.
Alternatively, for future updates, you could ask your printer to amend artwork rather than going back to the graphic designer. Sometimes they will do this included in the print cost if the adjustments are minimal. The question is… will they be sympathetic to the original design? Brand guidelines can help here. See: What to include in brand guidelines.
Top tip: Always ask for the master artwork files from your designer so that you can keep them on file. They should be happy for you to have them, after all – you’ve paid for them.
5. A fresh pair of eyes
This one is simple. Before you ‘go to print’, have someone else look at the design or artwork. They just might just spot something you haven’t, and that could avoid a costly reprint.
6. See it in person first
Once printed, if you are not entirely happy with the end result, ask for a reprint. Never have someone else dispatch any mailing on your behalf without seeing it first. And, don’t just look at the top copy in the box – delve deep and do some random quality control inspections.
7. Spare copies
I mentioned this earlier, but always order at least extra 25 file copies (on top of a 10% ‘overs’ quantity in case of mishaps). You’ll be surprised how many times you get asked for a ’spare copy’.
And finally, if you have a team, make sure they know each piece of collateral or literature that you produce piece inside out. If a customer calls with a query, they need to know the content.
NB: Digital print seems to be favoured more and more for SME marketing as it is ideal for small print runs. However, there are other print methods available such as Litho and Off-Set Web depending on your needs.
At Clear Thought we specialise in putting the right team together for the job and briefing them properly. So if you’re stuck for a team of your own, we’d be happy to point you in the right direction. Alternatively, there are lots of briefing templates on the Internet, so have a go at using some of them, or ask us about ours.
Clear Thought Consulting works with small businesses, equipping them with the marketing strategies, suppliers, skills and set-up that they need to become bigger businesses. We do this by planning and delivering 12-month marketing transformation programmes – supporting a small business through a step-by-step process to making marketing pay. We firmly believe that when you can’t out-spend your competition, you have to out-think them.
Regular readers of the the Marketing Clear Thinking blog will have noticed a bit of a drop off in activity in recent weeks and months. This is for the best of reasons. I’m currently settling into my new role as a Mum to our beautiful daughter (pictured). I’m also busy finishing my book, Watertight Marketing, which will be released later this year. So, to give both of these babies the attention they deserve, I am currently not taking on any consulting work, and my blogging capacity is likely to take a dip.
Normal service will resume towards the middle of this year (2012). In the meantime, I do hope you enjoy some of the pieces from the archive. Here are a few of my personal favourites to keep you entertained…
Events can be a great addition to marketing activity plan. Whether it’s a tradeshow, exhibition or an event you’ve put together yourself – getting access to real potential buyers in the flesh can be highly effective. As a fairly traditional technique, you’d think that most people had this one nailed in terms of Dos and Don’ts – but there are still many a pit hole to avoid if you’re going to make an event worth its while for your small business.
Even hosting a modest stand at an exhibition is a lot of effort. It’s important to remember that an event is a perishable item in terms of a marketing technique. Once it’s gone, it’s gone. You have one chance to get your money’s worth. There’s a whole industry out there, and hundreds of experts each with their own list of pet hates I’m sure, but if I were to pick out just three, they would be:
1. Don’t be shy
Shy and retiring members of your team are not the best people to staff your stand. You need to person you’re putting out there to be gregarious and full of energy. By all means have the reserved discipline expert at the event to answer questions should they arise – but the person out there stopping passers by and making that all-important small talk needs to be a showman. Standing meekly waiting for people to approach you and ask you to sell to them just isn’t going to cut it. You’ll need to say hello to every passing stranger and engage them in conversation. You’re likely to need to do this every few minutes for six hours or more. That takes energy. So think carefully before you stick the graduate trainee on the stand. We all know it’s a grind of a job for the day – but unless they have both the showmanship and the stamina, they’ll be little more than a wall flower.
2. Flat follow-up
Every events specialist will tell you that you need to follow-up after an event. This is absolutely true. But, as with the day of the event, you only really have one shot at this. Simply adding event attendees to your email marketing list does not count as follow-up (in fact, this kind of assumed permission, this could even be detrimental). It’s a lazy way of following up, and it is highly unlikely to get the response you were hoping for… which was a number of conversations that could lead to a sale, right?
Keep in mind that event attendees will now be ‘followed up’ by every exhibitor. So, you’ll need to stand out. The ideal approach would be to personalise as much as possible. If you chatted to someone in person, send them a personal email that reflects the conversation. If you know you didn’t meet someone, reflect that. And, remember that other stand holders are worth following up too – if they’re not your competition, they could be your next customer.
You could even do something as radical as picking up the phone or sending a letter – you know that everyone else is going to be emailing. You can also get some extra mileage from the event by penning a follow-up blog on your reflections from the day. If the event has a Twitter hashtag and you use it, your article is often passed on by the event organiser.
3. Take the lead
Follow up is essential. But lead up is also a fantastic opportunity. So many small businesses simply turn up on the day. The smart business makes the most of attending an event by using it as a conversation piece in the weeks leading up to the day itself. Some simple things you can do in the run-up to an event include:
List your attendance on your website, in your newsletter, etc.
Mark yourself as attending on Linkedin if the event is listed
List your event on membership organisation websites (like Chamber of commerce)
Some slightly more time consuming, but worthwhile, lead up activities could include:
A pre-event blog post – perhaps posting some questions relating to the keynote speech if there is one
A pre-register competition or promotion of some kind to get people to your stand
Issue a press release about your competition to the local press
The really smart businesses will pre-book sales meetings. Your stand is obviously important. But, a quiet corner and a coffee budget can be even more powerful. Your sales people should be finding out which of your customers are attending and booking a coffee or a lunch with them (this keeps them off other people’s stands and gives you time to catch-up). With a laptop and an internet connection, you could also book in a series of private demos. Check your current hot prospects – are any of them attending? If so, can you pre-book a time slot to buy them a coffee? So follow-up is great. But, lead up is event better.
As ever, there are books to be written on running successful events. But these are my top three in terms of classic mistakes I see small businesses make at practically every event I attend.I’m sure you’ve seen many more.
Please do use the comment function below to share your own ideas or examples of events mishaps to be avoided.
Clear Thought Consulting works with small businesses, equipping them with the marketing strategies, suppliers, skills and set-up that they need to become bigger businesses. We do this by planning and delivering 12-month marketing transformation programmes – supporting a small business through a step-by-step process to making marketing pay. We firmly believe that when you can’t out-spend your competition, you have to out-think them.
This is a guest post from Eli Barbary from Bright New Day. Clear Thought has been using Eli behind the scenes for marketing administration services. So, when she took the step of re-branding and launching her new business, we thought it would make a perfect interview to show how a real entrepreneur went through the process – and of course showcase one of the lovely suppliers we often work with.
Bright New Day Creative Consultancy started life in December 2009 under the name Barbary Solutions. Although I always knew I wanted to work in the creative sector, the company originally focused on providing virtual assistance and help with administration as well as marketing support.
After 18 months of trading I made the decision to shift the focus of the business onto the marketing side of things. My background is in marketing and as I was being asked for these services more than the VA side of things, it made sense to make the shift. It also came about that the time was right to expand the business, so I took on a partner, Toby Duckett. Toby’s skill set, largely in tech support, audio & video editing and design, complements my own, and has meant that we have been able to expand on what we offer as a company.
Why Bright New Day?
Obviously, with a new partner and a slightly different emphasis, it made sense to rebrand and change the company name to something a bit more general. I wanted to move the company slightly away from my own identity and give it an identity of its own. By doing this, I felt that we would have more scope for expansion in the future, and it would make it more inclusive for the people working within the business.
We chose the new name in two ways. Firstly, we wanted something that expressed the feeling that people got from working with us. I have always been keen on gathering feedback for customer service reasons so we had a good supply of data. Looking back over what people said about working with Barbary Solutions we discovered that one thing came up over and over again: our customers felt a sense of relief, calmness and a renewed enthusiasm for their businesses.
Secondly, I have always had an interest in the meaning of names. I love the way that, quite often, the meaning of someone’s name reflects their personality. My own name, Elinor Dagny (pronounced ‘downie’), means bright new day. We felt that this perfectly encapsulated our business ethos, as well as adding a secret personal touch.
The Bright New Day brand
Our whole brand identity followed on incredibly easily from this point. We had the name, and we knew what sort of feeling we wanted to evoke: new beginnings and a sense of relief, hope and calm. To have an image of the sun in our logo was the natural choice, although getting the right design was a bit more difficult. We played with various images of sunrises and sunsets but we felt that the design we chose was much more powerful. The bright colours and bold text seemed to convey exactly the warmth and friendliness of our company personality. And thus, a new brand was born!
If you are considering a rebrand, or starting from scratch, you might want to consider these points. Asking questions such as:
What is the personality of your company?
How do you want people to feel when they see your company?
What are your values?
What are people saying about you?
What sort of image do you want to present to the world?
… will help you to clarify the essence of your company, and in turn, will help you to encapsulate that into your own branding and image.
Eli Barbary is the owner of Bright New Day Creative Consultancy, a company which offers marketing and communications support to creative freelancers and small creative agencies. Their website can be found at brightnewdaycc.com
Social media marketing can’t have failed to have popped into your head, or even onto your agenda, as a possible technique for marketing your small business. Everyone is going on about how cheap and easy it is. So, how could you fail? Well, as with anything – there’s lots of opinion on what works and what doesn’t.
With it being a ‘social’ medium, there really are as many opinions on Dos and Don’ts as there are people to have them. But, there do seem to be some emerging norms as to things that are a definite no-no.
It’s important to recognise that people can un-follow or un-like, just as quickly as they clicked on in the first place. And, if you wind them up, don’t doubt that this is exactly what they’ll be doing. Furthermore, in this socially connected world where word of mouth matters more than ever, a simple ‘un-follow’ might just mask that person whose ready to scupper your chances of a sale when asked what they think of your company.
Three toxic marketing practices to avoid… in social media.
I find it really useful to equate social media engagement with how I’d behave at a networking event. If you wouldn’t do it in a room of your peers, don’t do it in social media. It’s a great rule of thumb, but if I were to pick out three real nasties to avoid, they would be:
1. Me, me, me
You know that person at a party who hijacks every story to say how they did just that – but bigger and better. They’re really annoying aren’t they? Well, the social media stream that only ever talks about themselves, and more specifically blows their own trumpet all day long, is just like that. The kinds of things that have this effect in social media are:
Retweeting (RT) a compliment that someone has paid you. Now, I used to do this. I thought it was like putting a case study on your website. But, it’s not. It’s like standing at a networking event and quoting someone saying something nice about you. It would be really uncomfortable in person, which is why it also doesn’t work in social media. Directing people to useful case studies, where testimonials are also displayed is a much better way of doing this.
Only ever linking your own material. Of course, it is important to get your great content out there. But, if all you ever do is tell people about your own blogs, etc. you come across as a little shallow. Make sure you also pass on things you’ve read and seen from other people that your audience will find useful. Sharing great content is a cornerstone of good social media practice.
Making everything a sales pitch. Again, in a networking context… if every conversation included you trying to sell your products and services, you’d soon find yourself standing in a group of one. It’s much more effective to be genuinely interested and helpful. You do this by asking questions, posting content that answers questions and provides insights. This leads onto a sales conversation later, and probably in a different context.
2. Are you a machine?
Automation tools can be really useful. You can schedule a number of tweets and status updates to make sure that your timeline is current. You can ping a reply to people who follow you. There are all sorts of tools to make managing social media that bit easier. But, take care. There’s a clue in the name that tells you why you shouldn’t over do this. It’s social media. That means two-way dialogue and a bit of real banter, between real people, is a must. If your whole social media activity is mechanised, you’ll miss out on this all-important human touch. Our post ‘Are you sacrificing relevance for convenience?’ talks more about this.
3. Too much information
When you’re using social media for marketing your small business, there’s a balance to strike between showing a bit of personality, and overstepping the line on familiarity. I really don’t need to know what my business connections ate for breakfast or what they thought of the hotel toilets they just visited. Again, think about what you’d feel comfortable talking about in person. You may well ask about someone’s family, their hobbies, their recent holiday – but, I’m guessing you’d steer clear of asking about their bodily functions. The same is true in social media. I’d suggest that you don’t say or ask things that would make your followers’ toes curl in embarrassment. Our post on balancing the personal and professional in social media has some useful pointers on this. We’ve also penned some tips on getting to the person behind the profile.
As ever, there are plenty more social media faux pas to fall foul of, but these three definitely capture a core tenet of what makes it a success. That is, being real. Please do use the comment function below to share your social media marketing gripes – so that we can all learn from other people’s mistakes.
Next one in the series will be on events… do Tweet me your personal pet hates for consideration.
Clear Thought Consulting works with small businesses, equipping them with the marketing strategies, suppliers, skills and set-up that they need to become bigger businesses. We do this by planning and delivering 12-month marketing transformation programmes – supporting a small business through a step-by-step process to making marketing pay. We firmly believe that when you can’t out-spend your competition, you have to out-think them.
Last week I appealed to small business owners to look at upping marketing effectiveness by making a lifestyle change, rather than going for a burst of energy in the form of a New Year’s resolution. To continue the New Year theme, I’m kicking off a series to help you think about de-toxing marketing by weeding out some poor practice.
Poor marketing has a tendency to creep in, either because people just don’t realise that what they’re doing irritates people, or because you’re in a hurry to secure some sales and think that the ends justify the means. If you shift your thinking to see that your company’s reputation is built over time and through every little thing you do – then your marketing activity needs to be spotless every time.
That person you irritated in hunt of a quick sale could just have the ear of your next big prospect. With social media having opened companies up to deeper and faster scrutiny, and oiled the wheels of the word-of-mouth machine – you just can’t afford to use quick and dirty marketing tactics anymore.
Three toxic marketing practices to avoid… in email.
The best approach to marketing your business is to be genuinely helpful and polite to everybody, all of the time. Think about the world from their perspective and remove those things that are likely to get their backs up. When it comes to email marketing, here are my top three de-tox tips:
1. Assumed email marketing permission
Treat email permission as a right that you earn and have a duty to use responsibly. Specifically it means not adding people to your list in the following ways:
If you’re handed a business card, don’t just add the email to your list. Either ask the person at the time of receiving the card, or drop them an email follow-up with a sample of what they might receive and an invitation to opt-in.
Bought lists, however much the salesperson tells you, is not a great source of email data. The people on that list may well have got on there legitimately, but they certainly are not warm to your approach – because they’ve not asked you to get in touch. If you feel you really have to use bought email lists, then go gently. Use an offer – like a useful download – to encourage people to opt-in to ongoing communication. This is a longer term approach than emailing everyone with a sales offer, but will build the relationship up slowly such that a sales approach is more likely to succeed.
Don’t add people to your email list simply because they entered a prize draw at an exhibition or trade show. You should only do this if you make it abundantly clear that this is the ‘price’ of entering the draw. Tucking this away in the T&Cs is just annoying. And, what’s more, your newsletter should be interesting and helpful – so why trick people into subscribing?
However someone got onto your list, you must make it easy for them to take themselves off it. People should stay on your list because what you send them is useful and/or interesting. Not because they can’t stop the email coming. It’s standard practice to have an ‘unsubscribe’ link at the top or bottom of your email. You can reduce unsubscribes by allowing people to set and change preferences. So, let’s say they initially wanted to hear from you weekly, but this is now a bit too frequent… without an option to update, they’d typically unsubscribe altogether. The better email systems allow subscribers to do all of this, and also collect a reason for unsubscription to help you understand what you might change to keep people interested.
3. A boring sales pitch
That’s enough about getting on and off the list… what about the content? A good marketing email is one that draws people into further conversation. Unless you’re in the business of impulse purchases, it’s highly unlikely that someone will read an email and sign on the dotted line that day. Accept this. Embrace it. Make your emails helpful, interesting and characterful – with signposts rather than klaxons signaling the sales information. The best email marketing I’ve seen tends to provide tips, tools and templates – these can be in article, video or downloadable formats. The sales conversation comes later.
There are loads more I could add. But, these are definitely my top three. Please do use the comment function below to share your email marketing gripes – so that we can all learn from other people’s mistakes.
Next one in the series will be on social media… do Tweet me your personal pet hates for consideration.
Clear Thought Consulting works with small businesses, equipping them with the marketing strategies, suppliers, skills and set-up that they need to become bigger businesses. We do this by planning and delivering 12-month marketing transformation programmes – supporting a small business through a step-by-step process to making marketing pay. We firmly believe that when you can’t out-spend your competition, you have to out-think them.
It’s that time of year. No doubt you’ve come over all worthy. As well as thinking about cutting out the alcohol or some such health related promise, you may just have thought about giving marketing a go for your small business.
Well don’t.
Seriously, I am a marketing consultant, and I am telling you not to make marketing a New Year’s Resolution for 2012.
The problem with resolutions of this kind, is that much like reducing alcohol, giving up smoking and gym memberships – more often than not they just don’t last. For marketing to really work for your business you need to do it. Not try to do it. Just like looking after your health, looking after the sales pipeline for your business takes sustained effort rather than quick fixes. In fact, I’d argue that, like yo-yo dieting, boom and bust marketing is actually bad for your business health.
Marketing that means business is marketing that supports every step of the buying decision. It means that your company is positively represented everywhere a potential buyer turns – whenever this happens to be. The job of marketing is to gently move someone from one step in their buying decision to the next over a period of time. Marketing that does this necessarily takes time to achieve.
For most ambitious small businesses the process of getting a watertight marketing operation up and running is a six to 12 month intensive programme. Thereafter becoming an embedded part of every aspect of their business. It’s something that every person in a company takes on, and does a little every day. Essentially, it’s a lifestyle change not a short-lived burst of good intentions.
If you’re serious about getting your business in robust shape and you want a steady and predictable sales pipeline, then marketing is definitely on your list. Not for a month or two – but forever.
As my Dad always says, “If a job’s worth doing, it’s worth doing properly”.
Clear Thought Consulting works with small businesses, equipping them with the marketing strategies, suppliers, skills and set-up that they need to become bigger businesses. We do this by planning and delivering 12-month marketing transformation programmes – supporting a small business through a step-by-step process to making marketing pay. We firmly believe that when you can’t out-spend your competition, you have to out-think them.
It’s that time of year again, when we look back at all the Clear Thought posts in 2011 to see which have been our ten most read articles, as measured by unique page views via Google Analytics.
We have three non movers in this year’s list, including one that’s now made our top 10 for three years running. Drum roll please… here they are…
A non-mover from last year, what to pay whom for marketing advice is obviously a key question for small business owners out there. This post from Bryony Thomas gives a quick rundown of what you can expect to get for your money. Please note that this article was written in 2009, but is still there or there abouts we think.
This clear guide from Cheryl Crichton is another non-mover and has been second on this list for three years running. Just shows that solid, straightforward, advice is always popular. And again, we’ve checked it over and the advice given here is as good as it ever was.
A first for this list, a guest post that’s made our top ten. This one from Andy Fuller at DesignBull gives a useful insight into what you need in a set of brand guidelines and why. He also gives you a real life example based on a Clear Thought project undertaken with him for Relevant Risk.
Money. It’s a key topic for any small business. This article from Bryony Thomas is based on a key chapter in her forthcoming book and provides a clear three step approach to putting together an effective small business marketing budget – however big the pot of cash at your disposal.
For a second year running this post from Bryony Thomas highlights ten tell-tale symptoms to look out for that indicate that your small business should consider getting some professional advice from a strategic marketer.
Another guest post making it into our top ten this year. This time from Heather Townsend with excellent advice on making those goals you’ve set yourself a reality. Perfect for any small business owner who has set themselves some ambitious targets for 2012.
This post from Laura Champion take a look at how the ‘rule of three’ works in building effective small business marketing programmes. An important concept to grasp if you’re to make the most of your marketing efforts.
A surprise for us in the top ten, this post from Bryony Thomas is a review of a ‘pay what you think it’s worth’ pricing experiment undertaken by Clear Thought.
Another classic from Cheryl Crichton. Again, straightforward and practical tips that any small business can put into practice to make the most of their marketing activity for the year ahead.
A third guest post in our top ten. This one, from Lee Cottier at Think Productive, gives some simple tips on freeing up time for marketing and helping you to keep up the momentum needed to make the most of what you’re putting out there.
I’m personally thrilled that you’ve continued to enjoy, use and share our blog posts in 2011, and we look forward to giving you more essential small business marketing tips and advice in 2012. Thank you all for taking the time to read and respond.
Please do use the comment function below if there are any specific marketing questions you’d like us to address next year.
Clear Thought Consulting works with small businesses, equipping them with the marketing strategies, suppliers, skills and set-up that they need to become bigger businesses. We do this by planning and delivering 12-month marketing transformation programmes – supporting a small business through a step-by-step process to making marketing pay. We firmly believe that when you can’t out-spend your competition, you have to out-think them.
Getting the most for your marketing budget means getting the most from your marketing suppliers. So, if you are a small business owner who buys marketing services, you should know that all your creative team wants to do is to help you succeed and get results.
You feel good. They feel good.
In exchange for your fairness, appreciation (and of course remuneration), they will pull out all the stops and go the extra mile. But, have you any idea what could get you black listed?
Knowing what irritates suppliers, or what can cause unnecessary delays, duplications or ‘scope creep’, could make or break a project. Or worse ruin a relationship. And let’s face it, your suppliers are here to make a profit just like you, so the more efficiently a project can run, the better for everyone.
Take heed of these simple dos and don’ts and your suppliers will love you. But, more importantly, they’ll deliver great work on time, on brief, and on budget.
DON’T COME EMPTY HANDED
A good brief and an idea of budget from the outset will save time and money. Having the money conversation upfront will leave more time for the creativity and less time for the admin and re-quoting. Otherwise, don’t be surprised if your agency comes back with a gold star Rolls-Royce solution when all you can afford is a neat, but perfectly formed, 125cc moped. Having a tight brief means nothing is left for misinterpretation and they should hit the nail on the head first time. Include everything – even what you don’t want. They’re not mind readers you know. If briefing is your Achilles heel, take a look at my previous post on writing a marketing brief.
DON’T TRY TO DO THEIR JOB
Talking to some of our creative network, one of the top most irritating things a client can do is try to do the creative job themselves. We’ve even heard of clients turning up at meetings with drawings and scamps. Your agency team will appreciate guidance from you on things you like and don’t like, and things you’ve seen work in your industry, but they will struggle to do their best work if you’re trying to lead the creative process. If you think you can do it yourself – then save your cash. But, you’ll get better results if you wait for your opportunity to review creative work and give your input then. They are professionals you know.
DON’T IGNORE THEIR PAYMENT TERMS
It is your supplier’s responsibilities to ensure that you understand and agree to their payment terms. If they want 7 days and you disagree, then please let them know and re-negotiate rather than just waiting for 30 (and sometimes 60 or 90 days) before you pay them. If you’re being smart these days, you may well be using a freelance team. These people are often sole traders for whom late payment can cause real financial difficulties. Just think, they’re trying to make a profit too, and their mortgage company is not going to take kindly to missed payments. Be clear from the outset and treat them fairly and they’ll perform at their best.
DO BE DEMANDING
…but please be realistic. If you are asking for something tomorrow, then you’d better be prepared to pay the going rate for a time machine. If you are asking for something in a real hurry, please be mindful that any well-run agency or successful freelancer won’t be sitting around with nothing to do waiting for your call, and may have to throw extra resource at your request. Expect a rush charge, or reconsider your deadline. They’re only human you know.
DO BE CHALLENGING
A creative loves nothing more than a challenge. It’s exactly what gets their synapses firing. Don’t be afraid to speak your mind, but do be prepared to have your ideas debated in return. A good humoured, but passionate, debate can be just what’s needed to nail that winning concept. Be constructive with your feedback or opinion, and make sure you can substantiate or rationalise what you’re saying. ‘I don’t like it’ is really unhelpful, whereas ‘I think the concept is too complicated’ gives a steer on what’s not working for you. They’re not mind readers you know.
And finally and possible most important…
DO SAY THANK YOU
It only takes a moment and means the world. The frustration of little, or no acknowledgment, often has Creatives running for the staff room to play darts with your photo pinned to the bulls eye. But they are usually very nice people you know.
I hope I haven’t rubbed anyone up the wrong way here. My light-hearted tone may be considered flippant, but in a busy world we sometimes don’t even realise how irritating we are being… until someone is brave enough to tell us.
Why not tell us what irritates you about your suppliers, or clients – we can all live and learn you know?
Clear Thought Consulting works with small businesses, equipping them with the marketing strategies, suppliers, skills and set-up that they need to become bigger businesses. We do this by planning and delivering 12-month marketing transformation programmes – supporting a small business through a step-by-step process to making marketing pay. We firmly believe that when you can’t out-spend your competition, you have to out-think them.
Just after posting my thoughts and tips on using gateway products to get people over the hurdle of a first purchase, I visited an ambitious technology company about to launch an innovative online product. In my last post I talked about having a product ladder, in which there is something with which people can engage that’s free.
And, for online products I even recommended the Freemium model where you have a version that is completely free.
So, when the conversation with this tech company turned to pricing, I brought up a number of examples of similar companies giving a version of their product away for nothing. Mailchimp’s Forever Free account is the one that really demonstrates this. Being intelligent people, they had of course considered this – but ruled it out. Having talked to other technology providers they’d been advised that the conversion rate from free to paying was likely to be abysmally low and that many customers would simply use the free version forgoing the benefits of the upgraded one.
It’s often said that if you give something away for free then people don’t attach any value to it. Now, whilst I think this can be true in some situations, I firmly believe that, done well, a Freemium model can be really powerful. Here’s a rundown of five key ways to think about the value of non-paying customers.
1. Benefit from positive word of mouth
Having a bank of customers who are gaining benefit from your product for free gives you massive word of mouth opportunities. I’ve lost count of the number of people I’ve recommended the Mailchimp system to even though I have never paid them a penny. What’s more I do things like mention them in blogs (oh look I’m doing it now). If you’re smart about creating a free service that is genuinely useful, then make it really easy for people to share your details, then you will create an army of advocates who are effectively doing your marketing for you. You’ll also often find a number of your non-paying customers more than willing to appear in case studies for you. And, we all know how powerful a real life case study can be.
2. Monetise their goodwill with an affiliate scheme
The link to Mailchimp above is an affiliate link. If you click on it, and then sign-up, I will get Monkey rewards to spend on handy add on extras like inbox inspections. One of the stipulations on their free account is that an affiliate badge goes out on the bottom of the emails you send out via their system. So, again their non-paying customers are doing a great job of marketing their product. A little reward for doing makes it even more likely that they will do so.
3. Create a barrier to entry to competitors
If your free version is genuinely useful it is likely to mop-up people who may have gone to competitors undercutting your price. And, by getting as many people signed-up and using your service, you then pose competitors with the challenge of getting people to switch. And, being as people are pretty lazy on the switching front, this makes it harder for them to get a foot hold.
4. Mobilise their feedback for product development
The great thing about non-paying customers is that they usually know the deal. They’re getting something from you, so it’s only fair that they give a little back. You can make it a contracted part of the deal that they provide certain levels of feedback, and invite them to complete surveys, questionnaire or qualitative feedback groups to review and test new features or ideas. In fact, you’ll often find that non-paying customers are more likely to do this sort of thing for you than paying ones.
5. Provide an upgrade path to paid services
Lastly, you have a pool of people to sell to. If you’ve structured an effective product ladder there will be a few features that people really value that are just out of reach on the free version. This gives you an excellent way to up-sell people to the next level of functionality. You can also make available a set of add-on or one-off paid for services appropriate to these people that can give you an excellent additional income stream.
So, whilst converting non-paying customers into paying customers is the most obvious way to think about their value – if this is the only objective you have in mind for them – you’re definitely missing a trick (or four).
Clear Thought Consulting works with small businesses, equipping them with the marketing strategies, suppliers, skills and set-up that they need to become bigger businesses. We do this by planning and delivering 12-month marketing transformation programmes – supporting a small business through a step-by-step process to making marketing pay. We firmly believe that when you can’t out-spend your competition, you have to out-think them.
Getting from general awareness to a new paying customer is a stepped journey in most business settings. Indeed, for many it’s a delicate dance akin to an intricate Quickstep. One of the most important stepping stones is the one that sees a person handing over their hard-earned cash. For this, having a gateway product as the first rung of a product ladder, is an extremely powerful tool.
What is a product ladder?
Assuming you have a set of tools and techniques that draw people in and support their buying decision, you will soon get to that crucial moment of asking for their money. The rationale of a product ladder is to make that step as easy as possible by creating a complementary set of products or services that that lead from an initial, lower value or risk, purchase through to a premium one. Let’s give a few examples…
Online systems: Most online tools these days use a ‘Freemium’ model, where there’s a free version of their tool with limited functionality, then a stepped suite of versions where you add more functionality as you go up in price.
Knowledge business: In a consultancy business it can be extremely powerful to offer some sort of initial consulting excercise, that then leads to some sort of improvement programme, that may then lead to ongoing retained support.
Product business: Where you’re actually shifting goods, you can put together bundled packages where people might start with one or two items, but increase to add further complementary products, upgrades or add-ons over time (matching items, etc.).
The key here is to make that first step pretty gentle and risk free. It gives the customer a chance to really check out what your business is like before committing to a vast spend or ongoing engagement. It then gives you the opportunity to really show what you’re made of. The reasoning goes that this can then translate into a higher eventual spend and greater ongoing commitment than they would have made if the gateway option hadn’t been available.
What makes a good gateway product?
So, if you get the idea and think it might work for your small business, here are our three key areas of consideration for you to mull…
Content of a gateway product
A really effective gateway product is self contained and useful in its own right. If you are asking someone to part with their cash, you need to give them something of value in return. A particularly powerful technique can be to design some sort of audit (review, health check… call it what you like). This would typically involve a survey and / or some consultancy time to conduct a standard review that outputs a useful report on a given set of criteria. (Our own Marketing Audit is an example of this).
Pricing a gateway product
The key consideration here is often how much your buyer can authorise without having to involve other people. It’s worth doing some research about the level of spend the buyer you’re targetting is able to sign off on their own. This can be a perfect price point, as it means that they can buy and try your services, and then go to their Board, wife, or other joint decision-maker with a suggestion to step up to the next level. The point here is that it needs to be small enough to seem like a minimal risk, but high enough that they’ll value the output.
Level of commitment from the customer
We firmly believe that there should be no structural lock-in or hefty commitment on the part of the customer when it comes to a really effective gateway product. The whole point of a gateway product is to make the buying decision easy. If you put in a load of caveats and tie-ins, you’re adding complication… which means added thinking time and reasons to say no. Make it a simple purchase with no further obligation. It’s then the job of your sales and marketing (and of course the quality of your product and customer service) to turn this into a loyal customer.
How to use a gateway product in your sales and marketing
Having a clear gateway product is a gift to any decent sales person. It gives them something tangible to talk about, without a hefty price tag or commitment. It’s the perfect end point around which to structure a stepped telemarketing programme for example.
You can make your gateway product even more powerful by taking a leaf from those tech companies’ books and developing a free version – which then becomes your key call-to-action across all your sales and marketing. And, gives your sales team a steady stream of warm leads to call and up-sell to the paid version. One of the best ways to do this is to turn your audit into a mini online version, that outputs an instant snap-shot report of some kind. Again, this should be useful in its own right, but clearly sign-post the next step. Hubspot’s ‘Website Grader‘ is an excellent example of this.
So, time to ask yourself… how easy is it for your potential buyers to say yes to paying you something? Could you make this easier with a gateway product of some kind?
Clear Thought Consulting works with small businesses, equipping them with the marketing strategies, suppliers, skills and set-up that they need to become bigger businesses. We do this by planning and delivering 12-month marketing transformation programmes – supporting a small business through a step-by-step process to making marketing pay. We firmly believe that when you can’t out-spend your competition, you have to out-think them.
We thought is was about time we got a new perspective on small business marketing. From small businesses no less. We’re looking to feature a business owner interview each month, in which we get an idea about what marketing really means to them in their business – what’s worked, and what hasn’t, out there in the real world.
We’re looking for MDs or business owners of companies with upwards of 10 employees to answer the following 10 questions:
What does your business do and for whom?
What does ‘marketing’ mean to you?
How important is marketing to your small business?
What’s the best marketing activity you’ve ever undertaken?
What’s the worst marketing activity you’ve ever undertaken?
What have you found out about marketing along the way that you wish you’d known when you set-up your business?
Does marketing feature on your board meeting agenda?
Will you be spending more or less on marketing in the next twelve months than in the last?
What advice would you give another small business owner about working with external marketing experts?
What marketing question would you most like answered (I’ll have a go at answering it!)
If you’re interested in being featured in this series of posts, please do get in touch. We’ll do a quick telephone interview and then write up the interview for your approval. We’ll also need a photo of you, a little description of your business and your web address to link back to.
So, over to you… what does the world look like through your eyes?
Clear Thought Consulting works with small businesses, equipping them with the marketing strategies, suppliers, skills and set-up that they need to become bigger businesses. We do this by planning and delivering 12-month marketing transformation programmes – supporting a small business through a step-by-step process to making marketing pay. We firmly believe that when you can’t out-spend your competition, you have to out-think them.
Have you ever noticed how when you ask people how they landed a big client, they’ll often say it was just luck that they were in the right place, at the right time. Ok, so sometimes luck plays a part… but you can be a whole lot luckier if you know where the right place is, and when you should be there. It’s called marketing.
Wow, what perfect timing…
It’s absolutely true that it is very often the case that your letter, phone call, blog article, or simply bumping into someone at a networking event appears to conveniently collide with when they are looking for the very thing you offer. It can certainly seem like serendipity as the person on the end of the phone says ‘Well I never, what perfect timing, we were just starting to look for someone to do xyz…” – but of course, your timing gets a whole lot more perfect if you’re always there, in readiness for when they happen to notice you.
A person’s attention is selective
There’s a phenomenon, that you will no doubt have experienced yourself, that is vital to understand if you’re to master effective marketing for your small business. It is selective attention.
Imagine… you learn a new word… suddenly people seem to be saying it everywhere – on the news, on the radio, in a document you’re reading, etc. The word was always there, but because it hadn’t entered your consciousness, you didn’t notice it. Or perhaps, you’re thinking of buying a new car and you have your eye on a particular model – you’ll suddenly find yourself parked next to one, seeing them on every corner, spotting ads for them everywhere – again, they were always there, you’ve just become hyper aware and you’re spotting them.
The same is true for your potential buyers. Only when they are in the market for what you do might they prick their ears up and notice you. Which could, of course, happen at any time. So, you need to always be there.
When I worked as marketing executive at Mason Zimbler nearly a decade ago, we would send out a set of case study postcards every six weeks without fail. They would go out to our database of marketing professionals in technology companies. It could be up to two years later, when someone had been receiving these every six weeks for that whole time, that they might pick up the phone, or request a follow-up. We had always been there… they just noticed us when they were in a buying mood.
Be a beacon in your market
You need to create a lighthouse effect for your small business. Showing up at regular intervals to make sure that people know you’re there. The interval at which you send something, or drop people a line, depends on your market and your budget. Having a think about the average length of a buying decision can be a useful place to start. If it typically takes someone six months, six weeks or six days to work through their decision to buy – you need to show up at least that often. But, that’s a bare minimum – because they could start that buying journey at any time. We advocate a ‘little and often’ approach to marketing – so that you’re always there rather than occasionally very loud and then forgotten.
Go on, give it a go. You will get a whole lot luckier if you do a whole lot more marketing, a whole lot more often.
Clear Thought Consulting works with small businesses, equipping them with the marketing strategies, suppliers, skills and set-up that they need to become bigger businesses. We do this by planning and delivering 12-month marketing transformation programmes – supporting a small business through a step-by-step process to making marketing pay. We firmly believe that when you can’t out-spend your competition, you have to out-think them.
You won’t generate a single lead, or net a bean in profit if people don’t know who you are and what you do. Generating awareness is step one in your sales funnel, and it’s all about grabbing someone’s attention and lodging your message in their mind. To do this, you’ll need to master the awareness equation. It really does work like an equation, you need both elements to have any effect at all, and the more you have of both, the higher your output.
Mastering the awareness equation
Don’t worry, you don’t need a maths or a marketing degree for this one. It’s also not one of my making. It was drummed into us incessantly when I worked at technology marketing agency, Mason Zimbler. So, in absence of knowing whether they got it from someone else, I shall credit them with bringing it to my attention. And, it is…
FREQUENCY X IMPACT = AWARENESS
Let’s bring this to life. Basically, there are two ways for me to lodge something in your brain. Either, it’s so earth shatteringly impactful that it sticks immediately. Or, I ram it down your throat until you can’t help but remember it. The former is like hearing that you’ve won the lottery, the latter is like learning your times tables.
In marketing, it’s likely that you’ll need to balance the two. It’s unlikely that you’ll be delivering a message that fundamentally changes someone’s life, and you probably don’t want to wear people down by force of attrition. So, balance is the name of the game.
High impact, lower frequency….
There are two examples of awareness marketing that you’ve probably seen in recent years that fall into this category. The first is the Sony Bravia Ad with thousands of bouncing balls rolling own the street to the haunting sounds of Paulo Nutini. It’s a long ad and it has huge visual impact, and the melancholy soundtrack tugs at the heart strings. The other, that plays exactly the same game, is John Lewis’ 2010 Christmas campaign featuring ‘Always a Woman’.
When I first saw both of these ads, I was practically transfixed. They are both long ads and would have been very expensive to produce, and though at a reasonable frequency – neither was on every channel nor every ad break. Because, they didn’t need to be. The high impact reduced the need to high frequency.
Lower impact, high frequency…
At the other end of the scale, you have ads that really have very little to say that’s genuinely moving. So, they use irritation and catchy tunes, and drill these into your mind by upping the frequency. For those of you in the UK, current archetypes for this approach are Go Compare opera man, and AutoGlass with their little jingle. These brands have had to seriously up their frequency to get their message to stick – they are on every channel, every ad break, every radio station… there is no escape!
You need both
Both these examples also demonstrate that you need both for it to have any effect. If you have the best ad or best one-line tweet in the World, but it goes out once when nobody is looking – you won’t get anybody’s attention. And, if you no visual appeal, no stand-out message of any kind, you can put it everywhere and people still won’t notice it – it will blend into the background. So, you need both.
For small businesses, without the budgets of the brands detailed above, you still need to apply these principles if you want to get noticed. Human beings are the same beasts whoever you are and whatever you’re selling… and you will only get their attention by having both enough impact and frequency to get into their brains. So, take a look at those things that people first encounter about you… Does it grab them? And, is it frequent enough to get on their radar?
Clear Thought Consulting works with small businesses, equipping them with the marketing strategies, suppliers, skills and set-up that they need to become bigger businesses. We do this by planning and delivering 12-month marketing transformation programmes – supporting a small business through a step-by-step process to making marketing pay. We firmly believe that when you can’t out-spend your competition, you have to out-think them.
Welcoming your new customers on board is a critical factor in the overall success of your small business marketing, and indeed of your business sustainability.
As the old saying goes ‘there’s many a slip twixt cup and mouth’ – and moving your prospective customers across the line from signing on the dotted line to really feeling like a customer of yours is a crucial hurdle to master.
There’s a difference between a customer, and a profitable customer. A customer has paid you some money. A profitable customer has paid you enough money to cover how much you spent on acquiring and fulfilling their business. And, naturally, it’s more of the latter you want.
Which means keeping hold of the business you win, i.e. customer retention. There are a few simple things you can do to increase your retention rates. Here are my top three for you…
1. Have a clear and welcoming on-boarding process
Have a think about all those things that your new customer will need to get started using your products and services, and pull it all together into some sort of welcome pack. Things to include might be:
Contact details and profiles for people they’re working with – photos can be a nice touch too.
Numbers, passwords, log-in details they may need.
Set-up guides, user manuals, tips and tricks for using or getting the most from your stuff.
How to get in touch if there’s a question or a problem.
Money matters – an accounts contact, confirmation of their payment dates, invoicing schedule, etc.
A checklist of information you may need from them.
A thank you… even a simple signed card can be a nice touch.
2. Have check-in points
Think about the points at which people are using your products or building a relationship with your business. When might be a good time to check in and see how they’re getting on? Have a few really simple questions to run through at critical times, like project milestones, before their first bill arrives, when a discount is coming to an end, etc. You could do this with a triggered email survey, a five minute phone call, or a chat over a coffee. However you do it, just asking how things are going will give people a warm glow, and of course highlight if there are any problems for you to address.
3. Be helpful
Being helpful, not salesy, is probably the best sales advice I can give anyone. And that goes for existing customers as much as potential new ones. If you have an email newsletter, make sure they know about it and can sign-up. If your blog has useful hints and tips, or you’re running online tutorials, etc. make sure that your existing customers are invited. It might be that you set aside a certain number of free tickets to paid events for them, or even offer to drop in to re-run an event as a lunchtime session for their team. At the very least, drop them a personal note if you’ve penned a blog about something they’ve asked.
Keeping the business you’ve put time and money into generating is probably the most important thing you can do. It makes the most of what you’ve spent, it increases your chances of selling more to those people and it builds your reputation through having genuinely happy customers on the books.
Clear Thought Consulting works with small businesses, equipping them with the marketing strategies, suppliers, skills and set-up that they need to become bigger businesses. We do this by planning and delivering 12-month marketing transformation programmes – supporting a small business through a step-by-step process to making marketing pay. We firmly believe that when you can’t out-spend your competition, you have to out-think them.
Marketing your small business can seem like an exercise in turning water into wine. You have so much to say, and so many great ideas, but feel restricted by not having the budget to shout as loudly as you’d like. A simple way to make the precious resources of time and money go further is to collaborate with a complementary, but non-competitive, business on some of your marketing activity.
Joining forces has all sort of benefits:
It pools your resources so that you can achieve more.
It gives both parties access to each other’s contacts.
It gives the activity a greater feel of authenticity and usefulness by putting whatever you’re talking about in a wider context.
Some collaborative marketing worth considering…
Joint papers and / or events: If you’re preparing some sort of paper or guide, it will seem far less salesy – and therefore more appealing, if you co-author it with another expert. And, then, once you’ve prepared your paper – you have the perfect content with which to host an online or face-to-face event sharing the costs between both businesses. And, with both businesses promoting this to their contacts, your overall reach is increased.
Reciprocal guest blogging: Inviting people who you know your audience would find interesting to pen a guest post for your small business blog can add that bit of variety and a fresh perspective. It can also take the burden of writing off you from time to time. However, we’d always recommend reciprocating with a post for them to use too. This creates inbound links to your site, and puts your material in front of a wider audience.
Joint press releases: If you’ve worked on some sort of collaborative project, it can be really powerful to join forces in putting a story together for the press. Particularly if two local businesses have come together for an exciting project – the regional press love this sort of thing. You’re much more likely to get coverage by working together than you would if you tried to do so separately.
Who should you join forces with?
Have a think from your audience’s perspective. What, and who, would they find interesting and useful. Think about the products, services and processes they might go through alongside or be dependent on what they might buy from you – and join forces with a business who does that. For example – we provide strategic marketing advice, but don’t to marketing execution – so, you’ll find guest posts on here from the companies we recommend people use for executing the sorts of things we advise. They’re complementary to what we do, but not competitive.
Ideally, collaborative marketing would be an extension of other forms of collaboration – like cross referrals or working on joint projects. You’d want to feel comfortable that the company standing alongside you has many of the same values as you and will only add to your reputation. So, having worked with them in some capacity or at least knowing them well enough to have formed an opinion of the quality of their work is essential.
Can you think of anyone?
So, have a think about the suppliers or business partners in your little black book. Is there something you could work on together for the benefit of both businesses? Or, do you have great examples of collaborative marketing in action? We’d love to hear about them.
Clear Thought Consulting works with small businesses, equipping them with the marketing strategies, suppliers, skills and set-up that they need to become bigger businesses. We do this by planning and delivering 12-month marketing transformation programmes – supporting a small business through a step-by-step process to making marketing pay. We firmly believe that when you can’t out-spend your competition, you have to out-think them.
Looking at your existing clients and reviewing how you came to be working with them is a great way to get a quick idea of which of your new business activities is working for you.
Clear Thought keeps a pretty tight client list, working within between two and four clients in a hands-on capacity at any one time. This means that we need to take great care in choosing who we work with – our time is a finite resource, and we want to make sure that we’re working with great people, for a fair profit. What’s interesting about our current client list is that it demonstrates the new business channels that we’ve consistently found to be the most rewarding. So, here they are…
LinkedIn: We’re just kicking off an exciting marketing transformation programme for a Barcelona-based CRM consulting company. This came our way via LinkedIn. When I left Experian some three years ago a sales person I’d worked with for about six months, who lives in Barcelona, wasn’t top of my list of people I imagined working with in the near future. However, over the years he’s seen my regular status updates, and despite not even clicking through, they’d been frequent enough for him to get the idea that I now offer strategic marketing services for small businesses. So, when he joined a small business in need of exactly that, he dropped me a line – via LinkedIn.
Twitter: Acting as a strategic sounding board for the MD of a Bristol-based document management software company is a role that I’m currently relishing. This one came our way via Twitter. A person with whom I’ve developed a Twitter rapport over the last two years met the MD of this company at a networking event, they got chatting about her marketing challenges. Knowing that we were both in Bristol, she put us in touch – via Twitter – and from there the client relationship developed.
Blogging: We’re just coming to the end of phase one of a marketing transformation programme for an Exeter-based small business IT services company. They came our way of the back of a Google search for ‘how to write a marketing brief’. The MD was scoping out some potential suppliers and was looking for some help in drafting the brief. He was delivered to our blog on the subject, used it to write his brief and sent it to us, along with some other possible providers.
Directory: We’ve just completed a marketing audit for an information risk consultancy in Gloucester, and we’re about to embark on a thorough marketing transformation programme with them. This came our way via the IOD Supplier Directory. The MD dropped us a line off the back of our listed details, and with a phone chat, follow-up with some relevant blog articles from the back catalogue and a coffee – the deal was sealed.
What’s even more interesting about these four new business channels is that only the directory cost us a penny in financial outlay. All of the others are elbow grease alone. On a pure financial ROI these four clients work out at £ 200:1 – and being as that assumes that the whole of our IOD membership is a marketing cost and it’s only been up for a month or so (i.e. all the other benefits aside), we’re pretty happy with that ratio.
On all but one of these projects we’ve also referred a team of marketing partners to deliver specific items. So, it’s not just Clear Thought benefiting from these new business techniques – it’s our network too.
Clear Thought Consulting works with small businesses, equipping them with the marketing strategies, suppliers, skills and set-up that they need to become bigger businesses. We do this by planning and delivering 12-month marketing transformation programmes – supporting a small business through a step-by-step process to making marketing pay. We firmly believe that when you can’t out-spend your competition, you have to out-think them.
We’ve come to the end of our A-Z of marketing content ideas. This series of posts have given you 26 of over 120 ideas we’ve collated for you. The whole point of content marketing is to have a steady stream of interesting and relevant information and comment for people to engage with as the starting point for conversations. And, as any good sales person will tell you – from conversations come sales conversions.
Lots of people we talk to love the idea, but are scared at the prospect of coming up with something new to say every day, week, month, quarter. So, we hope that we’ve got the grey matter going with this sample of ideas to get you started. Here are the last two…
Ying and Yang: There are two sides to every story. Can you find a way of looking at something from the opposite angle. Are there things that people take as a given that you could explore? Could you set-up a two-sided debate on a contentious subject?
Zoology: Seriously, who would have thought that Meercats were so interesting?
All 120 ideas that we’ve packed into our 26-page guide, The A-Z of Marketing Thought Starters, available in full to subscribers to our email newsletter.
Clear Thought Consulting works with small businesses, equipping them with the marketing strategies, suppliers, skills and set-up that they need to become bigger businesses. We do this by planning and delivering 12-month marketing transformation programmes – supporting a small business through a step-by-step process to making marketing pay. We firmly believe that when you can’t out-spend your competition, you have to out-think them.
If your bottom line could do with a boost, it can often be far more effective to plug some profit leaks than it can to plough your cash into doing something wholly new.
In no particular order, here’s a run down of 20 leaks we see in small businesses almost every day:
1. Poor on-boarding: The first few minutes, days or weeks of using your product or service are essential if you’re going to reduce customer defection. Having a smooth transition from sales into service that makes it easy for customers to get started with your products and services is key to customer retention.
2. Forgotten customers: Your customers are other people’s prospects. Just because you’ve taken their cash does not mean you’ve got them forever. Keeping in touch with your customers in a friendly and helpful way will increase retention, cross-sell and up-sell.
3. Low impact marketing: Marketing that nobody notices isn’t worth a penny of your hard earned cash or a second of your precious time. If you’re putting something out there, make sure it stands out.
4. Information overload: Giving someone too much information too soon will often turn them away. It can feel like a bit of slap in the face. You’re much better off having a trail of steadily increasing quantities of information for buyers to work their way through.
5. No proof for your promises: If you make a promise of any kind, you need to back it up with some evidence. A customer quote, an appropriate case study, or third party review, placed alongside your product literature will help keep people in your pipeline.
6. Someone puts them off: A person’s ready to buy, then they turn to their boss, their wife, their golf buddy… who puts them off. You need to identify your buyers’ influencers and do what you can to keep them on-side.
7. Missing a channel: If your buyer mistrusts the internet, but you have no other way of taking payment – or they’re researching on Google and you don’t show up, you’ve missed a trick.
8. Information in the wrong format: If your buyer has asked their PA to print a ‘read on train’ file and your material doesn’t look great in hard copy, you’ll look poor by comparison.
9. Missed timing: Busy senior people seem to do quite a bit of their internet research and social media interaction in the evenings – are you there when they are?
10. Not known by referrers: My sister posted on Facebook the other night asking for a lawnmower repair shop in her area, three people gave her some names, and she’s since used one of them. Not being mentioned by the person your potential buyer asks is a missed sale.
11. Don’t know you offer that: This one is really galling. You find that someone, maybe even an existing customer, has bought something you sell. You ask why they didn’t choose you and they say they didn’t know you offered that. Popping your full product list on the back of invoices, on email footers, etc. can avoid this one pretty easily.
12. Un-used marketing muscles: Peak and trough marketing activity means that every time you come to do something it takes longer and costs you more than if you did something little and often.
13. Starting from zero: If you go quiet for a prolonged period, you’re effectively starting from scratch – which is harder and more expensive. A consistent low level of awareness activity will avoid this.
14. Doing the wrong kind of work: Accepting work that’s not really up your street can be demoralising as well as the opportunity cost of using precious resources on less profitable work.
15. Expensive exhaustion: Having an uneven sales pipeline, usually linked to an uneven marketing activity plan, will put enormous pressure on you and your team at peak times. You can plan and perform better if you generate a more predictable workflow.
16. Un-prepared operations: You have a great marketing idea and put it out there generating a load of extra demand, but you’re not quite ready to deal with it all. A more nurtured, steady, sales process can give you time to ramp up for demand coming down the pipe.
17. An unanswered question: Every time a customer has a problem or a question, you’re effectively winning them again. Because, if you can’t answer it, someone who can is never usually more than a click away.
18. Too slow to respond: If a sales call or email comes in, the buyer is usually investigating more than one potential supplier. Leave it too long and someone else may already have got their sale.
19. Too fast to advise: Over eager sales people can often suggest a solution before really understanding a problem, or rich commission on a specific product can lead them to advise something that’s not quite right. Slowing down, listening more, can often pay off better in the longer term.
20. Wrong tool for the job: Buyers are looking for different types of information at different stages of their decision. If you don’t have it to hand, or you turn to the wrong tool at the wrong time, you can lose the sale.
Naturally, your business won’t have all of these leaks. If you’re in business and paying the bills, then clearly you’re doing a lot right already. But, I’m willing to bet that one or two of these struck a chord. And, even those that aren’t high on your list to address, might benefit from little tweak here and there and could have a healthy effect on your bottom line.
And, that’s what watertight marketing is all about.
Clear Thought Consulting works with small businesses, equipping them with the marketing strategies, suppliers, skills and set-up that they need to become bigger businesses. We do this by planning and delivering 12-month marketing transformation programmes – supporting a small business through a step-by-step process to making marketing pay. We firmly believe that when you can’t out-spend your competition, you have to out-think them.
Not knowing what to say, or thinking that you’ll never have enough content can hold you back from making a start on content marketing for your small business. Thinking about things that people are already talking about can be a great place to start. The idea is then to use that as an angle on what you do, and how you can help. But – not to heavily sell your own services. The best marketing content is interesting and relevant in itself, and acts as a conversation starter and lead in to finding out more about your company.
We’ve been taking three ideas each week from our ‘A-Z of Marketing Thought Starters’ to give you an idea of where to start. So, here in our penultimate post in this series are our ideas under letters V, W, and X.
Vision: Where’s your business heading? Where’s your industry going to be in five years, 10 years? Telling people about the vision you have in mind, and asking whether they agree or not always goes down well.
Weather: The weather provides no end of content possibilities. Productivity, technology or motivational tips for businesses affected by severe weather like snow. Or handling staff truancy when people sneak in a sun-day. Or a photo competition of some kind relating to the weather conditions.
X – treasure hunts: Ok, I’m stumped on this one. I’m using it as ‘X marks the spot’ to talk about treasure hunts. Could you run a treasure hunt around your website or across your locations?
These are just three ideas from amongst 120 that we’ve packed into our 26-page guide, The A-Z of Marketing Thought Starters, available in full to subscribers to our email newsletter.
Clear Thought Consulting works with small businesses, equipping them with the marketing strategies, suppliers, skills and set-up that they need to become bigger businesses. We do this by planning and delivering 12-month marketing transformation programmes – supporting a small business through a step-by-step process to making marketing pay. We firmly believe that when you can’t out-spend your competition, you have to out-think them.
There’s a clue in the phrase ‘social media’ that tells us that it’s not a one-way thing. Listening and finding great content can be just as valuable as getting your own messages out there. So, to follow-up on our post about getting yourself and your company found in social media here are 10 ideas for finding interesting people to listen and engage with.
1. Check your Linkedin contacts: Linkedin profiles have a field where people can list their Twitter IDs, it’s been there for a while now and most people who are active in Twitter are getting around to adding this information. So, take a look through and hook up with them on Twitter too.
2. Check out Linkedin groups: If you’re active in Linkedin groups, you’re bound to happen across some interesting people making high quality contributions. Now, Linkedin might not be the right place to connect with them if, like me, you keep this for people you have a genuine professional link to. But, their public profile should show you their Twitter ID, and that’s a great place to get to know them a bit better.
3. Look at your contacts contacts: One of the brilliant things about social networks is that they make the connections between people more visible. Taking a look at the people to whom your direct contacts are connected can lead you to some really interesting people, with whom you could connect directly if they publish their social media IDs.
4. Run keyword searches now and then: All of the social platforms have a facility these days that allows you to search on key words and phrases. Have a think about the right phrases for your area of interest and see who’s chatting about the subject.
5. Follow the tags: Twitter hashtags, like #marketing, can be very useful in directing you to interested people and interesting content. Find out the relevant tags for your business area and keep an eye on Tweets, and Twitterers, using them.
6. Who do they follow? If you find someone whose ideas and content you find interesting, it’s likely that they’ll be following people on Twitter that you would also enjoy connecting with. So, take a look at the list of people that influential or interesting people are following to find some further nuggets.
7. Look at company pages and websites: If businesses are getting into social media, they are highly likely to have started to add their social media identities to their own website and Linkedin pages. Take a look at companies you’re interested to see if they’ve published their profiles for you to connect with.
8. Ask them: Add a field to any data capture form or sign-up process that asks for key social media IDs, like Twitter. And, for existing customers – you might add the question to your next email to them.
9. The technical solution: Many social media tools now have a social look-up function. Mailchimp’s SocialPRO is an example, where email subscribers who have allowed their email address to be a searchable item in their social media profiles have their record in Mailchimp enhanced with those details.
10. Run your email database through the tool: Many of the social platforms allow you to run your email address book through their system to see if any of those people have profiles on their platform.
There are plenty more ways to find people worth listening to, but these should get you started. It’s also worth putting a date in your diary to run a few of these as regular processes to pick up new people and updates along the way.
Clear Thought Consulting works with small businesses, equipping them with the marketing strategies, suppliers, skills and set-up that they need to become bigger businesses. We do this by planning and delivering 12-month marketing transformation programmes – supporting a small business through a step-by-step process to making marketing pay. We firmly believe that when you can’t out-spend your competition, you have to out-think them.
Great marketing content is really powerful. It gives readers a sense of your company and your people, and a route in to finding out more about what you do. It can be particularly powerful to hook onto something that people are already interested in, or talking about.
Here are three ideas taken from over 120 available in our 26-page guide – A-Z of Marketing Thought Starters – which is available to email subscribers.
Science: It’s all around us people. The news coverage of the hadron collider certainly shows an appetite for science-based stories. Are there any live experiments you could show? Do you test things as part of your new product development? Can you demonstrate it? You can also mark anniversaries of scientific discoveries, using them as a starting point for discussion about the impact on your industry.
Technology: It’s all around us. How to get the most from it, what to do when it goes wrong, and advice on the latest gadgets, are all good subjects. Even if you’re not a technology company, it is highly likely that your customers encounter technology alongside, or in the course of using, your products or services – can you help them with that?
Universe: Solar or lunar eclipses, and interesting astronomical happenings can hold people enthralled. Is there something you can bring to the party? Tips on viewing, how to get a great photo, putting together a photo book, creating merchandise with images – facts and figures related to the event?
These are just three ideas from amongst 120 that we’ve packed into our 26-page guide, The A-Z of Marketing Thought Starters, available in full to subscribers to our email newsletter.
Clear Thought Consulting works with small businesses, equipping them with the marketing strategies, suppliers, skills and set-up that they need to become bigger businesses. We do this by planning and delivering 12-month marketing transformation programmes – supporting a small business through a step-by-step process to making marketing pay. We firmly believe that when you can’t out-spend your competition, you have to out-think them.
There really is no point saying anything if you have no-one to listen. Okay, a bit of talking to oneself to clarify thoughts is fine – I can regularly be found asking the cat what he thinks of my ideas. But, in social media terms, if you don’t have connections, you’re talking to the ether. So, how do you make connections in social media? In the first of two posts on the subject, we’re going to look at ways of making yourself easy to find. In part two, we’ll look at how you can proactively find people you want to connect with.
1. Use your real name, that you use in business, in your social media profiles. For this site, ‘Bryony Thomas’ and ‘Cheryl Crichton’ are consistently in our top 10 search terms. Which just shows that it’s not just me who Googles people before I meet them. Using the name that you use in business for your social media profiles will mean that people are more likely to find them in search.
2. Add ‘follow’ buttons to your website: Twitter launched their official ‘follow’ button this week. Just like Facebook and Linkedin, adding it to your site is a simple piece of HTML snippet. Or, as is now popular, you can put the links in your website header or footer using their common icons as links to your profiles. We do this on our contact page.
3. Add social media links to your professional profile: Most websites will have an ‘About us’ section these days where key people are profiled. Add their individual social media links to these. With Twitter, you can even add a little snippet that shows their most recent Tweets.
4. Add social media links to your other social media profiles: If you, or your company, appear in a directory, there’s usually a place to put relevant links. Put links to your social media profiles there.
5. Add a by-line to your blog posts: If you’re blogging, add a by-line about the author that includes their key social media profiles – like their Twitter. See example below.
6. Add key IDs to your business stationery: Your business cards should have your individual profiles, and things like headed paper, compliments slips, marketing literature, invoices, etc. should have your company IDs.
7. Cross reference your social media IDs: For example, list your Twitter ID on your Linkedin profile, and make sure your blog’s RSS feed and Twitter is linked to your Linkedin company page. See our Linkedin Company Page.
8. Use standard tags for your industry: There are hashtags for most industries on Twitter, like #marketing, which allows other Twitterers to easily find Tweets about that subject. Find out what the tags are for your area and use them.
9. Craft your social media biographies: Think about the copy in your bios, these will be searched by Google, and by the search tools in the various applications. Make your description clear and relevant to people likely to be interested in what you’re saying.
10. Say interesting and relevant things: If you share interesting and relevant information, people will pass it on. This puts you in front of their followers, which usually prompts a few people to follow you directly.
There are loads more ways to be found. Hopefully, these should get you started. Please do also share what’s worked for you.
Clear Thought Consulting works with small businesses, equipping them with the marketing strategies, suppliers, skills and set-up that they need to become bigger businesses. We do this by planning and delivering 12-month marketing transformation programmes – supporting a small business through a step-by-step process to making marketing pay. We firmly believe that when you can’t out-spend your competition, you have to out-think them.
Ah, that dreaded blank sheet of paper. If you’ve committed to a content marketing strategy for your small business – you need to be getting something new and interesting out there at least weekly. And, that’s on top of daily social media interactions.
You can sometimes find yourself thinking that you’ve said everything, or that you’ve used up all your good ideas. Which is when you need to look at things from another angle – is there something that your potential buyers are already interested in, or talking about, that applies to something that you do?
Continuing our A-Z series, here are three more thought starters to get you going…
People: People are interested in people. Find as many ways as possible of letting people connect and engage appropriately with your people. Provide profiles on your website. Interview them in your blogs. Consider an intro video for key people. Share the load with blog articles from various authors around your business.
Questions: Ask questions that often get asked to which you know the answer. And ask questions to which you want to know the answer. The former helps people find your answers to their questions… which may lead to them buying your solution to their problem. The latter gets people thinking, helps you improve your offer and may help you to find solutions to your problems. All good.
Research: We can’t speak highly enough on the value of research. Especially original, well conducted, thought-provoking, research. If you can provide an original and evidenced perspective on something of interest to your audience, you’re onto a winner. It gives you content for news releases, reports, web seminars, roundtable events, benchmark reports and articles galore. A content marketers dream!
These are just three ideas from amongst 120 that we’ve packed into our 26-page guide, The A-Z of Marketing Thought Starters, available in full to subscribers to our email newsletter.
Clear Thought Consulting works with small businesses, equipping them with the marketing strategies, suppliers, skills and set-up that they need to become bigger businesses. We do this by planning and delivering 12-month marketing transformation programmes – supporting a small business through a step-by-step process to making marketing pay. We firmly believe that when you can’t out-spend your competition, you have to out-think them.
Traditional marketing language is so combative; opposite to the mindset you actually need to make marketing pay for your small business. Think about it… you plan a campaign, you target and audience, you capture their data. No customer wants to feel hunted, or penned in like a prisoner.
I know I use these words, but when you actually stop to think about them, they’re really unhelpful in terms of putting you in the right frame of mind. One of the key problems is that these phrases are de-humanising. Whereas, in reality, understanding that your buyers are people is vital. I’d go so far as to say that it’s marketing’s one universal truth. The one thing that remains true across every market, every country, every product – it’s people who buy things.
Let’s think about more helpful words and what they mean in practice:
Don’t target your audience, engage them: If you say interesting and relevant things, people will find you. This is especially true in an online setting. Appealing to a person’s natural curiosity, answering a question that’s been bugging them, or providing information that makes their life that bit easier, are all great ways to put your stall out in a way that draws people to you.
Don’t capture your buyers, invite them: Capturing a person’s contact information sounds clandestine, and unfortunately in many businesses it is. Emailing people who didn’t actually give you their permission for example. Inviting people to willingly give you their details is so much more powerful. They will know who you are, be warm to what you’re saying, and expect to hear from you. Great techniques for inviting people to let you get in touch are: providing a subscription email newsletter, running an online event, or offering a really useful download.
Don’t run a campaign, always be there: Campaigns are a quick hit. They’re like that friend who’s all over you when they need a favour, but never seems to have time for a chat when you need a shoulder. That’s not what you want to be. You want to be the totally reliable person they turn to. In practical terms this means having a steady stream of useful and interesting material for them. It means being available via whichever channel suits them. And, having great customer service that responds to any problems they might have.
Don’t lock people in, make them want to stay: I don’t know about you, but I resent those things where I don’t feel it’s totally my choice. Like, my mobile phone contract – when I get to the end I almost want to move just to show them that I can. Maybe that’s my personality, but I don’t think I’m alone. I firmly believe that if you make your customers feel that there are exit points they can use if they want to, they’re more likely to sign-up in the first place. Obviously, you have to provide a great service and be lovely people to work with to keep them wanting more. But, this has knock on benefits like excellent word of mouth from existing customers generating you new ones. Unless your particular business model means that you don’t want people to come back to you, or where your customers never talk to anyone else, I’d avoid hefty lock-ins.
Marketing that delivers solid sales results in the long term is marketing that gets to the heart of how real people really buy things. The starting point for that is to understand your buyers as people. Dropping the combative language could be a great first step.
Clear Thought Consulting works with small businesses, equipping them with the marketing strategies, suppliers, skills and set-up that they need to become bigger businesses. We do this by planning and delivering 12-month marketing transformation programmes – supporting a small business through a step-by-step process to making marketing pay. We firmly believe that when you can’t out-spend your competition, you have to out-think them.
To stay front of mind with people who might buy or recommend your stuff, it’s really powerful to have a steady stream of material to put out on social media, on your website, and when you meet them in person. It can be great to hang your ideas on something that people are already talking about – tapping into a conversation they may already be having.
This is exactly the point of our A-Z of Marketing Thought Starters, which is free to email subscribers. We’ve taken three ideas from the 120 in the full list to point you in the right direction.
Money: How to make more of it. How to spend less of it. Where to find sources of funding. How to manage cash flow. Tips on book-keeping… money is a topic that can almost always be talked about sensibly and people will listen.
News: Even if you’re not creating the news, you can comment on it and respond to it. Share the load by getting different people to track particular news outlets. If something comes up that’s relevant to what you do, you can either comment via their online facility, or post a response as your own blog article or a short piece-to-camera.
Opportunities: Passing on details of opportunities that your audience might benefit from can stand you in good stead. Perhaps you’ve been contacted by a journalist, but can’t supply comment yourself – could you pass it on? Maybe one of your customers is recruiting. These are things worth passing on via your social media channels, for example.
These are just three ideas from amongst 120 that we’ve packed into our 26-page guide, The A-Z of Marketing Thought Starters, available in full to subscribers to our email newsletter.
Clear Thought Consulting works with small businesses, equipping them with the marketing strategies, suppliers, skills and set-up that they need to become bigger businesses. We do this by planning and delivering 12-month marketing transformation programmes – supporting a small business through a step-by-step process to making marketing pay. We firmly believe that when you can’t out-spend your competition, you have to out-think them.
Last week we went through some powerful marketing ideas and activities that any small business can put into practice, investing time rather than money. But, time is a precious resource – so, how much time? Without talking of pieces of string and how long they are, I thought I’d have a go at some practical time-blocked suggestions that anyone could try.
So, let’s run through seven marketing activities that you can do from your desk, with a run-down of what’s involved and roughly how long this would take you.
Writing a blog post or article: 2.5 hours approx
To create something that people want to read, and will act as a stepping stone into finding out more about your company you will need to: Come up with an idea, draft the copy, review and edit your copy, check your SEO phrases are included, come up with a catchy headline, write the meta tag and meta description, find an accompanying image, upload this to your site, tag it and categorise it, publish it, let people know it’s there. In talking to other bloggers, I’ve had estimates from 30 minutes to 10 hours. Once you get into the swing of blogging I believe that anyone can write a good piece in under 2.5 hours. And, it doesn’t need to be done in one sitting. I find this a perfect activity to do if I’m out at meetings with 30 minutes or so in between, or on a train.
You can squeeze your social media into those gaps in your diary. With a smart phone there’s no reason that 5 minutes waiting for a client to arrive, or between appointments can’t be put to good use. The things I build into each day are: updating my Linkedin status, replying to any @mentions on Twitter, saying good morning on Twitter, asking a question on Twitter at some point in the day, re-tweeting an article or two I’ve found interesting. And each week I will supplement this with: posting details of our latest blog, any published articles, and some comment on a article I’ve read.
There’s a little bit of upfront work to do here in researching the directories in your industry. Take a look at membership organisations, Google industry terms, see if you can find a helpful list of lists out there somewhere. Then it’s a case of adding yourself, and popping back at least quarterly to check that your details are up to date.
Search engine optimisation: 1 day then 10 minutes per week
Again, after some initial legwork in researching your keywords, which you will probably want to repeat quarterly or six-monthly, you should then simply be weaving these terms into any new content on your website as it is added – then running off a report monthly to see how you’re performing.
YouTube has helpfully reduced the expectations on production values, and many people will appreciate a video that has been produced with care in-house. To create a short video we’d suggest picking one of your best blogs and expanding on it with a few more stories or analogies. With a decent camera and basic editing software you can produce something worth sharing. You’ll need to jot down your talking points, set-up your camera in good light, shoot your footage a few times, run it into an editing package (like iMovie for Mac), edit it to flow nicely, add some captions and an end-frame, export as an MPEG, upload to YouTube, embed in your website. And there you have it. For a 3-minute piece I’ve probably over-egged this – but once you’ve got to grips with the editing you’ll definitely be able to do one of these in a day.
Hosting a web or telephone seminar: About a day spread over 6 weeks
A telephone or web seminar is a live event that people attend remotely having pre-registerd. They are typically an hour in length, with 30 minutes of content, 10 minutes of intro and wrap-up, 10 minutes of interaction like Q&A or live polls and a little contingency. To run one of these you’ll need to promote the event in good time so people register, prepare your content, practice presenting the content, send people joining instructions, familairise yourself with the technology, run the event, and send people a follow-up to the event. The first time you do this it’s about a day’s work spread out into chunks of an hour or two, but once you’ve done it once you can re-run it with far less time investment.
Creating a web or podcast: 1 hour approx
A webcast is simply a pre-recorded presentation that plays on demand (like our 10 Minute Tips). For these you can re-use some of your video or webinar material from above, or just do a voiceover some presentation slides. PowerPoint and Keynotes both allow to record and export in various formats in the latest versions, so with pre-existing content this is unlikely to take you more than an hour to produce.
The great thing about all of the items listed above is that once you have them, you can eek miles of value from them, by re-purposing and re-using them in various different contexts. With a little thought, we came up with 20 ways to use one piece of content – so it really will be worth the investment. And if you can’t think what to write, take a look at our A-Z of Content Ideas.
Clear Thought Consulting works with small businesses, equipping them with the marketing strategies, suppliers, skills and set-up that they need to become bigger businesses. We do this by planning and delivering 12-month marketing transformation programmes – supporting a small business through a step-by-step process to making marketing pay. We firmly believe that when you can’t out-spend your competition, you have to out-think them.
Decent and regular marketing content can really set you apart from your competitors. Quite apart from giving you the materials with which to generate excellent awareness through social media marketing and natural search. It can also give people a real flavour of who you are and what it’s like to work with your company.
But, it can be tough to constantly come up with talking points and conversation starters. So, we put our thinking caps on to come up with at least one topic for every letter in the alphabet to get you started. Here are three more ideas to kick you off…
Journeys: Metaphorical journeys are always good – how have you or your business reached where you are today? What were the slips and highlights along the way? Real journeys can also give you something to talk about, perhaps you’re a salesperson who makes a habit of posting a photo of every hotel you stay in… or airport you go through.
Kick-start: Getting started is often the hardest thing about any new challenge. So, let’s say that the product or service you offer is related to something that’s new to people… like losing weight, stopping smoking, trying out social media marketing, implementing best practice… can you provide them with tools to kick-start the process?
Lyrics: We recently ask fans of a jewellery brand on Facebook to come up with song lyrics that reminded them of their favourite products from the range in question… over 100 comments later and we can safely say it worked well at getting people engaged and entertained.
These are just three ideas from amongst 120 that we’ve packed into our 26-page guide, The A-Z of Marketing Thought Starters, available in full to subscribers to our email newsletter.
Clear Thought Consulting works with small businesses, equipping them with the marketing strategies, suppliers, skills and set-up that they need to become bigger businesses. We do this by planning and delivering 12-month marketing transformation programmes – supporting a small business through a step-by-step process to making marketing pay. We firmly believe that when you can’t out-spend your competition, you have to out-think them.
The Clear Thought mantra is to out-think, rather than out-spend, your competition. But, it can be tough as a small business to work out how to put together a high quality marketing activity plan on a modest budget.
It is possible!
For every high cost technique, there is a low cost alternative. It usually means an investment of time rather than money, but it is possible. To give you a few examples here’s a run down of some common bank-busting marketing activities, and their low cost alternative.
The low-cost alternatives to advertising your small business
For many people advertising and marketing seem to be interchangeable words. Putting aside my irritation at this over-simplification, if we look at the purpose of advertising you can start to see what other activities could meet the same criteria. So, advertising like Google Adwords, Magazine Ads, TV ads, or banners on websites, are about generating awareness and drawing people into finding out more about your company. It’s very nature means that you’re trying to contact people for whom you do not have contact details. So, here are some other ways to do just that.
Blogging: Having a well written blog on your website that includes effective use of words that people regularly use to search for products and services in your market is an excellent way of getting found online. Even better than advertising in many ways because people are delivered to a highly relevant article on the subject that they’ve been searching.
Social media marketing: If you take the time to invest in high quality content that people will find useful and relevant, then you have great material for making use of social media marketing. You put the details out there, and if it’s good, people will pass it on, and pass it on – getting your message out to a greater number of people.
Directory listings: A very simple technique that’s often overlooked. Many directories, like BT Tradespace and FreeIndex, are absolutely free and allow you to list your business and link to your website. There’s often a directory listing included in memberships of organisations like Chamber of Commerce – make sure you’re details are there, complete and up to date.
Search Engine Optimisation: In addition to your blog, taking some time to craft your website copy and content so that is more easily found online can pay dividends.
Video marketing: Setting up a YouTube or SlideShare space is absolutely free. And, with a little elbow grease with PowerPoint, a voice recorder or a decent video camera, you can create entirely usable video tutorials, case studies, etc. Naturally, with a bit more cash to splash you can get more creative and more polished – but don’t rule video out if your budget is tight.
The low-cost alternative to small business public relations
Like advertising, Public Relations is about getting your message out to a wide audience. Typically, the aim is to get your business coverage in print or online press that people who buy your stuff read. The critical thing here is source credibility. It can be more credible, and reach a wider audience, if you’re featured by a third party rather than only on your own site. PR experts have existing connections with journalists and can craft a press release or media contribution that is most likely to get you the best coverage. But, there are things you can do yourself.
Article marketing: If you’ve spent time creating blog articles, you can re-use these as syndicated content. Taking care not to duplicate too much content, you can submit articles to sites like articlebase or submityourarticle.com which makes it available on their site, and for syndication by others – which means that other people can publish your work on their site with a link back to yours.
Guest blogging: Another way of getting your stuff seen in a wider context, and by eyes that might not find you another way, is to approach complementary (non-competitive) businesses who target the same market as you and offer guest articles for their website.
Groups & forums: A simple and powerful way of putting your best stuff in front of people who matter is to get involved in online groups and forums. Linkedin is a great starting point, where there thousands of groups where like-minded professionals post discussions, jobs and articles of interest. Asking great questions and providing intelligent answers can really get you noticed. Indeed, we’re secured over £170k in revenue through leads that initiated in Linkedin.
The low-cost alternative to exhibiting at trade shows
Sales people for trade shows can be very persuasive. And, the idea of having a load of primed buyers all in room in one day can be pretty tempting. But, with exhibitor fees, stand costs, literature, give-aways, etc. the costs can really add up. There are some other ways of achieving a similar outcome.
Being a smart delegate: Just because you don’t have a stand does not mean that you can’t make the most of a delegate ticket. Why not set up an Eventbrite booking system, offer half-hour coaching / consultation sessions over coffee at the event. You can promote this through your website and social media meaning that you make the most of the lunch breaks, etc. Be sure to mug up on your networking skills so that you’re actively working the room, rather than just passively attending.
Speaking: It is sometimes possible to secure a speaking slot at an event without exhibiting. These are increasingly sold as part of sponsorship packages, but if you’re really good or can offer to share the stage with a client to talk through a case study these can still be achieved.
Blogging & social media marketing: If there’s an event in your market, you can captialise on it with social media in a number of ways. A powerful technique is to write up reviews on the various talks and seminars – put them out on social media with the event hashtag and they’re often passed on by the event organsiers.
The low-cost alternative to hosting your own events
Hosting an event of your own with food, wine and a captive audience can be an excellent way of demonstrating your credentials. Seminars are a great marketing technique, particularly with a guest speaker. But, venue costs, refreshments, invitations, etc. all add up. Some alternatives are:
Webinars and Teleseminars: Live events that people attend remotely either online or by phone. You often get more people for these precisely because they don’t need to leave their desks. The downside is that you miss that personal touch. But, these are definitely a lower cost option that most businesses could try.
Web or Podcasts: These are pre-recorded versions of the above, or re-use of the above as a recording to get some extra value. Perfect for overcoming those diary issues, as people access them whenever suits them.
Roundtables: A cheaper alternative to a seminar event is a smaller and more intimate roundtable discussion. You only need about 10 people, a nice lunch venue and a great topic and you can often create a really powerful business event.
These are just a few examples. But, if you get your thinking cap on and roll up your sleeves, there really is no reason that your budget should hold you back from excellent marketing for your small business. And, as these activities pay off, you can re-invest by upgrading to the higher cost versions as appropriate.
No doubt, you’ll all have your own examples of how to out-think, rather than out-spend, the competition – we’d love to hear about them.
Clear Thought Consulting works with small businesses, equipping them with the marketing strategies, suppliers, skills and set-up that they need to become bigger businesses. We do this by planning and delivering 12-month marketing transformation programmes – supporting a small business through a step-by-step process to making marketing pay. We firmly believe that when you can’t out-spend your competition, you have to out-think them.
Content marketing is where your company provides a steady stream of useful, relevant and interesting information. And, for it to be most effective it needs to be regular. We suggest at least one new piece of content, like a blog post, weekly. This keeps your site fresh for both visitors and search engines, and gives you something to new to put out via social media.
But, it can be tough to constantly come up with talking points and conversation starters. So, we put our thinking caps on to come up with at least one topic for every letter in the alphabet to get you started. Here are three more ideas to kick you off…
Diary dates: Little reminders like when clocks go forward, when the Bank Holidays are, etc. can be helpful and give you a chance to promote what you have to offer. Technology providers could send a guide on setting up custom voicemails, diverts of out of office assistance. Virtual PAs could offer out-of-hours support. Local venues could give ideas for days out that includes a trip to their attraction.
Environment: If what you do can help people to be cleaner and greener, tell them about it. We’d caution against appearing to shoe horn your offer into this topic, but it is one that a great number of people are passionately interested in, so if you have a genuine green story to tell, go for it.
Feedback: Whether its from an online forum, a customer satisfaction survey or a post-event feedback form – collating positive feedback into a post that sits alongside a page or a proposal for a similar product or service is always worth doing. You could even collate these into a presentation turn it into a slidecast and embed it as a looping video on the product page in question.
These are just three ideas from amongst 120 that we’ve packed into our 26-page guide, The A-Z of Marketing Thought Starters, available in full to subscribers to our email newsletter.
Clear Thought Consulting works with small businesses, equipping them with the marketing strategies, suppliers, skills and set-up that they need to become bigger businesses. We do this by planning and delivering 12-month marketing transformation programmes – supporting a small business through a step-by-step process to making marketing pay. We firmly believe that when you can’t out-spend your competition, you have to out-think them.
Last month we exhibited at the Best of Bristol exhibition sponsored by the Federation of Small Business. We decided to go along to meet local businesses, and to see if we encountered anyone new at this sort of event rather than through our main channel of social networking. It was fascinating to see how different businesses, both attending and exhibiting, approached the day.
I thought I’d share a few things that we either learned, or had reinforced, on the day. There are loads more, but here are my top five…
1. Remove the barriers
As part of the exhibitor pack you could request a table with cover. And, most people did. They had their display graphics in the background, then two people sat at seats behind a desk in front of that. I implore you, if you’re exhibiting at a show, resist the temptation to set your stand up like this. Apart from looking bit like a table top sale, it puts a barrier between you and the visitor, and takes you out of their eye line. If you’re sitting down and they’re walking past, you’re very unlikely to catch their eye. We had ours set up with a high table, wine bar style that you can stand at, with two high bar stools to perch on if our feet got tired. It worked really well.
2. Have an opener
So, now that you’re standing up and looking welcoming. What are you going to say? Most attendees have a few people in mind to visit, and may mill around a few of the other stands. A large number are a little wary of being sold at by every stand holder, and scurry by trying not to catch your eye. But, if you’re going to get the most from the day, you have to get as many people into conversation as possible. You need to catch people on their way by, ask them a question and strike up a conversation. At this event, my standard opener to every passer by was “Hello, are you exhibiting here today, or just having a look around?” – nothing about us at all. Just a friendly question to get them into conversation.
3. Champagne is boring
Now, it’s really important to have a data capture device at these shows. That is, a reason for people to give you their business card so that you can follow-up. I counted at least five companies giving away a bottle of Champagne in a business card draw. Unless your company has some tangible link to Champagne, this is a wasted opportunity. Prize draws can work really well, but have a think about something that relates to your company or acts as a talking point.
We selected five of our favourite business books and gave one away on the hour for every hour we were there. We also promoted it beforehand, so that delegates could get two entries into the draw if they pre-registered and stopped by to say hello on the day. This worked on loads of levels. We had a few people who’d registered already, so we knew we’d get some visitors. The books themselves were a great conversation piece as we could give people a precis, tell people why we chose them and relate it to what we do. And, doing a draw each hour added a bit of drama to our stand.
4. Talk to everyone
Everyone at a show is someone worth talking to. That includes other exhibitors. It can be easy to simply stick to your own stand all day talking to passers by, but your best prospect could be doing exactly the same on a stand at the other side of the room. We split the duties. I stayed on the stand, and Cheryl took herself around the show saying hello to all our fellow exhibitors and encouraging them to pop over to see me and enter our draw. The great thing about exhibitors is that you know they’ll be there, so you can do a little research beforehand to pick out those you’re particularly interested in talking to. And, you have a ready-made opener by comparing notes on how the day is going.
Oh, and competitors are people too. I had lunch last week with a chap I met at this event, who was surprised that I took 10 minutes to chat to a fellow marketing consultant. The way I see it, we couldn’t fulfil all the marketing needs of all the companies in the South West even if we wanted to, and we’re not the fountains of all knowledge. So, I love meeting fellow professionals. There’s almost always a chance to co-refer or support each other in some way.
5. Follow-up
This is probably the single most important tip we can give you about doing a show. You must follow-up. There is no point gathering business cards if you do nothing with them. We’d also suggest that you do a little more than simply adding them to your mailing list. Actually calling them or emailing them as an individual, referring to the show and a conversation you had is much more powerful. And, you need to do this within a week. Go through the cards, check out their websites, there are bound to be a few nuggets in there. Why not pick up the phone and invite them for a coffee? Go on, what’s the worst that can happen? And, what’s the best that can happen? It’s almost certainly worth it.
I’d also round up with few other mini tips:
Take a camera and remember to take some photos (we forgot!)
Find out if there’s a Twitter hashtag for the event and use it
Do a write-up after the event, as a blog for example
Wear comfortable shoes
Take lots of water and change for buying food
Please add your own examples and tips for how small businesses can make the most of events and exhibitions.
Clear Thought Consulting works with small businesses, equipping them with the marketing strategies, suppliers, skills and set-up that they need to become bigger businesses. We do this by planning and delivering 12-month marketing transformation programmes – supporting a small business through a step-by-step process to making marketing pay. We firmly believe that when you can’t out-spend your competition, you have to out-think them.
Things to consider when naming your small business
Company names have come up recently with two clients we’re working with. The question being whether or not the name is working for them. Changing a company name can be a disruptive and expensive exercise. So, you need to have a damn good reason to do so. As a run-down, these are the things we’d recommend a small business considers when choosing a name.
How to choose a company name
Broadly, there are three approaches to company naming, each with their pros and cons.
1. Descriptive company names
The first is to go with a highly descriptive name that anchors your company in a discipline and / or geography. For example ‘Bristol Sports Trophies’. The benefit is clear – it’s immediately obvious what you do, and in this example, where you do it. The disadvantage is that it can make it harder for you to branch out into other areas. Let’s say this company wanted to start offering branded business merchandise, the name might make it tricky for people to immediately think of them when looking for these other services.
2. Conceptual company names
Taking a more conceptual approach to naming allows you to grow and adapt your services more easily. Our own company name is an example. ‘Clear Thought’ gives you a sense of our values and approach, but it doesn’t immediately say ‘marketing’. This leaves the door open to future expansion. If we wanted to extend into Clear Thought HR, IT, Finance, etc. we could.
The disadvantage is the opposite of the descriptive naming, that is ‘what you do’ is not immediately obvious. This can make getting people to associate your company with a given set of products and services a little trickier. And, more expensive. Orange certainly had no immediate psychological association with telephony when they started out, they bought that mind shift.
3. Founder names or initials
Then there’s the professional services’ favourite – using the names of the founders. This has further disadvantages to the conceptual approach, as it says absolutely nothing about your approach or your service offering. Which is not to say it can’t be successful, clearly Marks & Spencers and many more prove otherwise. But, you can see how a small business or start up would have to work harder to get their name associated with what they do, or how they do it, by taking this approach.
Founder names can also be problematic for political and people reasons. You may wish to bring business partners on board – will they feel that having your name on the door makes them an unequal partner? Another consideration is succession or acquisition. Associating a company strongly with a key individual (whether through company name or spokesperson activities) can make it hard for an acquiring company to see value in the business without that person, or if they leave some of the brand leaves with them.
For me, the best way to bridge this gap is to go for a conceptual company name that gives a sense of what you’re about, and a descriptive strap-line that tells people what you do. This gives you both advantages, you can branch out under the conceptual name later, and a strap-line is a far less onerous change to make should your growth strategy demand it.
Protecting and promoting your company name
Whichever approach you take, you need to make sure that people don’t confuse you with others or pass themselves off as you. Many companies will seek to trademark their name. This is certainly not a bad idea – but it’s much more important these days that what you protect is not necessarily the wording, but the digital real estate. Finding a name that’s unique is pretty hard, unless you make up a new word – so, check how your potential name is already being used. Before you do anything, check out the web address (domain name) availability, and search your proposed names and strap-lines on the major search engines and social media platforms. If a name you have in mind is already heavily used, or closely associated with someone else, getting people to notice and understand your business will be harder. Once you’ve decided on a name, grab those domains, claim that Twitter handle, hold that Facebook page, and so on. And, don’t delay in doing this!
Take care with language and meaning
Will your small business always be small? If you have expansion in mind, particularly overseas, think long and hard about how your name translates and is pronounced in the major world languages. Even if you’re only in one language or country, check there’s no slang meaning for your name that you’re unaware of. And, of course, grab those international domain names now.
Why does your company name matter?
A rebuttal on this that was put my way recently is that people don’t care about your company name. Providing it’s an inoffensive word, your name is unlikely to ever be the make or break element in a buying decision. I agree, it won’t. But, a poor name choice can hold you back without you knowing it. If people can’t find you, or don’t understand what you do, you would never know that they didn’t know about you. I’d also argue that a good name is part of a good brand, which adds value in all sorts of ways. Whilst I might concede that a mediocre name probably won’t obviously hold you back, I do believe that a great name can definitely help take you forward.
So, what does your company name say about you? And, does it give you room to grow in the future?
Clear Thought Consulting works with small businesses, equipping them with the marketing strategies, suppliers, skills and set-up that they need to become bigger businesses. We do this by planning and delivering 12-month marketing transformation programmes – supporting a small business through a step-by-step process to making marketing pay. We firmly believe that when you can’t out-spend your competition, you have to out-think them.
A guest post from Maxine Welford, expert in telemarketing that increases sales for small businesses. With so much attention on digital marketing, we thought it was time for a reminder on making best use of more traditional techniques. We asked Maxine how she uses the telephone as a powerful marketing tool.
Telemarketing and Telesales fits into this concept at various stages, as shown in Bryony’s 10 minute tips on the subject – Awareness, Generating and Converting Interest and also Retention. You can have various types of Telemarketing Taps (campaigns) running at the same time or various times. A funnel can be worked with Telemarketing to either qualify leads into or out of your funnel and by this we mean establishing and attracting levels of interest, desire and action.
The difference between Telemarketing and Telesales
Over recent years the difference has become a bit blurred. Telesales is closing an interest through to a sale. Whereas Telemarketing supports various parts of a marketing plan by use of the telephone but not usually to the point of closing a sale.
Telemarketing activities typically include:
Data cleansing – getting accurate details of the prospect record including names, job titles, phone numbers and email addresses for decision makers and key influencers. Can also mean getting information on the actual business in terms of number of employees, turnover, details of current supplier arrangement, data research on decision making.
Opted in email permissions – people give their email addresses and verbally ‘opt in’ to receive email marketing messages.
Market Research – data gathering either to prepare for or evaluate other marketing activity.
Cold Calling – Introduce services and products with an outline of the benefits with the aim of qualifying a lead to the next step in the marketing or sales process. This is probably the most well known area of Telemarketing and because this task is also performed by Telesales, people often assume that Cold Calling only focuses on selling to cold prospects. There are many other objectives though such as: qualifying leads, gathering information for personalised communications, email opt in permissions, invitations to delegate events, appointment setting, call backs to quote for specific requirements.
Lead generation – This is where prospects are identified and qualified. It usually involves skill to articulate the product or service in an attractive way that clearly explains benefits relevant to the person being called. The skills are the same as telesales although telemarketing tends to stop short of actually closing the sale over the phone.
Appointment setting – The objective of the call is to make appointments and the qualification criteria can vary on what is required before an appointment is made. Some people just want to get a foot in the door, whereas others want to be more careful with their time and costs before attending appointments.
Delegate calling – Inviting people along to events, meetings, workshops, training courses, either as paid events or free as a way of demonstrating knowledge, experience, skill etc.
Follow Up Calls – Calls that are deemed to be less cold as they have had a piece of direct marketing literature either by email, post or fax and they are being followed up as a telemarketing call with the same objectives of either generating qualified leads, setting appointments, obtaining call backs for quotes for services and products, or email permissions.
All of these are at the awareness and converting from interest stage of the Tap and Funnel. You may have also heard the term ‘Pipeline’ and this can be interpreted as prospects that are working their way through the funnel.
Essentially, telemarketing helps to ‘work the funnel’. Telemarketers talk with cold leads, building up awareness, finding out information, establishing interest, creating desire by being able to explain the benefits of a service or product, and agree actions with prospects in line with marketing and sales processes.
Why Telemarketing is popular:
It’s fast and can bring in revenue extremely quickly, almost instantly!
It can be very cost effective.
It can generate profit for reinvestment in marketing.
Why it’s sometimes unpopular:
It has a bad image from poor and unprofessional telemarketing practices.
It can be a complete waste of money if not done well, or if the marketing plan is weak, or if the product or service isn’t perceived as attractive enough in line with targets and expectations.
It takes the right kind of person to do it, enjoy it, and be good at it!
My 12 biggest and best telemarketing tips
1. Invest in a good marketing plan before starting telemarketing campaigns so that messages are well targeted, structured, and organised.
2. Weigh up the costs of purchasing good quality data from a list broker versus cleansing in-house and go with what is the best option on a fit-for-purpose basis.
3. Have clear objectives for the telemarketing campaign in terms of what information you want to find out at what cost and in what timescale, and what the various stages are in the marketing and sales processes that you want to move prospects on to (and again and what cost and timescale).
4. Be realistic with expectations and if this is an unknown area then forecasts can be calculated from short telemarketing trials.
5. Split test – use different approaches to different audiences and measure individual segments of calling in line with KPI’s (Key Performance Indicators) to identify areas for ongoing improvement. KPI’s can be either quantity or quality orientated and popular measures are Number of calls made, number of successful contacts, number of qualified leads, number of appointments, number of not interested, number of requests for further information, number of diary date actions. These can then be evaluated in percentage terms ie; number of not interested as a percentage of successful contacts, or number of qualified leads as a percentage of call attempts.
6. Guide but don’t script – Scripts are likely to drive the wrong behaviour of both the telemarketer and the person being called. Nobody likes to talk with a robot and it is difficult to listen properly when following a script. Calling guides can be good however to streamline important parts of a call such as the opening and can allow for split tests to take place.
7. Be ready – If you plan to send marketing literature as part of the telemarketing campaign then get this ready in advance as either brochures, letters, emails, faxes, postcards, invitations etc. If you plan to attend appointments then have resource and time slots available.
8. Be organised – Using a CRM (Customer Relationship Management) system to capture data efficiently and effectively can be crucial to success so that telemarketers don’t waste time recording information in a cumbersome way and so management don’t waste time trying desperately to put into reporting formats. The information gathered is extremely useful for influencing future marketing plans.
9. Do something with the feedback – In addition to generating leads and appointments there can be an enormous opportunity to evaluate feedback from the Telemarketers notes recorded on each call. Look for trends and analyse data to see how services and products can be marketed or offered differently in line with messages received from potential clients. Seek to overcome barriers that may exist ie; pricing, contractual, technology, etc.
10. Adhere to rules for TPS and CTPS (Telephone Preference Service and Corporate Telephone Preference Service) as is a legal requirement not to call people who have registered in the last 28 days.
11. Don’t forget to add Social Media Telemarketing into the mix if relevant to your business as this can be an effective way of responding to needs communicated via social platforms.
12. Don’t think that telemarketing stops at the Awareness and Interest stage of the funnel. Remember the Bucket?
Using telemarketing with existing customers
To use Bryony’s language, this is making sure you have a watertight bucket – customers that stay with you and buy more.
Cross selling a different product or service to an existing customer.
Up-selling where an existing customer may consider purchasing more in greater quantities, higher priced items, upgrades or premium products or services.
Asking for referrals.
Asking for testimonials, case studies, endorsements for use in other marketing and promotional activities.
Regular data cleansing to ensure you keep up with changes of staff and people responsible for purchasing your product or service.
Client satisfaction surveys to safeguard against competition and other threats and retain happy customers.
Surveys for testing responses to new products and services.
I hope this article shows you that there are Telemarketing companies out there who are professional enough to support and assist professional marketing plans. Do use the comments below to share your own experiences of telemarketing, good and bad, and to ask any questions you may have.
Maxine Welford runs Maxxy, a team of telemarketing experts who specialise in working with accountants and busy professionals. Her passion is more telemarketing that supports the overall marketing effort and is tailored to suit the needs, style, audience and budget of her small business clients. You can find out more about their services at www.maxxy.co.uk
Local marketing seems to have been a theme for me this week. Last night I was interviewed on the subject for an article in the Royal Mail magazine. Today, we exhibited and an event named ‘Best of Bristol’ specifically for local businesses. And, this afternoon I did a radio interview for JackFM in which I was asked whether local marketing is a good technique for small businesses. So… I thought I’d bring my thoughts together on the subject.
What is local marketing?
Local marketing is basically when you target your services to a specific, and usually quite small, geography. For example a town, city, or region. The reason it’s being talked about at the moment is the mammoth rise of Groupon, which allows businesses of any size to market their services with tantilising promotions within a specific locality. But, local marketing is by no means new. Sending a press release to your regional newspaper is local marketing. Attending a networking event run by your local Chamber of Commerce is local marketing. It doesn’t need to be digital to be local either. And, what’s more – you don’t need to be local for it to be effective!
Is local marketing and effective technique for small businesses?
The short answer is yes. It stands to reason that if your product or service is geographically anchored in a specific town or region (for example a conference centre or a consultant who wants to keep clients within an hour’s drive) that marketing beyond your locality is a bit of a waste of energy. But, if you’re a national or geographically neutral business (like an online service) a local marketing mindset can pay dividends.
When we helped Gradwell, a small business internet services provider, appoint a PR agency – a local mindset on a national scale was a key part of the criteria. Here’s the rationale. People like to buy from people like themselves. And people pay more attention to case studies and stories with which they can empathise. So, with clients and resellers up and down the country, Gradwell has plenty of news with regional interest. If you have a case study from Liverpool, it makes sense to pick up the phone to the Liverpool Echo, or even share a stand with them or a regional reseller at a Liverpool business event.
So, don’t think that because you’re a national business, or that your services have no geographical element, that you can’t benefit from a bit of local marketing.
A few local marketing ideas for you…
Regional PR: It’s hard to get into the national press, particularly as a small business. It can be easier to get coverage in regional press. Have a look through your case study material to see if you could approach the local paper of the business that’s featured in the case study. Don’t just think press, think regional online media outlets too.
Geographical Direct Mail: Make more of that case study. How about a direct mail piece to businesses in the same region as the one in the case study, directing people to the full detail on your website or to a webinar with that you and that company?
Regional events: Could you partner with a reseller of your services to take a stand in their region to support their sales of your services? Or perhaps making even more use of those case studies again, you could approach events organisers to offer a two-headed speaking slot presenting the case study.
Geo Technology: If your business relies on footfall into your premises, and has products that sell on the day, you might consider joining a service like Vouchercloud. This means that you can put out an offer on their service. People with smartphones within a certain distance of your site who subscribe to the service get details of your special offer when they are physically close to you.
Regional promotions: It’s Groupon that kicked off this post, so let’s say a bit more about it. You join their service and come up with a jaw-dropping offer. It goes out to people in a defined area who have subscribed to the service or follow their regional Facebook pages. They can then buy your offer as a coupon that they redeem with your business within a given time period.
Local search: People often add a location on the end of a search term when they’re looking for something online. So, making sure that you rank well for people looking for what you do, in your area, is a key local marketing technique.
Local advertising: We’re not big fans of print advertising, but online can be excellent, and can be highly geographically targeted. Facebook and Linkedin in particular offer targeted advertising down to postcode level. In fact, Linkedin now lets you define which specific companies you want your ads to appear in front of, so that when people from that company log-on your ad is displayed.
So, the answer is yes – local marketing is a great technique as part of an integrated small business marketing strategy. And, it’s not hard. These ideas should certainly get you started. If you have more ideas or examples to share, we’d love to hear about them.
Clear Thought Consulting works with small businesses, equipping them with the marketing strategies, suppliers, skills and set-up that they need to become bigger businesses. We do this by planning and delivering 12-month marketing transformation programmes – supporting a small business through a step-by-step process to making marketing pay. We firmly believe that when you can’t out-spend your competition, you have to out-think them.
Events, like exhibitions and trade shows, may seem a little old-fashioned, but can still be an excellent tool as part of a wider marketing mix. Chosen wisely and marketed in advance, you can attract a targeted audience with the opportunity of spending quality one-to-one time with them. But as I’ve said in previous blogs… marketing success is all in the preparation.
When a small business owner decides to exhibit at an event, it can be a challenge to make sure nothing is forgotten, and that everything is done in time. I would even go as far as to say it’s a bit like planning a wedding. And I know, I’ve done both.
Find an events professional
Especially if you’ve never done it before, my top tip would be to seriously consider engaging a professional event organiser. Someone to guide you through the pitfalls, and make recommendations for the things you may not have thought of. They will even advise on follow-up, and help you identify what success will look like. This doesn’t have to be an expensive agency, there are lots of great value freelancers out there.
If your budget does not stretch that far, you should put a single person in charge. Have them create your own checklist so that nothing gets forgotten, in the trade, this is called a ‘control document’ and its objective is to be a comprehensive manual for everyone involved. It not only covers the big day, but the lead-up, and follow-up as well.
What goes in an event control document?
Here’s a quick list of the key headings that will help you remember not to forget something. Even if they don’t apply to your event, fill them in explaining why. Half the battle is knowing what you don’t need, as well as what you do.
Date, venue and organisers: List everything about the venue including access times, parking, security restrictions, transport, directions, event organiser’s contact details (including in an emergency) and their PR company. List any relevant deadlines to with bookings, deliveries, loading/unloading and/or PR. Make a note of your number and exact dimensions of your space (including any height restrictions, number of power sockets available etc). A diagram can also be helpful here.
Objectives: List the main objectives of the event, even set specific targets for data collection for example. Use this as a focus for your team so everyone is clear about why you are doing this event, and what you will get out of it. Include team contact details and roles and responsibilities for in the lead-up, during, and after the event.
Your equipment: Make a list of all the equipment that you will be using on the day, or that which will be on loan from the venue (including the actual stand and any graphics, audio visual, spare mobiles, laptops, spare/back-up leads, sound or lighting requirements). Don’t forget Internet connections and mobile phone signal. Check what’s included in your stand fee and what is not. How will all this be set-up and taken down?
Your marketing activity around the event: Make sure everyone knows how you are supporting this event before, during, and after the day itself. Also make sure your staff are aware of the key people you have invited, and that they know how to collect ‘data’. Make a list of all the sales and marketing literature, activity, uniforms etc., that you need to prepare in advance of the show, along with turn-around times and associated costs. If you are running a promotion, make sure everyone is fully aware of the terms and conditions and that your promotion is legal.
Legals: Do you need insurance? Are you aware of the first aid facilities at the venue? What is your procedure in the event of an accident? Have your Health & Safety policy on hand and make sure your team has read it. Also, ensure you have the right paperwork with you if you intend to make sales on the day. Also be considerate when collecting personal details. Have your ‘permission marketing’ statement ready (Opt-in message).
Accommodation, expenses and miscellaneous: Include details of any staff accommodation and expenses information. Ditto if you are putting guests up for the night. Advise of any refreshments that are (or not) on offer. Another top tip is to always have a small stationery and first aid kit on the stand (and don’t forget storage for handbags, coats and other paraphernalia). You just never know!
Events can be great marketing for small business. However, disorganisation can lead to embarrassment on the day and a waste of the time, money and energy put into it. These are the key headings you should consider as an absolute minimum to make sure you have your bases covered. If you think I have missed any points, please feel to contribute below.
Clear Thought Consulting works with small businesses, equipping them with the marketing strategies, suppliers, skills and set-up that they need to become bigger businesses. We do this by planning and delivering 12-month marketing transformation programmes – supporting a small business through a step-by-step process to making marketing pay. We firmly believe that when you can’t out-spend your competition, you have to out-think them.
This is a guest post from Nicky Robertson from Mendip Media. With video marketing becoming a hot topic, and video production now within the price range of most small businesses, we asked Nicky, an expert video producer, to give us some tips on what makes a great marketing video.
Well-produced video, used in the right context, is a powerful marketing tool. Some of our favourite TV programmes have been built around some equally well-loved and memorable advertisements – selling thousands of products for nearly half a century. With the advent of the Internet, video has been unleashed… and now we’re scrambling to learn how to use it effectively.
Video on the Internet is different from TV advertising because of the way information is collected and distributed.
The Internet is interactive and infinite, which has implications for the length, content, and context of videos:
The new elasticity of length means we can upload recordings of whole conferences or just a few seconds of our own lifestyle ‘stuff’.
Video is no longer the preserve of videographers, but of everyone.
We can add the same video to our website and to multiple pages or to Social Media platforms – re-use the same content over and over.
And all video content is available for repeat viewings 24/7 – the archive is no longer a dusty pictures library but an accumulating, on-demand channel.
So in this new landscape can Internet video have the same sales power as TV advertising and, if so, how do we go about harnessing some of its va-va-voom?
Here are some things to think about if you want to make or commission a marketing video:
Marketing message: Have a clear idea of what you want to convey in the video. It’s tempting to try to put too much into a single clip, but video on the Internet is scalable, so if you have more than one message think about segmenting your videos into individual clips.
Format: Make sure you know what type of video you want to produce. There are lots of different genres of video from product demonstrations, adverts, viral, training and straight event recordings. The genres may cross-over but knowing what sort of video you are aiming for will help you decide on budget and timescales.
Planning: Use a storyboard and script to work out how your video will look and sound. Every video shoot requires setting-up and scheduling, and most genres need a storyboard. The exception is event recording, but this type of filming has its own peculiarities that need special planning. 90% of producing a good video is in the preparation.
Professional editing: Bring in a competent editor to create the finished product. Whether you film it yourself, or use a friend or a production company, you must use a good editor. One that is working with industry standard editing software to cut the final footage. This will save you time and money. A video clip is not created in the camera but in the edit suite. A decent editor will ensure you end up with a compelling marketing message.
Usage: Know what platforms you want the video to feature on. You may want to use your video offline for a presentation or as a DVD but also on your website or YouTube channel. A long conference video may work on your website, but it’s not going to be useable on YouTube where the maximum clip length is 10 mins. In the case of multiple channels you’ll need to re-edit the same material to make sure it fits the medium.
Promotion: Make sure that you have a clear strategy about linking your video online. Time and money go into making a good marketing video so it’s important to squeeze as much exposure from it as possible. Only add the video to Social Media platforms that are appropriate and remember to tag it. There should be links to your website for viewers interested in the content. Slick marketing videos drive traffic back to the originator’s website.
Visibility: Plan the positioning of the new video within your website. Video is a big-ticket item and you want visitors to see it. Don’t hide it away; make sure it’s easy to find, preferably on your Home Page. If you can’t fit it onto the Home Page at least flag up a link to it elsewhere on the site.
Re-use: Finally, your filmed footage is gold. You may not think it at the time, but all the material you film for a video is your archive and therefore valuable. It has the potential to be used again at a later date. It can be cut-in with new material to create a new video. It may even provide you with revenue in the future. Make sure you retain the copyright from the get go, especially when you commission a production company to produce material for you.
And to answer my own earlier question – of course Internet video can be as powerful as TV advertising. The number of times it has been viewed can even be tracked more rigorously than broadcast. But just as we have to come to terms with the rapidly changing web, so we have to understand the way Internet content works. It interacts with itself and its viewers and it is different from the old analogue timelines controlled by industry producers.
The power of Internet video derives both from being good in itself and its ability to integrate with other content and channels, and, most importantly, with potentially millions of viewers.
Nicky Robertson is Director of Mendip Media. She worked as a staff camera director and producer at the BBC for 12 years before starting her own digital agency specialising in Internet video production and digital marketing. You can find more of her video ramblings on Mendip Media’s own blog.
How many times have you heard that ‘people are your most important asset’ or that ‘people buy from people’?
I’m guessing you already know that. But, what’s harder is finding appropriate ways, particularly in remote channels, to express a bit of personality so that people can get to know, like, and trust the people who make your small business what it is.
Breaking it down into two areas, I think this is about tone and technique.
Tone – be true to yourself
Playing a role or trying to give a contrived impression of yourself is unlikely to work. Firstly, being a great actor is hard work – and I’m guessing that as a businessperson it’s not your forte. And, secondly… pretending to be something you’re not will not attract the kinds of people you’ll genuinely enjoy working with. So, be yourself… if you’re serious, be serious… if you’re cheeky, be cheeky.
That’s not to say that in a professional context you might not choose to be your professional self, rather than the sofa slob you might be at the weekend. You might want to have a few guiding principles to how you behave, like not tweeting when drunk or angry. Or maybe, not swearing and moaning. It’s your call. You need to be comfortable that the person you are online is the person that clients, colleagues, employees, prospects, etc. will see.
Techniques – conversation starters
Here are just a few ideas we came up with for bringing a little personality to proceedings:
Profile pictures: When we were at Mason Zimbler we each had photos on our business cards that said something about our personalities… Cheryl was shouting on a megaphone, I was showing calm and balance on a tightrope. Even if you don’t get conceptual, a decent portrait photo that is recognisable is a must-have in a world where Avatars are so prevalent.
Intro videos: Could you film a short 20 questions with your key people to add to their web profile page?
Favourite films: Add a little section on profiles where people talk about films or hobbies, or something that shows a bit of their character.
Blog voices: Let them develop their own voice in their blog articles; make sure you link to a few of their articles from their profiles.
Bucket list: Could they share with the world something exciting they have on their list to do before they depart this earth?
Graphology: How about doing something a bit fun like having a sample of their writing analysed and asking colleagues to comment on how accurate the personality profile is?
How does this square with brand consistency?
Regular readers may remember that we talked last year about using inclusive language. And, as marketers who’ve been around the block, we know the value of consistency. So, how does letting your people each put their own quirky personalities out there fit with maintaining a consistent brand image?
I think messaging and great recruitment is the key to squaring this circle. If you’re all broadly on-topic, by which I mean talking about the same sorts of things and you agree on the fundamentals, then bringing a personal perspective or angle can add interest. ‘Agreeing on the fundamentals’ is where recruitment comes into play. For a business to have a consistent brand you really ought to share some core common values – and only recruit people who do.
You need to be consistent on things like what your business does, what sets you apart, and why it’s great to work with you. But, you can afford to show some real character in your own area of expertise, your personal experiences, your own stories, etc.
And, of course, when we say brand consistency, we don’t mean robots. It’s absolutely fine, in fact more than fine, to have your own hobbies, likes, dislikes, etc – and to share them with other people who might be interested. In fact with more ‘social’ coming into our business communications every day, it’s becoming a must.
Check out this excellent example from Conscious Solutions using a ‘Fact or Fiction’ quiz to bring their people to life.
So, how much personality are you showing? It’s certainly on our list to show a little more of the people behind the profiles, and we hope these ideas have you thinking about it too.
Clear Thought Consulting works with small businesses, equipping them with the marketing strategies, suppliers, skills and set-up that they need to become bigger businesses. We do this by planning and delivering 12-month marketing transformation programmes – supporting a small business through a step-by-step process to making marketing pay. We firmly believe that when you can’t out-spend your competition, you have to out-think them.
This is a guest post from Lee Cottier, Productivity Ninja. People in small businesses often tell us that their marketing fails to gain momentum because they just can’t find the time to consistently focus on it. We asked Lee how people can find the time to concentrate on marketing.
Running a small business is hard work. Making time to market your small business, often alongside the day job, can be even harder. The Clear Thought team tell us that it is possible to market a small business brilliantly in just 11 days per quarter, that’s less than one day per week. But, we know that asking you to find an extra half hour in week is a challenge, let alone a whole day
We’ve left behind the old school ‘time management’ approaches (they don’t work – even if you think it is, time’s not the real problem). Instead we work on achieving more effective ‘self management’: of our attention, energy, actions, habits, choices, motivation etc. We know our clients already work hard, but frankly being just busy (and tired!) isn’t the same as being effective.
So where’s this ‘extra’ one day per week for marketing possibly going to come from?
Well, everyone’s circumstances and challenges are different of course, but here are just a few of the areas where we often find there are gains to be made:
Email management
Personal workflow (what you might know as ‘to-do’ lists wrangling)
Planning and scheduling
Information management and retrieval
Collaboration and meetings
Procrastination and preoccupation
Distraction and interruptions
Fatigue, energy and motivation
For some of us, improvements in just one of these areas could gain back as much as an hour a day every day of extra productivity, so taken together the 1 day per week we need for our new marketing activity is very achievable.
Still not convinced?
Let’s look more closely at just one of those areas, and some of the strategies we recommend:
‘Inbox Zero’: Make friends with your email again – AND get some actual work done
Why it’s a problem:
Multiple studies of our email addiction agree – we’re spending far too much time just managing our inboxes, and not enough getting on with our “real work”.
For some of us that’s hundreds of incoming messages a day, and as much as 40% of our working hours spent just dealing with them (source).
Just this week, a revealing LinkedIn survey showed that over half of us are ‘checking our emails’ in excess of 20 times every day.
All this is a massive drain on our attention, focus and energy, and a major barrier to being productive – and a big part of the reason why our niche email workshops are so popular.
OK, so what can I do to fix this?
Turn off notifications: remove all visual and audio ‘you have new mail’ notifications. You did know that’s possible (and allowed) didn’t you?
Turn off email: Even better turn off your mail client completely most of the time. Yes I really did say that. For those of you who are worried the world might end if you did that, I promise you it’s quite safe.
Schedule time for email: Only engage with your email when you choose to, rather than automatically complying the instant it nags you to. We recommend defined times in short bursts, for example 5-10 minutes at the top of every hour, or longer 20 minute sessions 3 or 4 times per day.
Stop constantly checking: Instead ‘process’ your mail (more on what that is below), then get back to doing your actual work. As Merlin Mann (who coined the term ‘Inbox Zero’) says “stop taking orders and make the sandwiches”!
Use the tools: Learn how to use the features of your mail client to triage your mail for you. Filtering the lower importance and lower value email (which you can then review once per day), will help you to give your proper and prompt attention to those messages that really matter.
It’s an inbox not a data vault: Your inbox ‘should only be for things that you haven’t read yet’ (again that’s from Merlin Mann) – when you ‘process’ this mail your aim is to convert incoming mail into to-do list action items, calendar appointments, download and file attachments, etc.
Move it out: As soon as they’re processed mail items should immediately be moved out of your inbox: either deleted or archived, or if it does require action that can’t be completed there and then (in less than 2 minutes) to a ‘needs action’ or ‘needs reply’ folder etc.
Lose the pile: That last one’s really important so I’m going to say it again. Don’t just leave that opened mail sitting there in your inbox (or even worse flag it or mark it as unread again ‘so I know to come back to that one later’). After all, no-one keeps all the opened letters they’ve ever received and their envelopes in one massive ever growing pile on their doormat!
It’s not a to-do list: Stop using your email inbox as your to-do list (it’s horrifying how many people do this!). There are far more appropriate tools for this job, and it will reduce the temptation to keep your mail client open all the time, increasing its power to distract.
Feel the relief: Working this way will help you achieve ‘Inbox Zero’,which feels great, and is hugely important part of a robust personal productivity approach.
And remember, email addiction is just one (bad) work habit that might be reducing your productivity and effectiveness.
We’ll be covering this one in more detail, and many of the other areas mentioned above, in the afternoon session of next week’s workshop, so you can release the time you want to concentrate on your marketing – and therefore winning more of the work you enjoy doing.
Lee Cottier is a Productivity Ninja with Think Productive, a nationwide provider of fun workshops and practical at-desk coaching to help employees increase productivity, beat stress, feel more in control of their work and develop playful, productive momentum. Lee is based in Bristol, and moved into learning and development following a decade in a corporate career. He’s a qualified teacher and respected trainer who knows what it’s like on your side of the desk.
We regularly give talks for entrepreneurial businesses on how to make their marketing pay. Top of my list for most is to try social media as part of their marketing toolkit. And within that, I almost always recommend Twitter. Particularly if the business in question is one where authentic one-to-one relationships count (which is most).
Despite being on public display, Twitter is a remarkably intimate medium. In as much as people seem willing to share all sorts of personal information. Now, I don’t mean those girls who seem intent on sharing everything… that’s what the ‘block’ button is for. I mean business people being willing to share that they’re having a bad day, or that their children are ill or that they’re not in the best mood, or whatever. And, vice versa, people share great news from a child winning a painting competition, to their love of the view from their window, to closing a fab new business deal. Which is why it is such a great tool for building genuine relationships with real people.
But, there’s a balance to strike. Now, this isn’t an exact science, but a rule of thumb. If you’re using Twitter as a business tool, I suggest somewhere in the region of 80% professional and 20% personal. And, of the ‘professional’ I’d make at least half of that sharing content that is not your own. Of the personal, remember your audience. I have a few rules to keep it comfortable:
Be yourself. Don’t try to effect an image or give an impression of someone you’d like to be, be yourself. Talk honestly about your business, your goals, and what’s important to you. It’s much easier to maintain being yourself than to put yourself under pressure to maintain some sort of character you’ve created.
Don’t Tweet when drunk or angry! I know it’s tempting with smart phones to always be online, but there really are times when it’s best to keep yourself to yourself.
Would you say it at a networking event? I think of Twitter a bit like a professional networking event. So, I might talk about the dresses on Strictly, who won X Factor, or the weather… I might even talk about something interesting (!) But, I personally tend to steer clear of religious beliefs, deeply political conversations, or flirtation.
Would you be happy for your most important client to see it? If you Tweet it, it’s out there. If you wouldn’t feel comfortable for your most important client to see it, don’t say it.
So, should you show a bit of personality? Yes, definitely. People like talking to real people. Should you use it as a confessional or dating service? No, not if you’re using it as a business tool.
Clear Thought Consulting works with small businesses, equipping them with the marketing strategies, suppliers, skills and set-up that they need to become bigger businesses. We do this by planning and delivering 12-month marketing transformation programmes – supporting a small business through a step-by-step process to making marketing pay. We firmly believe that when you can’t out-spend your competition, you have to out-think them.
Before we start, let’s declare a bias here, we’re big believers in asking for marketing permission. Indeed, we see gaining permission as a bit of milestone in relationship building. As such, we are forthright in our advice to clients to ask people for permission before signing them up to an email newsletter, for example.
Oh and, you might want a cuppa for this one, it’s fairly long as I have lots to say on the matter…
We all hate receiving unsolicited email… or so I thought. So, I was a little surprised to find such a polar opposite view in a recent exchange following my comments on this post – ‘The etiquette of post networking communications’, from @Azrights.
However, in the interests of healthy debate, let’s take a look at the pros and cons of each approach.
Here’s the question at hand - if you go to a B2B networking event and exchange business cards with someone should you take that as a green light to add them to your mailing list for your email newsletter?
Arguments in favour of assumed email permission:
“…if we have exchanged cards while out networking, I would argue that there is nothing to get upset about if I add you to my list of contacts and email you my newsletter or a special offer or whatever. Provided you can unsubscribe then that’s perfectly acceptable. If you unsubscribe, it will signal to me that you’re not interested in me or in my business, or in helping me or having me as a contact.” Shireen Smith
Let’s list the reasons I’ve come across for assuming marketing permission on the basis of exchanging a business card:
They’ve given you their card with their email address, so that means they don’t mind you emailing them.
If you give them the option to unsubscribe, that constitutes choice and respect for their preferences.
Hitting delete or unsubscribe is easy, so you’re not really putting the recipient to any trouble.
They may never have subscribed otherwise, and find your newsletter riveting.
Getting people to actively sign-up for email is hard work.
Email marketing is a numbers game, so you want to get it out to as many people as possible.
It’s not illegal.
Arguments against assumed email permission:
“When someone hands you their business card, you reciprocate with one of your own. Then, a week later I would magically start to receive newsletters I never signed up for. You too? Sometimes there’s an unsubscribe at the bottom – other times there’s not. Correct me if I’m wrong but when I said, “Hi it’s nice to meet you!” the next words out of my mouth were NOT “please sign me up for your newsletter…” were they?” Mike Mueller
So, in the opposite corner there are those who find this practice more than a little irritating. Here’s a run-down in favour of asking for permission before sending marketing emails.
It’s commonly seen as best practice across the marketing industry.
It’s polite to ask people before sending them blanket emails.
The practice makes some people very angry, and will often lower their opinion of you and your organisation.
With the advent of smart phones, most people receive email where ever they are and it can be highly disruptive to receive such email on the move.
If you assume permission you can’t easily get recipients to state preferences, like frequency, areas of interest, etc.
Inbox management is often cited as a cause of workplace stress.
You can’t as easily measure how interested people are.
Free email marketing systems, like Mailchimp, make it very easy to ask for permission.
Email marketing is an engagement game, it’s quality not quantity that counts.
It may not be illegal in the letter of the law (debatable) but it’s certainly not in the spirit of the law.
How to gain email marketing permission…
Ok, so here’s what I believe in the context of B2B networking follow-up. I think that people assume marketing permission for the following reasons. It’s emotive language I know, but I feel strongly about this one!
1) Because they’re lazy…
Having a system in place that allows you to politely ask for email permission as part of your networking follow up takes a little effort. But, not a lot. Here’s how we do it. It takes one person about an hour a month. After a networking event we pop the details of the business cards we’ve received in our database. We tag the with a code that indicates that they are to be asked for email permission that month. At the end of the month everyone with that tag receives an email that we prepared once now use every month. It gives details of our newsletter, a list of benefits, a link to an archive of previous newsletters and a link to the sign-up form. They then actively choose whether to opt-in. If they don’t opt-in, they don’t receive any further marketing emails.
This doesn’t stop you emailing them as one individual to another, to ask them for a coffee or for their advice on something – that is indeed why they gave you their card, it just means that you don’t send them newsletters, offers, etc. by email.
For those who are interested, our database system is Highrise and costs us £15 per month. The email system is Mailchimp, which is free. So, in response to Shireen’s comment “Also for a micro business to be able to put together a newsletter takes some work, never mind having a separate monthly email list to send an invitation to their newsletter with interesting extracts.” I hope I’ve shown how this can be done simply and without too much effort.
2) Because they’re scared…
The other reason I encounter is that people think that if they don’t sign people up quickly after meeting them they will have missed their chance. Again, I don’t agree. There are other ways to stay in touch and gain permission when the time is right. The first is as I’ve described above. We get between a 25% and 75% sign-up rate to these monthly emails. Which is excellent, but we would of course like the rest to sign-up too. We connect with interesting people we’ve met in various ways after networking. We hook up on LinkedIn, follow them on Twitter, or meet them in person for a coffee. Each of these settings offer an opportunity to ask for permission. In the week leading up to distribution of our monthly enews we pop a link to the sign-up form on our LinkedIn statuses and on Twitter. So, if they hadn’t signed up earlier, they may choose to now. And, in person, Mailchimp has an excellent App which allows us to sign people up in person if they wish to. So, don’t be scared that you’ve missed your chance. If your newsletter is regularly and clearly signposted, and compellingly described, they will opt-in if and when they want to.
People also really need to get over the quantity thing. Don’t be afraid of a small mailing list. A small email list filled with people who read your stuff and pass it on is much better than a vast list of people who really don’t care and can’t remember how they got onto your list in the first place.
And, don’t be offended if people don’t sign-up, it doesn’t mean that they don’t like your company, it just means they don’t want your email. There are plenty of organisations whose content I consume through RSS feeds or via Twitter, so I don’t need their email. I may already have a brilliantly high opinion of you, but not need the level of detail of the newsletter. Don’t think that just because I don’t subscribe to your newsletter that I’m not a valuable contact.
3) Because they’re rude…
The third possibility is one I dearly wish wasn’t true, but it is. Some people really do think that it’s ok to send you email that you didn’t ask for. I mean unsubscribe is pretty easy isn’t it? Well, no not always. For example, on my phone, which is where I receive most of my email, unsubscribe is often a bit tricky. So, I end up deleting and then getting the damn thing again next month. And, even when I am at my desk I usually have well over 200 emails per day that actually pertain to my working life – I really, really, don’t want to waste a single second unsubscribing from stuff I didn’t ask for. Needless to say, when it happens the sender loses credibility with me, and reduces their chances of winning my business or being referred business from me. And, seeing as I’ve referred over £500k of business to my network in the last two years, I’m guessing that’s not the result they were aiming for.
Is making an assumption worth it?
So, as Shireen rightly says “you can’t please all of the people all of the time” – but you can be sure to infuriate some of the people every time you assume email permission. As such, is it really worth it? Moving to an active opt-in might lose you a few people you may previously have captured, but it will gain you a more loyal and engaged audience in the long term.
Please do use the comment function below to tell us what you think on this one?
Clear Thought Consulting works with small businesses, equipping them with the marketing strategies, suppliers, skills and set-up that they need to become bigger businesses. We do this by planning and delivering 12-month marketing transformation programmes – supporting a small business through a step-by-step process to making marketing pay. We firmly believe that when you can’t out-spend your competition, you have to out-think them.
Tweeting is now commonplace in the small business marketing landscape. With the right strategy and tools in place, Twitter allows small businesses to communicate on a much more personal level, and can actually influence the buying decision.
08:45: CEO of Company X gets an email advising that his latest product has been nominated for ‘Best New Widget Product of the Year’ Award.
08:51: CEO phones the marketing department and asks what can be done immediately to announce the nomination.
The marketing department advise that they will:
Web: Create a new page in the ‘News’ section of the website (which has the facility for the public to leave a comment on the award nomination, or sign-up for progress updates. It also has a link to a widget sheet download)
PR: Publish a press release
Literature: Look at adding the award logo/short list message to the current collateral portfolio
Social Media: Promote on social media (blog, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube)
Internal Communications: Advise all colleagues and brief them to promote the nomination
08:59: The marketing department drafts and sends the first of five related 140 character tweets to their followers:
@companyx: “Delighted to be short-listed for ‘Best New X Product of the Year’ http//link.com #widgetproductname”
09:01: Key Customer Y gets off a train at city centre location. They check their mobile phone for twitter updates and spot said tweet from favourite supplier. The customer is very happy to be using their service, so decides to re-tweet.
@keycustomery: “RT @companyx Delighted to be short-listed for ‘Best New X Product of the Year’ http//link.com #widgetproductname // A fantastic product”
09:30: Marketing department drafts some cut & paste copy for the rest of Company X to use in social media updates (Linkedin status, email signatures, etc). Copy gets circulated with an internal communication about the announcement. The marketing department also conducts a review of all their current collateral/literature to see where the award provider’s logo can be added to promote the nomination.
09.36: One of Key Customer Y’s twitter followers (Small Business Z) checks their twitter feed and notice an interesting re-tweet about a product they have been considering. They click on the link and are taken to the provider’s website. They notice the registration form for further updates and sign-up.
10:41: Whole of Company X are now talking about the nomination and the web page has gone live. All staff email signatures include a link to the website where people can sign-up for further alerts about the award. All Facebook Fan Page and Linkedin profiles have also been updated.
10:42: Small Business Z’s MD sends the link to their sales department with a request to find out more product information. They also receive a branded email advising that new updates will be sent on a regular basis, but that they can unsubscribe at anytime.
10.45: Small Business Z’s sales team receive the link from the MD and bookmark the page to check later. They decide to follow Company X on Twitter, and download the product sheet the next day.
Our tweet has done its job!
Social media marketing, test and measure:
Through-out the day, Company X sends 4 more tweets, which are variations on the same message, but with links to different pages on the website; the press release, the E-News sign-up and the awards section for example. These can be monitored later to see which tweet performs the best. This then forms the basis of tweets going forward up to and during the awards ceremony. Activity and feedback can also be included in the next e-News.
Social media marketing, outcomes:
The Small Business Z sales person that downloaded the product sheet a follow-up call from Company X and a product demo was arranged. They also received a welcome tweet and a link to the blog for future reference.
Company X made a note that Small Business Z saw a tweet from Key Customer Y, which prompted them to visit the website. Therefore, Company X send a second tweet via a Direct Message (DM) to Key Customer Y saying they may be eligible for a referral fee should Small Business Z sign-up.
Clear Thought Consulting works with small businesses, equipping them with the marketing strategies, suppliers, skills and set-up that they need to become bigger businesses. We do this by planning and delivering 12-month marketing transformation programmes – supporting a small business through a step-by-step process to making marketing pay. We firmly believe that when you can’t out-spend your competition, you have to out-think them.
Why a 3-minute video case study is a win, win, win, win situation
‘One camera, four companies, multiple content re-use opportunities’.
So, I’m attempting to write my first real-time blog – reporting ‘as it happens’. Here goes…
Today we’ve filmed our second video case study courtesy of the fabulous people at, The Video Marketing Company.
Our subject is a recently completed strategic marketing project for Alison McDougall (pictured left) MD at Relevant Risk. They help any organisation that runs events to understand the legal, compliance and best-practice procedures that are relevant to them. They’re all about reducing any risk to the client business before it even happens. The core products are consultancy and online audits. We devised and delivered their launch earlier this year.
But, onto case study videos?
The point of today is that we all live in a media-rich society with an audience hungry for content. We are always encouraging people to re-use content, and better still share content, and we practice what we preach.
By share we mean that our video case studies are not only great marketing material for our own small business, but with agreement they can also be great free marketing for everyone else involved in its creation.
Depending on the topic covered by the case study, and the company issuing the case study, some details may differ, but the objectives of a case study are always the same – to showcase your products and services and the benefits they provide to your customers:
Win 1 The supplier: Clear Thought demonstrates our strategic marketing credentials.
Win 2 The client: Relevant Risk gets their message out to our audience (many of whom do events).
Win 3 Video production company: The Video Marketing Company add to their library if fab content.
3 reasons why video marketing is perfect for small business and can benefit everyone involved:
Everyone can use the footage in their own social media activity to promote the service they offer. Perfect for endorsements, recommendations and referrals too.
Everyone is actually showcasing their talents, not just the person commissioning the shoot.
It adds personality, colour and interest to any website or presentation.
3 tips on preparing for a video case study for your small business:
Prepare some notes on the kind of things that need covering during the filming. Remember this is a primarily a case study about you and what you did for the service user, not an opportunity for the client to practice their elevator pitch.
Find a (quiet) location that allows you to shoot from a couple of different angles and includes some ‘cut-away’ shots. Staff going about their daily work, etc, or the client using the services or products that you have delivered.
Avoid using any props or statements that could date the piece, but always keep in mind that a case study is only really relevant if it is current.
And, here are 3 ways to use your video in marketing your small business:
Website: Add it to a ‘case study’ area on your website and ensure that you also include within a written version (standard content page) and promote it to your home if possible.
Social Media: Put your clip everywhere: LinkedIn, YouTube, FaceBook, etc. and ensure you include a link back to your site (perfect for Twitter and social media status updates and email signatures). You can also put some snaps form that actual filming day on Twitter for some live news on what you are up to.
Presentations: Use your clip as great content for new business presentations. Use SlideShare once you’ve done that!
We’ll share the finished video with you shortly. In the meantime, and, in true Blue Peter Style – here’s one we made earlier in a starring role on our LinkedIn company page.
Clear Thought Consulting works with small businesses, equipping them with the marketing strategies, suppliers, skills and set-up that they need to become bigger businesses. We do this by planning and delivering 12-month marketing transformation programmes – supporting a small business through a step-by-step process to making marketing pay. We firmly believe that when you can’t out-spend your competition, you have to out-think them.
This is a guest post by Peter Brill, content specialists. It’s said that content is king. With the rise of social media, the pressures of search engine optimisation (SEO) and the sheer volume of global communication, content has a lot of work to do. We asked Peter for some tips on writing compelling online content.
The pressure for your online content to cut through the millions of posts and uploads hitting the web on an hourly basis is only increasing.
Organisations are spending larger amounts of marketing budget on creating dynamic content for websites, newsletters, and social media in an effort to push their way to the top of the organic Google rankings. So, they want to ensure the maximum bang for their buck.
‘Citizen journalists’, ‘power bloggers’ and social mediarites have also increased the volume of, what PR academics term, ‘toxic communications‘. Basically, there is plenty of content and general ‘stuff’ standing in the way of your finely honed and crafted words of wisdom. Much of it, like this blog, will have been bagged, tagged and keyworded to the nearest pixel width.
The question is: will it get noticed by the audiences that really matter to you?
In my opinion, quality still outweighs quantity if you want target audiences to read what you have to say and interact with it. Interaction doesn’t necessarily mean they go out and buy the latest widget you are selling; it can simply be sitting and reflecting on what you have said in a way that might change their behaviour or attitude.
So how do you get noticed and cut through the toxicity? Here are five tips:
Find the story – story-telling has been around since the cave dwellers. It’s no different today, except for the way stories are transmitted. So work out the story you are trying to tell. A human angle always helps.
Tell the story – the most interesting fire the imagination, paint a visual picture and get the reader, viewer or listener excited. If you want website visitors to read your content rather than your competitors’, make it compelling and engaging.
Make it relevant –this applies to all audiences. Put yourself in their shoes. Is your story relevant to them, their values, needs or experiences? If it means writing the story in more than one way, do it. This is particularly true for the media. Why would a journalist writing for a financial publication be interested in, for example, fire detection systems? If it is relevant to their readers. So, how do these systems produce bottom line benefits for Financial Directors through savings in insurance, risk management or business continuity?
Timing is everything –the Twitter aggregators have ‘trending topics’ and #tag lists. Why? Because people are curious about what’s happening now. Plan ahead where you can or watch the trends and think where your story can fit into the latest conversation.
Small is big –some of the best viral campaigns have had small beginnings. They have been produced for a very specific, targeted audience, but that audience has been so impressed with the content that they have spread the word beyond their own ‘community’. SEO helps but, again, it’s the content that counts.
SEO may have the positive effect of highlighting you words on the web for eternity but, if the content doesn’t grab your visitors, you’re talking to yourself.
Peter Brill is owner of Net.Mentor, a Bristol-based provider of written content for web, print and multimedia. They provide this key support service for publishers, media and public relations suppliers. They also run specialist skills training in writing and content creation.
“Just because you can’t hear it, it doesn’t mean it’s not being said.”
I was listening to Bob Geldof defiantly managing Band Aid’s reputation last week, and I felt a blog coming on.
When the BBC implied that funds raised by ‘certain’ organisations had been siphoned-off for other means, we all saw Geldof putting them back in their box. He made it very clear that, as trusted journalists, the Beeb’s reporting had misled the public and put a slur on Band Aid’s, and thereby his, name.
Now, you may not be Bob Geldof – but you do have a reputation to protect. As a small business it’s essential that every member of your team is aware of the power of the media and the Internet (and word-of-mouth) for both creating and destroying reputation. Your own website and PR may be pristine and accurate, but it’s often other people, commenting elsewhere, that do the damage. And, more often than not, they do so unknowingly or unwittingly.
5 tips to protect your business reputation
Here are 5 things to think about to ensure a healthy reputation for your small business, particularly online. Specifically, these tips are about how to manage negative opinion effectively, and put people right if they are wrong (without looking like a pedant):
1. Listen to online word-of-mouth
The Internet is a powerful way to watch and listen. Someone in your team should be reviewing the web, particularly the social web, on a regular basis. What are people saying about you, your people, your brand, your products, your services, your industry and your competitors? Even if all you do is feed key phrases and industry news (e.g. RSS feeds) into a free hub like Netvibes or Google Reader, that’s better than nothing. For a more comprehensive approach, there are a number of tools and suppliers that specialise in digital listening. Don’t listen and you won’t hear. An Ostrich approach will not protect your reputation.
2. Create a channel for negative feedback
Handled well, negative feedback can actually enhance your reputation. However, if you never hear the whinge, you can never display your excellent response. Unfortunately, we humans love bad news. We’re more likely to tell someone about a bad experience, than a good one. So, you can bet that from time to time there is someone somewhere having a dig at your business. What’s great is that if you give these people somewhere to vent, they usually will – and then you’re back in control. Consider a feedback mechanism on your website or blog, or by using social media. By offering a way for users to comment, you are displaying the open and honest quality of an organisation willing to tackle feedback, good or bad. A direct line of response nips all kinds of rumours in the bud, and you should not be afraid of negative comment. See it as an opportunity to show how well you respond.
3. Actively ask people what they think
The point above is about having somewhere for people to go, which is reactive. But, you can also go to them – be proactive. It’s often a simple case of asking people what they think. Send out regular questionnaires or surveys. Make them anonymous if that helps people tell you the tough stuff. And, don’t just ask your customers. Ask your suppliers, employees, associates, peers and friends. And, keep asking on a regular basis (so long as they don’t mind).
4. Get your own message well established
Be out there. Be relevant. Be everywhere. Keep spreading your message and reinforcing your values and proposition. Keep talking to prospects, customers and the media. Keep your website content bang up-to-date and ensure that you have plenty of material to point people to. If negativity or misinformation does surface, there should be enough of the good stuff less than a click away to balance it out. Again, social media is excellent for doing this.
5. Create an army of advocates
If you foster good relationships with people, they will be there to defend you. Whether it’s online or in a peer-group setting, if you have continually made a good impression, people are likely to jump in on your behalf if they hear something bad, or an untruth about you. Even if you have actually made a mistake (and, hey businesses employ human beings, so it will happen), if you respond to it well, and have a bank of goodwill to draw on, you will weather the storm more successfully.
And, of course, any small business will benefit from regular professional legal advice. In particular ensure you are up-to-date with intellectual property rights law, copyright, trade marking, patents – anything that will protect you should a mistruth, misquote or mistake befall your small business.
Clear Thought Consulting works with small businesses, equipping them with the marketing strategies, suppliers, skills and set-up that they need to become bigger businesses. We do this by planning and delivering 12-month marketing transformation programmes – supporting a small business through a step-by-step process to making marketing pay. We firmly believe that when you can’t out-spend your competition, you have to out-think them.
“Manners cost nothing – but bad manners can cost you thousands”
Have you ever asked yourself what you might be doing that’s actually turning people off doing business with you? Maybe not, but who’s going to tell you?
This blog is more a personal rant about manners (not an observation on skill sets) but I’m convinced that ‘chemistry’ is a big part of business. And, if you fail in that before the Bunsen Burner is even turned on – what chance have you of building a fruitful relationship?
Anti-irritation tip #1: Don’t assume email permission
When someone gives you their business card it does not mean that you can add them to your mailing list. I’ve lost count of the times I have given out my business card because, someone needs my phone number perhaps, only to find I’m added to some email mailing list that I wasn’t told about. DON’T DO THIS – ask first. How about:
When you give your card to someone, check if you will be added to any databases, and ask if this constitutes being subscribed to a newsletter.
When someone gives you their business card, ask them if they would like to be added to your mailing list. I do this and then I make a note on their card to remind me they have ‘opted-in’. I then make a note next to their record in our database (we use 37 Signals ‘HighRise’ which is very good at tagging things like this).
If you forget to ask at point of exchange, ask when you next contact them. Permission marketing allows an email address to be used once without permission. If eNewsletters appear in my inbox without my permission to subscribe, I don’t just delete them, I complain that I am receiving unsolicited material as well. Not a good start to a relationship, so be warned.
NB: This is my personal policy. You might feel differently about this, but it’s worth considering there may be more people out there who feel the same way as me.
Anti-irritation tip #2: Make it easy for people to do business with you
When I’m checking out a new contact, it drives me crazy when I can’t find anything about them online. If you’re in the business of business, don’t bury your (or your company’s) address and phone number. At the very least use a messaging or VA/PA service, and get your Linkedin profile spit spot. If you are on Twitter even better, but have an easily identifiable Twitter name.
I appreciate certain individuals don’t want their personal details on public display, but there should at least be a really easy way for people to get in touch. And, once you are engaged with a supplier for example, agree service level agreements in advance. There’s nothing worse than calls and emails left un-returned or unconfirmed, or messages that never get through. In this day and age (handheld devices), it seems that everyone’s always in touch, even when they’re on the go. It’s just a case of agreeing what is an acceptable length of response time. Don’t forget ‘Out Of Office’ assistants, a colleague’s name who can help if you are not available is really handy.
Tip: A big assumption in business is that if an email has been sent, then it has been received, opened and read at the other end. This is not always the case. I always assume that an email has not been received until I’ve had a confirmation back. If I don’t get a confirmation on something urgent, I phone and check it’s been received. Even better I call ahead (have a real conversation, you know human to human) and advise the recipient to look out for my email. How much time, money and effort have you wasted because you assumed someone got your email and was working on it when they weren’t?
Anti-irritation tip #3: Check your spelling and grammar
We all make mistakes in this high-speed internet age. Check your spelling. Check your punctuation. Check your grammar. Check your tone of voice. Write in plain English. Spell names correctly. This is especially true if you’re targeting certain kinds of businesses – there are people who will assume that if you can’t spell you’re stupid. It’s not nice, and it’s probably not true… but people think it. If this isn’t your strong point, then get some help. Even if it is, get a second pair of eyes. (I know that saying this means that you’re bound to spot my typos, if so please do use the feedback button to let us know).
Anti-irritation tip #4: Don’t abuse your contacts (or your contacts’ contacts)
You could argue this is the same point as #1, but it’s a slight variation. If someone I don’t know, or who has not legitimately done business with me (us), contacts me on LinkedIn I usually ignore them. If the same person is introduced to me via a contact, I‘m more likely to respond. I try to tolerate cold calling politely, but a warm referral works much better. A warm referral doesn’t mean using someone’s name in an intro without their knowledge. Take care who you name check, do you know them well enough to know that they would be happy for you to use them as an open door?
Anti-irritation tip #5: The right man for the job?
It’s a bit like dating. If we don’t get on, it’s not going to work. Don’t be afraid to ask for the best man for the job, which isn’t always about pure expertise – you have to get on. If all things are equal, it’s chemistry that counts. And, you don’t get a second chance to make a first impression. Take time to build rapport. I find it extremely irritating when people simply churn out features and details when I’m just trying to get an impression of what they’re like as people (or as a company – which is a group of people). Equally, if I’m after detail and they keep chatting about their holidays, it drives me crazy. Balance people, balance.
And finally…
Mmmmm, on reading this blog through again, it could be construed as a personal attack on some individuals that I may (allegedly) have met in the past. Well, whether colleague, supplier, partner, associate, prospect, lead, customer, call centre, advisory body, subordinate, peer or whatever, all of these irritations could be scaled and applied to almost everyone I’ve met in business from time to time… including yours truly (hey, nobody’s perfect). Recognising and minimising it is the key.
Why not take a moment to take stock of what gets your back-up… are you doing this to other people? Building your own anti-irritation checklist can help you see if you’re unwittingly turning people off before you’ve even begun. If you don’t get this right, someone else, with better etiquette, could swoop in and steal your relationship opportunity.
Clear Thought Consulting works with small businesses, equipping them with the marketing strategies, suppliers, skills and set-up that they need to become bigger businesses. We do this by planning and delivering 12-month marketing transformation programmes – supporting a small business through a step-by-step process to making marketing pay. We firmly believe that when you can’t out-spend your competition, you have to out-think them.
What are your pet hates in business?
Go on, have a rant… please use the comments function below to tell us what people do in business that gets your back up and puts the relationship off to a bad start?
So the Summer holidays aren’t even over and people have started complaining about ‘Christmas party advertising’ and festive wrapping paper. Bah humbug.
Whatever your thoughts or beliefs on the holiday season, I wanted to be among the first to bring it up (from a small business marketing point-of-view, that is) and have a bit of fun in advance of the barrage. As I say above – the early bird catches the worm. And, if you’ve not yet thought about Christmas as a marketing opportunity, now is the time to do so.
If you are in the leisure or retail industry, you’ve probably been thinking about it for ages – planning, costing, pre-ordering… But, if you are a small business whose product or service isn’t necessarily seasonal, what does this time of year mean for you, and how can it support your sales and marketing effort?
Considering that there will most certainly be a portion of your customer-base who will embrace the festivities, so maybe you should too.
1. Check your seasonal sales and marketing strategy
What can you say in the run-up to the 25th, and how can it support your marketing activity? Even if it’s just communicating your opening/trading times to your customers.
Check your website hosting capacity, if you are planning some seasonal communications, hits on your website might go up. Can your hosting package accommodate that increased traffic? Could you potentially be charged extra?
Think about what’s happening in Q1 of 2011 and plan newsletter articles, blogs and communications around that too. Would it be appropriate to send your clients a branded calendar?
2. Create your countdown to Christmas calendar
While you may not be ready now, put some reminders in your calendar to start thinking about any printed material you might need around the festivities. Don’t leave it till the 20th (Christmas Eve is on a Friday this year by the way).
If you rely on the post – check out Royal Mail’s Christmas post dates. This year it’s Friday 18th for 2nd Class, Monday 21st for 1st Class and Wednesday 23rd for Special Delivery.
Remind your staff about taking annual leave – you don’t want them all off at the same time because they haven’t had any holiday this year.
And don’t forget… A lot of people take time off around Christmas, and suppliers shut down, so avoid sending any critical communications the last 10 working days before Christmas for and the first two weeks of the New Year.
3. Spread the cost and avoid the rush
Leaving things to the last minute, like printing, could cause problems with rush charges and delays. Especially if everyone else has left it to the last minute too.
Have a think if there is anything you can produce now to avoid lots of bills coming in at the same time during December and January.
4. Let your hair down – have a bit of fun
Have you thought about a Greetings card for customers, suppliers and staff? Why not go humorous this year? Or, digital and build it in with an email campaign/E-Newsletter.
Is your contact database up to date? If you’re sending the simplest of cards, updating the database can been a real headache. Pass it around your team now and get it cleaned up in plenty of time.
Have you thought about seasonal/promotional items that could be sent out at this time of year – calendars, mugs, other types of gifts?
Have you thought about making your offices welcoming and festive to create a bit of cheer in the cold winter months?
5. Donate
And finally, instead of a Christmas card this year, how about a charity donation? As well as saving trees, postage and doing some good, it could double as a news item in your next newsletter. Even better – could you create a digital game, where the engagement of your clients and prospects decides the amount that goes to charity? That could get them involved in some fun, get your name out and raise money for a good cause all in one go.
So bah humbug or not, make sure you’ve planned around the festivities, even if it’s just considering ‘down time’ when reviewing your sales and marketing plans.
Clear Thought Consulting works with small businesses, equipping them with the marketing strategies, suppliers, skills and set-up that they need to become bigger businesses. We do this by planning and delivering 12-month marketing transformation programmes – supporting a small business through a step-by-step process to making marketing pay. We firmly believe that when you can’t out-spend your competition, you have to out-think them.
In parts one and two of the ‘rule of three’, we looked at what the rule is and the concept and application of it in marketing. Now, to help you apply the principles day-to-day, in the final part of this blog series, here’s a couple more example of the ‘rule of three’ in play along with a few handy hints for you to follow.
Some final thoughts on the ‘Rule of 3’
Public speaking
They say in public speaking that the most successful speeches use repetition and guess what? It’s to the frequency of three. Studies have shown that the mind learns by repetition. Referred to as ‘insight learning,’ we transfer information from our short-term memory to our long-term memory with the aid of repetition so, as is often said, to help your clients remember you and make the decision to enter the sales funnel:
So, when you are next trying to portray a message, whether through speaking at an event, networking, writing creative copy, or blogging, be sure to relay your message three times. Not once, not twice, but three times.
Networking; remembering the name with the face
Have you ever been to a networking event where you find that you’ve forgotten someone’s name…? Not only have you forgotten it, but really, it’s someone that you should remember? In SMEs, where leads and referrals are very often generated through networking, it is important to take a professional approach and do your utmost to remember those people with whom you connect. Forgetting someone’s name could be the difference between making a good impression or not.
Well, having attended ‘Manage your mingling,’ a workshop by Melissa Kidd recently, I learnt of a technique based again, on repetition. In keeping with speech making, repetition is the key to learning. For you (and I) to avoid those awkward situations in future where we are left tongue tied, try following this process. To remember a name:
Imagine the person’s name in big, bright flashing neon lights above their head
Subtly spell it out with your finger as if you were writing it down
Repeat it to yourself in your head
If all else fails, and repetition simply isn’t doing the trick, write a note about the person and where you met them on their business card so that you can remind yourself in future.
And some final tips, well three actually… 1. Be Consistent
Consistent repetition of your message will raise awareness and recollection of your brand and product or service, giving the audience reassurance that what you are promising to deliver is reliable. It could be the message delivered via an email, a piece of direct mail or even a bill-board. So, ensure that the content you use across your channels of communication is:
Relevant
Up-to-date
Gives a consistent message, but is varied in approach e.g. case studies, blogs, endorsements, slide shows
2. Create interlinking
Ensure that your channels of communication link together. By ensuring there are clear connections between social media channels for example, increases the click through rate, which will encourage awareness:
3. Find out where your potential customers are, or the people who know them and be there
In person – maybe delivering a speech or attending a networking event.
With the correct promotional goods – carry a plentiful supply of business cards carrying information on your latest offerings.
With an easily accessible gateway – make it easy for people to access you. Make sure you have that all important sign up form on your website ready and waiting for when people decide to check you out further.
Imagine what could happen if three people they know mention you!
The rule of three really IS everywhere. Here are a few famous examples…
Dumas, (1844) wrote the story of “The 3 Musketeers.”
Elvis Presley sang, “Well it’s one for the money, two for the show, three to get ready, now go lets go.”
Freud had a theory of the psyche comprising, “The id, ego and super ego.”
In religion, people talk of “The father, the son and the holy spirit.”
In Law, we swear to tell “The truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.”
Julius Caesar stated, “Veni, vidi, vici” – I came, I saw, I conquered.
By Laura Champion | Assistant Clear Thinker | Clear Thought Consulting Ltd | www.clear-thought.co.uk
If this article is of interest to you, you may also like to view:
Clear Thought Consulting works with small businesses, equipping them with the marketing strategies, suppliers, skills and set-up that they need to become bigger businesses. We do this by planning and delivering 12-month marketing transformation programmes – supporting a small business through a step-by-step process to making marketing pay. We firmly believe that when you can’t out-spend your competition, you have to out-think them.
This is a blog by Bryony Thomas, which originally appeared as a guest blog for Amango Photography. Clear Thought works specifically with smaller businesses who need to make the most of their marketing budgets. With this in mind, Amanda Thomas of Amango Photography, asked Bryony to talk through when and why to use stock or bespoke photography in marketing materials.
In any business that wants to turn a profit, every penny counts. And, in small business marketing, cost control is a core skill. So, it’s easy to understand why people often choose stock photography over commissioning a photographer. So, what’s the difference, and when should you use which?
This is a trade off between three key criteria:
Impact – does your photography stand out and can you get exactly what you want?
Time – how quickly do you need the shot?
Money – what are the total costs of the shot and how much are you going to use it?
Stock photography has been shot by a photographer and then sold to, or via, a stock library (like Getty Images or iStock). When you want to use an image, you licence it. You can either go for a simple licence that lets you use it, but not exclusively, or for an extended licence which means that there are some restrictions on what other companies can do with it. I’m not a lawyer, and I’m going to steer away from giving legal advice, except to say that you need to really understand the rights of use that you have with the image in question.
Most stock photography is bought under a very simple licence that just means you can use it… and so can anyone else who pays the fee. Amongst other differences, this is one of the real biggies. You could create an ad, spend loads of money buying space, or emblazoning it on the side of busses – only to find another company using the exact same shot. This can cause confusion in the market, and could mean that your customers associate your ads with their company. You can buy an exclusive licence for stock shots, but if you do it often outweighs any savings.
A real life photo shoot commissioned and paid for by you will usually include either an exclusive perpetual usage licence or all-out ownership of the copyright. Which means that you can be sure that it won’t turn up on the stand next to you at your next event – which would certainly be embarrassing.
So, that’s the biggie, now for a few nuances. Not exhaustive by any means, but I’m sure you’ll get the idea.
Stock shots – the good stuff:
Low upfront costs
Immediacy – if you need it today, you can have it today
Stock shots – the bad stuff:
Unlikely to have exclusivity, they turn up everywhere
Often very staged and on the cheesy side
Prices for large print format files to step up pretty quickly
Cropping options are often limited (you can’t ask the model to move to the right to make room for your headline if the photo has already been taken)
Often difficult to get a stylised ‘brand’ look using stock shots
They will never be of your actual people
So, when should a marketer commission a proper photographer?
I’m sure that most business-savvy photographers will appreciate that budgets are tight, and for lower profile material a stock shot will often do the trick. But, what they will also tell you, is that there are very many times when looking for the right stock shot will be like the proverbial round hole and square peg. And, if that’s the case it’s time to consider commissioning a shoot. I would seriously consider commissioning a photo shoot for the following activities:
Press photography: Your key spokespeople, your products and a few around your premises. These are extremely valuable in social media and PR, where a frequent repeat of a profile picture, for example, builds familiarity. It’s also true that in PR, a journalist may choose to major on the comments of the person with the best photo, rather than the most insightful input if they are under pressure from the picture editor. (And, yes that is me pictured above being photographed by Amanda for my press shot)
Ads, front covers, and main web imagery: If you are spending money of advertising, the savings on stock photography probably aren’t worth it. You really, really, don’t want to be in the same mag as a competitor with the same image (and yes I’ve seen that!) On key handout material, a bespoke shot on the cover, with similarly themed stock-shots internally can spread a budget. Online, think about using bespoke photography on key landing pages, and stock shots to illustrate articles and blogs.
Events: Having a photographer doing reportage at any event you hold is a great idea. It gives you imagery with which to liven up post-event material (like Blogs, webcasts, etc.) or even use in social media during the event. This adds longevity to your investment, and even more opportunities to make mileage from the efforts you’ve put in.
So, some things to ask yourself to help decide which route is best:
Do we want to feature recognisable people in this photo?
Would it be a big problem if the image turned up elsewhere?
How important (or far-reaching) is the piece that the photo will be used for?
How distinctive (or not) do you want your brand to be?
How quickly do I need it?
How much do I have to spend?
A little investment in a professional photographer can really help to set your business apart, and to bring a real sense of your brand personality to your materials. And, with cropping, re-touching, extended licences and inevitable compromises – the difference in price between the two options is often much less than you would imagine.
Clear Thought Consulting works with small businesses, equipping them with the marketing strategies, suppliers, skills and set-up that they need to become bigger businesses. We do this by planning and delivering 12-month marketing transformation programmes – supporting a small business through a step-by-step process to making marketing pay. We firmly believe that when you can’t out-spend your competition, you have to out-think them.
This week, it’s all about situations and examples in which the concept can be seen in practice.
Applying the ‘Rule of 3’ in marketing
There are examples of the ‘rule of three’ everywhere; it’s in famous phrases such as; ‘third time lucky,’ ‘the good, the bad and the ugly,’ and even, ‘the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.’ So, how can we apply this model to our own marketing campaigns and create those all-important three exposures?
Channels of digital communication
There are an inordinate number of channels of communication available, many of which are interlinked. By ensuring that you have relevant, up-to-date, consistent content in each location, the likelihood of engagement with potential customers is bound to increase. To name but a few, three touch-points that you could use are:
Twitter; Where you can take advantage of persuasive copy to connect with potential clients or people who know the people you want to connect with. Here, your content could potentially be shared globally, linking back to your website.
Your website; Where people can access your company collateral and promotional content. This is the place where potential customers come, or are lead to, where they are likely to engage with you.
LinkedIn; A place to connect with those people who may well benefit from your content. And also, a place for those people who may have found you elsewhere to check you out and confirm that you are a reputable and professional source.
So, using the concept of the three exposures, what journey would a potential customer go on?
Traditional marketing techniques
The reach and frequency of a piece of advertising has been shown to directly influence buying behaviour. If a potential customer contacts you regarding a product or service that they are in the market for, they may tell you they have only seen it advertised once, in a magazine for example. However, the likelihood is that although unaware, that will not have been the first time they have seen it, but the second or third. Subconsciously, they may have been exposed to a piece of direct mail and heard a radio ad but due to the nature of the human memory, are only able to recall the third exposure.
Again, the customer journey from awareness to evaluation might look something like this:
Points of engagement
You can reach your target audience in so many ways that it can become overwhelming and may lead you to think, ‘do I really need to invest in direct mail, print and web advertising?’ What you must keep in mind is that when the consumer enters into the ‘need state,’ you must be there to grab their attention, so yes, have confidence that your efforts are not in vain. The place and time that someone experiences exposure one and becomes curious could be anywhere. And looking forward, exposure two and three could be totally different again. What combination would you use to drive traffic to your website?:
So Remember
What is vital to take into consideration is that people have selective attention. Someone may have been exposed to a piece of marketing 23 times, or 50 times over two weeks or two months, but until they are in the ‘need state’, they will not truly ‘see’ the communication. It was always there; that piece of direct mail or web banner, but it was not always relevant. It is only when we move into the market for a product or service that we then experience the three exposures required for us to be drawn through the sales funnel. By the time someone gets in touch with you, you can be pretty sure they’ve seen something at least three times.
You may be investing in a high frequency of marketing material, but reporting only one as the most effective – the last one that people happen to see before getting in touch. Don’t assume that it isn’t worth it to invest in your reach and the rate of your frequency. Remember, you need to be there and ready for when your potential customer is ready to ‘see’ you.
By Laura Champion | Assistant Clear Thinker | Clear Thought Consulting Ltd | www.clear-thought.co.uk
If this article is of interest to you, you may also like to view:
Clear Thought Consulting works with small businesses, equipping them with the marketing strategies, suppliers, skills and set-up that they need to become bigger businesses. We do this by planning and delivering 12-month marketing transformation programmes – supporting a small business through a step-by-step process to making marketing pay. We firmly believe that when you can’t out-spend your competition, you have to out-think them.
Saw a great Tweet from Trevor Levor this morning, quoting Red Adair “If you think hiring a professional is expensive… try working with an amateur” - it made me smile, and think of practically every new business meeting I’ve ever been to.
So, let’s get it out there, Clear Thought’s day rates are at the higher end in terms of what you can pay for ‘marketing consultants’ – so, when people ask for a day rate, I’m braced for the teeth sucking moment. And, it’s not once that I’ve heard people comment that a day of my time costs them more than their accountant. I know that we deliver exceptional value for money because we are very good at what we do – and that’s making marketing pay.
But, as the owner of a small business I also know that when looking at day rate next to day rate, that it is hard to choose the seemingly more expensive option.
So, what is the going rate for a marketing consultant?
And, what do you get for your money?
So, typically when a small business is looking for a marketing consultant, it is because they need more leads, need to convert more leads, or need to increase customer loyalty. There are a number of people who will say that they can help you with these things. Below are the most common experts that a business will turn to for help of this kind. We’re based In Bristol, so we can give you a reasonable run-down of rates in the South West. It goes something like this:
Management consultant from a big firm: Upwards of £2,000 per day. Typically, a management consultant will have trained with their firm, have a decent degree, and will have delivered a range of projects for similar businesses. They will have access to a wealth of resources (research, etc.) and discipline specialists in their firm. However, they have rarely been in your position, or actually managed a marketing budget for themselves.
One-to-one business coaching: About £2,000 per month for about a day over the month, for the decent franchise coaching companies (e.g. Shirlaws, ActionCoach, etc.). A business coach will usually have a decent CV behind them, probably with a senior job or two under their belts. They will be working to tried and tested techniques, usually a particular methodology that they apply to all their clients to a varying degree.
Decent agency strategic planner: circa £1,500 per day. If a marketing agency has a strategic planning team, you are likely to work with a planner on things like preparing your marketing brief, planning your activity, etc. These people have typically worked their way up through account management in an agency. They will have seen a number of clients of your kind, but won’t have sat in your seat.
Freelance marketing consultants: Ok, so this is where you get a real range of people… all broadly called ‘marketing consultants’. They will range from £200 to £1,000 per day. The way I would break this down is:
Marketing Direction – the strategy: you should be paying £500-£1,000 per day for this, and you’re looking for at least:
10+ years experience.
CIM marketing diploma at the very least, ideally MBA or similar.
Experience of running a marketing budget of more than £500k.
Ideally they will have reported directly to an MD with responsibility for marketing.
They should have experience of working with a range of agenices – PR, digital, design, etc. – even better if they’ve seen both sides of that desk.
They should demonstrate an excellent understanding of marketing process and measurement right through to profit.
Marketing Management – making it happen: you should pay £250-£500 for this, and you’re looking for at least:
5+ years experience.
CIM marketing diploma if poss, or equivalent experience.
Experience of putting together integrated execution plans, turning the strategy above into an action plan.
Proven project managers with examples of scheduling, cost-control, etc.
Proven ability to manage third-party suppliers and an excellent network of them to call on.
Relevant discipline experience, e.g. direct mail, web development, events print, etc.
Ability to report on campaign success, key metrics, etc.
Marketing Execution – the daily grind: you should pay £150-£300 per day for this:
1+ years experience.
Graduate level, intelligent, IT literate.
These people will do stuff like update your website, proof read your copy, etc.
The people above are marketing generalists – they are the sorts of people you would have in a client-side marketing team. You will also need to use specialists, like telesales teams, designers, copywriters, web developers, SEO experts, etc. And, your marketing consultant should help you to identify the specialists that you need, and (crucially) get the most from them.
How do you know which kind of marketing consultant your small business needs?
The first thing to establish is what you’re trying to achieve, and how much you already know. If you have your plan, but just need some help getting it out the door, there are a range of low cost options. If however, you’re not really sure how to approach the whole thing, you’re going to need some heavy-weight support. Check out ’10 signs that you need strategic marketing advice’ for pointers on this.
Where most small businesses get their fingers burned is in getting a consultant who is great at marketing management to try to give them strategic advice, or in getting a smart young graduate to deliver their marketing plan. In both circumstances, you’re likely to waste money, become very frustrated, or even seriously damage your business. A good marketing manager might have a go at strategy only to send you off in the wrong direction, missing market opportunities. They might produce a brilliant campaign – but are you targeting the right people? And, the smart grad? If you’re getting someone to do things for you for the first time, you are necessarily elongating the process – it may cost you more in terms of day rate to get an experienced pair of hands – but it is likely to get delivered more quickly and with fewer costly mistakes on the way.
Some key questions to ask before you appoint a marketing consultant:
In addition to checking out their previous work (ideally by picking up the phone to a client), here are some other things to think about before you engage a marketing consultant of any kind. There are loads more, but this will get you started.
Do they have professional indemnity insurance?
Are they a member of any professional bodies?
How to they keep their knowledge up to date?
Do they include online project management tools in their costs?
Do they have access to market research, best practice guides, etc?
Will they transfer the skills to you as they go or will you need to go back to them each time?
Do they have a decent network of experts on which to draw? Their black book is part of what you’re paying for.
Do they have legally sound terms of business?
Oh, and the accountant comparison… does your accountant fundamentally shape your business? Does the fee you pay your lawyer have the potential to generate leads day-in, day-out for the next year? Marketing is fundamental to your success. I’m not denigrating the skill and professionalism of accountants and lawyers, they are crucial to your business – what I’m urging you to do is to think as carefully about the marketing consultant you use because getting it wrong can be the difference between having a business and not having a business. In my experience, if you buy cheap, you buy twice.
Clear Thought Consulting works with small businesses, equipping them with the marketing strategies, suppliers, skills and set-up that they need to become bigger businesses. We do this by planning and delivering 12-month marketing transformation programmes – supporting a small business through a step-by-step process to making marketing pay. We firmly believe that when you can’t out-spend your competition, you have to out-think them.
Over the next three weeks, I will be blogging about multiples of three and their relevance to you and your business in the world of marketing. Rules of three are everywhere, from social media, to traditional marketing campaigns, to networking.
Looking firstly at the concept of ‘triangulation’ in week one, I will then look at the application of rules of three in week two, followed by some handy marketing hints in week three.
What is the ‘Rule of 3′ in Marketing?
Channels of communication in today’s digital age are multiplying in front of our very eyes. As channels grow, the reach of companies using them becomes increasingly diluted, as budgets are stretched further to cover more, in arguably less depth. The challenge now, is that although communications have advanced dramatically, companies are having to try even harder to reach us. Consequently, the frequency of our exposure to their marketing efforts may be decreased. Whether digitally, through direct mail, or mass media to name but a few, it is vital that campaigns are effective when do manage to cut through the clutter and reach us. But when we are reached, do we even realise it? Or do we remain blissfully ignorant until the point at which we enter a ‘state of need’ for that product or service?
This is where the ‘Rule of 3′ comes into play.
Whether we realise it or not, we are constantly being exposed to marketing communications. In the words of Herbert Krugman, (1984) for a campaign to secure our attention, “three exposures may be enough.” These lead us into the sales funnel, but at what point do we actually become influenced by exposure? And at what point do we move from subconsciously to consciously recognising it?
In theory…
Research conducted into the effectiveness of advertising has shown that as few as three exposures to a piece of marketing is the optimal number to grab your attention and is enough to lead you through a process of curiosity, to recognition and finally to decision making (Krugman, 1984). This corresponds with the first three steps of Kotler’s (1997) model of rational decision-making; awareness, interest and evaluation and also the relationship with consumer emotion through the sales funnel.
But, is it as easy as simply getting potential consumers to see something three times? Unfortunately, no. Krugman’s research also tells us that the degree of impact or persuasibility of advertising has as much to do with human nature as the ad itself. And if we, as consumers, are not in the market for that product, selective attention ensues and it will go unnoticed. So, Clear Thought could throw ad after ad at you, but if you are not in the ‘state of need,’ by human nature, you simply will not ‘see’ it. Conversely, once the consumer is ready, three is the magic number and you, as a company must be there when consumers hit this point. But how? Let’s take a look at Krugman’s idea of (1984) three exposures.
Exposure 1: Curiosity. What is it?
The first exposure stimulates us to workout the nature of the message being presented to us. It has an initial attention-grabbing requirement that in all honesty may be forgotten about quickly.
Exposure 2: Recognition. What of it?
The second exposure is the point at which the cognitive ‘what is it,’ response develops into a thought process of evaluation and analysis of ‘what of it?’ You have soaked up and appreciated the new information from exposure 1 and now ask the question, does the information hold any relevance to me? You may even have a Eureka moment of, ‘I’ve seen this somewhere before!’ Again, this recollection will reinforce the information, increasing awareness. (Krugman 1984)
So, we have now worked out what something is and we’re able to show some interest like visiting a website. It takes us to a point of engagement, completing our basic reaction to the what ever it is you are looking at. Now it’s up to exposure three to secure a lead…
Exposure 3: Action. The consequence of the first two exposures.
Exposure 3 is the point where the choice is made whether or not to act on the information that has been gathered so far; to fully evaluate the product or to disengage. This exposure is high in influence and so the message that is being delivering to your potential customer must be powerful.
The choice of action could be making price comparisons, walking into a store to hold the product and get the feel for it, or maybe even conducting research in more depth. Nevertheless, at this point, choosing to take action because of a third exposure means that there is a serious consideration to buy, so get your sales team at the ready.
So, taking this model of the three touch-points, how can we harness this within our own marketing campaigns? Read Part-two, coming soon to find out…
By Laura Champion | Assistant Clear Thinker | Clear Thought Consulting Ltd | www.clear-thought.co.uk
If this article is of interest to you, you may also like to view:
Clear Thought Consulting works with small businesses, equipping them with the marketing strategies, suppliers, skills and set-up that they need to become bigger businesses. We do this by planning and delivering 12-month marketing transformation programmes – supporting a small business through a step-by-step process to making marketing pay. We firmly believe that when you can’t out-spend your competition, you have to out-think them.
Blogging is a great way for small businesses to get decent content out there. For small businesses with modest marketing budgets, blogging should be a central activity. Indeed, blog posts can be used, and re-used, throughout the sales cycle:
Awareness: A tweeted, and re-tweeted blog is great for generating awareness. Cunning use of search phrases in blogs can also move you up the search rankings.
Interest: A blog that sign-posts deeper content is great at generating interest.
Evaluation / adoption: A link to a relevant blog alongside a business proposal, alongside product info on a website, or in an email after a sales meeting can underline a point you were making to help people over that final sales barrier.
Loyalty & repurchase: And, a note to an existing client, or a regular enewsletter to subscribers, with a link to an interesting blog can give that little added value, point them to new products and services, or simply make them smile and feel good about your company. So, all in all, a great small business marketing tool.
So, why isn’t your small business blogging?
With all these reasons in favour of blogging, why are so many people so reticent. Here are the three most common reasons not to blog that we hear:
If we put our ideas in a blog, we’re giving away the crown jewels
Everything we think of is just so obvious, no one will want to read it
We can’t write very well, and it will just get embarrassing
Let’s take these one by one and see if we can’t dispel a few fears.
1. You’ll give away the crown jewels
The crown jewels one is a biggie, particularly in a services or knowledge industry, where your thoughts are what you’re paid for. This is exactly our own situation, and we’re big believers in ‘commercial karma’ – what goes around, comes around. We’re generous with our content. We’re confident to do this for two main reasons. Firstly, we’re entirely comfortable that some people will take our advice and run with it, in fact we want them to. Secondly, we know that most people won’t.
For us, an ideal client has turnover of £1m upwards. We know that the people who read our blogs and roll up their sleeves aren’t these companies – typically, they are freelancers, sole traders and micro businesses. And, we love that they get something from us for nothing. Because - a) they know people and talk warmly about us, b) they may grow, and when they do they’ll know where we are, and; c) they are important to the economy, of which we are all a part.
For our key target audience, the effect of a decent instructional blog is not to roll up sleeves and start implementing, but to think “Clear Thought knows their stuff. When I need someone to do that job, I’ll give them a buzz.” Job done. It works too, 100% of Clear Thought’s business has come through, or been enhanced by, word of mouth… and how do you think we generate said word of mouth?
2. You have nothing new to say, it is all so obvious
Ok, so this one really upsets me. If you charge people for what you do, then it has some value – so, surely you have something worth saying! If it isn’t worth saying, how can you justify charging for it? As you can imagine, this is a question that usually gets a robust response. Scratching the surface on this objection, we typically find that most people are simply too close to what they do. Often, you just don’t realise that the rest of the world doesn’t know what you know. And, even if they do, they may not do it day-in and day-out like you, such that a reminder is really useful.
If you are a specialist, breaking down what you do into simple language, with analogies and examples, can be a great way to get those light-bulb moments from people who buy what you sell – after all, if they knew it already, they wouldn’t need you. It just goes to show that this stuff is not obvious to the people who matter – potential buyers. Other specialists reading your plain English version may nod in recognition at what you’re saying, but they won’t think you’re stupid for saying it. More likely, they will wish that they had said it themselves, or feel that they’ve found someone on their wavelength.
The top blog in terms of natural search traffic on our site, bar none, is ’10 steps to writing a marketing brief’. We nearly didn’t post it, because we thought it was so obvious.
3. You can’t write
Ok, so this one is trickier. Reading decent blogs should give you pointers, but if writing really isn’t a strong suit then you may need to get a little help. We’d suggest that you brainstorm ideas initially, and then pick a few out. If you work with a decent copywriter, you can talk them through your ideas for about half an hour, for them to craft into the final piece for your approval before it goes out. A little professional help on this doesn’t mean that it isn’t your work, it is your expertise and your knowledge that is being used, so it is absolutely your work.
A blog is a really valuable marketing tool for your small business. Don’t let fear hold you back from the huge benefits that are there for the taking.
Clear Thought Consulting works with small businesses, equipping them with the marketing strategies, suppliers, skills and set-up that they need to become bigger businesses. We do this by planning and delivering 12-month marketing transformation programmes – supporting a small business through a step-by-step process to making marketing pay. We firmly believe that when you can’t out-spend your competition, you have to out-think them.
Because we can’t all have our own personal court clerk.
I’ve never seen one of those stenotype machines (if that’s what they’re called), but a court recorder possibly is the most efficient note taker I can think of. And, according to my stepdaughter, who is taking a Pitman’s PA training certificate, even ‘short hand’ is becoming redundant.
So how do we achieve good notes and why is it important?
Why?
I bet pretty much any department attends meetings of one kind or another that require minuting, writing-up or sharing with other colleagues:
A marketing ideas session;
A client meeting;
A production meeting;
A conference, workshop or ideas session;
A meeting with a lawyer or accountant;
A one-to-one…
For marketers, one of our key roles is to accurately capture and understand a brief, which means that taking decent notes is a core skill.
So, if you are responsible for taking notes, it’s important to develop good note taking skills because accurate notes could mean the difference between understanding (or misunderstanding) an item agreed, or an action to be undertaken. And remember – what is said is sometimes not what is heard. In other words, the meeting notes (or ‘contact report’ in the account management world) could resolve potential future sticking points and what was actually said and who took that action?
In addition, it’s vital to use the quickest and most effective method for you. Time is money and duplicate tasks are a waste of precious resource. In small business marketing, perhaps even more than elsewhere, getting it right first time could mean the difference between affording an activity or not.
How to take good notes?
I’m assuming that most organisations don’t have a court clerk on the payroll, so how can we be sure we have captured the important points?
1. Structure: If you take hand written notes and type them up later, structure your notes in the same order you expect to get them typed-up. Agree this structure with the people who receive the write-up to make sure that it makes sense to them. We like to record key points and items agreed on separate lines with actions at the end. Mark actions with a clear indication of who the action is for, and when it is to be completed by. Even better, go to the meeting with the key headings already written up to help you structure your write-up.
2. Systems: To save time later on, consider typing straight into the computer rather writing notes during the meeting. That said, in my experience, it’s then harder to listen and type, and it takes longer doing it this way. The better your typing skills however, the better this method. But having your Outlook tasks open, or in our case Basecamp to-do lists, popping the actions straight into the system you all use is certainly worth considering.
3. Technology: Consider one of those fancy pens that records what you write, or and simple recording of the session (audio and/or video). Don’t forget to get permission first if recording any session (data protection). We’re test driving a scribe pen and love it so far.
4. Agreement: If you are the note taker, don’t be afraid to stop the meeting and reiterate a particular point to ensure everyone agrees with what you have recorded.
5. Share responsibility: If note-taking not really one person’s job, share the task by alternating meetings. Just agree upfront the required format for the write-up so that everyone knows what is expected of them each time.
We all know time is precious, so agree the objectives of the meeting up front (ideally in advance so that people come prepared, by producing an agenda) and stick to the time allocated.
Most essentially, distribute the notes as soon as possible after the meetings. After 24 hours and it’s almost not worth it. Most people try to action their to-dos immediately after the meeting, or within that working day if possible.
These are just some basic tips. Find out the best method for you and practice streamlining your note taking. ‘It’s all in the detail,’ is a familiar sentiment, but keep in mind, nobody wants to read a 7-page contact report.
Clear Thought Consulting works with small businesses, equipping them with the marketing strategies, suppliers, skills and set-up that they need to become bigger businesses. We do this by planning and delivering 12-month marketing transformation programmes – supporting a small business through a step-by-step process to making marketing pay. We firmly believe that when you can’t out-spend your competition, you have to out-think them.
Don’t run expensive marketing taps into leaking sales buckets.
Marketers are always banging on about integrated marketing, indeed there are qualifications and companies bearing the name. However, so many ‘integrated’ campaigns I see are little more than loosely coordinated tactics. The key difference between the two is whether or not a campaign has been planned to take a person through a the whole sales funnel, or whether it’s just turning on a number of expensive promotional taps using a common theme, without a funnel to convert the interest you generate. If you want to make marketing pay in your small business, you need to make sure that you’re not doing half a job.
A coordinated campaign will typically have a common creative theme and a matching look and feel, used across a number of mediums. For example, an ad, some web banners, a press release, a direct mail piece and a web landing page. Some go further, with a download or give-away of some kind that relates to the theme. So, whilst you’re integrating tactical elements, you’re not integrating with sales… which is what matters if you’re after a decent marketing ROI. Typically, these campaigns will generate a number of marketing leads, which are then passed to sales for qualification. This is often where a number of potentially profitable prospects fall through the cracks. If you’ve not developed an integrated plan with your sales team, then you may have wasted precious marketing budget. We’ve often observed:
Sales people not following up marketing leads immediately, meaning that by the time they pick up the phone, the prospect can’t remember ever having been interested.
Sales people not being fully briefed (or ideally involved) in the campaign concept, meaning that follow-up calls are disjointed from the original point of contact.
Sales people being incentivised on outbound volume targets, meaning that marketing follow-up actually dents their performance on paper.
Sales people working on that month’s targets, seeing marketing leads as slow burn that won’t reward them immediately and, as such moving down the priority list.
Sales people not being equipped with relevant follow-up material – for me this is the biggie in terms of marketing having let the team down – so often, a great lead generation campaign just isn’t seen through, and the sales person is left with some great people to call, but nothing more to tell them.
Planning an integrated marketing campaign
Planning an integrated marketing campaign means equipping everyone in the team with what they need to move a person from one stage in the buying decision to the next. Simply generating awareness is doing less than half a job. Here’s a quick outline for a genuinely integrated campaign that you might find useful. You’ll need a tool for each step, and a fully briefed team that understands how someone moved from one to the other, and (crucially) what tool to reach for next.
Generating awareness: Marketing tools that are specifically good for awarneness-driving include:
Interaction: Webinars, teleseminars, conversations in social media
Supporting evaluation: You can support people who are comparing you against the market with:
Product literature: detailed facts and figures that allow them to make a comparison, e.g. data sheets.
Case studies: Video interviews, detailed case studies.
Other customers: have clients lined up who are ready to take testimonial phone calls, emails, etc.
Proposal copy: a library of well-written copy for proposals and presentations.
Enabling trial: having an easy first step will make it easier for people to say yes. Marketing can support this with:
Product demos: have a pre-built dummy client demonstration that they can look at, or a screen capture of key features.
Special offers: make sure that your sales people have a pre-rehearsed trial offer up their sleeve if people are teetering on the decision.
Securing the sale: Getting people to sign on the bottom line is more of a one-to-one relationship thing, but there are things that marketing can help with:
DMU FAQs: have materials to hand that the buyer can use to cover off any internal objections in their wider decision-making unit
Guarantees: Having pre-agreed guarantees can help people get over the hump if they perceive a risk in the deal.
Encouraging loyalty: Once you have people on-board, it is important to keep them happy. Marketing can help with:
Welcome packs: introduce key people, provide contact details, outline support arrangements.
Capture data: ask them to join a ‘club’, or sign-up to updates so that you can keep them up-to-date with the latest.
Hospitality: make sure new customers are invited to drinks, online events, fun activities in social media, etc.
So, next time your marketing team or agency suggests some great lead generation, make sure there is a next step, and a next tool, through the whole process.
Clear Thought Consulting works with small businesses, equipping them with the marketing strategies, suppliers, skills and set-up that they need to become bigger businesses. We do this by planning and delivering 12-month marketing transformation programmes – supporting a small business through a step-by-step process to making marketing pay. We firmly believe that when you can’t out-spend your competition, you have to out-think them.
So, you’ve been told that Twitter is a great way of marketing your small business on an even smaller budget… but when you log on it all looks like gibberish. As a relative newbie to Twitter myself, I thought I’d jot down what I’ve learnt so far to help you make the most of this powerful communications channel.
Twitter is a Social Media website, where you ‘follow’ people in order to see their Tweets. You see the Tweets of all the people you follow in a chronological stream, and they will see yours if they follow you. The tricky thing is that a Tweet is restricted to just 140 characters, so a kind of short hand has emerged that helps people to communicate rather a lot, in this very small space.
Mastering this short-hand of special characters and reference tags means that you can deliver a powerful message. If structured intelligently, a Tweet can stimulate topical debate, get people to click a link driving to specific content, or simply start a conversation about last night’s TV.
So, let’s take a look at the journey of a Tweet, to highlight some key quirks of Twitter, so that you can make yourself understood.
STEP ONE: The first Tweet
The journey of a Tweet begins with the first Tweet.
In this Tweet, Clear Thought is sharing a link to some great marketing advice, using the company Twitter handle, @clear_thinking [1]. Clear Thought can also be identified by the profile icon [2], which uses a component of the company logo, creating brand consistency with the other chosen channels of communication. When Tweeting personally, the Twitter handle is usually an individual’s name [1a] and the icon used tends to be a photo of that person [2a]. This can prove very useful when for example, you attend networking events, as you can more easily put a face to a name.
Tweets can be sent through Twitter.com itself, or through Twitter management applications such as TweetDeck and Tweetie. This particular Tweet was sent from CoTweet [3], but viewed in TweetDeck as shown in the message footer.
The Tweet uses persuasive copy [4] as an incentive to raise the reader’s awareness of your content, offering them ‘free marketing advice,’ followed by a call to action [5] in the form of a link which acts to drive the user to the Clear Thought website should they have been sufficiently tempted.
[5] URL shorteners
The link within the Tweet is created using CoTweet, which has an in-built URL shortener. Given the 140-character limit that a Tweet has, it is important to use your characters efficiently. To include a full URL could potentially take up a whole Tweet, detracting from the accompanying persuasive message. You can save a substantial number of characters by using a service like Bit.Ly, so for example, taking the link to a Clear Thought 10 minute tips video on social media, the link in shortened
Saving you a grand total of 42 characters that can be used to further promote your business, content, or maybe even your weekends activities should you wish.
By hovering over the profile icon in TweetDeck, you are presented with a choice of actions that can be performed if you wish to interact with or share the information with other users.
STEP TWO: Passing the message on
[6] Re-tweet (RT) with a comment
RT is an acronym for Re-Tweet. A re-tweet is a way of sharing someone else’s Tweet with your followers. This shows that you find the information useful and you want to pass it on to other people who may also be interested. A re-tweet begins with RT followed by the @ sign and the originator’s Twitter handle, so that they can be referenced.
[6a] Following the link, there are two forward slashes and a comment. When I re-tweeted thismessage, I chose to add a few words to express my opinion on the content. Again, this is a great way of endorsing the message being delivered, inviting people to engage with it. This will hopefully affect the persuasive power of the message, further drawing the reader in to follow the call to action. There are other ways of adding your penneth. People sometimes precede the RT with their comment, and I’ve seen a few people use <— to point to what they’re commenting on.
STEP THREE: The message takes off
[6b] Re-tweet with a ‘via’
Another action that can be performed is a re-tweet with a via. This is effectively a re-tweet of a re-tweet, therefore coming via another user.
STEP FOUR: You get a response
[7] Reply
If you wish to create dialogue between yourself and another user in relation to a specific Tweet, you can reply [7] to them. A reply will appear in both your message stream and that of the person to whom you are replying. It will also appear in the stream of people who are following both of you; Bryony and I in this case. The handle of the person with whom you are talking will appear at the start of the tweet preceded with the @ sign [7a]. The significance of the persons handle coming at the beginning shows that the message is directed at them, helping to add context to the stream of messages. The footer [7b] also indicates that the nature of the Tweet is a reply.
STEP FIVE: Having a private word
[8] Direct Message
DM is an acronym for Direct Message. This functionality allows you to send private messages to other users with whom you have a mutual following. Placing DM at the start of a message along with your recipients handle without the @ sign defines it as a direct message [8a], visible to only you two, as opposed to when you use the @ sign, which would give visibility to your mutual followers. In Tweetdeck, the nature of the message can again be identified in the message footer [8b].
Putting it all together:
A few more handy hints:
The Hash (#) tag:Is a system for tagging your interests. Twitter does not have a specific functionality for grouping topics, so the Twitter community has developed a tagging system that uses the # symbol. By placing a # in front of the name of the topic you are discussing, it is tagged and categorised. The phrase that you have tagged becomes searchable as a result. So, for example, if I wanted to look at Tweets that discuss B2B marketing, I would simply search using the key words #B2BMarketing. (Lists are another way of categorising things, but they are a whole different topic, so we will cover them another time).
Trending topics:The things that are being discussed the most in the Twitter world. On the homepage of Twitter.com, they are listed down the right hand side of the page. You are given the choice to search by country or city, dependent on what you are looking for.
The @ sign:Preceding a user’s Twitter handle, the @ sign ‘calls out’ that user from within the Tweet. A tweet with your handle after an @ sign will show up in your private feed and also the feed of those who both follow you and the person who has referenced you. The Twitter handle becomes a clickable link, which will take you to their Twitter profile. Additionally, if you chose to ‘mention’ someone in a Tweet, you would use the @ sign and the mention would appear in that persons live stream. It is also likely that the person mentioned in the tweet will ‘re-tweet’ the message, therefore posting the message to their followers, creating a viral effect.
Placing a full stop before the @ preceding a Twitter handle (.@):Means that everyone following the person sending the message sees the tweet in their stream rather than just those being passed between mutual contacts.
Emoticons: Are used to add further expression to a Tweet, examples being things like smiley faces; :) :( :|
Acronyms: Are used to abbreviate phrases that either would take up to many characters to write, for example, atm; a shortened version of ‘at the moment,’ or to for example, express an action such as ‘lol,’ standing for ‘laugh out loud’.
Although there appears to be a lot of detail here, this is just the basics and as trends in the use of Twitter evolve, so does the language used by the Twitter community. What is relevant today may not be in two months, or even in 2 weeks. So, to keep up with the latest, keep your eye on those trending topics.
By Laura Champion | Assistant Clear Thinker | Clear Thought Consulting Ltd | www.clear-thought.co.uk
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Clear Thought Consulting works with small businesses, equipping them with the marketing strategies, suppliers, skills and set-up that they need to become bigger businesses. We do this by planning and delivering 12-month marketing transformation programmes – supporting a small business through a step-by-step process to making marketing pay. We firmly believe that when you can’t out-spend your competition, you have to out-think them.
This is a guest Blog from Peter Gradwell, MD at small business ISP, Gradwell. With building an online reputation being vital to creating a professional image, we asked Peter to talk to us about how choosing a compelling domain name can help you to send out the right message about your business.
What’s your domain name and how did you choose it?
Was the domain that you wanted taken?
So, did you settle for something less than impressive?
Building and publishing a website is an important way of entering the global marketplace. Most experts agree that when choosing a domain name, the shorter and simpler names are probably the best. Keep it short and sweet, and if you can get it, get a dot-com because people are still more impressed by that than the UK or EU domains.
But since most of the shorter domain names are taken, then people have to choose longer domains and this is where they need help.
Creative spelling says that you’re annoying and that you think your potential customers are psychic. Any words that you would have to spell out to a client are also bad, they need to be intuitive, and you’re suggesting to potential clients that you don’t care about how they find you. But the Internet is all about finding and being found and if you want to be found, you need a domain that says what you do.
For instance, if you were an Office Cleaning Service working in London, you should always try CleanerLondon.com or OfficeCleaning.com first, but if they are gone, then it’s important to add a modifier. BestLondonCleaners.com for instance, allows you to say to tell everyone what you do and where, it also suggests that you are the best.
If you want to ensure that people don’t get confused between you and another company, then buy out all of the available extensions if you can.
Your domain name is your Internet trading name, it doesn’t matter what your real trading name is to people, as they will call your business by the domain name from now on.
There’s also a trick to choosing the right name here. If you’re very specific, like BestLondonCleaners, you can’t easily add a few pages about your photocopying business. So, counter to what we said above, you may wish to choose something that allows you to expand what you do at a later date. Think about Amazon.com for instance. The name Amazon has nothing to do with Books, DVDs or any of the things that they sell. This means that when they started to sell Garden Furniture, they weren’t restricted.
So, clearly there are two main choices to naming your domain. You can either choose something broad enough to encompass future expansion, or something very specific and targeted to what you do. Broad allows you more creativity with the name, but specific has greater SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) value and helps promote your name directly in the URL window.
Thirdly, you should consider your professional image. What you call yourself may be your professional online trading domain for a long time. Building up a reputation and switching domains later could be tricky. So, it’s vital that your domain name sends the right message about your business. It must present to your clients or customers the image that they think of when theythink of your organization. This will help them find you online, but also helps to maintain your public image.
This post originally appeared as part of Gradwell’s PG Tips series.
Peter Gradwell, MD
Peter is recognised as one of the UK’s leading young internet and telecoms entrepreneurs, and was recently named by the Daily Telegraph as one of the Changing Faces of IT.
Peter is an active industry shaper, having sponsored the establishment of voip.org.uk, being a founder member of the Internet Telephony Service Providers Association, a Director of the UK ENUM Consortium and is a respected industry lobbyist having worked on domain name policy, VoIP regulation and 999 issues. Has previously a Non-Exec Director of Newnet plc and Chaired Nominet UK’s Policy Advisory Board for 2 years. In Summer 2009, Peter completed a Phd in Computer Science at the University of Bath titled “Economic Algorithms for the Management of Resources in Computer Systems”.
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There’s no ‘I’ in ‘team’, but there is a ‘We’ in ‘well done’.
Sorry about the world’s worst cliché, but I was recently talking to a business owner who was frustrated by a member of his team always using ‘I’ instead of ‘we’. He found it most embarrassing when that employee talked to a customer about the results achieved as if it was an individual endeavor, when the rest of the team were in the room.
There are three really good reasons why inclusive language is important to your business:
Maintaining team morale and good internal working relationships.
Allowing for succession planning. An individual who is entrenched in one client account can be hard to promote if it means moving them to another client.
You need to protect your business from churn, so having clients loyal to your team rather than to an individual is essential.
It could be argued that this is a confidence issue. Proven management styles, like coaching or mentoring, could certainly help to resolve this, but there is something else you can do. And it involves the whole team, better still the whole company…
Effective Corporate Guidelines encourage your staff to understand how your brand feels as much as how it looks – and that means more than just spelling out the colour of your logo, or the typeface you use.
In addition, ‘Tone of Voice’ guidelines ensure your company ‘sounds’ like your brand too. And you can discreetly point out the ‘I’ and ‘We’ thing quite easily.
Guidelines on tone of voice are especially useful if you have sales colleagues who are constantly in front of clients, or if you run a call centre for example. And I (sorry, we) would say they are essential if you’re contemplating commissioning online, radio or TV advertising. How you use language (and music and/or a recognised voice-over) is as much about delivering your brand as your website or corporate literature.
5 tips on sounding like your brand:
1. Guidelines: All companies should have a set of designed guidelines that detail exactly how to use your brand. We recently did this for our client Gradwell, who a year later conducted a survey in which 95% of their team agreed that the brand was essential to the success of the business. When pulling together guidelines you should also include a section on ‘tone of voice’ and spelling conventions. If you are briefing marketing copy, or press releases, your suppliers will find it refreshing and useful. After all, you want them to write in your corporate style. This should also form a key element of an employee welcome pack and induction programme – an overview of your brand. The way you talk from the outset could nip the ‘I’, and ‘We’ thing in the bud.
2. Internal comms: Talk to your employees regularly, and all together so as not to single people out. Remind them of ‘the rules of the game’ regarding behaviour when acting/talking on behalf of your company. Make it clear to them that if a client is attached to them as an individual, then they will find it hard to move into more senior positions by virtue of being stuck in the role the client perceives, and that they are the one who’ll be expected to deal with any problems. Appealing to self-interest here can help.
3 Practice: Whether you are a sole trader or work in small company, you will work as a team with each other, your clients and suppliers, and inclusive language is usually preferable. Practice your elevator pitch – use team activities or even practice in front of a mirror. Role play scenarios and prepare flash cards if you think they will help.
4. Scripts: It’s not just TV and radio advertisements, or telesales teams that need scripts, but all of your employees could benefit too. From the receptionist to the sales director, pre-prepared scripts demonstrate the correct use of tone of voice for your staff. And never forget, it’s potentially out of your control how employees talk about your business down the pub or on social media, but if you get their buy-in to your guidelines early on, you are in with a chance of a positive (and subconscious) representation of your brand – even when they are not in the office. These don’t need to be overly prescriptive, key pointers and bullet points can do the trick, and you don’t want people to sound like robots.
5. Feedback: And finally, it is your responsibility as a business owner to get the best out of your staff. If the way one of your team behaves has a knock-on effect throughout your business, consider some one-to-ones to talk about the issue. They may not even be aware they are doing it.
So we urge you to stop and listen to yourself and your employees. Do you ‘sound’ like your brand?
Clear Thought Consulting works with small businesses, equipping them with the marketing strategies, suppliers, skills and set-up that they need to become bigger businesses. We do this by planning and delivering 12-month marketing transformation programmes – supporting a small business through a step-by-step process to making marketing pay. We firmly believe that when you can’t out-spend your competition, you have to out-think them.
Hooked up three people we hadn’t previously known with new paying clients.
Met up with somewhere in the region of 20 local experts who are now on our referral list.
Received two good quality leads, with a combined value in five figures.
It is a fantastic tool for doing business and should definitely be on the list of marketing techniques to try in 2010 for every small business. Our top three activities on Twitter are:
1. Promoting ourselves
Now, this has to be done in a really open, honest and authentic way. After all, Twitter is an opt-in medium, and if people don’t like what you’re saying the ‘un-follow’ button is only a click away. We use Twitter to drive traffic to our website, with high quality free content, like Blogs and presentations. We know that the majority of people will simply read, nod and leave. That’s fine. Over time this builds up into a bank of goodwill, full of people who drop us into conversation with their friends and contacts, or drop us a line when a need arises.
Twitter is the third highest source of traffic to our website. I recently received an email from a contact at a local agency, “Wow, keep doing what you’re doing, I only ever hear good things about you.” Delighted, I asked who had mentioned me – three people with whom I have regular contact on Twitter, but have never met in person, had mentioned Clear Thought on totally separate occasions. One had also forwarded him one of our Blog articles relevant to their conversation they’d found via the site. The key here is the content you make available – it needs to be interesting and useful.
2. Market Research
Twitter is totally brilliant for a bit of research. We’ve used it in a few different ways. You can use various monitoring tools to search names and phrases to see what is being said ‘out there’. This is a great starting point for preparing more detailed research for client projects looking at sales messages, customer service or brand perception. We’ve also used Twitter to find people to interview for more detailed research projects. You can also drop people a link to an open survey, if it is appropriate.
3. Office Banter
There are three of us in the business. We often work from home, or out and about with clients. In this setting, Twitter is great for a bit of human contact. People send each other playlists on Spotify, or vent their frustrations with the weather, or simply chat about something they saw on TV. It’s the home-worker’s equivalent of the water cooler. We do have a few rules on this one. We never say anything on Twitter that we wouldn’t say at a professional networking event. So, typically no swearing, bitching (ooh, just did) or moaning. But a bit of friendly conversation can keep the synapses firing nicely.
All in all, Twitter has become a key tool for our business. It also finds itself in the mix for most of our clients these days. One of whom recently doubled inbound enquiries through smarter use of social media and digital marketing, including Twitter. So, give it a go.
And, remember that it is a conversation, not a bulletin board.
Clear Thought Consulting works with small businesses, equipping them with the marketing strategies, suppliers, skills and set-up that they need to become bigger businesses. We do this by planning and delivering 12-month marketing transformation programmes – supporting a small business through a step-by-step process to making marketing pay. We firmly believe that when you can’t out-spend your competition, you have to out-think them.
Most people initially think of public relations as a technique for generating awareness for their products or services.
This is absolutely true, but if this the only way that you’re using your public relations effort, you’re missing a trick in squeezing every ounce of value from your marketing budget.
In considered purchases people move through a process of decision-making. At each stage, you have an opportunity to influence whether they continue through to purchase from you, or choose to look elsewhere.
Using Kotler’s model of rational decision-making, here are some ideas for using PR at every stage in the process.
Generating awareness: In addition to getting the word out through press coverage, you can also:
Add key phrases to your press releases that people are likely to use as search phrases.
Post links to your news coverage on your LinkedIn status, Twitter feed, etc.
Add comments against online news stories that your audience is likely to read.
Generating interest: This is about getting people to take the next step of not only knowing who you are, but of being interested in what you have to say:
Use decent coverage as an insert for direct mail or email (NB You’ll need permission).
Use snippets of coverage you achieve in your promotional materials.
Post a response to a news item as a Blog, You-Tube video, etc.
Standing up to evaluation: When people are evaluating your products or services against the competition, you can:
Point them to positive news coverage.
Use a news story as the basis for a live Q&A or webinar.
Supporting the trial process: When someone is assessing your products and services in detail, you can:
Add PR quotes in your proposal documents to substantiate your claims.
Use press coverage as an excuse to drop someone a line when they’re trialling.
Encouraging adoption: At the point where people part with significant money, public relations can:
Create a feel-good factor amongst the wider decision-makers reducing chances of them saying no.
Generating re-purchase and loyalty: If they’ve bought once, you can:
Drop them a line with positive coverage on what they’ve bought for that all-important post-purchase reassurance.
Keep them up-to-date on new offerings by sending them links to press coverage – often more compelling than blatant sales material.
With a bit of thought, you can make more of your PR coverage. This is particularly true if you have a social media set-up in place that allows you to make intelligent re-use of the coverage you’ve worked hard to secure.
Clear Thought Consulting works with small businesses, equipping them with the marketing strategies, suppliers, skills and set-up that they need to become bigger businesses. We do this by planning and delivering 12-month marketing transformation programmes – supporting a small business through a step-by-step process to making marketing pay. We firmly believe that when you can’t out-spend your competition, you have to out-think them.
You know it struck me recently how similar marketing is to DIY, in particular home renovation.
Having experience in both, I now realise that the enjoyable bits, like hanging beautiful wallpaper or choosing imagery for a website, are all the more effective and rewarding after a really good swathe of preparation.
The more effort you put into planning and preparation, the easier the implementation is. And, the better the results. Painting over old wallpaper might look ok, but a crisp plastered wall and fresh paint is so much better. Marketing implementation is often the same… do you bodge around the dodgy work of others, or do a bit of solid prep to get it right?
5 tips on better marketing preparation (can you see the similarity to DIY?):
1. Research:
Work out what needs fixing (how to make customers pain go away).
Think about how the space is going to to be used (know your audience and their needs).
Look at what’s hot and what’s not (competitor analysis, market research, consumer trends and insight).
Research the best tools for the job (suppliers and systems).
Get the best deals around (tender your requirements).
2. Specification:
Get the brief right. Poor detail in = Poor detail out, or an unsatisfactory end result.
Say what you don’t want as well as what you do want (avoid assumptions) – if you don’t say what you want, you won’t like what you get. (See our blog on writing marketing briefs).
Detail all those must-haves, special requirements, and legally-required stuff (this is about usability, compliance and customer experience).
3. Deliverables:
Agree what the end result will look like (is what is in your head in your builder or designer’s head?)
Cross-check with the budget and build-in some contingencies.
Agree what is not achievable, too expensive, or out of scope (I mean, I’d love hand-painted wallpaper and designer fabrics everywhere, but hey – you can’t have it all).
4. Pitfalls:
Think of everything that might go wrong before it happens and get prepared for it (risk directory).
Try to anticipate negative as well as positive outcomes to things you can’t see yet (research results might change your thinking as much as a cracked ceiling discovered under some Artex you are removing). I’ve lost count of the times we’ve looked at the back-end of a website, for example, to find that the original development leaves more than a little to be desired. This is exactly the sort of thing that potentially results in more work you might not have allowed for.
Have a plan B if any key personnel or suppliers suddenly become unavailable – or at least understand the impact this will have on delivery.
5. Processes:
Agree in advance how and when you are going to attack each stage of the task – with check points to review progress and move on.
Create a project plan and stick to it.
Keep people in the loop if things look like slipping (see point 4).
And finally, don’t rush. The more carefully you prepare, and the more considered your approach, the less likely you are to have to do the same task again due to sloppy errors… it happens to us all when we’re tired, stressed or rushed. We know that this is easier said than done, but worth its weight in gold. And remember – ‘Buy Cheap, Buy Twice’. We’re not suggesting that small businesses should spend loads of time and money on preparation, but some is certainly a good idea. It can be very tempting to jump in and just ‘get stuff done,’ but it worth remembering that a little consideration can save hours of rework, and serious money in avoided wastage. In small business marketing, every penny counts – think carefully before spending that precious cash.
Clear Thought Consulting works with small businesses, equipping them with the marketing strategies, suppliers, skills and set-up that they need to become bigger businesses. We do this by planning and delivering 12-month marketing transformation programmes – supporting a small business through a step-by-step process to making marketing pay. We firmly believe that when you can’t out-spend your competition, you have to out-think them.
Writing my first blog; a process easier said than done it would seem?
Having read blogs spanning topics from marketing in the 21st century, to viral marketing, to agency life, I thought to myself, yeah, writing my first blog, no problem! But now, I find myself sitting here and the words escape me. So where do I begin?
This is the first published expression of my opinions, insights and as a marketing trainee, potentially… well almost definitely a report of my progression from trainee to trained, so please, bear with me and be kind. As my first exposure to the world of blogging, that is what I am at this moment… totally exposed.
The approach to the subject of my blog is hurdle number one of my grand national. Having produced a list of 30 odd titles, each relevant to my experiences so far with Clear Thought, I have concluded that it would be fitting to take the one and only opportunity to write a self-explanatory piece titled ‘My First Blog.’
Whilst some sources suggest that it is my duty to introduce myself to you, tell you what I do, why I am blogging and what I will be blogging about, others suggest that my first blog would better suit a description of the physical and psychological processes that have brought me to write the piece itself; from idea creation through to completion. But the Catch 22 I find is that, without ever having written a blog before, how can I tell you about the process of its creation when the process itself involves the writing? With this at the forefront of my thinking, I have chosen to heed all of the advice received and begin by introducing myself, before moving onto the ‘doing process,’ with the expectation that by the time I reach the blog’s end, I will be able to summarise the experience of the journey.
Who and what?
So to introduce myself, my name is Laura Champion. Having graduated with a degree in Marketing from the University of Liverpool; a great university in a great city, I now find myself in the very fortunate position of Marketing Trainee at Clear Thought Consulting in yet another one of the UK’s great cities; Bristol. Learning from the varied pools of expertise that my colleagues hold, I am slowly but surely caching valuable information into my knowledge bank, with the hope that dedication and application over the weeks and months to come will successfully allow me to make the transition from trainee to trained.
Why and how?
As I become evermore absorbed into the world of marketing, I have a growing respect for the dynamic nature of the industry. From where I’m sitting marketing in the 21st century looks like an era of vast change in its channels of communication, audience interaction, and a shift in consumer power. Getting our message out, in Blogs for example, is part of Clear Thought’s mission to provide valuable information that helps small businesses with essential marketing advice. And, I’ve been asked to play my part in that.
A tricky challenge as the newest member of the team just entering the world of marketing. Whilst I may not yet have years of experience to share, I do have a unique perspective. Much like many of Clear Thought’s clients I am on a constant path of learning, being exposed to new situations day-by-day. And, although I have a marketing degree, putting it all into practice is new to me. By writing about, and sharing my experiences, I hope to be able to show our clients both the value of blogging, and that it isn’t too scary. If I can do it, you can too. With hard work and dedication, anything is possible.
So, I think that brings me naturally to the end of my first blog. That’s me, that’s where I have come from and why I am blogging, but what I will be blogging about in the next few months is unknown given the rate of constant change that we are all exposed to in this socially-networked marketing world. I’m intrigued to see the path that I will follow, the blogs that will result and the view of the twists and turns I will experience along the way. One thing I can say is that now I have finished writing my first blog, I breathe a sigh of relief that the experience was not as bad as the build up, as is always the way and strangely, I am ready to write the next. Are you?
By Laura Champion | Assistant Clear Thinker | Clear Thought Consulting Ltd | www.clear-thought.co.uk
Clear Thought Consulting works with small businesses, equipping them with the marketing strategies, suppliers, skills and set-up that they need to become bigger businesses. We do this by planning and delivering 12-month marketing transformation programmes – supporting a small business through a step-by-step process to making marketing pay. We firmly believe that when you can’t out-spend your competition, you have to out-think them.
There are hundreds of potential marketing advisors for a small business owner.
From design agencies, PR specialists, telemarketers, SEO experts, social media bods, media planners, and on, and on.
It’s difficult to know who to talk, when and why.
Here are 10 signs that you could do with some proper strategic marketing input:
You’re not 100% sure where new business actually comes from – how do they find your site? What prompts them to pick up the phone, etc?
You’ve done some work with an agency, but you weren’t too chuffed with the output – what was the brief?
You get lots of leads, but they don’t seem to convert – what is the sales journey, and how well supported is it with powerful marketing content?
You get enquiries for work that you don’t really like doing – is your business clear about what it does best?
You’re always screwed down on price – does your brand and messaging set your business apart?
When asked what your business does, your people all say something different – is your team clear on what you’re about?
You rarely get repeat business or referrals – is your customer marketing and networking strategy creating advocates for your business?
If one big customer left you’d be in trouble – is your business over reliant on one customer, or one market?
You’ve tried telemarketing, PR, advertising or another tactic and it hasn’t delivered – do you have an integrated plan with momentum that all fits together and ties into your sales process?
You’ve read the books and been to some courses – do you know that you need to give marketing some attention, but never quite get around to it when you’re back at the office?
These are all real scenarios that we’ve heard from small business owners in the last 18 months. Small businesses often make do with a ‘marketing-come-reception’ set-up, working with the marketing suppliers run by friends of friends, or the people down the road. And, there’s nothing wrong with that… if you know exactly what you’re doing on the marketing front. If you have an effective strategy clearly mapped-out, and a good grasp of the interplay of the key marketing tactics, you can indeed put together a top notch freelance team to deliver against your sales and marketing objectives. If, however, you’re feeling your way through the discipline, working it out as you go, then you’ll probably find that each supplier you speak to seems to sound pretty sensible. You may struggle to find your way through all the ‘good ideas’ that they come up with to configure a watertight marketing operation that supports every step of your sales funnel.
In larger organisations it’s the job of the marketing director to pull all this together. Coming in on salaries upwards of £65k, most small business owners we meet simply can’t afford to have a hard-hitting marketing director on their team. So, what do you do? If you find yourself nodding in recognition at any of the statements above, it would be sensible to find yourself a strategic marketing partner who can be your marketing brain – working out what you need to say, to whom, when and through what channel.
Clear Thought Consulting works with small businesses, equipping them with the marketing strategies, suppliers, skills and set-up that they need to become bigger businesses. We do this by planning and delivering 12-month marketing transformation programmes – supporting a small business through a step-by-step process to making marketing pay. We firmly believe that when you can’t out-spend your competition, you have to out-think them.
This is a guest Blog from Emily at Emily CagleCommunications Ltd. With more and more content being re-used in multiple mediums, we asked Emily to talk us through the key differences for copywriting in an online and offline context.
So you’ve been invited to write an article to be featured in a publication or blog. Fantastic.
Before you put pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard) though, you need to be weigh up a whole range of factors.
Does the host publication have a set style?
What tone is appropriate?
What types of people make up their readership?
What level of pre-existing knowledge on the article subject can you safely assume readers have?
What is the purpose of the piece?
What messages do you want to convey?
The list goes on.
But in an age where almost every publication has an online presence, one key question is easily overlooked:
Is the piece destined to appear online or in print?
It might seem trivial, but there are raft of reasons why medium matters.
Immediacy: There’s usually a lead-time of at least a few days, often weeks between submitting a piece of writing and it reaching the readers in print, but online, your writing could theoretically be published by the blog or publication owner within minutes. The advantage of this online immediacy is that you can react to the very latest news and events, while for print, you’ll need to allow for the fact that events could have moved on considerably by the time your article is published.
Reading style: When reading online, we like to skim. Readers will look for clues to signpost interesting content and may only spend a minute or two reading an article of around 500 words. Opening with an engaging first line and keeping the reader interested with subheadings are good rules for any medium, but they are more vital online where your shot at keeping their attention is at its most fleeting.
Word count: When writing for print, word counts are generally set in stone. You will have been designated a page, for example, and so your article needs to be very close to the required word count of, say, 800 words or the publication will have a nightmare making it fit and be forced to trim it or come back to you for a second edit. Online, there’s usually room for greater flexibility. A publication might give you a range for your word count (e.g. 500 – 700 words), allowing you greater freedom to go with the length that works for your piece.
Interactivity: In print, any references to events, stats or people need to be given adequate context so as not to leave readers scratching their heads, but online, you have more options. Depending on the style guidelines of the publication, online you might choose to hyperlink your references so that readers can glean further information for themselves. In this way, online pieces can become parts of a larger network of information, rather than stand alone articles.
Multimedia scope: In print, the options for communication are pretty much limited to words and pictures. There’s a lot to be said for that, but with online copywriting, your options are much broader. Again, it depends on what the editor of the publication is willing to accept, but you might be able to introduce pictures, audio and even video to help bring you message to life.
Search engine visibility: Online publications – particularly those reliant on advertising – will usually have one eye on visitor numbers at all times. With a view to attracting relevant visitors via search engines, it will usually be necessary for online articles to include the key words in the title. This isn’t always the case, but it does mean that in many cases, there is less room to be mysterious, creative or use a good pun in an online headline as compared with a print one.
Longevity: Because print articles have a tangible form, they are often seen as less transient than online articles, but in fact the opposite is true. Whereas print content can disappear soon after circulation, content published online can survive indefinitely. For this reason, when writing for the web, you need to think doubly carefully about what opinions you are happy to have popping up on Google searches for your name.
So there you have it. Seven reasons why medium matters. Now you just need to figure out what you’re going to say…
After a number of years in senior marketing and communications roles, including Head of Public relations for a marketing group in London, Emily set up Emily Cagle Communications in September 2008. Emily Cagle has a proven track record in designing and implementing effective campaigns for both corporate and consumer facing clients which spans almost ten years. She is hugely passionate about what she does and with that comes an unswerving drive to meet and exceed targets for each and every client she works with. Emily regularly blogs on Writing, Copyediting, Proofreading and PR, and her writing has appeared in a range of business publications. You can also find Emily on LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook.
“If proofreading saved you time, money and your reputation, wouldn’t you find time to do it?”
So, first question – why proofread? Discovering a typo on your website is an irritant, and even an embarrassment if spotted by a customer. It also costs you time and money to put right – especially if it’s in a piece of printed literature. I’ve known people decline to see a potential supplier as a result of simple, and seemingly minor, typos.
Human error
Even if your copywriter has produced a word-perfect piece of content, someone else might be responsible for getting it onto your website or out to print. On top of that, someone else might be checking it for you. This is where the errors occur. We all make mistakes.
We’ve probably all seen ‘typo-creep’. As copy goes from one person to another their idiosyncrasies are added. In my experience, even if the whole process is undertaken by one person, most of us seem less effective at checking our own work than having someone else look at it.
There are some really simple things we can do to avoid embarrassment, and by planning in a bit of extra time at the end of your production process, costly mistakes can be spotted before they happen.
10 top tips to catch typos
Block-out time in your diary – take proofreading seriously.
Print it out – things never look the same on screen.
Read it away from your desk – somewhere quiet where you won’t be disturbed.
Mark-up errors clearly – a pen in a different colour helps because comments or ‘mark-ups’ can be seen easily. (Another tip if you are making amendments to a document that someone else has marked-up – tick them off in yet another colour as you go).
Have a dictionary and thesaurus on hand – don’t rely on computer spell-checks. Even better, use agreed spelling conventions as used by your organisation (e.g. do you say ‘e-mail’, ‘email’ or ‘electronic mail’?).
Look out for American spellings/dictionaries – not everyone is aware of their computer language settings.
Ask an independent person to look at it – a fresh pair of eyes will see things that you just won’t.
Read it with a second person – four eyes are better than two. One person looks at the latest output, the other reads the approved copy sheet out loud (including announcing where the punctuation, spaces and capital letters appear).
Read it backwards in order for you to avoid ‘filling in the next word yourself’. Try it – it’s funny how mistakes jump out at you.
Read it more than once – check all drafts and versions, and read them more than once. Keep reading them until your sheet has no comments or mark-ups.
What’s the difference between ‘copy’ and ‘artwork’?
A ‘copy document’ is different to a piece of laid out print-ready artwork, or a web page. I believe each should be approached slightly differently:
Copy document: Arguably, this is a piece of raw text, probably written using some form of word processing software like Microsoft Word. Potentially, this will not be published in the layout or format in which it is originally produced. It is more likely to be re-styled/laid-out into a design layout, or piece of artwork as described below.
Artwork: A layout that has been produced by a professional marketing supplier (like a graphic designer, desk top publisher, printer or web developer/designer). It will then be ‘published’, or ‘printed’ somehow.
More than just spelling:
It’s not just about spelling – check for grammar too.
Check for Brand Guidelines (as well as typefaces and colours, check for tone of voice and spelling conventions).
Check for factual accuracy – if you have quoted facts, are they true, proven and/or credited to a source?
Check for legalities – are you qualified to make the claims that you do, and are they legally acceptable?
Check for layout – if you are proof reading a piece of artwork, is it laid out correctly? Are there any stray widows or orphans for example (words left on their own at the beginning or end of a line)?
Check any contact details – call telephone numbers and visit URLs from a fresh browser.
It’s worth noting that if you are paying someone else to write copy for you, you need to ensure that you understand how many stages are included in the price of developing that copy to an approved draft. Then, also agree what constitutes a chargeable amendment thereafter. Always bear in mind, and be clear with your supplier, that you shouldn’t be expected pay to correct mistakes that they have made.
And finally, a mark-up isn’t necessarily a mistake – it could simply mean a suggested change. Careful proofreading saves time and money in unseen errors and increases the likelihood of a consistently high quality impression of your business. Make sure it forms part of your marketing skill-set and has been allowed for in your content delivery plan.
Oh, and are we immune to typos? Nobody is. We’re sure a few will have slipped through the net on this site… we’re busy proofing our clients’ work. You know… cobbler’s children and all that. So, if you do spot any errors, please let us know. We appreciate a fresh pair of eyes.
Clear Thought Consulting works with small businesses, equipping them with the marketing strategies, suppliers, skills and set-up that they need to become bigger businesses. We do this by planning and delivering 12-month marketing transformation programmes – supporting a small business through a step-by-step process to making marketing pay. We firmly believe that when you can’t out-spend your competition, you have to out-think them.
This is a guest post from Heather Townsend, The Efficiency Coach. Sales and marketing is a goal-centred discipline, and with a new financial year in sight, we asked Heather to give us some pointers on making them real, and getting the whole team on-board.
Every January, it seems like the coaching and training world gets really excited about the importance of setting meaningful and achievable goals. Whilst, I’m not going to disagree with the importance of goal-setting, I believe that it is more important to actually achieve your goals. Take a moment to reflect, how many times have you set business or personal goals which you lose interest or focus in, after a couple of months have passed? As a business owner, it is your role to keep your organisation focused and energised on working towards your vision.
My question is, how do you make sure your organisation actually achieves the goals, it has set itself?
Firstly, you have to have some goals set to achieve. Now you are going to look at me and say, ‘yes, stupid, of course we have them’. What I want you to honestly answer is whether your goals for the organisation have been cascaded down your organisation. I.e. is everyone within your business is targeted to working towards the goals of the organisation? If I were to talk with your employees could they tell me what their personal goals are, and how these will help the company achieve its goals?
For goals to be achieved, they need to be visible for everyone within your company. I’m not talking about the big fanfare that you may have started when you set the annual goals for the organisation. I’m talking about the day-in-day-out visibility that these goals need. Do you have visual reminders for staff about the organisation’s goals? Are your line managers regularly sitting down with their team and direct reports and talking about the individual, team, departmental and company progress against these goals? In your regular updates to your staff are you talking about company progress against these goals? More often than not, team and individual goals and objectives get written on a piece of paper and stuck in a drawer getting dusty, until the next annual performance review. (And, that’s if your organisation actually does them!)
The only thing you can rely on in this funny old business world is uncertainty. Far too many companies go through an annual goal-setting process, and then tenaciously stick to these goals for the next twelve months, regardless of market or trading conditions. Goals are made to be re-set and re-assessed as you go through the year. Whilst, I’m not advocating resetting your goals every week, it’s worth looking at your company’s goals quarterly and when your results and evidence suggests it, re-adjusting these goals. Many a company has gone under by spending to a sales forecast level which they are never going to meet.
I’m going to suggest something rather controversial… You have more chance of achieving your company’s goals if your staff feel some attachment or ownership of these goals. To get this feeling of attachment, how about involving them in the decision making process of ‘how’ the company is going to achieve its goals? Or, and this is the slightly controversial part, how about setting up a bonus pot to be distributed amongst all staff if the company achieves its goals?
Many individuals and companies are forever looking and driving forward. Whilst this is a very positive attitude, it is worth looking back to learn, and to take time out to celebrate successes. This reflect and review time is vital to help your company achieve its next set of goals.
What are you going to do slightly different this financial year to increase your odds of achieving both your personal and business goals?
Heather Townsend is the driving force behind The Efficiency Coach. She is a highly experienced Consultant, Trainer and Executive Coach with over 10 years experience in many diverse businesses including Tesco, Procter & Gamble, BDO Stoy Hayward LLP. Heather recently won a business award, for best business tip – as voted for by the 3500+ members of the Everywoman network. Her strengths are an ability to quickly connect and understand people – she is renowned for quickly cutting to the heart of an issue for her clients. Her clients prize her ability to create a safe space for them to talk though, and create plans and actions to tackle the issues that really matter. Heather is an Associate Certified Credential coach with the International Coaching Federation, Association of Career Professionals International and the CIPD.
Content marketing, or thought leadership, is a real buzzword at the moment. The idea being that you create high quality content that your audience finds useful, to demonstrate your credentials and move people through the sales process. But, as a marketer, it can be tricky to work out which piece of content to use when, and for what purpose. What do you produce? A Blog? A Whitepaper? A Webinar? A Webcast? An Opinion piece? It can be a real challenge to know what each tool is, let alone which to use when.
In an earlier Blog, I’ve talked about the interplay between time and tone as criteria by which to determine an appropriate tool for the job. This is about hitting the right emotional tone, and not overloading people with too much content too soon. Understanding this interplay is key to really mastering content, or thought leadership, marketing. More »
So, if you get content marketing conceptually, this list of the key types of marketing content might be useful for configuring a mix of tools through the sales funnel:
Blog: A Blog is a short piece that should take about 5-10 minutes to read. It can be used to give your opinion on something or to give some brief advice. In the latter, things that go down well are ’10 top tips’, checklists and the like. These are useful at the beginning of the sales process, it gives the reader a taste of what they can expect from you, both in terms of style and content.
Opinion piece: You can issue an opinion piece as an item of content in itself. This is typically slightly longer than a Blog, but not enough for a paper – say about 1000 words. These could simply be an ‘In my opinion’ category on your blog, or as a section of your website. These are also useful starting points for PR. See this client example: Fraudscreen »
White paper: A white paper is a more detailed piece, usually upwards of 2000 words. It needs to be instructive or factual. Often people issue white papers to present and discuss research findings. These are usually a little further down the sales funnel, when they’ve determined that you’re worth listening to, and they’re looking for a bit more meat. To be a true white paper, it can’t be too salesy.
Discussion paper: This is a sort of white paper ‘light’ in which you can be more opinionated and discursive. A useful format for laying out your response on a matter of controversy. Again, slightly further down the sales funnel, but this is more about your style and approach, than about factual substance. These can be a little more salesy, but still useful in and of itself. See this client example: Fraudscreen »
Webinar: This is a web seminar. An online event in which you present useful or factual material, usually with a live Q&A. These are typically hosted by experts in your organisation, and as such are excellent at demonstrating your credentials. People usually attend these when they’ve checked you out a little already. You’re likely to be taking an hour of their time, so they need to feel that it is worth it. Excellent for moving leads from unqualified to qualified. See case study »
Webcast: A webcast is simply a pre-recorded piece of content viewed online. This could be a recording of the live event above, or a presentation version of a white paper or discussion paper. These are useful in follow-up to people who couldn’t attend the live event, or those who’ve downloaded a paper. See Clear Thought examples »
Case study: A case study is a run down of a successful project you’ve delivered. Once you have the content, you can re-use a case study in a number of ways:
A a short video interview, posted on your site, in an email, presented in creds. See video example »
As an article and download on your website.
As content to attach to a sales follow-up email.
As excerpts placed in proposals and tenders.
Each of these can be used as the call-to-action in a campaign, as content to increase search traffic to your site, and you should also cross promote from one to the other.
Clear Thought Consulting works with small businesses, equipping them with the marketing strategies, suppliers, skills and set-up that they need to become bigger businesses. We do this by planning and delivering 12-month marketing transformation programmes – supporting a small business through a step-by-step process to making marketing pay. We firmly believe that when you can’t out-spend your competition, you have to out-think them.
We love a good business book, and here’s one we often turn to…
“The Manager’s Book of Checklists” by Derek Rowntree
(c) Derek Rowntree, 1996, 2006
Third Edition, 2006, Pearson Education. First published 1996.
This is a book that I’ve gone back to time and time again. It is a very simple concept, where Derek has compiled a checklist for the common activities and challenges faced by managers of all shapes and sizes. It’s a great resource for someone in a management position for the first time, or an experienced manager looking for a bit of a reminder.
The book is split into broad topic areas, with an introduction to the key concepts at the beginning of the chapter, and then a collection of 5-10 checklists relating to that area. The book covers:
Managing your job: from job specification to managing stress.
Managing operations: from setting quality standards to making decisions.
Managing finance: from setting a budget to controlling costs.
Managing people: from recruitment to discipline.
Managing information: from answering the phone to managing IT.
Managing your career: from keeping up to date to maintaining your integrity.
I wouldn’t suggest that the book replaces proper training, or experience, but it is a great starting place. There’s nothing more daunting than a blank sheet of paper. This book helps you think about the key things that you need to consider. From there you can seek out specialist advice, information or training to ensure that you have it covered.
It’s not a book to read cover-to-cover. It is a great resource to have to hand as a starting point on common projects and issues that will almost certainly come your way as you progress through your career. Available on Amazon >
Clear Thought Consulting works with small businesses, equipping them with the marketing strategies, suppliers, skills and set-up that they need to become bigger businesses. We do this by planning and delivering 12-month marketing transformation programmes – supporting a small business through a step-by-step process to making marketing pay. We firmly believe that when you can’t out-spend your competition, you have to out-think them.
Making your website marketing-ready is one of the keys to make the most of free. A site that doesn’t have the basics right can seriously limit your ability to maximise the social media and online word-of-mouth opportunities that now exist for businesses large and small.
We firmly believe that when you can’t out-spend the competition, you have to out-think them.
But, to do this you need the right tools and the discipline to maintain a little website house-keeping. A key element in website build that impacts your ability to do this is the Meta Data, which is often totally unseen, but always totally crucial.
You need to make sure that you have the following:
A Favicon
Meta Titles
Meta Descriptions
Meta Tags
Sensible URL structures
Favicon – what is it and why do you need one?
A Favicon is the little icon that appears in the tab of a web browser when you have a few pages open in one window. With most web browsers now allowing people to have multiple pages open at a time with ‘tabs’ to swap between them, Favicons have become best-practice. They help people to quickly navigate between the tabs that they have open in their browser. Not having one makes your site look unprofessional in comparison – and being as people are likely to have your site open alongside others, there really is nowhere to hide on this one. If you don’t have a Favicon, the browser will default to showing an empty white box, as shown on the far right tab on the image below.
Top tip on Favicons: Get the image created on a transparent background so that it looks good against the grey of a browser window. It looks a bit naff if your image is on a white square cut-out.
Comparison of a site with and without a Favicon
Meta Titles – what are they and why do you need them?
A Meta Title is a crucial piece of copy. When you are writing copy for your web page, you need to make sure that you also write a one-liner suitable for this purpose. This is the copy that sits in the Tab or Window header on your browser. It is also picked up in social media, like Facebook and LinkedIn, when you post a link. So, if you have this right, it means that whomever shares a link to your page, the same title will pre-populate as the details are shared virally. I’ve pointed out below where the Meta Title has been picked up automatically. If you have no data, this will appear blank when it is shared in this way.
Top tip with Meta Titles:Make the the first 110 characters self-contained, so that they can be used effectively on Twitter with space for a URL or Re-tweet.
Posting a link as news in LinkedIn
Sharing a link on Facebook
Meta Descriptions – what are they and why do you need them?
Meta Descriptions are longer pieces of copy that don’t actually appear anywhere on the page in question. They only come into play when a search engine is indexing your site, or when your pages are shared in a social media setting. On the images above we’ve pointed to the Meta Titles, the Meta Descriptions can be seen in the boxes below the Titles, where a longer description is shown.
Top tip with Meta Descriptions: Write the copy so that it stands alone. As you’ll see above, when it is shared in social media settings, the copy appears on its own and needs to make sense in and of itself.
Meta Tags – what are they and why do you need them?
Meta Tags are keywords related to a particular page. Search engines use them to help work out what the page is about. Site search functions often use them to help find content within a site, and you can also use them to create ‘Tag Clouds’ on your site. Tag clouds are a collection of words (your tags) that grow in size the more you use them. When you click on the word in question, you’d see a list of all the pages with that word attached.
URL structures – what makes sense and why is this important?
URLs are the strings that you put into your browser to reach a specific page on a site. On less well built websites the URL structure can be a little clunky, generating URLs with strings of random numbers. Search engines, and human beings, appreciate things that they understand. You need to make your URL make sense for both. Having an intuitive URL is also useful for when you want to put links on direct mail, or on the footer of your emails, so that they are broadly memorable. A string of numbers can be more than a bit off-putting.
A URL structure can also help people to understand where they are in your site. Levels of navigation should be reflected in the URL so that people know where they are. For example company.co.uk/section-name/product.
Top tips on URL structures: Never leave spaces or use symbols (£@&*%) in your URLs. If you leave a space, hyperlinks look very strange as they will fill in with % where there’s a space. If you use symbols you’re likely to cause errors, so our advice is just not to do it.
Usability and Search Engine Optimisation
Ooh, and the elephant in the room here is SEO. Meta Data is an SEO fundamental. These tips are mainly about the marketing-readiness of your site. But, it is also worth noting that they all also impact on the usability and search-friendliness of your site. Your Meta Data is completely visible to a search engine. Use it to promote your keywords as part of a search strategy, but make it also make sense to real people because in a social media setting your Meta Data is exposed for all to see.
Top tip here is that you need to be able to set Meta Data for each and every page, not across the whole site. And, you need to include it as a requirement in your brief to a web copywriter when you’re having web copy written.
So, when you’re getting a website built or enhanced, have a really good think about your Meta Data. Getting it right will help you to make the most of the free marketing opportunities that exist in the socially-networked world in which your business now operates (whether you like it or not).
Clear Thought Consulting works with small businesses, equipping them with the marketing strategies, suppliers, skills and set-up that they need to become bigger businesses. We do this by planning and delivering 12-month marketing transformation programmes – supporting a small business through a step-by-step process to making marketing pay. We firmly believe that when you can’t out-spend your competition, you have to out-think them.
“The only stupid question is the one you don’t ask”
Any questions?
Call me ancient, but I still like some of the old fashioned terminology and methods used in the modern and online world of marketing today. But what does it all mean, and what about all those acronyms?
Even experienced business owners and qualified marketing professionals come across words and phrases that just don’t make sense. Here are ten random marketing questions I’ve been asked in the last month that you might also want to know the answer to…
1. What do the letters in DMU mean? DMU – ‘Decision Making Unit’: The people or person involved in making the overall buying decision – e.g the user, the gate-keeper, the influencer, the holder of the purse strings, etc.
2. What does ATL, BTL and TTL mean? BTL – ‘Below The Line’. ATL – ‘Above The Line’. TTL – ‘Through The Line’: Essentially marketing, advertising or promotional techniques used in business.
Activities carried out through mass media, such as television, radio and newspaper, can loosely be classed as above the line promotion.
The term ‘below the line’ refers to forms of non-media communication, even non-media advertising, like ambient media (pavement painting, ads on miscellaneous objects, projections on the side of buildings).
‘Through the line’ refers to an promotional strategy involving both above and below the line communications in which one form of promotion points the target to another thereby crossing the ‘line’. An example would be a TV commercial that says ‘go to our website to download XYZ paper’ or ‘Look out for the leaflet coming through your door’.
I’d love to one day actually see this ‘line’, but I think it’s getting pretty blurred and meaningless. But, if you hear people use it, this is probably what they’re talking about.
3. Is there a standard equation of how much a company should spend on marketing vs turn over. No, it does depend on your objectives. But a good starting point is between 3% and 5% of targeted revenue.
4. Is there a way I can see how many hits my website is getting? Yes, and so much more. You can ask a specialist or your web agency to run some reports for you. Or, do it yourself using Google’s FREE software ‘Google Analytics’. Your web agency may have to set you up initially, but it’s a great little tool for business owners and marketers: http://www.google.com/analytics/
5. What is the difference between ‘RGB’ and ‘CMYK’, and what does the ‘K’ in CMYK mean?
RGB –‘Red, Green and Blue’: A scientific model in which red, green and blue light is added together to make any other colour. For example, if you overlap green and red you get yellow; blue and red you get pink. Red, green and blue are the coloured tubes that make up your TV or monitor screen (have a look through a magnifying glass). These are often referenced in colour balancing photos or pictures, or in an ‘on-screen’ environment.
CMYK – ‘Cyan (blue), magenta (pink), yellow and ‘key colour’ (black)’. These are the coloured inks used in traditional lithographic printing. An image or text is split into these four colours and made into separate printer’s plate using a series of dots. When the layers of colours are printed on top of each other using the plates, they make practically any other colour (have a look at an image in a magazine through a magnifying glass to see the dots).
K – The K in CMYK stands for ‘Key’ and is used rather than ‘B’ (to avoid confusion with ‘blue’). It in facts refers to the first plate used in the printing process (the ‘key plate’), which is the first layer of printed ink with which you align the other three-coloured plates.
It’s got nothing to do with computers (and over the years, I’ve heard many definitions, but I think this is the most accurate). These days you’ll hear a reference to a HEX, this is the computing version of one of the above. So, when a designer is giving you colour references, ask for RGB, CMYK and HEX so that you have all future production requirements covered.
6. What does URL, PDF and JPG stand for?
URL – ‘Unique Resource Locator’ (The location of a file on the Internet).
PDF – ‘Portable Document Format’.
JPEG – In computing, JPEG is a commonly used method of compression for photographic images. The name JPEG stands for ‘Joint Photographic Experts Group’, the name of the committee that created the standard.
7. What’s the difference between ‘Push’ and ‘Pull’?
Push – a marketing method that uses the channel (retailer, distributor or agent for example) to ‘push’ products to the end-user.
Pull – a marketing method that talks directly to end-users or customers and literally delivers them to your door or website. ‘Ring this number for a quote today’, ‘Buy online at www…’
There are a few nuances to this… indeed we could write a thesis on it, but this description gives you a broad idea of the concept.
8. What’s the difference between ‘Quantitative’ and ‘Qualitative’ research? The first uses numerical and statistical data gathered through opinion polls and surveys for example. The second uses data and subjective feedback from interviews, focus groups, etc. Rule of thumb; the former is usually facts and figures, the latter is most often opinion.
9. What does PPC mean? PPC – ‘Pay per click’. Payment is based on each on-line click-through from an advertisement or link.
10. What does ‘mark-up’ mean?
[1.] Commission or handling fee added to a bought in cost for onward sale.
[2.] Handwritten or electronic notes or symbols used to indicate corrections to a piece of copy or other ‘output’ or ‘layout’ (hard copy, PDF or other soft document). When ‘marking up’ any hard copy output, we always recommend using a coloured pen (red usually), and distinctive proof reading marks or symbols (traditional type setter’s marks). They take up less space, and are kind of industry ‘short hand’. There a good reference here: http://www.ngomedia.org.uk/proofmarks.pdf. Always proof read when you are fresh, even better get someone else to check your work.
Now this isn’t a challenge, but if you are new to marketing and have a burning question about an annoying three letter word, or a puzzling phrase, drop a Clear Thinker a line on Twitter @clear_thinking and we’ll find out what it means.
Alternatively, there quite a good glossary here: http://www.mshmgi.com/glossary,A,.html. It’s an American site, but one of the better sites that I have seen for finding things alphabetically.
One of specialisms here at Clear Thought is working with people who are new to marketing. Typically over 12-months, we give them the skills and confidence that they need to make marketing pay. If you have someone in your business who needs a little support to get them up to speed on all-things marketing, drop us a line.
Clear Thought Consulting works with small businesses, equipping them with the marketing strategies, suppliers, skills and set-up that they need to become bigger businesses. We do this by planning and delivering 12-month marketing transformation programmes – supporting a small business through a step-by-step process to making marketing pay. We firmly believe that when you can’t out-spend your competition, you have to out-think them.
Content marketing is a bit of a buzzword at the moment. As someone who was working on whitepapers for Oracle and others nearly a decade ago, I find the supposed newness quite amusing. However, far out-weighing the amusement is the alarm with which I observe how some marketers, or business people doing a bit of their own marketing, seem to think that because they have ‘content’ that this gives them the right to inflict it on people.
Content marketing, or thought leadership, works best when you treat permission as a precious and fragile thing.
Typical content campaigns include a paper, an online event or an article – an instructive and valuable piece of content that you believe your market will value. Here I am doing it now. The moot point here is that you believe that they will find it valuable, only they know whether it is or not. Your content is a great marketing tool when people choose to read it or engage with it.
Furthermore, the act of opting-in is a flag as to their interest, and it should help you measure your effectiveness too. By making people aware that the content is there, and then letting them choose whether to read it, you know that people have moved from awareness to interest.
Not only is permission the right thing to do for your business to measure actual marketing effectiveness, it is also legally required as part of the Data Protection Act, and industry best-practice. Common actions that are rife, and that remove this choice, and irritate your audience, are:
Assuming email permission because someone gave you their business card.
Signing up customers and prospects to your eNews without asking first.
Making the unsubscribe process difficult.
Twitter and LinkedIn are opt-in mediums, but even there you need to take care. Automated DMs, or replies to individuals linking to your content can be seen as over-stepping the ‘psychological contract’ of the permission they gave. On email, the boundaries are pretty clear, and legally defined.
So, how do you get people to give you permission?
We send a monthly opt-in request email. Any business cards or contacts we’ve made in the month go in to our database tagged with a specific campaign code. At the end of the month, those people receive an email asking if they’d like to opt-in to our monthly eNews. This covers us legally and maintains our integrity.
Here are some other techniques:
Put a link to a sign-up form where people give you permission to stay in touch on email on email footers.
Ask people when they give you their business card, and note it on the back.
Provide an excerpt to an article, then require registration to see a more detailed version, in which you ask for permission.
Put a prominent link to your sign-up form on your website.
Post a link to your opt-in form on Twitter, LinkedIn or Facebook Fan Page every few weeks for a day.
One final note. Take care not to burn permission once you have it. Too much or too little contact once permission is given can turn people off. And, of course, relevance is key. You can be smart on this by allowing people to select the kinds of things they want to hear about, or the frequency of contact that they are comfortable with on your sign-up form. Keep an eye on your unsubscribes rates, this will give you an idea of whether you’re trampling on hard-won consent.
So, in response to Heather Townsend who tweeted this morning: “Am I just naive, but it feels very bad manners to sign someone up to your mailing list just because you have met them?” – No, you are not naive, permission is your gift to give, and their right to earn.
Clear Thought Consulting works with small businesses, equipping them with the marketing strategies, suppliers, skills and set-up that they need to become bigger businesses. We do this by planning and delivering 12-month marketing transformation programmes – supporting a small business through a step-by-step process to making marketing pay. We firmly believe that when you can’t out-spend your competition, you have to out-think them.
‘Business-as-usual’ is the term that we all use for the things we do every day while doing our job, or running our businesses. With some clear thinking and a little bit of planning, these things can be transformed into effective marketing vehicles:
1. BUSINESS CARDS: These are mini advertisements for your company. They deliver more than just your contact details – they represent your brand, personality and values (long after you have left the room). Use them to communicate your key messages, USP, or an offer. With digital print being so affordable these days, how about a double-sided option, or more than one design, with tailored messages for distinct audiences? Customers might enjoy trying to collect the set and show them to others. When Bryony and I worked at Mason Zimbler, the business cards were a real talking point – we each had our own photo that characterised us, and on the reverse was an image in which you had to find the letter M and Z. Great to break the ice when networking. Take a look at Moo.com for some affordable options.
2. INVOICES: Here’s a ready-made vessel for marketing messages. You’re sending it anyway, so why not include some information that your customers might find useful. Think about redesigning your invoice template to announce a special offer, or to request confirmation of contact details. Or, include a printed insert (or message on your email, if you email it) talking about your latest products and services. Think about how your bank does it, they’re pretty sophisticated on this one, they’ll give you some great ideas.
3. AUTO-RESPONSES: Are there processes that trigger automated emails from your company? Use your auto-response messages to also include a marketing message, or perhaps a hyperlink to something interesting on your website. This is even better if it is relevant to the action they’ve just taken, like a link to an appropriate ‘How-To’ article or related presentation you’ve posted online.
4. EMAIL SIGNATURES: As with auto-responses, a well considered email signature is yet another message delivery opportunity. Most email clients allow you to edit your signature block and, like we do, you can add hyperlinks to blogs or web articles. We change ours weekly and draw people’s attention to it, so that they start looking out for new content. If you’re really smart, you can make custom links for this, so you can track the traffic it generates.
5. WEBSITE/LOG-IN PAGES: If you invest in a simple Content Management System (CMS) for your website, you can easily keep your home page (and portal/log-in pages) up-to-the-minute with news and announcements. If not, think about getting a developer to add an editable box for a relevant message at log-in or log-out pages at the very least. Regular visitors to your site will appreciate the variety, and new ones will be reassured that you’re current and topical. Think ahead too, about how to keep your ‘How-Tos’, news and case studies current.
6. TELEPHONE SERVICE: If you have the ability, try recording a friendly marketing message instead of ‘on hold’ music. It might even be as simple as directing people to your website, but it is even better if it a bit more targeted. For example, if it is a support line, it might be helpful to direct them to help articles on your site, or ways of contacting you by email. Consider something similar for your personal answer phone message on your mobile too. No harm in pointing people at other ways to get hold of you, or content that they might find interesting.
7. SOCIAL MEDIA: Updating your status on Linked in, FaceBook, or any other social media site is quick, easy and normally free (just your time required). Get into the habit of doing it every Monday morning before your week begins and it’s job done! Point people at blogs, news articles or case studies and keep re-cycling the content. If you have a SmartPhone, this can be done en route to work. A job ticked off on the bus or train always feels good.
8. WORD OF MOUTH: Keep talking. To customers, suppliers, staff and family. If you’ve got something new make sure all your team also knows about it, so that they can drop it in to conversations they have with customers, prospects, or suppliers. A Monday morning team huddle might be just the thing to make sure everyone knows what’s new. If it is a campaign, you might set people targets for the number of people they tell, and give them ‘cut and paste’ copy to go in an email to people they think might be interested. Along with Social Media, building awareness through word-of-mouth enforces your reputation and ensures you are front of mind. And it’s free.
9. FREE LISTINGS: Spend a little time researching sites where your company can be listed. Even if people don’t directly find you this way, it is really helpful for SEO purposes to build good quality links to your site. Remember to keep a record in order to check them regularly to ensure that your entry is up to date. There’s nothing worse than a visitor finding you by this method and the information is stale. BT Tradespace might be a good starting point. Here are our pages on there. With the content readily to hand, this took us an hour or so to set-up, and we get about 10 visitors a week to it.
10. NETWORKING: Just like word-of-mouth, networking is essential to keep you front-of-mind and up-to-date with what is happening in your industry. A lot of events are free, but many are by subscription. Choose your events wisely and set aside time each month to attend and follow-up. Do you add people to LinkedIn when you back to your desk? Do you drop them an opt-in request to your marketing emails? How you follow-up can significantly improve the results you get from networking. Make a list of business-as-usual follow-up activities you undertake after any networking meeting.
Marketing doesn’t need to be hard. A bit of clear thinking and a personal resolve to add it into the things you do everyday can work wonders. If you’re doing it anyway, just make it work a bit harder for you. If you would like more advice on how to make the things you do every day go a little further, or indeed become a part of your marketing mix, talk to a Clear Thinker.
Clear Thought Consulting works with small businesses, equipping them with the marketing strategies, suppliers, skills and set-up that they need to become bigger businesses. We do this by planning and delivering 12-month marketing transformation programmes – supporting a small business through a step-by-step process to making marketing pay. We firmly believe that when you can’t out-spend your competition, you have to out-think them.
Times are changing. If you’re still doing the same marketing activities that you were doing three years ago (print and broadcast ads?), then perhaps it’s time for a bit of clear thinking. What will you do differently this year?
Here are 10 things you can do to stand out from the crowd in 2010, and beat your competitors to customers.
MARKETING INTEGRATION: Consider updating your marketing toolkit to include some of the latest marketing techniques that could make a difference to how your customers buy from you, and get your message out to potential new customers. Don’t do a wholesale digital replacement of your tookit, your marketing toolkit should be a powerful mix of complementary online and offline. Ask: Does your toolkit support your sales process and PR effort efficiently? Does is reach out to customers in their space, and talk to them in their language? Is it ensuring that your online presence is stronger than the competition?
ANALYSIS: Talk to your customers and employees regularly to find out what people are saying about you, your industry and the competition. Find out what they like about your product and/or services and what they don’t. Ask them what you could do to make their lives easier. Listen to your employees too, and make sure they are up-to-speed and ‘skilled/tooled-up’ to do their jobs properly. Ask them to read forums and blogs regularly. Use online tools like Kampyle, Google Analytics and other ‘Buzz’ monitoring to pick up the wealth of intelligence out there online.
REFRESH: When was the last time you updated the content on your website? Added a news article, or new product offering? Updated your key messages? Added a blog? Are your sales people equipped with case studies from the last six months, not the last six years? Also, have you understood the latest legal obligations?
KEEP UP-TO-DATE: This time of year is the ideal time to look at your customer database. Could you take this opportunity to clean your data and update records, revisit dormant ones or evaluate non-profitable ones? Think about getting back in touch with old customers that perhaps haven’t bought for a while. Are they fully up to speed with your latest offer and news article? Also, have a look at activating all those memberships and clubs you’ve been thinking about, but have never quite got around to. With the Internet becoming totally integrated with almost all sales and marketing activity, how compliant are you regarding the data protection, permission act or the DDA (Disability Discrimination Act)?
ENGAGE: Your products and services might have been market leading when you launched them, is this still true? Do you know who your audience is and how to engage them? Take another look at your USP (unique selling point) and guarantee. How powerful is your offer? How does it compare to the competition? What could you do to make it even more engaging?
TECH ENABLED: Think hard about how the internet is working for you. If you Google your company, what comes up in the search results? What are people saying about you on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, etc? What could you say about your industry? If you haven’t already, consider joining online networks like Linked In and Twitter, and start blogging. If you don’t, your competitors will. The web is your shop window. Your digital footprint goes well beyond your website.
INVEST: Think about investing your time, not just your money in some of the free things you can do to build on your marketing tool kit. Even in the downturn, marketing should be on your list of priorities. If you’re doing something that’s not working, stop doing it. If you’re doing something that does work, do it some more.
NETWORK MORE: These days more and more organisations are finding value in networking. It’s not everyone’s cup of tea, but have a look in your area at what networking events you can attend. Pick them carefully, and only attend the ones where the delegates are of interest in you. Networking is free and there are even specialist consultants available who can help with your technique. And, with some smart online networking added, you can make it really work for your business.
GET SMART: Try out-thinking rather than out-spending your competitors. New digital techniques have really levelled the playing field. Spend your money on ideas, spend your time on execution.
2010: And finally, if you haven’t got a marketing plan for 2010, think about jotting some ideas down in achievable 90 day chunks, or talk to a specialist (like us).
To kick off the decade in style, why not start by working out if your marketing pays; Clear Thought offer a marketing health check. We work with small businesses to equip them with the marketing strategies, skills, suppliers and set-up that they need to become bigger businesses.
Clear Thought Consulting works with small businesses, equipping them with the marketing strategies, suppliers, skills and set-up that they need to become bigger businesses. We do this by planning and delivering 12-month marketing transformation programmes – supporting a small business through a step-by-step process to making marketing pay. We firmly believe that when you can’t out-spend your competition, you have to out-think them.
Taking a look at our stats, and based on unique views of these posts, the Top 10 Clear Thought Blog posts of this year goes like this…
1. 10 things to include in a marketing brief
Handy tips on writing a brief for marketing that sells – what to include to make sure that your supplier is most likely to get the project right first time. Read blog »
2. What to say when, managing marketing content through the sales funnel
A quick look at the right emotional tone and volume of information people respond to at different stages in the buying process, and how to tailor your marketing material to hit the right note at each stage. Read blog »
3. What shape is your marketing budget
An approach to setting your marketing budget that makes sure that you maintain an integrated mix of activity that supports every stage in your sales funnel. Read blog »
4. How to create powerful sales tools from your desk
A seven step guide to creating compelling and professional sales and marketing materials using Microsoft Office. Includes two case studies. Read blog »
5. B2B Social Media; Be There, Be Relevant, Be Proven
Practical advice that any B2B marketer, business owner or sales person can put into practice to generate leads through social media. Read blog »
6. A typical thought leadership campaign
A quick run-down and checklist of the things to include in a thought leadership campaign. Particularly powerful in B2B or complex sales processes. Read blog »
7. Treat your website like a member of your team
Practical advise for anyone in laying the ground rules for how to approach your website as a function in your business, rather than as a one-off project. Read blog »
8. One piece of content, 20 ways to use it
20 ideas for things you can do with just one piece of content, like a presentation or a paper – giving you ways to squeeze more from your marketing budget. Read blog »
9. What are your social media rules?
In this blog, Bryony shared her own rules to managing the way she interacts with friends, colleagues and acquaintances on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Read blog »
10. The Jamie Oliver approach to marketing
Reflections from attending the B2B Lead Nurturing event in September, looking at how marketing wants to feed sales with health food, when they are likely to have a taste for junk food. Read blog »
Clear Thought Consulting works with small businesses, equipping them with the marketing strategies, suppliers, skills and set-up that they need to become bigger businesses. We do this by planning and delivering 12-month marketing transformation programmes – supporting a small business through a step-by-step process to making marketing pay. We firmly believe that when you can’t out-spend your competition, you have to out-think them.
If you’ve created a piece of marketing material, here are 20 ideas for squeezing every last drop of value from it. Most of which take time and energy, rather than money, so that you can make your marketing budget go further.
With a nod to John Watton, recently named B2B Marketing Magazine‘s ‘B2B Marketer of the Year’, this is a quick blog on what he affectionately calls “pimping your content”.
First off, what do we mean by content and content marketing?
We all produce powerful content all of the time, for example a presentation you put together for a client, a talk you gave at a networking event, some training material you’ve produced for staff or clients. All a great starting point for a bit of market-facing content. You can, of course, generate content especially for marketing purposes. For example, commissioning some research to prepare a paper, or writing a How-to guide or checklist.
So, let’s say you’ve gone to the trouble of collating some compelling and relevant thoughts that your target market might find interesting, here are…
20 ideas for things you can do with your marketing content:
Turn it into a paper that can be downloaded from your site as a PDF in return for data capture.
Knock up some slides and put it on SlideShare, even better add a little voiceover.
Video yourself giving an abridged version and pop it on You-Tube.
Embed your SlideShare or You-Tube content on your website.
Post your SlideShare or You-Tube content on your company Facebook page.
Use the content to write a 500 word article and submit it to the free article sites, or use a professional to help you. We like NikkiPilkington.com
Sell it in as an opinion piece to a relevant press title.
Use the content to host an online event, like a live web seminar. Check out EventBrite for ways to do this really cost-effectively.
Contact local networking groups, like Business Link or FSB and offer to give a talk on the subject.
Tweet a link to your download, SlideShare, You-Tube, press article, etc.
Write it up as a Blog in your company Blog (what do you mean you don’t have one? Ridiculous!)
Offer it as a guest Blog on relevant other blog sites.
Use it as the basis for intelligent comments on Blogs and Forums, ideally with a link back to your download, presso, etc.
Add to a library of comment that you have available when responding to press features.
Turn the content into a short training session and offer it as value-add to existing clients.
Use the same content to run a paid-for training event for your market.
Run an internal ‘show & tell’ to get your team up-to-date on the subject.
In small business marketing, every penny counts – so if you have some content make sure it works really hard for you.
Also don’t be shy in using it, re-using it and re-using it again. At the B2B Marketing Lead Nurturing event (30 Sept 2009), John sagely reminded us that if, as marketers, we’re totally bored by a piece of content, then the market has probably only just noticed it. If the material is relevant, interesting, and not date-defined, you can probably dine out on it for six months to a year, at the very least. Probably longer. I mean, for each new follower on Twitter, for example, it is effectively a brand new piece… don’t be shy in showing them your best stuff.
Clear Thought Consulting works with small businesses, equipping them with the marketing strategies, suppliers, skills and set-up that they need to become bigger businesses. We do this by planning and delivering 12-month marketing transformation programmes – supporting a small business through a step-by-step process to making marketing pay. We firmly believe that when you can’t out-spend your competition, you have to out-think them.
“The average human can’t remember more than seven things at once”.
No matter what you do for a living, you’ve probably got dozens of things to remember, and they’ve all got to be fitted into that ever elusive seven hour day. Perhaps it’s your job – to ‘get those things done’?
At Clear Thought we love ‘getting things done’. And for us, the one thing that really helps us not to forget to do things is the good old fashioned ‘To Do List’. We also love activity plans (or ‘project plans’). In a sense, they’re just a ‘To Do’ list arranged in chronological order with assigned delivery dates.
To Do Lists are powerful because they do a number of things:
Keep you focused. Help you prioritise.
Distinguish the ‘urgent’ from the ‘important’.
Improve personal effectiveness.
Deliver huge satisfaction when you cross or tick one off.
Some people also find that having more than one list is useful. One for work life, one for personal life. One for things to do ‘THIS WEEK’, ‘NEXT WEEK’, or ‘EVENTUALLY’. And it doesn’t matter how you keep them – by pen & paper or the latest hi-tech computer or hand held devise. Just as long as you keep them (up-to-date).
I once had a client whose American-owned business sent every member of its UK and US set-up on an ‘Advanced Outlook training course’. What they found was that very quickly their team’s productivity increased through correct use of Outlook. People started to keep on top of their tasks and To Dos. They turned up to meetings on time and managed their diaries and Inboxes better. Contacts were shared and kept up-to-date avoiding wasting time and effort asking other people, or looking for numbers and addresses themselves.
This client told me that in a way, a well kept To Do list and Inbox helped him manage his time better and lowered his stress levels. Now you might think we’re stating the blindingly obvious, but it’s the simple tried and tested methods that make businesses like us work. And we like to share our ideas and processes with anyone who thinks they would benefit from them.
At Clear Thought we use an online project management system called Basecamp, with a very effective To Do list function. We offer it free to all our clients as part of our service. You can allocate ‘owners’ of the To Do item, and set a deadline for when it has to be done by. And best of all, it’s totally private, secure and accessible anywhere.
To find out more about how we online To-Do Lists to get more from marketing resources, just ask for a demo. Or, if you’ve got a gigantic To Do list and need some help getting it done (in a ‘marketing capacity type of way’), please do get in touch.
A bit of clear thinking might make that seven hour day more a bit more of a reality.
Clear Thought Consulting works with small businesses, equipping them with the marketing strategies, suppliers, skills and set-up that they need to become bigger businesses. We do this by planning and delivering 12-month marketing transformation programmes – supporting a small business through a step-by-step process to making marketing pay. We firmly believe that when you can’t out-spend your competition, you have to out-think them.
“If you don’t say what you want, you won’t want what you get”.
There’s a skill to writing a marketing brief. If you get it right your supplier will deliver first time – no surprises. If you get it wrong (or worse still don’t provide one at all), it costs time and money to put it right.
At Clear Thought we love writing briefs. It’s an integral part of our service. And we take extra care to make them engaging, relevant and factual, because a boring brief makes for an unmotivated supplier. And, ultimately a disappointing end result.
Even when a customer provides us with a good brief, we talk it through with them and make sure we all agree with the requirements. And if we disagree with an objective or output, we don’t mind adding our penneth and making specific recommendations to help get it spot-on. We can also work with you to re-write it if necessary.
TOP TIPS: When preparing a brief avoid jargon, lingo and acronyms. Include facts (no assumptions or embellishments). Use plain speaking English and include as much detail as possible. It’s easier and quicker for your supplier to cut out the superfluous rather than have to fill in some gaps. Whether you need a creative brief, web brief, copy brief or even an event brief – here’s a useful checklist to help make sure nothing gets missed:
1. YOUR PRODUCT/BACKGROUND: Include a brief summary about your company, its products and its services. Set the scene a little and try and include something about your brand, its personality and philosophy. Pricing and sales processes should also be mentioned. Will there need to be any initial research, or do you already have some research that findings that will help?
2. COMPETITION: Talk about competitor products and services. What marketing activity are they doing and are they doing it better? Include examples and/or weblinks.
3. WHAT: What is your required output? I.E. what type of activity are you looking for (an ad, a DM campaign a new website, a conference)? Think about how the deliverable will be used – in print, on a website, in a salesperson’s briefcase, etc.
4. WHY: Why are you doing this activity? What objectives are you trying to achieve (raise awareness, collect data, increase sales, get someone to do something…)?
5. WHO: Describe your target audience – who you want to talk to. Are they businesses or consumers? Describe why you think they need your product or service, and why you think they might not be buying (barriers). Try and describe the role of this person in their organisation, or what type of consumer they are. What do they read? What do they listen to?
6. WHEN: Is there as seasonal reason for undertaking this piece of activity? Are there any key milestones or deadlines that need to be met?
7. HOW: How are you going to measure the effectiveness of this activity? What will success look like? Can it be piloted or tested first?
8. LIKES & DISLIKES: It’s always useful to list some activities or brands that you have already seen and liked. Even if just website (competitor or otherwise).
9. MANDATORIES: It’s essential to provide a ‘call to action’ plus any brand/tone of voice guidelines, or list any assets that must be used or avoided. Ts & Cs or legal requirements too.
10. BUDGET: It’s much easier for a supplier to respond to a brief if they know how much you would like to spend.
There are some simple equations you can use to work out how much you should invest, but saying there is ‘no budget’ either means you expect it for free, or the sky’s the limit! Wouldn’t that be great?
If you are not 100% comfortable in briefing marketing suppliers, we can help. Clear Thought has hands-on experience both sides of the desk and can help both parties work together for a great result. We’re experienced in talking their language, and we have a number of briefing templates that mean you’re never starting from a blank sheet of paper.
Alternatively, if you already have a brief you would like us to look at, we’d be happy to come along and talk to you face-to-face. A bit of clear thinking usually improves the results you get.
There’s nothing worse than paying for a piece of work that just doesn’t do the trick. Agencies want to meet the brief… so if you get the brief right there should never be a wasted penny spent with marketing suppliers. And, in small business marketing, every penny counts.
Clear Thought Consulting works with small businesses, equipping them with the marketing strategies, suppliers, skills and set-up that they need to become bigger businesses. We do this by planning and delivering 12-month marketing transformation programmes – supporting a small business through a step-by-step process to making marketing pay. We firmly believe that when you can’t out-spend your competition, you have to out-think them.
Your digital footprint follows you everywhere. I regularly Google people, look them up on Twitter, and always see if I can find someone on LinkedIn before I meet them, so people must be doing the same to me. Reputation is extremely important, particularly when you’re in the business of giving advice, as we are here at Clear Thought.
Here are a few rules that I follow in my online networking:
#1 Facebook is for friends. I only hook up with people on Facebook who meet one or more of the following criteria, I would be comfortable for them to see me drunk and emotional or we’re related. And, even then I restrict who sees which photos, etc.
#2 LinkedIn is my professional network. Every single person on my LinkedIn I have either worked with or met in a professional capacity. There’s a real link, and I may well do, or probably have done, real paying work with them.
#3 Twitter, for me, is the equivalent of a professional networking event. Anyone can follow, hey I don’t know exactly who visits my website everyday, if they’re interested, that’s fine. But, for me it is a conversation with like-minded business people. I only say on Twitter the kinds of things I would say at a professional event… which occasionally includes chatting about what I’m up to at the weekend or my thoughts on Strictly, but broadly speaking it is about marketing, and specifically ways to make marketing pay.
These are the three social networking sites I use most often… the same principles apply to similar other sites, I’m sure you get the point.
Clear Thought Consulting works with small businesses, equipping them with the marketing strategies, suppliers, skills and set-up that they need to become bigger businesses. We do this by planning and delivering 12-month marketing transformation programmes – supporting a small business through a step-by-step process to making marketing pay. We firmly believe that when you can’t out-spend your competition, you have to out-think them.
Every business needs sales and marketing collateral. Stationery, product literature, case studies, press releases, direct marketing, customer comms… the list goes on.
Whether you choose to go paperless (PDFs and downloads) or use hard copy (traditional print), it all takes time and money… graphic designers, photographers, copywriters, printers, web developers…
There is a way to save time and money…
This year we’ve helped two clients make the most of their marketing budget with powerful use of collateral templates. For one client we helped create almost 100 pieces of collateral from just four professionally produced Microsoft templates. So, if you’re looking for ways to create marketing content on a budget, here’s how…
1) LOOK AND FEEL: As part of a major re-branding exercise we asked one of our favourite designers to create some examples of typical pieces of collateral (a case study, a product sheet, a letterhead and a newsletter).
2) GUIDELINES: We then made sure that they were included in the brand guidelines with detailed instructions on their make up (colours, fonts, use of imagery etc).
3) IMAGE LIBRARY: The designer also recommended some Royalty Free imagery and icons which now make-up a library of images that can be used across the templates. We had these images re-coloured to fit the brand.
4) COPY: We had one of each type of document professionally written (always recommended), along with some tone of voice guidelines. We also created a spelling conventions checklist, which is now used with the tone of voice guidelines in-house to write copy.
5) CONVERSION: We then worked with the client to take these designs and guidelines to a Microsoft template specialist who emulated them exactly in Microsoft Word. These initial four designs were turned into ‘click and type here’ templates that anyone could use. This also included styling tables, charts and flow diagrams into the style sheets. Everything was locked down and pre-formatted, so the brand could not be compromised.
6) CASE STUDY SCRIPT: We also worked with a professional copywriter to prepare a script and list of key questions to enable us to interview customers and get the answers we need to create an engaging case study. And, we always asked for ongoing permissions to use quotes, etc. at the same time to enable us to continually add to our arsenal of testimonials.
7) BRIEFING CHECKLIST: And finally, we left the client with a briefing check list and document ‘structure’ for each item, to ensure no content got missed.
There was some initial investment in setting everything up, but once done, any number of documents can now be created from each of the templates. With practice, 2 or three 2-page documents can be created in a day.
Here are some examples of documents we’ve helped clients produce using simple old Word, PowerPoint and Excel:
So, even if you’re a small business wanting to do your own marketing, you can produce brilliant marketing materials from your desk. Our golden rules for this are 1) Work with experts to get the first few done, 2) Develop checklists, etc. from doing this, and 3) Get Word and PPT templates produced by an expert (we like these guys www.creativetemplatesolutions.co.uk).
Clear Thought Consulting works with small businesses, equipping them with the marketing strategies, suppliers, skills and set-up that they need to become bigger businesses. We do this by planning and delivering 12-month marketing transformation programmes – supporting a small business through a step-by-step process to making marketing pay. We firmly believe that when you can’t out-spend your competition, you have to out-think them.
I was talking to a business owner the other day, who despite having a £4 million turnover has no structured marketing budget.
The business dips in and out of marketing and tends to spend according to what looks like a good idea at the time.
He described the following:
He tends to start a marketing activity with real vigour, and then loses interest.
He’s tried various things, and they’ve never really worked.
He’d really like to just flick a switch.
There are certain time of year when the pressure is off in other areas, so he can focus on marketing.
This sounds an awful lot like things I’ve heard myself say about doing some exercise and getting fit:
I say to myself that I will run everyday, which I do for about a week and then slip back into old habits.
I’ve tried boxercise, yoga, rowing machines, etc. but I’ve never stuck at it.
I try to convince myself that because I’ve done some exercise one day that I can have ‘time off’ the next week or next day.
I can’t be the only one to make New Year’s resolutions and the like, that just don’t last.
The thing about dipping in and out of marketing (and exercise) is that it doesn’t really work. To get fit, the ‘little and often’ is far more effective than big bursts followed by extended periods of inactivity. The same is true in marketing – I’d actually prefer clients to spend less overall on marketing if they do this in a sustained way, than I would to see huge peaks and troughs in activity. As, I’m sure a GP would prefer it if every patient did a little exercise every day, rather than the boom and bust of un-sustained good resolutions.
To get started you might need to shift a bit of flab, i.e. have a concentrated period of getting into good shape (e.g. messaging, brand, infrastructure, systems), thereafter you’ll need to have a regular routine. Naturally, it is also sensible to have regular check-ups with an expert, and you might want to vary what you do to maintain interest – I’m sure you can see the point I’m making.
10 ways in which marketing is like exercise:
If you start as a young company you get into good habits for life.
It is hard to change the habits of a lifetime.
If things have gone to seed, it can be hard to get started.
A regular, structured, approach is best.
Even better if you integrate a little into everything you do.
Some people are absolute fanatics (like me), but most do fine with small changes.
There are lots of people out there promising quick fixes that don’t really work.
It takes a little while to see the results.
To get the best all-over results you need to vary the techniques you use.
Your company will look great, and feel healthy and fun.
The business owner in question is looking for a step change, they’ve hovered around the same turnover for a few years now and never managed to break the ceiling on their potential. For this he knows that he needs to get marketing fit… but just doesn’t know how.
Clear Thought Consulting works with small businesses, equipping them with the marketing strategies, suppliers, skills and set-up that they need to become bigger businesses. We do this by planning and delivering 12-month marketing transformation programmes – supporting a small business through a step-by-step process to making marketing pay. We firmly believe that when you can’t out-spend your competition, you have to out-think them.
Our clients, and most people we’ve met and talks and events recently, have asked the same question: Is social media appropriate for business-to-business marketing? Unequivocally, the answer is YES.
In the last year, 40% of Clear Thought’s revenue can be tracked back to a social media source, and 100% has been enhanced or aided by it in some way. In the last six weeks alone, here are some things that Clear Thinkers have achieved through social media:
Hooked up two people met through Twitter with paying B2B clients.
Received two good quality new business enquiries, both of which are now at proposal stage.
Sourced experts willing to talk to us about their business as part of market research projects.
Enhanced relationships with prospective businesses using online nurturing techniques.
In B2B decision-making or considered purchases, social media has most impact in the top half of the sales funnel
From a new business perspective, social media has critical impact in the first three stages of the sales funnel. That is, Awareness, Interest and Evaluation. From a social media perspective, you need to do the following:
To generate awareness: ‘Be There’ find out where your prospects hang out online and have a presence there.
To convert awareness into interest: ‘Be Relevant’ provide information that is useful or controversial to pull people into your content.
To make it through evaluation: ‘Be Proven’ provide case studies and testimonials at every turn online, ideally with other people talking on your behalf.
To really make the most of the channel, it makes sense to get some expert support – particularly in measuring and enhancing your activity. But, here are some really simple things to get you started.
10 FREE things you can do to generate awareness online:
Ensure your company & all employees have a LinkedIn profiles.
Join or set-up an interest group on LinkedIn.
Set-up a SlideShare space, link it to your LinkedIn profile.
Set-up a You-Tube Channel or Facebook page (if appropriate).
Set-up a company Twitter Feed.
Bookmark your content (StumbleUpon, Digg, Delicious, etc).
Set up a BT Tradespace profile.
Set-up Google, BlogSpot and WordPress identities.
Comment on, or become a contributor to, blogs and forums.
Regularly update email signatures with new content.
10 FREE things you can do to generate interest online:
Post snappy links to content via Twitter, Status, Email footer, etc.
Post regular interesting short blogs (10 mins).
Prepare deeper content like pressos, papers and articles (20 mins).
Give each of your team an area of expertise to track and comment.
Post details of other people’s content relevant to your audience.
Comment on industry news and happenings… in real time.
Make sure all employees regularly update online statuses.
Follow-up traditional touch-points with online contact.
Gather permissions to send email updates.
Ask intelligent questions in online forums.
10 (nearly) FREE ways to prove your credentials online:
Provide written case studies on your site, Blog, etc.
140 character lines to link back to your case studies, articles, etc.
Post case study videos on your site, You-Tube channel, etc.
Post webcasts and presentations on your site, SlideShare, etc.
Post product demos on You-Tube, SlideShare, etc.
Re-use the words of others about your products and services.
Provide intelligent answers to questions posted in Forums, Groups
Run live Q&A sessions via Twitter.
Add a customer feedback / rating system (like Kampyle) to your site, blog, etc and re-use the positive feedback.
Ask LinkedIn contacts for endorsements.
Note: In this blog, we’re focusing specifically on lead generation. It is worth noting (and blogging in the future) that social media can be powerfully used in market research, recruitment, lead nurturing and much more.
Clear Thought Consulting works with small businesses, equipping them with the marketing strategies, suppliers, skills and set-up that they need to become bigger businesses. We do this by planning and delivering 12-month marketing transformation programmes – supporting a small business through a step-by-step process to making marketing pay. We firmly believe that when you can’t out-spend your competition, you have to out-think them.
I recently attended the B2B Marketing Lead Nurturing event (30 Sept 2009). I have a bar by which I measure the success of any speaker event I go to, which is that if there’s one thing I take away and implement in some way, it’s been a good event. For this one, the key thing I take away is an analogy used by Pete Jakob of IBM when talking about the relationship that often exists between marketing and sales.
In setting the scene he outlined how marketing generally want to feed sales with beautiful, nutritious organic vegetables, when sales want to eat fast food. It’s a great analogy that put me in mind of Jamie Oliver’s school dinners’ crusade.
It’s an analogy that works on many levels:
Marketers will cite the potential lifetime value of a lead – when sales are often rewarded on revenue that month. Eating your greens is better for you, but a bag of starchy chips will fill you up quickly.
Marketers often want to create ‘perfect’ materials and campaigns, when sales are often in need of a quick fix. Cooking a meal from fresh raw ingredients just isn’t as easy as grabbing a take away.
Sales do know that ‘easy’ sales often result in churn and aren’t 100% healthy for the company, but need to meet their targets and maintain cash flow. I can’t be the only one to have tucked into a burger promising to go for a run later!
Moves to convert a sales organisation to a new diet of inbound, marketing-generated, leads often makes them feel ill and change is often resisted. Reminiscent of parent passing chips through the school railings.
For a business, you need to work out what a healthy balanced diet means. Often this is about having two speeds – the long-term profitability track (greens, etc.) and the essential cash flow now (junk food). Then, I’d suggest that you take a careful look at the business you generate, assessing the source of the customers that provide these two things for you. I’m betting that in most cases, a marketing-generated lead, that has been nurtured through a thoughtful process, is likely to be more profitable in the long term, and that sales that closed on the day as the result of something like cold-calling often buy less and churn more. Most businesses will need a healthy mix of both – but it is essential to know, and manage, the difference. Making a shift in dietary habits is hard – adopting a closed-loop marketing>sales approach is really hard. But, the results of both are definitely worth it.
Now don’t get me wrong – I like chips. I even think there’s a place for fast food in a healthy diet – as I think there’s a place for tactical sales that get cash in the door quickly. What I’m saying is that if your business is surviving on junk food alone – think carefully about the long-term impact this could be having on your bottom line.
Clear Thought Consulting works with small businesses, equipping them with the marketing strategies, suppliers, skills and set-up that they need to become bigger businesses. We do this by planning and delivering 12-month marketing transformation programmes – supporting a small business through a step-by-step process to making marketing pay. We firmly believe that when you can’t out-spend your competition, you have to out-think them.
I’m currently preparing my talk for the Bristol Enterprise Network event on the 22nd September on ‘Marketing: Harnessing the Power of the Internet’. Such a vast topic. For my talk, I’m focussing on generating online word of mouth. My co-speakers will be looking at online user experiences and at cloud computing. So, all in all, a fascinating set of subjects.
Businesses certainly can’t ignore digital marketing as part of the mix. Indeed, when you look at a typical decision-making process from awareness through to sale, the online setting is the only one where the whole process can be started and completed in one go, from a completely cold start, driven entirely by the customer. Generating awareness (as web traffic) is just the start of the process. To make the most of digital opportunities you’ll need to configure a ‘net’ to catch the interest you generate, and an online journey to take that person from one step to the next in their decision-making. However, you will never be able to entirely separate online and offline, either conceptually or practically.
It is also vital to understand how the medium (in its many guises) integrates with more traditional tools. I saw a recent US study that suggested that over 75% of American consumers would like to be able to pick up the phone and talk to a human being before placing an online order. I would hazard a guess that this percentage is higher in a b2b setting. So, turning on the digital tap will undoubtedly put demands on your business in other areas. Think it through logically, from step to step, mapping out what the person who finds you online might want, need and do – and set-up your business to handle it. This might mean employing an inbound sales team, or setting up a live chat function on your website, for example.
So, for my 20 minute slot, I will:
Give a quick definition of online word of mouth and outline techniques for building it
Conduct a live Twitter demonstration
Map out the funnel into which your online word-of-mouth needs to feed
Provide a quick list of do’s and don’ts for effective online networking
If you have examples of online word of mouth activities that have gone spectacularly well or spectacularly badly – do drop me a line. And, if you’re interested, please do join us 6pm to 9pm, Tuesday 22nd Sept at the University of Bristol, details here:
Clear Thought Consulting works with small businesses, equipping them with the marketing strategies, suppliers, skills and set-up that they need to become bigger businesses. We do this by planning and delivering 12-month marketing transformation programmes – supporting a small business through a step-by-step process to making marketing pay. We firmly believe that when you can’t out-spend your competition, you have to out-think them.
When I was getting my website built recently, Claire Sully, MD Tickbox, advised me to think of my website as an employee.
It was great advice and has helped me enormously with my own site, and also in helping clients to understand more fully what’s needed to get the most from a business website.
Key ways in which a website is like an employee:
It has a specific set of tasks to perform, writing a job spec for your website is no bad idea!
It needs a development plan if it is to continue to perform at its best
It needs regular updates to stay current – like a training plan
It relies on input from various other team members to do its job
Not everyone will like it all of the time
A website has a permanent, full time, role in your business: It never ceases to amaze me how many people think of a website as a self-contained project – with beginning, a middle and (even more worryingly) an end. You wouldn’t recruit someone and think that, once they’d signed the contract, their job was complete or that they’d stay exactly the same as the day they walked through the door. You shouldn’t think the same of your website.
A person comes to your company with some skills and knowledge, but over time they will gain more specific knowledge about your company, and become more skilled as they learn on the job or undergo formal training and development. A website is just the same – however well conceived and delivered, it is only when real people start to interact with it that you’ll know what really works, and what doesn’t, on your site. Through reviewing analytics and undertaking user testing and feedback, you will be able to constantly refine and improve your website’s performance. Which brings me to performance… you’re likely to set of minimum performance standards for your staff, have you done the same for your website? And, do you have the tools to measure against those standards.
And of course, things change. Think also of a scenario in which your employee’s area of the business is subject to some sort of change (legal, environmental, new product, etc.) – they’ll need to adapt and respond. Your website is no different. Just because it was beautiful when you launched it, it may not be in a new context. What’s more, this is technology we’re talking about. The tech big boys work to a circa 6 month product development cycle – the pace of change is fast and furious. If your website is to stay current, you’ll need to keep an eye out for the new trends, like Twitter, Tag Clouds, etc… and whatever is just around the corner.
But, it many ways it is even better than an employee:
It never sleeps
It doesn’t take holidays
It won’t sue you if you change its role or replace it with a new one
Useful people management techniques you can apply to your website:
Write it a job spec
Set a basic salary (hosting, support, regular updates)
Set a commission plan (invest a percentage of the revenue it delivers back into traffic generation and improvements)
Have a weekly one-to-one (update content, check stats)
Conduct a monthly review (stats, performance targets, etc)
Conduct a quarterly appraisal – consider a 360 appraisal where you get feedback from all users
Set a ‘training’ budget – essential updates, spring cleaning, new features
For many businesses, the website is probably quite an early investment – thinking of it as your first ‘employee’ is a healthy starting point – meaning you’ll feel happier with seeing it as an ongoing task rather than a one-off project. For other businesses, particularly ecommerce businesses, your website is more like a team of employees, rather than just the one – and just like a team of people you’ll need to think about the way that individuals interact, etc.
So, if you think your web project has come to an end because you’ve gone live… I advise you to think again. I advise you to think of your website as a valued member of your team and to treat it accordingly.
Clear Thought Consulting works with small businesses, equipping them with the marketing strategies, suppliers, skills and set-up that they need to become bigger businesses. We do this by planning and delivering 12-month marketing transformation programmes – supporting a small business through a step-by-step process to making marketing pay. We firmly believe that when you can’t out-spend your competition, you have to out-think them.
August 5th marks Clear Thought Consulting’s first full year since incorporation as a Limited company, so it seemed like a good time to reflect.
Most proud of: having secured business through a lead on LinkedIn
Most frustrated by: not having done lots of things sooner
In the past year, we’ve undertaken billing work for six clients, mortgage is being paid – and even afforded a few luxuries. The question most oft asked is how we find new business. This has been secured in the following three ways:
Leads picked up from online networking
Work secured with existing contacts
Leads picked up through marketing students tutored for CIM Diploma
Having now sorted the proposition more clearly and invested in the website, we’re about to kick off a few more traditional lead generation activities… will report back on what’s worked in due course.
It has also been enormously rewarding to start seeing the fruits of local reputation building. For example, Bryony was recently asked to join a monthly B2B marketing forum set-up by a senior marketer, and former colleague, in Lloyds TSB Corporate Banking. On asking her fellow forum members for ideas on who to invite, my name came up through having been spotted answering questions and posting discussions on LinkedIn – as we’d previously worked together, she dropped me a line. Then, on meeting with a local agency yesterday, again it seemed that word of mouth had done its trick before my arrival, both on Twitter and through a mutual contact. This is great to see in action, because generating positive word-of-mouth and online reputations is key advice we give clients. So, as you can see, we practice what we preach.
Although we’ve been up and running a year, the last month has felt like we’re really onto something. The new website went live 12th June, and we’ve stepped up the new business activity by talking to agencies – where we’re able to provide two key services: 1) client incubation (taking small or troublesome clients and getting them in a position where they’re better able to have effective working relationships with marketing suppliers), 2) strategic planning overflow. This adds to the direct business proposition, where we work with small businesses as the marketing director they can’t quite afford – giving them a heavyweight marketing mind on their team without the overhead. We now have Cheryl Crichton on board as Associate Clear Thinker, with a key focus on opening agency doors, and we’re hoping to announce a direct business lead in the not too distant future. These are things I wish I had done sooner.
On the administrative side of business running, here’s a quick rundown on decisions made, etc:
Using Kashflow cloud accountancy software to keep a close eye on the books
Had a content management system built for the website from open source code, rather than buy off the shelf
Have a virtual reception and phone answering service set-up at Bristol eOffice, I’m yet to try their hot-desk and meeting rooms
Have call-forwarding service from Gradwell (http://www.gradwell.com/phoneservices/callforwarding) which means that we can keep he number we now have however many time we might move or grow, a bit of future proofing
Have an accountant in place on recommendation from a friend, but have actually found online research more useful in terms of understanding Ltd Co accounting
Invested in brand visuals from Christian Tait, which we launched on the worked about six weeks ago and we’re really pleased with
Tried networking breakfasts, didn’t seem to have much going for them
On the list for the year ahead:
Getting CRM in place for the company, probably Salesforce.com
Getting round to joining IOD and GWE to get on the local networking drive
Employ first full timer
Think about getting an office, as we’re likely to be four people, and we can only fit two at the moment
Step up the digital marketing with article syndication, SEO, etc.
Refresh the press photography, it is five years out of date, and I don’t look that fresh anymore!
Do a load of courses in digital stuff to keep pace
Think seriously about doing the Doctorate I’ve been thinking about
Mistakes made:
Given away a bit too much time for free in over-servicing
Overspent on a few online tools that we could have lived without
Got distracted by franchises and associate roles initially, wish I’d just kicked off full pelt from the starting pistol
Have a habit of printing everything out and not re-using paper – which is hideously wasteful and expensive
Worked too long and not maintained fitness, so have gone down with a few too many sniffles this year…
Worked almost every weekend, should spend a bit more time with family
What success will look like this time next year:
Small, but dedicated team, in place all covering their mortgages and earning enough to smile
Aiming for eight major clients by this time next year
Have a wee idea in mind for some e-commerce elements, which I’d like to have kicked off this time next year
To have been shortlisted for a few decent awards for the marketing activities undertaken with clients
Would be fascinated to hear about other people’s first year in business. Do share.
Clear Thought Consulting works with small businesses, equipping them with the marketing strategies, suppliers, skills and set-up that they need to become bigger businesses. We do this by planning and delivering 12-month marketing transformation programmes – supporting a small business through a step-by-step process to making marketing pay. We firmly believe that when you can’t out-spend your competition, you have to out-think them.
We’ve been getting a few puzzled looks when we say that Clear Thought Consulting isn’t a marketing agency, so we thought we’d clarify the business model a little for those who might be interested.
So, we work with smaller businesses, from about 12 employees to about 200. If the company is still small enough to feasibly remember everyone’s names, then so much the better. So, big corporates are out. Within this, we work with businesses whose products or services are bought through a process of careful consideration – so, impulse buying isn’t our thing. Complicated, expensive or high-risk purchases are.
We work directly with clients to get them up and running on the marketing front. Typically, a business may have dabbled in marketing or have a reception-come-marketing approach. The point of pain that we’re there to address, is the company that knows they want to grow, but that doesn’t have the skills to get the message out (if indeed they know what the message is). In this situation, going straight to an agency or recruiting can be extremely frustrating. Without the basics in place, it is unlikely that a business will know exactly what to brief, or what to look for in a marketing employee. So, we work with companies in this situation, over six to twelve months to lay the foundations of a marketing operation, and to make sure that the business leaders know the purpose and function of marketing for their business.
A three phase Clear Thought project will position, enable and then act to allow clients to grow their businesses
Our approach is firmly centred on configuring free-flowing sales funnels for our clients – to generate both new business and new-from-existing business. Often, people think that what they need from marketing is to turn the tap on – i.e. get more leads in. This is sometimes true. But, more often than not, the tap is flowing into a leaky bucket. We first fix the bucket (sort out brand, messaging, websites, sales tools, databases, etc) and then help them to work with various marketing suppliers to turn the tap on. But only when their marketing operation is configured to make the most of it. In set-up phases, we spot gaps and problems and hook the client up with the right experts to resolve these issues. Once the funnel is fixed, we set them sail with a decent set of marketing providers, and we might also assist with recruiting a marketing team.
So, you work on commission..
No. Clear Thought is paid by the client for a programme over six months to a year. Introductions to third party suppliers is totally focused on what is best for the client, so we never take kick-backs from suppliers. This ensures that our judgement is never clouded by potential remuneration. Where an agency account director might want to tie a client in to a semi-dependent relationship to ensure an ongoing income, we want to get the client to a point of independence where they can run their marketing without us – hopefully recommending us to others along the way.
So, Clear Thought competes with agency planners…
There’s a little bit of overlap with planners, but not much. The clients we work with probably wouldn’t have the budget to get where they needed to get through using an agency planning team. Because we work over a longer term and from within a client’s business, we can get them to the stage where they can brief an agency properly without wasting time, money and goodwill on mis-briefing. In fact, we can work with agency to help them with problematic clients – by skilling-up the client in how to get the most from marketing suppliers and undertaking infrastructure projects (like CRM set-up) – so that the relationship is more fruitful all round.
Do you just do the thinking?
We believe that action creates clarity. So, although smart thinking is our key differentiator – thought without elbow grease is pretty useless. Our programmes are highly active and involve lots of input and energy from clients in putting plans into action to see if they work, learn from doing them and refine for future improvements. The key thing here is that we never just ‘do’ – we will always find out why something needs doing, and if its being done in the best possible way.
Hope that answers a few questions. If you want to know more, please do drop us a line.
Clear Thought Consulting works with small businesses, equipping them with the marketing strategies, suppliers, skills and set-up that they need to become bigger businesses. We do this by planning and delivering 12-month marketing transformation programmes – supporting a small business through a step-by-step process to making marketing pay. We firmly believe that when you can’t out-spend your competition, you have to out-think them.
The questions I most often get asked about marketing budgets are:
How much should I spend as a percentage of turnover?
Should I benchmark against competitors?
How much shall I spend on each discipline (PR, DM, Events, Ads, etc.)?
All totally reasonable questions… but what you should be asking is: what shape should my marketing budget be? Seriously, it is the most important question there is on the budgeting front. So, let me tell you what I mean.
A decent marketing programme is centred on a sales funnel, onto which you’ve mapped the decision making process for your target audience. (see previous posts Making Marketing Pay, and What to Say When).
FIGURE 1: Chart to show the influence of marketing spend across the sales funnel
From this you can put together a programme of activity that moves a person from awareness to a sale. Each marketing technique has a different level of influence at each stage of this process. You need to determine the level of influence at each stage, then apportion this across the funnel.
There are a few ways to decide the amount of influence each technique has:
Workshop with the sales and marketing team to agree the apportionment
Surveys or focus groups amongst new customers to get them to assess what they saw at each stage (this can be tricky, as people often post-rationalise decision-making, meaning that emotional triggers are downplayed)
A best guess (hey, we’ve all got to start somewhere)
A combination of all of the above
From this exercise you now have a powerful tool for designing programmes and allocating budget. Now analyse your budget in the same way:
Split your spend into each technique
Apportion this spend as per the influence amount you’ve worked out for that technique (for example, if you worked out that PR has 40% influence at awareness, 10% at interest, etc. your spend on PR should be tabulated to reflect that)
You now have an actual shape for your budget
Compare your actual budget shape to the ideal budget shape you’ve established to maintain a free-flowing sales funnel. This allows you assess where you’re spending too much or too little, and to adjust your spend according to the funnel requirements.
Now, if you have a budget cut, or find a pot of cash, you again have a powerful tool to decide how to adjust your spending. The crucial factor here is to maintain the shape. So, rather than cutting a project that happens to be the right level of spend, you can cut evenly across the funnel ensuring that you’re not leaving any gaps.
Clear Thought Consulting works with small businesses, equipping them with the marketing strategies, suppliers, skills and set-up that they need to become bigger businesses. We do this by planning and delivering 12-month marketing transformation programmes – supporting a small business through a step-by-step process to making marketing pay. We firmly believe that when you can’t out-spend your competition, you have to out-think them.
One of the key strengths at Clear Thought Consulting is in conceiving and running thought leadership programmes. I’m often asked what these entail, so here’s a quick run-down of the basics.
Thought leadership is about being front of mind in regard of a certain subject or market. A thought leader will always make it onto a ‘long list’ when people are making buying decisions – and often become the benchmark against which others are measured.
Timescales:
Thought leadership programmes are not a quick fix, you cannot expect immediate results.
A thought leadership marketing programme is only effective in the medium term, and then only when it forms part of a funneled sales approach. That is, a planned process that uses specific tools and techniques to move people from one stage to the next through the buying decision. The thought leadership programme typically acts as a top and tail to this process.
In the longer term, thought leadership programmes also serve to create a bank of ‘good will’ in more junior members of the target audience, which translates into awareness and leads when they move into more senior positions later in their careers.
Typical thought leadership tools:
First off you’ll need to think of subject matter that is interesting, engaging and useful. Then, create a campaign that has a mix of tools that can be used to influence people along hierarchical and vertical planes.
Typical thought leadership campaign checklist:
Get your best brains in a room, or even better some customers, and think about subjects that are interesting, engaging and useful.
See if you can find a respected industry partner, if not then use your own research and expertise to prepare a ‘future trends’ report that can be downloaded online in return for data capture.
Prepare an accompanying 1/2 hour presentation and use the content to host a live web seminar.
Prepare press and direct mail to generate report downloads and webinar registrations (these can be tailored to sectors, and as customer and non-customer versions).
Track report downloads and invite anyone who has downloaded, but not registered for webinar an invitation.
Practice your webinar with the technology, slides, hosts in the room you will be using for the live session.
Host the webinar and record the session.
You can often boost attendance with an offer to attendees of something like a free book or other useful offer for people who attend – we’ve previously managed to get signed copies of business books by talking to the publishers.
Review the people who attended and downloaded and get your best sales people to follow-up the hottest leads, keep the others for future or your junior team.
Anyone who registered, but didn’t attend can now be invited to watch the recording.
The recorded version now goes up on your website, where it can be viewed in return for data capture – this can form the next level of the campaign (where perhaps Director level people were invited to the live event and more junior people are now invited to view online).
Alternatively snippets form your web video can be placed on You-Tube, Twitter, or other document sharing sites to drive people to the original download.
All data captured builds your database for future relevant, timely, engaging and useful thought leadership material.
New techniques allow you to publicise your materials at little cost, with simple things like Tweets, LinkedIn updates & news items, contributions to discussions, blogs, etc. For example, we’ve seen great traffic by posting content on Business Exchange.
As said, this needs to form part of a sales funnel, where the aim of the game is to increase hit rate when your sales teams pick up the phone. If people have read something interesting or attended and engaging event, they are much more likely to be warm to the call.
Clear Thought Consulting works with small businesses, equipping them with the marketing strategies, suppliers, skills and set-up that they need to become bigger businesses. We do this by planning and delivering 12-month marketing transformation programmes – supporting a small business through a step-by-step process to making marketing pay. We firmly believe that when you can’t out-spend your competition, you have to out-think them.
Being asked to prepare a talk for the Bristol & Bath Marketing Network on ‘Making Marketing Accountable’ has given me some space to reflect on my key learnings on making marketing pay.
It was a 20 minute talk at a reasonably high level, just enough to get the conversation started…
First off, I asked “who are marketers accountable to?” A great presentation from FutureLab neatly breaks this into three key areas of accountability:
Our world – society, environment, etc.
Our customers – accurate descriptions, no false promises, etc.
Our companies – making a profit, keeping people employed, etc.
For my talk, I focused on the latter and specifically on some key techniques for making marketing pay:
Map out your sales funnel;
Work out which tools do which job through the sales funnel;
Assess activities and spending on these to ensure the funnel flows properly;
Measure movement through the funnel to identify and remedy holes and logjams.
Having done this, there are some key pieces of advice I’d give any marketer:
Put every project, campaign and pound in context – a neat device is to have a funnel icon on all documents with the step the activity pertains to highlighted.
Place any spend report or budget request within the funnel, demonstrating the impact on actual or anticipated sales results.
Maintain your funnel flow – if you need to cut budget, cut evenly through the funnel so you don’t leave any holes… or add spend evenly so you can cope with the extra demand you create.
As you’d expect from a room full of marketers, I was asked some thought provoking questions…
How do you work out the percentage through-put from one step to the next? I’d start by work-shopping this internally and reviewing historical data. This gets you to putting a stake in the ground. You then track actual results against this to refine over time – remembering that this is a tool to facilitate conversation between teams and to draw your eye to areas needing attention. Absolute accuracy may never be possible, but this will always help you identify areas of concern or success and prioritise resource and energy.
How do you avoid this becoming a finger-pointing tool where marketing point to sales and sales point to marketing? You work out the funnel metrics together and regularly review against it. You can also go further and use the funnel to apportion people’s time against activities in each step, which can help to facilitate inter-team collaboration.
How does this work in big companies where small aspects of each step are often owned by different teams who play each other off and get highly political? It doesn’t – this works in organisations where the CEO or MD has bought into the concept and is leading from the top to avoid such in-fighting. I do know that this makes it sound easy and that it really isn’t – but a genuine grasp of sales funnelling in large organisations will often require a full change management programme – such is the nature of turning a tanker.
Some questions from me to you:
In my thinking over the years and in preparing for this talk, I’ve come across some emerging themes, on which I’d love to hear your thoughts:
Does ROI obsession create a race to the bottom? If ROI is the king metric, surely the quality and standing of your brand will suffer due to cutting back on ‘fluff’ to make the ROI look better… if this is done continually will you ultimately devalue your own offering? Apple could clearly make more money on each sale by cutting packaging costs, for example, but they’ve prioritised brand over absolute ROI. Is there a lesson there for all marketers in setting, and staying true to, core values for long term value.
Analysis versus intuition? How do we, as marketers, balance the potentially conflicting forces of detailed analysis and personal intuition or hunch?
Transparency and self protection? I’m a big believer in making everything crystal clear. But, I have certainly encountered marketers who like to maintain a sense of mystery in which marketing is a dark art, so as to protect their own standing or to avoid answering difficult questions. How do we overcome nervousness in some quarters about putting marketing under the microscope and enabling our peers from other disciplines to understand what we do?
Clear Thought Consulting works with small businesses, equipping them with the marketing strategies, suppliers, skills and set-up that they need to become bigger businesses. We do this by planning and delivering 12-month marketing transformation programmes – supporting a small business through a step-by-step process to making marketing pay. We firmly believe that when you can’t out-spend your competition, you have to out-think them.
I’m currently working on two, very different, business-to-business websites, and have been knee deep in information architecture (IA) and web design for the last six weeks or so. Having come across the same questions time and time again… I thought I’d put pen to paper about rules you should never break online. For this, I am specifically talking about business main websites, not blogs, twitters, forums, etc.
I see myself as a free thinker. My natural reaction to someone telling me that I can’t do something or shouldn’t do something is to challenge it. So, I find myself in the unusual position of championing convention. When it comes to business websites, function must always take higher priority to form (sorry designer friends). The look and feel is a very close second, but it is second.
So, when warming a client up to IA, I tend to use an analogy of a website as a text book. A business website serves a purpose – people come to it looking for something specific and their time is precious. Your site needs to get them to that info as fast as possible (whilst sign-posting them to relevant other content along the way). Think, if your site was a textbook you’d add a contents page, an index or lay things out alphabetically. Can you imagine trying to find a word in the dictionary if someone had decided to order things according to… say, their favourite words first, or some other such subjective nonsense… it would drive me crazy! This is the effect you have on site visitors if you ignore web conventions – so, don’t do it if you want to facilitate that all-important search-to-sale journey.
Web conventions you should not ignore
Logos go on the top left and typically link back the homepage, this is the equivilent of flicking back to your contents page in a book.
Major navigation goes along the top and secondary navigation goes on the left – I didn’t make the rules, it is just what people expect to see, so why mess with it if it helps people find what they are looking for? For me, I think of major navigation as chapter headings and secondary navs as chapter contents.
Legalese in the footer of every page – it has to be there, but it will never sell your stuff, so just put it at the bottom. For me, this is like the publisher’s page at the front of a book.
Disabilities Discrimination Act (DDA) and best-practice – get decent advice on this, you don’t want to break the law or alienate potential customers.
Don’t put text in as an image – Google (other search engines are available) can’t read them and it causes a DDA headache.
Use system fonts – I know that they are a bit dull, but using anything else is totally impractical, you need to use a font that is installed on every computer so that you can be sure your text will be legible to all.
Hmmm… so, business websites should all look the same?
No way. Just because reference books all have contents pages and indexes, they certainly do not look the same. Hard back, soft back, image style, tone of copy… just walk around a book shop, there is plenty of variety. Online, you add personality in the same way… but by employing a designer who specialises in web – print designers never get this quite right. The two sites I am working on at the moment could not look more different. Your brand can sing through, but you don’t need to mess with the stuff that makes your site actually work to make this happen.
And of course, there are always exceptions… particularly on very simple sites of fewer than 20 pages, where you can get away with being a bit more maverick.
For me, these are guiding principles. There are bound to be many more detailed tips from IA specialists… but if you start by putting function before form you’ll be better placed to move forward.
Clear Thought Consulting works with small businesses, equipping them with the marketing strategies, suppliers, skills and set-up that they need to become bigger businesses. We do this by planning and delivering 12-month marketing transformation programmes – supporting a small business through a step-by-step process to making marketing pay. We firmly believe that when you can’t out-spend your competition, you have to out-think them.
I’m loving www.comparethemeerkat.com – comparison sites are all much of a muchness, so coming up with something really distinctive will have been a creative challenge indeed. I can’t for the life of me work out what the creative brief said to elicit such a leftfield and engaging response.
I’m also really enjoying the Audi Q5 ad with cardboard car… I’d love to think someone lovingly sculpted the car we see, but I have a sneaky suspicion a computer or two might have been involved. Still loving it though – it has a childlike joy to it… bit of a rip off of the Skoda cake ad, but hey, it made me smile, which has made a contribution to my brand feel-good in relation to Audi… tho’ not rushing out to buy one just yet.
Clear Thought Consulting works with small businesses, equipping them with the marketing strategies, suppliers, skills and set-up that they need to become bigger businesses. We do this by planning and delivering 12-month marketing transformation programmes – supporting a small business through a step-by-step process to making marketing pay. We firmly believe that when you can’t out-spend your competition, you have to out-think them.
2009 has kicked off well for Clear Thought Consulting, with two exciting consultancy projects underway for new clients, a new business push planned on the SPAN front, a new batch of CIM students to inspire, partnerships forging with some great local marketing specialists and plans afoot for Bristol networking this year.
Gradwell appoints Clear Thought Consulting: In October last year, I was delighted to be appointed by Gradwell (www.gradwell.com), the small business internet infrastructure providers, as their retained strategic marketing consultant. We’re two months in and we’ve cracked some key foundation work ready for a really exciting 2009. Gradwell closed the year by bagging the ITSPA Best Business VoIP award, and I am looking forward to telling the world about this and their other great products. All in all, this win was a testament to the power of networking – as it is a lead I picked up through LinkedIn.
To deliver the plan I’ve put together, we’ve also engaged some excellent specialists from my little black book, who I’d like to tip my cap to:
Cheryl Crichton: a freelance marketing / account manager who I originally worked with in 2001, and whose hands-on style is perfect for her ongoing role with Gradwell in delivering the plans I devise.
Christian Tait: freelance designer who I’ve worked with at his last two agencies and who has somewhat set the bar for other designers to meet.
Ferdinand Edwards: qualitative researcher extraordinaire, who added valuable depth and colour to my quantitative approach.
Samantha Castillo: freelance copywriter whose extensive technology experience made her the natural choice for this client.
3Sixty Digital Marketing: arguably Bristol’s best web agency, who are currently undertaking a full review of the Gradwell website in readiness for a full refresh.
Fraudscreen appoints Clear Thought Consulting: November saw another client come on-board in the shape of Fraudscreen (www.fraudscreen.co.uk), where I’ll be working with one of my ex-Experian colleagues, John Sharman, and the unanimously impressive team in Gresse Street. Where many will be looking at the year ahead with trepidation, Fraudscreen is one of the lucky ones with products that are perfectly positioned for the current economic environment – helping businesses make fair and commercially sound acquisition, retention, collections and debtor decisions.
For me, this is another very welcome annual support contract with some upfront investments to be made. We’re currently knee deep in website re-building, ready for a web-centred thought leadership programme. For this, I have again to thank some excellent marketing partners:
Bryony is let loose on CIM Diploma students: After my first term of tutoring, I am anxiously awaiting the results for my CIM module – with fingers crossed for all the students in my group. I’m also looking forward to meeting a new cohort of the Cambridge Marketing College at the end of January and I hope to inspire them to see their CIM qualifications as much more than a piece of paper!
Networking anyone? I’m also looking forward to getting involved with getting the Bristol arm of the Bristol & Bath Marketing Network up and running. With Bath running successfully, there must be marketers in Bristol up for a monthly meet to keep up to speed with the latest, meet other local marketers and have a drink. Watch this space for more details.
I hope that 2009 brings you many and varied opportunities.
Clear Thought Consulting works with small businesses, equipping them with the marketing strategies, suppliers, skills and set-up that they need to become bigger businesses. We do this by planning and delivering 12-month marketing transformation programmes – supporting a small business through a step-by-step process to making marketing pay. We firmly believe that when you can’t out-spend your competition, you have to out-think them.
Love and hate are two sides of the same coin. Truly compelling messaging is almost certainly going to upset someone… providing that you’ve identified the people you want to inspire and the message works for them, does it matter if you upset people? Often the answer is no. Clearly, you need to be legal, honest and fair – but a bit of controversy can be a good thing. Who was it who said “write what you like, just spell my name right”? So true, especially in an search-enabled world.
Clear Thought Consulting works with small businesses, equipping them with the marketing strategies, suppliers, skills and set-up that they need to become bigger businesses. We do this by planning and delivering 12-month marketing transformation programmes – supporting a small business through a step-by-step process to making marketing pay. We firmly believe that when you can’t out-spend your competition, you have to out-think them.
This is what those in the PR trade call an ‘issues jump’. And, with support from a nimble marketing communications team, this is an activity that can be hugely fruitful. You won’t know what they are until they happen, but there are things you can prepare to be ready for when they do.
How to spot a marketing moment
You’re looking for a moment of heightened attention, when something in your space becomes the subject of attention. This happens when PESTLE (political, economic, societal, technological, legal, environmental) matters change and impact your market or when a major paper or programme picks up on an issue.
If you’ve established your market messaging up front, this gets a whole lot easier. With a message matrix in hand (i.e. each audience, the functional layers within that audience, and what you want them to think about your organisation) you can be pretty disciplined about this by dividing up the task. If you’ve established your audience, you can allocate one or more to each of your team for them to scout.
This can be done by:
Subscribing to the relevant magazines, ebulletins, etc.
Watching the identified competitors in that space
Setting up relevant Google alerts (for the messages you’re after and things that audience would be interested in)
Joining LinkedIn groups, Blog feeds, Forums in that space
Keeping an ear and eye out
If you’re not that organised, you can of course just keep your ear to the ground. When something comes up that is in your space, a pre-planned process should kick into action.
Planning for an event you’re unaware of
Your annual budget should make some contingency for these un-expected marketing moments – and have a back-up plan for spending that money wisely if none crop up (unspent contingency can always be put towards creative and engaging Christmas campaigns, which really can be more than a card! And can be worth doing).
The first thing to say is that PR needs a net – that is, generating interest when there is no pre-defined funnel to capture that interest is a complete waste of time, energy and cash. A decent website should have a data capture facility, and ideally a campaign hub (somewhere to post downloadable material, in return for marketing permission). If your site doesn’t have this built in, you should either invest in it, or find an agency who can build you campaign microsites quickly… by which I mean 48 hours.
So, assuming you’ve snaffled away a little pot of cash, or for the less organised… convinced someone at short notice to find some money or cut it from somewhere else, then these are the key building block of an action plan:
Brainstorm session, to include the key decision maker
A piece of collateral that can be downloaded (discusion paper, briefing note, etc.)
Loaded to your campaign hub or microsite
Plan a sales response for downloaders – an offer of some kind
Draw up a press list and prepare a tailored press release for each one
Select one key press player to whom you’ll offer an exclusive
Let your exclusive have the story for a few days
Then distribute the press release more widely
Post questions/discussions in LinkedIn Groups and other online forums
Hand the leads onto sales as they come in to follow-up as planned
Track through the sales funnel to measure effectiveness and ROI
Writing a report at short notice can be made easier with some preparation too. So, if the press has suddenly become interested in something in your space, you can create high quality material quickly. Again, if you’ve worked out your message matrix up front, it is a fairly simple process to run a 2-hour brainstorm on each one and write up talking points – these are then available to use in forward features and in proactive and reactive campaigns.
You need to talk your decision maker through this process before it happens. So, that when you pick up the phone to tell them you are doing an issue jump – they know what is needed of them and will be able to respond quickly.
Action plan
Are you ready to capitalise on a marketing moment in your space? If not, here’s a to-do list:
Prepare a microsite or area on main website that can be easily amended, where people can download material in return for data capture
Prepare a message matrix and brain-storm talking points, identify target titles, groups, blogs and forums
Set-up a media monitoring system – press scanning, competitor watching, Google alerts, groups, forums, etc.
Prepare a vanilla execution plan for a responsive campaign
Walk your decision-makers, execution team and sales team through the plan so they know how it will work when it happens
By doing some pre-planning, you will be able to respond to a changing market at speed. This sets you apart as an organisation with its finger on the pulse, and ahead of its competition.
Clear Thought Consulting works with small businesses, equipping them with the marketing strategies, suppliers, skills and set-up that they need to become bigger businesses. We do this by planning and delivering 12-month marketing transformation programmes – supporting a small business through a step-by-step process to making marketing pay. We firmly believe that when you can’t out-spend your competition, you have to out-think them.
I spent six hours this weekend clearing junk from my house. It felt great. I sorted through piles of boxes, threw out unwanted clothes and re-organised a load of storage. Then, my Dad came to visit and commented on what a lovely home we have. Now, he didn’t say ‘Wow, isn’t it tidy’ – in fact he didn’t notice that I’d been tidying, but by clearing away the distractions he was able to notice the lovely touches we have around the place – like art and photos.
A room that is clear of clutter and that is well laid out to enable you to move around freely, is a joy to be in. Good literature design (on and off-line) is the same. There are various design conventions in regard to leaving white space, to aligning and anchoring headings and sub-headings, etc. – and whilst most people picking up a brochure (except those of us who work in the business) won’t consciously see these rules being applied, they will enjoy a well designed piece much more. This is most evident when you see something that hasn’t been well designed – you don’t know why, it just doesn’t look right. Just like when you walk into a room that has been freshly vacuumed, you don’t actively notice the carpet pile all running in the same direction – it just looks better.
Whilst there are, of course, examples of anti-design where rules are actively broken to create a jarring and clashing visual impact – most marketing literature, particularly in B2B, requires the sort of design that allows the message to take centre stage, that gently gives a sense of the corporate culture, and that silently guides the eye to the key points.
So, take care if you’re tempted to prioritise content over design in times of budgetary squeeze – if the two aren’t balanced, you’re missing a trick.
Clear Thought Consulting works with small businesses, equipping them with the marketing strategies, suppliers, skills and set-up that they need to become bigger businesses. We do this by planning and delivering 12-month marketing transformation programmes – supporting a small business through a step-by-step process to making marketing pay. We firmly believe that when you can’t out-spend your competition, you have to out-think them.
Marketing is increasingly viewed as a science, where sophisticated modelling and data-driven decision-making are taking centre stage. Against this backdrop, has creativity become a less important marketing skill? It has certainly been argued that marketers come in two shapes – the scientist and the artist. My contention is that significant marketing success requires a careful balancing of both, and that neither is the superior marketing skill.
In a previous article, What to say when, 29 Oct 2008, I outlined the key steps in an effective sales funnel, and the role of marketing at each stage. So, working on the assumption that a decision to buy starts at awareness, let’s also start here in reviewing the relative roles of science and creativity on marketing success.
In my first major agency role with Mason Zimbler (www.mzl.com), our MD used a simple equation to set the scene which has stayed with me ever since:
Frequency x Impact = Awareness
The premise is that if either element is out of balance, your chances of success are limited. It is a simple concept. In regard to frequency, think ‘it takes more than one drip of water to get wet’. The Chartered Institute of Marketing in the UK suggest that it takes three sightings of an ad to really notice it. When we talk about impact, the most important element is relevance – did your ad, email, banner, blog, etc strike a chord with the recipient, if not they won’t notice you. (There’s also more on this in my article ‘what to say when’). So, if your piece is dull and irrelevant, your audience will not see it. Or, if your piece is stunningly relevant, but they only see it briefly, you’re unlikely to really get the message across. Taking these two elements as our bases for comparison, we’ll review the contribution of science and creativity to each.
The scientific approach to communication frequency:
The scientific approach to managing the frequency of your marketing messaging is to model an ideal contact density for each segment or, in highly sophisticated set-ups, for each individual. That is the number of touches that person, or group of people, typically require in order to respond. This enables the marketer to develop a communications plan that ensures the optimum number of touches. Large consumer organisations, like banks, also use this technique to ensure that their customers aren’t over-communicated – having observed that over-communication can trigger complaints or defections, smart technology-driven rules are applied to ensure that this risk is minimised.
The creative approach to communication frequency:
A creative approach to communications frequency is to think laterally. The best example of a really creative approach to this is the innovative use of ambient media. By putting themselves in the shoes of the audience, a creative team will dream up highly creative media placements to ensure that the message gets to people regularly. For example, the National Union of Students in the UK ran a highly successful campaign highlighting the risks of sexually transmitted infections by stickering ten pence pieces and dropping them in student union bars. This is creative thinking on many levels – firstly the location, then the assumption that a student would pick up a stray coin, and the association of the money having passed through many hands linking directly to the message itself. Another example of this is the use that Amplex deodorants made of placing their ads on the hanging hold bars on underground trains and busses – we all know how unpleasant it is to be on crowded public transport where someone nearby has a body odour issue. Creatively tapping into this gave Amplex a highly creative media placement opportunity – putting the message right in front of their audience every time they travelled through London. By mapping out a buyer’s journey and thinking about how to get your message across creatively at each point, you can vastly increase your opportunity-to-see.
The scientific approach to communication relevance:
Scientific marketing has increased the likely relevance of marketing messages exponentially in recent years. The ability to analyse and overlay various data sources to build up a rich picture of your audience, and indeed each individual in that audience, is immensely powerful. Sophisticated optimisation techniques can tell you what to say, when to say it and even which medium is most appropriate for a particular segment or person. The various data strategy awards are littered with excellent examples of this approach.
The creative approach to communication relevance:
When it comes to creativity and relevance, we need only look to viral marketing for lessons in why creativity is essential. The Cadbury Gorilla ad would never have come about by virtue of scientific messaging development. Marketers need to remember that they are talking to people, with feelings and a sense of humour. We also all know that a recommendation from a friend is vastly superior in terms of our likelihood to listen than an official piece of marketing. As such, tapping into word of mouth is essential and creativity is king in the ‘click to forward’ world. The earlier examples of creative media placement also show how creativity can increase relevance by being appropriately positioned to amplify your message.
Balancing and fostering a healthy mix of marketing skills:
Having merely scratched the surface on these subjects, it is clear to see that marketers need to balance their skills at both ends of the scientific-artistic continuum.
Ten key points to fostering and balancing both skill sets:
Ensure your marketing team is trained in understanding and briefing scientific and creative suppliers
Facilitate creative thinking – I’d suggest that marketers need about one day per quarter of facilitated creative thinking
Start with science to build the profile of your audience, but always get a creative team to contribute ideas about how to reach them
Test various creative executions against the same audience to demonstrate, in hard commercial terms, the impact of the creative element of your campaigns
Don’t sacrifice creativity to buy more frequency – if your message makes no impact every time you pay for space, you’re wasting money
Don’t let beauty distract you – something can be beautiful but irrelevant
Make sure you track people through the sales funnel to allow you to see how you’ve generated your best leads
Look for ideas everywhere – you don’t have to have ‘creative’ in your job title to have a good idea
Never let the numbers speak for themselves – when it comes to reviewing marketing, you do need to look at what the audience saw to really understand it
Read the marketing awards booklets – there’s no such thing as a new idea. Most marketing awards these days look at science and creativity, you will find great examples if you look for them.
Marketing is one of the most exciting jobs in the world – you are a scientist, a psychologist, an artist and so much more. If you recognise, hone and balance these skills you’ll achieve success for your business and great satisfaction for yourself.
Clear Thought Consulting works with small businesses, equipping them with the marketing strategies, suppliers, skills and set-up that they need to become bigger businesses. We do this by planning and delivering 12-month marketing transformation programmes – supporting a small business through a step-by-step process to making marketing pay. We firmly believe that when you can’t out-spend your competition, you have to out-think them.
Will an economic downturn curb the enthusiasm of companies to spend on decent creative, or will it force people to be more inventive?
The recent Honda live ad, where they booked the entire ad break for a live parachute jump was pretty innovative. You could argue that this is sign of a company splashing the cash… or was it only possible because prices are on the down and a stunt like that becomes affordable? It is certainly true that in an increasingly saturated media landscape, people need to work harder for standout – but chucking money at it is not always the answer.
In the socially networked world, creativity is king. The Cadbury Gorilla is case in point. Though I’m sure Cadbury spent a pretty penny, the many hundreds of spoofs that really made the campaign a success were made in homes with dodgy webcams or even camera phones. It is the idea that shines through – really capturing imagination.
So, will a downturn lead to a mass of truly awful ads… possibly on TV, but in the ‘click to forward’ world, the dross simply doesn’t make it through the judging panel that is the self-selecting audience.
Clear Thought Consulting works with small businesses, equipping them with the marketing strategies, suppliers, skills and set-up that they need to become bigger businesses. We do this by planning and delivering 12-month marketing transformation programmes – supporting a small business through a step-by-step process to making marketing pay. We firmly believe that when you can’t out-spend your competition, you have to out-think them.
Long copy rules. For many a year the short copywriter has been king – writing those catchy lines that grab attention, particularly in advertising. In an online world, this is less important than depth, quality and quantity. Well written articles picked up by relevant online journals, forums and bloggers are now much more powerful than the clever one-liner. Why? Search! Where advertising once ruled, search has become the first, or the very close second, port of call in a buying decision. Being referenced in many trusted online venues is essential – and this can only be achieved with decent long copy (preferably written with clear thought on SEO strategy).
Clear Thought Consulting works with small businesses, equipping them with the marketing strategies, suppliers, skills and set-up that they need to become bigger businesses. We do this by planning and delivering 12-month marketing transformation programmes – supporting a small business through a step-by-step process to making marketing pay. We firmly believe that when you can’t out-spend your competition, you have to out-think them.
Many of us will have experienced a sense of ‘information overload’ where we simply switch off, or the frustration of wanting to know more about a product or service before we commit and not being able to find it. Both happen regularly, and when they do – you’ve lost a sale.
For almost every purchase we make, we run through a broadly similar decision-making process (I say almost, as the impulse bar of chocolate at the supermarket counter is quite a different process). Typically, and particularly for more complex purchases, our thinking will go something like this: ‘My laptop is heavy – I saw that ad for really light weight ones, who was it again?’ (Latent need); ‘There’s that ad, it’s X-brand’ (Awareness); ‘I’ll just check out their site’ (Interest); ‘Hmm, well the weight certainly compares well, but can I afford it, what are the other options?’ (Evaluation); ‘I’ll pop into Y-shop to see what it feels like and ask a little more about it’ (Trial); ‘I’ve researched the best price, I’ll get it from there’ (Purchase). Kotler and others have spelt out various different versions of this process, there’s bound to have been one modelled for most markets. So, our step-by-step decision-making process is something like 1) Awareness, 2) Interest, 3) Evaluation, 4) Trial, 5) Purchase.
Against this process you should map and measure your sales funnel, you’ll steadily whittle down your audience at each step, with interested parties moving through the funnel and those who either don’t want what you offer or who are turned off by your messaging going elsewhere. To maximise the conversion at each stage, marketers should consider two key elements; tone and quantity.
What do I mean by tone? As short-hand, think emotion. Against the sales funnel, there is an appropriate tone at each step. If you imagine a continuum from emotional to rational, typically your marketing material will need to start at emotional and move to rational through the funnel. Emotional appeals are most likely to really grab someone’s attention. If you hit a nerve, they notice you. However rational you are, e.g. ‘we’re cheap’, if they don’t feel a need for what you’re offering they’re unlikely to notice your communications in the first place. Successful emotional appeals, in marketing terms, usually hit on a negative feeling and say that you can take it away. This is called finding the point of pain. Once you’ve established that emotional appeal, your communications need to move into more rational territory, where proof is needed. As a sanity check on the tone of your marketing materials, map out each stage of the sales funnel and look at the material (offline, online, sales person, in-store, etc.) and assess the tone – are you too rational too soon? Are you trying to appeal to their emotions when they’re looking for proof?
Quantity, in regard to sales funnelling, is a fairly straight forward concept – start ‘short and sweet’ and then provide more information at each step. Where most organisations fall foul of this is on their websites. Home pages are often jam packed with information. Considering the journey a home page or a campaign landing page is only the second step on the sales funnel – they are still pretty emotional (what’s the benefit for me?) and they are looking for key messages. Again, map out your journey and assess the quantity of information you are serving at each stage, it should start small and increase at each step.
So, if you’re experiencing lots of web traffic, but low numbers of enquiries – or lots of footfall and low sales, think about the sales funnel. An initial assessment against tone and quantity will sign post where your blockage might be and put you on the path to a free flowing sales funnel that has a tangible link to your bottom line.
Clear Thought Consulting works with small businesses, equipping them with the marketing strategies, suppliers, skills and set-up that they need to become bigger businesses. We do this by planning and delivering 12-month marketing transformation programmes – supporting a small business through a step-by-step process to making marketing pay. We firmly believe that when you can’t out-spend your competition, you have to out-think them.
I once had a boss whose favourite saying was “Don’t sweat the small stuff” – it irritated me then, and it irritates me now.
By Bryony Thomas | Chief Clear Thinker | Clear Thought Consulting Ltd | @bryonythomas | www.clear-thought.co.uk
Posted by Bryony Thomas 
If you have examples of online word of mouth activities that have gone spectacularly well or spectacularly badly – do drop me a line. And, if you’re interested, please do join us 6pm to 9pm, Tuesday 22nd Sept at the University of Bristol, details here:
Bryony Thomas
Cheryl Crichton
