Want to work in marketing?

There are many ways to kick start your career in marketing, depending in which areas you want to specialise and how dedicated you are. I recently wrote an article for the website, www.utalkmarketing.com. Be sure to let me know what you think – whether you agree or disagree. Similarly, if you have any questions you’d like to ask, let me know and I’ll try my best to answer them.

Have out of town retailers killed town centres?

Make no bones about it, if you’re not currently marketing your business then you need to start – and fast.

Yes, I know there’s a recession and yes, I know your budget is stretched to full capacity. However, with research from PriceWaterhouse Cooper showing that 5,483 UK businesses folded in the first quarter of this year, small businesses need to maintain or even increase their marketing activity to maintain their profile in the marketplace and continue to seek new clients.

The good news is, if you can make the effort and time, you can actually do this very effectively and cheaply.

Gone are the days of buying expensive contact names and addresses, paying pricey print costs for flyers and even heftier postage costs. Unrequested direct mail (“spam”) and even worse, “leaflet drops”, where the campaign isn’t even targeted and sent to a named individual, are very much frowned upon. “Opt-in” campaigns, where the individual has shown interest in your product or service and given you their details specifically to keep in touch, can be done faster, timelier and cheaper using special e-mail software, such as dotMailer or ConstantContact.

Blogging is an excellent way of increasing your web exposure. A blog is free, simple and quick to create, most using Typepad or WordPress. All you need to do is post regular items on a weekly if not daily basis. Ideally, content should be relevant to your target market and informative, although not formal. You could perhaps choose a mixture of your personal commentary on current affairs, any new changes to your product line or services and advice to your client base. The key word here is “regular”. Search engine spiders love regular, unique, updated content and are desperate to raise your rankings, so help them out. Unfortunately, according to a recent survey carried out among 125 small business owners, 62 percent recognised that a blog would help raise their profile, strengthen their brand image, reputation and search engine ranking. They therefore set up their firm’s blog. Unfortunately, 29 percent then said they updated their post 1-3 times per month, whilst a staggering 71 percent admitted they were too busy to think about it and had let it go. What a missed opportunity.

PR is generally considered to be an extremely credible marketing tool. The trick here is to identify what is actually considered by the editor and the audience as being true “news”. What you might think is something very exciting and relevant may have no meaning at all for the newspaper’s readership, and your carefully crafted (yes, there is a structure) press release will go no further than the editor’s bin. Good examples of a true PR lead might be new appointments, a new client which we’ve all heard of, any events that you’re holding or a commentary on something in the news which is relevant to your business.

Finally, Facebook and Twitter are the new darlings of the marketing world, known collectively as “social media marketing”. Again completely free, simply set up a page or an account and contribute to it regularly, with material much the same as your blog. What you must remember, however, is that these are not simply advertising platforms. To be effective, you must be patient and build up relationships with your steadily growing followers. These people are interested in you and what you have to say, but they probably aren’t ready to commit to spending money with you – just yet. Journalists and editors pick up news leads from social media, comments are picked up by search engines and you can often use social media to drive traffic to your website or blog.

To put it into context, over the period of three months, you’ve built up 400 followers on Twitter, simply by chatting about relevant topics every day. You’re ready to publicise that you have a limited sale offering 25 percent discount on all stock. Within one minute, you’ve informed 400 people, all of whom you know are interested in your products, driving them to your website for a better look. How long and how much would that campaign have cost using traditional methods?

Rural businesses especially, need to adopt these techniques. Footfall can be scarce, even non-existent, so publicising who you are, what you do and how you can benefit your target audience are messages which you need to send out across the globe to bring in new customers.

So yes, new marketing takes time, patience and self discipline. If you can’t afford to do it yourself, find someone who can do it for you. As a small business owner, can you really justify not taking up the opportunity?

How to market your small business on a shoestring

Make no bones about it, if you’re not currently marketing your business then you need to start – and fast.

Yes, I know there’s a recession and yes, I know your budget is stretched to full capacity. However, with research from PriceWaterhouse Cooper showing that 5,483 UK businesses folded in the first quarter of this year, small businesses need to maintain or even increase their marketing activity to maintain their profile in the marketplace and continue to seek new clients.

The good news is, if you can make the effort and time, you can actually do this very effectively and cheaply.

Gone are the days of buying expensive contact names and addresses, paying pricey print costs for flyers and even heftier postage costs. Unrequested direct mail (“spam”) and even worse, “leaflet drops”, where the campaign isn’t even targeted and sent to a named individual, are very much frowned upon. “Opt-in” campaigns, where the individual has shown interest in your product or service and given you their details specifically to keep in touch, can be done faster, timelier and cheaper using special e-mail software, such as dotMailer or ConstantContact.

Blogging is an excellent way of increasing your web exposure. A blog is free, simple and quick to create, most using Typepad or WordPress. All you need to do is post regular items on a weekly if not daily basis. Ideally, content should be relevant to your target market and informative, although not formal. You could perhaps choose a mixture of your personal commentary on current affairs, any new changes to your product line or services and advice to your client base. The key word here is “regular”. Search engine spiders love regular, unique, updated content and are desperate to raise your rankings, so help them out. Unfortunately, according to a recent survey carried out among 125 small business owners, 62 percent recognised that a blog would help raise their profile, strengthen their brand image, reputation and search engine ranking. They therefore set up their firm’s blog. Unfortunately, 29 percent then said they updated their post 1-3 times per month, whilst a staggering 71 percent admitted they were too busy to think about it and had let it go. What a missed opportunity.

PR is generally considered to be an extremely credible marketing tool. The trick here is to identify what is actually considered by the editor and the audience as being true “news”. What you might think is something very exciting and relevant may have no meaning at all for the newspaper’s readership, and your carefully crafted (yes, there is a structure) press release will go no further than the editor’s bin. Good examples of a true PR lead might be new appointments, a new client which we’ve all heard of, any events that you’re holding or a commentary on something in the news which is relevant to your business.

Finally, Facebook and Twitter are the new darlings of the marketing world, known collectively as “social media marketing”. Again completely free, simply set up a page or an account and contribute to it regularly, with material much the same as your blog. What you must remember, however, is that these are not simply advertising platforms. To be effective, you must be patient and build up relationships with your steadily growing followers. These people are interested in you and what you have to say, but they probably aren’t ready to commit to spending money with you – just yet. Journalists and editors pick up news leads from social media, comments are picked up by search engines and you can often use social media to drive traffic to your website or blog.

To put it into context, over the period of three months, you’ve built up 400 followers on Twitter, simply by chatting about relevant topics every day. You’re ready to publicise that you have a limited sale offering 25 percent discount on all stock. Within one minute, you’ve informed 400 people, all of whom you know are interested in your products, driving them to your website for a better look. How long and how much would that campaign have cost using traditional methods?

Rural businesses especially, need to adopt these techniques. Footfall can be scarce, even non-existent, so publicising who you are, what you do and how you can benefit your target audience are messages which you need to send out across the globe to bring in new customers.

So yes, new marketing takes time, patience and self discipline. If you can’t afford to do it yourself, find someone who can do it for you. As a small business owner, can you really justify not taking up the opportunity?

How to make blogging work for you

It’s quite simple – just make your blog relevant to your target audience and keep it updated!

According to a survey carried out among of 125 small business owners by Write My Site, 62% recognised that a blog would help raise their profile, strengthen their brand image, reputation and search engine ranking. They therefore set up their firm’s blog. Unfortunately, 29% then said they updated their post 1-3 times per month, whilst a staggering 71% admitted they were too busy to think about it and had let it go.

As a business owner, you know that success doesn’t simply fall into your lap. It takes hard work, effort and no shortage of stress. If you don’t take the time to recognise that marketing your firm is what will bring in the sales or fees, and invest enough time to ensure that it is being carried out effectively, then there is no reason why new clients should take their time to hunt you down and find out more about you before investing their hard earned cash. Make it easy for them!

Why am I emphasising the need for a blog? I’ll tell you:

1. It’s a great way of profiling your firm to the outside world, absolutely free. Not just your locality, but the whole flipping world. It doesn’t take a genius to put together a cost:benefit ratio analysis, compared to a £300 advert in your local rag.

2. Clients buy into trust, into relationships. When put side by side with your competitors, clients will choose the firm they feel most comfortable with. Blogs are a fantastic way of injecting some personality into your firm, conveying more messages than ads or PR ever could.

3. Communication. If you’re running a sale, have won an award, have a special offer currently, blog it and then Twitter/Facebook it. You’ll reach dozens, if not hundreds, if not thousands of relevant individuals. How much would time, effort and money would that have cost you to DM, providing of course you could buy the contact details? You may also hit lucky and reach an interested editor or journalist, who might run with your story.

4. Google. Search engines just love regular, unique content. Spiders lap them up and if you’ve kept an eye on key words in your blog content and dumped your blogs in the correct category, you’ll attract a lot of interest and go shooting up the search engine listings. Much cheaper than hiring a specialist.

You can’t afford to ignore such a fantastic opportunity to communicate with your current clients and showcase yourself to other potential clients. If you can’t afford the time to update your blog daily or even weekly, delegate someone in your team or pay someone to do it for you. You’ll be glad you did.

Real estate agents missing an opportunity?

There was a distinct murmuring among fellow Twitterers today, led by PR-guru Nigel Morgan about two estate agents (I shall spare their blushes in this blog as I know many, many agencies are guilty) who are using Twitter simply as a free advertising platform.

The agents in question have been posting Tweets solely along the lines of “4 bed house for sale”, presumably not realising that simply bombarding users with whatever you’ve got on the books is not the most effective form of marketing or indeed efficient way of spending office hours.

So what are they doing wrong? Twitter is a fantastic way of connecting with relevant people much more easily than with Facebook or LinkedIn. It is a useful tool for building relationships, trust and perhaps eventually mutually beneficial backscratching. It takes time, effort and a little bit of knowledge. You would be well advised to seek the advice of Nigel or Twitterer-extraordinaire, Nikki Pilkington. Tweets should be a healthy mix of useful updates, informal conversation and relevant links.

What is it about estate agents? Having worked as head of marketing for a chain of rural property agents for three years, there was a certain viewpoint (some might say lazy) that actually the properties sold themselves and reflected the brand. This was true to a certain extent in the days of the property boom. However, since the slump, agents need to be looking at proactively MARKETING themselves (this is NOT the same as making quick sales). They need to be smart about it, researching who is likely to be buying or selling in their area and using all tools at their disposal, make contact with these people and begin to build relationships. Estate agents are notoriously regarded as being untrustworthy, so selling to these people is an absolute no-no until the relationship is firmly established.

Yes, it takes a lot of effort, but you will be broadening your network of potential vendors/purchasers and promoting your brand – vital for when the market recovers. You wil also find that a little bit of common sense marketing makes a lot more financial sense in the long run than hiring a long line of trendy sales speakers.

From green topics to pink hairdos - and a fascinating author!

First week back from sunny Mallorca, and what a week it’s been!

On the client front, I’m turning into my own version of an eco-warrior, working with both Bamboo Baby, who has opened my eyes to the use of bamboo in the textiles industry; and a client promoting investment in jatropha, currently being hailed as the newest hope for a replacement to traditional oil. Apparently, millions of hectares are currently being put aside to grow this plant, whose seeds can be converted to fuel for diesel cars without modification.

In addition to all this, I am in the fortunate position of being able to promote a new novel, “The French Odalisque” by my client, who is now in his eighties, Sean Graham. An extraordinary man, born a German Jew, he was fostered out at an early age by his father and stepmother, finally being adopted by his uncle’s family. Fleeing to England in 1933, they settled in Hampstead, where Sean endured bullying at boarding school. Later, two years into his law studies at Cambridge, he was shipped off to a Quaker camp in Canada for three months as alien enemy.

On arriving back in England, Sean discovered that his home in Hampstead had been bombed and his family had emigrated to the States, with no means of finding them. The war was looming, he volunteered and the Army trained him in intelligence work. He rose through the ranks very quickly and spent the following seven years interrogating high level German officers and other PoW.

After leaving the Army, he went to Ghana as a film maker and helping to create the Ghana Film Industry, becoming close to Nkrumah, President at that time. He then went on to establish the film industry in Tunisia in 1958 before returning and finally settling down in London with his French wife to a life of film writing and travelling. He is now in his eighties, has four grandchildren and is looking forward to the launch party for “The French Odalisque” in September.

It is my honour to be working with someone who has led such an eventful life and I will be doing my very best to get both the novel and Sean’s lifestory out to the public.

“The French Odalisque” will be published by Orbach and Chambers in September and will retail at £9.99. It will be available on Amazon, so make sure it goes on your shopping list!

And finally – I don’t want to tap into the trend of talking about the late MJ, but it is of course a tragedy that he left before his comeback, although some of us may argue that he never left. Another showbiz great who has left us today is the wonderful Mollie Sugden. One week the hair was pink, the next blue and the following week green. One thing remained constant – her love for her pussy. I will raise a glass to the late Ms Sugden this evening and be sure to give my own pussy a special treat in recognition!!