Marketing

Conversion is the ultimate goal of a marketing campaign. For an online shop, a successful conversion is the closing of an order, for an advertising campaign, it's more likely to be collecting prospect details for following up. Improving conversion is all about attention to detail. When I started in marketing, …

The more relevant you make your offer to a prospective customer, the more chance you have of gaining their business. Better Targeting is key, so what can you do without breaking the bank. The Basics There are complementing areas to consider, interests, groups and personalisation. Interests Imagine you are trying …

Setting Priorities – It seems a simple enough question to answer; Grow and/or Expand Survive Sell Up and/or Retire Save Costs Increase Prices … As with most things, ideas are easier than implementation. By setting priorities you avoid trying to manage too many aims at once, here are some tips …

Public Relations or as it is most commonly known, PR, is probably the most misunderstood marketing function, it’s not something just for large companies, good PR can help businesses of any size. PR in a Nutshell PR is a branch of Marketing that is responsible for nurturing a company’s image. …

Sometimes it’s useful to be able to screen out unwanted noise, but if it’s an existing or prospective customer talking, then you need good listening skills. Some people are naturally gifted at summarising points succinctly, being interesting and maintaining attention, most though, in my experience are not, so as the …

Making investment decisions is one of the hardest tasks in business. As any fan of Dragons Den on television will know, sales forecasts, product costs and investments already made are all key criteria, the Dragons query before making an investment. What’s this to do with Marketing Very much so, two …

Trade-marks uniquely connect a product or service to a business, they can comprise of words, logos, colours and even sounds. If you don’t register them, you have no legal protection. A single applications costs £170 (September 2018). Conditions In the UK, trade-marks are registered with the governments Intellectual Property Office (IPO), …

“Never Knowingly Undersold” most of us are familiar with John Lewis’s claim, as well as a marketing statement it is also a Unique Selling Point or USP. Unique Selling Point or Proposition (USP) It’s all about what makes you different from your competitors. Many of us are offering similar or identical …

You have probably heard of the expression, “Jack of all Trades, Master of None.” It begs the question, when marketing your business, should you claim to do everything, or be a specialist. There are pros and cons for both, your industry also is factor, so here are some points to …

Note the avoidance of calling this article “Choosing the Right Marketing Tool,” the point is that there are no wrong marketing tools, just the use of the wrong tool for a particular job. Take the example of Fred’s Heating Engineers It’s a multifaceted business covering The installation of new heating …

Newsletters are in my opinion one of the most underrated marketing tools, here’s why: The Three Marketing Strategies Marketing can be broken down into three broad areas or strategies; Pro-active / Disruptive / Offensive Reactive / Search Defensive Let’s look at each in more detail. Pro-active / Disruptive / Offensive …

Clear Branding is a key need for all businesses whatever their size, so what is Branding. Branding – What is it? This is an area where experts love to differ! It’s probably easier to define what you want from branding rather than to define exactly what it is, so here …

Setting your marketing budget This task has been likened to asking someone how long is a piece of string. Some would argue that because of the broad number of factors influencing marketing, it’s the harder task to answer. Historically, and by that I mean pre today’s digital marketing offerings, the …

All businesses need a website, whether this is your first new website or an update, here are some tips to help you on your way. Business Card The most basic, possibly a single page with a basic description of who you are, what you do and how you can be …