Posts tagged marketing

Which marketing method is working for you?

By on February 20, 2012

The time and effort you put in to your marketing is time well spent. However, are you sure that you are reaching your target audience? Are Facebook fans coming to your site and making pre-sales inquiries? You update Twitter as often as you can but are they site visitors and asking questions?

Your analytic’s will give you important information about your site visitors. Where they came from and what they typed in to search engines. However there is one thing you can do that is easy, direct and should answer the important question.

All you have to do is ask.

On the contact form, you need on extra question – How did you hear about us?

If they make contact by phone then ask - How did you hear about us?

Why not record the answers and try to work out the most popular method of discovery, which marketing method is driving customers to your site.

 

This entry is filed under Marketing and tagged , , .

Register your website with 100 directories, special offer from Leigh Quantrill

By on January 25, 2012

Leigh Quantrill

Leigh Quantrill has a great offer on the go at the moment…

It’s the start of a new year and the perfect time to start getting noticed, generating traffic to your website and making sure all those potential future clients know what your business does and can find your website, email address and telephone number if and when they need to.

Why not let us register your website with 100 directories for just £40!

Gaining valuable links and making sure your website can be found online in a variety of places, directory submissions are a great way to build your profile!

If you are starting a new site then this offer is certainly worth checking out. Find out more on Leigh’s site.

This entry is filed under Marketing and tagged , , .

What SEO will do for your site – and what it won’t do

By on December 19, 2011

SEO what it can and can't do

Optomising your site for the search engines is an important activity. You can either do it yourself or get a reputable company to do it for you. What a lot of site owners don’t realise is that it is an on-going thing, you don’t do it the once and then forget about it.

SEO is performed to raise a web pages position in search engine results pages. Everyone wants to be on page one but as the competition is high no one can guarantee it.

What SEO will do

As mentioned, proper SEO can raise your page or sites position in the search engines results page (SERP’s). Search engines start with position 1 on page 1 and work downwards. If you are on page 20 then there are a lot of other sites in between.

A very optomised web page with a sales ‘call to action’ on it has a much better chance of converting the higher up the SERP’s it is.

SEO can lift you site and pages out of the background noise and to the attention of your intended audience.

What SEO won’t do

SEO won’t help if the page is badly written, contains a ‘call to action’ message that does nothing to encourage. Despite social networks and the like, content still has to be engaging – of interest to the visitor. SEO won’t help you to sell more widgets if they are poorly presented on the page or badly photographed.

Make sure the content is spot on, make sure the page does what it is intended and then perform SEO magic.

This entry is filed under seo, Uncategorized and tagged , , .

As the online retailers battle, do eReaders and eBooks matter to you?

By on December 16, 2011

If you have not already noticed, there is a bit of a battle going on between online book retailers. Amazon with their Kindle range of eReaders, Barnes and Noble with their Nook and many more battling to make money (such as Kobo).

Will you be buying a device this year? Will someone be putting one under the Christmas tree and writing your name on it? I bet some of your customers will be getting one.

If you are not thinking of using eBooks in your marketing mix then you should be. From a simple product or technical guide through to complex how-to’s, eBooks looks to be  great addition.

So what are your plans for eBooks and eReaders? Planning to join the digital reading revolution or going to give it a miss?

This entry is filed under Marketing and tagged , , .

Win a years advertising with France Online

By on October 25, 2011

France Online is offering a prize of one years advertising in their competition.

Win an opportunity to showcase your business on all, or any of our 7 websites for 1 year.

You will also have the opportunity to feature in one of our Blogs Free of Charge with your own publication showcasing your business or services throughout the year.

All you have to do to enter is answer 3 questions and subscribe to their weekly newsletter.

This entry is filed under Marketing and tagged , , .

A lesson learned from Artisans at a chocolate show

By on October 10, 2011

I attended the Salon du Chocolat at the Salle Anatole France in Bergerac on Saturday (8th October 2011). I was there on behalf of a friend who had a stall there. There were some really excellent artisans selling the most wonderful chocolate…

 

salon du chocolate - Bergerac

One stall had traveled all the way from Carcassonne, that’s a 321 km, 3 hours 32 mins drive according to Google Maps. A long way to go…

But they, like all the others at the show were missing one thing.

Hardly any mention of websites and no mentions Facebook pages.

Some had signs low down resting on the floor. Some had their web addresses printed on bags. But that was it. If you had traveled a long way to visit the show and bought something, you may well want to buy more. For Christmas (that’s looming up fast) or other events, like birthdays etc. With such little promotion of sites and Facebook pages, no one is going to remember where they got their wonderful chocolate from! An artisan traveled for over 3 hours to be there, convinced people from the local area to buy, will they buy again? Not if they can’t remember the name, that’s why you should include SOMETHING in the packing that mentions websites and Facebook pages.

Q. What do you think would happen if one of the artisans had a big sign up on high that mentioned their Facebook page?

A. Repeat customers

This entry is filed under Marketing and tagged , , , . | 2 Comments

Which social network should I use for business?

By on October 6, 2011

Which social network you focus on depends on the message you are trying to put across and who you intend it for. So lets take a quick look at the top 3 networks and see what they can do for you.

Twitter

what is twitterAccording to research (Just how many active Twitter users are there?)…

… there are 56 million accounts on Twitter following 8 or more accounts. There are only 38 million following 16, and just 12 million following 64.

That’s against the claim by Twitter that there are 175 million registered users (from the above article). That’s still a lot of people.

While it’s good to use Twitter for announcing business activity, messages just fly by. Trying following 50 people or more and it can be hard to keep track. That’s why many use it for topics that are immediate, competitions, discounts, new products etc etc.

One trick bloggers use is to send out automatic tweets from their archive as well as new posts. By keeping a trickle of new tweets on the go, you can try and maintain a healthy profile.

The main use for Twitter? For all things that are immediate; real time events, discussions, questions and answers and maintaining a profile.

Facebook

According to Facebook, there are

  • More than 800 million active users
  • More than 50% of our active users log on to Facebook in any given day
  • Average user has 130 friends

Facebook is indeed a social place, it started off for students then on to friends and family. With the amount of interaction going on, business caught on and did very well out of it.

With business pages and groups, a business can keep their future customers, clients and fans updated and hooked. It also encourages interaction so ‘fans’ feel they are a part of whats going on.

The main use of Facebook? Community building around products and brands. Building trust and the feel of a one to one relationship. Brand loyalty can be maintained and increased.

Google Plus

While Google has been around for about 12 years, this is the first real foray in to proper social networking. This brand new service has 25 million users, according to the Search Engine Journal.

Business pages are not yet available so it is filled with individuals trying to get around and finding out how they can make the best use of it. New features are still being added and bugs are being squashed.

So while it seems Google Plus is limited, now is the time to get used to it and be around when the business pages are added. Ever thought to yourself, wish I had used Facebook and Twitter ages ago? Well now’s your chance to be at the begging of Google’s new venture in to social networking.

The main use of Google Plus? Great for individuals networking with each other and sharing interesting stuff. Until the business pages turn up, it’s yet to be proved what it can do for brands, products and services.

This entry is filed under Uncategorized and tagged , , , , .

Products not selling? How to promote them with a blog post

By on June 16, 2011

I am ‘blog coaching’ some one who manufactures quality aromatherapy soaps. The blog is going well and will help to promote the products. Especially the ones with low page views.

Keeping track with analytics

We are using Google Analytics to keep track of the online shop, which is built with the excellent Prestashop. We can see which pages are popular and also the ones with the least page views. We can also see where visitors are coming from and which pages they start browsing on. In fact there is a rather a lot of information but right now, I’m interested in which pages are viewed the least.

Using the Blog to promote products

The blog that is attached to the online shop will allow the promotion of the least viewed products. To give an example, We look at the shop page with the least page views. Ensure there is nothing wrong or needs changing, like a better picture or description. Make sure the picture is clear and shows the product at it’s best.

We then create a blog post BUT NOT USING the existing description. The post must describe why the product is good for you. For soap, why is the product good for your skin. What is it made from and explain the natural ingredients used in making it. It must contain unique text that is different from the shops product description.

Always remember…

“Don’t sell the product, sell the lifestyle”

…in the case of soaps, how that product will change your life style and enhance it. Far too many products have extensive lists of sizes and colours etc and don’t mention just how it will personally help you.

The big blog bonus

When the time is right and there are enough blog posts, we will plug the blog in to Twitter and Facebook. A quick 20 minute blog post about the least visited product page will increase page views for it and hopefully increase orders as well.

This entry is filed under Blogging and tagged , , , . | 2 Comments

3 quick tips on using images

By on June 15, 2011

I read this brief article that Niki Pilkington tweeted a few days ago, ‘Small business must use lawful images‘. In my mind, this applies weather you are blogging, producing advertising material, a static web site or any other activity involving pictures and publicity for commercial use.

Your product supplier has a catalog of products

If you intend to use pictures that your supplier has used in a product catalog, check that you are allowed to use them. If there is no statement that says you can’t, don’t take that as a yes. Get written permission, email or otherwise.

Taking your own pictures

You can take pictures of products but companies can be very protective over brand names, again get permission. Always better to be on the safe side.

Pictures to illustrate blog posts

There are several options here that you can follow.

 

Word of Warning

Just because you found an image you want to use on an image search, it does not mean you can use it. Even if every one else seems to using it, it does not make it right.

Where ever possible, if you intend to use an image for commercial use, make sure you have permission in a written format.

This entry is filed under Marketing and tagged , , .

Book review: Purple Cow by Seth Godin

By on May 26, 2011

Purple Cow by Seth Godin

Purple Cow by Seth Godin

One of the best books I have ever bought from Amazon is ‘Purple Cow’ by Seth Godin. I keep it with me at all times because it is such inspiration. When I get stuck for ideas, trying to think of a way to help a client to use the Internet and real life marketing better, I dig out the book.

While the title may sound strange, ‘Purple Cow’, there is a good reason. Imagine that you are travelling down a road and you see a field full of cows. They all look the same, nothing special to mark them out or any good reason to remember them. But what happens if one of them was a different colour, like purple? Not only would that cow stand out but you are going to tell all your friends of what you saw.

Seth Godin applies this to business, what makes you stand out from all the rest? What makes you special? Companies spend fortunes on advertising for products that are no different from the rest. But what happens if you treat your product or service as a ‘purple cow’? In the age of advertising where the amount of money spent is the only gauge (and most of it fails), this book shows you what you can do.

The book has examples of how the principle has been applied and the successes that have followed. How companies have managed to stand out from the rest.

It may seem like a small book at only 144 pages but the information inside is golden.

If you are looking to do something different with your marketing then this book is essential reading. Stop marketing and innovate, be remarkable – be brave and you too can succeed.

Buy this book from Amazon UK, Purple Cow: Transform Your Business by Being Remarkableor get it for your Kindle Purple Cow: Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable

This entry is filed under Book review and tagged , , , .

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