Business marketing advice, tips and guides to help you boost your promotions
Online advertising promises small and medium sized businesses control and customisation, but the reality is that they are confronted with complexity. Online ad expert Sean Riley, CEO of Ad Dynamo – which provides a straightforward one-price-for-all ad system – argues the need for a new simplicity.
So you’ve set up your newest social media profile, be it with Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus, LinkedIn or another of the networks cropping up across the web, but what does your bio tell potential customers?
The recent decline of the once dominant electrical chain store Comet has prompted many questions about the future of retail, in particular that of high-street stores.
UK marketers are wasting billions of pounds by relying on gut instinct and guesswork rather than data and rational decision-making, according to a new study by marketing software firm marketingQED.
We went through a recession, and while we weren’t looking, the world of marketing changed. We discovered as an industry that making certain that marketing governance is based on sound principles is critical in a recession. Felix Velarde, Managing Director of the CRM agency, Underwired explains.
Marketers need to inject a bit of this into their efforts to catch the most customers.
I recently noticed a fellow professional speaker post on his Facebook page that a potential client had told him that the fee he wanted to charge them to speak was ‘too expensive’. He went on to say he was a bit surprised, as he doesn’t normally get that kind of reaction.
With the Christmas break nearly upon us, I’m finding a lot of people asking me: “Andy, how can I use the Christmas break productively, so that I can get ahead of my competition and set myself up for a great 2013?”
Dan Kennedy famously said “It’s infinitely easier and always more profitable to work at increasing the purchasing of your satisfied customers than it is to go out and add new ones”… I’d add that it’s also infinitely smarter and more effective to use your existing clients to help you find new ones.
Advertising should always be an investment, giving you more money back in sales than you spent. Avoid these deadly sins if you want to invest wisely.
On a recent trip over to the Mercedes Benz factory in Bremen, Germany to collect my new Mercedes, I noticed a number of things that would be useful sales lessons for us all to be aware of. You could improve your sales figures, and those of your team, by putting the lessons into practice!
“If you keep on doing what you’ve always done you’ll keep on getting what you’ve always got.”
In the current economic climate, financial directors are saying “Stop spending!” and marketing directors are saying “Spend more!” So who is right? Deborah Porter of Essential New Media and Sharon Stevens-Cash of Essential Marketing Solutions, explain how to ensure you don’t waste precious marketing budgets.
The biggest challenge for any growth business is to build awareness – you need to make more people aware of your brand in an increasingly crowded consumer world where the average person is exposed to 5000 brand messages every day. The same challenge applies to the world’s biggest brands when launching new products, but they usually have the budgets to shout about it. So how do you cut through the noise on a budget?
PR or public relations is all about enhancing your reputation. PR aims to earn understanding and support, and influence opinion and behaviour. It can be particularly effective at local and regional levels and therefore, especially useful to people in small business.
