Marketing coach

Marketing coach

By Nigel Temple Comment Closed
Marketing coach Are you are a small business owner or independent professional? Would it help to have a marketing coach? This would be a marketing professional who can provide impartial suggestions and ideas to improve your marketing knowledge and results.They would take the time to understand you and your business. They would ask you questions about your marketing, suggest options and nudge you to take action.The challenge with marketing is that it is important but not urgent. There is so much to do, when you are running your own enterprise, isn't there? You probably went into business because you saw an opportunity to provide products or services that you understand well. However, being a subject expert is insufficient for success. You also need to create awareness, enquiries and sales and this takes marketing knowledge and application.Nigel Temple created The Marketing Compass to address this need. You can join for free, create a profile and link back to your website (which will...
Read More

Think of software as a strategic investment

By Nigel TempleNo Comments
Don't think of software as a cost. Think of it as an investment in your enterprise. Software can provide you with a series of benefits, including: *  Better customer service *  Greater brand awareness *  Faster response time *  Fewer mistakes *  A more professional business *  Competitive advantage *  Additional services *  Product / service insights *  Customer insights *  Increased business value *  Greater ROI When you are considering new software, think about what it can connect to. Software integrations can deliver even greater value.  In addition, consider how complex the software is: will you require training? Old, inefficient software can have a negative effect on your enterprise and you should review your software at least once a year....
Read More

Your 2016 marketing strategy: 12 questions to ask yourself

By Nigel TempleNo Comments
What is your 2016 marketing strategy? Here are 12 questions to ask yourself: 1.  What is your offer to the marketplace? (This should be a simple sentence or two that anyone can understand). 2.  What is the one key thing that you want customers to remember about your brand, next year? 3.  Are you going to launch any new products / services in 2o16? (Hint: you can't keep selling the same old stuff forever, can you?) 4.  Have you reviewed your pricing, for the year ahead? Should it go up, stay the same, or go down? 5.  What is your digital marketing strategy for 2016? 6.  What is your mobile marketing strategy for the year ahead? 7.  How will you out-innovate your competitors, with regards to marketing, in the New Year? 8.  Who is going to do the webcopywriting?  ("The more you write, the more you sell.") Remember that writing for the web is different to writing for print. 9.  Which social media platforms will you focus on, and why? 10....
Read More

Open questions in sales conversations

By Nigel TempleNo Comments
Different types of question generate different responses. For example, an open question cannot usually be answered with a “Yes” or a “No”.  Open questions can be used to get people talking. Here is an extract from Telemarketing Results by Nigel Temple: Have you ever come across Rudyard Kipling's six honest serving men: ‘I keep six honest serving men (They taught me all I knew): their names are WHAT and WHY and WHEN and HOW and WHERE and WHO.’ Mind you, I feel sorry for poor old WHICH, who presumably was either burnt at the stake of knowledge or ran off with the Wizard. Incidentally, these questions can be prefixed with: ”It would be very helpful if you could tell me…” “I hope you can help me.” (Most human beings respond positively to a request for help) ”I was just wondering….” It goes without saying that the way in which you ask these types of questions will make all the difference to the conversation. It is best to form some rapport first. The customer...
Read More

The sales journey

By Nigel TempleNo Comments
Customers go through a journey with you, before they buy: 1. Suspect An individual or enterprise that you want to do business with. They will fit your marketing criteria and they will probably belong to a target market segment. A reasonable number of them should be stored in your database. How do you figure out who your suspects are? By doing a market segmentation exercise. This involves thinking about groups of people who have similar needs, for whom you have solutions. You should have specific solutions for specific needs. 2. Unqualified prospect An unqualified prospect is someone who has uttered the three magic words: “Tell me more.” However, before we proceed we need to qualify them, by considering whether we can  satisfy their needs. 3. Prospect Someone who has gone through the qualification process. 4. Customer Someone who has bought from you once. Money has changed hands on a single occasion, therefore, customers are 'transactionally based'. 5. Client The next stage is to turn customers into clients (through repeat business). 6. Advocate A...
Read More

The first time people look at any given ad, they don’t even see it

By Nigel TempleNo Comments
In 1885, Thomas Smith wrote a guide called Successful Advertising. He wrote: The first time people look at any given ad, they don't even see it. The second time, they don't notice it. The third time, they are aware that it is there. The fourth time, they have a fleeting sense that they've seen it somewhere before. The fifth time, they actually read the ad. The sixth time they thumb their nose at it. The seventh time, they start to get a little irritated with it. The eighth time, they start to think, "Here's that confounded ad again." The ninth time, they start to wonder if they're missing out on something. The tenth time, they ask their friends and neighbors if they've tried it. The eleventh time, they wonder how the company is paying for all these ads. The twelfth time, they start to think that it must be a good product. The thirteenth time, they start to feel the product has value. The fourteenth time, they start to remember wanting a product exactly like...
Read More

What is anchor text?

By Nigel TempleNo Comments
Anchor text is the text within a hyperlink. This is important, as the search engines analyse this. For example www.marketingcompass.co.uk  …or…  The Marketing Compass small business marketing advice. Search engines examine anchor text, in order to figure out what the destination web page is about. They are doing their best to be helpful to the searcher. Think of it this way - Google would like to know as much as possible about the subject of the page to which the link points. Therefore, inserting keywords into anchor text helps search engines such as Google, Bing and Yahoo to do a better job. Have you noticed how Wikipedia uses anchor text? One topic leads to another and yet another. Wikipedia is at the top page 1 for millions of items and I have no doubt that its extensive use of anchor text has helped it to get there. Here is a tip: if someone wants to link to your website, send them a pre-prepared...
Read More

Is Google PageRank still important and are backlinks still a good idea?

By Nigel TempleNo Comments
Is Google PageRank still important and are backlinks still a good idea? This is a question that is still often asked. PageRank was the first algorithm used by Google. It is a link analysis system that gives a 0 - 10 score. It figured out the relative importance of a website, based on the number of in-bound links. The name comes from Larry Page, one of Google's founders. Google stated: "PageRank works by counting the number and quality of links to a page to determine a rough estimate of how important the website is. The underlying assumption is that more important websites are likely to receive more links from other websites." At the time of writing (May 2015) PageRank would appear to be still used by Google itself. However, the thinking behind backlinks has moved on as they are far less important than they used to be. Personally, I have always thought that backlinks are a poor indication of page quality because it is relatively...
Read More

Sponsoring company updates within LinkedIn

By Nigel TempleNo Comments
Sponsoring company updates within LinkedIn is a paid for service. The idea is to raise the visibility of your content within LinkedIn. Sponsored Updates enable you to deliver your content into the homepage feed ('timeline') of members, even if they are not Following your company. This process enables you to bring interesting content (i.e. blog posts, articles, slideshows, whitepapers and videos) to a wider audience. You can target Sponsored Updates to chosen segments of LinkedIn's premium audience, based on profile data across millions of members. Sponsored Updates can be seen on any device. They are marked as 'Sponsored'. They show up in the member’s homepage feed, along with the posts and status updates from their network / the companies that they follow. Members will have the option to Follow the sponsoring company as well as Like, Comment and Share posts with members of their own network. You can track the effectiveness of your posts via analytics, within LinkedIn. Begin by writing a...
Read More

Navigator member spotlight: Sports Media Africa – Themba Ndlwana

By Nigel TempleNo Comments
"I met Themba Ndlwana in Essex, when I was delivering a marketing seminar there," commented Nigel Temple. "His business is called Sports Media Africa. SMA is the catalyst between key stakeholders in the African Sports TV market. Themba is a nice guy and has considerable business vision. It would be great if our members could provide advice, feedback and networking contacts to Themba." Themba "foresees SMA playing a significant role in the development of a robust and sustainable African Sports economy. We are optimistic about the African Sports TV market. It's going to be one of the key drivers of the African sports economy. We are at the epicentre of this development and we welcome interested parties to join us." Themba is an African sports media consultant who has in-depth experience in sports media rights and sponsorship sales. He feels that the media, especially TV, has a vitally important role in the expansion and viability of African sports institutions. He foresees himself making...
Read More