Twitter Hashtags – introduction, popularity, tips, ideas and resources

By Nigel TempleNo Comments
The hashtag symbol look like this: # The # symbol is followed by unbroken text. This can be one word, i.e. #book or a string of characters: #photography Hashtags have only been around since 2007. They were invented by Chris Messina: https://twitter.com/chrismessina Hashtags are used to tag social media posts with relevant keywords. Therefore, a good place to start is with your alphabetical list of keywords / keyword phrases, which I recommend you print out and display in your office (if you have an office, that is!) Social media websites use hashtags to track the popularity of topics (AKA ‘trending’ within Twitter) and users can use them for search purposes. Some marketers ride on the back of successful hashtags and embed them within their Tweets (I think that this is OK if the hashtag is actually relevant to your brand). Visit hashtags.org to find out what is currently trending on Twitter:  https://www.hashtags.org/trending-on-twitter As you will see, this site has a search box at the top. The...
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The 5 customer stages

By Nigel TempleNo Comments
When people buy from you, they go through 5 stages: 1. Awareness  If they have never heard of your name / your brand, they won't come to you. Awareness building is what a great deal of marketing activity is really about. 2. Prospect Someone who is going through the qualification process.  As all Sales Managers know, businesses must have a ‘pipeline’ of potential customers that they have identified, talked to and qualified. 3. Customer Someone who has bought from you once.  Money has changed hands on a single occasion. Therefore this is 'transactionally based'. This means that there probably won’t be a deep relationship (yet). If you have been in business for some time – you may well have a significant number of ‘dormant customers’. Recommendation: go back and start communicating with them again. Remember: It’s five times less expensive to sell to a customer, as it is to a stranger. 4. Client The next stage is to turn customers into clients - through repeat business. This may include up-selling (i.e. increasing the size of the sale)...
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Copywriting brief – here is a checklist

By Nigel TempleNo Comments
If you want to improve the quality of your 'marketing words', a  written copywriting brief will clarify your thinking. It will help you to produce better results – whether you are doing the writing or whether someone else is. Within the brief: *  State your objectives clearly. *  What business challenge will the writing solve? *  What are we selling? *  What does the product / service do? *  What is the identity of the product / service? *  How does it work? *  Key features? *  What are the benefits? (Create a Benefits List). *  How is our product / service better than the competition? *  What market segment are we communicating with? *  Describe a typical member of the market segment. *  What needs do they have (which we can help them with)? *  What are our key messages – for this segment? *  What else can we talk about? *  What proof can we offer? (Testimonials; research; statistics; surveys). *  How will we include our contact details? *   What sort of call to action will...
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Using stories in marketing

By Nigel TempleNo Comments
People love stories - are you using them in your marketing? Story telling makes it much easier to remember information. Think of the stories you heard as a child: can you remember any of them now? Here are some ideas for you. Tell the business founder's story (adversity overcome). Tell stories about the brand (creative thinking personified). Write customer case studies (problem - search for a solution - finding your product / service - benefits derived - what has changed - next steps). Run a story ideas brainstorming session. Write story ideas up on a whiteboard. Ask customers for their stories. Bring your stories to life with a storyline, characterisation, dialogue and images. By the way, if you read quality fiction, the way the author uses these devices will jump out of the page at you (which reminds me, are you reading any good books at the moment?) I trained for three years as a professional copywriter. We were living in Bromley, in...
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Content marketing and search engine rankings

By Nigel TempleNo Comments
In a digital economy, much of what you know can probably be found for free on the internet. On this basis, you may as well share a reasonable proportion of your knowledge on the web. Google will love you and so will prospective customers. For many years, it has been said that 'content is king'. This is now more true than ever - due to changes in search engine algorithms.  Content marketing and search engine rankings walk hand in hand. Therefore, the more you write, the more you sell....
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Startup marketing advice

By Nigel TempleNo Comments
Are you looking for startup marketing advice? Here is a checklist which may help you: *  Write a marketing plan. This will make you think through the key issues and your resources. *  Choose your website domain name very carefully: you will have to live with it for a long time. From an SEO perspective, if it contains relevant keywords - you will be found more easily. Here is an article on choosing a website domain name. *  Use a CRM (Customer Relationship Management system) from the outset. Here are the benefits of having a small business CRM system. *  Use the free marketing techniques which are available to you, before you spend money on promotion. *  Think about the different ways in which you will promote your business. Here is a list of 29 promotional categories *  Use social media to promote your business, i.e. Twitter. Share helpful information which is related to your business. Here are some Twitter tips. *  Spend two hours a day on marketing activities, i.e....
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Fear of rejection – is it holding your business back?

By Nigel Temple3 Comments
Fear is a strong emotion, isn't it? Its purpose is to protect you from harm. Fear stimulates a 'flight or fight' response, which can be difficult to control. From a business perspective, fear can set invisible parameters to your success. In business, fear of rejection can stop you from asking for help, requesting a meeting, asking for the order or even chasing payment. I have asked thousands of seminar delegates how they feel about rejection. For some business owners, the fear of rejection is so strong that they have simply stopped asking. They rationalise this behaviour by saying that they "don't want to expand their business", or that they are "quite happy with things as they are." The challenge is that a business is either growing or slipping backwards. Here is a mantra for you. More customers = more cash = more choices (which may include taking a well earned holiday, supporting a family member or donating to charity). “Failure is only a temporary...
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Networking tips

By Nigel TempleNo Comments
Business networking works - in terms of creating awareness and customers. However, you have to go about it the right way. Here are some networking tips, which we hope you find helpful. You are in the relationship business. If you focus on building relationships, business will come to you. When you're networking, think about what your contacts want – not just what you want. Some people turn up at networking events and only talk about themselves. They grill each person they talk to, in order to find out whether they are a prospective customer. Unsurprisingly, they soon discover that networking, somewhat strangely, does not work for them. I imagine that they go back to hitting the phones (otherwise known as ‘cold calling’). Do not expect instantaneous results. Take time to learn about other people and build trust. The more you invest in networking - the higher the returns. Networking is now an established part of business life. You can network whilst eating your breakfast...
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Marketing metrics and measurement

By Nigel TempleNo Comments
As the management guru Peter Drucker said: "What gets measured, gets done." How do you know what's working and what isn't - if you don't measure outputs and response rates? Here are some of the things you can think about, with regards to marketing metrics and measurement: OUTPUTS Set targets for of all your 'marketing outputs', i.e. * Blog posts * Newsletter * Press releases * Social media connections * Talks given * Networking events attended WEBSITE * Total number of indexed pages * Unique Visitors * Bounce rate * Page impressions * Popular times of day to visit your website * Average time spent on site * Page views * Referral traffic (i.e. traffic arriving from other websites such as Facebook or Twitter) * Backlinks * Number of downloads (of, say, guides) NEWSLETTER * Subscribers, open rates, click through rates, hard bounce rates (i.e. dead email address), soft bounce rates (temporarily unavailable), spam complaints, unsubscribes SOCIAL MEDIA * Social media reach * Twitter Followers, ReTweets and other mentions * Facebook connections, Likes and Follows * LinkedIn connections, conversations, meetings MEDIA RELATIONS * Number of media contacts * Number of...
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Email marketing strategy

By Nigel Temple2 Comments
I now offer MailChimp training via www.mailchimptraining.co.uk which includes open courses and in-house training. Email is a highly effective promotional technique, in terms of awareness building and response rates. Key elements include your list, copywriting ability, scheduling and metrics. Email marketing is a promotional mix category.  It includes person-to-person emails, autoresponder messages, newsletters and e-shots.  Here is a list of promotional mix categories. You should send out a monthly newsletter to customers (dormant, current and prospective), suppliers and other relevant contacts.  A newsletter (sometimes referred to as an ezine) should provide useful, helpful and interesting material about your enterprise. There should be a number of links from the newsletter to your website. MailChimp and ConstantContact are popular newsletter production platforms. They include newsletter templates and metrics, so that you can see open rates, click through rates, hard bounce rates (i.e. dead email address), soft bounce rates (temporarily unavailable), spam complaints, etc. An e-shot, on the other hand, is selling something (i.e. a product, service or seminar place). Here is a...
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