What’s your market size?

By DavidNo Comments
The question "what is your market size" sounds hard to answer for a small business. It need not be, someone has probably done the work for you, its just a case of where to find it. With my marine product range, http://www.rigtube.co.uk and http://www.hikingbench.com I sell to the dinghy racing sailor. I know there are a lot of sailing clubs around the country, but how many? I looked on the Yachts and Yachting magazine (online version) and found a directory of sailing clubs together with a map of there locations. Click to view map: http://www.rigtube.co.uk/images/Sailingclubs.jpg Its likely, if you hunt in specialist magazines for your market sector you may well find something similar. This is because a number of publishing groups publish most of the magazines. Market sector is very important to them and staff move between titles, so the framework used will be similar....
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Recipe for success in 2015

By Jacqui-HoganNo Comments
2015 is upon us, so you are probably thinking about what to do to make your business more successful in 2015. If you liken your business to a great meal, you will need to get all the right ingredients together and then mix together using an effective recipe. For a well risen business, you’ll need: Your own unique recipe ingredients in a small plan Large spoon fulls of talented people 1 leader, zested A small quantity of well ground new ideas Small number of processes, well trimmed Plain or self raising finance (as needed) Well seasoned managers Customers to taste Business recipe method: Prepare your plan, checking that sufficient unique ingredients are identified and available Mix together spoonfulls of people and well ground ideas, adding a spoonful at a time until well mixed Chop your processes until small. Select only those that are fresh and fold carefully into the people mixture. Make sure your leader is well zested, and add to the mixture. Watch out for curdling – where the people and leader mixtures...
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Marketing video tips – part 6

By David StrelitzNo Comments
In this 6th and final part of marketing video tips, here are some general points to tidy up. Allow plenty of time for any video shoot you are involved in. Generally, it will take a lot longer to get things right and that’s before you start working with the things that move, AKA the talent. Horror stories abound where the super efficient PA to the CEO has graciously allocated 10 minutes to film a 5 minute piece, of which CEO has barely had sight of or it is being rewritten and not even ready for the tele-prompter or the talent insists they will do it on the fly... and then like a recent keynote political speech, their most important point gets forgotten. Agree any costs and specs to carry out all work to completion. Make sure you know what likely extras have not been agreed,  i.e. music licensing, stock footage and specialised animated graphics. This will upset many pros but if you...
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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...
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Marketing video tips part 5 – audio and graphics

By David StrelitzNo Comments
In this 5th part of marketing Video Tips, we will “listen” to our audio and “look” at our graphics. Audio. Good audio is so important. If you are making your own video don’t rely on just a camera microphone. For the simplest Pieces to Camera, even an inexpensive tie clip mic from Maplin etc will give better sound by being closer in proximity and will eliminate “boomy” sound. HOWEVER, there is always a however… pros will often use mics costing several hundred pounds to get the characteristics and extra audio quality required as well as having a selection of different types for different situations, so there will always be limitations as to what quality can be achieved for "thirty quid". For narrations / voiceovers a microphone (even a camera mic, placed 12-18 inches from the “voice” will sound so much better than being four feet away. Whatever audio you record, LISTEN to it with headphones and make sure it is not distorting....
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“Can do” attitude amongst our blind veterans!

By Phil at gr8No Comments
In August, my friend Barry and I spent a week at Blind Veterans UK (BVUK) in Llandudno, teaching visually impaired veterans how to tie decorative knots. Yet again, just like last year, the guys and gals there demonstrated how determined and resourceful they were and the members kept us on our toes by picking things up so quickly! Dragonflies, solomon bars and key fobs were just a few projects we covered. After a couple of days, some of our visually impaired “students” were even teaching others – now there’s an achievement worthy of note! We found it quite ironic being thanked by everyone for helping out. Little did they realise just how much Barry and I gained from the experience. We were treated like royalty, and I for one came away with a very positive attitude and renewed enthusiasm. Some members (not “patients”, not “clients” – members) not only suffer sight loss, but many also have to live with other disabilities, making their...
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Where’s your BHAG?

By Jacqui-HoganNo Comments
Do you have a Big Hairy Audacious Goal? “I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth.” ~ John F Kennedy. 1961 Looking back from our technology enriched world, you may not remember the impact of this bold statement. The world had barely begun to put men into orbit, something the US had yet to achieve at all. Yet Kennedy had the audacity and boldness to set a goal that would challenge every area of technology for almost a decade. Many people said it could not be done. Yet, on July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong became the first man to set foot on the lunar surface. Many people dismiss the idea of setting big bold audacious goals. Some, because it is difficult to predict what might be around the corner. Some, because of fear that they cannot achieve such goals. Some,...
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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...
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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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