Category: Promotion

What do you want people to remember about your enterprise? If you send out dozens of messages, it will be difficult for people to remember them. It is better to have a central message that is supported by a handful of key messages. Once you have decided what the messages are, keep repeating them throughout your promotional mix. Your promotional mix = all of the ways in which you promote your enterprise, i.e. website, advertisements, email marketing, social media. Key messages are important as they help to create awareness and word of mouth. They are part of your marketing strategy. The Marketing Compass has two key messages: * Impartial marketing advice & training * Find your marketing direction...

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CRM stands for Customer Relationship Management.  It encompasses the entire customer journey including all of the interactions with the customer. These include brand awareness, enquiries, first purchase, ongoing purchases, handling any problems that may arise, contact management, customer loyalty and advocacy. There are many CRM software platforms that can help with these processes. The best CRM software solution is the one that you actually use. CRM benefits What are the benefits of having a CRM system? After all, what is wrong with having all of your contacts in Outlook, Excel etc? Here are the benefits of having your own CRM software: 1. It keeps all of your customers and contacts in one place. This means that you can find customers and their contact information. You can divide your contacts in ways that makes sense to your enterprise . You can then communicate with people with shared needs. 2. Your own CRM is the best phone directory you will ever have (on the assumption that you enjoy talking to...

Here is a website checklist: Objectives *  What is the primary objective for your website? For example: A. Brand awareness? B. Credibility? C. Customer engagement? D. Sales enquiries? E. Sales? Market segments *  What is the primary target market segment for your website? *  Are there secondary target markets? Structure *  Is the navigation bar logical? *  Is the navigation bar easy to understand? Design *  Does the design look professional? *  Do the colours work well together? *  Is the same font used throughout the site? *  Does the design get in the way of understanding? Branding *  Is there a consistent visual brand identity? *  Is your logo positioned in the upper left-hand corner of your homepage (and, ideally, every page)? *  Is there a favicon image? SEO *  Do you have a keywords list? *  Are you using Title Tags? *  Do you have an in-bound link building strategy? *  Are you using anchor text links? *  Is there a Sitemap link in the footer area? First-time website visitors *  Top of the homepage: is it clear what you do? User experience *  Does the site load quickly? (Ideally, in less...

Links within your own website are just as important as backlinks (i.e. links pointing from other websites to your site). Anchor text should be part of your SEO link building strategy. 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 impartial 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...

It is a good idea to have a list of journalists that you keep in touch with. Ideally, this information should be stored within your CRM and each contact should be marked (flagged) as 'Media' so that you can find them easily. For each journalist, you need their first and last name; their job title; the media property (i.e. magazine) they write for; an email address; their Twitter handle; a landine and / or mobile telephone number; website address; and topics that they write about. Having compiled a list of journalists, the next step is to email them and introduce yourself and your enterprise. They key thing here is to think 'relevance'. Is your story relevant to this journalist? Why is this the case? For example, you could email the editor of your local newspaper mentioning that you live and work in the area. Or you could communicate with a trade magazine when you have an interesting case study that they might be interested...

In-bound marketing gets customers to come to you. On this basis, it is a 'pull', not a 'push' model. When someone is looking to make a significant purchase, they require information. This can be provided by SEO optimised website pages, blog entries, landing pages as well as PDF documents, online videos, podcasts and social media content. Notice that all of these items are digital. Here is an example of an inbound marketing process. Imagine that a buyer thinks of something that they or their enterprise needs. They are quite likely to open their favourite search engine, perhaps on their mobile phone. They enter a short phrase and scan the first page of results. They click through to a web page and find some useful, relevant and interesting information being offered for free in exchange for contact information (in a compliance-driven world, it is important that permission is requested to keep in touch). The buyer wants the information and they trust the website. So they fill in the form and receive a PDF...

Getting up in front of an audience and demonstrating your knowledge is an effective way of generating brand awareness and attracting customers. You are seen as a subject expert. There may well be other subject experts in the room, however, you will win the lions share of any business that is forthcoming. Publicity can be generated before, during and after a public speaking event and full advantage should be taken of this opportunity. As soon as you have been engaged to speak, ensure that you fill in any forms or requests for information provided by the event organisers. You will need to supply professional standard photographs of yourself for print and internet use. I have found that event organisers are grateful if you offer to write a description of your presentation, prior to the event. Ensure that this is benefit loaded. In other words, tell prospective attendees why they should come along and listen to your presentation. Prior to the event, ask the organisers how...

Facebook is by far the largest social network and on this basis, it is difficult to ignore as a marketing platform. At the time of writing, over two billion people log into Facebook every month. Millennials may be leaving, but older people are joining. About half of FB users say that they are 'always on Facebook'. The issues surrounding Facebook marketing include the time it takes to manage a FB account and keeping everything up-to-date. Here are some FB marketing tips: * Have a Facebook marketing strategy based on useful, interesting and relevant content * Create a Facebook page for your enterprise (for free); include your logo and a striking background image * Cover images need to look professional and your message needs to fit within the space available * Ensure that you fill in / make use of all of the available sections i.e. Services, Offers and Events * If you use MailChimp, integrate your MailChimp account with your FB account;...