Is Your Print Advertising Campaign Working For You?

Around 70 per cent of business owners who use ‘traditional’ print advertising methods such as newspapers, magazines, trade publications and directories to promote their businesses, do not know whether their advertising is working for them – or not.

Perhaps because of the high-pressure sales techniques of the telesales personnel concerned they feel compelled to keep on doing it month after month. Or maybe it isn’t so much to do with the persuasiveness of the salespeople, but simply because they can’t think of a better alternative. They know only too well that advertising is the lifeblood of every successful business . . . but here’s the thing . . .

If you are not 100 per cent certain that your print advertising is working for you, then please stop. Or at least consider some valid alternatives.

The main hurdle with print advertising is this:-

Because people tend to buy from people they like and trust, it can take a while to win over your readership. It has been suggested that businesses will need to run their ad between 7-10 times, before they begin to see any return on their ‘investment’.
This is why many print publications offer new advertisers a ‘write-up’ as a sweetener – an article about the company which sits alongside their ‘paid-for’ advertisement. The reader knows (or at least they should do), that these ‘advertorials’ are not written by unbiased journalists, but rather that they are part of the advertising package.

The fact is, press advertising is expensive these days and there will almost certainly be a more cost-effective option available to you.

For example, have you considered any of the following?:

Search Engine Optimisation 
Pay per Click Advertising                                                                                                                                                                                      
Direct Mail
Leaflet Drops/ Flyer Handouts                                                                                                       Telephone Marketing
Referrals                                                                                                                                          
Social Media & E-commerce
Online PR
Offline PR
Direct Sales
Shows, Exhibitions, Events    
Joint Ventures


These are just a few of the very many marketing opportunities available to you – both online and offline – depending on the kind of business you run and what your goals are.
Something you may wish to consider is starting an email list if you haven’t already done so. Done properly, this can be a useful way of locating buyers who are interested in what you have to sell. This can be achieved by adding a simple sign-up form to your website, or by creating a dedicated ‘squeeze page’ to capture your prospects email addresses – a proven way to extend your marketing reach. Particularly if you can provide an incentive for doing so.
For example, if you are a service business you might say: ‘sign up today for a free 45-minute consultation.’ If you sell products: ‘sign up now for 15 per cent off your first order’. A small ‘bribe’ can work wonders in building your first list!
That’s not to say you should give up press advertising altogether if it’s a medium which genuinely works for you. The point is to know exactly how much each of your advertising forms costs you. And what that medium delivers in terms of sales leads and revenue.
Would that be money well spent? Or could you do better elsewhere?
A marketing or business consultant could help you with monitoring and gaining more from your advertising and marketing budgets.

Cadbury And Oreo: The Benefits Of Combining Strengths

Sometimes, when long-established brands are failing to command the sales, a wise marketing strategy is to use the time-honoured philosophy of ‘strength in numbers’. Mondelez International, the snacks company spun out of Kraft Foods which owns the much-loved British brand Cadbury, is one of the latest examples of this method in action. It has created a new chocolate bar combining Cadbury Dairy Milk and the US brand Oreo.

The new bar, called ‘Dairy Milk with Oreo’, is now available and yours for just £1.42 per 120g. It consists of a milk chocolate bar containing a creamy filling with Oreo cookie pieces – thus combining the elements for which each brand is most famous. It is expected that there will be a significant marketing investment in this new product over the coming months.

This kind of combination approach works because the holding company is already one step ahead in terms of marketing. In this case, the holding company Kraft does not have to establish an entirely new concept but is instead trading on the existing popularity and renowned quality of Cadbury and Oreo. But the combination is a clever twist as it allows consumers to look at each of these brands in a new way. In one stroke, the manufacturer has managed to rejuvenate the images of both brands and get a new product launch off to a flying start.

Kraft has already seen some success with this strategy, when in March this year it launched a new product to rival the global giant Nutella – a combination of its Philadelphia cream cheese spread and Cadbury’s chocolate. It has even customised this product to suit individual market tastes. In Germany, for example, the cream cheese is mixed with the highly popular Milka chocolate brand.

It could be said that confectionery producers in general need to find new ways to generate interest in their brands right now. Annual sales of chocolate bars fell by over six per cent over the past year. This may perhaps be down to increased awareness of the need for healthy eating, or perhaps to growing costs of ingredients such as sugar, corn and cocoa.

Added to this, it is well known that the Kraft takeover of Cadbury was not without its controversy and this caused the food giant to post a fourth quarter drop in profits of 24% in 2011. Clearly something fresh was needed, and this fusion with Oreo may well give the brand the boost it needs.

Five Ways To Spot A Bad Online Marketing Consultant

More and more people today are turning to the Internet to buy products, find local services or get information. Sadly, the number of people looking to exploit this fact has also grown. With this in mind, beware that if you are looking for an internet marketing consultant there will be a lot of dishonest people amongst the genuine professionals. The bad consultants will have very little real knowledge of the world of online marketing and will very likely charge you a lot of money but give you few results in return.

To help ensure you find the best service, here are five tips for avoiding the bad consultants:

Vague About Services: If a consultant uses vague terms to describe what they can do for you, be very wary indeed. Using ‘technical’-sounding language to talk about their services without actually telling the potential client in clear terms what they can do for them is a classic tactic of the charlatan. Another way to spot a chancer is that they will be reluctant to set concrete goals so it is hard to quantify what they have actually achieved for you. It’s a good idea, before you talk to them, to read up a little about internet marketing first so you can be ready for them if they try to blind you with impressive-sounded terms.
Wild Promises: If an internet marketing consultant tells you they can guarantee you number one search engine rankings, never hire them. It is extremely difficult, particularly in highly competitive markets, to achieve this position and it is never certain that you will be able to do so. True, it is easier in some niches where there is very little competition, but even in these cases it would be foolish and unprofessional of a consultant to make any such promises.
Cagey About Their Past: Be on your guard if the consulting company you are talking to is reluctant to give you any information about past clients. A good firm should be happy to provide you with references and also to show you examples of their previous work and where it has succeeded. If they can’t offer you this, how do you know if they have ever had any successes at all?
They Are Always Right: A good consultant will be keen to sit down and listen to what you want to achieve from using their services. Rather than tell you what you need without first finding out what your company does, they will want to adapt a marketing strategy to suit you. If they are reluctant to discuss any concerns you have, or make changes if you want them to, they are not providing you with the service you deserve.
They Won’t Talk Prices: This is so important: always, always agree on a fixed price for services before you sign any contracts. If, during early talks, a consultant keeps avoiding the issue of what their services will actually cost, run a mile! You can be pretty sure they are trying to avoid the issue and get you hooked so they can charge you over the odds and add plenty of hidden clauses to the contract so you end up paying far more than you should be.

How Does SEO Help Businesses?

We’ve all heard how SEO can help businesses boost their online profiles by improving their search engine rankings. There’s no doubt it works, if done right, but there are many different strategies and technologies involved these days so getting it right as a novice can be complicated. Hiring a specialist SEO company to do the job for you can considerably increase your sales and your standing amongst clients or key stakeholders.

The first point to remember is that SEO does not work over-night, so persevere with it. Whether you are hiring an expert is this area or attempting to do it yourself, there are a lot of different facets involved. Firstly, keywords: Ideally, when somebody types your keywords into a search engine you want your website to appear on the first page of results. To do this, you have to carry out some keyword research. Identify your target audience and find out what kinds of terms they are most likely to use. It is easier to improve your search engine rankings with keywords if you work in a niche market where there is slightly less competition.

Once you’ve found your keywords, you need to get the density right. Keyword density is the percentage of times your keyword appears on the web page compared to the total number of words on the page. If you get this right you will achieve higher search engine positions, but if your density is too high you may be flagged for what is called ‘keyword spamming’.

Links are also used  as part of an SEO strategy. These can be internal links between pages of your own website to increase the visibility of important sections. Another method is to create reciprocal links with another website to ensure mutual traffic, but this is less widely used today. Website owners also often submit their sites to website directories which will then include a back-link. Basically, the more genuine back-links to your site, the better your rankings will be.

Social media links are gaining popularity as more and more businesses turn to sites such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn to build business contacts and improve their visibility. Use Twitter as an example: of course you shouldn’t include a link to your website every time you tweet, but if you are posting a particularly useful bit of information or promoting an event, it is perfectly ok to give a link back to the info on your website.

Keywords and link building are just two examples of the wealth of SEO tactics at your disposal. Other areas, such as metadata, can be more complicated. We would recommend hiring an SEO Agency, at least initially, to help you understand how strategies can be successfully implemented. In time, if you are patient, you should begin to see the results as your search engine rankings climb and your website traffic increases.

Local Exhibitions Are Perfect For Remote Worker Networking

Finding a consistent stream of new clients can be a challenging prospect, particularly if you work from home. It’s all too easy to slip into your own daily routine and become overly-reliant on your website to pull in new leads, when what you should really be doing more of is getting out there and mingling with people who might need your services.

It’s no good waiting until your client list dries up completely before seeking out new prospects. It’s vital to build networking into your marketing armoury sooner rather than later.
Pop up display banners make great exhibition and networking tools as they are easy to transport and erect whenever you want to put your business on display. And when you think about it, exhibitions are all about creating awareness of your brand rather than hard selling.

The majority of conversions will be secured after the show anyway and successful business exhibitors report that it can take anything up to a year to turn those contacts into clients, dependant on what type of business you run and how far along the ‘buying cycle’ prospects are when you are introduced to them.

If you are an artist, inventor or entrepreneur who has discovered that the right kind of exhibition is not exactly on your doorstep, you could choose to set up your own one-day event at a local café, hotel or wine bar. The DIY option has the advantage that you will be able to custom design the event exactly to your liking – plus there will be no competition in your midst! The downside is that it can be difficult to attract the right kind of people to this type of event and that if you get it wrong there will be nowhere to hide.

Another option you have is to team up with several non-competing local businesses. If for example you run a copywriting business, you could choose to team up with a graphic designer, a web developer and a PR expert and hold a get together for local businesses who might need advertising and marketing services. This can be a very successful way of gaining new clients.

Neil and Laura Westwood, owners of the company Magic Whiteboard, who secured funding from Theo Paphitis and Deborah Meaden on BBC’s Dragons’ Den, view exhibitions as an essential part of their ongoing marketing strategy. The couple recognise the importance of being able to demonstrate their products’ ‘wow!’ factor in front of an audience as the secret to making more sales.

Pop up display banners make it easy to promote your business ‘on the go.’ And the really smart thing about taking your business to a trade show or exhibition is that it is something you can profit from for years to come.

Could Facebook’s ‘Business Boost’ Initiative Benefit Your Small Business?

How does £80 worth of FREE Facebook advertising sound to you?

In May 2012 Facebook launched ‘Business Boost’ with the aim of helping UK small businesses make the most of its advertising platform. In fact, the programme is being rolled out in the UK, France, Germany, Italy and Spain, beginning with the UK and will enable 50,000 small businesses (in total) to claim their free advertising kits.

The more cynical amongst us may be saying: ‘Ha! They just want to get more businesses using Facebook – they’re tempting us with a sweetener.’ And of course there may an element of truth in this. But for those business owners currently contemplating setting up a Facebook Page anyway, it’s a win-win situation – and after all, Facebook is a proven advertising medium for businesses of all sizes.
You’ll be able to use Facebook’s free advertising alongside your regular marketing activities such as e-commerce, social media, direct mail, PR, and banners.

So how can you claim your goodies?

Well for starters you will need to have attracted a minimum of 50 fans to your FB Page to get £20 of free advertising credits. In addition, Facebook is offering an extra £60 worth of free ad credits to companies and businesses which add a further 100 fans to their Page over the course of the scheme. Kindly note, your business must be UK-based to qualify.

The Facebook Business Boost programme has attracted the support of the British Chambers of Commerce, who are running business breakfasts in six major UK cities this summer: Birmingham, Glasgow, London, Manchester, Sheffield and Sunderland, to offer free practical advice to business owners face-to-face.

A word of caution though: When you set up your Facebook Page it must be done through the ‘Local Business or Place’ channel. Use any of the other five possible categories to set up your Page and you will not qualify for this promotion. Unfortunately, if your FB Page is already established under one of the other categories you will not be able to change it. This presumably is a reasonable precaution to stop businesses changing their status simply to get their hands on the freebies!

Successful entrepreneurs these days are recognising the need to use a combination of online and offline media such as blogging, banners, PPC, social media and PR in order to drive their businesses forward, rather than remain reliant on one or two marketing activities.

If you want to participate in the Facebook Business Boost promotion you can sign up over at the Facebook Marketing Page. Facebook is also offering a range of live webinars to help you develop your marketing skills and maximise your business or brand’s potential.

Why Is Branding So Important?

Branding is the process of differentiating your company so it can be identified as distinct from your competitors on the market. Sadly, in today’s highly competitive marketplace it is no longer enough just to develop and produce outstanding products. It’s a fact that even more inferior goods can sell well if they are launched together with a slick branding campaign.

For many companies, creating a strong brand is so important that they will hire in a marketing company especially for that purpose. So what is it that makes branding so crucial? One of the main functions of strong branding is to build a trusting relationship with your client base. For example, think about Coca Cola, one of the world’s biggest known brands: Its logo is instantly recognisable so wherever consumers are in the world they will feel this is a product they can rely on. This is a huge power to have, and Coca Cola have achieved it through a careful branding strategy.

Secondly, of course, branding is intended to increase sales. Whilst strong products are important, it is not quite true that ‘a good product sells itself’. What sells a product is a good perception of it. Consumers tend to buy with their eyes, and it’s well known that they will make the majority of their purchasing decisions within around 10 seconds. If you are successful in creating a strong image for your product or service that appeals precisely to the needs of your target customers, good sales results are far more attainable.

So how do you begin to go about creating a strong brand? Firstly, you need to identify what is important to your customer base and what will appeal to them. Your branding message should be based around this. Also, isolate what is unique about your brand and think about how you can communicate this. What are your brand values? A memorable tag line can work wonders and the simpler it is, the better. Something like Gilette’s ‘The Best A Man Can Get’ has worked very well for the brand.
It’s a good idea to hire in some marketing expertise to help you in these initial stages.

Next, come up with a design theme and logo which can tie all products under the brand umbrella together. Not only will this make your brand stronger as a whole, it will also make new product launches easier as they will already be identified with an established name. After this, you should get your brand out there by any means you can – whether it’s television advertising, online, in printed media, attending trade fairs or one-off promotional events. Everything helps.

Finally, don’t just assume your work is done when the brand is launched. It’s essential to get regular feedback from your target market and be prepared to make adjustments if necessary. If your brand doesn’t seem to be building consumer confidence you have to look at where you’re going wrong.