What Can A Marketing Consultant Help You With?

If you are considering hiring a marketing consultant to help with one or several aspects of your business, it may surprise you just how many areas a consultant can actually help you with. Some companies outsource all of their marketing needs to a company and some pick and choose specific campaigns or business areas to get help with. In any event, an expert consultant can help you grow and prosper in many different areas, such as some of the categories listed below. Design A marketing consultancy firm knows what sort of design elements will help you appeal to your audience as well as sell more. This applies to overall branding and to brochures and other printed material you hand out but it also applies as well to your organisation’s electronic design elements with your website and electronic adverts. Various elements of design will help you appeal to your customers and prospects and a marketing expert understands how to blend design, colours, fonts, and words to help you maximise your impact on your target audience whilst gaining brand identity. Public Relations Are you managing your reputation? What feelings are your customers left with in dealing with you? Public relations is a vital aspect of running a business. Relating to your public in the right way will help you acquire and retain customers. A consultant can help you develop a public relations strategy that utilises tools and resources that can help you succeed. SEO Paying attention to search engine optimisation is vital for any company looking to succeed in the 21st century. But you’re not an SEO expert. The thing is, SEO isn’t always easy for businesses to take advantage of. You need someone to help you optimise your website in both on-page and off-page so that you can attract the maximum amount of traffic for your marketing spend. SEO also allows you to get traffic with a small budget, versus pay-per-click internet marketing techniques, which can be more expensive. Growth Planning How do you plan to grow your business? A consultant can help you strategise so that not only can you grow but that you can grow sustainably. This can be achieved through uncovering new opportunities as well as cross-selling and repeat selling to existing customers. Hiring a marketing consultant to help you grow your business makes good business sense. There are experts that will help you reach your goals and who will offer guaranteed services that will help you immensely.

Why do business consultant tips include blogging for maximising your online exposure? Learn why a blog is one of (if not THE) best way to market

Business Consultant Tips – Does Your Business Have a Blog? If you could ask a business consultant for a list of what is considered to be some of the best ways to capture the attention of online audiences, most would list building a business blog near the top of that list. Many would say that blogging is one of the best ways to reach your target audience --- regardless of your business type and whether or not you exist online, in a bricks and mortar business, or both. Read on to find out why blogging is such a good idea. Blogs are dynamic. Blogs, by their very nature, incite participation, feedback, and an informal atmosphere that can be business-like and casual at the same time. Companies can communicate and people can interact with the companies. This attracts people to read blogs. They often allow people to make comments and they also allow people to subscribe to receive updates automatically. Blog marketing can be an excellent sales and communication tool. Search Engines love Blogs. When you have a business website, adding a blog to it stops the site from being static. Search engines love sites that provide regular updates and will keep visiting and therefore sending new traffic to blogs. The fastest way to lose ground in search engines is to stop making new pages for your website and a blog allows a business to create pages in the background that do not interfere with the company's branding strategy. You can't change your home page daily so why not add pages in the background that work to your advantage with search engines who will send you free traffic? Make Use of Social Tools. Business consultants agree that social media optimisation is something all businesses should be considering in the current day and age. Blogs can be well integrated with social media optimisation tools so that you can kill two birds with one stone. Companies need to take their online potential audience into consideration and by blogging you can easily do that. It is a relatively low-cost way to keep fresh content on your site that talks about your company and talks directly to customers and target customers. The blog can also serve many other purposes from a marketing perspective as well. If you want help figuring out how to maximise a blog's impact on your business, a business consultant who is specialised in internet marketing can help you figure out: how to attach a blog effectively to your business, how to optimise that blog for maximum targeted traffic and maximum search engine optimisation and they can help you figure what to blog about as well.

Doing Company Marketing Through Social Media? Get Info and Manage Your Reputation, too

How do you manage your online reputation? If you’re using social media sites to help you with company marketing campaigns, you should also consider using them to help you with your reputation management as well as data mining needs. Social marketing tools can provide a lot of valuable information to you about your customers, your prospects, what people think and say about your brand, and about succeeding online and offline. Using social media for business is an excellent step toward effectively marketing online. Many successful businesses use tools such as Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, and other such tools to reach people who use them in their daily life and those people, who could be customers might be interested in connecting with you through those tools. In fact, you can often use the tools to find new potential customers as well. A lot of companies use Facebook fan pages, post on a company Twitter account, and use social bookmarking services to help them draw attention to articles, blog posts, and press releases. More company marketing campaigns than ever use many of these tools to push out information. But some forget to use them to mine for information as well. Social Media and Data Mining You can gather business intelligence through these tools. Find out: • Who is linking to your site • Who is talking about your products and / or services (and what they’re saying) • Who might be a good candidate to market to, based on user preferences and keywords used You can also use these tools to build authority in your niche. By developing a list of followers and interacting with them, you can do a good deal of relationship marketing and the great thing about the venue is that everything you do can: attract new customers, improve your SEO (search engine optimisation and traffic levels), and help you increase your sales. Because social media tools optimise your site while real-time conversations happen, results can be surprising. Use these tools to talk to others, to find who to talk to, to learn what’s being said about your brand, you, and your industry, and even make direct sales as a result of a tweet, re-tweet, or social bookmarking ‘thumbs up’. Is it any wonder that so many companies use social media tools for marketing purposes? It’s important that you learn how to capitalise on these tools. Don’t jump in head first! There are “wrong” and ineffective ways of using social media. Getting solid advice about a good company marketing plan to launch will help you take advantage of the amazing free tools that are out there.

Do You Need a Business Consultant if You’re a Solopreneur?

If you’re thinking that only large corporations need a business consultant, think again. You might be surprised to learn that even a one man or one woman business could significantly benefit from business consulting. The reasonable cost and return on investment will probably surprise you! Small business owners, sometimes referred to as solopreneurs, believe that they need to be able to do it all. If you run your business on your own, you’ll be wearing many hats as an entrepreneur and as a result, you’ll often be in react mode. You’ll motor through each day doing what needs to be done. But how will you plan for the future? How can you proactively plan for growth when you’re flying by the seat of your trousers? A business consultant can help you. Some entrepreneurs that like to work alone are not thrilled with the prospect of someone coming in and telling them what they’re doing wrong. But a business consultant doesn’t work like that. A skilled consultant can help in a non-obtrusive way that doesn’t take over your business --- this can enhance your business according to your own desires and long term goals. An expert adviser can do a lot for a small business owner, on the business owner’s terms. What do business consultants do? A business consultant can do various things for you, such as: • Analyse your existing business infrastructure to help you make positive changes to procedures for productivity and profitability. This can help you find more time and make more money. What could be better than that? • Marketing and advertising services. A business consultant could help you gain more exposure with your target audience and become your outsourced marketing department. • Internet marketing services. Want to take advantage of the vast online audience that could be buying from you? A skilled consultant can help you get found online so you can make more sales. Sure, large companies need consultants but small businesses can benefit form consulting services as well. Working one on one with someone who has accumulated business experience in many areas could help you in a vast way. A consultant will listen to your concerns, find out what’s important to you as an entrepreneur, and come up with a plan that can work for you and do it on your terms. How do you choose a consultancy firm? Finding the right people to help you succeed isn’t always easy. There are some red flags that should set off warning bells for you, such as: • Companies or consultants that promise “the moon” super fast. • Companies that you can’t find background information about. • Companies who don’t offer guarantees. Signs that you’ve found a solid resource include: • Testimonials • A background you can investigate yourself (online and perhaps locally) • A guarantee about satisfaction • Flexible services that suit your specific needs. While most entrepreneurs like to keep a tight rein on their business, the possibilities, when you have someone like a skilled business consultant to help you, can result in your achievement of your goals and dreams much sooner.

Business Marketing with Web 2.0

If you’re planning on using the web for business marketing, it’s a good idea to look at Web 2.0 tools for help. Whilst your website, your blog, and articles directories will all work for you to help you grow your business, web 2.0 tools can give you even more power to: • Build rapport with your customers, • Collaborate, • Develop your brand, • And improve your online presence with search engines. People use many web 2.0 tools to connect with others in terms of business and pleasure. Those connections can benefit your business in many ways. Let’s look at a few examples: Facebook People of all ages are on Facebook. You can market to those who have heard of you through groups and fan pages and you can market to those who you’re interested in appealing to through targeted contextual Facebook ads. There are great advertising opportunities as well as Facebook applications that you can use to appeal to your potential customers. Facebook looks really casual but that’s part of the appeal. Businesses can talk to their existing and potential customers in many ways, such as by talking about promotions, asking for opinions, and sharing information about new products and promotions. Twitter Twitter is a micro blog so while you can’t write a long article about something, you can deliver bite-sized updates and include links that go into more detail. The Dell company used Twitter for business marketing and was able to attribute over a million dollars in sales to that account. They built a Twitter account talking about clearance sales that were on and in a short time was able to search their web analytics software and account for over a million extra US dollars in sales directly related to that Twitter ID. Twitter allows 140 character updates but also allows you to connect with your followers. You can use tools to mine Twitter for information about what people are saying about your brand and you can answer queries as well as talk about promotional things. People can get these updates on the web, their desktop, and their mobile devices and if you’re creative with Twitter you can appeal to many people who may buy from you as a result. Social Bookmarking Social bookmarking tools can help your business be at the centre of online conversations. Submit a great story to Digg.com that gets discussed about in an online water cooler and you can drive traffic to your website as a result. Bookmark blog posts and product announcements and more people have a chance of seeing the info you want to share. Add social bookmarking buttons to your pages and your visitors may share your page with their online followers and bring you new potential customers. If you’re interested in learning more about using the Web for business marketing, I can help. Subscribe to this blog for regular updates that can be delivered to you or visit my website to learn more about my business marketing services.

London Graphic Designer

The world of a graphic designer is not all shapes and colours, I was talking to a London Graphic Designer about the importance of designs.

It is all about that first impression, something I have a real belief in and how important a logo business card, or letterhead design is for a business.
What a good graphic designer will do is create an image which sums up the business and develops a brand image. It is important to be memorable so slightly different from the norm without stepping outside of certain boundaries. The images and designs a graphic designer produces must be pleasing to the eye, memorable and functional.
A good graphic designer will know which fonts are in vogue, which fonts are easy to read and easy to print, which colours compliment and how to put all of this together to meet the business objectives.

Several times in my work with businesses I have seen some very poor examples of design. For example, I once saw a display stand which a company was intending to use at a major exhibition. Who ever had undertaken the design work couldn’t have thought how a display stand at an exhibition is seen. The colours were drab, the writing merged into a dark coloured background and was so small you had to be right up close to be able to read. A waste of an opportunity, if your prospective customers can’t tell in a glance what you are about they will just walk past.

Money is very well spent on having a professional logo, business cards and letterheads undertaken for you. These are your first impressions of what you business is about. It is your lasting investment, get this right and a lot of other ‘rights’ will follow.

If you are in the London area and looking for a London Graphic Designer, then please do have a chat with Jo at www.shishiishi.com First impressions really do count and none more so with all forms of marketing material which represent a company or organisation. If well designed and of good quality such material will present your business in a favourable and professional way and, if required, help you to build your brand image.

How Can An Offline Business Use Internet Marketing to Their Advantage?

Should bricks and mortar businesses use internet marketing techniques? Will they help you grow your business?



If you're an offline business, you might not believe that you need to do internet marketing. But if you don't, you're probably missing the boat on opportunities for growth. Even if you don't sell anything online, you can benefit from having an online presence for your customers and your prospective customers, too.

People who are your potential customers are probably searching the internet to find out where to get whatever it is that you are selling. People today use the web as their personal shopper. Even if they're looking for a taxi, a pizza shop that delivers, or a salon to get their hair done, they're looking on the Internet for phone numbers, addresses, and recommendations.

This isn't just happening with teens and young adults either. The largest demographic of shoppers for anything and everything that's for sale (products and services alike) are Mothers and the vast majority of Mums in the free world have a computer that they use as a time saver to help them.

They use computers to read product reviews, look for skilled professionals, and to read recommendations from other Mums who talk about what they buy and use. People in all demographics want to know who they're buying from as well so they like to research local companies for more information.

If you're doing internet marketing you're also going to take opportunities to communicate with your customers (and prospective customers) because you can use tools to remind people who you are and what you sell. Internet marketing techniques like newsletters, e-mail marketing, white papers, and other marketing tools can help you communicate continually with your clients and today's tools let you put that process on autopilot so that very little work needs to be done by you but with the result that you'll gain more exposure for your business and improve brand loyalty as well. If you're having a big sale, you can tell your customers. If you want to talk about a new product you're carrying, you can send out an announcement. You can create a blog for your website that lets you talk about what you sell and this can help you bring increased business to your doorstep.

Not only can you market to your existing demographic with the internet but you can also learn more about your customers through patterns and data related to your website. The internet is a phenomenal business intelligence tool.

Internet marketing is something that's not an exact science but it's something that you can definitely make headway with, especially if you get expert advice. This can come in the form of books, newsletters, blogs, and through internet marketing consultant services. An experienced internet marketing consultant can look at your business and help you create a marketing plan that suits your business model and improves your chances of growth, profitability, and success.