Marketing Ideas and Inspiration

Marketing Focus – Twitter Part 2

The last time I looked at the topic of Twitter was back in 2010 when I gave an overview of how to use Twitter as a marketing method for your business. Four years on, I wanted to take another look at Twitter and how things have progressed over this time, looking at the possibilities of Twitter ads and promoted accounts which allow you to generate more followers or get more exposure for a particular tweet.

Twitter themselves offer some great help and advice I suggest you start with the Twitter Help Centre which is a mine of information – https://support.twitter.com/ Then they have their own Twitter accounts such as this one https://twitter.com/TwitterUKI_SME which offers advice for small companies in the UK and runs webinars and creates glossaries which we can apply to business here in Spain. There’s also the general one out of the US which includes all the updates as well as top tips https://twitter.com/twitter

I recently did a webinar with the Twitter team in the UK to refresh my knowledge of this great marketing tool (things change so quickly so you need to keep up to speed) and they shared some really interesting facts related to doing business on Twitter – very different to sharing what you had for dinner!

Marketing Focus – Creating Exceptional Web Content

As I mentioned in my last marketing focus post, more and more emphasis is being put on content marketing and creating really interesting information which people can find and enjoy through search. But it can be difficult to write engaging information, especially in a field which might not be the most exciting to the outside world, so is content marketing really for everyone?

In my opinion, everything is interesting to someone, and if you’re a specialist you should be showing that off online, so fellow enthusiasts can find you and engage in your knowledge. However, be careful of being too niche or specialist, try and run your content by an outsider who might buy your product, but not understand what’s behind it.

My first PR job was for the engineering giant ABB and they had the most amazingly knowledgeable people working for them, but trying to get them to speak in a way that the world could understand was hard. My job was to try and take the knowledge and convert it into a benefit driven, global language which could be understood by the buyers of their equipment, even if they were not engineers. Translating and repackaging their information into a more easily digestible form created some really interesting stories and if that can work for flowmeters it can work for anything! So try and step outside your specialist bubble and think what your consumers want to understand or know and go ahead and share your knowledge.

Marketing Focus – The Hidden Sales Cycle

Last week I took part in a fascinating webinar by The Marketer all about how internet use is changing the buying process and changing the roles of marketing and sales and where these two functions interact and I wanted to share the insight.

The experts explained how the online buying journey is quite erratic, but that the research tends to be comprehensive and rely on different sources to make the correct decision. They summed up the buying journey as follows – Consider, Evaluate, Buy, Enjoy & Advocate

The message was that as modern marketers, the role is increasingly to create the best content on your subject matter to assist your buyers in the evaluation stage and give them no reason to look elsewhere. This is a more passive form of marketing driven by search, but can capture many more people in the research phase and drive them towards purchase.

Marketing Focus – Understanding Marketing in 2014

For our first marketing focus of the year we’ve been looking at a really interesting report by Vocus on digital marketing for 2014, trends and ideas. The key messages are as follows –

Integration – Integrate digital marketing into your strategic marketing plan using it as one of the tools for getting the message across

Measurement – Make a plan to measure the effectiveness of any new digital method you use and decide if it is worth the investment

Data is king – the most profitable companies are data driven and respond to data to make better decisions, automate processes and respond to customer demand. Try to capture as much data and analyse everything you can to make your company work better and understand your customers.

Marketing Focus – How often to send email newsletters

This is a really tricky subject which we’ve dealt with before in previous email marketing posts. At the time I advised on the side of caution in terms of not sending too many emails and risk alienating your clients. We suggested that a monthly mail out works best for most businesses and I do in general still subscribe to this theory, however I recently read an interesting article which gives a different view on it.

According to this article, because we’re all checking emails all the time either at our computers, or on smart phones, people aren’t as worried about receiving multiple emails as long as they are interesting. In fact, research done by Getty Images suggests that higher frequency led to higher returns, more engagement and revenue per contact and it seems that it did not lead to more opt-outs. They say that the key to it is personalising the email through segmentation and understanding what the customers want and then mailing regularly to suit them.

Marketing Made Simple – Marbella Business Workshop

Costa Women is a social and business network community for women living in Spain, and recognised by the Telegraph’s Best of British competition as the Best of British Social Club internationally in 2012. In addition to helping Spain’s expat women with free advice and online networking, Costa Women are supporting a one day marketing workshop in Marbella. The workshop titled “Marketing Made Simple” will review the most successful marketing methods with the aim of empowering attendees to take control of their marketing.

The day will be presented by four professionals from successful local businesses; Georgina Shaw of Shaw Marketing Services, Ali Meehan of Sociomimetics, Pancho Campo of Chrand Management and Joy Fahey Motivational Coach and Entrepreneur. It will be held on 1^st October at the American College of Marbella from 9.30-17.00 and will cover the following:

Marketing Focus – What is your USP?

A USP is a “Unique Selling Proposition” or “Unique Selling Point” which is a simple statement which defines what makes you different from your competition. You can have just one for the company, or several for different products and services, but defining what makes you special is a great way to direct your marketing efforts and have a clear way to differentiate yourself in a crowded market place.

The process of finding your USP may be more tricky than you imagine, but it can be a really good opportunity to re-examine what you’re doing. Why not brainstorm with your team and put together a SWOT analysis to identify your Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats? Your list of strengths can then be compared against your competition to reveal your USP. Maybe it will reveal that in actual fact you do not have something totally unique from your competition, if so, it’s time to implement something, otherwise you will always just be a follower.

Sala Group Rewards Loyal Customers

This week the Sala Group launched their loyalty card which offers regulars to La Sala, Sala Beach, Aquamist and El Rincon de La Sala discounts across the venues including a great 10% discount off food and drink in La Sala. I am so pleased to see...

Marketing Focus – Understanding Your Competition

In order to successfully compete with companies who are offering similar products or services to the same target market you need to understand who they are, what they are doing, how you differ, how you are the same and what differentiates you. Many people want to hide from the competition and are hostile towards them, but it’s really a case of better the devil you know – especially in such a small place as Marbella. We have an unusual opportunity to personally get to know our competitors as part of networking events and share ideas and information in a transparent way. There are often ways that you can collaborate with these companies and having a positive relationship with them will always be beneficial.

Gaining Competitor Intelligence

Competitor Intelligence is all around you and normally free and easy to get hold of, once you fully understand what it is your competitiors are doing you can more clearly evaluate your own performance, identify competitors strengths and weaknesses which should be addressed or exploited, learn from what they are doing, identify new customer groups you may not have thought of and improve both business planning and sales forecasting.

Here are 10 questions you should try and answer about your competition:

Free Marketing Guide

Shaw Marketing Services are launching a new Facebook campaign, where we are going to be giving away a free marketing guide to our Facebook fans. Each month we will be giving away an exciting guide not to be missed, full of useful tips and advice helping...

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