Tips for cost effective marketing in a recession (or at any other time)

Transcription

1 Tips for cost effective marketing in a recession (or at any other time) Jagger Creative Communication llp

2 To supplement or substitute other marketing activity, there are low-cost marketing options such as social media marketing, webinars, news releases, s, blogging and online newsletters. Here are some suggestions for cost-effective marketing in

3 Networking, strengthening relationships and re-activating former contacts Have face-to-face meetings with top customers. Find out their business challenges and look for ways to help even if it doesn t mean more business for you directly. Re-engage with past contacts. In busy times, it s easy to lose touch with past clients and colleagues. It is said that it costs ten times more to sell to a new client than to an existing one. People need to know who you are, what you do and how to find you so look for ways to make people aware of you. Start having business breakfasts with whoever you can. Consider scheduling breakfasts with a long lost colleague or an old client. Remember that breakfast is the cheapest meal of the day. Speak at events and hold workshops Marketing is essentially a trust building game. Few things build trust more efficiently than sharing your expertise with clients in an educational setting. Propose a business seminar or workshop for your bank, accountant, law firm, Chamber of Commerce, Governing Body, Business Federation or networking group. Partner with other businesses Creating strategic partnerships is a great way to generate new leads and build long-term momentum. They must be simple for all parties. Only seek marketing partnerships with companies you would have no problem referring your best customer to. 2

4 Online networking/social media There are several online channels of communication available that are widely used and free so it makes no sense to ignore them. Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, and blogs are amazing tools for small businesses and can help you: stay top of mind improve search engine performance do customer and competitor research react quickly to customers do business networking Get your content into circulation ideal places to get content (blog posts, videos, free reports, etc) in front of other people The facts Over 50% of people on Twitter recommend products or services Half the UK is on Facebook LinkedIn has doubled in size in last year Twitter is excellent for: talking to targeted audience driving traffic to a website establishing yourself as an expert finding out what s going on customer service publicising yourself by giving out helpful advice Facebook Ask all contacts to like your facebook page. Provide some info to everyone then add click like for full report/story/offer. Create a valuable blog One that grabs the attention by consistently delivering useful or entertaining material. a. Don t bury opinions in long paragraphs, make them loud and clear c. Start with a compelling headline d. Ask yourself why should anyone want to read this and place that at the start of the post e. Invite comments by ending with a question f. Ask for subscription. Build an audience of subscribers by asking people to subscribe and offer an option to make it easy Youtube Videos can be cost effectively made, edited and posted. All you need is a camera and a clear message. Use a current topic that relates to you business, show how to use an updated travel check-in system, explain the implications of new employment law or show the preparation of a recipe using your fruit. End the video with your branding and contact info. Rich media like video is highly valued by search engines. 3

5 LinkedIn Consider updating your LinkedIn profile regularly with updates on your business and content such as blog posts. Give some of your information for free Giving away useful information can encourage people to keep you in mind and share your information with their contacts. For example: a. the first chapter of a novel b. a free report or e-book c. a series of tutorials d. videos that can be embedded into other sites Borrow someone else s audience Writing high-quality guest posts for popular blogs in your niche is one of the most effective ways to get yourself known to the people you want to reach. You also benefit with a link back to your site. Be smart It s easy to dismiss these social media because they will require too much of your time but they can be set up efficiently. If you can only set aside time for updating a blog, do so. Then open a Twitter account and set up a feed such as Twitterfeed to search your blog for updates and tweet them automatically. Link the blog to your facebook page so it picks up the new posts on the blog too. Connect your LinkedIn account too and so with one entry onto the blog, you populate all these sites with fresh, relevant content and maximise the impact. If you do tweet manually, you can set up your blog, LinkedIn and Facebook to automatically pick up your new tweet. On top of this, you can add a feed to your website so that it automatically picks up and shows a snippet of new blog posts. Be generous Share other people s content as well as your own. That way, you position yourself as a go-to authority that people want to follow. Blog about other people s posts you like and give a link to the original. Re-tweet tweets that you have valued. The willingness to value the opinion of others will give more value to your own opinion. 4

6 Online marketing, search engines and increasing traffic to your website Google yourself I googled myself last night and number one was my facebook, number two and three were linked in, my website was fourth. No one is going to search for me personally but the point is that social media websites are very effective in search engines. Search Engine Optimisation Showing up on the first page of results for your keywords is the dream. Keywords Researching your keywords is important. Work out what keywords match your business. The best free tool to conduct your keyword research is Google s Keyword Tool. Insert the keywords into your website text. The home page is the most important page to visitors and search engines so focus on this. Be specific as this will help your ranking on suitable searches. Too generic means invisible. Back Links Back links are simply links from other websites that point to your website. In theory, the more back links you have, the more powerful and trusted your website is. Best are back links that are relevant to your business. Ask for links. Pay Per Click (PPC) Search Marketing PPC advertising is one of the most flexible, cost-effective ways to market online. Set the spending level you want, change it and test headlines, copy and offers to find combinations that work. Google AdWords is a great start. Marketing marketing services for small business are seeing record volumes as more business owners seek effective, low-cost marketing. Several small business options help create, manage and analyze your campaign. Affiliate Marketing Get other websites to promote your products and only pay for completed sales. This channel can make a huge impact. Business Directories Many online business directories are free to list your business. If it is free and allows you to insert you web address, why not try. They are also efficient in search engines. 5

7 Google Make sure you use Google as well as you can. Broken/expired links in your website will harm its performance in Google. There are pay for options that should be considered but there are also useful things to do that are free: 1. Set up a Google account 2. Add your business to Google Maps and insert links to your website and blog 3. Add Google Analytics to your website and blog so that you can test effectiveness of keyworks, pages, text links, etc 4. Use Keywords Tool 5. Google+ DIY online PR The Internet has dramatically changed public relations for small business. You can get results yourself online. When you have legitimate news like a new product or service write a press release that includes contact information and links to your website. Submit through places such as PRWeb.com. There are low-cost, online press release distribution services catering to small business that let you add videos or other rich media to your releases. 6

8 Here s to 2012 Necessity is the mother of invention. An early Easter, the Queen s Diamond Jubilee celebration, the Euro 2012 football tournament and the London Olympics will offer marketing opportunities, activity and much needed positivity. 7