Make online marketing work for you

With the rise and rise of the Internet, many traditional forms of business marketing and advertising are falling by the wayside as companies are opening up their eyes to the opportunities available to them from email and online marketing. 

By using the Internet to advertise your products you are able to tap into a potentially global market faster than we ever would have thought possible just a few years ago.

However, whilst this is undoubtedly a very effective form of marketing, you have to be aware of the pitfalls in order to get the best possible results from your hard work. Here are just a few things to bear in mind:

• Targeted email marketing: It is a good idea to send out carefully crafted emails with information on your latest products or special offers. However, before you do this you really need to have taken the time to build up a detailed database of clients, cross-referenced according to their specific priorities. This way you will only send out relevant emails and won’t risk putting people off. For example, there is not point sending out emails about female beauty products to men.
• Send newsletters:  Rather than bombarding all the people on your mailing list with junk mail every time you have any news, save it for a regular newsletter. This way all the important information is encapsulated in one single message and you won’t annoy your clients. At the same time, you will be issuing them with a regular reminder that you are out there and continuing to work to keep up with their needs.
• E-commerce: Make sure your website is optimised for mobile devices. The use of Smartphones is increasing fast, and indeed it is highly likely that the future of business marketing may lie to a large extent in handheld devices. With more and more people downloading information to their phones, make sure you are tapping into this lucrative market.
• Invest in SEO: Many businesses are still not recognising the importance of search engine optimisation (SEO) in order to keep their website at the top of search engine results. It is all very well having a striking and professional website, but if you have not maximised your online presence by using the relevant keywords or using social media then this will count for nothing. Doing this properly is necessary but can be time consuming, so it is worth hiring in a specialist to do the job for you.

Shouldn’t You Be Using Google+ Hangouts to Connect With More Customers?

What do the Black Eyed Peas, The Muppets and the technology giant Dell have in common?


They are all using Google+ Hangouts to connect with their fan bases.

Before you protest, not another social media site! I’m currently on Facebook and Twitter and they take up too much of my time already, let me explain . . .

At the moment, Google+ has an estimated 40 million users compared with Facebook’s 800 million. But please don’t think of it as “a smaller Facebook,” because it isn’t.

First of all, Google+ Business Pages are easy to create and edit – easier than Facebook in fact. Google+ allows you to interact with your fan base through a mixture of comments, tags, sharing and the soon-to-be legendary, Hangouts.

So what is a “Hangout”?

A Hangout is a video connection between your business and your customers and followers. You can host your own networking sessions, showcase your latest products and services, organize a focus group or a Q&A session – the possibilities are endless.

Many business owners use Hangouts as video conferencing tools, scheduling meetings with suppliers, partners, affiliates or resellers. You can use the Hangout facility to interact with a maximum of 9 other people at any one sitting (10 including yourself). Each Hangout you host will have a specific URL you can use to invite Google+ users to your video session.

Before you host your first official Hangout, I would suggest organizing a ‘dry run’, to ensure you are well prepared and that the sound quality is fully optimized. You might also want to start with fewer people until you get some experience of the facility, as 10 people sharing a conversation is likely to become somewhat chaotic!

I mentioned Dell in the opening of this piece. Dell is the latest big company to announce it plans to use Google+ in its customer service division. It’s quite surprising that many of the larger concerns haven’t yet picked up on the business potential of Hangouts. To be able to connect with your customers face-to-face is a fantastic innovation. Even better – you can then upload videos of those interactions to YouTube. There are huge possibilities for viral marketing here . . .

If you want to ‘hang out’ with more fans of your brand, Google+ Hangouts is well worth a look. You’ll be able to create and share content-rich video productions that spark exciting conversations. Getting more people talking about your brand is what it’s all about. Plus you’ll be in great company.

More people are catching on to the benefits of using Google+ for business. It’s worth signing up to Google+ for the potential of its Hangouts facility alone.

The unwavering popularity of YouTube is testament to the fact that people find the medium of video as a ‘create and share’ tool irresistible. Household names like the Black Eyed Peas, The Muppets and Dell have already come alive to the potential of Google+ as a means of gaining greater visibility and expanding their fan base. Just think what it could do for your brand. If you aren't sure on how this could work for you ask a marketing consultant to give you some ideas.

Use Social Media to Make an ‘Emotional Connection’ that Increases Brand Loyalty

Take a peek in your wallet. How many brand loyalty cards are you currently carrying?

It’s reckoned that the average UK household is signed up to 12 store/ retail loyalty schemes – everything from collecting points to save money on your supermarket shopping and cash-back on credit card spends, to getting a free cappuccino for every 10 purchases made at your favourite high street coffee shop.
It seems all our favourite brands are leveraging the power of brand loyalty – encouraging customers to shop with them more often.

Many of the top brands like Starbucks and Coca-Cola have long recognized the increasingly important part that social media plays in their customers’ lives and are using it to their competitive advantage.

Using established interactive social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter to bring together fans of your brand makes perfect sense, because you will be harnessing the ‘share’ potential of the Internet.

But how do we define brand loyalty? And is it necessary to make the distinction between someone who will buy that 10th coffee from you just to get the freebie, and those who love your Java recipe so much, as well as the ambiance of your café bar, they’d never go anywhere else regardless?

If you belong to a Frequent Flier Programme, ask yourself whether you would still fly with that same airline if a competitor launched a significantly cheaper, but similar service in terms of standard and quality. And if you’re someone who checks price comparison sites regularly, as an increasing number of us do these days, then brand loyalty may not be something you’re driven by, as much as value for money.

As creatures of habit, many of us shop at the same places, at pretty much the same times, week on week, whether the retailers concerned have a loyalty scheme in place or not. These shopping ‘repurchases’ are justified through considerations such as convenience, price, service, or quality. You see, ‘repurchasing’ is not the same as loyalty.

True brand loyalty is achieved when our brand makes an emotional connection with its audience: We love it that Innocent smoothies are 100 per cent fresh fruit and no junk; that Apple computers are cool; that Lego has built a great online community we can be a part of; that Harley-Davidson represents the “adventure of a lifetime.”

And, as fans of brands, we love connecting with those brands via social media, because they reward us with something extra for our loyalty. There’s newsletters, competitions, giveaways, online interaction with fellow enthusiasts – all the extra stuff we get for free, just for signing up to their sites. And here’s the thing, we’re getting an exclusive deal other people are missing out on because they choose not to be a part of that community.

These socially-connected brands have established an emotional rapport with their followers that that goes way beyond ‘repurchasing’ and creates ‘fans for life’.

By using social media to engage and communicate with your target audience – and by offering exclusive deals to those who follow you – your brand could do the same. A recent study found that 37 per cent of Facebook users who have ‘friended’ a brand, cited ‘product discounts and special promotions’ as their main reason for doing so.

Consider how your brand might use Facebook Pages and other forms of social media to connect with more like-minded people who could become valued customers. What emotional message might your brand build its fan base around? And how will you reward your followers for their loyalty and thus create fans for life?

Creating exclusive offers for your online community is a proven way to establish a fan base and encourage more sign-ups. As well as making more sales, you will have a ready-made focus group that will help you with research into your current business, as well as ideas for developing and marketing new products and services.

What does a marketing consultant do? And why would I need one?

In broad terms, a marketing consultant will analyse the market potential for what your business does and help you develop products and services that satisfy the needs of the end consumer.


They will also work alongside other members of your team within the various departments: sales, operations, marketing, finance, and so on, to determine sales strategies, communications and promotions that will complement the business.

To do this effectively, your marketing consultant will need to fully understand the way your business works and also the buying behaviours of your target customer.

They can also help you launch new products and services and help organize marketing promotions. As well as delivering these ‘hands on’ services, a marketing consultant will track, report on, and review your marketing events and advertising initiatives.

Your marketing expert can also create and deliver professional marketing presentations on behalf of your business, specifically tailored to your target audience. This can be a huge asset to your business, as gaining a reputation for great presentations can do wonders for your image.

Did you also realize that hiring a marketing professional to train your staff can be a really effective way to fire up your employees’ motivation levels and boost productivity. Even if you know a bit about marketing yourself, the consultant will bring a wealth of fresh ideas to the party and ensure that your team is performing as well as it possibly can.

If you’ve ever been on one of those team building weekends (usually somewhere wet, windy and remote, I might add!) you’ll remember that even the most reserved or reluctant participant usually returned with a newly-found sense of enthusiasm and purpose. That’s generally how it works anyhow . . .

A marketing consultant will have exactly the same effect on your team – without the dodgy weather conditions. He or she will instil self-belief into your marketing team and help them perform to the optimum level – both as individuals – and as a unit.

One of the most important attributes of the personnel of a sales and marketing team must surely be passion. It’s easy to become stale when you’re using the same old scripts to sell products in the same old way . . . with the same predictable results. The only way to change that is to inject some new life into your methods and procedures.

If you’ve never considered the benefits of outsourcing your marketing activities to a dedicated professional, now might be a good time to find out how having a consultant on board, could boost your business in so many ways.
A marketing consultant can add real value to your business on a day to day basis. They can work alongside you seamlessly, in conjunction with your team or departments for optimum results. If your marketing efforts aren’t reaping the rewards you’d like, perhaps it’s time to take a look at how the services of a marketing consultant can really help your business take off.