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Annual ‘Marketing for SMEs’ event enjoys a great turnout

TLC Business Winchester Marketing for SMEs seminar
The team at TLC Business extends its gratitude to the guests who attended our ‘Marketing for SMEs’ event on Thursday 13th February at Holiday Inn Winchester. We hope we achieved our aim and created a useful and enjoyable session full of pointers to help you improve your marketing in 2020.

During the event, TLC Business’ Managing Director, Josh Spencer, presented the latest marketing trends SMEs can use to help increase enquires and grow their businesses. Josh touched upon topics such as effective use of social media for SMEs, changes to SEO and how to rank in search engines, and why remarketing should not be overlooked as a conversion strategy.
 
We saw SMEs from across Hampshire and beyond, from a diverse range of sectors, attend the event with a view to discover how their marketing can be improved in 2020. Sectors included accountancy, IT, PCB assembly, marine engineering, and insurance.
 
If you missed this year’s seminar and would like more information on future events including our free marketing ideas sessions, let us know by emailing Sophie at sophiewells@tlc-business.co.uk or give us a call on 01962 600 147. 
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Another successful TLC Business Marketing Lunch

Hampshire Marketing Company Event

TLC Business would like to thank all of the attendees who came to our annual marketing lunch last Thursday 7th February at the East Horton Golf Club in Fair Oak. We hope you enjoyed the session and were able to take away useful information and tips to help with your marketing in 2019.

During the seminar we discussed hot marketing topics, trends and tips for 2019; including which marketing channels are most effective for SMEs, updates on GDPR and the ePrivacy regulations, how to get the most from social media, PPC advertising, SEO best practice and more.

The event attracted a wide-array of SME businesses from in and around Hampshire, including IT consultants, architects, HR trainers, engineers, legal services and more.

If you’d like to be informed about future marketing events or availability of our free marketing ideas sessions for SMEs, let us know by emailing Sophie at sophiewells@tlc-business.co.uk or give us a call on 01962 600 147.

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September’s Top Marketing Tips

  1. Since the Twitter timeline displays tweets as they are posted, your timeline often does not immediately show tweets from users who tweet less frequently. Their tweets are buried by users of more tweeting frequency. Shuush aims to amplify the people that don’t usually get heard, and scale back those with frequent updates.
  2. Dropbox as you may know is the easiest way to sync and share your files online and across computers. Dropbox is a free service that lets you bring all your photos, docs, and videos anywhere. After you install Dropbox on your computer, any file you save to your Dropbox will automatically save to all your computers, your iPhone and iPad and even the Dropbox website! With the Dropbox app, you can take everything that matters to you on the go.
  3. Graphic Design That Works: Successful Design for Logos, Brochures, Promotions, Websites and More. A guide to creating an eye catching and innovative design. This book will help companies looking to grab a consumer’s attention with memorable logos and in depth promotional campaigns. The book explores designs from early conceptual stages to initial drafts and final executions.
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Pinteresting…

Recently we mentioned Pinterest in our March marketing top tips and we thought it would be a good idea to share a little more about the latest social media trend and how your business can get involved.
Pinterest recently hit our social media world with an almighty bang, receiving more than 103 million visits in February. If you have not yet joined the millions of other social media enthusiasts on Pinterest, it may be hard to understand the fascination. At first glance, the Pinterest home page may appear to be a wall of fashion trends, cupcakes and food thumbnails. However, once you start searching your own interests, you may find yourself quickly addicted to the new world of pinning.


How Pinterest works:

Pinterest invites visitors to set up their own  virtual “pinboards”, incorporating interesting images, designs and styles into different categories that the user invents.  From kitchen designs to jewellery collections, there is an array of ‘interests’ to suit everyone’s needs. So how is Pinterest a social networking site? Well, Pinterest allows members to comment on each other’s images and follow their pinboards. If a photo strikes a user’s fancy, then they can simply repin it.

Who’s involved? 

 Google Ad Planner recently showed that nearly 1.5 million unique users are visiting Pinterest daily, and spending an impressive 14+ minutes on the site. Pinterest is very much tailored towards the US market at present but it is rapidly growing in the UK. According to Andrew Lipsman, ComScore’s Vice President of Industry Analysis, females account for 68% of the site’s visitors worldwide and a whopping 85% of the activity. However, in the UK, the demographic is different, with a mostly male audience, interested in more than just re-pinning and showcasing photographs. Instead, they are focusing on the web statistics and analysis associated with this new social networking phenomenon.

How can my business get involved?

So, can a business benefit from yet another social networking site?

SMEs who currently promote their brand on social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Google+ should start thinking about adding Pinterest to their mix. Pinterest HQ suggests that businesses first spotlight “aspects of your brand that may not come to mind at first,” such as charitable activity and coporate social responsibility schemes. They also suggest incorporating other aspects of social media, creating a communication hub to new and potential consumers.

Currently, Pinterest works best for brands that can display their service or product in thought provoking, attractive and sometimes funny images. Photographs are a great way of engaging users and encouraging them to follow and interact with your brand. Businesses can also make sure that a Pinterest user who clicks on their photos will be taken directly back to their website, where the product or service is displayed. According to top marketing researchers, last month, Pinterest delivered more referral traffic then Twitter.

However, like any social networking site, Pinterest comes with a warning. There have been recent headlines claiming there are copy right issues regarding Pinterest. Our advice would be, as always, be careful what you upload online, if you ‘re pin’ an image, check that the link goes back to the original website, thereby providing referral links & traffic to the copyright owner. Inform your employees of your social media best practice and finally use this as an excuse to upload original and creative content that reflects your brand and engages your consumer.

See below for a couple of brands using Pinterest, one you may expect and the second one you may not.

Unicef:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

GE:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For more advice on safe social media for your business, click here.

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Top Marketing Tips April 2012

  1. Total Send is the latest email marketing web service that is easy to use and represents a viable alternative to established platforms, Campaign Monitor and Mail Chimp. It manages subscribers, sends campaigns and tracks results. Total Send includes all the features you need for running a successful email marketing campaign for your business and is extremely cost effective. Click here for more information.
  2. If you find yourself taking a long time converting your meeting notes into a digital format, take a look at Dragon Naturally Speaking. After initial scepticism, we have found it incredibly effective at reducing the time we spend typing up our notes. For more information click here.
  3. Keen to monitor your social media activity’s effectiveness? TwentyFeet is tool that pulls in data from Facebook and Twitter and presents it in graph form. TwentyFeet’s stats include friends and followers, retweets, mentions and Facebook status comments. To find out more click here.
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Top Marketing Tips May 2012

  1. The LinkedIn iPad app has finally arrived. The app is designed to be a personal assistant, with features such as calendar integration and a focus on LinkedIn’s personalised news feed, which showcases popular news articles and updates.
  2. LinkedIn’s Signal is another tool that can be applied to your LinkedIn account. Signal allows you to filter and browse only relevant status updates from your LinkedIn streams. You can target updates from colleagues, competitors, etc. The tool also allows you to narrow or expand your view based on the following filters: network, industry, company, time published and location.
  3. This month we provide you with a book dedicated to LinkedIn. Social networking Guru Neal Schaffer’s Windmill Networking: Understanding, Leveraging & Maximizing LinkedIn, explores the potential for professional and personal networking through LinkedIn. This book goes beyond the “business” genre to expand upon the world of social media marketing, branding, and career management.
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