Posts

Are your Lead Generation campaigns LinkedIn?

You may be aware that we regularly discuss the importance of social media for a business, providing you with insights into the latest social media trends and top tips about how to engage effectively with your consumers within the variety of social media platforms available.
From our experience of working with SMEs, the same questions pop up time and time again, ‘How can social media fit with my industry’? ‘How is social media going to generate sales for my business?’

Not all social media sites are relevant for every business, for example, product based B2C businesses are more likely to engage with consumers on platforms, such as Facebook and Pinterest, where a business can take advantage of the visual functions available. If you want to communicate to a B2B audience and business professionals, then LinkedIn with its 150 million members is a good place to start.

LinkedIn enables members and businesses to create profiles, connect with like-minded individuals, share blogs and news items. However, more and more businesses are now discovering the hidden powers of LinkedIn, not only as a social networking site, but also as a platform that can be the foundation for marketing campaigns and a vital component in a company’s lead generation efforts.

So how can your business use LinkedIn for lead generation? Think of LinkedIn as a treasure trove with over 150 million contacts that can be used to support your business activities. LinkedIn is rich with information you can use to help qualify prospects, target businesses and research competitors.

Below are some examples of how your business can use LinkedIn effectively:

  • Do you have a list of potential companies that you wish to target? Are there contact names missing or is the list simply out of date? If so, LinkedIn is a great tool for identifying key decision-makers working in the organisations you are keen to engage with.  This helps eliminate the dreaded entry phrase ‘I can’t put you through; we work on a no name basis’.
  • Is your business launching a new product or service and you are keen to research your target audience? We use LinkedIn as a valuable market research tool. It gives you access to a range of groups and contacts, many of which are keen to share their opinion. Post a question on a relevant group and engage with your target audience to get their thoughts and ideas, there’s nothing better than a service or product that really addresses the challenges and problems customers face.
  • Join groups and develop yourself as an expert in your field. LinkedIn enables you to join and set up industry and career specific groups. Groups of like-minded professionals are excellent for gaining knowledge, sharing news and conveying your expertise. LinkedIn groups allow you to see the issues that your target audience are facing, providing you with an opportunity to share your knowledge and build relationships with potential customers.

A great example of a business getting to grips with the power of LinkedIn is Cathay Pacific. Cathay Pacific Airways is an international airline based in Hong Kong, offering scheduled cargo and passenger services to over 140 destinations around the world. Cathay Pacific faced the same challenges that most businesses face, how to crawl through the jungle that is an overcrowded marketplace and reach their target audience with a message that is compelling. In order to achieve this, Cathay Pacific turned to LinkedIn to help target people who would fly business class between the United States and Asia. The aim was to identify members who belong to LinkedIn groups related to business travel in Asia, such as Global Workers, China Networking Group and Hong Kong Connection, in order to engage with time-strapped business travellers in an environment where they were already comfortable, engaged and spending time.

Cathay Pacific established a company page in LinkedIn and started to engage with the groups and individual members, providing regular status updates. As well as increasing the brand awareness, Cathay Pacific’s LinkedIn activity generated a total of 1,324 responses from business travellers, produced 97 LinkedIn page recommendations and increased the clickthrough rate on to their main website.

With the ever increasing array of social networking sites available to businesses, large and small, and the constantly evolving digital world, a business must establish the platforms that offer their business most value. Social media is free but your time is not. You need to use it wisely. We believe that increasingly, if you operate in the B2B sphere, LinkedIn represents an effective investment of your time. It is now so much more than just an online CV; it unlocks the doors to millions of opportunities for your business.

/0 Comments/by

Blog your way to the top

Image: Social Ninja

In today’s digital society, blogging is not confined to personal use alone. The medium is a powerful communication channel for many different sized organisations and to some, it represents an integral component of their marketing and social media strategy.
Why is this the case and more importantly, why should my business blog? Well the answer is simple. Every business, from finance to catering, has a voice and more and more consumers are interested in hearing what your organisation has to say. A business blog helps add a personality to your brand, enabling you to engage with your market on a more human and ultimately, more meaningful level.

Topic is key. Think about how your blog could help your customer. What questions do you get asked? We regularly tell our clients to write a blog, with many stating ‘Who would want to read something I have written’…Well you would be surprised.  Regular blogs are an excellent way to communicate with your potential customers, introducing them to your organisation, whilst sharing your thoughts on the latest industry trends and news; all helping towards strengthening your position as an expert within the industry.

A well-established blog can help influence an audience. When clients start conversations, the chances are these days many are doing it online, using social media platforms, such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or their own blog. Social media serves as an important mode of interaction and provides you with an ideal channel to your target audience.  Consumer habits are dramatically changing, with many using social media to source companies, recommend services and start conversations with like-minded individuals and businesses.  Posting blogs on social media sites can help inform and spark debate with your target audience and more importantly, drive traffic back to your website.

Google loves content.  Getting to the first page of the search engines is always a priority for website owners. Providing good quality, unique content, such as blog articles, is a good starting point to achieving this. Blogging provides you with the opportunity to be present, be found, and get your business noticed by your target market. Search engines favour sites that are both active and also adding new content on a regular basis. A blog accomplishes both of these features. By having a blog you are demonstrating that your site is not static and that the information on the site is not only current and up-to-date but also increasing. Simple steps such as utilising keywords and internal and external linking to relevant and complimentary sites are all factors which can not only develop your blog, but also improve your SEO.

Blogging not only shares your expertise and improves website visibility; it also opens doors to many opportunities. Successful bloggers are often asked to expand their blog for industry magazine articles and columns, or attend the latest product launches and conferences, as their voice is seen as influential in their industry. A prime example of a simple blog working its way to the top is Mashable. Mashable was once a one man blog that soon turned into a popular news site, tackling social media and the digital culture. Bored by schoolwork, Scotsman Peter Cashmore skipped college and began writing about how people were using technology and the new world of social networking. From March 2012 Mashable was worth a staggering £127 million with over 2,775,000 Twitter followers and over 838,400 fans on Facebook.

Producing a blog that attracts a following like Mashable’s doesn’t happen every day, but a well maintained and regularly updated blog is an effective marketing tool. The only thing it will cost you is your time.

Start your blog today!

/0 Comments/by

Free ‘Top 10 Marketing Tools for SMEs’ Seminar

TLC Business Seminar
TLC Business is once again hosting its free annual marketing seminar in Winchester on the 12th July from 10am – 12:30pm.

This seminar will give you an overview of what marketing tools are out there for SMEs, why they might be useful, which offer the best value and what are the ones we would recommend to enhance your marketing’s effectiveness.

We will explore a range of topics including:

  • CRMs – Do you get what you pay for?
  • Social media management – How you can use your social media time more efficiently
  • E-marketing – What software to use and why?
  • Google analytics – What it all means and why you should be measuring
  • Video – ” I’ve heard it is important but I don’t know where to start”
  • Information sharing – Reduce costs and increase efficiency
  • Marketing measurement – “50% of my marketing works and 50% doesn’t, the problem is, I don’t know which 50% is which”

Places are limited, so reserve yours today to avoid disappointment.

To book your place and for more details, click here.

/0 Comments/by

Facing Tough Competition

Is your business on track for marketing gold?One of the key factors for business success lies in knowing who your competitors are and what they are doing. Facing up to strong competition can be a challenge; however, we believe that with the right research and analysis, you business can be armed with the tools necessary to achieve market dominance.

You may think you already know your competitors and what they are up to, but how often do you check their social media platforms, promotional material, website or customer service? Time and time again we speak to SMEs who believe they already know their competitors and that research is not a priority. We would have to disagree. Understanding how your competitors engage with your target audience and identifying what their strengths and weaknesses are, gives you a valuable insight into how you can improve your business. Competition can be fierce and in order to form sound business strategies, you need to have as much information as possible.

Ensuring your offering is different (in a good way!) is vital. If you don’t have up-to-date information about competitor activity how can you be sure you are?


So where to start? How about asking yourself these questions.

  • Who are your direct competitors? Have you actively searched for new companies that may have entered your market place?
  • Where are they located? Do you all operate in the same region?
  • What services do they provide? Have they introduced a new product offering recently?
  • Do they have an experienced team?
  • What about indirect competitors? Who are they? The watch market didn’t see mobile phones as a threat, now their market place is shrinking as people use their mobile to tell them the time.


What else might be useful to know?

  • Do they have an effective website? What content do they upload and is it updated on a regular basis?
  • Are they actively participating in social media? What content are they sharing and what platforms are they utilising? Are they effective users of Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn?
  • Do they have a USP? Are they providing a service or product that you are not?
  • Have you mystery shopped them?
  • Are your competitors publishing regular press releases?
  • Is there a news or blog function on their website? What are they talking about?
  • Do your competitors advertise, if so, where?
  • Do you know what terms they are optimising their website for?

All this may seem overwhelming, but preparation and research are vital within a crowded market place. Your findings will help shape winning marketing strategies that help drive future business success.

So if you can’t answer many of the questions above….start researching you competitors today.

 

/0 Comments/by

TLC Business Host Top 10 Marketing Tools Seminar

Website

TLC Business was delighted to host its annual marketing seminar yesterday, at Winchester Business School, tackling the topic ‘10 Top Tools for Effective SME Marketing’. The unseasonal weather didn’t put off attendees, as a packed house was treated to a morning of our top marketing tool tips. Topics covered included: effective CRM and email marketing systems, Google Analytics, Dropbox, YouTube, URL builders and QR Codes.

TLC Business Director Joshua Spencer said “We were delighted with the turn out and would like to thank everyone that took the time to attend. It was our intention to give attendees ideas and tips that they can take back to their business and use straight away to make their marketing more effective.”

We were very pleased to receive excellent feedback, below are just a few examples and 100% of people stated they would recommend attending future TLC Business events.

  • ‘Excellent insight into the most up to date and effective marketing tools’
  • ‘Excellent morning’
  • ‘Useful tips – food for thought’
  • ‘Very informative – thank you’

For those that were unable to attend the seminar, but are interested in the content and would like to receive a copy of the presentation, please email anna@tlc-business.co.uk.

We are already starting to think about next year’s topics, so if you have any ideas or preferences, please let us know.

/0 Comments/by

Google Analytics – Where To Start?

Last week, TLC Business hosted a marketing seminar on the ‘Top Ten Tools to Effective SME Marketing’, with topics including, CRM systems, video and email marketing.  Over the next few months, we will be exploring these topics further, providing you with top tips to help you get more out of your marketing.

First stop…Google Analytics

Google Analytics is one of the most powerful tools out there for marketers. It is invaluable for monitoring and analysing traffic on your website, allowing you to evaluate both on and offline marketing campaigns. It gives you an enormous amount of information about who is visiting your site, how they got there, and what they are looking for.

We are always surprised by the number of businesses who do not actively review their Google Analytics reports. Yes, the volume of results available can be daunting; however, the importance of the information stored is critical for any business.

So what information should my business be measuring?
Let’s start with the basics:

  • No. visitors – How many people visit your website in a day, month and year? Are there any trends that appear…quieter in August but a peak in September?
  • Bounce rate -The lower the better. Are people looking around your website or simply jumping off after the homepage? Has a particular page got a higher bounce rate than others?
  • Length of time on site – How long is a visitor spending on your website before leaving? 10 seconds or 2 minutes? Does a particular page retain visitors for longer?
  • How many pages visited – Are the majority of people visiting one page on the website, or exploring multiple, for example, ‘news’, ‘services’ and ‘contact us’?
  • Traffic – Are visitors coming from a direct source or referral links?
  • Keywords – Which keywords are pulling in traffic to your website?

Google Analytics doesn’t just stop there; explore your site in more detail:

  • Visitor flow -This graphically represents the pathway visitors take through your site, from the source, the various pages viewed and where along their paths they exited your site.
  • Form Field Tracking – Filling out forms online is well known, not only for tracking conversions but also for losing visitors. You can use the Google Analytics tracking feature to improve your conversion rate by analysing and optimising the form to make the process easier and more efficient.
  • Page load speed – The report provides an at-a-glance view of essential information. Which landing pages are slowest? Which campaigns correspond to faster page loads overall?
  • In-Page Analytics – This enables you to visually analyse your website pages in order to assess how users interact with your website and understand the following questions, are my users seeing the content I want them to see? Which links are users clicking?
  • Social Visitors Flow – A visual presentation of how visitors from social platforms  are navigating your website. Assuming the goal of your social media campaign is to get more traffic to your website, this report provides you with insight into which social sites are sending the most traffic to your website and what your social visitors are doing once they get there.

The information above may be overwhelming; however, using Google Analytics to measure the performance of your website can reveal useful insights into the effectiveness of the content and layout of your site. Advanced areas within Google Analytics provide you with a vital tool to help you understand and breakdown those larger numbers and daunting information into smaller, more meaningful numbers.

To provide you with even more insights into using website analytics more effectively, our next blog will look at the latest social media developments within Google Analytics and how this can help you successfully drive traffic to your website.

Stay tuned!

/0 Comments/by

A picture is worth a thousand words

Following on from our July marketing seminar, here is another top tip to more effective SME marketing. This month we highlight the growing trend in Quick Response (QR) codes.
Whilst the QR code debate rages on and we assess whether this is a passing fad or a marketing phenomenon, the last year has certainly proven that QR campaigns can work effectively for the larger brands. From Coca Cola to Tesco, more and more companies are adapting their marketing campaigns to take advantage of the latest technology and consumer engagement channels available.

So is it worthwhile for SMEs to jump on board the latest marketing bandwagon?

SMEs may feel that technology such as QR codes is best left to bigger firms, with more resources and a deeper understanding of how it works. However, with QR codes, this is simply not the case; they can benefit the marketing of organisations of all sizes.

A QR code is a marketing tool that can help drive consumers to specific content of your choosing, such as a landing pages on your website, contact details or competition entry forms.  QR codes are cheap and easy to generate online. All your prospect needs to access them is a smart phone. Studies from 2011 indicate that businesses were reluctant to introduce QR codes, with only 8% of businesses thinking that QR codes were worthwhile; however, in 2012 the numbers changed significantly, with 47% of businesses declaring that their brand would benefit from introducing QR codes into their marketing, due to the rise in smart phone adoption amongst consumers.

How can my business use QR codes?

QR codes are currently dominating the consumer market, from packaging, magazine adverts, bus stops and billboards, the list is endless.

Tesco in South Korea is a great example of a forward thinking QR campaigns. In order to help save time, Tesco found a clever way to bring the grocery store to the consumer. Tesco launched a QR code campaign that plastered enormous images of food items on to South Korean subway walls. These images came with a QR code and allowed consumers to scan individual food items to be loaded in their virtual shopping cart. Once they finished their checkout, their order was processed and delivered to the consumer’s doorstep.

If you were at the Olympics this year, you may have noticed that QR codes were sitting right at the centre of mobile engagement during the 2012 games, linking supporters to Olympic action, promotions, merchandise and information.

Before and throughout the Olympics, Southwest trains used QR codes to help their customers plan their journey in a timely fashion, so the passenger could avoid any confusion during the games.

QR codes are not just for the big players. QR campaigns can be used in various ways within an SME environment, from business cards and adverts to direct mail and merchandise.  QR codes are a cheap, effective addition to many marketing campaigns and can be used to increase the effectiveness and measurability of campaigns. Common ideas include:

“Scan this product to download a recipe straight to your phone”

“Scan to ‘Like’ us on Facebook and get 20% off this purchase!”

“Scan to enter our latest competition”

Like any marketing activity, it is essential to have a campaign strategy in place, offering something special or unique. You need to understand your target audience, have a clear objective in mind and most importantly, provide valuable information to encourage the user to interact with your brand.

Businesses should always measure the results from any marketing campaign, QR codes included.  Did your website receive more traffic? Did the campaign generate more sales, Twitter followers or ‘Likes’ on Facebook? Whilst trying out the latest marketing trend can be fun, ultimately the campaign needs to generate results for your business.

To create your free QR code today, click here.

/0 Comments/by

An insight into Britain’s coolest brand

Last month, CoolBrands released a list of what they described as an electric collection of some of the coolest brands in Britain.  Since 2001, CoolBrands have been canvasing the opinions of consumers and industry insiders about the coolest products, places and people in the UK; ranking brands on their originality, authenticity, desirability, uniqueness, style and innovation.
CoolBrands, with the help of 3,000 voters and their expert panel, crowned tech giant Apple as the winner, beating car maker Aston Martin to the top spot for the first time in six years.  Unlike previous years, almost half of the list is made up of technology and media brands, with a record number of online brands featured in the top 20.

“It is interesting that in this age of austerity, our perception of cool has increasingly shifted from aspirational, luxury brands to free or more affordable brands that provide us with pleasure,” said Stephen Cheliotis, chairman of the CoolBrands expert council.

So what makes Apple a cool brand? How can we learn from this organisation and how have they been responsible for the shift in consumer behaviour and what we consider as ‘cool’?

January 1977, Apple’s advisor Mike Markkula, assembled a 3-point marketing philosophy. After thirty-five years, this philosophy remains

  1. Empathy – We will truly understand their (customer) needs better than any other company.
  2. Focus – In order to do a good job of the things we decide to do, we must eliminate all of the unimportant opportunities.
  3. Impute – People DO judge a book by its cover. We may have the best product, the highest quality, the most useful software, etc.; if we present them in a slipshod manner, they will be perceived as slipshod; if we present them in a creative, professional manner, we will impute the desired qualities.

Apple is aware that customers may be limited to thinking only in terms of what they know, instead of what is possible. Apple thinks about the customer experience more deeply than the customer could. For any product that Apple creates, the people who create it have to want it themselves.  The engineers make them for themselves and the end product has to be something that they personally couldn’t live without.

Apple understands that whatever product they create, their consumer may need hand holding.  When you go into an Apple store and are greeted by one of the sales staff, you’re not asked, “How can I help you?” Instead they ask, “What would you like to do today?” They go straight to the heart of the consumer’s question, a question that’s always related to what they want to do with the technology, not about the technology itself.

 While beautiful design is a critical component of any product Apple makes, but if it is not easy to use, it is considered worthless to the consumer. As technology has become more intricate and users want more features, the task of keeping things simple is sometimes difficult. It’s often rare to find a company creating something where ease of use is more important than the product itself. Apple makes this a critical goal when creating anything for the market.

The replication of these core values in your organisation may seem daunting. Apple are a global corporation, renowned for delivering great software, industrial design and powerful content; such as apps and services. However, knowing your consumer, developing your product and providing great service are all key factors any business of any size can implement.  By sticking to their core values and devising a business model that creates ongoing customer value, Apple has been able to directly influence what we as a society consider ‘cool’. Importantly, aspirationally, Apple’s products are attainable for most aspects of society. 55% of the UK population are now predicted to own and use a Smartphone, what percentage of the population own an Aston Martin?

The full list of this year’s Top 20 ‘coolest’ brands is below:

  1. Apple
  2. YouTube
  3. Aston Martin
  4. Twitter
  5. Google
  6. BBC iPlayer
  7. Glastonbury
  8. Virgin Atlantic
  9. Bang & Olufsen
  10. Liberty
  11. Sony
  12. Bose
  13. Haagen-Dazs
  14. Selfridges
  15. Ben & Jerry’s
  16. Mercedes-Benz
  17. Vogue
  18. Skype
  19. Nike
  20. Nikon

Who’s on your list for 2013?

/0 Comments/by

Don’t delay – review your marketing straight away

As the end of the year approaches, businesses need to take the time to look at how they are going to improve their marketing’s effectiveness and grow their business in the coming year.
What tools are you currently using for business growth? Are you reviewing their success? Are your campaigns actually generating your organisation new business?

No matter how brilliant, creative and unique a marketing strategy may seem to be, if it doesn’t generate results and return on investment, something needs to change.  Now is the time to go back to basics and simply look at what worked and what didn’t in 2012.

So where do you start? How do you review your marketing and what should you be looking for?

For any marketing campaign you undertake, analysis should be a vital part of your plan. If you have missed this step, or you are unsure what you should be reviewing, take a look at our 3 top tips for reviewing marketing effectiveness.

 

Email marketing – don’t ignore the data:

Many businesses understand the importance of sending out emails to their database, whether it be a monthly e-newsletter, or the occasional special offer.  A company invests time and resources into creating campaigns, but few measure the end result effectively.

There are many email software packages available to businesses, two of the biggest are Mail Chimp and Campaign Monitor. They allow you to review in-depth results generated from your emails, including open and click-through rates. The results are key to determining if your campaigns are effectively engaging with your database. An open rate indicates the percentage of people who opened your email, whilst a click through rate measures how many people actively clicked on a link and engaged with your communication.

The subject line and email address will influence the open rate most significantly.

The click through data reflects the level of engagement in your email. It shows exactly what information people are interested in. If you’re writing about multiple topics in a newsletter, click-through information can be used to determine which topics are of most interest to readers. Are the same people reading your emails each week, if so, are you following up the email with a telephone call?

Use you results to establish trends. Look at what time of day your emails are sent and what subject lines you include. Does your email include a hook?

 

Social media isn’t just for show – measure your engagement 

Like any marketing activity, in order for your social media activities and goals to be achieved, you need to put together your company’s social media strategy. Your strategy is just like your business plan; it enables you to define your social media goals and future objectives.

It is important to review the social media channels you currently use. What platforms are popular amongst your target audience and what content is worth ‘tweeting’?   In the past, a measurement of social media success was determined by the number of followers or ‘Likes’ generated through Facebook and Twitter. Google Analytics have taken their social analytics tools a step further, enabling you to drill down and measure the full value of traffic to your website coming from social networking sites. Follower engagement is also an import metric. How engaged are you with your social network? Is your content being retweeted? Are you interacting with your network?

The world of social media is constantly changing, what was popular last year isn’t necessarily relevant this year , stay on top of the trends and engage with your target audience effectively. There are many social media analytic tools out there. Some are free; take a look at Hootsuite’s free in-built analytics function or Topsy for instant social media insights.

 

Website – analyse your traffic

We can’t stress enough the importance of reviewing your website analytics. Google Analytics is one of the most powerful tools out there for businesses, providing a wealth of insight and data into the performance of your website and marketing overall. It is invaluable for monitoring and analysing traffic, allowing you to evaluate both on and offline marketing campaigns. Simply installing analytics won’t give you the results you need; value is only gained when that data is used to drive action to improve your site.

The volume of results available can be daunting; however, if you break down the data into more manageable chunks, like: traffic, bounce rate, visitor flow and keywords, you can start measuring your performance more effectively.

For more guidance on what you should be measuring with your Google Analytics, click here.

 

No matter what marketing activity you undertake, return on investment is vital.  When reviewing your marketing you need to consider every element of your campaign, from data and content through to execution and evaluation.  Reviewing your marketing each year can be the difference between having an ok year and a great one. If you have failed to generate enquiries from an advert, email or campaign, something needs to change. Start reviewing today and make use of your findings….don’t ignore the data.

/0 Comments/by

Marketing Titbits – Top campaigns, youtube videos and marketing infographics of 2012

Take a look at the ‘Marketing Titbits’ we’ve found for you this month. There are sources of inspiration in there for everyone:1. Top 10 Campaigns of 2012

Take a look at Marketing Week’s top 10 pick of this year’s marketing campaigns. Red Bull’s sponsorship of Felix Baumgartner’s 24-mile drop from space, Channel 4’s Paralympic TV ads and Southern Comfort’s latest offering are our favourites.

Top 10 Marketing Campaign’s of 2012

2. Top 10 YouTube Videos of 2012

Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the last 3 months, you will have come across South Korea’s answer to Michael Jackson – PSY. His Gangnam Style video is far and away the most popular video of the year, nearly clocking up 1 billion views. But there are some other notable inclusion. Take a look at the run down below.

Top 10 YouTube Videos of 2012

3. Top 14 Marketing Infographics of 2012

We see a lot of infographics now but the kind people at eConsultancy have put together there list of the top 12 they have seen this year. We think the Social Media Sizing Cheat Sheet has to be one of the handiest! See all of them below.

Top 14 Marketing Infographics of 2012

 

/0 Comments/by