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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.

 

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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!

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Google+ Just Got Interesting

For many, the term Google+ is relatively new. Unless you’re not actively participating, it is easy to shy away from updates and news surrounding yet further developments in the social media sphere.
Google has produced a number of social networking sites over the years, Orkut, Buzz and Wave spring to mind. However, none of them made Google a serious competitor in the social networking market….until now. Last June, Google released its latest social networking tool. When Google+ first launched, millions of users flocked to the new service, ten million in 16 days to be exact. However, only recently has Google+ allowed brands to showcase their services. So where does Google+ fit in your marketing plan for 2012?


Back to basics, so what is Google+ exactly?

Let’s start at the beginning; Google+ is Google’s latest attempt to enter the “social” world, currently dominated by Facebook and Twitter. Google+ is an amalgamation of several services we already use, the idea, according to Google, is to do them better. The easiest way to think of Google+ is not as a place like Facebook but as a layer on top of all the Google services we already use daily. Google has a lot of services that are at the centre of people’s online lives: their search engine, Google Maps, YouTube, Gmail and so on. Google wants to create a central hub, where all their services can come together.

Think of a Google+ business page as a mini website for your business, with social networking features built in, and hosted by Google. Google+ allows brands to build relationships between businesses and consumers. Like Facebook, you are given the ability to share, promote, and measure your fan engagement. Statistics show that in January 2012 there were over 90 million Google+ users, significant growth and the catalyst for businesses to start integrating Google + into their social media mix.  Both Google+ profiles and business pages provide robust platforms for companies that want to grow their web presence and create real conversations with prospects and customers. There is also another benefit. Having an active Google+ presence for your business, brand or name has powerful implications for search engine optimisation….of course. Google is still the largest search engine in the world, not to mention the owner of YouTube and now the +1 button appears in search results.


What key features can you expect from Google+?

  • Circles, you can organise all your contacts into circles. You have the ability to target different segments of your audience through the Circles, enabling you to group prospective customers; people aged 18-35, Men 60+, or even employees into different circles.  This means you will be able to control and target different messages to different circles. You can also see what conversations are going on in each of the circles.
  • Hangouts is another feature of Google+, which allows group video conversations to take place. Google+ gives you a “start a hangout” button, which will publish an update to your profile saying, “TLC is hanging out”. Up to 10 people can be in a hangout at any time, they’re free and they can be private or public. Users can also watch YouTube videos in sync with the other people in the hangout, a useful tool for virtual meetings etc.


What your business can do with a Google+ business page:

  • Conduct video conversations with employees
  • Live Q&A sessions
  • Product demos
  • Customer service “office hours”
  • Focus groups
  • Free training
  • Recruitment

Take a look at how Virgin have used Google+
Virgin has been busy using its Google+ page to help recruit 500 new crew members and offering followers a chance to meet CEO Richard Branson face-to-face. As well as Virgin, many other of the group companies are present on Google+, from the airlines Virgin Australia and Virgin Atlantic providing travel updates, to Virgin Money, sharing all the latest details of their mission to rejuvenate the banking system.

You may think. ‘Well my business isn’t exactly a big consumer brand like Virgin, Toyota or Pepsi’; however, Google+ business pages offer exciting opportunities for even the smaller brands, allowing great potential to target key Circles with specific messages and  derive SEO benefits for your website.

Google+ is still at the start of its long journey to social media domination; however, starting to think about building your business page, the interesting content you can display and the ways you can further engage with other businesses and prospects effectively online, can only be an added bonus to your marketing plan in 2012.

Visit our March Marketing Tips to get started with Google+ today.

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TLC Business’ Josh Spencer on BBC Radio Solent

Solent-logo-2Have a listen to TLC Business MD, Josh Spencer, on the Alex Dyke show on BBC Radio Solent talking about the importance of online for businesses as part of the BBC’s ‘Give an Hour’ campaign.
To download and listen to the interview click here.

We’d love to hear your comments about how he did, so please let us know.

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November’s Top Marketing Tips

1. Twitter Tool: With so many twitter tools available, it’s hard to know what to choose. This is a list of ten Twitter applications used by social media and industry experts!2. iPad Magazine: Write and publish your own iPad magazine. The Magplus platform is a creative system for making issue-based media for touchscreen tablet devices.

3. Teach Yourself SEO: Useful links and information to help you teach yourself SEO. These resources provide analysis of the search engine industry and helps website owners improve their rankings with Google.

 

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SEO-PR The Perfect Match

TLC would like to take the opportunity to welcome two new members to the TLC team.
We would first like to introduce you to our SEO wizard. Tim is an experienced online marketing expert that has worked for both Internet Marketing Agencies and online businesses.  Our second new arrival is our PR specialist Kate.  Kate has over 20 years experience and is passionate about helping organisations tap into the benefits of social media as a PR tool, to support more traditional methods, when looking to raise their profile.

We here at TLC believe that Tim and Kate are a match made in heaven; SEO and PR both look to raise the profile of an organisation by increasing its authority amongst your target audience.  Like any couple, SEO and PR share some of the same values: success cannot be guaranteed, relationships and industry knowledge are vital and to achieve spectacular results, you need to let the experts do what they do best, dabbling in either area rarely works effectively.

Not only do PR and SEO share important values, they both work hard for the same goal – brand exposure within your target market.  The marriage between PR and SEO can form a long lasting union that will assist in raising your brand’s profile in a number of crucial areas: 

 

  • Improving communication:

News stories stay online; your news item can still be read months after the event.

  • Generating publicity:

Online stories can spread at the speed of lightning. Issue a press release online and it can be taken up and commented on minutes later. 

  • Getting in bound links:

There has been an increase in news sites writing about and linking to external web sites from different sectors. Get your link noticed and you can capture their large audiences.

  • Building brand awareness:

The links the story creates not only bring people themselves but also boosts your search engine ranking and online presence.

 

A relationship like this can work well for small, medium and large companies within a variety of different markets.  One company to benefit from SEO and PR collaborations is Sky and its education site.

Sky aimed to drive traffic to their Sky Learning site, an education page focused towards students and teachers. To increase their online presence, Sky adopted an SEO-PR partnership to target their audience using short videos of former Blue Peter presenter Konnie Huq revealing her top study tips.

These videos were shared on student and revision communities, as well social networking sites, to enable Sky Learning to reach the teen market.  The various techniques Sky adopted saw thousands of new visitors click through to the Sky Learning site.  The whole process improved Sky Learning’s brand awareness, communication and internet traffic, as well as generating a whole host of positive publicity.

Whilst Sky is a large corporate, there is no reason that smaller SMEs cannot take advantage similar methods to achieve  equally impressive results that help grow your business.

 

If you think your could benefit from an SEO and PR partnership and would like further information, simply email anna@tlc-bsuiness.co.uk .

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TLC Business add SEO expert to the team

We are delighted to announce that TLC Business is now able to offer SEO and PPCmanagement services to our clients. The addition of SEO guru Tim Tavender to the TLC Business team now enables us to offer efffective, results-driven SEO services to ambitious SMEs, eager to make their mark on the web.
Tim is the perfect addition to the team, bringing with him a wealth of Internet Marketing Agency and first hand SME business experience, along with a great sense of humour and a whole host of amusing stories to keep us entertained as the day goes by.

TLC Business’ SEO and PPC services are tailored to the needs of ambitious SMEs that want to increase the volume of new business their website generates for them.

Our results orientated approach is delivered by drawing on knowledge, experience and techniques typically the reserve of large corporate organisations, now made affordable for SMEs.

To find out more about our SEO and PPC services and claim your free SEO report visit our SEO services page or call 01962 600 150.

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