We all survived skiing!
TLC thoroughly enjoyed skiing on the dry slopes at Calshot Activities Centre, and surprisingly all came back in one piece!
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We’re running the Southampton half marathon!
After much debate, consideration and ‘gentle’ persuasion, the TLC Business team decided to take part in an activity which will test our limits, and what better than the Southampton Half Marathon? With just under 90 days to go until the gruelling event, we’re all attempting to physically (and mentally) prepare ourselves.
As you may already know, Josh and Anna completed the Basingstoke Half Marathon last year, whereas for the rest of us, it’s a new challenge. To encourage our training and a healthier office since the Christmas period, we invested in a running machine for the office.
To say we’re a competitive office is an understatement, and to build our strength and stamina, the TLC Business team are also attempting the #plankchallenge, where we all have to continually beat our personal time and record it on a table. So far, we have all ‘planked’ at least 4 times, each time improving by at least 10 seconds – impressive right?
As you can see, Shannon and Sophie have really taken to the challenge!
Many of us have been training for the marathon religiously, and it’s definitely taken its toll on Abby with her injured hip, Anna’s cracked rib and Shannon’s sore feet. We’re a dedicated team who will power through, but who’s next to ‘hit the wall’?
What SMEs need to know for effective marketing in 2016 – seminar summary
Last week, TLC Business held our annual marketing seminar at The Mayflower Theatre in Southampton, but with a slight twist. We teamed up with Simon Harmer and his company Blown Away to deliver an inspirational session for businesses looking to get their marketing up and running.
This year, the focus was to ‘Get Your Marketing in Order for 2016’, and this blog will outline the main themes explored on the day, just in case you missed it!
Social media
With social media now firmly embedded into all our lives, it is clearly of big importance to us marketers. To help you succeed in your social media exploits, here are some top tips:
- Make sure your timing’s are on point. Many businesses fail to engage with their social media audience because they are posting at the wrong times. There are now a variety of scheduling platforms such as Buffer that suggests the best times to post updates for your business – so take advantage!
- Get your business on the right platforms. If you’re looking to build meaningful B2B connections and the ability to forge lasting business relationships, then LinkedIn consistently comes out on top as your best bet. In contrast, if you’re a B2C organisation and are looking to drive audience engagement and ultimately sales, then Facebook tops the list.
- Ensure that your posts have that ‘visual’ appeal. Posts that contain an image are 94% more likely to be shared than ones that don’t. Many marketers miss out on this simple trick that can increase social media engagement and reach dramatically!
- Posting the same content to all channels can become a bit tedious for your audience if they are present on each platform. Take advantage of the respective strengths of each social media platform and post content accordingly.
SEO
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is still perceived by many as a bit of a dark art. Despite constant algorithm updates, there are still opportunities to play the SEO game effectively and win.
Google is increasingly positioning itself as an ‘answers engine’. The advent of mobile has also put the cats amongst the pigeons (excuse the pun for those SEO geeks out there!) meaning there are even more opportunities to make your local business standout from the crowd.
Tips:
- Ensure that Google Analytics and Webmaster tools are installed and active on your website. Combined they will give you all the information you need (and more!) to get your website to be the best it can be. Google Webmaster tools will tell you what terms your site is being found for in Google, as well as identify any aspects of your site that are holding it back.
- Take full advantage of Google’s Keyword Planner to help inform the decision making process behind the keywords you choose to optimise your website pages for. And remember, keywords don’t have to be one word; they can effectively be phrases too.
- If you only do a few things SEO related on your website, make sure two of them are creating unique meta titles and descriptions optimised for the keyword-focus for each particular page.
- Get involved with Google Developer for page speed insights and how accessible on desktop or mobile your website is. Google gives marketers an insight into the loading speeds of their website, and will also give tips on how to increase load speed times. Alongside this, Google Developer provides a mobile-friendly test that will give marketers the tips and improvement suggestions they need to make their site better for mobile users.
PPC
96% of Google’s revenue comes from PPC ads, so clearly PPC is an important tool for them. We are sure you must be aware of the ads that populate Google’s search results pages! Statistics show that the top 3 ads on each search page receive 46% of traffic. PPC click-through rates are also shown to be 10 times higher than organic search clicks.
So what influences a good PPC ad? Each ad on every search page is ranked by Google. One’s ad rank is based on their cost-per-click and quality score. Your ads quality score has the ability to make or break your campaigns success. The quality score is made up of your ads click through rate, alongside your ads relevance to the keyword and your landing page’s relevance to the targeted keyword. The more relevant the better!
Tips:
- Make your ad text as relevant as possible to the keyword and ensure your landing page is targeted at that keyword too! Try getting your landing page’s URL to include the keyword in too.
- Get retargeting. Retargeting has given us marketers another tool to boost our marketing with. With retargeted visitors 70% more likely to convert, it doesn’t come as a surprise that retargeting is another highly effective marketing technique. To put it in its most simple form, retargeting is the practice of serving display ads to people who have previously engaged with your brand. It is vital for marketers looking to increase marketing results in 2016, helping to drive sales and increase brand awareness. The numbers are compelling. Statistics have shown that retargeted ads receive a 0.70% click-through rate, compared to just 0.07% for regular display ads. Following this, brand search exposure can increase by over 1000%, just from retargeting. With this in mind, retargeting is a must for 2016!
E-marketing
With 2.6 billion email users worldwide, it doesn’t come as a surprise that e-marketing is still a massive hit with marketers. It is reported that for every $1 spent on email marketing, the average return is $44.25, providing yet more reason for you to start thinking about promotion through email if you haven’t done so already.
The popularity of email marketing is continuing to grow, and more email scheduling platforms are being introduced. Platforms such as Campaign Monitor, ReplyApp and MailChimp are great tools for creating, scheduling and managing marketing email campaigns.
Tips:
- Use email marketing platforms such as Campaign Monitor to split test each email campaign. This will allow you to identify what content and approach is most effective at meeting your objectives and enables you to continually refine and improve on what works best.
- Personalisation is key! Send emails that are personalised to the recipient. Include their name in the subject line, reference topics and include content that they have expressed in interest in. This will not only help build better relationships between your business and consumer, but it will be demonstrable through better engagement and open rates.
- Make the email content mobile-friendly, that way the emails can be accessed by a wider audience.
Content Marketing
Creating and sharing content that engages your audience (Content Marketing in a nutshell!) is now a vital component of the marketing mix for marketers. New and fresh content should be published regularly. What regularly looks like depends on your audience. For B2B marketers, 26% post news and updates multiple times a week.
92% of businesses that use social media, use it as a tool to present content. Email is another vital content distribution tool. LinkedIn, Twitter and YouTube make up the top 3 for effectiveness when sharing content, but all have different advantages and disadvantages; therefore it’s important to make sure your content is tailored to your different channels.
Top Tools
With 2016 approaching, what are the top tools for more effective marketing? We have identified Datananas as a potentially effective tool for those looking to build their professional database, with its ability to export LinkedIn users and their contact information from LinkedIn without the need to be connected to them.
Other platforms like Buffer have also popped up on the radar, with its unique imaging software – Pablo! Brands are now able to upload an image of their choice and add text to it, making each social media post unique and eye-catching for their audience.
SumoMe is another top marketing tool for 2016, incorporating a series of apps all designed to get your website and content working. The toolbox includes on page analytics, free traffic for your site, image sharer and a smart bar that will increase your number of email subscribers – amazing!
What else is there to add to the marketing tool list? Google’s Webmaster Tools crops up again! As mentioned before, Google’s Webmaster Tools is a vitally important tool for anyone with a website. With the ability to understand your site’s organic search performance, as well as providing tips and tricks on how to get more traffic, the tool is a must.
One New Year’s resolution for you – download these marketing tools!
So, what matters for SMEs?
We think the top 5 themes that SMEs should consider in 2016 are:
- Content is king – still!
- Analytics
- Personalisation
- Online ads
- Video
We hope you find this useful and would like to thank everyone who attended. We look forward to seeing you again soon!
Blow Away those Marketing Cob Webs and Get Your Marketing in Order for 2016
TLC Business have teamed up with renowned inspirational speaker Simon Harmer and his company Blown Away, to deliver an insightful and inspirational working-lunch session for businesses who are looking to get better results from their marketing in 2016.
Not only will the session include marketing tips, cheats and ideas, but it will give you an insight into marketing trends for 2016, provide advice on how to get the biggest bang for your marketing buck, and inspiration to actually make those necessary marketing changes for 2016.
So when is it? The FREE session will be held on the 25th November 2015 at The Mayflower Theatre in Southampton, between 12-2pm. As well as this, the networking session will include lunch and two presentations.
We guarantee you’ll leave with lots of fresh ideas and feeling motivated to put them into action. Places are limited, so reserve your seat now to avoid disappointment. To reserve your ticket, click here.
TLC Business Supports WaterAid
You may already know that TLC Business supports ‘CamKids’, The Cambodian Children’s Charity. A year ago, TLC Business decided to help ‘CamKids’ further by sponsoring a child called Sreylim, this year we have decided to support a 2nd charity, WaterAid.Whilst many people are feeling the pinch, we sometimes forget how good we actually have it. 884 million people in the world do not have access to safe water. This is roughly one in eight of the world’s population.
We use water to drink, to clean, to cook, to grow things, to wash our cars, to do countless things that we often take for granted, because we have easy access to one of the most precious resources in the world.
WaterAid’s vision is of a world where everyone has access to safe water and sanitation. TLC Business wants to support WaterAid with their mission to transform lives by improving access to safe water, hygiene and sanitation in the world’s poorest communities.
Stay tuned this year for some of our fundraising efforts.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from TLC Business
We would all like to wish you and your business a very Merry Christmas and a fantastic New Year.
2013 has been a great year for TLC Business. We have welcomed Connie and Ben to the team, had the pleasure to work with brilliant people and businesses and even managed to find the time to fit in a team trip to Thorpe Park on the wettest day of the year.
This year, our Christmas do involved renewing our acquaintance with Laser Quest to find the sharpest TLC shooter, followed by a wonderfully festive meal at The Chesil Rectory in Winchester. Here’s a snap of the team pre-meal – hope you enjoy the garish Christmas sweaters!
Finally, we would like to thank you for all your support and look forward to working with you in 2014.
Wishing you a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
From all the TLC Business team
Office hours:
The TLC Business office will be closing Friday 20th at 5pm and will reopen Thursday 2nd January at 9am.
What SMEs need to know to market effectively in 2014 – seminar summary
Last week, TLC Business hosted our annual marketing seminar at Southampton Science Centre. This year we focused on ‘Marketing for SMEs in 2014’. The guests were treated to a working lunch, tackling a range of hot topics on marketing for SMEs. As promised, we have created a blog outlining some of the main themes we explored on the day, so you don’t miss out!
Digital vs. traditional marketing
15 years ago the term ‘digital marketing’ did not even exist showing just how fast technology is moving and how important it is for marketers to keep up. The debate of which type of marketing is more important has been around for just as long and every marketing professional will have their own opinion.
The statistics around digital marketing channels are compelling. B2B companies that blog generate 67% more leads than those that don’t. So if you’re not already blogging, perhaps you should be thinking about it. Regarding social media, 52% of marketers said they have found a customer on Facebook and 43% on LinkedIn. In terms of influence, surveys have found 63% of readers are more likely to be influenced by blogs over magazines. These are just 3 examples from a plethora of impressive statistics as to the effectiveness of ‘digital marketing’.
However, despite all the focus on digital marketing, in 2013 digital budgets are forecast to account for just 20% of overall marketing spends and TV, press and outdoor advertising was up 3.4% in the third quarter of 2013.
So what did we conclude? Two main points:
1. If you’re not at least planning on how to use ‘digital marketing’ in your business you should be, because your competitors are likely to already be reaping the rewards.
2. We would argue that the term ‘digital marketing’ has become extinct in any case. So intrinsic are digital channels in one’s overall marketing mix that to imply it is somehow distinct from ‘marketing’ in general is outdated. Digital is so important that it cannot be left out!
The rules of SEO
Over the last few years Google have released a number of different algorithms that enable you or I to find what we are searching for on Google. Famously coy about what companies need to do to enhance their search engine rankings, Google has worked hard with its algorithm updates to eradicate the contrived methods of SEO practitioners to artificially inflate a website’s search engine rankings.
First came Panda. Panda dealt with dubious content pages and demoted websites that attempted to dupe Google about the relevance of pages. Next came Penguin. Penguin came down hard on iffy link building, resulting in a number of big names plummeting down the rankings . And now to Hummingbird. Released towards the end of the summer this year, Hummingbird (birds famed for being precise and quick) moved the goal posts (albeit slightly) once again. Hummingbird has responded to the change in the way that Google’s users now search. It seems we are asking questions more rather than searching for terms that might link to information they want to find. Put simply, Hummingbird ‘thinks’ and ‘acts’ more like a human and recognises the intent (semantic meaning) behind the search phrase.
The best way we have heard the subtle shift in intent from Google described is the following; currently we have ‘search’ engines – Google wants to become an ‘Answer ‘engine.
It is helpful to keep this in mind when creating your content. Consider creating tutorials, ‘how-to’ guides, explanations and general content that provides solutions to challenges in your industry or that your target audience might be experiencing.
How to make your marketing work more effectively
The first rule for making your marketing work more effectively is to know your market. Do you know what competitors are out there and what they are doing.
What about your target audience? Have you established they actually want and value what your business provides? Have you reviewed the demographics; where are they located, what segments exist, what type of marketing is most influential to them. For instance, a 20 year old might find social media marketing a lot more influential than a 70 year old.
The future is never clear and forecasts, even from experts, might never come true. Despite this, it is still important to look to the future when thinking about your marketing. What changes are taking place in the marketplace? How are consumer purchasing habits changing? What technology is becoming available to utilise in your business or your marketing? A lot of the time the information you are looking for is already out there, it is just a question of finding it!
Moving with the times
The pace of change in the marketing sector can feel daunting at times, leaving some to cling to old familiar channels and ignore potentially effective ones in the process. Making an effort to ensure you move with the times is very important. It might not always be appropriate for your sector or audience but the very nature of establishing that is a useful process in itself to better understand your audience.
The annual B2B Buyersphere Report was reviewed and illustrated the different types of social media that are being used by B2B buyers currently. Somewhat surprisingly, Google + came out on top, indicating that perhaps Google’s social media offering is beginning to gain traction.
The presentation looked at the rise of ‘Moment Marketing’, where marketers respond to real life events, in real time. Nestle, Nandos and Paddy Power demonstrated great examples of mastering this. Most importantly, SMEs, through leveraging their social media networks, can compete on an equal footing with corporate giants in the ‘Moment Marketing’ arena.
Mobile marketing was a hot topic; with staggering statistics about the adoption of smartphone – by the end of 2013 there will be more smartphones on the planet than people.
The significance of this for marketers is that more and more interactions between companies and their target audience are taking place on mobiles.
The knock on effect of this is that it is imperative that businesses design their website and content (such as emails) to be mobile friendly.
Equally significant is the rise of ‘People Power’. Mirroring the rise of social media, the likes of Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter now give the average Joe in the street a platform to reach a global audience. Marketers need to accept and embrace this rather than fear it. Businesses might not be able to exert the same control that they are used to in more traditional marketing channels but they are able to reach a far wider audience and engage in ways previously unheard of. Social media represents a massive opportunity for businesses and can no longer be ignored.
Top tips all SMEs should know
The event was rounded off with a few key tips that all marketers or those running a business should take away with them. These encompassed:
1. Knowing your audience and the market research tools you can use to do this
2. If you read two books, we recommend ‘The Psychology of Persuasion’ and ‘The E Myth Revisited’
3. Embrace email – the stats all show it works
4. Make sure your content is up to scratch
5. Get yourself on social media – whether you’re there or not we guarantee your competitors and customers will or soon will be
6. Go mobile
Free ‘Effective Marketing for SMEs’ seminar
We are hosting our annual free marketing event at The University of Southampton Science Park on Thursday 21st Nov from 12pm – 2pm.
Working lunch
Join us for a working lunch, as we help SME businesses identify how to make the most of their marketing and generate the biggest bang for their buck.
Marketing for SMEs in 2014
The interactive session will give you insights into how marketing is changing for SMEs and outline what you need to know to enable you to get the results you need in 2014.
We will address a variety of topics, including:
- Top marketing tips all SMEs should know
- Is digital marketing rendering traditional methods redundant?
- Search engine optimisation – the rules have changed
- Why isn’t our marketing working?
- How marketing for SMEs is changing and how to move with the times
Places are limited, so reserve yours today to avoid disappointment.
To book your place and for more details, click here.
If you have any questions, please contact Connie on 01962 600 147 or email connie@tlc-business.co.uk.
Making your marketing work
Spring has sprung…finally. This is a good time of year to reflect back on the last few months and decide what worked and what didn’t for your business. All too often, companies at the start of the year create and launch marketing campaigns without ever reviewing the end results. In order to ensure your marketing is performing as it needs to, to enable you to meet your business goals, it is vital that you take the time to look back at the last few months and review the impact of your marketing activity.
To help you get started, we have highlighted below some key areas your business should be reviewing and some simple steps to help get your social media, website and email campaigns running smoothly this Spring.
Website:
We cannot stress enough the importance of reviewing your website’s performance through Google Analytics. Yes, the amount of data can be overwhelming and sometimes it’s difficult knowing where to start and how to use the data available. Reviewing the basics first, for example number of visitors, referral, search and direct traffic and the bounce rate, will help provide you with a good idea of how successful your website is performing. However, there are a few additional metrics we’d recommend including in your review:
- Page load speed
There has been an increasing importance placed on page load speeds when it comes to user experience and its impact on a site’s search engine ranking. Internet users have a notoriously short attention span and if a site takes more than a few seconds to load a page, users will quickly loose interest. To find out how you can improve the page load speeds on your website, the nice people at Google have provided a free tool, PageSpeed Insights
- Devices
The way we engage online is changing. More and more people are using mobile devices to access information quickly. You might find that the majority of your visitors access your site through mobile, if so, you would need to present you site in a way that bests fits with this form of device.
Social media:
Vowed to make the most of what social media has to offer your business? It is common for businesses to dive into social media, joining all the relevant platforms and making a promise to move the company’s marketing online. However, many companies are often disappointed with the results social media generates.
Has your social media activity been disappointing? Have you struggled to write interesting content and find interesting updates to share with your followers? Like any marketing activity, you will need to put in place a social media strategy that aligns with your overall marketing objectives. The strategy doesn’t have to be complicated, but it will help your team understand what it is you want to achieve from your social media activity and how you plan to achieve it. Consider what content they should be sharing, what links they should be including and who they should be targeting.
Social media doesn’t have to be time consuming. If you’re struggling to update your accounts consistently, there are tools like Hootsuite that will let you schedule tweets and Facebook updates. You could schedule a whole week’s worth of posts in 15 minutes.
Email marketing:
Have you recently launched an email campaign? Did you review the results? Was it successful?
We have previously discussed the importance of fine-tuning your email marketing and making the most of what email software has to offer. If you are struggling to get good results from your campaigns, it is important that you review where you might be going wrong. Several factors can influence the success rate of your marketing emails, including:
- Time of day your emails were sent
- The subject line
- Email content and links
- Plain text or HTML?
- Your data
A/B split testing campaigns can help you decide what time of day, content and subject line work best for your database.
Segmenting your database down into sensible groups, rather than sending one email to everyone on the list, will improve open and engagement rates. In addition, it will also help you identify if certain segments of your list are poor quality or not receptive to email marketing as a marketing medium.
A poor campaign could actually be the best thing that happens to your marketing, if it provides you with an insight which can inform and improve your future marketing programmes. If you cannot pinpoint what went wrong, it then just becomes a waste of money.
To aid this process, make sure you make changes to campaigns iteratively, so you can attribute any changes in results to a particular amendment.
Good luck and make sure your marketing is working for your business!
Fine-tune your email marketing
Modern marketing requires the use of a balanced blend of marketing channels, all working in harmony for the common good – to grow your business.
One channel that many small businesses mistakenly overlook is email, assuming customers view email marketing as spam or that it’s too easy for customers to unsubscribe or simply delete messages.
However, email is alive, kicking and effective. Thanks to the rise in technology and smart phones, consumers are connected to their inbox 24/7, reading emails with the same immediacy as they do text messages. Businesses are keen to get more bang for their buck and email marketing is certainly a platform more businesses should be considering when engaging with potential customers. Not only is it relatively low cost compared to comparable channels, but it is also incredibly generous about giving your business a wealth of marketing information off the back of a campaign, vital for giving you insights into your target audience and the ROI of campaigns.
Like any marketing activity, a business should plan their approach; simply pressing ‘send’ in Outlook isn’t enough. To get more mileage from your marketing campaigns, adopt these strategies to fine-tune the effectiveness of your emails:
Look beyond Outlook:
There are various tools and software out there that can help you create effective and engaging emails, test and send them, then manage and track the responses without any technical skills needed. Mail Chimp is one of a number of easy to use email marketing systems out there for businesses. Others include:
Virtually all will allow you to import your own HTML design or edit one of their existing templates to reflect your brand. Mail Chimp has the advantage that it is free if you have fewer than 2000 email subscribers and send emails no more than one a month. The software also helps you manage your subscriber lists, track campaign performance and sync your email marketing across social networks like Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.
Before you send your emails think about the following:
1. Segment your database into groups, for example, prospects, clients, past clients etc. Email software allows you to send personalised messages with custom offers. You could even send an email to one segment of your list by sorting on gender, role, post code or industry.
2. If you’re sending a newsletter, think about incorporating links that drive back readers to your website, where they can access the article in full. Not only does this get recipients on your website, where they can learn more about your business, but by reviewing your email statistics, it also provides you with vital information about specific areas of interest for database member. This information can be used to target marketing campaigns more accurately.
3. Make sure you test your emails. HTML designs can appear differently in different email clients. Likewise, something you may consider as eye catching, could be difficult for contacts to actually read. Most email systems will allow split testing, which is a great tool to use to identify the most effective subject line or content. If you want to increase open rates, test your subject lines. If it is your click-throughs you are looking to boost, then test design and content variations.
Your campaign doesn’t stop there – Review your performance:
After sending out your email messages, your next task is to measure the effectiveness of your campaign. Measuring the response rates will help you determine the kind of articles and services your readers want.
How do you know if your campaign is effective? The first indicator is your open rate, the number of people who actually opened your email. If you use an email marketing function like Mail Chimp, you will be able to access the full list of contacts who engaged with your campaign.
Your click-through rate is the other important indicator. Click-through rates measures the percentage of people who were sent the email that actively clicked on a link with the text. The more clicks the better.
You will also need to keep track of your unsubscribe rate. If the number of contacts requesting to be removed from your list increases, you need to re-evaluate your email campaigns. Are people unsubscribing because you are bombarding them with emails too frequently? Is the email message simply too long, or are your offerings lacking in appeal?
If planned and implemented properly, email marketing provides businesses with the opportunity to engage with a large audience in a short space of time. Not only does it offer your business a cost-effective marketing tool, it also provides you with vital information to help you integrate other forms of marketing into your mix……How about using telemarketing to follow up the contacts who clicked on a link within your email?