Marketing Plans - Are you ready? 19th December 2018 9:29 AM
As not received any”Yup, sent them to admin@ did you not receive? A bunch of PDF reports.
PM me a different email address if the admin isn't the right one (it's your forum login email).
PostsMarketing Plans - Are you ready? 17th December 2018 1:34 PM Just sent you some reports. Keep the faith, do some analysis and come back fighting in 2019 Marketing Plans - Are you ready? 14th December 2018 3:31 PM Depending on your business, normally product based versus serviced based, you will either be manically busy right now or like us, this will be your quiet patch. If you are in the quiet patch, then make sure you make the most of it and put those finishing touches to the marketing plan. Because you do have a plan don't you? Remember the cliche, don't expect different results if you do the same things next year that you did this year. Set a realistically achievable but challenging target, then plan exactly how you will achieve it. Maybe you will be trying to break into a new market, maybe it's a strategy of generating potential referrals from existing customers or simply upselling to your customer base. Or are you looking at doing trade shows or investigating PPC? Planning can be great fun, but make sure you track progress and keep updating the plan throughout the year. Even if you don't achieve your targets, you will have a wealth of data and information to analyse to understand why not, and set fresh targets for the next year. Did anybody meet or smash any targets from last year? Is anyone sat looking at a blank piece of paper and wants some inspiration? Google Posts 14th December 2018 2:38 PM Absolutely The posts feature got rolled out earlier in 2018 and is a good way of getting visibility. Likewise make sure you also add a description line about your business, which is another recent feature. Here's what ours looks like:
The downside is the posts expire every 7 days which is frustrating, so remember to calendar a reminder each week to create a new post. If you are new to Google listings or want to edit an old one, then follow this link: https://business.google.com/manage/ Avoid giving your family Food Poisoning this Christmas 4th December 2018 8:32 AM Great post and top advice I remember years ago me and the missus decided to spend xmas in a log cabin on the banks of a Scottish Loch. Drove up from Stratford in my ageing Nissan Patrol with all the xmas food in bags on the floor as well as the Turkey. What I didn't know was the exhaust was on the way out and bent so part of it was touching the floor pan, super heating the underneath of the car, slowly cooking our Turkey for us two days early After much pondering and after a couple of glasses of wine, against all common sense, we cooked and ate it on xmas day Will the next generation disconnect? 29th November 2018 9:42 AM I don't think new generations will disconnect, I think it's more evolve. Youngsters are using different platforms to Facebook and Twitter, where they have more privacy in private groups, whilst conversations are deleted after a set time. I can see this trend increasing as new technologies imitate our real life social behaviour. Very few of us would want to get on a stage in front of thousands of strangers and show pictures of our drunken past, yet people do it all the time with open profile Facebook accounts, or even twitter. So I think it will be more discreet groups, where the currency will be privacy and trust, a bit like how you communicate with friends in the real world. Kids now talk with their mates via headsets while playing games. While we were outside with our mates in the 70's or 80's, now the kids get together virtually and have fun virtually. I'm no fan of this, but you can see the attraction, get together with your buddies and race cars or go round shooting things up, all without getting wet or bored! But far from being disconnected, we are moving to an even more connected world, how about this - Micro-Chipping Staff Black Friday & Cyber Monday 29th November 2018 9:27 AM
“I saw an advert the other day for 'Black Friday Week'
Point?” It does make you laugh. Amazon was advertising Black Friday week. No doubt next year it will be Black Friday Month Personally I think it's run out of steam. Consumers aren't daft, that product you are offering for £100 was never really £500 and I'm sure I'll get your discount price throughout the year. Plus it encourages smaller eCommerce sites to join in a self destructive race to the bottom in regards to pricing, just to try and stay competitive with the big boys Thoughts from Seth - Is there a marketing person leading the IT team? 27th November 2018 1:39 PM Because the IT team is interacting with your customers. And they call them users. Or ignore them. The local bank, for example, decided that adding a seventh and eighth digit to its two-factor authentication system would make it more secure (it’s a vanishingly small difference, but that’s a story for another day.) I’m sure that they didn’t consider the cost to the thousands of customers who will use it millions of times of day. Remembering 43948394 is very different than remember 439234. Or consider this note from the TTP website: “Please remember to revisit our website for your application status updates. Notification of when you may schedule an interview appointment (if one is needed) will only be posted here.” Check back when? How often? While it might be more convenient for them to forego sending out some sort of email or text alert, it’s definitely a fraught moment for the customer, the paying customer who is either going to forget, or not read this at all, or miss the appointment… Marketing used to be advertising. Now, marketing is everything you do. And what you do either adds to the experience or takes away from it. Reproduced from Seths Blog: seths.blog/2018/11/is-there-a-marketing-person-leading-the-it-team/ It's a powerful message, I know I sometimes struggle to see things or relate to a customers point of view, retreating to it's the "users" fault Having a customer facing non techie, yet that can talk to techies is an invaluable resource. Particularly when techies are in disbelief at how users dare to interact with their system. The number of times we have had the conversation, "but they are not supposed to do it like that!" Tell that to the customer... Starting Social Media Campaigns from Scratch 23rd November 2018 2:43 PM Well to keep a record of ongoing progress, as this account started from zero, here are the current stats for Edinburgh Trusted Traders Social Media. 20 Jul 2015 19 Jan 2017 23 Nov 2018 The twitter page is harder to track and is simply a low maintenance branding tool, with a daily tweet or retweet. Because of this, as of April 2018, the twitter page has been renamed and is now used as a generic Trusted Trader page to promote multiple Trading Standards schemes in Scotland: Scotland Trusted Trader Twitter page. We have are looking at experimenting with paid Twitter campaigns in 2019 to target specific trades and schemes, so will see how that goes. Black Friday & Cyber Monday 21st November 2018 12:21 PM If you are a business owner, no doubt you are gearing up to try and capitalise on a possible sales spike. The Intellectual Property Office sent over some nice graphics, which is a timely reminder. This is also a ripe season for scammers, con men as well as some bargains that aren't as such good deals as they might cracked up to be. Don't be impulsive, do 5 mins worth of research, and if too good to be true.... you know the rest!
I hope you have a lucrative couple of days, either buying or selling |
More luck than judgement, but it was great! May have thought differently if we had kids at the time or guests!
