There are 5 main marketing elements which can be used to promote yourself. Businesses should be using a combination of techniques to make the most of the power of each. Advertising This is used to: Create awareness of your company Persuade people to buy from you...
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Everyone has heard of the saying “don’t go food shopping when you’re hungry”, this is simply because we are known to buy more when we're peckish, and are more open to trying things we might not have before. Wouldn’t life be easy if all your...
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Ali Meehan asked our Marketing Director, Georgina Shaw, to offer her advice and insights on marketing a business in Spain as part of Spain Expo. This is an invaluable resource for anyone planning their move to Spain and wanting to avoid the pitfalls and get...
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As I mentioned in my last marketing focus post, more and more emphasis is being put on content marketing and creating really interesting information which people can find and enjoy through search. But it can be difficult to write engaging information, especially in a field which might not be the most exciting to the outside world, so is content marketing really for everyone?
In my opinion, everything is interesting to someone, and if you’re a specialist you should be showing that off online, so fellow enthusiasts can find you and engage in your knowledge. However, be careful of being too niche or specialist, try and run your content by an outsider who might buy your product, but not understand what’s behind it.
My first PR job was for the engineering giant ABB and they had the most amazingly knowledgeable people working for them, but trying to get them to speak in a way that the world could understand was hard. My job was to try and take the knowledge and convert it into a benefit driven, global language which could be understood by the buyers of their equipment, even if they were not engineers. Translating and repackaging their information into a more easily digestible form created some really interesting stories and if that can work for flowmeters it can work for anything! So try and step outside your specialist bubble and think what your consumers want to understand or know and go ahead and share your knowledge.
Last week I took part in a fascinating webinar by The Marketer all about how internet use is changing the buying process and changing the roles of marketing and sales and where these two functions interact and I wanted to share the insight.
The experts explained how the online buying journey is quite erratic, but that the research tends to be comprehensive and rely on different sources to make the correct decision. They summed up the buying journey as follows – Consider, Evaluate, Buy, Enjoy & Advocate
The message was that as modern marketers, the role is increasingly to create the best content on your subject matter to assist your buyers in the evaluation stage and give them no reason to look elsewhere. This is a more passive form of marketing driven by search, but can capture many more people in the research phase and drive them towards purchase.
A USP is a “Unique Selling Proposition” or “Unique Selling Point” which is a simple statement which defines what makes you different from your competition. You can have just one for the company, or several for different products and services, but defining what makes you special is a great way to direct your marketing efforts and have a clear way to differentiate yourself in a crowded market place.
The process of finding your USP may be more tricky than you imagine, but it can be a really good opportunity to re-examine what you’re doing. Why not brainstorm with your team and put together a SWOT analysis to identify your Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats? Your list of strengths can then be compared against your competition to reveal your USP. Maybe it will reveal that in actual fact you do not have something totally unique from your competition, if so, it’s time to implement something, otherwise you will always just be a follower.
Working out where your profit is coming from is a great tool for increasing productivity
We believe that there’s no point spending money on marketing in Spain before you know how profitable you are, and where exactly your profit is coming from.This is why a technique such as the 80/20 rule is so useful…
What is the 80/20 rule?
The 80/20 rule is a helpful and simple way of identifying your important customers, your most profitable products and services, and the strengths and weaknesses of your business.
But don’t worry you don’t have to be great at maths….
In this month’s Marketing Focus features, we look at very fashionable marketing medium of Social Media and look at some potential problems which businesses need to avoid.