With everything accessible online and the consequent decline in print media, you might think that print advertising is dead. Why spend on print when readership is down, and nearly everyone uses the internet for everything they need? Yet, there are advantages to print advertising: Print media has a longer shelf life than online material. The people reading print media are more loyal and engaged as they actively choose to consume this type of content. It typically has a greater effect on the reader than something seen online. It's generally more trusted due to the widely known plethora of fake ..read more

Instagram can be ideal for promoting your small business and connecting with potential customers. But it can be a nightmare to navigate, not to mention trying to handle the pesky algorithm! So, to help you out, here are some small business Instagram tips which I use when posting to Instagram on behalf of my clients. These tips will help you play to the algorithm and should get you more engagement, which is what it's all about. Small business Instagram tips Put up a new story daily (at least Monday-Friday). Post at least three times a week. If you're scheduling content, use Meta Business Suite ..read more

Offering free initial advice or a free consultation is a marketing tactic many service-led businesses deploy. The idea is that giving a little something for free might entice the potential client to go on and buy. But is it a good marketing tactic or not? As with all marketing, there's no right or wrong answer, so here's a summary of the pros and cons: Pros ✅ Giving some of your time or advice for free gives the client a no-risk opportunity to understand what value you bring. It also gives them a chance to get a feel for working with you. If they like what they see and you can solve their prob ..read more

LinkedIn is rolling out LinkedIn Newsletters to members and company pages.  Once you’ve got access, you’ll be able to create a newsletter within LinkedIn and invite your followers to subscribe. You can choose to publish your newsletter daily, weekly, bi-monthly or monthly. Your followers will be invited to subscribe when you publish your first issue. Your followers and connections will receive a notification when you publish a newsletter, and your subscribers will see your newsletter in their feed. To create a newsletter, you’ll need to turn on ‘creator mode’ in your profile. Then just cl ..read more

Black Friday and Cyber Monday discounts are great for the shopper and create a much-needed sales boost for the retailers. But, on the downside, they’ve become an annual expectation, so many consumers hold off making full-price purchases in anticipation of a forthcoming discount. Constant discounting or low pricing is a risky strategy. It squeezes profitability and doesn’t create loyalty. Customers that want the lowest price don’t stay with one provider. Instead, they switch as soon as there’s a better deal. So, what can you do to hold your pricing and differentiate your business from the compe ..read more

Eight ways to reward your loyal customers With Christmas just around the corner, you might be thinking of giving a festive gift to reward your loyal customers. Of course, that’s a good idea, but rewarding your regular customers should be an all-year-round concern. Demonstrating that you value them will encourage them to keep spending with you. Here are eight ways to show appreciation to your loyal customers and encourage repeat spending. 1. Offer a discount upon reaching a spending threshold There are a variety of ways to reward high spending. For example, if you’re a service-based business, y ..read more

Three LinkedIn company page updates LinkedIn company pages provide companies, organisations, and institutions with an individual account on the platform. LinkedIn members can find and connect with respective companies and learn more about them. In addition, companies can use their pages to showcase their brand, products or services, and career opportunities. LinkedIn is continually making updates to its company page offering. Here are three recent LinkedIn company page updates to be aware of. Articles For Pages LinkedIn’s new Articles For Pages enables companies to publish long-form content fr ..read more

What can we learn from loo roll, pasta and petrol? We all do it. We get busy with work and our attention to marketing slips. But that’s OK. When new client enquiries are rolling in, and we’ve got so much work, we’re wondering how we’re going to fit it all in; who needs to market? Marketing is just a distraction from the day-to-day getting the job done and keeping customers happy, right? I mean, why worry about implausible scenarios such as a disease pandemic, a European gas shortage, or a nationwide supply chain crisis, for example, becoming a reality? But one minute you’re happily wiping your ..read more

We all do it. We get busy with work and our attention to marketing slips. But that’s OK. When new client enquiries are rolling in, and we’ve got so much work, we’re wondering how we’re going to fit it all in; who needs to market? Marketing is just a distraction from the day-to-day getting the job done and keeping customers happy, right? I mean, why worry about implausible scenarios such as a disease pandemic, a European gas shortage, or a nationwide supply chain crisis, for example, becoming a reality? But one minute you’re happily wiping your bum with quilted toilet paper, eating pasta d ..read more

If you have a small business, you’ve likely got a proportionately small marketing budget. So whatever you spend, you’ll want to be sure that it’s working. Measure your marketing campaigns by keeping track of the results. This is the best way to establish what’s working and what’s not. You can build in mechanisms at the start of your marketing campaigns to help you measure the results, such as: Create a specific landing page on your website for each campaign. You’ll be able to directly attribute hits to that page, which you can see in your Google Analytics, from the campaign. You can take this ..read more