Whether it’s business coaching, accountancy or human resources, selling intangible services is a marketing challenge. After all, there’s nothing for the customer to touch or handle, so it’s harder to promote the benefits than it is for physical products like false teeth or vinyl records. Intangible Services “If your skills and expertise are the ‘sell’ it can be hard to market to potential clients without something tangible to entice them with. It’s difficult but not impossible to market yourself when selling a service” Laura Richards, Media Consultant at Imagine However, it’s possible to mar ..read more

Advertising Locally (Both Traditionally and Online)Traditional Advertising Local businesses must find new ways to advertise in the current marketplace to replace traditional marketing methods. Most of the older marketing traditions, such as billboards, leaflets and radio, have become increasingly obsolete in response to the growth of digital marketing. This is because traditional advertisement typically has longer lead times and higher costs, resulting in less value for money. Nevertheless, print media such as leaflets play an important part in building brand identity during the initial stages ..read more

One of the most common questions asked by potential clients is “I need a website but where do I start?” Given that there are a lot of things to consider when having a website built it’s not surprising that people get confused and put off having a new one developed. It can be a daunting task but there are some simple questions that you can ask yourself to get started… What is the purpose of your new website? To begin with, it’s useful to think about the purpose of your website and to write a list of all the goals that you would like to achieve. Here are some useful answers to this question: My ..read more

In today’s digital age, you might think this a strange question to be asking. You’d be surprised at how many small business owners don’t really ‘get’ what digital marketing is all about and why it’s important to their success. In this article, I thought we’d go back to basics and take a good look at what digital marketing involves and why you need to be doing it if you’re serious about growing your business online. To provide the simplest definition, digital marketing (also known as online marketing) is an umbrella term for the marketing of products or services using digital technologies. One ..read more

Move for Nottinghamshire Mind It seems that since the pandemic hit the world like a brick hitting an egg, we’ve actually started having the conversations society needed. Laura Richards, Media Consultant, Imagine Digital May 10th until May 16th is Mental health Awareness Week and for the first time in my adult life I actually believe that people are starting to take mental health seriously. I remember as a child if someone broke their leg we would happily write on their cast and wish them well. If a child in class got agitated kicked up a fuss started to cry or scream and shout, we would look ..read more

Writing for the web not print Writing for the web requires a different approach to writing for print. Whether you’re drafting main page website content or writing a blog article, it’s not just a case of copying and pasting into your CMS. There’s a lot more to it than that! Here I’ll talk you through four of the main things you need to consider before hitting ‘Update’ or ‘Post’ on your web pages and blog articles. 1. Attention span and content length Users spend an average of just 5.59 seconds looking at a website’s written content on their first visit1. A page with long, unbroken reams of text ..read more

You can save a lot of time and give your productivity a serious boost just by decluttering your email inbox. I know from experience that it’s all too easy to get bogged down in reading, filing and answering emails – to the point where your ‘real’ work falls by the wayside. Luckily, there are some excellent tools and integrations out there that can help you work more effectively and efficiently. In this article, we’ll look at some of the systems we use at Imagine Digital Marketing and the benefits they bring to the business. ContentGems This is a ‘content discovery engine,’ which means it auto ..read more

Photo by JESHOOTS.COM on Unsplash Are you trying to decide between a DIY website builder or hiring a web developer to build a new website for you? Let’s focus on some of the key points to help you make the right choice. There are two approaches to creating a website that has the best design for your business. A DIY website builder gives you guidance on the construction of your website, but this can be tricky without understanding code. Alternatively, you can hire a web developer to help organise things for you. What is a DIY Website Builder? Website builders such as Wix and Squarespace are web ..read more

Why should you blog? Writing blog articles makes your company stand out online. They attract web users that search for specific products and services. More website traffic correlates to a higher chance of potential customers seeing something that appeals to them. Plateau of Latent Potential – (James Clear, 2018) James Clear in his book Atomic Habits uses the example above to depict the relationship between time and results. Sometimes if you put a lot of work into something, you have the expectation of fast results. This graph examines how our mind can deceive us into thinking we haven’t made ..read more

Presence is Profit ‘An electronic presence increases customer awareness of a company and its products and services, with the desired outcome being a greater likelihood of purchase’ (Heinze, 2006) In today’s digital age, business owners should prioritise getting their website noticed if they want to grow their brand exponentially. It’s important to realise that being on the internet and having a web address is not enough; you need to get the attention of your potential customers by having an established web presence. The graph above has been taken from Heinze’s study of large American compani ..read more