‘Low Hanging Fruit’ can offer a quick-win for a business but is it wise to ignore the wider picture?

Method Marketing?

Our philosophy is to practice what we preach. We believe taking this approach gives us a hands-on understanding of the issues we address with our clients. We like to think of this as ‘method marketing’

Over the last few months we have been involved with a specialist consultant as part of the Growth Accelerator programme.

The programme looks to deliver economic benefits to the UK through helping good, potentially high growth companies to develop in a managed & sustainable way.

Very quickly it has become clear that one of the key drivers of growth is sustained, joined-up marketing.

It’s not all about short-term

As an SME, it is all too easy to be focused on the short term. We often find clients talking to us about wanting to “get the quick win” or “pick the low hanging fruit“ (or other similar cliches!). Although identifying and exploiting these should always be a part of a joined-up marketing strategy, all too often they become the only goal!

This tends to result in marketing being short term and disjointed.

Think to the future

The Growth Accelerator process encourages business owners to stop looking at performance over the next 6-12 months, and rather think about how to deliver performance over the next 3 years and beyond!

In our own case, we are starting to take a longer term view of our marketing. Rather than  concentrating on what we need to do to drive the business over the next 3-6 months (which is mainly a ‘done-deal’ anyway!), we are moving to think about what processes we should be putting in place to deliver even more client-value in the longer term, and then how can we communicate this value offering to our market in a sustainable and joined up way over the coming years.

Be realistic

Inevitably, the short term is still important. As an SME, you shouldn’t lose sight of the short term needs of the business, but surprisingly (or maybe not?), taking a more long-term, joined up approach to our business development, is benefiting the short term opportunities too!

The quick win and low hanging fruit are there to be had/picked, but we are starting to learn, that maybe we don’t need to spend all our marketing effort looking for them!

The post “Low Hanging Fruit”: Tempting but dangerous? appeared first on BSA Marketing.

We put Exportaid MD, John Reed in front of a camera, and asked him to to tell us the reasons behind the newsletter and the marketing benefits it has delivered for his company.

This video is the result.

The benefits of e-mail, but don’t take our word for it!

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

The post E-mail Newsletters – The Movie appeared first on BSA Marketing.

A few months ago, I decided to do a SEO experiment. I wanted to see what I could achieve and (perhaps more significant) to see if, in reality, any SEO ‘success’ is an effective marketing strategy, delivering real marketing benefits.

Earlier in the year, whilst reviewing the stats on bsamarketing.com I noticed that our Sustainable Marketing page was listed on page 10 (position 106) for the term ‘Effective Marketing’. Checking the phrase on the Google Keyword tool revealed that it was being used in over 40,000 searches globally, and 4,500 searches locally each month, so I decided it would be worth trying to improve our rankings and to see what effect this would have on our site traffic.

As we discussed in this post, we use the YOAST SEO Plugin on our site so I decided to strictly follow the advice given by the plugin in optimising the page, and to focus on on-page optimisation (I did stray slightly from this in the latter stages, but more of that below!)

Initially my efforts centered around the main body text of the page, along with the key meta tags (Title & Description).  I tweaked these to ensure:

1. My target keyphrase was appropriately represented in the body text
2. The page URL includes the keyphrase
3. At least one heading tag H2 tag included the phrase

All of these changes were suggested by the YOAST Plugin.

I then sat back and waited for Google to pick up the changes….

2 weeks later……

Move on a couple of weeks and Google had picked up the changes. Our ranking was now page 3 (position 35) – a definite improvement from page 10 (position 106) but what about the all-important page traffic? – Nothing!

I reckoned that as people rarely search down beyond the first page or 2 I shouldn’t be too surprised by this. To have some real impact, I needed to reach page 1! Shouldn’t be too difficult – I had just leapt over 70 places in the rankings, so how hard could it be to get up a further 25 to make it onto the front page?

My next focus was on links, the page currently had no links in it, internal or external, and YOAST was telling me that this was not good and I should include some. I added 3 internal links plus an external link to www.druckerinstitute.com from Marketing Guru, Peter Drucker’s name.

Again I sat back and waited.

Another 2 weeks……

Over the next couple of weeks the page continued to go up in the rankings, reaching the top half of page 2 (position 13); all before my link changes had kicked in.

Although there was still no discernible increase in traffic to my page, I wasn’t worried as I knew I needed to be on the first page for that.

Now I could see page 1 shining on the horizon, I put the champagne on ice, and got the holiday brochures ready. I would soon be on page 1 and all my marketing issues would be solved!

And 2 more days…..

2 days later I saw that Google had picked up the magic links, but … what is this? I was still stuck at position 13. The page had been there for a good couple of weeks, and seemed not to want to enter the limelight that was Page 1. I needed to change tack, and this is where I decided to temper my “On-Page only” philosophy, and move to some off the page optimisation.

I had been reading about how Google was increasingly using social factors (especially Google+) in its rankings, so decided to put an update on Google+ pointing people at my target page, and asking them to ‘+1′ it if they liked the page. Over the next couple of weeks, I managed to get a few ‘+1s’ on the page; then one morning I did my usual check of Page 2 – We weren’t there!

With not a little trepidation I clicked to the bottom of page 1 and there was my page, not at position 10 but immediately at 9! I had made it onto the fabled Google page 1. Now 40,000 people a month were going to see my page and come flooding to our site.

My only dilemma now was whether to pop the champagne or call the travel agent to book my world cruise on the back of all the business that was coming our way now I was on Google Page 1.

Don’t count your chickens…

I decided to be cautious and wait a few days to make sure:

1. The listing stayed on page 1 of Google
2. The leads came flooding

And I am glad I did!

Yes, the listing has stayed on page 1 for the term ‘effective marketing’, but in terms of increased traffic, it has delivered pretty much zilch!

So to my conclusions:

• Maybe SEO isn’t always all it’s cracked up to be?
• Maybe there is no marketing magic wand?
• If your search term is not too competitive, a bit of careful on page optimisation can improvement your Google ranking
• Google+ activity does seem to have an impact on page rankings

A footnote:

In parallel with my experiment, BSA has been expanding our target market base through networking & research. This broader reach has allowed us to expand the circulation of our bi-weekly e-newsletter Marketing Matters.  We are also developing our presence on relevant social media (mainly Twitter & LinkedIn). These activities have lead to a real and measurable increase in visits to bsamarketing.com. This activity is sustainable and not going to be undone by a changes in Google Algorithm.

And the moral of the story….

SEO might look good on paper, but for most SMEs a joined-up marketing contact approach showing you can deliver real benefit to a well targeted and relevant market might just be the way forward.

The post SEO as an effective marketing strategy? – An experiment appeared first on BSA Marketing.

Owner Paul Murray wanted to grow his business and recognised that although he has exceptional knowledge of employment law and practice, his marketing knowledge was more limited.

He approached BSA Marketing to see how we could help. Following initial discussions, we agreed to work together.

In Paul Murray's own words:

As I needed to grow my business, if you like, organically, i.e. one
step at a time and with a close eye on the costs, it seemed obvious
to me to find someone with the expertise that I lacked in marketing.

Through a mutual group I was introduced to David at BSA
Marketing, and thank goodness I was. I now actually have clients 
and a marketable offering.  I manage the activity, (ergo. remain
in control) because I've been shown how to do it by a master
craftsman, who is always there when I need help…..A bit like a
craftsman and his apprentice,  shows you what to do, leaves you to
get on with it,  but you know where to find him if you get stuck…!

Over 12 months BSA helped PMHRC develop and implement a structured and joined-up approach to business development based on core principles:

THE PROCESS

1. Define your key proposition

PMHRC services could be relevant to most businesses but, by considering how they wanted the business to develop, it became clear that they wanted to focus on delivering flexible, high quality, personalised employment law advice and support to SME businesses.

2. Segment your target market

It was decided that focussing on SME businesses with relatively complex employment requirements would be a logical approach. Furthermore, being based in West Yorkshire PMHRC is ideally placed to service clients there and across the North West of England. Drawing on past experience, it was felt that private Care Homes would be a good initial target sector. these businesses tend to have relatively high staff levels with employees working complex hours.

3. Ensure you have relevant marketing collateral

It is generally acknowledged that having a website is essential marketing collateral for most businesses today. As a small business, PMHRC did not have the budgets to create a new website but their existing site was review to ensure that it reflected the proposition and addressed the target market – that it was joined-up with the marketing planning.

4. Develop and implement consistent marketing communication

Once the above preparation was in place, it was time for action! It is with implementation that marketing can start to get expensive – and so is the point at which things start to grind to a halt. Not with PMHRC! Paul Murray worked with BSA taking a realistic, down to earth and step-by step approach to building a list of relevant target organisations and starting to contact them. In parallel with this, he made sure he didn’t forget the people he already knew, making sure he was also reinforcing his relationships with these people.

BSA continued to offer a supporting role, ready at the end of the phone to answer questions or discuss ideas. In this way, PMHRC were able to benefit from professional marketing advice without incurring big fees!

By keeping in touch with contacts opportunities started to appear….

5. Deliver!

Now the final piece of the puzzle – delivering on your service. This is the area where PMHRC feel quite at home. The personal and prompt response delivered to clients is consistently appreciated and respected by them.

NOW…

Initial success from the marketing activity has facilitated further investment. Over the past 2 months the PMHRC website has been completely redesigned to give a more professional image and also to allow day to day management and updating of the website to be done in-house. This means the site can be updated and new content regularly added ensuring the site reflects the current state of the business and provides current, relevant, interesting information to visitors which helps keep them coming back and  engaged, reinforcing the business relationships – joined up!

…AND THE FUTURE

At the start of the programme PMHRC set some clear, well defined objective to grow their client base. The business is currently running comfortably ahead of target while retaining the personal/professional ethos that is at the heart of PMHRC. We enjoy working with Paul Murray and PMHRC and look forward to a mutually productive relationship going forward.

Visit the PMHRC website at www.pmhrc.co.uk

The post Joined-up marketing in practice appeared first on BSA Marketing.

The basic premise of the post is this: If you are sending e-mails to keep in touch with a prospective customer, DON’T! You should call them.  If you want to read the full post it is here

The fundamental issue I have is that the post is looking at the subject from the salesman’s point of view (what is the best solution for him) rather than the customer’s perspective.

Although I agree that simply using e-mail as a way to move follow ups out of your inbox is not a good scenario, neither is going through your list of leads and blindly calling them.

I feel the post is misguided on 2 points:

1. It assumes that it is the salesman’s job alone to turn prospects into customers
2. It suggests that the process is a seamless pipeline with leads going in at one end, being processed and coming out the other end as customers

In my opinion, neither of these is true!

These days customers are much more inclined to buy from suppliers they know and trust. They will also buy when they are ready.  The idea of a sales person calling a prospect on their own schedule and picking up business there and then is much less likely than it used to be.

The process of generating leads and turning them into customers is a team effort including everyone in the organisation, and one in which both e-mail and the sales team have valuable parts to play – not to mention marketing, customer service etc, etc.

If this process is working well, a new prospect would start to receive regular appropriate, joined up communications that build the profile of your organisation & enhance  its value in the eyes of your potential customer. Hopefully they will see this value and when they are ready to buy, you should be at the top of their list of potential suppliers.

In some instances this communication will be low cost (to both you and the customer), and will generate a ‘platform of awareness‘ that ensures that the prospect does not forget you, and builds your reputation (e-mail newsletters are a great example of this). At other times, where appropriate, contact will be the high cost, high value intervention of a salesperson.

Coming back to the scenario in the article, and the question “should a salesperson use e-mail to communicate with prospects”?  The answer in my opinion is “Sometimes YES/Sometimes NO”.

Salesmen are targeted on delivering sales and their organisation should ensure that they have the tools to deliver this. Company Managers should understand the business development process of which they are a part. In this context, salesmen should be able to look at a prospect and decide whether to pick up the phone, send a personalised e-mail, or simply drop the lead back into the system for on going low level communication. This way they can ensure that their skills are being are being used as effectively and efficiently as possible to deliver best value for both the organisation and the prospect.

No professional salesperson who rally understands the business development process, would simply send an e-mail when there is value for all parties in a phone call or visit. But they need to know that when this value is not there in the short term, that there are process to ensure that the prospect does not get forgotten.

The post Following up sales leads by e-mail – Mistake or smart move? appeared first on BSA Marketing.

The aim of the attack seems to be simple; Use low powered computers to gain access to low security WordPress sites, and through these to hack the powerful servers on which they are hosted. Thus providing a much more powerful platform to attack higher security sites in the future.

“So what” I hear you say, “has this got to do with me?”

The fact is that WordPress is used to power over 60 million sites worldwide, and there is a fair chance that it also powers yours!

At this point I should stress that you don’t need to panic. If set up correctly, and properly secured, WordPress is a VERY secure platform and is unlikely to be vulnerable to the current attacks. What’s more securing your site is a simple process (one which has been applied to ALL the sites that we manage).

The steps to securing your site are as follows:

1. Ensure that the core WordPress files and all plugins are fully up to date.WordPress is constantly evolving, and any security loopholes that are identified tend to get plugged very quickly, so keeping your site updated will go a long way to keeping it secure. 
2. Install a security plugin like WP Better SecurityThis type of plugin will manage the process of securing your site, and will allow you to implement various levels of security. As a minimum you should use this to make sure you are not using the default “admin” username as a login (this one simple step will pretty much protect you 100% from the current attacks).Other things that are worth considering (all of which can be handled via WP Better Security) are :
   1. Change the URL for accessing the admin system from the default /wp-admin/
   2. Force admin logins to use a strong password
   3. Change the prefix for the WordPress database tables from the default (wp_)
3. Back up your site regularlyDo this, and in the unlikely event that you do fall foul of a hack (No site can be 100% secure) you will have a simply process to recover from it. Again, the back up process can be handled by a plugin. Two we use are WP Back up to dropbox (Great if you use dropbox) and BackWpup, which is a little more flexible & allows backup to a number of locations including email.

Follow these simple steps and the chances are you will be safe from this and any other cyber attack.

If you would like advice on the security of your WordPress site get in touch.

The post Is your WordPress site secure from a cyber attack? appeared first on BSA Marketing.

Back in the day when direct marketing consisted of telephone & mail contact, individual communications were relatively expensive so managing the data was a priority and seen as a core element of the whole process.

Emails are free, aren’t they?

The advent of e-mail marketing has meant the actual delivery cost for an individual message has plummeted to the point that some people think it is free (not true!). While this cost reduction has brought undoubted opportunities, particularly for SME businesses, the focus seems to have moved to the content of e-mails (both design and coding) with the survey suggesting that 3 times as many people spending 2 or more hours on coding (62%) compared to the 19% spending the same amount of time on data management!

The e-mail marketing triangle

3 elements which work together to deliver the best e-mail marketing.

1. E-mail Content

There is no question that the content of your e-mail is important. It is the content that effectively communicates your message and proposition, encouraging readers to respond.

Coding of your e-mail is also important. E-mail clients are notoriously fickle and getting your e-mail to display properly on your recipient’s PC/tablet/mobile needs to be planned, developed and tested.

The results of the survey mentioned earlier suggest that this is where people are spending much of their e-mail marketing resource.

2. E-mail Marketing List Quality

Although, as the survey would suggests, people do not devote as much resource to this aspect of the process, I would argue that it is equally as important as getting the content/design right. What is the point of carefully designing your email and coding it so it gets past the junk filters if a significant number are simply bouncing or getting through to the wrong in-box!

Better e-mail marketing list quality means 2 things:

1. You know the data is accurate so you aren’t wasting time sending messages that will bounce or, worse still, go to people where your message isn’t relevant.
2. You have more data on your contact so you can individualise each message to make it even more personal and relevant to the recipient.

It is worth spending time to make sure your data is comprehensive and accurate but you must then maintain this commitment. Keeping data up to date as part of your ongoing marketing process is much easier than allowing the quality to slip and then having a big job to do to sort it all out again!

3. E-mail Marketing List Size

Some people take the view; forget list quality, if the list is big enough I will get a useable response to my e-mail.

These people are called spammers!

This is not a valid approach but nevertheless, a bigger database of quality contacts is better than a smaller list. E-mail marketing is unique in that the cost of sending more messages does not increase as the list gets bigger (at least to a point!). It is not necessary to start your e-mail marketing campaign with the biggest list but considering how you plan to effectively grow your list with well qualified data as the programme develops can yield significant long term benefits.

Joined-up e-mail marketing

Consider as well, how effective it would be if you could integrate your e-mail marketing with your other marketing channels and identify which recipients were following you on (for example) Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn, then personalising e-mails based on this information.

If you are running an e-commerce site, personalise your message to customers based on when they last placed an order, or if they spend a lot (or a little!).

One of the big issues in reaching this level of integration is the ability to get data systems to communicate effectively. Couple this with the fact that most e-mail marketing providers are design and/or technology driven and it is not surprising that the issue of data quality frustrates many e-mail marketers.

At BSA we are different. We acknowledge the value of data and put data management at the the heart of the joined-up marketing communication we do for our clients.

Take a look at these case studies to see how effective marketing carried out in this way can be:

• Joined-up marketing & management of professional conferences
• Joined-up marketing & web data capture
• Integration of accounts data & emailing

Want to talk about how to improve the quality of your e-mail marketing list and make the most of your data? give us a call.

The post E-mail Marketing List Quality – The forgotten factor? appeared first on BSA Marketing.

BSA implements effective e-mail marketing to help a client build a dealer network

Background:

The client, the UK distributor for a global spa brand understands that a key to their success is to develop a strong dealer network across the UK.

Having established a core dealer network, they wanted to extend their reach. The aim of this project was to approach carefully selected businesses with the objective of opening dialogue with potential dealers.

Key resources:

Our client has been working in this niche market for a number of years and as such has a good contact list of businesses working in the sector any of whom could be a potential dealer.  A significant majority (over 85%) of the list included contact e-mail addresses

The brand that they represent is well respected in the industry, and is recognised as beneficial to a dealer in terms of developing their business (i.e. They have a strong proposition)

Method:

The planned campaign had 2 phases:

1. An e-mail to those where e-mail addresses were available
2. A mailing to follow-up the e-mail programme

In phase 1 the e-mail was sent 3 times, each time excluding people who had already opened the message on previous sends.

We have established that if you send an e-mail more than once to a list you will increase the overall open rate. Based on previous experience and industry norms, we anticipated we would see around 20% open rate on the first e-mail and this could increase to 30%+ over the 3 sends.

The objective was to generate dealership enquiries, and identify those on the list who show an interest in the proposal. The latter being achieved by tracking recipients who reply to the e-mail or click links on the email.

Outcomes

Phase 1 – E-mailing:

As a result of the 1st send of the e-mail:

• 45% of those receiving the e-mail opened it
• 17% then clicked through to the website from the email

As a result a number of direct enquiries were received, and detailed discussions have taken place with these contacts.

As a result of the 2nd and 3rd sends of the e-mail:

• Overall open rates increased to 60%
• Less than 1% of people receiving the e-mails unsubscribed

In addition to people directly responding to the e-mail, a further 30 contacts were identified as having shown interest by clicking through from the e-mail

These additional contacts have been followed up by telephone with further qualified opportunities being identified and developed.

Phase 2 – Direct Mailing

Given the success of the e-mailing programme, the decision was made to cancel the mailing activity – resulting in savings against processing costs, printing, stationery, fulfillment and postage charges.

Benefits:

• By using effective e-mail marketing, the cost of the project was kept down, in comparison to undertaking the same project though mailing
• Significant feedback (enquiries, opens & clicks) was received allowing more accurate targeting of the market in future communications
• Active discussions with potential new dealers are ongoing with every expectation of success
• As well as direct opportunities, the e-mailing programme has further raised the profile of our client in their industry

The post Effective e-mail marketing and the benefit of a well-targeted list. appeared first on BSA Marketing.

        "What can I do to
    get to the top of Google?"

Yesterday I read a post which focuses on Content Marketing for Manufacturers which highlights the point beautifully.

On the face of it, the article is talking about writing content for SEO purposes, but it also suggests that the focus should be on a subject likely to be of broader interest to your audience rather than simply content relating tightly to your product or service. One example used is a manufacturer of environmentally friendly PVC tubing; should they maybe focus content on “What kind of PVC is best for schools?” rather than the more traditional SEO keyword approach using “low-VOC materials”.

Good content marketing demonstrates your expertise

By creating and promoting content about wider subjects, you are telling youe readers that you really know what you are talking about, and are there to help them make the best decision. You aren’t simply trying to sell them something. This is a much stronger message in the context of positioning your brand.

Taking this approach will help you to build a following who know and value you (which can be nurtured through other channels like e-mail & social media). These contacts are much more likely to respond when you do present them with appropriate offers for your products and services.

They are also much more likely to contact you when they have a requirement.

All round content marketing is a better solution than a strategy that simply relies on poeple happening to find you on Google when they have a need.

From an SEO perspective, relevant content marketing is far less likely to be impacted negatively by changes in Google’s algorithms, as this high quality content is exactly what Google wants high up in its search listings.

The post Content Marketing v SEO appeared first on BSA Marketing.

Whilst you are there, if you have used our services, we would be delighted if you could Endorse/Recommend the ones you have found useful!

Finally, if this inspires you to enhance your own company page on Linked in, you will find some useful tips here.

The post Follow us on Linked In appeared first on BSA Marketing.