Month: August 2019

LinkedIn have just announced that as of 14th April, they will cease to support their Products & Services Pages, suggesting that you replace them with LinkedIn Showcase pages. On first thought, this may seem like a bad thing, especially if you have spent time putting together content for this area of your LinkedIn profile! However, take a bit of time to think about it, and it becomes clear that it is an obvious move for LinkedIn, and actually throws up some opportunities.

Why is losing products/services pages not such an issue?

In practice these pages ended up simply clones of the product information areas of your website. This resulted in you having 2 sites to keep updated. It also meant the content tended to be pretty static – not really encouraging the engagement which is at the heart of the LinkedIn philosophy.

So what are LinkedIn Showcase pages?

Showcase pages are LinkedIn pages that allow you to “showcase” a specific area if your business. The page can be branded with a banner image plus a short description (200 characters). The purpose of a Showcase page is to allow updates targeted at a specific area of your business, allowing you to build and engage with followers who have a specific interest in that part of your business. Updates can easily be posted on multiple pages, so posting them on your main company page and the relevant showcase page is simple. The result is that rather than having a static clone of sections of your website, these pages become constantly updated, engaging showcases for what you are doing in specific areas of your business. Although it may require a little more thought to keep these pages fresh with new updates. They will definitely be more dynamic and engaging for visitors. We will be converting our Product pages to showcases over the next couple of weeks, so follow BSA Marketing on LinkedIn to see how we handle the switch.  

Everyone who reads our blog regularly will know that we are all about joined-up marketing.  It is about using all the appropriate tools available to communicate your story and proposition to your target market in a consistent way that increases the likelihood that when they have a need for your products or services, they will contact you.

In other words, joined-up marketing is about generating business leads.

When you are using email marketing joined-up with your website, the process is quite straightforward. You generate the content (i.e. write a story/produce a graphic or video that helps tell your story), post it on your website and then send an email newsletter to your contacts to get the message out there.

Even in isolation, this process is pretty effective at building your profile within your target market, but it is really a tool for engaging with those people who already know you, and who actively want to receive your information. But what about those who don’t know you? In the age of data privacy, using email to target the wider market is a challenge and not good business practice, but we live in the age of social so, there are other options for targeting these people.

Your target customers will often be using social media, so this is the obvious place to engage with them

The process of bringing the social angle into your joined-up marketing involves 3 steps:

1. Select your social media platforms
2. Set up your profiles
3. Get Social….

Selecting your social media platforms

There are new platforms being launched all the time so it is impossible (and unwise!) to try to give a comprehensive list. This said, the 4 platforms that have made the most impact on SME marketing are:

• Facebook
• LinkedIn
• Instagram
• Twitter

I am going to focus on the three most important to the significant majority of our Business to Business clients this is Twitter and LinkedIn, though for anyone operating in more consumer markets, Facebook is also key.

Set up your profiles

I am not planning to go into details of the technicalities here as there is plenty of good stuff already out there:

• Setting up your Twitter Profile
• Getting started with LinkedIn
• Getting Started on Facebook

From a joined-up marketing perspective, the key considerations are:

• Profile/account name – Make sure these are consistent, and fit closely with your company name. For example our  Twitter name is @bsamarketing and LinkedIn address is /company/bsa-marketing. Even if you are not planning to use a social media channel right now, it might be worth setting up accounts, simply to secure the most appropriate name.
• Look and feel of your account home page – The look and feel of any social media presence should fit with the design of your website & emails. Where possible use the same logos, fonts, colour palette etc.
• Message – most importantly make sure that the message you are portraying through your social media presence, is totally consistent with your broader marketing message

Getting Social

Once everything is set up, it’s time to get social and launch into the world of social media, building connections & followers, and using these networks to support the communication of your message; as always, in a joined-up and sustainable way.

Don’t Dismiss Advertising

Marketing your business through Social Media has changed quite a lot over the past few years, and whilst it used to be possible to get great results from organic postings, although this is still a key element of marketing on social platforms, great content is in longer the only thing to consider.

Realistically, to be effective today, you need to consider adding advertising to the mix (Especially when looking at Facebook), but the data available ensures that marketing can be highly targeted, and the stats and analytics available allow careful monitoring of activity and results ensuring that advertising spend is used effectively.

We will be looking at this subject in more detail in future posts, but if you can’t wait and would like to explore the potential of joined-up social for your business straight away, please get in touch with us

“If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail!”

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN

There have been a number of reports recently focusing on the issue of growth in the SME arena – i.e. businesses up to 250 employees First a few statistics (start of 2014):

• There are 5.2 million companies in the UK, and over 99% are in the SME Category
• Combined SME Turnover in 2013 was £1.3 Trillion
• Growth within this sector last year was 7.4% (compared with overall economic growth of 2.7%)
• 25% of UK SME have no formal growth plan (The true figure is probably much higher!)

So the SME sector is seeing good growth even though many businesses (and I reckon a majority) have no structured plan for growth. What could be achieved with more planning….More working ON the business rather than IN the business? There is no doubt, there is huge potential for growth within the SME sector, and the government is supporting this opportunity through grant funding for growth to support strategic planning.

There are numerous funding sources available and the leading programmes include:

• Growth Accelerator/leadership & management
• Growth Vouchers
• MAS strategic development support
• Co-Investment funding

BSA Marketing is accredited to work in all of these programmes Although different in their approach, all of these schemes offer support to companies who are looking to develop growth plans, and typically offer 50% contribution to the external costs of developing the plan on a matched funding basis. Growth Accelerator can offer up to 80% funding in some cases. Programmes do tend to be timed and have a specific total funding pot so they do run out sooner or later. This said, there are new programmes launched regularly so it is always worth exploring the options Some people feel these government schemes are more trouble than they are worth but, in our experience, the application process is normally quite straightforward and when the payment of up to £3000 (or more!) arrives, it is all worthwhile! BSA understands the application processes and we are happy to help you.

Don’t forget the action plan

An action plan is a central element of most strategic planning but all to often, with the funding focus on planning, there is the danger that plans are not consistently actioned – yet this is the only way the planned growth results can be achieved! BSA Marketing focusses on both planning AND implementation. We work with you to ensure that things happen – and keep happening! In our experience:

1. Business development results are significantly improved when a formal plan is in place
2. The costs of sustaining effective marketing activity are not prohibitive
3. The up front cost of developing a plan can be prohibitive

This is where the funding comes in. As we are accredited to deliver all of the above schemes, we can access funding to significantly reduce the cost of doing the initial planning. We then have the proven skills and resources to work with you to implement this plan in a consistent and sustainable way, delivering long terms results and growth. If you would like to investigate how we can use these funding schemes to help develop growth plans for your company, Get in touch,  We would love to talk to you

Is PR dead?

If you mean long lunches shmoozing with editors and journalists then I think the answer is yes! But has the pendulum swung too far into the world of SEO, Pay Per Click and Social Media? I read an article on the CIM (Chartered Institute of Marketing) website asking if Marketers are focusing too much on digital? My answer:

Good marketers are using digital to deliver real marketing benefit - and that includes PR.

PR may have changed significantly over my years as a marketer, but it certainly isn’t dead and anyone who thinks it is might be missing an opportunity.

PR in the 21st Century

At its core, PR is still about getting your message out into the established media and maximising the number of people who see it. As ever, this involves engaging with the publishers who control that media, to convince them that your content has value and is worth including in their publication. What has changed is the number of publishers and the ways you can engage with them. In our experience there are 6 things to consider when working on PR for your business:

1. Pick your media carefully. Anyone with a Smartphone can start an online publication, but that doesn’t mean it will get read! Do your research and focus your PR onto media (print or online) that has reputation and readership across your target audience.
2. Build a reputation for good content. You aren’t going to get everything published, but if you use your own blog to publish good, well written and relevant content, you can build a reputation for good writing. Publishers are more likely to take good, relevant writing seriously
3. Use social media to engage with publishers – Publishers use social media. They need  quality content and social media is a great way to find stories and content worth publishing. Make sure you identify and target content publishers as part of your social media strategy.
4. Don’t just push your own content – Look to engage with journalists and bloggers. Comment on their content. If your opinions and ideas resonate with them they are likely to remember you when they see your content.
5. Make your content easy to use –  This particularly relates to using email to communicate with printed press. Make sure you give them all they need to publish your content (easy to use text, high-resolution images, byline information etc.). Generally trade journals have few staff. If you give them content they recognise as interesting to their readers, and make it easy for them to publish, they are more likely to use it.
6. Don’t dismiss paid options and advertising – Although you should avoid publishers who will use anything from people willing to pay, we should accept that bloggers and publishers are running businesses and need to make a living! If you like a blog/journal, and believe that your target market will read it, then the idea of supporting them financially through sponsorship or advertising may well be worth considering.

In business, especially in smaller businesses, getting the balance right between planning and action is always a challenge. The default position is often, “That’s a good idea, let’s just get on with it”. Whilst this leads to a good deal of action, it is often disjointed, and its effectiveness limited. However, there is a saying “Failing to plan is planning to fail” – Interesting aside: This quote is often attributed to Benjamin Franklin. In reality, there is no evidence to support he ever said it. but whoever coined the phrase, they are wise words. However, take these words to their extreme and you spend the whole time trying to create the perfect plan. As a result, you never actually get around to doing anything! The answer has to be a balance between planning and action. The trick is getting that balance right.

Planning

Planning is an important process but it needs to have a purpose. Furthermore, your plan must ultimately lead to action or it is meaningless. Here are 3 tips for good planning

• Use a framework. Using a structured framework allows you to take whatever is in your head and get it down “on paper” with some structure. There are many tried & tested planning frameworks out there – Here are some that have stood the test of time.
• Run your plan by someone else. When working on a plan (especially if you are working on it alone), you can get too close to it. A good way to address this is to pass it by someone else. The concept of a “Critical friend” will help to test your plan. This should be someone you trust to be honest and not just tell you what you want to hear nor just make comment for comment sake. The role of a critical friend is to ask the questions that you either avoided or overlooked when creating the plan.
• Allocate resources. Setting a realistic and appropriate budget (time, money, or a combination) is important. There is no point in creating an all-encompassing business marketing plan to then realise you don’t have the resources to implement it. At this point, it is also useful to incorporate the concept of S.M.A.R.T. Goals into your planning

Planning is an important first step but the best plan will get you nowhere without proper implementation. Don’t forget, marketing is creative. You have to be responsive, versatile and occasionally willing to go off-piste. A plan gives you structure and guidance but don’t forget you’re working in the real world. If you stick to it blindly, you may miss opportunities, or end up going down ultimately unproductive tracks. Planning needs to lead to action.

Action

Like planning, actions need to be purposeful and focused. Here are 3 tips for making the most of your actions.

• Be clear. Make sure the people who are involved know their roles and have the knowledge skill and resources to carry them out. Make sure that everyone is clear about the S.M.A.R.T. objectives that were set out during the planning phase.
• Be versatile. If, whilst in the midst of a marketing programme, you see that an element of your plan isn’t working so well, don’t be afraid to modify it so as to better suit the situation. There is another famous quote stating “NO plan survives the first contact with the enemy”. In reality, when a plan is implemented, something in the real world will not behave as expected. You need to be ready and willing to respond when this happens.
• Focus on quality. Don’t skimp. If you cut corners or regularly choose the cheap option, it is highly likely you will be less successful. One quality action will normally deliver better than three weaker actions.

If I had to make a choice between planning and action, I would always choose action. Setting off on a journey gives you more chance of reaching your destination than sitting poring over a map – but maybe having a look at the map before you start, deciding the best route and ensuring you have the kit you will need on your travels might not be a bad idea – or even just buy in some expertise and make sure you have programmed the satnav!

I will leave you with my ultimate philosophy of the subject of planning and activity, which is:

"Do stuff and iterate"

Content marketing is all about creating informative, well-written content that tells people what you do. Write this including relevant keywords, and it will also help to get your posts well positioned Google. As always, WordPress has some interesting tools to help you do this. The best of which, in our humble opinion is Yoast. As the name suggests, Yoast SEO is primarily focused on SEO, and when set up correctly will ensure that your website is delivering content in the way Google expects. However, it also includes a couple of useful analysis tools for your content:

1. Readability analysis
2. Keyword SEO analysis

In both cases, it will analyse your content and give it a Red, Amber or Green quality score, along with recommendations as to how the content can be improved. Whilst there are no hard and fast rules here, and the priority should always be to create engaging content that will be of interest to your readers, these Yoast tools can be very useful:

Readability analysis

This tool will analyse your content and suggest options that can make it more readable. The key things it looks out for are:

• Structure and use of subheadings
• Use of overly long sentences
• Overuse of the passive voice

In my experience, whilst you may not totally agree with the analysis, working through its suggestions, does make you take a more critical look at your writing, an invariably results in shorter & more concise copy.

SEO Analysis

This feature allows you to enter a chosen key phrase. Yoast will then analyse the content and give recommendations for on-page optimisation for this key phrase. It also allows for the editing of key meta tags (Title & Description) within the page. Whilst a green ‘light’ from Yoast is no guarantee of a first page listing on Google, it does help to ensure focus on the on page elements of SEO. You will find a more detailed tutorial on these useful Yoast features here

A Final Word

Whilst these tools are useful, they are not perfect. Rather than striving for Green readability and SEO scores at all costs, the aim should be to create copy that communicates the desired message, and that you think will engage your audience, The Yoast features should simply be used as a tool to help you deliver that goal.

Creating a new website for your business is important. However, the normal approach to building a new website can create issues down the line, particularly for owner-managed SMEs who don’t have the necessary technical resources in-house.

We have discussed in other articles how, for many businesses, their website is a vital shop window. Even if potential customers normally come from Word of Mouth or other referrals, your website is almost always used as a way of checking you out.

Your website should continually be updated to reflect your business as it is today, not when the site was launched. Regular new content particularly News and Blog articles can be dated. They demonstrate that you are active and that your site is being kept current.

Alongside this, the more long-lived content such as the products /services you offer, the sectors you supply and information about the business and staff all needs to be monitored and kept up to date. Think about your business as it is now and how this compares to where you were 12 months ago. My bet is that your business has moved on and evolved. Has your website kept up? Your website should be dynamic-just like your business.

Why is it then that so many projects to develop a new website are seen as an event rather than a process?

I believe the answer lies in the way most website projects are handled. Let’s have a look at this and then discuss if there might be a better approach…

The 3 stages of website development

Normally a website development project goes through 3 stages:

1. Design
2. Build
3. Use

1. Design

We all want our new website to look great so it is important to start with a good ‘look’. Effective design is a skill. It always intrigues me how graphic designers can come up with ideas that just look ‘right’. This has always been the case for printed design. The advent of websites added another layer of challenge – creating a design that will work effectively as a website. You don’t need to know how to build a website to achieve this but you do need to understand how a website is built and so what design elements will work – and what won’t!

Once you have a design, this stage is complete. Until you need to change your branding or ‘look’, the work of the designer is done.  They can move on to their next project.

2. Build

Building (coding) a website is a completely different job to designing a layout. It is (normally) done by different people. These days, very few websites (particularly in the SME arena) are built from scratch. They are almost always built on an established website development platform. WordPress (our favourite!) is head and shoulders the leader in this field. Even so, building a website that is easy for visitors to use and navigate (and owners to update) can be technically quite complex.

Another aspect of site-build that often gets sidelined is what you want to show and say – the content. I explore this further later on.

The initial site-build stage is a ‘project’. However, as a site is used and the business develops, there is almost inevitably the desire to add and develop new functionality and sophistication.

3. Use

The ‘biggy’! A website is a business marketing tool. While the initial design/build can run for a few weeks or months, the Use stage will run for a few years. So why is it that most website developments are seen as a project that ends with the site being launched?

Here are my thoughts…

I want my new website to look modern, attractive and creative. The first thing I need to do is engage a designer to develop a ‘Look’ for my site. However, I don’t want the cost of a dedicated graphic designer to create a look that then has to be passed to a specialist web development company to take the design and convert it into web code, functionality and pages. To get around this, many (most?) ‘web-design’ companies tend to combine the design and coding functions under one roof. By using one of these suppliers I can commission a design and build project. I can let them get on with it, approving things on the way as necessary.

This approach looks sensible, combining stages 1 and 2 and then delivering me a website I can use. But then what? Before commissioning your new website, think about how you are going to use it to promote your business for the next few years.

A little forward thinking can pay real dividends.

Call me if you’d like to chat

A New Opportunity

This week, we are talking about the importance of joined-up planning, having a practical and well-planned approach to marketing communication. Towards the end of last year, I had an interesting meeting with a potential new client. A meeting that set me thinking about the business planning process more widely. My visit was with the MD of an agency business. He has many years’ experience in his field and undoubtedly knows what he is talking about. Now, in most service sectors from accountancy and insurance to estate agencies and recruitment companies, businesses have evolved delivering custom software applications to help the agencies operate more efficiently. My visitor’s agency is no different but some time ago, he came to the conclusion that the software applications targeted at his field could be improved upon, both in terms of functionality and the commercial basis on which they were offered. He believes a different approach could deliver a significantly wider appeal across his sector. In short, he felt there is a great opportunity.

First Steps

Okay, so the idea was in place. What to do? To illustrate the point, let me digress. Great Britain has a long established tradition of technical innovation. From the canals of the 18th Century which were so influential in driving the industrial revolution, through to Concorde and Graphene, British engineers have some great ideas. Technically they are as good as it gets, but there is a problem. Developing the idea is one thing, making it a commercial success is quite another. Numerous canals never made a profit and even today, the majority of the commercial rights to Graphene are held overseas. Back to my meeting. The first thing my contact did to explore his new opportunity was to switch his computer on and start work on his new and improved software application. He went straight to the innovation. Now, several months later, he has invested significant time and money in developing his product. Version 1 is nearly ready for launch so now, and only now, are thoughts turning to the commercial implications of his idea.

Joined-Up Planning

Don’t get me wrong, having a viable proposition (product/service) that works is essential. The investment in developing the application is completely necessary. My issue is that the software development has gone ahead in the context of a fairly subjective view of the opportunity. Things are the way they think they are! There has been no objective research. Furthermore, there are elements of the commercialisation of the new software that haven’t even been thought about – at least not seriously. Building a successful business is about being joined-up in your approach. One of the joys of running a small business and being an entrepreneur is that you can wake up with a new idea and do something about it straight away – but you need to do this with not only consideration of your idea, but also using your experience to put the idea in the context of your market. Clearly, you must have a proposition/offer that actually does what you say it does, i.e. you can deliver on your promise. Additionally, your proposition should sit in a joined-up framework.  I believe the key elements of this joined-up planning include:

1. Real Value/Benefit

Does your new idea really deliver value to your potential customers? Here some research, even informally, can be invaluable. The important thing is not to assume that just because you think it is a good idea, that your target market will too.

2. Customer support

How easy is it for customers to realise the benefit you offer? With some products/services this isn’t much of an issue but in my case here with software, there is a risk of assuming that because you understand your application, your customers will too. They won’t! Certainly, good application design can go a long way in making a new piece of software intuitive to use but the provision of effective support to help new customers with the inevitable learning curve will be essential.

3. Commercial Opportunity

How big is your market? How much are you going to charge? What level of market penetration do you require to make your new business viable? Can you achieve this? An interesting example here is Concorde which was never a commercial success in isolation. However, as a Marketing Statement for both British Airways and Air France, it had real value in raising the profile of both businesses. An idea that is not commercially viable can be valuable if your wider business is big enough to both carry the cost and reap the benefit!

4. Marketing & Sales Communication

You are clear as to the value you deliver and you know and understand your target market. How do you plan to communicate the one to the other? Further, how do you plan to convert market engagement from your communication into profitable Sales Revenue? To ensure sustained business success there are other elements that become important but the above are key to an effective starting point.

Be Realistic

A joined-up approach does not need to be overwhelmed by planning. Getting the focus-balance wrong is a great way to never actually getting anywhere! This said, all element need to be considered. One of the greatest skills of the successful entrepreneur is to intuitively know how to get the balance right – or at least right enough to be successful! Also, there isn’t just one way to a joined-up planning approach. It may not be as efficient to only start to think about the commercial opportunity once you know that you can deliver on your idea but you can do it this way. A big dose of practical realism is essential in any business! So, in conclusion, where do things sit from my meeting? It is certainly a great idea but I believe the path from here to commercial success is not so straightforward as the MD anticipates. It will require time and money, and the right team of people. If these can be found, I believe the future is bright. If you’d like to develop a joined-up planning approach for your business, do get in touch

In early December, WordPress moved from Version 4.9.9 to Version 5.

WordPress V5 is a major release, most significantly for the inclusion of a new post editor – Gutenberg

Named after Johannes Gutenberg – the inventor of the printing press, the new editor introduces Drag & Drop block editing to WordPress posts.

Over the weeks before the Christmas break, we have been updating sites to WP version 5 so here are our initial thoughts on the new release.

One of the issues with the existing WordPress editor was that it was a long way from the ‘What You See Is What You Get’ (WYSIWYG) intuitive editor that many people are looking for. Consequently, adding structure and style to the content of your post article while you are writing it within the editor has been a challenge. The ‘old’ editor was very simple and great for writing paragraphs of prose, and maybe adding the odd image, but anything more was pretty much impossible without resorting to plugins or HTML coding.

More Layout Flexibility

With Gutenberg – layout flexibility is addressed through the idea of blocks. You build up your content using separate blocks with different block available for different content types & layouts.

Let’s take the example of images, and the desire to layout several images next to each other in a single row. Pre Gutenberg, this was (remarkably) tricky, requiring the use of PHP or HTML code. With WP5 and the new editor, it is simply a case of selecting a “Gallery” block, choosing the images, and setting a few parameters (e.g. how many images you want per row).

Here’s an example, all point-and-click with no coding:

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These flags are in-fact from our recent Christmas Quiz – If you missed it, you will find it here 

Gutenberg includes a number of basic block types by default, ready to insert:

• Images
• Media files (Video/Audio)
• Lists
• Tables
• Etc..

This is all through Gutenberg with no code.

Furthermore, as is the nature of WordPress, third-party plugins are already starting to become available, extending Gutenberg’s capabilities.

Examples include:

• Atomic Blocks – Gutenberg Blocks Collection
• Advanced Gutenberg
• Stackable – Gutenberg Blocks

These add many new ‘block options’ to Gutenberg and I am sure there will be many more in the coming months.

Gutenberg is not a Page Builder

Whilst Gutenberg is a step up in terms of functionality from the classic WP editor, it is not a fully-fledged page builder. Gutenberg focuses on the core content of your website. Making wider changes to the structure of a page (Header, footer, sidebar etc), remains outside the scope of the new editor – for now at any rate.

There is no question that omitting this enhanced functionality does make Gutenberg easier to use, with a shorter learning-curve.

If you do want more extensive page building and structure-editing capabilities, there are some great, dedicated page-builder plugins. Our favourite is Elementor (which has been downloaded by WordPress users over 1 million times)

Gutenberg may not be for everyone

Let’s face it, change is rarely popular. While Gutenberg does deliver some great new functionality, it does have a bit of a learning curve. With this in mind, Gutenberg developers have been sensible enough to allow users to switch off the new editor

The Classic Editor plugin – produced by the main WordPress development team, will allow you to hide the new editor and re-instate the classic post editing functionality.

The other way is a bit more technical – by adding a piece of code to the theme functions file functions.php:

add_filter('use_block_editor_for_post', '__return_false', 10);

The second is certainly the more permanent approach though perhaps outside the comfort zone of many.

On to the future

Whilst we are by default disabling Gutenberg on clients sites when we update to WordPress 5, simply because it is a big change, and we want to manage the switch at our pace. I think it is a good step forward, and I am sure once the dust settles, we will quickly start to wonder how we ever lived without it. 

Undoubtedly, Gutenberg is a good step forward and I am sure that, once the dust settles, we will quickly start to wonder how we ever lived without it.

If you would like to find out more about Gutenberg and what it means for your WordPress website, do get in touch.