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MARKETING MATTERS
MAGAZINE
Rachael Smith explains on page 4...
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FOURTH EDITION | PRODUCED BY FILL THE GAP MARKETING
A note from the editor Welcome to the fourth issue of Marketing Matters Magazine, a monthly online magazine that is full of practical marketing advice from specialists across the UK. We’re very excited to share it with you. Well that's it. 2016 is nearly over. Is it just me, or has the year gone quickly? Or is that something we say every year? For Fill the Gap Marketing, the year has been a busy one, with new clients, new projects, a new office and our new magazine being launched, and we suspect 2017 is going to be no different! We have a lot of big developments happening in the new year, which will be revealed very soon...let's just say, it will be 'educational' for you and for us. Stay tuned for the next edition of Marketing Matters Magazine, which will be released on the 31st January 2017. We hope you find it just as useful. Wishing you every success,
Rachael Smith Managing Editor
The Editorial Team
Editor-In-Chief
Managing Editor
Joanne Wilson 01522 581 911
Rachael Smith 01522 581 911
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4 marketing trend predictions for 2017 . . . Rachael Smith, Fill the Gap Marketing
competitors, you’d better brush up on your analytical skills.
to think how video marketing can be integrated.
Are you ready for 2017?
2.Social media won’t be everything
4.The line between sales and marketing will begin to blur
For many businesses, December is the time where operations start to slow down, many employees take annual leave and jobs that aren’t considered urgent get forgotten about until the New Year. Unfortunately slowing down in December is the last thing your business should be doing, as now is the perfect time to get your marketing plan in place and ready for you to implement in the New Year. For SMEs, developing a marketing plan can seem like a daunting task, but when done (and executed correctly), it can make the year ahead, the most profitable one ever. To help you get your marketing plan ready for 2017, here are 4 marketing trends we predict for the New Year: 1.Data-Driven marketing will boom Knowing your customers well has always been important for marketing, but with the amount of information that customers willingly give companies nowadays, it has never been so easy to predict consumer behaviour. The role of marketing is to make it easy for your customers to buy from you – using customer data to create meaningful customer relationships can help you do this. So, if you want to sell to more customers in 2017 and outshine your
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We’re not saying that social media marketing will slow down in 2017, it likely to be the opposite. However, we believe that companies that have been relying solely on social media to market their business will begin embracing a more integrated approach for their marketing strategy in order to achieve a better ROI and reach their customers more effectively. We predict that in 2017, many companies will reduce their spend on social and start investing in other market channels. 3.Video will dominate Consumers want information fast, and reading doesn’t do that anymore. Facebook knows this, which is why the use of video marketing has risen so much over the last year. Videos can demonstrate in a short space of time much more than a blog or email can do. If you’re the process of writing your marketing plan for the New Year, it may be beneficial
The customer journey is becoming so vital, and companies that properly understand their customers will see the marketing and sales teams begin working more closely together to improve the sales process and engage with customers more effectively. 2017 is going to the year where technology dominates and customer experiences are expected to improve. Consumers are getting smarter, and markets are becoming saturated. Companies need to do even more than ever to stand out, and if there was one marketing activity you should focus on in the New Year, it is using customer data more strategically.
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Our Experts
Biscon Planning
Digital Media Edge
Fill the Gap Marketing
WIlliam Smith 01453 889250
Richard Mawer 01522 837259
Rachael Smith 01522 581911
Fill the Gap Marketing
Fill the Gap Marketing
PRWilson Media
Sarah Nunn 01522 581911
Jo Wilson 01522 581911
Paul Wilson 07725 896 888
Stone Moor Business Services
Succeed at Selling
Julia McGinn 01522 802722
Susan Marot 07831 973522
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8 ways to optimize your LinkedIn profile . . . When was the last time you updated your LinkedIn Profile? Would you like a simple straight forward 8 point checklist on how to complete it effectively? In this article, Paul from PRwilson Media will highlight some key areas to focus on to make sure you're LinkedIn profile does the work for you.
key skills you offer. 3. Summary - Add a personal statement - 2 -3 short paragraphs max that summarizes your career to date and key skills. 4. Add multimedia content – you can add photos, link to videos, websites , even Power Point presentations to your profile.
In my view, having a well presented, professional and fully completed personal profile is the key to success on LinkedIn. The more information that you share. the better and more relevant the connections you will make and the easier it will be for others to find out who you are and what you do.
5. Experience section - complete details of your previous roles and responsibilities – you can also use multimedia content here.
To make changes to your profile, go to the main menu profile and select edit profile. You can click on any of the pencil icons to make edits to a section. I would highly recommend having an electronic copy of your CV to hand and cutting and pasting key sections in to speed up the process of completing your profile.
7. skills - LinkedIn member can add up to 50 skills to their LinkedIn profile. These are keywords or combinations of keywords that showcase what you do. The more your keywords match the criteria others are looking for, the better chance you have of being found and
Here are the key areas to complete: 1. Personal Photo - Adding a personal photograph, which is clear and in focus, typically a head and shoulders shot and presents a professional image is particularly important because it will appear in various sizes and shapes as you interact and engage with people on LinkedIn. 2. Add an engaging personal headline. Like your profile picture this text appears wherever you are active on LinkedIn. Describe what makes you unique, the benefits and
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6. Company page - create a company page and link your experience statement roles to existing company pages.
gaining potential connections who are genuinely interested in the services you provide. In addition, you can be endorsed for those skills that you have by your connections. 9. Testimonials -In many ways this is the most important part of your profile as they are written by people you have worked for. This is where your connections have taken the time to write you a personal recommendation for the work that you've done for them. by far the best way to gain recommendations is to give recommendations. Particularly if it's clients that you have partnered with, they've done services for you and you've done services for them. Why not make the first move and write a recommendation? In my experience, they will usually be glad to reciprocate.
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What is the General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) 2018? William Smith, Business Continuity Consultant from Biscon Planning explains... Have you heard of the General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) and, if so, what are you going to do to implement them? Hang on, I hear you say, isn’t that a piece of European Union legislation – so why do we have to take any notice of it when the UK has opted for Brexit? That is all perfectly true, but GDPR is due to come into force on 29 May 2018 whereas the earliest Brexit can happen is January 2019 and, until the UK finally leaves the European Union, all laws originating from the EU and that have been adopted by the UK parliament will still apply. Even then the UK Government may very well
not repeal the legislation and even if it does the chances are that companies trading with the EU will still have to comply. The emphasis of GDPR is all about compliance and has been brought in because the perception is that businesses, especially those operating in the UK, do not take data privacy seriously enough. The legislation has been designed to take into account modern technologies, how we use them now and are likely to use them in the future. The wish of the EU, through the introduction of this legislation, is to be recognised as the “data safe haven” of choice. The UK , in order
to remain competitive and to attract global data businesses will probably have to, at a minimum, meet the requirements of the GDPR standard or even increase the country’s own DPA requirements. The penalties for noncompliance with the legislation will be much more draconian than currently under the DPA and will not only cover large organisations but will be extended to include both SMEs and third-party contractors. If you need to know more, check out the Information Commissioner’s Office website at www.ico.org.uk.
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Should I be networking? Sarah Nunn, Fill the Gap Marketing Networking is a very useful marketing tool, one that is often overlooked due to the time it demands. After a long day at work, is networking worth the effort? We think it is. It’s true, that networking is a technique that works best over time, but you can start making an impact from the very first networking event. Networking has many benefits, from building stronger relationships to building up a strong local reputation, we think it’s worth investing some time into. Here are some of our favourite reasons to network: Build more successful business relationships: You will know a lot
more about the company you’re going into business with if you’ve met them through networking. This will lead to a stronger, more successful business relationship with this company. Make hundreds of new contacts: Although not all contacts may be of direct use to your business, it’s very likely that each contact will know at least one person who would love to work with you. You’re increasing your reach very quickly. Improve your reputation: Networking often involves performing what is known as an ‘elevator pitch’ where you have to explain who you are, what you do and why people should use your services in the space of 60 seconds, or sometimes only 30 seconds. Whenever you share your story,
you’re reinforcing your knowledge and improving your reputation. Reap what you sow: As well as sharing your skills and services, you’re also learning about the services that others have to offer. There’s very much a “if you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours” feel to local networking. It’s a good business habit to get into. As with most things in business, the more you put into networking, the more you’ll get out of it. Over time, you’ll start to see even more benefits from networking, including business recommendations, a better social life and feeling more in tune with your local community.
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Unleash your creativity with CANVA . . . Julia McGinn, Stone Moor Business Services Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock, I’m sure you have heard of Canva. If you haven’t, this article is aimed at you! Any business who has social media or any blogger out there will probably have used this online image editor. It’s essentially Photoshop for dummies, but a fantastic one at that. We were introduced to Canva at the end of 2015. Not really understanding the ability or what we could do with it, we started playing around & trying out new features. Before we knew it, it became our new image best friend. We use it to create images for our website, blogs, personal photos and for clients to use for their social media or even websites. The best thing about this ingenious program is the ability to re-use a design over and over again. There are so many possibilities with the endless design options they have available on the dashboard, and the free (some are $1) themes you can use within your designs. These are especially handy if you haven’t quite got the creative eye. If you’re anything like us here at Stone Moor, we are slightly more analytical than we are creative, so the thought of creating a new infographic or image can be a little bit daunting, especially when there is so much to consider! Fear no more, Canva has the answer to this!
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Their website has a FREE design school to help you learn all about design. It has interactive tutorials that help you learn which colours go together well, which fonts go with which design, and how you can create the perfect picture. With all of the excitement of learning new features, we have created more designs than we can keep track of. This prompted us to take the step,
and purchase the Canva for Work subscription and we haven’t looked back. Creating images has become that much easier and it saves us so much time too! We now have the option to categorise all of our designs into folders (we have one per client or project), upload our font and colours, and a quick option to resize designs. being able to quickly resize designs means we can create a Facebook image, and then resize it for Twitter without having to recreate the design! Canva has increased our marketing ability, and we encourage you to have a go if you haven’t already. To show you what you can accomplish through Canva, here is something we created!
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Introduction to Inbound marketing - part four . . . Richard Mawer, Digital Media Edge Step #3 – Promoting your inbound marketing The next step in inbound marketing, once you’ve set up your strategy and have started to implement it, is to begin promoting and syndicating your content. It’s no good writing and editing an remarkable article that you know everyone will love, when you have no means of getting it seen. The Power Of Email Yes, despite what people have you believe, email is still a very powerful way of delivering your content and message. When you create new content, you want it to be seen by new potential clients and of course the contacts you already have. With the latter, you’ll want to reach out to them with dedicated email sends. They will want to know if you’ve written a new whitepaper or have an event coming up that would be perfect for them. The purpose of the emails is to “nurture” the relationships with these contacts, progressing them down your funnel into becoming potential buyers. There are several ways to write an effective email, but two things you must do are: 1. Make your emails more personal - To turn a prospect into a buyer you need to spend some time creating emails that are personal and customised to their needs. This will increase your open and clickthrough rate, as well as growing the relationship you have with them.
2. Don’t use too many calls-toaction - in fact, we suggest just focusing on one at a time as it can be easy to confuse your prospects. They need to be the focus of the email to garner the attention they deserve and not stuck at the end of an email. Blog Content To Connect With Existing Subscribers & New Visitors Writing blog posts allows you to create premium content that your prospects will want to see. It is very important that these pieces are optimised to grab people’s attention and get ranking in the search engines. When it comes to deciding what to include, here are some helpful tips: 1. Feature an image: content images must be visually appealing to capture your audience’s attention straight away. An image that perfectly reflects your content will make it much easier to promote on social media. 2. Include social media “share” buttons: It’s a good idea to include buttons at the end of your content that will allow readers to share your posts with their friends or people they think will be interested. 3. Post on social media: And we don’t mean just share it once! To really grab the attention of a variety of audiences you need to be posting at various times throughout the day. Not everyone is on twitter or Facebook at the same time, which means that if you’re only posting once you’re missing out on potential
prospects. Posting To Social Media & Get Involved With The Conversation When it comes to using social media, specifically, to promote your content you want to be able to communicate effectively with your prospects. You need to understand that different styles will suit different platforms and different audiences. 1. Don’t become a spam-bot: To avoid the mistake that so many companies make, you should always keep selfpromotion in check and make sure that what you’re posting is relevant and beneficial to your audience. 2. Figure out what suits you: Nobody said you should be on every social platform, but deciding on which one makes sense for your marketing can make or break you. Pinterest and Facebook are more visual and look to capture people’s attention straight away, whereas Twitter and LinkedIn are perfect for simple copy. Next Month – Measuring the metrics that matter In Inbound Marketing
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Which marketing channel should I use? Joanne Wilson, Fill the Gap Marketing
are, then it’s much easier to talk to them and catch their eye.
3. Where do they look for the solutions?
Imagine finding a beautiful Rolex watch for sale.
Attention is difficult to capture these days when the average person is bombarded with up to 5,000 advertising messages a day. Being in the right place at the right time is just as important as saying the right thing.
For most marketing campaigns, it often works best to use more than one channel and it always helps to build rapport when your message is seen in several different places.
It’s inside a glossy, high-profile magazine that is well-known and trusted. That’s pretty tempting, right? Now imagine the same advert, sellotaped roughly to a telegraph pole, with the Rolex advertised for £50. Hmm, maybe not quite so tempting now. . . How you target your audience is just as important as knowing who your audience is. Where do they go, what do they watch, what do they buy, what do they read? If you know where your customers
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The fact that your audience is being waved at in every direction also makes it even more important to show your customers that you are a company that actually understands them. As well as the fact that you also have something useful to offer them. Before you place your message anywhere, ask yourself: 1. What problems do my customers have? 2. How can I solve them?
Email, print, social media and the Internet are potential channels you could use, but building integrated and successful marketing campaigns is more achievable when you use the best mediums to reach your customers. If you need any help with your marketing, targeting or placement, then we offer a complimentary consultation at our own expense, offering noobligation, expert advice.
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What are KPIs and how to use them in your 2017 sales strategy . . . Susan Marot from Succeed at Selling explains how to use KPIs to make 2017 a brilliant year for sales! One of the things I get asked a lot is "What are KPIs and do I really need them?" KPI stands for Key Performance Indicators and YES, you certainly do need them! But exactly what are KPIs in regards to the sales process? A key performance indicator is simply a measurable value that a business uses to judge how effectively they are achieving their business objectives. So a sales KPI is a something that you use to evaluate how successful you are at achieving your sales targets. Examples of Sales KPIs Let’s take client proposals. If you know that typically you win 1 out of every 3 proposals you submit and you also know the average value of each proposal, then it would be really easy to work out how many proposals you need to submit to hit target. Therefore, it would make perfect sense to make the number of proposals you submit something that you measure in your business, or in other words make that one of your KPIs. You then might like to count the number of meetings you have too, so that you can then compare that KPI with the number of proposals you submit. Then you will know how many meetings you need to have in order to submit the right number of proposals to hit target.
This is what I really love about KPIs. They are there to help guide you towards success and once you have the right KPIs in place then all you have to do is the activity to consistently hit them. How to use KPIs in your 2017 Sales Strategy Now I am fairly certain that the biggest number in your sales strategy is your revenue target for the year, closely followed in importance by your profit target. It might be the other way round, but for measuring sales activity then revenue is the easiest one to use. Take that number and break it down into the period you use to measure e.g. by month or by week. List all the activities you do in your business such as meetings, proposals, telephone calls etc, and then start to work out how many you need to do of each to hit target. It really is as easy as that. The biggest KPI secret If you struggle to consistently hit a KPI then you will need to take action. This might mean improving your sales process, or it could even be that you change the KPI. Just remember that when people say selling is purely a numbers game, they are really talking about KPIs. Achieve your KPIs and you hit target.
Susan Marot's book 'The 9 Day Sales Challenge" is available to buy on Amazon "I'm sharing the tools and techniques that I have been using for over 30 years to a wider audience of clients so they too can convert more prospects into happily paying customers, but without being pushy. This is why I created Succeed at Selling 9 Day Sales Challenge, as a way of helping non-sales people to learn from my extensive success, as well as my many failures."
Simple stuff and highly effective too!
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