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MARKETING MATTERS
MAGAZINE
LIFTING THE LID
ON THE PRESS How to connect with journalists
Jon Grubb explains on page 4...
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A note from the editor Welcome to the second 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. On the 30th of September 2016, we released the first edition of Marketing Matters Magazine, and over the last month, the magazine has been viewed nearly 5000 times by people from across the world. We would like to thank everyone who contributed to the first edition and shared it with their network! In this edition, we speak to Jon Grubb, public relations specialist, who is speaking at the next Fill the Gap Marketing Academy. On the 30th of November, he will be giving us an insight into life inside the media, helping us to understand what makes journalists tick, what they are looking for and the best way to handle them when you need to. Stay tuned for the next edition of Marketing Matters Magazine, which will be released on the 30th of November. We hope you find it just as useful. Wishing you every success,
Rachael Smith Managing Editor
The Editorial Team
Editor-In-Chief
Managing Editor
Creative Director
Joanne Wilson 01522 837232
Rachael Smith 01522 837231
Thomas Jacobs 01522 837234
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Lifing the lid on the press. How to connect with journalists . . . Jon Grubb from Grubb Street Media talks to Rachael Smith from Marketing Matters Magazine about how he got into public relations... Are you struggling to connect with journalists? Do you find it difficult to get the press to cover your stories? This is the topic of our November Marketing Academy, with guest speaker, Jon Grubb from Grubb Street Media. In 2011, Jon started his own business, Grubb Street Media, offering public relations, media advisory services and crisis communications. However, PR has not always dominated Jon's life. In fact, he worked in the media for 25 years prior to setting up his own business, with 10 of those years being editor of daily newspapers. In his time in journalism, Jon covered some of the biggest stories in the UK, including the Fred West case in 1993. "I decided I wanted to be a journalist at the age of 13. Probably because I was very nosey! After university, I wrote to every newspaper from Aberdeen to Exeter until I got interviews. While I waited for my first break, I worked a variety of jobs from a turkey farmer to a building site labourer. " "I eventually got my first job at a weekly newspaper in Buckinghamshire and then went onto a career that took me from there to Gloucester (where I covered the Fred West case), to Nottingham, Scunthorpe and eventually Lincoln."
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As well as running his own business and managing public relations for a number of big companies in Lincolnshire and the UK, Jon also teaches at the University of Lincoln as a part-time senior lecturer within the journalist department, inspiring the next generation of budding journalists. Speaking to Jon, I asked him what motivates him to do what he does, "I tend to have different motivations in different circumstances. I am passionate about protecting and helping clients grow and trying to ensure that I feel part of the client’s business even if I’m working as a consultant." "When I’m teaching I try very hard to instil a sense of curiosity and determination in my students and like to think I’m doing my part to create the next generation of great journalists."
Jon Grubb will be “lifting the lid” on life inside the media, helping us to understand what makes journalists tick, what they are looking for and the best way to handle them when you need to at the Fill the Gap Marketing Academy on the 30th of November in Lincoln. To book your Academy Pass for this event, please visit www.fillthegapmarketing.co.uk. For more information about Grubb Street Media and his range of public relations, media advisory and crisis communication services, please visit www.grubbstreetmedia.co.uk or call 07780 953 575.
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Our Experts
Choose Purple
Digital Media Edge
Fill the Gap Marketing
Justin Widdop 01909 478622
Richard Mawer 01522 837259
Rachael Smith 01522 837231
Fill the Gap Marketing
Grubb Street Media
Positive Networking
Thomas Jacobs 01522 837234
Jon Grubb 07780 953575
Mike Stokes 01733 211873
Stone Moor Business Services
Succeed at Selling
Through the Lens Photography
Julia McGinn 01522 802722
Susan Marot 07831 973522
Adam Winfield 01522 246645
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How powerful are images in marketing? Adam Winfield from Through the Lens photography explains... In an ever changing connected world where social media and digital content rule, it may come as something of a surprise that high quality still photography, first used in advertising over a hundred years ago, remains one of the most powerful marketing tools. But when interaction, 3D, 360 degree and virtual reality are grabbing all the headlines why is the humble, old school photograph still punching way above it's weight? It's a simple answer, immediate impact. Recent studies have discovered that the human brain can process an entire picture in just 13 milliseconds! When well-established research tells us that we have just 5 seconds to hook a potential customer before they flip the page or browse to another site it suddenly makes perfect sense to grab their attention with a well-placed, good quality, relevant picture.
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Pictures don’t need us to open them, to navigate around them or to click on them, their impact is instantaneous, it just happens.
chances are it’ll hook your audience too.
With a little preparation the impact a picture creates can make us laugh, make us cry, ask questions or form instant judgements but they get noticed straight away.
4. Be relevant. To begin you don’t need professional photos, if you’re tweeting from your phone snap a photo of your location, something you’ve seen or an item you’re speaking about.
In future articles we’ll look at what makes a good picture, how to best create impact with pictures in your business and how best to present them but for now here’s our top tips for putting pictures to work in your marketing, straight away:
5. Use the power of faces. Instagram report pictures including faces receive 38% more likes. Including a photo of yourself/your employees is a great way to develop a trusting relationship with your audience.
1. Add a photo to your tweets. Last month Twitter stopped counting characters for media attachments, there’s no reason now not to use pictures every time you tweet.
6. Finally, be genuine. We all know photos can be manipulated & ‘photoshopped’ but pictures still build trust & authenticity.
2. Combine text & images across all content. Social media engagements increase by up to 94% when a picture is included so...
Through the Lens Photography are specialists in commercial photography and work with clients across the region. Find out more about how their services can boost sales in your business at www.throughthe-lens.co.uk.
3. Include bright, clear pictures with bold, eye catching colours. Think about what grabs your attention,
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Why video marketing? Justin Widdop, Choose Purple
1. They will help you stand out
your marketing.
Let’s be honest, we are all trying to get the name of our business out to the masses. There are many ways that we can do this but one of the current trends is through the power of video. With YouTube now ranking as the second largest search engine more and more businesses are turning to video.
The beauty of videos is when they are done well they really do leap from the page. They are the perfect solution to impressively communicate a simple message about your business, product or service.
3. It boosts your SEO
Not convinced? These stats could change your mind‌ - 100 million internet users watch online video each day - It is 50 times easier to achieve a page 1 ranking on Google with a video - Videos get shared 1200% more than links and text combined - More than 4 billion hours of video are viewed every month on YouTube - Video drives 157% more organic search traffic. With all that in mind, here are three simple reasons you might want to think about including video in your marketing strategy:
They help your potential customer easily digest the information you want to feed them and build a personal connection with them. Video could well be the marketing edge you have been looking for. 2. They build trust When a potential customer can see a product, service or a clear example of how your business can help them it instantly builds trust. A video helps the customer get to know you that little bit more and can help bridge the gap between you and them. A good video when placed alongside words and images on your website or email will certainly add to the effectiveness of
Everyone is fighting to appear higher on Google and anything that can give you a lift above your competitors is worth considering. With search engines now including video marketing as a way to measure where your website should rank having a video on your site is no brainer. Also, when you include a video on a page or blog post all focussed around the same keyword it will help give you a SEO boost for that keyword. Videos do really help you get found so if you are not currently using them in your marketing strategy now might be the time to consider giving it a try.
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Preparing your team for the boss's holiday . . . Julia McGinn, Stone Moor Business Services If you’re a small business owner on the verge of deciding whether you’re brave enough to take a holiday and leave your team to cover without you for the first time, this is for you! Communicate with clients ahead of time Find out what your clients have planned! Taking the time out to have a chat with all of your clients will give you the opportunity to not only inform your clients of your absence and your possible limited availability, but also to get an understanding of what they have planned and how your team can ensure that you can assist when needed. Delegating
do every day but it’s even more important during a time when your resources are lower than normal. Handover Creating handover notes is a useful resource to provide the team with all the information to support your clients in your absence. This helps to avoid any additional queries which may arise while assessing what information the team is unaware of. Ideally start writing the handover notes at the start of the week leading up to your holiday and update them with the latest information just before you leave the office on your last day. For some clients, it was as simple as stating “nothing in the pipeline at this time”. Contingency plan
possible event that might happen, but that doesn’t mean you can’t try! By documenting a detailed handover, you can give the team a brief forecast of anything expected to come in. Also, give your team a point of contact for any emergencies or if there is a decision that just needs another opinion. I think this one is crucial, as sometimes a fresh pair of eyes or another voice can help make a difficult decision a lot simpler and the team won’t need to disturb you on your much needed holiday. Finally, enjoy your holiday, turn your email notifications off on your phone, pop it on airplane mode, trust your team and take a break!
You can’t realistically plan for every
We talked about delegation in the last edition of Marketing Matters but here are some key things to consider. Take time to understand which clients will be impacted and what work will need to be carried out. It’s a great time to review your processes for supporting each client and create a plan of which clients and tasks are to be completed by a particular member of staff. Make sure you let the affected clients know who will be looking after them in your absence. Arrange for your email to be monitored in your absence to enable a smooth process for your return. Keep your clients updated During your absence, it’s essential for the team to keep clients updated with deadlines and progress of work.This maybe something you
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5 reasons why market research can grow your business . . . Thomas Jacobs, Fill the Gap Marketing Market research. You’ve probably heard about it somewhere along the line. Is it one of those things you hear about but don’t really understand? Do you imagine it would help your business to grow but you don’t know where to start? No worries, you’re not alone. Marketers anticipate that future needs of customers will be discovered through marketing research and environmental scanning. By conducting market research, your business will stay one step ahead and be able to develop products/services in line with consumer demand and keep you ahead of your competition. Marketing research is an important element of almost every marketing process within your business: 1. Learn about your customers It is important to monitor your competitors and any new opportunities that could arise within the market to enhance customer experience. This can be done by gathering customer feedback and opinion through surveys. Asking your customers what they want from you is far more cost effective than guessing. Find out how they ‘use’ your product or service and why, to help give you ideas that are more innovative. 2. Set marketing objectives Imagine your company is a spaceman, and your company objective is the moon – marketing strategy is the rocket that will get
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your spaceman to the moon. Objectives might be increasing sales of that new product or increasing website footfall. Conducting marketing research will help you to identify a customer’s needs, how easily they would be fulfilled, at what cost and who would buy it. Once a measurable objective is established, your organisation can work out its day-to-day processes to meet your goals.
5. Develop customer understanding
3. Find out what your customer think of you and your competitors
Want to carry out market research but no idea where to start?
Better value or better quality pulls consumers away from your competition. Of course, value is different for everybody; what I think is a great deal might seem a bad proposition to you. Research is important to understand consumer’s perception of value. Research surveys and feedback gathering helps organisations understand what consumers want. 4. Find out who to target and where The right choice of media is important for promoting your business, as even a great advert in the wrong place is useless. Demographic profile insight and knowing your target market is key to knowing where best to advertise to return the most hits. This ensures you’re not wasting money promoting in the wrong place. Adverts are expensive, so get it right.
This is the concept of using marketing research by collecting and exploring data on understandings, opinions, memory, attitudes, and feelings people have in common in order to build up demographic profiles of people of similar characteristics and attributes.
Our research marketing expertise combined with our professional copywriting skills mean that we have the perfect knowledge and skills to help you to attract more customers. Give us a call on 01522 837232 or visit www.fillthegapmarketing.co.uk for more information.
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Introduction to Inbound marketing - part two . . . Richard Mawer, Digital Media Edge Step #1 – Strategy Inbound Marketing is not just using the correct set of “tactics” it starts with planning your strategy, I advise all of our clients to adopt a “strategy before tactics” mentality when they are first setting up their Inbound Marketing plan. Develop a strategy which covers the following: Customer Profile / Persona – Build a picture of who your perfect customer is. Who are they, what do they look like, how old are they, where do they live, what websites do they visit, what blogs do they read, what social media platforms do they use, what devices do they use and which of your competitors they use. What Are Your Persona’s Pains – The heart of an effective inbound marketing strategy is an understanding of your buyer's specific pains. What issues do they deal with on a day to day basis and what challenges they face with similar products and services? Their pains and how you solve them define your story and messaging. They make a meaningful impact on their purchasing decisions. How do you solve those problems and pains, in a remarkable way? Competition Analysis – What are your competitors doing in the market? How do they engage with your target audience? What content works, what content is not working and are there areas or platforms that they are missing?
Define The Metrics To Track Your Success – The power of digital media is that you can measure and track everything. Determining the effectiveness of an inbound marketing program that generates leads and an inbound sales program that drives revenue requires consistent monitoring of a core set of metrics. To get your future prospect ready to buy, you need to nurture them using your sales funnel. You need to create content that fits your target’s needs at every stage of the decision making process, which requires gifting them with offers such as tip sheets at the beginning and webinars towards the end which are more high risk. Your funnel should be like this: Contact – With awareness of your business: at the beginning the person you are targeting is just a contact, as they have no awareness of your brand. But with good content you can raise the awareness and help them to realise they need your product, thus becoming a suspect. Suspect – Solve their pains: the next stage is to research ways to solve the suspects pains so that
when they research potential solutions it will include your product/service. Prospect – Ready to do business: this stage is where the suspect will make a list of available vendors and what they can offer to solve their pains, which will include your business. Sales Opportunity – Business takes place: Once the suspect has chosen your services to help them, they have now become a viable sales opportunity. When looking to take a new direction with marketing content, you need to look at your past data and strategize based on what was your most popular content and how many views certain pages have had. Next you’ll want to decide what format will work best to keep your audience intrigued and make them want to know more. Next Month – Implementing Your Inbound Strategy Now you know how to set about starting a marketing strategy for your content. Keep an eye out for next month when I will talk to you about how to implement your inbound strategy.
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How to be successful at selling to different generations Susan Marot, Succeed at Selling Selling to different generations is the key to making big profits.
the infographic, which will give you a few clues to help you identify the generations.
Have you ever closed the business with one person, moved on to the next using the same sales process, only to fail catastrophically? Yes, we have all done it and I certainly have worn the t-shirt many times!
Walk their walk - When selling to each generation try to mirror their behaviour. For example never use slang or hip terms with Matures or Baby Boomers, but feel free with Generation Y Millennials.
There are many reasons this happens, but the biggest is that everyone is different. They learn and take on board information differently. They also have had different experiences that influences the way they buy products and services. Therefore, it can be really hard to make sure your sales process works every time even if you need to adapt it to based on their differences.
Don't assume - Never assume they are stereotypical of their generation. Let's face it we all know at least one silver surfer who can't put down their iPhone 7, or twenty year old who doesn't have a computer.
In essence the success of every sales process is based upon effective communication. If your prospect doesn't understand your message, then you will always struggle to win the business and make money. This means you have to align your sales process to best suit your ideal customer. One of the biggest differentiators you need to consider is age. Selling to different generations is an important consideration and can seriously affect the success or failure of any sales process. What you should do when selling to different generations: Know the generations and how they are different - Take a look at
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Present only benefits Always make sure you present the benefits of your solution not just the features. Baby boomers in particular will always want a solution to deliver good value for money, and Generation Y Millennials usually look for instant gratification.
Assessing which category your ideal clients fit will really help you create a winning marketing message so make sure you have a strong and effective sales process. Respecting the different generations correctly will ensure you get the highest return on investment. If you struggle to sell and make money, visit www.succeedatselling.com for more information. Ask great questions - Making sure you uncover their individual need is always essential to how you present the benefits.
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How to integrate your networking activity with the rest of your marketing Mike Stokes, Positive Networking In a previous article we saw how networking should be regarded as a marketing activity, and not just selling. And if it is part of your marketing it must be supportive of, and integral with, your other marketing activities. So how can this be done? Research, Sounding Board and Feedback Regular networking enables you to build up a group of trusted and supportive business contacts who can be relied upon to give you honest opinions on your advertising, promotions, leaflets, website changes etc. It is also a way of picking up market intelligence, local trends and news of competitors. Website Whilst the objective of networking is to build lasting and effective relationships, the short-term aim should be to drive people to your website. They will only learn so
much about you at the actual networking events, so if they can be encouraged to visit your website they will see so much more. Your business cards and leaflets should of course bear the details of your website but you should offer networkers an incentive to visit your website – offer a free business tool, or a voucher, or just free information. Social Media Arguments about chickens and eggs apply also to physical and social networking. The two activities are inseparable these days. If you have access to lists of members or delegates before attending a networking event, it makes sense to try and engage with people on social media to express an interest in meeting them at the event. And then any networkers you meet for the first time at an event can be followed up after the event on social media. It takes between 4 and 7 contacts before someone recommends you, so dovetailing the two types of networking makes
absolute sense. Positioning By acting appropriately at networking events, you can confirm the positioning established by all your other marketing activities. Your punctuality, professionalism and sheer demeanour says so much about you, your proposition, your brand. Public Relations Networking events, and the groups who attend them, can be really useful conduits to get a variety of messages across – organisational changes, new premises, new products, book launches, even name changes. And, of course, they are very useful to announce forthcoming events, courses, seminars etc. As with all other marketing activities, networking must be planned to make sure it is consistent with everything else.
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Networking Events Lincoln Business Club The Lincoln Business Club is the city’s business networking group, bringing people together and acting as a forum for issues that affect business in the city. Each meeting gives lots of opportunities to make new contacts and they are held on the last Friday of each month (excluding December) at the Lincoln City Football Ground. Entry is just £4 on the door and there is no need to book, a great value way of building your network! We also have educational speaker and sponsorship slots available. Sponsorship is just £85 and includes promotion on our website, emails and social media, a 10 minute speaker slot at the meeting you are sponsoring and a feature in the Business Echo, read by thousands of local business owners. New members are welcomed from businesses, organisations and clubs from the Lincoln area. Membership is free - simply register on our website and come along to a meeting. We’d love to see you at our next meeting, please visit our website www.lincolnbusinessclub.co.uk for more information.
Positive Networking Positive Networking provides a support environment for open-minded and collaborative business people – those looking to open up, share experiences and learn from each other. We have an excellent track record in enabling sound connections to be made and relationships to be developed – all in a friendly but businesslike environment. Over a dozen innovative and challenging formats are used at our meetings – life is never dull, as we take ideas on board and try new concepts. All of this is provided at affordable prices and, to ensure our members have peace of mind, their membership is underpinned by a money-back guarantee. Positive Networking strives to give excellent value for its members by putting on networking and speaker events in Lincoln and Peterborough which enable members and guests to raise their business profile, build strategic alliances, obtain increased and new business, develop new ideas and new skills, engage with new suppliers and develop themselves and their staff. Please visit our website www.positivenetworking.co.uk for more information.
Fill the Gap Marketing Academy The Fill the Gap Marketing Academy, Lincoln is the place to come if you want to learn how to grow your business. Perfect for small and medium sized businesses, it is an opportunity to mingle with marketing specialists, listen to expert marketing speakers and gain practical insights that can be instilled into your business for growth. In November, our theme is 'Lifting the lid on the press'. On the 30th November, we are delighted to welcome Jon Grubb from Grubb Street Media as our guest speaker, who will be will be “lifting the lid” on life inside the media, helping us to understand what makes journalists tick, what they are looking for and the best way to handle them when you need to For more information and to book on, please visit www.fillthegapmarketing.co.uk.
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