50shadesofmarketing,summer reading 2014 final 4 copy

50 Shades of Marketing Summer Reading 2014

Marketing can be sexy...

If you’re anything like us here at To Market towers, you’ll be counting down the days to your summer break!

Whatever form your break takes, it’s often the best time to catch up on your reading, when you’re relaxed, recharging and without interruptions and demands. As a result, it’s often when you are at your most creative and open to ideas.

We’ve put together a collection of holiday reading, from guest writers, trusted sources and our blog archives that we hope will support your current knowledge and get you ready and fired up for the autumn season.

Have a great summer!

Jo, Sunita, Tash, Cheryl & Sally

The Team Jo Manages and moves client campaigns from conception to completion, keeping all balls juggling. Little known fact: she grew up playing jazz clarinet and flute and once had to collect from a London auction house, the plastic saxophone owned by legendary jazz saxophonist Charlie ‘Bird’ Parker. Beat that.

Sunita Bookkeeper, Offi¬ce Manager and master translater of all of Jo’s ideas! Sunita is a woman of many talents and To Market wouldn’t tick quite as well without her.

Sunita has recently achieved a degree in BSc (Hons) Diagnostic Radiography & Imaging. We told you, she’s a superwoman!

Tash Design Supremo - no job too large or small! Tash is our lead designer and adds distinctive branding style and creative flair to client projects. Tash and her hubby juggle busy creative lives with their young daughter Eva – she often answers email very very late at night …

Cheryl Cheryl is our social media meister who also carries out research and planning for many client campaigns. She recently did a 10 mile walk for Breast Cancer Care, raising nearly £1000 for charity – think she’s still recovering.

Sally Sally creates the right words for our client campaigns and special projects, and when she can, likes to grab chill out time in New Orleans with family and friends. She makes us want to visit too!

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Foreplay If you’ve just picked up this e-book you’re in for a treat – 50 pages of really useful marketing articles that will press all the right buttons. To-Market’s summer read shows you that marketing can be sexy, sometimes you just need a good teacher …

Whether your desires lean towards mainstream methods or more - ahem - unusual practises, there’s something here for all tastes. The summer read includes a look at every aspect of marketing, from writing a solid plan to managing your social media, getting your email marketing right and improving your website, plus branding, design, PR and SEO. Download the e-book onto your Kindle or iPad and take it away with you, then just sit back and enjoy a holiday romance with “50 Shades of Marketing”. I bet you’ll be tied up with it all summer.

Sally Mayor sally@to-market.co.uk

Preface We thought we should have a little fun with year’s summer reading book we’ve all been working far too hard this year so far to do anything serious!

The book is a gathering of some of our best guest articles so far, information from our blog, all in one place. You can download the whole thing to your mobile device and read it at quiet moments or when you’re relaxing on your holidays.

While the team work away on some great projects launching in the autumn, I’m off to a white sandy beach in the Caribbean.

See you on the other side!

Jo

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CREDITS Michael Fleischner, founder and President of http://www.marketingscoop.com/ Leah Goold-Haws www.experts.allbusiness.com www.entrepreneur.com www.brandboost.co.uk James Penn at AcceleratedNicheProfits.com for www.problogger.net Sonia Simone, CMO and Copyblogger Media - http://www.copyblogger.com/ http://www.hubspot.com/ Freelance writer Chris Martin Debbie Leven, http://www.prcoach.co.uk/ http://www.clickminded.com/ Rik Haslam at www.theguardian.com www.realbusiness.co.uk www.directorscentre.com Veb Anand, executive strategy director, Brand Union http://www.thebrandunion.com/ Jamillah Warner, Anthony Sills and Kylie Jane Kirkfield of http://www.infusionsoft.com/

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RESOURCES Free Marketing Planner https://qi107.infusionsoft.com/app/form/free-marketingactivitytemplate2014 Free Consultation Request https://qi107.infusionsoft.com/app/form/tomarketfreeconsultation Step By Step Website guide: https://qi107.infusionsoft.com/app/form/stepbystepwebsiteguiderequest Free Buyer Persona Template https://qi107.infusionsoft.com/app/form/free-buyingpersonastemplate Free Summer Reading List 2013 e-book https://qi107.infusionsoft.com/app/form/free-summerreading Should I Hire A Marketing Agency? https://qi107.infusionsoft.com/app/form/should-i-use-a-marketing-agency

CONTENTS Marketing Plan 10 Key Components of a Marketing Plan

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Marketing Insanity: Doing the Same Old Thing, Expecting Different Results

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Is your marketing based on firm foundations?

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Your brand What’s your brand experience?

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How Was It For You?

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Branding for Small Business

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What came first - content or design?

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Email marketing The Best and Worst Times To Send An Email

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Email Marketing for Small Business: Getting Customers to Sign Up

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The 5 worst email marketing mistakes you can make

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Social media & Blogging How to Market Your Business with Social Media

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The One Mistake Almost Everyone Makes on Twitter

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12 Tips for Elevating Your Blogs Posts to the Next Level

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Make your Twitter Profile Sizzle This Summer!

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Press and Public Relations 12 Most Damaging Things to Say to a Journalist

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Holiday Miracles do come true!

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Website Do you make these mistakes with your website?

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Search Engine Optimisation – SEO The 2014 SEO Checklist

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How to improve your site’s SEO: 4 experts share their priority checklist

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Mobile On the Pull – a guide to successful mobile marketing

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Other Thinking Creatively

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The best complaint ever?

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10 Ways To Improve Your Business Before Christmas

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Managing a small business: Productivity Tips

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Marketing Plan

Don’t be afraid to get creative and experiment with your marketing.

Mike Volpe, Chief Marketing Officer, Hubspot

MARKETING PLAN

10 Key Components of a Marketing Plan If you’re thinking about developing a marketing campaign, you need to begin with a marketing plan. Fortunately, it doesn’t have to be complicated in order to work. Here are the ten basic parts of a marketing plan.

Many expensive marketing plans end up on a shelf and rarely get implemented. Simple plans, if researched and implemented effectively, can have a great impact.

Regardless of the scope of your marketing plan, you must keep in mind that it is a fluid document. Every business needs to begin with a well structured plan that is based in thorough research, competitive positioning and attainable outcomes. Your plan should be the basis for your activities over the coming months. However, you should always be willing to enhance or redirect your plan based on what proves successful.

Marketing Plan Basics 1. Market Research Collect, organise, and write down data about the market that is currently buying the product(s) or service(s) you will sell. Some areas to consider: • Market dynamics, patterns including seasonality • Customers - demographics, market segment, target markets, needs, buying decisions • Product - what’s out there now, what’s the competition offering • Current sales in the industry • Benchmarks in the industry • Suppliers - vendors that you will need to rely on

5. Mission Statement Write a few sentences that state: • “Key market” who you’re selling to • “Contribution” - what you’re selling • “Distinction” - your unique selling proposition

3. Product Describe your product. How does your product relate to the market? What does your market need, what do they currently use, what do they need above and beyond current use?

6. Market Strategies Write down the marketing and promotion strategies that you want to use or at least consider using. Strategies to consider: • Networking - go where your market is • Direct marketing - sales letters, brochures, flyers • Advertising - print media, directories • Training programmes - to increase awareness • Write articles, give advice, become known as an expert • Direct/personal selling • Publicity/press releases • Trade shows • Web site

4. Competition Describe your competition. Develop your “unique selling proposition.” What makes you stand apart from your competition? What is your competition doing about branding?

7. Pricing, Positioning and Branding From the information you’ve collected, establish strategies for determining the price of your product, where your product will be positioned in the market and how you will achieve brand awareness.

2. Target Market Find niche or target markets for your product and describe them

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MARKETING PLAN

10 Key Components of a Marketing Plan 8. Budget Budget your pounds. What strategies can you afford?

What can you do in house, what do you need to outsource.

9. Marketing Goals Establish quantifiable marketing goals. This means goals that you can turn into numbers. For instance, your goals might be to gain at least 30 new clients or to sell 10 products per week, or to increase your income by 30% this year. Your goals might include sales, profits, or customer’s satisfaction.

10. Monitor Your Results Test and analyse. Identify the strategies that are working.

• Survey customers • Track sales, leads, visitors to your web site, percent of sales to impressions By researching your markets, your competition, and determining your unique positioning, you are in a much better position to promote and sell your product or service. By establishing goals for your marketing campaign, you can better understand whether or not your efforts are generating results through ongoing review and evaluation of results.

As mentioned earlier in this article, be sure to use your plan as a living document. Successful marketers continually review the status of their campaigns against their set objectives. This ensures ongoing improvements to your marketing initiatives and helps with future planning.

With thanks to Michael Fleischner, founder and President of MarketingScoop.com.

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MARKETING PLAN

Marketing Insanity: Doing the Same Old Thing, Expecting Different Results You’ve probably heard that Einstein quote about doing the same thing over and over again but expecting different results as being the definition of insanity.

Let’s face it, for a lot of small businesses out there, your marketing can feel like you’re doing the same thing over and over again, hoping this time it turns out differently.

It may not seem like you’re doing the same thing every time, but let me give you some examples of how a business might be making insane marketing mistakes.

Let’s say for example, you hired someone to do your marketing because they’ve got experience working with the local paper or they know a little bit about graphic design or they just seemed nice. After all, you’ve been handling the marketing and it’s time to bring in an expert.

But since you don’t know what your overall marketing goals are, you can’t communicate what you’d like your new marketing staff to accomplish.

No strategy + new person = same problems.

We can’t fix our marketing problems if we aren’t willing to dig a little deeper and find out what the issues are and how we can resolve them.

If you want to put forth a certain style/brand/look for your website – then ask to see samples from your web designer. Look at their portfolio and have a conversation with them. Do they seem easy to work with, willing to listen and have some examples that pique your interest?

Great – start there. But to just go based on price or the first listing in a search for web designers is INSANE! We’re talking about something as important as the 24/7 online presence for your business. Throw in SEO and we are talking about figuring out how to get your company website to even rank in the highly complex world of search engine optimisation. Take the time to map out a plan with your web designer & your SEO consultant. Trust me, it’s worth it.

Maybe you decided on a radio ad for your business.

Did you or the sales rep confirm any information about the station and the audience who will be listening? What about the time of day, length of spot and who your spot will be running alongside? These things matter. If you didn’t get some basic information the last time, switching stations is just kind of INSANE! Is your customer even listening to the radio? Do they prefer downloads and podcasts? Who are they and where can you find them?

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And what about hiring a marketing person? On the surface it sounds ideal – pass along the day to day of promoting and marketing your business to someone else.

But, how qualified should this person be? And if they are not that qualified but eager to learn – how qualified are you to see to it that you have some clear expectations in place and understand what it takes to achieve them?

If you were confused or overwhelmed when you ran your marketing, hiring someone equally overwhelmed or hoping someone will just figure it out as they go along is also a little INSANE. Crafting a strategy with some clear objectives will set the stage for mapping out your milestones so that you and your marketing staff can define expectations, meet challenges as they come and make sure your goals are met.

So – stop driving yourself insane. Take a deep breath, shift gears and really look at how you might do things differently this time. You’ll be glad you did!

Excepts taken from an article in http://experts.allbusiness.com by Leah Goold-Haws

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MARKETING PLAN

Is your marketing based on firm foundations?

Below is a hierarchy of marketing and business planning stages and provides a strong foundation for successful marketing.

Ask yourself the following questions. Start at the foundations (point 1 below) and work upwards!

8. Our Performance Indicators

How do our Targets and Objectives translate into the essential measurable aspects of performance and activity? Are these expectations, standards, ‘Key Performance Indicators’ (KPI’s), ‘Service Level Agreements’ (SLA’s), etc., agreed with the recipients and people responsible for delivery?

7. Our Targets and Objectives

How are our strategies comprised? How are these responsibilities and activities allocated across our functions and departments and teams? Who does what, where, when, how, for what cost and with what required effect and result? What are the timescales and measures for all the actions within our strategies, and who owns those responsibilities?

6. Our Strategies

How will we achieve our goal(s)? What needs to happen in order to achieve the things we plan? What are the effects on us and from where? Like planning a game of chess, what moves do we plan to make, why, and with what effects? How will we measure and monitor and communicate our performance? What are the criteria for measuring our performance and execution of our strategies?

5. Our Goal (or several goals in large or divisionalised businesses)

What is our principal goal? When do we plan to achieve it? How will we measure that we have achieved it? At what point will we have succeeded in what we set out to do? Goals can change of course, and new ones necessarily are developed as old ones are achieved - but at any time we need to know what our organisation’s main goal is, when we aim to achieve it, and how its achievement will be measured. And again all this needs to be agreed with our people - including our customers if we are very good indeed.

4. Our Mission (or Missions if there are separate businesses within the whole)

How do we describe what we aim to do, are and achieve? What is special about what we are and do, compared to any other organisation or business unit? Do our people understand and agree with this? Do our customers agree that it’s what they want?

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MARKETING PLAN

Is your marketing based on firm foundations?

3. Our Vision dependent on values and philosophy.

Where are we going? What difference will we make? How do we want to be remembered? In what ways will we change things for the better? Is this vision relevant and good and desired by the customers and staff and stakeholders? Is it realistic and achievable? Have we involved staff and customers in defining our vision? Is it written down and published and understood? The Vision is the stage of planning when the organisation states its relationship with its market-place, customers, or users. The Vision can also include references to staff, suppliers, ‘stakeholders’ and all others affected by the organisation.

2. Our Values - enabled by and dependent on philosophy and leadership.

Ethics, integrity, care and compassion, quality, standards of behaviour - whatever the values are - are they stated and understood and agreed by the staff? Do the values resonate with the customers and owners or stakeholders? Are they right and good, and things that we feel proud to be associated with?

1. fundamentally defined by the leadership. When things go wrong in an organisation people commonly point to causes, problems or mistakes closer to the point of delivery - or typically in operational management. Generally however, major operational or strategic failings can always be traced back to a questionable philosophy, or a philosophical purpose which is not fitting for the activities of the organisation.

How does the organisation relate to the world? This is deeper than values. What is the organisation’s purpose? If it is exclusively to make money for the shareholders, or to make a few million for the management buyout team when the business is floated, perhaps have a little re-think. Customers and staff are not daft. They will not be comfortable buying into an organisation whose deepest foundation is greed and profit. Profit’s fine to an extent, but where does it fit in the wider scheme of things?

Is it more important than taking care of our people and our customers and the world we live in? Does the organisation have a stated philosophy that might inspire people at a deeper level? Dare we aspire to build organisations of truly great worth and value to the world? The stronger our philosophy, the easier it is to build and run a great organisation.

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If you are an entrepreneur or leader, or anyone contributing to the planning process, think about what you want to leave behind you; what you’d want to be remembered for. This helps focus on philosophical issues, before attending to processes and profit.

Whatever your philosophy, ensure it is consistent with and appropriate for your organisational activities and aims. Your philosophical foundations must fit with what is built onto them, and vice-versa.

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Your Brand

Your culture is your brand.

Tony Hsieh, CEO, Zappos.com

YOUR BRAND What's Your Brand Experience?

Whilst UK Plc gets set to take to the world stage with the Diamond Jubilee, the Olympic Games and the Cultural Olympiad, the powers that be are working hard to ensure that every aspect of the country creates the right brand experience for those watching and visiting.

The same applies to you and your business.

The ‘experience’ is the key word. By creating environments where your customers can enjoy the experience of who you are and what you do, you will create a more memorable product or service. And that applies whether you’re building a stronger brand for your business, product or services - or even for yourself as an individual.

Branding is relevant to every part of your business. If you’re a £200 per visit beauty salon and you’ve spent a fortune on your reception area but left your toilets looking like a sewer, what kind of brand experience is that?

So, what is a brand and why is it important? To put it at its simplest, a brand is a promise. It encapsulates what people think about your business, product or service when they encounter it.

In order to know what your customers really think about your brand, it follows that an audit might be required so that you can understand how strong your brand actually

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is. Here are some thoughts about the kind of questions you need to be asking to help you to understand and take control of your brand: *

What do your customers think your brand offers?

*

their understanding of your brand what you wish it Is to be?

*

How is your ‘offer’ differentiated from your competitors?

*

Do people trust your brand to deliver that offer?

*

What personality do they attribute to it?

*

How does their perception alter once they have bought from you?

Building strong branding values is essential to developing a successful product or service. Think Apple, John Lewis or Iceland. You can conjure up an opinion about what they do and how they do it at a blink of an eye. This approach is for the long haul and those qualities and ways of working need to be maintained - inconsistencies can so easily knock down what you’ve built and erode customer confidence.

But it’s worth it. When there’s a difficult and competitive climate, differentiating yourself from your competitors might be a tough call and a customer’s brand experience can make all the difference.

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YOUR BRAND How Was It For You?

Example: Hotel Chocolat opened a store/café in London’s Borough market which is named after the place in St Lucia where the company’s cocoa is grown and resembles an old fashioned chocolatier and café. www.rabotestate.com It creates a complete experience from the front door, right through to the till and beyond.

What do you need to do to get on board?

1. Create

an environment that dictates your brand’s experience. What is your brand about?

Rabot Estate, Borough Market

2. Make

sure you’re creating experiences that are right for your customer. It’s important to find out what your customers are seeking, then you can address the needs of your clients within their experience.

3. You’ll

need to be consistent – build in methods of working within your business that maintain brand standards and don’t be complacent – constantly revise to ensure you’re on track.

Rabot Estate, St Lucia

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YOUR BRAND Branding for Small Business

In a world where retail experiences can often be the same, ambitious, experienced based businesses are the ones that are building their brands and winning loyal customers.

As a small retailer - or even a B2B company - just what is a ‘brand experience’ and how can you create it? It is conceptualized as sensations, feelings, cognitions and behavioural responses evoked by brand-related stimuli.

This could appear as part of a brand’s design and identity, packaging, communications, and environments.

Why is it important? The brand experience affects how a customer perceives your business whilst enjoying it and imprints impressions that are called upon way beyond that real-time experience.

According to Veb Anand of Brand Union, there are four elements of a great brand experience: Impression, interaction, responsiveness and resilience.

Impression – ‘I like what this brand has to offer me’ It’s simple – to attract a customer they have to like what a brand has to offer – in other words, its proposition.

The effectiveness of a brand’s proposition is based on its relevance to a customer – whether it firstly targets the right customer and then meets a need (or creates one

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first, in order to meet it). For instance, it’s hard to imagine that many people actively complained about vacuum cleaners losing suction (my Miele has worked brilliantly for years – or has it?), but Dyson plants the seed of doubt – and then swoops in with ‘cyclone’ technology.

Another key element of making the right impression is differentiation. Standing out from peer brands is important but standing out across categories can ensure share of mind in a world where consumers are constantly assaulted with competing marketing messages. But probably the most critical element is that the proposition must be based on organisational truths. If it doesn’t link to a core competency, and operational advantage, to business strategy (or even all three), it has the potential to leave the brand exposed.

Interaction – ‘This brand does what it says’ Creating a brand is all well and good, but how often do customers find that it isn’t delivering on what it promised?

Optimising delivery is contingent, first and foremost, on consistency. If a brand doesn’t consistently reinforce its message through every possible touch point, it’s missing an opportunity to optimise the opportunities created by the impression. Several organisations today are aligning their ‘experience’ across bricks-and-mortar operations as well as online channels in an effort to do this.

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YOUR BRAND Branding for Small Business The other key component of delivery is access – is the brand available to people when and where they want it with an effective channel, distribution and online strategy?

And finally there’s the delivery – if Plenty kitchen towels didn’t actually absorb 25% more as compared with store label towels, it would simply lose all credibility.

Responsiveness – ‘This brand responds to my needs’ If impression and interaction seem like standard brand fare, this element is where brands truly start to make a difference. ‘Personalisation’ (not to be mistaken for bespoke) is an essential requirement to ensuring your brand doesn’t become commoditised. At the basic end, this can mean variants of shampoo that address ‘issues’ such as dandruff, frizz or hair-loss. At a more sophisticated end, it means a digital strategy that adapts itself to users to deliver a custom experience, the more and more you use it.

Responsiveness also includes the concept of approachability. This is about more than just general access – it’s about a customer feeling that a brand like First Direct can be approached easily and will respond appropriately. Perhaps most important however, is the concept of adaptability – does the brand pro-actively look at its audiences and practice incremental innovation that addresses needs or adapts to emerging lifestyles?

For instance, when British Airways introduced electronic boarding passes, it was based on an understanding of how their customers’ lifestyles were changing.

end up with horsemeat, or that your dishwashing liquid doesn’t suddenly earn itself a reputation for wiping out entire ecosystems.

Brands also need to be future-proof – this now transcends categories like banks that are meant to safeguard your assets and provide much needed credit to businesses over extended periods of time. Today, brands in almost any category that aren’t perceived as having strong businesses behind them simply lack credibility, which can undermine the other elements of the brand experience. The ultimate component of this category however, is category influence. Brands that think beyond the confines of categories, markets and capabilities – Apple, Google, Amazon, Netflix – are usually the ones that shatter conventions, transform expectations and change the way customers live their lives.

Impression and interaction represent the basics of a well-functioning brand. But one could argue that it’s the brands that exemplify responsiveness and resilience that are much more likely to enjoy enduring success and deliver long-term value.

Resilience – ‘This brand cares about our future’ One may see this element as a nice-to-have, but it’s the pillar that some of the world’s most powerful brands build their businesses around. A key element of resilience is imparting a reputation of ‘responsibility’. This has far outgrown traditional expectations of being ‘sustainable’ – it now manifests itself as organisational integrity. No one expects a brand to be infallible, which is maybe why Apple gets away with suicides at manufacturing plants in China or how Nike managed to ultimately come out on the right side of a sweat shop scandal. It’s about perception more than anything else – but it does mean brands now have to subject their supply chains to unprecedented scrutiny – so that your burgers don’t

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YOUR BRAND What came first – the content or the design?

For some, the answer is easy. But like the chicken and the egg, any marketing professional worth their salt knows the answer to that question is far from simple.

Three words to send shivers down any designer’s spine: “make it fit.” But getting content to work seamlessly with design requires more than mere sub-editing and word count-culling. For both elements to shine, they need to be working together from the get go.

Back when I first started out as a designer, the old school agency approach was very much built around creative teams, particularly the classic pairing of copywriter and designer. They would come as a package, a duo. They’d spend more time with each than with their husbands and wives. They’d be hours in the local coffee shop (or, more often than not, the pub) chewing ideas over before nailing a winner to the mast.

In the digital era, it’s capacities that have expanded, not horizons. And with this, more pressure is heaped on marketers to deliver, deliver, deliver. Allowing time for chinstroking and pontification seems like a luxury many can illafford. But to completely shut this element of the process out is always a false economy. Good communications live or die on the strength of the ideas; and it’s vital that these ideas are grown naturally and are articulated with equal measure through both copy and design.

A good strapline is only ever as good as its graphical treatment, and equally the visual cannot survive in a vacuum without good supporting copy.

If you send over that twenty-page word document already signed off by the CEO, with the instruction, “make it work”, will it? If your designer is good, quite probably.

But will it have impact? Will it get your vision across? Will interest and inspire?

The designer should always be given an opportunity to engage with the content at an early stage. Give them a chance to help shape the direction of the copy. It’s an iterative process, and one which will always benefit from a bit of co-collaboration.

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When pulling together your content, you’ll more than likely go through three key stages: • Conducting

your research, your interviews, and starting to plan the detail of content; • Taking a step back, reviewing your pieces as a whole, trying to draw some themes that link them together; • Focusing

down on one lead theme and going back to shape your content accordingly.

If you’re up against a tight deadline, can you still plough on with the content before you’ve engage a designer?

Absolutely. Practical needs often must. But try to avoid going too far down the line in your approval process before diarising that creative briefing session.

The point here is; don’t feel you need get your designer involved in the first stage if it’s not practical, but try to consult with them as much as possible during the second, and try not to proceed to the third without them. Unless, of course, you’re happy to tell them to just “make it work”….

Tash South tash@to-market.co.uk

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Email Marketing

Don’t use big words, they mean so little.

Oscar Wilde

EMAIL MARKETING The Best and Worst Times To Send An Email Despite the marketing and PR world’s love affair with social media, email remains a key component of any media relations or marketing campaign. Plus, it’s the primary way agencies and clients stay in touch.

Whether we like it or not, email isn’t going anywhere, at least not in the near future.

For those professionals whose livelihood depends on email open rates and click-through numbers, an infographic with data from email software provider GetResponse will be of great use.

GetResponse analyzed more than 21 million emails sent by its clients during the first quarter of 2012. Among the findings: • 23.63

percent of all emails are opened within the first hour; that number drops off precipitously as the hours tick by; • Most

emails are sent from 6 a.m. to noon; the least amount occur from midnight to 6 a.m.; • The

hours that see the most click-thrus are 8 a.m. and 9 a.m., and 3 p.m. and 8 p.m.; • The

hours that see the most opens are 8 a.m. and 9 a.m., and 3 p.m. and 4 p.m.

“The best time to send emails is when customers are reviewing their inboxes,” the infographic says.

“For maximum open and click rates choose morning and early afternoon.”

Source: www.entrepreneur.com See the infographic (image)

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EMAIL MARKETING The Best and Worst Times To Send An Email

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EMAIL MARKETING Email Marketing for Small Business: Getting Customers to Sign Up! So many of our customers ask, when confronted with the prospect of building their email lists, “How do I get people to sign up?” Well, here’s some sound advice from Jamillah Warner of Infusionsoft.com: “Having your own engaged email list is one of the most important assets you can own,” according to James Penn in the ProBlogger article “10 Ways To Get More Email Subscribers For Your Blog.” It’s more than just a list. Email marketing for small business - now there’s a chance to build a relationship.

However, a key step to a successful campaign is actually having people on the list.

How do you get your website visitors and clients to sign up?

Ask Them • Ask

customers to sign up at the register or the front desk of your business.

• Ask

them on the home page of your website and on your Facebook page.

• Ask them at the bottom of every blog post.

Send out emails to current and past clients, and be sure to include a link to the form on your website where they can sign up for your email list. Many small business owners will be surprised at how many will join the list, just because of a clear call to action.

Your request can be a simple, direct phrase — “join now!” — or it can demonstrate how many are already a part of your community. CopyBlogger’s messaging says, “Join over 93,000 smart people today, enter your email address.” A caveat, though: If there are only two people on your list so far, then this wouldn’t work for your company.

In a face-to-face environment — at the register or front desk of your company, for example — you want the request to feel natural. You don’t want the client to miss the opportunity to sign up, but you don’t want them to feel bullied, either.

Give your team the words to use and have them practice asking each other: “Would you like to sign up for our email list before you go? That way we’ll remind you when there’s a sale or the new spring line comes out.” You’ve just told your client that there’s more to come and you’ve given them the room to say, “No thank you,” without feeling guilty.

Location, Location, Location When it comes to a brick-and-mortar business, it boils down to location. McDonald’s, for example, is less about the hamburger and more about those prime pieces of real estate that the restaurants occupy from city to city. The right location makes them easy to find.

Likewise, your website’s email sign-up form and clear call to action have to be easy for your visitors to discover. In a newspaper, it would be called “above the fold.” But in this digital world, you want your clients to see your request without having to scroll.

Place your main sign-up form and call to action at the top of your website. Even if you give your visitors a chance to sign up in multiple locations, make sure the first place is straightforward.

Ask your customer to join the list right before or after they check out, and have a sign-up sheet handy (along with a pen).

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www.to-market.co.uk

hello@to-market.co.uk

020 3281 1897

EMAIL MARKETING The 5 worst email marketing mistakes you can make At To Market one of the first things we often do with a client to get the marketing party started is to get their email marketing up and running. We saw this neat piece from online digital marketing agency Brandboost and thought it was a great piece to share: 1. Not complying with the law. It’s a legal requirement that all B2B marketing emails have an unsubscribe option and contain the sender’s full postal address. It’s also good practice as it helps to instil trust with the recipients (you’re less likely to be viewed as a dodgy trader if you comply).

The law is a lot stronger for consumer email marketing where gaining an ‘opt-in’ is compulsory.

2. Not using an ESP (Email Service Provider – a specialist in the creation, management and delivery of emails, specifically for marketing purposes). Saving money by sending marketing emails from your internal systems is a false economy and a potentially dangerous one. Most ESPs supply services that usually include easy mailing list segmentation, automated unsubscribing, analytics that show open and click-through details and much more. And, most importantly, their systems, processes and relationships with the ISPs (Internet Service Providers) can prevent your untutored emailing from getting you blacklisted as a spammer and losing all your business email functionality.

3. Not considering the subject line value. Too often subject lines are treated as an afterthought to the main email text, but getting them right is critical for getting your email noticed and for improving open rates. The subject line can make or break an email and it needs to reflect the main thrust of the email content, in hopefully 50 characters or less.

5. Ignore basic spamming processes. Spam filtering can damage your email campaign if you don’t handle it right. This starts with accurate and correctly formatted coding, don’t just do a ‘save as’ from Word into HTML. Also be careful of the words you use and their frequency of use. Don’t use the words that are always used by spammers, you know the ones… offering gentleman’s physical enhancement aids, or financial improvement programmes (I’m being careful what I say here). Also don’t use overtly pushy sales talk and, wherever possible, use normal every day conversational language. Oh, and don’t repeat yourself too often.

Spam filters give each email a score for each contravention against its own list of spam criteria. Once the email reaches a predetermined overall ‘spam’ total the email gets sent to the junk folder. Other things to avoid include using lots of large text, certain coloured text (red for example) lots of capital letters and plenty of other stuff. www.brandboost.co.uk

4. Embedding text in images. Having a whizzy design with lovely big images and colourful typography included might be a designer‘s dream, but all too often it’s a recipient’s nightmare. With so many email clients having images switched off as default, a degree of pragmatism is necessary at the design stage so that the email has enough compelling text viewable to all recipients to induce them to switch on the images. If not, they might easily decide to delete the email when all they can see is a few box outlines with ‘x’s in the top left corners.

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www.to-market.co.uk

hello@to-market.co.uk

020 3281 1897

Social media & blogging

Social media are tools. Real time is a mindset.

David Meerman Scott, Marketing Strategist, Author of The New Rules of Marketing and PR

SOCIAL MEDIA & BLOGGING How to Market Your Business with Social Media (without wasting hours every day) Copyblogger.com is a comprehensive resource for the serious content writer. Lest we forget what social media is all about, this recent post by Sonia Simone, CMO and co-founder, provides a ‘reset’ button.

I started using social platforms to hang out on the web in 1989, and the thing that’s been most striking to me is how not revolutionary they are.

They all allow you to expand your potential audience with surprising speed. They’re all a battle for your audience’s attention, with dozens or hundreds of competing messages floating by in any given session. And they can all suck every moment of your day if you aren’t careful.

So today we’re going to talk about how a smart content marketer uses social media — and how to put up some boundaries that will preserve time to get your work done, spend time with your family, and all that other important stuff.

2. Social media is a curation platform

1. Social media is a sharing platform

But don’t just share your own content. Share anything you think is likely to be useful to your audience on that platform.

Smart people on social sites look smart because they share a lot of good stuff. That means you need to make sure your content is the kind of thing smart people will want to share.

What makes for shareable content? It’s a lot of what we’ve talked about already.

• It has a killer headline. Believe it or not, lots of folks online will share a piece strictly based on whether the headline makes the promise of a good read.

• For most sites, it has a great post image. Images are prominent on most social sites, like Facebook or Google+. On Pinterest, of course, they’re the main event. Strong post images will help your content get read and shared.

• Clean, good-looking site design with highly userfriendly formatting makes for a great reader experience — and that will increase your shares.

• Sites that get rid of plagues like slow load times or obtrusive pop-ups often see social sharing go up.

• And of course, all of the other elements of high-quality content that we’ve already talked about.

Most important, make your content remarkably useful and reasonably entertaining and reader-friendly. That’s the kind of content that influential social media mavens like to share.

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One use, of course, of a social media account for your business is to share your own content on a platform your users are likely to be using.

Look for the same useful, entertaining mix that you strive for on your own site. You can also share a few things just for a smile, or an “aha!” moment of inspiration. Share what your audience will enjoy, and will re-share themselves.

Look for content that triggers those high arousal emotions that are more likely to go viral (in other words, to get widely shared). And if you have a talent for such things, you might use a meme generator to create a few images of your own. It’s a good idea to include your website name (not your Facebook or other page) on any meme images you create, so the attention you attract can be directed back into your business.

3. Social media is a connection platform This is the way that most social media gurus think you should be using the social web — and it has a few advantages. It’s fun, and it helps your audience see that you’re a real, caring human being.

The problem is, it’s a horrifying time sink. And sadly often, it’s a waste of your time. Schmoozing on social media feels like work, but unless you’re connecting with someone who can actually move your business forward, a little goes a long way.

www.to-market.co.uk

hello@to-market.co.uk

020 3281 1897

SOCIAL MEDIA & BLOGGING How to Market Your Business with Social Media (without wasting hours every day) One connection strategy that can be quite useful, though, is to use social media platforms to strengthen connections with other web publishers in your topic.

Most bloggers have a bit of a social media addiction.

(Twitter is the most likely hangout for bloggers in most topics, but look around and see what holds true for your niche.) Social media hangouts are a good place to let those publishers know you’re smart, a cool person, and someone they might want to work with.

Your sanity saver strategy #1: Always remember that social media is a secondary activity. Most of the time, you don’t want to spend hundreds of hours or thousands of dollars creating a big presence on a social media site.

Instead of focusing on how many Google+ circles you’re in or how many Facebook Likes you’ve collected, focus on your business, your email list, and your primary site first. That’s particularly helpful when your social media site makes an annoying change — which they always seem to do eventually.

Your sanity saver strategy #2: You want to set fairly crisp boundaries around your social media time. It’s the nature of these sites to invite “just one more refresh” — and before you know it, the most productive chunk of your day is gone forever.

The best boundary-setting tool is a simple timer — it can be one on your computer, your phone, or just an ordinary kitchen time. Decide in advance how long you’re willing to devote to each social site you use. Also decide what time you’ll do that (avoiding your peak productivity hours).

When the timer goes off, close the window and move on.

Don’t keep a social media window open all day — at least if you ever want to get any real work done.

Sonia Simone, CMO and co-founder of Copyblogger Media

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www.to-market.co.uk

hello@to-market.co.uk

020 3281 1897

SOCIAL MEDIA & BLOGGING The One Mistake Almost Everyone Makes on Twitter Thank you to www.hubspot.com for this valuable tip!

Here’s the thing: If I started a tweet by @-mentioning someone without adding in any character to start the tweet, the only people who could see that tweet would be HubSpot, me, and anyone who happens to follow both of us. My followers would never see that appear in their feeds.

This is a very subtle nuance to Twitter that plenty of folks miss: If you want all of your followers to see your tweet in their stream, you MUST start a tweet with a character and not an @username.

Yup, that’s right -- that means all those tweets you sent starting with @ weren’t visible to the audience you thought would see it.

One common explanation for why Twitter sets up tweets this way is that it wants to allow two people to interact with each other, have a conversation, and engage freely without spamming their respective followers’ feeds. It adds very little value to me if I can see every single tweet from @HubSpot saying “Thanks!” to others -- unless I also follow who @HubSpot is thanking.

Makes sense, right? If I volunteered to follow each person or brand individually, I’m telling Twitter I’m interested in what they both have to say. A conversation between the two could then be valuable or interesting to me. If I only followed one, though, that’s far less likely. (After all, I’m not really likely to care what my friend is saying to a complete stranger.) Twitter gets this dynamic and has created this rule accordingly.

Why is this alteration to your tweets so important to get right? Well, think of it this way: Not making this change could be the difference between a tweet that many Twitter users view, share, and react to, and a tweet that essentially no one sees.

The Right Way to Tweet for the Right Audience Here’s a look at exactly who sees what kinds of tweets:

Note: This excludes direct messages (DMs), which are the one-to-one private messages on Twitter.

The above table references regular tweets only.

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www.to-market.co.uk

hello@to-market.co.uk

020 3281 1897

SOCIAL MEDIA & BLOGGING 12 Tips for Elevating Your Blogs Posts to the Next Level This guest post by Chris Martin is really spot on!

You know the phrase, “you must learn to crawl before you can walk”? Well, ever since you started content marketing by blogging, you’ve developed a nice writing routine, produced some thoughtful content, and even roped in a decent number of readers. So, as a blogger, you’re crawling along just fine. But what if you want to start walking? Or running? Or even ... blasting off into the stratosphere?

What do you need to do to take the next step from simply blogging to blogging well? Here are a dozen suggestions on how to get to the next level: 1. Link, link, link. Not only is it good manners to link to sources on the Web that you cite, refer to, or comment on; but it also fleshes out your topic and gives readers another place to go if they want to learn more.

2. Less is more. Get in the habit of reading over your blog entries before you post them. Then take out any unnecessary verbiage. The leaner your posts are, the more effective they will be.

3. Vary the lengths of your posts. Specifically, mix short (or very short) posts in between more informative or feature-length entries. This will help prevent reader fatigue. Here’s a good example.

4. Incorporate other media. Images, photos, diagrams, graphs, and even video will draw the reader in more than text-only posts will. Using this approach, this blog manages to make gutters and gutter guards look interesting.

brainstorming related ideas and jotting them down as well. This could result in a plethora of new content.

8. Try different types of posts. If you’re stuck on lists, debates, and satirical content, why not try branching out into reviews, interviews, how-tos, profiles, and case studies?

9. Update your previous posts. There’s nothing wrong with taking a topic you blogged about weeks or months ago and updating it with new information or a fresh perspective. Like this blog post does.

10. Get on a schedule. Plan out your writing times and stick to your plan. Consider producing different blog entry types on different days (Monday is a rant, Tuesday is humor, etc.).

11. Review your material. Every month or so, go back over your posts to make sure you’re not simply rehashing the same stuff over and over.

12. Hire writers. It may cost you a few bucks, but it will almost definitely vary your content substantially!

Here’s another catchphrase: If you’re not moving forward, you’re going backward. So if you want to continue to be a blogger, you’ve got to keep striving to get better. Because if you can’t keep your readers engaged, they may just find someone else who can.

Freelance writer Chris Martin has produced content about topics ranging from roofing contractors to blogging to reverse mortgages.

5. Never take titles for granted. Readers will often share posts simply because of the title – without even reading the entry itself! Blogs like this one get lots of mileage out of their titles.

6. Read, read, read. It’s easy to get stuck in the echo chamber of the blogosphere. Reading different types of news and entertainment sources can kick-start your creativity regarding new blog topics.

7. Actively brainstorm new topics. Also called mindmapping, it involves writing down a blog topic and then

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www.to-market.co.uk

hello@to-market.co.uk

020 3281 1897

SOCIAL MEDIA & BLOGGING Make Your Twitter Profile Sizzle This Summer!

1. It’s all in the avatar! What does your Twitter picture say about you? Inject personality into your Twitter stream with a professional pic of you, not just the company logo, and definitely NOT the Twitter egg.

2. Why should anyone read your tweets? Include a call to action wherever possible – it’s all about engagement.

3. The more tweets you send, the higher your number of followers. Don’t overlook that engagement though...

4. Be positive! Nobody likes a moany Minnie dragging them down – even in the virtual world 5. Work on your Twitter biog. Set your mind to it and you’ll be amazed at what you can say in 160 characters.

6. Including “Please RT” in your tweets makes your tweets 4 times more likely to be re-tweeted.

7. Check the spelling and grammar BEFORE you hit send – you will be judged for typos and bad spelling.

Avoid text-speak too – you’re not a 14 year old.

8. It’s not all about you. Using Twitter as a self-promo tool will lose you followers a lot quicker than you gained them in the first place 9. There’s no harm in the occasional flirt but be professional and don’t take things too far – it’s far too easy to be misunderstood in 140 characters.

10. Invest in a bespoke Twitter background and header image – it’s valuable real estate space that costs nothing.

Cheryl Turner Cheryl@to-market.co.uk

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www.to-market.co.uk

hello@to-market.co.uk

020 3281 1897

Press & PR

Goodbye, Broadcast. Hello, Conversation.

Shel Israel, co-author of Naked Conversations

PRESS & PR 12 Most Damaging Things to Say to a Journalist Press and media coverage can greatly boost your profile and help to build reputation, credibility and trust. Getting the attention of journalists is one thing, but how you handle speaking to them is another. Get that wrong and you could well put your reputation, and that of your business, at risk.

Really useful information here from Debbie Leven of http://www.prcoach.co.uk/ So, here are 12 tips for what you shouldn’t say to a journalist in a chat or a formal interview.

1. “I want to approve what you write” Of course, you want a favorable write up from a journalist, who wouldn’t? Unfortunately, the cold reality is that the journalist’s loyalty isn’t to you but to their editor and to their readers, viewers and listeners. The third party endorsement of being featured in the press and media is incredibly powerful. Remember, however, that while you control the information you give to a journalist, you cannot control what they do with it. You should never demand to see copy or feel like it is your right to see and approve it.

2. “Off the record” The phrase “off the record” is sometimes misunderstood and this is often where individuals can trip up. Many people assume that “off the record” means that you can’t be identified as a source of information or a quote.

While you may not be named, the journalist can still make reference to your gender, your job role and who you work for — a combination of those could well make you recognizable.

3. “No comment” Quite simply, the phrase “no comment” smacks of guilt or suggests you have something to hide. There are so many ways to handle a tricky media interview and to steer the conversation around, but “no comment” is not one of them. As well as suggesting guilt and putting doubt into the minds of listeners and readers, it also encourages the journalist to probe further until they get an answer they are satisfied with.

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4. Lie Even if you feel under extreme pressure in an interview with a journalist, there is no excuse for lying. If you don’t know the answer to a question, then there is no problem with admitting that and saying you will come back to them with an answer. The key is to follow up and provide the additional information you promised. If you lie, then you start to dig yourself into a hole that becomes very difficult to get out of and you could easily find your reputation in tatters once the lie has been exposed.

5. “This is the story you should write” A journalist isn’t interested in you or your business, but they are interested in news and ideas that will inform, educate and engage their readers, viewers and listeners.

They are always interested in the human interest aspect in any story and how that impacts on, and benefits, their respective audiences. So, telling a journalist what they should write is a sure fire way of getting all future approaches and pitches ignored.

6. Offer an “exclusive” when it isn’t Nothing gets a journalist more excited than the thought of an exclusive. It’s something that can catapult careers to the highest levels. If you have a story, then you want to get as much coverage for it as possible, but you have to decide in advance whether you issue it to all your relevant contacts in one go or offer it as an exclusive to an individual journalist. There are pros and cons to both, but never offer the story as an exclusive to several journalists at the same time. In the short term, you might get coverage — but if it will damage future relations beyond repair, it just isn’t worth it.

www.to-market.co.uk

hello@to-market.co.uk

020 3281 1897

12 Most Damaging Things to Say to a Journalist 7. Promise something you can’t deliver Whether you have been contacted by a journalist out of the blue or in response to a news announcement you have issued, it’s important not to get carried away.

Journalists work to tight timeframes and good working relations with them are built on being reliable and trustworthy — that means delivering on your promises regarding information, comment and help. So, don’t over promise and get clarity on deadlines if you are going to come back to them with further information.

8. That you’ll take the story to a competitor if they don’t use it There are many reasons why a journalist may not use your story including timing, the space available in a target publication, weak appeal, lack of human interest, or that similar stories having been already covered recently.

That’s just the way it goes and you should never take a refusal personally or try to force the issue. You are better off taking the time to find out why the story does not appeal so that you can make future approaches stronger.

9. “I can’t do an interview” — when you’ve approached them in the first place If a journalist approaches you out of the blue for an interview, then it’s your job to get as much information as possible to decide whether doing the interview would be helpful for you and your business or not. If, however, you have issued a press release or a comment, then you need to make yourself available for interviews. It’s frustrating for a journalist to have an opportunity for a story presented to them, but then find that following up is difficult because key contacts are unavailable or inaccessible. There is no excuse for that and it can be highly damaging.

10. “It’s all in the press release — just read that” Journalists are under extreme pressure and may only scan a few lines of a press release before wanting to speak to you to get the full story. It’s important not to make any assumptions about what they have read or what they understand. The aim of the press release is to get a journalist to contact you. So, make the most of it when they do.

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11. “You shouldn’t have written that about my company” If you or your business have not been represented fairly in the press and media, then it can be distressing and stressful. You need to take emotion out of the situation, however, and ask yourself whether the facts reported are accurate and whether you were clear in what you said to the journalist. There is room for recompense and for complaining if you feel you have not been treated well and it has damaged your reputation, but think carefully about progressing with this. You don’t want to build a reputation for being someone who complains all the time and makes threats.

12. Anything you say to a journalist when the official chat or interview is over Once the interview has finished and the dictaphone or microphone is switched off, then you still need to stay in interview mode. Never assume the interview is over until you are safely back at your desk or at home. What you say after the interview can still be reported and there have been many high profile instances where reputations have been damaged as a result. Don’t fall into that trap.

Make the most of speaking to journalists but avoid these common pitfalls to keep your reputation intact and to build long lasting working relations with them.

What tips would you share for speaking to journalists to add to this list?

Featured image courtesy of John Liu licensed via Creative Commons.

Debbie Leven http://www.prcoach.co.uk/

www.to-market.co.uk

hello@to-market.co.uk

020 3281 1897

PRESS & PR Holiday Miracles do come true!

Love this PR stunt from WestJet Airlines!

Holiday miracles really do come true, even on airplanes.

Lucky passengers aboard two WestJet flights from southern Ontario to Calgary in November got their holiday gift wishes granted as they flew across Canada.

Before boarding, passengers were invited scan their boarding passes that allowed them to talk with a virtual Santa who asked them what they wanted for Christmas.

Hidden cameras recorded their gift requests.

While the plane was in the air, over 150 “merry WestJetters” acted as Santa’s elves, rushing out to stores and nabbing the items on the passengers’ lists, according to a release from the Canadian-based WestJet. By the time the flights landed four hours later, the 250 unsuspecting passengers were greeted by a festive display at baggage claim and were handed gifts they had asked for.

One woman broke out into tears when she got the digital camera she asked for. A man, who asked for practical socks and underwear, seemed to be overjoyed.

“This year, we wanted to turn our holiday campaign into a tradition by doing something that’s never been done before,” said Richard Bartrem, WestJet vice president of communications and community relations. “Inspired by

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the notion of real-time giving, we wanted to surprise our guests with meaningful, personalized gifts when they least expected them. Being able to show our guests how much we care with gift-giving, a tried and true holiday tradition, resonates with WestJetters as much as our guests.”

But the holiday spirit doesn’t end there. A video of the event, just released, was created for another purpose: Once it reaches 200,000 views, the airline said it would donate flights through Ronald McDonald House Charities to families and children in need. It looks like they’ll be booking flights soon. The video has already gotten over 1 million views.

Have a look! https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_ embedded&v=zIEIvi2MuEk#t=0

www.to-market.co.uk

hello@to-market.co.uk

020 3281 1897

Website, SEO,Mobile & Other

Content is king but marketing is queen and runs the household.

Gary Veynerchuk

WEBSITE Do you make these mistakes with your website?

These days, it’s essential to have a website to promote your business. But while a great website can attract new customers, a website of poor quality can cost you money and damage your reputation.

One study by web hosting provider 1&1 Internet found that more than half of American consumers have decided to steer clear of a company in the future as a result of a flawed website; another study discovered that “46 percent of U.S. consumers have cancelled plans to spend with a small business after discovering a poor quality website.”

It’s important for entrepreneurs and small businesses to be able to identify and address any potential problems so that their websites help rather than hurt them. Here are some common mistakes small business owners make with their websites, and tips on how you can avoid those mistakes.

Copy Many business owners focus solely on the design aspect of building their website and neglect the copy. But most people don’t actually read online; they scan. This makes your copy even more important than you realise. Your copy should be scannable, make good use of the proper keywords and have a clear call to action.

Strategy One mistake many business owners make is trying to target everyone without knowing their target market. It’s important to have a strategy or clear plan for your website before you design or redesign the site. Spend some time thinking about what you want your website to do and why people will be visiting you online.

Another strategic error is to build your site on a free subdomain or social media site. Your main web presence should be completely under your control. All your hard work could be lost if you have to move your website for any reason.

Stale, out-of-date content makes your visitors distrust you. Not identifying the benefits of your products or services is also a big copy mistake. Tell your customer clearly how what you do helps them, as your website copy is vital to your online success.

Finally, don’t neglect customer feedback — give visitors a way to provide their input. Many customers are eager to give reviews or recommendations for improving a small business website. Add a feedback form to your website, and encourage user comments.

And don’t forget to check the text for typos, or better yet, have someone else with a fresh eye take a look.

It’s easier than you think to build a well-designed, properly functioning website. Don’t make the mistakes that some businesses do. Remember, if people can’t find what they’re looking for, they will just move on to your competitor’s website.

Design Some small business websites focus on “the look” of their website, yet forget that site design should be entirely about the customer. That means usability and utility should be more important than visual design.

Thanks to Anthony Sills of Infusionsoft

Don’t make your visitors figure anything out. They don’t want to think — they want a solution to their problem.

Too much clutter and confusion will cause people to leave your site. So will slow-running websites, design that’s too busy or flashy, overuse of technology and broken URLs. Test all of your forms, shopping carts and links to make sure they work.

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www.to-market.co.uk

hello@to-market.co.uk

020 3281 1897

SEO The 2014 SEO Checklist A great guide here from www.ClickMinded.com:This list covers the top 30 things you should consider when it comes to getting a new site live and into the search index.

This list covers the top 30 things you should consider when it comes to getting a new site live and into the search index. It has been updated for 2013. It uses a simple script to tally everything you check off. Once you’ve completed it, it will give you a score out of 30 possible points at the bottom of the page.

There’s one thing I want to reiterate before you embark on your SEO checklist journey: On-page optimization is best thought about as incrementally beneficial. The big mistake people tend to make is that they find a checklist, they go through every thing on it, they read every single one line-by-line and say “ZOMG, I don’t have my keyword in my ALT tag, I can’t rank for this phrase until I put it in!!

Wrong. If you can get everything on this list, that’s great! If you can only get most, that’s okay too. You want to make your site as SEO-friendly as possible, but in general, it’s very unlikely that you’ll be able to do all these things. That said, try your best!

The 2014 SEO Checklist Check off items as you go along.

Feel free to keep this page open so that you can refer back.

Maximum 30 points.

Not all of these may apply to your situation.

Total Score:

/30

ave you created a new Google Account and Email H address for your site? This isn’t necessary, but always makes things easier for me .

Have you installed Google Analytics? This is not

optional!

Have you installed Google Webmaster Tools?

Again, not optional.

Have you installed Bing Webmaster Tools?

Do this too.

Using WordPress? Have you installed Google

Analytics for WordPress and SEO for WordPress?

These plugins will make your life 100x easier.

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www.to-market.co.uk

Have you checked Google Webmaster Tools for

404 / 500 errors, duplicate content, missing titles and other technical errors that Google has found?

Make sure to keep up with any messages Google is sending you.

Have you used Browseo to find even more technical

errors? The most common detrimental errors people tend to make are 302 redirects that should be 301 redirects.

Have you used Xenu to find any broken links you

might have? This is a free, easy way to check.

Have you used Google’s Keyword Research Tool?

Be sure to consider searcher intent and difficulty, pick 1 keyword per page, and you’ll generally want to start with lower-volume keywords first.

Have you looked at competitor link profiles? This is

the easiest way to get started with link building. This way, you can see what kind of anchor text they’re using, as well as how and where they’ve been getting their links. Input competitor domains at Link Diagnosis, Open Site Explorer, Ahrefs, Majestic SEO and LipperHey Have you incorporated your primary keyword (or

something close) into your page URL? Are all of your title tags ~65 characters or less? Title

tags over this will be truncated in results.

Are all of your meta description tags ~155 characters

or less? Meta description tags over this will be truncated in results.

Have you used an H1 tag? Is your keyword in the

tag? Is it before any (H2, H3, H4…) tags? Are you only using 1 H1?

Do you have a healthy amount of search engine accessible text on your site? My recommendation is at least 100 words, because you want to give search engines an opportunity to understand what the topic

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SEO The 2014 SEO Checklist of your page is. You can still rank with less, and you don’t ever want to put unnecessary text on your site, but I recommend not creating a new page unless you have roughly ~100 words worth of content.

Did you use synonyms in your copy? Remember:

synonyms are great, and using natural language that’s influenced by keyword research (rather than just pure keywords) is highly encouraged!

Do your images have descriptive ALT tags and

filenames? Search engines “see” images by reading the ALT tag and looking at file names, among other factors. Try to be descriptive when you name your images. Don’t overdo it though!

Are you linking to your internal pages in an SEO friendly way? Are you describing the page your linking to in the anchor text, so that both users and search engines understand what it’s about?

I recommend not using anchor text in your global navigation because it can look like overoptimization. Stick to in-content links instead.

Have you started off-page optimization and began

building links? This is the hardest, most important aspect of SEO! Check out the ClickMinded Link Building Strategy Guide to get started.

Have you made sure your site isn’t creating any

duplicate content? Utilize 301 redirects, canonical tags or use Google Webmaster Tools to fix any duplicate content that might be indexing and penalizing your site.

some of the major networks (I’ve avoided linking directly to sign up pages because they keep changing): • http://www.twitter.com/brand-name • http://www.facebook.com/brand-name • http://www.yelp.com/biz/brand-name • http://www.youtube.com/user/brand-name • http://www.linkedin.com/in/brand-name • http://brand-name.wordpress.com/ • http://brand-name.tumblr.com/ • http://pinterest.com/brand-name/ • http://www.hulu.com/profiles/brand-name • http://technorati.com/people/brand-name • http://about.me/brand-name • http://brand-name.posterous.com/ • http://profile.typepad.com/brand-name • http://www.squidoo.com/lensmasters/brand-name • http://www.stumbleupon.com/stumbler/brand-name • http://www.etsy.com/people/brand-name • http://en.gravatar.com/brand-name • http://www.scribd.com/brand-name • http://brand-name.livejournal.com/ • http://brand-name.hubpages.com/ • http://www.flickr.com/photos/brand-name/ • http://photobucket.com/user/brand-name/profile/

Are you using absolute URLs in your code? Some

CMS platforms give you the option. Use absolute URLs instead of relative ones.

Is your site mobile friendly? Have you checked it on multiple browsers with BrowserStack?

Have you checked your site speed with Google Page

Speed Tools?

Have you setup social media accounts on Facebook,

Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+?

Have you created an XML sitemap and submitted

it to Google and Bing Webmaster Tools? Use XML-Sitemaps.com or the Google XML Sitemaps WordPress Plugin.

Have you added Authorship Markup to your site?

Use the Authorship Markup Walkthrough.

Have you used the MetaFever’s SEO On-Page

Optimization Report to double-check everything once you’re live?

Have you created a Robots.txt file and submitted it in

Google and Bing Webmaster Tools?

Have you claimed your business / website

username on other major networks for reputation management reasons? Not only do you want to make sure no one else gets your account name, but you can often “own” all the results on the first page of a search for your brand if you’re a new website or company. Here is the URL structure of

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Have you reviewed all of the free SEO tools at your

disposal before completing this audit? If you don’t understand some of the high-level concepts (don’t worry, it can be tough!), have you reviewed the Beginner’s Guide to SEO? www.ClickMinded.com

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SEO How to improve your site’s SEO: 4 experts share their priority checklist: SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) is a pretty dry yet essential topic to most startups, so I’ve compiled some straightforward and easy to follow tips from various SEO experts.

Dewi Nawasari, Search Marketing Manager at Autotrader defines SEO as a process of optimising your website to attract relevant customers who are searching for your service using search engines like Google and Yahoo.

Although she has not run SEO for any startup just yet, these are the things she recommends you to do to get started: 1) Create good navigation links.

Think about making your customer’s journey within your website as easy and smooth as possible. The shorter the steps they need to make to find your contact details, to register, or to complete a sale, the higher success rate you would receive. Search engines crawl your website through your navigation links, so if your customers are happily browsing, good chance that search engine crawlers are too.

2) Make your page copy relevant and descriptive.

When you type in a search in Google for example, you would see results with big font size titles and a snippet of description below the title, which serves as your first layer of marketing. You should include a homepage title and your description should briefly describe the type of service you do.

3) Include core content within your site.

Answer questions like what do you offer? How much does your service cost? Are you reliable and trustworthy?

Can you be easily reached?.

4) Get listed on local search engines and directories.

Start with the main players like Google Plus Local, Yahoo directory and Yelp, then down to the business and local government listings in your area. You increase the likelihood of your potential customers finding you when you make more listings.

5) Encourage as many reviews and testimonials as possible.

Reviews are allowed on your listings in local search engine and directories, but you should also enable them on your website to allow customers to use whichever medium they are comfortable with.

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6) Have a presence in relevant social media sites.

They add to the number of places your customers can leave reviews on, and it will be exposed to hundreds of their friends. It’s a great place to gain business via referrals.

7) Offer freebies.

Know of a great on-topic event to be told? Top tips and how to? Money-off a second service/sale? Make sure you publish it on your website, mention it on your Facebook page, and release it on your local news site. Good ontopic content gives you better chance to be listed in search engine results for on-topic searches.

8) Create a mobile optimised website.

Mobile usage is growing exponentially so now is the time to get ahead in the game.

Always keep in mind that SEO is not just a process to make sure search engines are happy, it is a process to make sure you are delivering the best customer service to your customers.

Ned Poulter, SEO Manager at Miinto also gives his round of SEO tips.

9) Set up Google Analytics to understand who is using your site While not necessarily SEO specific, first thing you should do is install Google Analytics and check that it’s installed on every page. The access to a vast array of user specific data is what separates digital from traditional marketing.

Use this to your advantage!

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SEO How to improve your site’s SEO: 4 experts share their priority checklist: 10 ) Set up Google Webmaster Tools to understand how search engines are interacting with your site Many are unaware of the great toolset that Google provides in the form of Google Webmaster Tools. Ensure that you verify your site with Webmaster Tools to allow the search engine itself to provide detailed information on how they see your site. Understand important issues like: • Is Google crawling your site? If so, how many pages is it discovering?

• What internal links are being recognised?

• What external links are pointed at your site?

Use this to help recognise when search engines are struggling to reach your content.

11) Create an XML sitemap One of the most simple actions a webmaster can take is to create an XML sitemap, this is best understood in layman’s terms as a ‘list of all of the URLs on your website’. Submitting this to Google Webmaster Tools ensures that you provide all pages that are active on your site, giving them a head start when trying to discover, and index, your content.

• Use a tool like this to create an XML sitemap • Submit sitemap to Google Webmaster Tools 12) Domain name resolution 301 redirect the canonical (e.g. http://example.com/) to the non-canonicalised version (e.g. http://www.example. com/) of your site. Otherwise, you may cause confusion for search engines as they struggle to decipher whether http://www.example.com/ or http://example.com/ is the correct page. Your browser could also just not find the requested URL on the server which can lead to a multitude of issues. This will also cause a bad experience for users as if they cannot find your home page, they may leave never to return again.

With this in mind, you should implement 301 redirects from the canonical (http://example.com/) to the noncanonical (http://www.example.com/). If this is too technical, get in touch with Ned and he might be able to help.

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Itching for more? Here’s a couple of pointers from Steve Morgan, Freelance SEO Consultant at Morgan Online Marketing: 13) Interlink between websites If you run multiple startups and/or multiple sites, make sure that they’re all linking to each other, whether it’s from the blog roll, footer links or somewhere else (e.g. About pages). It’s usually a quick win, something you have 100% control over implementing yourself.

14) Make sure that you link from social profile If/when you create company profiles for Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, etc., make sure that you include the link back to your site. You’d be amazed how many people either overlook this or simply forget to do it (e.g. if they’re in a hurry). While you may not get a lot of SEO value from the social profile links themselves, they may get picked up elsewhere (e.g. being on Twitter directories usually passes more SEO value than being on Twitter itself).

15) Network (offline)!

Go out and meet people – seriously! Go to local networking events and also see if there’s a startup community in your vicinity. Get to know people and suddenly opportunities such as guest blogging, article contribution and PR opportunities should increase dramatically, all of which should benefit your site’s SEO. 16) Sort out your Google Places listing If a list of Google Places results show up for your keywords (e.g. a Map with corresponding results), make sure that you get a Google Places listing sorted pronto. It’s free and quick to set up. In particularly noncompetitive spaces, simply creating a listing can be enough to rank without further optimisation required.

17) Be smart about choosing a domain Startups are notorious for choosing bizarre and wacky names (as well as domain names), but be smart about your domain name choice. For example, if you’re a cake shop called Fantastic Monkey (that’s a freebie if anyone wants it!), fanastic-monkey-cakes.co.uk might benefit you more than fm-uk.co, not only for brand searches but for keyword searches as well, due to the inclusion of “cakes”.

Of course, SEO isn’t the be-all-and-end-all of online marketing channels, but with something like a domain name, it makes sense to choose well right from the start.

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SEO How to improve your site’s SEO: 4 experts share their priority checklist: Finally, David Sottimano, SEO Consultant for Distilled categorises his tips by level:

Absolute Beginner level SEO Ensure that your site is accessible by search engines.

Use meta data, or HTML text for technology that search engines have trouble indexing, like Javascript, videos, and images.

General rules of thumb for new sites is to have no more than 100 links per page, keep the architecture no more than 3 levels deep and link your important pages from the homepage using descriptive anchor text. Lastly, every page title should be unique, descriptive, less than 70 characters long and contain the target keyword (preferably near the beginning).

With regards to creating exceptional, naturally link worthy assets on your site, remember two principles: “you need at least two of the following: time, money and talent” and you can still produce great content with no budget.

Stay away from quick win tactics including links from low quality syndication, article marketing, and buying links as these are not sustainable and targeted by Google’s Webspam team.

So there you have it, SEO tips to keep you busy for the next year or so!

Image credit: DAMIEN MEYER/AFP/Getty Images

Intermediate Assuming that your site is accessible, you’ll need to create some content and optimize to acquire search traffic. By using tools such as Google autocomplete, Ubersuggest, and your customer’s questions – you’ll come up with a list of keywords your audience will search for to find your website.

Once this list is complete, you’ll need to create exceptional pages targeting each broad topic. Example: Yahoo has a fantastic free online image optimization tool, but you would never be able to find it in search because of the keyword targeting .

Advanced Links are still the most important external ranking factor in Google’s algorithm, and it pays off to adopt a culture where everyone is responsible for marketing. Ask for links from friends, customers, business partners and encourage employees to reference the company website wherever they can (social media profiles for example).

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MOBILE On the Pull - A guide to successful mobile marketing Do 1. Create experiences and tools people will find useful.

Think about what interactivity you could add. One of the reasons an application is successful is that it does something, rather than says something. This can be quite a shift in thinking for traditional marketers.

Don’t 2. Confuse quantity with quality. Don’t blanket message customers if they have trusted you by giving you their details. Think very carefully about the experiences that will be most relevant to them. Start with what you think your customers would like, not what you’d like to sell them.

Do 3. Use the power of location. Now that more handsets have GPS, it’s never been easier to use geography to make your message more relevant. Delivering the right message, at the right time and in the right location is the holy grail of marketing. Mobile can make this a reality.

Don’t 4. Believe that texts are yesterday’s news. Often a simple SMS campaign can be used very creatively - as in the campaign for the Sydney Cats and Dogs Home.

Amplitude Research shows that 73% of people still say texting is the most important feature they use on their phones. According to ABI Research, SMS will account for 83% of all mobile messaging revenues until 2013. Mobile delivers what other channels struggle with - measurable results - which are increasingly important in an economic slowdown, when return on investment matters most.

Don’t 6. Think of mobile in isolation. Today’s consumers come into contact with brands at multiple touchpoints. The best creative tends to be integrated and work over many channels. Think about where somebody will see your message, how that will drive them to interact with your brand and what you’ll do with the data you collect from that. Marketing decision-makers who believe a standalone mobile campaign can be successful should think twice. Mobile should be part of an integrated marketing strategy that involves traditional channels.

Do 7. Offer your mobile contacts a way of opting out of receiving messages, such as sending the word “stop”.

Rik Haslam The Guardian

Do 5. Think about “pull messaging” rather than just “push messaging”. For example, retailers can offer consumers the opportunity to text “deal” in return for their latest offers. And, by using the mobile’s GPS location, that offer can be accompanied by directions to the nearest store.

Letting people take control of how they interact with your brand is much more effective than pushing messages out to them.

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OTHER Thinking creatively 4 ways to come up with brilliant ideas when the pressure is on Creativity is a muscle – use it or lose it. Here are four ways to keep coming up with great ideas, even when the pressure is on. Great advice here from Micheal Levin via Real Business: I define creativity as “the ability to develop great ideas while under pressure”. Pressure creates diamonds, so why shouldn’t it also create great ideas?

Yet sometimes, pressure paralyzes creativity. I’ve experienced it when writing under deadline pressure and writing under the pressure of my own high expectations.

Over time, I’ve developed several tricks to stimulate my creative muscle and help me come up with great ideas for whatever challenge I face – whether it’s writing or figuring out how to arrange a busy family weekend schedule so that everyone’s needs are met.

Here are my four no-fail tips for generating creative ideas under pressure: 1. Ask yourself, “What’s the most dangerous, expensive and illegal way to solve this problem?”

We usually take the same approach to solving problems every time with the resources we have at hand. This doesn’t exactly translate into breathtaking creativity. So imagine that you have no limits — legal, moral, financial, whatever. You can do literally anything to solve the problem. The way-out ideas you develop may not be practical, but they’ll lead you to new ways of thinking about your problem. And then you can find a non-lifethreatening, legal way to solve it!

2. Hide.

We live in a world of constant, thin-sliced demands.

Unanswered texts and emails. People waiting for you to say something, do something, read something, decide something. Run and hide. Lock yourself in your car or hunker down in a bathroom stall. Slow down and get your brain back.

It’s all but impossible for your creative brain to operate when you’re responding to endless external stimuli.

The best ideas often come when you run from your responsibilities.

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3. Count to 20.

Go somewhere where you can be undisturbed, bring a yellow pad and a pen, turn off your phone, and sit there until you come up with 20 ideas for solving your problem.

This requires discipline, because most of us are so happy when we have one answer to a problem that we want to move to the next agenda item.

Not every idea you invent will be a great one, but that’s okay. It may be idea number 17 that’s truly brilliant, but you’d never get there if you ran back to your desk after you came up with one, two or even five ideas. If you do this daily, you’ll develop 100 new ideas a week. Imagine how strong your idea muscle will be!

4. Give up.

Cardiologists recommend to heart patients that they visit nature, go to a museum, or attend a classical concert.

Why? It slows them down and allows them to appreciate beauty instead of seeing life as a constant battle.

Surrender your own siege mentality. Life isn’t war, thank goodness. Take a major step away, even for a couple of hours, from whatever battles you’re facing, contemplate the greatness of the human spirit or the wonder of nature, and reawaken the creative energy that our fight-minded world suppresses.

So there you have it, four ways to generate great ideas under pressure. Where’s your next big idea coming from?

From your mind at peace, that’s where!

Michael Levin is a New York Times best-selling author and writing coach.

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OTHER The Best Virgin Atlantic Complaint Letter Ever?

Recently spotted in Real Business magazine: I feel it only fair to warn you that this is quite possibly the most hilarious complaint letter Real Business has ever seen.

I imagine the same questions are racing through your brilliant mind as were racing through mine on that fateful day. What is this? Why have I been given it? What have I done to deserve this? And, which one is the starter, which one is the desert?

You don’t get to a position like yours Richard with anything less than a generous sprinkling of observational power so I KNOW you will have spotted the tomato next to the two yellow shafts of sponge on the left. Yes, it’s next to the sponge shaft without the green paste. That’s got to be the clue hasn’t it. No sane person would serve a desert with a tomato would they. Well answer me this Richard, what sort of animal would serve a desert with peas in:

A Virgin Atlantic customer, dubbed Mr Hungry Headache, wrote to Richard Branson to complain about his horrible experience aboard a flight from Mumbai to Heathrow.

The Virgin boss was so impressed by the letter that he actually called the writer to thank him for his feedback.

Here it is for your entertainment: “Dear Mr Branson REF: Mumbai to Heathrow 7th December 2008 I love the Virgin brand, I really do, which is why I continue to use it despite a series of unfortunate incidents over the last few years. This latest incident takes the biscuit.

Ironically, by the end of the flight I would have gladly paid over a thousand rupees for a single biscuit following the culinary journey of hell I was subjected to at the hands of your corporation.

I know it looks like a baaji but it’s in custard Richard, custard. It must be the pudding. Well you’ll be fascinated to hear that it wasn’t custard. It was a sour gel with a clear oil on top. It’s only redeeming feature was that it managed to be so alien to my palette that it took away the taste of the curry emanating from our miscellaneous central cuboid of beige matter. Perhaps the meal on the left might be the desert after all.

Anyway, this is all irrelevant at the moment. I was raised strictly but neatly by my parents and if they knew I had started desert before the main course, a sponge shaft would be the least of my worries. So lets peel back the tin-foil on the main dish and see what’s on offer.

Look at this, Richard. Just look at it:

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OTHER The Best Virgin Atlantic Complaint Letter Ever?

The Best Virgin Atlantic Complaint Letter Ever? cont.

I’ll try and explain how this felt. Imagine being a twelve year old boy Richard. Now imagine it’s Christmas morning and you’re sat their with your final present to open. It’s a big one, and you know what it is. It’s that Goodmans stereo you picked out the catalogue and wrote to Santa about.

Only you open the present and it’s not in there. It’s your hamster Richard. It’s your hamster in the box and it’s not breathing. That’s how I felt when I peeled back the foil and saw this:

It appears to be in an evidence bag from the scene of a crime. A CRIME AGAINST BLOODY COOKING. Either that or some sort of back-street underground cookie, purchased off a gun-toting maniac high on his own supply of yeast. You certainly wouldn’t want to be caught carrying one of these through customs. Imagine biting into a piece of brass Richard. That would be softer on the teeth than the specimen above.

I was exhausted. All I wanted to do was relax but obviously I had to sit with that mess in front of me for half an hour. I swear the sponge shafts moved at one point.

Once cleared, I decided to relax with a bit of your worldfamous onboard entertainment. I switched it on:

Now I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking it’s more of that Baaji custard. I admit I thought the same too, but no. It’s mustard Richard. MUSTARD. More mustard than any man could consume in a month. On the left we have a piece of broccoli and some peppers in a brown glue-like oil and on the right the chef had prepared some mashed potato. The potato masher had obviously broken and so it was decided the next best thing would be to pass the potatoes through the digestive tract of a bird.

Once it was regurgitated it was clearly then blended and mixed with a bit of mustard. Everybody likes a bit of mustard Richard.

By now I was actually starting to feel a little hypoglycaemic. I needed a sugar hit. Luckily there was a small cookie provided. It had caught my eye earlier due to it’s baffling presentation:

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I apologise for the quality of the photo, it’s just it was incredibly hard to capture Boris Johnson’s face through the flickering white lines running up and down the screen.

Perhaps it would be better on another channel:

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OTHER The Best Virgin Atlantic Complaint Letter Ever?

Is that Ray Liotta? A question I found myself asking over and over again throughout the gruelling half-hour I attempted to watch the film like this. After that I switched off. I’d had enough. I was the hungriest I’d been in my adult life and I had a splitting headache from squinting at a crackling screen.

Richard.... What is that white stuff? It looked like it was going to be yoghurt. It finally dawned on me what it was after staring at it. It was a mixture between the Baaji custard and the Mustard sauce. It reminded me of my first week at university. I had overheard that you could make a drink by mixing vodka and refreshers. I lied to my new friends and told them I’d done it loads of times. When I attempted to make the drink in a big bowl it formed a cheese Richard, a cheese. That cheese looked a lot like your baaji-mustard.

So that was that Richard. I didn’t eat a bloody thing.

My only question is: How can you live like this? I can’t imagine what dinner round your house is like, it must be like something out of a nature documentary.

As I said at the start I love your brand, I really do. It’s just a shame such a simple thing could bring it crashing to it’s knees and begging for sustenance.

Yours Sincererly...”

My only option was to simply stare at the seat in front and wait for either food, or sleep. Neither came for an incredibly long time. But when it did it surpassed my wildest expectations:

Yes! It’s another crime-scene cookie. Only this time you dunk it in the white stuff.

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OTHER 10 Ways To Improve Your Business Before Christmas Want to get ahead of the competition in the coming year? This practical article from Robert Craven of The Director’s Centre provides a blueprint: This time of year it seems that half the business world is incredibly busy whilst the other half is just waiting for the Christmas break to come along.

This checklist is aimed at the businesses that are slowing down over this period - it offers you a number of tasks that can improve your business.

If you are a business that is incredibly busy at this time of year then download a PDF/print out a copy and come back to this plan in January.

This is a “size 12 wellies” article. Lots of sweeping generalisations and treading on some peoples’ sensitive toes. Here goes: Take two hours with your best business partner, mentor or advisor and implement a plan similar to the following:1. Put up prices by, say, 10%. This creates more profit (per sale) and if you lose any customers it will be the price-sensitive, disloyal ones that probably cause you more hassle than they are worth. You will be able to afford to lose them because you will probably make more money from the price increase than you will lose in leaving customers. (More profit).

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2. Decrease direct costs by, say, 10%. Go to all your suppliers and ask them for a better price… ask “Is that the best you can do?” and say nothing till they come up with a better price. This normally works. (More profit).

3. Sack underperforming suppliers, customers and staff as appropriate. (Less wasted time). Only once you have improved your business model (see above) so that you are making a decent profit per sale, should you consider increasing sales.

4. Rethink the way you present your business.

Customers are not that interested in ‘what you do’ but they are interested in what ‘what you do’ can do for them.

Make a commitment to start talking about what people get as a result of buying from you – what’s left after the purchase. Focus on the benefits that they gain from using your product or service. This will improve your sales performance massively (oops I just did it then!). (More sales).

5. Sort your proposition or offer. Why should people buy from you if you are the same as the competition?

What make you different from the rest? Be able to articulate the ‘why’ and ‘what’ of your business in a way that is truly effective. You should be able to do it in ten words or less. (More sales).

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10 Ways To Improve Your Business Before Christmas 6. Get more leads, say, 10%. Go networking, find out about Google Adwords, get up earlier, and talk to more people. (More sales).

7. Get better at talking to people, asking for the business and closing the sale. Going on a decent sales course will add 10% to each of these fundamental steps in the sales funnel. These 10% improvements will create 46% more customers (!!!). (More customers).

8. Get customers to buy more, say, 3%. (More sales).

9. Get customers to buy more often, say, 3%. (More sales).

10. Stop them leaving – run a customer survey right now – simply talking to all your existing and past customers will generate more business, I assure you.

Most customers who leave do not leave because of rubbish products or service – most defectors are content but someone came along who wanted their business more than you appear to… (More customers).

11. Collect money quicker, 10 days quicker.

(More cash).

12. Write cheques slower, 10 days slower.

(More cash).

13. While you are at it, decide on three things you can do right now, and which cost nothing, that you can do to blow away your existing customers and make them talk about you. (More customer loyalty and free promotion). www.DirectorsCentre.co.uk

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OTHER Managing a small business: Productivity Tips Managing a small business is not easy. It requires an unlimited amount of focus, motivation, and the ability to keep calm under pressure. In other words, if you’re a small business owner, you have your plate full.

Staying on task and effectively managing your time become more important than ever. Here are some tips for how small business owners can have productive work days, which will ultimately save time and money.

1. Do Not Multitask As writer Mitchell York points out on About.com, multitasking may seem smart, but in actuality it’s a waste of time and does not encourage productivity “It doesn’t work,” he says. “Talking while driving, emailing while talking on the phone, shopping for groceries while on a conference call (you forgot the eggs — again!). All you’ll do is create re-work for yourself.” Focusing on one duty at a time is always the way to go, especially for small business owners, who are frequently taking on the roles of more than one employee.

2. Assign Specific Tasks to Your Team This goes along with multitasking. A small business owner should start every day with a meeting or to-do list for each team member, so that he or she can stay on task as well. Overwhelming employees and expecting them to complete too much on any given day will just wear them out. There’s nothing worse than a group of zombie-like employees when an owner is trying to get his or her small business off the ground.

3. Automate Specific Obligations Small business owners should automate more than their payrolls. In fact, they should automate whenever possible, says Small Business Trends’ Lisa Barone. “You don’t want to bog down your mind with little details that you can set and forget. You want to focus on your business. If you can take something off your plate and trust it to a program or application, do it. You want to give the appearance that you’re always in your business.

You don’t actually have to be there.” For example, if a business utilizes Twitter, the owner can set up autotweets. Google Calendars and automated emailing are always useful tools as well.

4. Stick to Work Hours Small business owners risk burning out because they typically work more than 40 hours a week and/ or later than normal work hours. In fact, a 2007 survey from Staples found that nearly 66% of small business owners work more than 40 hours a week and that same percentage works at night and after hours. It may be tempting to check email in bed right before going to sleep, or stay at the office late every night, but it’s unhealthy and can result in exhaustion. Just like multitasking, working all the time may seem like it’s helping the business, but not establishing separate work and life routines will hinder productivity. If an owner is too tired to work, that’s not productive.

5. Download the Right Apps Apps for smartphones and iPads can make life easier and assist with staying productive. Owners can simply type “small business owner productivity apps” and find dozens of helpful tools. Mashable’s Stephanie Buck anie Buck highlights LogMeIn, which lets the user access his or her Mac or PC from an iPhone or iPad, and EasySign (now SignEasy), which allows people to review and sign documents electronically, thus eliminating the need for printing, faxing, scanning and sending.

6. Limit Meeting Times If a meeting is not absolutely essential, a small business owner should not take it or call it. When a meeting is scheduled, it’s important to allot a certain amount of time for it instead of just leaving it open-ended. Dave Donovan of BusinessCredit writes, “When you have an open-ended meeting, it can go on for much longer than anticipated.

Before you know it, the work day is over. Instead, keep your meetings to a time schedule, and address your top three priority issues first so you can be sure they get resolved within the time frame.”

Conclusion Small business owners may feel overwhelmed by their daily responsibilities. But with the right tools, proper scheduling and a strict adherence to certain rules, greater productivity can be achieved. It just takes practice — and the same commitment you brought to starting your company in the first place.

Thanks to Kylie Jane Wakefield of www.infusionsoft.com

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To Market provides a marketing agency services for creative, food and small businesses, see examples of our work here

6. Spends

a budget. The clients we work with are not spending their own money, but rather working from a budget.

Our ideal client:

7. Identifies

a specific decision maker to work with us.

This person has the authority to make decisions.

1. Is an experienced user of professional providers.

We’re going to work hard with you make your marketing successful. We really like to partner with businesses that are prepared for the cost and time required to do this properly.

2. Listens

to our advice. We’ll challenge the way you do things and might ask you some uncomfortable questions - we want to ensure that we create campaigns that work with your business objectives and give your business the best chance of marketing success.

8. Values

our focus and expertise. We are specialists in the creative and food industries and have extensive experience of working with small growing businesses - we love working with people in these industries.

9. Is credit worthy and doesn’t balk at a significant deposit up front. Our invoices are issued in advance of work being carried out.

10. Are fun to work alongside!

3. Is not too big for us - i.e. you’ll represent no more than 25% of our fee base. We know you will be looking for a low number yourselves otherwise you are unlikely to get objective advice otherwise - you don’t want us to be afraid to lose your account.

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4. Will make sure that we are the right size agency who can delve into your situation deeply enough to make a difference in what you are trying to solve.

5. Is forthright about their budget. Serious clients generally reveal their budget and then ask: “What can we get for this money?”

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www.to-market.co.uk

hello@to-market.co.uk

020 3281 1897