To market newsletter mar apr14 print 1

Newsletter March/April 2014

What’s

HOT

With business growth and how to

manage it all very much on our minds here at TM Towers, this newsletter reflects the same.

Whatever your hopes are for yourself and your business you do need a plan – otherwise how do you plot how to get to where you’re going and if you’ve succeeded in achieving those milestones along the way?

If you are planning for growth, you do need the right marketing and team around you to help make it happen.

How can we help you?

Call 020 3284 1978 for a free telephone consultation.

Guest Blogging For Thought Leadership Guest blogging is a powerful tool to help business owners and experts reach out to new audiences and develop a following as a thought leader. While posting on your own blogs are great (more about blogging in our next issue), they may be limited in reach. Getting a quality guest blog post published on a popular site is a good way of marketing your business—it can lead to more search engine citations and direct traffic. It has other benefits, too: invitations to write on other sites, speaking engagements and more.

TOP TIP Always help promote your guest blog post with your own audience.

Jo Sealy

Design Directions The Importance of Brand Continuity

A company’s brand is essentially a grouping of design elements that give that company a unique face and personality so that it can be easily identified. A brand stretches beyond the logo, and encompasses all forms of communications that a company uses to interact with clients and customers.

Brand continuity delivers messages about what the company is all about, and preserves the desired perception of the company’s personality. It also clearly transfers what the company offers its customers.

www.to-market.co.uk 020 3284 1978

Some tips to help achieve continuity: • Repeat design elements across materials • Keep your colours the same in all media • Fonts are very important - try not to mix more than two or three

TOP TIP

Keep a style guide to refer to, check all your materials follow your original design choices.

For design enquiries contact: tash@to-market.co.uk

Advertising & Marketing for creatives, food and small business

Client Feature

MORGAN HOUSE

condiments and sauces About

Morgan House Foods produces hand made, additive free condiments, sauces and preserves.

These condiments and sauces are intended to help food lovers create delicious, easy meals without introducing unnecessary preservatives, colour, or manufacturing aids. Great Taste Award winner in 2013. www.morganhousefoods.co.uk

Marketing Challenge The company had embarked upon a busy programme of events in London and the South East and included the Royal Horticultural Show.

With new stockists coming on board – including Planet Organic – the company wanted to build on its social media presence and ensure that it captured and communicated regularly with its customers and supporters.

Approach To Market worked with Morgan House Foods to: • Build upon initial work to establish the company as a direct supplier to targeted retail outlets • Introduce the range directly to consumers through fairs and food shows with a view to increasing online sales

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Yemi says: “The past 12 months has been an unbelievable roller coaster of understanding how we step up production as demand for our product grows and juggling this with promoting Morgan House Foods at fairs and exhibitions. Having a marketing agency that understood what we were trying to do and to be able to hand it over to has been really valuable.

To Market created a marketing strategy to support our business growth plans. Jo’s team handled all of the media requests, designed and placed magazine and online advertisements and editorial where opportunities came up, together with taking over and managing our social media across Twitter and Facebook.

We wanted to build on our customer relationships and To Market created an email marketing template that has helped to establish the brand with news of where we will be, our latest offers and recipes, ensuring that our website was also kept up to date.

The team were also helpful in reminding and preparing us for seasonal promotional items such as stickers, photography and provided us with access to press opportunitities that we would not have otherwise had access to.”

Yemi Raiwe, Managing Director

Whatever your hopes are for yourself and your business, you do need a plan.

World of Mouth

TM takes a look at ....

Social Media

Netiquette: Never say anything over a social media timeline that you wouldn’t be prepared to say to someone in a face-to-face situation. Be polite, be professional and be engaging.

For social media enquiries email: cheryl@to-market.co.uk

Make an exhibition of yourself Customers are key when it comes to growing your business and of all the avenues available to an entrepreneur, exhibiting at a conference or tradeshow is one of the most attractive.

It grants you access to an audience that’s there to find you as much you’re there to find them.

It’s an opportunity to showcase your products or services and increase awareness of your brand. And interacting with potential clients will enable you to build a relationship based upon trust and confidence.

Scott English, www.elitebusinessevent.co.uk Tel: 020 8214 1068

Ways to Grow Your Business

Get On The Phone Have you thought about using telemarketing to help you to grow your business Telemarketing - or put simply the intensive use of the telephone to reach prospects – enables you in particular to: • Target your ideal market group • Gain further insight into your business and markets • Build relationships with your prospects This can be achieved through: Lead generation, ensuring that you always have a reassuring sales pipeline of well qualified leads.

Appointment booking, placing you firmly in front of your prospects by obtaining qualified appointments for you to close the business.

Mailout follow-up; the effectiveness of a mailout significantly increases if followed up by telephone.

Database cleansing, getting rid of obsolete records and ensuring the accuracy of your database to increase efficacy.

Event marketing; maximise the number of delegates at a seminar or training course.

TOP TIP Make sure you speak to

the M.A.N. – the person with Money, Authority and Need. It must be the most appropriate decision maker for your product or service Marie Rollaz, Amber Telemarketing Solutions, Tel: 020 8364 4485

A Tender Approach Did you know that while you’re reading this there are literally thousands of new business opportunities begging to be won by companies like yours? All that’s needed is a tender or proposal response. Whether you’re a tree surgeon, a catering whizz, or the best designer who’s ever put pen to paper or pixel to screen - the public sector (including Councils, schools, the NHS, MOD, libraries and the Fire Service) could be your next big customers - if you know where to look and you know how to demonstrate your credibility.

Lots of smaller companies get scared off by the mere mention of tenders and procurement.

Some get angry because of frustration at previous rejections. The key to winning is looking at every opening from the buyers’ point of view: they want a reliable supplier who won’t let them down.

Carol Hustler, www.tedsfriend.co.uk Tel: 020 3697 9000

Advertising & Marketing for creatives, food and small business

g Marketin e Challeng Wendy Shorter Interiors

About

Wendy Shorter Interiors is an established centre for accredited upholstery and soft furnishing training. They offer professional qualifications in upholstery and in 2013 received the Craft Skills Awards 2013 for encouraging craft skills in an informal setting. This award recognises commitment towards excellence in craft skills, success, ambition, and exemplary and imaginative approaches in passing on craft skills. www.wendyshorterinteriors.co.uk

Marketing Challenge

Wendy was expanding her business – a new extension to her premises to accommodate more students and new courses was in progress and she needed to ensure that her networks and the crafts and soft furnishings communities were aware of them.

Approach

We worked with Wendy on the business’s marketing strategy, and created a marketing activity plan to promote the introduction of new short courses.

Wendy says: “To Market is brilliant. Jo and her team are full of bright ideas, enthusiasm and commitment and is prepared to hold your hand through all the processes.

The team has given excellent advice about our website, written press releases, set up newsletters and contact databases for me, as well as sorting out my social networking sites.

I know that if I have a problem, they’re always at the end of the ‘phone with helpful advice”

Wendy Shorter,

Managing Director

This included setting up and running the company’s social media presence, creating and managing their monthly email newsletter as well as creating advertising and pr materials for local press and publications such as BBC Homes & Antiques magazine.

The company is now confidently promoting its short courses and as now integrated the marketing strategies into its day to day operations.

www.to-market.co.uk 020 3284 1978

Advertising & Marketing for creatives, food and small business