292 businesses helped April

Monthly Marketing Review: April

Every month I make sure I create time to review my marketing activity and monitor the progress of my mission to help 1,000 businesses.

During April I helped 5 new businesses bring my total to 292 businesses helped. I know what you are thinking… only 5? Five sounds like a low number when there’s still 708 to go and only 8 months of the year left! But this month I have been focusing my activities on servicing my existing clients and converting some potential customers. (I can’t say too much about them but there are some exciting proposals in the works.)

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Are Facebook Groups Dying?

Is this the beginning of the end for Facebook Groups? Today I’ve just seen another owner of a huge and hugely successful Facebook group announce that they are closing down their Facebook community later this year. Some of the big players in Facebook Groups are calling time on their groups with the aim of moving their communities over onto new platforms, with paid membership subscriptions. So I have to ask if Facebook Groups for business are a dying trend? Especially since some of the entrepreneurs that are closing their groups are the very same ones who encouraged us all to start Facebook Groups in the first place.

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How to Reach your Preferred Audience with your Facebook Posts

In my role as a Marketing Specialist I talk about attracting the right people to your business so that you can convert them into repeat customers. In fact, just yesterday at the York Meet Up run by Tailormade Conferences I was talking about how important it is to get the right message to the right people as part of your marketing strategy. We talked about the different ways you could segment your customers and talk to them differently based on their interests or demographics. So, I was pretty pleased when I discovered this new Facebook feature to optimise your audience for Facebook page posts.

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York Networking May 2017

Networking is an excellent way of building up your brand visibility. It gives you the opportunity to test your message out loud and watch how people react so that you can then tweak your message over time. Networking is a long game, when I first started networking it took nearly 6 months to build up relationships before I received any referrals. But all that networking has paid off – I’m delighted that I’ve been invited to be the guest speaker at the Tailormade Networking on 4th May.
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Annual Marketing Review

As you probably know by now I’m on a mission to help 1,000 business do Better Smarter Marketing. One of the principles of Better Smarter Marketing is Analysis. And by analysis I don’t necessarily mean digging into the depths of Excel spread sheets. (although sometimes I do, I’m a bit of a geek and I do love a good spreadsheet!) But really what is mean is Review.

● Review what is and isn’t working for you.

● Review your customer numbers and where your new customers come from.

● Review your sales turnover figures and if you are on track to meet your financial goals.

● Review how much you of your marketing budget you have spent.

Every month I review my marketing activity and monitor the progress of my mission and today I’m going to share that review process with you. But since we’ve just started a new financial year I’m actually sharing a full year review – wowzers!

Marketing Mission Update

As of April 5th 2017 I have helped (drum roll please)… 287 businesses. Now let’s break that down. Because not all of these businesses are customers, in fact only 25% of them are clients that I have worked with on 1 to 1 projects, Marketing Surgeries and workshops/training courses.

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Better Smarter Event Marketing

When it comes to organising and promoting events its often the promotion side things which is left to the last minute. Organising an event can be time consuming and we are often so busy organising the details of the event itself that the marketing takes a back seat.

Then we find that the event is upon is and we’re under pressure to spread the word and confirm some event bookings or ticket sales. Which can lead us to incessantly posting about our event of Facebook and spamming all of our friends.

But there is a better way, a smarter way. Which is why I am running a seminar on Better Smarter Marketing for Events next week as part of my mission to help 1,000 businesses for Better Smarter Marketing.

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Facebook page posting options

How to Use the NEW Facebook Page Posting Options to Connect with Your Customers

Have you got the new Facebook page posting options yet? I was pretty excited when I got them on my page that I made a quick video tour of the options available. The icons make is much easier to create different types of posts, include calls to action in your posts and do other things like create events, offers and ads without feeling a little lost searching through different options and settings on your page.

new facebook page post options

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How to Create Content that Connects and Converts

Be yourself… be real… be authentic… be consistent

I’ve heard this so many times that I wasn’t surprised when we covered this in a Content Camp workshop I attended last year. I didn’t want to repeat it in a blog post because I thought it was too mundane, too obvious. Everyone already knows this right?

But maybe you don’t. Maybe I’ve only heard it so often because I work in marketing and consume content as if it were wine in my spare time. Maybe you haven’t heard it all before, because you are too busy running your business to be hanging out on webinars and Twitter chats. Maybe you know it but you’re still grateful for the reminder.

And you haven’t heard what being yourself, being real, being authentic and being consistent means to me. Plus I have a bonus tip on making your content findable – because what’s the point in having great content if no one can find it! So read on to learn more about how being your authentic self can help you create content that connects with your audience and makes then take action (that’s the conversion).

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